904th Week: Self-Acceptance and Wholeness

ByNancy Napier

One of the themes I’ve explored and lived with over many years now is my experience of the importance of acknowledging and honoring all aspects of our wholeness. I’ve also been keenly aware of the fact that life on this planet thrives most efficiently within communities, ecologies of diversity. We know from science that natural environments thrive most dynamically when they contain a wide diversity of life forms, working together as a complex community. I think it’s the same with our own, individual selves. Our wholeness contains and expresses the unique diversity of characteristics, talents, challenges, qualities, expressions that each of us embodies. Through our unique wholeness, we contribute to the “ecology of life” within which we live.

Over the years, I have also found myself orienting to an experience of “being lived” by life. My sense has been, and continues to be, that each of us—whether human or some other-than-human, more-than-human earth-kin being—represents an opportunity for life to have a unique experience within and through each of us. Our unique wholeness offers life the opportunity for diverse experiences and expressions, honoring this planet’s seeming preference for diversity.

For this week’s practice in conscious living, I invite you to explore the following guided meditation and see how it feels for you to imagine “being lived” by the life that expresses itself within and through everything on this planet, as well as acknowledging, honoring, and embracing the wholeness within you, leaving nothing out. It’s your wholeness that makes you unique in all the world and it’s your wholeness that allows you to contribute to the diversity that our human family offers to the planet’s ecology.

  • To begin, take a few moments to settle in and allow your body to recognize the support of the surface under you even a bit more now.
  • Follow the next out-breath down into your internal home base, your internal center of gravity.
  • Notice the steadiness that’s always present in your internal home base. It’s an aspect of your wholeness that is never disturbed, no matter what may happen in your life.
  • Next, notice that this is also the place where you connect with your radiating core presence, with your unique energy signature. This energy signature radiates throughout your whole body-mind being and then on out into the world around you. Your presence touches everything you encounter.
  • Imagine a kaleidoscope with many beautiful chips of glass, perhaps of many colors. Remember that each time the kaleidoscope is turned, the chips of glass create new patterns, bringing some pieces into the foreground as others drop back into the background. As the patterns change, notice that nothing is added and nothing is removed. It’s all about the shifts that come from foreground/background dynamics.
  • The kaleidoscope is a metaphor for your wholeness. Aspects of you shift and move from foreground to background depending on what you experience, where you are, and which aspects of your wholeness are called into the foreground. It’s all part of the ongoing dance of being.
  • An important part of this process is to invite yourself to accept the fact that your wholeness is what it is and what you can bring to this dynamic expression is awareness of what is currently in the foreground and what is in the background. There may be times you want to shift what has popped into the foreground, for example, and perhaps invite your ever-present steadiness to come from the background into your more immediate experience.
  • Next, notice your experience when you take a moment to consider that life is living you in every moment, expressing as you through your unique wholeness.
  • Take a few moments simply to be present to this awareness, in whatever way it makes sense to you. Also, be sure to allow any mixed feelings or confusion that might accompany this exploration. Just be present to the sense that life lives you in every moment, expressing as you through your unique wholeness. There is no one else on the planet who is just like you. You are a unique gift to life, a unique opportunity for life to experience and express…
  • Now, take a moment to again follow an out-breath down into your internal home base. Touch into an awareness of, or imagine, the steadiness that’s always there and spend a few moments resting in the steadiness.
  • When you’re ready, take a moment to recall the kaleidoscope and your dynamic wholeness, the gift you offer the life that lives you in every moment.
  • Then, begin to come back by wiggling your fingers and toes, open your eyes and gently look around your environment, perhaps listening to the sounds around you, and come all the way back.

As with all these practices, please be sure to bring along curiosity as your constant companion and to pat gently on the head any judgments that may arise. Allow them to move on through without your having to do anything about them. And, please be sure to allow any mixed feelings that may arise. They are aspects of your wholeness and are part of the uniqueness of your being. 

There are two recordings for this practice. The first is of the written portion that describes the theme of this week’s practice. The second is a recording of the guided meditation. As you listen to the meditation, be sure to put the recording on pause when you need more time and please remember never to listen to guided meditations when you are driving or operating dangerous machinery.

Recording of practice without guided meditation
Recording of guided meditation

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854th week: Choose Your Frequency

854th week: Choose Your Frequency

ByNancy Napier

I’ve written quite a bit lately about frequencies and the foreground/background dynamics of our underlying wholeness. One of the practices that, for me, is an effective and useful tool in affecting the quality of both my inner and outer life experience is taking time to choose the frequencies with which I want to resonate. 

