The Medicine Wheel – Balance Within and Without

In order to thrive, love, forgive, heal and prosper – I believe we must be in balance with ourselves and with the world around us.  One of the hardest things that I have learned and come to believe in is that our happiness is produced, not by our external life conditions, but by our perceptions and thoughts about our life and what happens to us.  We are not upset or made happy by events, but by our reactions to events.  For example if I said to you, “Does anyone ever make you angry?” you would say yes.  But in reality, this is totally impossible.  You choose to be angry by the way you process the event.  This is something we were taught to do as a child.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about the teachings of the North American Native peoples.  It’s amazing to me how similar their spirituality is to the teachings of Buddha.  Right now I’m looking at the similarities of the Medicine Wheel and the Wheel of Life.

The Medicine Wheel is a symbol for the wheel of life which is forever evolving and bringing new lessons and truths to the walking of the path. The Earthwalk is based on the understanding that each one of us must stand on every spoke, on the great wheel of life many times and that every direction is to be honoured.  Until you have walked in others’ moccasins, or stood on their spokes of the wheel, you will never truly know their hearts.

The Medicine Wheel teaches us that all lessons are equal, as are all talents and abilities.  Every living creature will one day see and experience each spoke of the wheel and know those truths.  It is a pathway to truth, peace and harmony.  The circle is never ending, life without end.

The phrase – “The Good Red Road” is a term used by many different Native American tribal communities to represent one who is walking the road of balance, living right and following the rules of the Creator.

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Choosing a path

Any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you. . . . Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question. . . . Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t it is of no use.

Carlos Castaneda

What will I be doing tomorrow? Where will I be? With whom will I be? While I can’t predict the future, of course, I do know that the answers to these questions to a great extent depend on what I do today, on decisions I make about which road to get on right here, right now. There is, of course, no right or wrong road, and we may end up going down several different roads for different aspects of our lives, but we do have many decisions to make.

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Mindfulness, thoughtfulness and patience from Hesse’s Siddhartha

I found an old copy of Siddhartha. The first time I read it was over 40 years ago!

Hesse began writing this novel in 1919 in the nightmarish aftermath of World War 1 and his wife’s overwhelming schizophrenia. This was Hesse’s effort, like Siddhartha’s, to meet the fear of impermanence and find a true path. Thirty years later, Siddhartha, published in English in 1951, resonated with seekers of the Beat and post-Beat generations, who knew in their bones that the time were changing. But what about the book? The story is simple, the language plain as befits a fable, maybe a bit preachy, overladen with teachings. Siddhartha is both spiritual biography and fiction. This simultaneously interests and discomforts.

It seems at first to parallel the life of Buddha, then diverges and becomes, perhaps, the life of a Buddha. It would be a stretch to say there is a plot. Rather, the novel moves through a sequence of relationships –with Siddhartha’s boyhood friend Govinda, who becomes a disciple of the Buddha; Gotama Buddha himself; the courtesan Kamala, who schools Siddhartha in sensuality but sees that he is sadly unable to open his heart; the merchant Kamaswami, who teaches him the ways of commerce, simultaneously leading toward material wealth and spiritual poverty; the saintly old ferryman Vasudeva, his closest companion; Siddhartha’s unnamed and prideful son, child of Kamala, who flees his father’s righteousness; and, at last, the river itself, all-accepting, ever-flowing. Siddhartha’s understanding is tempered and shaped by each encounter. Each is incomplete, each leads to suffering, yet the reader sees that wholeness is always nearby. But it takes all of this book, all his life, for Siddhartha to see this himself and mysteriously transmit it with a kiss to his oldest friend and fellow seeker, Govinda. Is Siddhartha’s message particularly “Buddhist”? Maybe not, but it has surely led many thousands in that direction. Hesse, speaking through Siddhartha, calls his path “yoga-veda,” or the yogi’s way.

Doctrinal purity is impossible, but each of us can choose to live a meaningful life. I would say, to borrow from Sulak Sivaraksa, that this is Buddhism with a small b. From reading about Hesse’s life and his deep involvement with psychoanalysis, it strikes me that this novel is the first meddling of psychology and Dharma, a melding that today is often found in Western Buddhism. One can see the ferryman Vasudeva, with his infinite ability to listen, as a scantily clad proto-analyst. In the middle of the book, Siddhartha is asked several times to explain what he has learned from his years as a mendicant and seeker. He says, “I can think, I can wait, I can fast.” This means, I believe, that Siddhartha can use his mind and senses, he can practice patience, and he can endure hardship — essential capacity for the practice of spiritual life. No one of these qualities is sufficient for awakening, but the ability to wait, to be patient, to accept and release each moment is key.

I find that mindfulness, thoughtfulness and patience are at the root of a compassionate life.

