Living With Eyes Wide Open Now

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“Without order, nothing can exist. Without chaos, nothing can evolve.” — Oscar Wilde

Amid these chaotic times, we are seeing a global awakening to higher consciousness. This process of emerging inner awareness and spiritual yearning is opening our eyes to new ways of being, removing the blindness that kept us in the tyranny of egos run amuck.

Yet it begs the question: after awakening, then what? In Buddhist philosophy there is a saying: “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”  

In other words, awakening to higher consciousness does not exempt us from doing the work; it changes the consciousness we bring to the task. We learn to live with the eyes of our consciousness wide open. There is no magical point of arrival; it is a lifelong process that continues as long as we live in physical bodies.

We cannot download awakening, we become it. We do not buy it somewhere by paying for some blessing by an enlightened being; we cultivate awakened spiritual awareness within by finding and aligning with truth. We nurture awakened consciousness by question those aspects of our self that mitigate against it.

In the process, we discover how wise action in each present moment can change the next. We learn how, by staying present to the full triumph and catastrophe of human experience, we can recalibrate and shape the course of history rather than being shaped by it.

We’re living at a historical crossroad of monumental proportions. To choose well we need to harness our emerging consciousness to engage courageous thought and nurture fresh perspectives; not to stifle debate and feed dissent.

Living with eyes wide open enables us to affirm the healing radiance and power of the human spirit because we remember who we really are – Divine in origin, even as we travel along this human journey.

The power of our true nature cannot be diminished by tyranny or lies; it cannot be tarnished by manipulation or fear. It is unassailable. We need to remember this.

The journey of global awakening is a long and winding one. This is not a time to go back to sleep!

Compassion asks us to recognize that each soul we meet along the way, is awakening at their own pace and level. Courage is needed to stay the course. Likewise, we need a sense of humor. We have to discern when to speak up and when to keep our advice for a more propitious time.

Besides birth and death, no outcome is assured in life. That can be a very good thing!

We have incredible creative ability and free will to use our awakened consciousness for good, so let’s not settle into smug complacency. None of us have arrived yet, no matter how awake and enlightened we may appear. Life is a journey and there is no point of arrival until we complete the course.

There is much we can do to enhance the process of staying awake.

We can recognize our individual limits and pace ourselves for the duration. Let’s take care of our physical vehicles and lean into the spiritual Life Force that sustains us.

And there’s more: Let’s take full responsibility for living from our inner truth and values. Let’s fine-tune our moral compass, so it can lead us toward truth. Let’s stay open to learning, changing and becoming more awake with each passing day. Let’s discard the old and embrace the call to evolve!

Each one of us is here to learn, grow and contribute to the process of life. We can choose to embrace the opportunities embedded in every challenge, instead of resisting the call to growth. I love the way Richard Moss puts it in his book The Black Butterfly: An Invitation to Radical Aliveness, ”The very forces that crush people can become profound radiance in an individual who no longer is resisting or attempting to modify life.”

By not reflexively resisting dissonant ideas and concepts, we can discover nuggets of gold everywhere. We can use our individual sovereignty to find clarity by processing external evidence through our innate wisdom and discernment. We can honor our individual truth without hating or trashing the truth of others, understanding that the higher the truth we abide by, the more unity we will experience with others.

There is no return to some romantic past. As Ken Wilber puts it in A Brief History Of Everything, our tendency to rewrite history as a romantic fairytale, is just a dream to pacify our fears of the unknown future.

Instead of looking for a place to return to, let’s focus our vision to create a bright future as our living legacy for future generations on this planet. Finding a new way forward requires courage, audacity and faith, yet we can do it.

You and I were born for this time. We have been preparing for it all along, and now the time is here.  Gather yourself!  Let go of what no longer serves and harness your courage!  Opportunity is calling. This could be a very good time for all of us!

About the Author

©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.

