A thought from Bernie Siegel

"Site to Be Developed."  When you see this sign you know someone is preparing to put up a building of some kind.  It may be an improvement over what currently exists on the site, or it may do more damage than good.  We have all seen nature destroyed in the name of development.

Think of yourself as a site to be developed.  Remember that different sites are suited for different types of development.  What is your goal?  What resources are available, and what will best fit your site?  Look yourself over and get a feeling for your site.  Ask for help from developers and landscapers.  Then begin construction.  Don't worry about what the sidewalk supervisors think about the structure you are building.  This structure is going up on your property and you decide what it will be, or you will find no joy in the life you construct.  It will be someone else's building and you will be stuck in it.

A project under development.  A white canvas or a hunk of potter's clay.  I offer metaphors to remind you that you can change yourself and create a more fulfilling life -- if you remember my mother's advice to make the decisions that will make you happy.  You can create and re-create.  This is not about selfishness, but about authenticity.

How much can you do with yourself?  No one knows.  I know you can be happy.  You can be loving.  You can take part in creation and live and work in your heart zone.  There are no limits.  What will happen then?  No one knows the details, but I do know you will have what you need, peace and joy.

Your Beliefs

What do you believe?  Not, "What do you believe in," but simply, what do you believe?  If you ask yourself this question regularly, I think that you'll start to discover many of the outdated and outmoded thoughts and feelings that have been holding you back, simply because you've decided to hold on to beliefs that no longer serve you and that perhaps never served you well in the first place.
I used to believe that life was a form of competition, and that I wasn't really good at that type of thing.  That belief led me to stop trying to reach my dreams before I ever gave myself a chance to succeed.  Now I believe that life is about cooperation rather than competition, and I find that my life is much richer and much more satisfying because of my shift in beliefs.  I know, though, that even my current belief one day will flow away on the river of life, leaving me with another belief or three in its place--or perhaps even with the ultimate freedom of no beliefs that may hold me in one place in my life.

I know women who stay with abusive men because they believe that they're in love, or they believe that they can change their men, or they believe that they've done some wrong somewhere and deserve that awful treatment they receive.

I know other women who leave abusive men because they believe that they deserve better, and they believe that their men have no right to do to them the things they do.

I know men who stay in debt seemingly forever because they believe that they don't deserve wealth, that raises and promotions are for other people.  Or they believe that taking a risk is the worst thing that they could do; they prefer instead to believe that the status quo, while unpleasant, at least is safe.

I believe that we're here to lead full and happy and healthy lives, and I believe that I'm just as deserving of that very thing as anyone else is.

What do you believe?

Your beliefs are your reality.  If you don't like
the reality you see, change your beliefs!

Stephen C. Paul

Right Here, Right Now

I was thinking about a song yesterday, and it reminded me of another song title that has a lot to offer me in my life.  There was a song about fifteen years ago called “Right Here, Right Now,” a title that didn’t mean nearly as much to me then as it does now, after many years of studying the value of the present moment.

We tend to give the present moment short shrift, taking it for granted and not recognizing the amazing potential that it holds for us.  Most of us don’t realize that our moments aren’t that great sometimes because of what we choose to do with each moment, or choose not to do.  We make our moments or let them slip by, and then all those moments work together to become an hour, a day, a week. . . a life.  And one day we’ll be looking back at our lives, either glad of all that we’ve done with our moments, or disappointed in what we’ve failed to do with those moments.

Right now I can choose to do nothing (and rest is sometimes the best thing we can do with a moment!), I can choose to do something simple for someone else or myself, I can choose to begin a project, I can choose to watch a good piece of entertainment–there are many, many things that I can do with my right now.  I can encourage someone, teach someone, help someone–or even hurt someone.  And while I hope to choose well and create a series of moments that will help me to feel fulfilled and happy with my life, I know that sometimes I’m going to choose unwisely.  And when those times come, I hope to accept them with dignity and move on to the next moment, and do with it something fun, unique, and interesting.  After all, life’s more fun that way!

The past is gone, and I don’t know what’s coming in the future.  It’s
obvious that if I want my life to be whole, to resonate with feeling and
integrity and value and health, there’s only one way I can influence the
future:  by owning the present.  If I can relate to this moment with
integrity, and then this moment with integrity, and then this moment
with integrity, wakefully, then the sum of that is going to be very different
over time, over mind moments that stretch out into what we call a life,
than a life that is lived mostly on automatic pilot, where we are reacting
and being mechanical and are therefore somewhat numb.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

The Arrow and the Song

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to the earth, I know not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I know not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak,
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Privilege

I get the feeling sometimes that many people would be happier if they would just realize how many privileges they have in life.  It’s very easy for us to take things for granted and to feel a sense of entitlement rather than privilege, and that can change the way we see many things in our lives.  I feel that it’s a privilege to teach young people, and therefore when I go to work I don’t feel that it’s a burden, and I don’t have huge expectations of everyone else, the kinds that would come with a sense of entitlement.  I feel that it’s a privilege to be married to my wife, so I don’t take her for granted and have unrealistic expectations of her.  Her first husband is a mentally and emotionally abusive person who definitely didn’t recognize the privilege he had in being married to her, and he treated her very poorly for many years until she finally left him.  Now she hates him, and she’s a person who isn’t prone to hating people at all.

