I just saw this on twitter when I was doing a search for quotes by Metropolitan (like an arch bishop) Kallistos Ware … He’s so aware of this inner life… I love going back to his lectures or his words …
I found this by him too:
I didn’t know where to post this so I came back here, to my blog page… I often post things on Facebook now:
I don’t wish to push any kind of religion on people, but to encourage you wherever you are—and to keep encouraging inner growth and inner development. What are we here for if we are not growing in love, in wisdom, in tenderheartedness, in temperance, in true humility and understanding? —and in awareness + increased consciousness…
Please, don’t give up…
You are not alone!
Reminds me of another picture that my friend Charlie Mackesy recently posted on twitter :
“Your presence on this earth makes a difference, whether you see it or not”
~ Charlie Mackesy
Wishing you always much love and healing,
Your life, and how you live it, is an art form. You are allowed and invited to live it consciously! Imagine you are a sculptor and you just decided to leave a block of marble out in the elements to see what it becomes.
Now remember that you have a soul, you have a heart, you have an intellect — you have feelings, insight, courage, depth, kindness– you have layers of your being that are unfathomably rich… Imagine what that marble could become if you consciously created it.
(There are steps above this even, but difficult to put into words…what comes to mind is a St. Ignatius quote about — work as if everything counted upon yourself & pray as if everything depended upon God— In art you are entering into a higher place, it is work, but it is also a surrender.)
You have the ability to live consciously. You have the ability to remember who you are, why you are here, what your highest purposes are. Even if our highest purpose in this moment is to just “remember” — >
“I am not a sleeping zombie…”
“I am not a robot!”
I see myself all the time, reacting to what is going on in my immediate environment, like a computer or a robot– “push this button and this will happen” — it’s called “stimulus-response”. Fear feeds on itself! Anger can suck you in. They are necessary feelings and responses, but it can be like a virus that constantly wants to eat up the host body for IT to stay alive.
I have a choice to be mindful! You have a choice to be mindful! You only have a certain amount of energy each day– I often find that when I choose to be aware, and loving, that energy multiplies in some mysterious way — but when we waste all of that energy feeding our anxieties and losing ourselves in reactivity, then that energy is spent!
There are deeper answers to life’s difficulties than just “you do this one simple thing” then everything will be better… if there was a “simple” answer then we approach it when we say “know thyself” or “live a life of prayer.”
Live a life of consciousness, seeking the enlightenment that our Creator already lives within — and even that, is less than seeking Love! What does it mean to ~~ truly ~~ love?! I can have all knowledge but if there is no love it’s like having a bunch of canned food, for a very, very hungry population — but I have no can opener — to give to all -this food which we so desperately seek!
It is easy to say:
live a life of consciousness,
a life of love,
a life of practicing the presence of God,
but to DO this is an art. It is an undertaking, a commitment, it takes discipline, time to separate ourselves and cultivate the stillness and quiet within ourselves. It is painful! I don’t know about others but I cry a lot on this path! It can be very lonely. But it is a joy. I don’t mind any of the pain if I can be someone that carries this peace to others.
I found a line from an Emily Dickinson poem yesterday that said:
If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
or cool one pain…I shall not live in vain.
I learn from the One who is constantly consoling me. And I am bidden: “with the consolation I have received, console others…” “Love as I have loved you”.
Let us BE the change we wish to see in the world around us. The life we live, let it not be in vain– but conscious, present, aware, awake, full of love!
Be loved!
(Share this post if you feel inclined, but more so, share the light that develops in your life as we practice this! I just now got an image of all of us becoming like a candle and passing on that light as easy as lighting the candle next to us–and that light filling this earth and the darkness exposed and thus defeated. God speed!) ❤️
“Since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage.”
And this one, from one of his other books:
“Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”
Look, for a second at the definition of courage, it takes us to its very root and origin:
cour·age
ˈkərij/
noun: courage
the ability to do something that frightens one.
“she called on all her courage to face the ordeal”
strength in the face of pain or grief.
