Welcome

Welcome to Bountiful Heart blog.

We all get busy, confused, lost, stuck. We all get sucked in by fear. And yet we each have the answers we need inside, by the very nature of what we are. Bountiful Heart is a place to reconnect to the love and peace that is already within you.  

I’m so glad you are here. Get comfortable. Take a few deep breaths. You deserve it.

At Bountiful Heart you’ll find

• writings on the ”two inch shifts” , small inner changes that can transform pain to joy, constriction to openess
• meditations on deepening your connection with the divine
• practical ideas for working with your mind and heart
• a space to share a challenging situation you are facing and get some feedback from me

I hope that Bountiful Heart helps you to pause to reconnect with yourself, that the words might enable you to relax and stop the frantic pace and disconnection we all live with throughout the day. Bountiful Heart isn’t meant to be an expert, providing you with information to fix or improve you. It’s about providing words and a space that enable you to re-center and come home to who you truly are.

Many of the blog entries here are part of a larger writing project. Many people who read Bountiful Heart write back with a question along the lines of: “When is the book coming out?” The book is in the works! The Working Title is Soul Recovery, and it is a step by step guide to getting back into relationship with your soul, so that you can experience more passion, peace and bliss in your day to day life.

But I’m an extrovert, and writing a book can be lonely. What I love about blogging is that I get to hear from you. Please drop me a line, leave a comment, discuss your discoveries from the exercises, and share your feedback.

Sending you lots of love,

Tara

 

Creating White Space

I heard from a lot of you that the concept of white space really spoke to you.  Perhaps it’s more precise to say it called to you. For many, it sounded like a wildly appealing, remote oasis, impossible to reach in the midst of busy lives.

This post is about three simple steps to creating white space in your life:

1. Take yourself seriously.

2. Pack your courage.

3. Start small.

1. Take Yourself Seriously. Your body signals you with hunger when it needs food, with a tired body when it needs sleep.  What if your desires are also informational signals delivered directly from your inner wisdom? If white space is calling you, take that call seriously. Believe that it holds wisdom. It likely means that there is something important that wants to be born, to heal, to rest, and needs white space to do that. It tells you that white space will, without a doubt, give you a very important gift.

2. Pack your courage. In our culture, busyness is celebrated.  We love to commiserate about our busyness. Some of us draw a subtle sense of security and worth from it. Have you noticed how, in many workplaces, people who feel they can manage big jobs or important projects on a reasonable schedule are almost seen as suspect? Have you noticed how many workplaces celebrate martyrs, instead of learning from those that produce great results without overwhelm and long work days? That culture doesn’t have to control you, but it’s important to notice your context and the forces shaping you. You might feel afraid about leaving the herd.  That means you’ll need your courage to do it.

There is another reason that most of us avoid slowing down. Especially at first, it can feel uncomfortable. White space isn’t really white, because all the colors that are in you quickly fill the space. White space is the container for you to surface, spend some time with, and paint with those colors — the feelings, thoughts, ideas in you at that moment. If you feel resistant or afraid to doing that, know that’s normal. Pack your courage. Be in it for the long run with yourself, and sit through the discomfort that may show up at various points along the way.

3. Small is big. The truth is, very small changes — what we do with 10 minutes, 5 minutes, even 15 seconds — have a huge impact on our lives. If scheduling an hour of white space strikes you as a hilarious joke or physical impossibility, here are some places to begin:

• Take five minutes for pure white space time every morning or every evening. Check in with what is happening with yourself at that moment.
• In between meetings or appointments, instead of doing that quick email check, dedicate 2-5 minutes for pure white space. Connect with your body, your breath, or a part of nature (that desk plant counts!).  If you have an I-phone, try Dream, a free application that provides sounds of rain, rushing wind and crackling fire that might help you more quickly go to a white space frame of mind.
• Find low quality time that’s in your schedule now–perhaps transit time, time spent drying your hair or folding the laundry, and bring a white space intention to it. Make that a time to slow down and reconnect to yourself.

Let me know how it goes.

Love,

Tara

White Space

Recently, I’ve been cancelling a lot of things from my calendar. Just cancelling. It feels quite rebellious.

My life, like yours, is fully of lovely people, all kinds of projects, work, family, errands, closet organizing aspirations, etc.  I filled up the calendar with all that good stuff as I usually do….and found myself feeling severely bummed out by it all, anxious and resentful. I wanted white space – not a zoo of colors and text- on the calendar page.