How to Overcome Difficult Emotions With Self-Compassion

How to Overcome Difficult Emotions With Self-Compassion

Self-compassion is a powerful antidote to difficult emotions such as anxiety and shame. It is a portable form of therapy that can be applied anywhere.

Many people think of self-compassion as a weak trait and shun it in their effort to act tough. And yet, self-compassion is hugely important to help us learn and grow.

It allows us to become more resilient because we accept the inherent possibility of both failure and success in all areas of life, instead of resisting it. Through the lens of self-compassion, we recognize that both failure and success are part of the process of life. Instead of hardening our stance in the face of setbacks, this recognition helps us to accept ourselves and our best effort as good enough in each moment. Even when we fail, self-compassion gives us the courage to try again.

The aspect of ourselves that judges, blames or shames ourselves or others, will be the slowest in evolving. Our least evolved parts are usually stuck in basic survival instincts, including excessive self-criticism, fear, hatred and shame.

By healing this within us, we are able to fully evolve.

Whenever we feel threatened by something outside ourselves, we automatically revert back to the primal fight/freeze/flight response for protection and safety. We lash out, self-isolate or avoid confrontation instead of learning how to effectively deal with challenges.

When danger is experienced on the inside, we go a step further: we internalize the fight/freeze/flight response and instead judge, blame or abandon ourselves. We devolve toward self-criticism, isolation and stuckness – the unholy trinity of woundedness.

A good case in point is the anxiety that many people experience around public speaking. According to psychologist and mindfulness practitioner Dr. Chris Germer, a public speaking anxiety is not an anxiety disorder; it is a shame disorder. At the root of the anxiety that causes us to fear failure or to choke up, lies deep shame.

When we internalize our shame, we create anxiety.

Self-compassion dissolves this excessive shame and self-criticism to bring balance thru self-love. In essence, the practice of self-compassion allows us to hold ourselves in the midst of shame, acknowledging that we are all imperfect beings and embracing ourselves nonetheless.

Many of us extend compassion toward others, yet have difficulty in holding compassion toward ourselves. We can be compassionate to others because we don’t feel immediately threatened by their challenges.

And yet, healthy self-compassion is a necessary prerequisite to master before we can offer true compassion to others.

Why is it so difficult for us to develop self-compassion?

Self-compassion is not our first response at the instinctual level of survival; it is a skill we need to develop from a spiritual perspective if we wish to break free from living at basic levels of survival and evolve into our fullest potential. Old conditioning of self-judgment, unworthiness and shame also make it difficult for us to practice self-compassion and block our growth. To continue evolving, it becomes essential for us to address these emotions.

Self-compassion can be seen as a melting of the heart in the face of difficulty – stepping out of judgment and into compassion devoid of judgment for ourselves or others. It allows the lower, denser emotions to dissolve in the higher frequencies of compassion and love.

When the heart starts to soften around an issue, we will re-experience some of the same emotions previously triggered by conditions: shame, guilt, pain, grief, disappointment and more. And yet, as we learn how to hold that space of compassion for ourselves, we become strong enough to hold our pain as well. By becoming present and acknowledging these buried emotions, they can finally dissolve so we can let go of woundedness in our lives.

Self-compassion gives us the capacity to hold ourselves in love while we process old pain differently and resolve it, instead of staying stuck in a dysfunctional coping mechanism. This practice allows us to become stronger and more resilient, and we grow in grace.

Even as life continues to offer us emotional triggers, our growing ability for self-compassion and understanding empowers us to hold that safe space of compassion for ourselves. It allows us to see ourselves as a work in process, holding our struggles and the messiness of our lives in compassion. I believe this is what pioneering psychologist Carl Rogers meant when he said: “When I accept myself just as I am, I can begin to change.”

Self-compassion becomes easier with practice. It develops our ability to extend compassion and forgiveness to all forms of life, and to offer more life-expanding love to others. Ultimately, it connects us intimately to the abundantly rich wellspring life.

Self-compassion is not self-indulgence; it means treating ourselves with the same care, love and support we would give another.

