The Tyranny of Positive Thinking

¡Hola! Everybody...
The first time I posted the following, I lost all the “Power of Positive Thinking” crowd, most of the “Daily Affirmations” crowd, and “The Secret” crowd just continued to stay away... LOL! Last night I was “engaging” yet another “Power of Positive Thinking” disciple, who managed to call it Buddhist meditation. People? mindfulness meditation is not positive thinking!

::rolls eyes::

* * *

-=[ Thoughts, Emotions, Actions ]=-

Smile or die!

I have a favorite story that occurred when Sir Lawrence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman were making the Marathon Man. Just before filming the famous scene in the dentist’s chair, Olivier was waiting and not too pleased that Hoffman was late. In the near distance, he saw a running figure and was surprised to discover it was Hoffman, the Hollywood superstar. He arrived panting at Olivier’s side and the great British stage actor looked down at Hoffman and asked what he was up to. When Hoffman was eventually able to get his breath, he managed to get out that because the scene called for the character to be out of breath from running that was what he had to do to make the scene authentic. The haughty Olivier raised an eyebrow and said, “My dear, haven’t you heard of acting?”

The point here is that just as we can control and change our external behaviors, words, and actions, and our internal processes, thoughts and beliefs, we can also change our responses to our internal thoughts, feelings, emotions, and values.

In my work, I often run into the stiff wall of resistance that is expressed thus, “… because that’s the way he made me feel,” or “… because that’s the way I am!” Perhaps you have come across such phrases, or maybe you have uttered something similar yourself. We go about spending the bulk of our lives believing we’re at the mercy of our feelings, thoughts, and actions (“He made me do it” “My negative feelings defeat me”).

We all do it, period.

In fact, we all concentrate on one area of our perception whether they be our thoughts, feelings, and actions, at the expense of others. What we do here in our culture is concentrate on what we do well -- on the positive. My invitation/ challenge is for you to pay more attention to what you don’t do so well (the so-called negative) and develop more flexibility around those things.

Let me use “health” as an example to better illustrate what I am trying to communicate.

In the West, we believe that it is best to go for the burn, push ourselves to the limit; it’s all or nothing. This explains the constant flow of how to books touting the new diet or exercise program that will change your life. We have to go for one of these completely or it won’t work.

If we look at this from the model of thoughts, emotions, and actions, we get three different worldviews. In the interest of brevity, I will elaborate mostly on thoughts.

Thoughts and Health

In the thought-centered world, the way to health is through -- duh! -- our thoughts. Here we believe that we have created health or illness by the power of our own thoughts. All we need to do is change the way that we think about ourselves and our relationship to health. As long as we believe that we are healthy then -- voila! -- we are!

In the thought-world existence we have certain beliefs about ourselves and the world around us that we probably picked up from our toxic parents, our apathetic teachers, our repressive church, our disjointed community. We start to believe that these are true and in this way our perspective of health is developed. Once we have taken control of this we can then become healthy merely by thinking ourselves healthy. This perspective makes it imperative that we find the “right” (i.e., positive) thought, or the perfect affirmation and then repeat them ad infinitum in order to become healthy. Many New Agers love this world and have developed many techniques for transforming limiting (or negative) beliefs. Got it? In this world, you erase (kill!) negative thoughts and create (cling!) positive thoughts. Annie, go get your gun...

Let’s follow the logic of this worldview, or mindset: if you believe that your thoughts can create health, then it follows that if you’re not healthy then at some level you believe that you have created your illness. In this sense, you are a mind that exists separately from your body. Welcome to the world of The Matrix! LOL

If my analysis seems harsh, then consider the story of a good friend, Danielle. Danielle was a devoted mother of a 15-year-old daughter. She was known within my circle as a healer who had a transformative experience and spent the rest of her life running workshops in the area of personal growth and development. She made a huge difference in her life and the lives of others. People loved Danielle and what she did for them.

It was a shock for all of us when we found out she had been diagnosed with cancer and an even bigger shock when it became clear that the cancer was terminal. My memories of her during her last days are marked by the last time I saw her and she was still wrestling with her problems -- what had she done to bring on the cancer, what had she done to deserve the cancer? This is the legacy of the thought-world -- a good woman, a loving wife, a devoted mother, blaming herself for her cancer.

