Butterflies: To Harness and Ride

From Lissa Rankin's The Fear Cure:

99% of fears are false fears that exist solely in the imagination where there’s no real threat. False fears trigger the fight-or-flight stress response unnecessarily, which not only disables the body’s natural self-healing mechanisms and predisposes us to illness – it also limits our capacity to step fully into our life’s purpose, when our radiance, talents, love, brilliance, and creativity are desperately needed in a world that needs all hands on deck as we collectively wake up.

When you think a fearful thought, how does your body feel? Do you feel relaxed and grounded when you think the thought? Or do you feel tightness in your chest or gripping in your solar plexus? Intuition (one form of true fear) tends to come with a very relaxed physical feeling, accompanied by a sense of direct knowing, whereas false fear tends to feel tense in a body and panicky in the mind.

True fear is here to protect you, and even false fear is something to be grateful for. I think of false fear as the finger pointing towards everything in need of healing in your life. Physical therapist Val Zajicek defines “PAIN” as Pay Attention Inside Now, and I think false fear is just such a pain, an uncomfortable emotion that invites us to Pay Attention Inside Now.

Common fear-inducing beliefs in Western Culture and 

Possible Brave New Belief alternatives:

• Uncertainty is unsafe (so I have to do everything I can to control my life)
• Uncertainty is the gateway to possibility (when we don’t know what the future holds, ANYTHING could happen! Exciting!)
• I can’t handle losing what I cherish (so I have to protect myself from loss)
• Loss is natural and can lead to growth (sometimes loss breaks us open to our true selves and opens our hearts to how fully we can love)
• It’s a hostile universe (so I’d better be on guard)
• It’s a purposeful universe (we may not understand why bad things happen to good people, but we can learn to trust that we’re always learning to be more resilient, even when we’re hurting)
• I am all alone (in a hostile, uncertain world where I might lose what I cherish)
• We are all One (mystics and sages have been saying it for years, but there’s actually evidence that we are all interconnected in ways science is only now beginning to be able to measure)

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The most important decision we make
is whether we believe
we live in a friendly
or hostile universe.
~ Albert Einstein

If only we learned how to harness and ride rather than hunt and kill the butterflies that live in the gut of every person who strives to create something extraordinary from nothing.

~ Jonathan Fields

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

less is more

always in life
the moments that matter are where thought ends;
they appear in nonsense,
as lightning in sunlight,
as a burst of laughter over a cup of tea.
- christmas humphreys

buddhist compliment

yesterday, I had a chance encounter at a coffee shop with Boston Bill, and we ended up talking about the difficulties that come with attachment (one particular situation for him was obviously losing a limb, but we both related to the broad range of physical and non-physical attachments) to anything not functioning well...

it was not a heavy, deep conversation, but  in essence

lightness of our shared humanity over a cup of tea,

and I'd like you to meet this delightful fellow...

after our very uplifting and grounding chat (the refreshingly real kind with no elephants, like the kind you might/could have with a buddhist monk or a nun, no need to hide, you're already *seen* anyways), I was interested in learning more of the history of this traveler shining his light and living in possibility, and this article had a quote about how unexpectedly, not to mention at a personally uncomfortable time, the moment appeared when he simply had an opportunity to help someone else... which turned out to be transformative... reminded me how easy it is to be caught up in ourselves and our own situations that we miss these

small miracles waiting to happen...

'The other cyclists continued on their way, leaving the grumpy white-haired man with his bike, his shoes, his artificial leg and his fear of appearing helpless.'

a fuller story and powerful short documentary of this fated friendship is shared here...

Life is what happens while we are making other plans.
Think less.

Feel more.

See the miracles in your own life. They are there.

Let life happen through, rather than to you... 

et cetera, et cetera...

♥

and when you must think...

come on now, ring that bell

What a force this woman is...

