In this episode we learn more about the Inner Landscape, our Parts and Authentic Self. We explore the framework and learn why and how to apply our skills (Awareness, Kindness and Curiosity) to develop our Inner Society with the dynamics of cohesion, connection and collaboration. All in service to you making chosen changes in how you think, feel and act.
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In this episode, we reflect on our connection to ourselves and how this supports our sense of well being. We also explore how external ideas and narratives can influence us.
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In this episode we explore some big concepts to find our personal path towards growing equal ground in our day to day lives.
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In this podcast we touch into our Inner Landscape and the skills we need to become master map makers for our lives.
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I have been speaking to the importance of awareness and why it is essential. Here is a simple exercise I call ‘Body Scan’ to help you build your personal awareness. You can do it in as little as a few minutes or longer when you have the time. This episode offers you the basics so you can do it on your own anywhere.
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I constantly come back to this same curiosity…..
”Why wouldn’t we love ourselves every moment of the day?”
Why not love authentically and unconditionally and how could this question ever get old or redundant?
When we love ourselves and live this inner experience of unconditioned Love it seems that what follows is that this love generates more love and ripples out to other people and situations.
It is quite simple and yet so complex. It becomes even more complicated when it seems we get confused about what is truly unconditioned Love. I have experienced people describing the ‘unconditioned Love’ they are enacting and yet there are so many subtle cues that perhaps it is not quite without conditions.
My way of cross checking myself is noticing if there is any ‘but’ or caveat attached to the love. For me, any ‘condition’ even remotely attached means there is still some refinement left for me to do.
I generally then ask myself what the ‘but’ or condition means to me.
I also ask what possible reason I might have for not loving myself or another person without judgement?
Why isn’t the status quo more about meeting each person without judgement and reducing the habit of creating lesser than/greater than comparisons between us? Why do we write so many ‘stories’ that seek to limit people?
(When I say ‘stories’ I am talking about what we mentally ‘write’ about ourselves or others that somehow defines us or them. These definitions can then come to limit or ‘box-in’ ourselves or the other person. At times these stories can also incorporate a sense of us or them being ‘better’ than the other. What would happen if we saw everyone beyond the limitations of story? Can we do that?)
There are many factors for how we have gotten so entrenched in judgement, comparisons and a lack of self love….so many ways we have been conditioned to think these are healthy and normal human behavior.
In this mix is our general relationship with words and concepts.
Language can get fairly sticky when it comes to our ideas and stories about ourselves, others and the world.
A perfect word example would be the topic of this initial question: ‘Love’.
You could ask 100 people what it means and probably get 100 different answers or emotional responses.
Try sitting with the concept of ‘Love’ for a few minutes and see all the different ideas, definitions and feelings that come to you.
Now imagine that it is different for every person you might encounter in 1 day. And than multiply this times the diversity of each culture around the planet.
Where and how do we all meet on this fundamental word and concept? How can we use such a diverse and individualized expression in sweeping generalized ways?
We can apply this same exploration to other potent words/concepts:
Happiness - Success - Good - Purpose
These and so many more are subject to the influences of the past and societal standards towards what is perceived as ‘normal’ and desirable. Each has a ‘should’ attached to it in relation to our lives. And each one wields a heavy effect on our personalities, perceptions and the world we create.
How is it that we haven’t figured out that ‘normal’ is an illusion we buy into? How is it we are so readily accepting of criticism, judgement and competitive systems of coexistence as the standard?
When did this become the ‘norm’….and did it happen all at once or as a slow and quiet movement……
Still swishing this ‘happiness’ thing around within me……
After writing the other post I began to bring even more attention to the moments, thoughts and sensations that support, enhance or cultivate what I call ‘happiness’. As the ‘list’ grew I came to more clearly verbalize within me that it is not a thing, person or event that makes me happy per se…..the happiness or contentment I feel is as I described in my previous writing……a constant light and ‘pillar’.
And….. there are also those moments when it becomes more radiant and sensational…..
