by Ada Porat | Jul 28, 2017 | Conscious living, Life coaching, Mindfulness
A garden delights every sense – the whirring of hummingbirds among the lavender plants, the feel of rich, soft dirt between our fingers, bright colors of ripening fruit in the orchard, the taste of a freshly picked tomato. And yet, true garden lovers know that the benefits of gardening aren’t just physical. From season to season, gardens teach valuable life lessons that help us grow as individuals.
- Learning to adapt can save you a lot of heartache
Author and avid gardener H. Fred Dale famously said that his green thumb came only as a result of the mistakes he made while learning to see things from the plant’s point of view. There are gardeners who battle against the elements, fighting to put a specific plant in a specific place, only to find that the same pests return year after year to destroy their best-laid plans. Why won’t it grow?
Sometimes the answer may be in refraining from imposing one’s will on nature and instead learning where the plant does want to be and what growing conditions it thrives in. When we align with nature as with life, we tend to generate optimal outcomes with less struggle and much more satisfaction.
- Optimism is important
Gardening is a matter of your enthusiasm holding you up until your back gets used to it. Seed catalogs arrive when snow is still on the ground in most places, and garden planning is really just a vision in the gardener’s mind. Time is a great healer that lets us remember the good while forgetting the pain. During winter, last year’s failures and the hard knots in my lower back fade away just long enough to dream of an even better garden this year. It lets me forget about the annoying javelinas who trampled my flower beds and the sneaky raccoons who dug up my bulbs.
Believing that the future holds the possibility of better things, new growth, and abundant rain is the first step to making good things happen.
- Pruning is a reality of life
Author James Clear said that ideas are like rose bushes: they need to be consistently pruned and trimmed down. One of my most challenging gardening projects involves the necessary discipline of pruning: cutting back fruit trees and shrubs to remove dead branches and shape their growth. It’s like giving tough love to the garden even when I know that pruning is essential for plant health. The tree that strains to bear all the fruit on its limbs to ripeness, will bear smaller fruit and risk breaking limbs. Pruning and thinning out excess fruit allows for larger, better yields. And the shrub that has been pruned, will come back bushier and more vital next season. Ah, a tough but necessary life lesson here!
In life as in gardening, tasks and responsibilities have a way of proliferating until they smother the essential things of our lives. Optimal growth and living requires pruning. By shedding non-essential demands and energy drains, we can more effectively focus on the truly important issues that will let us thrive.
- It’s okay to be alone
There are people who revel in being alone, yet most individuals abhor being alone in quiet spaces, accompanied only by thoughts. In the magical environment of my garden, it always feels okay to be out amidst the plants, sweating and tending each plant, feeling the satisfaction and pride of a well-tended garden while being absolutely alone. Research studies have proven beyond doubt that the simple act of gardening alleviates depression. If you must choose between meditation in a quiet room and meditating through gardening, you’ll find it far easier to empty your mind in the physical exertion of a garden by sitting in silence.
In the garden surrounded by breezes, bees, birds and crawly things, being alone only means there is not another human near; it does not mean you are lonely or isolated. Since trading frenetic city life for the simplicity of country living, I find myself renewed by my garden daily. The bounty of nature is perfect company!
- Every good thing requires hard work
First-time gardeners are often surprised by the time it takes to create a bountiful garden. Tending a garden is a worthy way to help nurture and heal our world, but it takes effort: real effort that may lead to plenty of sweat and aching limbs. The reward more than compensates us for the effort: bite into a fresh red tomato and you’ll understand. Or notice your health improving as you eat more fresh organic veggies that you have lovingly cultivated and you will forget the effort it took.
It is similar to the process of raising children, growing a business, or developing a meaningful relationship. Building something worthwhile takes commitment, diligence and lots of effort! Hard work is the secret ingredient for every good thing that we develop over time.
- Failure is a necessary stepping stone to success
As in life, a garden is always a series of losses along with a few triumphs that we can learn from. Every year in the garden is a story of both failure and success. Which type of lettuce will do better in the heat? Why did I have so many Japanese beetles? Why didn’t the carrots sprout? It’s an experiment that takes place season after season, and there is no perfect formula that will protect against the ever-changing variables. What worked one year might not work the next because gardening happens in harmony with the dynamics of nature, not in lockstep with a static calendar or formula.
