What is meditation, introduction to practitioner course, posture for meditation, what is mindfulness, mindfulness of breathing meditation explained, guided mindfulness of breathing practice.
Happy
Week 2. Loving Kindness
Q&A on mindfulness, higher consciousness with meditation, loving kindness meditation explained, guided loving kindness practice.
Empowered
Week 3. Manifestation
Q&A on loving kindness, hinderances to meditation, antidotes to hinderances, principles of manifestation, Ah/Om manifestation meditation explained, guided Ah/Om manifestation practice.
Wise
Week 4. Inner Wisdom
Q&A on Ah/Om manifestation, what is inner wisdom, Ask Your Inner Wisdom meditation explained, guided Ask Your Inner Wisdom practice, where to go from here.
*
In this video extract from Meditation Practitioners course, below,
Maggie Kay describes the benefits of meditation.
(And also goes on to talk about the inner wisdom meditation)
This book is part true love story and part how-to guide. In these pages, I take you with me on the spiritual adventure of my life and share how I eventually found what I was longing for – deep trust in my own inner wisdom and a true love, soul mate and life partner that can meet me on all levels. Along with the story, I share the insights and learning that lit the way for me with the hope that this will also help illuminate your path of love and wisdom.
My quest for wisdom began when I was a child, trying to figure out if church had the answers to life’s big questions. Continuing by studying psychology at university, I was profoundly affected by the death of my father and discovered the practice of meditation. For nearly two decades thereafter, I trained for and became an ordained Buddhist.
But wisdom wasn’t enough. Although denying it for many years, deep down I also ached to be properly partnered by a soul mate – a true love that shared every aspect of my life. A series of experiences finally brought me to fulfill that destiny and the ensuing spiritual renaissance resulted in the resigning of my ordination and the founding of Thrivecraft – an inspirational coaching practice providing a universal path of love and wisdom for all.
Echoing my own journey, the first half of Pearls is about inner wisdom. Along with this part of my story, I share tips and teachings on meditation, mindfulness and intuition so that you too can tune in to your own natural inner wisdom.
The second half focuses on finding true love and includes my ‘Get Ready For Love’ step-by-step guide. I also describe how inner wisdom continues to serve a deepening relationship once you’ve met a partner (or, indeed, reveals when it is time to move on).
It is my dear wish that you will be inspired by my story and tips, transported by a special ‘Ask Your Inner Wisdom’ meditation I have created and recapture your natural entitlement to be completely guided and supported in all that you do. Go ahead and find the kind of love and wisdom that you so desire and so deserve. Dive for your pearls – they are right here and they are all yours.
This book is part true love story and part how-to guide. In these pages, I take you with me on the spiritual adventure of my life and share how I eventually found what I was longing for – deep trust in my own inner wisdom and a true love, soul mate and life partner that can meet me on all levels. Along with the story, I share the insights and learning that lit the way for me with the hope that this will also help illuminate your path of love and wisdom.
My quest for wisdom began when I was a child, trying to figure out if church had the answers to life’s big questions. Continuing by studying psychology at university, I was profoundly affected by the death of my father and discovered the practice of meditation. For nearly two decades thereafter, I trained for and became an ordained Buddhist.
But wisdom wasn’t enough. Although denying it for many years, deep down I also ached to be properly partnered by a soul mate – a true love that shared every aspect of my life. A series of experiences finally brought me to fulfill that destiny and the ensuing spiritual renaissance resulted in the resigning of my ordination and the founding of Thrivecraft – an inspirational coaching practice providing a universal path of love and wisdom for all.
Echoing my own journey, the first half of Pearls is about inner wisdom. Along with this part of my story, I share tips and teachings on meditation, mindfulness and intuition so that you too can tune in to your own natural inner wisdom.
The second half focuses on finding true love and includes my ‘Get Ready For Love’ step-by-step guide. I also describe how inner wisdom continues to serve a deepening relationship once you’ve met a partner (or, indeed, reveals when it is time to move on).
It is my dear wish that you will be inspired by my story and tips, transported by a special ‘Ask Your Inner Wisdom’ meditation I have created and recapture your natural entitlement to be completely guided and supported in all that you do. Go ahead and find the kind of love and wisdom that you so desire and so deserve. Dive for your pearls – they are right here and they are all yours.
Check out Maggie Kay’s new Source TV show – Ask Maggie – where she answers your love and relationship questions and helps you find and attract your ideal love match.
In the episode below, Maggie explains how she solved her own ‘love paradox’.
Extract from my forthcoming book – Diving for Pearls: A Wise Woman’s Guide to Finding Love. Click for Diving for Pearls Facebook page
A Cornishman with Attitude
The extraordinary thing about connecting with Pat is that he was NOTHING like anyone I’d been hanging out with in decades. For a start, his favourite place to socialise was the pub – something that was completely alien to me being a tee-totalling ordained Buddhist. It wasn’t just the drinking that made Pat and I an unlikely couple, however, it was also the smoking, the meat eating and the TV watching – Pat’s that is!
