I’ve had a chance this week to really start putting into practice: Living in the Now.
My 14 year old broke their leg and tore the ankle ligaments at ice skating lesson and it’s been a rough time. So many doctors. Surgery scheduled. And so much disappointment with canceled events. It will be a long road to healing.
It’s been an emotional rollercoaster.
I have had to stop many times to take deep breaths and sit with my emotions and realize I am not in control. I could not prevent or change events and I shouldn’t worry about the future.
I don’t like being busy or feeling rushed.
This week is a lot of appointments and scrambling to work out schedules to accommodate the doctors visits. I have to make sure my other daughter gets to and from work and gymnastics and my son gets to baseball practices.
Chapter Two – Consciousness: The Way Out of Pain
Of course we all want to avoid pain, but sometimes it seems unavoidable.
I have to stop multiple times this week to realize that I am not in control.
What happened happened and there’s nothing I can do to change that.
I can and should control my thoughts and use my mind as a tool when needed, but I shouldn’t let it overwhelm me and cause anxiety.
Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don’t realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it, so it is considered normal.
Eckhart Tolle
Being still or quieting the mind is a lesson in almost every world religion, faith, spiritual practice. It’s not easy or widely taught.
I am trying to learn this concept of inner stillness so I can better help my children be spiritually healthy.
Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.
Eckhart Tolle
I think Western society has its priorities all wrong. And the Western church perpetuates those values and projects those worldly ideas on to Jesus, who never taught those concepts.
We are all seeking wholeness, but we don’t really know how to achieve that.
This is the esoteric meaning of the ancient art of alchemy: the transmutation of base metal into gold, of suffering into consciousness. The split within is healed, and you become whole again. Your responsibility then is not to create further pain.
Eckhart Tolle
Our society is so, so sick and it’s odd for anyone to be truly healthy and happy.
In John 5:6, Jesus asked: “Do you want to get well?”
If you have lived closely identified with your emotional pain-body for most of your life and the whole or a large part of your sense of self is invested in it. What this means is that you have made an unhappy self out of your pain-body and believe that this mind-made fiction is who you are.
Eckhart Tolle
The biggest lie of the world is FEAR. Knowing everyone is living in fear helps me to have compassion instead of retaliating or being angry.
The number of people who have gone beyond mind is as yet extremely small, so you can assume that virtually everyone you meet or know lives in a state of fear.
Eckhart Tolle
Many faith traditions and spiritual practices have a concept of “death to ego” leading to enlightenment.
It’s really hard to relinquish ego and live in the now with responsibilities as a parent.
In the next chapter, we move more deeply into The Now.
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