Bittman Bliss Blog

I’ve been in the healing “business” for 30 years now and it’s still fascinating and meaningful to me that the word “heal” comes from the same root as the words “hale”, “holy” and “hallowed”, and that their common root means “whole.” I love that because I believe we are spiritual beings having a spiritual experience (the only separation between the spiritual and the human being in our minds), so we are already whole, and therefore health and holiness are our normal states. This makes the whole business a lot simpler for me!

Wholeness is defined as “an undivided or unbroken completeness or totality with nothing wanting.” So to say we are whole means we aren’t missing anything physically, mentally or emotionally; we’re not missing any parts and all the parts function in harmony because they’re not really parts, they’re just aspects of one indivisible whole.

For me, the best news about all that is that because I am already whole, healing on every level is always possible. I am whole, but my awareness of that wholeness may not be fully expressed. My “polar bear cage” (see last week’s blog post) may be quite small when it comes to my ability to see and know my own wholeness. But anytime and every time I become more aware of that wholeness, I heal!

I need to make a distinction at this point between curing and healing, as they are not even remotely the same. Curing is something that happens to our symptom or our health problem; healing is something that happens to (within) us. Curing is something that happens in the realm of appearances and form, healing is something that happens in the realm of consciousness and energy. Curing is sometimes not possible; healing is always possible.

Given a particular situation, healing can show up in many ways: in helping us tap into resources, support, or help we didn’t know we had, in strengthening our relationships, in helping us to not stress the small stuff, in helping to transform fear into love, in teaching us that sorrow and joy can coexist in the same moment, etc. Healing is a movement in consciousness or energy toward wholeness, on whatever level that happens and by whatever means that happens. We are not the same after such a movement in consciousness; we generally experience more peace, more love, more faith and/or more joy, more of the truth of what we are, as a result. On the other hand, a cure can happen but nothing shifts on the inside and often the fear remains (“what if it comes back”?). I have nothing against cures (though they are often worse than the disease), in fact I admit there have been times in my life when nothing else seemed important. But without healing only the appearance of things tends to change; our inner atmosphere and our state of consciousness often don’t.

It takes imagination to see our wholeness, to see past the appearances and the bars of our cage, and this is hard to do when our issue is in our face. When I have a health issue and all I do is focus on the diagnosis or the cure, the problem becomes like a stone I hold right up against my eye. I can’t see beyond it, even if the stone is relatively small. I can’t see the bigger picture or the possible gifts; I can’t take advantage of the healing opportunity.

The same is true if all I do is ask why I got the problem to begin with. More and more I’m convinced of the truth of, “Everything happens for a reason.” And, I’m equally convinced that I don’t really ever have a clue what that reason is; at least the entire reason. So instead of asking why, why not use my imagination to see the wholeness that is always there? Generally that simply means I have to move the stone a little bit further away from my eye.

Here’s an example of what I mean. About 10 years ago, Hillary was in the throes of menopause. She was having weird pains and scary neurological symptoms, heart palpitations, significant sleep deprivation, and a bunch of other things I’ve happily forgotten. Through this time, the words of Archie Bunker kept going through my head, when Edith was going through a similar process: “Edith, if you’re going to change, just go ahead and do it!” Alas, that didn’t happen for Hillary any more than it did for Edith.

One day, upon returning from a breakfast meeting with our mastermind group, Hillary was convinced she was about to die. She was extremely agitated, fretful, angry, overwhelmed and hopeless. There was no cure in sight. I wasn’t sure what to say or do, but these words came to me: “If this really is your death, is this how you want to do it?” This was exactly what she needed in order to move the stone away from her eye. No, she didn’t want to do it that way; she wanted to do it with more peaceful acceptance and with much more awareness of the love within her and around her. So first she used her imagination to actually contemplate her possible death. This brought her fear out in the open where it couldn’t lurk just beyond her awareness and run her. Then she used her imagination to fill herself with light and love, to affirm her wholeness, to open to the unlimited possibilities inherent in that wholeness. This helped tremendously, not so much with the symptoms, but with her perspective. It was a healing. And to this day she’s convinced that if hadn’t opened up to that healing, she would indeed have died.

So the question for me becomes how do I want to live, whether or not I have a health problem, even whether or not I’m dying (which, you’d have to admit, we’re all in the process of doing). When I keep that question on the center stage of my awareness, the answer is obvious and my vision immediately becomes bigger, better and more beautiful. Every moment is a healing opportunity, and when I use my imagination to remember this, I can take advantage of more and more of them.

And if that’s all we remember, that’s more than enough for now.

