Do you see a goblet or vase in the middle? Do you see the profile of two apes or monkeys?
This vase/face image is a metaphor I have been using for differentiating between our will, which is based on survival, and our wisdom, which is based on our higher values.
I have created a meditation using this metaphor to help connect with our inner wisdom. This is particularly useful when faced with a decision we need to make or when we need guidance about an issue that we are feeling confused or worried about.
Let me use an example from my life to demonstrate how this meditation can be used.
My 92-year-old mother-in-law recently moved to assisted living. She was having trouble adjusting to this move and was experiencing high levels of anxiety along with some mental confusion and depression. She lives in Florida. I wanted to go out and help her, but I felt conflicted and confused. She has six sons (no daughters), and I did not want to step on their toes by going out. The trip takes time and money to make. I was unsure if I would be a help or a hindrance, and I could not tell if she wanted me to come out.
My will represented trying to please everyone and my concern about money and time. It kept me going round and round. I wanted to eliminate the threat and make the “right” decision.
I did this meditation, and within a few minutes, I got a very clear answer: “She needs some feminine energy; go.” After the meditation, I could feel the love and caring manifested in going to see her.
Nothing is wrong with our will; it can help us persevere when needed, but it can cloud our ability to get in touch with our wisdom.
Here is a recording of this Inner Wisdom Meditation. You can stop it at any time if you need more time.
Inner Wisdom Meditation
Did you try the Inner Wisdom Meditation? How did it work for you?
Last week, reading the entertainment section of the newspaper, I noticed a grass roots band that looked interesting was playing this weekend at the Green Center. Since the pandemic, my husband Doug and I haven’t been to a live music venue and we were overdue, so I asked him to get tickets. It felt like a risky thing to do. Doug can be over-frugal, and I didn’t want to end up in the cheap seats, using my binoculars to see the musicians. But I framed it as an exposure, welcoming the uncertainty of what he’d decide.
As it happened, he surprised me by getting premium seats. He’d stretched himself and let go of a few more bucks than felt comfortable to him. Alas, in life, you don’t always get what you pay for. The view from the seats Doug picked out on the seating chart was partially blocked by the seats in front of us. Both our monkey minds howled in unison. A mistake! We made a mistake!
It took a minute to remember that this was actually a golden opportunity. Here are three ways mistakes are good for us.
When we make a mistake, it is an opportunity to practiceself-compassion, a chance to choose forgiveness rather than blame. The more compassion we have for our own failings, the more we’ll have for others.
With every mistake we have an opportunity to practice accepting loss. While losing can be painful and disappointing, since it’s part of being human, we need to be willing to feel what it brings. That’s the only way we recover from loss.
Mistakes are how we learn and grow. When we try something new, or not good at, we’re not going to get it right the first time. We can measure how much we’re growing by the mistakes we make.
Once Doug and I forgave ourselves for our mistake (1) and accepted that we didn’t get the view we hoped for (2), we thoroughly enjoyed the concert. And when another concert comes along, we want to see, we will have learned a little more about picking good seats, as well as how to enjoy ourselves should they turn out to be not what we hoped for (3).
The next time you make a mistake, whether tripping on the stairs, forgetting someone’s name, or something more serious, practice self-compassion and pat yourself on the back. Remind yourself that since we’re all inherently fallible, losses are acceptable. Of course, you could have stayed in bed, and avoided the mistake, but what would you have learned from that? Plan to make some more mistakes tomorrow. You just can’t make enough of them!
When it comes to new year’s resolutions, we often start out with enthusiasm and resolve, only to find it fading within a few short months. One of the reasons for this is we focus too much on the end goal, for example “lose 10 pounds”, “organize our garage”, or “run 5 miles”. When we focus so much on our end goals, we often miss out on two very important things.
The Journey
One of my goals is to scan my photos and organize them into online albums, something that my family will be able to share in the future. However, when I think about doing it, I feel overwhelmed. There are so many photos, this will take hours. When I do manage to get started, I feel impatient with the process and only satisfied if I complete an album.
When I focus on the goal of finished photo albums, I miss out on the journey of looking through the photos, enjoying them, and reflecting on the time they were taken. Without those pleasures, my enthusiasm for the project fades, and I’m running only on grim resolve.
Committing to the goal of your new resolution means committing to the journey as well. If the trip to get where you want to go sounds like a grind, perhaps there is a way to get there that inspires you as well. To help you find that inspiration, ask yourself, what are the personal values that my journey might honor?
Personal Values
In my case, there are several values that might inspire me to be more present for my journey with the photo albums. Fun, creativity, and love come to mind. And when I feel the urge to keep going “just to get it done” I might turn to other values like flexibility, self-care and patience. Practicing my personal values is what keeps me coming back again and again.
To live a life of value, we must allow our values to inform how we live. In the busyness of our lives, it’s easy to lose track of what we value, and this year is a wonderful time to remind ourselves what they are.
Here is a list of core human values. When you think of this next year, what values would you like to live by?
PEACE HONOR TRUST SPONTANEITY FORGIVENESS CONNECTION PLAY FLOW
Pick three to five that you really resonate with. Write them down.
How do these values tie into your goals for 2021?
I would recommend writing your values down somewhere that you can be reminded of them. We so often lose sight of what is truly important to us.
