Smokey Mirror

I know christians as well as atheists who stick to their principles with ardour. They have taken a stand and will not budge. Not when there’s evidence pointing in the other direction, not when an inner voice whispers there might be an other side to their truth. It is their way or the highway.
I was one of them. I was afraid to see the evidence and to hear that inner voice, because I feared my life would collapse if the foundation was taken away.  It did, but under the remnants I discovered another foundation. I discovered me.
The real me doesn’t know for sure if there is a higher power, what it is like or if it affects my life. What I know is that I feel it’s presence in everything. Maybe, my mind is playing tricks on me. I don’t care. It may not be logical, but it makes sense to me to believe I am a spiritual being having a human experience, to believe I am part of something bigger, to believe the journey continues after this life. I may not believe everything that is written in the scriptures, but it makes sense to me that a higher power cannot be captured by human vocabulary. You may think I’m fooling myself. You may think I’m no true believer. Maybe.
I ask you to consider that your beliefs are … well… beliefs, that whatever you believe, you have chosen to believe. So, until this great Mystery is solved,  I choose to believe what makes sense to me. I listen to my heart and follow that inner voice …

I thought that my voyage had come to it’s end
at the last limit of my power, - that the path before me was closed,
that provisions were exhausted
and the time come to take shelter in a silent obscurity.

But I find that thy will knows no end in me.
And when old words die out on the tongue,
new melodies break forth from the heart;
and where the old tracks are lost,
new country is revealed with its wonders.

Rabindranath Tagore

“I’m a woman, I should be able to bear children.” I heard a woman say who is physically unable to have children naturally or through IVF. I am deeply sorry for her, not only because she cannot fulfil a lifelong dream, but also because she is not willing to let go of that dream. She feels cheated by nature, by God and she’s angry about it. I can understand that. She believes giving birth is her birthright. She cannot accept this is beyond her call. She is fighting a fight she cannot win and is depending her happiness on something she cannot control.
In everything, she sees reminders of the children she should have. She says she feels stuck. I am not surprised and am afraid she will for the rest of her lifeif she doesn’t drop the ‘shoulds’. Been there, done that. Different subject, same should. I can tell her it’s a dead-end. Instead, I have learned to see my life as it is, to change the things I can change and accept those I cannot. I have learned that in some circumstances, my power lies in how I cope with them. I have learned that choosing a different perspective changes the way I feel about them. I have learned this choice is my birthright. I have chosen to count my blessings, become pregnant with hope and have given birth to happiness. With all my heart, I hope she will too.

Trying to live each day as if it were your last, seems awfully tiring to me. Frustrating too. I mean, if I had only one day left, I certainly wouldn’t bother cleaning my house or paying the bills. Yet in order to live a balanced life, be happy, it is also necessary to those things you don’t like.
Although, I refuse to see this day as my last day, I live my life as if death were around the corner. This means I’m aware of my mortality, but it also leaves room for the future. It gives me focus. I try to enjoy every moment to the fullest and be grateful for everything I experience, so I will have lived a full life. I try to keep the end in mind and make choices that reflect my values, so I will have done what matters to me. I try to do my best and learn from my mistakes, so I will have no regrets.
And if this were my last day…? I would organise a goodbye party to celebrate my life, to tell everyone in person how they enriched my life and how thankful I am for their presence in my life. While writing, I realise I don’t do that enough. I make the decision that from today on, I will tell the people in my life how appreciative I am of them on a regular basis, so that when I die suddenly everyone will know for sure I have loved them. 

‘Two battleships assigned to the training squadron had been at sea on maneuvres in heavy weather for several days. I was serving on the lead battlship and was on watch on the bridge as night fell. The visibility was poor with patchy fog, so the captain remained on the bridge keeping an eye on all activities.
Shortly after dark, the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported, “Light, bearing on the starboard bow.”
“Is it steady or moving astern?” the captain called out.
Lookout replied, “Steady, captain,” which meant we were on a collision course with that ship.
The captain then called to the signalman, “Signal that ship: We are on a collision course, advise you to change course 20 degrees.”
Back came a signal, “Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees.”
The captain said, “Send, I’m a captain, change course 20 degrees.”
“I’m a seaman second class,” came the reply. “You had better change course 20 degrees”
By that time, the captain was furious. He spat out, “Send, I’m a battleship. Change course 20 degrees.”
Back came the flashing light, “I’m a lighthouse.”
We changed course. ”

Frank Koch – Proceedings, the magazine of the Naval Institute
as cited in The 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey

While I was riding my bike, I saw this woman walking behind a stroller. She smiled at me. She looked happy. I smiled back somewhat automatically, because all I could think of was her hairdo. So eighties!
As I had passed her it struck me that because I had been passing a judgement on her, I had not been able to reciprocate her kindness. This holier-than-thou attitude blocked my vision. I didn’t  see her as she really was, because I was focussed on what I thought she should be like. It blocked my empathy, as this experience was all about me. Being judgmental impedes humanity. From now on I’ll focus people’s forte. I’ll concentrate on  smiles instead of hairdos.

