Insights – Melannie Thomas

Archive for the ‘Finding Your Center’ Category

A pinnacle is a lofty peak.  We strive to achieve pinnacles of success in the important areas of our lives, to reach lofty peaks.  We admire the achievement of others as they reach pinnacles in their professions and in their personal lives.

“There are lots of people shaping decisions, and so if we want to predict correctly, we have to pay attention to everybody who is trying to shape the outcome, not just the people at the pinnacle of the decision-making pyramid.” ~Bruce Bueno de Mesquita

“You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity.” ~Thomas Wolfe

Savor the pinnacles of your life experience.

Poetry Will Save Your Life by Jill Bialosky created immediate curiosity for me.  In her beautiful and powerful memoir, Bialosky chronicles how poetry gave her strength, hope and comfort through the challenges and heartbreaks of her life’s journey.  Poems “…might be about what hurts,”  but they “…remain a sustaining source of comfort.”

Using the power of the poetic form to help me through some of life’s most agonizing and arduous moments, as well as memorializing celebration and triumph, initiated in me a strong resonance with Bialosky.

Looking more deeply into this healing process, I discovered that there are Poetry Therapists and a group of organizations devoted to Poetry Therapy.  I am including the following links should you wish to pursue this thread.

• www.poetrytherapy.org;
• www.goodtherapy.org;
• www.sanctuarycenters.org/ (Poetry Therapist Perie J. Longo).

“If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it: blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches: for the Creator, there is no poverty.”  ~Rainer Maria Rilke

“Every age has its own poetry, in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry.”   ~Jean-Paul Sartre

I am a devout convert to the comfort, joy and healing power of the poetic process.  I invite you this week to connect with your poetic muse.

Western Culture, especially American Culture is lacking in patience.  We want everything day before yesterday, and we want it delivered.

The advertising industry plays a large role in our inability to consistently practice patience.  However, inherent in capitalistic economic function is a built in structure for learning patience.  Patience is having control, discipline and restraint, a challenging practice for Westerners.  The ability to defer immediate gratification goes a long way toward achieving our long term material dreams and goals.

One of the fruits of a strong, vital spiritual belief system is patience.  Indeed, patience is a major factor in the function of enduring faith.

A spiritual discipline of practicing patience has the same benefit for our personal growth and maturation as it does in the material world; helping us to secure and sustain authentic relationships and substantive inner peace.

Inviting you this week into the practice of patience.

“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”  Tolstoy

“Patience is not simply the ability to wait – it’s how we behave while we’re waiting.”  Joyce Meyer

“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience” R. W. Emerson

I love the cricket song!  From childhood to the present, their sound is magically compelling to me.  On a warm summer evening I am often spellbound by a cricket symphony.

Celebrated in literature,  The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens;  in poetry by Wadsworth, Keats and Du Fu;  and widely  in film.  Disney’s Pinocchio is a classic cricket movie.

In many Asian and Latin Cultures crickets are a sign of intelligence and good fortune.  Cricket and it’s cousin grasshopper, are symbols of virtue, good cheer, abundance and even nobility.  And to harm a cricket can bring grave misfortune.

I find the cricket song comforting.  I think of them as little, active warning systems.  When they suddenly become quiet, I know some creature or cricket predator is near.  And I am always delighted when the symphony starts anew.  Their song makes me happy.  I hope when you hear cricket music, it will fill you with delight too.

Wishing you all a week full of cricket wonder.

Is your love unconditional?  Do you give others unconditional support?  Are you capable of unconditional surrender?  Not necessarily easy questions to answer.

Think about the adult child that you may be financially supporting for whatever reason.  What, if anything, do you expect in return?

A spouse or love partner whose behavior and attitude often grates on your nerves.  Do you love them unconditionally regardless?

In your spiritual belief system, is the love in your heart and mind unconditional?

Unconditional love is not co-dependent, needy or lacking in self-respect.  Healthy, loving relationships require boundaries, respect, tolerance for ambiguity and forgiveness.

“Unconditional love really exists in each of us.  It is part of our deep inner being.  It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being.  It’s not ‘I love you’ for this or that reason, not ‘I love you if you love me.’  It’s love for no reason, love without object.”  ~Ram Dass

“Never give up, which is the lesson I learned from boxing.  As soon as you learn to never give up, you have to learn the power and wisdom of unconditional surrender, and that one does not cancel the other; they just exist as contradictions.  The wisdom of it comes as you get older.” ~Kris Kristofferson

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the last word.”  ~Martin Luther King Jr.