For a full week, I hung out in the discomfort, saying to myself, “I want free time. I want to rest. I want to do nothing. But I just can’t right now.  Its impossible. I have all these ongoing commitments.” It took some time, some stewing in the ickiness, and a good clarification conversation with a friend before I was willing to really take my inner longing for emptiness seriously, and act on it.

For me, acting on it was high stakes. I’m a people pleaser. I hate to cancel plans. I hate to back out of commitments I’ve made. I feel like the world will stop turning and I’ll offend people if I do.

Well, I can report back: The world didn’t stop turning.  People understood. Some people even thanked me for getting us both of the hook for commitments neither of us were wholeheartedly committed to.

I now have a lot of white space in my calendar for the next two weeks, and it feels really, deliciously good. It feels undeniably right.  My anxiety and resentment is gone, which reminds me of one of my most deeply held beliefs: when we get in touch with and accept what is happening within us, when we are willing to hold it as valid and take action from there, we don’t go down the roads of anxiety, disconnection from ourselves, or resentment. Those feelings always show up when we’ve been resisting something true. We don’t have to live with them.

Where are you at with what’s happening in your calendar? What parts feel exciting and compelling? What parts feel taxing and resentment-causing? And what are you willing to do about it? What are you willing to let go of? To risk? What courage will it take to do what you need to do?

Love,

Tara

The Universal Soul

 

Through discovering your passions, your thrillprint, you soul links and soul magnets, you have begun to express your individual self, your personal soul. You have experienced how personal soul expression creates fulfillment and joy to which nothing can compare.

 

And there is more. The universal soul brings us something deeper, something even more transformative and more powerful than personal soul expression. The universal soul is shared by all of us and it is more fundamental to us than the personal soul. It calls us into a deeper level of existence.

 

The universal soul is who we are apart from personality and life story. It is the identity in us that is beyond name, time and place, gender, ethnicity, roles, or individual experiences. It patiently rests within, consistent, unwavering, unaffected by anything happening in the story of our lives. Because it exists separate from our ego identity, the universal soul takes us far beyond our ego concerns. It draws us into the timeless and boundless.

 

Begin to sense, is there something within you, apart from who you are, your identity, your particular life experiences, that is the fundamental you? The very basic being-ness of you, the “you” that is consciousness, being? This is the level of the universal soul.

 

That basic level of being-ness within is connected to all other beings, and to the very reality of being itself. When we connect to our most fundamental essence, the universal soul, we are not Joe or Jane, not even “human being.” We are simply being-ness, sharing qualities with all other forms of being, sharing our nature with life, with the cosmos, with creation. You might call this shared essence spirit, the divine, reality, the universe or the life force. Use the term that works for you.

 

I experience that essence of being as having three fundamental qualities. None of them can be adequately captured in words, but we can label them for practical purposes. I call these three qualities presence, love and power.

 

“Presence” is the now-ness of the universe, the reality that what happens, happens in the now. Reality is always now. Life exists in the now. The creative force operates through the now.

 

“Love” represents the overflowing compassion, grace and abundance that always exists – in front of or behind the veil of our awareness. Love is the truth of reality, the water in which we swim.

 

“Power” points to the fundamental freedom and action-orientedness of being, the fact that things happen, in the space of the now. Unfoldment, choice, growth, and agency are all expressions of the dimension of power.

 

These three qualities of reality/being/life/cosmos/creation (whatever you choose to call it) are reflected in the microcosm of the universal soul, which is our internal mirror of the universe, the way the universe exists within us. 

 

Think of birds that swim upon the surface of the ocean and plunge deep down into the water to find the sustenance we need. Universal soul work is about learning to continue swimming on the surface of the ocean, but to stay connected to what is at the bottom of the sea, to make trips there quickly and regularly, and to expand our capacity to actually just be there, at the bottom, for a while.

 

We participate in the play of life, we wear the role of our worldly identity, we operate from ego consciousness. But we can choose to go inward, to sink down and access the universal soul. When we connect to the universal soul, we will move from a state of distraction to one of presence, from unconsciousness to awareness. We shift from fear to love. We destroy illusions of constraint and impossibility and discover our power.

 

The universal soul brings us back, again and again, from pain. The universal soul moves us from limited, ego consciousness to infinite, being consciousness. The universal soul rescues us from the illusions of darkness and into the truth of light.

 

If we return again and again from the play of our daily lives to that most fundamental essence, we will never be disappointed with what it provides. We can access peace and safety and joy. We will find the support we need. We will experience the relief of living in alignment with the truth, because the universal soul is connected to the truth of the way things are. Believe it now or not, the universal soul will show us, the truth is always the light.