This week, a friend came by my house unexpectedly. It was a mess. He walked through my living room a few times, sighing with relief. He was so happy my house could be a pigsty too. I felt horrible. As my friend was celebrating the mess in my living room, I was doing my utter best to convince him this was not normal. Everything would be normal within an hour, clean and tidy. Although he clearly felt more at ease with me now he knew I was only human, I was trying hard to uphold this image he had had of me. I was under the spell of perfection.

For most of my life, I’ve been under it’s magic charm. I was led to believe that if people got to know the real me, they would not love me. So I desperately tried to live up to this self-created picture perfect image. Up to the point where I could not separate myself from the image I had created. I was all tangled up. I had to learn I could not please every one, had to learn I did not want to live up to everyone’s expectations. The best I could do was doing my best at being me. In doing so, I somehow have broken the spell and slowly have got to be me again. But sometimes I stumble upon a part of me that is still living under that vicious spell called perfection. When I spot it, I look my demon in the eye and murmur my counter spell over and over again: perfection is boring, perfection is boring, perfection is boring, perfection is…

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott – from Collected Poems 1948-1984

At this moment in her life, this was perfect for her, said a woman living in an apartment of 23 m2 (about 250 ft2) in the West-Village, NYC. Maybe one day she would love a penthouse with a roof terrace, but for the moment she wouldn’t want it any other way.  It raises a question: How much do you need to be happy? Do you really need that extra pair of shoes, that bigger house? How long before you would want more? Really, what would it take?  Imelda Marco’s shoes? Buckingham Palace?

This year, I’ve come to understand that if you’re not happy with where you are and what you have in this moment, all the shoes in the world or the largest house on earth will not make you happy. I repeat: will not make you happy! You will always be in search for more. Life will never be good enough.  Ask yourself: would you rather be happy now or in a year? Well, what are your waiting for? Choose to be happy right now. Love who you are. Be grateful for what your have. And enjoy what you do. Everything else will come naturally…

As someone paid me a compliment on this weblog, I felt this deep kind of relief. Although, I loved what I was doing, sometimes was even amazed at what I had written, I had been anxious on some level. Deep inside, I apparently needed someone else to affirm my worth. Why do I still hunger someone else’s approval? Why can I not validate in my own feelings of worth? Why do I find it so hard to have confidence in me?  I blame it on my inner-critic, that mean little voice in the back of my head that always makes snide remarks. Over the years, she’s taken so much power, it doesn’t leave any room for inner-praise. Of course, I’m the main culprit here. I somehow tend to believe my inner-critic and be suspicious of inner-praise. But then I wondered: don’t we all?
Our inner-critic seems to be nothing more than the sum of negative voices we’ve been exposed to when growing up: criticizing comments of our parents, teachers and even of that bullying classmate. But I am not that kid anymore. I’ve grown up. I have learned criticism is rooted in fear.  So why do I still listen to that frightened little voice? Why do I give any credit to some out-dated coward?  Honest? I wouldn’t know.
In my life, I have no room for nagging friends or draining relationships. Life is too short. Why would I allow the most important relationship I have (with myself) to be ruined by such a tyrant. I won’t. Anymore. Today, I’ve declared war on self-terrorism. I have given my inner-terrorist an ultimatum: Either she is with me or against me. Friend or foe. If she’ll keep terrorising me, I’ll hunt her down and smoke her out.

It’s up to me to give life meaning – I don’t expect others to give it meaning for me. I create my own reality.

Deepak Chopra – Success Cards

I was this investigative, independent toddler, the happiest kid you can imagine. I can still vividly remember playing in the sand pit making mud pies, riding my bike, walking to school. In those memories colours are bright and it seems as if the sun is always shining, even on rainy days, as they too were special. At the age of 6, we moved from one side of the country to the other. I was eager with anticipation, but no one had prepared me for the changes life was about to bring. As the new school year started, I literally felt dislocated. All of a sudden, I deeply missed my former life. I did not learn how to cope well. I had a hard time making new friends. My self-esteem and everything else went spiralling down.

It took me more than 20 years to realize the sun could shine as bright again as it did in my memories, that I could be happy again, that I could be me again. I had been reliving on a daily basis what had happened to me between age 7 and 11. I learned that I didn’t have the right coping skills back than. As sad as it was, I couldn’t change that. What I could change, however, was the way I coped with my past in the present. This was a turning point in my life.

