August 31 Daily Meditation Writing: Perceptive

You are reading the ongoing writing process for a new book of daily reflections/meditations. Already published by this author is “Cast A Long Shadow”, 90 daily reading for our journey through life. This book is now available as a Kindle e-book, (you don’t need to have a Kindle to download and read it on your computer) as well as still being available direct from the publisher, on Amazon.com,  Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon European sites

Perceptive

Can you think of someone who you feel is really perceptive?

I know that I’ve met such people – they seem to know instinctively what I am thinking, and what other people will do, leaving me sometimes wondering how they get to have such insights into people.

There are some people who are particularly gifted in this regard, and if we ever get the courage to ask the person how they often just shrug it off as being just what they see.

And therein lies the answer – because we can all become perceptive when we notice things that others disregard.

How does a mother know instantly when her child is in trouble?

It is not necessarily some inner sense that others do not have – it’s that they really notice all that is going on with their child, and use all their senses and thoughts to do so.

What you or I might observe with our eyes, and then move on to another topic, she will instinctively see the action for something important, and store it away for later use.

It can be the same with some deep friends and with our life partners – we can know them so well from years of contact, that we notice something different at a very deep level.

We can seem to be very perceptive to our friend or partner, but really what we are doing is paying attention.

And really, the greatest compliment we can give someone is to pay them attention.

When we do so, we get to see the real person behind the public persona; to see inside the mask that we all put up in our daily lives.

It is then that we really get to know people, and allow them to get to know us on a deeper level.

What may seem to be a keenness of insight may really be more about getting outside of our own universe, and really observing other people as themselves, not merely as an extension of our own ego.

Maybe we are all capable of great perception.

 

August 30 Daily Meditation Writing: Pain

You are reading the ongoing writing process for a new book of daily reflections/meditations. Already published by this author is “Cast A Long Shadow”, 90 daily reading for our journey through life. This book is now available as a Kindle e-book, (you don’t need to have a Kindle to download and read it on your computer) as well as still being available direct from the publisher, on Amazon.com,  Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon European sites

Pain

Pain comes in many forms – some we can see in others, and some we only know about from experience.

When we see someone wince as they stand up, or groan as they life a package, we can relate to that pain as we, ourselves have also felt that pain in similar circumstances.

When we heart about someone with a disease or injury, even if we have not suffered from that ailment we can probably still relate the pain to something in our own lives – we know similar pain, even if we have not felt that exact same problem.

And for the pain that we cannot “see” – the emotional or spiritual pain that is not normally manifest on our body – what of that type of pain.

We can often relate to that as well, if we are aware of it, but the issue can be if we are not aware.

Often, when we have a pain that is not physical, we seek to hide it away from the gaze of others.

We may be hurt by the words of others, but we keep the pain hidden under a smile and a careless word.

There is a time and a lace to show our pain – where an enemy has hurt us, showing our vulnerability can lead us open to more hurt.

But in most situations, there is nothing to lose, and much to gain by showing our pain.

Because – strange as it may seem – we are not unique in our pain.

It is true that we are the only ones who feel the pain, but there are very few instances where others cannot relate to our feelings.

Pain is often a seemingly necessary part of growth – each time we move to a new level of understanding, we leave something behind, and that loss if often painful.

Each time we open up to another human being we welcome in the natural humanity and warmth of companionship – but also open ourselves to the possibility of pain.

We may be tempted to avoid the possibility of pain by keeping away from all possible situations which could hurt us – but if we do, we also cut ourselves off from the possibility of joy.

Pain seems to be part of the process of living, and so it is to be accepted at least – if not welcomed – along with all the rest of the process.

August 29 Daily Meditation Writing: Failure

You are reading the ongoing writing process for a new book of daily reflections/meditations. Already published by this author is “Cast A Long Shadow”, 90 daily reading for our journey through life. This book is now available as a Kindle e-book, (you don’t need to have a Kindle to download and read it on your computer) as well as still being available direct from the publisher, on Amazon.com,  Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon European sites

Failure

I think we all like to look upon ourselves as successful – there are very few of us that like admitting we have failed.

And yet failure is an almost inevitable part of our lives as growing human beings.

I say “almost” – there is a way to ensure that we never fail, and that is never to try, but that way leads only to more discouragement and embitterment.

For most of us though, we will often try new things, or to do old things in a new way, and it is from these experiences that we learn.

It is hardly possible, however, that all our efforts will succeed, and sometimes failures come along so regularly that we can start to think of ourselves as failures.

The truth, however, is that we are never failures just because we fail – if we have failed it means that we tried, and trying is the best we can do.