As I’ve described a number of times, what I mean by “frequency” is the tone and quality of what we experience and embody, and what we radiate into the world around us in every moment. For example, think of people you meet who seem to exude a sense of curiosity, delight, kindness, friendliness, etc. And, also, think of people you meet who seem to exude a quality of anger, fear, harshness, etc. These are all frequencies, and they are the tangible expressions of the qualities with which we resonate and which we radiate into our environment—both consciously and unconsciously. Most of the time, many of us—if not most—are unconscious of the these qualities, and we aren’t taught about how they tangibly affect our internal and external experiences. 

Another aspect of our relationship to frequencies is the fact of our wholeness. Everything we have experienced and are is ever-present as part of our underlying and inescapable wholeness. When I teach about wholeness, I emphasize the fact that there’s nothing about us we can “get rid of” or “erase”. Instead, our wholeness is always with us, with some aspects of self expressing in the foreground of our experience and others sliding into the background. In this work with frequencies, we aren’t being asked to get rid of negative or troublesome aspects of ourselves. Instead, we are invited to choose a frequency that we want to experience in the foreground of our experience even as we allow our awareness to enfold all of what constitutes our wholeness.

This is where I call on the metaphor of a kaleidoscope, which I’ve shared many times. When we turn the tube of a kaleidoscope, all the pieces shift into a new pattern. Sometimes, a color we haven’t seen for quite a while may pop into view while another drops away. This is the way I think of the dynamics of wholeness: aspects of ourselves slide into the foreground while others drop into the background.

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830th Week: Supporting and Cultivating Expressions of Kindness

830th Week: Supporting and Cultivating Expressions of Kindness

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I often listen to BBC news when I get a chance to do so, as their global focus offers an opportunity to become aware of what’s happening around the world. One of the themes that shows up constantly is how polarization and aggression seem to be in the forefront of so much human activity these days. It may always have been this way, but we now have access to knowing what’s going on in places we may never experience in person.

This current global situation brings to mind the importance of expressions of kindness, as well as a commitment to actively cultivate kindness in our everyday lives. Many of us remember the time when “random acts of kindness” was a subject that was often in the forefront of our awareness. For me, these acts of kindness not only benefit both the giver and the receiver, but they also benefit our collective human consciousness—that field of consciousness that contains everything that humans express and experience. We often talk about environmental pollution here in the physical world. It’s also helpful to remember that we are also in a collective psychic environment which is generated by our collective thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and responses. What we do individually immediately becomes part of this collective field.

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706th Week:  Living With “Wide Open Eyes

706th Week:  Living With “Wide Open Eyes

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As a general practice, I spend time each morning looking at videos, interviews, and professional talks that support a positive sense of connection and wholeness.  Beginning each day orients me to a perspective and sense of being that colors my day with a quality that nourishes my body and soul.  During one of these forays into cyberspace, I ran across an article, which touched me with its emphasis on a more mystical sense of our world.

The author, Michael Edwards, says the following: “…spirituality can give us an actual experience of the unity of all things.  This experience, when nurtured as a constant practice, roots quality-consciousness, non-discrimination, non-violence and reverence for all people and the earth deep into our core.”  Read More “706th Week:  Living With “Wide Open Eyes”

680th Week: What We Radiate Into the World

680th Week: What We Radiate Into the World

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Walking through Central Park one morning, my usual, meditative state of mind—which emerges naturally when I walk through areas of trees—focused on a small act of kindness that someone had recently done for me. I touched back into the quality of friendliness the person seemed to radiate and I realized that the actual act of kindness offered was only part of what made the interaction meaningful. The other part was the quality of who this person is in the world, and that felt like the most important aspect of the experience.

It reminded me of a conversation I had with an acquaintance one afternoon in Starbuck’s, where she began to speak apologetically about how she didn’t feel like she ever did anything really important or meaningful in her life… Read More “680th Week: What We Radiate Into the World”

2023 December Meditation
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2023 December Meditation

ByNancy Napier

Here, at the end of the year, this meditation invites you to spend a bit more time with your radiating presence and its impact on your whole body-mind being and the environment around you. It invites you to imagine, in whatever ways make sense to you, that you are connected to everything everywhere, that the planet is itself a vast system of relatedness and connection.

And, please remember never to listen to audio meditations while driving or working with dangerous machinery…


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