• Alive

    • December 7, 2009 11:50 am

    When I was young I used to get a thrill out of inspecting the book shelves of others. Come to think of it, I still do. It’s one of the places you’ll find me if I’m in another person’s home, scouring their kept titles to uncover their treasures.

    On one such adventure, when I was a child, I discovered the book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read, about the Uruguayan Rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes mountain range. Sixteen young men survived by eating the flesh of their dead fellow passengers.

    The book moved me, changed me, opened my mind to things I had not yet known to be possible. It is a deeply spiritual book and it impacted me on that level. Even as a young girl I began to look for the hidden meaning in things, the mystical path.

    In 1993, a movie was made of the book starring Ethan Hawke and others. I remember it being a good film but it having not quite the same impact as Read’s telling of story. Probably because I knew Ethan wasn’t really going through it. The book is first-hand and its power is unforgettable.

    The other night, I took the book out once more, looking for something to center me in truth, gratitude, spirit.

    This is what I found:

    “It was something no one could have imagined. I used to go to Mass every Sunday, and Holy Communion had become something automatic. But up there, seeing so many miracles, being so near God, almost touching Him, I learned otherwise. Now I pray to God to give me strength and stop me slipping back to what I used to be. I have learned that life is love, and that love is giving to your neighbour. The soul of a man is the best thing about him. There is nothing better than giving to a fellow human being.”

    These are the words of Coche Inciarte, one of the survivors, speaking to a priest about what the experience had meant to him.

    Imagine being stripped of everything you have, everything you are, forced to consume the flesh of your brothers and sisters, reduced to living in near impossible conditions where seemingly all hope is lost, and there, at the edge of nothingness, you discover the meaning of life.

    I went looking for healing and found it in the pages of this book, where the words of a man who stared death in the face reminded me of what it’s really all about.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Here is the Simple Truth: Life is Love and Peace comes from Giving.

    December 6, 1989

    • December 5, 2009 9:10 am

    Dearest Readers,

    Tomorrow is will be 20 years to the day that Marc Lepine gunned down 14 women in the Polytechnique School in Montreal.

    I was 18 years old, living in Whitehorse, working at a newspaper, which made the massacre somehow more real, being one of the first places where the news was delivered. The rest of my family was living in Montreal and that, too, brought me closer to the terror as I heard from them first hand what the city was going through.

    It’s hard to believe 20 years have gone by. “It’s still so raw,” said a student in the yoga class I taught yesterday. It is. I can feel that horror, that sense of loss right now as I write this.

    Today, for the Inspiring Message of the Day, I’d like to send out a prayer written by Matthew Fox, an American Episcopal priest and theologian.

    If you are a man, remember, this is not about you, but the system of Patriarchy that has divided us.

    “Prayer to the Cosmic Christ”

    From Patriarchy’s lack of authentic curiosity,
    From Patriarchy’s separation of head from body,
    From Patriarchy’s separation of body from feelings,
    From Patriarchy’s preoccupation with sex,
    From Patriarchy’s fear of intimacy,
    From Patriarchy’s reptilian brain,
    From Patriarchy’s anthropocentrism,
    From Patriarchy’s cosmic loneliness,
    From Patriarchy’s crucifixion of Mother Earth,
    From Patriarchy’s envy and manipulation of children,
    From Patriarchy’s abuse of women,
    From Patriarchy’s homophobia,
    From Patriarchy’s righteousness,
    From Patriarchy’s idolatry of nationhood and national security,
    From Patriarchy’s forgetfulness of beauty and art,
    From Patriarchy’s impotence to heal,
    From Patriarchy’s sado-masochism,
    From Patriarchy’s parental cannibalism and devouring of its children,
    From Patriarchy’s lack of balance,
    From Patriarchy’s savaging of the earth,
    From Patriarchy’s quest for immortality
    From Patriarchy’s ego,
    From Patriarchy’s waste of talent and resources, human and earth,
    From Patriarchy’s human chauvinism,
    From Patriarchy’s compulsion to go into debt to finance its bloated lifestyles,
    From Patriarchy’s matricide, spare us O Divine One.

    Love and Peace to you all.

    Ask to Receive

    • December 4, 2009 8:45 am

    Dearest Readers,

    One of the reasons this blog is called Cultivate Your Courage is because cultivating courage is a practice that I need to keep up. I would love to be the person who is writing everyday about how fearless I am but instead I come to you today, humbly, with fear kicking my butt.

