Good
day, and welcome to our newest issue! We find
ourselves at the end
of September and the beginning of autumn, and we
sincerely hope that you're
able to end the former well and begin the latter
wonderfully!
Remember
that you are all people
and that all people are you. -
Joy Harjo
All prosperity begins in the mind and
is dependent only upon the
full use
of our creative imagination. -
Ruth Ross
Flowers
do not force their way with great strife. Flowers
open
to perfection slowly in the sun. Don't be in a
hurry about
spiritual matters. Go step by step, and
be very sure. -
White
Eagle
To try to extinguish the drive for riches with money is
like trying to quench a fire by pouring butterfat over it.
-
Hindu proverb
Take
a Deep Breath, Decide to Enjoy Life, and Feed the
Birds
Brian Dickinson
(A
note: This is an article that we revisit
from time to time, for its message and its
sources are important to anyone who wishes to
live their lives fully. That a man in his
position was able to write such positive and
uplifting words is truly remarkable.)
Time to take a deep breath--a deep breath, then pause.
There. Feel better already, don't you? Close
your eyes. Tight. Count to 10. Slowly.
Afterwards--eyes still closed, mind you--think of a
particularly upbeat something that you did this
year. Call up an image of this episode. Why is
it memorable? How long will you remember?
You say this hear hasn't been an especially upbeat year
for you? That happens. No problem. Go
back two, three years-- more if you need to-- until
you come upon an image that makes you smile. The
important thing is to stay in the game.
When in doubt, feed the birds.
Write a letter. The exercise will benefit your
immortal soul and absolutely floor the recipient, who
probably hasn't received a letter from anyone since Earl
Butz was secretary of agriculture. Teach yourself to
tie a few good knots. While you're at it, knit up the
raveled sleeve of care. Allow ten minutes extra for
everything. When worried, just remember the words of
Bernard de Clairvaux: "Hey, babe, chill. Things
could be worse."
Feed the birds.
Listen
as the tea kettle whistles. Watch it steam up the
kitchen windows. Write down Grandmother's recipe for
potato pancakes Parmesan, before you lose it again.
Avoid throngs. Laugh out loud when you feel like
it. For one day, leave your wristwatch at
home. Learn to whittle; throw shavings into the
fireplace, where they will do some good.
Break the mold.
Drive a different route to work. Say "good
morning" to those glowering faces in the elevator
(don't worry: Most people don't bite). Be
aware of the fact that that rock salt on sidewalks can
kill grass. Watch dawn arrive; see how many colors
the sky turns.
Take a deep breath.
Count your blessings.
Harboring a grudge against someone? Has it
helped? (Didn't think so.) Sing, if only in
the shower. Get older family members to tape their
reminiscences. Wiggle your toes. Next time you
make chili, add extra spice. Whistle while you
work. Go for a good long walk; stretch those legs,
including those important Achilles tendons, so easily
forgotten in the hectic pace of today's living.
Take the dog.
Remember what my father used to say. When I was a
boy, and about to head off somewhere or other, my father
always used to say, "Don't do anything dumb!"
Remember to feed the birds.
Take a chance now and then. Look for a new
friend.
Telephone an old friend. Seize the moment.
Believe in yourself. If you keep kicking yourself,
you're going to fall down. Davey Crockett, he of the
long rifle and wild frontier, said: "Make sure
you're right, then go ahead," which put it nicely.
A carpenter says: "Measure twice, cut
once."
Take your choice.
Breathe deeply. Let your memory slip back to that
summer when you were quite small, at the beach with your
family, and your father hoisted you onto his shoulders and
waded into the lake until his knees were covered.
You had never seen so much water. You trusted your
father totally.
Close your eyes. Squint hard, relax. How long
ago was that first date with the person you later married--
25 years? 30 years? More? Certainly a
long, long time. Just as certainly, a very short
time. How can it be both?
I've no idea. But it is.
Smile. Give a loved one a good, strong hug, just on
general principles; because we never can tell, can we?
Don't forget to feed the birds.
Think about this for a moment. Humans are said to be
the only creatures with a time sense, including an ability
to contemplate such a thing as the future. Does it
follow that humankind is the only species able to deal
with the concept of hope? I suspect that we are. I
do believe that the capacity for hope can help us meet
stiff challenges.
Open the bedroom window a crack at night; sleep in fresh
air.
Take a time-out now and then as a way of reducing stress.