Much as I’d been massively sensitised to avoid all that – in fact I’d taken VOWS against most of it – and would normally find those behaviours repellent, in Pat’s case I didn’t seem to notice. This is a bit of an odd phenomenon to describe, but I guess it was a matter of connecting with Pat’s true being so profoundly, and finding him so compelling at that deep level, that those relatively superficial things just didn’t register.
In fact I have now come to recognise that these differences between us have been part of the magic of our relationship and one of my greatest learnings. Falling in love with a man who, in spiritual circles, is considered to behave so ‘blasphemously’ has been an excellent antidote to any spiritual preciousness I was carrying. It helped me drop any hoity toity idea of what is proper and ‘spiritual’ – the right thing to eat, the right thing to wear, the right thing to say – and recognise that true spirituality comes in many guises.
So how come I found this beer swilling, cigarette puffing, oft swearing Cornishman so compelling? The truth is, Pat is one of the most profoundly spiritually evolved people I have ever known, and I must have instinctively sensed that right away, despite appearances.
He is a trickster, a holy fool – often misunderstood and misjudged – but those who see and love him, really see and love something extraordinary. For a start, although he can appear fierce, impatient and provocative (a red-headed, Aries/Dragon-born Cornishman with attitude), Pat loves powerfully and unconditionally and carries no judgement of others. His challenges are a form of play and a call for whoever he is talking to wake up to themselves. Most unusually, however, he is not doing it for any personal gratification – to score a point or make himself feel good – and is not attached to any particular outcome. In fact, most often his playful prods are involuntary, a kind of automatic truth seeking device. He calls it his curse, but of course it is his gift too.
True Love Cuts Deep
Finding the right partner is a popular priority amongst my coaching clients. I’ve had the great joy of assisting many through to that magical moment of meeting someone amazing – the ‘wow’ moment when all the soul work pays off. I’ve also had the fulfilment of then supporting the same person navigate the deepening waters of relationship once it’s established (sometimes coaching the couple together).
The job’s not done when we finally meet our match. Not surprisingly, whatever personal issues we each carry about relationship re-emerge big time once the relationship is under way. It is all there to be made conscious and explored and resolved should we choose to, and actually being with someone throws it all up into stark, potent reality.
There is something about a sexual love relationship that touches us more deeply than anything else. It stirs up our deepest and darkest as well as our most brilliant and best. This is something I was re-assuring a newly love-sick client about only last week. ‘A fine mess you’ve got me into, Stanley’ she titled her email. ‘Help! I can’t eat, work, sleep….’
Of course, I hadn’t got her into anything. She’d called it all up herself, and after three months of diligent intention and attention, had manifested the most incredible match imaginable. She found ‘Him’! This is a person with so much sorted, so much going for her. Yet, she has only just opened a door to a whole new rich and vulnerable dimension of herself by finally opening to deep relationship.
This is something I can relate to. Before meeting Pat, I’d spent the best part of twenty years living semi-monastically in a Buddhist community. Our romantic relationships were conducted peripherally, and we were encouraged to live and work independently in order to dedicate ourselves to our spiritual practice. It was a perspective that eventually led me to resign my ordination.
Deep down I knew that my greatest spiritual growth opportunity was destined to come from entering deeply into a loving partnership with a man. And I was right. What was in store for me upon meeting Pat was nothing short of a spiritual renaissance. It also prompted the discovery of my true vocation in Thrivecraft, and has been the most fruitful and creative time of my life.
You Know Best
You know best. You do! It was only once I started learning from this wonderful, maverick, not-what-you-expect-from-a-spiritual guy, Holy Cornishman that I started to really take this in for myself that I know best. That and the fact that I am ‘good enough’ just the way I am!
The magical truth is that, ultimately, each of us knows what is best for ourselves. But more often than not, we can’t hear our own inner voice speak. Or, we can’t tell whether to trust it even if it is clear what it is saying.
Say, for example, you are considering quitting your job to pursue something more satisfying. How do you know for sure that you’d be doing the right thing? One part of you says, “I need the money, I can’t risk it”. Another part says, “I’m unhappy and feel like I’m throwing my life away”. Then another (a voice in your head that sounds rather like your mum’s) says, “Better the devil you know…”
How do you sift through all the inner arguments and find best way forward? How do you know for sure? How do we KNOW our hunches are right, that you are making the right decisions and choices in life? Which inner voice is the wise one? This is the number one issue people ask me about. And so, this book includes some guidelines on how to find and trust your own reliable source of inner wisdom.
But Am I Getting It Right?
Maybe you have been inspired by spiritual growth, self help and personal development for some time, perhaps you are even a coach, counsellor, teacher or caring professional yourself. You have a pile of books that have guided you to meet the right partner, practice meditation and attract abundance. You have attended workshops, watched videos, taken online courses and gained qualifications. You have put some amazing things into place in your life and connected with some lovely like minded people along the way.
And it has been great. Fantastic stuff – life is so much better for it. However, there is still a nagging feeling that you could do better, that you are not good enough or doing it right. Maybe you are not practicing your meditation often enough, or earning enough money from your coaching practice, or managing to stick to those healthy foods that you KNOW do you so much good. And even though you are well versed in the principle that love triumphs fear – and so should know better! You are still not free of those low-level, creeping doubts, worries and fears.
