Lent Meditation: Archive
Lent is a season of forty days, not counting Sundays, which begins on Ash Wednesday and Lent is a time of repentance, fasting and preparation for the coming of Easter. It is a time of self-examination and reflection. It is time for a lent meditation.
When I think of my body I immediately think of what is wrong with it. I think of what I do not have and what I have not been given—so I think. It is time, however, to really look at what I have been given, what I have to work with.
Time has played havoc with me physically. I know you cannot turn the clock back, but it can be difficult to accept where I am in relation to where I have been. Why is it not possible to just live with what happens? I see it happening to everyone else around me.
Yesterday I looked at how time has ravaged my body. More critical, though, is the effect my lack of care has had on my body. Bad food, alcohol, lack of sleep, lack of exercise, environment and attitude all play a part in my physical health.
In the last post I talked about changing my lifestyle, how am I proposing to go about this? What are the elements that come into play and what is the result going to be? In the end it is about consistency and consciousness.
In concluding the section on my body in this meditational journey, I want to look ahead. Why am I concerned about what happens to my body or how I treat it? I think I live authentically when it comes to my physical life.
My mind is my own! I am in control of what I think! I can decide what I do and how I live my life! Or can I? I am still a rebel. I go beyond the boundaries and forge a life which was not in the ‘plan’. I have come to love being a rebel.
Out of the mess and confusion of my upbringing and education what beliefs have I developed? What has come out of this for me? Where has this led me? I believe that I have a gift to be able to look at life see and the patterns.
Writing has become my core way of expressing myself. Writing is my way to express my wants, needs and desires. Writing is about expanding my awareness. Do I achieve this? I just keep writing and know that I am doing the right thing.
I looked earlier at intention and how to put it into action with intention, effort and divine grace. What is intention? Is it desire, need or just greed? I will do my part by putting effort into achieving it and I will let Divine Grace do its work.
The effect of the exercising of my mind is to enable my creative power to do its work. My mind connects with the Universal Energy to channel thoughts and ideas to express themselves.
So far I have looked at my physical and intellectual aspects. I have found these understandable and, to an extent, controllable. My emotions, however, are less open to this kind of analysis and change.
Love is at the centre of my emotional responses. It is either the lack of love, the desire for love or the need for love. This is easy to confuse with the play of love in my life. What is love as opposed to the need for love?
Anger is such a powerful emotion for me, it has dominated my life and caused untold chaos. I was so unsure of myself that I used it to create the person called Graham Phoenix.
I find that there is always a mis-match between how I want to be and how I am. I can never permanently equate my heart with my emotions. My heart is where I want my emotions to lie. Why can I not marry the two up?
Winding up this section on my emotional heart I am thinking about the many systems that exist for living my truth and acting with emotional authenticity. What is a simple way I can look at myself, daily, and stay on track.
I have been seeking all my life. I have always had this sense of looking for my home, my refuge. It has not been through a sense of lack or need, but through a sense of destiny. I spent many years on this journey before I found what I was seeking.
Yesterday I finished with, "My continued spiritual development proved to me that I had found my buried treasure back home. It also showed me that I had touched the Soul of the World." What did I really mean by this?
Having become aware of the spiritual unity that I am part of and accepting that it is connected to my purpose, what is the effect of that for me? What did I become? Was it worth it? The effect of my spiritual discovery was power.
I took part in a training programme to help me understand how my Source, or Soul, guided me in my life. This was an essential part of me accepting my spiritual development and growing in my ability to live authentically. What did this reveal?
The way into my growth and development spiritually is for me to cultivate meditation. This simple act is responsible for so much change in me. What is meditation and how do I go about it? Why do I do it and where does it take me?
I have been through the four aspects of my life, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional and Spiritual. As I have demonstrated they all reach their full power when I start with Awareness. This is the gateway to the opening of me heart, mind and soul.
My self is a matrix, a jumble, of all that I have been talking about. In the same moment I am physical and emotional, intellectual and spiritual. I can never truly pin my life down to any one aspect or any one level of existence.
In talking about turning back on a recent walk I had to deal with my reaction to the potential judgement of others. We are all subject to the judgement of others, whether it is spoken or not. How does my awareness speak to this and how do I rise above it?
To complete the circle on Awareness I repeat the questions I asked in the beginning; ‘Am I Aware?‘ Do I really know myself? Do I understand myself? I want to dig below my facade and find the truth.
Acceptance is about bringing myself out of the shadows and being open about myself. Awareness has brought all the issues up and helped me to see what is going on, but that is not enough! Now it is time to absorb what I have discovered and make it mine.
I find the question of judgement in myself the most difficult issue to deal with. I find it difficult to accept that I judge others, yet I do. I find it difficult to see the projection of my issues onto others. How can I find my way through this maze?
Beyond accepting is living! Beyond accepting is flow! Beyond accepting is who I am meant to be and how I am meant to live. How do I move beyond accepting? How do I jump in the river and not drown?
What is the truth of who I am? Do I know myself at all? Can I accept all the parts of my nature or are there areas which are beyond my comprehension? What is truth? How will I know it when I see it?
Day 30—Authentic: Authenticity
Authenticity is such a hot potato today. People have such powerful reactions to any claim to be authentic. What is the issue with this? Why are people so afraid of claims of authenticity? What is authenticity?
I used to regard the life I was leading as a lie. My fear was that people would see me as weak, indecisive and scared. We all have a Primary Question that we ask ourselves everyday of our lives. Mine was, “What if I’m found out?
I often felt the urge to exert control, the need to get people to listen to me. What I did not realise was that it was all about boundaries, my boundaries. It took many years to discover that I could only control myself, not others.
I strive to be open. I seek to be myself. Achieving this can be difficult. It almost seems impossible. I have delved into my core, I have come out from behind my mask, I have re-built my boundaries, but there is something still there.
Earlier I wrote about seeking and returning, about how this had had a profound effect on my life. Looking back I can see the pattern of a journey in my life, a journey of profound importance to my life now and my life moving forward.
My jump off into the world of the theatre and rebellion was exciting and stimulating. But in the end it did not provide any answers to the seeking inside me. I still felt a loneliness inside despite all the people I met and worked with on a daily basis.
I left home and went travelling—finally travelling for myself, not travelling for business. This was a return to the rebellion I had started by going into the theatre but it was one with freedom, with an acceptance of uncertainty. I felt young again.
I had broken away from my old life and was busy forging a new one. Was this a new life or was it just a repeat of the same old pattern? Was I changing and renewing myself or was I just regressing to childhood and starting all over again?
I let go of my neediness, I let go of my need. I found the inner strength to be me and to take my place in the world. I discovered that trying to re-create the world to what I wanted had caused all the problems I had faced in my life.
Urmila and I were travelling the world. We were creating new businesses and re-thinking our relationships with the world. We were free of our old restrictions and partners, and were looking to keep it that way. How could I follow my purposein life?
