Blogging and Feedback as Healers

When I first began to Blog I thought that my blog would have more to do with Art than Reflection. I think, now, that my blog is more about the art of living. Afterall, what bigger masterpiece do we create other than our own life? While creating our life we relect and within those reflections we learn and grow and learn to cope with life's struggles, and challenges.  As I look back over my posts, my blog entries show me how quickly problems come and go. Although some issues resurface I have a bigger toolbag, which often comes from the great feedback/comments that help me so much.

All of us have heard that we are all the same. We do have the same pleasures and pain and questions that come from living. Yet, after writing an entry, blogger feedback completely reinforces that we aren't only interdependent but we are indeed one.

Most recently, as I resavored the rich text of Life's Big Questions, by Sura Das, I practiced one of the excercises in the text. It instructed to go outside of self and see "self" in everything around us. I was reading in a park. I placed the opened book in my lap and looked out at the trees. One was small, one was medium and one was large. I often feel small and powerless as I navigate through my life; so I chose the small one to be my "self." As I examined the three, I started to analyze, as is my nature. I thought: The small tree is no less significant. It provides a filter for CO2 to turn to oxygen. It is no less beautiful, it is no less graceful as its branches blow in the breeze, as people walk by they count it as a tree; not many would say look at "the small tree." Thinking about my "self" as this particular tree I saw "self" as having equal status and value. It was a poignant moment.

One of the people who commented on one of my blog entries sent a thank you for my ability to share personal thoughts which she said were so much in line with her own family troubles. All of this (blogging) helps us to recognize that we are one human family and all beings human and in nature have equal status and value.

I hope this entry begins your healing wherever you need the reassurance that you are necessary and important to the whole world. 

Namaste

Birthday Intentions

A friend suggested that on my birthday I take advantage of the magical portal, that opens up only on one's birthday, and write my intentions for my life for this year. This is something she has done herself. She said its not to be thought about until the morning of my birthday and then, she instructed, just sit down, near water preferably, and write the list. She went on to explain how it is interesting to look back on the list on the following birthday to examine how  many of those intentions are upheld and how life's energy has directed me. I like this idea very much. So, on May 9th, my birthday, I intend to write my personal list.

I wrote about this on my blog to put this idea out to others.  Anything we can do to improve our own lives has worth because in so doing, or intending, we do also, I believe, improve the lives of others. I just read a passage from the book I'm reading, by Lama Surya Das, The Big Questions: How to find your own answers to life's essential mysteries, that happiness truly comes from making others happy. I read that people are unhappy because they too often are preoccupied with the self. In particular, he cautioned attaching to the notion of a separate, independent self that deserves "its own" happiness.

Thinking about those words I began to analyze the times I feel most miserable and indeed it comes down to thinking about self.  How come I was the one who cared for my parents for 5 years and ended up not only losing them but my relationships with my sisters, who were never here to help nor did they call, and then never even received a simple thank you for the care I gave our parents?  Why don't they want to speak to me?  No answers. Why did I earn a Master's Degree in Education only to have my career cut short because my parents fell ill? Why has teaching changed so much its now an undesirable field; not to mention one cannot live alone on the salary? No answers.  All these questions regard self.

As I look at the situation of leaving my job, keeping self out of it,  I remember my mom saying " I don't know what I'd do without you." When I think of my sisters as suffering human beings, leaving my "self suffering" aside, I understand that what they feel or do not feel has nothig to do with me. I do not wish them anything but good in life; so if they wish me otherwise or simply do not wish to have my company or hear my voice, I just think-- maybe I'm a painful reminder of something for them. I know their suffering is not inflicted by me. When I am angered or sad about teaching I think about how my education can be used elsewhere and knowing that to be true is freeing.

First on my list (even though I'm not suppossed to write it until Thursday):
Spend more time OUTSIDE of SELF. :) Intention: It will make those around me happy when I am happy.