Believe me, you are not alone. I know thousands of people just like you who share this paradox – terrific, inspiring, positive people who are doing fantastic things in their professional and personal lives, but still give themselves a hard time, myself included occasionally! I was pondering this phenomenon when I suddenly got it. We believe that we are supposed to learn lessons and continually ‘improve’ ourselves, when actually, we don’t need to work at change a thing. Not really, at least, not with that attitude. It is far more important that we realise that we are already perfect, just the way we are.
Perfect Just the Way You Are
But aren’t we supposed to be ridding ourselves of ego, accepting our inner child and forgiving those who have wronged us? Our books and teachings are full of instructions on the art of waking up, healing wounds, letting go and moving on. And the whole coaching model is about getting from where you are now to where you want to be.
However, if we look deeply into the spiritual essence of any edict that really works, you will see there is only one true starting point – LOVE YOURSELF JUST THE WAY YOU ARE. It is in accepting yourself just the way you are, first and foremost, that real and lasting positive change is catalysed. That is the transformational power of love. Changeless change, or at least, effortless, graceful, natural change.
Maggie met and married the man of her dreams – her true love soul mate who meets her on all levels – after 20 years of over-compromising in relationships.
Since 2004, Maggie has been coaching others to get ready for love and find their ideal partner, both in one-to-one coaching programmes and at her popular Get Ready for Love weekend workshops.
Get Ready for Love success stories:
The very day 42 year old Carrie wrote in her journal that she was now ready for love again, Steve literally knocked on her front door. They are now happily living together.
Philippa, age 53, met her partner Charlie after more than 20 years of being a single mum focused on her career. He was the first candidate she came across on a dating website (an action Philippa had decided to take whilst following the programme) but that was enough. They quickly recognised they’d met someone special and are enjoying life together.
29 year old Jennifer met her boyfriend Derek by chance in a crystal shop on Valentine’s day. Although they didn’t know each other before, unbeknownst to them they had something in common – they were both having Get Ready for Love coaching with Maggie Kay!
Diving for Pearls: A Wise Woman’s Guide to Finding Love
INTRODUCTION – INNER TREASURE
This book is part true love story and part how-to guide. In these pages, I take you with me on the spiritual adventure of my life and share how I eventually found what I was longing for – deep trust in my own inner wisdom and a soul mate life partner that can meet me on all levels. Along with the story, I share the insights and learning that lit the way for me with the hope that this will also help illuminate your path of love and wisdom.
My quest for wisdom began when I was a child, trying to figure out if church had the answers to life’s big questions. Continuing by studying psychology at university, I was profoundly affected by the death of my father and discovered the practice of meditation. For nearly two decades thereafter, I trained for and became an ordained Buddhist.
But wisdom wasn’t enough. Although denying it for many years, deep down I also ached to be properly partnered by a soul mate – a true love that shared every aspect of my life. A series of experiences finally brought me to fulfill that destiny and the ensuing spiritual renaissance resulted in the resigning of my ordination and founding Thrivecraft – a universal path of love and wisdom for all.
Echoing my own journey, the first half of Pearls is about inner wisdom. Along with this part of my story, I share tips and teachings on meditation, mindfulness and intuition so that you too can tune into to your natural inner wisdom. The second half focuses on finding true love and includes my ‘Get Ready For Love’ step-by-step guide. I also describe how inner wisdom continues to serve a deepening relationship once you’ve met a partner (or, indeed, shows you when it’s time to move on).
It is my dear wish that you will be inspired by my story and tips, transported by a special ‘Ask Your Inner Wisdom’ meditation I have created and re-capture your natural entitlement to be completely guided and supported in all that you do. Go ahead and find the kind of love and wisdom that you so desire and so deserve. Dive for your pearls – they are right here and they are all yours…
Leap year 29th February is traditionally the day when women propose marriage.
And so what a great day to let you know about my forthcoming book
Diving for Pearls: The Wise Woman’s Guide to Finding Love
which I am sending off to a publisher this very day!
Diving for Pearls is part true love story and part how-to guide. I take you with me on the spiritual adventure of my life and share how I eventually found what I was longing for – deep trust in my own inner wisdom and a soul mate life partner that can meet me on all levels. Along with the story, I share the insights and learning that lit the way for me with the hope that this will also help illuminate your path of love and wisdom.
My quest for wisdom began when I was a child, trying to figure out if church had the answers to life’s big questions. Continuing by studying psychology at university, I was profoundly affected by the death of my father and discovered the practice of meditation. For nearly two decades thereafter, I trained for and became an ordained Buddhist.
But wisdom wasn’t enough. Although denying it for many years, deep down I also ached to be properly partnered by a soul mate – a true love that shared every aspect of my life. A series of experiences finally brought me to fulfill that destiny and the ensuing spiritual renaissance resulted in the resigning of my ordination and founding Thrivecraft – a universal path of love and wisdom for all.
