As a little girl I was sent to Sunday School. My grandmother was Catholic and my mother too, but my father saw that she had suffered within the Catholic Church, being of an anxious disposition, so it was determined my brother and I would be raised in his faith, Protestant.
My school was affiliated with a religious order and so each morning there was a prayer and a hymn, sanctuary doors were opened and closed. A Minister came into class a few days a week to speak of the Bible and of being Christian. He was very old and often dozed.
In the background my grandmother kept the Catholic faith in my life. She taught me about the rosary and she talked about Heaven and Hell. God being up in the sky watching all things, good and bad, was clear in my mind.
Everything from childhood has some sort of effect but what I am most aware of as an adult is that I love to be in churches. I love the service and the majesty of the whole thing. I like the spectacle and the way I feel in churches. I like to light a candle or watch others light a candle. I love the music and the architecture. I love being with people who think it right to pray.
There is a clinical psychologist on Utube that I follow and he talks of human beings being psycho-spiritual beings. We want there to be something bigger than us. I think that's what pulled me into religion as a child; what captivated me. It really is quite natural to want to be part of something bigger than yourself.
I don't any more but prior to the last couple of years I would pray to God, to keep my children safe mostly.
Twenty years ago when I had my final baby I began to do Pilates, to music. It was within this experience of movement and music that I started to feel some release from a post natal depression that had its grip on me. It makes sense really because as a young girl I loved dance, ballet. It was my escape. Within the discipline, the rigor and the music, I felt free.
Once I had been doing Pilates for some time I tried yoga and adored it. In the same building they were running meditation classes and this seemed like a suitable next step, the right time.
Meditation was far from easy for me but there were enough good moments to keep me coming back. The young woman did a wonderful job of guided meditations which I found very much to my liking. I took myself to stunning tanzanite caves where lurid things took place, and up mountains where I glided off into open space quite effortlessly.
A new teacher taught us candle gazing and to stay in our bodies. My mind was still floating about so the instruction that I must stay in my body was another breakthrough thought.
I learned about walking meditations. I was beginning to not only be aware of the anxiety in my body but to be its witness.
One day whilst out shopping I ran into a woman who had stopped coming to the meditation group and she asked if I was still attending the group. I told her I was. She had a much better idea, she told me, a sacred sort of meditation space, a sanctuary where she experienced great peace.
As I recall it took me a few months to go to the Sanctuary, where I never ran into her. One would pay $10 downstairs and then go up the stairs. We'd leave our shoes and bag outside and take up a position. A candle set in a big bowl flickered light about the dimly lit room.
I didn't understand at that time how to sit on a cushion or to use a prayer bench, so I sat in a chair. It was very peaceful but I don't like chairs for long meditations really. Other than that issue I felt I was getting somewhere with the meditation. My mind was sometimes slowing down. Sometimes I wondered if I could stand it another moment, but I never left.
My inner world remained quite chaotic. So, one day, when I saw a notice for an 8 week meditation course, I signed up. Thinking back to it I was still pretty hopeless but I had glimmers of a peaceful mind. As well as that our discussions that dovetailed the meditation practice was giving me information about the mind/body connection. I was the only person to finish the course.
Meditation remains a great challenge for most people. The classes I originally took closed down, and the group that ran the Sanctuary was forced to close.
I fell into a hole until a good year later, I think, I went in search for an alternative. I found someone but too far from my home. The lucky break was that she informed me of where the woman who taught my 8 week class was running a meditation group close to my home.
I try very hard not to miss that weekly group session. It is a most eclectic group. There has been a bone surgeon and his wife, a woman who lost everything in a bushfire, an architect with cancer, a surgeon who has some dementia, a very old man who was a Lecturer of Philosophy, a woman who lost her daughter to cancer. Currently, there is a man of 40 something whose cancer has come back three times. We are just starting to get to know him and last week he spoke openly.
For years I have meditated on a cushion; well three cushions these days. Various yoga poses have stretched out my thigh muscles, and I have wide open hips, so it's not uncomfortable at all, though it was until I made the necessary improvements to my body.
My spiritual practice is supported by reading gurus, spiritual healers and leaders. I'm too old to imagine that there is anyone on this Earth that is a perfect human being but certain people have much to teach us.