“he fought his illness with great courage”
Origin
Middle English (denoting the heart, as the seat of feelings): from Old French corage, from Latin cor ‘heart.’
——
What I learned in Montreal, at my internship almost 20 years ago (!) was that courage had to do with “en-heartening”– infusing heart/courage into someone is to encourage — and we usually get this from our fathers (for whatever reason…I’m sure we get it from our mothers as well!).
For some reason, from my experience in childhood or my personality, I always thought it was my job to encourage people– I literally became a cheerleader & probably blamed myself for not encouraging enough if our team lost!
But you see, the important part is “strength in the face of grief or pain”– it’s not that you are fearless, it’s that you choose to do what is noble, what is true, what is right–what is most right at that very moment. (This requires wisdom, discernment, mindfulness, and acting from that still place within, if we can!)
Courage, when mixed with true humility– makes it so you are able to see your own failings and have the heart to stand back up again, ask for/accept forgiveness and have “another go”…
We all have dis-ordered tendencies. We all fall flat on our faces…this chosen path of courage, if you choose it, is about having tenacity, perseverance– to search for/take hold of the courage available in order to press on.
Ask God–the universe, however you understand the world at this moment. (Of course I hear my priest in the back of my mind reminding us to always be ready, strengthening ourselves by reading holy scriptures and other holy writings, praying at day’s beginning and end, and being mindful/present/contemplate/meditate…).
It’s funny I put that in parenthesis … I think I used to think that those were just words a priest “had” to say — but I watch my young son run and train in his soccer practices and he asks me:
“Mommy, I just want to be a goalie, why do I have to run?”
And because I’m so often contemplating (opening my mind to quiet inspiration)– it just “struck” me — you run and do push-ups and al this conditioning so that you are ready for anything. If they never get the ball down to your side of the field — it is enough that you are ready, alert, watchful –that is your duty, your job.
That is ours. I recall what Mother Teresa said: “we are all called to be saints…”.
This past month seemed to have so many deaths– in the media and parents of friends who are dear to me.
Besides being a psychologist, if I was not “grounded” and practiced in being honest and sincere about my own pain, doubts, questions etc –before God– then there is no way I would have the courage to enter into their grief with them.
It’s easy to say something trite and tell them to just smile and move on… it doesn’t meet them where they are though.
I know what it is to be lost in discouragement –and to compulsively try to run from that…I’m not talking about faking ourselves out of it, but that doesn’t mean we are to totally identify with some old discouraging nature or part of ourselves.
What am I trying to say and what does it have to do with Wonder Woman ?!
If you see a clip from the new Wonder Woman movie or see the whole thing, you see a woman (of course made from clay + Zeus!) –who trained all the time on Paradise Island– even though it had been more than 20 years since anyone could even get to the island they lived on. It was a hidden island yet these Amazon women were “all trained up”! They displayed this heroic courage and general “bad-ass-ness” that I think we are all looking for.
When we hear stories of true heroes like David killing the giant Goliath with a sling shot– some people think he just showed up and “did that” — but he was a shepherd and he had experience facing the danger of a bear and a lion trying to take his sheep. When everything is so “convenient” and “disposable” in our society these days, I could totally see myself just saying “that’s ok, I’ll just buy some new sheep next time my neighbor’s have some new baby lambs…”
But he protected the sheep that were his to look over. It was said he had a heart after God’s heart. He had built, by the graces given to him by God and also by “practice” using those graces– a true faith and courage where Goliath’s size didn’t even phase him. He had an understanding that there was a true Creator God and this giant was mocking him. It wasn’t an ego thing, he was just doing the valiant thing that he already knew to do, but on a bigger scale.
How safe and at peace would we all feel if we knew our neighbor was well practiced at taking the higher path, the most courageous and true path?! As Gandhi said “we must be the change we wish to see in this world…”
I just read two nights ago about how the Coptic Christians in Egypt were taken off the bus by ISIS and were asked one by one to deny their faith, even the children. Not one did, though they were being violently killed/shot. I pray God would give us the courage we needed to be true in such a moment– I think now is practice, daily practice of the virtues and of courage, in whatever small or giant ways we are called on to live in that place.
