Cultivating Your Heart

Posted on February 15, 2012 by mcallister

by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys

Have you ever been told to get out of your head? If you are like me, and many others in raised modern western culture, you have probably heard this request quite a few times. Perhaps, like me, you have spent time and energy trying to get out of your head, or found your self confused about what that actually meant.

The fundamental truth is that you have to spend time cultivating another space to go to, before you can really get out of your head. Thinking about getting out of your head, or trying to figure out how to get out of your head may take up time, but is only a first step. As long as you are thinking about things, you are still in your head. The mind has the ability to follow your attention into your heart, or your belly, or your toes. In fact as long as it is your mental attention that you are using, it goes wherever you do. The mind is so very good at tagging along, at figuring out a plausible experience and then creating it for you.

Now, some of you are more at home in your emotions and so do not have to work to get out of your head. You may have been told that you are too emotional and to please turn them down, or off. Your emotions are not the same as your heart, so you also may benefit from cultivating your heart space. This may sound strange at first, but the heart I speak of is a different space than the emotional body. It is a place of feeling, but a different level of feeling than the emotions. Just as the thoughts swirl about us and lead us all over the place, so too the emotions swirl through the body and lead us this way and that. The heart is an eye of calm at the center of both these storms. You will have your own journey, perhaps easier as you are more used to feeling, and perhaps more challenging as you have to learn to distinguish things that are more similar. But, someone else must write that story.

In cultivating your heart it is important to find a doorway. For me at first it was nature, but it could be music, sports, a child, or a pet, anything that brings you joy. Joy is the feeling of the heart, and will be your guide. Start with the easy and obvious, however silly or strange it may seems to your mind. You are nurturing a relationship with your own soul energy. Over time you will come into heart relationship with more and more of your world.

To stand facing a mountain and notice what I feel in my heart was a starting place. To let go of words, thoughts, emotions, expectations, and just notice what was there. To notice what my heart felt faced with the mountain, and what feeling might be coming from the mountain to my heart. As all mountains are different, there can be no expectations, which makes it easier, as there is nothing for the mind to fake, or for the emotional body to react to. For you it might be the ocean, or a stream or trees. Whatever talks to you. Whatever you can open your heart too, without fear and without expectation or need.

Most of us are used to focusing on our eyes, and sight. Try sometime standing in nature and close your eyes, and tune into your other senses. If you are like me it may be easier to let go the mind when you do this, as so much of our mind is usually associated with sight. Also set the intention of letting the sensory input run through your heart, not into your brain. Let your heart hear, smell, feel. Then open your eyes and let the heart see.

Your heart is naturally a vast country, capable of connecting to the whole universe. It is a country naturally full of unconditional love, for yourself and for everything else. This is because you are fundamentally unconditional love, until it becomes conditioned by the human experience, by the mind and the emotional body. As you create resources and cultivate love in your heart, bring this first to those things that are lodged there, the boxes piled in the corner, or the panels that make up the walls. This is how you heal yourself and open more space to be present.

The journey of exploring your heart and learning how to be there and live from there is ongoing. But with practice it gets easier to center deeply into it when you choose and leave most of your thoughts and emotions outside. Even when it is hard to let go, you will know your heart is there and remember the little things that help you access it again. You are creating a new home to live in, a place to rest, to soothe the anxiousness of the mind or the agitation of the emotions, in the love and joy of your own heart.

Enjoy your practice.

(© 2/2012)

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Shifting Planes

Posted on February 1, 2012 by mcallister

by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys

You’ve heard this before but its a good place to start. Imagine that you have your hands full of chocolate cookies and your mother comes along with a cherry pie, hot from the oven, with crumbles on top (feel free to adjust imagery as necessary). You have to put the cookies down before you can receive a piece of the pie. I suppose you have been clever and realized that you could eat the cookies and then take the pie, though now you have shifted the issue from the size of your open hands to the size of your stomach. In either case when you are holding enough of one thing it is hard to receive something else.

There are many applications of this in life situations where you have to let go of something old to receive something new. Change is like this, and life is change. If you are holding on too tightly to what you have, you wind up with crumbled cookies, rather than crumble pie. If you are like me, often the change only happens after what you already have leaves before you have quite gotten around to letting go. The dynamic is the same at small scales or large: for a dear old shirt, or a house, job or relationship.

Once upon a time I was working in a software group in California. The economy hiccuped and the whole group was gone and I launched myself across the Pacific to Japan. Before I went I sold, loaned out, or gave away all my things. One night shortly before I left, staying in a friends guest room, I woke up not knowing where I was, full of terror of the unknown. I let go of one world and stepped into another. A pretty big step, as almost everything was different. But I kept breathing, opened to the change and received many wonderful things.