It works for sports teams, long-distance truckers and
troublesome toddlers; so why shouldn't it work for you?
Seize the moment. Make it your own. One never
has quite enough moments, although we don't know this when
we are young. Then, if we look ahead, we see an
endless stream full of moments, so many that we could
never count them, and all of them ours for the
taking. Before we know it, though, the stream has
shrunk dramatically and the available moments are growing
scarce; and we wish that we had gone after them more
assiduously when the stream was full.
So, we say again: Seize the moment-- while you
can.
As long as you are seizing moments, use the opportunity to
divest yourself of all that residual guilt you're carrying
around. Guilt gives us warts and yellow teeth, among
other things, and never did anyone any good. Gather
up your guilt, wrap with care and send it Federal Express
to my cousin Pearl in Bayonne, who can never get enough of
the stuff.
Forgive. Smile. Walk. (Oh, do walk when
you can.) Share. Reach. Laugh.
Teach. Learn. Run. Believe.
Lift. Climb. Understand. Explore.
Give. Appreciate. And, since you can never do
it all, savor the small moments that, aggregated, become
great. Stay in the game — oh, and do remember to
look after the birds.
* * * *
Brian
Dickinson was a Providence Journal editorial writer
who stirred thousands of readers with his masterful,
elegant columns long after Lou Gehrig's disease left him
with the control only of his eyes. He died at the
age of 64. For
nearly a decade, helped by a series of remarkable computer
devices, an array of medical machines and the constant
attention of his family, Mr. Dickinson worked at his
writing daily, even though he could neither speak nor move
his arms, hands or fingers. To read a feature on
Dickinson written during his last days, click
here.
We
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to the left to visit our page of books, both fiction and
non-fiction!
We meet life, with all of its complex relationships,
through what we know. Each daily event, with its
dozens of unsuspected twists and turns, challenges
us to come up with our best answers. Once our most
suitable answer is at hand, we launch it and
ourselves into action and watch to see what happens.
With each situation this challenge and response
process is repeated over and over again, until the
condition resolves itself for us, either favorably
or not.
At any given
moment we always do what we know. This may seem very
obvious, but with closer examination, especially in
light of the fact we wish to elevate ourselves and
what we are getting from this life, we will discover
something very astounding.
Read the next three sentences very carefully. I have
separated this trio of important ideas for ease of
reading, but they are very much connected to each
other. Each higher idea leads to the next one, and
when they are absorbed all together, they will tell
you a great secret.
Before you can get anything different from this
life, you must first do something different.
Before you can do anything different with your life,
you must first know something different.
Before you can know anything different, you must
first suspect and then confirm that it is your
present level of understanding that has brought you
what you now wish you could change.
Now let's reverse the order of these right ideas so
that we can see how they work from the other way
around.
Until you know something different you cannot do
anything different.
Until you do something different you will not get
anything different.
And until you really get something different from
your life you cannot know what you have missed and
how much more there is to understand.
Here's the point. Trying to change what you get from
life without first changing what you know about life
is like putting on dry clothes over wet ones and
then wondering why you keep shivering. You must stop
trying to change what you are getting for yourself
and go to work on changing what you are giving to
yourself.
It is vital for you to realize that life has not
held back its riches from you. The truth be known,
which it will be, you have been held back from real
life by a false nature which thinks life is meant to
be suffered through and that all there is to
insulate it from a harsh world is what it can win
and possess for itself.
While there is no denying our world is becoming more
and more cruel, there is also no denying that we are
the world. Neither our individual world nor the
global one can change until the connection between
what we experience and who we are is no longer
denied.
This is why we must have a new knowledge. Spiritual
knowledge isn't something mysterious or out of this
world. In fact, spiritual understanding is the most
important and practical knowledge a person can
possess. It is ultimately what we know about
ourselves, about who we really are, that determines
the quality of our life.
The truth is we cannot separate our answers from our
actions and our actions from their results. They may
appear to be individual in their operation because
they often occur at different times, but they are
really one thing. Intellectually we already know
this important concept, but its deep significance
hasn't yet become clear.
Let's look at the old adage, "As ye sow, so
shall ye reap." Here we can see a new
significance in this New Testament teaching. What
you sow is seed or, in this metaphor, your
knowledge. What you reap is the crop, or your
results. This spiritual knowledge shows us the great
importance of reconsidering what we think we know.