Echoing my own journey, the first half of Pearls is about inner wisdom. Along with this part of my story, I share tips and teachings on meditation, mindfulness and intuition so that you too can tune into to your natural inner wisdom. The second half focuses on finding true love and includes my ‘Get Ready For Love’ step-by-step guide. I also describe how inner wisdom continues to serve a deepening relationship once you’ve met a partner (or, indeed, shows you when it’s time to move on).
It is my dear wish that you will be inspired by my story and tips, transported by a special ‘Ask Your Inner Wisdom’ meditation I have created and re-capture your natural entitlement to be completely guided and supported in all that you do. Go ahead and find the kind of love and wisdom that you so desire and so deserve. Dive for your pearls – they are right here and they are all yours…
Some of you may remember that in 2014 I won a scholarship with conscious writing mentor and Hay House author, Julia McCutchen, www.juliamccutchen.com. I am delighted that the result of Julia’s fabulous mentoring is now well on its way to publication.
This June, I am again supporting Julia on her Conscious Writing retreat which is held in Glastonbury, UK. As well as being hugely enjoyable, Julia’s holistic approach can create surprising breakthroughs. Here I am giving my video testimonial – Maggie’s retreat testimonial.
New – Get Ready for Love – Coaching Programme
My other big news is that I am creating a brand new intensive coaching programme
Get Ready for Love
If now is your time to let go of the past, develop unshakable self belief and prepare yourself for the BEST relationship of your life – I am standing by with my tried and tested methods and powerful magic to launch you on your way.
Get ready for, find and attract your ideal love match – fast!
I woke up the other morning dreaming that a busy, uncommunicative parking attendant gave me a £416 fine (very specifically, £416!). In protest, I went marching through endless council offices, speaking to person after person, explaining that there had been a mistake – I’d only been there for a moment and was away buying my ticket and hadn’t done anything wrong! But no-one was listening. They just kept repeating their silly rules and insisting that I’d better pay £416 or they’d double the fine. It was so unfair and so frustrating!
Now, its said that all the characters in your dreams represent an aspect of yourself. Hmmn – so I have an inner officious, busy, uncommunicative, petty minded beauracrat, do I?… Oh yes! I recognise her well!
Years ago, when I was part of a Buddhist right livelihood team running an ethical gift shop (a job I loved, but that’s another story) I found my inner officious, busy, uncommunicative, petty minded beauracrat alright. I called her Helga. She was a big, loud, tank-like, German bossy boots who liked everything exactly her own way and for no one to get in it. (Excuse the national type-casting. I do actually relish characteristically German directness and two of my very best friends are German.)
Helga would march around her territory – the throws and cushion department – making sure not a fold was out of place. God forbid someone would talk to her, or worse still, ask her to do something else whilst her mind was on the task! Nowadays, Helga is only usually in evidence at Christmas time when I’m cooking for my guests . “Can I help with ….” “NO!” Helga barks before my poor sister-in-law can finish her sentence. “I’m better on my own!”
Bless her, my mum is similarly self-determining. Her kitchen is her domain and its best to stay clear whilst she’s busy preparing a meal. Like my mum, I love to express my love by providing meals for friends and family and want the kitchen to be all mine as I’m doing so. Also like my mum, I generally think I know best and want to do things MY way, even if it means exhausting myself because I’m incapable of delegating. You can see how this connects with ‘over-giving’ and it not occurring to me to say no, traits I also share with my remarkably generous and extremely dynamic mother.
Love Your Inner Parking Attendant
So the moral of this tale is that it pays to love your inner parking attendant, or any other het-up inner character who pipes up and misbehaves when you are under duress. Making friends with them (or even giving them a pet name like Helga) is the best way to make sure that you remain in overall command of how you behave, not them. If these guys remain unrecognised and un-named they have a habit of taking over automatically and wreaking havoc with your life.
The tricky time is when you are not even aware that we have a Helga or whoever in operation. Some unconscious part of you has been activated by a situation and off it goes pontificating or whining or bashing other people and your bigger self is powerless to do anything about it. It’s like you are possessed. Eventually, rant over, you come around to yourself again and wonder what happened. But by then it’s too late…
However, spotting your particular tendency to flip out (and the situations that trigger them) is really helpful. Even better, giving this aspect of your personality a pet name allows you to have a humourous, affectionate relationship with it. You can then give this protesting character some recognition, validation and attention without letting it take over inappropriately. It’s exactly like handling a naughty child.
And so I’ve also come to understand the good that Helga stands for. She has very high standards and is prepared to work hard to achieve excellence. Actually, she is quite talented and makes an exceptionally good job of things. She is proactive and strong and determined. (Part of my previous Buddhist name, Srimati, reflects this positive aspect. Mati can mean determination or strong mindedness).
The down side of Helga is that she is superior and up herself. She doesn’t rate anyone else or trust that they can do anything useful to help. Superiority is, in fact, a state of defensive fear – you compare yourself with others and set yourself apart in a misguided attempt to protect yourself. You don’t like what you think you see in someone else (some form of weakness or vulnerability) and don’t want to have anything to do with it because you can’t admit to your own weaknesses. However, in cutting yourself off from others (and any experience of vulnerability) you also sever your connection with your true nature which is total and absolute BLISS.