To endure is to last, to persist; endurance is the ability to withstand hardship and/or stress, it is fortitude.

Marathon anything demands endurance to be successful.  We get to the other side of personal and collective hardships by enduring.
Assaults on our health and ensuing treatment, for example chemo-therapy, require endurance.  Surviving the grind of daily living is an act of persistence.

“Not in achievement, but in endurance, of the human soul, does it show its divine grandeur and its alliance with the divine.”  ~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin

“The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”  ~ Frederick Douglas

“Small change, small wonders – these are the currency of my endurance and ultimately my life.” ~ Barbara Kingsolver

This week I invite you to acknowledge and celebrate your ability to endure.

Life is full of puzzles, big and little.  Some are in our environment and others in our spirit and psyche.

All of us are multiple puzzle solvers.  Watching an electrician solve a partial power outage at my home was such a welcome example of the process…and it is a process, not an event.

What is my work?  What is my purpose?  What is my destiny?  What is the purpose of life?  We each work to find answers to these stirring questions.

“People who work crossword puzzles know that if they stop making progress, they should put the puzzle down for a while.”

~Marilyn vos Savant

“There are no extra pieces in the universe.  Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill, and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle.”

~Deepak Chopra

Betting you are a great puzzle solver.

Do you glow?  Do you see others glow?

Collectively, we speak of glowing health, glowing smiles, radiant glow, glimmers of thought, glowing embers, nature’s glow, glowing sunsets and and the glow of the moon.

There is a light within each of us; the light of our spirit.  When our spirit light is glowing strong, it is seen and felt by others.  Conversely, when the spirit light is dim and barely visible, that too, is noticeable.

We understand the fundamentals required for glowing health.  And when we apply them consistently, we reap the reward.

In this frenetic age it feels far more difficult to maintain the fundamentals of spiritual health. spiritual glowing.

Daily physical exercise contributes to our overall health and vitality.  Daily spiritual practice does the same.

I invite you to appreciate your daily spiritual practice, and ramp up your spirit glow.  The world needs your light!

Thomas Jefferson wrote. “The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.”

In my area we are in the throes of an extended heat wave.  It is as prudent to prepare for heat as it is for extreme cold.  Following are some tips and guidelines for managing the next several days.

Be aware.  Note the hottest days, and the hottest part of the day.  Make plans accordingly.

Prepare for power outages and brown outs.  If you lose your air conditioning or you don’t have air conditioning, go to the mall, a movie, the library, the beach and/or a favorite swimming hole.  If you are staying home, take a cool showers or baths.

Check on elderly relatives and neighbors.  The elderly, the sick and small children are most vulnerable to the effects hot weather.

Make sure you are using sun screen on yourself and your children.  Wear hats, loose fitting, light colored clothing.

DON’T leave children and pets in enclosed vehicles!

Eat several small, light meals and stay HYDRATED.  Avoid caffeine and alcohol.

Make sure your garden is well watered.  Deep watering is more effective the frequent surface spraying.  And don’t forget your houseplants, air conditioning can dry them out quickly.

Slow down. Acquaint yourself with heat-related emergencies.

The gifts of really hot weather are the cool mornings and warm evenings.  Enjoy them by taking care of yourself throughout the hottest parts of the day.

I invite you to be ‘heat-smart’ this coming week as you celebrate the Summer Solstice.

We all know someone who exudes gentleness in their words, actions and demeanor.  I admire them.

Today I share some quotations about gentleness that reflects the energy of this part of human being.

“Of course, when I say that human nature is gentleness, is not 100 percent so.  Every human being has that nature, but there are many people acting against their nature, being false.”  Dalai Lama

“Only the weak are cruel.  Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.”  Leo Buscaglia

“That inner voice has both gentleness and clarity.  So to get to authenticity, you really keep going down to the bone, to the honesty, and the inevitability of something.”  Meredith Monk

“Nothing is so strong as gentleness.  Nothing is so gentle as real strength.”  Ralph W. Sockman

Wishing you all a blessed week!