A time for Reflection

This time of the year for me is a time of reflection, a time for me to see what I have nurtured and grown in my personal garden since spring. It is a time to see areas of personal growth in my physical and spiritual realms. Just like the crops we harvest at this time of year each of us has grown and we each need to remember the importance of this opportunity to look back and recognize all the gardening and weeding we actually did to produce such growth in our beautiful personal garden. This is a time for celebrating our accomplishments, a time to reflect on how far we have grown and in what areas of our life.

Many times we have the tendency to focus on what we think we do not have, on what we have not yet accomplished. This perspective is not useful and often stops us in our tracks. While it is wise to plan for our future, our future is created with our daily actions in present time. This is a time to acknowledge and affirm each and every growth we have had and to celebrate each opportunity that led us to strengthen our self.

May we all take time to harvest the crops of our personal growth; may we feed ourselves and others around us and within our communities during the long winter months and may the energy of our accomplishments and growth do the same for us, physically, mentally and spiritually. Take this opportunity to shine your light on every bit of growth that took place this year. ….Love, light, and many blessings, Christina

The Essence of Living Lightly

The Essence of Living Lightly

Let’s begin with a simple definition of Lightly: with little weight or force; without care or concern: in a way that is not serious; in a quick and graceful way.

What does it mean to Live Lightly?

We could be anywhere on this wonderful planet of ours, perhaps on a mountain or by the sea, we might feast on the canopy of the blue sky and puffy white clouds or look at the waves cresting and falling back on the water, we might take in the incredible views from the mountaintop, but if we try to contain or grasp these wonders; we will only be grabbing at the air, and if we try to push it away we will find it does not resist.

This is a true phenomenon for most everything in life; these wonders are only appearances, ever changing from moment to moment. An empty sky transforms to blue and the fluffy clouds appear from the formless. The view from the mountaintop shifts as the sun rises and sets, the waves upon the water are in constant flux rising and falling, while we can touch the water, we cannot grasp the waves. All form changes and in similar fashion all phenomena manifests from this vast void.

Living lightly happens when we realize the best way to seize our human essence is to realize that there is nothing to grasp. It is the pulling and pushing in life causes much suffering, our own and that of others. Living lightly means we STOP doing that. Instead we feel the essence of the void, the emptiness and fulfill the purpose of our human life, by feeling the experience of total freedom and bliss. Live this essence, share this essence and bring others along with us.

“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.” ~Eckhart Tolle

To live lightly we must learn to live in the present moment and to accept things as they are, and we need to live within that framework mindfully. We no longer expect good or bad things to happen, but take life as it is, and be content with whatever comes. It helps to remember that people do what they do….simple….they do what they do because they do not know any other way of being. We and all others have been programmed from childhood as to beliefs and behavior and until that is examined by self-discovery and transformed through hard work we will continue to do what we do.

When we STOP judging things as good or bad, we are free from the burdens of the emotion of judgment, and can live lighter, freer. Hamlet said, ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’ Without the human mind, things just happen, and they are not good or bad. It’s only when we apply the filter of our judgment that they become good or bad, beautiful or ugly. Therefore another aspect of living lightly is the importance of dropping expectations…not just lowering them, but eliminating them!

When we have expectations and things don’t go the way we expect we become disappointed; frustrated…..and we are judging something to be good or bad. This disappointment easily turns to anger … But what if we had no expectations — then actions would be neither good nor bad, just actions. We could accept them without frustration, anger, sadness. When people disappoint us, it’s not their fault. They’re just being who they are.Our expectations are at fault.

Judgement means that we don’t seek to understand, it means we’ve already come to a conclusion and often based on our perception and assumptions. If we stop judging, we can take a more intelligent course of action, because we’re better informed by our understanding. We can choose non-judgment, we can live in the moment, accepting the experience as neither good nor bad, but simply what is. This is living lightly.

So how do we live lightly?

We begin by observing and becoming more aware of our thoughts and feelings. Notice any judgments coming up, notice when we have any expectations. Over time we might find ourselves paying witness to this more and more and we will become conscious of these thoughts. Pause each time you notice a judgment or expectation. Take a breath. Then tell yourself to STOP doing this. Remember: “No expectations, no good or bad.” Repeat this, and let go of the judgment or expectation.

Next be open to seeing things as they are. Remain in an awareness state of an observer as you try understand, become curious as to why things are as they are, investigate your inner thinking. See the landscape of this experience as it actually is, without the filter of judgments or expectations. Experience it, in the moment. Take right action appropriately, without overreacting because it isn’t as we hoped or wanted. We can’t control life, or others, but we can control how you react. Accept people for who they are. Accept yourself, without judgment, as you are. This takes practice.