Nature is forever evolving, and there are no guarantees or bulletproof formulas. For every change that ensures success, there will be changes that bring failure. The solution does not lie in hanging up my gardening gloves, but in continuing to observe, learn the life lesson it offers and grow. Every failure shows me what not to do, and opens up possibilities for adaptation… and that flexibility leads to success in gardening just as it does in life.
- The unexpected can often be beautiful and magnificent
Just like seasons in the garden, life is short, fraught with the unexpected, filled with adversity, and never seems to go as we planned. It’s also magnificent in its beauty as we experience love and laughter, adventures and small joys that fill us with sublime happiness.
The happiest moments in life are seldom planned – instead, it’s their spontaneity that fill us with delight. Making plans are good but when we hit the dirt, it is invaluable to keep an open mind to all life has to offer. The surprising twists and turns of life offer great gifts, provided we stay open to the unexpected.
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.
by Ada Porat | Jun 19, 2017 | Change bad habits, Conscious living, Healthy boundaries, Life coaching
People are often shocked to discover they are empathic. They simply never questioned their ability to sense what is going on inside others, or their innate ability to take care of those around them.
The empath’s natural compassion, generosity, and caring are wonderful traits—the world would be a better place if more people dared to care for others in this way. As Maya Angelou put it: “I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.”
At the same time, empathic tendencies can backfire when not properly balanced. Spending all one’s energy taking care of others leaves empathic people feeling depleted and unsupported. This can lead to a negative spiral of give, give, give… until you give up!
While navigating human relationships is a lifelong task for everyone, empathic people can make things easier on themselves by understanding a few core principles:
- Differentiate between empathy and compassion
Empathy without boundaries leads to overwhelm and burnout. Empathic people often feel the pain and emotions of others, yet feel helpless about what they can do about it. They simply take on more and more of these emotions until they are overwhelmed. This self-destructive behavior leads to incapacitation and disempowerment for both the troubled person and the empath that picks up on their emotion.
Compassion, on the other hand, feels the deep emotion of others without taking it on personally. Compassion allows a person to recognize the emotion or pain of another, and then to consider possible actions that could be taken to render a helpful service to the other.
Compassion may lead the empathic person to say a simple prayer for the other, or to give them words of encouragement without personally taking on their emotion. At times, compassion may even guide the empathic person to recognize that there is nothing to be done about a situation, and thus to gently disconnect from it.
- Distinguish between service and sacrifice.
There is a fundamental difference between service and sacrifice that is critical for success. Empathic people often think that service entails self-sacrifice, and because they are so caring, they end up giving more than is healthy.
Service and sacrifice are not the same thing—service focuses on the value others get from us, whereas sacrifice describes what we give up for others.
If you come from a limited viewpoint, you may think that others can only receive when you give something up. But sacrifice is not a requirement for service! When you smile at somebody, the other person can receive joy from that smile without it taking anything away from you—in fact, it will typically lift your spirits too!
In fact, sacrifice happens when service is pushed beyond the limits of healthy boundaries. If we are to be effective in our service to others, we absolutely need to be mindful of honoring our own boundaries so we can be of service without sacrificing our own needs.
Empathic people especially need to learn how to take care of themselves first, so that they can have the energy and stamina to take care of others. This will help them focus on true service rather than sacrifice.
You can tell you’ve sacrificed yourself for another when it leaves you with less—less energy, less motivation, less happiness. This often leads to resentment later.
In contrast, when you’ve acted in the spirit of true service, you’ll have a sense of more afterwards- more satisfaction, more connection, more love, and more alignment to your purpose.
- Learn how to balance polar opposites.
Polarity refers to the relationship between two opposites that are interdependent. Caring for self and caring for others are two sides of such a polarity.
Balance is key here. It’s impossible to focus on only one pole and expect it to go well. If we only give to others and ignore the need for self-care, we will ultimately burn out and become a lot less fun to be with. Likewise, avoiding the polarity of self-care, will cause the polarity of care for others to suffer as well.
