Skip to main content

your life: are you paying attention?




Your life is always speaking to you— calling you to grow into your highest self. The test in the form of difficult circumstances are there to teach you the lesson you need to learn the most. There are no insignificant lessons and when you see everything as a lesson, you'll DIG DEEP to find out what's being taught at that particular instance; at that present moment. 

The concept of "dig deep" on which Spiritual Anthropology is built, is about looking beyond the surface and realizing that for every problem, there is a spiritual lesson being taught. And when you get down to the very root of it, we're all trying to get back to love, to God... to source. We act out of our hurt. Our anger is just a by-product of that. Fear, jealously, insecurity, self-doubt, and all other feelings of unworthiness are indicators— the writing on the blackboard, if you will. 

Class is always in session. 

When you begin to pay attention to your life, you become aware of the negative thought patterns that govern your life and the subsequent actions and behaviors that follow. We all have a story. Our past experiences are always there, peeking over our shoulder. I love how William Faulkner puts it; "The past is never dead. In fact it's not even past."

But life only happens in the present moment. As long as you are lost in the past or projecting into the future, you are not paying attention to what is happening now. That which is happening now is sacred. Life only happens in the present moment. 

Which brings me to mindfulness. We live in a society where everyone is overwhelmed and overstimulated by all that's going on between technology and social media sites. We pay so much attention to the lives of others on reality shows and forget about the only reality that matters. Escapism. But to be present, that is the real work of our lives. 

One of the spiritual tools to help develop mindfulness is meditation. Just to "be still, and know." Notice your breath. God reveals Himself through stillness or Being.

Here's what spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle has to say about being present in his New York Times Bestselling spiritual manual, The Power of Now (1999): 
"Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences." p.82

Beautifully noted and plainly put. And you know what the good thing is? Every moment offers us the opportunity to step into consciousness by being present. 

Dig deep into your life by paying attention to what's happening within, especially when it's stimulated by something outside yourself. Don't deny the feeling, you don't even have to give the feeling a name. Just be there— fully and completely. And then watch what happens... 

Your life is your classroom. Please, pay attention. 

Dig Deeper Excecise: Want to know how unconscious you are? Change your cellphone's lock screen pass code to something new— a code you've never had before, but still holds meaning for you. Now spend the next few days noticing how it forces you to be present.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

your life is sacred: honoring every moment

on this day, exactly eleven years ago today, my mother entered the Baptist for her second mastectomy. the cancer was vicious, relentless, and evidently insatiably hungry for the life of my mother. She had already had the other breast removed and she went into this surgery confident that it would be best.  i remember her strength and her faith most vividly during this week. i also remember her strongly rejecting my request for funds to purchase a new shirt for the pastor's appreciation that was coming up that Friday. i'm not sure if my mother knew this was her last week on earth. there were no "final conversations" or any discussion of what was next for our lives without her.  she would leave behind her four children, her dreams, and ultimately, a life well-lived that same night of the pastor's appreciation, which also happened to be All Saints Day. my mother's life, her struggle with breast cancer, and her early demise at thirty-three helps def...
2 comments
Read more

summer GROWTH

       you know growing up, one of the things i always looked forward to was the summertime. not only because of the time out of school, but because i thought summer was a time to grow -- physically. in the fall, I would be amazed at how much taller my peers had grown. Apparently, the summer wasn't as giving to me.       nowadays, i still think of the summer as a time of growth but on a whole other level... mentally. every summer, i set a goal to read at least 100 books (don't ask me if they all get read), i watch documentaries and do other mind stimulating activities. however, i still give myself all of the rest and relaxation I need.      one thing i am certain of is this, you may not be able to control your physical growth, but you can control growth in other areas of your life. mental, spiritual, and financial growth, to name a few, also takes time, but they depend solely on you. where ar...
2 comments
Read more

words from the wise...

“I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.' If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you, when a larger society sees them as unattractive, a...
Post a Comment
Read more