Posts Tagged ‘trust’

field of gold

Friday, November 4th, 2011

 

This has always been your journey this time round. You have felt the pull towards the centre of your being, and you wonder how much longer.  

 

Life is random. We never control completely what is happening and what will happen to us. Some of us want control, insurance, risk minimalisation, others, like yourself seek the opposite, you want to know yourself without regard, without judgement, without recognition you venture into the breach, you want to test the trust that you cling to so desperately. And when you do, when you have done, you have been rewarded, you have been reassured, and yet this reassurance is always given, provided in such a way that is only meant for you. Others need to seek their own reassurance, you can not share yours – it is as the big man said – each must find their own way. Each must find the trust, and test it, and in doing so become stronger in the faith in what is, and what can be.

 

I can not take you where you want to go. I can tell you how to get there, but I can not take you. You must take that journey yourself.

 

With minutes left to live I wonder about the days before. I wonder about the tree that I saw moving with the wind last year, the one that stood alone in a field of gold. I wonder about the ease of learning a new language, a language that others will understand. I wonder about the accommodation provided in heaven, and the way in which we all try to look like others with whom we feel an affinity.

 

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

 

practise looking

Sunday, October 2nd, 2011

 

 

complete non-attachment

that lasts

maybe a minute

maybe less

 

I’m practising with my eyes wide open

 

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

 

here I am again…

Monday, February 7th, 2011

 

 

Its all ok, everything is good even when it feels like we’ve come full circle and are back exactly where we were 4, 5 or however many years ago. We all go round in circles – life is not  a linear process, we don’t just start out being born, learn our lessons from every single experience and progressively follow this straight path to death. We go round in circles, revisiting moments in our lives that we have a need to revisit.  Sometimes it takes us more that one go at a certain life experience to fully learn and grow from it. So, thankfully we come round again.

 

Some of us don’t even recognise these cycles at all, most of us only see it every now and again. However if we don’t recognise this pattern and if we don’t choose to pay attention and take action then we just keep going round and round, ultimately wondering why we don’t seem to be ‘getting anywhere’ in our lives.

 

Yet we all know when we’ve come round again - we know it deep inside. We sense a familiar feeling inside and there are familiar signs outside. We know that we’ve had these feelings before and the external signs and symbols remind us of a similar time in our lives not so long ago. Not so long ago that we have no recollection; we know where we are. We know we are here again. The question is do we now pay heed to this knowing, or do we ignore it, dismiss it, resist it?

 

There are of course a multitude of reasons why we may choose to ignore, dismiss or resist what we know.  And quite often this is exactly what we do. We do this however at our peril. There is no escaping these cycles of life. We are back here again for a reason, and if we choose to ignore, dimiss or resist how we feel and what we recognise around us, then we are simply delaying the inevitable. And what today is just an uncomfortable sense of self doubt will become if we delay long enough a life-threatening situation.

 

There is one predominant reason we have come back round again. There is one main reason we find ourselves in this situation again. That is to give ourselves an opportunity. We are here again so that we can choose to do things differently We can choose to be different.  And ain’t that the most amazing thing? Ain’t that the most fantastic opportunity?

 

Usually this most wonderful opportunity is also a most demanding challenge. We are here again because there is another way to respond to this set of circumstances; there is another way to feel and act in this moment. There is another way to be in this moment. Often this other path  is one we do not feel that comfortable taking, probably why we didn’t take it last time around (ha). Yet the bigger our fear the greater the opportunity for us to change our lives. It is our fear that holds us back, by being here again we are presented with the challenge and the opportunity to face that fear and set ourselves free.

 

So my friends whenever you find yourselves in that place that seems so familiar, pay attention. Be in it, feel it, remember it. Remember how you felt, who you were the last time you were here. Who are you now? What do you want to be different, and what do you have to do make it so?

 

Take responsibility for being here, again. Take responsibility for being here before. Know that you are here because you chose/choose to be here. You are here for a reason and trust that you know exactly what that reason is. Try to let go of your frustration, your disappointment, your anger. Try to just simply and gently be in this place and get to know the landscape a little better.

 

Be grateful. Thank the lord, or the universe, or fate, or whatever it is you believe in for allowing you, and assisting you, in being here again. Appreciate the wonderful opportunity you have been given; the challenge you have created for yourself to liberate yourself in this moment.