To allow yourself to be connected and intimate with others means allowing yourself to be open and vulnerable. It means admitting that you suffer sometimes, that you are fallible, mortal and fragile. It means being HONEST about your human experience and condition – that failure, loss, and pain are an intrinsic part of being alive.
Oh , Jeez, if we could only just surrender to our true feelings and honour the fragility and impermanence of all things, then we would experience incredible tenderness and joy – that we are utterly linked with one another, that there is indescribable, breath-taking beauty in every moment, that we can totally let go and float on an infinite sea of divine care.
Relaxing into the Fragile Mess
In the modern, developed world we live in a culture where fragility, unpleasantness, suffering, illness, pain and death are kept as far out of consciousness as possible. We create great armies of thought-police and institutions and industries to uphold our collective denial. We work and spend ourselves senseless and never pause long enough to breathe properly, never mind smell the coffee! And then when we get to the top of our ambition mountain – the successful husband and kids, the million dollars in our bank account, the huge house overlooking the sea – we wonder why life feels hollow, that we are not truly happy.
Have you ever wondered why ordinary people in poor parts of the undeveloped world seem so happy? Have you noticed the sparkle in their eyes, the bright colours that they wear, the connection they have with one another despite being surrounded by abject suffering? Well, I don’t know for sure, but it’s my guess that these simple people are living in a way which actually allows them to stay in touch with their true humanity in a way that eludes us in the developed world. And I wonder if the key to that humanity is to allow our natural experience of vulnerability and suffering to be a full part of our experience without fear.
Poor old Helga! What a lot she’s missing out on. If she could only realise that it’s okay to get it ‘wrong’, that the world won’t fall apart if a cushion is out of place or a Christmas dinner is late. If only she could relax and laugh and enjoy the great, chaotic play of people and events around her, muddling along, making mistakes, supporting each other, getting there somehow. She might notice that her shoulders are aching or that she’s really hungry, but there would be something so sweet about admitting that she, too, is a delicate human being. She would feel at home in this great fragile mess of perfect imperfection and finally realise that the point of life is not to strive to keep it all in order, but to let go and enjoy it just as it is.
Having just navigated my way through a few days of (rare for me) ‘down time’, its got me thinking…
What really helps when you are feeling down?
Well, the starting point is simply this:
1. Accept how you are feeling.
The energy we put into resisting our feelings when difficult emotions are bubbling under the surface is incredible. Instead, we keep ourselves zombie-like – plodding along in a low-grade half-life – not happy, but not engaging with what’s going on either.
Our habit of blaming ourselves can mean that we’d rather remain in a state of brittle denial. We can’t admit to ourselves that we feel this way as we would judge ourselves for being so. It is better to pretend that we are okay.
But if we can just surrender for a few moments – really allow ourselves to feel how we feel – yes we feel the pain more fully, but we also begin to let in a little love and tenderness. Much like we would if we were giving attention to a friend who was having a hard time.
Rather than being lost in this no-man/woman’s-land, it is better if we can NAME what we are feeling. Naming it means that we are no longer subsumed by it. Part of us is now standing outside and looking in, and we can feel some compassion for ourselves.
And having accepted how we are, we have the option of turning towards something more positive.
2. Take ONE tiny step.
When we are feeling down, everything can feel overwhelming. We don’t WANT to do anything to help ourselves. It’s all too much.
So my suggestion is this – choose ONE thing from the list below. Just one. One thing that appeals a little bit…
* have a bath
* go for a walk
* make a fresh juice or a wholesome soup
* listen to a guided meditation
* get closer to nature / go outside
* confide in a good friend
* clean and tidy up
* read something inspiring
* count your blessings
* have a nap
* hang out with positive people
* enjoy some exercise
* listen to uplifting music
* pray to receive support
* do something to help someone else
* channel inner guidance
* reflect on your good qualities
* make love or have a cuddle
* look for beauty in everything
* find the hidden gem/lesson /meaning in your issue
3. Take another step
What you will probably find is that once you’ve taken one step, you feel inclined to take another. And some positive momentum builds from there.
For example, this morning, still feeling a wee bit under par, I decided to do one thing nice thing for myself – have a bath.
That prompted me to read some inspiring words from a book while the bath was running. After my bath I did a little light housework and made a fresh juice for breakfast.
It is a bright day and I could hear the church bells ringing, so I went for a walk, pausing at the church door to listen to the congregation singing a hymn.
On the way home I popped in at our caravan in a nearby field and told it out loud how wonderful it is and how much I love it.
During my walk, all these ‘how to lift yourself up’ ideas came to me, culminating in the inspiration to write this blog. My hope is it might support you too if you are feeling less than wonderful today.
4. Find the hidden gem
There’s always a nugget of gold buried in our difficult emotions. Our feelings are trying to tell us something, bring our attention to something that will open understanding and meaning to a situation or experience.
