Do you have a practice of writing down your goals, tasks, and interests? Things you want to accomplish, things you want to do, maybe courses or projects that excite you?

I have done this for years. Organizing and prioritizing my goals has always been a practice of mine.

I’ve been thinking lately that I need to structure my time more. I don’t have the stamina I had when I was younger. I look at this list and think, what can I realistically accomplish in the time I have? I still go to work three days a week at the company I founded 25 years ago. I write books, send newsletters for my wellbeing coaching and money management company, have a meditation group, a few blogs, social media accounts, two websites to manage, etc. As I read offerings from the spiritual leaders, marketing coaches, and authors I follow, I get excited about all their programs, courses, certifications, and trips. There is so much out there.

What to choose?

I enlisted a fellow Chopra certified teacher I know and admire who now coaches. We had a Zoom meeting the other day to help me discern what is most important for my focus in the future. During the meeting, I discussed my long list of interests and things I’d like to take on.

She asked me a question that changed everything. I wondered aloud to her if I should go for another certification that interested me.

“What is the intention for each of these?”

With this prompt, I had to ask myself how these projects and programs would help me serve. Are they aligned with my purpose? I immediately looked at my list with a huge revelation that many of these desires were sourced from my ego. Enhancing my self-image? Showing the world my competence? Making me feel proud of myself? Especially more certifications because, as we talked, it was apparent it isn’t necessary to acquire any more!

This caused relief. Phew. I don’t need to do all these things. Many would have me go in different directions, take up much of my time, offer no additional benefits to my subscribers, and wouldn’t add any consequential substance to my life.

My pen began crossing out those on the list that were now obviously of my ego, not my higher self.

Take a look at your goals and desires. Maybe you can see what you can take off your plate, be kinder to yourself, and feel relief like I did.

Photo by lilartsy on Unsplash

(I just delivered this speech at my brother-in-law’s funeral. He was an icon in his north Indiana town. I am posting it here because of its universal message.)

We are here on Earth for such a brief time. And all of us at some point probably wonder why. When someone we love passes away and is no longer here with us, we may ask, ‘What is this all about? ‘ Why are we here?

It must have something to do with love. We can easily see it in our love for those we are close to. It’s a more complicated concept of love on a grander scale.

I was talking to my next-door neighbor a few years ago. We discussed how our society suffers from a lack of love for each other. She said, “We should just love one another.”

An idea popped into my head. I told her I was going to have that printed on t-shirts. That whole day, I was inspired to create them, along with our graphic artist, for the design. Then, I would advertise them, post them everywhere online, and sell them on my website. They would be a hit, everyone would want one, and I’d be spreading the word.

They turned out beautiful, with Just Love One Another encircled by a heart on the front. I made them in heather grey and red, 100% cotton t-shirts, made in America. I gave them to friends and relatives. Do you know what happened? No one bought them. No one. I could not believe people weren’t excited to get one! I ended up giving them away and donating them.

My message wasn’t getting through. What can we do? What is wrong with people?

It hit me recently that just telling others to love one another doesn’t work. We hear the message to love each other from our spiritual leaders, churches, temples, and mosques. But it doesn’t seem to sink in. People aren’t digesting the love message.

Watching the media, you would think many are impressed and motivated to emulate celebrities, influencers, and famous personalities. Are these the people we should try to be like?

I don’t think so! You cannot tell people to love one another, you have to exemplify it.  How do we do this? Find role models. Learn from them. Watch them.

And look at the great love Mary and Charley had for 43 years of marriage. It is a great love story. And love never dies. He sure found gold when he found Mary.  We can all learn so much from seeing Mary and Charley through the years and how they took such loving, selfless care of each other.

We should all be inspired to raise ourselves to the example Charley gave us: quiet kindness, helpfulness, encouragement, and humility. He truly exemplified the tenet to love each other. Treating everyone, whoever they are, with loving kindness. The stories we hear about his life and his life’s impact are extraordinary.