 

Kia kaha, kia toa, kia manawanui. Be strong, be brave, be steadfast my friends. Know that I love you all. Know that this moment, like all moments will not last. Know that you have within you the courage and the strength to change who you are and what your future is.

 

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

 

 


3 days to go

Monday, May 17th, 2010

 

 

Each day begins with a slight headache and a dawning doubt.  I don’t know where my confidence and optimism have gone?  Every time I wake a bubble bursts and there is a mental grinding of the teeth as I prepare to engage with the day. 

 

Yet this morning my clenched and strained stance softened within the hour. On turning on my laptop I find a pleasant and promising message from a language school in the UK.

 

Such a glimmer of hope is all it takes. The slightest of smiles can produce the smallest chink in the armour and a single ray of sunlight slips through – my cloudy day is diluted and once again I am standing in the faintest of lights from above. The shadows slink slowly, resentfully backwards and in their absence I remember my initial half-baked plan. My plan for my three months down under:

 

  • to visit with my sons
  • to spent time on retreat
  • to complete a TEFL course

 

And after all that is done and dusted, my plan to return to Caroline, to the UK. 

 

Now here I am only days away from completing my plan! It seems to have all fallen into place, it seems to have worked out. In 3 days I will have done all that I wanted to do. I have succeeded, I am reassured, in a few days I will be qualified to teach. It has all worked out… hasn’t it?.  Has it all worked out?  …. and if it has what I am doing feeling so bad? What am I worried about? Why do I doubt?

 

Is this whole drama that I am feeling, this pain and agony once again simply an unnecessary act of  despair? Is this just another completely pointless self indulgent exercise in doubt and worry? Have a fooled myself once again? Fooled myself into thinking that life sucks?

 

To discover this is the case would be the greatest of lessons.

 

To find out that this moment of overwhelming doubt was simply once again a trick of my mind would be  a most wonderful lesson. It would be, once again, a most powerful reminder that WORRY IS POINTLESS. That …

 

…things ALWAYS work out…

ALWAYS

ALWAYS

ALWAYS

work out

 

… and the best way through all of it is to simply know this truth. The best way through life, through all we experience is to simply hold on to this truth and let everything else go.

 

everything always works out

there is ABSOLUTELY nothing to worry about

 

The light from above grows stronger. I become stronger, more aware once again of the perfection of this human existence.

 

This morning I completed my final assignment and in doing so I realised another significant difference in emphasis between CELTA and TESOL.  In TESOL there is an emphasis on differentiation and following that on preparing extension tasks within lesson plans. This is hardly stressed at all within CELTA where the emphasis is on the fundamentals of eliciting and reacting.  I am lucky to have experienced both courses – to be learnt from both.

 

I am lucky – ha. Life is good!!

 

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

 

 

 




16 days to go

Friday, May 14th, 2010

 

 

Christ this is really a trial.  There is little pleasure in it. It is more a test of endurance… and… trust. Trust that the trainers know what they are doing. Trust that I will become more accomplished at teaching. Trust that the ways, techniques and methods we are being taught are the ‘right’ ones. Trust that the way the knowledge is packaged and paced and ordered has been tested many times before and has been proven to work. Trust that after another 16 days I will be  a much better teacher than I am now, coz I’m not so comfortable with the teaching I’m doing at the moment. I don’t recall ever feeling this uncomfortable in the classroom/tutoring environment when teaching at uni.

 

I think maybe my uncomfortableness has something to do with not understanding people at the best of times – ha. And not just at a philosophical level but at a very real hearing and listening level. I have for many years now had difficulty understanding people – I am maybe a little deaf and a little disinterested, and this makes hearing and understanding what someone is saying rather difficult. I’ve got into the habit of reading body language, of coming to know what is expected in response even when I do not understand the words. I do my best to produce a reassuring smile or confirming nod or shake of the head. This way of being is not realy too well suited to teaching English to foreign students.  Ah well – keep going – ha.

 

As I have said it is simply a matter of endurance. I am running out of money – something I knew would happen and didn’t quite anticipate it happening so quickly. Being here, in a city, in Auckland, is sucking the life out of me, in all ways. I do not feel I belong here. I do not feel at ease here. I am temporary, out of step, and while I need a job I am not sure that working here will be good for me in any way other than financially. To stay here, not just in Auckland, but perhaps in NZ, does not rest easy with me. And yet …

 

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x