    The inspiration I hope to offer you comes from the fact that I refuse to let it win.

    Despite the fact that I’ve been taking good care of myself I continue to feel fatigued this week. When I’m tired the fear rears its ugly head.

    A friend of mine sent me an excellent quote by Friedrich Nietzsche who apparently said, “When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.”

    This was a good thing for me to hear because I’m now being attacked by negative thinking that I have overcome in the past. Old BS (Old Belief System).

    Last night, I decided to flip back through my journal for inspiration. I had just finished writing the day’s entry on the very last page and whenever I get to the end of a book I like to look back to see where I’ve been and how I’ve changed.

    I found an entry from the summer, wherein I’d written that one of my new goals was to “practice joy”. A-ha! I’d forgotten about that.

    How does one practice joy when she feels like a slug? That’s like saying to a depressed person, “Just get off the couch!” It’s a whole lot easier said than done.

    This is where asking for help comes in. Because left to my own devices, I will choose to remain a slug. I will stay on the couch. My fear will keep me stuck. Asking for help is a panacea.

    Whom do we ask? I usually start with the Higher Power, the Creator, the Great Spirit.

    “My desire is to practice joy today but I am tired and my fear is threatening to win. Please help me to find my way to freedom from fatigue and fear. Show me what to do. I am willing to receive guidance. I am willing to change and be changed.”

    If immediate guidance is not received we can try a human being who loves and supports us unconditionally. Not the person who’s going to try to make it better, give us a solution, force an answer. Not the person who talks instead of listens. Not the person by whom we feel judged or whom we judge. Remember we are asking for help!

    Who is the person who knows how to practice active and compassionate listening? Or the one who reminds us how well we’re doing despite the fact that we may not be feeling 100%? These are the people we reach out to for support.

    A friend of mine from Montreal used to say, “Some days are better than others.” This was a HUGE help. It reminded me that I’m not perfect. That I can be having a great run and then something can shift and I’m struggling again. The struggle doesn’t mean failure. It means opportunity.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: I will use the fact that I am struggling as an opportunity to change. Instead of succumbing to fear I will ask for help. When I share my burden it is always lessened. We’re not alone!

    Cry Me a River

    • December 3, 2009 9:16 am

    Dearest Readers,

    In 1987, the great movie director James L. Brooks made a film called Broadcast News. It was a huge hit, making Holly Hunter a star and a whole lot of film-goers laugh and cry at the same time. If you haven’t seen it, try and find it. It’s so good.

    One thing I always remember from the movie is that Holly Hunter’s character cries every single day. Not just a few tears but buckets of them, snotty, hysterical tears requiring huge wads of Kleenex.

    At first, the viewer thinks something is wrong. Something terrible has happened to her. But as the story progresses we realize that this is a regular occurrence for the character. Bawling her eyes out is a part of her normal routine.

    At the time, I remember thinking I could stand to do the same thing on a regular basis myself. It seemed like such a good way to release pressure, relieve stress, and truly connect to the profound grief that comes from living in a world where suffering is all around us.

    I was never a big cryer. Somewhere along the line I developed the belief system that crying meant I was weak or incapable of handling stuff. So I stuffed my tears. The only time I could really cry the buckets of snot was after a I’d consumed a bucket of wine.

    When I started walking the healing path, the road to well-being and recovery from the Old BS (Old Belief Systems), a wise woman told me that crying is healing. “Every time you cry,” she said, “You are healing a little piece of your wound.”

    After that I was like, bring it on! If crying healed my wound then let the river flow! I began to welcome tears and even look for opportunities to release them. I have had many, many good cries since and, as a result, done some very deep healing work.

    Yesterday I had a really good cry. Just what I needed. I was in a public setting, mind you one where I could still be in my own space, but no doubt some may have wondered what was wrong with me. If anyone had asked I could honestly have said, “Nothing.”

    It’s been a great lesson to learn. Nothing has to be “wrong” for me to have a mini-nervous breakdown (one of my sisters and I call it the MNBD). All is well at the moment. My life is really fantastic. I’m loving the work I’m doing, I have plenty of support, I’m in good health. So much to be thankful for!

    But I see and I feel the suffering around me. I open the paper, turn on the radio and there’s more pain than I can bear sometimes. I empathize with loneliness, I fear death will come too soon, I understand what it means to be hurt. I’m human. And to be truly human means to feel deeply both the joy and the grief of living.