This inner stance allows us to ask ourselves what we need and then giving that to ourselves. It allows us to recognize that all people are imperfect – including us – and to admit that in ourselves at the very moment we feel we’re failing. It gives us the grace to accept what is instead of getting stuck in resistance and denial.

At the core of self-compassion lies mindfulness – observing things as they happen and being willing to stay present with difficult emotions. Mindfulness is a wonderful practice because it teaches us how to step out of the drama and practice compassion toward ourselves and all sentient beings.

Lasting transformation comes not from just understanding the process of self-compassion, but putting it into practice as a personal way of living.

Here are a few guidelines to help you live from a place of self-compassion:

  • When you find yourself failing or suffering, bring mindfulness to it – acknowledge that you are struggling to validate yourself.
  • Remind yourself of the common humanity of the situation – this is not just you; it is part of all of life. Struggle is a part of life.
  • Speak some words of kindness to yourself; comfort yourself and give yourself the encouragement that you would give your best friend.
  • Cultivate the habit of practicing lovingkindness to yourself and all sentient beings in all circumstances – especially the challenging ones! An excellent place to start is with the Buddhist Lovingkindness prayer, one version of which you can find at Buddhagroove.
  • Commit to a daily practice of self-compassion. In the flow of life, a self-compassionate response means honoring the pain of seeing what we’ve done; recognize difficult situations as areas in need of healing, acknowledging the experience and its related shame in love, and then opening our hearts with forgiveness and compassion in the midst of shame.

When more and more people commit to practicing self-compassion, we create a culture of kindness in which everyone can heal and grow. Together, we can become a force for healing in a broken world.

About the Author

©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.

The Purpose of Awakening: Learning To Love

The Purpose of Awakening: Learning To Love

We are gifted with life in the physical body and world to learn how to truly love. Our conscious participation in this process as awakened souls allows us to fulfil our highest purpose. And from the conflict all around, it’s clear that we’re not doing very well with mastering this lesson!

Life is very simple, really, but because most of us live from the mind and not the heart, we’ve developed the false belief that life is complicated and our ultimate purpose too complex or hard to find.

There is a better way.

It is time to remember why we came here in the first place. We did not come to earthly life to divide and conquer, but to find our way back to Oneness through love. All the great wisdom traditions tell us we are born from love, though we tend to forget that and operate on autopilot much of the time.

Learning to truly love requires us to develop gratitude and forgiveness. We cannot truly love with judgment and hatred in our hearts; and we cannot enjoy the beauty of life when we are driven by insatiable greed.

Ram Dass said, “If I’m an ego, I am judging everything as it relates to my own survival… souls love. That’s what souls do. Egos don’t, but souls do.”

From the soul perspective, a life well lived is not measured by the amount of power, money or status an individual can amass at any cost – a well-lived life is measured by how well the soul learned to embrace gratitude and forgiveness as expressions of Divine love.

We are intrinsic parts of nature and inexorably interconnected with all other people. Anything detrimental we do to the planet or to others, we ultimately inflict on ourselves. And so, the true wakeup call sounding for all of us is to see just how far we have drifted from the moorings of love so that we can course-correct.

Only when we acknowledge our part in the game of separation, judgment and fear, can we begin to heal the wounds of separation consciousness. There is no transformative benefit in reacting to the voices clamoring for separation, division and conflict, because whatever we react to, we entangle with energetically.

Instead, this is the time all awakened souls are asked to first go within and realign with Higher consciousness. From that alignment with the Source of love, unity and truth, our presence becomes transformative as we interact with fellow souls. We heal when we align with our Source – that truth, love and unity is what sets us free.

Our realignment with Source enables us to approach life from a place of Divine love rather than from survival anxiety. It also enables us to live with greater interdependence. As we increase our awareness of existing within an intelligent and benevolent universe, we experience greater intimacy and connection with all forms of life, including ourselves.

