The Beauty of Silence

Picture from Markelt.wordpress.com

Have you ever felt over whelmed by all the noise in the world around you?  Whether you work in an office or in a mall, or even in your home, all kinds of noises grace your waking and sleeping moments.  WE are so accustomed to noise from our furnaces, air conditioners, children, vehicles, dogs, cats, pets, houses, and so on, that we really do not know what the sound of silence is like.

During this time, as our lives begin to change, and we must deal with our “stuff”, silence will be required.  When we hear noises, we allow our egos to distract us because we really do not want to do this work – it is hard and painful and rakes up stuff we would like to leave in the closet.  Yet, in the silence, we can pull out the images of our past and look at them objectively, without hearing that running commentary in our heads.  Yes, you can tell your Ego to go and sit on your left shoulder for the next one half hour as you quietly reconstruct sad or angry images into images that are positive, and present a level of growth that you have not remembered up to this time.

In the silence, you will hear the voice of the Angels, coaxing you along the discovery of the depths of wisdom and compassion that you were unaware of – compassion that comes from the heart and the mind.  You will have the realization that the person who seemed to cause you pain was totally unaware of their effect.  Even more surprising, in silence, you get a look at the person’s background, and you see that they are so uninformed and so uneducated that they simply had no other way of knowing how to act.  

In the silence, however, you realize that you can always choose your response to a situation.  You can choose to be angry or, as my young friend says, “conflictful”.  Or, you can choose a moment of silence to compose yourself, and to respond with silence, recognizing that all is well. 

Choose to experience silence today.

Many blessings,

Judy

Get a Grip!

Picture of person roping a heart from http://eruke.files.wordpress.com

I had a moment of clarity this morning as I walked the trail in the park with my dog.  My mind was racing with all the things that I had to do, and I was thinking about a client.  I began to imagine her getting ill and me feeling sad.  I noticed that my emotions were going into a tailspin, and my thoughts were getting increasingly dark.  I heard a voice say, “Get a grip!”

Everything stopped!  I felt peace and calmness around me.  I realized that getting a grip was not just getting a grip on one’s emotional state, it is also about getting a grip on one’s thoughts.  It is about getting a grip on going out into the future where things may happen and are unlikely to happen the way that we imagine them.

I had let myself run away with thoughts and emotions that had no basis in the present moment.  “Get a grip” means to come back to reality, and to the present.  It means still your thoughts, and still your mind. It means, take back your power!

Our thoughts, mind, and emotions sometimes seem like they are beyond our control.  To prove the point, here is a little exercise.  Try to stop your mind from thinking.  Now, read the phrase, “The Sounds of ……”.  Try it again.  Read this phrase, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's …”.  Our minds simply want to complete the phrase.

You see, our mind, which thinks all the time, really wants to be helpful.  Unfortunately, our mind has had little discipline to keep it working on positive, happy thoughts, so it simply turns to the the wave of information that it has the most on.  Most of the information that we take in from media is unhappy news or bad news.  So, our minds and thoughts automatically generate bad news scenarios.

The bad news scenario is what happened to me this morning.  Now, when I start the bad news thoughts, I say to myself, “Get a grip!”  It works!  You can change your thoughts.

Many blessings,

Judy

Which is the Dream?

I am fascinated by dreaming!  I have now taken several courses on dreaming and I have read about forty books on dreaming.  Shaman and medicine men/women believe that this world that we walk in is the dream, and that what we see in dream time is the reality.  Some of them base this belief on the fact that when several of us are in the same situation, for example, a conversation or argument, each of us will have a different view and memory of the incident.  However, if two of us have the same dream, and if we are both in it, our memories of the dream are usually the same.

The following story is quite thought provoking.  What do you think this story says?

 

This beautiful picture of dreaming is from creoleindc.typepad.com

Dreaming

The great Taoist master Chuang Tzu once dreamt that he was a butterfly fluttering here and there. In the dream he had no awareness of his individuality as a person. He was only a butterfly. Suddenly, he awoke and found himself laying there, a person once again. But then he thought to himself, "Was I before a man who dreamt about being a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly who dreams about being a man?"

Happy dreaming!

Many blessings,

Judy