When we learn to balance the polarities in our lives by giving both poles adequate and equal attention, we avoid burnout.
- Stay open to receive from others.
Most empathic people become so overwhelmed by the energy drains they experience when they are surrounded by people whom they see as takers that they will look for ways to avoid interaction with others. As a result, they may not allow themselves to receive much from other people even though receiving is very different than taking.
Empaths are essentially givers, and while this is a beautiful intention, giving without receiving is imbalanced and eventually becomes unsustainable. When we limit the amount of support we receive, we also limit what we can give to others. In contrast, receiving support from others can help us become much more effective at giving.
Empathic people need to work at finding balance between receiving and giving. This may require asking for help, receiving support and letting go of the idea that you have to do everything by yourself.
- Learn to say “no.”
We all have a limited amount of time in our days. Learning how to make space for the truly important things in each day is critical—and one way to do that is through the power of saying “no.”
Empathic and service-oriented people typically dislike saying no. And yet, learning to say “no” to the distractions in life, will free up precious time and energy for the things that truly matter.
My rule of thumb is simple: Say “yes” when you can do so with a happy heart, and learn to say “no” without guilt. This will ensure that you stay aligned with your core values, your purpose and your inner balance.
Being empathic can be a great gift—and great gifts tend to come with equally great responsibility. When you learn how to temper, channel and protect this gift, you will be able to enjoy the enrichment it offers.
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.
by Ada Porat | Apr 28, 2016 | Change bad habits, Conscious living, Cope with change, Fear and anxiety
When we look out at the world, we see situations everywhere that appear to be broken and need fixing. What would happen if we could befriend problems and life crises as opportunities for growth instead?
There is an active intersection between our own psychological/spiritual health and the actual landscape of our life. What happens in the collective does impact us as individuals; likewise, what we do as individuals has an impact on the collective.
The way we address crises and problems has a rippling effect for better or for worse into the larger world. It offers us opportunities for positive change and personal growth. Author Tom Atlee calls crisis “the dangerous breaking of glass that opens locked windows of opportunity that require perceptiveness and courage to move through with care.”
It has been said that evolution, like water behind a dam, knows where all the cracks are, and is working on them right now with increasing intensity.
Could it be that something new is trying to happen, seeking the transformation of the whole in life? Might our out-of-balance world be an opportunity for increased spiritual consciousness seeking to awaken the values of the heart – compassion, generosity, forgiveness, and a desire to live in harmony with others?
I propose that the only way forward through times of crisis, upheaval and difficulty is to befriend our problems as the messengers that they are: highlighting the empty, loveless or meaningless places in our life that thirst for something meaningful and real.
To anxiously hold to the way things were – wanting no disruption in our lives – is to avoid evolving because our individual status quo is really closely tied to the larger malaise on the planet.
I remember being surprised years ago when I read Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore. One of the chapters he titled “The Gift of Depression.” I had to think about that.
What if we learned to cope with adversity more effectively? Rather than failing to notice the opportunities that adversity offers, we could see the problem and the solution as two sides of the same coin. To get to the other side, we often are called to walk thru turbulence we would rather have avoided. But denial disempowers, whereas facing our problems empowers us to take meaningful action!
In fact, today’s heartache may well carry the seeds of tomorrow’s happiness. What would happen if the hatching chick decided that it is too much effort to peck through the shell that encases it?
Who would you be today if it weren’t for your struggles? Think back. Wasn’t there a jewel of awareness and growth offered in almost every tribulation?
It is the decisions you’ve made at each challenging point in your life that determined where you are today.
When we treat each obstacle on our path as a unique opportunity for growth, we start asking different questions. We stop asking “Why this?” Why me?” and “Why now?” Instead, we start asking how we can navigate through the challenge, what we need to learn or do, and we accept responsibility for our part in the unfolding journey of our lives.
We befriend obstacles as messengers for deepening our faith and we dig deep to discover hidden gifts and abilities we never knew we had. We start looking for what we can do with the resources we have right now – an empowering place from where we can learn, evolve and become the powerful beings we were created to be.
In fact, I believe that when we connect to the true potential within us, we also find there the ability to help restore love, hope and unity to the wider world around us.
