Things that make me smile

I am going to constantly update this post with all the things that make me laugh out loud. The barrier is pretty high, but simple enough. No matter what mood I'm in, these will ALWAYS make me smile. I hope they bring infinite joy to your life as well :]

First Walk on Ice


The Most Popular Girls in School series


Nyan Cat


Gangnam Style


Parallel Parking


Parallel Parking from Yum Yum London on Vimeo.

Listening with an Awakened Heart

Namaste beautiful ones! I hope this finds you happy and well.

I've been working on this post for a long time. The subject is so important to me and there was so much I wanted to say, it was honestly a challenge to write and include everything in a succinct manner. I really hope you like it and find the wisdom as helpful and inspiring as I did.

The theme of this post is listening: listening to ourselves and listening deeply to others with an open receptivity and interest that nourishes and allows for true communicating.

I'll start with a quote by Henry David Thoreau:

“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?”

Several weeks ago, Tara Brach gave an amazing lecture on Listening with an Awakened Heart. It came at the perfect time for me as I was finding myself struggling to empathize with and show compassion toward someone in my life. My problem? I wasn't truly listening to that person.

Deep listening is like an art and it takes practice. 

There are many things that keep us from deep listening. We have habits of being preoccupied, or having an agenda, or being self-conscious or rehearsing what we want to say. Perhaps we have a need to prove ourself as somebody, or to come up with the right thing or to defend ourself. Finally, our culture is more ADD than ever before. Everything in our environment is clamoring for our attention.

The challenge is that we have huge conditioning to do anything but just be; to control what’s happening instead of just allowing.

How does this conditioning play out? We quickly have to insert our "self" into situations rather than just hanging in that openness. In communication, shared reality breaks down when we add on our interpretation, when we take it through our own filter and we project what’s going on. Instead of wanting to know what’s true, we assume we already know. We've all been in situations when our assumptions and our interpretations cover over what’s real. As soon as somebody starts talking, we use the filter of our own experience. “Oh yeah, as a mom, I know what that’s like” or whatever.

There are three conditionings that cause us to break connections.

-Wanting: Wanting something different, so we can’t just listen.
-Aversion: We don’t like what’s happening so we have to control. 
-Neutrality: It doesn’t matter to us.

When it’s wanting, sometimes it’s wanting something from that person and sometimes you’re wanting something that has nothing to do with that person. 

Maybe we’re wanting that person to have a certain experience of us. It’s rare when we’re not attached to having them have a certain kind of experience of us. Sometimes we’re really wanting their approval or wanting them to think we’re helpful or wanting them to think in some way we’re interesting. Ask yourself: Are we wanting the conversation to go in a particular direction? Are we wanting some affirmation, some result?

On the flip side (aversion), if in some way we're feeling threatened by somebody, it's also very hard to have an opening, listening presence. When there’s fear--when in some way having a real contact with somebody is threatening--it’s like we’re in fight/flight mode. We’re not open, we’re tight. Ask yourself: Is there something you’re organized around that’s keeping you from that openness? Is there some fear you won’t have the right response? Some fear of another’s judgment, or some anger or dislike of how that person’s behaving so you can’t just listen? Are you fearing that they’re going to get their way if you just listen? Or that they’re going to get away with something if you listen?

When you don’t listen, people feel like they don’t matter. You can’t know or be close with a person if you don’t listen.

The key is to listen without controlling, to listen with a receptivity that really wants to know. When we offer a listening presence, it creates an atmosphere of love and safety. Our attention is the purest expression of love. 

Listening is the pathway to intimacy. If we can pause and listen inwardly, we can become intimate with our inner being. If we can listen to each other, we find out who we are together. 

Finally, I'd like to recommend an article by Tara which talks about cultivating compassion, allowing for close connections and trusting our own goodness in relationships. It's called "A More Perfect Union."

Caroline

Choreographics

I love the intersection of different forms of art.

