If it's not love, let it go...

I've learned a lot lately about love and about the people with whom we play this grand "game of life."  It turns out we all want the same thing:  Love.  But we aren't all playing by the same rules - and we certainly are not all starting from the same level of skill.  I learned long ago (and I'm still learning) that not everyone has my best interest at heart and not everyone cares to.  If you're a soft love giving thing like me this can be a hard, hard lesson to learn...

Sometimes love really does just fall out of the sky;
let go of what isn't love and be ready  for it!

While some people do give and share their love selflessly, some take too much and devalue the love you give.  Some love disappears and some love just dies.  Some people cause harm in the name of "love."  Some demand your love in a way that suits them - but not you.  Some manipulate in the name of love.  Some just plain hurt you.  But I've learned lately that the time has come for us, the members of this beautiful human race, to love ourselves first and give love in real time only to those who deserve it.

We can (if we are so inclined) still love someone who takes too much by sending them love and compassion on the wings of a prayer - and giving that love we wanted to share back to ourselves. But there is no need and no reason to do anything that makes us feel anything less than wonderful inside.  In other words, there is never a good enough reason to give your love to someone who does not give you the same love in return.  The more we let go of those people whose "love" isn't really love, the more space we open for the kind of love we truly want to come rushing in.  ...But we need to be empowered enough to close that "not good love" door and believe in our right to do so before the next one (or two, or three) will open.

Bottom line, if it doesn't make you feel good, it's not love - at least not the kind that is meant for you. Whether it's a friend, your family members, a lover or an acquaintance  it's time to draw the line.  And it's time to demand, expect and allow only love which makes you feel as amazing as you truly are.  And yes, you are that amazing.  <3

3 ways to release, surrender, let go...

There's too much.  Too much of everything.  And for those of us who are sensitive, we are brimming over, swimming in the overwhelm and in need of release. I wish I had a manual for letting go, but I do not.  It seems that no matter how much I let go of, there's always more.  Some days it feels like a bottomless well... but something deep inside of me knows it is not.

We come here, to these lifetimes, to learn, to love, to lose and to let go.  We know we take nothing with us in the end yet we sure live like we do.  In fact, we take as much as we possibly can.  We hoard it - most of the time without even knowing.  We take all of the joys, all of the pains, all of the bliss and all of the sorrows.  Of course we want only the good things so we soak those up eagerly without cause for thought.  We adamantly reject and detest the bad things though because they feel so awful.  But in refusing and hating the bad, we make it grow bigger inside of us.  We focus so much energy on not wanting the pains of life that we sow such a fertile ground of Not Wanting Bad Stuff that we inadvertently attract more and more of it, over and over.  The law of attraction is real.  We really do get back from the world what we send out and when we are consumed with not wanting more of the bad (when we are neck-deep in the bad), that's all we're asking the universe for... and we get it.

This is where The Art of Letting Go comes in.  I should have a post-doctoral degree in this fine art by now.  I once purchased a book on Letting Go at a used book sale and treated it like my bible.  I carried it with me and read the analogies and thought about them over and over (red flag:  I was hoarding letting go).  I believed that the book Who Moved My Cheese was written for me and I had to own a copy after reading someone else's (yeah, there it is again...).  I needed to know *how* to let go and I wasn't going to stop until I figured it out (spoiler alert:  I don't claim to have figured it out, but I have donated most of my books and I have a few approaches I recommend trying).

Most of the time we know instinctively that we need to let go of things that no longer serve us (the knowing becomes clearer the more times we've faced the challenge of letting go - or, in some cases, when a close friend simply refuses to hear the story once more).  [So, Recommendation #1:  Get a good friend.  And be real honest with said good friend - ask for real honesty in return.  Buy good friend a drink and show up when good friend needs you to do the same.]

We need to let go so that we can focus on what we *do* want in our lives in place of the bad.  But those bad moments can be so insidious that they get stuck inside of us, refueling the automatic delivery system of exactly what we don't want any more of - so we get more bad, over and over, creating a seemingly bottomless well of hard, challenging, painful experiences.  Letting go of the thoughts, energies and (understandable) hatred of the negative stuff in our lives then becomes so challenging that it seems impossible to get out.  We feel as though we can't even remember what the good moments look like anymore.  The typical advice to "think positive" and focus on what we truly want becomes an irritating reminder that David is smaller than Goliath and he can't possibly win.  But what if the art of letting go happens in surrendering to the monster?  Can we love it enough to turn even our darkest moments and deepest worries into parts of ourselves that we can't help but love?

