Five Ways to Use Facebook as Spiritual Practice
If spiritual practice is our intentional awareness and focus on connecting to God, our hearts and our brothers then let’s link it to something we already do every day: Facebook! Recently I have heard several stories of folks who stepped away from Facebook because of some of the things that were said or posted. I would like to offer an alternative solution. Firstly, if your gut says “No more Facebook!” then listen, you very likely need some up close and personal time with your own heart. On the other hand if you are already a regular Facebook user then why not...
Read More12. Day 11: Oh! I Forgot To Mention…
I forgot to mention yesterday in my post about stepping way out of my comfort zone that the feeling of discomfort is co-mingled with a deep undercurrent of willingness, delight, wonder and empowerment. My daughter mentioned this to me on her way out the door. It is a good thing to have an accountability partner when you have taken on the practice of extending love to your thoughts (and feelings). Noticing is the first great quality of love we get to use when extending love to our thoughts. If you don’t first notice the thought or feeling or circumstance you have the thoughts and...
Read More12. Day 4: A Sensitive Issue
Extending love to feeling and feelings is a departure for me. Sure, I can extend love to thoughts all day long. Even though thoughts in this case are everything I am aware of. See, that’s the thing. I am not really aware of my feelings. I am aware of sadness, happiness, despair and crossness but feeling those things is different. I have trained myself (not very well actually) to ignore my own feelings because I have also trained myself to be acutely aware of other people’s feelings. When my daughter was ill several years ago she would put her head against mine and say...
Read More11. Day 17: Why Is Working HARD Always A Success Principle?
I will let you in on a little secret. You simply can’t hang out with the idea of success, even if fear is present, without kind of wanting to experience some version of success. This may explain why I uncharacteristically set a timer for one hour and told myself “you can clean the drawers under the washer and drier for one hour; just go for it!” Because I am really noticing exactly what spurs me on to success or what holds me back this month I have become aware of something again and again. One of the things that holds me back is what I might call fearing it all might be...
Read More11. Day 16: Extending Love To Worry
The other day I just woke up ready to cry. My saddened, sodden pile of thoughts left me feeling damp, cold, heavy and unforgiving. It took me a while to realize this feeling/thought cluster was worry. Our prolonged trip and time of rest had nearly all but wiped worry from my radar; enough so as I didn’t recognize the feeling at first. Now recognized, I saw the thoughts wanted to drag years of past responses and memories as the demonstration as to why worry was not only needed but the obvious best option. I thought to myself, “Not this time. Worry, you may stop right there, I...
Read More10. Day 29: First I Judge
My desire to judge a situation as hurtful-therefore-I-must-fix-this was revealed yesterday. I am seeing today, that the first thing that happens is that I judge a thing as hurtful to someone. I could just stop at “first I judge”, the “what I judge” is much like the “of” as in what am I afraid “of”. It is the fear itself all over again. Judgement is fear. Full stop. I could make a case for “because I am aware of this hurt I am supposed to do something about it”. The thing that eludes me is the fact that I am skipping over all...
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