Black Sun is a meticulously choreographed projection of motiongraphics onto dance, combining traditional and modern elements of Japanese culture and martial arts.



Don't you just wish you could see this on an IMAX screen?

Caroline

Old friend

This is an incredible image submitted to the Nat Geo Traveler photo contest.



The caption:

Good Bye Old Friend: Elephants are legendary for their memory and intelligence including attributes associated with grief, making music, altruism and compassion. We came across this elephant whose corpse was overcome by vultures and jackals. From a distance we heard and then saw another elephant approaching at a fast pace. She was successful at chasing away the predators and then very slowly and with much empathy wrapped her trunk around the deceased elephants tusk. She stayed in this position for several hours guarding her friend. (© John Chaney/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

Genuine Acceptance

Namaste chickens!

I've been reading a lot of really interesting things lately, ranging from major issues facing America's children (such as health, education, and workplace policies that aren't family-friendly) to behavioral and cognitive therapy (because I find it fascinating/I'm a nerd). If you're curious about the former, I've been posting some articles to my 'professional' Facebook page. If you're curious about the latter then read on :)

My amazing roommate Liz is currently studying for her PhD in Clinical Psychology and focusing her research on mindfulness, which is apparently a hot topic in the field right now. (PS She knows all about Tara Brach and tries to go to meditation once a week herself!)

Liz recommended me a mindfulness workbook she found really helpful during her studies called, "Get Out of Your Mind & Into Your Life." I've made my way through a few chapters and already found it very insightful and helpful! Here are a few concepts the book puts forth:

--Psychological pain is normal, it is important and everyone has it
--You cannot deliberately get rid of your psychological pain, although you can take steps to avoid increasing it artificially
--Pain and suffering are two different states of being
--You don't have to identify with your suffering
--Accepting your pain is a step toward ridding yourself of your suffering

Pretty bold, right? Not usually what you hear from those self-help books which is exactly why it's awesome.

This makes for a great segue into a recent lecture I listened to by Tara Brach on Genuine Acceptance. Here's a description of the talk:

"Our capacity to accept this life is key to our freedom, yet there are many misconceptions about acceptance: People wonder if acceptance makes us a doormat in relationships? Isn't acceptance akin to resignation? Doesn't it make us passive when what is needed is action? This talk explores some of the misunderstandings about acceptance and offers teachings on the nature of genuine and liberating acceptance."

This is what I learned:

Acceptance is being open to the hurt and anger of this particular moment and being willing to just feel it. Feel it in your body, your mind, your heart.

The three reactions humans tend to have that most challenge our ability to accept are:

-To fight. (i.e. lashing out, blaming)

-To run. (i.e., instead of being with our pain, we ignore or deny it or distract our attention.)

-To freeze. This is where the feeling of being a doormat arises. There is a fear of confronting, a fear of dealing. So we pretend to accept, when really, we’re just pushing our feelings down.

Obviously, it’s very hard and even courageous to be willing to sit with your pain. The self/ego is designed to fight, run or freeze.

Recently, I have really been trying to sit with my feelings instead of let them push me around like waves. I have been trying to understand and accept them. Brach says acceptance doesn’t mean allowing yourself to be a doormat. It can be accepting that this hurts, stop pushing it down, leave this situation.

“When we think we accept another, what we really accept is what’s coming up in us. It has nothing to do with the other person. Our capacity for acceptance is our capacity to be with whatever comes up within us in relation to that person. Our biggest domain is accepting what comes up in ourselves. That’s the hardest domain.” – Tara Brach

Brach says authentic acceptance is allowing space for who another person is. In its purity, it’s no different than love.

“Opening to whatever is present can be heartbreaking business. But let the heart break, for your breaking heart only reveals a core of love unbroken.”

I'm happy to report that during this process of accepting my feelings--some of which have been quite painful and unpleasant--I have also felt an immense outpouring of love. Just goes to confirm I'm a living, breathing human being, right? PS That rhymed.

Caroline