Several years ago my friend and I were trying out a new counseling device I had purchased. The device was a sensor you attach to your finger and connect to a computer to measure your heart rate. The goal was to practice methods of decreasing your heart rate to find the most effective ways for you to reduce levels of anxiety or promote feelings of calm. My friend and I were both right in the middle of very stressful periods of our lives, and try as we may, we could not lower our heart rate. Her husband tried the sensor, and within seconds his heart rate lowered. We were in awe of him and wanted to smack him at the same time. My friend was an active yogi. I was a regular meditator and not
I prepared a blog post for today. I was going to wake up this morning, tweak it a bit, and send it out. Instead I woke up with heavy thoughts swirling around in my mind that would not let me go. Much has happened in our world since my last post; the attack in Paris, people upset that attacks in other places were ignored, opinions and debates over Syrian refugees. Maybe our world really hasn’t changed that much in a week, but certainly our awareness of it has. But this is a spiritual blog and not a political blog, so what does my voice have to offer these events? The last thing I want to do is say anything that will pull us farther apart than we already are. Divisiveness is exactly the o
This weekend while I was walking, I saw a man in a wheelchair being pushed in my direction. It was clear his disability went beyond the inability to walk, as he seemed unable to talk or fully control his motor skills either. As he moved closer, I did something a few years ago I wouldn’t have thought to do. I intentionally looked in his eyes and said hello. I know, that doesn’t sound like a big deal. Many of you probably do that all the time, but in the past I would have thought I shouldn’t stare or that he may not understand me anyway, so I would have passed him with a vague glance and a smile. This changed for me the summer before last when my mom and I took my dad to a hospital in Pitt
I have been making a lot of stupid mistakes lately. A lot. None of them are life-changing or earth-shattering, just absent minded kinds of mistakes. After much practice listening to my inner Divine voice, sometimes my “world voice”, as I call it, still comes out. This voice, which some call the inner critic, is louder, so it’s easier to hear at times, and it likes to remind me how I am failing. “What is wrong with you?!?” it asked me after the fourteenth mistake, “You are a mess! How are you going to run a business like this?!?” This voice dominated for a few days, until I got quiet. Only then could my inner Divine voice, who is much gentler, be heard. My quieter voice had a compassion