If we do feel like failures, we are less likely to carry on and try again, and in not trying we really do become failures – failures to be all that we should be.

Because it is in trying that we l;earn what works, and – just as importantly – what does not work.

We learn as much from our failure as we do from our success – indeed, if we do not learn from our failures, we are bound to repeat them.

And it is important to remember that this is a process – a journey – as we learn one new lesson, there are any number of new lessons springing up ready to be learned.

Failure can hurt – we put so much effort into this thing, that to fail makes us hurt inside.

It can be easy to think that this failure means that we will never succeed, that we can never really reach our goal.

But the history of life shows us that it takes all the lessons, and all the failures, to finally reach a successful conclusion.

And more than that, each conclusion can lead to a new part of our journey, and new opportunities to try.

Failure is a common experience – it is what we do having failed that defines us.

August 26 Daily Meditation Writing: Weakness

You are reading the ongoing writing process for a new book of daily reflections/meditations. Already published by this author is “Cast A Long Shadow”, 90 daily reading for our journey through life. This book is now available as a Kindle e-book, (you don’t need to have a Kindle to download and read it on your computer) as well as still being available direct from the publisher, on Amazon.com,  Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon European sites

Weakness

We have all been taught that we must always appear strong, and so, over time, we become to think that this is the only way to be.

Even if we are terrified of the way our life is going, we strive to maintain our outward display of strength, because to admit our weakness seems too difficult to do.

There is a great deal that is good in this, because sometimes we need to just carry on, regardless of how we feel about a situation.

Often we find that when we battle on against our weakness, we win through anyway – and even if not, at least the effort in itself was worthwhile.

However, sometimes to be able to carry on, we need to acknowledge our weakness, if only our closest confidant – or maybe just to ourselves.

Because to pretend strength when we are weak is to fool ourselves about the real situation.

Sometimes we are weaker than the situation, sometimes we really cannot do it alone from our own willpower.

It is at times like these that pretending to ourselves that we do have the power to continue will only lead to pain and heartache.

And this is not just about physical strength; somethings – indeed often – it will be about our spiritual or emotional weakness.

When a loved one has gone from our lives we can feel that we have no strength to carry on, and if we do not admit that weakness, it will build up inside us until we completely disintegrate.

When we face a fear, we can try to battle through it, but often that will only result in us being defeated by our own emotions: acknowledging that we are weak, and that along we cannot do this can give us the courage to carry on anyway.

It may seem that admitting our weaknesses is the way of the coward, but rather it takes real courage to admit that we are weak, and in need of help.

That help may be practical, but more often in our lives it is the moral support of friends and family, or the spiritual support form a power greater than us.

When we pretend we are strong, we can snap in the gale, but if we admit our weakness and bend with the wind, we can outlive the storm.

We are all taught that we need to be strong, but sometimes our greatest strength comes from accepting our weakness.

August 25 Daily Meditation Writing: Messages

You are reading the ongoing writing process for a new book of daily reflections/meditations. Already published by this author is “Cast A Long Shadow”, 90 daily reading for our journey through life. This book is now available as a Kindle e-book, (you don’t need to have a Kindle to download and read it on your computer) as well as still being available direct from the publisher, on Amazon.com,  Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon European sites

Messages

Sometimes it seems that the messages we receive are totally different from the messages that are sent out.

How many times have we said something, only to find that our message has been misinterpreted?

Sometimes it seems that whatever we say, someone, somewhere will – seemingly on purpose – misunderstand the message we are trying to convey.

I might try to gently tell someone the quotations they are using is wrong, and be accused of acting like God and wanting everyone to do things my way.

Or I may ask a question because I am unsure of the answer, but the message someone else gets is that I mistrust and disbelieve them.

From hearing the experiences of other people, I know that I am not unique in this regard – many of us have the same experiences over and over again.

How is it that our messages can be so mistaken from what we meant?

And, looking at the other side of the coin, how is it we so often misunderstand the messages of other people?

The answer lies in the uniqueness of each of us and of our experiences and outlooks.

Whilst one person may have the experience of open questioning to be a positive thing, another may have only experienced it in a totally negative and destructive way.

Their experience of question asking may be that they were always used when the speaker knew the answer, and were merely trying to trip them up.

Thus the same piece of conversation may sound totally different from the perspective of the two people involved.

What is to be done?

Since we are unable to change other people, the only solution is to try to look at each message not from our own perspective, but of the other person.

From what I know of this person, is it likely that they are deliberately trying to trick me?

Given my previous experience, is their reaction to what I said a real disagreement, or have they received a different message than the one I intended?

In the end, we can only be responsible for our own messages – and we should ensure we know that we are doing the best we can, where we are.

