Know yourself, and become a blessing

"Go forth from your country, your clan and your parents' house and become a blessing for all the families of the earth." (Gen 12:1)

"Lech lecha," the Hebrew command to "go forth" also means to "walk towards yourself."

So this journey is both outward and inward,

freeing yourself from the conditioning of nationality, tribe, ethnicity, race, gender and religion

and devoting yourself to being a blessing--

a catalyst for justice and compassion

to ALL the families of the earth, human and creation. 

~Rabbi Rami Shapiro~

It keeps coming down to the same thing. 

 

Promoting world peace, compassion, and enlightened relationships starts and ends with me. 

(And YOU.)  

It starts with individual, personal, spiritual work FIRST, which then manifests in effective change in the world.  I must "know myself"---all my vulnerabilities, sensitivities, and "character defects" as well as my gifts, strengths, and areas of shining effectiveness, if I wish to be a blessing.  

I must leave my comfort zone, of feeling inferior.  

I must leave my comfort zone of feeling superior.

I must leave my comfort zone of being sure I have all the answers.

I must leave the comfort zone to which I retreat when I feel too stupid for words.

I must be open and honest, not hiding and manipulative.  

I must accept responsibility but not blame, and be willing to assign responsibility without blaming.  (Blame includes a condemning, dehumanizing quality that presumes the superiority of the blamer.)

So long as I hide, because I am ashamed, I am giving power to the lie that others are better than me.  So long as I believe the lie that I am superior, I invite those for whom I harbour contempt to hide and feel ashamed.

There is a third way that is without hierarchy.

It involves humility and humour, frankness and forgiveness, confession and compassion.  It involves a willingness to lead from my strengths without apology, and to ask for help in my areas of weakness without shame.

I must know myself WELL, in all my beauty and brokenness, and recognize how deeply lovable I am ANYWAY, to help the world manifest that wisdom too.

Do you see yourself completely and love yourself anyway?  (No airbrushing.  No strategic drapings.)  It takes work!

I know that when I can see myself completely, and not allow fear of my unlovability to cloud my vision, I will be my most effective in loving others and intuiting ways to contribute.  I will be a blessing.

And when many of us can do this, the world changes.

peace,

Rev. Alison 

Do We Choose Fear or Love As Our Starting Point?

As the new warmth slowly relaxes and opens the soil, the buds, the hearts, and the faces around me, I am reflecting on two basic approaches to life: fear-based, and love-based.

Right away I can hear the fearful voices clamouring for why the fear-based approach is the needed, necessary, and only way to stay safe in life---the only way to protect ourselves from "other,"  "bad" people, so we can survive.

I want to give a nice, juicy, sedative-laden fly to that protective lizard-part of my brain, and put it back in its cage with a, "thank you for wanting to protect me." ("But shut-up. You're not helping").


It has long been known that anxiety and fear reduce our ability to think rationally and calmly.  To the extent that fear and anxiety are running in our beings, we regress to more primitive coping mechanisms.  We become younger, smaller, dumber, and more impulsive.  This is a deeply built-in evolutionary mechanism that is there to insure our physical survival.  It is literally our "lizard-brain" stepping up to keep us alive.

But so many situations today that may trigger our lizard brain are not about physical survival.  Something we love may feel threatened, but rarely is it a matter of life or death.

We MUST become more self-aware, so we can stay consciously present and non-reactive when something feels threatened, so that we can make (more ) rational choices.  We MUST cultivate an attitude of love, so that our hearts can remain open.

This lizard-brain perspective currently seems to have a strong emotional lobby group on the planet just now, especially in north America.  Just look at the NRA and their message of what is needed, and how emotional it is.  Just at a glance, would you say their insistence on guns and MORE guns is fear-based, or love-based?  Would you say their perspective makes the planet a better, kinder, more reasonable place; or a more segregated, fortress mentality, fearful place?

And which planet do I want to live on?  Which one do you want to live on?

