The Everyday Mystic

If you’re like I am, it is easy to get caught up in the busy-ness of the day.  Rushing from one meeting to the next, dealing with demanding customers and employee’s concerns, putting out the latest "fire" at the office or at home, returning phone calls and wading through a knee-deep pile of emails - the din of a hectic schedule drowns out the hush of the quiet center of your true being.  The good news is your quiet center is always available and it is just waiting for you to tap in, however briefly, to its calm.

Here’s a tip for finding the stillness in the midst of a busy day.  Sit or pause quietly and turn your attention to your heart.  Focus on your heart until you can hear and feel it beating. You may need to close your eyes to block out distractions and zoom into this awareness. It sounds so simple, but when you are caught up in the day’s pseudo-emergencies, it is not easy. Rest for a moment in the strength and the love of your heart.  Plug in to its power. Once you feel the power, imagine sending love from your heart out to all those around you.

Because the heart is the body’s energetic center of love, compassion and forgiveness, this practice connects you to those higher virtues.  This mini-moment of awareness will allow you to go back to your tasks with renewed energy.  It is moments like these that help us become Everyday Mystics.

You might want to post reminders to yourself to find the stillness in your heart.  You can post sticky dots (you can find them in office supply stores) on your computer monitor, your refrigerator, your mirror and your car’s dashboard as a reminder to listen to your heart.  I get tingles on my face during the day, reminding me to go within and listen to my heart. You might take a moment before opening your email, your postal mail or before eating to focus on your heart. 

The result?  You will be happier, calmer, more connected to Source.  You will be more productive.  Others will want to be around you.

These are good things.

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In my last post, I made some suggestions for acting in love during the current economic crisis.  I’d like to expand the discussion and create a more comprehensive list of tips for shifting to love when you feel fear gaining hold in your mind, spirit or body.

First, the fear/love choice is like this famous optical illusion - if you look hard at the picture of your life, you see the young lady but if you soft focus your gaze you see another image, the old lady. The same can be said about fear and love.  When faced with a difficult situation, our brain will glom onto the first perspective it can grasp (usually fear), but if we consciously look for another perspective, we can find it. 

Here are some suggestions for choosing love:

• The heavenly perspective.  I’ve already blogged about it, and it is my personal favorite this month. Let me know how it works for you!
• Take time to meditate and pray each day.  My friend Mariel writes down a verse from scripture or from some other inspiring source and keeps that small piece of paper in her pocket all day to remind her of the divine love that continually surrounds her.
• Practice gratitude.  Keep a gratitude journal.  Notice and appreciate all the little things to be grateful for in your life.
• Notice synchronicities or God’s grace in your life.  They happen all the time.  For example, yesterday, I was racing out of the office for an appointment, and when I picked up my purse, a small voice immediately reminded me that my wallet was in another room.  I snatched my wallet and ran out the door, thanking the angel that prevented me from forgetting a very important item.
• Silently bless the people you encounter during the day.  Pray for people you are about to meet with or work with.  Notice how that practice affects the quality of your interaction with that person.

There are so many more ideas.  I open it up to your comments and suggestions.  How do you choose love instead of fear?

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Many of us have lost one or more of our parents. Losing a parent prematurely can be a devastating experience for a young person.  Even when parents pass away after a long and full life, it can be a hard transition for their offspring. My thoughts and prayers are with you if you are grieving the loss of a parent. That can be a very difficult time.

I think it is especially poignant to lose your Mom.  I say this perhaps because my dear Dad is still alive and I haven’t had to deal with his passing.  But there is an undeniable bond with the Mother, with whom you shared a body for nine months.  Losing your mother affects us on a very basic, primordial level.

Today, a good friend asked me how I was doing as the second anniversary of my Mother’s death approaches.  I admit that I had a hard time when my Mother passed away.  But today, I told my friend about a miracle of perspective that my daughter gave me.  Just a few weeks ago, she told me about a book she was reading in which a mother, upon her death, bequeaths her spiritual powers to her daughter.  As soon as my daughter told me that story, I saw that the same thing happened to me.  My Mother bequeathed her spiritual power to me and to all of her family at her death.

Suddenly, several things made sense.  Only months after her death, I began to receive Divine messages in my meditations. I met my spirit guides. I talked to Mom in my meditations. Six months after Mom died, I finished my first book, one that I had considered writing for over six years and had never gotten around to (www.spectacularsupportcenters.com).  A year after her death, I began to lay out plans to gradually slow down my business, KR Consulting, and start something new. At that point I had no idea what that something new was going to look like.  At eighteen months, I started The Everyday Mystic blog and a sabbatical that you can read about in my welcome post and in my post called Fallow Fields Reap Rewards.  So many blessings have come my way since Mom passed away.  I sense that her death created a spiritual opening for me, allowing me to do things both spiritual and temporal that the Divine had been preparing me for.  Now I sense that in some incomprehensible way she passed on her direct connection to the Divine to me. Mom was the original Everyday Mystic.

What a gift.  Thank you, Mom.  I get tingles up my arms as I humbly accept her bequest.

I’m interested to hear what spiritual gifts or blessings your Mother bequeathed to you.

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"Come, come, whoever you are,

wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving.

This is not a caravan of despair.

It doesn’t matter that you’ve broken

your vow a thousand times, still

come, and yet again, come.

Rumi, as translated by Coleman Barks in "The Soul of Rumi"

My friend, Nancy, brought this and two other Rumi poems to our prayer circle last night.  This well-known poem struck me anew in its simplicity that belies a deep truth.

What struck me about this wisdom is the expansive, forgiving nature of the Divine, who tells us that it doesn’t matter that you’ve broken your vow a thousand times.  Come back to me and start anew, it seems to say.

I have been living too much in fear lately - I have broken my vow to live in love and acceptance at least a thousand times, just in the last week!  You see, I am eager to get my new business off the ground (you, as reader, are a part of my support group in this effort and I thank you for that).  At the same time, I am grieving leaving the comfort, income and satisfaction that I used to derive from my old business.  Not that I’m turning away completely from KR Consulting (www.krconsulting.com), but I am turning toward wherever The Everday Mystic will take me.

I lived in fear, judgment and comparisons for most of last week.  Fear of the new, fear of not bringing in income for awhile until this new endeavor takes off, judgment of myself and comparisons between me and other "more successful" people.  Judgment of myself that a spiritual person shouldn’t be stuck in these dense, dark emotions. I not only joined a caravan of despair, I was the lead camel-driver and my camel’s saddlebags were heavy-laden with despair!

And then I read Rumi.  Ahhhhh.  Rumi reminds me that the Divine does not judge me, but beckons me to "come, and yet again, come" - come back to love, back to the Divine lap in which I sit, comforted and secure.  Come back to love, in which all things are possible.  Come back to myself - my true self - that loves me, cheers for my success and believes in me.  Come, and yet again, come.

Don’t we all break our vow to live in love a thousand times? Rumi reminds us we are not  part of a caravan of despair, and to come back to the Divine essence.  We can start anew - once, twice, a thousand times - and it is OK.  The Divine Creator allows us to come, and yet again, come back to love as many times as we need to.

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