I’m not sure exactly when my imagination started running away with me, that is, when I began using it to limit my self-image, to blind myself from my own light, my wholeness, my greatness. When did I become like that polar bear cub I heard about many years ago that was kept in a cage at a zoo for several months and when finally released into its permanent enclosure would not venture beyond the limits of its imaginary cage? When did I start putting up the blinders and the filters and the defense mechanisms and the bars? I distinctly remember as a young boy using my imagination to become bigger, better, stronger, more like Superman…or at least more like Shane. I used it in order to see myself as being capable of accomplishing anything and everything. I loved letting my imagination run away with me that way. Then it turned around and double crossed me and started running away with the “real me.”

Maybe it began around the same time I started believing that it wasn’t safe or appropriate to show my feelings in this world. But it doesn’t really matter how or when or why it happened. What matters, as always, is what I do about it now. Because I’ve used my imagination to limit myself for so long, it has become hard for my eyes to see what my heart knows is true of me and of everyone else—that we are whole, perfect and complete. As Mark Twain said, “You can’t trust your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” So I can refocus my imagination by using it to see the truth of me.

I can envision myself showing up in life exactly as I choose to. I can envision myself responding with patience, love and compassion instead of reacting with anger or judgment. I can envision myself sticking to my intentions, acting with kindness, giving hope to people, helping to birth a greater awareness within myself and other people of our wholeness and oneness. I can envision myself going beyond the bars, opening up to a more expansive picture of myself. I can do all this because I still have a power of imagination. And if I imagined all the illusion and limits, I can certainly imagine the truth.

John Muir said that “imagination makes us infinite.” It’s a beautiful phrase, but I beg to differ. Imagination doesn’t make us infinite, we already are infinite. Imagination can help us see it. And when we can see the eternal and the infinite in ourselves, we can see it in others and in the world.

It might feel like pretending, but that’s OK. It only feels that way because I’m inside the cage right now. And, as it turns out, the word “pretend” comes from the same root as the word “claim.” So I don’t look at imagining my bigness and wholeness as acting, I look at is reclaiming my birthright. I look at it as remembering. I look at it as reclaiming and repainting a picture of myself that is good and beautiful and true; a picture I can continue to grow into.

The polar bear cub had to have some imagination to have ever seen past the imaginary bars. I can see now that imagination has played a similar role in everything I’ve ever done that had real value. Everything I’ve ever done to truly love and serve others involved me first seeing past the imaginary bars of my own creation and into a realm of greater possibility for myself.

That’s the really good news: that whenever I break through any imaginary barriers and realize more of my bigness, everyone benefits. We break through barriers for each other, because we’re all one. Before Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile, it was thought to be impossible. Within months, many other runners did it. As Marianne Williamson wrote, “When we let our own light shine, we unconsciously allow others to do the same.”

I’m always learning how to let my light shine more brightly, and this has been another piece. I’ve allowed my light to be dimmed from my sight over the years, and now I know that it was just my imagination running away with me. So now I’m letting it make amends by finding me. It’s only fair.

And if that’s all we remember, that’s more than enough for now.

Memorial Day has held little meaning in my life beyond family picnics, the onset of the “summer vibe” and invariably, in my 33 years here in Lake Tahoe, snowstorms. I’ve always been aware of what the holiday was about, that it used to be called Decoration Day, but perhaps because I had no close relatives who died in battle I was insulated from its true meaning. At least in my early years. Growing up during the Vietnam War, that all changed. There were guys I grew up with in my neighborhood that didn’t come home.

But by then I had become a bit of a hippie and peacenik, and decorating the graves of soldiers just didn’t seem to be part of the program. Though I had grown up marching with my toy gun to John Philip Souza and reveling in multitudinous John Wayne films, by this time in my life anything related to military endeavors had not only lost its luster, but was an anathema, scary, unimaginable and something I didn’t even want to look at, let alone remember.

I see now that I have done a lot of people a tremendous disservice. For all these years, I have equated the warriors with the war. Even worse than that, I have blamed the warriors for the war. I have met a ton of Vietnam vets and so many of them are understandably bitter about the way they were “welcomed” home. In my anti-war stance I’ve managed pretty well to avoid any responsibility or self-recrimination for my part in that. I can’t begin to imagine how that must feel and I now humbly apologize to all of you. I realize it means little at this point, but it means a lot to me. Not only do I intend remembering all the fallen today, but also all those un-fallen who still carry the scars and wounds of war.

My stance on Memorial Day has changed as it has suddenly become clear that I am just as much to blame for war as anyone else. Every week in most Unity and Religious Science centers the service ends with The Peace Song, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.” Some in our community have wanted to change those words to more affirmative ones, “Yes, there is peace on earth; I know it begins with me.” I’ve been reluctant to change the words because as they stand, they remind me that in every moment I have a choice to allow peace to come into my awareness and into the world. Now, the next time someone asks about changing the words, I’ll be tempted to say, “Fine, as long as we also add the line, ‘Yes, there is war on earth; I know it begins with me.’” In every moment, I also have the choice to create violence, and I’ve become aware recently of how often I do so, in some subtle and not so subtle ways.