We could, as Tom Atlee suggests, “use our differences and our challenges creatively, not simply as problems to avoid or solve, but as signs of new life pushing to emerge – and as invitations into a new, more whole tomorrow.”
Responding appropriately to this invitation is of the utmost importance in our changing world. The waves of change that sweep through all layers of life like a tsunami, carry seeds of opportunity.
By viewing problems as opportunities into a “not-yet-known” future, instead of fearing the unknown, we can move forward gracefully.
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.
by Ada Porat | Oct 22, 2015 | Conscious living, Spirituality
Whenever good or bad fortune strikes, most of us spend some time pondering why it happened. We do this because the conditioned mind reasons there must be some meaning to it, just as it seeks to find meaning behind all of life’s events.
The mind always looks for meaning in everything. In fact, it is not the event itself, but the meaning that the mind attaches to an event, that brings either pleasure or suffering. The event may also be thought to reflect either God’s favor or disfavor, which further divides our thinking into a sense of pride or guilt.
However, the meaning we attach to a situation is by no means an absolute indication of its true content. We see this principle perhaps most clearly demonstrated at a sports event where the winning team’s fans respond to the score with loud cheers, while the supporters of the losing team respond to the same score with alarm, anger, or frustration. Same score, different responses based on the meaning attached to it by the spectators.
The meaning we attach to events also brings a value judgment into the picture. No longer do we see the game score simply as a score; we now look for why it happened. Sports commentators spend hours discussing the game to determine who did what to whom, and why. “Whose fault was it that the Lakers lost,” we ask. “Is that good or bad?” By labeling what happened, we think that we can deal with it better: it will justify our becoming defensive, or angry, or hurt, or victimized.
So it is the meaning that we attach to the passing parade of life’s events that pulls us into emotional turbulence. It drives us toward separation, from where we no longer respond to the event, but instead react to the meaning we have attached to the event. No longer is it just another event; it now becomes personalized as a me and a you; a winner and a loser; a victimizer and a victim; my suffering because of your actions. And because we attached a value judgment to the event, we now feel justified to react in some way. This is the classic cycle of duality that leads to ever more suffering, anger and despair.
Meaning is a product of dualistic existence. The human ego does not like a lack of control and looks for anything that implies a sense of power. When something happens, then, our minds attempt to attach meaning to it in order to feel some sense of control. In fact, the entire self-help industry is fueled by that desire for personal power, driven by our aversion to suffering.
To summarize, we suffer because not everything goes our way. We suffer because we dread doing the things we don’t want to do but have to do. And we suffer because we can’t have or do the things we want to have or do. We see ourselves as individual personalities with desires that conflict with our circumstances and responsibilities, causing untold pain and suffering.
How do we turn this around?
For this suffering to end, we need to move our perspective out of identification with our human personality and its ego-based thinking and turn toward identification with our true nature as souls. We need to turn inward toward the Source of our being, where happiness is independent of external things. When we do that, emotional suffering can end.
Indian teacher Ramesh Balsekar stated this process eloquently in A Net of Jewels, where he says,
“Essentially, what the average person wants out of life is just one thing: happiness. It is in this quest that he goes through life day after day, believing that he will somehow, someday find final satisfaction through the things and circumstances of his world. There comes a time, however, when man gets utterly tired, physically and mentally, of this constant search because he finds that it never ends. He comes to the startling discovery that every kind of satisfaction has within itself the roots of pain and torment. At this stage his search cannot but take the turn inwards toward that happiness which is independent of external things.”
The essence of manifest existence is continuous change from birth to death. With physical existence comes the will to live, to survive, to resist threat – and this will resides in the ego. The human ego drives the thinking mind and all our misery in the ensuing attempts to avoid the inevitable.
Life presents problems because our ego nature resists the process of life; we don’t accept what is there in the present moment. We want to become something other than what we now are, have something other than what we now have and so on.
Put another way, pain is a natural part of human life; suffering is optional.
Suffering is a consequence of identification with the ego self and its physical domain. If we feel that we are limited bodies of protoplasma, we will feel a need to resist or control whatever happens to us.
