Practice, Preaching & Got Giggles?

What a concept! Staying home and giving myself time and space to be with myself, to meditate, write in my diary and BE. It has felt so nurturing and refreshing. I highly recommend it!

It's also a relief to use the tools and teachings I know, for myself, to move out of spinning my wheels--I've been stuck for quite a while now about the new direction and expansion of my work.

Yesterday I finally sat in Remembrance, a Sufi meditative practice, that I've been studiously avoiding for weeks. This practice, which comes from Sufism but has much wider applications to anyone with a spiritual bent--is a gift I learned from Mark Silver, a wonderful teacher of business and spirituality.

During the Remembrance practice, I received wonderful loving support from the all-knowing One within me and began to relax and soften into a more receptive mode. I added to this another dimension of the practice, giving myself my “jewel” as Mark calls it. Your jewel is an essential quality that others receive from your presence, that soul-essence light that radiates from you whatever you are doing. It is also usually something that you yourself need and value. One of my jewels is tenderness. Instead of continuing to (mentally) wail on myself for my lack of action and clarity, I gently caressed my cheek and soothed the parts of me that have been at war with myself.

I realized that I am tired, and while I have plenty of active fun in my new life in Santa Fe (hallelujah!), I have not had a restful vacation, non-working solitary retreat or even a one-day get away in a long, long time.

That part of me that says "I need a vacation..I need a break and fresh perspective..or simply to stop working for the day" gets louder and louder, and may start to whine and sabotage anything I try to do for work. Until I hear it and address its concerns. (Does that sound like any two year olds you know? Well that part of me is probably about that old!)

When I try to do creative work or start new things from a place of depletion, it just doesn't work. In the old days I would simply force and struggle and not enjoy what I was creating. I simply cannot do that any more. The part of me that is now aligned and resonating with feeling good, having pleasure, doing what I love, won’t let me!

If I don’t listen to those messages, which still happens—or try to override them, I just get stuck and unhappy and sabotage or procrastinate any efforts I do make.

I have to smile, as I look at the pattern, since for me, whatever I wish to teach others, I first must live it (and sometimes re-live it). My new focus is on supporting self-employed women to nourish themselves as they grow their business, so guess what I need to do? Follow my own homework and listen to my own teachings! Keeps a girl honest…:-)

So, I’m looking at my vacation plans for the next 6 weeks, and also seeing some other ways I can nurture myself with down time, time outside and mini getaways.

I haven't even done much about it yet--but I notice that just by hearing my inner needy child and rebellious teenager and promising to get them what they need, the creative juice is back!

It works, this self-love thang! It really really does. That old Protestant work ethic, nose to the grindstone mentality, not so much.

Could you remind me next time I forget?

I’m so well-trained—you too?--that when I have a “problem” with work to just keep going, to solve the stuckness mentally or overcome it with the force of my will. To wail away at the stuck place. Funny how that doesn’t work—you know, “What you resist persists…”. Taking a break, moving my body around, going into another room to change perspective or getting outside..changing the channel and getting the energy moving through play, connecting with another person or my inner guidance—that’s how the logjam breaks up. By asking myself, what do I really need? By being gentle and paying attention, whether it's rest or play or connection...Getting unstuck with a caress or a giggle, not a hammer!

PS If you want to learn more about Mark Silver's teachings, his website is www.heartofbusiness.com and he generously allows you to download the first three chapters of his content rich book--including instructions on the Remembrance practice.