Place your dominant hand upon your heart and say, “I joyfully take in the world as a vital part of me.”
Everyone has a heart. Everyone is made of the same stuff. We are, as humans, only a few molecules away from being monkeys. But we continually separate, while suggesting that we are all one.
“One Love,” “All One,” “Unite,” “Stronger Together,” “Be the Change,” “We are One,” the bumper stickers say. Yet we do everything that we can to separate ourselves from each other by first dishonoring our connection to ourselves.
I love the quote from the Dalai Lama (who meditates 5 hours a day and secludes himself for a month every year to meditate more):
“He sacrifices his health in order to make money. He sacrifices money to recuperate his health. He is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die and the dies having never lived.”
And our bodies show it every day: living with anxiety, depression, discomfort, fatigue…this has become the norm for most Americans. It didn’t used to be so.
“Autoimmune dysfunction” and hormonal imbalance affects half of adult women. Heart disease and hormonal imbalance affects half of men. A third (probably more) of Americans suffer from digestive disruption on a daily basis. The Standard American (SAD) Diet, our frenetic unnatural ant-like pace that we live as humans, the lack of sleep and body care, the fast-paced world we live in, the disruption of our hormones…these things are killing our joy, burying our hearts moment by moment. This way of life is making it impossible for our bodies to find homeostasis, for it to complete its natural daily process of healing itself.
Yet we continue to allow our projected thoughts, fears, aversions and desires to take the reigns of our lives. We are working against our bodies and hearts.
When does this freneticism end? At what point are we able to quiet the words, ideas and images and simply FEEL?
The more we slow down and start to FEEL, the less we need to think. And the more we trust that, the healthier we get.
Have you ever made a huge change that was scary but eliminated a significant stressor in your life and immediately felt better in your body? It happens to us every day. We literally carry the weight of our emotions in our bodies — our guts, our hormonal bodies, our hearts — causing digestive distress, hormonal imbalances that disrupt our entire bodies, heart dis-ease, kidney failure from the ability to properly eliminate our stressors, and the list goes on.
And there is no pill that we can take to get to the root cause of this issue to heal the whirlwind of crap that the body takes just by living in this society. We can take on anxiety just by being around people who live fast.
So why do we live so fast? WHY? To make money? To buy more stuff? To feel better about ourselves? WHY? Does having money or buying stuff or doing stuff out of obligation or shame make YOU happy?
“This being human is a rare opportunity…don’t waste it”…said a wise old Hindi a million times.
“Do more of what makes you happy” is a popular quote these days on t-shirts and coffee mugs. So the question begs, are you doing what makes you happy? And does what makes you happy REALLY make you happy?
Maybe, but not always. It can’t, because whatever it is you are doing right now will not always be. The life we live is temporary, whatever happens after this is beyond what the human mind can imagine or fathom, but we are pretty sure, across the ages, the sages, the Masters and the scriptures, that how we do what we do right now absolutely affects what happens later.
As my dad used to say, “what goes around comes around.” And that doesn’t just apply to the boyfriends who broke my heart. It applies to each of us individually.
So how do we start alleviating our symptoms and realizing that the world is here to teach us, and not to distract us with frenetic opportunities to do more stuff that makes us crazy and brings us dis-ease? Place your dominant hand upon your heart. And say “I joyfully take the world in as a vital part of me.”
Don’t just do it when you’re receiving a pleasurable gift from someone. Do it when you’re so angry you’re ready to hit something. Do it when you’re so frustrated you could scream. Do it when you’re so tired that you think you might actually die. Do it when you are feeling intense emotion or pain. Own it by feeling it fully! Place your hand upon your heart, take in the sensation, accept it without trying to avoid it, and feel the lesson that it has to offer you, without words, without thoughts, without projections, without pictures or ideas. Do it with trust and love and devotion.
Still feel it? Keep going. Give yourself to your heart, a little more, day by day. It wants to help you. It wants to come forth. It wants to heal you. It wants you to let it lead from a pure place of love and grace. It wants for you to slow down and let it guide you.
As we get more skilled in this process, we begin to understand how the letting go of the things that we think are important is exactly the key to our growth. What is important to you? Is it permanent? Does it REALLY make you happy? It is out of obligation and done because it’s what’s “right?” Who gets to be the judge of what’s “right?” You? Me? Politicians? HA!
Just stop all that. And place your dominant hand on your heart and say “I joyfully take the world in as a vital part of me.” Be united with the universe that way by accepting it all, taking it in, digesting it fully.
We are made of grace and love, but we are not all one until we can all individually connect to that place within us no matter whether we’re gaining or losing, happy or sad, experiencing pleasure or enduring pain. It’s easy to sing khum bah yah and be “all one” when things are happy and good, but with every happy and good, there’s bound to be a sad and bad…will we be “all one” then?
It begins within each of us.
Keep your hand on your heart. It is only there where there is no pain. It is there that we connect. It is there that we grow. It is there that we can make the world a better place. Not because we’re trying, but just because we ARE.