I believe so.

I believe that the brightness of love can shine its loving (and joyful) light precisely in the places we can't seem to escape.  By turning to face the monster and giving it love, we can shine our own light on the thing we want so desperately to let go of.  By loving that which we hate, we take away its power and we have nothing to avoid any longer.  The scary parts become the parts of us that are craving love and tenderness - something we have within us to give and feel much better than when we hate them.

Therefore, Recommendation #2:  Love the bad stuff, all of it, see it as part of yourself - a part that really needs a hug, to be held, to be told it's dream job is coming, it's beautiful and smart and has great hair... you get the point.

And because I'm a big fan of journaling - and writing in general, here's a third suggestion for your letting go journey, for good measure:

Recommendation #3:  Write a letter to God/your higher self/your guides/your angels/the person who hurt you/your future self/Santa Claus and tell him/her/it your deepest secrets, hopes, fears and desires.  Beg, plead, pray, bargain.  It doesn't matter what you say or how you say it, just that you are honest and that you are releasing some of the energy that is wrapped so tightly around what you need to let go of.  Then seal it up, burn it, hide it, shred it, bury it or read it back to yourself and hit delete.  It doesn't matter what you do with it because the message was delivered the moment you wrote it and acknowledged its existence   You've simply empowered your own ability to release (i.e. leg go) in the simplest of forms.  After all, it's all energy.  The fears, the hopes, the intentions, the messages in your letters, the worries you carry - all of it is just energy.  Release any small amount of that energy you no longer want and you will feel freer to start asking for and attracting what you do want.

I honor your strength, courage and determination in the battle of letting go.  ...And I have no idea who would own a necklace that says "let go" - not a clue.

The un-shared ideas of quiet souls...

I've realized, over a recent period of self-directed disconnection from most of the stimulus happening in our world that so many people matter whose names we will never know and and so many solutions to problems in our world exist that will never be brought to light.  These inspired ideas and peaceful solutions won't even be brought to a level of consciousness other than that of the mind that thought it.

I've realized that our thinking, hurting, angry, over-communicative, over-stimulated and frustrated minds are so full that the quiet space needed for the gentle souls among us and peaceful solutions contained within them have nearly no place in our world right now... but it is precisely those souls and those ideas that are so needed.

The news bombards us.  The talking heads talk.  The angry politicians act without thought and fight without concern.  The egos are bigger than ever.  Acting on impulse, from anger and without thought - it's everywhere.  The injustice is ripe and rotting in our own front lawns but we can't seem to clean it up.  We can't seem to even call attention to it anymore because it is everywhere.  In fact, the stories that seem to capture and hold our attention are those rare stories of change and hope in the world - those are the ones that stand out from the rest.  Those are the stories we are truly seeking, but our pre-programmed and muddled minds always seek more and more stimulation and ultimately they forget the story of hope.  They turn back to the terror, the fear, the desolate reality of a world gone wrong.  We swim in it.  We are desperate for change and peace but we can't find it.  Too much gets in the way five minutes later.  The hope which seemed so palatable is once again gone and we are left seeking, knowing it is somewhere in the chaos of the rotten injustice.

The hope must be held on to.

Those of us with the hope, the ideas, the solutions, the programs, the generous hearts... we must dig deep and find all the courage we can possibly find to speak aloud those truths which we know can change the tides in our world.  It's hard, doing such a thing, because it requires strength and courage that come from a place which requires a loving fuel to keep us going... but such loving, hopeful energy is so hard to find right now.  Yet still we must try.

And keep trying because that's why we are here.