Emotions and Health

In this world, we forget the body. We disregard all the unnecessary exercising and dieting. Here we achieve our health through our emotions. Once we get in touch with our Inner Child (the one that was badly damaged and abused by our parents and society), we can heal all of the hurts imposed by a life that sucks and that controls us until we take charge.

In this world we believe that our blocked and unhealthy emotions created our own sickness. Only when we have realized this simple fact, we can start to heal. We need to revisit all the traumas that the world has inflicted upon us. We need to emote, emote, emote! in order to clear ourselves of these unhealthy emotions. We look for person-centered, or psychodynamically oriented counseling – or even better – find a group of like-minded individuals where we can share the catharsis.

Once we have sorted this whole mess out, we can then achieve the Eden-like state of childhood innocence and wisdom that was ours before we were defiled by modern society. Again, as in the thought-world, this world seeks to slay the negative emotions. Fight!

Actions and Health

In the action-centered-world we believe our actions and external behaviors are most important; we fall into the trap of believing that is all we need to pay attention to if we are to be healthy. We believe that all we need to do is buy the right equipment of the right video and we too can develop the body of an athlete of the supermodel in the ads.

We believe that if we join the best hi-tech gym with the newest equipment, it will take out the work of exercising (just 20 minutes a day… ). It’s almost as though we believe that a gym membership leads to good health.

The same is true of weight loss. We buy into the latest pill or latest book of the latest system that some celebrity (hello Oprah!) pitches. We all know deep down inside that the key to achieving an optimum weight is simply not putting more stuff into our bodies -- that only by eating more healthily will we be healthy. However, like exercise, this would be hard to maintain and would require work and effort. We know that balance and moderation will lead to a more integrated life, but we battle on regardless.

What we know, of course, is that none of these three worldviews -- thoughts, emotions, and actions -- alone holds the full picture. And no matter how well you affirm, how good you become at being positive, or how much you exercise, or get in touch with your emotions, eventually you will get old, ugly, sick, and die.

What then? What will you do then?

What we really need to do is utilize all three aspects of ourselves in our quest to be healthy. And even then, this is not the full picture. But that is for another time and another day.

I will say this much: if you’re engaged in an inner battle who loses eventually?

Love,

Eddie

The Gift and the Promise

¡Hola! Everybody...
I’ve been trying to write this post for a few days. It’s based on a conversation I had with a good friend this past Sunday. She, in turn, first came across the story in a book. There’s also a proposition at the end.

* * *

-=[ The Gift ]=-

The following is neither new nor earth shattering. It’s quite simple, actually. However, this post can change your life...

A good friend called me all excited this past Sunday, and as we walked together to have a late brunch, she related the following to me:

Imagine you’re on your deathbed, this very moment, tonight or fifty years from now. Try to make a mental picture. Got it?

I stand by your deathbed, look you in the eyes, and ask, “Was you life a complete success?”

You might say, “Yes, my life has been a complete success,” or you might say, “No, my life has not been a complete success.”

If you answered, “No, my life has not been a complete success,” you would have a reason why. For example, J. Paul Getty, who was once the wealthiest man in the world, is reputed to have said on his deathbed, “I’d gladly give up all my millions for one experience of marital happiness.” If he could have had one wish granted, that would’ve been his wish.

Still with me? Wondering what this has to do with you?

Well, here it is then, if you had told me on your deathbed that your life had not been a success, what would be the things you’d wished happened that would have made it a success?

The question cuts to the core: what are you really doing on this planet? What is your life purpose? Do you have a mission? As my friend asked me these questions, I felt more than a little anxiety, but on another level, there was a sense of relief. A sense of being able to go inside and reach into myself in an empowering way.

Back to you: you have to answer the question. You have can't get back to me while you mull your responses. You’re on your deathbed; you can’t afford to continue to live as if you’re never going to die. This moment is all you have anyway. There’s no right or wrong answer, or perhaps you’re one of those rare individuals who feels his or her life has been a total success (I have yet to meet one). Dig deep, give yourself permission and the answers will come.

Whatever your answer, look at it from the perspective of your deathbed. Put in the past tense, and do it from the point of view that your life was not a success.

