There’s nothing wrong with you. Everything is part of your life plan. Everything is an important part of who you are and what you have decided you need to make life challenging, interesting, and evolutionary. Everything about you offers an opportunity. Everything begs to be investigated and explored for greater meaning. Everything that happens to you, has happened, and will happen is part of your life’s journey and thus everything matters. You are learning every day of your life. You are fulfilling and completing some aspect that your Soul has decided is important. Love and appreciate all aspects of yourself from your Soul’s perspective and strive also to progress each day in your body self, to find meaning, and to keep changing in a positive manner. Live life always as a meaningful journey, for that is what it is. Make each day count by doing something loving and kind, for that is what really matters, to body and Soul.
Don’t be ashamed of what you have done, it’s all part of life, but do acknowledge everything to yourself. Be honest; leave no stone unturned so that you may know yourself fully. Accept who you are with an open heart, who you are now and who you have been, but keep an open channel to who you will become. Plant a seed of a new you and pull yourself forward one day, one act, one idea at a time toward that new you. You can do it. Without shame or blame, without regret or resentment, but with honesty, know your truth. And then, without fear, let yourself become all that you are capable of. Don’t hold back. The world needs you and what you offer. You know what the old you would do, but what would the new you do? Begin there.
Finding equanimity in nature… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
The ability to remain consistently calm, in this time of incessant turbulence and rapid unpredictable bipolar shifts, is a cherished resource. Equanimity greets every moment with equal attention, appreciation, clarity and calm.
Buddhist practice embraces equanimity as the ultimate attitude needed for successful transition from human to infinite life. The ability to be present, to not sow a seed of reincarnation—by distraction or attachment—in the dying process, frees the energy body to evolve in its definitive journey beyond human life.
The Shamans of Ancient Mexico also valued the relationship of equanimity and death. They reasoned that any moment in life could be one’s final moment, hence one should be fully present, alive, and equally appreciative of every moment in life, regardless of personal preferences.
The Shaman’s perspective is the ultimate Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all moments are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The Shamans cultivate equanimity as a program for living, the Buddhists as the key in dying. Both cultivate an attitude of deep calm in approaching life’s greatest encounter—its final moment.
How can we cultivate equanimity?
The Shamans contribute an attitude shift. Each day they remind themselves, ” My name is ________, a being who is going to die.” Far from being a morbid ‘Good Morning, World,’ this use of death as an advisor heightens one’s awareness to be fully present and engaged in every moment of the day, regardless of the activity.
How often do we lament a Monday morning, or the end of a joyous encounter? Even worse, how often do we dread an encounter or work task, and pray for it to quickly end. The intent of equanimity is to be equally calm and present to each equal moment, regardless of its intensity.
The Buddhists contribute the practice of meditation to still the mind, a great perpetrator of non-equanimity known as worry. Yoga, with its Hindu roots, uses self-regulation of the body to achieve equanimity. The practice of pranayama breathing exercises greatly enhances voluntary control of the autonomic nervous system’s mobilizing defenses, in the face of real or imagined stress, a valuable tool to achieve equanimity.
Autogenic training and self-hypnosis are tools to deepen the conscious relationship between mind and body. When we give the body a specific instruction when in a deeply relaxed state, the subconscious begins to listen and override its genetic, archetypal, or habitual programs.
Thus, we can instruct every part of our body to remain deeply calm while we remain fully awake and present to all conditions. Jan and I recently discovered the gift of Dr. Eleanor Eggers, a 97-year-old semi–retired psychologist, who developed a simple website giving away the secrets of her life’s work. This is her contribution to the greater good.
Her website offers the autogenic phrases that Elmer and Alyce Green developed at the Menninger Foundation, for deep relaxation, as well as other resources from her long and fruitful career. We happily pass on her website link: Dr. Eleanor Eggers.
Though, at present, we may experience limitation in exacting needed changes to our chaotic world, we are all free, as Victor Frankl would say, to assume the attitude we will embody in our encounters with that world. Equanimity ranks highest in our approach to life, in and beyond this world.
Though you may struggle, remember always to look at the bigger picture, your Soul’s journey, for it is this journey that matters in the long run, this journey that seeks completion, that yearns for fulfillment. And what is your Soul’s journey? It is the journey of many lifetimes of accumulated teachings, of the lessons you have selected to learn, allowing you to live the challenges you have decided would be most useful and beneficial. It is a journey of ultimately learning the greatest lessons of all, those of love, kindness, and compassion and what they really mean in the context of your own many lives and all the lives you have had the opportunity to intersect with. Some of life’s greatest lessons come in some of the most difficult forms, but they are also to be the most treasured, for they are the ones that have the potential to catapult you into greater awareness, consciousness, and true understanding. They are to be treasured for the possibilities they offer you to more fully learn, resolve, and put to rest life’s most difficult lessons. Trust that your own lessons are allowing you to finally master something that is important to your Soul and your Soul’s journey, so that you may move on into a more perfect state of union within your Soul self, having fulfilled the greatest lessons of them all; loving kindness and compassion for self and other. Journey on knowing these things and that you are indeed on the right track!
Good Morning! Here is our audio channeling for this week, encouraging us all to stay positive and to remember that we are all part of a greater consciousness that only wishes us well. Remember this especially during these times of great change.
