Saturday, July 13, 2019

Lighten Your Load: Toss Out Your Conditioned Beliefs



One of the neat things I've learned recently is how to distinguish where my views and beliefs come from and what that means for my life. Some beliefs come from what I’ve learned – from others, from reading online and off, from studies, from listening. We’ve seen how wrong-headed these can be – like the belief in a flat earth, the belief you could use antibiotics with reckless abandon, the belief that making war on drugs would lessen the drug problem in our society. OK – and the belief that how I see things is how they are.


There are other beliefs come from a deep, quiet knowing inside – that most quiet voice inside: my deeper knowing (DK). That’s the one that knew I’d likely leave my water bottle at a gathering the other night. That’s the one that lets me know when something is really filled with goodness. That’s the one that shows me when I’m getting off course (when I really listen) in such a gentle way, I'm grateful for it.


The more troublesome beliefs come from my cultural and ancestral conditioning. There’s an is-ness about the beliefs embedded in the family and culture we are brought up in. These beliefs seem to carry a sense of “that’s how it is.” My views on politics, race, ethnicity, society and religion largely come from here. All negative beliefs belong here: judgments on others, self-doubt: I'm not good enough, I can't. When one of these beliefs comes up in me, it’s strong and loud. There is a tightness in me around such beliefs, as if I were preparing to defend them. I notice this in my jaw and in my solar plexus.  Noticing this tightness shows me I’m on a very superficial level of me.  These are unexamined beliefs. I didn’t carefully consider adopting them. Because I swallowed them whole, so to speak, I’m really not open to reason about them. At times I’ve made them part of my identity. Through such beliefs, I’ve believed in impossible things: that our society is a meritocracy, that our democracy is healthy and that people in deep difficulties are somehow different from me. Likely you could name some of your own beliefs of this sort.


What I’ve learned is that I can test my beliefs against my own deepest knowing (DK). I can ask that DK – is this true? If DK shrugs, then I know that I don’t know that it’s true. Right there, I can relate to that belief differently:  I can hold it loosely, signaling to myself and others that it can be released with no effect on me. It’s safe to raise it with me.


 I like holding beliefs loosely. I don’t experience the tightening around any challenges to these beliefs. I’m more open to others’ views and to others themselves. When I’m a walking opiniator, I’m like a cactus, warning people away.


You can test your beliefs by bringing any one of them up for review. Is there a tightening in your mouth or face as you consider that belief? Aha! You’ve found one to submit to DK – your own deeper knowing. If you get a roar in response – like “of course it’s true” – that’s not your DK. Your DK is only the q-u-i-e-t-e-s-t voice inside. Shhh. Listen.



Holding beliefs loosely is an immensely freeing posture. We are no longer lugging around beliefs as if they meant something to us. We are no longer walking land mines that warns others they need to be careful of what they say. There’s room in us for a light curiosity about what others see and how they arrive at that. The opinions and beliefs we've tested in this way no longer rule us. When a belief comes to our attention, just doing the checking is enlightening and rewarding.



Saturday, May 30, 2015

My Relationship to My Stuff

My relationship to my stuff is changing. I've only lived in my present home for 15 years but it already has a lot of stuff in it I no longer notice and will never use again,  What I'm learning is how passing on stuff is not only challenging but deeply rewarding.

I have always felt inspired when the burden of my stuff is lightened. Now I’m pondering the future of hundreds of pieces of music, the compilations of classical piano, choral vocal, popular vocal and music theory and pedagogy. To post these on the web for sale would take another lifetime. Yet what a treasure trove for someone that appreciates such things. Office supplies and CD's the same. Many files the same: full of things that caught my interest, but that I can no longer easily read. And what about my library - full of fascinating books about the first peoples here in North America, about heart-aware business wisdom, about conflict resolution, about our way of being in the world, poetry, history, music - books that have helped shape me? What about the pleasure guests derive from finding a good book to read when they come and my pleasure in their pleasure? All this in context of the reality that reading is increasingly difficult for me.