I just came back from a Unity men’s retreat. Thirty-three guys and the great majority have served in the military. They were some of the most peaceful men I’ve ever met, and it was perhaps the most peaceful gathering I’ve ever attended. Thirty-three guys and not one mention of football or politics. We laughed and cried and played music together. We shared things with each other that we hadn’t shared with anyone before, with the possible exception of our closest relations. We shared our gifts and also our authentic, screwed up selves and found out we weren’t alone in being gifted and screwed up. We found out that sorrow and joy can coexist in the same moment; that they are in fact inseparable. And we found out that we can each learn volumes about ourselves in community, especially when we can simply be ourselves in that community.

It seems ironic that I learned so much about violence by participating in such a peaceful gathering. The gift was that violence was so glaringly absent I was able to pay attention to what was missing. We weren’t competing! We weren’t doing all those usual man things like trying to fix each other or giving advice or negating others’ experiences (“ah, you think that’s bad? Well listen to this…”) or attempting to shift someone else’s reality (by interposing our own, of course) or sharing words with the sole intention of showing everyone how much we knew. These are common acts of violence! And I’m not sure they’re only man things.

We sat with our judgments and explored their origins within ourselves. We had agreed right off the bat to see and treat each other as whole, perfect and complete. We did a pretty damn good job of honoring that agreement, and peace reigned supreme. All this certainly wasn’t easy for me, but what helped was first honoring, and then tapping into, all the warrior energy in the room and finding it within myself. In letting go of my blind spots around what being a warrior means, I received a much greater awareness of what it means to be a peaceful warrior.

Gandhi said a coward could never be nonviolent. This means that all the qualities we attribute to warriors, such as discipline, decisiveness, preparation, mindfulness, courage and perseverance, are indispensible as we battle the demons and violence and craziness in our own minds and transform them so that love and peace remain.

I had another similar realization at the retreat: being anti-war never brought me to peace. Not once. By choosing to be against war and against warriors and against violence, by choosing to be against anything, I was just as guilty of choosing violence and expressing violence as everyone I judged. I believe we’ll continue to live in a violent world until we all take responsibility for the seeds of violence that we harbor and “put out there”, because only then can we begin to address the cause and use our warrior natures to transform our own consciousnesses.

So now I’m choosing to be for peace, and to be a warrior for peace. I know that begins with me, and for a start I’ll remember all the warriors today with honor, with gratitude and with love. I see a day when we won’t have to decorate graves and instead can focus on decorating the world with our beauty. Peace.

And, if that’s all we remember, that’s more than enough for now.

If there’s anything more dangerous than wishing someone a Merry Christmas, it’s wishing them a Happy Mother’s Day! I seem to be among the minority of folks who don’t have major issues around it. Of course, the issues are completely understandable. Lots of people have lost their mothers, and whether they miss them terribly or regret the relationship they had with them when they were alive, it’s not particularly fun to be reminded about them. Other women never had children and that is their deepest regret in life. Others have lost children or have children with whom they are estranged. Still others don’t feel honored on Mother’s Day because of other mothers (and/or mothers-in-law) in the picture. For all these reasons, every year when I do a talk at Unity on Mother’s Day, I feel as if I’m treading on shaky ground. Yesterday, as always, I attempted to reframe the holiday for people who need that and to focus on some themes and reminders that could be meaningful to everyone. I will repeat that here.

First of all, the holiday originally had nothing to do with honoring moms. It was essentially an anti-war protest. Julia Ward Howe, who wrote The Battle Hymn of the Republic in 1858, was so distraught after the Civil War that in 1870 she issued a “Mother’s Day Proclamation” calling on mothers to come together and protest the futility of their sons killing other mothers’ sons. She actually proposed converting July 4th into Mother’s Day. That obviously didn’t fly, but in 1873, women came together in 18 North American cities to observe this new holiday. Most of the gatherings were personally funded by Mrs. Howe, and when she stopped footing the bill, they petered out. But a seed had been planted.

A WV women’s group led by Anna Reeves Jarvis began to celebrate an adaptation of Mrs. Howe’s idea, to re-unite families and neighbors that had been divided in the Civil War, calling it “Mother’s Friendship Day. “ After she died, her daughter Anna M. Jarvis campaigned for the creation of an official Mother’s Day in remembrance of her mother and in honor of peace. On May 10, 1908, the first official Mother’s Day celebration took place in West Virginia, and in 1914 Woodrow Wilson made it a national observance on the second Sunday in May.

Besides using Mother’s Day as a wakeup call for peace, we can use it to remind us to honor all the people in our lives, perhaps besides our mothers, who have nurtured, protected, cared for and otherwise mothered us. We can include Mother Earth in this category (that would be two times a year we honor her…yahoo!), since she undoubtedly meets all those criteria. We can even include God in there, if that fits our belief system. All faith traditions honor those more feminine/motherly aspects of God, which I believe are right inside all of us.