August 24 Daily Meditation Writing: Atmosphere

You are reading the ongoing writing process for a new book of daily reflections/meditations. Already published by this author is “Cast A Long Shadow”, 90 daily reading for our journey through life. This book is now available as a Kindle e-book, (you don’t need to have a Kindle to download and read it on your computer) as well as still being available direct from the publisher, on Amazon.com,  Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon European sites

Atmosphere

There are sometimes things that we can somehow sense, without being aware of just how – and one of them is the atmosphere of a place or a building.

Sometimes we can go into a space and know something about it inside of us, apparently without knowing anything about it.

Some of this feeling of atmosphere comes, I am sure, from deep cultural instincts.

When we walk into a room and everyone stops talking, we may say that there was a bad atmosphere, but actually, we are just attuned to how other people react, and are responding accordingly.

Equally, if I walk into a room and people smile and greet me, it is not necessarily an intangible “atmosphere” that I am picking up on, so much as the body language cues of those around me.

So when, for example, we walk into a church or temple, we will bring with us our own conceptions of what such a building should feel like.

We may expect it to be calm and contemplative, and so that is what we go in looking for.

Or we may think that all religious feeling is misguided at best, and so enter the building expecting to find mambo-jumbo rhetoric and hostile people, and be extra guarded against the people there.

But that does not explain all of the feeling of atmospherics that we feel.

For example, I have my own set of conceptions of what a church “should” feel like.

But I have been in churches that have felt like they were just buildings, others that felt more like a market – but also others that filled me with a sense of awe and reverence.

I could probably find rationalizations for the different feelings – maybe one spelled of candles which brought back a childhood memory, or another was noisy and brash, and it seemed to be about money.

But these are trivial cues – there is still an “other0ness” about some places that seems not at all connected with their physical presence.

After all the logic has been used up, it sometimes just comes down to being something in the atmosphere.

August 23 Daily Meditation Writing: Easy

You are reading the ongoing writing process for a new book of daily reflections/meditations. Already published by this author is “Cast A Long Shadow”, 90 daily reading for our journey through life. This book is now available as a Kindle e-book, (you don’t need to have a Kindle to download and read it on your computer) as well as still being available direct from the publisher, on Amazon.com,  Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon European sites

Easy

So many things seem to hard in our daily lives.

It may be that we have a new job to do, or a new task to undertake; it may just be that even getting up in the morning seems too hard.

But sometimes, those very things we thought seemed hardest, are really easy to accomplish.

The truth is that everything is easy if we know what we are doing, and are motivated to do it. – both of those conditions are necessary.

When we start something new – be it a new task, or doing a familiar thing in a new way – at first we do not understand exactly what we are to do, and it takes time to be familiar with what we have to do.

But slowly over time the unfamiliar becomes ordinary, and we learn how what to do and how to do it.

At that stage, we may think that it is now easy to accomplish the task at hand, but sometimes it is not.

Even though we know the how-to – we don’t have any desire to do it.

Our lack of willingness means that even though we know what to do, we are finding it hard to do it.

We want the outcome, but are unwilling to go through the pain of doing the actions necessary for it to be accomplished.

This is a frustrating stage to be at – somewhere between unknowing and willingness – and sometimes we have to just roll up our sleeves and get on with it.

Because what is easy and what is hard are both relative concepts.

If I am willing to learn a new task, then I can accomplish it with comparative ease – but if I learn something without the willingness to accomplish it, than it will never seem easy.

So it is with many things – the ease comes with repetition, but repetition takes the willingness to do it even when we don’t want to.

Everything is easy once our knowledge of what to do is matched with our willingness to do it.

August 18 Daily Meditation Writing: Rest

You are reading the ongoing writing process for a new book of daily reflections/meditations. Already published by this author is “Cast A Long Shadow”, 90 daily reading for our journey through life. This book is now available as a Kindle e-book, (you don’t need to have a Kindle to download and read it on your computer) as well as still being available direct from the publisher, on Amazon.com,  Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon European sites

Rest

It is a sign of weakness to need to rest?

There is much in our society that seems to point in that direction – in many work places we are exalted to give 110%, and whilst we may smile at the logical impossibility of doing so, the ethos it promotes is an interesting one.

I once worked in an office where a group of people were exalted for the amount of time they spent working.

It was the “macho” thing to do to be at one’s desk from early morning until late in the evening, and the people themselves only extended that ethos by saying how many hours they put in.

And yet, were they really being productive all those hours, or was it just expected of them and they worked them to keep in with the team spirit?

Rest is important for our bodies – our minds become cluttered and do not function well if we do not get enough sleep, for example.