When we shift our perspective back to our true nature as eternal souls, we realize that we are more than what happens to our bodies. We do not need to control or resist what is happening because what happens out there, cannot threaten our true nature within. We also don’t need to label, react or judge anything that happens out there.
Birth, life, good fortune, misfortune, and death simply happen, and have no meaning of their own. Any thought about their meaning is just a thought that has no more meaning than any other thought. The Course in Miracles teaches this principle early on because if we want to find inner peace, it is important to learn to distinguish between what happens out there, and the meaning we attach to it. When we can detach from the meaning we have allocated to any given event, we are able to find a place of neutrality.
In the world of spirituality or non-duality, life no longer requires labels to give it meaning. In non-duality, the essence shows forth its truth and requires no meaning or labels. What it is, is self-evident. It makes no sense to ask what the meaning is of Love, Being, Presence, or Awareness. The very essence of non-duality is Love, Being, Presence and Awareness, so the notion of meaning is superfluous.
Spiritual practice is the discipline of undoing the conditioning of ego and the thinking mind, while learning to align with higher Truth – the principle that guides our souls. A healthy spiritual practice will consist of learning, devotion (prayer, meditation or contemplation), practice (ways in which you implement what you’re learning to integrate it) and interaction with like-minded individuals. You may find a fulfilling spiritual practice within a specific religion, order or teaching; or your practice may be more eclectic and ecumenical. Your practice may look different than the practice of another; and it is not important. What is vitally important, however, is that you commit to some form of spiritual practice consistently over time.
Effective spiritual practice relieves suffering by quieting the chatter of the thinking mind. This is necessary for efficient functioning of the mind. A quiet mind is also an end in itself since it is always accompanied by the peace of pure Awareness. In fact, this can be a guide to distinguish between effective and ineffective practices. If suffering is relieved by a practice, it is worth continuing. If it does not, and especially if suffering increases, it is better to discontinue it.
Effective practices further help us detach from all forms of conditioning. A quiet thinking mind allows unconscious conditioning to rise to the awareness of the conscious mind from where it can be cleared. The thinking mind ordinarily represses unwanted thoughts, urges, and desires, which represent the dark side of the ego (the shadow). When repression ceases, the shadow emerges into awareness.
The Indian sage Papaji described this process by saying that when you begin to awaken, all the gods and demons of your past come to reclaim you. The potential of these forms of unconscious conditioning to destroy one’s peace is minimized by the deepening realization that their release represents the dissolution of the ego-based thinking mind. It is also helpful to keep in mind that these emerging forms are finite in number, even when it feels as if the stack of arising emotions is endless.
As we do the work of consistently becoming aware of and clearing limiting patterns of conditioning, we grow in understanding of our true nature. The journey of spiritual awareness requires us to be vigilant and earnest in our commitment to Truth, and to trust the flow of life wherever it takes us; neither for exclusive joy nor for endless suffering, but to gain deeper understanding so we can learn.
This process of learning provides favorable conditions in which the soul can realize its highest potential. That realization is the highest purpose your soul could strive for – it is the true meaning of life and the sole purpose for being in the body.
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit 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.
by Ada Porat | Sep 23, 2015 | Abundance, Conscious living, Cope with change, Gratitude, Life transitions, Mindfulness, Self-awareness, Spirituality
Ask anyone in the Western world how they define abundance, and you are likely to hear them talk about material riches and prosperity. And yet, true abundance is so much more!
The definition of an abundant life cannot be satisfied by the presence of material things alone. Jesus knew this when he said that man shall not live by bread alone, but by the living Word or Spirit. He challenged the common assumptions of his time by pointing out that true abundance cannot be confined to merely physical terms.
The common, limited assumption of abundance as a merely physical notion prevails even today. To find lasting fulfillment in life, it is essential for us to question and redefine such limiting social beliefs. We need to understand that true abundance applies at the levels of body, mind and spirit.
In my work, I am blessed to see the power of questioning assumptions every day. Once we become aware of limiting beliefs and behaviors, we can change them. Along the way, we learn to look deeper instead of blindly repeating the same old habits to getting the same old outcomes. By identifying the hidden determinants of our behavior, our lives often shift spontaneously!