10 Ways to Get Present (In Under 5 Minutes)

1. Ask: As always, ask. Ask the universe, ask your higher self. Ask a divine power if you believe in one. Ask for help to get present.

2. Lay a Daily Foundation: Carve out three to five minutes at the beginning or the end of the day to just be present. Notice your breath, your body, your thoughts, and the world around you.

 

Present in Body: Embodied

3. Ground in the now: The physical world always exists in the now, so you can become present by grounding yourself in what is happening in the physical world. Here are some ways to do that:

a. Focus on your breath.

b. Focus on the sounds in your environment.

c. Focus on the sensations in your body.

d. Focus on one particular part of your body. Place your hand there, and become aware: this is my leg…knee…arm – whatever it is. Breathe. Be with that part of yourself and notice any sensations happening there.

e. Focus on something from nature. Slow down and give it your full attention. Breathe. Get curious about its essence.

4. Move: Move your body and focus your attention on your movement. Stretches, yoga poses, or a brief walk around the block can help us reconnect to the present.

 

Present in Mind: Mental Attention Here

5. Gently Move Your Attention: When a mental distraction shows us, when thoughts of future or past call you, notice them. See if you can watch them as an observer would, rather than identifying with them or following them. Let the thoughts pass, and bring your attention back to the present.

6. Use a word or image. Sometimes, it helps to focus on a word or image. You can silently and slowly repeat one or more of these words to yourself as you breathe: “Aware. Awake. Here. Now.” You can also focus on an image that symbolizes vitality and  presence for you: a flame, a flower, a strong tree, calm lake or other symbol with personal meaning for you.

7. Make it the ultimate destination: If you are doing something you consider a means to an end, reframe that activity as an ends in itself. For example, instead of thinking, “I am showering because I am getting ready to go out to dinner” think, “I am showering.” Let the showering be a full, rich experience in itself.

8. Lose the file. When you are doing a simple activity, such as sitting in traffic, as your mind starts to run with its narrative about traffic (all based on the past), lose your mental file on that activity. You might say to yourself: “I have no idea what this activity is like. I have no knowledge of this experience from the past.” Get curious about the actual experience you are having at that moment. Be a like a child experiencing something for the first time. What is it like right now– what is happening? See if you can answer this question without hunting for words to describe your experience; instead just become aware of your experience.

 

Present in Heart: Emotional Openness

9. “Clear” emotions to get present: Before going into a situation, jot a quick inventory all the emotions with you from the past that you feel with you – from the day, the week or the distant past. Ask for help in letting them go, so that you can be fully emotionally present to the situation in front of you.

1o. Let go of language. When you are on your way to an activity, or getting ready for the day, see what associations you hold with one of the concepts for your day – it might be “work,” “meetings,” “picking up the kids” – whatever is on your calendar. For the day, let go of the label and the judgments or opinions you hold about that thing, and instead focus on your moment to moment experience. Begin to treat these activities as if they are mysterious, unnamable, uncategorizable – a complex, fluid, moment to moment reality. Get curious about and present to the true reality of your day. What’s being oversimplified and missed with all those concepts and labels?

Everything A Destination

In personal growth circles, it is commonly advised that we should “enjoy the journey” – that “the journey is the reward” as much as the destination.

Presence challenge us to go further and lose all distinctions between “journey” and “destination.” With presence, every moment in life becomes the destination; nothing is just a step on the way to something else. Every activity becomes and ends in itself. If we are willing to believe that it is so, every activity  will reveals itself to us as important as the next, because it is not the task but the quality of our integrity, focus and presence that ultimately determines the meaning of what we do.

 

We have to decide to value each moment for what it is, we have to act as if every moment is worthy of our full presence and attention. But when we do, the moment opens up to us. Our experience of reality becomes more vivid, beautiful, and fascinating. This, in turn, inspires us to continue bringing our attention back, again and again, to the now.

 

I like to challenge myself regularly by trying to act as if every activity is an complete ends in itself, not a means to something else. There are lots of ways to do this. We all have literal journeys and destinations – the traveling and commuting we do in our daily lives and the places we are schlepping to. A simple way to begin playing with the idea that “everything is a destination” is to change your approach to the driving, walking, biking or other commuting you do. Instead of thinking of it as a means to an end, think of that time as an end in itself. Explore ways to get the most enjoyment and meaning out of that time.

 

I also love to play with the concept of “everything is a destination” at work. Many of us have internal stories about the “real” or “important” parts of our jobs, as opposed to all the distractions and random stuff that comes our way from day to day. Play with making each activity – each email, each phone call, each interaction, each document – the focus of your full attention. See how this impacts the quality of the work and your level of enjoyment of what you do.

