How to breathe

Posted on May 3, 2010 by Craig

All of us have been breathing since before we were born, so by now, it’s natural to think we’re pretty good at it. Unfortunately, if you’re like me, you are used to shallow breathing, which contributes to negative feelings and a general sense of tension and limitation.

When I get nervous or upset, my breathing automatically becomes even more shallow, quick and constricted. It works both ways, however: consciously changing my breath can change my feelings.

When I take longer, deeper breaths, I feel more open, peaceful, present and content. When I slow down my breathing, I program my brain to feel calm and focused.

Lately I have been practicing a meditation recorded by my mentor, Mary Jane Kapteyn. The meditation focuses on conscious breathing, and results in a wonderful feeling of inner peace and spiritual expansion. Translation: I sit and breathe for a while, and I feel way better.

The breathing starts with “grounding,” which uses visualization to focus the mind’s attention in the body (rather than out in the stratosphere, which is where most of us like to go when we meditate). At this stage, I breathe deeply into my gut, and visualize the in-breath of energy going down beyond my belly, through my hips and legs, grounding me like a lightning rod into the floor.

After a few minutes of deep breathing into the gut, I start to feel my chest expand. This is when I consciously breathe that energy into my heart center, allowing my heart to expand. Going through a normal day, with a busy mind and constant Ego chatter, my heart closes in on itself. I close off my emotional center to the outside world, because I get overwhelmed by the world’s noise. During meditation, I consciously open my heart again, so that I can experience the divine energy of compassion and grace.

The opening energy of the breath moves upward through my chest and into my head, where my mind has been busily chattering away. Now it’s time to expand the Third Eye chakra, and allow the busy conscious mind to relax and hand over the reigns to its spiritual cousin. And then, I visualize the expansion moving up from my Third Eye Chakra into my Crown Chakra, at the top of my head, opening me up to divine energy flowing easily through me, abundantly and lovingly.

The recorded meditation is 25 minutes long, so I won’t go into the rest of the details. Starting with this short breathing exercise may help you calm down and open your mind to peaceful possibilities. When I feel my heart closing off in negative feelings, sometimes I do a quick mini-meditation, breathing deeply and expanding my chest, just for a few seconds, and that helps me open to a more positive mindset.

If you would like a copy of the meditation CD I use, go to http://themodernmonk.com/ and look for the “Products” tab. I don’t get any commissions from her or anything, but if you get a chance, tell her I sent you, and maybe I’ll score a brownie point.

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The shift towards authenticity

Posted on May 2, 2010 by Craig

Yesterday I went to a seminar about How to Write, Publish and Promote a Best-Seller. Teresa de Grosbois and Michael Drew did a great job with it, and I came away informed and inspired.

One thing that inspired me was Michael’s talk on the shift into a culture of authenticity and social conscience. (Michael drew some ideas from Strauss and Howe’s 544-page book, Generations, which talks about how American society goes in 40-year pendulum swings between individualism and social conformity.)

From 1923 to 1963, we lived in an age of conformism and civic consciousness. It was all about what was good for society as a whole. Socialism grew up in this generation.

Then from 1963 to 2003, we went through a cycle of increasing individuality, taking us out of the oppressive conformism of the 40’s and 50’s. The 60’s freed up young people to be themselves and explore their own choices.

Through the 80’s and 90’s, we went from individual expression, to outright narcissism. Free from responsibility to society, society began to fall apart while everyone tried to get what they could, regardless of their neighbor’s needs.

We ended up living with Madonna in a material world.

From the narcissism of “I can do anything” came the phony idealism of A-list speakers pretending to be perfect, telling us we can be perfect (if we buy their book) and ignoring the genuine imperfections that define our physical existence.

We had broken the bonds of conformity, but instead of healing our human flaws, we simply ignored them. We turned into a generation of plastic phonies, following the leadership of plastic phony icons and cultural leaders.

Today, you can’t get away with that for very long (thank God). Today, the phonies are starting to realize that we can see through their plastic armor, and that we are laughing at them behind their backs. James Bond, meet Austin Powers.

That’s my understanding of it, anyway. Have any of you read the book Generations? Any comments?

What I find refreshing about all this is that “real” people now have a chance. For years, I was repulsed by the thought of selling my services or professional speaking, because I thought I would have to become a plastic manipulator like so many A-list celebrity speakers out there. Now that’s changing. Those people aren’t drawing the same crowds. And when they do, it’s because they are giving away tickets to their old friends.

Watch for the authentic, trustworthy leaders rising among us.

Or maybe you’ll be one of them?

Posted in consciousness | 4 Comments

Family Bathing

Posted on April 21, 2010 by Craig

Normally my posts are more “spiritual” in nature. This one is a little off-topic… but I promise to keep it “clean.”