Will this guarantee a life of safety and comfort?

No – that is not why we came here. We embarked on this life for our personal soul growth, not to isolate ourselves from the lessons of this earthly school and our fellow soul companions.

It is true that life can be full of suffering. We all get physically sick and our bodies sometimes ache.

Just as in school, we may not enjoy all the lessons that come our way. There are abundant opportunities to feel let down by others or frustrated with ourselves. And the world at large—now there’s a circus! We are confronted with all sorts of painful, alarming situations—abuse, starvation, poverty, war, lack, uncertainty, corporate depravity. On any given day we might get into an accident or learn that someone we love has died.

Over eons of time, we’ve developed many coping strategies to survive, and not all of them are helpful. Coping strategies allow us to roll out of bed each morning and face the world. And while some of them are useful, we may overuse or over-identify with these survival strategies. When we do so, we become cut off from love, separated from trusting life and our Source.

Separation consciousness is rooted in the belief that the external world is separate. The ego believes that it resides “in here” and everything else is “out there.” By locking in this duality-based viewpoint, we cannot see our role in co- creating all our experiences. We become limited, fear-based and paranoid.

This duality-based view of life is an obstacle to the emergence of our Divine nature. To heal that, we need to return to love. A Course in Miracles states, “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

Science tells us that we reside in a unified field of energy called the universe. Every major religion, spiritual path, and wisdom tradition has some version of Oneness at its core.

From an energy perspective, we are all interconnected like billions of mirrors endlessly reflecting and stimulating one another’s growth. The world is an enormous reflection of our psyche. Our job is to attend to the source of the projections, not the mirrors. We are to heal the roots of separation, not to slap labels on others that keep us separate.

Anais Nin said, “We see things not as they are. We see things as we are.” When we stand in judgment over something, it can be very enlightening to ask ourselves what it is we do not wish to see in ourselves, for it is that inner blindness that makes us project our self-judgment out into the world instead.

Spiritual awakening frees us from the blindness of unconscious living. It allows us to transcend ego as our primary identity. Awakening empowers us to bridge the separation we formed with life beyond ourselves. This ongoing process calls us to heal and reunite the wounds of separation consciousness, both in ourselves and with others. And we do that profound work with the tools of forgiveness, gratitude and love.

Persian mystical poet Rumi wrote, “Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of their heart.” Clarity is what remains within when we replace our ego distortions with growing awareness. This shift in consciousness enables us to recognize the spiritual lessons presented in our experiences.

To the awakened soul, everything is a benevolent lesson—despite the ego’s endless stories that tell us otherwise. Stress, frustration or “negative” emotion is just an indication of something that needs attention, an invitation to expand our true awareness and heal the underlying separation.

We expand our conscious awareness through the practice of forgiveness – it asks us to surrender our attachment to the ego’s need to be right, to feel validated or empowered.

The ego wants to win, whereas the soul wants to grow.

When we let go of our attachment to the ego’s power addiction, we forgive. And when we forgive, we discover gratitude for what is. We’re able to see the beauty of what is, instead of blindly striving for what is not.

Situations the ego may construe as failure or loss may now be seen as opportunities to learn rich and necessary spiritual lessons. Even trying situations contain buried gifts. The imperfections of the world are perfect for our purpose of learning how to love in a healing way.

Instead of asking “Why this? Why me? Why now?” which implies that we do not trust the implicate order of life, we can start to ask instead, “How is this helpful on my journey? What can I learn from it? How do I need to change to return to my inherent state of peace?”

In true awakening, the presence of spiritual love within calls on us to have compassion for the struggles of others and to forgive them for their limitations. When we do that, we start to heal the wounds of separation. We don’t love the other because they are black, or white, Muslim or Jew, rich or poor – we love them because they are part of our family of humankind.

All our fellow humans deserve our love, forgiveness, respect and support because that is how we heal separation consciousness – not by sticking labels on them and then arguing about the meaning of the labels. And certainly not by destroying the fragile physical vessel of the soul.

