Mary O’Malley – What we are exploring together is the art of engaging with life exactly as it is rather than always trying to manage it. To make the intent of what I’m offering clearer, I want to share with you the four golden threads woven through all the blogs, radio shows, books and online courses I offer.
The first thread is that most of the time you experience life just through your thoughts. When you were first born there wasn’t a thought in your head. You were pure awareness showing up for life as it unfolds. But as you grew up, your head began to fill up with thoughts, which diverted your attention.
Rather than being here for life, you began to follow your thoughts wherever they go. In fact, you, like most people, began to believe that you and your thoughts are one and the same. So, there is a very good chance that you live in stories about life rather than experiencing the real thing. And yet what all of us most deeply long for is an alive, intimate and trust filled connection with life as it is.
So I share stories that evoke wonder about life along with ways you can use your senses to actually make contact with life exactly as it is. This allows you to see that right outside of your thoughts is a whole other world of beauty, intelligence, creativity and aliveness. Just moments of reconnecting with the freshness and newness of each moment brings forth the joy of being alive. At the beginning this may only happen for a moment or two, here and there. But these moments accumulate, and it becomes easier and easier to be life rather than always thinking about it.
The second thread is the art of discovering how to use your mind rather than being lost in it. The mind is an exquisite creation and it is absolutely necessary for maneuvering through life. But rather than using thought for the amazing tool it is, we have become lost in it. Once you see that your attention, rather than being here for life, follows your thoughts wherever they go, you become curious about what your thoughts are talking about.
The joy of learning how to see thought rather than believing what it is saying is indescribable. It is the difference between saying, “I am afraid,” and instead, stepping back so you can see the story of fear. By aligning yourself with thought by saying I am afraid, you are totally at the mercy of your thoughts. But learning how to step back and use your attention to see thought, you have taken a step out of the morass of your thoughts, for you are now relating to them rather than from them. When you relate to a mind that is afraid, you are not afraid. When you relate from a mind that is afraid, you feel threatened.
The third thread is the re-awakening of your aware heart. Your heart contains a radiance which heals everything it touches, including the parts of you which you deem unacceptable. For all of us, our hearts are deeply sensitive and sensing systems, but we were roughly handled when we were growing up, causing our hearts to close. To be cut off from the wisdom, the nourishment, and the radiance of an awake heart is soul crushing. But it is possible to loosen the armoring around your heart in order to have access to its vast and healing essence.
After you learn how to see your thoughts, rather than always being lost in them, true healing comes when you can enfold your thoughts and the feelings they generate with the healing balm of your heart. And just like when somebody meets you with kindness, the struggles in your mind let go under the gaze of your accepting heart. In this you discover a deep truth – there is nothing inside of you that is bad or wrong or needs to be fixed. All the parts of you that have caused you to struggle with life, rather than being open to it, let go under the gaze of your accepting attention.
The fourth golden thread, which the other threads bring us to, is about relearning how to experience life as it is unfolding, rather than spending your energy trying to make it be what you think it should be. For what life has in store for you is far better than anything that you can try to create on your own.
Pema Chodron, one of the clearest teachers of awakening, defines enlightenment as relaxing into life! The more you show up for life as it is, the more you begin to see that your life is not a random series of events. It is a highly intentional process that gives you the experiences you need to clear the clouds in your mind so you can become one with the river of creativity that is life.
The more you clear your clouds, the quicker you can unhook from the victim mode, from the idea that life is happening to you. Instead you reconnect with the truth that life is for you. It is not always likable, but it is trustable.
And finally, as you live more from your aware heart rather than your mind, it becomes far less likely that you will cause harm to yourself, to your loved ones, to strangers and to the earth itself. Living almost exclusively in our minds, this disconnect has fostered wars, violence, the denigration of the earth, competitiveness, abuse, heartache and the pain of feeling all alone.
But this is the time of the aware heart and as more and more of us clear the clouds of our minds so we can live from the wisdom of our hearts, we will finally realize that we are all in this together on a tiny, blue green jewel of a planet and that there is not one person, even the most heinous of dictators or criminals that doesn’t need or deserve the healing of the heart.
You then become a healing presence wherever you go.
Are you willing to explore one of these golden threads today? And if your mind is resistant, ask yourself if you’re willing to show up for your life as it is, so that all the children who are coming after us don’t have to be as deeply caught in struggle as we were. And remember, even just a moment or two throughout the day, where you are experiencing life directly, is a moment of healing on our planet.
SF Source Mary O’Malley Oct 2019