Just remember that when all of the noise and chaos around us becomes deafening, it is in that space that we can be heard.  We carry the story of hope so many are seeking - and the courage to do the work.  There will be times when we - when you - will need to be your own fuel.  When attentions wander and people forget that your ideas, your courage, your work of change are indeed valuable and are indeed changing the world, you must become your own fuel.  It was in the very same space of great pain and injustice in the world that the quiet and humble teachers throughout human history - Jesus, Gandhi, Buddha - walked quietly through the hells that surrounded them to tell their stories of Love, Peace and Hope.  Those teachers became leaders, those leaders became prophets and those prophets became spirits who guide us still today.  Call on them in your time of great need, but remember that you too contain the same courage they had.  You have the same kind of thoughts, the same space for hope, the same earthly body and the same calling to "be the change you wish to see in the world." (Gandhi)

You may be one of us, you may be that peaceful teacher and I tell you now that I  hear you... and you are not alone.  For it is in the time of great imbalance that true balance can be found.  It is in our destitution that we can so clearly see what hope looks like.  And it is in a world that appears devoid of love for our fellow human that we can recognize instantly what love looks like.  While many may become distracted and forget that they've seen the love, somewhere deep inside them their soul remembers what it looks like and they will keep seeking it.  Stand firm in the love and peace you bring to the world and those seeking it will find you.  God's plan is greater than any of ours and he has sent us to remind the world of that.

Be strong.  Be faithful.  Be courage itself.  Be what you were meant to be.

Eye of God

Celebrating death?

I'm back from my hiatus and the first and most prominent thing on my mind is the state of peace and humanity in the world.  I am feeling a sense of sadness and disappointment amidst the celebration of Osama Bin Laden's death - and a deep level of concern for where we humans, in 2011, place our hearts on the grand scale of human compassion.  Is it really okay to celebrate the death of another human being?

Celebrating the death of Bin Laden - once I heard the news of both his killing and the wave of American response - struck me instantly as just a wrong thing to do.  Why would we metaphorically dance on someone's grave?  Spit on it, sure, I get that.  It's an expression of anger.  But can celebration be an expression of anger?  Celebration comes from feelings of joy and happiness and love.  This is just not something that computes for me - and whats worse, it feels wrong and lacking in some sort of alignment to what is truly divine within each of us.

I've learned with time and much spiritual work that my initial non- ego-created response to something always contains a level of truth that comes from something far greater than my own mind.  I - and I think many others - tend to "revise" our positions after we have our initial response to a situation (and I am referring to our initial solar plexus-located intuitive-level response).  That revision is done in consideration of social norms, learned beliefs and opinions which are all external creations.  Once our egoistic minds become engaged in the process of categorizing, judging and assigning labels to a situation - often to a degree that the response is no longer that inner truth that we can rely on - I believe that we become misguided and get off track.  And it just so happens that I think that is what has happened in this situation.

It turns out that my initial intuitive response to the news of Bin Laden's killing is precisely in line with my very conscious belief in peace for human kind.  As we have had a couple of days to live with this new information about Bin Laden's death, I have found myself feeling a great sense of concern for humanity.  It makes me sad that there is so much pain, fear, death and destruction in the world - and amidst all that, I'm also sad that humans are capable of celebrating the death of another human being.  To be relieved, satisfied, or even glad about the "loss" of a human being - one most humans have every reason to despise - is one thing, but this act of celebration and how that is tied to a kind of patriotism is rather upsetting to me.

Celebrating death, in my heart, feels sad, lonely and misguided.  Death is not something to be celebrated.  In this case, this death will not be mourned by most people, but joyous singing and dancing in the streets in celebration?  It just seems wrong.  What does that say about us?  Bin Laden killed so many people -- that he is gone should give us pause to honor the lives of all who have died and suffered because of this man. We should pay little regard at all to him and focus all of our consciousness and emotion on the love that still surrounds the innocent lives lost both here in the US and around the world.  (Americans are not Bin Laden's only victims.)  I think, instead, we should bond together in our commitment to end the violence and bring more love and peace to the world.  Let's honor the souls lost to senseless violence rather than celebrating the death of one man.

The way we respond to ANY situation in life is a reflection on us - not the person or situation we are responding to.  It's kind of entry-level spiritual work I'm talking about.  Forgiveness is not for the person being forgiven but for the person that forgives.  The way I react to someone who treats me badly says something about me, not about the person mistreating me.  And the way I respond to the news of death - especially of someone connected to so much violence and hatred and destruction - speaks to who I am at the core.