There is a brand of soap that is packaged with the description: Family Deoderant Bar. To me, it’s soap. To them, it is a product that reduces the smelliness of one’s family.

This raises the question: Is not a bar of soap more of a personal thing, something you use by yourself, alone in the shower?

Not for the soap marketers. I really have to wonder about them. The commercials show a whole family getting into the shower together, laughing and enjoying their Family Deoderant Bar. The family that bathes together, stays together, I guess. Or, the family that showers together, flowers together? Empowers together? I’m stretching it a little.

My family was never quite that intimate. Bathroom time was always a solitary time. Not that there was much room in there to get two people in at the same time anyway, but really, my family was always a little panicky about privacy. Nudity after the age of two was not acceptable, even at home, alone.

Other families apparently did not share our principles. Not that I knew any of those families while growing up, but I have met a few along the way.

One friend spoke of a family meeting where it was decided that nudity would be allowed within the home. The parents did not want to make a big deal about it; they just didn’t want their daughters growing up with paranoia about their bodies. What ended up happening, though, was that nobody in the family made use of the policy. They all used at least some modesty when making the dash from bathroom to bedroom. The principle of openness was essentially sound, but the experience was one of needing privacy. Which is just as well, especially as parents begin to show signs of aging.

What were your experiences?

We’ll get back to more “spiritual” topics another time.

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Talking with God on the phone

Posted on April 13, 2010 by Craig

At Burning Man 2006, there was a phone booth where you could talk to God. That’s what the sign said. You could just pick up the phone in that payphone booth in the middle of the desert and God would be there on the other end.

I had a lot on my mind that week. I needed to talk. I had to wait a minute – there was a line forming – but I got my turn.

“Hello, this is God.” It was a friendly voice that sounded nothing at all like James Earl Jones.

The first thing I said, after ‘hello’, was “I miss you.” And I meant it. I had been searching for God off and on my whole life, but had almost given up the last ten years.

“I’m still here,” She responded. “I haven’t left you.”

“I know,” I said, glancing over my shoulder to see if anyone was eavesdropping. “It just feels that way sometimes.” (At this point I felt more exposed than I had in the crowded community shower.)

“You can talk to me anytime,” She said. And I said I’d like that. I wanted to get to know God again – not the fire-breathing judge in the sky who smiteth people unto the eleventh generation, but the friendly God in the desert, who talked with me in human words, who said we could be friends.

She said, “I love you,” and I said “I love you too,” and we promised to talk again soon, and then I hung up and got back on my bike.

I talk to God more now than I used to, but it’s hard, because I can’t hear Her voice.

And then I wonder: If we are all God’s children, is it possible that God could use our voices to talk with each other? And would we need a phone booth on the playa, or could we just say “I love you” and “I accept you just as you are” in person, in human words, and be God with each other?

Even though I knew that day that the phone booth was hooked up to a receiver in a nearby tent, and the operator was quite human, I still felt like I was talking with God.

And maybe I was.

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Posted in God | 8 Comments

How to figure things out

Posted on April 7, 2010 by Craig

This morning, as I laid in bed half-awake, I tried to figure something out about how my Ego mind and my intuition work to learn important Truths. As my brain chugged away, I recalled something that I had read, by the Zen teacher Jack Kornfield: Our minds always try to figure out what only our hearts can know. (I’m paraphrasing.)

So there I was, stuck on the problem, because I was using my Ego mind to try and figure itself out. It’s just like the movie, The Departed (which I’m convinced now is an allegory for Ego) – We have hired the mole in the organization to try and find the mole in the organization, and just when we’re so close to figuring it out, boom, the investigation falls apart and the guy gets away.

But that doesn’t stop us from trying, because, our minds have convinced us that our little brains are the only organs qualified to make the investigation. It’s like the heart (the intuition) is sitting in the back row waving its hand in the air – I have the answer! Oh! I know this one! – and Ego is standing at the front of the room acting like the teacher, ignoring the heart entirely.

Sometimes we have to sit our minds down and let the heart take the podium. It has a lot to tell us, if only we’ll listen.

Mind wants us to believe it’s very complicated, and it has to be hard. So it struggles for years to try and figure out the meaning of life, and it can’t. And if Mind can’t figure it out after 30 years of trying, then, to save its own Ego from embarassment, it has to convince us that the answer cannot really be known.

If we want to know the Truth – the ultimate Truth – we need to allow our hearts to speak to us. And they can’t do that while we are only listening to our limited Ego-Minds.

Right now, take a moment to close your eyes and stop trying to figure everything out. Take a moment to feel the space around your heart. What is it trying to tell you? If it had a voice (and it does), what would it sound like?

Just listen. Don’t try. Just listen.

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