appreciation

Making friends with our own minds shows us that beneath even the darkest difficulty is the happiness of our true nature.

At the Heart & Soul Center we first saw a woman we knew leaving with bruises all over her face. However, an Indian man quickly replaced her as he came towards us and introduced himself as Deepak Chopra.

when we are stressed, we lose the simplicity of being present and dealing with what is in front of us with clarity rather than confusion.

Is there actually any real difference between one part of our being and another or is the only difference the means of expression?

When fear is in control we become resistant to change and spontaneity; we get angry and defensive, reinforcing separateness, isolation and enmity. Fear arises when the ego-mind is threatened, making us reject anything that is unfamiliar; in so doing we surrender our sensibility and compassion.

When someone is being dismissive, fault-finding or disapproving and this is making you feel unworthy, insecure, or lacking in self-esteem, then it may be because there’s a hook in you for that negativity to latch on too, a place where it can land that triggers all these hidden self-doubts.

We’ve already proven that war does not work, that fighting and killing in the name of religion, to wipe out an enemy, or to claim control never has a happy ending, always there is suffering and anguish and continued pain with no end in sight. The dualistic belief that there’s an ‘us’ and ‘them’ causes an endless no-win situation, blanketing our minds with ignorance.

Abhorrence towards others is based on the belief that we are all separate from each other, that we can hurt another without hurting ourselves, that I am more important than you. It breaks friendships and families, while creating self-righteousness and arrogance. Prejudice closes our heart and shuts down our sensitivity.

Yoga, now closely followed by Mindfulness, has become totally mainstream, with more varieties of a theme appearing every day. Many who attend a yoga class come away from it feeling…

What we all so easily forget is that everyone experiences pain and suffering, not just us, and we don’t have to be someone special to be lovable, we are lovable just as we are. Being ordinary is OK! Being ordinary means not having to hog the limelight but having space for others, being able to wish them well without comparison or judgment; it means keeping our heart open even in the midst of pain.

Greed, hatred and ignorance are the root causes of unhappiness. They can trick our minds into believing happiness lies anywhere other than within ourselves.

Discover how your mind and emotions affect your body

Mindfulness doesn’t necessarily change circumstances, rather it changes the way we perceive circumstances. So a mindful life might appear the same on the outside, while on the inside there is greater clarity and expansiveness. That difference may or may not translate into external changes.

  Life changes in a split second. Deb got up at 6:30am, went to the bathroom, and on the way back into the bedroom she tripped and fell. “I broke…

It has felt that grief has haunted my soul over the last ten years. And maybe not in the way you would think. I feel like there is no place to rest my spirit. There is no place to just be. There is no place to just giggle. There is no place to put my soul, without creating depth and analyzing every aspect of life. There is no place to be like I was before loss.
Remember the times you used to be mad about nothing important?

So how do we embody who we are really and connect with dignity, humanity and humility, both as individuals and as a human race?

No matter how hard we want to, there’s one thing we can never do and that’s change the past. We can weep, beat our fists against the wall, eat bags of cookies to assuage the guilt, but none of this will make the slightest bit of difference and certainly won’t make us feel any better. The past is gone, over, no more.

What if you were able to instantly able to reframe any situation to something more positive, more optimistic, or more opportunity-focused?

The mind is described as being like a monkey bitten by a scorpion and, just as a monkey leaps from branch to branch, so the mind leaps from one thing to another, constantly distracted. Then, when we come to sit still and begin to pay attention, we find all this manic activity going on and it seems insanely noisy. It’s actually nothing new, just that now we’re aware of it whereas before we were immersed in it, unaware that such chatter was so constant.

Have you ever wondered how amazing it is that a water lily doesn’t grow in a pure mountain lake but in murky, muddy and dank pond water thick with weeds, and yet its beautiful flower appears on the surface totally pristine? All life starts in the dark, either in the earth, mud, or in the womb: the darkness contains the nourishment needed for life to emerge.

There’s too much fear and fighting going on in the world, between ISIS, Ebola, violent assaults and rape. We may feel completely powerless, unable to help, but perhaps the greatest thing we can do is to make friends with our own fear rather than blaming others.