Category: gifts of the heart

Finding Peace Amid Chaos: A Personal Reflection

At the end of October or beginning of November, I can’t quite remember, I retreated from the world. I needed time to be quiet and find the stillness within me. I needed to be peaceful and focus my attention on what my heart was telling me. My mind is always busy thinking about my family, friends and events in the world. I do my best to live in gratitude and to be kind, still I am human. I can have moments of frustration and deep and abiding anger at what I see and hear about what is happening around the world these days. Even in the lovely seniors apartment building where I live I hear about in fighting among the residents. They complain about the silliest things instead of feeling grateful for all we are given here. So I needed to take a break from it all.

It has been a deeply personal time of reflection and contemplation. Doing my best to stay in the present moment. I go to bed every night with love in my heart giving thanks for all the many ways I am graced with a good life. I wake up in the morning grateful for a new day to begin again. We can only live one day at a time so that is what I have been practicing. Being a deeply spiritual person I find hope, peace, joy and love in so many places. At the same time, I experience the crushing blow of violence in and around each of us as we walk in this world that is full of despair and misery.

I have to be honest with you all. I have been deeply affected by the story of Michele and Rob Reiner’s death this week. It weighs heavy on my heart. Not because they were celebrities because they were honest, kind and loving human beings who walked in this world bringing a message of hope to all who needed to hear it. Still they were met with a violent death at the hands of a son who they loved and tried tirelessly to help. This is not just their story. It is the story of humanity. It is how we are hurting and killing each other every day without even realizing it, because we can not see past the dark side of our humanity and into the light of Love from which we are all born.

In the quiet of my own home and in the stillness of my heart I pray every day for the people of the world who are painfully unaware of how their thoughts and feelings are impacting all of humanity. We are all connected. I truly believe and trust in that knowing. I can not love my neighbour without also loving my enemy. I can only love myself when I am able to accept with grace the Love that comes to and through me from my higher power. That is the light that shines in the darkness. That is the light that comes to us each year at this time. The longest and darkest day of the year is coming up very soon. Then the light will begin to return. We are all called to carry that light within us and shine it in the world wherever we are and in whatever we do.

This year I have had a different experience of what it means for me to be celebrating the season of Advent and soon Christmas as a Christian. I have been reflecting on the story of the nativity. The story of travelling toward the moment and place where Love and innocence are born into the world at a time of great upheaval. I have also been reviewing the events reported about the life of Jesus as he lived the human experience. In these stories I have seen my own story reflected. I have seen the story of what it means to be both human and holy. I see how we are called to stand up and challenge those dark forces that no longer carry the light of Love. When I hear and read stories of violence and overpowering condemnation, I find myself falling on my knees in prayer. Help me see through the darkness, I pray. Help me see through to the light of each human being who has been crushed and traumatized to the point that they can no longer experience anything but hatred, pain and a need to violate all that is good in this world. Then I pray for every soul on this beautiful Earth. I pray for the Peace that passes all understanding. I pray that Love surrounds us all and brings hope where it is most needed. I pray that everyone’s heart is opened to receive the gift that is theirs to receive.

So dear reader, whether you celebrate the season of Christmas or take time to reflect on whatever this time of year means for you, may you find what you are looking for. May you experience the gift of Love in its many forms. May you know Peace in your heart trusting in the Light to guide you along life’s path in the coming year. May all be well in your world. Many blessings to you.

Posted on by Beth 4

Waiting: A Journey through Darkness to Light

There are days when the skies are filled with clouds and the sun is hidden behind them.  Some days are darker than others, still when the clouds disappear the sun shines forth and I am lifted up. I am sure many of us are.

What does that mean exactly, lifted up!  Well to me it means seeing something beyond the obvious.  It means allowing the darkness to be illuminated and the wisdom of my heart to be seen and felt within my very being.

Now this is not just a physical phenomenon it is a spiritual experience.  It can happen in the darkest hours of the night or on a cold and snowy day when the winds are blowing so hard you can barely see two feet in front of you.

How and why is this such an enlightened experience then?  Do we have to be experiencing the “dark night of the soul” in order to recognize the wisdom that shines through that darkness?  Or is it something we can access anytime anywhere we choose to?  This is question mystics have been asking and answering for centuries.  We are all Spiritual beings first and foremost and so when we can find our way to trusting in that knowing then we are on our way home. 

Shining a light into the darkest regions of our hearts can be difficult at best and darn right impossible at the very least.  Often we don’t even know where those dark corners are hiding until we come up against a memory or a physical sensation that tells us we have landed on something that needs to be addressed.   What I know from my own experience is when I shine a light in those regions of my being I am not doing it alone.  I have experienced more than once the hand of what I call God taking my hand and leading me as well as comforting me along the way.

It is not always easy to explain what this looks or feels like for me, still I know it to be true.  I can shift my thoughts away from sorrow and sadness to love and compassion on the turn of a dime if I am connecting in that moment.  It is not always that easy though.  Still at times it can be.  Learning the process of mindfulness is one of the best ways I know of to shift gears and learn how to be present with all that is presenting itself in any given moment.

Still there are many moments when my heart is aching and my mind is telling me that I have every reason to be sad, angry or disappointed.  It is in those moments that I need to take a step back and look at myself from the perspective of one who is witnessing myself in pain.  It is not a problem to be solved.  It is simply an observation of something that is happening in the moment.  Sometimes it only takes a few minutes for me to see myself in a different light.  Other times it takes days even months to move through that dark time and find the light on the other side.

This is the value and joy of having a human experience.  To be able to eventually shift our way of seeing what is before us and finding the diamonds sparkling in the sawdust of all that has been working away at us over time.  Psychologists may argue that the dark regions are there because of the negative experiences we have had up until that moment we see them differently.  They may be right.  I have had many experiences that I have reframed over my lifetime and others that I can not let go of.  They are painfully resting in my heart waiting for me to let go and let God take them over.  

Hanging on to such negativity is, in a way, a form of self protection.  As long as I remember what it feels like to be so hurt or angry or even fearful then I am somehow protecting myself from it happening again.  If only that were true.  The reality is that as long as I hang on to all the pain I am only reliving the original experience over and over again.  So I am learning more and more how to live in the now and live through the pain until it is no longer hurting me.  It becomes a story that I can tell and has no particular affect on how I am feeling now.  This is something that I truly believe comes with the aging process.  It is a way of looking at the world and my life in context of what is now rather than what was then.

I learned to be more consciously aware of my human shortcomings when I was caring for my aging mother and my young children.  My mother talked over and over again about all the ways she was hurt in the past by family members.  She could not let it go and so everyone around her was forced to listen to her ongoing rhetoric about all the times she was ignored or left with no support when she was going through difficult times. Finally she cut herself off from her family all together.  At the end of her life, my sister and I were the only ones left who she was talking to and our children of course.  

As I age I am determined not to be the same way with my family members.  I am not sure how successful I am in that regard still I am doing my best to be present to what is now and to take responsibility for whatever I am feeling at any given point in time.  

Being an aging parent I hold a certain expectation of my children which they may or may not be able to live up to.  They don’t know what those expectations are neither do I know what their expectations are of me.  Unless we have the conversation which for us is damn hard I may go to my grave wondering what I could have done differently or how I would liked to have been treated differently.  

Ultimately, it is for us to make peace within ourselves and leave no stone unturned until we are assured that we have done the very best we could at any given point in time.  By then the light will shine for us in all the corners of our hearts so that Love can prevail above all else.  That is how I want to leave this world some day.

Posted on by Beth 5