Humans evolve when they can see and grasp a better way; a better vision of themselves and of the world. One of the greatest gifts we can offer others, is to recognize their true potential as souls and to mirror that for them so they can evolve toward that potential.

We heal anger with love, hateful acts with forgiveness, and disrespect with respect.

This is the real work of awakening. It is the work of healing the wounds inflicted by egos operating on greed and inequality.

If you are reading this, you are one of the awakened souls on the planet who are being called to be part of this monumental task. The time is now. Together, we can do this!

About the Author

©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.

Your Life Is Your Message

Your Life Is Your Message

Gandhi, that great peacemaker and inspirational leader, applied a simple motto to his life. It read, “My life is my message.”

Gandhi understood that we communicate with everyone we encounter each day; our lives are the books read by others, and our message is shared through our attitudes, values, beliefs, thoughts, words and actions – everything that drives us daily.

The message of your life consists of three very important components. Through it:

  • You guide yourself to what is possible;
  • You guide others about what is most important to you and what they can expect of you; and
  • You affect and influence the larger environment around you.

What does your life message say? Your message will always communicate what is most important to you. For your life to have positive impact, it is essential to cultivate awareness of the issues that occupy your time and attention.

You shape your life through the power of your attention before you even make a choice. Whatever you pay attention to, think about, dwell on, talk, worry or obsess about, will increase and multiply until it affects who you become.

  • If you constantly think about what frightens you, you will become more fearful.
  • If you constantly think about how unfair life is, you will see more reasons to support this view.
  • If you believe you are worthless, your choices and behaviors will reflect that belief.
  • If you feel entitled to be angry, you will find more and more to be angry about.

Likewise, when you pay close attention to what is positive, hopeful, supportive, uplifting and encouraging, your life and sense of self will inevitably reflect that.

You have the power to choose what you cultivate in the inner garden of your mind!

Whatever your circumstances, you can direct your attention to what will most positively affect your attitudes and actions. Your personal attitudes and values can lift your spirits or dash them far more effectively than anything outside yourself can!

The power of consciously focusing your attention also sets the stage for personal empowerment in your life. To the same extent that you harness your focus to practice self-awareness and self-knowledge, personal happiness and inner harmony become available within. Self-knowledge helps guide optimal choices, so the more self-knowledge you develop, the more self-empowered you ultimately become.

True self-knowledge allows for an honest assessment of strengths and weaknesses – not to judge or avoid the weaker aspects, but to allow for their healing and integration. This process is at the core of all personal growth. It ultimately empowers you to call on inner strengths and capabilities to meet life’s challenges, instead of making excuses for your woundedness or fear. Each time you strengthen or heal an area of woundedness, you become more integrated and more resilient to make empowering choices.

Over time, self-knowledge fosters trust in yourself and in the choices you make. There is no short-cut to true self-knowledge; it is developed in the thick of living where it grows from keen awareness and attention to the unfolding process of your life.

Your life is your most powerful message to others, and self-knowledge allows you to fine-tune that message. By observing your life and actions, you can cultivate the attitude and skills necessary to fulfill your life purpose in the most optimal way.

Here are a few pointers to get you started on honing your unique message:

Observe your impact on other people. Put yourself in their shoes. See yourself from their perspective. Listen to yourself. Get to know your emotional terrain and how it affects everyone around you. When you don’t like what you see, change it!

Listen carefully to your own stories. Your stories shape your character, temperament and sense of what is possible, so know what your stories are. How do you habitually describe the impact of life events on you? What themes do you emphasize? Which stories do you keep harking back to? When you see the impact of the stories you tell, you can change your habitual stories for more optimal outcomes.

Know your strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps even more important than your strengths, is the awareness of what challenges you. Both strengths and obstacles have lots to teach you. True authenticity is found by being aware of your weaknesses and working to improve them, yet choosing to reach for your highest potential.