 

For me, this is connected to a wonderful teaching from Byron Katie that upended by approach to almost everything. Katie notices that many of us want to “become successful” in our careers. She points out, “You can’t become successful. You can only be successful.” She’s right. I can’t think of one person who “became successful” without the building blocks of being successful, one moment at a time, as they encountered that moment in the present.  We also can’t become courageous, kind, beloved, or happy. We can only be courageous, kind, beloved, and happy. What looks like “becoming” when we pull the camera back is actually just being something, one present moment at a time, over time.

What do you want to become? Be that thing today.

What do you consider an annoying step along the way to some important destination? Give that step your full attention and make it an ends in itself. See what difference that makes to the quality of your day.

Love,

Tara

Dimensions of Presence – I

Yesterday’s post about Mark and Susan illustrated many of the dimensions of presence:

1. Mental attention here:  Being present involves placing one’s mental attention on whatever is happening now. If you are on a hike with your friend, your mind is with you on the hike; it is not at next Wednesday’s meeting or last year’s fight with your spouse. If you are remembering something, your mind is fully focused on that. If you are dreaming about the future, you mind is fully present to that.

 

2. Emotional openness: A part of being present is being emotionally present. When you are emotionally present, your emotions relate to what is happening in front of you now—not what happened earlier that day, that week, or at some other point in your lifetime. 

 

Many people in our culture are considered embittered. We say they have “a difficult personality” or that they are pessimists. Another way to think of them is as people who are very much not emotionally present. A negative emotional past is showing up with them in the present.

 

I think of this part of presence as a kind of “openness,” because it results in openness and can feel like a dramatic opening. When we show up without emotional baggage, our hearts meeting just what is in the moment, it is as if the lens through which we see the world has been dramatically widened and cleaned. We become open to new experiences, and we suddenly see a rich, gorgeous thrilling reality in front of us. We then can perceive so much more – more information, more miracles, more diversity.

 

3. Embodied: Since in the now we exist in a body (at least so far most humans seem to do so) being present in the now is also about being in our bodies. Bodies are also a portal to the present because while the past and future “exist” in great vividness in our minds and emotions, whatever is happening in the body is happening in the now.

 

I don’t know about you, but I can forget I have a body. In fact, I kind of like to forget I have one, and escape into a world where I am a floating consciousness that types on the computer, reads, plays mental movies, and exists in a suspended, screen-watching state. It is hard to come back to my two legs, two arms, beating heart, and soft stomach. The longer I have been out of my body, the more impossible it seems to get back.

 

For me, being present in my body starts with the simple shift that moment to moment, I remember I have one. I notice my breath. I might consciously place my hands on my quads to just get grounded. I might rest my palms on my stomach and take in a deep breath. On a day to day level, being present in and to my body means I listen to its cues (expressed as emotions, energy shifts, sensations) and I make time for my body – doing those relatively inconvenient things like sleeping, feeding it healthy foods, and taking time to move and stretch it.

 

I know that I get the best results in my life when I live present in my body. It slows me down, it reconnects me to a pace and way of life that allows me to actually live life and not go on the unproductive hamster wheel my mind would send me on. When I am present in my body, I multiply my power and capability.

 

4. Observing the self:  The three dimensions of presence described above capture being present in mind, in body and emotion. They explore being present within ourselves so that we can be present to what is going on around us. A different, but equally powerful concept is being present to ourselves.

 

This means placing our awareness on what is happening within, and doing so from the perspective of an observer, or a student. When we catch our response to life as it happens, we have power. Without this conscious awareness, we cannot be at choice. We become wise by stepping outside of identifying with everything happening within us and becoming present to it.

 

Bring present to our minds means watching and observing our thoughts, with great attention.

Being present to our emotions means sensing them, becoming conscious of them.

 

Being present to our bodies means exploring and noticing the changing sensations and energy patterns in the body.

 

When are present to ourselves, we learn what makes us tick, what makes us react, what causes fear or contentment within. We have access to the ever-changing sensations in the body, which reveal valuable information about what is happening to us: what evokes fear or adrenalin in us? Did we suddenly find ourselves clenching our jaw or taking on a defensive posture? By watching our minds and emotions, we can notice: What thoughts or ideas create a sense of opening or relaxation in the body?

 

Finding language may help you to get some sense of what is happening in your mind, body and emotions, but see if it also hinders you. What is it like to observe and become conscious of emotions and bodily sensations without putting language around them? What does it mean to be aware of something, to hold it in mind, without doing the work of naming it in language?

