2022 September Meditation

On my birthday last year, I had an opportunity to offer myself an unexpected gift, one for which I was inordinately grateful. It turned out that, upon awakening the morning of my birthday, it became immediately evident that I urgently needed a root canal. Much to my relief, my endodontist was able to see me at exactly the time my schedule allowed that day, although I would have canceled whatever I had to in order to see him.

As I sat in his chair, the local anesthesia taking effect I was filled with gratitude that this man had gotten training that allowed him to relieve my pain in such skillful and, frankly, easy ways. Read More “697th Week: Gratitude for Help Along the Way”

For many years, I’ve written and taught about the optimal future self and have seen what a powerful and useful resource it is. Recently, I began to think again about optimal futures, or each person’s optimal future, as another way to access possibilities and states of being that are positive and empowering. 

One of the key elements in exploring and experiencing optimal futures or the optimal future self, is to keep preconceptions and assumptions out of the way and to be open to the unfolding experience arising from the intention we bring into the process. Intention is the rudder that orients us to the probability or probabilities that resonate with what our intention conveys.

As I’ve begun to offer this as a guided meditation to colleagues, I’ve discovered that there are many ways people experience their optimal future. The key thing is to generate the intention that orients the experience. For some people, there is a sudden thought or awareness that opens a new door of understanding. For others, there may be a symbol or image that conveys a new felt-sense experience or awareness in some way that offers a moment of inspiration. Another person connected with the essence of ease, a quality that she has had trouble accessing. Her body immediately filled with an experience of ease and she spent her meditation time soaking that in. For me, my first experience was of a wave washing over me, cleansing me of old habits and learnings. No doubt, the experience will be unique for each person.

As is true with the optimal future self work, what is important is the experience that arises, whether that experience is a flash of insight, connecting with a living image or frequency/essence, or some other awareness that arises. The key is to feel the experience, preferably in the body but that may not be the way it comes into awareness each time. Because of my background in Somatic Experiencing® and hypnosis, I encourage people to notice what sensations arise during these experiences when possible, and to take time to soak in those that are new and helpful to have.

Remember, as well, that we live in a world of infinite possibilities, so in this meditation you focus on what’s optimal for you. You don’t want just any old future. In this meditation, you seek to connect with your optimal future.

Read More “876th Week: Exploring Optimal Futures”

885^th Week : Exploring Your Unique Energy SignatureThis practice continues with the theme of frequencies and their impact on the quality of our own being and of the collective family of lifeforms that are our earth-kin of every kind. One of the fundamental qualities about our beautiful planet is that it seeks to create, and thrives on, a magnificent array of diversity. We know that ecological systems that are the most diverse are also the healthiest and most robust. Within all kingdoms of nature and environments, we see diversity as a fundamental quality. In our human family, nature has expressed this creative impulse toward diversity in countless ways. We have diversity in skin color. We have diversity in facial features and body types. We have diversity in languages and cultural norms, diets, spiritual practices and everyday routines and activities, to mention just a few of the areas of human diversity.

One of the areas I have focused on exploring with humans in mind is the place of core presence that resides within the internal home base of every human being. It is the place in us where we touch into an inherent steadiness that is never disturbed. It is deeper than our conditioning and everyday reactivity. What we can also touch in this place of core presence is a sense of the energy that our presence radiates throughout our body-mind being and into the world around us in every moment. I think of this radiating presence as our unique energy signature. 

My experience and belief are that life’s emphasis on diversity points to the fact that each one of us is a unique expression of life and that each one of us in an irreplaceable expression of that life. Our unique energy signature cannot be replicated by anyone else and it matters that we are here. Even though it’s hard to put into words, my experience is that life lives me rather than I live life.

Read More “885th Week : Exploring Your Unique Energy Signature”

As I write this, I’m sitting in Central Park, as I often do on weekend mornings, attuning to the trees that have become my companions.  I notice that I am resonating with their steady, still presence and that their steadiness and stillness, even their expression of presence, is moving into my body-mind experience.  As I sit here, I absorb the qualities I experience in them and I find that access to the steadiness and stillness in me is enhanced by their presence. Central Park has been, and continues to be, one of the most important gifts in my life for over 35 years now, and my gratitude for having access to the natural life of the park is boundless.     

This got me to thinking about how powerful it is to spend time in nature and to absorb the qualities that may not be easily accessible in urban life.  When I look at the large rock outcropping off to my right, I think of its solidity, its constancy, its steady presence.  When I hear the sound of the locusts that populate the park at this time of the year, I think of the freedom to express.  When I think of one of the small waterfalls up in the northern section of the park, I am touched by a sense of flow.  These are all projections, perhaps, and yet they offer me an experience that I find both strengthening and nourishing.

Read More “762nd Week: Accessing and Nurturing Qualities from Nature”