Life is trying to reach us and teach us, through our
experience of it, that we need new and true answers.
These higher answers serve as a special kind of
personal shelter that effortlessly keeps out what is
harmful and keeps in what is healthy and
life-giving. That is its nature.
Here are five examples of how these higher answers
can work for you. You'll see how each one also
suggests a new action and promises a new result.
Remember that each complete section, one through
five, represents a whole action. In reality, you
cannot separate your answers from your actions and
your actions from their results. Just as warmth must
follow sunlight, so must a higher, happier life
follow when inner-light is allowed to flourish.
1. Your New Answer: Real
strength is the refusal to act from weakness.
Your New Action: See where you have been calling
inner-weakness an inner strength; such as calling
anxiety concern, or anger righteousness. Dare to
live without these false strengths.
Your New Result: The end of your confusion and pain
over why your strength so often fails you. At the
same time you will realize the birth of a new and
true strength that never turns into its weak
opposite.
2. Your New Answer: Have the courage to proceed even
while knowing that you are afraid.
Your New Action: Dare to take one shaky step after
another.
Your New Result: Freedom from a life of fear because
fear cannot exist whenever insight is valued above
feeling frightened.
3. Your New Answer:
Forgiveness is the personal understanding that
except for circumstance there is no real difference
between you and your offender.
Your New Action: In spite of all the inner-screams
to the contrary, dare to treat your trespasser as
you would want to be treated.
Your New Result: When you stop punishing others for
their weakness, you will stop punishing yourself for
yours.
4. Your New Answer: Compassion is the conscious
refusal to add to another person's suffering, even
though it may seem to increase yours.
Your New Action: Dare to shoulder one hundred times
the mental and emotional weight you think you can
carry.
Your New Result: Contained right within the
suffering is the glimpse that there is no sufferer.
5. Your New Answer: Real hope
is the fact that there is always a Higher Solution.
Your New Action: See that any time you feel pained
or defeated, it is only because you insist on
clinging to what doesn't work. Dare to let go and
you won't lose a thing except for a punishing idea.
Your New Result: A new life that fears no inner or
outer challenge since defeat can only exist in the
absence of a willingness to learn.
Now that you have reviewed these five new and true
answers, you may wish to write down some of your
own. This is highly profitable for accelerating your
inner growth. Don't be discouraged if at first you
can't come up with any new ideas. There is great
gain in your efforts because even the smallest
attempt to find new answers is a new answer! The
more you work with truthful principles, the more
they will work for you.
Always remember when you work with powerful higher
ideas such as these that there are many temporarily
unknown parts of yourself that may try to mislead
you. They know that your growing true spiritual
insight will lead you away from their harmful
influence and deliver you to true safety. No matter
what the harmful voices within may say, whosoever
puts the Truth first will never lose anything except
for that which was never real in the first place.
Living
Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a
place
of growth, peace, inspiration, and encouragement. Our
articles
are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do
we
mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live
life. Take
from them what you will, and disagree with
whatever you disagree
with--just know that they'll be here for you
each week.
Children
learn about the nature of the world from their
family. They
learn about power and about justice,
about peace and about compassion
within the family.
Whether we oppress or liberate our children in our
relationships with them will determine whether they grow
up
to oppress and be oppressed or to liberate and be
liberated.
There's a talent that I wish I had more strongly than I
do. There are times when I'm a very good listener, but
there are other times when I do much more talking than I do
listening, and I think I lose a lot when I do that. I
lose the opportunity to learn from other people, I lose the
chance to find out how others are feeling, and I lose the
chance to allow someone else to vent their feelings and let
some important things out.
I think my biggest problem is that I'm a teacher by
profession, and as a matter of course, we're always expected
to have answers, no matter what. So I get used to
speaking and sharing my thoughts, and I get out of practice
with my listening, and learning from other people's
thoughts.
Listening
is not merely not talking, though even that
is beyond most of our powers; it means taking a
vigorous, human interest in what is being told us.
Alice
Deur Miller
But when I do listen, I find that allowing others to do
the talking is one of the most rewarding experiences
around. Sometimes I can almost see people grow as they
share more and become more confident, more aware that
someone is showing them the respect of listening to their
ideas and thoughts.
When we listen to others, we validate the importance of
what they think, what they believe.
When we listen to others, we show them respect, and
respect adds to their feelings of dignity.
When we listen to others, we hear new ways of perceiving
things, often things that we take for granted.
