About 4 years ago I saw the above music video made for Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, also a spoken word artist, poet and marathon runner. The video and poem blew me away and I knew I would never be able to get it out of my head. Which is funny, because it is all about being in your head. I love this video because it incorporates something very relatable to me. Some of my attachment in this life has to do with electronic music, and combining music with imagery and profound words really gets my heart going. I feel joy, joy, joy! What can I say?
I love this poem by Rinpoche because it expresses the passion I have in my heart to explore perception also in a relatable way. In the end of the video he says:
When you’re happy, I’m happy.
That’s the formula.
First you, then me.
That’s all happiness is…
It’s just the heart being free.
The ignorant mind’s primary sense of being comes from the idea that it’s just “me”. It strives to prove every day that we are separate from one another through habitual thinking. But when you decide to train your mind to think outside of itself, and see that everyone’s experience around us is our experience then happiness becomes abundant. When we see happiness in others, it grows within us. Envision a garden that thrives in the joy of others- that is our heart.
I remember coming home one night from a dinner stopping at an intersection with a homeless man holding a sign in need of assistance. It was probably 30 degrees outside and 8:30 pm. I had nothing but a $20 bill, so I decided to just give it to him. All I could do was cry with joy on my way home because he felt so happy. Doing things for others changes our self-perception from being all about me, to being all about us. This is the development of purposeful perception, and another opportunity to love from the heart.
Please share this video with others if you feel inspired by it too.
Does your mind ever feel like this? Picture by Katie Lee found on VisualizeUS
A long time ago during my partying days, a group of my friends and I loved to rock out to the electronica song “Where’s you’re head at?” by Basement Jaxx. I remember dancing on the rooftop of my friends’ enormous shared house on California Street in Washington DC during the summer when the low air quality fog hung over the city as the sun would try to peak through making it more amplified- and soon, you could always count on that song. Why am I rambling about this song? Because I realize how this song has revisited me in a new era of my life, where I am always reflecting on just that- where is my head at?
It is a perfect question at a perfect time where half of what I am reflecting on is perception and mind. In breaking down perception, the basis for my upcoming book, reflecting on your state of mind and how you are about to react to something is a valuable tool for living a life that is authentic and uncompromising. What I do realize is that most of the time we are completely unaware of where our head is at- tethered like a balloon full of helium just bobbing along and carried off by any slight wind.
Just recently I orchestrated a large event and made a mistake that really upset someone. When the victim of my own confused and overwhelmed mind confronted me about it, she expressed with great emotion her unhappiness. I felt terrible and could not get the moment out of my mind. I had a running tape of it secured tightly, rolling over and over again. I relived my own feelings of shame and guilt without end.
When I went to bed that night, I had to acknowledge a few things in order to let it go.
1- Forgiveness of Self- I made a mistake, but running a tape of the incident over and over again in my head was completely unproductive and would give me nothing but more negative “feelings.”
2- Acceptance & Boundaries- I said I was sorry, over and over again, but she chose to still be extremely upset. It is her choice alone. There is nothing I could do to change how she felt. This is a good boundary- that everyone is responsible for their own choices, and that includes in how they react. My only role would be acceptance, and staying in my integrity.
3- Release & Heal- In accepting and creating a good boundary, the one thing I did have the power to do was envision this other person engaged in feelings of love and happiness. I bathed the situation in love, and let it go. Even in our boundary setting, which is primarily a function of the ego-driven mind, I can also recognize that we are inherently connected in spirit, and sending love and envisioning the situation transformed, it will help heal no matter what my mind tells me.
I acknowledge I still feel a little shame. And I shall need to work on that, continuing with the above process. But most importantly, I also have the opportunity to practice the new perception in my life that is at the core of my past experiences with situations like this one-
I AM LOVABLE.
Even though I made a mistake as we all do, or else what is the purpose of this life, I am not unlovable, as I might have acted out in the past. But due to awareness, and processing my old perception of self, I can now come out of situations like that empowered with the knowledge of exactly where my head is at. Time to groove on!
Me and my grandmother, Gertrude Grzybowski, right before I moved to New Mexico.
When I noticed the Weekly Writing Challenge this morning, I was grateful, because when I thought of all the people I would like to write about at this time, it was my Grandmother. Gertrude Grzybowski, daughter of Dziadek and Babcia Perkowski- I don’t really know their first names- just grandma and grandpa in Polish. They were potato farmers from Poland with a farm on Long Island, New York. They had a legendary flower pot on their front lawn made from an old toilet- a piece of cultural history.