 

Play with these dimensions of presence and let me know what you learn.

 

Love,

 

Tara 

Planning for the Future….With Presence

Many people misunderstand the concept of being present and assume that it means never planning for the future or learning from the past.

Being in the present, they assume, is for people content to just hang out in there, smelling the roses, drinking martinis, and living moment to moment.

Of course, this is not true. Planning for and envisioning the future is critical to a fulfilling life. Reflecting on the past is essential as well, and both can be done from a place of presence.

In fact, to plan well for the future, or to reflect on the past in a truly helpful way, we need presence.

Here are two tales of planning for the future, one with presence, one without.

Let’s imagine that Mark is sitting down to have a conversation with his wife Susan, about their long-term future. Topics to discuss include their financial savings plan, priorities for discretionary time over the next five years, and whether they will move to a tropical location after their kids leave home.

Here’s what this conversation looks like from a place of non-presence: Mark and Susan show up carrying a set of assumptions about each other’s hopes and preferences around these plans – based on previous conversations. Its assumed neither has changed much in their thinking since the last time they spoke. Both Mark and Susan carry with them some still smarting wounds and resentments from those discussions.

In addition, in between this conversation and they last one, they have each been spending a lot of time watching their own mental movies about how they future might play out. In these fantasies, their minds take over –carrying Mark and Susan on mental trips. For Susan, these fantasies usually involve worries about isolation and distance from family if they move, as well as a host of anxieties about saving enough for their retirement. Mark there day dreams about how perfect it would be to start a small retail business in a new tropical location.

Both of them review the same movies repeatedly and revisit the same dilemma, while washing the dishes, spacing out at work, or whenever else those thoughts crop up.

Despite all that time spent deep in thought, neither has made much progress on their worries and unanswered questions. Neither has taken time—when refreshed, emotionally grounded, and undistracted, present–to look openly at the questions at hand. They mainly watch their mental movies in a rather half-conscious, distracted state.

When Mark and Susan show up for the conversation, these movies are with them. As they begin to speak, their bodies are sending all kinds of cues about what ideas and what ways of communicating with each other feel good and feel bad, but neither of them is paying attention to those sensations. Neither has consciously brought spirit to the conversation, and so their  full depth, compassion for one another, and soul power is not being utilized in the planning.

You can imagine how this conversation goes. Assumptions prevent each one from really hearing the other. They hold each other in the realities of the past, not the possibilities of the present. They react emotionally, without slowing down to really understand what is driving their reactions. They get stuck, and tension between them flares.

Here’s how that conversation might look from a place of deep presence:

Both Mark and Susan recognize that this moment – this opportunity to plan for and envision their future is like no other. They affirm that all kinds of new possibilities and yet undiscovered plans await in the present moment.

They bring their full awake attention to the task.  They focus intently on it and leaving other topics – what happened today, what will be happening tomorrow – aside. They consciously let go of all the extraneous thoughts and concerns they want don’t want interfering with the discussion.

They ground themselves in their bodies, by focusing on their breath, touching one another or a significant object, or taking a moment to notice the natural world around them. They work to be aware of their bodies throughout the conversation – to gather critical information about how certain ideas and potential actions impact them at a visceral level.

They slow down and each tune into what is happening within them. They notice the thoughts and emotions with them in the moment, share how they are feeling about having this conversation, and discuss their hopes and fears about how it will go.

They both see this planning conversation not just as a means to get to the future, but as inherently valuable in itself. There is a heightened awareness that every step along the way to the future is a valuable part of the journey.

Each gives full attention to their partner – listening with curiosity and knowing that their partner may show up in this moment in an entirely way they have in the past.

You can imagine how this conversation goes. They enjoy it. They are reminded of what they appreciate about one another. Its rich and full of discovery. They can brainstorm all kinds of ideas with low stakes. Creative solutions they had never thought of before flow easily. When one of them gets “triggered” they can sense it inside and work with it, so that it doesn’t derail the converation. They hear and can respond to one another, moment by moment.

Pick something happening in your life today, and try to apply one or more of these qualities of being present.

There are many different ways to be present, many different pathways in. Tomorrow, we’ll begin looking in depth at each of these different dimensions of presence.

Love,

Tara

Presence: Part 1

Hi blog readers! Over the next several days I’ll be posting a series of pieces about presence, living in the present, connecting with the now-ness of reality. Here is part 1.

In our culture of extreme multi-tasking, in our new reality of living from beep to buzz to ring, most of us fail to live with presence—to bring our full selves to what we are doing in any given moment.

 

Though it is fashionable to do so, we can’t really blame technology, or “society” for this, because it is our own human tendency to leave the present moment that created both. We have an inner impulse to leave the intimacy and intensity of the present moment, and that impulse has given rise to our norms of multi-tasking and over-scheduling, and to all those gadgets that keep us connected but distracted, that keep us in the shallows of life. It is that tendency in all its manifestations – new and old- that we need to work with.

 

For me, presence can be summed up in the following questions:

 

When you walk into a room, how much of you is actually there?

 

How many of your thoughts relate to what is happening at that very moment– and how many are on a field trip to another time and place?

 

Are your emotions related to what is happening before you – or are you carrying emotional baggage from other parts of the day, the week, or a lifetime?

 

Imagine a mind-body-heart scanner measuring your level of present-ness as you walk into work on the average day, or sit down to dinner with your family. What would it show?

 

On my own personal path, connecting to the present has been one the most difficult and richest areas soul recovery.

 

I am deeply future-oriented and ideal-oriented. My impulse is to long for and create the bigger, the greater, the next, the new. This gives me some of my greatest strengths: entrepreneurship, creativity, vision. It enables me to embrace change. I dream up great family vacations and delight in all the planning and research. I develop new ideas, structures and initiatives at work. I craft beautiful birthday gatherings and gifts for friends. I happily set out in creating the next great place for my family to live, plotting a career change, or writing a book. 

 

All of these activities have positive elements and earn various kinds of rewards in the world, and yet, undoubtedly, in all of those activities, there is a part of me that is driven by a desire to escape the present. I feel pulled to leave the present moment in all its intensity, in all its challenge, in all its fullness and emptiness. There is, standing so closely next to the creator in me that I can barely tell them apart, another part of me. That part wants to plan things rather than live things. It wants to work with what’s in my fantasy, not with the messy reality in front of me.

 

Because that’s me, for the first ten years of my conscious spiritual growth work, I was knowingly ignorant of (and yet also averse to) this whole concept of “the present.” I just didn’t get it. “The present” kept popping up in spiritual literature everywhere: it seemed really important! But what were they talking about? It totally eluded me.

 

At the same time, I sensed enough about the whole “present” thing to know: I didn’t want to go there. Spiritual literature that focused on moving closer to or connecting with an ideal – great love, great compassion, ultimate forgiveness, enlightenment….that was the stuff that I was interested in. That was exciting. I was not interested in sitting there with the boring present.

 

But slowly, something shifted. I could see I was limited in life by this habit of being…elsewhere. I mean, even I found it little bit odd when I found myself planning the next vacation while we are on the one I just finished planning. Should I really be shopping for flights to Santa Fe from the lanai in Hawaii? I could see there was something strange when I couldn’t enjoy the film at film festival we were at, because I was focused on calculating how we could fit more of them into the next two weeks. It was disconcerting to spend days really looking forward to some fun activity, and then find myself distracted and checked out when actually doing it.

 

I began to notice it often felt easy (though icky) to worry about the week ahead and difficult to truly unwind and connect with my husband on a Sunday evening. It felt easier to clean up in the kitchen and focus on the tasks then really be present to our dinner guests. It often felt impossible to sit quietly, be with my body in exercise or simple awareness, or to show up authentically with another human being, or with myself. In short, when I was checked out, it was a lot easier to stay there than to come back to the present, or so it seemed. And yet that checked out state was lonely and painful.

 

I think that many of us operate in a state of non-presence like this, as we go about texting, emailing, directing and watching mental movies, and otherwise creating busy-ness to fill our lives. The worst part is, it is a downward spiral. The more disconnected we become from self, the more we do that further disconnects us, and the more we lose grasp on the tools and calm that enable us to reconnect.

 

Over time, I started to notice: Life doesn’t happen in the place I go in my head. Life happens in the present. All of the good stuff – the joy, the supportive love of the universe, the experience of miracles, real connection, it all happens in the present. It is only available in the present. As I grew spiritually, I understood that everything I wanted to be and have in my life depended on living more in the present moment. I found that everything I wanted: peace, abundance, love, truth—not the concepts but the experiences—could only be found and felt in the present.

 

In my experience, a fundamental aspect of the life force, of the cosmos, is its now-ness. It is that mysterious quality of now-ness, one that we take for granted, one that is difficult for our consciousness to even grasp, that we need to reconnect to, again and again. Now-ness links us with possibility. Now-ness is the foundation for choice and action. Now-ness is something we can always come home to get grounded. Now-ness brings us back to the fundamental truth – so calming, so thrilling, so challenging: we are here, we exist.