Pema Chodron is a favourite of mine but so too is Eckhart Tolle, and I have a soft spot for Ram Dass. But, I appreciate many leaders and writers. Rumi is great and I once bought a book whilst in Queensland which I think had a significant subliminal effect on me: Oshos' 'Meditation for Busy People.' I keep a tumblr blog in large part devoted to the thoughts of such people that support my practice and the way I aim to live and to think/not think.
To refer back to the first few paragraphs of this post I don't think of an omnipotent God above the clouds any more. I think of God as being within me, within all of us. Either that Godliness is expressed or it isn't, but it resides inside, not outside.
I don't know, and who really cares, why I am the way I am. I came into the world quiet and noticing when all about me people were loud and unaware. People in my world seemed to be running on adrenaline when I wanted to find a peaceful place to simply read my book, or to think. I danced. I played the piano. I read. Such a young girl isn't suited to the loudness of her environment. I sought quiet places and experiences as relief from the noise and agitation.
I've blocked out a lot of memories, it seems. It doesn't matter . I do remember being upset, very upset and chaotic inside. This was before the spiritual journey began. I would take my extreme anger for a walk. One time I took it to a Step class and did my best to stay on the block. But, there reached a moment when I thought I might actually explode, or implode, and so I was forced to stop.
When experiencing extreme negative emotions I don't think exercise works. First, one must go to the cushion and deal with the upset. It's only very recently that I had the courage to go into the negative emotion and stay with it such that it transforms into peace. This was a huge breakthrough.
The woman who taught me in the 8 week program is now my dear, dear friend and very recently, just in the past few weeks, we have begun to confide in one another. I haven't declared 'I am a submissive' but I have explained, because she asked me gently to explain further a statement I uttered, that I am attracted to a certain type of man and that this has caused issues for me in my life. We are both starting to fill in the dots as to what we share with one another over delicious and deliciously long lunches.
Shortly, I will attend a meditation retreat where we will meditate about 6 hours a day and be in silence for much of the time. It is sheer bliss for me.
I wonder if I can say what I have learned on this spiritual journey in a paragraph or two. Man, that's asking something.
Well, first of all, let me say that I have come to understand the mind/body connection. If someone like me is around difficult people, perhaps loud and reactive, perhaps needing or wanting my energy but not offering energy of their own to me, this can create chronic stress, which can lead to inflammation in the body which can lead to inflammatory disease.
This is why it is so important for a submissive who is struggling in her relationship with a partner to investigate what is really going on in her life. Her energetic fields may be so open that she suffers emotional pain, tending to ignore her body and its needs. So, I have learned that creating a calm mind and learning techniques to calm the Other as well as one's own mind is vital to health and emotional stability. Relying on the Other when the Other doesn't have the capacity, for whatever reason, to tend to you is a recipe for much unhappiness. Shoring up on your self esteem and self reliance is the key.
Spiritually, I have learned to be still. I have learned that when troubled to sit, just sit. Pema Chodron talks of this. I have learned to allow negative emotion and to transform negative emotion. I feel what I feel. I allow it without being distressed by it.
I have learned to accept. I am not responsible for anyone else, can't and shouldn't change them. Nor, do I need to save anyone. I offer myself, my best self, and that is enough. I have learned to be settled and calm. This is no-one's responsibility but my own. I can find my peace regardless of the outside forces that swirl around me.
Love isn't constant. Perhaps a parent's love for a child is constant but even then it ebbs and flows; is stronger at some times than others.
Romantic love has so much potential. Sacred love is something that I feel eludes me but remains my goal. As a relationship ages there is the possibility for love to grow in depth and for sex to take on a sacred nature. I had that for a time, but then it was gone and I was powerless to bring it back. Things got out of balance. Life isn't over until it is over and so I remain hopeful, but accepting of the limitations of my life as well. There are still chapters left to live.
At the meditation retreat I was on last year we were shown a movie about the life of Father Bede Griffiths. It is his thoughts on sacred love that stays with me. I continue to feel that allowing a woman to be entrenched in her femininity and the man in his masculinity can bring me the sort of relationship that would be the icing on the cake, for me. I am not sure that everyone wants, or can, go to a place of intense intimacy with another person, so we'll see what comes. We'll see if it is possible to create that sacred shared space.
I am eternally grateful for the lessons learned on this journey. Even on the most jam-packed and challenging days, I find time to sit quietly and focus on my breath; breathing in, noticing the gap and breathing out, noticing the gap. We are incredibly fortunate to be alive.
