http://oshotimes.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/ever-so-lonely/

http://oshotimes.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/ever-so-lonely/

This is a concept I have written about several times...

...loving simply for the sake of the joy it brings to the lover, not with an expectation of anything in return.

It is easy to feel when you are with the one you love. It is more difficult to maintain when the relationship has ended.

I strive to live in this way. I continue to strive to live in this way even as it remains a mystery as to how to accomplish. I strive to love my aloneness so that I may love without expectation.

Western training and tradition do not prepare us for this way of relating. So we will have to be our own teachers.

IS EVERYONE STUCK?

First, let me say that, as a rule, I write what I need to hear or what I am telling myself at this precise moment. I am on the journey, too, and sometimes the path is narrow and overgrown so I need to send out an SOS to myself, to the truth I know resides in me, the truth that we all possess in our core.

Second, is anyone truly free or are we stuck?

We all have a story, as Byron Katie calls our life. Most of us seem extremely invested in it...we retell our story, we relive our story, we recreate our story, bringing old memes into our current existence...we wallow in our story.

My job is to get over my story. It is an albatross I carry around with me and - truth be told - I really had a pretty easy life. So why do I need to be so consumed with my past hurts? Why do I sometimes want to create a new hurt that takes me back into the old pain? Why is it that some people never even examine the causes for their misery and constricted lives? Why is it that some understand where the pain originates, but they hang on to it anyway? Why is it that some can have moments of freedom, but can't figure out how to live that way all the time? Why is it that some are always looking forward, creating life as they want to live it, steering their ship, never once looking out at the wake of the boat, which (as Wayne Dyer says) is not what propels the ship, but is a sign of expended energy.

Hanging on to the sadness in our lives is like watching the wake of a ship: it is putting all our emotional energy into where we have been and not into where we want to go.

If we truly believe that we were on this earth to be happy, fulfilled, loved, productive, creative and to love would we hang on to the carnage of our past? If we believe that Divine Intelligence cradles us and will lead us to this purpose, would we need to be sad? If we know that every good thing is already ours to revel in, would we choose to stay stuck? If we know that unhappiness is a fictitious emotion masking itself as our reality, would we invest in it?

You know when you go to a crazy movie, with an implausible plot, but you just decide to surrender to the experience and buy into it totally? How about this? What if we choose to do this with our life...what if we cho0se to buy into the fact that the Universe wants nothing more than for us to be euphorically blissful, loved beyond measure, prosperous and productive? What if we decide to believe that our life IS a movie, that we are the star of the show, the writer and the director?

What if we just let go of the junk we are holding on to and opened our consciousness to what we can now savor because we make room for wonderful experiences to rush in? This can be our reality...this can be my reality. The only thing that stands in the way of it is me...stubbornly hanging on to the past, picking stuck over free. The choice is mine...the choice is yours...stuck or free.

WHAT DO YOU VALUE?

I have been asking myself this question lately: "Have I truly learned anything?"

The reason for the query deals with the only two men I have given myself to emotionally. One was my husband of forty years, whom I divorced three years ago. I believed him to be the love of my life, but, for years, didn't feel he loved me as much as I loved him. We had a different language of love.

My family, not being a family of means, hugged...a lot! Not too much kissing, but

hugging, holding, touching. My former husband's family was not big on the touchy-

feely thing...they were gift givers. I can hear some of you saying, "And your problem

was what, exactly?"

My former husband could not tell me he loved me. Could not say those three words. It was so impossible for him that - on our 30th wedding anniversary - he gave me three beautiful diamonds (gift givers, remember?) and a note that said with those three stones, he would never have to say those three words I longed to hear. And, by God, he didn't.

It seemed funny at the time.

As it turned out, he did love me...probably much more than I loved him. The way he demonstrated that didn't feel like love to me...I thought the package of love would be wrapped up so differently - and I was 21 when we got married - so I didn't recognize it for what it was. He must have felt so unappreciated or misunderstood; it was so obvious to him that what he was giving me was how he was telling me of his love. Even in the most intimate of moments, I would tell him I loved him...nothing. I resented this, quite frankly. It took all the joy out of speaking the feelings I had for him and eventually those feelings were gone as well.