Let go of the mind stuff….. We cannot grasp the emotions of sadness, anger, worry, stress, disappointment and other things of the mind…..this too is in constant flux and change. These emotions will also dissolve back into the formless. Have the will to transform any negative thoughts that cause such emotions into ones that serve us. Move the states of the mind to the heart and live and breath from the space of love and light.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle viewed laughter as “a bodily exercise precious to health.”

The something special about laughter is that we can take ourselves less seriously and this process causes us to lighten up. When we laugh we can feel our body open up allowing the life force energy to move through the body. If we want more happiness, joy and peace, and if we want to Live Lightly, then make sure that you have laughter and humor in your life.

All of life is transient and ever changing; it is better to enjoy the wonders and miracles surrounding us and not take life and self too seriously. May we all live life lightly and in perfect grace with an absolute knowing all is as it is and all is always perfect for our evolution to higher states of being human. …..Love and light, Christina

Effort and Acceptance

Effort and Acceptance

A big part of the spiritual path is the continuance to evolve to a greater sense of awareness; to continue to grow ourselves, to hold a loving space for others and for society as a whole as we evolve together as One.

Sometimes if we become absorbed in such efforts we might naturally also become attached to our specific ideas of success and when we do not or until we do achieve what we consider our success, we might feel some frustration often resulting in rejecting ourselves, others and society because we might feel inferior because we have not yet succeeded or we feel whatever we are doing is not making a difference. Becoming attached to any result inner or outer, for ourselves or others is a major source of anxiety, tension and conflict within ourselves and with others. While we do need to make an effort, we also need to learn to accept ourselves and others at each stage of this effort exactly as we are and also to accept our life situation as it is until we are able to change it.

Sometimes we may feel we have stopped growing, we’re not interested in improving our self and thus may become complacent about how life, society or how the world is showing up from our perspective. There is a tendency towards isolation and to shut out the outer and inner worlds preferring to remain living the way we always have been even if this is unpleasant and painful. Some people prefer a world that has become familiar rather than subject themselves to change and embrace the unknown even though the unknown may hold the promise of greater happiness, peace and love.

Perhaps it’s time to realize, move towards making more of an effort towards transformation and accept that the Divine design of evolution will not allow us to simply rest. We can ignore it for periods of time, but sooner or later the life events and situations happening around us will force us to awaken and we will accept change and transformation and we will emerge like a butterfly from its cocoon. Change and evolution is the stuff our entire Universe is made of. Remembering that we are holographic images of everything in our Universe then it is easy to conclude that it is our individual and collective destiny to change, evolve, grow and improve ourselves and the world around us until we become perfectly harmonious, beautiful and powerful beings and one with all that is.

May we manifest our higher potential on all levels; understanding and loving ourselves, others, and all life and may we truly fulfil our destiny as co-creators of the Divine process of evolution. 
 ….. Love and Light, Christina

Cultivating Compassion and Wise Leadership in a World of Suffering

Cultivating Compassion and Wise Leadership in a World of Suffering

Because of recorded historical events of our human experiences I feel we have an opportunity that we have never had before in human history. Never has any species known ahead of time that it might self-destruct and that fact gives us power, motivation, purpose and options to do something about it. The crisis we see around us in our world today I feel is a pushback to shifting from a reactive response to proactive choices….perhaps even the driver to awaken us to our higher human potential and take right action.

“Compassion is not religious business; it is human business. It is not a luxury, it is essential for our own inner peace and mental stability. It is essential for human survival” …. Dalai Lama

To become conscious of the evolution taking place right now means we need to penetrate a new world view; the essence of who we are and the aspects of our actions will determine who we will become as a collective humanity.

We need extraordinary leadership to guide us into the next evolutionary leap into higher potentiality for rebirthing a new universal humanity. We need compassion and wisdom based leadership. I also feel that each and every one of us can be an extraordinary leader and we need to set aside the fear and take on more responsibility for leadership roles in our lives. Being an extraordinary leader means living our lives with compassion; developing a tolerance for the inconceivable situations and experiences that are at hand in our personal experiences; our families; in our communities; in our corporations; our countries and we need to expand this leadership into our world. And sometimes this will require of us the willingness to feel insecure with some of these experiences. We will get triggered, giving us access to deeper patterns within us AND we will also receive the gift of our experiences, which is the ability to see the deeper patterns of creation itself leading us to live from compassion and the wisdom of what is means to live from the heart.

Many of us are processing our days at the speed of light…meaning most of our days mean spending hours on electronics….this has become our way of connectivity in our work and pleasure. When we disappear behind our electronics it can also become a compassion shut down for many. We need to connect in real time with others. When we live from the heart it has a lover’s quality to life and leadership. While compassion might not feel comfortable to many, it must become for norm for great leadership.

So what is compassion? I feel it is attending to the wellbeing of others suffering. Compassion is not empathy. Empathy is more like cognitive resonance; being able to sense the experience of another. Empathy is but a component of compassion. Compassion is actually experiencing genuine concern and desire to benefit the other. What transforms compassion is attentive balance; our ability to attend to the wellbeing of others and feeling concern from the heart space. It is to feel what the other is feeling, seeing through the eyes of the other and sensing what might be useful to transform their suffering.