    So every once in a while I need to express all of that, the profound richness of being, by having a MNBD. Open the floodgates and let the dam break. It’s a relief to do so and a very healing practice.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: I do not have to be “strong” and hold in my tears. Strength will come through letting them flow. Feeling the grief means freeing it from our bodies. I will feel it and let it go.

    Meditate on This

    • December 2, 2009 10:19 am

    Dearest Readers,

    Just over a year ago I joined Toastmasters in order to hone my skills as a professional speaker. At the meeting this morning our theme was “Meditation” and it got me thinking about my own practice.

    There are all kinds of ways to meditate. Meditation does not necessarily mean sitting cross-legged on a cushion with eyes closed and index finger and thumb gently touching in chin mudra. One can meditate upon a passage of words, or while walking in the woods, or standing in line at the post office.

    Meditating is really the practice of focusing deeply, whether it’s on your breath, a piece of text, the forest sounds or the man’s bald pate in front of you. When we meditate we are seeking the experience of being present in the here and now.

    Many people say, “I can’t meditate. My mind is too busy!” This is the point of meditation. To practice quieting the thinking mind. The nature of the mind is to think. Even great yogis have a mind that thinks thoughts all the time. With meditation, we are learning to let go of thinking and experience being.

    I know people who meditate for hours. This is not me. I once heard Goldie Hawn (of all people) say she meditated for five minutes a day and I thought, “I can do that.”

    Each morning upon waking and each evening before getting into bed I sit on a cushion and close my eyes and breathe, quieting the mind to the best of my ability. Sometimes I am there for five minutes, other times longer. But knowing I only have to be there for five minutes is what gets me to do it.

    Whenever I feel resistance or just too tired, I say, “It’s five minutes, Celia.” This makes it do-able. It makes it easy. I can’t argue with five minutes.

    So I sit and my mind races and it doesn’t. I am thinking the whole time or I’m not. I’m absolutely present or I’m miles away. It’s never the same. But it’s all beneficial.

    Committing to the practice has changed me for the better. Those five minutes have taught me to bring that kind of deep focus into my being at many different times during the day. It’s like a switch I can turn on anywhere, anytime.

    Like the new saying goes, “Practice makes progress.”

    Inspiring Message of the Day: The five-minute rule is a fantastic tool for motivating me to do the thing I think I cannot do. Regarding meditation, committing to just five minutes of quiet time a day improves my quality of life.

    Divine Diving

    • December 1, 2009 8:27 am

    Dearest Readers,

    Someone I know once told me of a dream she’d had of me in which I rolled by her on a skateboard sitting in “boat pose”.

    For those of you not familiar with yoga, the boat posture, Navasana, is where one sits in a V-shape, resting on sitz bones, legs lifted, upper body lifted, arms steady.

    It is an incredibly difficult sitting position that requires deep core strength. In waking life, I and this posture are not really good friends.

    My friend was blown away by the dream and in a light-hearted way saw me as super powerful forever after that. As much as I would like to be the skateboarding yogi in her dream I know the dream was about her power and her strength, not mine.

    Last night I had a similar dream about having that kind of physical power myself. In the dream, I did a free handstand at the edge of a swimming pool, lowered my legs halfway so that my body was in the shape of a ninety degree angle, propelled myself upright into the air about twenty feet above the pool, hovered for a second or two, and then sliced down into the water in a perfect foot-first dive.

    Wow. Totally fearless. Feeling no doubt whatsoever in my ability to do it. Supreme confidence. It was spectacular.

    The funny thing is, when I went to do the dive again moments later I was unable to do so. I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten up into the handstand, my strength failed me and I fell backward into the pool.

    Doubt and fear made it impossible for me to repeat the action.

    Years ago I took a dream workshop and learned the Carl Jung approach to dream interpretation and it’s a fascinating exercise to go through our dreams using this method. I won’t do that here but suffice it to say I believe the dream was about the varying limits of personal power.

    Is our personal power limitless? Am I the only limit to the power I have?

    I like to believe so.

    My doubt is the only thing stopping me from doing a splendid hand-stand, perfect dive. My fear is what stops me from hovering above life’s problems.

    When “I” get out of the way, when I allow the Life Force Energy of the Universe to work through me, there are no limits to what I am able to achieve.

    I awoke this morning with that dream still vivid, that feeling of fearlessness permeating my cells. I’m going to carry it with me all day.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Let me be fearless today. Let me believe that I am able to anything. Anything! Even hover above Earth’s problems, with strength supreme.