Personal Honesty

The quality of honesty is to tell the truth, and this is admirable. Have we ever looked at how honest we are about ourselves? What the truth is about us, and how do we find it?  First of all we have to be self aware and do some introspection asking questions such as "How do I feel today?" "What do I want?" and "If this is the last day of my life, am I doing what I want to be doing?" We should know why we are doing something, is it because we want to and it is who we are, or is it something someone wants us to do?" Are we trying to please ourselves (in a nice way), or trying to please someone else at our expense?" One time I read a quote that said, and I paraphrase: to conquer yourself is more than to conquer a city. We may not know how we feel because we have denied and stuffed our feelings in the past. It is also easier to deceive ourselves, and often others, about our motives and intentions. We need to be able to admit our imperfections, shortcomings, flaws, and mistakes having the courage to see ourselves as to whom we really are. We do this in order to find our part in our circumstances, difficulties, and relationships. This may require making some changes, maybe even some painful ones, but with the right attitude we can use our observations as opportunities to open ourselves up for self growth. It is  important to be open, genuine, authentic, earnest, and sincere, therefore, not only being true to ourselves, but as a gift to others. For when we are consistently honest, not only do we become comfortable to be around, but reliable and trustworthy. The bottom line is that being true to ourselves means we are being honest with ourselves about what we think, feel, have done, as well as what we want. And, not pretending to be someone we are not, instead what our parents, our friends, or society expects us to be.  We need to go where our hearts lead us if we are not hurting anyone in the process.  When people are dishonest there is a sense of secretiveness, and perhaps even dislike of themselves because they know they aren't  being who they are.  When we are honest and true to ourselves, we are confident, direct, and straightforward in words and actions because we know we have nothing to hide. The best policy is to talk and share openly about thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Life is relating to one another and we all need to know and feel we "get what we see." The soliloquy in William Shakespeare's Hamlet: "This above all - to thine ownself be true." is about choosing to be truthful to, and responsible, and respectful of, ourselves and others. For if we don't know our truth and aren't true to ourselves, how can we honest with others?

Your Intuition

"But, you know when I choose a film, I need to believe in it and believe I can do something special with it, and after a while that means not trying to judge or analyze why I should do it. You have to follow this intuition thing, which is a mystery to me," Juliette Binoche. What is this inner knowing and feeling, sometimes even a clear and sudden understanding of a complex situation, without using reason or having evidence, facts, or even normal justification? A sense of what feels right and true for us, an inner knowing and deep wisdom about small, and even big, challenges and decisions. There are basically two schools of thought on where intuition comes from. Some say our hearts and souls are guided beyond our rational thinking minds by an Infinite, all knowing, Intelligence or energy force, greater than us, and that intuition originates in our subconscious, and guides our soul's growth to our highest path and purpose. That our minds are wonderful for projects, solving problems, helping others, but not so good when it comes to figuring out our lives and what is best for us. We seem to have emotional, and even physical (feel it in our gut), sensations that may be our intuition, or is it that our intuition shows us what our hearts long for? Not waiting for life to be perfect, or circumstances to change, but honoring and "leading with our hearts." People believing this is where our intuition comes from would say it is one of the easiest ways to keep us on track and connected to what our Spirits want. Others would say that intuition is a matching game based on experience and an unconscious associative process whose origins we can't explain other than it takes place in the workings of the brain and our nerve cells. Part of a sensory system which operates without data from the five physical senses and keeps our body informed. Whatever is the origin of intuition, it is definitely a sixth sense that can help us find out the truth about the people around us, what may happen in our future, short and long term, why something happened in our lives and how we can try to fix it, when and how we can avoid danger or an unpleasant experience, and which activities and relationships will contribute towards our happiness and evolution as a human and spiritual being, and what will not. So, next time you seem to just "know things" and you don't even know how you know them, chances are this is your intuition.

Perspective is a Matter of Perception

In other words, how we perceive, or view, our lives with our senses, added to our opinions, experiences, and beliefs, cause us to have a particular way of interpreting, thinking, and feeling about the people, places, and things in our lives. We obtain and store knowledge and our minds form ideas and images that interrelate. Then our thinking and feeling about our circumstances create the perspective we come to have of our lives. For example, if we interpret the world to be safe, we will be comfortable in the world. If we feel the world is an unsafe place, chances are our perspective on life is that the world is an unsafe, scary place, and we will react to it that way. The way we think and feel about our life, also influences our attitudes. Attitudes are complex mental states involving beliefs, feelings, values, dispositions, that cause us to act in certain ways. If our perspective on life is a positive one, our mental state may be one of lightness and happiness, and if we have a negative, bad perspective on life, we will see through the eyes of negativity. Perspectives are personal as they are our impressions about our situations, circumstances, and issues. If we are upset, frustrated, sad, angry, or any other negative strong feeling (an emotion), we hear "keep things in perspective," or "look at it with a fresh perspective." Easier said than done. In its purest form this means to bring our thinking back to reality. However, things are relative, and reality may not be to our liking. How we look at our lives is based on our experiences and beliefs and may or may not be true to the facts. Not recognizing this is called a state of denial. If our perspective is based on feeling, it gets even trickier. Feelings are difficult to change. When our perspective on something, or life in general, is sad, that sadness is a feeling that is hard to change and accept even when reality is understood. The most effective way that our perspective can be changed is if we compare our situation to someone else, and if it is worse, we'll no doubt feel better, and if it is better, we'll probably feel worse.