A model of compassion is intentional and affective; it is remaining balanced and grounded having digested any fear so that one can really be in a state of caring for others; having the compassion to be genuinely concerned without being incapacitated. Some questions we might ask ourselves are: Is our intention important for us? Is it morally and ethically based? Is our motivation and ability to discern the suffering of others….knowing that suffering is impermanent and has nothing to do with “right or wrong”... the other is simply suffering. Do we have the insight to see deeply into the nature of the suffering…into its root cause? Is embodiment important? Is there something one has to do about the suffering?

These questions and issues are directly related to the qualities of great leadership. The way we answer them is essential to how we move and act in our world. I feel they are essential to viable leadership across the board on all the levels I spoke to above. Can there be viable leadership without compassion and the key elements that promote compassion? Can there be compassion based leadership without willingness to engage; to hold attention and effective balance to process with intention and insight and embodiment and engagement?

The answer is NO. Compassion is composed of non-compassionate processes essential for viable leadership. We need a motivation that is basically unselfish and to be able to see something objectively, simply as it is and to hold this view with wisdom. We cannot have this principal leadership without wisdom because compassion and wisdom are two sides of the same coin. Wisdom is our capacity to rise above self-interest; to engage in higher levels of decision making involving trust, altruism, reciprocity and context sensitivity. It is to be emotionally balanced and to have self-knowledge and understanding at deeper levels. It means to value unity in diversity and deeply feel effectively with ambiguity.

These are essential attributes for great leadership; the kind of leadership that is inspiring us to become more; to be open to new experiences and gifts us with the ability to act in the face of uncertainty in all of our experiences. There is a huge awakening happening now and I believe we are all being called to become great leaders; this feeling is within us urging us to be more, to know more, to reach out and touch others, to lead within our families, our communities, our countries and our world, to activate our genius and to find and live our life purpose.

May each of us deliberately cultivate the capacity for inner knowing, may we activate the extraordinary leader within, expand our spiritual growth, our social potential. May our process of inner discovery keep pressing us deeper inward and outward to express our creativity towards making a difference, bringing greater freedom, and to effect change in our world. We are beings in a process of evolution on the threshold of co-creating a new world as we learn to attune to the deeper patterns of creation. And may we live from our hearts with compassion and wisdom.
…Love and light, Christina

Let Love Lead the Way

Love is who we are at the core of our being. We are an integral part of creation, woven into the very fabric of the universe. We are hardwired to know how to love one another all we need do is tap into our nature of being human at a deeper level. Whereas the brain is responsible for giving love its physical expression, love comes from the soul. The question is “Why this higher love seems to be so elusive to so many?” Although we can journey outside our self, the person to give our love to in truth is the one we are with every minute of the day, our self. The most rewarding way to find love is to go within, to live and experience the very source of love. This source of love does not fluctuate up and down, it is not dependent on our fickle minds thoughts and believes, or how others choose to see us, nor does it depend on the lovable and unlovable traits we think we see in others and our self.

If we measure others or our self by what is lovable and unlovable, we are creating the setup or foundation for non-love. For example we might label the unlovable other as odd, an outsider, bad or an enemy….we might even label our self in this manner, and when we do, we create inner conflict which leads to unhappiness for others and for self. This practice of non-love, comes from that critical voice inside that whispers in our ears….the strange thing is that when we reality test what the voice is saying it does not ring true for us at a deeper level. The love that we inherently are balks at such beliefs, and if we can listen to our heart instead of the mind this becomes very clear.

Belief in a higher love is a spiritual kind of belief. It holds that love exists as a universal quality, outside ourselves, that can never be defeated, thus love and non-love are not equals. Love is permanent; non-love is temporary and is fixed on something external to our being. Perhaps we need to restore love as the key to happiness...a difficult task….perhaps this is why we need a spiritual path, so that we can walk away from non-love and its confusions, leading humanity to a new life where everyone, most especially our self, is worthy of loving and being loved.

When we consider that the world is our community and all humanity is like family and is one in unity; then the context of Universal love means that we leave no one out of this equation. Perhaps this is the bigger aspect of love, when people come together and the world is a better place because of the love they share and generate. Perhaps as we unite with others, building the energy of unconditional love, the outcome will be a shared vision and spiritual path all at once.

This higher Love has a power of its own that cuts through doubt, suspicion, distrust and even hatred; if it didn’t have this power there would be too many reasons to act from non-love. This higher power of love found on the spiritual path dissolves non-love and it takes work and practice to live this higher state of love. During this important time in our world , more than ever, it's all important to revisit the spiritual side of love. The journey may not be easy, but it’s possibly the most rewarding experience we will ever have; and the path? Well, we only need to follow our heart. …..Love and light, Christina