Everyone responds differently to life’s challenges. Some have learned to cope better than others. But every day offers new opportunities to sharpen those skills, to see the bright side of life, to be happy, to be you.

Yesterday, I cleared up my inner basement. It was a dump. I couldn’t even move around.  Without realizing, I had held on to a lot of beliefs I just didn’t need any more. I keep yearly spring cleanings, so I was under the impression my mind was not too cluttered. But in stead of tossing old beliefs, I had apparently been storing them in the basement, because I found heaps and heaps of them. Newer beliefs on top of older ones. I couldn’t belief I had been holding on to so much broken records. What had I been thinking?!
So, I lined up everything I found on the driveway. I walked by all these beliefs, looked at each belief and decided in a split second if it was still useful or not. I guess about 95% went to the local dump. The other 5% I organized neatly on some shelves.
All mess is distracting. A cluttered mind as much as a cluttered house. Energy can’t flow freely there. You may say: what you can’t see, isn’t there. But you know, the point is: you know it’s there! You may say:  it doesn’t bother me. Then I’ll say: O yes it does, you just don’t know it, because you have never consciously lived a clutter free life. Clutter holds you back. So, just clear up one area of your mind and you’ll be amazed at the how good it feels to move freely through your thoughts, to clearly see what you’re thinking and to simply enjoy being there. You decide who’s in charge: some bunch of old beliefs and habits or YOU. It’s your mind, you claim it!

On the news, I saw a man who was $14.000 in debt. Due to the  increasing interest, his monthly mortgage costs had increased by $700. Yet, he was very reluctant about selling his house. He didn’t want to go back, he said. Back to what, I wondered. Why was he holding on to a house he so obviously couldn’t afford? It was clear that this was about more than just a house. What was he afraid of losing if he sold that house? It seemed as if his self-esteem was linked to this structure of wood. He was even willing to get more indebted to hold on to this false sense of security. 

How about you? Have you built your self-esteem on fleeting things like success, good looks, health or even a house. How far would you go to keep the picture perfect? How would you feel about yourself if you lost your ‘house’?

I have learned that true self-esteem comes from self-love. Ask yourself: which parts of yourself do you need to accept, before you can love yourself? Why can’t you simply accept these parts and what will it take for you to accept them? Work through the answers. Have patience and most of all: have compassion on yourself. Then one day, when you’ll lose your ‘house’, you’ll be able to stand tall, accept the challenge and move forward.  Then you’ll know that a house is a house is just a house.

Are you living your life in the fast lane? To busy to smell the roses?  Give yourself a break. How about just 15 minutes a day, to begin with… Switch of your cell, laptop, i-pod, kids, anything that might distract you. Treat yourself to some peace and quiet. Forget about all the things that need to be done. Just be, daydream a little, stare outside, count your heartbeat, follow your breath. Practice doing nothing. This might feel somewhat uncomfortable at the beginning, as you are addicted to the rush, but give it a try. Set yourself the goal to sit still 15 minutes a day for the next 21 days. That’s the time it takes to instil a new habit. Try it and see how your perspective on life changes, getting clearer every day. You’ll love it!

‘Don’t aim at success – the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run – in the long run, I say! – success will follow you precisely because you forgot to think about it.’

Viktor E. Frankl

Preface to the 1984 edition of Man’s search for meaning

Yesterday, while watching a conversation between Oprah and Gary Zukav, I finally grasped the true power of intention. I’ll try to recapture the essence of what they said.

Spirituality is about  fixing yourself.  Part of your spiritual growth is to understand that all your experiences are self-created. You have to accept that you are responsible for those parts of your life that are not working. You create your experiences by your intentions. How can your intentions create your experiences? An intention is the underlying motivation, conscious or unconscious, of every choice you make. Why do you want what you want? It is the first act of creation. Intentions can be based in fear or in love. This determines the outcome of what you create. Fear creates painful experiences (the ultimate fear is not being good enough), while love creates constructively. In order to grow, you have to heal those parts of your life that don’t work by becoming aware of  the intentions that created those painful experiences. Being aware of your emotions allows you to identify the parts of your personality that need to be fixed. You need to focus on the emotions you are experiencing when your buttons are pushed and work through them.

You need to be aware that every choice, however small and seemingly unimportant, has an underlying intention/motivation which determines the consequences. Your intention creates your reality. To create constructively, your intentions must be based in love. Therefore, you need to clairify your intentions before you make a choice. For you to create constructively, your intentions need to be based in love.  To live a life of meaning and purpose, you need to know the intention for your life, so you can align your choices accordingly. Ask yourself why you are on this earth, what is your dream for your life and what is your gift you want to give to the world?