I mentioned tonight to friends that I’d like to change group up a little. Maybe instead of reading a book, we just share what each of us is learning and reading on our own, and see where all that goes.
Everytime we all get together, I feel there is something we are all learning that is similar. We end up cutting our discussions short to go to the book. It feels more like a distraction more than anything.
What was discussed this eve is all I’m learning about letting go of the negative but also saying and claiming the negative so you can release it. So my meditation this week about not resisting the negative emotions in you, but seeing them, then returning to the breath. One friend said Rohr’s meditation today discussed the same thing.
Practice: The Welcoming Prayer
Earlier this week we saw how unfiltered encounters with the divine are hallmarks of the Perennial Tradition, experienced by people across religions. Contemplative practice is anything we do that intentionally opens our hearts, minds, and bodies to this unitive consciousness or presence to Love.
One of my favorite practices is the Welcoming Prayer created by Mary Mrozowski (1925–1993), a spiritual teacher, mystic, and founding member of Contemplative Outreach. It is based on her personal experience of surrender as essential to transformation and the teachings of Jean Pierre de Caussade (1675–1751) and Fr. Thomas Keating (1923–2018). Welcoming Prayer is a simple way of surrendering to God’s presence in our daily life. This method can help us dismantle unhelpful mental and emotional habits so that we respond rather than react to circumstances. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that we welcome or accept abuse, trauma, or oppression, but rather our feelings around those incidents. We then become empowered to take necessary action more freely, creatively, and lovingly.
Set aside some quiet time alone to try this practice. Begin by becoming aware of how your body feels. Notice any tension or pain. After a few moments of silence, read the following intention aloud prayerfully:
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I welcome everything that comes to me in this moment
because I know it is for my healing.
I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions,
persons, situations and conditions.I let go of my desire for security.
I let go of my desire for affection.
I let go of my desire for control.I let go of my desire to change any
situation, condition,
person, or myself.I open to the love and presence of God and
the healing action and grace within. [1]Holding this intention lightly, identify a hurt or an offense, something or someone who has hurt you or let you down recently or in the past.
Feel the pain of the offense the way you first felt it, or are feeling it in this moment, and notice the hurt in your body. Why is this important? Because if you move it to your mind, you will go back to dualistic thinking and judgments: good guy/bad guy, win/lose, either/or.
Feel the pain so you don’t create the win/lose scenario. Identify yourself with the suffering side of life; how much it hurt to hurt; how abandoned you felt to be abandoned.
Once you can move to that place and know how much it hurts to hurt, you could not possibly want that experience for anybody else.
This might take a few minutes. Welcome the experience, and it can move you to the Great Compassion. Don’t fight it. Don’t split and blame. Welcome the grief and anger in all of its heaviness. Now it will become a great teacher.
If you can do this you will see that it is welcoming the pain and letting go of all of your oppositional energy that actually frees you from it! Who would have thought? It is our resistance to things as they are that causes most of our unhappiness—at least I know it is for me
I’ve started the practice of 1/5 + intention.
I spend a minute talking about what is stressing me and then 5 on what is delightful. I set my intention for the day… what do I want from this day?
I feel like things are converging for me and I’m starting to heal and look ahead with some hope.
Today I also started with this idea of what would it be like to have a good relationship w/ my mother. What would it feel like to want to talk to her or call her? What would it be like to want to spend time w/ her? How would that feel in my body?
So today, I went to the plant nursery and imagined wanting her to go w/ me and spend time. I imagined calling or just meeting her there, grabbing a coffee and then looking at plants together, not being afraid, not being onguard.
I’m afraid if I don’t do something like this, this negative energy in my body will continue to haunt my relationship w/ the girls. I want to have a sense of how it would feel to be happy w/ relatives, to want to be together, to not be on guard. I am onguard w/ everyone in my family all the time. I am never relaxed. Everything is edgy, and I’m on pins and needles. I am somewhat relaxed w/ mom-in-law and very relaxed w/ my aunt. That’s it. Everyone else, on edge.
So I keep sensing new things and new ideas of how to heal. It’s taken all these years to get to this point where things feel more hopeful, like I’m turning a corner of some kind. I think it’s taken decades really. And here we are.
*****
This afternoon, I was feeling okay, but could see it I didn’t do something it could turn to depression. I was tired but not enough to sleep. So I thought it’d be fun to get a coffee, walk around the nursery and maybe get some plants for the back porch.
So I did that. I stopped at a coffee shop, got a cold brew then walked around at the nursery. I tried to think calmly about the patio space and didn’t feel the usual overwhelming feelings of everything I think is wrong or bad, how stupid I am, how my ideas are all wrong. I slowly walked through the nursery and considered both pots and also plants. I tried to remember basic design theory about repeating colors and patterns in a space, also contrasting colors.
I settled on some simple grasses for the existing pot and a new pot for the table. It felt good. I could tell it was the right decision. I like simpler, bolder choices instead of the clutter of many plants, trying to make them all come together.
I was trying to be in touch w/ myself more, my body, to just listen and enjoy the experience of picking through things and considering my space. I loved the time there and was hopeful how it would come together.
I got home and cleaned and cleaned the space. I washed off the table, cleaned off a bowl that had been there since last fall, cleaned the ashtrays. I put the plants into the pots, washed off the patio, straightened things. Finally, I had time to clean out the side rock garden and get the weeds pulled after these months. It ended up all looking really good.
I also put up the table I bought at the thrift store sale and when we had our friends for dinner, we used it to hold all the food.
When I saw it at the store, I thought it would work well on the back porch. It did! I was right, it was a hit to have something down on the patio to use that was super sturdy. I’ve looked at other tables over the years and they are usually really flimsy. The one I have, the old card table, it’s flimsy as well.
So anyway, it felt good in my body to be involved in art today and beauty. To have friends over. To have a good meal and to have the entire salad come from my garden. I enjoyed using the dishes I’ve been collecting for years and many of them came in handy.
I feel like I’m slowly returning to myself, for the first time in my life.
*****
The one downside, I’m having a lot of rectal/pelvic pain. I’m taking a lot of the anti spasm med. It has some side effects. I saw a doctor yesterday who said my pelvis is misaligned. That’s good to know, but tiring to consider the work ahead.
Currently watching Herrens Veje on NF. I haven’t been able to watch much that has any intensity or anything that doesn’t make you laugh.
It’s a religious drama I guess you’d call it.
I’m learning a lot, I’m thinking a lot.