Here’s one of my own:

My life was not a complete success because I never really got around to expressing to my loved ones how much I loved and appreciated them. I wish I had told my son how sad I felt at how we had grown apart.

In other words, I wished I had paid more attention to the relationships with the people most important to me and that I had communicated my feelings more often to the people I loved and cared about.

My friend then asked me, “Now turn that into a goal. Put it in the present tense.”

My life is a complete success because I express my most deepest feelings with all my friends and family. I say the important things I need to say and do all the important things I need to do. There is nothing significant that I leave unsaid or undone.

My friend went on to ask me to list four more deathbed wishes and then she asked me, “Where are you with achieving each of those goals?” Realistically, I had to admit that most of my deathbed wishes were mostly a lot of good ideas.

I was reminded of my experiences when I worked in a hospital ward of terminally ill patients. These were people who knew they were going to die -- soon. And whenever I asked them if they had one more illness-free year, what they would do with that one year, it never was anything like, “make more money,” or, “Invent some wonderful gadget,” or “Spend more time at the office,” or “Worry more about money.”

Their responses were mostly very simple: spend more time with their loved ones. Take the time to enjoy life more often. Say I’m sorry instead of holding a grudge, or spend more time with family and loved ones.

My friend took me a bookstore and showed me the book she had been reading. It’s called “The Five Wishes,” by Gay Hendricks. In it, he shares his five deathbed wishes and how he went about realizing them. It’s a small little book, and there’s a website where you can download a worksheet to help you recognize and realize your own five wishes. For me, they are more like personal promises and it’s a gentle way to make manifest a magnificent life and fulfilling life.

Why not?

So many of my friends online and off are really struggling these days. We’re all counting pennies and it seems like each day brings another struggle, another challenge or setback. Here’s my proposition. If there’s enough interest, I would love to start a support group using this book as the premise. Maybe we can all help one another realize our full potential. Perhaps, what we can’t do alone, we can do together. At the very least, we can reach out to one another in a meaningful -- or not. If this sounds like a good idea to you, let me know. If not, that’s OK too. I would strongly recommend you visit the website and check out the free video based on the book (click here ).

Whatever the case, I truly wish all of you genuine happiness. If I prayed, my prayer for you would be that you’d be given the opportunity to do what you most love to do and to do it joyously and passionately.

Love,

Eddie

The Big Hurt

¡Hola! Everybody...
Palin and the rest of the neocon twats need to stop crying. It’s not very mavericky. As Paul Begalia wrote recently (thanks Dale!), “Palin.... quit her job as city councilwoman to run for mayor of Wasilla. She quit her job as mayor of Wasilla to run for lieutenant governor. She quit her job as the head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to run for governor.” She’s only a victim of her own self-destructive lack of impulse control and thirst for power.

On another note, the MJ Memorial made me cry... Stevie broke me up and then J-Hud took me down.

Summer re-runs, my friends. I wrote this a while back.

* * *

-=[ The Big Hurt ]=-

... So my philosophy is that life is like photography: use the negative to develop.

-- Steve Bhaerman

To live openly and transparently is not easy. Part of living with an open heart means saying yes to everything. Everything that we have spent years pushing away, everything we have tried to keep hidden -- all the shameful things -- return to be embraced. This is what it means to be living honoring the Goddess -- the feminine essence.

The fact is that however committed we may be to living a life of awakening, however we may have been changed by realization, to feel -- to really feel -- without resistance takes a lot of cojones. To live openly and transparently is a work in progress at best. But the more I do it, the more fearless I become. The more fearless I become, the less you can hurt me, because I’m past that.

To live without the personal soap opera, without the “why” and “because,” to really live vulnerable and naked, and open to each feeling that arises is to live as in an unbroken continuum of existence -- like a river flowing. The practice here is returning to feeling (what is) instead of hanging with emotion (the personal soap opera). It’s living and dying each moment and this is not always a good feeling. In fact it mostly doesn’t feel good. Most of what we have pushed away is painful, so the practice of embracing what we have repressed requires some discomfort.