Find out what matters to you. What do you talk about most persistently? Where are you focusing your time, money and attention? If it does not bring you the outcomes you desire, perhaps it is time to shift your focus.

Notice what makes you happy. What makes you feel genuinely excited and alive? What inspires and moves you? What fascinates you? Focus on these things, and they will surely expand to enrich your life.

Notice what dampens your enthusiasm. What are the thoughts that drive your fearful thinking? When you become aware of the thoughts that trigger your emotions and spin you into fear, anxiety or depression, you can exchange them for positive ones. Emotions  are driven by thoughts, not the other way around.

Notice how much you learn from your mistakes. There is no failure in life; there is only learning. Cultivating this attitude will save you from repeating self-destructive behaviors. Adopting an open mind leads to learning and growth; it also allows you to let go of habitual defensiveness and fear because you increasingly act from self-awareness instead of ignorance.

Learn from other people. It has been said that smart people learn from their experiences; brilliant people learn from the experiences of others. When you appreciate the experiences of others, you do not need to repeat them for your own learning; instead, you can avoid pitfalls and focus on optimal actions.

Get to know your inner world. You are the only companion you have for life. By getting to understand your own dreams, hopes and wishes, you’re able to support yourself in the best possible way to reach those goals while maintaining a sense of inner harmony.

Stay curious. Children are wonderful teachers because their minds are not cluttered with value judgments of good and bad. The more curiosity you cultivate about life, the more you will move out of judgment and into the field of possibilities from where miracles happen.

Your life is indeed your unique message and contribution to the world. Self-knowledge is the key to unlock that message so you can communicate most effectively with yourself, others and the world around you.

About the author

©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.

Tending The Heart: How to Get From Fear to Empowerment

Tending The Heart: How to Get From Fear to Empowerment

Fear constricts and empowerment frees; and tending the heart allows us to find our way to that freedom.

Fear is a deeply rooted meme in society because every generation on earth has faced the need for survival. In earlier times, fear of abandonment was primary for most individuals, because abandonment by the tribe most often led to death.

Fear is also used extensively by egoic minds and unawakened beings to control, manipulate and force consensus, even when it is false.

Fear is an illusion

Fear is truly false, for it presents false evidence in order to coerce us into submission; it often parades the imminent danger of abandonment to make us cower from the possibility of what other humans might do to us.

Even this grandiose posturing of fear is false! In truth, the Creator cannot abandon creation, for the creation is the very expression of Divinity in physical form. To abandon creation, the Creator has to abandon Himself, and that is not possible. Both Creator and creation are one in consciousness; therefore all divisive concepts of fear and abandonment come from the unawakened ego self.

To make space for the realization of Divine support and protection in our lives, we need to evict the fear of what man can do to us.

We need to understand that fear is a man-made phenomenon that has no power over our eternal souls. Only then can we affirm that we are embraced by a loving Creator who does not and cannot abandon His creation.

Tending the heart

Once we have revealed fear for what it is: false evidence appearing real, there is a Zen Buddhist teaching that reminds us there are only two things in this world we need to do: sit and tend the garden.

Even though the world is full of suffering, it is also full of empowerment to overcome. When we stop and become quiet, we can see this.

And so, we need to tend our hearts so we can transition from fear to faith; from disempowerment to true empowerment.

Take the time to sit and calm your heart; feel beneath the fear to the woundedness there that begs for healing. It takes courage to step away from the crowd, to push away the busy schedule and to sit, tending your heart and your soul. Yet all masters knew how important that is: even Gandhi took one day a week to sit in silence, tending the garden of his heart so he could be the change he sought in the world.

Right action

When we’ve taken time to tend the heart, we can engage in meaningful action. How you do your work is as important as what you do. Never act out of guilt, because then you are propagating the very suffering of the world. If you truly wish to grow love and not anger, fear or guilt, then do what you do from love, and not from any other emotion.

When acting out of guilt, anger or fear, we act out of ego, no matter how noble the cause we engage in.

