Meditating at the Beginning and How It Helped Me Become Authentically Me

Laurel Holland

When I first began my meditation practice I was experiencing much inner distress. What I remember are these truths; I had a deep inner sadness that seemed to have been with me all my life, I was unsure of the viability of my marriage, and I was afraid of considering ending my marriage because I didn’t know what I would do to support myself and still care for my three children. Even though it appeared on the outside to all those I encountered that I my life was in good order, inside I was unsettled. One of the problems was that everything appeared fine on the outside, so how would anyone understand that I really needed my life to change, especially if I struggled with facing that truth? Meditation helped me to find my way slowly but deliberately, and mostly comfortably through my changes. But it took some time.

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Stop Following

Most of us are moving through our days on automatic pilot, not really giving thought or consideration to the fact that we are creating our daily experience. We have been conditioned by the culture to behave and shape our lives in specific ways that are not necessarily fulfilling or joyful. Unfortunately, we don’t always know what else to do, so we just keep on following along with some “program” that’s been delivered to us along our journey into adulthood.

Today’s video challenges you to seek the places where you are following along with a program that doesn’t really fit with your heart and soul’s desire. By finding those places of discomfort and conflict, you begin your path out of an uninspired life and into a life of passion, excitement and joy.

Confusion as a Useful Path

In the early years of my healing path I enjoyed time with a proficient teacher who shared sage advice from his teacher. In its essence the message is – “Oh confusion – now you are getting somewhere!”

To a person who is feeling confusion, this line can be experienced as a koan. A koan is a brief thought which one poses to the mind that seems not to make any sense. But if the line is held in the forefront of one’s mind long enough, it becomes a guiding truth, and a deeper understanding is reached.

I invite anyone who is feeling confused to work with this line. “Oh confusion – now I am getting somewhere.” Because when we are certain about life, rigidly holding onto a particular perception of the world, of a relationship, of self, or any other perception, we are headed for a fall. Rigidity equates to death. Certainty that excludes any other possibilities is rigidity. Rigidity feels uncomfortable. Being around people who are rigid in thought (any thoughts) is uncomfortable, especially when we are attuned energetically. Most of us are attuned energetically, but there is a disconnect between energetics and consciousness, thus we feel confused, often dismissing the feelings because we are unable to make sense of the experience.

When I am working with clients and they share a sense of confusion about where they are on their healing path, I exclaim – Great! This outburst is often met with resistance or more confusion. As I explain that confusion is a useful path, that it is a sign of deeper wondering and a search for a new understanding and truth, there is relief.

How do you work with confusion – how do you make good use of the experience? Here are some ideas –

* Relax into confusion by practicing getting comfortable with the experience. (Oh this is confusion – hmmm…)

* Ask yourself lots of questions.

* Become aware of all that you are feeling.

* Watch thoughts as they arise.

* Notice ways you might be attempting to find a rigid answer for the confusion, but resist attaching to one.

* If you are feeling deeply troubled by your confusion, work with a life coach or therapist for a time to help sort through the experience and explore your inner life at a ripe time.

* Let the confusion help you release old out-dated beliefs, fears and old hurts and angers.

* Stay in the state for a time and welcome the opportunity to “not know”. In the not-knowing, you join the ranks of seekers, who throughout history have been looking for the deeper truths of life that stand the test of time.

Confusion is an extremely useful path to enlightenment and awakening. It simple takes courage to allow it to open you.

Workshop Notice – How to Succeed In a Team

I highly recommend this workshop if you are in the Richmond area. Margaret’s presentations are always valuable. For anyone with family struggles, I recommend this as well. Seeing through the lens of a team process when you are faced with challenges in family life and married life can help move the process into more successful territory!

Saying Good Byes Consciously by Dawn Holland

It is a time of saying goodbye in my life. Good bye to the man I have spent 20 years with and still love dearly even though we have divorced, to family members – my daughter and mother, two of my best friends, to a business I love and built with great joy, to a home I cherish and have cared for 10 years and to many dear friends and clients I have come to care for and love over the years I have lived here in Maine. My heart aches and I shed tears regularly. No matter how ready and excited I am to move to a new state and create a new home and business, make new friends, be near family I love and have missed dearly, this time of ending, saying goodbye and leaving, is probably one of the more painful experiences in my life.

The decision to end my life here and move has been a long process that was not experienced lightly. This is a grieving process that I am moving through gently and carefully, as I make decisions about how to move onward. During this period I have experienced a reoccurrence of the anxiety that had calmed. This is because the major life changes I am experiencing means facing fears that I have avoided in the safe world in which I had been living. Part of me wants to remain “safe”, go back to what I know. But that means settling for a life that is not true to my heart and soul. I choose to head forward.