Sometimes the least safe and least nurtured place I ever find myself in is inside my own head. So I like to use Mother’s Day as a reminder to mother myself more. Over the years as I’ve done that, my mind has become a much safer place to hang out, and I’ve noticed that I see the world as a safer place. I’ve tapped more and more into the part of me that is always ready, willing and able to mother me, to nurture me, to whisper encouragement and support in my ear. But it has taken some work to find that place, and most of it has involved actively mothering myself.

For instance, I’ve become much more careful about how I talk to myself (please see last week’s blog post, Blessed are the Peacemakers). I’ve become much gentler with myself as I continue to grow in awareness and still make many mistakes. I spend a lot less time beating myself up and a lot more time checking in with myself and listening to my own needs and feelings. I give myself much more space to grow into the highest vision I have for myself, as I stubbornly hold that vision, much as a wonderful mother would do. And I’ve stopped thinking of all that as being selfish. In mothering myself, I’ve become a much better giver and server for others.

I’ve always been a nurturer. When I was a young child my favorite activity was caring for a doll and wheeling it around in a little stroller. Yes, the neighbors wondered and worried about me, but I see now it laid the groundwork for my life’s work as a healer and minister. But at one point in my life I realized I was mothering everyone but myself! And when I changed that, everything changed, and my healing ministry took on a whole new energy. I was able to give and serve from a place of fullness if I filled myself up first, not from a place of obligation or from a state of being tapped out or depleted. Many of us believe that as spiritual beings we “should” be loving and compassionate. Well, how about starting with ourselves?

So if the traditional way of celebrating Mother’s Day doesn’t work for you, perhaps you now have some other options. And if you’re worried about Hallmark, go ahead and buy yourself a card.

And, if that’s all we remember, that’s more than enough for now.

I’m not sure why, but still I sometimes tend to operate in life as if one of the “beatitudes” said, “Blessed are the control freaks, for they shall inherit the earth.” It would surely boggle my mind, if I chose to actually do so, to consider how much time, energy, focus, creativity and power I expend in the futile pursuit of controlling other people, events, the world, etc. No wonder I feel overwhelmed at times. No wonder I even, once in a while, imagine that there’s nothing I can do as an individual that would make a dent in the problems I see in the world. In attempting to force the world to conform to my ideas of it, there’s nothing left in me to actually consider and take effective action!

When I think about it, my heroes these days tend to be people who seem(ed) to direct their entire beings toward the only thing they could truly control: their own state of consciousness. These heroes exerted their power in order to transform themselves so that only love, compassion, forgiveness, joy and peace remained. I include folks such as Gandhi, Teresa of Avila, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Aung San Suu Kyi,the Buddha, Jesus. A quick check of this list reveals the incredible impact these people have made on the world. Elie Wiesel, a concentration camp survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, said, “Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.” Somehow, after losing his whole family in the Holocaust and living through inconceivably horrible conditions he devoted the rest of his life to forgiveness and peace principles. And because of that, he single-handedly requested and received the first formal apology issued by the German government for their role in the Holocaust.

None of these heroes of mine had easy lives, but they became peacemakers in the truest and biggest senses of the word. They always seemed to have reserves of strength and resources at their disposal that they used to create and perform effective action. By their very presence, they reminded people of what is good and beautiful and true. So I figure if they could do it, so can I. Indeed, to “be peace” has been my foremost intention for at least 2 decades, and it’s nearly always what this blog is about. It’s become pretty clear to me by now that trying to control everything other than what I can does not bring me to peace or leave me free to do what is mine to do in the most impactful ways. On the contrary, it’s more like imitating a hamster on a wheel; it takes lots of energy (and perhaps fun at times) but gets me nowhere. Fast.

As I’ve explored and unfolded this intention to take mastery over my own consciousness, it has also become clear I’m the one making the choice to evict myself from my true and innate state of peace and love, consciously or not. And lately I’ve noticed perhaps the foremost way I accomplish this: through the things I say to myself.

Lately I’ve been paying lots of attention to my self-talk and, though I’m happy to say it has improved immensely, it could still use some work. Just the other day Hillary and I were having a mildly heated disagreement, and during a lull in the proceedings I became aware of what I was saying to myself. A lot of it was about things wrong with Hillary that she needed to change so I could be happy and peaceful. A little of it was about how I, being such a spiritual person, should know better. None of it brought me back to peace and love. So, with this awareness, I was able to stop and remind myself that I love Hillary more than anything else in the world, and that she loved me too. I saw she had temporarily forgotten, just as I had. And I was able to then express love from a more peaceful place, which helped a lot.