I'm simply uncomfortable with bringing happiness to this situation.  Rather, I'm left feeling a deep desire to heal the world, to give more love to others and to have reverence for the entire course of human action.  Many, many people died at the hands of this Bin Laden and his followers.  What, exactly, in this situation is there to be happy about?  Bin Laden is gone but he is just one person - there is an entire army of misguided human beings who have obeyed and tortured and died for him.  Do we really think that will change now that he is dead?  Is anyone really breathing a sigh of relief?  Does anyone really feel safer now?  What, exactly then is being celebrated?

The spiritual teachers from whom I seek guidance - Jesus, Buddha, the Dalai Lama, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, MLK, Mother Theresa - would never celebrate the death of another human being.  Nor will I.

Keep praying, keep praying....

None of it has gone away.  None of it has gotten better.  None of us are immune.

Japan, Haiti, Gaddafi, Eman Al-Obeidy, Lebanon, war, famine, fear, pain and inequity - it is all over the world.  It's all still happening.  As you struggle with your own pain, fear and disappointments, remember at least for this moment that there are millions and millions of us living in horror and desperation.

Please don't forget.  But please don't dwell in the sadness.  There is power in our emotions.  Our job, if we have the strength (and every single one of us should have at least that), is to send love and hope and prayer to all who suffer in the world and to do what we can to end suffering in any way possible.  Whatever it may be.  Wherever it may be.  We are all one and we grow closer every day.  We are closer to the Japanese than we were one month ago when the earthquake hit, even if we have forgotten amidst the busyness of our daily lives.

Keep praying.  Keep giving.  Keep loving.

Gratitude for Gratitude

Last night, I celebrated my birthday again, this time with a friend I've known for several years who shares the same birthday as me (plus a few years) and while we are very different people in some ways, we are incredibly similar in some, too.  It makes me wonder if sharing the day of our birth somehow makes us understand things in a ways others cannot.

Happy Birthday to us!

Let me tell you a bit about our evening and how it brought me to a place of even deeper gratitude for Nate and a new commitment to speaking my gratitude aloud for at least one person to hear.

When Nate and I arrived at the restaurant last night, the hostess initially seated us in a very cramped part of the restaurant.  There wasn't even room for Nate to wheel his chair under the table without blocking the narrow walkway between the tables.  Yes, it was a Saturday night, but the restaurant was big enough to have the kind of space available that someone in an electric wheelchair truly needs in order to enjoy an evening out that the rest of us able-bodied folks take for granted.  I find it easy to become vocal about Nate's needs when we spend time together.  I notice so much of what he experiences on a daily basis and 90% of it just makes me angry.  After seating us at an impossible table (and after the hostess looked over Nate's head directly at me to ask a question about him), I got angry enough to get up and ask for another table.  Eventually, they found us one and we made the great trek to the other side of the restaurant (people needing to move themselves or their chairs in order to let us through).  We were re-seated at a table in the corner near the side door which was opened often, and every time it was we nearly froze to death but it didn't matter.  We were about to have a great time, as we always do, laughing, talking about work, relationships, God, the meaning of suffering and so much more.

Something always happens when I spend time with Nate.  A part of me feels his pain.  A part of me wishes to make things easy for him, even if just for the hours we are together.  A part of me worries that I will outlive him.  A part of me sees the beauty and great humility that comes from someone who must ask for help.

More than anything, after I've spent time with Nate, I am always reminded of the miraculous capacity humans have to face any amount of suffering and move through it to a place of not just survival, but gratitude.  Nate was proud to have lived fifteen years as a quadriplegic.  Turning 1 year older was a source of pride for him, despite all that you and I might view as the pain and loss in those fifteen years.

Nate is a teacher, like me.  He's caring and compassionate, just like me.  He has the ability to engage anyone in conversation and wants to make them laugh.  Last night complete strangers came over to speak to him - some offered to take our photo (Nate would tell you that it's because we are the two most attractive people in the world - unfortunately, that picture didn't save so we only have a few dark camera phone self-portraits to prove his theory).  Our waiter even thanked us for making his night a little bit brighter after struggling with a challenging party of 20 people (they were right next to us - between the camera flashes all night and, apparently, the bill divided 20 ways, I can imagine what a headache the night must have been for him).