My school was affiliated with a religious order and so each morning there was a prayer and a hymn, sanctuary doors were opened and closed. A Minister came into class a few days a week to speak of the Bible and of being Christian. He was very old and often dozed.
In the background my grandmother kept the Catholic faith in my life. She taught me about the rosary and she talked about Heaven and Hell. God being up in the sky watching all things, good and bad, was clear in my mind.
Everything from childhood has some sort of effect but what I am most aware of as an adult is that I love to be in churches. I love the service and the majesty of the whole thing. I like the spectacle and the way I feel in churches. I like to light a candle or watch others light a candle. I love the music and the architecture. I love being with people who think it right to pray.
There is a clinical psychologist on Utube that I follow and he talks of human beings being psycho-spiritual beings. We want there to be something bigger than us. I think that's what pulled me into religion as a child; what captivated me. It really is quite natural to want to be part of something bigger than yourself.
I don't any more but prior to the last couple of years I would pray to God, to keep my children safe mostly.
Twenty years ago when I had my final baby I began to do Pilates, to music. It was within this experience of movement and music that I started to feel some release from a post natal depression that had its grip on me. It makes sense really because as a young girl I loved dance, ballet. It was my escape. Within the discipline, the rigor and the music, I felt free.
Once I had been doing Pilates for some time I tried yoga and adored it. In the same building they were running meditation classes and this seemed like a suitable next step, the right time.
Meditation was far from easy for me but there were enough good moments to keep me coming back. The young woman did a wonderful job of guided meditations which I found very much to my liking. I took myself to stunning tanzanite caves where lurid things took place, and up mountains where I glided off into open space quite effortlessly.
A new teacher taught us candle gazing and to stay in our bodies. My mind was still floating about so the instruction that I must stay in my body was another breakthrough thought.
I learned about walking meditations. I was beginning to not only be aware of the anxiety in my body but to be its witness.
One day whilst out shopping I ran into a woman who had stopped coming to the meditation group and she asked if I was still attending the group. I told her I was. She had a much better idea, she told me, a sacred sort of meditation space, a sanctuary where she experienced great peace.
As I recall it took me a few months to go to the Sanctuary, where I never ran into her. One would pay $10 downstairs and then go up the stairs. We'd leave our shoes and bag outside and take up a position. A candle set in a big bowl flickered light about the dimly lit room.
I didn't understand at that time how to sit on a cushion or to use a prayer bench, so I sat in a chair. It was very peaceful but I don't like chairs for long meditations really. Other than that issue I felt I was getting somewhere with the meditation. My mind was sometimes slowing down. Sometimes I wondered if I could stand it another moment, but I never left.
My inner world remained quite chaotic. So, one day, when I saw a notice for an 8 week meditation course, I signed up. Thinking back to it I was still pretty hopeless but I had glimmers of a peaceful mind. As well as that our discussions that dovetailed the meditation practice was giving me information about the mind/body connection. I was the only person to finish the course.
Meditation remains a great challenge for most people. The classes I originally took closed down, and the group that ran the Sanctuary was forced to close.
I fell into a hole until a good year later, I think, I went in search for an alternative. I found someone but too far from my home. The lucky break was that she informed me of where the woman who taught my 8 week class was running a meditation group close to my home.
I try very hard not to miss that weekly group session. It is a most eclectic group. There has been a bone surgeon and his wife, a woman who lost everything in a bushfire, an architect with cancer, a surgeon who has some dementia, a very old man who was a Lecturer of Philosophy, a woman who lost her daughter to cancer. Currently, there is a man of 40 something whose cancer has come back three times. We are just starting to get to know him and last week he spoke openly.
For years I have meditated on a cushion; well three cushions these days. Various yoga poses have stretched out my thigh muscles, and I have wide open hips, so it's not uncomfortable at all, though it was until I made the necessary improvements to my body.
My spiritual practice is supported by reading gurus, spiritual healers and leaders. I'm too old to imagine that there is anyone on this Earth that is a perfect human being but certain people have much to teach us.
Pema Chodron is a favourite of mine but so too is Eckhart Tolle, and I have a soft spot for Ram Dass. But, I appreciate many leaders and writers. Rumi is great and I once bought a book whilst in Queensland which I think had a significant subliminal effect on me: Oshos' 'Meditation for Busy People.' I keep a tumblr blog in large part devoted to the thoughts of such people that support my practice and the way I aim to live and to think/not think.
