priorities
Nurture Your Friendships In These Difficult Times
My how time flies! And the older I become, the quicker it seems to go. Looking at my calendar this morning I was reminded that we are now well into the Fall, or Autumn. The year 2020 has indeed had its particular challenges, and soon we will all have to be ready for yet another journey around the Sun.
What has 2020 been teaching you? For me, the difficulties and drama of this year reminded me how important our relationships are. Our relationships with our partners, children, relatives, coworkers and friends, as well as our relationship with nature and spirit.
This crazy year made me realize once again how easily we take for granted the people who add value to our lives. This is especially true of our friends, who basically have no obligation to be a part of our lives. For many of us, these are the people who have kept us sane and kept us going during the Covid-19 pandemic. They are often the people who constantly enhance our lives no end, month after month, and year after year. But do we make enough of an effort to always look out for them too?
Please consider the following when it comes to nurturing your friendships, in good times and bad. It will help them to blossom and grow.
Show Your Friends They Matter
While lockdowns and social distancing may have prevented you from seeing your friends in person, you can still show them how much you care by sending a simple text, a small gift, or hand-written note, or even a video message, just to let them know you are thinking of them during these challenging times. You may never know how much such a small gesture might mean to them. Continue reading
Meditation Is For Everyone
Meditation can easily be a part of your daily life. It is a simple spiritual practice. What is difficult is to change one’s habits.
There are many variants of meditation, some of which you probably know and may have tried. If so, you may have discovered that the difficulties many of us face, when attempting to adopt meditation as a spiritual practice, are usually not related to the meditation itself. More often we are ‘fighting’ with our own minds. We are competing within, for the control, or the freedom of our mind.
Our enemies in this context are short-term rewards: leisure activities, such as watching TV, browsing social media, snacking, or anything that helps our neurons remain lazy. In these activities, attention is scattered and unfocused.
The mind thus learns to be ‘random.’ One could compare this state of mind to the behavior of a wild monkey. This restlessness has no practical purpose – it is just ‘noise.’ And it is happening all the time. We may feel we are actually doing something, but we are just passing the time.
Meditation puts a stop to this unnecessary mental activity. Although in meditation, one does not actively seek to stop thinking, one tries to generate the conditions in which thought is reduced, and the mind now merely observes whatever is happening: an idea, a feeling, a sensation. It is all just observed.
Love Yourself, And Don’t Stop Believing
Recently, I had time to reflect on different aspects of my own life and where it was, or wasn’t going. I was starting to feel self-pity creeping up on me, and had to act to shift my energy out of that negative space, as it would trickle off into other areas of my life.
I was supposed to attend a celebration with family on a Wednesday, as well as a gathering with another group of relatives on the following Saturday. But I wasn’t prioritizing my own needs and well-being, and the Universe decided to put an end to my plans.
To cut a long story short, on the Wednesday, instead of going to the party, I landed in the local hospital emergency room, as my knee gave out and I could not walk. The Universe was telling me to rest – to sit down and get my priorities back in order.
My priorities have always been my children and grandchildren, and that hasn’t changed. However, my views on the recurring family drama, with regards who can go see who, and when, and where, and how, has significantly changed. I have decided to let go of always trying to keep the peace, and please everyone. I no longer wish to expose myself to the unnecessary stress and commotion of it all.
I let it go by simply asking my angels to deal on my behalf with all the stuff that I could no longer hold inside and carry, and take it off my shoulders. And yes, it took me a couple days to realize what was needed, but as soon as I did this, the need for walking with a cane started to disappear and the pain and swelling in my knee has been minimal the last couple of days.
Dragging A ‘Knapsack Of Irrelevance’
Reading for a client recently revealed her toxic work environment, and how one co-worker in particular was making things very unpleasant for her at the office. It reminded me of a short-lived, but very unpleasant working situation I found myself in years ago.
I was scheduled to work with a woman for a couple of weeks who had an extremely negative attitude and was having a profound effect on me. I shared this unpleasant situation with my boyfriend at the time, and his view was that I was just carrying around a ‘knapsack of irrelevance.’
I was so upset! How could he even think that? However, he did give me some food for thought when he then also said, “Just consider how you will think about this situation in a few years from now. How much will it matter then?”
Well, that did help to put things into perspective. And guess what? Just as he predicted, I forgot all about it until this recent reading with my client! Yes, he was correct. After all the years, remembering that brief work situation made me realize that it never had any major relevance or importance to my life. Stressing and worrying about it was indeed just a waste of time and energy.
I met this particular ex-boyfriend in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). He was very well-versed in the twelve steps and other tools helpful in achieving and maintaining sobriety. He also gave me an Alcoholics Anonymous pamphlet, which I have to this day, which reads: