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Nurturing Ourselves November 16, 2008

Posted by bodhidude in : Healing, Psychology, Spirituality , 2comments

I was spending time with a friend this evening and we were talking about nurturing ourselves and it occurred to me that nurturing myself has become a core practice. It seems that so often discontent and suffering comes from seeking to be nurtured from an external source rather than an internal one. Not that other people, things and situations cannot be nurturing but they really aren’t that satisfying if we aren’t first nurturing ourselves. So what do I mean by nurturing? I guess I mean taking responsibility for my own happiness, peace and well being and doing things to cultivate that in my life. Seeing that ultimately these things comes from within, others can share them and reflect them but cannot give them to us if we are not in touch with them in ourselves. In fact if we are not nurturing ourselves then we may seek it from others which makes our relationships problematic because we’re seeking things from people that they cannot give us and seeing them through the filter of our needs. That results in not being able to be in relationship with them fully as individuals and is quite unfulfilling.

I find that nurturing is a good way to look at each moment because in each moment I can ask myself the question, am I nurturing myself in this moment? Is what I’m doing right now serving my highest good. If I’m not I then have the opportunity to look at what I’m doing and refocus my attention in a new direction. It brings up the question of if anything in our lives does not nurture us why do we make it a part of our life. If my job does not bring me happiness, peace and well-being why am I there? Do I really need to be in a job that doesn’t. If a relationship doesn’t nurture me why am I in it? What am I getting out of such a relationship and what am I offering to the other person? I think if we nurture ourselves then we will draw in jobs, relationships, living situations and other things that nurture us because those external things will reflect what we are already doing for ourselves internally. This goes along with the idea that if you want to create something externally you must first make it a reality inside. The external world reflects the internal.

I was talking to my client today about keeping things really simple in working with our minds and I realized that nurturing ourselves is ultimately very simple because to do so all we really have to do is stop and become present, enter the now and touch the fullness, beauty and power of LIFE and we will realize that we’ve never been anything but nurtured. So maybe you could say its more like remembering our true nurtured self. I’m loving the simplicity.

Giving our power away and taking it back – Bush and Obama as reflections November 12, 2008

Posted by bodhidude in : Society , add a comment

With the election of Barack Obama and a new person assuming the role of president its interesting to look back on the years of Bush and reflect on just what we have been dreaming up. I’ve become mostly interested in this contemplation from the perspective of personal power, to what degree have we been empowered or disempowered as co-creators of our society and larger reality?

In my view President Bush was the ultimate and most extreme representation of a society that had given its power away. Bush in so many of his qualities and actions personified this especially in his disregard for the opinions of anyone that disagreed with him and in his incredible abuses of power with very few consequences. I mean I don’t know if you remember Bush publicly admitting that he broke the law with the warrantless wiretapping decision basically saying – yeah I broke the law, so what, what are you going to do about it? That’s a powerful reflection of an incredible imbalance and just how blatant it became. With all the incompetence, abuses and callousness of the Bush administration many people clearly began to feel hopeless and feeling powerless to do anything to change the course we were on.

So maybe we hit bottom with Bush and from this bottom the Obama campaign was born. Obama’s campaign drew on a mass of grassroots power and enthusiasm like no campaign in the history of this country. The statement on Obama’s website whether you take it seriously or not is a reflection of that – “I’m asking you to believe, not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington, I’m asking you to believe in yours.” That statement is asking us to believe in our ability to bring real change. I think that speaks to the heart of the matter and the key in all of this. Do we believe that we have the power to bring about real change, both internally within our own lives and externally in the larger society?

I think it is important also to contemplate all of this in relationship with the deeper process of transformation that is happening now especially in these last few years before 2012. From my perspective we seem to have made a shift to dreaming up change on a large scale, a black president whose message centered on change and personal power. Wow! You may be skeptical and so am I in many ways but this also resonates for me and seems to fit into a larger pattern. It feels optimistic to me to think that whether we actually see real change manifested has far less to do with Barack Obama and his new administration and far more to do with us and what we choose to do with our power. Power that can never really be taken away by anyone, only temporarily forgotten about.

Co-creating change November 8, 2008

Posted by bodhidude in : Society, Transformation , add a comment

We’ve experienced a historic moment in this country with the election of our first black president. That fact alone is transformational with our long history of racism, segregation and inequality. It changes the collective personality of the nation and potentially opens the door for greater and deeper healing around the issue of race. On election night the celebrations were spectacular and incredible as they should have been however now that the election is over and Barack Obama is President-elect the question becomes what happens to the incredible energy that fueled his campaign? The energy of hope, empowerment and change which so many people helped to create. Does it continue to evolve and grow to usher in fully manifested transformation or does it fizzle out in disappointment as politics as usual takes on one more mask?

I think the answer to that question depends on you and I and what we do and how we choose to participate in co-creating the change we want to see. Can we actively envision it or do we give in to pessimism? Do we truly believe its possible and inevitable or just a nice dream that we embraced for a short time before returning to a harsher reality? Will we consistently and enthusiastically work for it or will we give our power away to people in Washington (or somewhere else) to do it for us? And finally will we look inward to illuminate the ways that we have participated in creating what we don’t want to see in the world or will we assign blame to someone else or some other group?

I’ve read a lot about Barack Obama and studied his record and I can find all the evidence I need to support the idea that he is a fake, a corporatist who comes in a prettier package but has no interest in real transformation. I can also find plenty of evidence to suggest he is a thoughtful, passionate, skillful person who genuinely cares about this country and the people in it. Which is true? niether? both? Who knows, I sure don’t. But I think that in the role of president at this critical point in history ultimately Barack Obama will be who we dream him up to be on a collective scale. He can be a lighter kinder and more insidious version of Bush or he can be a figure to channel real change and transformation or something in between, its up to us. We will have to dream him up, we will have to hold him accountable and not accept anything less than true transformation and we will have to take full responsibility for our part in the process.

We have the power if we only realize it and use it……

Dreaming up a new president… November 4, 2008

Posted by bodhidude in : Society , add a comment

Well as we go into election day tomorrow it seems as if Barack Obama may actually win. But even if he does win what does that really mean? Will he or can he bring about true change. I’m skeptical. Why? Because you can find a great deal of evidence that Obama despite his obvious intelligence and charm is a typical (even though more cool) politician. He has voted for some questionable bills in the senate most notably to extend FISA and not hold the telecom companies accountable for their complicity in violating the privacy of American’s. He has said he would end the war in Iraq but his plan leaves troops in Iraq for some time to come although at low levels but he has vowed to escalate the war in Afghanistan and to defend Isreal militarily. So just how much and what kind of change would Obama really bring? Much more than McCain no doubt but what we need right now is nothing short of a paradigm shift. Rewinding back to a Clinton type presidency isn’t going to make things better, its part of how we got to where we are now.

But from another perspective focusing on Barack Obama the man may be a limiting point of view. Whatever Obama’s record, beliefs and history are he is stepping into a new role as president, an archetypal role. As such he is the receiver of our dream, of our projections, good and bad on a grand scale. I’m more interested in the viewpoint of if Obama wins and becomes president how do I want to dream him up and how do I envision the change that he has come to represent to so many people. One thing is certain to me, Obama in and of himself has no power to effect change and if people externalize their power on to him they will very likely be disappointed. However if we accept our responsibility to create the change we want to see and dream up Obama as a figure to represent and carry that change on the national stage we may be able to dream him up as the transformational figure so many hope for him to be. The key though in my view is not hope despite Obama’s campaign slogans, the key is conscious co-creation by every single one of us. Not just by voting if we choose to do that but by accepting our role in the change and by not giving our power away to any external figure no matter how good they may look. Whatever you think of Obama he is a powerful figure, he has mobilized enormous energy and that energy can be harnessed for true change if its directed consciously. I plan to help do just that.