Randy's Favorite Self-Care Message

NVC - INTENTIONALITY

CULTIVATING HOPES AND DREAMS

God says, "We have put in you a desire and a quest, and I, God, am the protector of that desire."
- Sufi saying

A friend of mine said the other day, there came a time to decide "I am a lover, not a fighter." That phrase carries him daily through all kinds of experiences.

When I recall these things I am reminded of some of the banners I try to wave in my own life: The Fullness of Life -- For All of Us, Forever... Or I return to commitments I've made to myself to cultivate a more compassionate presence: NONANXIOUS, NON-DUAL, NONREACTIVE, NONVIOLENT.

Challenges and conflict are to be expected in human life. Yet, how can I meet my experiences in a way that honors my essential nature? How can I be with what is? allowing things to be what they are... making choices about how I want to meet my circumstances? Only after this, do I want to consider what I will do next.

Do you live in a world where life comes at you or where you bring life out into the world around you? Are you a cup walking about waiting to be filled? Or are you more like a fountain bubbling up from the inside out? This will naturally vary from time to time but overall, what sort of posture do you discover within yourself most often?

WATCH FOR PATTERNS

Consider the start of the day and this desire to zero in on choice, intentionality as a beautiful gift and posture toward life. If we know what we are about in the world and we have a sense that strategies are possible, ways of living that out, ways of experiencing what we long for... most people would call that state of being Hope -- Can I Envision a Future Reality Where I Could Experience What I Long For?...

Amidst the tangle and confusion of many thoughts and emotions stirred around inside throughout my day... Can I name what's there?... look at my interpretations and evaluations, identify and name emotions... Can I continue the pursuit until I can zero in on and completely receive and enter/feel the energy of my passion, my longing? These passions are living energy within us, given to us by God so that we can enjoy the fullness of life. Simply naming them and holding them can move us out of stuck places.

If I allow myself to connect with my longing/intention and possible strategies emerge in my imagination... I have gratitude, hope and a sense of thankful appreciation. I have energy to pursue possibilities. And in my experience my friends, this kind of energy, begets more of the same.

If I allow myself to connect with my longing/intention and roadblocks and practical limits emerge in mind or circumstance...I feel sadness and I can practice grieving which is a practice of self empathy... and in my experience my friends, this kind of intentional grieving usually [grieving has its own timetable, this is not a formula for a quick fix] ... but some good old-fashioned grieving puts me back up on my feet to keep going (smile.)

(And remember, my dear ones, when you grieve you grieve through the heart of God, with and for everyone who has ever the way that you are hurting.)

I may also feel emotions of despair and anger, when I cannot see possibilities. I may have apathy, I may act out aggressively or violently -- toward myself or others, I might blame or judge or become captive to a story of my own making. If these emerge, I do not avoid or pass over them or try to get out of, or beyond what's present. There are no shortcuts. In my experience my friends, it is good to be with God and loving friends through darker times like these... that do pass... although sometimes painfully slowly.

In a few words, intentionality is: Naming my next best way of meeting the moment.

Practice:

Set goals and love yourself enough to stay with them. Ask often, "What Am I about in This World?" Compassionately notice what you do with that answer, again and again. Grieve authentically when you are unable to see your dreams take root and grow... Celebrate with gratitude when they turn into something helpful or healing or peaceful. Later on you might be able to say "Look what rose up out of the ashes of my pain and confusion and worry."

Consider other requests you might wish to make of yourself in the service of your own joy and fullness. Those around you will inherently be blessed by your dreams and hopes. As you let life and love flow through you, you cannot help but become the Light of the world. You can warm yourself in the same glow you set out to ignite. The cold and foreign world may even seem to thaw somewhat, seeing how beautifully you tried to love it.

WE BROKE BREAD

Inside,


When



I am

Far from

Your face



It glows,



A catacomb



Of lights

Always clear

With Love



In Sight.

YOGA CRIP

Two hands



In the sand, man

Breathe out empty

Downward facing Rand

With all your benefits



reach.



A Lover wants to heal a

Healer left to save, to mend

This breach between what here

Spread eagles and the seagulls crave and



preach.

Sim Sum

Sim Sum

for the next one


Would you help me to find

one deep breath?

I'm creating someone to do everything for me, pretty much the way I'd be doing it myself, you know what I mean.

When you understand I will know it by watching you noticing everyone's perfect hands, the safety of their cuticles.

You're blowing your nose right after the most stirring part of Sundays sermon hoping no one will notice how skillfully you have chosen to rotate your printed thumb inside the nostril so as to utterly clear the cavern of any unnecessary debris... while genuinely considering what it might have been like for Peter to be addressed by Paul like some jamoke' from the wrong side of the neighborhood.

You're picking the spinach out when they turn away.

The untrained attendant-me will have everything in hand.

The cane pole on the old dock ready for Bluegill to bang... now!  set the hook... oh, we lost him.

The axe you squeeze on impact so your hands don't buzz right off, especially at 5 AM, gloves off, frost holding its own around the elephants leg of a Beech tree, don't get distracted, man.

I knew a guy once who had a chunk of chipped off Cherry, stuck him right in the eye, I'm not kidding.

More soap, right from the start.  Why not?  Taped edges flush with the wood trim before you paint, otherwise... well I don't need to tell you.

That much cream because it's afternoon and I guess I never realized.  You want a cup of coffee?

The newbie will know how much

Salt and sun screen and what to do with the dust cloth and whatever it was I was never aware of until I was aware at least as much as one can

be while still being blown into the fray, not God, no still not.

Jewish mystics envisioned a loving being who inhaled

in order to exhale the world into existence, again and again.

Hearing My Neighbors Gun Practice

Outside

in the sun

I awoke

startled

at how

bright yellow finch

are able to

scatter so freely.

[true story: After speaking the words "gun practice" into my computer it translated "God practice"... Discuss.]

Other

We think

It would be best

If you would

Simply

Be your self

By your self.

Saturday Morning

2:25 PM

I cannot possibly

get by if

I cry each

time bluebirds fly

away.  Still, I

will look for

them.  I will

love each one.