“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”
This is the work. To invite the element of fire to burn through whatever separates us from our deepest source of love. To invoke dissolution or burning of our stories of separation and to ignite the flames connection, compassion and generosity to burn bright.
We open with ritual to connect to the fire of our heart and to open to love.
Meditation on fire element
Heart Breath Ritual
Anne Lamott - "Lighthouses don't go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining."
I love this quote. It’s a reminder that all we ever need is this moment. We don’t have to go looking anywhere outside ourselves to make a difference in the world. We make a difference simply through our beingness and from expressing our deepest gift of love to the world. We simply show up and live our lives deeply and powerfully in the moment.
It sometimes seems and feels like everyone is waiting for a big moment to shine. But really every moment & every interaction is a perfect opportunity to support you in teaching love, giving love, and opening to love. This means our relationships, our house, our work, our current circumstances exactly as they are. Our task is to simply show up and express our deepest gift to the world, which is the manifestation of love. Your “job in the world may take many different forms, but your real job is to give, express, and open to love in every interaction. Heart Fire is the remembrance of the job you are here to do.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that the only thing required to live a heart centered life is the willingness to do so.
How do we get there?
We start by practicing Ahimsa- which according to Pema Chodron is softening what is rigid in our own hearts. We begin to inquire and notice do we open or close to this person before us, this circumstance, this moment. Life is just a series of moments to learn to love more deeply. As we look into our individual moments our intention, our prayer is not for the circumstance, moment, or person to change, but for us to change. We use the mantra-- “In order for things to change. I must change.”
What is it that changes? It’s perception. You are working with your heart/mind consciousness. You’re simply opening to a new spacious place in your heart. According to A Course In Miracles, a miracle is just a shift in perception. You are opening to miracles.
How do we begin to bring forth this energy?
One of the deepest gifts we can give to ourselves and the world is our presence and it’s the foundation of heart centered living. The willingness and ability to reside in present moment time.
How do we do this?
It begins with acceptance of what is. Allowing. Letting be. As Pema Chodron says we begin making friends with what is, befriending the present moment as if we had invited it in--it’s all we ever have so we might as well work with it.
We work with abiding with the fluid energy of life. So much of our suffering comes from wishing things to be different than they are. From distancing ourselves to the flow of life as we reject, cling to, resist, and suppress the expressions of life manifesting in our own experience. All the while life is happening now and we’re not here to experience it. We’re off somewhere else.
This process begins our journey into self compassion and compassion for others. We bring awareness to our story maker--which tends to fuel our habitual response. We greet our thoughts and emotions with understanding, and compassion. Rather than trying to let it go or push it out we just ventilate and give everything space and allow it all to follow the natural flow of life.
There is research that shows that the lifespan of any giving emotion is actually only 1-1.5 minutes and it's our stories that we create about the situation, person, etc.. that keeps adding kerosene to the fire so to speak. So if you can sit with that energy, free from story and just breathe into it--it will eventually pass on through just as all things do. The important thing is to stop feeding it. So when you practice meditation or if anger just arises--you see it, don't push it away, and let yourself feel it. Stay with the emotion, and if you start to notice yourself fueling it with stories just label it "thinking" and just stay with the energy. Pema calls this leaning into the energy. You lean in and give it ventilation with your breath. If that feels like it's not working you lean in and get curious--notice where the energy is in your body--does it have a texture, tone, vibration, color, etc... get to know it. And lastly you lean in and transform. Notice the energy and stay with it, free from story and then take your hands to your heart, breath into your heart and cultivate an attitude of appreciation or gratitude and try to feel it all through your body.
You can learn to begin to stay with these intense energies by practicing with smaller issues. You can pause by engaging in a pausing practice of just taking three deep breaths and noticing all that you can about them, and even noticing the gap and space between the breaths. Reside in the space and pause and notice how the body feels. Do this anytime you feel “hooked” by strong emotions or when you feel like you are about to do something from a place of automatic pilot mode.
This begins to set the stage for us to have compassion for others. From this compassionate abiding we can then do work on forgiving others and releasing them from the stories we have created about them. Knowing full well we are not our stories, neither are they. As we reside with the fluid energy of life within us we tap into it with our interactions with others too.
For more info on working with conflict with others please see my section on Mindful Dialog and also my work on using the Yamas and Niyamas in conflict.
We closed the session with the following forgiveness meditation.
Let me know if you have any questions.
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