corauri

When you have the compassion that comes from understanding how it is, you don’t lay a trip on anybody else as to how they ought to be. You don’t say to your parents, “Why don’t you understand about the spirit, and why I’m a vegetarian?” A conscious being does all he can to create a space for going to God, but he does no violence to the existing karma to do it.

So you work with your fire, but not patronizingly, because you’re not superior; you’re just different.

When you understand about incarnation, and that surrounding you are beings at every level of incarnation; some of them very new beings who just started to take human forms and are very busy materially getting it together. While there are other beings around you that are very old who have been born again and again and again, and they’ve worked out an incredible amount of karma and are all ready to float back into God.

Some of the beings around you every day are very ancient beings, and some are very new. But is it better or worse? It’s just different. Is it better to be twenty years old than fifty? It’s just different. So why do you judge someone because he’s not as conscious as you are? Do you judge a pre-pubescent because he or she is not sexually aware? You understand. You have compassion.

Compassion simply stated is leaving other people alone. You don’t lay trips. You exist as a statement of your own level of evolution. You are available to any human being, to provide what they need, to the extent that they ask. But you begin to see that it is a fallacy to think that you can impose a trip on another person.

Raven is a trickster but deeply wise. Raven was sacred to Odin. Raven comes and goes as he wishes. He gives advice but often in the form of riddles or stories which require interpretation.

He is never in a hurry. He can be counted on to come when he is most needed but never comes just because he is called.

Do not confuse Raven with his cousin Crow. They are very different in temperament. In dreams Raven means far sight. Raven will show you in your dream things to come or things happening far away.

This is important. You will need this sometime and it is best to start right away.  A time will come in your life when you are terrified. When your life is on the line. When you are lost and wandering. When you face the surgeons knife. When death lurks over your shoulder. Do not be caught defenseless.

Here is what you do. You must build a heart shield. It starts with a phrase. If you are religious then perhaps a verse or psalm. You may use a stanza from a poem or a mantra. It should be a message of hope and strength. Incorporating a mala, crucifix, rosary, photograph, crystal, locket, stone or other small item of significance to you will add to this practice. This is a talisman but its only magic is in your faith in what it represents to you.

Now, armed with your phrase recite it over and over every day. As you do so arm yourself with thoughts of strength and also acceptance. Picture a scene of peace in your mind. A place of power for you.

When the crisis comes never plead with God, fate or fortune to be delivered. To do so opens up the fear that you will not be delivered. Instead accept what may come in your mind and heart. Repeat your words of power. Take strength from them. Take peace from them. Do this and you will find what you need.

“Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again.”

– Joseph Campbell (1904 - 1987) American Mythologist and Philosopher  

Ego: This voice is not “bad” it only becomes a problem when it is becomes overly critical. This voice is the voice of your desires, appetites, goals and hopes. It does not control your body but uses anxiety to spur your will into action. It is your taskmaster that spurs you on when you need it. Sometimes though it goes overboard and leaves you feeling anxious and dissatisfied by never allowing you to feel satisfaction when one goal is completed. It often just gives you another goal or picks apart your actions.

Will: This voice controls your actions. It controls your body. No other voice does this. Here is an example: You need to be at class at 10:00 am. You are tired. Your alarm rings at 6:30. Ego says “get up”. Will says “not yet” and pushes the snooze button. Your alarm buzzes at 7:00. Now ego amps up the pressure and you feel anxiety again ego says “get up” and “you are going to be late”. Despite the anxiety you press snooze again. Ego says “GET UP. YOU ARE GOING TO FAIL THIS CLASS” and the anxiety is amped up to greater heights. Yet for all of this ego cannot make you get up. It must act on your will and it does this by the use of fear as a lash. Finally you get up because the act of getting up is less of a pain than the pain of fear.

By Sandra Wartski, Psy.D for psychcentral.com

Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT) provides us with many excellent concepts and skills to practice and incorporate with various areas of distress and dysregulation, including the current uncertain times of living with COVID-19.

The way in which this pandemic illness is spreading all over the world and is the focus of most any current conversation requires that we find a way to cope effectively. Marsha Linehan, the founder and developer of DBT, provides us with several excellent ideas about how best to manage stressful times.