He cultivated the qualities outlined in the Beatitudes: humility, righteousness, mercy, purity, and peacemaking. The teaching in Matthew 25:40 is to love your neighbor. And St. Paul taught, “There is no ethnicity, race, sex, gender, religion, or nationality in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28. Erasing your individuality in favor of group identity and then judging you according to stereotypes assigned to that group violates Paul’s teaching, perpetuates racism, and is part of the perversion of Jesus’ teachings to love your neighbor. We all have the potential to do this. Let’s honor Charley with our efforts.

Finally, after losing my son, this came to me:

There are two kinds of pain: the love-pain and the self-pain.

1. Love-pain is experienced when its source is deep love. In that love is exquisite pain that includes goodness.
2. Self-pain has no love source. It emerges out of a lack of love, which is suffering.

They both hurt. But one holds seeds of transcendence. One warns that a change is needed.

And

What happens as time goes by after losing someone dear? Does the grief get less? No, but the heart grows so much bigger than the grief, overtaken by the great love you’ve awakened to. How else could you know how much love you had/have?

And I believe God made us out of love, so love we are.

This is the title of an excellent article by author David Michie. And it was the topic of my talk to a meditation group recently. Our meditators were genuinely intrigued by it.

David tells the story of a monk, Palden Gyatso, who was jailed by the Chinese when they invaded Tibet. He endured 33 years of prison and torture until he was released in 1992. After that horrendous experience, he told the Dalai Lama his greatest fear was of losing his compassion for his jailers!

He knew anger, bitterness, and resentment would only make him suffer more. He knew that habitually holding these toxic emotions would produce a destructive inner environment, eliminating the chance of a calm mind or a sense of well-being.

This is an amazing story of an extreme scenario. Indeed, we have far less of a challenge than he did.

But it gives us something to think about. We know what long-term stress can do to the body: hypertension, chronic inflammation, a compromised immune system, and more. So, we sit back and think, “Why am I allowing that awful person to take up residence in my mind? Hashing over and over how bad that person is when that person probably gives no thought to my feelings or opinion?”.

I will tell you a story. There was a relative who was an awful person living in my mind. I judged this person. I thought very little of this person. I listed the offenses and mean actions when I thought of her. She was occupying a part of me, and not a good part.

A few years ago, I set an intention to release this samskara as I flew across the country to my annual silent retreat with the Chopra Center. A samskara is a past imprint held within your being, and it can get ‘triggered’ by a thought, event, or memory that may cause more negative feelings. I was done with this habitual pattern.

As always, around the fourth or fifth day of a retreat, I thought, “I haven’t had any insights; nothing is happening!”. Until it did.

As I sat meditating, a strong feeling of compassion for this ‘awful person’ began to well up in my lower belly. It was visceral. It gently moved up my spine and throat, blossoming within my head like a torrent of love! My whole body was a field of love! Including for her. And tears spilled from my eyes. This is our divine, natural state, possible for everyone.

Later, I wrote about it in my journal and decided to tell everyone at the end of the retreat when we shared our experiences. I took the microphone and told them what I had experienced, with tears in my eyes. Someone raised their hand and asked, “Are you going to make up with her now? Invite her back into your life?”

I said, “No, this was for me. I don’t need to get wrapped up in that anymore. She is on her own path.”

In actuality, what has changed is that the resentment and anger are gone. I don’t wish her any harm, and I would help if no one else would. I care, but I also accept that people must excise their own demons. Only she can do that.

How do you feel opening a jumbled, messy closet or a crammed full drawer? In the ancient arts of Feng Shui and Vastu, clutter is an obstacle to the natural flow of energy that is all around us. Upon clearing a home of all the energy-draining clutter, people universally notice a new lightness of being, an openness that clears the mind as well as the personal space.

