Asking The Right Questions

This morning, as I reviewed the "hits" to this blog, I discovered that someone had made a Google search for: "asking the right questions." The number one item in the responses to this request was the article below that I first posted in May 2009.  As a reread it, I found myself in a similar quandary as the article addresses.  I am posting it again with the thought that it may also be applicable to other readers at this time.  I have often recognized that life seems to run in cycles.  As we become more aware of them and seek further understanding of them, our growth into our fuller, richer True Self may be realized.  I am continuing the process!

When I wrote that I was going to take a sabbatical in order to consider some “new” questions about my life and my purpose I didn’t know at the time just what the “new” questions were going to be.  I think I expected them to simply be a rehash of questions I have asked myself most of my life.  That is the way the journey began, but it is not how it turned out.

It seems there are points in the lives of each of us where we feel a greater need for introspection, meditation, or contemplation because we feel a bit like a boat without a rudder.  A boat without a rudder may sail along just fine, unless you want to go somewhere specific.  Then you discover that without the rudder you aimlessly drift along with little satisfaction or sense of accomplishment.

I have come to points like this several times in my life.  These plateaus where we find it necessary to take a break for a while are not necessarily negative events nor do they indicate a lack of life value.  They are simply places where we have the opportunity to review our priorities and consider altering our direction.

This time around, my questions seem to center on getting a better understanding of my feminine nature.  I wanted to better understand my feelings, my empathetic nature and why deep emotions seem to surface so dramatically for me at times.

Asking the proper question is the central action of transformation—in fairy tales, in analysis, and in individuation.  The key question causes germination of consciousness.  The properly shaped question always emanates from an essential curiosity about what stands behind.  Questions are the keys that cause the secret doors of the psyche to swing open.[1]

Somewhere within me there is an aching, a longing that has been expressing itself more and more often as deep feelings of connection with some of my fellow human beings, not necessarily anyone I know personally.  The feelings surge up when I see others hurting or feeling alone without the company of others who might be supportive in their time of need.  I may see this in a television drama, the evening news, and the newspaper or just about anywhere one hears about others and their difficulties.  It also wells up in me when I become aware of significant help someone extends to another, a random act of kindness.  Both negative and positive stories attract my sense of empathy.

The curiosity that stands behind the questions I ask myself about why I have these feelings and what I am supposed to do with them hopefully will open more widely the secret doors of my own psyche.

Often the creative life is slowed or stopped because something in the psyche has a very low opinion of us, and we are down there groveling at its feet instead of bopping it over the head and running free. In many cases what is required to aright the situation is that we take ourselves, our ideas, our art, far more seriously than we have done before. [2]

I find this notion particularly interesting.  Realizing that the blocks I might feel in my creative life could be an inner low self-image certainly is not a new notion, but seeing it in print gave me the opportunity to look at that issue again, perhaps opening the “secret doors” of my psyche.  For the most part I feel I am aware of the self-image limitations I have placed upon myself, so my questions were to get at how to handle the empathetic emotions that overwhelm me at times.  What is their productive use?  (My pragmatism and logic at work, which takes me away from the feelings and into my masculine mind.)

The larger questions to be considered are: What/who am I really?  What is my work in this life?  What do I hunger for?  What do I long for?  Additionally, I think I must come to terms with whether I believe in my ability to do what my life experiences require of me in order to enter into transformation.  Am I simply sitting on the sidelines because it is comfortable there and there is less to challenge my status quo?  Or, is my apparent sideline sitting really just an opportunity to consider new ventures and to find ways to utilize the skills and belief systems I have developed through the years?

As you can see, I have not finished my quest (and I don’t think we are designed to “finish” our quest anyway!).  However, I have gained some new insights that I plan to share in later postings, so stay tuned.

---

[1] Women Who Run With the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD, page 52

[2] Ibid, Page 70

From Agitation To Meditation

It is Saturday morning, 1974.  I am an Instructor at Casper College in Wyoming.  My wife Barbara is a Social Worker for the State of Wyoming in Casper.  We had planned to drive 300 miles to Denver that weekend to participate in one of Dan Perin's meditation classes at the Whole Life Learning Center. 

But I was half sick.  Tension in the chest, low energy, depression, typical onset of a nasty cold, or worse, the flu.   We debated and finally thought we would try the trip and see how we felt.  We could turn around and come back if I got worse.  So I fired up the 1965 primer-paint Corvair and off we went to Denver. 

In meditation class, we began by lying down and relaxing, our arms stretched out over our head, palms up and hands relaxed.  But my arms would not lie down flat.  There was so much tension in my shoulders that I could not lay my arms out flat on the floor, over my head, the biceps touching the ears.  So I fanned my arms down a bit to let them rest on the floor.