Though the way may be long, the material of your mind intractable, to the eager lover of Reality ultimate success is assured. The strong tide of Transcendent Life will inevitably invade, clarify, uplift the consciousness which is open to receive it; a movement from without – subtle yet actual – answering each willed movement from within.
‘Your opening and His entering,’ says Eckhart, ‘are but one moment.’ When, therefore, you put aside your preconceived ideas, your self- centred scale of values, and let intuition have its way with you, you open up by this act new levels of the world. Such an opening-up is the most practical of all activities; for then and then only will your diurnal existence, and the natural scene in which that existence is set, begin to give up to you its richness and meaning. Its paradoxes and inequalities will be disclosed as true constituents of its beauty, an inconceivable splendour will be shaken out from its dingiest folds. Then, and only then, escaping the single vision of the selfish, you will begin to guess all that your senses were meant to be…
~ Evelyn Underhill
From her book Practical Mysticism
And she was quoting Meister Eckhart (a German theologian from the 1300’s)
I keep contemplating , as I live my life, and do my own spiritual & psychological “work” within –and as I continue working with clients:
–Perhaps this “driven-ness” (of mine and others(?) ) is not of God?! What if it is a neurotic creation of our own doing?!–
We are told by St. Paul to run this race as if we are running for the prize–for the victor’s crown— but we didn’t see Christ himself running around in anxiety about all the things wrong and broken in this world.
We saw/see him present in each interaction, certainly– but not frantic or panicked!
I keep entering in, then traveling away from this truth, this quiet place—then re-entering, re-turning to this silence.
I read this beautiful passage a few days ago from Blessed Theophylact (from @ 1080 AD) who was reiterating “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” — he said that it is labor and work to join with God to clear out the muck (my wording, not his) that is making it more difficult to see God.
This isn’t neurotic work –but it is work, nevertheless — I’m sure it was some kind of work for Mary, sister of Martha, to be able to let go of external things enough –to choose silence, and “sit at the feet” of the great Teacher, Jesus.
Perhaps it is the work of allowing the working of grace into deeper depths of our soul? Of stepping in to the presence of the ineffable– by daring to enter into this silence, in stillness, without all of our strategies and fixed plans?
I just listened to this passage (above) by Evelyn Underhill this morning –and I KNOW what she is speaking about — but only in glimpses.
I want to know it more! And be afraid of this silent stillness less!
So I’m sure I’ve said this in other blog posts…but it’s worth repeating:
shame is the substance that fuels addictions.
Or a C.S. Lewis quote I remember copying out back in my college notebooks:
“…to love at all is to be vulnerable…”
Last week one of my dear friends sent me a link to this Ted talk video—->
The power of vulnerability |
Brené Brown
It seems I’m a little late to the Brené Brown party! The talk was fabulous and worth watching! I suppose I’ve been so busy reading books from the 600’s and the 1300’s that I wasn’t aware of what was going on in popular psychology culture right at this moment!
I’m glad people are still speaking about this and bringing awareness and healing to those of us who are asking ourselves:
“am I the only one feeling this way?”
I use this example with my clients:
Imagine if you were locked in a basement for 18 years and you finally got to come out and be free– you experience the feeling of sunlight on your skin– you see the world around you…you have the freedom, finally, to run around in the open air….
It’s absolutely amazing — but part of us feels like:
~ am I really allowed to experience this much sunlight?!
~ this feels indulgent
~ what do I do in this new place?
~ what if I make a mistake?
~ is someone going to lock me back in the darkness again?
~ this is so beautiful, it’s painful
~ why do I feel like crying?
~ I feel so alive here!
I remember my mentor and teacher in Montreal, Dr. Surkis, saying to us:
“When you get in touch with yourself, you get in touch with the touch you never had…”
It’s bittersweet at first…to finally feel belonging, tenderness, kindness…
Reminds me of the U2 lyrics:
I want to feel, sunlight on my face
I see the dust cloud disappear, without a trace
I want to take shelter,
from the poison rain,
where the streets have no name…
So it may be sad, or overwhelming, or new at first… but we simply must have courage to “go there!” …
To leave the familiar is to leave the family we always knew, experienced, and internalized!
