Favorite Blog Posts Jan 2013

I always love reading things that are consciously connected thoughts on pain.  In this blog post from Tricycle.com, an interview was conducted with Jon Kabat-Zinn.  I became aware of Jon through a video at a Google meeting in their corporate office where he talked about mindfulness.  You can see more on the post I wrote, Mindfulness With Jon Kabat-Zinn.

In this blog post, he talks about using the Buddhist practice of meditation to help treat chronic pain and illness in our life.  While I am not here to promote one practice over another or specify the specific procedure one should use, what I found interesting was how he viewed pain.  In fact, what I have learned in my own life is very similar when it comes to pain and illness.  I arrived at the same point in a different way which doesn't really matter, but the insight he gives is what is important.

In the following statement, he puts pain in perspective that we so often don't do in our own lives.  "Physical pain is the response of the body and the nervous system to a huge range of stimuli that are perceived as noxious, damaging, or dangerous."

Holding On or Letting Go In Healing

It seems like we as humans can sometimes miss the forest for the trees and even if someone points this out, we cannot even see it.  All too often in healing, we are holding on to all that is not healthy for our life, but letting go of it is like asking someone to climb the tallest mountain.  Most likely it isn't going to happen.  You can stand there in plain view of what needs to happen, but because life is so entrenched in what we have been taught to believe is true, we lose site of the forest for the trees.

When I have gone through some of my most challenging moments in life, I did not always want to let go.  Even though I gave lip service to that fact and tried to make people believe I did, in all reality, I was just holding on.  Letting go was scary even if what I needed to release was not helping me progress in life.  When something is scary, we often pull back in and retreat, hoping the fearful moment will soon pass.  It is easier that way in life, but it does not move you forward.

We can claim all day long that the doctors have it wrong, or the therapist does not know what they are saying.  We can claim that a diagnosis is anything but correct for us and we can continue to demand answers, but in the end the reality will slap us in the face.  Acting as if you have your life together and everything is going fine, will most likely not get you to the answers you need for your life.  They may make you feel safe and secure, but sometimes we need to be shoved out of the nest so we can learn to fly.

Life Works Out

Louise Hay
Starting In Publishing

It is amazing how things sometimes work out and stare us in the face, while we keep seeking and searching for answers. If you're like me, I sometimes am so thick headed that I can't see or hear what is being told to me. It is like I go up and hit my head against the proverbial brick wall, then wonder why I'm not getting anywhere.

For some time now, I have been trying to figure out what the next step is in my life. I have felt bored, unchallenged and stagnant. Nothing has giving me meaning for the most part and I'm more than ready for a change. I finally told the angels the other day to speak louder and be more forceful because I wasn't hearing what they were trying to say.

Then I had a dream during a meditation time that I heard knocking at the door. In this time, I felt like I was supposed to be alert to something coming my way that was maybe a little out of usual. I didn't think too much more about this experience but kept my eyes open. Several days later an experience happened that really opened my eyes up.

I was on the internet and somehow stumbled across the following video of Louise Hay talking about how she started in publishing. In this video, she talked about flukes in her life that ended up being exactly what she needed to do in life. In much the same way, stumbling across this video was a fluke that feels exactly like my next step - writing my book.