Archive for May, 2024

Hard Remarkable Compassion

Posted: May 23, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Compassion can be hard to give and confusing to receive.

Experiencing suffering, to me, is the spiritual equivalent of eating our green vegetables. The trauma that can be associated with the suffering is what makes us feel unworthy of empathy or compassion.

I am grateful for the suffering I have experienced in my life. I know that it has added value through giving me grit, toughness, endurance, patience, perspective and the wisdom that comes from living a life with the previously listed traits.

The traumatic experiences I’ve gone through, I’m not so sure I’m ready to be grateful for those yet. I’ll need more meditation, journaling sessions, help and life experiences before that gratitude comes around, if it does.

But the suffering, that really has helped me. I really am grateful for the suffering I have experienced. Getting to the other side of it and looking back on the trials by fire, molded me beneficially. Certainly for survival, for thriving, well maybe not so much. A hardened edge with layers of empathy and compassion is preferable to walking around as an open wound.

Because of suffering; I’m much more grateful for the self compassion I give myself in dark times, and exponentially more grateful to others, who extend empathy and compassion to me in trying times. People that give empathy and compassion are the real ones and in my experience are few and far between. Those are the ones to keep close and prioritize relationship nurturing.

The suffering I have experienced has made me empathetic to the suffering of others. When I see suffering written on people’s faces while they try to go about their lives and maintain normalcy and sanity, as I have, I gain instant respect for their strength and courage. It takes monumental strength and courage just to keep the train on the tracks sometimes.

Giving ourselves, and others compassion is a zero cost gesture with infinite reward. To feel a token tinge of love and appreciation in the world eases the burden of existence.

Compassion is love adjacent, and we all need more love. Compassion, empathy, love are real and we all need more real. Because real is hard, fake is easy. Indifference, harshness, and hate are easy. The strength it takes to be vulnerable and understanding to the pain and confusion experienced by ourself and others is as remarkable as it is immeasurable.

And we need more remarkable and immeasurable in this world almost as much as we need more love and understanding almost as much as we need more empathy and compassion.

We’re Not Our Thoughts?

Posted: May 16, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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We’re so conditioned to believe that we are what we think.

That who we are is our mind, our thoughts, our emotions.

Even if we aren’t taught that by our; culture, our schools, our families, our communities; and we are; it is natural to assume that. The voice in our head. The streams of thoughts and perceptions and feelings must be who we are. If not that, then what?

What does it mean to be a human being?

If we are our thoughts, our mind, then how does our hair know to grow? How does our heart know to beat? How do our lungs know to breathe? We’re not consciously doing any of that or any of the million other things that our body does on auto pilot. Try to stop breathing and see what happens.

If we are our mind then what does that mean about our dreams?

Bad thoughts and negative emotions are a normal occurrence, but if we have a certain amount of both does that mean we’re a bad person?

It was a wonderful and liberating experience when I learned that we are not our thoughts, that we are the being or the state of consciousness that recognizes our thoughts and emotions. I came across this concept from Eckhart Tolle. He isn’t the first or the last spirituality philosopher, he’s simply the one who’s message resonated and stuck with me for almost two decades now.

Wonderful and liberating, but not a miracle cure for all my ills. No such thing unfortunately. But to even get a sliver of space between by thoughts/emotions and my reaction to them was like coming up for air after almost drowning at sea.

Learning about something doesn’t equal mastery. One can know something beneficial but still do the opposite, detrimental action out of habit. I think that’s the norm actually. It certainly has been for me on my spiritual path and personal development journey.

However, it is a big help on the bad days to know that the negative thoughts are happening to me and not from me or because of me. Couple that with the classic advice of; this too shall pass, and you’ve got a one two punch to get through the tough times just a smidge easier than before.

A meditation practice helps me process and incorporate self improvement knowledge better than just passive information consumption. A journaling practice helps me embed the personal development knowledge even further. Yet I still have much work to do, many miles to go. At times, I’m still a dog chasing it’s tail.

But we all have to walk our own path. Eckhart’s teaching help take some of the self imposed pressure off, as well as the pressure our cultures forces upon us. The pressure of more more more. Do more, say more, take more, buy more.

Our culture gives us a lot to think about. Information overload is the fitting term for it. Information overload is the expressway to burnout. I’ve had textbook burnout a few times in my life. Each time it was Eckhart’s teachings that helped me find my way back to myself.

What is myself? Who am I? What was I finding my way back to? My thoughts? My emotions? My perceptions? My past? My life situation? No, none of those things.

Then who am I? How did I find myself?

By cultivating my inner awareness and spaciousness. Those are the portals to connecting with our essence, our being. We’re human beings. We’re being human.

By getting still, silent, paying attention to one’s breath or inner energy field in specific areas of the body; we can connect with our consciousness, our essence, our being.

I am so happy and grateful that I was able to realize what I am and connect with it. I still aspire to connect with my true self more frequently as thoughts, perceptions, and emotions still swallow me up from time to time. But practice makes progress. And if there’s one things I’m not getting tired of practicing, it’s remembering that I am not my thoughts and emotions, I am the awareness that witnesses them.

Namaste

The Path to Peace is Inside

Posted: May 1, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Wherever you go, there you are.

If there is one thing I have learned that I cannot get from the outside world, it’s peace of mind. I guess that’s why it’s called inner peace.

When external events are going well or are neutral, but there’s still negative thought streams with strong, negative emotions attached to them…there is one’s spiritual practice.

Can we learn to dance in the rain?

It’s hard right? Certainly not a default setting for the average human. Even someone who had a good upbringing in a two parent house hold is likely to be a slave to their moods. Mental and emotional well being is rarely if ever directly taught, one must seek it out on their own.

Is it common for people to seek inner peace when things are going well?

External things going well is the most common thing that is confused for inner peace. They’re called good times for a reason. But it is preferable to build the arc before the rain comes.

That wasn’t me. I had to suffer at great length and depth before I even thought to take action to change my mental and emotional state(s) by addressing my mental and emotional health. It was probably around the same time I started physically exercising to improve my physical appearance as well. Correlation is not causation, but there’s something more than just coincidence there.

Does one ever actually achieve a permanent state of inner peace? Boy would I love to be able to give a definitive answer on that. Unfortunately though, I am just a human being. Made up of flaws, stitched together with good intentions. But we all need goals to chase.

Meditation and mindfulness have helped me stay on something resembling the right path during dark times. Studying philosophy has helped me guide my ship through troubled waters. The combination of the two help the good times last longer, and help me savor them more.

Awareness is the way out. Meditation helps cultivate that awareness. Gratitude helps one stay on firm footing and I’ve found that philosophy helps one to move with more confidence in a beneficial direction. At the very least, the combination helps a person not make things worse when times get tough.

Peace really does have to come from and be cultivated within. I lived many years in a state of inner chaos. It’s hard to describe. Like 10% of a concussion, for an extended period of time. Some people live their entire lives in that state. It eventually drives anyone crazy who is in that state long enough.

Seeking inner peace is a quest worth undertaking. The juice is worth the squeeze. It’s both not easy and not a cure all. Because the external world will still impose it’s will on you whenever it wants, as hard and as fast as it wants. But having that inner calm, that state of inner peace, even just a little of it, even for just a little bit, is worth it’s weight in gold.