Today I Choose…

Posted on December 6, 2010 by JKW
Almost every Saturday night you will find me in the same place – meditation at my local metaphysical book store called Phoenix and Dragon. There’s a man there, Don Simmons, who hosts a guided meditation on different topics each Saturday night at 6. I think he’s wonderful at what he does.
When I mention going to meditation with me, most of my friends’ eyes glaze over. They give me a polite, Uh-hmmm (throat clearing), then a firm, “No thanks.” It sounds much like me when I am approached by friends with their network marketing “opportunities.”
Some of them offer explanations like, “I’ve tried mediation and I can’t stop thinking the whole time.”
I can only imagine what those people who give the firm no are thinking. Probably that I am locked in a sauna-like room with smoke rising over the rafters and Don’s voice a chant-like rhythm that will put us all under hypnosis. Maybe they won’t leave the same as they came in. This is my dream, but for others it may be a fear.
And for those that say they can’t stop thinking… well, that’s kind of the point. Meditation, the kind Don conducts, is called “Mindful Meditation.” You are meant to spend the time thinking, observing your thoughts and putting those thoughts aside to spend time in the present moment. We are thinking beings, after all, by nature.
What I really love about meditating, besides getting out of the hectic, hub-bub of my world and allowing myself to just sit there for an hour doing nothing but attuning myself to me, is that I often get “messages” that really help me in life.
For instance, I was having a hard time around my children not getting angry with them for everything. So I was in meditation thinking about this and asking for guidance. I was “told,” they can’t take it from you if you just give it to them. Just give yourself over to being a parent and accept that they are children and it will take some time for them to understand you and you to understand them.
That was good and fine and I left feeling like I had a solution. But it didn’t exactly work as I had hoped. Understanding is really too much of an abstract concept for me when I’m going crazy because my son has asked me for the fifth time if he can take a strand of Christmas lights to school for show and tell. At the same time I am trying to make lunches, get them dressed, answer my husbands questions about what I want to throw away in the refrigerator because the trash people are on their way, and I should have been out the door five minutes ago so they won’t be late to school. This is about the time my head pops off and I start yelling at my son, “No, no, no… you cannot take the lights to school. If you ask again, the answer is NO, if you ask again in 10 minutes, the answer will still be NO! Do you understand? NOOOOOO!”  
So I went back the next week and explained this during my meditation. The understanding is not there when I feel I am so misunderstood, see? And the message I received was, Then you must choose. Every second, of every day, of every moment until time ends, you must choose. Every time you start to feel overwhelmed by your surroundings, say the word, choose, and then do just that. Decide what you want the moment to be.
And so I do. I choose. Sometimes I choose the moment to be one of chaos and I still yell and act like a person I’m not too proud of. Sometimes I choose to laugh at the craziness of it all. Sometimes I just choose a deep breath. Or I choose to count to 10. I choose to envision myself at the top of a mountain where wild flowers are blooming, or at a river that flows by me endlessly and effortlessly, flowing freely like I want my spirit to do, even in the hardest of times. In any event it is me who does the choosing, not anyone or anything else.
And in this tradition of choosing, this past Saturday, meditation was on a Hawaiian philosophy called Ho’oponopono (pronounce that however you like. If you giggle at the way you say it then you have pronounced it perfectly). It is a process where a person takes 100 percent responsibility for everything.
Don likes to say at the beginning of this practice, “Notice how when anything happens to you, the common part of it all is that you are there.” Then we all give a quick, nervous giggle. Taking 100 percent responsibility for all things in your life, and beyond, is a fairly tall order.
During the meditation, there are four statements repeated over and over. They are, I’m sorry, Please forgive me, Thank you, I love you. You say this to yourself, to loved ones you may have issue with, to acquaintances, and then to the world at large. By taking responsibility you gain compassion and release anger you might have at believing something is being done to you rather than something you have control to change.
Taking responsibility gives you the power to change anything you are not happy with in your life, even when you believe you do not have the power. And don’t mistake responsibility for blame; that is covered too. It’s not about blaming yourself; it’s just saying the mantra I’m sorry, Please forgive me, Thank you, I love you. It is about observing happenings and circumstances without judgment.
I left this meditation feeling changed. Knowing that the control is in my hands and feeling much more compassionate for my fellow man.
While I was there, there were no smoking rafters, I didn’t lose myself. And I did have thoughts, many of them. I wondered if my children were at a restaurant running from table to table while my husband yelled at them to sit down. I thought about how I really should have stopped by the grocery store for that bread we are out of. And, I thought about what I would eat for dinner once I was done with this meditation. Each time I thought, I put it aside and went back to my breath. Breath in, breath out, I said. Then somewhere along the way, the thoughts stopped and it was just me and my breath and the sound of Don’s voice guiding me to forgive. Forgive myself, forgive my fellow man, take responsibility for my life and know that I am one with something much bigger than me.  
If you are interested in learning more about:
ho’oponoponoyou can go to: http://www.hooponoponohelp.com/
Meditation:
Phoenix and Dragon website is: http://phoenixanddragon.com/
Another resource for meditation in the Atlanta area: Kadampa Meditation Center Georgia http://www.meditationforeveryone.org/
Synchronicity in Roswell, GA: http://synchronicityamd.com

I’m sure there are many others available that I do not know about. But if you Google, Metaphysical Book Store and your city, state, you will probably be surprised at your options. And if you don’t have one, there are many CDs available, including Don Simmons’s at Phoenix and Dragon.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

How Is Your Heart?