Many of us Americans struggled to radically accept that this virus was in our midst and needed prompt attention. I noticed that I was initially thinking that this couldn’t be as dire as was being portrayed in the media, and I was hoping we could just continue on with primarily focusing on ways to reduce anxiety.

I wanted to help my clients limit exposure to panic being promulgated on various social media sites and to focus on using good common sense (like practicing proper hygiene and staying home if sick). And I was rather willful at first about not wanting to cancel my vacation that had been carefully planned and scheduled for over a year.

However, I have had to embrace willingness to recognize that I need to do what is needed and participate fully in the process of changing the way I mange my daily life. I need to fully and wholeheartedly offer teletherapy options to all of my clients (including finding a way to run DBT group on-line), cancel the social gatherings that are a critical part of my self-care, and put adventuresome travel on hold indefinitely. As Linehan astutely points out: rejecting reality does not change reality.

Linehan has an elegant model which provides a solution to any problem, and this is focused on four primary ways that we respond to a serious problem in life:

Figure out how to solve the problem.

Change how you feel about the problem.

Tolerate and accept it.

Stay miserable or possibly make it worse (by using no skills).

The coronavirus pandemic provides opportunity to practice all four of these responses, though clearly focusing on options 1, 2, and 3 would be more ideal. Option 1 forces us to consider how we maybe can’t solve the problem of the virus being here, but we can keep practicing ways to limit spread of the virus and to be smart about how we proceed in the weeks to come.

Option 2 references the fact that we can focus on ways to use skills of emotional regulation, part of which might be to simply be mindful of our current emotions (which, in of itself, often actually reduces the intensity of emotion).

Option 3 might be the one that is potentially most applicable in this circumstance, which is focusing on acceptance as a way to reduce suffering. This latter option is especially helpful when other options don’t seem to be working, such as when one can’t solve the problem or is struggling to change emotions about the problem. 

I guess it’s about time I write out my thoughts on the Lakers trading one of their most beloved players, Derek Fisher. I personally did not want to see him go, as he is one of my favorite all-time players even with the negative aspects (slow, can’t defend, mediocre player) he brought to the team. His leadership and poise were on another level and were key to the younger players on the team. His relationship with Kobe Bryant also can’t be ignored, as Derek is the player that Kobe trusts the most on the team, as they both started their career as Lakers back in ‘96. Derek was the glue that held the team together, the voice of reason in the locker room, and the gritty veteran that every team needed.

With all that personal stuff aside, the NBA is a business, first and foremost. Players know that they can be dealt at any time, it’s part of the game, and it’s nothing personal. The Lakers have desperately needed a quicker, more agile, and capable PG for quite some time now, and Derek wasn’t cutting it. Even with all his heroics in the past, it seems as if they wouldn’t be needed if he was able to defend his player more efficiently, as opposing PGs constantly torch the Lakers, and it all starts with his position. The Lakers are building for the future, and even though they could afford keeping Fisher, it was the right business move for the team. There is no loyalty in the sports world.

There has been talk of the Rockets buying him out. He can then sign with the Lakers after 30 days and retire a Laker, which he should.

As you meditate, your powers of discernment will grow.

I recommend using breathing meditation for this, although there are many kinds you can choose from. Sitting in a place that will be not too comfy and not too uncomfy, a place that you can sit for a good half hour minimum without joint pains and the like. do this while you are still relatively awake and aware, rather than when tired. Focus on the sound and feeling of your breathing, letting the mental images and body sensations arise and fall as you maintain your focus on the breathing.

It doesn’t seem like simply focusing on a pattern of mindful breathing will help you learn what you are seeking, however it goes much farther than one would expect. 

Your mind will wander away from your focus. You will get distracted. This is fine. When you identify that you have become distracted, bring your focus back to the breathing and resume the meditation. This will happen many times, and each time, simply return your focus and repeat until your session has ended. 

This serves two purposes. The first is learning to focus the mind’s attention for greater periods of time without distraction, and the second is letting yourself experience the body/mind without reacting to it personally. During the course of meditation, the mind will bring up unresolved baggage, anxieties, fears, desires, etc. Continue to witness these thoughts without reacting to them, maintaining a focus on the breathing.

As you do this, the mind will become distracted less and less, and as it becomes still in this way, you will start gaining spontaneous insights into your own nature and the nature of being as it is. These insights can only come when we make space for them in this way, rather than seeking them with the active thinking mind.