Contemplation

There is a bronze and marble sculpture by the French craftsman, Auguste Rodin, called "The Thinker." It is of a man sitting with his back bent forward, his right elbow on his left knee, and the back of his right hand below his chin. It is said, "The Thinker," depicts a man in sober meditation battling with a powerful inner struggle, and often used to represent philosophy. As a visual, this sculpture exemplifies someone in contemplation. When we talk about contemplating, we are talking about reflecting deeply and thinking intently about the spiritual realm, for contemplation may also be prayer and lead to some forms of meditation. To contemplate, is to reflect, view and evaluate thoughtfully and carefully.  It is exercising the mind, or one's  power of reason in order to make inferences, decisions, and to arrive at solutions or sound judgments. Once something has been contemplated, and usually the process takes a long time, evidence manifests and proof comes to bear in behavior and attitudes. Other forms of reflection are pondering, musing, and mulling things over. These things infer to consider thoughtfully and seriously, but not as deeply, and not as long. There is also speculation and rumination. These forms of thinking differ from contemplation in that good and bad thoughts are considered, whereas contemplation is of spiritual values, the good and the beautiful, the pure and the just. Thoughts in contemplation take root in the mind and produce their own circumstances of kindness and grace as these habits grow out of this type of deep thought. "Man is buffered by circumstances so long as he believes himself to be the creature of outside conditions, but when he realizes that he is a creative power, and that he may command the hidden soil and seed of his being out of which circumstances grow, he then becomes the rightful master of himself," James Allen, the the author of As A Man Thinketh. And from Philippians 4:8; "Finally brethren, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." Priests, as well as friars (brothers, monks) and nuns, are known for their contemplative praying. However, anyone fitting the above description can be, relatively speaking, called practicing contemplation.

Release

Something we should strive for is to distinguish between what we can change and what we need to accept. Last week I wrote about the freedom that comes with change. Tonight I am writing about releasing those people, places, and things that we need to let go of and liberate if we can't change them; and therefore, move forward. Also, those negative thoughts, emotions, and feelings that keep us blocked from enjoying our lives and being grateful. Negative thoughts, and wanting to control where we cannot, drag us down, consume us, become obsessive, and drain us of our energy. When we summon the courage to change the things we can and let those go that we cannot, our lives will bless us. There is a cathartic rush when we stop resisting and let go of  concerns, pent up frustrations, hurt, and anger. This sudden flow of feelings and emotions is not only emotionally purging, but psychotherapeutic and conducive to good health of mind and body. It may not only be anger or frustration we need to let go of, but grief over a person who has lost their battle with life, or other sources of loss. There are states of grieving; the last one is acceptance. It is important to feel our feelings and then do what we can to resolve them in ourselves. When we are not able to come to an acceptance of what we cannot change, we continue to think about what is wrong in our lives and spin our wheels. And our anger, hurt, and grief may be turned inward causing us to become inconsolable and depressed. When we are able to let go of what we are resisting or grieving over, we let go of sorrow and feelings of tenseness allowing our minds and bodies to relax. Surprisingly our burdens are lifted. When our energy is either drained or our minds are full of negative energy, there is no place for positive energy to become part of us. At this point, it is important to get our focus off material issues and place it on those values that remain intact like hope, faith, and love. I really like this quote by Emmet Fox: "It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble, how hopeless the outlook, how muddled the tangles, how great the mistakes. A sufficient realization of love dissolves it all." Yes, love, that word as a verb that causes us to get into action mentally and/or physically with a goal that we will be compassionate toward everyone we come contact with.

