#751 The Courage to Thrive

“... vulnerability is at the center of fear and shame, 
but it is also at the center of joy and gratitude and love and belonging.”     Brene Brown

 
"The secret of happiness is freedom.
And the secret of freedom is courage."    Thucydides


“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.”    Anais Nin


“It takes courage to endure the sharp pains of self discovery, rather than 
choose to take the dull pain of unconsciousness that would last the rest of our lives.”    Marianne Williamson


“To wake up to our lives and to develop and sustain mindful awareness requires great courage. Mindfulness is not for the faint-hearted, nor for those timid or afraid of bearing witness to the often overwhelming brilliance, intensity, and complexity of their lives and world. To care deeply enough about waking up to our lives that we apply ourselves diligently to cultivating mindfulness, is a great act of courage, curiosity, and commitment. Properly practiced the intention to sustain mindful attention is supported by the attitudes of curiosity, openness, acceptance, and loving discernment."    Joel Levey

#361 Beyond "Stress Management" - Resilience for Real Life

      Our life will include several catastrophic events - death of loved ones, end of relationships, accidents, financial setbacks, humiliations, job losses, serious illnesses, etc - "shipwrecks" - where our life, as we once knew it, ends. “To undergo shipwreck is to be threatened in a total and primary way. … what has dependably served as shelter and protection and held and carried one where one wanted to go comes apart. What once promised trustworthiness vanishes.”
       Parks SD. Big questions, worthy dreams. Mentoring young adults in their search for meaning, purpose, and faith. John Wiley & Sons, San Francisco, 2000.
 
     There is NOTHING we can do to reliably prevent these from happening. A bruised ego will want to play the irrational, immature blame-game - detrimental on many levels. What we CAN do, is intentionally mature, so we won't just survive these storms, but will thrive! Mindfulness meditation practice is an excellent time-proven way of achieving that. Some discomfort - "growing pains" - are normal signs of progress in this practice - a very small price to pay. “As you go deeper into your practice, there will be times of great inner tension followed by release to the point of weeping. If you have not experienced this at least several times, you have not yet really practiced.”
        Kornfield J, Breiter P. A still forest pool. The insight meditation of Achaan Chah. Quest Books, Wheaton IL, 1985.

     IF resilient, after a shipwreck "we wash up on a new shore, perceiving more adequately how life really is – there is, eventually, gladness. It is a gladness that pervades one’s whole being; there is a new sense of vitality, be it quiet or exuberant. Usually, however, there is more than relief in this gladness. There is transformation. We discover a new reality beyond the loss. Rarely are we able to replace, to completely recompose, what was before. The loss of earlier meaning is irretrievable and must be grieved and mourned. But gladness arises from the discovery that life continues to unfold with meaning, with connections of significance and delight. ... There is deeply felt gladness in an enlarged knowing and being, and in a new capacity to act.
     ... the gladness on the other side of shipwreck arises from an embracing, complex kind of knowing that is experienced as a more trustworthy understanding of reality in both its beauty and terror.” 
       Parks SD. Big questions, worthy dreams. Mentoring young adults in their search for meaning, purpose, and faith. John Wiley & Sons, San Francisco, 2000.

     Our task is to discover a freedom that's independent of all circumstances & times.
     Kornfield J, Breiter P. A still forest pool. The insight meditation of Achaan Chah. Quest Books, Wheaton IL, 1985.

     See: Readiness for Change http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/11/436-readiness-for-change-is-pivotal.html

Udayan Sankar Pal   www.facebook.com/UdayanSankarPal

#320 Self-centered Judgments breed Fear, Guilt & Shame

     “Long before I reached adulthood, I learned to communicate in an impersonal way that did not require me to reveal what was going on inside of myself. When I encountered people or behaviors I either didn’t like or didn’t understand, I would react in terms of their wrongness. If my teachers assigned a task I didn’t want to do, they were ‘mean’ or ‘unreasonable.’ If someone pulled out in front of me in traffic, my reaction would be, ‘You idiot!’ When we speak this language, we think and communicate in terms of what’s wrong with others for behaving in certain ways, or occasionally, what’s wrong with ourselves for not understanding or responding as we would like. Our attention is focused on classifying, analyzing, and determining levels of wrongness rather than on what we and others need and not getting. Thus if my partner wants more affection than I’m giving her, she is ‘needy and dependent.’ But if I want more affection than she is giving me, then she is ‘aloof and insensitive.’ If my colleague is more concerned about details than I am, he is ‘picky and compulsive.’ On the other hand, if I am more concerned about details than he is, he is ‘sloppy and disorganized.’

      It is my belief that all such analyses of other human beings are tragic expressions of our own values and needs. They are tragic because, when we express our values and needs in this form, we increase defensiveness and resistance to them among the very people whose behaviors are of concern to us. Or, if they do agree to act in harmony with our values because they concur with our analysis of their wrongness, they will likely do so out of fear, guilt, or shame.

      We all pay dearly when people respond to our values and needs, not out of a desire to give from the heart, but out of fear, guilt, or shame. Sooner or later, we will experience the consequences of diminished goodwill on the part of those who comply with our values our of a sense of either external or internal coercion. They, too, pay emotionally, for they are likely to feel resentment and decreased self-esteem when they respond to us out of fear, guilt, or shame. Furthermore, each time others associate us in their minds with any of those feelings, we decrease the likelihood of their responding compassionately to our needs and values in the future.”

       Rosenberg MB. “Nonviolent communication. A language of life.” ed 2. Puddle Dancer Press, CA. 2003. 

Gevork Mosesi   www.dpreview.com