My Grandmother has been very sick, in her late 80s living at a nursing home and trying to find ways to enjoy the last moments of her life, as she felt sad and lost trying to adjust to a strange place she was forced to call home due to her ailing health. One of her last enjoyable activities was buying necklaces made by other ladies in the nursing home and wearing them all at one time. It wasn’t NY high-fashion and it drove my aunt crazy, but it made her happy. As I pondered about how I would write about her quirky character that she played in this life, I received a phone call this afternoon that I had been waiting for without any knowledge of when it would come exactly.
In my heart, I wanted her to be free of this body that was weighing her spirit down, and causing her the inability to live as independently as she has enjoyed for so many years. My only living grandparent, Gertie, died this afternoon peacefully after suffering a stroke almost a week ago. As people’s bodies start to break down, you find yourself as an outsider trusting the natural process of passing from one reality to another, but it is hard to stay in the present moment with them at times because you are constantly wondering- will this be the day? I feel in her own mind, she was wondering the same thing.
You never knew what was about to come out of Gertie’s mouth. She might shout the funniest thing, like her phrase that came to be her own, “That guy’s a bumb!” Or she might just talk about how tired she was, and how she felt really alone, as all of her friends passed away with each year. Life seemed more and more like a foreign country to her with each passing moment. She was not always the nicest person, but I always thought of her as this funny character in a film, navigating through this life as if it were one thing after another. She loved Poland, and as a kid we always gathered our outgrown clothes for my Grandmother to send to our family there that had nothing because of the “communists.” We were told, “They didn’t even have real ice cream.” “Their” ice cream was more like half frozen sweet milk, barely recognizable by us spoiled Americans.
She prayed her rosaries every morning over her stacks of prayer cards, and every Friday she cleaned the altar and pews at St. Hedwigs Catholic Church. I remember going to the masses growing up when visiting New York where the legendary priest would talk so quickly that it was like listening to someone pretend they were saying a mass and forgot the words. Even though I didn’t understand anything because he was saying it so quickly, and with a New York accent, I was more than happy to spend 15 minutes less in a mass on a Saturday night. Her collection of ceramic nuns in her living room and plates of the Polish Pope John Paul hanging on her walls would dance to the sound of her attempt to whistle while she swept the floors every morning in her house coat.
My Grandmother didn’t make it easy for anyone as they grew up in her house. I was fortunate to be a granddaughter in her life that was told on her 16th birthday, “sweet sixteen, and never been kissed” with a giggle following her attempt to tease me. She grew up in a time that lacked emotional education, a time where there was war and great financial uncertainty, and even though there were dark times in the house where she brought up 6 kids, there was a certain light around her that I enjoyed, and I will be grateful for every day. During her last lucid days in the hospital my mother said she overheard a conversation with a male orderly who struck up a conversation with her. He asked her about being a nurse, as she was, and how many kids she had in this life. She said 8, which was correct- 6 living and 2 stillborns. You never know what experiences people have had in this life. Underneath the surface, there is always something lingering in someone that may be causing them pain and cause their personality to become distorted. But the one thing we can always be sure of, as I was with my grandmother, our Gertie, is that inside their heart there is a place that just wants to be loved.
And so, as I come together with those that knew Gertie in many different ways- from sister, to aunt, to mother and grandmother- I shall remember that all you wanted was to be loved, and I shall send you that love with the hope that you are joyful in your freedom from the human body and in a place of peace in your heart. Thank you for saying “I love you, Jess,” and reminding me that life does go fast, and every now and then we just need to remember that we are all human and subject to the foibles of our mind- but it is not our true nature. I am grateful for all I have in my life, including you, and will remember to try and see beyond personalities into the human desire to be loved when we do not know how to love ourselves.
In one of our last conversations you said to me, “We used to have fun, right Jess?” Yes Grandma, we did have fun.
There is nothing permanent except change. Herodotus
Change. A scary, dramatic word for many. For nature, change is constant. For human beings, change is also constant. But for the mind- the experience of change is much like death, at least in the beginning. For the mind, a thought or a belief system generally emulates concrete. But then again, even concrete changes! It is the nature of the mind to hold onto belief systems like they are living, breathing beings that determine who we are and how the world “should” be
Change- It Never Ends.
When I was in college studying historic preservation, I had to focus a lot of my time on the conservation of old structures. And to conserve, you had to know a building’s past, present and future. We actually had to create architecturally accurate drawings- only through a reverse process of intricately measuring every aspect of a building in its current state of life. One of the things I distinctly remember is the debate of glass being a solid or a slowly moving liquid. When you look at a glass window from the 1800s, it looks like old glass- wavy, hard to see through clearly- but still. It almost looked like it was not consistent in thickness from the top to the bottom. Apparently that has to do with the way the glass was actually made, and not necessarily with its molecular structure- but nonetheless, even though some say it is a myth, there are still scientists out there doing studies to prove if glass is a slow moving liquid or a solid.
