This is so true. Everyday life does have so many gifts if your open to see it.
How are you feeling?
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Seato
Jedi Master
Yes, there is so much beauty to creation. Even though at times it can be difficult to see. In such circumstances, it can be good to look where it is more apparent as in nature, gardens, forests and flowers. I am fortunate to live near quite a lot of greenery.
I know I tend towards the habit of sharing thoughts in this thread only when I am feeling uncertain or concerned over something. But I feel I must share the happiness I seem to be feeling right now. Knowing everything is a part of everything else and all is connected. I suppose I knew that before but I feel I understand it at bit better than I did. I guess the difference between knowing and understanding. I think this is coming through from the process of trying to work through the little I’s and parts in the Internal Family Systems therapy by Richard Schwartz.
I am amazed at how it seems that so many simple things can act as mirrors to our relationship with the divine be it in a positive or negative way. Such as simply trying to charge water with intent that it may work positively through you, realizing that your higher self is doing the exact same thing with you.
I wish you all the best in these difficult times and hope you may be able to find moments of joy and beauty in the world amidst all the chaos and negativity.
Vic
Jedi Council Member
I'm really not sure about the unhappiness-happiness spectrum. Why do we strive to get to one polar end of it. To feel good? I spent much of my life trying to hit the happiness pole, or trying to convert unhappiness to happiness (how I view things - good and bad etc)
But it all comes down to feelings. Maybe feelings only have the importance we give them. Individually and collectively.
Perhaps the secret is in taking our focus away from how we feel, and turn it onto the realm we find ourselves in.
Is the big message that had been broadcasting for decades or centuries - 'Know thyself' - just another trick/distraction to keep us blind and unaware?
Just a thought.
But it all comes down to feelings. Maybe feelings only have the importance we give them. Individually and collectively.
Perhaps the secret is in taking our focus away from how we feel, and turn it onto the realm we find ourselves in.
Is the big message that had been broadcasting for decades or centuries - 'Know thyself' - just another trick/distraction to keep us blind and unaware?
Just a thought.
Sorry to hear Tuatha, best wishes for a speedy recovery!
Ouch!! Best wishes for a speedy recovery.
I tend to sleep in an hour and a half to two hour increments, so if I fall asleep around 10:30 p.m. I'm up around midnight, then around 2:00, etc., and I get up to use the bathroom.. Several times a week around 3:00 a.m. I can't go back to sleep. It takes me at least 2 hours before I will fall into a fitful sleep again by morning. Most days, my mind starts racing around 5-6 a.m. with the morning cortisol rise. I'm tired all time and have tried just about every supplement/remedy/herb mentioned in various threads (including Mind+).
Been having an old recurring dream again about needing to use a bathroom in a public place and every one I go into is absolutely filthy.
Anya112003
Jedi
Tuatha... So sorry to hear about your fall. I hope you heal quickly.
Mrs. Peel..I tend to sleep in 2 to 3 hour increment, so I know how you feel. When I wake up I often do Eolas or another meditation to help relax me and help me get back to sleep. It usually helps.
These are certainly challenging times.
Mrs. Peel..I tend to sleep in 2 to 3 hour increment, so I know how you feel. When I wake up I often do Eolas or another meditation to help relax me and help me get back to sleep. It usually helps.
These are certainly challenging times.
we have feelings to try to interpret what our emotions are signalling to us. If we feel bad it’s our subconscious telling us to find the source of the feeling and do something, on the other hand if we feel good it’s also our unconscious parts saying ‘hey this feels nice, find out what’s causing it and do more of that’ though positive feelings can be just as much of a trickery as negative ones.
Feeling are conscious reactions to our unconscious emotions. Without feelings how do we navigate and interpret our environment?
May be the trick is to stop seeing feelings as good and bad and be curious about their origin instead.
Remember that our emotions can be tinkered with to make us feel a certain way so we become loosh for the machine, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with negative emotions per se, only when we wallow in them, same said for positive emotions. Feelings are great teachers, when we are able to feel what we feel objectively and be inquisitive we cut can off the feeding tube.
This says to me that neither positive nor negative feelings are reliable without conscious exploration of their source and origin.
The fun part is figuring out it all out.
What I've learnt is that it's more about being "mentally well" regardless of what's happening and how we feel about it. How we feel about something is based on personal experience and our childhood programming. Knowing thyself isn't just about knowing how we feel, it's trying to understand why we feel like that, where it comes from, whether it's useful or not (which is subjective) and deciding what to do with what we know. Our individual feeling can in some cases keep us blind and unaware because they're usually not objective (or logical), hence needing a network.