Finally, this is where Siddhartha arrives and embodies his own name, which means “one who has accomplished his aim or purpose.” From ferryman Vasudeva, from the river, from his own trials and reflections, Siddhartha learns to listen — and his innate wisdom flowers: “It was nothing more than a readiness of the soul, a mysterious knack: the ability at every moment in the midst of life to think the thought of unity, to feel and breathe unity.” Hamlet says that “readiness is all.” In the face of impermanence, this is my watchword. Between the writing of Siddhartha’s “Part One” and “Part Two,” two years unfolded as Hermann Hesse worked his way out of depression and became “ready,” receptive, able to find his way to the novel’s end. I admire his intention, dedication and skill.

May we all get ready and wake up.

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Trust, trusting ourselves

In a world in which we are exposed to more information, more options, more philosophies, more perspectives than ever before, in which we must choose the values by which we will live (rather than unquestioningly follow some tradition for no better reason than that our own parents did), we need to be willing to stand on our own judgment and trust our own intelligence—to look at the world through our own eyes—to chart our course and think through how to achieve the future we want, to commit ourselves to continuous questioning and learning—to be, in a word, self-responsible.

Nathaniel Branden

Trusting ourselves–what a concept that is! In a world in which there are hundreds of people every day in our media, in ads, and in our personal lives telling us that we should trust their judgment and do as they say, it’s quite a novel concept to trust ourselves and to trust what we learn and what that learning means to us. But you see, we have to live our own lives and make our own ways through this world, so it’s up to us–and only us–to determine who we become and how we interact with the world, its people, and its nature.

We all were given intelligence, and we all have our own unique conscience. We were given our own sets of desires and wishes and wants, and we were given our unique gifts that will allow us to make the best of our lives if we use them to their fullest potential. We choose the values we live by, and we choose how we treat others. Far too often, though, the criterion for our choices is simply, “Well, that’s how everyone else does it.” This criterion, needless to say, doesn’t take into account our uniqueness or our own judgment. It’s an easy way out of having to make decisions that may be fairly difficult to make.

But those are the decisions that make you who you are, and that help you to become the person you’re meant to be. If you don’t make them, you’re standing in place or treading water, however you wish to look at it. That’s not fair to you as a person, and you deserve to be treated fairly, especially by yourself.

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Adding change to my life

Today’s world needs change, alteration, renewal, and corrections of errors. It needs new ideas, new approaches, methods, plans, procedures, and new ways of doing things. Maybe you should think of going — literally or symbolically — to a circus today, where you’ll see stunts you never dreamed possible. The novelty and originality there may stimulate what you need more of in this life. Have the daring to take a flight for the idea you believe in! Wilferd A. Peterson

So much of what we do in our lives, we do by rote. We do much of what we do because it’s “tradition” or because it seems safe and risk-free, or simply because that’s the way we’ve always done things. This way of approaching our lives is fine if we live in a cage and have no options, but for free people who are trying to forge their individual ways through life, it’s no way to live. Life is about risk and trying new things. So many new things get pushed our way all the time that there’s never any real reason for us to continue to do things over and over again in the same ways.

When we get caught in ruts, we stagnate and we don’t allow ourselves to learn. This year’s flowers are much different than last year’s were, no matter how much alike they seem, and this year’s life for us is full of new opportunities and potential, if only we take the time to look at what we have available to us in new ways so that we can discover the exciting possibilities that are there for us.

I used to have a friend who impressed me with the way he looked at the world. The only way that I could explain it was that he didn’t just look at things and situations head-on; rather, he walked around them, under them, through them, and looked at them from many different ways. And his view of them always differed from the “standard” view, the one that most other people shared. I want to be like that. I want to learn about things by seeing the possibilities in them.

I want to make my life rich by trying new and different things without having preconceived notions of what outcomes should be. I want to be daring enough that at the end of my life, I’ll be able to say to myself “No matter how it turned out, I feel good about my life because I was always willing to take chances and to learn more about life than I would have if I had done the same things over and over again.” If I’m able to take my leave of this planet with that idea as part of who I am, then I know that I will have contributed also to the lives of others. ~~~~~

A further thought; If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. . . Søren Kierkegaard

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Awakening

The Awakening
Author unknown

A time comes in your life when you finally get…when, in the midst of all your fears and insanity, you stop dead in your tracks and somewhere the voice inside your head cries out…ENOUGH! Enough fighting and crying and blaming and struggling to hold on. Then, like a child quieting down after a tantrum, you blink back your tears and begin to look at the world through new eyes.

This is your awakening.

You realize it’s time to stop hoping and waiting for something to change, or for happiness, safety and security to magically appear over the next horizon.

You realize that in the real world there aren’t always fairy tale endings, and that any guarantee of “happily ever after” must begin with you…and in the process a sense of serenity is born of acceptance.