So I had an ongoing ‘list’ yesterday of these moments that stood out to me…..and I was having so much fun with it I thought I would share. It also made me wonder about other people’s ‘lists’……..what would your list have on it especially if it included all the small routine moments that bring satisfaction…..not just the ‘wow, beacon of light’ moments……
Here are some of my happiness supportive moments of the last 24 hrs……
~driving with the window down and a song I don’t know comes on the radio and there is a melody line that takes me in
~drinking goat milk from the jar
~driving and the traffic feels perfectly synchronized and everything is in flow
~sitting on the porch and improvising with my voice a song across the street to the trees
~reading an excerpt from Herman Hesse
~the smell of the apple as I am about to take a bite
~watching 2 teenagers sitting on a street bench talking
~talking with the cashier at the grocery store
~seeing the light on the mountain tips
~a moment in a song where I hear an instrument for a brief second and then it is perfectly gone
~witnessing an older couple walking together
~a street filled with kids shuffling in costumes and people sitting on their front porch with candies
~firelight
~a night of restless sleep
~homemade yogurt
~laughing with a ‘stranger’
~tenderly stroking the head of my sweetie
~the quiet of early morning
….it goes on and on……
I also wanted to share this excerpt from Herman Hesse’s “Wandering”……..
“A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.
So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts. Trees have long thoughts, long breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”
I reflect on and sit with the nature of happiness frequently and recently had the topic come up a few times …. I saw a movie about happiness, a TED talk video and also listened to the perspective of a friend on the topic…….all of which made me a bit more curious.
How do we each feel happiness? How do we express it and do we need to express it outwardly? Culture seems to affect the definition or packaging of happiness on some level but does it change the nature of it?
Can we become dependent on certain things in our life for our sense of happiness? Can happiness simply be a constant flow within us marked with highs and lows?
I know that in places like Bhutan they have found a way to assess ‘Gross National Happiness'(GNH) and focus there instead of ‘Gross Domestic Product'(GDP)…..
When I read about GNH this is what I find:
There is no exact quantitative definition of GNH, but elements that seem to contribute to GNH are subject to quantitative measurement. For example, low rates of infant mortality correlate positively with subjective expressions of well-being or happiness within a country.
GNH refers to the concept of a quantitative measurement of well-being and happiness. The two measures are both motivated by the notion that subjective measures like well-being are more relevant and important than more objective measures like consumption. It is not measured directly, but only the factors which are believed to lead to it.
A second-generation GNH concept, treating happiness as a socioeconomic development metric, was proposed in 2006. The metric measures socioeconomic development by tracking seven development areas including the nation’s mental and emotional health. GNH value is proposed to be an index function of the total average per capita of the following measures:
Economic Wellness, Environmental Wellness, Physical Wellness, Mental Wellness, Workplace Wellness. Social Wellness, Political Wellness”
I found many other assessments, scales and behavioral models that have been developed in the past couple decades focusing on this perhaps immeasurable thing called ‘happiness’. And what strikes me most is that what we are talking about (and measuring) is incredibly and truly subjective.
Even the critics of measuring GNH state that because GNH depends on a series of subjective judgments about well-being, it is open to much interpretation (and manipulation) as far as results…..not to mention cross-cultural differences.
If you ‘google’ happiness…there are infinite sites containing explanations, thoughts and ideas on this highly sought after subjective sensation. I was amazed and I suppose not totally surprised.
I know that there are endless books written about how to ‘find’ happiness or attain happiness…..as it seems everyone is ‘looking’ for it….or more of it.
I am wondering if our perception of what happiness is has gotten a bit narrowed or confused……it seems that it has become more like something that can be packaged and defined, bought and sold…..or perhaps like the ever dangling carrot on a stick…..
In the Declaration of Independence I find the wording to be fascinating…….
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all ‘men’ are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Why is happiness not stated as being inherent but as something to be ‘pursued’?
Does this offer an indication that we cannot be complacent with our ‘happiness’ and that it is ever evolving, shape-shifting and needing caring attention? Or were the authors of this document going with the ‘grab the bull by the horns’ mentality of you have to ‘earn’ your happiness……nothing is free.