The return of anxiety has felt so frustrating and aggravating at times. I have wanted to say, “Never mind, this is too hard.” Thank goodness for all my past hard work and I am able to recognize fear for what it is. An emotion to be allowed, considered and moved through and beyond, to a place of calm again. That is what I am doing while using my breathing, my times of quiet, prayer and supportive conversations with trusted others.

There are occasions when it is easier to connect with the visualizations I am creating about my future. Other days are filled with the practical tasks of closing out the old life and there is little mind energy for anything other than a good cry. And that’s okay as I do the best I can in this brand new situation.

These conscious good byes are not easy or smooth by any means. I continue because I feel guided by something greater than me. I am able to connect with that certain “knowing within” because I have spent time with the truth and myself and have learned how to listen to wisdom when it comes. As I now move forward, connecting to knowing what is right for me, the ability to follow my chosen Path, comes more easily. This is a huge leap of trust and faith I am taking … that’s what it is all about right now!

I will continue with my good byes until the moving truck rolls down the road. I will continue to let my tears come and cleanse my aching heart. And little by little – or in leaps and bounds – I will welcome the excitement and joy that is easing it’s way into my being. There is a new normal, a different balance to be found in the way I am living. For anyone making a major life change, as I am, I hope you are being kind and loving towards yourself. Both the mind and body deserve to be honored as they are progressing towards a new beginning while letting go of the past.

Laurel’s “Life” Teacher’s Masterful Habits

Meet Cynthia Reardon, one of my life teachers. Cindy

~ taught me the value of “ungripping” – letting go of the need to control – WOW!

~ she helped me reconnect with the young girl in me who loves to play – YES!

~ she guided me to love myself more fully by being a beautiful power of example – INDEED!

Now those are some amazing life lessons. Thank you Cyn – I am forever grateful to you 🙂 Watch when I ask Cindy to share her two most important masterful habits. She reveals two of the patterns she developed that help her create a life she loves every day. Now that’s a fabulous life!

Count the Ways You Love Yourself – “The Kingdom of Heaven is Within”

Loving yourself is the core of successfully leading your life in tune with your soul and your deepest desires. And how can you know who you are without sitting still and turning inward to discover what lies beyond your ego and the endless chattering of your mind?

Life can be a series of experiences in which you learn Not to Love Yourself. These experiences include – less than great and respectful parenting, the structure and focus of our school systems on academic perfection, an economic system based on ego/fear models of interactive humanity, and never learning the importance of your inner life. These four significant patterns are the bulk of what I work on undoing consistently as a Life Coach and Spiritual Teacher. Then my clients and I work on recreating the pattern of Loving Self. I say recreating because we were all born self-loving until we were taught otherwise.

Here are examples of personal experiences and ways to enlighten yourself, freeing yourself of your own detrimental conditioning

Read about my personal pattern of self-criticism when I was anything less than full of energy and ready to perform at life, and awakening to my own entrenched inner critic in one of my first blog postings entitled, My Body Is My Teacher.

Read about my mentor and friend Baeth Davis’ wake-up call to make spending time communing with her Self a priority. Her cancer diagnosis is bringing her deeply within, to the truth of what her being calls her to experience in this lifetime.

Every client that I work with walks the inner path of discovering, layer upon layer, the myriad ways that they judge themselves and often hold anger and disappointment for simply Being who they are.  A great culprit of the inner critic is the less than “cover girl body and face” pattern that causes women to loathe or attempt to control their body image. Wow, ladies, we still have work to do as a team to end this war against our bodies. Follow Dr. Christiane Northrop, a holistic medical physician who focuses on helping raise our consciousness about the seriousness of this war with self, and has been for more than thirty years. She is a wealth of knowledge and self-disclosure.

The prevalence of anxiety disorders is an epidemic in our culture! Who is not anxious about living today? Only those who learn how to be still with themselves. Count the ways the culture instills fear into our very being daily in order to create momentum in particular directions – our political system, our medical system, our economic system!!!! Yipes! What is the antidote to anxiety? Cultivating inner peace. (Cultivating inner peace workshops with Laurel are available). The other staple of my business is guiding folks into the space within that is a sanctuary of peace and ultimate bliss. Yes – right here Within YOU and ME! US! Right here. You don’t have to GO anywhere. You simply have to stay still until it is a habit.

Once you can – Stay Still Until It Is A Habit – your answers will eventually emerge. The early experiences of sitting still require discipline to create the habit of moving into the role of Observer, where you watch how Your Mind creates personal misery until directed to do otherwise. The wisdom and love that reside in the deep recesses of your being – beyond the mental chatter – will help you Count the ways you love yourself. Trust me. It works every time!

The sitting in stillness habit

Join me and many others who are making this miraculous discovery that all you need, your greatest resource and wealth is already within you. The meta-physical directive that heals – “The Kingdom of Heaven is Within” – is being discovered as the path to healing by the latest generation of seekers. Come on along and enjoy the experience with us. You’ll be glad you did.