You awaken to the fact that you are not perfect and that not everyone will always love, appreciate or approve of who or what you are…and that’s OK. They are entitled to their own views and opinions.

You learn the importance of loving and championing yourself…and in the process a sense of new found confidence is born of self-approval.

Your stop complaining and blaming other people for the things they did to you – or didn’t do for you – and you learn that the only thing you can really count on is the unexpected.

You learn that people don’t always say what they mean or mean what they say and that not everyone will always be there for you and everything isn’t always about you.

So, you learn to stand on your own and to take care of yourself…and in the process a sense of safety and security is born of self-reliance.

You stop judging and pointing fingers and you begin to accept people as they are and to overlook their shortcomings and human frailties…and in the process a sense of peace and contentment is born of forgiveness.

You learn to open up to new worlds and different points of view. You begin reassessing and redefining who you are and what you really stand for.

You learn the difference between wanting and needing and you begin to discard the doctrines and values you’ve outgrown, or should never have bought into to begin with.

You learn that there is power and glory in creating and contributing and you stop manoeuvring through life merely as a “consumer” looking for your next fix.

You learn that principles such as honesty and integrity are not the outdated ideals of a bygone era, but the mortar that holds together the foundation upon which you must build a life.

You learn that you don’t know everything, it’s not you job to save the world and that you can’t teach a pig to sing. You learn the only cross to bear is the one you choose to carry and that martyrs get burned at the stake.

Then you learn about love. You learn to look at relationships as they really are and not as you would have them be. You learn that alone does not mean lonely.

You stop trying to control people, situations and outcomes. You learn to distinguish between guilt and responsibility and the importance of setting boundaries and learning to say NO.

You also stop working so hard at putting your feelings aside, smoothing things over and ignoring your needs.

You learn that your body really is your temple. You begin to care for it and treat it with respect. You begin to eat a balanced diet, drinking more water, and take more time to exercise.

You learn that being tired fuels doubt, fear, and uncertainty and so you take more time to rest. And, just food fuels the body, laughter fuels our soul. So you take more time to laugh and to play.

You learn that, for the most part, you get in life what you deserve, and that much of life truly is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You learn that anything worth achieving is worth working for and that wishing for something to happen is different than working toward making it happen.

More importantly, you learn that in order to achieve success you need direction, discipline and perseverance. You learn that no one can do it all alone, and that it’s OK to risk asking for help.

You learn the only thing you must truly fear is fear itself. You learn to step right into and through your fears because you know that whatever happens you can handle it and to give in to fear is to give away the right to live life on your own terms.

You learn to fight for your life and not to squander it living under a cloud of impending doom.

You learn that life isn’t always fair, you don’t always get what you think you deserve and that sometimes bad things happen to unsuspecting, good people…and you learn not to always take it personally.

You learn that nobody’s punishing you and everything isn’t always somebody’s fault. It’s just life happening. You learn to admit when you are wrong and to build bridges instead of walls.

You lean that negative feelings such as anger, envy and resentment must be understood and redirected or they will suffocate the life out of you and poison the universe that surrounds you.

You learn to be thankful and to take comfort in many of the simple things we take for granted, things that millions of people upon the earth can only dream about: a full refrigerator, clean running water, a soft warm bed, a long hot shower.

Then, you begin to take responsibility for yourself by yourself and you make yourself a promise to never betray yourself and to never, ever settle for less than your heart’s desire.

You make it a point to keep smiling, to keep trusting, and to stay open to every wonderful possibility.

You hang a wind chime outside your window so you can listen to the wind.

Finally, with courage in you heart, you take a stand, you take a deep breath, and you begin to design the life you want to live as best as you can.

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Not looking back…..

Putting Foundations Under Castles
–by Henry David Thoreau

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so the paths with which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! […]

I learned this, at least, by my experiment that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

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Native American Code of Ethics

1. Rise with the sun to pray.  Pray alone.  Pray often.  The Great Spirit will listen, if you only speak.

2. Be tolerant of those who are lost on their path. Ignorance, conceit, anger, jealousy and greed stem from a lost soul.  Pray that they will find guidance.

3. Search for yourself, by yourself.  Do not allow others to make your path for you.  It is your road, and yours alone.  Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.

4. Treat the guests in your home with much consideration.  Serve them the best food, give them the best bed and treat them with respect and honour.

5. Do not take what is not yours whether from a person, a community, the wilderness or from a culture.  It was not earned nor given.  It is not yours.

6. Respect all things that are placed upon this earth whether it be people, animal or plant.  Honour the Spirit in all things.

7. Honour other people’s thoughts, wishes and words.  Never interrupt another or mock or rudely mimic them.  Allow each person the right to personal expression.

