12-23-16 Patience is something I've been meditating on lately in relationship to stillness. I am both good and not good at being patient...it depends on the context I suppose. I'm currently working on a couple projects and really want the work to be done, but feedback I'm getting suggests some further refinement, so I'm reminding myself I need to be patient and focus on getting it right because that's what will matter most. That can be hard for me. Conversely though I can be patient for years and years, waiting for the right moment to make something happen. I learned that early in life, because I had to bide my time due to circumstances where I had little to no control. So meditating on patience makes me appreciate how patience can be its own form of stillness, the potential waiting for the right moment to be unleashed and realized.
12-30-16 I've been continuing to relax into stillness. Some feelings that have come up, as happens, but what I've done is relax into them as well. I think in no longer trying to seek stillness, but instead just opening myself to it, its made a significant difference in the meditation. I also decided to reread The True Source of Healing, because I recognized that I needed to read through it once and then read it again, but engage the exercises. Sometimes that's a good approach to take with a book, and this is one such book. And when anxiety comes up around some of the current work I'm doing in my business, I'm opening up about that anxiety and then letting it go. I'm being patient and working my process.
1-8-2017 The last couple of days I've hit this place of perfect stillness, where my mind and body are at ease and the emotions are present, but everything is still. I know better than to actively seek that experience now. If it happens it happens and if it doesn't I'll work with whatever does come up.
1-12-17 In the last couple of months I've been opening up a lot to Kat and sharing my anxieties and fears with her. I've never done this with anyone else, at least not to the degree that I'm being open with her. It's hard, because my natural tendency is to put on a front and pretend like nothing is wrong, but I realize how toxic that tendency is for me and how it keeps people at arm's length instead of letting them in where they can help and support me. Last month I asked what a safe relationship is and I realize a safe relationship is a relationship where each person can completely share themselves with the other person...where everything is out in the open, where difficult issues can be discussed and resolved without having to wait for them to show up in other ways.
And all of this seems to enhance the stillness as well, because everything is out in the open, no longer clogging up the inner space. It's hard being open, but its smart as well and the long term benefits speak for themselves.
1-18-17 I'm reading The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown. It's gotten me thinking a lot about love and belonging, and makes me wonder if I shouldn't revisit working with the element of love, because of how she defines love. She explains that love is something we grow and cultivate as opposed to give or get. She also explains that belonging is when we share out authentic, vulnerable self with the people around us. Her definition of love really makes sense to me...it decommercializes love and turns it into something humane, something we really need, because in a lot of ways love is treated as a this for that venture, when in reality genuine love is about growth and cultivation, protection and connection. I think this could change my relationship with love, specifically in regards to how I love myself, because the author makes some great points about self love and how we treat ourselves...namely that if we wouldn't be so hard with someone why be that way with ourselves.
1-21-17 I've been continuing to work my way through The Gifts of Imperfection. The author talks about the difference between shame and guilt. Guilt is feeling bad about an action you've done, whereas shame is saying you are bad. And when I look at my relationship with feeling worthy or lack thereof, the more I realize so much of what I've felt is shame...that feeling of I'm bad. And its easy to find the origins of it, but the real question is what do I do about it? The author's suggestion is to be open about what you feel shame about, to communicate and connect because then you find where you belong. And I've been doing that a lot more, sharing and connecting with Kat about whatever is going on with me.
In its own way this is a form of internal work. Part of what the author shares is the importance of building up shame resilience, where you are able to identify the physical sensations you associate with shame and then make different choices. Part of it is figuring out what your courage is, what calls you to be courageous in the face of shame. In my case, that's opening up about what I'm feeling instead of keeping it to myself. The stillness work has been helpful in this regards because I've been using it to help me identify my the physical sensations. To discover our own worthiness we have to know how to identify when we feel unworthy and then make a conscious choice instead of reacting to it.