August 2014 Audio Meditation

As we experience the intense polarization and conflict in the United States, and also that which has arisen in so many other countries, it feels more important than ever to engage practices that remind us that we are one earth family and that we can’t survive independent from the countless contributions of our human family and our other-than-human earth family. 

I’ve written before about the South African concept and practice of Ubuntu—“I am because you are”, which recognizes and lives into the reality that it is only through the support of the people around us that we are able to be. Here’s one reference describing Ubuntu, one among many: https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Ubuntu_(philosophy)

Another approach to this same idea comes from Psychiatrist Dan Siegel who has developed what he calls “Intraconnection”, where he describes our awareness as moving from “me to we to mwe”. Here’s a link to his new book on the subject: https://www.amazon.com/IntraConnected-Integration-Belonging-Identity-IPNB/dp/0393711692/ref=sr_1_2?crid=N39CCKTAR989&keywords=Dan+Siegel+intraconnected&pldnSite=1&qid=1658667706&sprefix=dan+siegel+intraconnected%2Caps%2C124&sr=8-2

Then, there’s Thich Nhat Hanh’s coining the verb interbeing, where he says that we interare in every moment, that we cannot really be separate from everything around us. Here’s a link to an article by Thich Nhat Hanh on interbeing: https://www.garrisoninstitute.org/blog/insight-of-interbeing/

These and other related approaches and concepts invite us to expand our worldview to move beyond U.S. culture’s (and the cultures of other countries, as well) emphasis on individual issues such as rights, freedom, and independence. For this week’s practice in conscious living, I invite you to dive a bit more deeply into this subject than you may have done before and ask yourself, each day, to recognize your interbeing and interdependence in some way you might ordinarily ignore it.

Read More “883rd Week: Cultivating A Deeper Awareness of Interbeing and Interdependence”

I’ve noticed that I haven’t generated a new practice since September of this year. In that last practice, I described the journey and impact of losing one of my feline family members to kidney disease, a genetic condition that he shares with many members of his family. I described the deepening I experienced during and after the four-month-long process my beloved boy-cat and I engaged as he moved through his dying process. His two sisters are still here, and the difference in the energy and tone of our little family is powerfully changed by his absence.

As these post-death months have moved along, I found myself moved to create videos on multidimensional living, videos that offer information about the way that I move through the world from a multidimensional perspective. This shift in focus arose after what I thought was going to be an inner journey to connect with my optimal future self. Instead, I connected with what I think is more accurately described as an alternate self.

The idea of alternate selves arises from current thinking about the possibility that we live in a multiverse where there are many versions of ourselves co-existing within different versions of reality. The idea of a multiverse resonates with some people and appears ridiculous to others. Whatever your response, one of the ways I would think about this from a guided imagery or hypnotic perspective is that both alternate selves and optimal future selves can be metaphors through which we can tap into new body states, new states of mind, new responses.

The way this all makes sense to me is that I think, or probably believe at this point, that we live in an “information universe”, where information comes first and then becomes energy and form that resonate and shape themselves in response to the new information. For me, these kinds of journeys allow my bodymind to access new information which then becomes the prompt that supports reorganizing my experience and ways of being. Often, these journeys have opened up surprising new possibilities for me that draw on resources I hadn’t known were available. Posting videos on multidimensionality is one of these surprises.

I’m not sure how many more of these practices I’ll be posting, so they may continue to be sporadic, as I find my creative energy moving in somewhat unexpected directions. I’ve offered weekly practices for many years and have enjoyed the opportunity to ponder, explore, and share possibilities through them. So, my intention is to continue, but it’s not lost on me that it’s been quite a gap between this one and the last.

For this practice in conscious living, I invite you to play with the more quantum-oriented possibility that the process of generating intentions and the probabilities they engage is accessible to you. One of the things I’ve been asking people to play with is to say each day, “I am receiving and living into my optimal life.” An important part of this practice is to then get out of the way and allow yourself not to know what this means or what it will bring. Staying out of the way mentally allows for a deeper receptivity.

Then, along with allowing yourself not to know, another step along the way is to stay open for thoughts, flickers of awareness, new ideas, unexpected interest in something you hadn’t thought about before. All these are examples of intuitive awareness dropping in. The next step is to pay attention to these kinds of intuitive flickers and tickles in the back of your mind and to notice which ones you want to explore more deeply or respond to in some other way. For me, these new awarenesses often arrive when I wake up in the morning. They are just there, as if I had always known them.

As with all these practices, please remember to bring along curiosity as your constant companion and to pat gently on the head any judgments that may arise, allowing them to move on through without your having to do anything with or about them. Please also remember to allow mixed feelings, as they are a natural aspect of your underlying wholeness.

Here’s the audio version of this practice if you’d rather listen to it.

One of the books from graduate school that powerfully impacted me was “Blaming the Victim”.  I was in a class where I focused my work on shame—collective and individual—and got deeply immersed in how we tend to blame the victim as a way to validate our beliefs and actions.  The impact of that class, and particularly the above book, has never left me.  It started me on a 40+ year journey of tracking my own internal process of judging and blaming, catching myself when I can and challenging my own rationalizations about what’s happening to people locally and around the world.  Even with this practice, I know that there are countless times when I engage in blaming the victim, unaware of my own biases and limiting beliefs.

As I watch the current situation in the United States—and we are not alone in our mistreatment of people we consider to be “other”—I not only feel deep heartache and distress, but am also keenly aware of how vividly a “blaming-the-victim” mentality seems to have captured the minds of those in power.  That this stance lacks empathy goes without saying.  The deeper problem is that blaming victims allows us to remain unaware of our privilege, of our seemingly justifiable disconnection from the suffering of others. Read More “716th Week:  Blaming the Victim”

This week, I have a request to make of those who read these practices and are willing to engage in a subtle activism activity on behalf of our collective human family.  I’d like to ask everyone to take five minutes each day—it doesn’t matter when—to do the practice of Tonglen.  The specific focus of the Tonglen practice in this subtle activism activity is on breathing in our collective fear and hatred and breathing out compassion, peace, love, ease, or whatever quality you would like to offer to our human family.  If this practice resonates with you, I would ask you to consider making it a daily practice on a regular basis, not just for this week.

I’ve written about Tonglen many times and there are links to the practice on my website under Written Meditations – https://www.nancynapier.com/category/meditations/.  For this week’s activity, I’d like to write a brief version of a Tonglen-like practice for this subtle activism activity.  Because many people may not have done Tonglen before, and may not be thrilled with the idea of breathing fear and hatred into their heart, I’ve written up a “derivation” of Tonglen drawn from my early spiritual upbringing.

Read More “756th Week: A Subtle Activism Request”