Actually, I can’t really control my own consciousness either, but I can be a better steward of it. I can plant better seeds and take better care of the soil. I can nurture it and give it loving attention. In doing this I’ve discovered that my self-talk becomes a huge part of the background music of my awareness. In our Unity studies, Hillary and I saw a video of street scenes in New Your City. It was set to rap music and seemed very abrupt, frantic and hard to watch. Then the whole scene began to repeat itself, this time to classical music. It was then we noticed that in every scene, someone was helping or serving someone. None of us saw that the first time around. I’m not judging rap music (well…); I’m pointing out how important the background music is. It changes our perspective on everything. So as I’m exerting my power on my own consciousness, it’s critical I address the background music. When my self-talk is un-peaceful, it’s difficult for me to access peace. As my self-talk becomes truer, more loving and more peaceful, so does my life experience.

A long time ago at a chiropractic seminar, a speaker shared, “If I talked to you the way you talk to yourself, you’d come up here and kick me in the butt.” My response at the time was, “How did he know?” Today I’m thankful for this: I have practiced some sort of affirmations and affirmative prayer in the subsequent 25 years, and now I finally understand why. Consciously and repeatedly reminding myself that I am good, worthy, loving and lovable, despite thoughts or behaviors to the contrary, has brought my self-talk to a truer, more loving and peaceful level, and it has brought me there along with it. I still forget, for sure, but the trip “home” is a lot more familiar and much easier to find.

Yes indeed, I still forget. And I’m allowing that to affect my self-talk less and less. I imagine my heroes forgot sometimes, but they had more important things to do than beat themselves up. So do I. So do all of us.

And if that’s all we remember, that’s more than enough for now. 

 Quick, what do Donald Duck and Moe of the Three Stooges have in common? If you get this one, you’re good (or, you looked at the title of this piece and guessed)! Besides the fact that I adored both of them as a child, the answer is that they both often exclaimed, “Hey, what’s the big idea?” They said it when they were annoyed about something, which they often were, but what’s interesting to me is how meaningful that question has become in my life and also how the refrain has been picked up by other heroes and teachers along my way.

For instance, at some point in my chiropractic journey I found that B.J. Palmer, the developer of chiropractic, had said, “Get the big idea, all else follows.” B.J. was saying that when one owned and embodied the bigidea of chiropractic, its grand purpose of restoring the expression of life through the body and thus reconnecting the physical with the spiritual, then everything else followed: motivation, success, fulfillment, what to say and do; even the healing results achieved. Another of my chiropractic mentors, Dr. John Demartini, said it this way, “When the ‘why’ is big enough, the ‘how’s take care of themselves.”

Then later on in my Unity studies, we were taught that the creative process follows a definite order, described as mind-idea-manifestation. Everything begins in mind (consciousness), and it’s the ideas that we hold dominant in our mind that determine what manifests in our life. The emphasis then rests on the ideas, not the manifestation. And while we’re focusing on ideas, why not make them big ideas, like love, joy, wholeness, compassion and abundance? I believe all this was stated best by another of my mentors, Jesus, when he said, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven, and all these things shall be added unto you.”

For me, the Kingdom of Heaven is right within my own consciousness; that place within me that knows only love, joy, wholeness, compassion and abundance. It’s that place in which you and I abide together in oneness. As I’ve hung out in that place more and more in my life, I’ve learned that what I truly desire is not so much the things, but those aspects of being, such as love, peace and joy, that I’d thought I could only have by obtaining the things. I’ve learned I can experience and enjoy those aspects right now, with or without the things, and regardless of whether I label the experiences of my life as “good” or “bad.”

In an important way, this flies in the face of the Law of Attraction, as taught in movies like The Secret. It seems as though that is based much more on focusing on the manifestation. We’re told to think about the car, money, health result, perfect mate, etc, visualize and affirm it, see ourselves having it and feel what that would be like and we will attract it to us. Not that this formula doesn’t “work” in bringing me what I want. For much of my chiropractic career, for example, my goal was to adjust 500 people in a week. I thought that reaching this goal would bring me joy and fulfillment. I applied the formula for years and eventually reached my goal. Unfortunately, I quickly realized it didn’t bring me what I thought it would. There wasn’t even a ticker tape parade! Almost immediately my mind wanted to grasp onto a new goal. I then realized that all along the way, I had been focusing on what I thought I lacked, and because of that I’d often felt frustrated and that I was “doing it wrong.”

Now I see that all the things I have always truly desired (such as joy and fulfillment) are already within me, waiting to be expressed and experienced. They don’t even have to be “added unto me”; I just need to keep them center stage in my mind. So I’m now much more focused on the goodness than on the goodies, as one of my Unity teachers puts it. When the lens through which I look at life is centered in the biggest ideas I know of, I see more of all that in me and my life. When I get and hold the biggest possible idea for myself, that idea becomes my beacon, guides my choices and allows me to live in freedom, joy and gratitude. It allows me to experience those beautiful truths that I used to think only came from material things, right here and right now. And when I notice I’m holding some other idea of myself, one based on old limiting beliefs and tapes, I hear Donald or Moe asking, “Hey, what’s the big idea?” It’s a beautiful reminder.