For those who admire and follow Jesus, with his choice to stand and be crucified in his message for love, rather than going to war, where do we imagine Jesus would stand?  What message might he stand behind?

(Can you IMAGINE the United States turning the other cheek after 911 rather than going straight to war?  No.  I can't either.  But I can wish the possibility was even on the table.)

Have the good guys won yet?  Is war solving the problem?  When will we learn from Jesus' and Ghandi's (and Obi-wan Kenobi's, etc. etc.) examples?  Perhaps death of the body is not the worst thing?  Perhaps being personally attacked is not the worst thing?

As I try and try to understand the fearful rhetoric and divisive language, the shouting and blaming and stonewalling in the US AND the Canadian governments, I wonder what is at play in the world just now.  WHY are we so afraid?  And what can I do to make a difference toward DE-escalating the anxiety?


 In spiritual evolutionary theory, we must progress from a black/white, good/evil, linear and hierarchical (fear-based) model to an inclusive, cooperative, growth and healing (love-based) model --- so as to enter into greater wisdom, enlightenment, perspective and the ability to love wisely.  This is a progression, and the black/white model cannot imagine or fathom the inclusive model any more than a caterpillar can imagine being a butterfly.  It also feels threatened by the inclusive model.  It cannot imagine how the inclusive model will include it too.  But it will.  With love.

In any case I am choosing to stand for peace for one more day.  I am willing to be crucified (gossip, blame, hatred, contempt, character assassination) for one more day --- alongside so many other wise and loving souls.  

We are not alone in our stand for love.

We will never stop standing for love.

love always wins.
Rev Alison

Time For Hope and Inspiration

I find this truly inspirational. May you be inspired too. Consider subscribing to this young man's feed. Peace and blessings as you go out into your day.

Radical Honesty; Radical Self-Compassion

I was recently on a site for life coaches in training, and one coach posted this question: 

"Three words came to me as I was coaching an individual yesterday to overcome their fear and calm their anxiety. The three words that I shared with the client were:

1. Confident ! , 2. Joyful ! , 3. Powerful !

I would like to hear from you what Three Words you have found  as a coach that inspire others?"

My response comes straight from my heart, and current personal experience.... As someone who periodically visits discouragement, apathy, and hopelessness, (aka right now.  Let's hear it for radical honesty!) I have been reflecting on what it might be that will sustain me when I'm face-down in the mud with a boot in my back. 

What sustains me most at such times are messages from my coach that say: 

1) they've been here too, and 

2) know how hard it is, and 

3) to hold on, keep breathing, and remember that I'm not alone. That this will, indeed, pass.

Then I go to tapping: "Even though I feel hopeless, apathetic, and discouraged, I deeply love and approve of myself anyway...."

Let's be fair: sometimes focusing on positive qualities to which I aspire is just what I need.  (I picture that YouTube video of the tiny girl on the bathroom sink punching the air and saying, "I love my WHOLE HOUSE! I can do ANYTHING....!") 

But sometimes chanting positive qualities just sinks me deeper into the mud, because of the gap between where I wish I was and where I am.

Sorry to be a devil's advocate. 

Confident! Joyful! and Powerful! are amazing words, and could work wonders, if I had any part of my psyche that could grab and hold on to them. Sometimes I don't even have that. (Hmmm. Perhaps my market niche will be coaching the really hard cases?)

Dark humour sometimes is far more powerful than "thinking positively," in my case.

So, for those like me, here are some wonderful bits of dark humour that have gotten me through the blacker times:

Things are darkest, just before ... they go completely black.

What doesn't kill you, just makes you ... wish you were dead.

When God closes a door, he opens a window ... to give you something to jump out of.

The light at the end of the tunnel ... is just a train coming.

We are born naked, wet, and hungry; then things get worse.

So when the platitudes and aphorisms are setting your teeth grinding, have a couple of these in your pocket.  They can brighten the day tremendously.  Anybody have others to share?

Ya gotta love humour.  

The God I believe in has a brilliant sense of humour and approves of this message.

Hang in there!

Alison