Tell Us How You Really Feel

Here is some stuff about me, my beliefs, my thoughts, my feelings.  In no particular order, arranged with zero regard for style.  Because I can.  Because it is summer time right now, and I am giving myself permission to flow.  Flow feels like random-list-format this morning.

1)  We Are One.  It's not a hippie sentiment, it's a Universal Truth to me.  It really feels like the antidote to so many things.  For example, loneliness is illusory because we're actually connected to one another, the plants, the animals, the Earth itself, and the Source that made us.  Not to mention our Ancestors that came before, who also are all connected to everything.

2)  Children are the fastest track to the Ego.  I get this sounds weird, that maybe it should say "Fastest track to the Heart."  But no, I meant what I said.  No one will so brilliantly know your Ego's buttons the way your kids will.  No on will so relentlessly push them, either.  Because they can.  They've not been taught to people-please so much as we have, either, so they're out in the world doing life authentically, honestly, letting the emotional energy rip on through and out.  Hello, Ego Illuminators!  But what's the only way to the Heart?  Right on through that Ego to the other side.

3) Trusthing the process of life- ours and others'- is the equivalent to knowing that we are loved ARE love.

4)  Ego = Little Toddler.  Means well, wants to be close, needs reassuring, will be an unapologetic terror if desires aren't met.  But really, at the end of the day, just wants safety and love like everyone else.  I'm trying to see it that way.  Compassion just seems the better way in most cases in life, yeah?

5)  The Bhagavad Gita (and ancient yogic wisdom in general) says that suffering comes from seeking pleasure/happiness outside of ourselves.  Meaning that we forget that everything we experience with our physical senses is fleeting, and so even the stuff that feels good in the moment eventually goes away.  This makes sense to me.  It's why I've quit washing my floors for the summer.  Dirty kids + sandy back yard = fleetingly clean floors.  Why fight it?

6)  Give What You Need.  These four words pop into my life every now and again when I feel myself longing for something: connection, calmness, laughter, an open ear, chocolate...  Service.  Being of service to someone else is a very efficient way to serve our own soul.  Because, well, please see #1.  Need something?  Put it out into the world first, send it to someone else, help someone else. 

7)  Making the bed is overrated.  It just is.  Besides, when I make the bed, the other stuff that needs organizing in my room stands out even more.  Don't tell my kids I said that.

8)  I know the wise ones say seeking pleasure outside of ourselves = suffering, but I really can't stop myself from planning future tattoos or future teacher trainings.  We all have our weaknesses.

9)  Plants and trees speak, and you can hear them if you listen from the right place.  I can't tell you what this place is exactly, because it's not a part of the physical body and maybe it differs for everyone.

10)  Early mornings are typically my favourite.  The world feels that much more sacred and quiet and still.  The key, for me, is to carry the feelings I cultivate during that time into the rest of my day: the release of doing what I think everyone else thinks I should do, the surrender of being with what is, the inner silence.  If I don't consciously set that intention, I am easily filled with anxiety as mid-morning approaches.

11)  It's okay to not know.  I think maybe my strengths as a mama, a teacher, a writer, a friend, a human, have been magnified since beginning to unwind from the pressure of feeling like I need to have all of the answers right now.  What I need to know comes in the moment, when I get still for just a few seconds and check in.  And it's like a beautiful bright gift that I receive and then get to pass on to others.

What about you?!  What's something you think/feel/believe?  Share with me, fellow random-flowing-list-maker!