Tag: depth

REPLAY of the LIVE class (on Periscope)! with notes!

I was a sweaty, nervous wreck on my first periscope.

It’s comical…did anyone ever see Broadcast News (the movie)?
I needed two tissues for my sympathetic nervous system.

(Some technical difficulties threw me just before broadcast and I talked SO VERY fast.)

If you didn’t get to see it here you go!
(Twitter pulled the plug on this feature – sorry everyone)

 

 

NOTES:

THE #1 Myth about the SOUL…

is that we have one.

But first….we should get on the same page…

WHAT IS A SOUL?

(what are we talking about?)

This is how I’m describing it:

Titanic-style…

In the Old Testament the Hebrew word for soul is nephesh. We might use it this way, “1,517 souls were lost in the Titanic disaster.”

SOUL ≠ dead BUGS BUNNY …like a floating ghost and that sort of stuff.

Not a faint rendering of bugs bunny leaving his body to play a harp on a cloud with Porky Pig. Not something that is ghosty and haunting a house or helping Demi Moore on a Pottery Wheel. (Patrick Swayze-style..google it, young people.)

 

Ancients thought of the mind and heart differently (the will and the emotions)…

Maybe these verses come to mind…but you’ve been thinking about them in your own context instead of the ancient context from which they were written.

 

Remember this one?

The heart is deceitful and wicked above all things JER 17:9

(Guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life)

or Proverbs 4:23 

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

….The writers of these scriptures were not talking about emotions and feelings when they said “heart” (like we associate the heart today…they were talking about the HEART as one’s will and control center of a person…(the thing we now associate with the mind.)

For them, the emotions (the heart for us in our context) were associated, instead, with the bowels. Perhaps a bit gross..but there is some

MEDICAL TRUTH/correlation : anxiety and stress are closely associated with disease and problem that happen in the intestines…like….ulcerated colon, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (bloating, constipation, gas, and other fun things), digestion issues, food sensitivities and problems in that part of the body. These are extremely related to one’s emotions and levels of stress.

The GEM MODEL of the Soul (my version)

 

Think of the SOUL as a gem and the facets are ways to see the soul.

You can go as far as saying other things beyond these are facets:

family of origin, social economic situation, skin color (if that has been a defining factor in your life)

education, the country you live in,

Even Christianity is a facet. A worldview is a facet that we can gain a kind of look at who we are.

Grace is central to Christianity, for instance. We can look at our soul through the facet of grace.

When light is added to a stone you can see its flaws and imperfections and you can see its quality (color, cut, clarity, caret)

UGLY soul? Is that possible? what do you think?

In his book Care of Souls, David Benner writes, “We can define soul care as the support and restoration of the well-being of persons in their depth and totality, with particular concern for their inner life. Soul care is done in the context of community.”

The vantage point of Soul Care views struggle or failings not as fatal flaws or illness to be “cured”. Not therapy or self-help. 

It’s a sustaining endeavor for our interior lives and our relationships, like water and food is for the body. Incidentally, caring for the body falls within the bounds of Soul Care.

Ten Signs that You Need the Renewal of Soul Care 

1. Fruitlessness. Are there observable deficits in the enacted your Fruit of the Spirit? That means, is there any lack or slack in the

 

areas of love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, and self-control? (If not, I think E.T. went home without you. Phone again. You might want to text, and retweet as well.)

2. You find yourself perceiving things others say as personally offensive, or as direct attacks. 

3. You are “venting” more in person or online.
4. You feel unloved.
5.You feel increased frustration, restlessness, or desolation.

6.Your fears and anxiety are more prevalent.

7.You have increased tension in relationships.

8. You struggle with one or more of the “seven deadly 

sins”: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony. 

 

9. You have problems sleeping or bad dreams.


10. You’re in a creative slump. 

RECAP:

THE #1 myth about the soul is that…. you have one. You don’t have a soul you are a Soul. You have a body. George MacDonald, in 1892 (C.S. Lewis quotes him and the quote is mistakenly attributed to him sometimes)

Think of the Soul as “the real you” the essence of you. contained in a body, yes, but made up of everything about you in a pure sense.

Some might say the soul gets extinguished or goes to paradise or gets absorbed into the great Life Force (God) …but in terms of what you need…you always need Soul Care, because you are a soul and that include both the visible and the invisible.

All this more and much more is available in my book. Shame-filled plug.

A Useful Diagram of Contemplative Practices

Contemplative Practices can be some of the most life-giving and nourishing things we can do (“do” is not the best word for it, of course. ha!)

I found this graphic you see here at onbeing.org.

It includes a number of practices from different religions to show examples of each branch. The roots represent the two may intentions of the contemplative practices found worldwide: Communication and connection; and awareness. Both are essential for transformation and progressing in maturity.

The main branches include:

  • Activist
  • Relational
  • Movement
  • Ritual/Cyclical
  • Stillness
  • Generative
  • Creative

Your specific tradition may include examples for each branch. For me, plenty was lacking in what I knew of my tradition in its modern form. It wasn’t until I dug a lot further into history and the whole spectrum of practice, did I see the depth therein and find new opportunities to enrich my soul and increase my felt connection to God and others.

If you’re searching for something in your daily spiritual practices and want to add a new sort of richness, see what you can add from a branch you haven’t climbed yet.