While we would have stayed out much later talking about the reasons that our souls chose the paths we are on in this lifetime, Nate had to return home.  Before we said goodbye, though, we made a commitment to something.  We even pinky swore on it.  Nate and I agreed to post one thing on each other's Facebook page that we are grateful for every single day.  We decided that there is always something to be grateful for.  Even the tiniest thing.  And sometimes, the things that we can be grateful for aren't so tiny - like a night that was more fun than any other we've had (that includes the Sox-Yankees game I got to see with him because he can get tickets in the handicap section).  I could have chosen to focus on the rough start to the evening because Nate's unique needs were not considered but instead, I choose to think about how the evening ended up to be quite wonderful - for Nate, for me and a waiter named Jason.

And just so you know a bit more about the kind of person Nate is, here's one final detail about last night:  I started to get indigestion toward the end of the evening from all of the spicy food we ate and he insisted on asking the waiter where the nearest drug store was - and then going out in the cold himself to get me Rolaids.

So, gratitude for gratitude, that's what I'm sharing with Nate.  May you, too, find someone to share your gratitude with.  This is a way for us to keep each other thinking positive and remembering to always find something to be thankful for, even on our darkest days.

Here is our Gratitude for Gratitude, day 1:

Amy: I'm grateful for honest friendship.

Nate: I am thankful for good food, good friendship, and good conversation!

(Part 1) War is never the answer... Peace is.

I believe that there are some universal truths.  Among those, one is very strong and very universal:  Like Attracts Like.  I have learned over and over in my own life that this is true.  What I know...

• Miserable people don't attract happy people (for obvious reasons) - and happy people don't allow miserable people to affect them.  But happy people do attract other happy people and misery loves company.
• "Do unto others as you would have done unto you"  There's a simple biblical take on Like Attracts Like.  Want to be treated with love, respect, kindness?  Then treat others the same way.
• If you think about or worry about something, it is very likely that it will come to pass. 
• Doing things the same way will always garner the same results.  So many people fail to realize this and they continue to hope for change but their behavior never changes.  They do this over and over and suffer mounting disappointment.  To change your outcome, you must also change your actions.
• "Fake it till you make it" works.  Want to feel better?  Happier?  More confident?  Act like you already are and your body/mind/cells will follow.
• Smile and people will find you to be more approachable, bringing more smiles to you in return.  Smile Attracts Smile.
• Fear getting sick and you will get sick.  

This is certainly enough of a list to get my point across.  But the real reason for this list and this post is to ask why, why, WHY can't we learn as a human race that WAR does not create PEACE?  

War Attracts War.  

War attracts hatred, fear, anger, defensiveness, retaliation, wrong action. 

Peace Attracts Peace.  

Peace is made of and creates more love, compassion, hope, understanding, openness.

War is never the answer.  

Peace always is.

The question, then, must be HOW do we create peace in the world?    I know how I work to create peace, how do you create peace in your world?   It is those same ways that will create peace between nations, between peoples and across the entire world.  But we must start now.  Wars have been fought since one man realized that he could fight for something he wanted rather than finding a way of obtaining something through love and cooperation with another human being.  If, for thousands of years, war has never "worked" (as evidenced by the massive amounts of war and hatred that still exist in the world today) then perhaps it is finally time to try a new approach that is not based in war.  Inciting more fear and hatred will only waste time, resources, energy and worst of all, human lives.

...It is not coincidental that I just heard a newscaster say the words "not a significant number of lives have been lost" since the bombing began in Lybia.  I'm afraid I've never met a living soul whose life wasn't significant.  Mine is.  Yours is.  We are all significant.

PEACE.  It's a UNIVERSAL song:

Terrible at saying goodbye...

"If I could define enlightenment briefly 

I would say it is 'the quiet acceptance of what is'."

- Wayne Dyer

Maybe it's because Mom has just left and the weekend has only just begun.  Maybe it's because she was here for an entire week.  And maybe it's because we had so much fun together and she lives so far away that it's so hard for me to say goodbye.  And yes, all of these things are true but they are not the only reason it's hard for me to say goodbye.

