FINDING HAPPINESS IN DARK TIMES #3

MEANING & WELL BEING

We all differ in our appreciations of what is happiness, harmony, peace, balance, equanimity or well-being - qualities for which we must all strive in spite of, and especially because of these crazy times.

We need to ...

 

Find joy, happiness and gratitude in hidden places. The Ancestors

and

The Ancestors

Reviewing, redeeming, and substituting the good for the bad. Turning the Experiencing or the Remembering negative experience into something positive. Unfortunately without spiritual practice our Monkey Mind, Shadow side and Ego will dominate Spacious Mind, our inclination to do good and our Higher Self. 

Monkey Mind and these other negative polarities that cause fear and energetic contraction become our default mode. They were designed for running away from a bear or a lion not for negotiating Self-transformation. Psychotherapists know that it is very difficult for folks with obsessive compulsive and anxiety disorders, severe depression or P.T.S.D. to get out of Monkey Mind and so it is for us now with all that is going on around us - political upheaval, climate change and especially now Covid. Any kind of meditative technique can help. Mindfulness meditation has been studied in the military and found to be successful for P.T.S.D. 

It helps to sublimate the negative around us while still keeping informed. Comedians who inform by making us laugh at the same time are commendable. They may be the best way to to listen to the news.

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” Marcel Proust

When we feel paralyzed by the fact that we are powerless concerning the global issues around us we can at least do a type of "spring cleaning" within and without. 

Within; by nurturing a love rather than a fear vibration with whatever inner technique that works for our equanimity. 

Without; by navigating our boat with the help of non-attachment. Keeping it simple, attending to needs, getting rid of "stuff" and those things, no matter how commendable, that no longer support who we really are and our spiritual transformation.

Anything or anybody who does not make you more of who you are makes you less. The Ancestors

Because of Covid we are in a space of material contraction which is good for spiritual practice. Whatever we have not thought of, looked at, or touched in the last few years may be able to be discarded, sold or given away. I guarantee that we will all feel lighter and our spirit boat, being less laden will navigate much more easily.

Keep It Simple, Stupid or

In addition to spiritual practice and non-attachment we empower our boat with truth, hope, faith, belief, trust, surrender, empathy, forgiveness, gratitude and wise choice. We slow it down with hopelessness, denial, resignation, detachment, cynicism, guilt, shame and the wrong choices.

"If you can empty your boat (of these negative polarities) crossing the river of life no one will oppose you, no one will seek to harm you."

“Don’t ask yourself what the world need. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” H. Thurman

It is all about a Hero/ine's journey. 

The Warrior archetype keeps the grail for him/herself the family, the institution or the corporation. 

The Hero is about Self, aligning with one's destiny or core strength for the purpose of helping others. The Hero gives the "grail" away.

"Hold to your vision, be true to your myth." Joseph Campbell

This journey also fits in with the Seligman's positive psychology and recommendations for 

Well Being.

 Seligman's acronym P.E.R.M.A. is in line with the Hero's journey and is about finding meaning through one's core or signature strength.  Carol Ryff adds autonomy and environmental mastery to Seligman's P.E.R.M.A. 

I have included nature as part of environmental mastery - knowing how to use the "accessible green" available to us in order to achieve balance.

P.E.R.M.A.

We  should enjoy Pleasure and Sensory pursuits as well as positive emotions responsibly - not chase after them or try to be happy all the time in order to flourish. 

(The Ancestors also stress the importance of the senses in transformation.)

“… don't think this transformation is about having the perfect life or the perfect job or the perfect mate or the perfect marriage or the perfect friendship. This is not about perfection.; it is about wholeness. It is not about having things exactly as we want them, but about having things exactly as they are. When we allow things to be, a sense of harmony develops…” Adyashanti 

When we are Engaged, we are in line with our core strength, our true purpose and we can experience a sense of flow, sometimes called superfluidity or being in the zone (or the Tao) in order to serve something bigger than ourselves.

"At first you must learn to do the humble things and often they are the most difficult to do. In those humble things ... to find true happiness. I do not know what your destiny will be but I know one thing, the only ones among your who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve." A. Schweitzer

 

Seligman stresses the importance of Relationship especially those that are in line with personal growth, self-worth and finding meaning.

“Once what you are living and what you are doing has for you meaning, it is irrelevant whether you are happy or unhappy. You are content, you are not alone in your spirit, you belong.”

         L. Van der Post  

Van der Post seems to be saying something similar to Adyashanti.

Accomplishment should be a byproduct of the above. He advises us, to not chase after it or focus on it.

The Ancestors stress that every one of us has been given a special gift  by the Creator in order to help others. The gift that is granted  is unique (it may be just looking after a child.) We are all given different destiny "cups" to fill. We will be karmically accountable to the extent that we fill the cup we were given. Some have been given bigger ones to fill than others - to whom much is given, much is expected - their way will be more difficult. Whatever the case we need to do it for its own sake. To the extent that there may be an agenda there may be a karmic consequence. The Ancestors, however, also admit that ulterior motives are sometimes greatly underestimated.

“The outward work can never be small if the inward one is great, and the outward work can never be great if the inward is small or of little worth... All works are surely dead if anything from the outside compels you to work. Even if it were God himself compelling you to work from the outside, your works would be dead. If your works are to live, then God must move you from the inside, from the innermost region of the soul - then they will really live. There is your life and there alone you live and your works live.” 
Meister Eckhart

The good new is that ...

The Ancestors

The choice is ours - Warrior or Hero archetype? What's it to be?

Give back, pay forward and be happy (love) or keep it for ourselves (fear)?

"It must be a poor life that achieves freedom from fear." Aldo Leopold

 

Unless we are in service to others, we will not endure happiness and the more we focus on ourselves the more miserable we become.
This is not an ethical judgment, but a fact of life that is fixed as a default into the fabric of the soul. P.E.R.M.A and the Hero's journey is about well-being and meaning.

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"We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don't know." W. H. Auden

08_Here_For.mp3