What Feels Good – A Practice from Dr. Rick Hanson

One of the key themes that runs through all my work is the importance of community, connection, and sharing our gifts as fully and unabashedly as possible.  For me, this also includes sharing others' gifts as well.  I received a newsletter today from Dr. Rick Hanson, a Northern California-based neuropsychologist doing incredible work with studying (and writing about) the intersections of brain science and contemplative practices.  He has a new book out called "Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom" that is very useful reading. He's also started a weekly newsletter I recommend, called "Just One Thing," which offers a weekly practice that you can do to foster more of what Rick writes about in his book.

I wanted to share this week's posting, which Rich has given permission to share freely, in the hopes that it offers you an opportunity to expand your repertoire of practices that – with a small investment of time – may further help you breathe and walk your Spirit more moments of each day.  Enjoy, and feel free to go to Rick's site and learn more about the incredible work he's doing in this very important, cutting edge area of growth.

The Practice

Take pleasure. 

Have Your Spirit Call My Spirit & We’ll Do Lunch

Last Sunday, I was sitting at my church, which is a metaphysical, New Thought church. 
It came time to pass the collection bag around, and for some reason, I had a thought about how many people I've come across that have argued with
me that Spiritual work should not cost anything…that to charge for
helping people with Spiritually oriented issues seemed Un-Spiritual and inconsistent with Spiritual principles.  I've heard people question why a church needs to have donations/offerings.  I have also heard this argument in regards to why certain workshops, classes, or coaching that is oriented to helping people transform their lives are charging, either at all or "way too much."  Well, as dangerous a proposition as it can be for me to think, this got me to thinkin'.

On October 2 (two days before the church service I'm referring to), noted Social Media expert Chris Brogan posted a blog called The Audacity Of Free that I really enjoyed a lot. It spoke of the problem that some in our society have in understanding why services with intangible value should cost anything.  While we understand that we have to pay for food, plumbers, and colonoscopies, it gets a bit dicey when we're being asked to pay for workshops, seminars, or donations to churches, for example.  [A disclaimer here: I lead workshops and provide coaching for which the "value" is not fully predictable (until the end of the workshops or sessions), so I have an affinity for this subject.]  I wrestle with it all the time.  Now, to complicate matters further, my "value" that I provide is not only largely intangible, but I traffic in work and coaching that is unabashedly spiritually oriented; that is, I do all I do to basically assist people in being able to develop a deeper connection to their Spirit and to whatever Divine Presence they may believe in and long to be more connected to.  When you start bringing Spirituality into the picture, things can get pretty interesting pretty quickly with this "Shouldn't Spirit stuff be free, or at least cheap?" kind of thinking.

Well, as I was listening to the Minister give his talk about the critical role that imagination plays in Spiritual development and deepening, mine started running a bit amok.  My mental wanderings went from this topic of "Why do people expect something for nothing in the personal development realm?" to how often people unconsciously apply this same line of thinking  and sense of entitlement towards Spirit Itself. 

How many of you reading this have had thoughts along the lines of "Well, Spirit sure hasn't answered my prayers yet; I asked for a new Weber, and so far all I've gotten is more problems and dissatisfaction," or "Jeez, I've been studying and practicing Spirituality for years, and yet I've still not gotten the answers I'm looking for…nor have I had direct audiences with Spirit in between fast-forwarding through the commercials on the ole Tivo?"  I imagine there are many who have wondered why a Spiritual life or Spiritual Path devotedly pursued has not yet yielded a sense of enlightenment, peace, greater riches of money and contentment, and a noticeable reduction in bad stuff happening.  I know that I've wondered that many times in my Spiritual Path youth and even last week. 

Well, here's a take on what's up with all this, and why any of us could trend towards wanting our healing, our Enlightenment, and our Spiritual Path to eventually get us to Nirvana and states of more frequent bliss, and RIGHT NOW, thank you very much: because we've become complacent, culturally narcissistic, and spiritually lazy.  My friend David has often said, in effect, "Westerners don't have any idea what real Spiritual Practice or discipline really is, particularly compared with Eastern-oriented metaphysicists and Spiritual pilgrims."  I remember bristling at that when I first heard it, not realizing I was unconsciously getting into an internally voiced "My Path is Bigger & Better Than Your Path" brouhaha.  Yet, I submit to you all reading this that it might be a good idea to really take a look at what it is that you're expecting from Spirit and a "Spiritual Path."  If you haven't in awhile, really take a gander at why you're even ON a Spiritual Path, if you consider yourself to be on one (a clue that you are: thoughts like "I'm more Spiritual than he/she/them," or "I'm not being Spiritual enough"). 