I’ll get more specific on this in future posts. In the meantime, if that’s all we remember, that’s more than enough for now.

Well, there’s only 364 shopping days left before we officially honor and celebrate Mother Earth again, and just that fact alone would seem to indicate that the human species remains a trifle disconnected from this beautiful planet that is our home. Many of us see the earth as nothing more than a hostile environment, obviously prone to inconveniencing us at every possible turn. We complain about the weather, we hide under and behind protective walls, we spend a fortune blocking out the sun’s rays, etc. Somewhere in all this we seem to have lost our grasp on the idea that the earth is even more than our home; it nurtures us, it provides for us, it is part of us. When we disconnect from it we disconnect from ourselves.

For me this represents an even more fundamental challenge. How do we stop fragmenting ourselves in general? As I’ve noted before, I often think one thing, feel another, say a third and do a fourth. More specifically for this post, how much of my life have I spent wishing I was somewhere other than where I was? I’m feeling blessed that I have neither the ability nor the inclination to figure it out.

Many of us often wish we were in a different place geographically. When we’re at work, we wish we were home. When we’re home, we wish we were on vacation or that the weekend would hurry up and arrive. When we’re on vacation, we wish we were permanently on vacation or retired. We often wish we were in a different place in consciousness, too. We compare ourselves to some idea we hold of how we should be, we tell ourselves we should know better than to get angry or be judgmental; that we should be further along than we are on our spiritual journey. No wonder we’re fragmented!

All this brings to mind a quote I heard years ago from Charles “Tremendous” Jones, a well-known motivational public speaker who passed away a few years ago: “If you ain’t happy where you are, you sure as heck won’t be happy where you ain’t.”

Yes! When I’m wishing I’m somewhere else, I AM somewhere else, but unfortunately I’ve left my capacity for love, joy, fun and peace back where I was! Those capacities are within me, so I need to be there too. Obviously in some situations and places I find it easier to access those capacities, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are generated from within me. The same places where I find it easier to access joy and fun might be exceedingly challenging for someone else. So apparently it’s not the place!

When I’m in a situation or a job or a place that I hate and wish I were elsewhere, it’s next to impossible for me to not only access those capacities, but also for me to notice what’s good about where I am. A friend of mine recently came back from Sequoia National Park having had a mystical experience upon seeing the huge, ancient trees. This was interesting to me because I know he doesn’t have those kinds of experiences here in Tahoe. In fact, he often complains about living here, even though this area does not lack for beauty. I asked him what he thought the difference was there, and he responded that it was simply how different those trees were. This got me thinking: what if we stopped wishing we were somewhere else and instead continually looked at where we were with fresh eyes and with open minds and hearts? Is it possible we’d notice more things that were different, good, beautiful and true?

My dog never seems to wish she were somewhere else. She has her preferences, for sure. But wherever she is, she still seems to express 100% of her joy. When my daughter was young, she never wanted to be somewhere else. In fact, it was the opposite: wherever she was, she never wanted to leave, even if it was from a place she resisted visiting to begin with!

As we become more OK with where we are, even if it’s a place or job or situation in which we’d rather not be, we can become more adept at still being ourselves. We can awaken to greater and greater depths of our own being. We can cultivate our ability to access joy and fun so when we’re actually on vacation or retired, we’ll be able to enjoy it even more!

This is particularly valuable on the spiritual journey. The only place we can unfold more of our greatness and beauty is right where we are. The Buddha became enlightened while sitting under a tree. He didn’t have to move an inch. When asked what he’d become, he said “awake”. We, too, can awaken to a bigger and vaster vision of ourselves right where we are. Only where we are!

So, perhaps the next time you find yourself wishing you were somewhere other than where you are, you can say to yourself, “I may not be where I want to be, but right where I am I can be who I want to be.” That’s what I intend to do. As we do, I can see a time when Earth Day will no longer be necessary. It will be redundant.

If that’s all we remember, that’s more than enough for now.

The Easter eggs have all been hunted down and the lovely outfits neatly stashed away for another year. I picture the Easter bunny sleeping in this morning, dreaming of the upcoming vacation it annually enjoys with Santa Claus (they like to go this time of the year because not too many people travel around tax time), where they rest, celebrate and also commiserate over the loss of meaning around the holidays they represent.

If they happen to vacation in Tahoe this year and I run into them, I’ll ask them to forgive us, for in many respects we know not what we do. We are creatures of meaning. Our entire reality is framed by what we make things mean and once we’ve decided on what something means it’s hard for us to see past that. We often create those meanings at a very early age, and do so based on what others tell us. Such is the case with holidays like Easter.

