904th Week: Self-Acceptance and Wholeness

ByNancy Napier

One of the themes I’ve explored and lived with over many years now is my experience of the importance of acknowledging and honoring all aspects of our wholeness. I’ve also been keenly aware of the fact that life on this planet thrives most efficiently within communities, ecologies of diversity. We know from science that natural environments thrive most dynamically when they contain a wide diversity of life forms, working together as a complex community. I think it’s the same with our own, individual selves. Our wholeness contains and expresses the unique diversity of characteristics, talents, challenges, qualities, expressions that each of us embodies. Through our unique wholeness, we contribute to the “ecology of life” within which we live.

Over the years, I have also found myself orienting to an experience of “being lived” by life. My sense has been, and continues to be, that each of us—whether human or some other-than-human, more-than-human earth-kin being—represents an opportunity for life to have a unique experience within and through each of us. Our unique wholeness offers life the opportunity for diverse experiences and expressions, honoring this planet’s seeming preference for diversity.

For this week’s practice in conscious living, I invite you to explore the following guided meditation and see how it feels for you to imagine “being lived” by the life that expresses itself within and through everything on this planet, as well as acknowledging, honoring, and embracing the wholeness within you, leaving nothing out. It’s your wholeness that makes you unique in all the world and it’s your wholeness that allows you to contribute to the diversity that our human family offers to the planet’s ecology.

  • To begin, take a few moments to settle in and allow your body to recognize the support of the surface under you even a bit more now.
  • Follow the next out-breath down into your internal home base, your internal center of gravity.
  • Notice the steadiness that’s always present in your internal home base. It’s an aspect of your wholeness that is never disturbed, no matter what may happen in your life.
  • Next, notice that this is also the place where you connect with your radiating core presence, with your unique energy signature. This energy signature radiates throughout your whole body-mind being and then on out into the world around you. Your presence touches everything you encounter.
  • Imagine a kaleidoscope with many beautiful chips of glass, perhaps of many colors. Remember that each time the kaleidoscope is turned, the chips of glass create new patterns, bringing some pieces into the foreground as others drop back into the background. As the patterns change, notice that nothing is added and nothing is removed. It’s all about the shifts that come from foreground/background dynamics.
  • The kaleidoscope is a metaphor for your wholeness. Aspects of you shift and move from foreground to background depending on what you experience, where you are, and which aspects of your wholeness are called into the foreground. It’s all part of the ongoing dance of being.
  • An important part of this process is to invite yourself to accept the fact that your wholeness is what it is and what you can bring to this dynamic expression is awareness of what is currently in the foreground and what is in the background. There may be times you want to shift what has popped into the foreground, for example, and perhaps invite your ever-present steadiness to come from the background into your more immediate experience.
  • Next, notice your experience when you take a moment to consider that life is living you in every moment, expressing as you through your unique wholeness.
  • Take a few moments simply to be present to this awareness, in whatever way it makes sense to you. Also, be sure to allow any mixed feelings or confusion that might accompany this exploration. Just be present to the sense that life lives you in every moment, expressing as you through your unique wholeness. There is no one else on the planet who is just like you. You are a unique gift to life, a unique opportunity for life to experience and express…
  • Now, take a moment to again follow an out-breath down into your internal home base. Touch into an awareness of, or imagine, the steadiness that’s always there and spend a few moments resting in the steadiness.
  • When you’re ready, take a moment to recall the kaleidoscope and your dynamic wholeness, the gift you offer the life that lives you in every moment.
  • Then, begin to come back by wiggling your fingers and toes, open your eyes and gently look around your environment, perhaps listening to the sounds around you, and come all the way back.

As with all these practices, please be sure to bring along curiosity as your constant companion and to pat gently on the head any judgments that may arise. Allow them to move on through without your having to do anything about them. And, please be sure to allow any mixed feelings that may arise. They are aspects of your wholeness and are part of the uniqueness of your being. 

There are two recordings for this practice. The first is of the written portion that describes the theme of this week’s practice. The second is a recording of the guided meditation. As you listen to the meditation, be sure to put the recording on pause when you need more time and please remember never to listen to guided meditations when you are driving or operating dangerous machinery.

Recording of practice without guided meditation
Recording of guided meditation

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721st Week:  Grammar Shapes Our Worldview

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We know that different languages generate different world views, different ways of experiencing the world around us, and different expectations of what we can expect from our world.  Several times now, I’ve run across the writings of Robin Wall Kimmerer and each time I experience her worldview I am deeply moved. She is a botanist who is also has a Potawatomi heritage and a perspective that is much more inclusive and honoring of our planet and our global family of relations with whom we share this home.

I’ve written before about Robin’s very wise and powerful sharing of the need for pronouns that are inclusive of all the life on this beautiful home we share with so many other beings. Read More “721st Week:  Grammar Shapes Our Worldview”

789th Week: Accessing Optimal Futures

789th Week: Accessing Optimal Futures

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An area of interest I’ve had for more than 40 years is the creative possibility inherent in what quantum physics has to say about the world. Thirty-eight years ago, I began to work actively with what I called the optimal future self, for want of a more precise term. This work had to do with inviting people to access the part of themselves that had already resolved whatever they sought to achieve, heal, or develop and depended, as it does to this day, on accessing the body state, the lived-in felt-sense, of the optimal future self. 

