What Inspires Me
I find inspiration when I enter silence without any thoughts to hold onto and when I do so, I feel comfortable. Often, when people enter silence, there is a little disequilibrium because people are so used to leaning on thoughts. When they have nothing to lean on, it feels as if something is missing or uncomfortable. Once I learned to relax, it was easy to surrender and silence opened up to be an incredible resource.
Simply to enter silence, I had to go beyond thinking, let go of my attachments and open up to simply receive. When you say ‘receive’ to someone, the first thing they ask is ‘receive what?’ It is as if, when you have a folder in your mind of what you are receiving, it is easier to focus, file and remember. Without a folder, there is that uneasy feeling that you are not on-target. It is as if you are lost.
Now, imagine being open and receptive without having a name on the folder. You would have to just be in a totally receptive state of mind. It is from that silence that the wisdom of your body has the ability to receive spirituality without the interruptions of your thinking mind.
For most people, spirituality is an experience that comes from profound thinking and understanding of mysticism. The fact is, spirituality exists in the silence beyond your thoughts, but it is easily translated into religious practice. The question to me is what turns religious practice into a spiritual experience. I believe the step beyond thinking as you enter silence requires one simple quality. That is faith.
Some people may ask; “faith in what?” The answer to that question immediately puts you back into your thinking mind. The faith it takes to enter a spiritual experience and be truly inspired is not faith in some thought of yours, but faith in simply being and feeling connected to something bigger than yourself in the moment.
It is from this depth that you get inspired. Because there is no time in silence and no thoughts, it is hard to remember details, but there is a knowingness that gives you a sense of being connected with your heart. Now, this inspired moment does not exist in time, like the things you think about. It constantly exists. We are just not aware of this depth. When you accept this with an open heart, you manifest inspiration.
Review of The Wisdom of the Body
Let me take a few moments to review The Wisdom of the Body. In Part One, we learned how to breathe into silence and connect to the wisdom of the body. That was with our in-breath. In Part Two, we are going to learn the expression of our inner wisdom in our out-breath.
There is nothing profound about the Wisdom of the Body.
Once I was running a seminar for mentally ill homeless people. I mentioned “inner wisdom,” and one participant said “I don’t have any wisdom”.
Then I asked him, “When you sleep, does your heart beat?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Do you breathe?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said.
That is the Wisdom of the Body.
The mentally ill man in my seminar was ignoring the Wisdom of his Body because, like most peo¬ple, he had been taught to think this way. Many of us are no different: our experiences, the people we’ve encountered and our environment make us who we are today – or so we think! Our everyday cares and the patterns we develop over a lifetime take over our lives and we tend to ignore this amazing resource we have within.
Consciousness flows through us and gives life to the way we have been conditioned. In Part Two, we will consciously condition habits that reflect The Wisdom of your Body. Too often, we identify with habits that have been conditioned in less than ideal situations.
In my seminars, when I ask people to define their ultimate challenge, many say connecting to God or defeating a life-threatening illness. But even to prepare to get to that point, you need to become recep¬tive to the Wisdom of your Body. Once you connect to that wisdom, attaining those goals becomes easier and more natural. No matter what your goal, from healing to relationships, from spirituality to work or sports, the Wisdom of your Body allows you to go beyond the self you think you know.
Through my work with Life Skills, I realized that our society puts so much value on information and intellect that we tend to ignore our inner resources. Do not get me wrong: I do not believe thinking is bad. Rather, there are just times in one’s life where we need the qualities found in the Wisdom of the Body and there is no substitute.
Limits of Past Conditioning
When you drive, do you spend all your time looking in the rear-view mirror? I hope not!
By the same token, if all you do is focus on the things you have learned and experienced in the past, it the same as looking in the rear-view mirror as you drive. Eventually you will have an accident and it may have terrible consequences.
Of course, it is helpful to know where we have come from, but looking backward does not help us to know where we are or where we are going. If you rely on the way your mind has always worked, you become almost like a robot, not equipped to change course if necessary.
To some people, looking forward means having an outside goal. How many times have you thought to yourself: “If I only had a new car/a new house/a new whatever, my life would be so much better.” The assumption is that a change on the outside will help you feel better on the inside, or at least different.
In Part Two, we will learn how to change from the inside out. You will learn how subtle inner changes can alter your perception of the world around you and how you deal with any challenge. As you change from within, the way you see – and interact with – the world changes and this can lead to profound changes in your situation.
How to Use These Techniques:
When you go to a restaurant, you read the menu. The problem with a menu, though, is that you do not actually get to sample the food before ordering to see whether it is to your liking. The menu might say “banana cream pie,” but is it a good banana cream pie?
It comes down to the difference between thinking and knowing. When we think, our thoughts look at a situation and create what I call a “mind-made reality.” All too often, though, our mind-made reality is colored by our past conditioning. Many people come to conclusions about an experience before they have even had it. When dealing with our new challenges, we need to deal with more than just ideas.
To know something, you have to experience it, ideally not just with your thoughts but with your entire body…your heart and feelings, your soul, your creativity and your intellect. Meanwhile, your thinking brain is stuck reading the menu! The purpose of Part Two is to help you taste the real meal and become an effective participant in accomplishing your goal.
As you read Part Two, go slowly, the way you would linger over a fine dinner. Speed-reading may be a useful way to learn, but even if you memorize every word of this book, you have missed the point if you have not experienced it.
You will find over 20 exercises to help you express The Wisdom of your Body. . Take time to be¬come completely involved in the exercises and if you do, you will develop habits that you can use to better participate in accomplishing goals in your everyday life. Chances are, you will experience what I am talking about before you even understand it.
The Gift of Struggle
Albert Einstein once said “Opportunity travels incognito, disguised as misfortune.” The word for “crisis” in Chinese is written with characters meaning both “danger” and “opportunity.” But like the pres¬sure that turns coal into diamonds, a challenge can transform us into the people we were meant to be.
Eventually every one of us struggles, whether we know it or not, in ways that force us to look beyond our past conditioning to someplace deep within. I call this my ultimate challenge because going to this depth is not easy. It is, though, something we have to do to live a quality life.
If you remain at the level of your thoughts and past conditioning, struggle can mean defeat. Maybe you are stuck in the same old ruts that have not worked for you all along: They may even be the ruts that led you into the struggle in the first place! Many people, consciously or otherwise, remain in this state of quiet suffering until they are confronted with a shock to the system.
Other times, though, when faced with major stress, illness or even death, people somehow, some¬where find inner resources they never knew they had. Think of the driver whose split-second reactions stop a car accident, or a rescue worker who does incredible acts to save someone.
Nobody would wish these situations on anyone, but often they do have one powerful effect: to bring out inner resources.
So you see, our struggles are really a gift.
In my own case, my past conditioning was beautiful. I grew up in a wonderful family with two loving parents. Still, I was never taught how to deal with tragedy.
Since 1982, through the Life Skills Institute, I have worked with people in crisis, from Viet¬nam vets with post-traumatic stress disorder to people with cancer or AIDS, helping them connect to the Wisdom of their Body. Like most people, these folks had to undergo some kind of trauma before they began to access these resources. What I learned from is that the more you learn to appreciate your inner wisdom, the more you are open to receive it in creative ways.
Recent Comments