Since that trip I have let go of many places, things, a few people. Like most of us in this busy world I have become more used to change, even if it still comes with some fear. Sometimes I let go gracefully, and sometimes still, something falls away before I think I’m ready. But once I have let go and stepped forward the fear leaves and joy of embracing the new fills me.

Small steps and big steps. Once I took a step off an airplane into a foreign land. Once Neil Armstrong took a step off an ladder onto the moon. The steps weren’t much different and as large as mine was his was larger. Which brings us to the present, in which we are all approaching the place of taking a step into a new world.

If my letting go before traveling to Japan was scary, this letting go may be more so. This step is not from one place to another, even one as far away as the moon. We are stepping from one way of being in the world to another. This step it is not so much about letting go of our physical stuff (though that may happen too) as it is letting go of our emotional stuff, and especially our mental stuff. When I went to Japan I took with me experience with languages, human and computer and that helped me reorient. This step is moving beyond thought as we know it, beyond all the analytical willfulness and figuring, into a place where how we understand things, how we communicate, the foundations of how we experience our being is different. Wow!
Feel into your body and breath. Exhale and relax.

I have met so many people in the last year or so who say, “the old ways don’t work anymore”. Even those who have been good at the old ways of doing things are finding themselves adrift. I suspect that even those who are more used to living from their hearts and their knowing will find things changing, but you are perhaps a bit ahead on the curve.

The good news is that we all know how to live in the new ways. A part of you has always been there, in spirit, knowing and feeling as spirit. In particular this is not something you need to (or even can) figure out. While the ego-mind may freak at this, it is good news: really! You can relax and stop trying to understand things in the old way. Give yourself a breath and relax. As you let go of trying and busyness you create space for your spiritual aspects to pour into your open hearts and empty heads and show you the new ways. What has been unconscious or in the background will have room to show up and guide you forward. You are moving from fear and effort into joy and ease.

Perhaps you find yourself knowing things in new ways. Information or ideas and understandings just drop in for you. Perhaps you see something in your mind’s eye, or are feeling more or can remember things when you need them (but not at other times). It may come as thoughts, or a body awareness. It may have the quality of reaching out for what you need to know, like pulling a book off the shelf and looking something up. If the mind goes blank or is spinning, let it go and listen/feel underneath. What is present in your awareness? It is a time to explore, experiment, calibrate, practice trusting your knowingness and noticing how it works. Its a bit different for all of us.

The biggest thing that we need to let go of is our fear. This is the cookie that keeps our hand in the jar. All the levels of ego fear. Its OK to let these go as they won’t help us going forward. When you find yourself feeling lighter, more spacious or clear, accept that and let go of any anxious reaction of caution or analysis. Letting go of fear you open your heart and your knowing: these will show the way. Remember also that you are not alone (like all those other lifetimes). This time there is a collective transition that will support you. Remember joy as you step forward and you will find the new ground under your feet. Welcome to the biggest adventure of our lives.

(© 2/2012)

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Lost in Transition

Posted on January 17, 2012 by mcallister

In any life situation or relationship there are always lights, darks, and shades of grey. While attracted we focus on the lights, the positives, and this creates space for certain aspects of ourselves to come into play. Other aspects of ourself may be held back, perhaps because we find them dark, or someone else does, or might; or perhaps to keep from calling up darker aspects of others. We tailor ourselves, consciously and unconsciously to a given situation. Often after a while these aspects become restless enough to want freedom and space. Other times aspects of the situation shift or change, increasing our sense of limitation. Experiencing things from a different point of view, looking to find room for aspects of ourselves that don’t have space, we feel a need to leave or break away. We are in transition.

Things that we like or love have a relatively large emotional charge drawing us to them. When a life situation changes so that we must let go of something that we have been attached to we need to deal with this emotional charge. It is hard to walk away from something that still has a positive charge on it, so we tend to shift the charge to the negative. We go from a rosey view to a dark one. Since people and situations are inherently shades of grey, this is not to hard to do. If we have to we can even create new stories that we project onto people or situations to call up the required negative emotions.

To emotionally deal with transitions we often need to over-swing neutrality. But if in steeping forward we paint black everything that is behind, we may catch the aspects of ourself as well, the parts that had space and were engaged. Those aspects that are now associated in emotional memory with the person or situation we are trying to leave behind, will be discarded or given up.
This may cause us to become stuck, oscillating between stepping forward to reclaim parts of ourselves that have been dormant or suppressed, and being drawn back into the old situation in reluctance to leave behind aspects that we had space for there.

If this struggle is strong enough we may have to increase the rejection of the old to break free into the new. This is really a battle weighing aspects of yourself, which often results in an exchange of injuries rather than a new wholeness. This is where the real fierceness comes from, not from losing something outside of ourselves, but in losing the aspects of ourselves that were given space by that person or situation. It will be challenging, but an effort to own the aspects of yourself that were alive and engaged, independently of external circumstances, will help resolve this struggle. You can then walk forward in wholeness, rather than trading one limitation for another.