Expand your circle

We also need to stay connected to the whole of life, even as we figure out our individual parts of the journey. Don’t draw your circle of life too small. You are more than one person – you are one with life itself, expressing in this life through consciousness.

Reclaim your connection

It is in sitting and contemplation that we recognize the stillness of the Creator Presence and our connection to all. That awareness can foster in us spontaneous caring and compassion for the woundedness of the world, so we commit to the awakening and care of the world.

Many brave souls have gone before to show the way. I often find inspiration in the beautiful words of author Diane Ackerman’s School Prayer:

“In the name of daybreak

and the eyelids of morning

and the wayfaring moon

and the night when it departs,

 

I swear I will not dishonor

my soul with hatred,

but offer myself humbly

as a guardian of nature,

a healer of misery,

a messenger of wonder,

and an architect of peace.

 

In the name of the sun and its mirrors

and the day that embraces it

and the cloud veils drawn over it

and the uttermost night

and the male and the female

and the plants bursting with seed

and the crowning seasons

of the firefly and the apple,

 

I will honor all life

—wherever and in whatever form

it may dwell—on Earth my home,

and in the mansions of the stars.”

Centuries earlier, the Buddha taught: “To live in joy and love even among those who hate; to live in joy and health, even among the afflicted; to live in joy and peace, even among the troubled; quiet your mind and tend the heart, and free yourself from fears and confusion and attachment, and know the sweet joy of living in the Way.”

What is your gift to the world that only you can bring? Listen closely, push beyond fear to find it, and then commit to do it with love and joy!

About The Author:

©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.

The Search For A Perfect Life

The Search For A Perfect Life

Of the many things that cause us pain, our expectation that life should be perfect, is one of the primary causes. The idea that there exists a perfect Shangri-La somewhere that we can somehow locate, is a form of magical thinking that sets us up for false expectations and disappointment..

It creates dissatisfaction with the life we have and pulls us out of the present moment into an unending search for perfection out there somewhere. It also leads to frustration when our efforts fail to create the perfect outcomes we think we need, deserve or desire.

If we truly desire inner peace, we need to trade this magical thinking for a more accurate version of truth.  Zen teaches that to find peace of mind, we need to “think of life as a series of imperfect facts.”

I have used this helpful reminder in countless ways in my personal practice.

This phrase reminds us that our reactions and outrage often stem from an unconscious belief that life should be perfect – or that our individual lives and outcomes ought to be perfect for us to have peace.

Because this limiting belief operates beneath the surface, we may be unaware of it. If I were to ask  you, “Do you expect your life to be perfect?” you would almost certainly say no.

And yet, we get upset when our lives do not match our idealized dreams! This process is known as cognitive dissonance – the conflict between what we want and what actually shows up.

It is worth checking how often you become angry or frustrated when something relatively minor goes wrong, or when events don’t turn out the way you wanted.  You may even feel outraged when life refuses to follow your commands!

With some mindfulness, we can turn such moments into Zen moments: we can think of life as a series of imperfect facts. And know, too, that sometimes those apparent imperfections are really blessings in disguise.

In the same way that we can become outraged when life “goes wrong,” we can sometimes react very harshly when people let us down, or when our expectations are shattered by some very human behavior.

Our relationships do best when we can accept that people sometimes will behave badly, inconsistently or thoughtlessly. Sometimes they will let us down.

As long as this doesn’t happen all the time and does not put us in danger, it is healthier for everyone when we can see these behaviors as part of the big picture and get over the smaller disappointments.

When we focus on let-downs and disappointments, our relationships weaken and may even disintegrate. By choosing instead to see others as flawed as we are, yet generally doing their best, our relationships with all of life become easier, more relaxed and far more rewarding.

Mother Teresa reminded us of that when she said:
 “People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”

When we can see the perfect unfolding of life as a series of imperfect facts, our acceptance of what is, brings freedom and joy.

About the author:
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.