But living in this way, even in the face of having failed is one of the most fulfilling practices you can undertake. It’s a helluva lot better than denying feeling. It’s, as one of my teachers liked to call it, a “glorious failure.” The reward is not pleasure, but depth, a real connection with our world and our inner lives. Living in this way -- open to all the hurt -- imparts the knowledge that is the secret of life (and not the crap from that bullshit book). For example, when hurt arises in my relationships I know that not resisting the hurt will take me down into something much deeper. Since this process is really fucked up and not very pleasurable, we often abandon it. Pain is inevitable in life. People will disappoint you and plans will go awry, for example. But suffering is optional. When I let go of the habitual clinging to feeling good and avoiding pain, I pass through into the deeper heart and the result is that I’m thrown into a deeper love. The Big Love.

Always.

But how do you feel with courage? That’s a good one. Here’s what the authors of Undefended Love teach about learning to feel with courage:

Let it pierce you, and if it disturbs you let it disturb you. If it tortures you, let it torture you, because that’s what awakening is. There is a misconception of awakening as always bliss. Ultimately, that is where we end up, but awakening stirs up whatever is within you so that it can find its path to its ultimate unfolding. Let it disturb you, let it pierce you, and find out what within you is having difficulty with the present moment.

I would encourage anyone to read that paragraph more than once -- there’s a lot there. When confronted with hurt in a relationship, being able to delve into the hurt (instead of running away from it) gave me the guidance of a wiser response.

Living openly allows us to respond to new situations differently. When a lover doesn’t call, when I get less appreciation than I want/ need, when someone treats me with less consideration than I deserve, instead of getting stuck emotionally, I learn to feel more deeply, how to surf that feeling home into the Big Love.

This creates a cease-fire and when news of this cease-fire reaches all the neurons in your brain, old feelings arise and return home because they are accepted as family and they are reunited. Old feelings return in order to be met, without any apparent encouragement. In other words, shit happens.

Here’s what I do whenever I feel stirred up. I try to listen to the story my thoughts are telling me about why I feel upset. An emotional hijacking is always composed of an external event and a contraction in the body. Focusing on the event will only make you more upset (“That bitch!”). Staying with the body -- the feeling -- helps you move deeper. I’m going to ask what might seem as an obvious question: Do you know for sure why you feel as you do? When you take the time to explore this question, what often happens is that a feeling or a sensation actually came before the emotional hijacking rather than followed it. When we abandon the need to know why, we are then free to deal with the totality of life. Be open. Without the story, the soap opera (emotion) the feeling (what is) may change very quickly into something else.

It can change from outrage and hurt to compassion.

Love,

Eddie

Unconditional Love

¡Hola! Everybody...
I was rummaging through my desk the other day, when I came across today’s photo. The gentleman patiently listening to me is a university professor and we were collaborating on a curriculum for a leadership development workshop I was creating. All the dear man asked was, “What would this [the workshop] look like if you had complete creative freedom,” or something to that effect. I guess it's true that I can be an intense individual at times... LOL!

Repost...

* * *

-=[ Unconditional Love ]=-

“If during the course of the day, no one tells you you are loved, know this: I love you. I love you unconditionally for being the way you are right now -- this very moment -- and I will continue loving you in this way until you can love yourself in this very manner.”

I remember the first time I heard these words (or words similar to the above) and thinking at the time, “What bullshit!” I mean the man saying the words didn’t know me from a hole in the wall, didn’t know me at all, had never even seen me, and he was addressing a whole group of people. How could he possibly love me in this way?

Bullshit!

I remember making a silent promise to myself never to say something so phony, so utterly banal. LMAO! Today, I say it on a daily basis, and I actually mean it -- and I know that particular man quite well.

I think there’s lots of talk about love and unconditional love in particular, but I also notice that very few people actually practice it. Which leads to today’s reflection. People have asked me my reason – my motivation – for posting these things. The answer is simple, but its history isn’t.

I first posted a personal reflection on singles site a few years ago. Someone had lost their mother, a few of us showed our support by paying our respects at the funeral, and when I went home, I jotted some notes in my journal. You see, sometimes these posts originate as part of a daily exercise I do in order to keep me grounded (sane? ). In the morning I meditate, read a quote or passage, and then I usually journal. It’s very personal -- my experience.

I posted that particular reflection on death because I felt it would’ve lessened a particular person’s pain and immediately after I was inundated with private emails from people I didn’t even know thanking me for the post. Others asked if had written it, if I had gotten it from a book, and if so, where could they find that book. Still others asked if I could post more. So, I began posting parts of my journal as a morning ritual.

