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Dear Ones – Um, yeah. That’s me. Ok, to be fair, I have gone through little b…
Dear Ones –
Um, yeah.
That's me.
Ok, to be fair, I have gone through little bursts of mediation over the last decade — including a two-month burst earlier this year (which made me feel very proud of myself, the way you feel proud of yourself when you announce that you aren't eating sugar anymore, and then you actually stick to it for a few days.)
I can tell you all the reasons I SHOULD meditate. It is the cure for everything, basically. I believe in that, both scientifically and spiritually. I can certainly tell you all the reasons YOU should meditate. But for some reason, even though I see myself as a deeply disciplined person, and even though I love to engage with the spirit, I can never get a meditation practice to stick for me. Or at least I have never been able to yet.
Nonetheless, people ask me mediation advice all the time, which is kind of like asking Elizabeth Taylor for marriage tips. (I always try to redirect the conversation, like a waiter, like: "Could I perhaps offer you something this evening in the line of advice on writing, instead, ma'am?")
🙂
Oh, well.
It is what it is. We are what we are.
I do try to walk in the light, anyway — and to bring the light, wherever I go. In my own way, maybe? As best I can? Maybe that's my meditation practice? To stay aware of all the people around me, and to try to shine light to them, whenever I can? Or maybe I'm just lazy, because all I really want to do at dawn is read last month's Vanity Fair? Or maybe it's all just really OK?
This concludes my thoughts this morning — the thoughts of this alleged spiritual teacher!
Sending you love and acceptance and happiness, in any case, from my wide-awake human brain to yours…
LG
THE MOST IMPORTANT WORDS OF MY LIFE… Dear Ones – Some of you may remember th…
THE MOST IMPORTANT WORDS OF MY LIFE…
Dear Ones –
Some of you may remember these lines from EAT PRAY LOVE.
These are the words I said to myself (wrote to myself, actually) when I was lonely and scared in the middle of the night in Rome, far away from all who loved me.
This was a practice I had started about a year earlier, when I was in the worst of my depression — to write compassionate and loving letters to myself in a notebook, saying to myself everything I had always wished somebody else would say to me.
Until I learned how to speak to myself this way, I had no chance of peace.
Other people can love you. Other people can comfort you. But other people often come and go. And if you can't soothe and reassure yourself in your darkest, loneliest hour, nobody can.
There were nights when I sat up for hours, writing words like this to myself again and again, through a scrim of tears and waves of panic. And often another (angrier) part of me would scrawl at the bottom of the page: "This is bullshit. I don't believe in you." Then I would patiently begin writing again at the top of the next page, "But I believe in YOU. And I will not leave your side. I will love you and take care of you forever…" On it would go, until I could finally fall asleep.
Then again the next night…and so on.
That's how I walked through my darkest valley.
I will tell you this — there are STILL hard nights sometimes when I take out the old notebook and ask, "Are you still there?"
"I am still here," I will start writing, "I'm not going anywhere. I'm right here with you. I love you and I will take care of you…"
My promise to myself is this: I will walk beside myself for as long as I live, holding my own hand, taking care of the soul with which I have been entrusted.
I will do that always, whether anybody else is in the room with me or not.
You must learn how to tell yourself that you are loved. You must tell yourself this again and again until slowly you learn to believe it. Start writing yourself love letters. It feels weird at first, but keep going. Practice. Practice more. Practice EVEN more. You'll need it someday — or you may need it right now.
Life can be hard, but without your own certain love for your own tenderest self, it is simply impossible.
Be good to you.
ONWARD,
LG
GOOD MORNING! A Facebook friend shared this with me yesterday…I love it, and…
GOOD MORNING!
A Facebook friend shared this with me yesterday…I love it, and it is so true. I wish I knew who had written it, but I wanted to share it all with you.
ONWARD!
LG
🙂 Have a beautiful night, Dear Ones! LG
A LESSON IN PURE JOY. Want to see a spiritual master at work? Watch this video…
A LESSON IN PURE JOY.
Want to see a spiritual master at work?
Watch this video from 1989, of the great Argentinian footballer Maradona warming up before a game in Germany.
I can't stop watching this. I never want to stop watching this. It made me want to go to the gym today — and I actually WENT!
It made me want to make things.
It made me want to go write a new book, and cook some food, and dance around my living room.
It made me happy to be alive.
If you're wondering what your calling is — your vocation — here's a clue: It's whatever makes you as happy as screwing around with a soccer ball during warm-ups clearly made Maradona.
Please take note of the little hip-shimmy that he does in the middle of this warm-up, for absolutely no reason except that he seems to be really happy to be there.
His whole body is like: "I can't believe I get to do this!"
Which is how it should be, when you're doing what you love.
Also please take note of the other players around him, doing their warmups with no apparent joy.
Those guys were all excellent soccer players. But none of them were calling down their divinity that day. They were just doing their JOB. They weren't living their VOCATION.
Go do the thing that makes you want to dance like this, OK?
Whatever it is.
Cuz that's the juice, right there.
ONWARD!
LG
Maradona Napoli warming up