The breathing exercise started, a four count, which Dan explained he had adopted because "it does not mean anything."  Why get hung up on the trinity, the pentagon, the hexagon with all their religious and pagan associations, when four does fine as a breathing count.  I liked that common-sense approach.

Empty the mind and concentrate only on the breathing count, Dan said.  When the mind wanders from it, just come back to the count and start again.  Sirens outside?  Ignore them and come back to the count.  Sounds easy, doesn't it--tune out the outside world and your stray thoughts and just do the simple task of counting your breath.  Thoughts of your job come up?  Or a relationship?  That's okay, just tune it out and go back to the breathing and counting the breath.  Empty and still the mind.  That's all you are to do:  count the breath.  Sound easy?  Yes, but it is not.  And at first, seemingly impossible.

Later, or perhaps in a later session, we were to have a directed meditation.  We did the counting of the breath under Dan's direction, stilled the "random thought generator" that seems to want to run all of the time, then at his instruction, we began meditating on the issue we had predetermined would be the subject of the meditation for the session.  And there was the issue before us, without rancor, tension, anger, desire, just a peaceful contemplation of it and an addressing of what the issues were.  Just still the mind and then throw the problem up and look at it.  Just look.   That, of course, is the correct way to look at all personal problems, or any problem.  But again, easier said than done.  (And if everyone did that, it would put Judge Judy and Judge Mathis out of business, would it not?)

In the last session of the day I was suddenly aware that my arms and shoulders were completely relaxed, and my arms could lie on the floor above my head in perfect repose.  When in the evening we drove back to Casper, all of my symptoms of the morning had disappeared.  No tension and congestion in the chest, no depression, and my energy levels were up to any challenge.  It was unbelievable.  It was only at that point that I was fully aware of the toll that anxiety and tension takes on the body and how it is the mind that is creating it and that we do have control over our mind, should we exercise that control in a disciplined way.  I had let the conflicts, frustrations of work and city and relationship actually make me stiff and ill.

I was lucky.  I had found the right person, Dan Perin, at the right time, in the aftermath of the post-traumatic stress of three years of anti-war activity in Ohio, and in the right place, Denver  (though 300 miles from Casper, the distance was a blessing as the Casper tensions faded with the miles).  This was the beginning of my recovery from the traumatic stress of three years in the maelstrom of anti-Vietnam War protests at Kent State, and the recent year of coping with the chaos of an oil boom town in Wyoming, a recovery for which I am forever indebted to Dan.  My numerous encounters with Dan and with programs and personalities and workshops he brought to the Whole Life Learning Center--from meditation to acupressure to aura healing to past-life regression--enabled me some three years later to have the clarity and focus of mind and personal mental confidence to once again take up the graduate studies I had dropped out of two years previously.  But in 1974 I had no intention of completing them, for the toll of the stress had destroyed my confidence in the value any sustained intellectual endeavors.  I returned to Kent State in the 1977-78 school year and completed my dissertation and thus my doctoral studies in the Summer of 1980.  Thanks, Dan.

Written and Submitted by Lloyd Agte, Co-Administrator of our InsightandOutsight blog.

Priorities Revisited

Some time ago I shared the following thoughts on this blog:

I don’t WANT to,

I don’t HAVE to,

YOU can’t MAKE me  . . .

I’M RETIRED!!!!

This feeling comes up almost every day when I turn on my computer, open the Internet and check my news feeds and then my blog.  If I haven’t posted an entry recently I begin to feel like I should!  Then I look to the poster on my wall and realize,

I don’t HAVE to!

The strange thing is, I really enjoy writing (when I think I have something to say).  Even stranger is the fact that some of the best writing I do is in those moments of twilight just before slipping off into dreamland, or before a nap, or even in meditation.  Unfortunately, most of those twilight experiences don’t make it to the printed form.  Instead, they drift off into the ethers of Universal Consciousness, perhaps to fall upon some unsuspecting person who recognizes an “Aha!” moment that is useful in some way.

We all have our roots of Being in that same Universal Consciousness that holds all that has ever been known and all that is unknown.  We all have access to whatever we need to know at any given moment.  When we learn that and begin to develop our own pathway into Universal Consciousness, we will discover priceless treasures of every kind.  From these roots of Being we will sense our vital connection with others.  We will discover deep feelings of love and acceptance—for others, and for ourselves.  We will realize that there is purpose in every part of our life, yes, even those strange times where there seems now to be nothing of value.

So, while I don’t HAVE to write, I always find that it enhances my own sense of being.  For me that is what is important. It is a priority because it puts me in touch with my Source. There is so much to learn, so much to enjoy in life and in our relationships with others that I want to take advantage of every opportunity to deepen my connection to the Source of being in which we all exist. 