Nonetheless- the fact that the argument is out there at all is just symptomatic of subtle change that exists on a molecular level every second around us. Change is constant, even though we can’t see it with our naked eye. The same goes for relationships, and our own mental perception of the world. In my world, our outer reality is reflective of our inner reality. How we perceive ourselves is projected around us like a film in each person we interact with in a multitude of ways.
Change never stops, one minute we are born and with every day thereafter, our body is different. The thing is, change naturally flows in a step by step process. A butterfly does not become a butterfly in one leap. It starts with the laying of an egg, then the birth of the caterpillar, then the pupa or chrysalis, and finally- the beautiful butterfly, which may life only 1-2 weeks. If we are going to make a major change in our life, and we have the opportunity to take it in steps, I feel that the mind generally copes better with change in a step by step process.
But let’s be real! Some change simply does not unfold like a gracious symphony. The death of a loved one, the loss of a job- that is the change we cannot control. But if we are choosing a major life change- choose the healthiest options for yourself and remember your motivation with each step. This will create an outcome that will always serve your highest good- trust in this outcome is integral or else, you may just lose your mind. But then again- would that be a bad thing?
I would love to know- how have you coped with a much needed, major life change- and was it easier to do it in one swoop, or vice versa?
Loving February’s Bloggers for Peace writing challenge so much, I am am starting in January (I know, it’s the last day of the month anyhoo!). Thich Nhat Hanh states, Peace in oneself, Peace in the world.
What inspires peace for people?
What gives people the desire to work for peace?
I have seen so many people downtrodden by the daunting task of even thinking about peace in our world. Their sadness from seeing the suffering on our planet instills compassion, and then to me- a natural desire inherently occurs- the desire to create peace within our own heart. As a teacher of how perception affects our reality and the world around us, I truly believe that peace begins within ourselves and it illuminates each person we touch with kindness and a greater compassion for others.
Peace is not a futile effort.
Seeing the joy and love within the images placed in my “Peace, Why Not?” billboard inspires me to sit with my own heart space and reflect on my motivation and how I connect with the world around me. This contemplation, if instilled within all of us each day, would continue to grow and light a flame within each person we interact with like candles on a birthday cake. Our personal work does have an effect on the world, and we must continue to do this work if we wish to change the world.
Mantra: I am a holy vessel of light being used for the greater good of all sentient beings.
This is a sacred mantra for me, and my motivation every day. See how it works for you, modify it to work for you, encourage yourself to engage in self love and acceptance so your inner peace will light the way for others.
As a life coach and someone who helps people learn how to give themselves pats on the back for making headway in personal work, I was delighted to see the daily writing prompt today. On the other hand, I am one of those typical ironic people that also feels like I am being inappropriate for maybe “tooting my own horn.” I recall a moment in my own personal history where a great uncle figure in my family was bathing me in complements while visiting my childhood home in Virginia. It was during a time in my life where I was just developing as a girl and felt extremely insecure about being pretty enough or accepted into social groups at school. As I was basking in the light of these complements my uncle’s wife said to him that she felt like he had said enough and that I didn’t look that pretty.
Talk about a plane taking a nose dive? Crash and burn.
It is funny to me now on one level. I can watch the scene like an outsider and laugh at it like a film pointing out the hilarity of the obvious situation my ego was engaged in. I have found in life that giving complements to others in a way does toot my own horn. It gives cause to feeling the inherent love that exists in my heart because I am recognizing it in others. I feel grateful because I can step back and say- this person is so kind, how can I bring more kindness into my life and interaction with others. I recommend to everyone out there that when you see light in another person, reflect back and know that you could not see that beauty unless you had first recognized it in yourself. It is the magic trick of life- that mirror reflecting back to you your truth over and over again.
When I lived in DC, there was this guy that would hang out at the top of Dupont Circle and give praise to people as they strolled by. It was his way of earning a living. He called himself the “Complement Man”. Even though it sounds funny- everyone loved him. He made a conscious decision that if he was going to ask people for money to help him in life, he was going to do something for it- so why not divvy out relevant complements to people? I say “three cheers!” to that. How can you also complement yourself today? How can you be the “Complement Man” (or woman) in your own life or someone else”s life?
Born to Be 