People can tell us: “you are worth loving, you were always worth loving…” but we internalized the experiential message from early childhood that communicated to us “you are not worth the love, the effort, the awareness, the kindness, the protection, the cherishing …”
If we experienced rejection, getting shut down and silenced– we, some of us, internalized the shame of that rejection.
All people are given free will, in hopes that they will freely choose the “good” and choose the most loving response— but they can misuse that freedom and choose to perpetuate their own unhealed shame, by rejecting us from their own inner rejection.
If we continue to believe their lie, however, how will this cycle ever end?!
Someone has to blaze a new trail!
Someone has to take the road less travelled– find the courage to seek out the truth and live in it!
–So what– if it may feel uncomfortable and unfamiliar at first…
Real Love is worth getting used to!
You once talked to me about love,
You painted pictures of
A never never land
And I could’ve gone to that place
But I didn’t understand
I didn’t understand.
~ Elliott Smith
There has to be a way to heal our old shame and not be bound by it, not be trapped in it, not return to it over and over each time someone pushes one of those old buttons…
Our life is all grounded and rooted in love, and without love we may not live. ~ Julian of Norwich
You are not alone on this path back to Love…
We are invited, in the Holy Scriptures, to love. We would not be invited if we didn’t have the capacity within us to choose it.
No matter how dark or difficult you may find this, persevere! Continue! Ask for courage — those who seek will find, to those who knock, the door will be opened unto them.
We are loyal to those old, internalized, experiential messages and we have no need to be loyal to them any longer. They are lies.
I hear Christ, in my deepest self saying:
“This is the way of love…follow me, I reveal this love, I lived this love, I am living this love now, calling you to it, I have always loved you…choose to follow this path of love…”
No matter how hard I try to listen to my doubts — and the people that say “that is all made up…”
I hear love.
When I enter into the stillness and just let whatever is, just be…
That gentle but persistent invitation to let go of the lies, die to them, and come take this higher path — stop internalizing the broken messages — come and follow me…
When you look at the Greek in that passage it is really more like:
Come here beside me, choose, if you wish, to walk this path with me.
I am with you always.
I will not leave you destitute…
Christ modeled to us the courage we ourselves need. We will not be left without this grace if we ask God to walk with us, help us heal this old wound.
So I watched this short video today on the essential (spiritual) state of gratitude:
Gratitude: The Essential State
It reminded me so much of the Beastie Boys song!
What’d you think —
did you miss your calling?
It’s so free this kind of feeling
It’s like life It’s so appealing
when you’ve got so much to say
It’s called gratitude…
I just had to post it here for you all…
I had visions of writing a long blog for you today…but the kids are out of school so my creative, quiet time is here, after midnight…
I’ll have to return another time, I hope for this week!
Meanwhile, I wish you love! This school of Life is so important! Embrace Love and don’t let go! Hold on for dear life! Receive the Love that is at this moment being offered to you…
Oh! I’m hearing two other songs overlapping as I’m wrapping this up for you! And I don’t know this first song well– but I just looked up the lyrics– the part I heard in “my mind’s ear” 🙂
When the road gets dark
And you can no longer see
Just let my love throw a spark
And have a little faith in me…
And here’s a beautiful other, lovely part of this same song:
Well, I’ve been loving you for such a long time girl
Expecting nothing in return
Just for you to have a little faith in me
You see time, time is our friend
‘Cause for us there is no end
And all you gotta do is have a little faith in me…
~ John Hiatt
So beautiful, cause my older brother and I got to speak on the phone today– about taking a slow and steady path of faith (and psychological healing, health, rising consciousness, and spiritual growth!) — and how my personality is one that likes to move rapidly onward!
… but recognizing also, how important it is, to be balanced– or else one does not journey “further up and further in” as CS Lewis wrote about in his Narnia book ~ The Last Battle!
Balanced, meaning:
If I grow one sided, in Knowledge,
but have no Understanding,
then I do not have a map to direct my Knowledge.
And if I am not growing in my Being
(or awakened state/loving essence) — then I won’t arrive at a true Understanding either….
Lots more I’d like to describe for you but let these be seeds to further your own exploration!
Oh, and the other song I was hearing simultaneously!
If you’re lost and alone
Or you’re sinking like a stone
Carry on
May your past be the sound
of your feet upon the ground
Carry on, Carry on…
~ Fun
Have a lovely American Thanksgiving!
Wishing you love always,
Dr Cheryl
A quick story/quote from this book I’m currently reading!
This book was recommended to me by someone with more years here on this earth than me, more experience, and she has a different perspective — but the book is like a breath of fresh air! It’s called Awareness, by Anthony DeMello, a Jesuit priest, born in India who also was a psychotherapist! (You wonder why it resonates with me so much!)
I wanted to briefly share with you these excerpts before I go back to “work”!*(I added the bold for emphasis)*
“You know, sometimes people want to imitate Christ, but when a monkey plays a saxophone, that doesn’t make him a musician. You can’t imitate Christ by imitating his external behavior.
You’ve got to be Christ.
Then you’ll know exactly what to do in a particular situation, given your temperament, your character, and the character and temperament of the person you’re dealing with. No one has to tell you. But to do that, you must be what Christ was. An external imitation will get you nowhere.
If you think that compassion implies softness, there’s no way I can describe compassion to you, absolutely no way, because compassion can be very hard. Compassion can be very rude, compassion can jolt you, compassion can roll up its sleeves and operate on you. Compassion is all kinds of things. Compassion can be very soft, but there’s no way of knowing that. It’s only when you become love – in other words, when you have dropped your illusions and attachments – that you will “know”.”
~ Anthony DeMello
And further on in the book, he gives us this brilliant story that so aptly conveys the concepts I’m always going on about regarding dropping the “should” in our lives… Dr. Surkis would teach us, “when you ‘push’, there’s always a push back…”
**
DeMello writes:
“Meditating on and imitating externally the behavior of Jesus is no help. It’s not a question of imitating Christ, it’s a question of becoming what Jesus was. It’s a question of becoming Christ, becoming aware, understanding what’s going on within you. All the other methods we use for self change could be compared to pushing a car.
Let’s suppose you have to travel to a distant city. The car breaks down along the way. Well, too bad; the car’s broken down. So we roll up our sleeves and begin to push the car. And we push and push and push and push, till we get to the distant city. “Well”, we say, “we made it”. And then we push the car all the way to another city!
You say, “We got there, didn’t we”? But do you call this life? You know what you need? You need an expert, you need a mechanic to lift the hood and change the spark plug. Turn the ignition key and the car moves. You need the expert — you need understanding, insight, awareness you don’t need pushing. You don’t need effort.
That’s why people are so tired, so weary. You and I were trained to be dissatisfied with ourselves. That’s where the evil comes from psychologically. We’re always dissatisfied, we’re always discontented, we’re always pushing. Go on, put out more effort, more and more effort. But there’s always that conflict inside; there’s very little understanding.”
~ Anthony DeMello
From this book, Awareness
Much love to each of you who wander here and find these beautiful pearls! I’m so appreciative that these insights and thoughts have come my way! I wanted to share immediately with you!
~ Dr C
I found the most beautiful writings today from the 1920’s, Evelyn Underhill! I had to share!
She writes:
The great man is rooted in history, plaited up in the life of his own time: absorbs from the human as well as from the spiritual. His feet are in Time, though his head is in Eternity…
~Evelyn Underhill
If you’d like to read the whole book, The Essentials of Mysticism, here’s a link to a free PDF of it:
It struck me, as I was reading (listening to) this book, I heard the line:
His feet are in Time
though his head is in Eternity
~Evelyn Underhill
And it immediately reminded me of one of Elliott (Smith)’s lyrics:
With a giant fantasy life
Running round on feet of clay
~ Elliott Smith
Evelyn writes of the importance of the Mystics — to the whole spiritual body (of the “church”) — and how they are like the artist, or the creative genius, who quiets their mind enough to enter into the heavenly realms and translates back to us, in some kind of words, or symbol or song — some conveyance of these beautiful truths of God — or the feeling they got from that place.