Knowing how you truly feel can be helpful, even if it's just accepting and acknowledging that feeling so it's not subconsciously running programmes or interfering with your day to day life. I remember seeing Laura in a podcast saying something like mastering/ controlling your emotions is a really powerful tool to taking control of your life. I can't remember how it was exactly said but that's the jist.
Breo
The Living Force
@Tuatha de Danaan, I hope your bones are healing well! You are in my thoughts and prayers 
I have been really ill twice in a very short time, in the last 3 weeks. Once shingles and I went through it surprisingly fast.
Then a week later, I got an intestinal infection. In the house, I stay now, there was a problem with the general installation and a terrible smell spread everywhere for a few days. The air was heavily polluted and I got infected. It also came and went fast. I am ok, again able to keep up with my duties.
The nights were interesting too. Several bad dreams and one that was different. It was at the peak of the shingles episode.
I was in an infinite white space and chased by an invisible mob. I had the strong feeling that I am protecting someone or something. While fleeing, I fell on my back, laying on the floor. A little boy - I became aware, its him, I´m protecting - ran from the left side towards me, into my arms to rest. He then merged with my chest on the left side. I felt this merging deeply. Then there was a strong pain in my heart. It came from my worries and doubts that I am too exhausted to be able to protect and save our lives.
All of a sudden a giant horse with an empty saddle appeared in this space, with wide open nostrils and a wild glare in its eyes, spreading and dissipating the invisible mob. The crowd really spread and dissolved. I was very scared, frozen, that the horse would trample us down (me and the boy) as I was still on the floor. Then there was a shift in perspective. I observed from a distance that the horse was at the right side of my head. Its giant head most gently lifted the right side of my head, then also merging with it. With it infusing gentleness, warmth and strength. Then I woke up.
It was still night. After 2 days in bed, to my surprise, I was able to get up, much stronger for real and also to my surprise, I then was able to pick some homeopathic remedies and nutrients, that really worked well for the next days - and seem to be part of the fast in and out of the acute phase of the 2 infections. I am not used to dreams like that. Also not such physical shifts. When I remember and think about this dream, like now, it still gives me strength. There are these quotes that are with me since this dream, about lessons I might be learning now:
Session, 10 Feb 2018:
Yes, so true. While now my life is quite a challenging ride, also each day offers many beautiful gifts. Its amazing to experience it at the same time, like life is saying: See, there is balance, metaphors and meaning to all of it. :)
I have been really ill twice in a very short time, in the last 3 weeks. Once shingles and I went through it surprisingly fast.
Then a week later, I got an intestinal infection. In the house, I stay now, there was a problem with the general installation and a terrible smell spread everywhere for a few days. The air was heavily polluted and I got infected. It also came and went fast. I am ok, again able to keep up with my duties.
The nights were interesting too. Several bad dreams and one that was different. It was at the peak of the shingles episode.
I was in an infinite white space and chased by an invisible mob. I had the strong feeling that I am protecting someone or something. While fleeing, I fell on my back, laying on the floor. A little boy - I became aware, its him, I´m protecting - ran from the left side towards me, into my arms to rest. He then merged with my chest on the left side. I felt this merging deeply. Then there was a strong pain in my heart. It came from my worries and doubts that I am too exhausted to be able to protect and save our lives.
All of a sudden a giant horse with an empty saddle appeared in this space, with wide open nostrils and a wild glare in its eyes, spreading and dissipating the invisible mob. The crowd really spread and dissolved. I was very scared, frozen, that the horse would trample us down (me and the boy) as I was still on the floor. Then there was a shift in perspective. I observed from a distance that the horse was at the right side of my head. Its giant head most gently lifted the right side of my head, then also merging with it. With it infusing gentleness, warmth and strength. Then I woke up.
It was still night. After 2 days in bed, to my surprise, I was able to get up, much stronger for real and also to my surprise, I then was able to pick some homeopathic remedies and nutrients, that really worked well for the next days - and seem to be part of the fast in and out of the acute phase of the 2 infections. I am not used to dreams like that. Also not such physical shifts. When I remember and think about this dream, like now, it still gives me strength. There are these quotes that are with me since this dream, about lessons I might be learning now:
Session, 10 Feb 2018:
I´m in my 60ties now. Slowly I am getting that the Universe is benevolent for real :) Quite some practicing ahead about freezing, fleeing and worrying. And learning to rest :) Laura´s meditations are of tremendous help. So much gratitude!