Where are you trying to get to?  Do you have thoughts or expectations that reaching a certain stage of "enlightenment" or consciousness will bring you more happiness, ease, and better-ness?  Do you find yourself taking issue with tithing your Spiritual church/Source, or paying for "Spiritual Work?"  If you are, or find yourself going there more often than you'd have imagined you would, then I invite you to consider that your Spirit – and the Divine – don't look at things as a price-tagged commodity and value-added destination.  In all Spiritual Traditions that I'm aware of, there is sacrifice and surrender involved in getting closer to Spirit, along with practice, discipline, devotion, faith, and a healthy dose of egoic humility.  Notice where you resist that, check in with your heart, and see if you're really trying to get "somewhere" as proof of being "Spiritual" enough…or, if you're truly willing to do the work that you may need/want to do to simply surrender into a reality that I believe in…that being "Spiritual" is a state, not a dot on a map.

10 Pounds of S**t In A 5-Pound Bag – A Tribute To A Spirit & The Divine

The expression for which this post is named was one of the most oft-used and delightful expressions uttered by my dear frien d, Jim ‘Jaguar’ Wilson.  A man who often spoke in a lingo that defied a first-cut understanding, and brought memories of how Jazz Cats talked back in the 60’s, the expression nevertheless humorously described a life that often seemed beyond Jim’s immediate ideas of what he could handle.  Yet, handle it he did…always finding a way to take whatever obstacles were coming his way – which many did – and then using his Spirit’s refusal to bow to defeat to help him either find solutions, or go through the process with an air of “might as well make the best of it, because it is what it is.”  It was that inspiring and determined way of living that Jim brought to his year-and-a-half long dying process that finally culminated in his passing on September 27 in my old stomping grounds of Bayfield, Colorado (near Durango).

It is not just to pay tribute to this amazing man that I write this.  Jim would have been a teeny bit embarrassed, I think, to have TOO much fawning over him.  Part of his magic was that he never realized what an inspiration he was in life, and probably wouldn’t realize how his death has done the same.  I’m more writing this because, in my grief of losing this gentle, loving man that I knew for 8 years, I see a lesson that’s too important not to highlight.  When I was writing a piece for his memorial that was held Tuesday night – outside at a fire circle with all his New Warrior Brothers, family, and friends – I was trying to figure out what I could say and what I most remembered as one of Jim’s signature expressions.  The “10 pounds of s**t in a 5-pound bag” one was the first one to come to me.  I’ve since realized that that was the perfect one, not only because it was something that Jim would say when you asked him to check in on how he was doing, but it ended up being the edge of existence that he always seemed to find himself transcending.

Transcendence is one of the greatest gifts of possibility that we are given by the Divine through being put in a human existence.  I’m not referring to Transcendence in the sense of rising above something, but simply moving higher beyond a level of consciousness that you have a natural drive to grow beyond, after incorporating all the lessons you can, from each “level.”  This is an impulse that the human spirit, at its fullest, can’t help but do…it’s just a matter of whether we allow it with grace, or if we go kicking and screaming into denying it, fearing it, and avoiding it.  There have been many times in my life that I have taken the latter path, only to find – to both my consternation and relief – that this kind of Transcendence is all but non-avoidable for me and most people.  Jim was a man who modeled for me the beauty of just diving in and going for it.

It was a way of living that he brought to his adventurous younger life climbing mountains and traveling around the world.  He brought it to his incredible jazz guitar playing.  He brought it to how he would fight with his former wife with whom he managed to ultimately co-create a caring relationship with that ended with her being at his side when he passed.  He brought it to his work as an electrician, a job that he truly enjoyed and took great pride in doing with excellence.  Most importantly to him, perhaps, he brought it to the depth of which he loved his daughter Angela and strove to be the kind of father for her that “she deserved,” he would often say.  That one goal, above any other, was the one that drove him to constantly transcend any of the limitations he felt he embodied, imagined or real.

For me, personally, he brought it to the way he did his inner work that I was privileged to lead some of, and many times, got to be led in by his example.  Jim didn’t let all of his adversities define him or limit him.  Eight months ago, when his Pick’s Disease had rendered him unable to walk very far by himself, he showed up in a men’s circle still very sharp, mentally, and loving each man in that circle with his wit, his careful attention, and his unwillingness to operate as if he hobbled in any way.  I know it wasn’t easy most of the time.  I know Jim had a temper, and I know he had his moments.  He was not a God nor was he perfect, by a long shot.  What he was, however, was a living testament to never stopping to live as fully and as best as possible…the way he loved those he loved was always full-out, unconditional (at least with me), and selfless, often to a fault.  All of that, combined with the fact that he was one of the funniest men I’ve ever known, made him a humble man of virtue in my book…a man who, in his life and his death, now symbolizes the endless possibility that Spirit offers us all: the moment-by-moment opportunity to choose, to surrender, to glean the messages that Spirit is offering us through our trials and heartaches, and take all that into a life lived as a commitment to being as fully alive and joyful as possible, while following Spirit’s lead, rather than the voice of limitation that our Ego-minds thrill in focusing on.

Godspeed Jazz Man Jaguar.  Thank you for being a Spiritual lesson for so many, but also for being a teacher to all of us who had the privilege of sharing humble space with you.  May you find even greater freedom in your next stage of evolving, no longer having to carry that damn bag, as those of us who miss you already will use your example to continue to find greater levels of our own freedom in our co-creative walk with Spirit, whether we admit it or not.