I've come to appreciate that stuff seems to come to life when it is noticed and appreciated. The saddest place I've ever seen was a certain self-storage operation in Oakland, California. The bays in this place were filled not with surplus inventory (think retail) nor with bulky records (think banks and law firms), but with personal items belonging to individuals that no longer paid them any mind. It was as if the whole place was crying. The managers reported that after a year or two people often stopped paying rent so that their items were then offered for sale to at least partially satisfy the owner’s obligation. When I pass my stuff along, I'm giving it another chance at life in a way.

My real pleasure is to see someone else enjoying what I'm passing along - whether by gift or by sale. It's as if I'm giving a gift to my stuff that for so long served me. It is a delight. I first noticed this when giving away clothes in one of our annual clothing swaps or clothing sales. And others whose clothes I'm now wearing respond the same way. My wardrobe is constantly refreshed with clothing others have passed on and I love it. I've never liked shopping, but really love the good fellowship and pleasure of being among women friends in our skivvies, trying on clothes and getting and giving encouragement or a “nope, not for you."

This sort of sticky preservation urge seems to have ancestral roots: there are things I've hung on to for my children and grandchildren. My children have no interest. What hope is there that the grandchildren might? I myself have been hanging on to stuff my parents passed on in the same way. Have I enjoyed the stuff? Some of it I've used with pleasure. Some of it has just been kept from sense of duty.

The ancestral pattern goes back a long ways. My father used to tell me how his grandmother had gone through 7 fires, and in the last one, she saved only the silver flatware. As the flames engulfed the house, she was heard to say, 'let it burn, let it burn." Nothing in the house meant so much to her anymore that she was willing to risk life and limb - her own or others’ - to retrieve what was in there.

I'm grateful to be alive in this 21st century CE. We seem to be coming into a time for traveling lighter. I’m up for that. Now it's time to get down to doing my part.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

The Key Life Lesson I've Learned So Far

In My Box by Joe Lewis
When my world is about me, it's small, confining and uncomfortable. I can feel lonely, rejected and be absolutely convinced I don't belong. I take things personally, grabbing affront from someone else's bad behavior, when there is the least suggestion I'm less than I'd like to be thought of.

I'm not available to you. You are simply there as a mirror for what I'm thinking.  I see you through the filter of my opinions, judgments and attitude. That's pretty much all you see of me as well. My heart is well-hidden. When you're around me you won't feel nourished.

There's an inherent sadness in me when I'm in my box. Nothing superficial can shake that off. My smile is only skin-thick.

Chickadee by xstarttodayx
When my context is more grounded in reality, when I'm out of my box, there's you, me and all of us at some level in my awareness. My heart is light and you know you are welcome in my life at this moment.  When you're with me you'll come away feeling nourished. Your heart will be lighter. Your day will be brighter. We will have connected, each of us knowing we're okay in our imperfections. As we gain skill we become able to give and receive comment and observation without anything being taken personally. Even the pointing finger from someone having a bad day cannot shake me out of this larger context. I've had bad days myself and I'm deeply grateful that you, and others, haven't held those against me. So why not cut some slack for this other one? We both belong. I can see it and this one can't. And because I can see it, I don't react. I can respond. I'm learning. I'm alive.


Monday, June 20, 2011

Water The Great Mystery

This powerful documentary combines both science and mystical experience in the exploration of what water is. It is deeply moving to me.

Here's the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3ZUe54fVHI

Monday, March 1, 2010

Show me a day when the world wasn't new


The quote is from Sister Barbara Hance (1928-1993) Sister Barbara spent the last years of her life working for H.O.M.E. Inc., a cooperative in Orland, Maine dedicated to helping poor people work, sell crafts and vegetables and build their own homes. She headed efforts to establish a homeless shelter in a nearby town, when most of the town's government and business establishment were against it, with one local businessman-councillor (Mr. **) particularly opposed.

The odds against the shelter were long, but in the idea's darkest moments Sister Barbara had one piece of advice to her colleagues: "After we win, we must make Mr. ** a supporter." They did. He was.

The image is available in card form through The Borealis Press, www.borealispress.net. Photographer is John Schoenwalter / Jeroboam

Monday, August 17, 2009

Doing Nothing

There's a stillness to this time of year. The explosion of growth is over. The growing things are maturing. Like me. I am enjoying doing nothing, just taking it all in at a cellular level. Summer is still in the saddle, but there are hints of Fall to come in the few yellowing leaves on the trees.

What I've most loved about this summer is this restfulness. Having spent most of my life doing, doing nothing is like a new skill. It leads to spurts of doing that are extraordinarily effective. Meanwhile, doing from a sense of "should" or "ought" - so clearly not productive - is losing its hold on me.

The garden is overflowing in flowers, fruit, weeds and a few veggies - this year, only peas and beans. The plants are crowded but seem happy to get along. The birds and squirrels enjoy the huge trees creating a wildlife zone in my yard, and those of the neighbors on either side. Life is always pressing in, saying, "See? See?"

I'm listening. I'm looking. Breathing in, breathing out. Doing nothing.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Smelling the Roses

This is a phrase that in common parlance speaks to enjoying what's around you - your surroundings, your family, your co-workers and all you deal with - enjoying life - your life, not someone else's.

When you smell a rose, you bend down, since rose bushes are mostly smaller than you are. You breathe in the delicate fragrance given by the rose, and you fill your whole body and awareness with that fragrance. At that moment, you are connected with that rose - sharing a lovely reality, just you and the rose. The rose asks nothing of you and gives you beauty to look at and at times, a nourishing fragrance that can last forever in your memory.

Imagine how delighted the rose is, to have your attention and to share this moment with you. Imagine you, in this moment, learn something from the rose about how to be in your own life. Imagine you take that learning into your heart - that you too are beautiful and that everyone and every thing on earth is blessed by your presence.

We are all wonderful at things we've already learned to do. Being like a rose is worth what it takes to integrate it.

Books, Movies, Audios, Websites and Other Good Stuff

  • The Real Wealth of Nations by Riane Eisler - fastcinating insights into how to get economics back on track. Read it. Share it.
  • RAven's End by Ben Gadd - for adults and children - a fantasy set in the Canadian Rockies full of lore of the mountains and what lives there.
  • The Third Ear - On Listening to the World by Joachim-Ernst Berendt - giving us back listening and its power to reconnect us to the world.
  • As It Is In Heaven - Movie from Sweden, 2004 - perhaps the greatest movie of the human spirit that I have ever seen. So true to real life and so prophetic. It came to my attention as I've been re-discovering my own improvisational voice - the kind we all have whether we "can sing" or not. So rich and so healing.
  • Theory U by Otto Scharmer - An advanced handbook of public and group conversation that comes from a very deep place. It is refreshing in its authenticity and profound in its import: Leading from the Future as It Emerges.
  • His Dark Materials - The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman, Oxford professor - epic fantasy of two pre-adolescent children as they explore parallel universes and engage goodness and what we call evil. Available in audio also. This makes great reading for all ages and is far deeper and more satisfying than Harry Potter. See www.hisdarkmaterials.org.
  • Lives of Others - movie - beautifully crafted story of being alive in a climate of fear and how even the most hardened can be touched by love of life.
  • Parrots of Telegraph Hill - documentary movie and subtle love story about a street guy, the parrots he cared for, and more
  • The Danish Poet - a short movie (great animation) on where we come from
  • The Biology of Belief - Bruce Lipton Ph.D. - Exposing false but deeply held assumptions about the nature of reality - cellular, animal and human - Lipton reveals how deeply embedded in our world view and the way we live is the belief in Newtonian physics and what has become known as Darwinism. He shows parallels between life at the cellular level and at all other levels and how much we can rejoice in our prospects, once we embrace the wisdom of our cells. Available in 3.5 hour audio and 8+ hour audio at www.soundstrue.com. Anyone want to form a book club on this one?
  • The Upside of Down - Thomas Homer-Dixon - How we can prepare to bring about constructive change when the destructive forces around us create an opening