8. Never speak of others in a bad way.  The negative energy that you put out into the universe will multiply when it returns to you.  All persons make mistakes.  And all mistakes can be forgiven.  Bad thoughts cause illness of the mind, body and spirit.  Practice optimism.

9. Nature is not for us, it is a part of us.  They are part of your worldly family.

10. Children are the seeds of our future.  Plant love in their hearts and water them with wisdom and life’s lessons.  When they are grown, give them space to grow.

11. Avoid hurting the hearts of others.  The poison of your pain will return to you.

12. Be truthful at all times.  Honesty is the test of ones will within this universe.

13. Keep yourself balanced.  Your mental self, spiritual self, emotional self, and physical self all need to be strong, pure and healthy.  Work out the body to strengthen the mind.  Grow rich in spirit to cure emotional ails.

14. Make conscious decisions as to who you will be and how you will react.  Be responsible for your own actions.

15. Respect the privacy and personal space of others.  Do not touch the personal property other’s, especially sacred and religious objects.  This is forbidden.

16. Be true to yourself first.  You cannot nurture and help others if you cannot nurture and help yourself first.

17. Respect others religious beliefs.  Do not force your belief on others.

18. Share your good fortune with others.  Participate in charity.  Be willing to give back to the people, so that People will live.

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Yellow stickies from the kitchen

I have a huge collection of yellow stickies – on my fridge, in my purse and car.  Today I’ve put them all well some of them here.

“Do you really want to look back on your life and see how wonderful it could have been had you not been afraid to live it?”
Caroline Myss

“Unforgiveness is the poison you drink every day hoping that the other person will die.”
Debbie Ford

“And finally the day will come when the risk it takes to remain tight in the bud will be more painful than the risk it takes to blossom.”
Anais Nin

“Once you become aware of what stands in your way and become willing to release it, you signal the universe that you are ready to manifest the life you were meant to live.”
Chérie Carter-Scott

“The closer we get to uncovering ourselves, the more difficult it becomes to face the truth. Sooner or later we stop running, out of sheer exhaustion and desperation, and turn around to face our image. The pain that we go through during this revelation is negligible compared to the state of grace that we enter into when we have finally moved on.”
Dr. Christiane Northrup

“Always go with the choice that scares you the most,
because that’s the one that is going to require the most from you. ”
Caroline Myss

“When we harbor negative emotions toward others or toward ourselves,
or when we intentionally create pain for others,
we poison our own physical and spiritual systems.
By far the strongest poison to the human spirit
is the inability to forgive oneself or another person.
It disables a person’s emotional resources.
The challenge is to refine our capacity to love others as well as ourselves
and to develop the power of forgiveness. ”
Caroline Myss

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

‘It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.’

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Albert Einstein quote

When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.
Helen Keller

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I’ve divorced my Alcoholic husband and my life has really started

Hi everyone, it’s been a long time since I have posted about this. A year and a half ago I told my EXAH that I would be leaving him.  Our relationship over a 20 year period included periods of being in and out of rehab, dry drunk behavior and all the subsequent fallout. We were both very unhealthy people. There is no need to elaborate on his behavior, you have all been exposed to similar people and this post is a positive one.

When I left I was truly devastated, I have never felt so much physical gut wrenching throw yourself on the floor and assume the fetal position type of pain. I was totally broken and shattered. In the past I never really worked on MY issues, it was always easier to blame the A – just put a band aid on it and worse ignore and stuff the feelings down. I found out that I was an addict, addicted to him, the drama, the control that I thought I had. I now really felt pain for the first time. I was alone, with me! I didn’t like what I saw but I vowed to change. I posted and read a lot, talked and cried on the shoulder of my dearest friend – the sister of my heart,  and started to change my whole life.

The man I married does not exist anymore, there is an empty shell haunting the streets using his name but I don’t know him. He no longer haunts my mind or my heart. I had a funeral for Bob – invited a very few close friends, played “our” favorite music and our friends spoke about him – shared their feelings and said good bye.

I am not going to lie…the journey was tear-filled, stressful, frustrating, scary…as well as…knowing why I was doing what I was, continuing to work towards my goal of breaking the cycle of alcoholism and co-dependency in my family, knowing that “this too shall pass”, having a strong faith and relying on that daily for strength, having an amazing network of friends who supported me through the worst and the best…knowing that my journey was worth the pain, as I am now living the life I am meant to!

The universe opened up and welcomed me. I lost weight, I started snowshoeing, hiking and belly dancing, I go to yoga 2 times a week, practice daily meditation. My world has become such a beautiful place.

Every time I read posts on here about the pain, the grieving, the process, my journey comes back to me. There is light and hope after being involved with a addict. Work your program ‘cause you’re worth it.

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