Posted on December 3, 2010 by JKW
Did you see Oprah this week with Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban? One thing that struck me in the interview was when Oprah questioned Urban about his relationship with Kidman. He told of a conversation between the two of them where, for some reason even unknown to himself, he asked her, “How is your heart?”
To his question Kidman replied, “My heart is open.”
Wow. My heart is open. I don’t think I would have ever said that (up to this point in my life) if asked that question. I have read a lot of spirituality books. More than 25 books in the past couple of years, and to me this one statement is more profound than some entire books I have read.
I spent the next two days asking myself and repeating as a mantra, How is your heart? My heart is open.
Sometimes I heard it in the Australian accent in Urban and Kidman’s conversation, but on the second day it was just me. Me asking myself, How is your heart? My heart is open.
I really don’t know that my heart is open though. I want my heart to be open. I try to have an open heart. I desire an open heart. But, the closest I think I come to a real open heart is when one of my children looks at me and my heart “melts.” I think what is really happening is that my heart’s flood gate comes down and pure, true love spills into that moment in time, the now.
I suppose the key for being able to answer the question, “How is my heart? My heart is open,” is to keep the love flowing into all facets of life, into each present moment. To be open to experiencing what is in this exact moment and accept that moment as it is, no matter what “it” is – my children, my marriage, my hopes and dreams, my love of self and of God, my creative endeavors, my work, as a stay-at-home-mom and working to sell my book, Surviving Braces.
How do I get there? How do I create an open heart in every part and every moment of my life? At this point in my life, with small children commanding much of me, I have to say it is baby steps.
My song for today: I take care of myself. I get up a bit early in the morning to exercise or read, or just sit and have a cup of tea. I take a nap when I am given the opportunity. I go outdoors for a walk or to sit and read. I go out with friends when I can. I meditate. I write and draw and paint and use my soul as a creative expression of who I am, even when who I am feels lost most days to the life I am now leading. I see my children with the eyes of my soul rather than from the judging ego that wants to correct their every transgression against my adult rules.
Baby steps. I now create a to-do list. It’s heading at the top of the page is written in bright red ink that reads, “ME.” And, the number one thing I will do is:
Live life with an open heart.
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Today I Will Put Myself First

Posted on December 3, 2010 by JKW
Today I will put myself first. At the tippy-top of the list. The kids can get themselves up for school, and get their own lunch and snacks made, they can take themselves there too. I will let the dishwasher sit un-emptied, which means the piled up dishes on the side of the sink will sit there another day, the clothes will go un-folded, and I will leave the Play-Dough from last night sitting on the table and ground into the rug. The scattered Legos and dress-up dresses can stay where they are too, all over the living room floor.
 
I won’t even think about why I didn’t do that stuff yesterday. Because during my three and a half hours when Jesse, my three-year-old, was in “school,” I was grocery shopping for the family, returning a shirt my I bought for my husband but it was too small, stopping at Target for yet more Diaper Genie refills (isn’t a three-year-old supposed to be out of diapers by now?), and helping a friend become more acquainted with a software package she bought, and I already own.
 
I will not pick Jesse up from school at 12, get her lunch, and go back for Nathan, my five-year-old, at one. When my friend calls and says her son would love to come over for a play date, I will say, can Nathan come over there? I woke up at three in the morning last night and was up for two hours and I need a nap.
When Nate’s friend is here, instead of keeping my eyes peeled and the cookies and drinks flowing, I will go up to my room and shut my door and act like they do not exist.
 
When my daughter wakes up from her nap, just after Nathan’s friend has left, I will not listen to my son and my daughter pick at each other for the smallest transgressions towards one another. Instead, I will get a book and read. I will read the trashiest romance novel I can find and pretend that it is my husband and me, little rabbits doing it all the time. In my fantasy we will actually have swing-from-the-ceiling-fan fun while doing it after nine years of marriage, two children and a collapsing housing market, when our income depends on his being a top-notch builder of luxury homes.
 
Tonight when my children cry out in the night, I will sleep right through it. Nathan coughing so hard he is up for two hours and throwing up, twice. And just as soon as I doze off from that episode Jesse calls out and tells me she has “tumbled” from her bed and hurt her butt (BTW – her bed is a converted crib, into a toddler bed which looks like a day-bed, or a crib with the front taken off. Then we put a bed rail in front of her, so that she only has a small space to the right-hand side to crawl in to her bed. How did she “tumble out of that?). This, after she already called me once before Nathan woke up because of a bad dream. I suppose this could be happening because she is coming off of steroids from having the croup. I had to take her to the emergency room last Sunday because she did not stop coughing, literally, all day long. A call to the pediatrician, and off we went at 10 p.m. to the emergency room for a breathing treatment that did not work.
Nope, I will not do any of these things today. No sir, I will put myself at the top of the list. I see my couch here… looking so inviting. I think I will lay my head down for just a minute, or five….
 
“Mommy!” It’s my son. Standing in the doorway. His big, beautiful blue-green eyes looking at me a little bewildered.
 
“What are you doing laying there?” he says. “I thought you were bringing me some tea.”
 
Oh yeah! I knew there was something I was supposed to do when I came up from our basement (it’s a finished man-cave, complete with three TVs on the back wall for sports watching – perfect for sick children to lay and watch TV). In my reverie, I forgot that my son stayed home from school today with that cough from last night. I forgot that I left him downstairs and I was coming up to the kitchen to make him a cup of tea to soothe his throat and help him feel better.
 

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will put myself first. At the tippy-top of my list. After all, there’s always tomorrow, right?

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment