meditative practices

Accepting conflict 

Posted on by maswami

It can be vey difficult for some of us to live with conflict.  Our anxiety and fear yearns for all relationships, decisions and problems to be solved, as if life were simply a series of dangling knots to tie off and move on from. 

But life is not this. It is ever changing. It shifts. It runs up against itself. It encounters friction. It smashes against itself. It creates and it destroys. 

We experience conflict whenever our external life is not a match with our internal life. We experience conflict in our relationships when others don’t feel or act or behave as we think they should or when their actions or feelings create pain that we want to stop.  Some of us fall into frequent conflict with life because we expect the world around us to solve our problems and we do not realize that we are simply seeking outside of ourselves what we need to look for within. 

But all of this conflict serves a purpose. It creates change, self-reflection, examination of ourselves and the world around us.  While we may not feel we always have perfect harmony in our relationships, that is alright. We can seek a greater harmony – acceptance of the world and our lives as it is today with all of it’s apparent unfinished business, dangling ropes, and knotty confusions.  

We don’t have to be Pollyanna about it.  We don’t have to always like it and we certainly don’t have to invite in unnecessary conflict by repeatedly insisting on our way or setting ourselves up as victims. But we can accept it and even see the beauty in it. Afterall, it is the conflicts creatures have with their environments that cause them to evolve and grow stronger and more in harmony with their environment over time.  

We are all evolving.  We are all coming into greater harmony. Even if you don’t feel like we are after watching te news or arguing with a friend, the truth is we are.  Be patient. Trust. Enjoy.  It is happening. Right now. Seek that greater peace. 

Staying positive 

Posted on by maswami

Sometimes, some of us and especially when we are in a foul mood, equate being positive with being annoyingly, falsely cheerful.

But that is not what I mean by staying positive. Staying positive is about making a choice about where we want to direct our energy.  It’s about recognizing the difficult feelings and circumstances we may be experiencing and then choosing to orient our thoughts and feelings in a more loving and hopeful direction.

We don’t do this because we should or because we want to be “good” whatever that means.  We do this because the alternative of orienting ourselves negatively is painful and generates problems for our health and our lives.

The losses, traumas, frustrations, pains and dissatisfactions of life can tempt us to negative generalization. We begin to feel that we are inherently flawed, doomed or worthless. We extend that beyond ourselves and begin to feel that our friends, jobs, families, possessions, bodies are inherently lacking.  We look at the greater world and see it as threatening, hopeless, and rotten.  

And yet by doing so, we are ignoring a huge reality.  The reality of our inherent beauty, worthiness and resilience.

Yes, we are here experiencing very painful and difficult things at times, but we are also here with everything we need to face these challenges.

Often when we feel our worst, what we need isn’t to solve all the problems we see in ourselves, our lives, our world.  Often, what we need is a little quiet, rest, and comfort – food, a shower, a hug.  By taking care of our most basic needs when we are despairing or overwrought, we bring ourselves into the now.

In the eternal now, all is positive and purposeful. In the now, there are no victims, only divine loving purpose.  Connecting with the now, can be as easy as taking a deep breath, feeling the air on your skin, stepping out into nature.

The simple willingness to connect with the now orients us toward the positive. It affirms that we have within us the ability to connect to something greater. That something is filled with healing energy and by opening ourselves to the possibility of it bringing us peace or acceptance for a few moments, we are opening ourselves up to the very positive healing energy that enables us to walk through life’s most difficult times.

Open up, feel the charge of joyful life around you and consider that it really all is happening for a reason, that more will be revealed, that peace is only a few breaths away.