To refer back to the first few paragraphs of this post I don't think of an omnipotent God above the clouds any more. I think of God as being within me, within all of us. Either that Godliness is expressed or it isn't, but it resides inside, not outside.
I don't know, and who really cares, why I am the way I am. I came into the world quiet and noticing when all about me people were loud and unaware. People in my world seemed to be running on adrenaline when I wanted to find a peaceful place to simply read my book, or to think. I danced. I played the piano. I read. Such a young girl isn't suited to the loudness of her environment. I sought quiet places and experiences as relief from the noise and agitation.
I've blocked out a lot of memories, it seems. It doesn't matter . I do remember being upset, very upset and chaotic inside. This was before the spiritual journey began. I would take my extreme anger for a walk. One time I took it to a Step class and did my best to stay on the block. But, there reached a moment when I thought I might actually explode, or implode, and so I was forced to stop.
When experiencing extreme negative emotions I don't think exercise works. First, one must go to the cushion and deal with the upset. It's only very recently that I had the courage to go into the negative emotion and stay with it such that it transforms into peace. This was a huge breakthrough.
The woman who taught me in the 8 week program is now my dear, dear friend and very recently, just in the past few weeks, we have begun to confide in one another. I haven't declared 'I am a submissive' but I have explained, because she asked me gently to explain further a statement I uttered, that I am attracted to a certain type of man and that this has caused issues for me in my life. We are both starting to fill in the dots as to what we share with one another over delicious and deliciously long lunches.
Shortly, I will attend a meditation retreat where we will meditate about 6 hours a day and be in silence for much of the time. It is sheer bliss for me.
I wonder if I can say what I have learned on this spiritual journey in a paragraph or two. Man, that's asking something.
Well, first of all, let me say that I have come to understand the mind/body connection. If someone like me is around difficult people, perhaps loud and reactive, perhaps needing or wanting my energy but not offering energy of their own to me, this can create chronic stress, which can lead to inflammation in the body which can lead to inflammatory disease.
This is why it is so important for a submissive who is struggling in her relationship with a partner to investigate what is really going on in her life. Her energetic fields may be so open that she suffers emotional pain, tending to ignore her body and its needs. So, I have learned that creating a calm mind and learning techniques to calm the Other as well as one's own mind is vital to health and emotional stability. Relying on the Other when the Other doesn't have the capacity, for whatever reason, to tend to you is a recipe for much unhappiness. Shoring up on your self esteem and self reliance is the key.
Spiritually, I have learned to be still. I have learned that when troubled to sit, just sit. Pema Chodron talks of this. I have learned to allow negative emotion and to transform negative emotion. I feel what I feel. I allow it without being distressed by it.
I have learned to accept. I am not responsible for anyone else, can't and shouldn't change them. Nor, do I need to save anyone. I offer myself, my best self, and that is enough. I have learned to be settled and calm. This is no-one's responsibility but my own. I can find my peace regardless of the outside forces that swirl around me.
Love isn't constant. Perhaps a parent's love for a child is constant but even then it ebbs and flows; is stronger at some times than others.
Romantic love has so much potential. Sacred love is something that I feel eludes me but remains my goal. As a relationship ages there is the possibility for love to grow in depth and for sex to take on a sacred nature. I had that for a time, but then it was gone and I was powerless to bring it back. Things got out of balance. Life isn't over until it is over and so I remain hopeful, but accepting of the limitations of my life as well. There are still chapters left to live.
At the meditation retreat I was on last year we were shown a movie about the life of Father Bede Griffiths. It is his thoughts on sacred love that stays with me. I continue to feel that allowing a woman to be entrenched in her femininity and the man in his masculinity can bring me the sort of relationship that would be the icing on the cake, for me. I am not sure that everyone wants, or can, go to a place of intense intimacy with another person, so we'll see what comes. We'll see if it is possible to create that sacred shared space.
I am eternally grateful for the lessons learned on this journey. Even on the most jam-packed and challenging days, I find time to sit quietly and focus on my breath; breathing in, noticing the gap and breathing out, noticing the gap. We are incredibly fortunate to be alive.
No comments:
Post a Comment