One of the primary areas where limitation shows up is in our relationship to abundance – or its opposite, scarcity. In an era of unprecedented abundance in the western world, many still struggle with feeling that there is not enough: not enough to feel complete, not enough to feel safe or secure. We keep accumulating material things that cannot fill the deep emptiness inside our souls.
During feudal times, all wealth was tied to land ownership and material prosperity was a zero-sum game. Abundance was defined by material belongings because there was only so much land, and only so many people could own it. Land owners could build fortresses and tax travelers passing across their property, leading to more wealth. This system led to separation between those who owned land and those who didn’t, the haves and the have-nots.
This belief system is still active as a powerful undercurrent in modern society. With each economic cycle, millions of individuals over-extend themselves to acquire physical assets and wealth during economic booms, only to find their fortunes evaporate when the boom turns into a bust. In some societies, cycles of war and civil unrest strip people of all forms of physical security they may have painstakingly amassed over generations.
But does the loss of physical assets really make you a loser? And does the presence of physical assets alone define you as a winner?
Enlightened teachers like Jesus and the Buddha taught that true abundance is not based on physical assets alone. They proposed that true abundance includes qualities such as integrity, honesty, service, and loving kindness to all forms of life. These teachings pointed to a higher and necessary concept of abundance that still eludes general consensus today.
Talk to people around you and you’ll find many adhering to the outdated belief of measuring abundance by material displays of wealth. Besides that, you’ll find the limiting notion of having to compete against others to secure these limited resources for survival.
Western society is predicated on this outdated assumption that there’s only so much to go around, and that we need to compete with others for these resources on a basis of win/lose. I have to get mine first before you can get yours or the limited supply runs out (think black Friday shopping mobs!)… if you win, I will lose… and on we go, pitting our limiting beliefs against others in an effort to survive. We expand scarcity consciousness to every facet of life: believing that for my faith to be right, yours has to be wrong; for my political party to win, I have to sling mud and make yours look bad; and so on.
If I believe you must lose in order for me to win, or that you must be shamed so I can have value, or that you must be wrong for me to be vindicated, or you must be suppressed for me to feel free, then my sense of happiness becomes dependent on your lack thereof. My experience of life becomes fragmented into opposites, and I end up suffering estrangement from my fellow humans and my true nature. A life lived from such outdated beliefs offers very limited love, serenity and security.
Many forms of duality-based limitations such as these cause untold suffering in the world. Turn to the news and you will find numerous examples of this scarcity-based thinking in us versus them propaganda, xenophobia, social upheaval and marginalization that pervades society.
The Buddha taught his disciples to free themselves from the vice of duality-thinking; to liberate themselves from the opposites of desire and aversion which propel the cycles of scarcity and suffering. It is only when we let go of this misguided struggle for a bit of material security at the cost of happiness, that we are able to poise our minds in peace.
How do we uncouple from the vicious cycle of chasing after material security and finding scarcity instead?
The power lies in our thoughts. Our thoughts contain the seed forms of potential; making change possible in our consciousness, our belief systems and our world.
Physical reality manifests from our imagination and ideas about how things are. As humans, we are gifted with the ability to change the way we think, and hence create different outcomes. We can change the way we look at things and thereby change the outcomes!
Instead of seeing the world as a physical pie and ourselves competing against others for a slice of it, we can consciously change our view. Perhaps it is time to recognize that energy is never destroyed; it simply changes form. We can expand our definition of true abundance to include all its myriad forms: the material as well as the mental, emotional, psychological and spiritual. And perhaps we need to acknowledge that there is enough for all of us, and then share our resources from that perspective.
Changing old mindsets for more appropriate ones may not be as clean or predictable as we’d like. Evolution is messy and uncertain. A clear outcome is not always apparent. To the minds of westerners who like control, reliability and certainty, this can be nerve-wracking. Yet, the alternative is to allow greed to destroy balance in our world and to render humanity extinct.
Times of change call us to trust on a grand level. We need to trust in our Source, ourselves and each other as we redefine true abundance. When we do so, times of upheaval can give birth to new paradigms that better fit our needs.
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.