Sainthood
emerges when you can listen to someone's tale of woe
and not respond with a description of your own.
Andrew
V. Mason
Some of the most important conversations in my life have
been those in which I've said little to nothing, but in
which I've listened closely to what the other person has had
to say. And instead of trying to put in my two cents'
worth or sharing my experiences or ideas, I've asked
questions based on what the other person has said.
This focus on the other person and what he or she has been
saying has been beneficial to both of us, and I've walked
away from those conversations a richer person. Some of
the most important classes that I've taken have been the
ones in which I've simply sat and listened, and perhaps
asked a question or two for clarification or more
information. Asking such questions demonstrates that
one has, indeed, been listening, and that what someone else
has said is valuable.
Douglas Noll, a California lawyer
who specializes in "peacemaking and resolution of
intractable conflicts," puts it this way: "We
rarely have the experience of being deeply heard by others.
Most of the time, others tune out while we speak. When
we can listen to others, especially in deep, intractable
conflicts, we learn about ourselves and our capacities for
positive good. When we are listened to, we feel honest
respect and appreciation. Conflict cannot exist in
such an environment and harmony flourishes."
God speaks to us every day
only we don't know how to listen.
Think
about your last conversation. How much do you remember
of what the other person said? How much could you
write down as a summary? And how much have you
forgotten? If you're like most people, you spent much
of your time thinking about your own responses rather than
listening to the other person. If you can break that
habit, you'll definitely be a richer person.
By the way,
listening to other people isn't the only way that listening
can make you richer. When was the last time you
stopped to listen to the wind blow through the trees?
Or stopped to listen to a river as it flowed past you, or
the crickets and frogs and other living things as they make
their music? When was the last time you
listened--truly listened--to a favorite song, paying
attention to the lyrics, the drums, the rhythm, the guitars
or strings? How about the sound of your own breathing,
or your heartbeat? There are so many things that we
can listen to regularly, but that we never take the time to
stop and truly hear, that it's kind of a shame--we're
robbing ourselves of a great opportunity to get a bit more
in tune with the world, to hear the magic and wonder that's
there all the time.
But we can hear it only if we make the
conscious choice to stop and listen.
You’re tense, tired,
edgy, perhaps even angry, hurt or feeling abused. But before
dealing directly with the source of whatever provoked your
feelings, get yourself into a more balanced and resourceful state
of mind. Then you will be able to see your situation more
objectively and work on a more permanent solution. Here are four
easy ways to pivot:
Take a Break.No matter how
difficult the situation may appear to be, a change of pace can
help you open up new ways of looking at the problem. Stop what
you’re doing and find something else to do. Focus your mind on
anything but the cause of your stress. For example, if you’re
working on a stressful task, find another task to work on.
Practice Deep Breathing.
Breathing! It's one of the
simplest yet most effective ways to manage stress's effects on
your body. When you’re stressed, you have a tendency to
breathe more shallowly and rapidly – some people even hold
their breath – depriving your body of vital oxygen. To promote
a relaxation response, breathe slowly and deeply.
Work It Off Physically.
Physical activities like
stretching, walking or yoga can help relax both your mind and
your body. Even a five- or ten-minute movement break can go a
long way toward helping your body reduce the tension caused by
stress.
Appreciate What’s Working.The more you focus on
problems, the more stressed out you’ll feel. Likewise, the
more you dwell on what’s working, the better you’ll feel.
Review in your mind or make a list of everything that’s
"right" with your job. You may discover that you
can’t be in a stressed out state and an appreciative state at
the same time. For this reason, appreciation can be one of the
most powerful tools for easing tension and feeling better
immediately.
You may find that once
you release the tension and take your focus off the problem, the
solution will magically appear.
The
tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of
others
only a green thing which stands in the way. To
the eyes of people
of imagination Nature is Imagination
itself. As we are, so we see.
William Blake
Yes, life
can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's
actually rather dependable and reliable. Some principles apply
to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called
universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use
them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever
learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning. I use it a lot when I
teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to
the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.
What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or
generous, compassionate or arrogant? In this book, I've done my
best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life,
writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.
Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too! Universal Principles of Living Life Fully. Awareness of
these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration
out of the lives we lead.
Explore all of our
quotations pages--these links will take you to the first page of each
topic, and those pages will contain links to any additional pages on
the same topic (there are five pages on adversity, for example).
™