I reckon the hidden gem in my ‘down time’ these last few days has been a) the need to rest and restore at the end of a very busy, productive year b) the opportunity to release some grief from the past (see below) and c) the prompt to write this blog and share something that might be supportive to others going through a bit of ‘down-time’.
This is my Facebook post about my hidden gems:-
“Emerging out of 5 day inner journey. Started with feeling of ‘flatness’, low energy, tinge of unhappiness, lack of customary inspiration/creativity, desire for more sleep, not wanting to do anything or communicate much…
Felt curious – was this just me being tired at the end of many months of huge activity and productivity? A bit weary after 10 days of tending to son Jamie being acutely unwell? Raw after an emotional sort-out with my husband Pat (the resolution of which was postponed around Jamie’s illness). Was astrology / weather getting me down?
Counted my blessings that there wasn’t much in the diary and I could potter on with undemanding filing and accounts. Then yesterday, it dawned on me – memories of Decembers caring for ill, dying and bereaved loved ones in years gone past, and not being too well myself.
So it seems I was just releasing a bit of seasonal grief and heartbreak, perhaps triggered by Jamie being ill again. Felt better as soon as I realised this. Better to feel the raw grief rather than the depressive blanket of nothing that holds it out of awareness.
Reminded that its healthy to feel these things, lovingly acknowledge buried feelings, that we only feel these things when we are ready to, that I must be experiencing a deeper healing around these issues than ever before.
Thinking of going along the Movement Medicine dance class this evening – a beautiful way to honour, heal and release any anguish still stored in the body. That and I think I’ll put up the Christmas tree now – to remind myself of all the many, many loving, celebratory, happy memories that Decembers have given me too…”
5. Love is the answer
Giving a little attention where it is due is a profoundly loving act. That’s all we are doing when we honestly accept how we are feeling – truly loving ourselves just the way we are.
It gives us the momentum to take a positive step, and maybe even another, and another…
And opens up the possibility of gaining some wisdom and insight from our experience, some meaning, some letting go.
And so I’ll leave you with this song sung by Aloe Blacc, Love is the Answer.
This was shared by my Facebook friend today, the very lovely Mark Bajerski. (Check out his wonderful biography, Diary of an Accidental Psychic.)
Love is the answer, that’s for sure, and we need only begin with one tiny step to let it back in to our life.
During this relaxed workshop you can give your hard-working thinking mind a rest! Instead, you will learn how to easily tap into your own deep wisdom to find brilliant answers and solutions at every turn. But don’t be deceived by the retreat-like experience of the day – this stuff is powerful!
With a mixture of interactive practical exercises, talks and guided contemplations, you will be shown how to hone your hunches into reliable intuition you can depend on. You will learn how to make the secret law of attraction work for you and practice a powerful ‘make it happen’ technique that manifests your hopes into reality.
There will be opportunities to ask questions and give your comments along the way. And there will be plenty of time to connect with other participants – typically a calibre group of open minded professionals, creatives, innovators and conscious entrepreneurs.
You will leave feeling equipped to employ a whole new dimension of yourself – your own inner wisdom – in your life, love, work and business. With the constant wise support of your inner guidance and intuition, things will never be the quite the same. Just see what happens next!
Back in 1998, I was a young mum and an ordained Buddhist living and working in a exciting, modern spiritual community in London.
‘Not getting attached’ is a big teaching in Buddhism and it took me a while to really understand what this means, especially as a new parent – and that
IT IS OKAY TO REALLY LET YOURSELF LOVE!
The following is an article I wrote about these exploration for Dharma Life Magazine. And at the end of the article, a short video I recorded in 2009 with Inspired Entrepreneur, Nick Williams, on the same topic…
An All Embracing Urge
Published in Dharma Life Magazine – Winter 1998, written by Maggie Kay (Srimati)
Motherhood has opened up a new emotional realm for Srimati. But how to love wholeheartedly and continually let go is the ground of her daily practice.
Against the odds and ahead of hard evidence, I instinctively knew I was pregnant. As I lay in the bath there was something magical in the air. I found myself, hand on belly, making a heartfelt pledge in a tender whisper: “If you’re there, you’re welcome and I’ll do my best for you.” This was the beginning of the greatest love of my life. One week into my relationship with this unknown, unexpected being, I was howling with an ancient grief as I bled, and feared it was over. The pain of that love had also made itself felt.
But all was well, and that feeling of love and pain gathered substance during the months of pregnancy. My body surrendered more and more to its task, and love for my unborn became increasingly tangible with the growth of the life in my belly. So did the fears. Dreams of the coming birth were mostly beautiful, but my heart was full of the fragility of human life. I felt I would do anything to protect this life inside me, and yet there was so little I could do to ensure its wellbeing. That was ultimately out of my hands. Even before my child was born, I was learning that maternal love means letting go.
I spent an unforgettable night bringing my son into the world. In the calm and comfortable aftermath of that struggle, I lay stung awake by wonder, gazing at him. The blacks of his eyes shone in the dark, peacefully apprehending his new world as he lay between us, his parents, the very flesh that had created him. A few days earlier I’d dreamt I was begging a Nazi soldier not to shoot me, to give me one more week so I could see the face of my unborn child. Becoming a mother has shown me that the death of a child is the cruelest loss imaginable.