The second man I have loved is younger and I became involved with him two years ago. We were friends initially, but became physical partners. The sex was the kind I had dreamed of all my life and that probably intensified my feelings for him. Our bodies fit so perfectly together.

Even though I knew there was no future together, I was so saddened by the thought of never having that kind of physical relationship with another man that I would become sad even though we were seeing each other all the time.

I told him I loved him, have several times. He told me he loved me, but not the

marrying kind of love. I accept that because I know there are many different types of

love, I can't image getting married again and my desire to be with him was enormous.

Never doubt the power of good sex! But even though I wanted to tell him I loved him,

and he liked hearing it, it felt much like my marriage: me saying the words, getting

nothing back.

This second relationship has ended. I can not tell you the depth of my sadness, my sense of loss

and my heartache. So why am I writing about this?

In both cases, I have loved men who were emotionally unavailable to me...a husband who loved me,

but couldn't speak the words and a sexual partner who loved me, but not enough to say the words.

The similarities are so obvious to me. I pick men with whom I can't have what I say I want.

An unrelated conversation the day after things ended, centered around someone placing

"value" on the very dysfunctional memes that create so much unhappiness and chaos in that person's

life. It was as though I had been struck in the face.

The question I should be asking is not "Have I truly learned anything?" but rather "Do I value not feeling loved?"

If I place value in not being loved and the misery it can cause me - for whatever reason...the reasons are not a part of this discussion -

then I will continually try to create relationships that replicate this thing I have placed in such high regard.

While this is profoundly unsettling to me, perhaps the fact that the question has been rephrased, shines a

a brighter light on the heart of the matter and will allow me to break the cycle.

Reacting or Creating?

The same eight letters...A, C, E, G, I, N, R and T...but what a difference the arrangement can make!

My whole life has been one of reacting. I've even described myself as a leaf in a mountain stream: taken where the flow goes, no direction of my own, stuck behind a boulder until the current is strong enough to free me and send me on downstream. Of course, I can tell you why I think this is my modus operandi, but ultimately everyone has a story and what difference does it make. I would just be telling you my excuse. This is not to say that I thought of myself as a victim, for I did/do not. It is more a case in inertia than a case of being thwarted. The only thwarting going on is internal!

"We are the only species on Earth capable of preventing

our own flowering." David Whyte

The inertia is the result of not having a strong sense of my purpose, having no goals, having no plan of action with stops along the way, a roadmap created to get me from short term to mid-range to long term milestones. Procrastination can be a very real component to reacting...if you are always waiting, you are always delaying, putting off action. In one of Paul Chek's lectures, which you can find at www.chekinstitute.com, he talks about procrastination as being the handmaiden of a life without goals. Paul says that, without a purpose and a plan to achieve the goals that enable that purpose to be fulfilled, it is easy to procrastinate. You truly have no place to go so nothing is of the utmost importance and distractions can easily determine what your day looks like. We all have the same amount of time at our disposal...the difference is in how we structure and use that time.

"Know what turns you on so you can have lots of it in your life."

Sas Colby

Reacting is passive. Creating is active.

Creating is knowing what you want to accomplish and having a framework within which to work to achieve fruition. That is not to say that people who react don't have creative thoughts...that's what daydreaming is all about. And daydreaming is not wasted time; it is often the seminal seed of all accomplishments. But having a good thought and manifesting that into a good thing are not the same.

Creating is taking the daydream, seeing in your mind's eye how it would look in real life, listing all the steps that must be made in so that a concept can become a concrete thing, and having a time table, marking what needs to be done by when.

"Your vision of where or who you want to be is the greatest asset

you have. Without having a goal, it's difficult to score."

Paul Arden

How can you change from reacting to creating? First, want to! Second, set that as a goal for yourself. Third, determine the date by which the change will have taken place. Fourth, map out activities that take you from your current mind set to the one you are erecting in its place. Fifth, stretch your talents and skills to cross the chasm that presents itself as the impossible task at hand. Sixth, leap. Leap and the net will appear.

Lastly, share your goal and your plan with someone who wants you to succeed and has good ideas he or she is willing to bring to your table. To paraphrase the Bard, nothing is impossible but that thinking makes it so.

Create the life you wish to live by the actions you take every day.