I will write when Spirit moves me to do so.  I hope that somewhere within the words I share you will find a tidbit now and then that resonates within you in some special way.  I trust you will experience the treasures of health, happiness and well-being that await your discovery.

Wisdom From the Coach

I just have to suggest that you take a quick trip to visit the blog posted by my friend Raven Dana (Stress Wizard Coach). Even though I have both her web site and blog recommended in my left column, her recent posting and her current newsletter are significant in the wisdom she shares on getting one’s life back on track (or if you are not off track, it will be even better).

Contact Raven and ask her to forward a copy of Reality Check to you. Then read her article on Things You Can’t Do With the Law of Attraction (Intent). Raven has also developed an interesting self-directed meditation process that lets you develop a meditation CD in your own voice along with binaural beats that assure whole brain approach. You will find this and more in her newsletter.

Asking the Right Questions

When I wrote that I was going to take a sabbatical in order to consider some “new” questions about my life and my purpose I didn’t know at the time just what the “new” questions were going to be. I think I expected them to simply be a rehash of questions I have asked myself most of my life. That is the way the journey began, but it is not how it turned out.

It seems there are points in the lives of each of us where we feel a greater need for introspection, meditation, or contemplation because we feel a bit like a boat without a rudder. A boat without a rudder may sail along just fine, unless you want to go somewhere specific. Then you discover that without the rudder you aimlessly drift along with little satisfaction or sense of accomplishment.

I have come to points like this several times in my life. These plateaus where we find it necessary to take a break for a while are not necessarily negative events nor do they indicate a lack of life value. They are simply places where we have the opportunity to review our priorities and consider altering our direction.

This time around, my questions seem to center on getting a better understanding of my feminine nature. I wanted to better understand my feelings, my empathetic nature and why deep emotions seem to surface so dramatically for me at times.

Asking the proper question is the central action of transformation—in fairy tales, in analysis, and in individuation. The key question causes germination of consciousness. The properly shaped question always emanates from an essential curiosity about what stands behind. Questions are the keys that cause the secret doors of the psyche to swing open. 1

Somewhere within me there is an aching, a longing that has been expressing itself more and more often as deep feelings of connection with some of my fellow human beings, not necessarily anyone I know personally. The feelings surge up when I see others hurting or feeling alone without the company of others who might be supportive in their time of need. I may see this in a television drama, the evening news, and the newspaper or just about anywhere one hears about others and their difficulties. It also wells up in me when I become aware of significant help someone extends to another, a random act of kindness. Both negative and positive stories attract my sense of empathy.

The curiosity that stands behind the questions I ask myself about why I have these feelings and what I am supposed to do with them hopefully will open more widely the secret doors of my own psyche.

Often the creative life is slowed or stopped because something in the psyche has a very low opinion of us, and we are down there groveling at its feet instead of bopping it over the head and running free. In many cases what is required to aright the situation is that we take ourselves, our ideas, our art, far more seriously than we have done before. 2

I find this notion particularly interesting. Realizing that the blocks I might feel in my creative life could be an inner low self-image certainly is not a new notion, but seeing it in print gave me the opportunity to look at that issue again, perhaps opening the “secret doors” of my psyche. For the most part I feel I am aware of the self-image limitations I have placed upon myself, so my questions were to get at how to handle the empathetic emotions that overwhelm me at times. What is their productive use? (My pragmatism and logic at work, which takes me away from the feelings and into my masculine mind.)

The larger questions to be considered are: What/who am I really? What is my work in this life? What do I hunger for? What do I long for? Additionally, I think I must come to terms with whether I believe in my ability to do what my life experiences require of me in order to enter into transformation. Am I simply sitting on the sidelines because it is comfortable there and there is less to challenge my status quo? Or, is my apparent sideline sitting really just an opportunity to consider new ventures and to find ways to utilize the skills and belief systems I have developed through the years?

As you can see, I have not finished my quest (and I don’t think we are designed to “finish” our quest anyway!). However, I have gained some new insights that I plan to share in later postings, so stay tuned.

______________________________

1 Women Who Run With the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD, page 52

2 Ibid, Page 70

Dealing With Anger

(This article originally appeared in my former ezine: Whole Life Development, July 2006. It is reprinted at this time because 25% of new contacts to my blog have been the result of searches for information on the subject of anger. This blog can be searched by using the box in the header to find other articles related to the subject.)

I have discovered that I have within me a deep anger. It is so deep that I did not realize until recently that it was lurking within my subconscious mind. This anger has been disguised increasingly through the years as sadness, sympathy, suffering and frustration because these were acceptable feelings whereas anger was not. We are not supposed to be angry because it is considered a destructive trait.