That’s how it started… at least that’s how these reflections began. I’ve been posting to the web in one form or another since the early 90s.

There were (are) times when I feel foolish posting these things, I do tend to get a bit pedantic and preachy, and sometimes I wonder if this is just some form of foolish self-indulgence. But then someone will write to me, thanking me for expressing a feeling, or writing about an experience, or how he or she chose to take an action partly because I wrote about something, and I realize that this isn’t about me, it’s really about a connection. You would probably be surprised to know that when I write these things I feel humbled and a sense of responsibility because I never know who’s reading this or how the ripples of the actions of my speech will affect someone. More often than not, this involves getting my ego out of the way so that I can channel the unconditional love in some way.

Get this, if you get anything at all: I do love you – even those I find hard to love. You know: the hypocrites, gossip mongers, even those who talk about me behind my back, or belittle, or misconstrue my message. Those that puff themselves up and try to convince the world that everything is OK, and do and say things just to be a part of a clique – yep, they too are loved. Because it isn’t “me” that’s doing the loving, it’s really about becoming love a little at a time.

Do I always totally and unconditionally love?

Oh heck no! LOL! And if anyone is telling you they love you like that all the time, you better run home and check your jewelry!

I also know that sometimes loving in this way means that I don’t have to engage certain people whose actions have ill intentions. One of the best things I learned is that I can love people from far away and that compassion begins with me. Also, sometimes love means not co-signing bullshite -- or in the Buddhist context -- fierce compassion.

I like to think that meeting me is to experience this love in some way. Some people may see it in my humor, others see it as “charisma,” whatever the perception, I can say that meeting me is to be touched or changed (in many ways! ). The real punch line is that the love comes through me, not from me -- the work is to become translucent enough for the Love to shine through. Sometimes I forget that, but the “energy” reminds me, believe me.

The psychologist, Carol Gilligan, outlined four major stages of female moral development, which she called selfish, care, universal care, and integrated. Other words for those stages may be egocentric – “I care only for myself”; ethnocentric – “I care for my tribe, my country, my nation”; worldcentric – “I care for all human beings, regardless of race, color, sex, or creed”; and finally what another psychologist calls kosmocentric – where the individual experiences integration of both the masculine and feminine, and I would add, extend care to all sentient beings without exception.

Unconditional love exists – it’s the very fabric of our existence. However, how (or if) one experiences and manifests unconditional love depends totally at what stage of development you have arrived and that is where the responsibility comes in. It’s not enough to mouth words about unconditional love, one has to put in the effort to evolve and grow through the stages above and awaken to and become that love. Love, the essentially unconditional nature of genuine love, isn’t a feeling or something you fall helplessly into – it’s a state of being that progresses as you open your heart to the world of conditions.

Love is the one perfect thing in an imperfect world.

My sincere wish and hope is that you -- the reader -- will have a long and slow, loving process of growth.

Love,

Eddie

Dream Woman

¡Hola! Everybody...
With the coming of the Christmas comes the now annual whine from the anuses claiming that there’s a plot to do away with Christmas. Please don’t make me embarrass you in this forum -- first bullshite “libruhls and femi-nazis are killing Christmas” post I see I’m going for the jugular. Shoot, I think I’ll do it anyway...

I will be gone all day at a senior staff retreat working on a five-year, organizational-wide strategic plan. It’s not going to be a pretty sight since I intend to rock the boat, think audaciously, and question everything! LOL

I’m only half kidding... ::grin::

I wrote the following a couple of years ago...

* * *

-=[ Goddess ]=-

She emerges from the trees,
the earth,
the rocks beneath my feet.
She is the air I breathe.
The unborn breathe of life.

Why is it I never saw her before?
Was I... so blind?

I am aroused yet humbled
I am satiated yet hungry,
desiring more and
more
and more...

At every turn I am met
with her brilliance.
As of the Earth,
the Clay,
the Rivers and Streams.

Before this journey
I was no one special.
And after,
once more,
I am no one special.

And this, I know, is grace.

* * *

I was saved by a dream.

Literally.