As a practicing Buddhist, (In 2002 I resigned my ordination to embrace all forms of spirituality and no longer consider myself to be ‘just’ a Buddhist) such strong feelings have raised many questions for me. What gives rise to such powerful and self-sacrificing maternal love? To what extent does this love help or hinder us in living a spiritual life?
Some Buddhists claim parenthood is unhelpful from a spiritual point of view, partly because it opens you up to such incredible attachment. It is generally true that the more emotionally involved you are with someone, the more you are liable to be caught in attachment. At worst this can mean limiting, insecure ways of relating, and unhealthy dependence. Attachment is difficult to recognize and can be easily rationalized as something less selfish. For a Buddhist, however, identifying and uprooting this clinging is the very heart of practice and for a Buddhist parent it is no different.
Nevertheless certain Buddhist traditions take the image of maternal love as a metaphor to describe metta, universal loving-kindness:
As a mother watches o’er her child, Her only child, so long as she doth breathe, So let one practice unto all that live An all-embracing mind.
Parenting, especially early parenting, can seem incomparably unselfish — but is it really? What enables such incredible resources to be unstintingly roused in the service of another human being? Perhaps it is because there is cellular identity with the child, especially in the mother’s case: My child is me. There is quite a leap between this and the empathetic identification of a Bodhisattva, the embodiment of compassion, with all living beings; but it is a powerful analogy.
I have come to value the power and vitality of maternal love and motherhood has given me a depth of experience that enriches my spiritual life. I have contacted a huge reservoir of passionate love for my son such as I have never experienced before. Most parents speak of this kind of love for their children. I prefer to see parental love as a spiritual opportunity. The answer is not to back away from the strength of that love, but to dwell deeply in it; to penetrate its nature and the nature of that which you love.
As a parent you have almost no choice but to love your child passionately, and this demands that you find the same intensity of wisdom. The more your heart is open, the more you can allow any wise reflections to touch you and let them transform you.
The story of Kisa Gotami is probably my favorite from the Buddha’s life. Kisa Gotami comes to the Buddha cradling her dead child. She is distraught, even a little crazed, and cannot accept that her child is dead. She has heard the Buddha is a great man, a great healer, and begs him to provide medicine for her ‘sick’ child. The Buddha replies that he will help her. She must find a mustard seed as medicine, but there is one condition: it must come from a household that has not known death.
Kisa Gotami sets out on her quest, knocking at doors. Those who greet her are happy to give her a mustard seed, but shake their heads when they hear of the condition. The living are few, but the dead are many. Kisa Gotami cannot find a house in which no one has died, and gradually a new perspective dawns. She sees the universality of death and this allows her to acknowledge what has happened. She buries her child, returns to the Buddha, and commits herself to the spiritual life.
Kisa Gotami “wakes up” during her quest. She sees that death and loss are universal, so she can finally grieve and let go of her child. This is a deeper engagement with life and death that sees it in a spiritual perspective. In accepting the death of her child, Kisa Gotami gains insight into the nature of human life. Obviously this is challenging ground. Kisa Gotami had the Buddha’s help. But it is not that she stopped loving, just that her love was placed in a much vaster context.
Tibetan Buddhist texts dwell on the mother-child relationship in many ways to evoke the intensity of love that human beings are capable of. The difficulty lies in transforming exclusive love into one that includes all beings. The prospect of loving every being like one’s only child is awesome, but life offers glimpses of such an experience. For example, when one grieves the death of a loved one, the combination of feelings arising from a personal loss, with an acknowledgment of the universality of death, can open up an intense love for all humanity.
Compassion comes with realizing that all beings will one day share this moment in their own way. Similarly, dying people sometimes reach a serenity where they accept impending death and are imbued with a sublime love for their family and for life itself — as if only this fullness of love is important, more important and powerful than death itself. Over the years I have thought a great deal about the nature of human love, ordinary human affection and intimacy with all its imperfections. It is this middle ground between the lofty climes of metta and the grip of unconscious attachment that I am interested in — that is where many of us stand for much of our lives.
When I first became involved in Buddhism I latched on to the notion of non-attachment because I was hurt by loss and death. I was 19 and didn’t know myself well. Although fairly bright and positive on the surface, I was unconsciously on the run from painful experiences. My adolescence had ended abruptly with my father’s illness and death, and I had witnessed the agony my mother suffered in losing him. I felt mature beyond my years, and my world of teenage rebellion became meaningless.
So, too, did my relationship with my first love, who had recently held such passion and promise for me. I had thought he was my soul-mate, the man I’d spend my life with. But my need for him melted away and I felt strangely alone. Suddenly, I found myself telling him it was over and telling my mother that I was leaving home.
Within a few months, my inner searching brought me to the Glasgow Buddhist Center, and I instantly recognized I had found the means to understand life and death that had been invisibly beckoning ever since I can remember. Although my response to the Dharma was largely sincere, I misconstrued some of what I learnt. While I rejoiced in my fortune at having come across the Buddhist path so young and unencumbered, I did not realized how much emotional backlog I had to deal with. It was during this initial phase that I developed a sort of defended pseudo-independence and fooled myself that I was free of attachments.
