In My Knowing or Betraying Myself

As I’ve wrapped up my morning meditation lately, I sometimes say this beautiful prayer that I came across a few weeks back:

“I am in my Knowing. What do I know that I could be better at living, embodying, and honoring?”

Today on a call with a client, I asked her this powerful and insightful question: How are you betraying yourself in this situation?

We all betray the self sometimes - some of us more than others.

Maybe we hold back and don’t express something that we’re called to express. Maybe we say yes when we want to say no, maybe we say no when we want to say yes.

I did that in a big way in high school. A friend asked me a question, and every part of my being was saying no. Instead, though, I looked at the steps we were walking up and said, “Yes.”

(That experience, by the way, I regretted for years. And then I learned the power of compassionate self-forgiveness and the event became one of the most beautiful and powerful lessons in how to unconditionally love myself. Related: just today I said to my 15-year-old son that regret is always a choice. He said I didn't know what I was talking about. 🤷‍♂️😂)

I don’t think self-betrayals are wrong. I don’t think they’re evil. I don’t think we’re bad or wrong or flawed when we betray the self.

There’s something holding us back sometimes, something pushing us to betray the self, something holding back the true self from fully expressing itself in being and action.

That part of us is hiding the authentic, true self from others. It could be hiding our fears or our "nastiness," but it could also be our joys and our curiosity that it’s hiding.

That part of us that betrays the self, it’s doing that for us. To protect us. To help us be liked. To keep us safe physically, or emotionally, or socially, or all of them all at once. It’s not an enemy. It’s a friend.

It's for us, it’s just a bit misguided at times, that’s all.

What do you know that you’re not living, embodying, and honoring? Where are you betraying yourself?

It doesn’t have to be big and earth-shaking. It can be small and simple too. Here are some examples:

• Habitually staying up late 

• Habitually binge watching

• Drinking that second or third glass of wine or coffee

• Smoking pot nightly

• Ignoring your alarm clock

• Not moving the body as much as you’d like to

• Not following through on your commitments to others

• Habitually watching pornography or other topics that may disturb your psyche

It needn’t be hard to live in our knowing, to be in our knowing. 

In fact, that might just be one of the key lessons in our own spiritual curriculum: to learn how to live in our knowing, to embody our knowing, to honor our knowing - at all levels of our being.

Choose: be in your knowing or betray the self.

That’s what I’m here for - in my own life and as a support for others. If you’d like support in living in your knowing and giving up your tendencies to betray yourself, schedule a conversation with me.

Much Love. ❤️

Positive Thinking Born From Inner Wholeness

I was on a mid-morning walk with a friend, sharing with him that earlier in the week, I caught myself dreading that afternoon’s teaching load. I told him that I turned my dread around into a state of empowerment.

“So," he asked, "what you do is positive thinking, right?”

“Yes,” I told him, “but it’s not usually about making up more positive things to think.”

So I told him a story…

A couple nights ago, I told him, I got out of the car feeling an uncomfortable fear and self-judgment arise. 

I went inside the house, and while making dinner I felt an urge to watch a show.

But I knew it would just distract me from what I was feeling, so I didn’t watch one.

After dinner and a bit closer to bed, I thought I’d watch my show then or read a book. Again, though, I realized that I would just be distracting myself from feeling the discomfort. 

So I went and sat on my meditation pillow instead. “Here, let me be with you,” I said to that uncomfortable part of myself. 

I sat with the feeling, relaxing my mind from its distracting analysis. And as my mind relaxed, I invited it to travel back in time to earlier experiences of that same feeling…

I was 15 years old, feeling small and hurt and alone. 

A kid behind me in class would sometimes make fun of me, telling me in an unkind way that I was going bald. 

I didn’t even like that kid, but his words poked a core wound. 

I’m not enough, I’m unworthy, and I’m unlovable - many of us have one of those, don’t we?

Now, the charged emotion of fear and insecurity was much younger than 15, but I’d never sat with that particular 15 year old before. So I sat with him and asked him to express himself - anything at all that he’d like to share.

Internally this can be tricky sometimes. The mind sometimes wants to speak for the younger parts of ourselves. But I focused on the kid and asked him, again, if there’s anything he’d like to express. 

And he told me everything he never told anyone else back then. He asked me his questions, he shared his heart and his thinking. And I was there for him in a way he never let anyone else be there for him.

He even apologized to me for the way his sadness and low feelings still show up for me today.

It was a beautiful conversation of healing, kindness, care, and support. 

As the conversation with this younger part of myself began to come to a close, I asked that part of myself this question:

“If you were no longer playing the sad, despondent, depressed role anymore, what role would you want to play?”

And the answer came immediately: “I care deeply for all people, including myself. That's the role I want to play.”

“So,” I told my friend on our mid-morning walk, “I now have this positive thought that can empower me when a particular kind of fear and despondency seems to overcome me: I care deeply for all people, including myself."

Yes it’s a positive thought, but it’s one that sprouted from a deep and authentic moment of inner wholeness.

Thank you for engaging with my writing. ❤️

A Heart at Peace in Minnesota

Despite trying hard to blame the victim, the government has backed down a little and began shifting the energy of its immigration work in Minneapolis over the last week.

Here’s why:

The latest murder victim at the hands of the government was so obviously acting from a Heart at Peace.

Whether towards others, towards ourselves, or towards the world, we always have a choice: 

Come from a Heart at Peace or come from a Heart at War.

Especially in emotional situations, over 90% of what we communicate is non-verbal. People hear our being louder than they can hear our words.

When we come from a Heart at Peace, patience, kindness, and love are present. Understanding is present. Generosity is present. Intentionality is present.

Here's a crazy thing about the Heart at Peace vs. Heart at War distinction: we can even engage in war from a Heart at Peace.

That's what Gandhi did. That's what Nelson Mandela did.

More people than ever are aware of social and environmental injustice and exploitation than ever before. We can resolve these crises much more effectively and completely from a Heart at Peace rather than a Heart at War.

Sometimes we may choose to fight, but even fighting from a Heart at Peace is a much more grounded and intentional place to engage from than fighting from a Heart at War.

Alex Pretti, the man killed by federal agents last week in Minnesota, gave his life fighting for the humane treatment of people. He did it from a Heart at Peace, and it's made a much greater impact than if he had been coming from a Heart at War.

In your relationships with your government, neighbors, kids, colleagues, spouse, and even with yourself...

Choose: Heart at War or Heart at Peace.

If you don't make this a conscious choice right now, then someone or something else in your past will be making it for you.

Much Love. ❤️