Or have people always been trying to attain a sense of happiness and that is why they are being reminded they have the right to pursue it?
Here are some definitions I found online……
Happiness is an adjective….so it describes……
1. State of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.
2. Being especially well-adapted; felicitous: a happy turn of phrase.
3. Cheerful; willing:
4. Having a sense of confidence in or satisfaction .
5. Feeling pleasure or contentment.
When I read things like ‘contentment’, ‘pleasure’, ‘joy’, ‘satisfaction’……even ‘happiness’…….these are things I find to be very subjective and personal. We might find things in common for sure….but our experience of them cannot truly be compared.
I believe ‘happiness’ is in fact free and, most often, already inherent in our design. I think the confusion for most of us has been how we have come to define and idealize ‘happiness’ (it is almost seen as a ‘cure-all’…..and an ‘if only I had it’ reassurance). There seems to be a defined idea of how it should look and feel across the board….and I don’t think that is how it actually comes to exist for many of us….especially in our diverse biology and culture.
I know that I personally needed to rewire and reframe what ‘happiness’ was as the ‘pursuit’ of the ideal was making me miserable.
I needed to realize that ‘happiness’ was right now…this moment…even if I was agitated, frustrated or sad. That my happiness was not at the expense of the other emotions of living a human life and vice versa. That it never went away even when a different emotion was exerting itself within me. Even when I am feeling sadness or challenge, which ebb and flow in their same beautiful ways as happiness, it doesn’t defeat or replace my happiness. It is not ever a question of ‘either/or’ for me…..they coexist and are a part of this complex matrix of being alive and being human.
I learned that my happiness was part of each and every bit of all things I feel and was inseparable. And I could experience it in so many nuanced ways and express it outwardly in just as many different ways (from effusive joy to contemplative wonder….from ecstatic bouncy-ness to mundane contentment). It didn’t matter what it looked like on the outside…..only that I was able to bring awareness to the presence of it….that it was woven throughout my days.
hmmmmmmmm……..
Some random examples…..
Happiness is in the birth and the farewells of my goat friends, it is in the wonderment I feel when I sit with my black and white photography, it is when I prepare vegetables, it is watching dust specks in the sunlight, it is in how the Kung Fu master beetle walks on the wall, it is in the crying child at the grocery store, it is every random connective moment I share with a stranger, it is sitting on a back porch quietly with a friend, it is in my discerning opinions about the political system, it is the rabbit hole of humanity in which I dive, it is in making hot water in the morning, in the laughter and tears with my sweetie……all these every day moments are my happiness. And sometimes they become more gushing moments like when I am adventuring with Asa, surfing in the ocean, frolicking with Lark or having found myself with a magical group of playful people and we can bounce and pounce and sweat in a physical whirlwind……
but as much as I enjoy these ‘highlights’ (so to speak) they don’t take away from the happiness that breathes within me as a constant ebb and flow……the happiness and gratification that is being alive in this wondrous world……even when I might feel a discontent with my geography, daily presence of playmates etc……I am grateful that this happiness I feel is steady and reliable. It is my lighthouse in any storm, the pillar in my temple.
Happiness for me is a personal dance and intuition……a place of observing when my cells expand or contract. It is not a goal or focus….but a way of simply allowing……’being’. And it looks and feels (internally) so different for each and every one of us….it is brilliant like that. It is a personal, subjective and continuous unfolding that quite possibly might feel different than anything we have imagined.
In the same way I needed to reframe and open to Love and loving myself…..I discovered a constant friend when I allowed my experience of happiness to expand…..to let go of definitions and a desire for it to look a certain ‘way'(or for me to behave a certain ‘way’)…..the truth is that when I stop thinking how things ‘should’ be…..I realize I am living happiness every moment.
I will finish with this quote……not sure who wrote it…..
For me….. you can insert any quality in there…..’love’, ‘happiness’…….?……
“Love is there if you want it
you just have to see it’s wrapped in beauty
hidden away between the seconds of your life.
If you don’t stop for a minute, you might miss it’
Thanks for visiting……
Jacq