Freedom

The kind of freedom I am writing about tonight comes from the transition from a dark and depressed place into a joy of living. Change does take place and what goes down will eventually come up. Cycles are common in human beings just like the cycles of nature according to the seasons. We must, no matter how hard it becomes, to remember to keep our faith that difficulties and despair do pass. I keep coming back to the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi because it is so poignant and has to much truth. My blog on "A Legacy of Humility" that I wrote on January 27, 2012, was about the way he taught people to pray, e.g., "where there is darkness, let me sow light." Sometimes it is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I  heard one time that is because often there is a turn in the tunnel, not because there is a dead end. We, and we alone, allow things to hurt us. No one can take away our spirits and things of the spirit. Joy is one of them along with who we are when we are gentle souls, our kindness, our compassion, our empathy, and our love whether it is of another person, an animal, or nature. There is a phrase about a Phoenix Rising from the Ashes. As the story goes, the phoenix is a mythical bird with fiery plumage that lives up to 100 years. Near the end of its life, it settles in to its nest of twigs which then burns ferociously, reducing bird and nest to ashes. And from those ashes, a fledgling phoenix arises - renewed and reborn. Often when life gets the darkest and most frustrating it is easy to forget to have the faith that everything changes. Along with the prayer of St. Frances, I often write about the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5 in the Bible. See my "People of the Light" blog entry on April 5, 2012. As I wrote in yet another blog, I write about ideals, things to strive for, but to me this is what life is all about.  What is really important is how we feel about ourselves and others and how we treat ourselves and others, including how we treat our animals and the planet. Any time you say "my" you are referring to your ego which loves material things. And, by the way, the ego loves conflict and hates the present moment. And, if there is one thing I have tried to bring forth in these blogs and my own life, is to live in the here and now. Yes, we learn from the past and can make amends, but it is over, never to be repeated - not one word, not one action. Oh, and the future, well who knows where we go from here, let's just hope, that like the fledgling phoenix, we become renewed and reborn.

Disloyalty

Disloyalty is a terrible thing. It is being unfaithful and not being true to the people you serve, or the people you should be when you have the power to hurt others and/or their property. I witnessed an act of disloyalty at my condominium for the last four days, by our "in good faith" elected Board of Directors. When you elect a condominium board you do so with faith that it will act in the owners' best interests. You trust the members will be fair, loyal, and dedicated to doing the best job they can to all who are concerned especially when you pay association dues. You expect them to emotionally, sincerely, and with empathy commit themselves to take care of the owners' interests the best they can. An injustice has happened to us. Our secluded community, that could hardly be seen from the street, has been striped away of tress that were not trimmed, but hacked at and destroyed by a "crew of laborers" who in no way had any sense of somewhat retaining nature's beauty. I was told two days before it was to be done, and that trimming of the tress was posted, but I am not the only one who didn't see it. As a reason, I was told "they just have to be trimmed and the board has made the decision and can do what they want." Apparently our neighbors asked to have some trees cut, but why so many and why were the trees all around the building involved? I have no idea why the board members did not even have the courtesy to wait ten days until the annual board meeting to tell us what they planned on doing. We have listened to buzzing, chopping, and branches being cut into bits and put into machines for four days and this isn't a very  big place, only 25 units, and now I heard it is going to go on for another three days. I understand this very board, which has held the power for many years, may not run this year. Do they think it is fair to leave the damage they are responsible for to other owners? They need to at least clean up what they have done, and this tree business is not the only thing that needs addressing. We have had barbed wire on the East side of our building for a year, and now the length of barbed wire has quadrupled. It is almost as if we live in a prison camp, and ramshackle buildings and falling down fences from next door have been exposed creating ugly views. I can see the pillage from where I write this. I am afraid to look at the West side of the condo, and from the North side I heard the "crew" attack the beautiful pine trees all day yesterday outside my bedroom window. I think the board members have gone too far this time, have not done right by us, and must have no sense of what is peaceful and beautiful. So let this be a lesson in disloyalty that has left scars literally and figuratively.

Perseverance, Persistence

There is a difference between these two words, but basically they mean the same as far as intensity of thought and behavior is concerned. To persevere and persist mean to have the ability to stick with something to the end, to keep going with determination and refuse to stop until the goal is achieved or there is a dead end. Perseverance is associated more with endurance and hardship and may entail a reward for not backing down. A famous Roman poet, Ovid, who wrote mythological poems, wrote, "Endure and persevere, this pain will turn good by and by." Persistence, on the other hand, is not so much enduring hardship and using intense effort as it is a tenacious hanging on until the end. Either way, if people are persevering and persistent, they are earnest and go forth in a methodical way despite obstacles, difficulties, and distractions without complaining. They are serious about the accomplishment and completion of a goal and pursue it in an eager, conscientious, devoted, heartfelt, open, and genuine way. Persevering people are: unshakable, steady, inflexible, unyielding, unfaltering, relentless, resolute, and determined. Persistence is more than trying. Trying is an attempt to perform an action or endeavor to accomplish something, but the intensity and effort are not there. Persistent people are steadfast and do not waver or budge in their belief, effort, plan, or even refusal. People who carry on persist in an enterprise or undertaking in spite of counter influences, opposition, or discouragement. If they are not persevering, the options are to give up, give in, submit to, and to succumb to and surrender. The industrialist and philanthropist who founded Standard Oil, John D. Rockefeller, had this to say about perseverance, "I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature." "Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into thin air," is a quote by John Qunicy Adams. We have to believe in ourselves and our passions and dreams, and it often takes perseverance to see them through and not become discouraged. J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, was rejected by 12 publishers.