"When you follow your bliss...doors will open where you would not have

thought there would be doors, and where there wouldn't be a door for

anyone else." Joseph Campbell

My goal is to achieve my human potential. Every day will have a structure to it: study - exercise - work with clients - do the 'grunt' work that is required to run a business - continue to explore my emotional/mental memes to see if they serve me - meditate - get coaching help if I need it. Structure my day so that I can be spontaneous in my life!

"The soul speaks in image." Carl Jung

CAN I GET A WITNESS...

...or, more precisely, can I become a witness?

Witness: (noun) -a close observer...(verb) -perceive

I'm not talking about seeing an accident or testifying in court. When I speak of becoming a witness, I am referring to a sober contemplation of an event or act or thought without judgement. I believe it is important to be able to do this not only for others, but especially for ourselves.

As we learn to become a witness for others and to our own lives, we learn to see, but not to judge...not to judge ourselves.

Our acts are no longer viewed as 'should have, could have, would have', but as did or is...no value is placed on the act. It is simply a fact. There is a quiet that comes from this simple shift. We do not invest things with hurt, anger, resentment, sadness, envy or hatred because we have stopped critiquing things. This does not mean that we are removed from life or distant emotionally. I think it allows us to invest in things more fully, without the filters that are placed over our senses by the subjectivism of individual bias.

I think that is what Bryon Katie means when she talks about "loving what is".

When we can love what is, we are not mired in the past, not shackled by judgements of ourselves by ourselves or by others. We are free to observe and plow ahead. We don't have to sugar-coat, rationalize, fantasize anything because we accept everything.

And simply do our best at whatever level that is at that moment in time.

As I witness my life in this way, I become accountable for it.

A STATE OF BECOMING

My favorite boutique flower shop sells Chrysalis every year...

...little pots of nature's jewelry and her promise. Each cocoon holds a butterfly in the stage between larva and adult. Housed safely in a celadon green case sealed with several gold "dots", the insect waits, biding it's time, until it is ready to emerge and become what it is destined to be.

When the chrysalis begins to turn black, you know that the process of '"becoming" is nearing its end. Once totally black, the butterfly sheds the cocoon and rests for up to six hours, drying its wings. Until the wings are completely dry, the butterfly can't fly. Patience is required, for to try to fly too soon would mean disaster and death.

In order for the insect to become the butterfly, this glorious home must be utterly destroyed. As with so much in life, in order to transcend to a higher level, there must be a destruction of what came before. From the ashes, emerges the Phoenix. This transformation, whether in the insect world or our own, is often violent, gut-wrenching. But the cocoon no longer serves the butterfly as it once did the insect. There is wisdom in knowing when to move on...to spread one's wings...to fly.

Trust in the process.

COULD IT REALLY BE THIS SIMPLE?

Every Sunday, the Dallas Morning News runs a short piece called "Good Kid". The blurb spotlights a high school junior or senior - sometimes a college freshman - who is just what the title would imply: a kid doing well in school, active in the community at large, and an all-around shining light.

Some of the questions asked are about hobbies, favorite school subject, two people they want to meet, best book read, best advice received, what they would do with $100 and "my goal for this year is to...".

On July 4, 2010 a recent graduate of The Greenhill School in Dallas wrote that her goal for the year is to..."continue to be happy."

Wow!

When I first read that, I thought it sounded sophomoric - every one wants to be happy, right -but, as I let the simplicity of her words sink in, I realized she had distilled the essence of life into five words..."to continue to be happy."

"Children smile 400 times a day on average...adults 15 times.

Children laugh 150 times a day...adults 6 times per day.

Children play between 4-6 hours a day...adults only 20 minutes

a day.

What's happened?"

Robert Holden (from 'Living Wonderfully')

What has happened?

As we grow up and grow older, does life beat us down so much that we lose the capacity for happiness? Or do we not truly understand what our purpose is in this life?

Objectivism is the philosophy created by the Russian-American philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand (1905-1982). Rand originally expressed her philosophical ideas in her novels 'The Fountainhead' and 'Atlas Shrugged'. The name "Objectivism" derives from the principle that human knowledge and values are objective: they are not created by the thoughts one has, but are determined by the nature of reality, to be discovered by man's mind. Ayn Rand characterized Objectivism as "a philosophy for living on earth", grounded in reality, and aimed at defining man's nature and the nature of the world in which he lives. She wrote, "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life."