Fortunately meditation and spiritual friendship sorted me out. I threw myself into the spiritual life, and moved to the London Buddhist Center where I could participate in more intensive situations for practice, and be around more experienced Buddhists. Meditating every day, living in community with other Buddhists and working in a Buddhist Right Livelihood business was like being in a hall of mirrors. Everywhere I looked, my being was reflected back. There was no escape. So the pain of what I had been running from caught up with me. It was a journey into the underworld and I came more deeply into relationship with the love and pain that had been stirred by these losses.
By fully grieving, in opening up my heart to what had happened, the psuedo-independence crumbled. I was heartbroken, and from that broken heart a bigger heart was released. I began to see that non-attachment was not about holding back, being self-contained and trying to limit the inevitable emotional damage that comes through being in relationship with people. Ironically, I’ve found that non-attachment is about loving deeply, letting my love flow, admitting how much friends, family and partner matter. It involves being willing to love them, give myself to them, even though we will one day be parted. There’s nothing we can do to stop death, to end separation. Non-attachment means being prepared to take the pain of losing loved ones because the sheer experience of love is worth it.
My attitude to love began to change as I acknowledged the truth of impermanence, and the inevitability of the suffering implicit in loving. From feeling I made myself vulnerable by loving, I began to experience a greater robustness in my love. What did I really have to lose? I started to see love as giving rather than losing myself. Really to love I must be prepared to give everything and let go of everything. I must learn to release my love, love for its own sake, with no desire for a secure pay-off.
More than a decade later, with a partner and a four-year-old son, those ponderings have a new arena. The issues of attachment are different. I cannot choose whether or not to love my son, whether it is ‘safe’ to invest emotional energy in him. It is absolutely what I must and will do. I am only beginning the journey of loving as a mother, and every time I think I have understood what is involved, it changes.
And yet I sense that the lessons of this decade are the same. Only insight into to my son’s true nature, indeed into human nature in general, can free me from attachment. Every so often a tragic news story rips through the day-to-day illusion that this love is forever, never to be disturbed by accident, illness, separation.
I do not want to have to face what Kisa Gotami experienced in order to wake up to the human situation, but I do want to wake up. I want to feel unbounded love that is passionate, full and wise. Living with the tension of loving fully and letting go is not easy: it involves simultaneously holding two apparent opposites.
But hopefully the tension will allow a larger perspective to emerge. In the meantime I feel it is the only option. Love is not about binding another or oneself to a status quo because of insecurity. That is essentially an impossible task: things change, like it or not. It means taking a stand on a deeper, spiritual knowledge. To love fully is to open oneself to the truth of the human condition.
What’s new for you this year? Are you feeling the call to get together?
I definitely am and have been feeling increasingly inspired to host new events, groups and workshops this year – visiting themes that are hot for us all right now. There was such an enthusiastic response to our sell out UNITY 2012 event on 12.12.12. and our tribe continues to grow and want more!
This week our new ENDEAVOUR support group gets underway. This is a gathering of close kindred spirits (five men and five women) – each of us impressive individuals already following our calling, but keen to experience the power of the collective and take a leap together.
We are all mature body/mind/spirit professionals and artists, most of us parents, who know what it is like to carry responsibility and forge ahead. We are leaders and ‘givers’ and it is easy for us to sideline our own need for support and input. So it is great that we have decided to come together in a nourishing and stimulating peer group. Quantum leaps happen when we get together like this!
Thanks to Kimberely Jones http://www.kimberleyjones.com for contributing the above image. Artwork by Jennifer Cairns, Daybreak Design, info@daybreak.ca
Another new support group will get underway in Totnes, Devon in the coming weeks. THRIVECRAFT WEEKLY will be a Friday morning drop-in session. We will explore themes such as visioning, manifesting, channeling wisdom, using intuition and creating abundance and discover how these can be utilised in our life, love and business.
Each week I will be presenting the theme and guiding meditation, exercises and discussion. Our groups always attract a fantastic caliber of conscious, open-hearted people who contribute a lot to each other. Many friendships and connections are made. We will break for tea and there will be the opportunity to go for lunch together afterwards.
I will also be running a series of one day workshops this year. Requests are coming in for workshops on manifesting dreams and projects, boosting money and prosperity, business and marketing support and for developing intuition and channeling wisdom. Let me know if you have any more ideas and I’ll be happy to consider them.
For those of you further afield, I am currently writing some new material for online courses, webinars, e-books, audios and videos (as well as converting my existing courses into online formats). As a true Aquarian, I really feel my connection with you all worldwide and love to connect with you on the internet. Do join me on Facebook and Twitter too.
So I very much look forward to getting together with you this year and experiencing the power of our collective intention to create the happy, healthy, wealthy and wise lives we desire. By pooling our resources, we really do enhance our ability to actualize the bright new era so many of us are sensing. And right now is our opportunity to do so. See you soon!