Not a figure of speech. I rarely ever remember my dreams and maybe this is a good thing, considering what the fuck kinda shit dwells in my subconscious. However, there was one unforgotten dream about seven years ago that had a tremendous impact on my life. In fact, after that dream I was never the same person – changed me completely. And, get this, I don’t even remember its details!

Nonsense, you say? Read on…

Several years ago, my life was imploding. Everything that I had worked towards, or valued, seemed to be unraveling before my eyes. My marriage of about seven years was on the rocks. Actually, it was barely breathing, it was waiting for someone to mercifully shoot it. I was in my senior year of my undergraduate studies and I was so burnt out that I couldn’t retain any more information. A straight A student, my grades were plummeting and I was having a hard time finding meaning in it all. To complicate matters, I couldn’t get a job to save my life.

It was a strange time, looking back, because though I realized things were coming to a head on many fronts, it seemed as if I were just floating around there for a bit. As if it were all happening, and I was there witnessing all of this, but unable to do anything about it.

I divorced, barely escaped my senior year, and had to leave graduate school for a job and that’s where it all started. I was working for an East Harlem non-profit as a life skills trainer where I met this young lady. A co-worker, she was half my age, and I really didn’t think she was interested, but eventually she let her feelings known. Actually, what she said was, “Don’t you ever get it?” during dinner once. Yes, I’m dense and sometimes I don’t “get it.” LOL!

Anyway, I’m dating this really young lady and at first, my attraction to her was minimal. I mean, she was pretty, intelligent, and we shared common interests. We spent a lot of time going to museums, discussing poetry, reading books together, taking walks, etc. Still, I never felt any overwhelming feelings of love.

But I digress, I need to make my point!

Well, one thing led to another and she let on that her feelings for me were more than casual. I think the “L” word was mentioned somewhere in there, and though there were red flags and alarms screaming all over the place (too complicated to discuss here), I allowed myself to entertain the possibility that the feelings were mutual. This woman was 25 years old to my 43. And while, yes, age is only a number, the fact was that my priorities and frames of reference were much different from hers. As a result, eventually she “fell out” of love and I was stuck. I had talked myself into love! We split and I was taking it pretty bad. Looking back, I realize now that what I had was an obsession, not love. I mean, I didn’t do anything overly stupid like stalk her, or act out on my compulsions, but I was definitely in a lot of pain.

So, there I was, a cold, rainy Friday night and I go home, just wanting to lay down and pull the covers over my head and sleep forever. And that’s when The Dream happens…

I’m in deep pain and I go to sleep. Maybe it wasn’t just this girl, but the accumulation of everything that had happened over the previous year: divorce, education, not being there with my son everyday – I felt like I was in a boxing match and losing big time. I went to sleep shrouded in a deep, intense sorrow.

I dream. I don’t remember the specifics of the dream, the content, but the feelings – Oh my God! – the feeling of the dream is what I remember. In the dream, there is a woman in my life, I don’t know or remember exactly what she looks like. I remember her eyes and her smile. But that isn’t important. What’s important is that in this dream this woman loved me in a way I have never experienced in my life. The love is so palpable that it infuses me with joy, washing away my sorrow as if it were mere dirt.

I get this very real feeling of being loved so completely, so totally that it seems as if my very being is transformed on a cellular level. In the dream, this woman knows everything about me: from my most insightful thoughts to the most pornographic. She knows it all, the good and the bad, everything, and yet she still loves me completely, without condition. In the dream, I remember hearing her voice because all I remember is that she was walking laughing with some of my friends -- she was walking to meet with me. But I get the real sense that she loves me and I am filled with a total, pure, unconditional love in this dream and I’m ecstatic!

Then I wake up…

But this is the kicker: the feeling in the dream? It’s still there! I’m filled with this incredible sense of being loved that seems to come from the very core of my being. It’s not an over-the-top “gee-I’m-so-happy” type feeling, but rather a calm presence at my center, washing away my fears and doubts. It’s as if the woman in my dream connected me to the very essence of love itself.

I never tried to analyze this dream, but without thinking about it in words, a part of me sensed that that woman in my dream wasn’t someone else, but an aspect of myself.

Really.

I didn’t get this by thinking about it; I sensed it in my body.

At least that’s how I remember experiencing it.