This is why self-forgiveness is so important. Until we can own the aspects of ourselves which co-created and engaged in a relationship, family, job, or stage of life, we are internally torn and held back from walking forward in wholeness. If in transition we can let go of the external attachments while owning all of ourselves, there is an opportunity to become more complete, to reclaim the parts that were in separation, while honoring and including that parts that were present. From this internal completeness it is easier to let go, move on, and you will be more able to co-create new relationships and situations that have space for that completeness.

(© 1/2012)

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Unconditional Gratitude

Posted on January 2, 2012 by mcallister

I invite you to call up the feeling of gratitude. Allow yourself to remember a time, in this life or another, when you were full of gratitude for something that happened to you. Don’t think about it, just allow your being to bring this into awareness, feel it in your heart and body. Breath it in, let it wrap around you and well up in you till you are overflowing. Let go of any thoughts and follow the feeling. Let specific memories melt into that feeling, appreciation for support you have received from the universe, for the beauty of a flower, a child’s smile, a simple meal.

Find yourself floating in space and begin to notice the points of light, like stars that are other beings who have gratitude for you. Just allow your awareness to open, and notice. How many people have you touched, directly, or indirectly, or just by being you and doing your human homework on planet Earth? See that there are countless stars/beings shining appreciation and gratitude back at you. Open to receive it, feel it in your body and being. Ignore any thoughts that inhibit this. Know how very much you are appreciated.

Like all energies gratitude is something that flows. We can receive it and pass it along. It wells up in us and we send it out. It echoes through the heavens and comes back to us. It is a natural living force, an aspect or flavor of love. Feel it in your heart and it will guide you; when to give and how to receive. Sometimes you will echo it back to someone who has done something for you, other times you will pay it forward, pass it along to others. The giving that flows from being in gratitude has no timing or rules but its own. You will know this if you have gratitude alive in your heart.

Like love, gratitude and actions of service flow from the moment, not a check list. If you live in this energy and from this energy you will accomplish everything you need to without lists or rules. Often the best expression of gratitude is to simply be gratitude and radiate it into the world. Then you are shining as a star in many other’s lives, as they are in yours. When gratitude and love are flowing we are alight with many lights, all the other stars reflected in us as we are in them, weaving a rich tapestry of life energy, echoing and rippling, growing and deepening.

Welcome to 2012. Enter in gratitude.

(© 1/2012)

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The Light of the World

Posted on December 16, 2011 by mcallister

In the vast void of space the stars are born. They live by forging the elements that comprise our life and also radiate the light that nourishes that life. There is light in the outer dark.

In the void of inner space, between the star-born elemental atoms that give your body form, lives the Spirit that is your Self. When you close your eyes and look with your heart and your spirit, there is light in the inner dark.

In the heart of the Yin the Yang is born, and in the heart of our depths our soul is living. Dropping though the veils of emotions and beliefs we come to the darkness of the internal void. Surrendering here, our awareness moves through the apparently empty surface into the sea of infinite potential that lies beneath it. This sea of quantum becoming is the light and love of spirit that underlies and interpenetrates all manifest life.

Remembering that this source exists inside us, it can shine out from those depths, as starlight radiates outwards from each generative core. Surrendering the veils we open to the inner light and let it shine out from our Self. Instead of groping in the external dark for a candle we become the candle for ourself and the world.

This is the core of this season of Solstice and Christmas. Remembering that the Light is born from the dark, that love always radiates within us. That our essential being never dies and is always ready to be reborn into the world whenever we relax and stop trying to find it outside our Self.

It is natural at this time of year to go into the darkness, to slow down and release external activities, identifications, and attachments that distract us from the core of who we are. It is only in an external context that we feel alone and isolated sitting in the dark. When we let our awareness be still and center we find the light radiating from inside us, and we become aware of the spiritual light that is flooding onto the Earth at this season of rebirth and renewal.

Desolving into our inner void we wake to the sea of all possibilities from which we can be reborn as anything that serves our Self and Soul. It is fitting to let the external die away, so that we may be reborn from the spiritual core of who we are, the core that is eternal and never dies.

Our ancestors may have come to this time of the year in fear of the dark, calling the light back in from desperation. We can come to this time of the year in willing sacrifice and the joyful celebration of the light we know is always there for us. Remembering that no matter how dark it may seem outside, or on the surface inside, in our depths we are full of light and love. Dive deep, drink deep and let it shine for your Self and into your world and you will see that even the longest night is full of stars and bright with spiritual light and love.

(© 12/2011)

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