At that time, I used the word “future” to imply something that wasn’t yet on board, even though in quantum terms past, present, and future come together in an ever-present now. It’s as though we can reach into a timeless realm of possibility and extract something that has an impact on our present-day lives. Over all these years, I have been personally affected by this practice in powerful ways and have watched countless others have beneficial outcomes as a result of reaching into “as-yet-to-be-realized” possibilities. 

Because of these experiences, I find myself orienting to optimal futures during this time of deep and necessary demands for change in how we humans live with each other and with our planet. The results of the current pandemic, the devastating impact of the  history of white supremacy in the United States, and the crisis we humans have created with our planetary environment all speak to me about an urgent need to orient to optimal possibilities for our future on the planet.

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864th Week: Subtle Activism on Behalf of Ukraine

As I sit down to write a practice for this week, I can’t seem to be anywhere but with my concern for Ukraine as the Russian invasion occurs. That’s where my heart is staying at the moment, so I wanted to offer a practice that reflects what so many of us are focusing on at this time.

There are many forms of what is called “subtle activism”. All it means is offering support at a distance, for those times when we aren’t able to engage a situation or need physically. An example of subtle activism is prayer and offering blessings. Another is distance healing. I’ll offer an example of subtle activism below that you can adapt to whatever your belief system or whatever your usual practice of offering support to others.

A Practice on Behalf of Ukraine

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858th Week: The Importance of “Awe”

858th Week: The Importance of “Awe”

ByNancy Napier

Whenever I go into Central Park, I take time to see what has changed, how the trees look, what wildlife is around. I enjoy listening to the birds and, also, to the many languages I hear on any given day in New York City. This Fall season, I have enjoyed watching the trees change from their brilliant colors to bare branches after their leaves have been released. For me, this time of year brings its own beauty, and during this season I can see the creative, complex, and varied ways that trees find expression in the shapes and reach of their branches. It’s magical to me and I discover new trees every year—trees I have only noticed during their leaf-laden seasons.

This process that is so familiar to me got me to thinking about the importance of looking for inspiration, beauty, and things that are new as part of nourishing our vitality and aliveness. I was surprised to discover that I had a link to the importance of “awe walks” in my notes that fits perfectly with what I’ve experienced this Fall as the trees have taken on their winter look. Here’s a link to that article. (You can click on the blank space and it will take you to the article. For some reason, the link doesn’t offer visible content, but it’s here…) 

Article on “Awe Walks”

Even though this article refers to “older people” and some research that was done with this population, the effects of awe apply to us all. There’s been a good bit of research in this area. Here’s a link to an article reflecting the impact of small moments of awe on anyone’s overall health and well-being.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2021/06/07/awe-has-health-benefits-our-wellbeing-how-add-your-life/7586396002/

For this week’s practice in conscious living, I invite you to engage in even more “awe walks” than you may already do. Pay attention to what happens in your body, emotional tone, and thoughts as you look for things that inspire, things you didn’t notice before, things that fill you with awe. If you can’t go outdoors, then do this practice in your home, taking time to notice what you have around you that inspires you and also to invite yourself to notice small details that you may have overlooked.

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884th Week :  Orienting to Frequencies

I’ve talked recently about the importance of noticing the quality of energy with which we resonate, the frequencies we bring into our lives and experiences. This year’s monthly audio meditations on my website focus on frequencies and the subject of the quality and tone of energy comes up often in my work with the people who come my way.

Not only do I think that it is vitally important to track which frequencies we bring into the foreground of our awareness, but I also invite people to notice the tone and quality of the unique energy signature that emanates from their core presence, from that place inside each of us that is our internal home base.

I woke up one morning saying the following to myself: “I am a living expression of radiant health.” What struck me as I heard myself saying this in my mind was the quality of energy inherent in the words, radiant health. Since that morning, I’ve been saying this to myself every day, with an occasional alternate version that goes something like, “I am the living essence of radiant health.” Whichever way I say it, the key is the frequency, the quality of the words, radiant health.

Also, when I say radiant health, I’m not just focused on my physical being. I can sense into radiant psychological health, or radiant creativity, or radiant emotional resilience. For this practice, I recommend using the general statement of being a living expression of radiant health, but be sure to adapt this practice to what works best for you.

My sense is that frequencies, that all frequencies/energies/qualities of being, have a direct impact not only on our state of mind but also on the state of our physical being. Because of this, one of the ways I engage my explorations of frequencies is to call on certain qualities to accompany me throughout the day. An example that I may have shared before was very powerful for me when my mother was alive and needing a lot of support. On days when I would be with her, I would call on the frequency of kindness, what I think of as the Spirit or Archetype of Kindness, asking this quality to fill me throughout the day. What I discovered was, when I remembered to do this, the day would unfold with an experience of patience and kindness in me that were more accessible and easier to express than what was usual for me.

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