( Photo by Carrie Bergman + design by Maia Duerr)

treeofpractices-withlabels

Encountering your own loneliness

solotext

 

Managing a wine tasting room is a great job for a writer because, when it’s not too busy, you can become a kind of social scientist: observing people and trying to see why humans do what we do.

You can even allow your curiosity to navigate some of the deeper questions about the human experience.

One recent observation:
The “poison apple” of the smart phone has changed how we do things alone–eating, drinking, or traveling, in particular.

FACT: People rarely come to taste wine by themselves (at our place).

That may seem obvious. Wine tends to bring people together, right? Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised that people only rarely come alone.

But it IS strange.

Think about it like this:
Shopping for food or clothes alone isn’t considered weird and people tasting wine are really just shopping for wine.

The only difference perhaps are presumptions, previous experiences, or maybe subterranean social exceptions.

• Feeling low…solo

When people visit the tasting room alone, I can usually sense their social discomfort. They might suddenly offer me a reason why they are alone this time or they might neurotically use their phone to look busy or connected.

The alternative, of course, would be to interact with and absorb the environment they are truly in or look for ways to subvert social fear through some modicum of meaningful interaction: friendliness, conversation, inquisitiveness, for starters. So terrifying is the prospect of looking lonely at a winery, that many solo customers barely experience it at all.

• Confronting fear

This observation got me to thinking of ways I try to numb or avoid these fears or points of discomfort in myself and in my life. What am I missing that I shouldn’t be. The default is to use technology to connect, but at what cost?

When I interviewed Rolf Potts, famed travel-writer and best-selling author, he talked about his own wrestling with the seduction of “not being where he was” by engaging with technology. One of the most memorable things he said was this:

“When you travel alone you are forced to confront your own loneliness and boredom, and interact with your surroundings in ways you can’t [when you’re] with a companion.”

We miss our chances for new experiences with the advent of constant so-called “connectedness”, don’t we?

The habit forms quickly. Only thoughtfulness will heal this malady.

(Here’s the video. He covers that bit around min 2:40.)

 

Do you question how you use technology and confront what it might be stealing from you?

Encountering our loneliness more deeply could create epiphanic moments of self-discovery and new insights into what we fear and what makes us each unique.

 

Maybe it’s time to do something alone to test your social fears, deepen your healthy sense of self, and develop a new sense of social, and even spiritual, courage and strength.

Maybe leave your phone is the car for the 30 min you shop, eat out, or exercise. Good things could happen.

If you like what you’ve read, consider getting my in-depth but consice weekly correspondence, starting soon.
Learn about it here.

Your thoughts are clouds not rocks

rock pile (a cairn)
rock pile (a cairn)

I was listening to a new podcast called Invisibilia and the hosts were discussing the topic of unwanted thoughts. (“The Secret History of Thoughts” is the episode title)

Any thoughts from the emotionally self-injuring ones, to violent ones, to obsessive thoughts and worries. Everyone has them and some people develop dysfunctions that make life difficult or unbearable. Anxiety has a lot to do with it too.

What thoughts really are and how meaningful they are has been up for debate by professionals over the last 100 years.

Here are the top 3.

• Theory 1: Thoughts are very meaningful and are red flags of something deeper and sometimes something more sinister. (Freud and his ilk)

• Theory 2: Thoughts are not as meaningful as we thought and the key is to compensate or overcome them with opposite (reforming) thinking over a period of time (Cognitive Behavior Therapy).

• Theory 3: Of the three top theories, a third one in particular is getting momentum right now. To me, it seems to have an “ancient/new” quality to it…

The advice goes something like this.

“Keep the good thoughts and let the others float away.”

Does that sound flaky?

Think of it as laid back. Chill.

• The idea flies in the face of modern psychology that has us dig around a lot and examine every negative thought. Analyze it, get to what you think is the root, dig some more, and pick it all apart. See if has something to do with a repressed issue, a dark secret, the bad parents we probably had, or primal urges to kill and hump, and whatnot.

• The third theory also is a very different tact than what happens with theory #2.

Maybe thoughts are like clouds.

Your thoughts are nothing to worry about. Probably.

So the new tactic for dealing with unwanted thoughts is about training our focus and being gracious with ourselves. Sounds like a spiritual discipline to me!

It’s a recollection of the ancient idea that what you feed, grows and dominates.

Some proverb like…

“There are two wolves fighting inside each of us. One is good and one is bad–and each one wants to rule the other. Which one will win? …The one you feed.”

or

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of respect, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if something is excellent or praiseworthy, think about these things. And what you learned and received and heard and saw in me, do these things. And the God of peace will be with you.
ref.

Some times I assume my passing or repeating unwanted thoughts have larger meaning and import, but maybe they just move in and around like the weather. I make them weighty like rocks. Maybe that’s not helpful. We take these rocks and place them in a pile, sometimes, don’t we?

We worry about our worries. We worry about what is wrong with us. We make a big, sad pile to stand for something, like a reminder…or…

we make a cairn. But, the wrong kind. A cairn should be a trail marker or situate like standing stones marking the best of ourselves or our dreams. A cairn is about hope.

Your repetitive thoughts aren’t stones, they are clouds.

The good thoughts can get a upgrade to something more substantial…let the others drift away.

Creative commons photo by Samuel Betenholz.