Compassion

I was listening to Jo Dunning, one of my favorite spiritual teachers, the other day and she said something that really grabbed my attention.

She was talking about the experiences in our lives that either seem to stay, no matter what we try to do to move past them, or experiences that keep occurring over and over again.  She said that if we can move past judgment, and instead move to loving acceptance of something we don't like, then we can "complete the lesson" and move on.

It caught my attention because I have often wondered why something continued to occur over and over again in my life and in the lives of some of my clients.  For me, I always assumed I wasn't getting the "lesson" I was supposed to get and would often wrack my brain trying to figure out what I was supposed to be learning.

Jo said the key was to find a way to stop judging and blaming and look at the situation with compassion, because when we judge something we're saying, "I don't have compassion for that."  Each time we judge something (whether in ourselves or another person), it comes back to us to experience it again so we can develop compassion for it.  When we are able to get to the point where we have compassion for an experience, then it is free to move on and the lesson is complete.

Within hours of listening to Jo speak about this, I got together with a friend who was telling me about something she has been trying to overcome for years, with little success.  When I shared what I had just learned from Jo, we were able to quickly see that she had continued to judge herself for the very experience she kept having.  We laughed about the possibility that it really could be that easy to complete a learning, because so many of us are stuck in the belief that it requires hard work and a lot of struggle.  She agreed to try having more compassion for herself and less judgment, and she promised to keep me posted on what she noticed in the coming weeks.

One of the other things Jo said was to pay attention to what we think about before we fall asleep at night.  She said that our thoughts are "downloaded," to use a computer phrase, while we sleep.   If we are focusing on the things we don't like in our lives or the frustrations of the day that we experienced, our thoughts continue to stay on that track while we sleep, and then we manifest more experiences that are frustrating and unwanted.  She said it can be as easy as just focusing on things that you love (whether it's a child or a pet or a pleasant experience you had) before you fall asleep at night.  Then those loving, positive thoughts will be the things that get "downloaded" while you sleep.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if shifting the experiences we have here on earth could be that easy?  Give it a try and let me know what happens.   I would love to hear!

Chester? Oops!

Last fall, I wrote a few times about my new squirrel friend who was hanging out in the yard with me almost every day.  Almost immediately after I named him Chester, he stopped coming around and I was bummed.  When I shared my disappointment with a good friend of mine, he suggested that maybe Chester was a girl and that she was offended I had given her a boys name.  We had a good laugh about it but sure enough, this spring, Chester started coming around again, and it was very clear that not only was Chester a girl, but she was also a new mom.  I changed her name to Chelsea and she seems much happier with that.  :-)

We have developed quite a friendship and I'll admit, I am crazy about her.  I never thought I'd fall in love with a squirrel but she has really wormed her way into my heart.  She plays the equivalent of "hide and seek" with me, although she's the only one who does the hiding. When I am sitting in the backyard, she often sneaks down onto the patio and hides behind one of the flower pots near me.  She'll pop her head up and look at me, and when I say, "I can see you!" she'll duck down behind the pot again.  She'll do it three or four times and once she's sure she's got me laughing, she'll scurry off.

Last week, she extended the game further.  A noise caught my attention and when I looked up at the roof of the first story, I saw her sitting in the rain gutter.  I said, "Hi Chelsea" and she ducked down into the rain gutter so that I couldn't see her.  I could hear her moving, so I said, "I can hear you!" and just then she popped up out of the gutter again, about a foot down from where she had been.  She stared at me for a minute (and I swear, she was smiling), then she ducked down again and made her way a little father along the rain gutter.  I said, "I can hear you!" and once again she popped up and looked at me.  She did this across the entire rain gutter and then disappeared over the roof.

There was another day this summer when she really blew me away.  I was walking into the house when I saw her moving along the fence really slowly.  She looked like she was having trouble walking so I stopped and asked her if she was OK. She stopped and just stared at me so I said, "Do you need some Reiki?"  She looked me straight in the eye and then laid down on the fence, with her arms and legs hanging down on either side.  I was so stunned I just stood there with my jaw hanging opened for a minute but then my brain clicked back into gear and I realized she had just answered me.  I sent her Reiki from where I stood and after about fifteen minutes, she got up and walked away.  The next day when she came by for a visit, she had a noticeable "pep in her step" and it warmed my heart.

I'm hoping that any day I'll have a new german shepherd and at this point, my only concern is whether he'll get along with Chelsea.  :-)