You may want to spend a weekend or two going through your possessions and deciding what you don’t need, what may be draining your energy just looking at it and moving around, and what things make you happy. We can surround ourselves at home and work with the things we love. Things that remind us of a loved one, have beauty and colors that enliven us, speak of our passions, and create an ease.

This is so good for us. Let’s eliminate—give away or throw away items like that ugly ceramic pot you’ve been keeping only because it was a gift and you thought you should keep it. Get rid of things that remind you of past unpleasantness. When looking at them, you can feel your mood drop a bit—and the further you drop in mood, the less effective you will be while working on your projects, solving problems, and dealing with other people. When you are in that energy flow, you get things done much easier, and solutions have a clear path.

Rid your home of all the items you never use! Have a garage sale! What we hang on to in our physical reality is amazing, just like those negative beliefs. And as we embrace those thoughts that speak of positive, prosperous living like a welcome cool breeze on a hot day, we want to multiply the cherished joyful things in our lives. Surround yourself with an abundance of beauty.

Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash

This is the time of year when we think about resolutions, breaking bad habits, or setting new goals. With our new intentions, we embark on a brand-new year of possibilities.

Like a reset, we have a chance to start over.

What do we want? An experience? Accomplishment? Situation? Relationship? Acquisition? Status?

When you write down your intentions and desires, I’m sure you’ve noticed that they spontaneously flow up into your thoughts. It’s entirely natural for our desires to be ever-present, just like our preferences and aversions. One thing about them is that they come loaded with our reaction to attaining them.

For example, when we decide to change professions, what comes with that desire? How will the result affect us? What do we imagine will change in our lives? Will we be happier, more fulfilled, or more financially confident?

Or how about finding our soul mate? Do we imagine we will feel more contented, connected, and appreciated?

What if your desire is to finally write your novel, mend a broken relationship, or go on that long-wished for trip?

Every desire comes with an imagined emotional state that we are seeking, one we will experience once the desire is fulfilled.

And this is something to think about: Each feeling of satisfaction with reaching our goal can come in many other ways. There are endless paths to feeling contented, connected, valued, appreciated, fulfilled, happy, or confident, aren’t there?

I call this the essence of the desire, found in an end result. Allowing the universe to serve it up in other ways stretches our possibilities for more success where we may not have imagined it! So keep that in mind!

When we are born, our perception from our senses is brand new. We have no formed opinions or knowledge of being alive on this planet. As we experience this new existence, we begin creating our EGO. Think of it as the software of our humanness. As we grow, we learn from our family, environment, and experiences, and our ego develops all its beliefs, likes and dislikes, attachments, and aversions. The ego is necessary to keep us safe, but it can also be a source of pain.

But even before we were born, we were Spirit. And we still are Spirit—the higher self, Soul, that portion of us from whence we came, the Divine, to which we are still connected. From our pure Self, we can receive guidance and peace. This is one of the reasons we meditate: to become aware of our higher perspective. Seeing from this vantage point allows grace.

We suffer when perceiving solely from our EGO because we believe the thoughts and stories we tell ourselves. We project the stories we hear and believe onto others, the world, groups, companies, and governments. All things, from great beauty to horror, are in our perceptions.  There is real suffering in this. I do not deny the tragedies happening throughout the world.

The great religious traditions teach us to be in the world but not of it. What does this mean? It means to step back from the judgmental EGO. If you can catch yourself in the midst of telling yourself about a tragedy and are beginning to feel forlorn, then you know you have a choice. You can find the peace residing in your higher self right now and perceive from there. It’s fairly easy when everything is going great, but it takes practice when our minds are full of worry, resentment, anger, or fear. Meditation, breathing practices, yoga, and other forms of mindfulness can help us move out of this mental suffering. With these modalities, you will learn to raise your consciousness to more peace, love, blissful moments, and well-being.

They will move you away from the emotional and mental suffering you experience from what you are observing. This makes it much easier to serve in the way only you can and help others with a clear mind.