Love is the Answer

"Love is patient and kind. Love knows neither envy nor jealousy. Love is not forward and self-assertive, nor boastful and conceited."  St Paul,  1^stCorinthians 13:4

Sunday before last, Susan Russel, one of our priests at All Saints, delivered a sermon on “What is most simple is the most difficult.” Meaning Jesus’s message is very simple, but not easy for us humans to consistently practice: Love one another as I have loved you and love your neighbor as yourself.

One problem being that many of us don’t feel loved and don’t feel loving towards ourselves. So love of Self and allowing God to love us is actually one of the foundational spiritual practices. If we know that we often experience shame, guilt, depression, self rejection, and chronic fear, then the practice of Self Love would be highly beneficial for our souls.

Whenever one of these negative feelings arises within our consciousness, it would be good to go directly into Self Loving. We can do this by placing our hands over the places in our body where we feel these emotions, often the heart space and the gut. And as we connect to these hurting places in our body we send loving to them. This is simple spiritual first aide that is so simple, straight forward and provides great consolation and healing.

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WHAT IS THE BEST MEDITATION PRACTICE FOR ME?

Because we are different people with different personalities, different issues, and different strengths the spiritual practices that will work best for us will be different as well. That is why I do not teach one style of meditation practice. Now that makes it hard for some people because they want someone to just tell them,” Here do it this way. This is the best way to meditate.” So that may relieve you from some uncertainty initially; the problem being that later on, you may find that another style of meditation works better for you and you have spent a lot of time struggling with a type of mediation practice that you find frustrating and which may cause you to give up.

 I like to encourage newcomers right off the bat to try on different practices to find the one that fits them best. Some practices such as mindfulness are very helpful for developing a somewhat detached observer awareness that can see more clearly past the waves of emotion / thought. Other meditation practices such as Zen plunge the practitioner directly into the experience of formlessness. Still others like Christian contemplation bring you to a centering in the heart space.

 All of these practices have their strengths and their weaknesses. What they have in common is a stilling and taming of our scattered and distracted monkey minds which keep us from seeing deeply into the nature of Life and Reality.still 

OPENING THE TREASURE BOX

Within each one of us there is a treasure box full of the bliss bestowing jewels of paradise. But we don’t want to open this box. Why?  As one of my teachers, Charlotte Joko Beck said we live in the “if onlys”  If only I had  _____ , I would be happy. If only my spouse would love me, if only I had a better job, etc, etc. We keep looking outside of ourselves for something only we (or God) can give us.  But the treasure box doesn’t lie outside of us. That is the mistake we continually make.

Each day I work with my therapy clients to help them open their treasure boxes which lie deep within them right down amongst their pain.  Of course, being with these difficult feelings is exactly what we don’t want to do. But that is exactly where our treasure boxes often lie: right in the midst of our anger, sadness, longing, hurt, and loneliness.  And we open them with radical acceptance and loving awareness. These are the keys to our treasure boxes and with them we gradually open our hearts as wide as the world with all its joys and sorrows. Our open hearts ARE the treasure box! 

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Free Sunday Evening Mindfulness Meditation in Pasadena 6-7:30PM

Dear friends and colleagues,

I am now doing a regular free Sunday evening mindfulness meditation offering at East Village Yoga in NE Pasadena at East Village Yoga Pasadena 

1720 E. Washington Blvd. Suite 204  Pasadena, ca 91104. This occurs every third Sunday from 6-7:30PM. There is plenty of parking in the rear of the building off Sinaloa Ave. 

I am concentrating on somatic connection (body awareness) right now as this is critical for our physical, mental, and spiritual healing and growth. Below is a description of the class for this Sunday. Please drop in and check it out. Also, Jenny Buchanan who runs the yoga studio is a personal long time friend and colleague.

More info: robertbcornellspirit@gmail.com

Best Wishes, Robert Cornell LMFT

SPIRITUAL  FIRST AID

 There is a wonderful way to stay centered  and connected with our inner divinity even when we are upset. When we are triggered into some difficult emotion, we are tempted to pull back from our experience, to try to avoid or to control our emotion. This puts us into conflict with our experience and often makes our suffering worse. And it does not to lead to healing.

 When we encounter a difficult emotion, one excellent way to engage with and heal it is to put one of our hands on our heart space and the other on our belly. Our hands have the most nerve endings of any part of our body. When we put our hands on our heart and gut, we are connecting directly with our bodily experience. And by doing so it is if to say to our vulnerable hurting selves, “ I am here for you.”

 This practice of loving presence brings healing to our inner hurting selves. This practice can be one of the most effective and loving things we can do for ourselves.As we do this practice we are re connecting  with ourselves. And this connection is the healing.

 WWW.SPIRITTHERAPIST.COM

HOW DO WE MEDITATE?

There are two basic paths in meditation practice: one is about detachment from thought and emotion and is typified by Buddhist meditation practices to develop insight into the empty nature of reality ( more about what emptiness means another time. ) And then there is the heart centered meditation practiced by mystical Christianity and Sufism.

 In my own practice I lean more and more to heart centered meditation and I am going to be teaching more about that in our group. In heart centered meditation, you bring your awareness to your heart center and let yourself open to the source of loving which Christians and other theistic faiths call “God.”  When we bring our consciousness to the heart, we feel deeply connected to our very selves and deeply connected to others and the world around us. 

GRACE

While we seek healing and spiritual growth for ourselves, there is another loving force operating from the other side. We could call this “Grace.” Unlike other things, Grace is unearned, unconditional love; it is given to us simply for being human beings. This is not the normal economy of the world where everything has to be bought and is also usually bargained for with others: you give me this and I will give you that.

 For most of us, even those who have had so called normal lives, we cannot imagine something that is given free of charge, so to speak. “So what is the catch?” the cynical or doubting part of you might ask. There is no catch; we simply have to open ourselves to receiving this grace. Of course this is just too good to be true for us with our experiences of being hurt by others, of being made to feel small and unworthy. It is very hard to imagine living in the economy of unearned Grace where no demands are made of us, no conditions are put on our being accepted, and there is no hidden agenda that could be turned against us.

So the work we are invited to do in spiritual practice is really an undoing, a letting go of all the old limiting beliefs that we harbor deep inside of us of being unworthy, of suspecting the motives of others – even God or our higher power, of holding on to the belief that nothing is for free… And giving up the old agendas of our ego self that has thought to buy this love and protect itself by trying to be successful, being a good or bad boy/girl, etc., etc. So there is a price after all: letting go of everything that gets in the way of receiving this love. This deep incredulousness about the gift of Grace is the fundamental wound of us human beings. It is everyone’s spiritual wound, without exception. And we heal it by gradually opening ourselves to this gift.

Peace, Robert

AWAKENING FROM THE TRANCE

 It is common for us to be triggered by outer circumstances into one of our old ways of being in the world. We can frame these ways of being in the world as our subpersonalities – parts of ourselves that may become dominant at times. In my last message, I listed a few of these subpersonalities that we can become over-identified with: the Inner Critic, the Judge, the People Pleaser, etc.

 The issue for integral psycho-spiritual practice is, how can we free ourselves from the trance of over-identification with our subpersonalities when our consciousness becomes hijacked by one? This depends on the specific subpersonality that we are dealing with, but in general, there are some practices that help. The key one is the ongoing practice of mindfulness: developing through ongoing practice the mirror awareness that allows us to step back from and become less identified with our thoughts and emotions. As I shared with the group last time, it can be very helpful to be able to sense and identify these complexes or subpersonalities when they surface.

 As a specific example, I will share about the “Pusher,” one of my subpersonalities. The Pusher complex shows up when I am doing something where I am afraid that another person is going to be displeased with my performance. When this happens, I tend to go into hyperdrive and try to make something happen ASAP!  Underneath is the fear of displeasing, but sometimes I lose touch with this and go into efforting and worrying accompanied by a diffuse anxiety.

 The way that I  free myself  is by: 1) catching myself going into this hyperdrive and 2) consciously pulling back, slowing down, 3) allowing myself to feel the anxiety and 4) giving myself  love and compassion. 5) I gradually undermine the core belief that I am in trouble. 6) I meditate to let go of the thought/emotion/energy pattern that is this Pusher complex. Also, 7) I find Yoga practice a great boon to my being able to let down and relax from the grip of anxiety and inner tension that is the signature energetic pattern of the Pusher. So I use somatic (body) awareness, breath, cognitive, emotional and spiritual processes to become aware of, work through, and release the Pusher complex, when it threatens to take over my consciousness.

 As we discussed in group, the subpersonalities to watch out for are the ones that are fear based. That means they are triggered by the emotion of fear and fear based thinking, worry, etc. What are the fear based subpersonalities that operate in your consciousness? Try listing some and getting to know them better. You might very well gain some freedom by doing this work! Here are some of the cast of characters to be on the lookout for that are usually fear based: the Perfectionist, Inner Critic, Pusher, Workaholic, Rageaholic, People Pleaser, Control Freak, Rescuer, Worry Wart, Planner, Avoiders of all kinds, including the Procrastinator, etc.

 Namaste, Robert Cornell LMFT,  www.spirittherapist.com