And every training regime for athletes include some time to rest, to allow the body to recuperate.

But just as we allow our bodies to relax, so we need to do the same in our mental and spiritual lives.

Our minds can be in a whirl, even when our body is at rest: for some of us, it seems impossible to turn off the incessant worrying and questioning that our heads take on.

It is, of course, part of human nature never to fully turn off, but at least for some time each day it is good to consciously rest our thinking; even those who do not undertake meditation practices often do this.

How often we hear that someone likes to watch some mindless television at the end of the day; and how true this is, because it gives our minds a different focus from our normal thoughts.

To be mindless – without conscious thought processing – gives our spirits time to rest from the constant buffeting of our thoughts.

Many of us need to take an active role in this mind-less start through meditation or simply by having some quiet time, where we do not need to concentrate on the things we are to do next.

And when our minds and souls rest in this way, something magical happens.

When we are set free from the mundane thoughts that occupy our heads, we can become more truly us – individual beings, not just a collection of actions.

Rest can give us the space to be the people we were meant to be.

August 17 Daily Meditation Writing: Answers

You are reading the ongoing writing process for a new book of daily reflections/meditations. Already published by this author is “Cast A Long Shadow”, 90 daily reading for our journey through life. This book is now available as a Kindle e-book, (you don’t need to have a Kindle to download and read it on your computer) as well as still being available direct from the publisher, on Amazon.com,  Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon European sites

Answers

I had a realization recently – it was that I always have to have an answer to every question I am asked.

I think this is a common trait – I may be unique, but I’m not the only one.

The interesting thing is to try to work out why we have this tendency – why do we feel that we have to answer every question?

There may be an element of control here – by providing an answer we are showing that we are somehow in control of our destinies, that we know what the future will bring.

It may also be that we are programmed to answer by the society that we live in.

From our earliest school days we are taught that we have to have answers to everything that the teacher asks us – it is the kids that answer that are well-regarded by the teachers, so long as the answers are right.

All through our formative years, people in authority ask us questions that they insist we must answer – we are asked where we have been, or what time we came home, or any number of things about our lives – and we have to answer.

Some of us learn in early years to lie, or at least to be as economical with the truth as we can – but we still answer, even if that answer is less than the truth.

There is also some feeling of self-worth in how we answer – to say “I don’t know” is one of the hardest things for many of us – it can feel like an admission of failure to admit to not knowing.

And maybe we get here to the real motives behind my always needing to answer a question.

If I am in any way feeling less-than about myself, it may feel that I need to provide an answer, even where no answer is possible.

When I am unsure of my ground, it may feel safer to answer a question – even if it is meaningless – than to simple keep quiet.

It can take more strength to refrain from answering, than to provide an answer where none is really needed.

Sometimes, the best answer is silence.

August 16 Daily Meditation Writing: Tried

You are reading the ongoing writing process for a new book of daily reflections/meditations. Already published by this author is “Cast A Long Shadow”, 90 daily reading for our journey through life. This book is now available as a Kindle e-book, (you don’t need to have a Kindle to download and read it on your computer) as well as still being available direct from the publisher, on Amazon.com,  Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon European sites

Tried

Many of us have tried many things in our lives – what is surprising is how often we keep on trying a thing, even though we know what the result will be.

We often get into our heads a way of behavioral that we believe we should aspire to, and try to live to that example.

Sometimes that can be a great thing if what we aspire to is truly a good way of living.

We can try to live to a code of behavior that we recognize as being of the highest value, and to so strive is a worthwhile thing.

But when we fail to live up to that high standard – and, as fallible human beings we are likely to fall short from time to time – we may have set ourselves up for guilt and sadness.

If we have a high ideal and have tried to live up to it, that in itself shows our worth; even if we fail, we are not failures.

However, at other times we may have tried some things that we could not class as high ideals.

We may want to find happiness, and try over and over to find it in the bottom of a bottle, or a handful of pills, or even in a doughnut.

And whilst we may find some happiness there, the joy soon dissipates, and we find ourselves just as unhappy and unfulfilled.

The problem is not that we tried it, but that we keep on trying it, expecting a different outcome the next time.

Having tried something that only worked for a short time, why do we repeat that experiment over and over?

At heart I believe it is because we don’t really learn the lesson that we should – these things may appear to help, but they do not solve any problems.

Having tried something that does not work, the wisest person will learn from that action, and move on to try something else.

None of us can expect to never make a mistake – the only way to never make a mistake is to never make anything – the flaw comes when we fail to learn from what we have tried.

The path we are on will have us try many ways, and even a dead-end can teach us something.