Since that day, yes, I have experienced sadness, anger, disappointment – the full catastrophe of life – but nothing, not even death and loss, has ever taken away this joy at the core of my being. It is truly invincible.

Now I have discovered that I was mistaken about the nature of this dream. It wasn’t an “aspect of myself” that loved me in this powerful way. Not really. The dream was pointing me to a road I needed to travel. It was pointing me to the opening of my heart because the more I open, the stronger this presence is in my life. When I close, I lose contact; when I open, the contact becomes stronger. It’s not about “me.” It’s about the dissolving of the fake wall that separates “me” from you.

Perhaps, in a way, it was about the Woman of my Dreams…

Love,

Eddie

HeartPrints

Hola Everybody,
I want to take a moment to recognize someone who I a power of example for me. Whenever I get to feeling sorry for myself, or start thinking my load has become to hard to bear, I go to her page and I’m reminded how petty and trivial I can get sometimes. Believe me, this woman demonstrates a tremendous spirit everyday, sometimes every second. When even a glass of water sends you into prolonged agony, well… let me just leave it at that.

While I don’t usually tell her this, I have a lot of admiration for her. She lives much of what I merely write about. Lately, Nan’s hit some hard bumps, go by her page and leave her some love (click here).

I had a really deep, totally earth-shattering, insightful ::grin:: blog on states and stages of consciousness prepared, but I ran into an little journal article yesterday that sidetracked me.

* * *

-=[ Heartprints ]=-
“Our purpose is to consciously, deliberately evolve toward a wiser, more liberated and luminous state of being, to return to Eden, make friends with the snake and set up our computers among the wild apple trees.”
-- Tom Robbins, Wild Ducks Flying Backwards

Deep down we all probably know that our true calling is some kind of spiritual evolution. An integration into the Universal Principle, The Godhead, into Love – wtf you want to call it. And yet we spend an enormous amount of energy suppressing that awareness because to make it conscious is to recognize that most of our manipulations, religious dogmas, personal ambitions, and financial plays are not merely counterproductive, but probably trivial. Our mission, whether we recognize it or not, is to do away with the trivial pursuits and take on the responsibility of the infinite, hard-won joy that comes from our psycho-spiritual integration. Or at least get to taste the perfect slice of pizza before we move on. ::grin::

We are now living at a point in time in which the choices we make will either lead us to certain self-destruction on one side and a miraculous evolutionary leap on the other. Sometimes my posts on personal liberation – what I call conscious evolution – make me feel self-indulgent. It’s winter in America and in this prolonged season of violence and war on every level, perhaps concentrating on self-improvement seems a wee bit trivial. But just maybe, taking a step back and looking at the world we have created with a light heart can help us see it more clearly. Perhaps with fresh eyes we can learn to respond more wisely to the crucial choices we have before us.

Do we continue in our trivial pursuits, or do choose to take on the primal and all-important task of sowing the seeds of joy and peace in our hearts, to use the uniquely human gift of reason to come up with meaningful solutions to the challenges that face us, act with wisdom to change the global climate of love. And in case you haven’t noticed, our previous choices have placed us on the ever-increasing endangered species list.

Sure, I know many of you are saying that you would love to have all these things. You want peace, a safer world, and you want to prevent our world from turning into ash. You might be saying that sure, you want world peace, but so does every political candidate and beauty contestant. You might tell me that the problems we face are too large and that nothing you do will make a difference. And my answer to you is damn skippy! I know how that feels. I know the despair that sometimes comes from trying to make a difference. But I’m dense, I will fight to the last, even if I knew my struggle was doomed and it wouldn’t make a difference, I refuse to bend over and take it up the ass without a fight.

Anywaaaaay… (LOL!) I came across these insights and perhaps they can be helpful to you, maybe not…

The first thing we have to grapple with is the possibility that our ideas about money, power, and dogma have outgrown their usefulness. In fact, all this competitiveness, self-righteous warring, in combination with technological advances used in the service to strengthen our status and satisfying our material desires, just might be making matters worse. Interestingly, the Dalai Lama has observed that in spite of tremendous poverty and disease, the people in the Third World seem happier , more peaceful, less stressed out, and less anxiety-ridden than those “more fortunate” citizens of the developed countries.