They are ever so necessary to wake us up from our slumber! A sleep we do not realize we are within — until they show up in our lives, like a breath of fresh air or a cool mountain spring in the midst of our desert!
If you don’t read all of this book, at least skip ahead to the chapter called “The Mystic as Creative Artist”, in this chapter she writes:
“Ultimately, we owe to the mystics all the symbols, ideas and images of which our spiritual world, as it is thought of by the bulk of men, is constructed. We take its topography from them, at second-hand; and often forget the sublime adventures immortalized in those phrases which we take so lightly on our lips — the Divine Dark, the Beatific Vision, the Eternal Beauty, Ecstasy, Union, Spiritual Marriage, and the rest. The mystics have actually created, from that language which we have evolved to describe and deal with the time-world, another artistic world; a self-consistent and spiritually expressive world of imaginative concepts, like the world of music or the world of colour and form.
They are always trying to give us the key to it, to induct us into its mysterious delights. It is by means of this world,
and the symbols which furnish it, that human consciousness is enabled to actualize its most elusive experiences; and hence it is wholly due to the unselfish labours of those mystics who
have struggled to body forth the realities by which they were possessed, that we are able, to some extent, to enter into the special experiences of the mystical saints; and that they are
able to snatch us up to a brief sharing of their vision, to make us live for a moment “Eternal Life in the midst of Time.””
It was all such beautiful, full, inspiring words… I had to stop by here and leave you a taste!
I was out of the country (Paris!) for a couple weeks and other things (in “life”) have come up — but I usually tweet regularly @DrCherylM and still post some on Facebook — but again, I love to offer more depth of understanding here!
A friend of mine posted on Facebook tonight, his distress of trying to love one dear to him in the midst of an addiction that that person may or may not be willing to part with… He expressed what he saw as the end results of addiction are:
1) recovery
2) jail
3) or death …
I put these things here, and I continue to work as a psychologist, because I hold onto this idea, perhaps in faith or in knowing that we are all redeemable, and re-covery is for us all, if we choose it! Re-membering ourselves and re-covering our “nakedness” — not in the shame we so readily have known, but in Love, with forgiveness and reconciliation. In remembering a truth that was perhaps vastly crushed out of us in childhood– that we are Loved, dear to our Creator, worth Loving, worth cherishing, worth protecting– worth taking the high road for, worth forgiving and worth giving recovery to. Worth, not from anything we have accomplished and achieved– but because we were created by our Creator whose whole WAY is to Love, who IS Love– who formed us out of Love and calls us back to Love.
I just found this prayer (from the book of common prayer, 1928) — for my friend and for each of us:
For Guidance.
O GOD, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light riseth up in darkness for the godly; Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what thou wouldest have us to do, that the Spirit of Wisdom may save us from all false choices, and that in thy light we may see light, and in thy straight path may not stumble; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
As I used to do, so long ago(!)
Here’s a song from a (*Christian) mystic to remind us:
I found this and watched this today…it is such a valuable teaching!
Lewis actually says a line in this clip that one of my dear musician friends said to me–( regarding therapy) that it is an art and the canvas is a human life!
Lewis, here, speaks of the nature of chivalry and how it is an enlightened way of being –that is an art, to be developed in a human. It doesn’t happen naturally.
I’m back from summer holidays so I plan to be consistent here again! I do post regularly on Twitter @DrCherylM (https://mobile.twitter.com/drcherylm?lang=en)
And on Facebook as well — but I like to get more in depth here …
Much love to you all who find this! And love to those who don’t as well!
❤️
The guys at Truth Theory emailed me and asked me to write an article for them! They published it last month but I wanted to post it here in case you missed it!
Why Diets Fail ~ Dr. Cheryl article
It’s really about shame, addictions and how to keep bringing love to the cut-off, hurting parts of yourself!
Dr Cheryl Meier's Blog 