When we think about it, everything that we do is a privilege based on the happenstance of us being born where we were, when we were.  We could have been born into poor families in war zones, into areas full of disease and squalor, into situations that were more difficult and horrible than we even could imagine.  Many people are born into such situations, and we’re very fortunate–and privileged–to be where we are.  No, I don’t mean to say that most people’s lives are easy or without problems, but many of the mistakes that we make come about because we simply don’t recognize the privileges that we do have, either because we take them for granted or because we become so focused on our problems that we aren’t able to see the privileges.

Life itself is a privilege, full of opportunities to learn and to love and to smell the flowers and the fresh air and feel the sunshine on our skin.  We get to meet people and see new things and visit new places.  We have sunsets and sunrises and rainbows and cool breezes.  Life is a privilege that we all share, and if we can only recognize that privilege, then we can experience life as an amazing blessing, one that didn’t require us to do anything to deserve it, but that gives wonderful things to us all day, every day.

When you arise in the morning,
think of what a precious privilege
it is to be alive - to breathe,
to think, to enjoy, to love.

Marcus Aurelius

Eternal

I love to think of the fact that I'm in the middle of eternity now.  I love to keep in mind that eternity doesn't start tomorrow, and it doesn't start on the day I day--eternity is going on right here, right now, and we're all right in the middle of it.

I am an eternal creature.  I'm not completely sure of the form I'll take when I leave this human form, or where I'll go or what I'll do, but I do know in my heart and with my spirit that I don't end when this body gives out.  And I was around before this body was created for me to grow and live in.  It's a pretty cool thought, and an amazing realization.

When we see life as just the trappings of our humanity, then we see life in a very small way.  We see its limitations, its lackings, its barriers.  When we see life for what it is, though--an amazing opportunity to experience this wonderful planet and the wonderful people all around during our limited time here--then we see the possibility and potential that should define who we are, all the time.

You are an eternal being.  It doesn't really serve you much to see yourself as anything but a marvelous, amazing, eternal creature who's spending time here in your body and your current persona, before moving on to something different, but surely just as amazing.  Do yourself a favor, and treat yourself as the marvelous eternal being that you truly are.  Don't make life small; live the grand and awesome life that you've been given.

Eternity is not something that begins after you're dead.
It is going on all the time.  We are in it now.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

An excerpt

Several hours into the day, he noticed that the road ahead of him seemed to end—it climbed a hill, then ended in the middle of the air.  He knew that it probably kept going down the other side of the hill, of course, but how could he be sure?  He smiled as he thought about it—what would he do if the road didn’t continue?  Where would he go then?  What would he do?  He was pretty sure he didn’t have to worry about it, but it was interesting to think of.

     Then it struck him—the language he had learned had given him another way of thinking, another way of looking at things.  He remembered very few thoughts from the time before he had language—he had had many impressions, reactions, and feelings, but the language he had learned had given him the ability to think of things that he couldn’t see, that he couldn’t hear, that didn’t even exist.  Just a few days earlier, he would have just looked at the road; he would have just seen it and followed where it led.  Now, though, he was thinking about what would happen if the road stopped existing.

     Did the words give him this power of thought?

     He continued walking; he had nothing else to do, and he knew it was right to do so.  So he walked, and he thought.  And as he thought, he noticed that his preoccupation with the thoughts was turning him inwards; he wasn’t seeing nearly as much as he had seen on the road before.  During his first few days, he had seen everything, had felt the aliveness of the world around him, had felt as if he were a vital part of it.  Now, his eyes often fixed themselves to the dirt of the road before him as he walked, and at times he would walk a considerable distance without seeing anything except the dirt.  He stopped as the thought came to him, and he turned around.

     That tree—the magnificent tree that stretched so gracefully and powerfully into the sky, surrounded at its base by a field of colorful and playful wildflowers—how had he missed that?  How had he walked right past it without seeing it?

     And what else had he missed that he never again would have the chance to see?

     Tricia’s words came back to him, about her grandfather’s warning that she would see less and less of the harmony as she grew up.

     Was he growing up? he asked himself with dread.

     And if this was growing up, did he want to do so?

     The thoughts perplexed him—he felt a certain power in them, a certain sense of wholeness, but he also saw how they isolated him from the world around him.

     He tried to stop them, but now that he had the thoughts, he couldn’t stop thinking.  He found that he just started thinking about not thinking.

     He turned back around and started walking once more.  It was all so confusing.