Hmmmm…

Perhaps this is a sign that we should be looking for another way of being and doing.

I think the crucial question is, “How am I personally contributing to co-creating the world we live in.” As a mental health practitioner, I know too well true healing comes from a sense of personal accountability. The key to personal transformation comes from self-responsibility.

We can take our cue from the environmentalists. In response to the climate crisis, environmentalists are asking us to re-assess our “carbon footprints,” by living differently and working toward making that footprint eventually disappear.

And this is where the concept of a “heartprint” can help us find answers to out questions. What is a heartprint? According to Karen Truheart, a heartprint is the impression made by every feeling, thought, word, and deed.

At every moment, we are generating heartprints. Anger, fear, ignorance, and hatred make heartprints. They literally leave their mark within us and are picked up by mirror neurons in others and oftentimes acted out unconsciously. They create a ripple effect expanding in ever widening circles. If we don’t feel these destructive emotions deeply, thinking clearly, and using their energy wisely, these heartprints cause much of the world’s pain and suffering, creating the emotional climate we live in. On the other hand, heartprints generated by love, compassion, and kindness, love, understanding affect our inner and outer climate, and we create those too.

According to Trueheart, what we need is an emotional climate change, a shift in the emotional atmosphere. By feeling deeply, thinking clearly, and acting wisely, we can create heartprints for humanity and all life on earth. I realize this sounds like too much for all you reality-TV-watching, too-cool-to-care ma’fuccas. I realize for those who have learned helplessness at a deep level, this may even sound impossible.

Maybe not.

But the dogma and all the trivial shit down for one moment, STFU, and listen… for once.

One of my friends likes to reference butterflies as a defense to the drama he creates. I would like to borrow those butterflies for a moment for use in a different context. Perhaps you have heard of the Butterfly Effect. Actually, she’s another friend. LOL! In scientific Chaos theory, a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil eventually affects the weather in New York City. Chaos theory recognizes the profound interconnectedness inherent in all existence. A real connectedness on a global scale. In addition, current scientific findings on the neurological basis of social intelligence, there is an emotional equivalent that is called The Heartprint Effect.

Climatologists have used the Butterfly Effect to help us understand our participation in global warming and have shown us how to understand our behavior. By understanding the Butterfly Effect, we can see how small actions like planting a tree, changing a light bulb, or dialing back our thermostats even a little really do make a difference.

Conversely, by understanding the Heartprint Effect, we can begin to internalize our importance to a movement that creates a more peaceful and sustainable world. We can generate our inner light to change our internal climate. And this in turn can create environments that can help others do the same. In other words, drop the Jesus talk and be like Jesus. Be the change you want to see in the world, Gandhi said. Understanding The Heartprint Effect could take something that seems impossible and help make it easier, or at least “doable.”

Think of it, with every movement of our hearts and minds, we contribute to the emotional and mental climate of the world. If you can take this premise as true, then you can make a difference for the better. If our mission is to do away with the trivial in favor of psycho-spiritual integration, then the Heartprint Effect let’s us know that even a simple act of kindness contributes to global change.

Sorry for the long post, today, it’s a challenge sometimes to put all this in one Word document page. For those looking to act, I have listed some resources below. I’ll leave you with the following:

In the Buddhist tradition, compassion is systematically developed through metta mediation. Metta meditation begins with the repetition of the following mantra: May I be kind. May I be peaceful. May I be free from suffering. The point being that you progress through stages so that you’re doing metta for all sentient beings. In traditional practice, a student is not allowed to offer metta for others until the teacher is sure the student can make this offering, not out of need, but from a full and open heart.

Notice what brings you true joy and fills you with peace. Then notice how when you feel this way, your way of relating to the world changes.

Love,

Eddie

Resources

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning – to learn more about social and emotional learning in schools

Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education – promoting human values and a sense of oneness within humanity

Common Peace – center for the advancement of nonviolence

M. K. Gandhi Institute - inspiring and supporting individual and group efforts to end violence

Alliance for a New Humanity – to join with like-hearted individuals and groups

Mind and Life Institute – to learn more about the science behind The Heartprint Effect

The Network of Spiritual Progressives – an activist group

Humankind - Voices of Hope and Humanity – a public radio project

We the World - forming international networks of collaboration and action

The Heartprint website