What if the 'hero's journey' of each life is to be happy? If it really is that simple, a lot of us are wasting time and energy on stuff that does not matter one bit.

"We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount

of work is the same."

Carlos Castaneda (1925-1998)

American writer and Nagual (Shaman)

"People are usually as happy as they make up their minds to be."

Abraham Lincolm

"If you cannot find happiness along the road, you will not find it

at the end of the road."

Writer Unknown

'Siddhartha" is an allegorical novel by Hermann Hesse that deals with the spiritual journey of a wealthy Indian boy during the time of the Buddha. What strikes me about his journey is that by being so focused on what he was determined to find at the end, Siddhartha missed all the serendipitous beauty en route. I sometimes feel that is what contemporary man does in his life...we are so focused on attaining whatever we have placed on high that our tunnel-vision limits our joy in the everyday. The best things in life aren't things, but it would seem that we are driven to attain more and more with less happiness being the result of a frantic need to fill the void.

I write and ponder about 'happiness' quite often...I see so little of it on the faces and in the lives of people all around me. I want more of it in my own life...if happiness truly is a choice we make, why would I choose to be unhappy? Maybe I don't think I deserve to be happy.

"You cannot be thankful and unhappy at the same time."

Writer Unknown

The mind, a wonderful thing, cannot hold two different thoughts at the same time...so we must train our mind to go to a powerfully happy thought when it wants to take us in a different direction. We are the master of our thoughts; we should not let our thoughts become the master of us. But, oh how difficult that is for so many. Creating any habit, positive or negative, requires repetition. In order for a motor engram (a series of processes or commands associated with any given cognitive goal or task) to be created, there must be repetitive stimuli. It takes 300 to 350 reps to build one in the body. It may take three times that many reps to change. Contrasted with a motor engram, the Psychoneurological engram (as described by L. Ron Hubbard) is a mental image or picture of an experience, usually unhappy. stored in the subconscious mind. In order to create positive, loving, happy engrams we have to deal with and change the negative, unloving, sad ones we carry inside us.

"By remaining stuck in the power of our wounds, we block our

own transformation."

Caroline Myss

"Who would we be without our story?"

Byron Katie

Everyone has a story and everyone has been hurt. Get over it.

How do we do that?

I have gratitude as an attitude...maybe not 100% of the time, but pretty darn close. No matter how awful I may think a thing is in my life, I can name 5 to 10 things that are blessings. By the way, blessings is not a word that falls easily from my lips. I struggle with that concept: perhaps 'gifts' would be a better choice. Whatever word you choose, there are things in your life that bring you joy, make you laugh, create beauty, are filled with love, mean kindness to you. These things are often not the big, splashy things, but the small wonders...

...puppy breath, a sticky kiss from a child, the coolness of an evening breeze, a call from a friend when you are feeling blue, the warm rays of the sun as you lie on a chaise, the beauty of a freshly planted flower garden, getting into a bed with fresh linens, rack of lamb roasted just right, the crunch of cool jicama, a gluten-free macaroon, your child telling you she loves you. saying something that gives a person hope.

I don't expect life to be perfect. I expect to be given ample opportunity to learn lessons I am supposed to learn while I'm here. How fast or slow I learn is up to me. The Universe will never give up on me...it continues to present me with the chance to grow and continue along my path. I try not to beat myself up when I realize that I haven't quite gotten a lesson down pat. That is what 'practice' is all about. I do the best I can. Some days, my best is better than other days!

I have never given up on myself. The human spirit it a miraculous thing. So is resilience and I have that, too. I have taken some circuitous routes, but I have never given up on myself.

I have decided that my legacy is to just be happy. If I was supposed to be a Mother Teresa, I would probably be that by now! Legacy and purpose don't have to be such big concepts that you think they are too big to have in your own life. Purpose is what gives meaning to you in your life. Legacy is a gift you leave for others. The best thing I could do at this point in my life is to show my daughter that creating happiness for myself, from out of myself and not as a result of something someone else does or doesn't do, is huge and can have a ripple effect on everyone I come in contact with each day.

What have I got to lose?

"To get up each morning with the resolve to be happy...is to set our

own conditions to the events of each day. To do this is to condition

circumstances instead of being conditioned by them."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

So thank you, Mary Horn, a "good kid" with the right idea!