@Tuatha de Danaan, I hope you feel well given the circumnstances.
Patience, I broke my wrist several years ago and... A lot changed, many worries I had at the time disappeared. Sometimes I think it was a blessing, it helped me see more for myself. There were signs, but sometimes one is so absorbed that one does not pay attention to them, so it happened. Yes, at first it was frustrating, daily activities became difficult, but it passes. Give yourself time to heal, not just the wrist.
Patience, I broke my wrist several years ago and... A lot changed, many worries I had at the time disappeared. Sometimes I think it was a blessing, it helped me see more for myself. There were signs, but sometimes one is so absorbed that one does not pay attention to them, so it happened. Yes, at first it was frustrating, daily activities became difficult, but it passes. Give yourself time to heal, not just the wrist.
By chance I found this poem by René-François Sully Prudhomme (1839-1907) because perhaps it has something to tell us on this autumn morning.
For one hour of unique and irrevocable joy,
Preceded by tears and followed by tears,
For one hour you can, you must love life:
What man, for one hour at least, is not happy in turn?
An hour of sunshine blesses the whole day,
And if your hand were enslaved all day,
An hour of your nights would still arouse envy
In the dead, who no longer have even a night for love.
Don't complain, you live! Greater than miserable!
And the universe, jealous of your vulnerable heart,
Would buy joy at the same price as it;
To taste it, however little this intoxication lasts,
The mountains would accept the eternal cold,
The ocean sleeplessness, and the desert boredom.
In French:
Pour une heure de joie unique et sans retour,
De larmes précédée et de larmes suivie,
Pour une heure tu peux, tu dois aimer la vie :
Quel homme, une heure au moins, n'est heureux à son tour ?
Une heure de soleil fait bénir tout le jour,
Et quand ta main serait tout le jour asservie,
Une heure de tes nuits ferait encore envie
Aux morts, qui n'ont plus même une nuit pour l'amour.
Ne te plains pas, tu vis ! Plus grand que misérable !
Et l'univers, jaloux de ton cœur vulnérable,
Achèterait la joie au même prix que lui ;
Pour la goûter, si peu que cette ivresse dure,
Les monts accepteraient l'éternelle froidure,
L'Océan l'insomnie, et les déserts l'ennui.
For one hour of unique and irrevocable joy,
Preceded by tears and followed by tears,
For one hour you can, you must love life:
What man, for one hour at least, is not happy in turn?
An hour of sunshine blesses the whole day,
And if your hand were enslaved all day,
An hour of your nights would still arouse envy
In the dead, who no longer have even a night for love.
Don't complain, you live! Greater than miserable!
And the universe, jealous of your vulnerable heart,
Would buy joy at the same price as it;
To taste it, however little this intoxication lasts,
The mountains would accept the eternal cold,
The ocean sleeplessness, and the desert boredom.
In French:
Pour une heure de joie unique et sans retour,
De larmes précédée et de larmes suivie,
Pour une heure tu peux, tu dois aimer la vie :
Quel homme, une heure au moins, n'est heureux à son tour ?
Une heure de soleil fait bénir tout le jour,
Et quand ta main serait tout le jour asservie,
Une heure de tes nuits ferait encore envie
Aux morts, qui n'ont plus même une nuit pour l'amour.
Ne te plains pas, tu vis ! Plus grand que misérable !
Et l'univers, jaloux de ton cœur vulnérable,
Achèterait la joie au même prix que lui ;
Pour la goûter, si peu que cette ivresse dure,
Les monts accepteraient l'éternelle froidure,
L'Océan l'insomnie, et les déserts l'ennui.
SOTTREADER
The Living Force
I think, and I could be wrong, this spectrum is tied to marketing i.e. to be happy, you need to buy stuff.
I could be wrong but I think using the unhappiness - happiness spectrum as a measure of whether one's life is going according to plan is a western thing and as I said above, tied to the accumulation of material possessions or experiences tied to having more and more money to access.
I think a better measure is about cultivating meaning in life. If one is living a life that they largely feel is meaningful to them, they are content, whether if in a moment they are happy or unhappy, and if they don't feel like their life has meaning, then they are discontent even when they experience temporary happiness.
Vic
Jedi Council Member
Thank you, Fluffy!
I put into action what you suggested - your reply made me feel good - why did it make me feel good? - because it removed an area of confusion which I wasn't consciously aware of having, and answered a question I wasn't consciously aware that I was asking.
Perfect.
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