 

So I want to learn how to be there in the present, attuned to now-ness. I want ways to get back there. I want ways to remember the very concept of the present, which I can lose for days or weeks at a time.

 

The concept of presence is still elusive to me, slippery, hard to access. It’s a stretch concept for me. This chapter is hopefully a resource for you but also a tool for me to explore and better define my own relationship for presence. It will also, hopefully, give you some helpful ideas and options – realistic ways to bring presence into busy workplaces, families and lives.

 

If you have recognized or are beginning to sense that you are rarely fully present to those you love, to your work, to yourself, or even to the leisure activities you most enjoy, don’t beat yourself up. You have a lot of internal and external forces working against you, you are not alone, and this chapter will show you lots of ways to make different choices.

Your Soul’s Dream

 

Your soul has a dream for the future.

 

Your soul’s dream is not arbitrary or a flight of fancy. It is simply the extension of your soul’s deepest truths, forward in time, out into the world. If your soul’s truths emanated into the world like a beam of light, then the dream would be fulfilled. In other words, the soul’s dream is always simply a manifestation of the potential that is already present in the soul, already accessible.

 

Because everything longs for self-expression, self-actualization, the soul’s dream is also the soul’s desire. The dream is the path the soul longs to walk, the future it longs to create.

 

As we have been uncovering and nurturing the other parts of the soul, we have been preparing to meet the soul’s dream, the most intimate part of the soul. We have been preparing ourselves by working with the inner critic, reconnecting to passions, and learning to trust our soul’s directions. We have been showing up attentively and patiently to our souls, growing the connection that allows our souls to reveal more to us, to share new information and bless us with larger and more powerful ideas and inspiration.

 

The dream of the soul is not a static photographic, an un-changing vision that lasts a lifetime. The dream of the soul is more like a film, the picture evolving as we grow and the world changes. The soul’s dream is always responsive to reality in the present moment, and its shifts and expands in response to our growth and in response to the world.

 

The exercises below are intended to help you begin to understand your soul’s dream.  These are visioning exercises. You can simply read the text below and then take yourself through the visualization, or have a partner read for you. Take it slow. Find a quiet place and a time when you will not be interrupted by distractions. Each one takes ten to fifteen minutes, including time for writing down what you learn.

 

1. The Perfect Day:

 

Close your eyes. Begin to take deep, slow breaths. Move your attention to your feet and become aware of sensations in them. Notice any tension and release it. Slowly continue moving your attention through your body, noticing any sensations in each place, and letting go of any tension you may find. Move through your legs, your hips, your stomach and your chest. Move through your hands, your arms and your shoulders. Move your awareness across your neck, jaw, and brow – releasing any tension you find.

 

Now imagine that you are living a life that gives you vitality, joy, peace and a deep sense of personal expression. You feel actualized, fulfilled, living at your peak. Your dearest values are honored and expressed through this life. You are having lots of fun. In this exercise, you are unconstrained by any practical factors or current constraints in your life – so if you hear them popping up, just set those aside for now. Spend several minutes with your eyes closed, walking around this life.

 

What does a day in this life look like? Where are you? What is your environment like? What places and activities are part of your day? Who is around you? Who are the important people in this picture? How do you spend your time? What do you look like? How do you act in this environment? Notice everything you can about this picture.

 

When you are ready, slowly bring your awareness back to the present moment and open your eyes. Journal about what you learned. You may wish to also capture this perfect day through a collage, a drawing or painting, or other creative format.

 

1. Power to Create:

 

Close your eyes. Begin to take deep, slow breaths. Move your attention to your feet and become aware of sensations in them. Notice any tension and release it. Slowly continue moving your attention through your body, noticing any sensations in each place, and letting go of any tension you may find. Move through your legs, your hips, your stomach and your chest. Move through your hands, your arms and your shoulders. Move your awareness across your neck, jaw, and brow – releasing any tension you find.

 

Imagine that you are walking through a beautiful wood. Tall trees surround you, sun warms your skin, and there is a sacred quality to the light and the soft silence in the air. As you walk, feel your breath, and appreciate this body, this moment, and the opportunity you were given when you were given human life.

 

Notice that you feel guided to a particular tree. At the base lies a small, ancient, chest, embellished with beautiful designs. You know this chest is for you, and you understand that inside of it are all the tools you need to bring your visions to reality, to bring about change, to impact the world around you in the way you desire. Inside this chest are powerful tools that will enable you to create with profound ease and huge impact, and to clear all obstacles out of your path. You understand this chest is a gift for you. Thank the woods for giving you this gift.

