Wednesday, November 27, 2013

THANKS FOR NOTHING

This past Sunday, after a medically induced hiatus, I was back to doing what I most love to do: allowing the Inspiration of Source to flow through me in the form of conducting a Sunday service. If there is one area of my life in which the infallible Power of Spirit is demonstrated clearly it is in my Dharmic expression. Though I physically didn't yet feel up to expending the amount of energy it requires to stand before a group of people and emit that much Light, I also clearly recognized that the Light that was seeking to shine through me was and is so far beyond the constraints of my personality self. Doing what I am called to do is a perfect act of what I like to term Soulful Co-creation. I do my part. I show up and I open up. I stand up and I surrender In. I watch the personality preferences and I let the One Presence shine beyond them. After lecturing on Spiritual themes for almost eighteen years, I never doubt the Power of Illumination to become usable Inspiration in and through me. The mind may go into some interpretation of the quality of the work after the fact, but that is just what the mind does. It is just ground clutter. I continue to place my Faith in the Power that inspires me to keep doing what I am called to do. And I relish the experience of Union that occurs every time I stand up to speak. It truly is Source as verb.

The talk that I presented on Sunday was entitled THANKS FOR NOTHING. Though I will not try and recreate that content for the purposes of this blog, I do feel led to share the essence of what came through me.

I have for many years kept a Gratitude journal, and it is a treasured practice that I engage in each and every morning. Throughout the years, there are days when the awareness of blessings is acute and overflowing, and there are occasionally days when the mind comes up fairly blank. In retrospect, these are the days that have taught me the most about the deeper levels of gratitude. While I endorse and celebrate the practice of acknowledging and writing down what we are grateful for, I am even more empowered by shifting the focus to a state of being grateful FROM. Spiritual maturity is being in synch with sacredness and blessing when there seems to be little to be grateful for. Gratitude and thanksgiving are contextual and not dependent on content. True thanksgiving is being grateful at an empty table. And when you can feel that, the feast is truly on its way.

Gratitude is causal. Gratitude is primary. Gratitude is formless. And from this state of causal, primal, formless gratitude the blessings miraculously flow forth. We are admonished to be grateful IN ALL THINGS. Not when we have what we think we want and things seem to be going our way. IN ALL THINGS. When you can truly say thank you to the heartbreak, the meltdown, the diagnosis, the divorce, the foreclosure, the death; then you get a sense of being grateful from. This type of thanksgiving is transformational. When you are able to thank the challenge the miracle is on its way. This is spiritual discernment. This is spiritual awakening. This is faith. And for most us it is a process.

So I hear occasionally the somewhat caustic quip “thanks for nothing.” Beyond the sarcasm there is actually a seed of deep truth. When you can say wholeheartedly to the Universe “thanks for nothing,” everything is on its way. “I need absolutely nothing to be grateful this day. You, my Source, are enough.” This humility is the aperture for uncommon abundance. It is the valve that opens the floodgate. It takes our focus off of form and places it in Formless Spirit. It is here that we experientially learn that the moment is always enough for we are always enough. When we are In Synch within our Source, we have access to all of creation. It is holographically already ours. Gratitude opens us to let in the fullness of all that already is. This deeper gratefulness is unchangeable. It is in alignment with the Impulse of Creation Itself: Let there be, and it is good!

And so I hold you in my grateful heart, and I vibrationally know for you a deep, spacious, profound Thanks-Living holiday. Thanks for nothing, my friend. You are everything to me.

www.taylorestevens.com

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

A LITTLE PINCH

I have had a lifelong aversion to needles.

I can't stand the sight of them, let alone the felt-experience. A doctor friend tells me that it is totally psychological. I beg to differ. I am indeed aware of the scary stories my mind tells about these instruments of terror, but it is my body that feels the effects of metal meeting nerve. I shudder once again even as I type those words.

Did I mention I have had a lifelong aversion to needles?

They say that if you want to transform a fear you must face it head on. If you want to get beyond your fear of flying you must take a ride within a plane, a hot air balloon, a parasail. If you want to want to go beyond your fear of heights you must rise above that fear into a high and lofty place. Fear of public speaking? Join Toastmasters. Fear of dating? Meet up with a meet up group. You get the idea.

And so 2013 has been my year of facing my fear of needles. Beginning in January of this year I have had more encounters with needles than I ever thought was possible.

It all began when I decided to re-enroll in health coverage. Part of the stipulation for my policy was that I go to see an appointed primary care physician and have a physical exam. Driving to the office I had a serious yet caring talk with myself regarding the inevitable date with a needle that I knew was about to occur. Forms, personal histories, interactional niceties, stethoscopes, and the blood pressure cuff passed and the moment finally came when the nurse sweetly asked me to roll up my sleeve. I heard my self respond in a voice several decibels higher than is my norm;” please don’t let me see the...”

And then she said it. “A little pinch.”

I guess I thought at the time that the words were somehow unique to her. “A little pinch.” First off, it wasn’t true. It was most definitely not a little pinch. It was a fairly good size bite and informing me that was going to be little was not in the least bit helpful. I struggled to remember the identity beneath the personality. And I sat with the barely concealed desire to return the favor.

And so it began. I have heard the words “a little pinch” countless times in the past calendar year. I could count on one hand the times it was an accurate descriptive. From phlebotomy to intravenous to aspirations the little pinch has never lost its impact to make me wince and tighten. And yet my relationship to the wince and to the tightening has been transformed dramatically.

Life is full of little pinches. That is just the way it is. It is our relationship to those pinches that make all the difference in our internal atmosphere. It is never helpful to pretend that there are not things that invoke fear within us. Fear is a part of the human experience and, contrary to what we so often hear, fear is not an enemy. If there has been one over-riding lesson from this year filled with nurses, needles and little pinches it is to relax open with those fears and embrace what instinctually triggers resistance. The life long aversion to needles has not gone away. Facing the fear over and over again has not resulted in a lack of fear. What I have learned this year, more intimately than ever, is to be friendly with the fear, the aversion, and the pain. Now when I hear the words “a little pinch” I bring presence to the part of me that resists needles and physical pain. I allow the contraction to occur, even as I invite a feeling and relaxation and openness to embrace the contraction. I watch the mind story about needle aversion without trying to layer over it with a better story of how I do not fear needles. That would only be a lie. I do fear needles, and I can relax open with that fear. It softens the entire experience, and leaves me feeling more expanded and peaceful as a result.

And so while needles are still far from being my friends, they have taught me a most friendly message. When I face the little pinches of life, as I do each and every day, I begin by consciously taking a breath. I acknowledge the pinch, and the fear that may be triggered. I allow fully for the entire experience of my experience, and I invite a full bodied sense of relaxed openness. I compassion the pinch, the seeming trigger, and I celebrate the ability to choose openness in my circumstances. And I recognize that without the fear and aversion I would not have learned this lesson.

So maybe needles are my friends after all.

Nah.

www.taylorestevens.com