What is likely to happen after years of suppressing our anger is that some assumed slight or a cross word will trigger an explosion in us and we blurt out an undeserved destructive barrage upon the unfortunate person we consider to be the reason for our anger. In fact, the anger released is similar to a steam pressure cooker that builds almost unnoticed as it sits upon the burner. It reaches its maximum capacity and releases the excess through the pressure valve. When we deal with anger as an emotion to be suppressed, it builds pressure until it finally explodes.

When we feel angry it is important to step back and ask our self, “Where is this coming from? Why is this situation appearing to trigger so much energy?” The sooner we can learn to do this the less pressure will build up within us. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to know the answer to the question we ask. But, even if we do not discover a satisfactory answer immediately, by taking time to consider the question we remove much of the energy from the situation, just like the steam valve vents the excess pressure.

Thich Nhat Hanh, in his book, Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames, (Riverhead Books) says this about embracing our anger.

The Buddha never advised us to suppress our anger. He taught us to go back to ourselves and take good care of it. When something is physically wrong with us, in our intestines, our stomach, or our liver, we have to stop and take good care of them. We do some massage, we use a hot-water bottle, we do everything possible in order to take care of them.

Just like our organs, our anger is part of us. When we are angry, we have to go back to ourselves and take good care of our anger. We cannot say, “Go away anger, you have to go away. I don’t want you.” When you have a stomachache, you don’t say, “I don’t want you stomach, go away.” No, you take care of it. In the same way, we have to embrace and take good care of our anger. We recognize it as it is, embrace it, and smile. The energy that helps us do these things is mindfulness, mindfulness of walking and mindfulness of breathing.

Mindfulness is another way of meditation. It is bringing your attention fully to the moment. When we are fully in the moment there is a sense of peace, a sense of stability and understanding. It is beyond the blast of emotional steam that may vent as anger has built up. If you carry the simile to its end with the steam cooker, you have a satisfying meal. Of course that is only true if the steam cooker is tended to as Thich Nhat Hahn suggests in his book. You do not throw the pot away. You turn down the heat (mindfulness), let it cool to relieve the last of the pressure (allow inner wisdom to be present), then you open it to discover your meal (the potential resolution). I say “potential” because the meal still has to be eaten.

It is true of any potential resolution to our anger that we discover in our mindfulness. It is up to us to examine what it is possible for us to do regarding the situation that has grown into the pressure that we are experiencing. One thing I discovered through my own mindfulness about anger was that through the years there had been situations that I had not finished. There were loose ends in terms of some relationships and actions that I had taken, or not taken. Interestingly, these things did not seem connected to my anger. They simply appeared to me as unfinished business. I know they came to mind because I had made room for them by being willing to look into my anger and care for it. Where it was possible for me to do so I communicated my apologies to those persons I felt I had treated poorly. For the most part those persons seemed surprised, but I was not. Sometimes we have so convinced ourselves that everything is okay that others are convinced as well. Mindfulness, quiet attention given to our higher Self, will open the path to resolution and satisfying results.

When there are specific people with whom there is difficulty that has resulted in deep anger, every effort must be expended to bring resolution. This is for your own health if for no other reason. Of course, ultimately we are only as healthy as our relationships, so it is important to give the other person every opportunity to find healing as well.

Everything is possible when the door of communication is open. So we must invest ourselves in the practice of opening up and restoring communication. You have to express your willingness, your desire to make peace with the other person. . . You have to start negotiating a strategy. No matter how much the other person can do, you have to do all that you are capable of doing yourself. . .Don’t put forth conditions, saying ‘If you don’t make an effort to reconcile, then I won’t either.’ This will not work. Peace, reconciliation, and happiness begin with you. Ibid, page 50, 51

Beginning with ourselves is perhaps the greatest stumbling block we have to restoring harmony in our relationships. If we feel we have been slighted or misunderstood, if we feel we have been lied to or abused verbally, it seems only natural that the other person should begin the process of healing. If we attempt resolution by requiring someone else to take some action, resolution is unlikely to take place. Take care of your anger through mindfulness, open your heart and mind to the Wisdom greater than self and make room for it to bring right action into your life.

Finally, there may be those situations that are truly out of your control. You cannot make others change or “see the light.” You can take care of your own thoughts, feelings and actions. In so doing your life will experience the peace and inner harmony that you seek. Do not delay that positive outcome by waiting around for others to change. Get on with taking care of you!
_________________
In case you are interested in the blog articles that came up in my search, they are listed below. Click on the title to go to the article.

Jan. 28, 2009 On The Occasion Following the Inauguration of Barack Obama As President of the United States of America
Dec. 4, 2008 Promises
Nov. 15, 2008 Unresolved Anger
Oct. 15, 2007 It Would Be Good For You To Hear This
Jul. 25, 2007 I Have Broken My Own Rules!