 

Find a place in the woods to pause and sit down. Holding this powerful box in your hands begin to dream of what you will create now that you have these tools. What will you create in your family, in your immediate community, in your organization, in your world? Let the visions come to you, and pay attention to the pictures and ideas that come into your mind. Spend some time just observing these visions.

 

When you are ready, when you have understood what you most seek to create with these tools, begin your walk back from the wood, carrying the chest with you. When you reach the edge of the wood, feel gratitude for this experience once again, and when you are ready, slowly open your eyes. Journal about what you learned. Again, you may also wish to capture this vision through a collage, a drawing or painting, or other creative format.

 

 

1. The Bedside

 

Close your eyes. Begin to take deep, slow breaths. Move your attention to your feet and become aware of sensations in them. Notice any tension and release it. Slowly continue moving your attention through your body, noticing any sensations in each place, and letting go of any tension you may find. Move through your legs, your hips, your stomach and your chest. Move through your hands, your arms and your shoulders. Move your awareness across your neck, jaw, and brow – releasing any tension you find.

 

Imagine that you are standing before a beautiful, deep blue lake. Around the shore stand tall, ancient trees, and before you the calm waters stretch out as far as you can see. Next to you, there is a small boat, which has been placed there to take you to just the place you need to go. As you step into the boat and begin easily rowing your way out into the lake, you pay attention to your breath and feel profound appreciation for your life, the beauty around you, and the special journey you are embarking on.

 

As you continue to travel through the waters, you understand that you are traveling forward in time, going to meet yourself in the final days of your life. You know that this self you are going to visit has lived a full, joyous and meaningful life. You know this journey is completely safe, life-giving and destined to be yours at this moment.

 

Just paddle for a while…. As you approach the shore, you notice the landscape is different. This is the place where your spirit wanted to abide in the final day so of life. What is that place? What is it like there? Find the place where your dying self waits for you. You can see from looking his or her face that this has been a life well-lived. You see a person who has chosen a path of authenticity and acquired great wisdom, who has experienced joy and created meaning. Greet this person, absorb his or her presence. Then, when you are ready, ask these questions of your dying self and listen to the answers:

1.  
   1. What is your legacy on earth?
   2. What did your soul’s dream create in your life?
   3. What truly makes you happy?

See if there is anything more that your dying self wants to share with you, and ask anything more you want to ask. Ask your dying self where you can find him or her if you want to visit and talk again.

 

Thank your self for sharing his or her wisdom with you and say goodbye. Return to the shore and make your journey back across the lake, slowly letting the insights and impact of this meeting seep into your mind and heart. When you reach the shore on the other side, step out of the boat and bring it on to land. When you are ready, slowly open your eyes. Journal about what you learned. Again, you may also wish to capture this vision through a collage, a drawing or painting, or other creative format.

 

Give Your Visions Time

Some of the images and ideas that arose through these meditations may have been very tangible, clear and actionable. Others may have been partial, vague on confusing. Both are wonderful. If you are unsure what the images and ideas you received in these visions meant, most likely your soul is guiding you towards new directions and ideas that aren’t quite recognizable to you yet, or your soul is speaking to you in the language of symbol or metaphor, as it would in a dream.

 

In either case, this is something to be welcomed. Keep the images and fragments and ideas that came up with you in your consciousness. Hold them with love, respect and trust. Look for how they might relate to what’s coming up in your life. More will be revealed. The process of clarification and illumination of these messages has its own timetable, and that timetable is perfect.

 

Finally, you may have gotten very little information from these meditations – some of them  may not have worked for you. That’s also fine. You can come back to them at another time, work with the one that was most generative for you, or follow your own intuition about other ways you can access your soul’s dream. 

Eight Ways to Love the People You Love

1. Let them be themselves and run their lives. You worry about your own.
2. Continually and regularly point out to them their brilliance; they don’t see it clearly and they don’t know its immensity.
3. Be yourself, so that they receive the gift of a real relationship and of the real you.
4. Do your own internal work so that you don’t take our fear, resentment, or stress on those around you.
5. Know that their mental and emotional landscape is very different from yours. Listen hard, patiently and openly to hear about what is true for them. Remember that you don’t have understand it or make sense of it to respect or accept it.
6. Give of yourself, but never sacrifice or compromise yourself.
7. Remember that everyone you encounter was created by divine intelligence and has an important role to play in the universe. If you truly know that, you will stay respectful, humble, honest and kind.
8. If you want to keep growing emotionally and spiritually for the rest of your life, accept this as your mantra and try to live as if it were true: everything that I experience from another human being is either love, or a call for love.