Growing up Jewish, I initially attached no meaning around it at all, other than the fact that every Good Friday I got to join my father at his place of business (a large insurance company) because there was only a “skeleton crew”. In other words, the only folks around were the handful of Jews working for the company. Playing with the adding machines (hey, we’re talking the 60’s here) and going out to lunch with my dad in Manhattan was such a thrill. I was aware, and somewhat jealous, of the egg thing, but other than that the holiday was just an extra day off from school.

I distinctly remember when I learned the traditional meaning of Easter. I was 8 or 9 years old, hanging out on my block just before Easter, and was enlightened on the subject by one of the neighborhood girls. At some point in her explanation, she transfigured right before my eyes into a pretty good imitation of Mr. Hyde, pointed at me and shouted, “And you killed Him!” I was confused and immediately defended myself: “I’m pretty sure I’d remember that!” “The Jews killed him”, she elaborated, still fairly foaming at the mouth. I was taken aback for a moment. Luckily, I had a strong need to be right even back then. She was younger than I was, and I hadn’t heard that in Sunday School at our Temple, so I figured she didn’t know what she was talking about and I lovingly shared with her something related to her I.Q. and left.

In a way it has bothered me a little bit ever since. Apparently for her at least part of the meaning of Easter was a reminder to hate. And even then I thought it was highly unlikely she came to that idea herself without hearing it from someone else. Thoughts of Easter brought no fun at all (though I still enjoyed Good Friday!).

The incident also affected the meanings I created and held around Jesus for many years. In the early days of my conscious spiritual journey, it was hard for me to relate to anything even mentioning his name. The text of A Course in Miracles, for instance, was impossible for me, even though the ideas did resonate. Since then, through my experiences, my Unity education and my current studies to become an Interfaith Minister, I have come to love Jesus as a teacher and example. And I find it ironic and sad that hate has managed to come anywhere near a holiday that honors someone who mastered the way of love.

For most Christians, the meaning of Easter couldn’t get any bigger. The resurrection of Jesus, after all, is the explanation for all Christian beliefs and the fundamental reason for Christianity’s existence. This, interestingly, makes it perhaps the most significant event to have ever occurred in the Western world (imagine our history and culture without Christianity for a moment), whether or not it ever really happened. Why we commemorate it with eggs and bunnies is another story.

For me, it doesn’t really matter whether it happened or not. It still carries great meaning. I see the resurrection as a reminder to focus on Jesus’ life and teachings, not so much on this death. I see it as a reminder to follow him in participating more fully in life. Not so much the movie starring limitation, perception and appearances that we all experience, but the omnipresent, eternal life that is one of the qualities of God and therefore of you and I. Jesus was inviting us to experience a more expanded vision and awareness of the unlimited life and love that we each truly are.

That Life is the whole spirit, presence, and love of God. It is not restricted to a body nor can it be contained in a tomb. It may change form or appear to be lost, but it can’t be. Whatever we’ve done or haven’t done, whatever limitations or lack we may believe about ourselves, Life is spirit and we are spirit, eternal, ageless, immortal, whole and complete. Jesus taught that we could tap into that eternal life right here and right now. We don’t have to die or wait for the future, but we must move in consciousness from our present identification with ego and the material world toward identification with what is changeless and eternal within us.

Every time we identify more with this Life, we rise again. Whenever we move past some limitation it’s like we’ve come to life; we’ve resurrected. We do not die once.  We all die many times.  Parts of us die all the time. We’ve all experienced loss, pain and grief. We’ve all let go of many things, consciously and unconsciously.  We forgive, we move on, we grow, we evolve. Time and again we have risen from difficulty and discovered qualities within us that we would not have known had we not been forced to explore the depths of our being.

There’s life after divorce, a major illness, a job loss or bankruptcy or the death of a loved one. These are our crucifixions, and when we apply Truth principles and rise again we are a different person, as aspects of our divine wholeness literally come to life. 

Maybe we don’t believe we can overcome physical death but we can certainly use the Easter message to remind us we can rise again no matter what’s going on. We can go beyond present circumstances to a new opportunity and a new vision for ourselves. Does that mean that what might be going on isn’t sad, painful or extremely difficult? NO, but it does mean that we don’t have to stay in a tomb forever. Right within us is everything we need to rise again and experience life, joy and love in bigger and more beautiful ways.

If that’s all we remember, that’s more than enough for now.

Gandhi said, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony.” In addition to happiness, I can see that when my consciousness is in harmony, when all aspects of it are centered and focused on my deepest intentions and values, I also experience peace, serenity, joy, strength and the manifestation of my dreams. When I am whole and one in my consciousness, I experience my true state of wholeness and oneness.

I also notice quite clearly how this is easier said than done. I am whole, but I fragment myself in so many ways. I hold things on myself and reject those parts of myself I’m not so crazy about. I sometimes have trouble forgiving others, making them responsible for my feelings and moods, and therefore give them some of my focus and my power. I sometimes separate my spiritual life from the rest of my life. Often I think one thing, feel another, say a third and do a fourth!