To be wrong all along and admit it is not amazing grace

When you're lost

you will toss every lucky coin you'll ever trust

more here, including another version of this song with guitars and strings that is a.w.e.s.o.m.e.

the hill I'm walkin' up is gettin' good and steep...

do I make myself a blessing to everyone I meet...

lionheart

Bouquets

One flower at a time, please

however small the face.

Two flowers are one flower

too many, a distraction.

Three flowers in a vase begin

to be a little noisy.

Like cocktail conversation,

everybody talking.

A crowd of flowers is a crowd

of flatterers (forgive me).

One flower at a time.

I want to hear what it is saying.

-robert francis

I was made this one-at-a-time way.

I am also part of my beautiful mama's garden.

Emotional overwhelm is something I am prone to.
At a younger age (and still to a lesser extent)
it was overwhelm from the feelings themselves.

I feel deeply and a lot.

As I age into my fourth decade,

'what to do' about intense feelings can overwhelm me.

Clearly, nothing needs to be done about the feelings themselves. They are what they are, indicators of what is going on under the surface, and a tremendous source of wisdom.

Engaging the courage to feel with the willingness to act is true assertiveness.

Lionheart ~ Kim McElroy

I was blessed to be at this

Live performance at the Hollywood Bowl in 2008.

It was also Overwhelming...

♥

perky

percolation:
seeping through an opening.

does the coffee bean have something to teach us about responding expansively to adversity?

unlike a carrot that starts out strong but then wilts
or an egg that starts out soft
then becomes hardened on the inside,
when heated in boiling water,

ground coffee beans become something

useful, tasty, even beautiful...

Into the fire of Life's mysteries I dance 

With the book of my heart wide open

I may find love

I may find pain

But only an open book can be written in

And I have stories to tell

~ 'Flamenco' by Kim McElroy 

thirty-nine

I think I'll embrace

turning thirty-nine

in equine fashion

and proclaim that

I am now

"in my fortieth year"

instead of waiting

a whole year to

feel

and allow

the  

excitement and

anticipation

of this

milestone

to come

alive

in my being,

embodying

more fully

who I am.

today.

mindful that

life is a garden

not a road

leading somewhere.

somewhere is now.

♥

Instrumental

By chance, during a poetry festival recently, I had an enlightening chat about communication with an acquaintance's husband, who just happens to also administer the Myers-Briggs personality test.

INFP! I said,

and he proceeded to share this story of an exchange between he (also an INFP)

and his wife (not so much of an INFP)... 

"The path from your brain to your mouth," she said to him after a particularly frustrating communication process, "is like a french horn. Except sometimes something coherent comes out the other end, and sometimes it doesn't!"

... to which he replied:

"And your path from your brain to your mouth is like a well-greased trombone slide!"

With this welcomed lighthearted, insightful new way of see-ing each other,

they both laughed at themselves and haven't taken communication so seriously since.

With that in mind, did you know that 90% of communication is

non-verbal?

 Understanding my self, yet not attaching to who I am as a personality only,

so that I can stretch and grow outside of my perceived container(s),

as well as understand, inter-act, and respond with other beings,

rather than react to them,

this knowledge of my inherent nature is helpful information

in order to access the courage to joyfully practice my part in the musical of life.

In the same vein as music, the ocean as a metaphor for navigating life moves me deeply as well.

One of my favorite quotes from Sogyal Rinpoche:

"A wave in the sea, seen in one way, seems to have a distinct identity, an end and a beginning, a birth and a death. Seen in another way, the wave itself doesn't really exist but is just the behavior of water, 'empty' of any separate identity but 'full' of water. So when you really think about the wave, you come to realize that it is something that has been made temporarily possible by wind and water, and is dependent on a set of constantly changing circumstances. You also realize that every wave is related to every other wave."

~ ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

What instrument(s) do you practice playing?

If you're interested in your own exploration of the Jung-inspired Myers-Briggs test:

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

Also a good book I have read, which includes the test, is

'Please Understand Me II' by David Keirsey