In a TED Talk Jon Jandai offers some significant food for thought regarding what truly matters and how we complicate our lives unnecessarily.
Here’s an example of his simple wisdom, “Before I thought that stupid people like me … cannot have a house… because people who are cleverer than me and get a job need to work for 30 years to have a house. But for me, who cannot finish university, how can I have a house. It’s hopeless for people who have low education like me. But when I start to do earthen buildings, it’s so easy! I spent two hours per day… and in 3 months I have a house. A friend who was the most clever in the class he has a house too but he has to be in debt for 30 years, so compared to him I have 29 years and 9 months of free time. I feel life is so easy.”
And here’s another, “I feel like now is the most uncivilized era of humans on this Earth. We have so many people who finish university, we have so many universities on the Earth. We have so many clever people on this Earth. But, life is harder and harder. We make it hard for whom? We work hard for whom right now?”
Jandai’s message resonates with me as I seriously consider taking the next step towards living more simply and consciously.
We’re so busy these days, more often than not it seems, too buried beneath the often insignificant details of our lives to fully live them, or as Gregg Levoy observes, “to make them literally come true.”
What would it mean to make your life come true? According to the dictionary, ‘true’ is defined as “real, genuine, authentic.” From this perspective, how true is your life? Is it guided by what you believe to be meaningful and ethical? What fills your hours? Your days? Do they contain what truly matters most to you? What percentage of your time does what you say and do genuinely reflect who you are and what you love? How real, genuine, and authentic does your life feel?
In an article entitled, To Be Seen, Tim Kutzmark lamented, “Look around—we are a people of masks and disguises. We are a people who have been taught to transform ourselves into what others need us to be… We’ve come to believe that most people don’t want to see or hear what we feel, what we need, who we are. We’ve learned that most people don’t want to see the messiness and confusion that each of us carries inside. We’ve learned that only parts of ourselves are publicly presentable. Other parts must be hidden away. For acceptability, approval or promotion, we conceal the rough edges, the broken places…”
In one of my favorite children’s stories, The Velveteen Rabbit, the little toy rabbit who longs to be real asks his companion, the skin horse, how he might become real. The wise old skin horse replies , ‘It doesn’t happen all at once… You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
While I’m reasonably certain that I was absolutely real as a child, returning to that elusive and imperfect state is proving to be a long and frequently demanding journey. The outer world’s claims on my time, energy, and psyche all too often distract and sometimes overwhelm me, while the inner voice that calls me towards greater authenticity issues its own demands. It has repeatedly insisted that I piece together those places inside of myself that have been broken or discarded in order to be whole again. It urges me to reveal my weaknesses and vulnerabilities rather than to hide them away in shame. It insists that my behavior not contradict my values, orders that less of my time be wasted on things that don’t matter much, mercilessly rejects all attempts on my part to deceive either myself or others, and unrelentingly calls on me to listen to my love and not my fear.
Along the way to becoming real, like the velveteen rabbit, I’ve suffered significant scars, and am no longer the beauty that I once was when I was untried, unmasked, and brand new. And yet, as I continue to work on living consistently smack dab in the middle of my truth, I find new opportunities and new doors being opened up. I encounter teachers every where (when I am open to them) that encourage me to do my very best to make as much as I possibly can of the sweet life that is left to me come true.
I’d like to warmly and humbly share a gift with you today in honor of Father’s day. For the rest of this month you can listen to the audiobook, “Discovering Meaning,” for free! “Discovering Meaning: Living and Loving the Good Life” is the second of four audiobooks in the “BirthQuake: Journey to Wholeness” series.
“The Birthquake: Journey to Wholeness series is one of those rare finds written by a psychotherapist that not only enlightens, inspires, and comforts – it befriends and embraces the listener. It’s the culmination of the author’s many years of research, clinical experience and perhaps most importantly, her own life lessons. The BirthQuake series is an invaluable tool for anyone who has ever struggled or stands anxiously at a crossroad.”
“Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.
Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
I listened to a talk by Jean Houston on Gaiam TV today and was moved tremendously by one observation she made in particular. She noted that each of us gets wounded during our life times, and that if we live long enough, we become so full of holes that we ultimately become holy.
My own life has taught me that my wounds will ultimately diminish or enrich me, depending largely upon whether I meet them with a closed fist or an open heart. I’ve also come to understand to my amazement that an ordinary day can be transformed from the mundane to the holy not so much by what happens during the course of it, but by what questions I choose to ask of myself when I first encounter it.
Michael Beckwith urges us to ask the following three questions each and every day.
How can I grow?
How can I give?
What can I celebrate?
I’ve found that every morning that I ask myself these three questions and then commit to living the answers by the end of the day, my life is so much more likely to be experienced as the profound gift that it is.
Perhaps one of the greatest reasons I was drawn to become a psychotherapist is that I’m a lover of stories. Storytelling isn’t only an ancient art form and a means through which information and wisdom is shared, it can also be a powerful source of inspiration and healing.
In a speech entitled, “Politics as Spiritual Practice” Larry Robinson, former Mayor of Sebastopol California observed, “Stories tell us who we are and where we belong. They give meaning to our lives and to our suffering. In an age of fear and uncertainty, people are hungry for a story which shows us a way through the current darkness…Story has the power to bring soul back to the world.” And so from time to time, I’ve decided to share one of my favorite soul full stories with you.
Gifted poet and speaker, David Whyte, was visiting Brother David Steindl-Rast one evening after a very long and stressful day at work. Whyte had been struggling with whether or not to leave his job and pursue his calling as a poet full time and shared with brother David that he was absolutely exhausted.
I picture the two Davids in a warm and dimly lit room, wine glasses held loosely, and a book of Rilke’s poems resting on a low table between them. The poet’s broad shoulders are slightly slumped, his dark head bent and his wise and loving friend is leaning in slightly towards him as he very gently shares the following, “You know David, the antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest.”
Whyte tilts his head and shifts his position slightly as something not yet definable stirs quietly within him. “The antidote to exhaustion isn’t necessarily rest,” he repeats slowly. “What is the antidote to exhaustion?” Now it’s Whyte who is leaning forward, entirely receptive to the gift some part of him already knows is on its way.
“The antidote to exhaustion,” brother David responds, “is wholeheartedness.”
And while it was not me who asked the question, not my own exhaustion and depletion that called brother David’s response into being, it is my own soul that stirs in response. “The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness.”
Truyện Ma Có Thật
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Ma là một khái niệm trừu tượng, một phần phi vật chất của một người đã chết (hay hiếm hơn là một động vật đã chết).
Theo quan niệm của một số tôn giáo và nền văn hóa, con người gồm thể xác (mang tính vật chất) và linh hồn (mang tính phi vật chất). Khi thể xác chết, linh hồn xuất khỏi thể xác. Nếu linh hồn đó không có cơ hội đầu thai hoặc nơi trú ngụ chung với các linh hồn khác mà tương tác với cõi thực có con người sẽ gọi là “ma”, “hồn ma”, “quỷ”; nhưng nếu các phần phi vật chất đó tương tác với cõi thực của con người theo tình cảm, theo trách nhiệm được giao của các tôn giáo thì lại gọi là “hồn”, “linh hồn”, “thánh”, “thần”, “thiên sứ” .
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Spirituality, Therapy, and the Good Life 