Speaking of things being easier said than done, if I had a nickel for every time I said one thing and did another, Bill Gates would be asking me for loans. It’s like the old Italian proverb: “Between saying and doing, many of pair of shoes is worn out.” Not to mention all the times I’ve thought something and said another, thought something and didn’t do it (wow, that’s a big one. Have you ever noticed that the most effective way to NOT do something is to think about doing it?); all the combinations and permutations make my head spin. Which might be an improvement.

My mind is not only a world traveler but a time traveler. It can zip between here and there and between past and future at something approaching the speed of light. Sometimes I’ll be near the end of a wonderful hike or a delicious meal, and suddenly realize I haven’t really noticed or tasted a thing. My body was hiking or eating, but my mind was in some other place or time.

So, I’ve decided that the most important thing for me to do in order to fulfill my desire to have a more harmonious and unified consciousness is to practice holding my attention. Here’s what I’m going to do, and I invite you to join me. I’m going to do one thing at a time, and I’m going to give it my full attention. I’m OK with my mind doing its traveling thing, but I intend to have some say about where it goes. At the very least I’d like to know that it left! I’m going to practice holding my attention on what I’m doing, even if it’s mundane or what I have perceived as boring. I will no longer attempt to juggle eating with texting, thinking about what so and so said yesterday and filling out my to-do list. I am a uni-tasker!

There would be tremendous value in giving my full attention to my thoughts, feelings and words, too, but for now I’m going to focus on my actions, since I believe my actions are what contribute most to my growth and unfolding. Even when my thinking is stinking, if I’m paying attention, I can still choose to do what is most aligned with my core values. Right now I can even choose to start doing all those things I’ve thought myself out of over the years, all those things I know in my heart would make my life better and bring more light into this world.

While I’m paying attention, I’m confident I’ll have a better chance of choosing actions that help to create things that are good and beautiful and true. And through taking action, I’m also confident that more of what’s good and beautiful and true will filter back into my thoughts and feelings and even my words. All this from simply paying attention. It’s a small price to pay!

If that’s all we remember, that’s more than enough for now.

 That sound you may have just heard was a yet another blog popping into cyberspace. I ask myself why (something I do a lot of, without a great deal of value for the effort). There seem to be enough ideas floating around the world wide web. Sometimes I think there are too many already: There are so many ideas that the Universe is getting crowded. There must be a plug around here somewhere to let some ideas out. It’s filling up fast, so if you plan on having any ideas you’ll have to wait until February when we have an opening.

I guess it’s important to me to throw mine in the mix, both for myself and for the mix. The mix could use as much positivity at it can get.

Yes, the problems of this world can certainly appear to be insurmountable. I don’t deny they exist. I also believe it has probably always been that way. For instance, I recently came across this quote: “Our earth is degenerate in these latter days; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; and the end of the world is evidently approaching.” The interesting thing about this quote is that it was found on an Assyrian clay tablet; dated 2800 B.C. Apparently there’ve always been things to fret about, especially if one was looking for them. And apparently there’ve always been opportunities to fret about them publically.

And there’ve probably always been hopeless optimists like me. I stand accused. I believe that this world is still transformable, because I know that people are transformable. I see it every day. I see cynicism being transformed into hope. I see futility and frustration and fear being transformed into fulfillment and fruitful action and freedom. I see people making different choices, reaching out, asking for help, offering help. I see people caring, sharing, feeling and healing on all levels.

Call me crazy, but I believe people are inherently good. And that’s exactly what makes personal and global transformation possible. We may hear more about the bad, but there are countless folks doing fantastically positive things on this planet and in our communities, most of which we’ll never hear about. There is an incredible abundance of love and compassion and generosity in this world. We tend to see it after tragic events like 9-11 (my birthday), which tells me it’s in each and every one of us, all the time. We see it more in those times because we’re looking for it. We need it! But we couldn’t see it at all, in those circumstances or ever, if it wasn’t already there.

What if we looked for the good more of the time? I’m not talking about being Pollyanna. I’m not saying, “It’s all good”. I’m saying that whatever is happening, we can look for the good; we can use it for good, for love, for healing, for increasing our awareness. It’s a choice. When our “background music” becomes more about negativity, complaining, resenting and worrying, everything that happens seems to provide more evidence that the world is going to the dogs; everything gives us more to complain about. If we were to look for the good more of the time, I imagine we’d see more of that. And I imagine we’d also be in a more positive, grateful and productive mode in order to take effective action to change things, if that’s what we chose to do.

How do we do that? That’s what this blog will be about. We are each a unique and indispensible ingredient in the mix and as we become more skillful in expressing our deepest values and intentions we continue to sweeten it. If that’s all we remember, that’s more than enough for now.