ART- Act, Re-gain and Transform

For most of my life making the best what I have has been an invaluable teaching.  Things once loss may be revitalized into new life.  Observing nature has taught me this invaluable lesson of our cyclical world.

Today I wish to transform a different forms of angst into treasure.  Emotional baggage: worry, anxiety and other forms of fear and feelings of inadequacy can be best managed through radical self care. Accepting and facing these pains helps me lessen my resistance so to find greater joy and peace.

First step for me is to recognize I have a choice.  Years ago I shared with a wise teacher my feelings of anxious energy and how I felt like a buzzing fluorescent light bulb.  It has taken me many years to discover this feeling is my life force or chi energy.  

The difference is how I choose to perceive and look at my situation.  Is filled with Velcro for the bad and Teflon for the good or vice versa?

My choice toward greater freedom is when I pause and see everything as a blessing not a curse.  Yes many of my painful experience hurt so badly yet they provide me an invaluable lessons how I can lessen my suffering in the future.

I can respond by pausing and reflecting or I can react sometimes mindlessly and face the consequences of not being fully present in my actions.

Our world may be filled with anxiety. however, I can exercise patience to allow this to pass.  My tendency to over analyze can  enslaved me with doubt and fear.  Old ways of thinking can hinder me from fully understanding my true situation. It takes much effort  to change.  Releasing myself from many of my cynical mind-sets can provide me with less stress and more well being. 

My relationship with these emotional weather systems filled with difficult emotions can be re-framed.   Becoming more skillful in how to best handle this negative baggage requires what I call ART;  

Act, Re-gain and Transform  (ART)

Act so I may accept what is emotionally happening allows me to  recognize my feelings are not serving me. How may I benefit? 

Re-gain whatever phenomenon that happens giving me positive guidance how I can best change my mental lemons into lemonade.   Re-gaining allows me to find more useful ways to redefine my circumstances. 

Transform my old patterns of thinking from seeing my limitations to new possibilities.  

ART is about a three step process of being creative, flexible and wise.  What do I wish to do? Increase or decrease my suffering or add more drama to an already intense situation that so many times I have in the past created.  Or how can I best free myself from my habits that get me to take things too personal, serious or out of its true context.   ART is about healing and see the whole instead of the sum of the parts. I am not escaping my reality with ART, instead I am seeing how to be more light and less dense with my life circumstances.

For example, when I am driving my car and the person ahead of me does not realize the traffic light has changed.  If I honk at them I create confrontation while if I pause and become curious when they awaken to the green light I find more peace from this experience.   

One of my relaxing experiences is kayaking since it teaches me to flow not resist the currents of the river.  Resisting life forces I always fail while when I flow with them I find grace.

Yes my entire earthly journey can be painful, yet many times this pain also gives me insights to better cope and accept whatever comes my way.  This is an invaluable lesson as I get older I see myself as a temporary visitor.  The challenge is how I can use ART to lessen my resistance allowing me to best relate and deal with the inevitable consequences of life.

Re-light Your Higher Potential

Re-light is about finding our higher potential.  Not being afraid to go beyond what is normal I venture into the non ordinary.  By becoming less dense I may bring light to whatever happens this allows me to kindly observe what new possibility may arise.

Re-lighting allow me to realize the "here and now" and not slip into future or past references so I can arrive in the present moment.  This “newness” opens the door to new creative possibility to see with a new perspective any given experience.

Re-lightening also balances me to not see things so heavy and dense yet with a weightlessness and sense of buoyancy.   In turn I become more relaxed and excel whatever I am performing for. 

Even in my darkest moments a light shines if I am observant.  Re-lighting better aligns me with opportunities in any given crisis or conflict I come up against.  Finally such lightness reminds me that when I lessen my inner resistance I can touch greater freedom by an illuminating my beliefs.

Re-lighting celebrates my virtues and liberates self-punishment when I silence my inner self talk. Again this flame of concentration ignites any hindering thoughts.

Re-lighting is about realigning my physical and mental postures to invite a more tranquil flow that provide me alter quality of attention. This flow is a synchronized  mind/body practice.  This comes from a roundness of remembering I am the earth.  This unifying insight of no separation translates in the realization of oneness of all things.   Observing the sacred interconnection of all things brings me harmony. 

When my heart awakens this liberates me to a fearlessness beyond my deepest phobias.  Both a soft and tender expansive quality emerges within me as I gently experience a profound heartfelt shift.

Re-lighting this “hereness" reminds me of my constant journey and to ignore external outcome so to further cultivate my genuine being.    Such letting go of any personal agenda I minimize distractions cause by my lower self.

Cultivating this inner brilliance happens when I fully let go.   No clinging or grasping just radiating simple loving presence without any possessiveness. This delightful state of compassion skillfully balances any sorrow with joy. As I re-light my internal baggage and ignore my ego I truly free myself to celebrate my greater and more unified self.