Resolving to live by our values can motivate us to reach or goals, but more importantly, they help us appreciate the journey. It is the journey, not the destination, where most of life takes place.
A CBT colleague of mine wrote a powerful piece called Thoughts Anonymous Philosophy, applying a 12 Step model that address our inability to control our thoughts. I found it inspiring and I hope you do too. ~ Jennifer
“What is Thoughts Anonymous?
“Thoughts Anonymous”is a philosophical movement that is both psychological and spiritual, emerging from the simultaneous principles of evidence-based Psychology and 12 Step Recovery Programs.1
Like alcohol (AA); food (OA); and people (CoDa), thoughts are prevalent and something we must navigate around. Are thoughts, therefore, to be regarded as a substance? Perhaps. Just as the addict can’t completely “control” their addiction, the thinker can’t completely “control” their thoughts. And when thoughts yield more influence than our hopes or intentions, our lives become unmanageable. For those who have experienced difficulty with our thoughts, we turned to the guiding principles of Thoughts Anonymous. We admitted we were powerless over thoughts, and that our minds had become unmanageable. We then came to choose Reality as a power greater than our thoughts – a power that could restore us to sanity.” Continue Reading…
I have always been intrigued by the Tiny House movement, fantasizing about what it would be like to live with less, embracing simplicity. Well, now I get to live my fantasy, at least for a couple of months. My husband and I are renting a very small cottage—less than three hundred square feet—while we wait for the condo we lost to the Tubbs wildfire to be finished, and I am excited! The home we are moving into, though tiny, has a simple elegance and its surrounded by gardens and oaks. I place a high value on living with less and creating more simplicity, but actually doing it is a challenge in our materialistic society. Here’s my chance!
This past week we have been packing up what we’ve accumulated in the past two years, and despite our intention toward mindful purchasing, damn, we have a lot of stuff! Recently I read about Project 333, where you whittle down your wardrobe to 33 items of clothing, including shoes, (excluding underwear), to wear for three months, after which you can swap out. Since there is only a very tiny closet for both my husband and I to share, I’ve signed on to Project 333. Going through my closet, I filled two large plastic garbage bags with clothes to store away and still was twenty items over! I had to fill one more smaller bag to get under the limit of 33.
I am also scared! The refrigerator is dorm size, there is no washer or dryer, and there are no doors to shut other than to the one bathroom. I love my own privacy and personal space but I’m determined to be open to the frustrations, loss, and disruption I expect to encounter, just as open as I am to the simplicity, beauty and unexpected joys I expect to encounter. This is the stance I want to cultivate in my life. By intentionally choosing this challenge I hope to develop a sense of peace and presence that doesn’t depend on the size roof I have over my head.
Do you care to join me? Not living in the tiny house of course! I mean to join me in choosing to live with less this month. Here are a few tiny adventure ideas you could try for 30 days:
You could join me in Project 333 Clear out your fridge and only use ½ of the space. Put away half of the gadgets on your kitchen counter, or work desk. Put away a dozen decorations that you have around your house. Put away the kitchen utensils you rarely use. If you have children, you might include them in this experiment and have them pick out 30% of their toys to store away for one month.
If you choose a tiny adventure of living with less, please post your comments!
Since the Tubbs fire in 2017 my husband and I have been asked many times if we planned to rebuild. We knew from the start that we would rebuild, because our home was a condominium and since we did not own the land it was on, this was our only option. What we didn’t know was whether we wanted to sell it or move back into it once it was built.
I have always been a decisive person, knowing what I want and going for it, but these past 18 months I have zig-zagged all over the place. I changed my mind so many times that I started to qualify my answer to the question of what our plans were, saying, well, today we want to live in a tiny house, but this could change by tomorrow or next week. Yes, at one crazy moment we actually mused about a tiny house, as well as a work/live apartment, buying a lot and building new, a manufactured home, another condominium, even two studios. What I learned was I just didn’t know what I wanted for certain, and over time, I grew more comfortable with this.
We are currently planning to move back into what we call “our new old house”. Building finally started in February and we went on our first tour of the new construction this week. It was exciting and felt real that we are going to have our own home back, maybe by as soon as December!
Having made this decision, at least for now, has opened the door to dozens of new decisions about just about everything other than the floor plan. What kind of cabinets, flooring, fixtures, fireplace, paint color, drywall, railings? The list goes on and on. I can get stressed out about it, when I let me monkey mind do the thinking for me, it sounds a like this:
You had better make the right decision about the fireplace or you will regret it. Maybe you should have upgraded the drywall to be smooth. Spending $5,000 on cable railing may be a mistake. You might regret not having done all the upgrades when you see your neighbor’s condo and it is nicer than yours. All this new carpet and paint, what will the off-gassing be like? You might move back in and poison yourself!
The last one started after I got a headache in a friend’s brand new house in Coffey Park after being there for one hour. It‘s my new worry de jour.
The truth is I can’t know if we are making the right decision about anything. What I am sure about, is the more I can accept not knowing for sure what’s best, the more relaxed I feel. My decision to accept uncertainty is the only right decision I can make. It’s the decision that will ultimately bring me the most peace and happiness.
If I change my mind next month, and decide I want to live in a yurt, I’ll let you know!
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