I've always been bad at saying goodbye.  In fact, it runs in my family.  My grandmother takes the cake, though.  If there were a contest for long goodbyes, she'd win the blue ribbon AND the grand prize. It's nearly impossible to say goodbye to her on the phone - just as you've said your goodbyes and said several I Love You's, another important point (or, as is more often the case, something entirely irrelevant serving just as a reason to stay on the phone one minute longer) comes to mind that puts conversation back on the table (or on the phone line, as it were).  And we're all just as fabulously talented at it because we've learned from the Queen of Not Saying Goodbye.  We just don't like letting go.  Is it possible that a not completely unhealthy form of codependency runs in the genes of the women in my family?  

I think it's just as likely that it's hard for me to say goodbye because I live so far away from my family.  Mom lives the closest (329 miles away) and I see her the most - a few times each year.  My grandmother lives only 334 miles away but she can't do the 6 hour ride to see me anymore so I see her only once a year or so.  My sister used to live 4,466 miles away but she has recently relocated so that we are now only 2,401 miles apart.  Still, I'm pretty sure if we lived a reasonable 20 miles away we'd still have a hell of a time getting off the phone - all of us.  

Since moving 329 miles from where I grew up some ten years ago, it's been hard for me to adjust to not being around my family.  Because of circumstance growing up (my sister and I shared a room and occasionally a bed on and off throughout childhood - and my mother insisted that we room together at camp and girl scouts and sleep overs at my best friend's house), the four of us women spent an awful lot of time together.  In the same space.  For many, many years.  And then we all parted.  My sister 4,446 miles in one direction and I 316 miles in the opposite (I've since moved, adding 13 miles and a few dollars in tolls).  

I've always envied families who have the fortune (or misfortune as some might say) to live in the same area code.  Or families who have so many members that you can afford to lose one or two to distance while still keeping family mayhem in tact between the holidays.  I've learned, slowly, to allow friends to become like family but it's still always been hard for me to say goodbye, even to them.  

It's not that I need them around all the time - in fact, those who know me know that I need a good amount of time to myself to think and grow and meditate and do whatever the heck I please.  But it's still hard to let people go.  One of my very best girlfriends remains amazed at my ability to have faith in love and romantic relationships primarily because I remain surprisingly optimistic about love despite past indicators but also because it seems that I haven't always said goodbye when said indicators suggested that I should have.  Yup, I hung on longer than I should have - personal information, yes, but I know I'm not the only one.  Thankfully, I've lived and learned that lesson but saying goodbye to those I love remains difficult. This doesn't exactly line up with my spiritual way of seeing the world though so I'm trying to balance it all out.  

I happen to believe - in a very deep part of myself - that when people leave they are still with you in whatever capacity you carry them with you, be it memory, thought, prayer or simply by loving them from afar.  I don't believe in needing someone else to fill a part of yourself that needs to be filled (if you're empty anywhere, that's your karma to work on in this lifetime).  So if I don't need someone else,  if there's no dark shadowy part of me I'm trying to fill, and since I like to be alone to regenerate every day, and I happen to have lots and lots of friends, why has it been hard for me to say goodbye?  I've certainly gotten better at it and I'm getting better all the time, but still.  It's not my strong suit.  

Buddhism and the Dalai Lama teach us that attachment to external objects causes suffering.  He also says that love, compassion and inter-connectedness are the natural "needs" of all living things.  I suppose I have the kind of love and inter-connectedness with my mother, my sister and my grandmother that just makes it hard for us to say goodbye to one another - one obvious reason is because next time is often an unknown point in the future.  But I do believe that we are all connected all the time.  And because so many spiritual leaders speak of peace coming from acceptance of what is in the present moment, I will just accept that we are all terrible at saying goodbye and simply love what we have.

Or might it be that there's just something very human and sticky and inter-connected about saying goodbye to another human you are completely and unapologetically yourself with?  

Whatever the reason is, I will end with this:  To Mom, Gram and Suz, I accept the fact that we are all really, really bad at saying goodbye.  

I love you.  

Goodbye.  

Talk to you later.  

Are you going to comment on this?  

If not now, then later, right?  

Okay, Love you.  

Bye bye.  

Suz, have Mak call Auntie after nap time.  

Or Zoe.

Or maybe we can Skype?  

Okay, let's Skype.

Okay.

Love you.  

Byeeeeeeeeee.