Meghan McChesney Gilroy
Wake Up!
- June 23, 2008
This weekend we celebrated the Summer Solstice within our Dreaming Community. We traveled to Western Massachusetts to a beautiful retreat surrounded by trees, a river, birds, lightning bugs, lush green.
The Solstice marked a transition between the light and the dark. We gathered light, or energy, to illuminate the dark, or any belief within the program in our minds, any emotion, any sensation that is not in alignment with the Truth of Who We Are - energy, light, Life. Throughout the weekend, we talked about Awareness, the choice between love or fear, emotional purification and a transformational process to support that, and our role in the evolution of Humanity at this time.
My intent from the weekend was to take even greater responsibility in my life, to consciously choose what I am experiencing in each moment.
Monday morning, 5 am. My one year old, Bodhi, awakens ready to start the day. I am tired, praying he will go back to sleep. But no, he is now wailing. I stumble down the hall, feeling cranky. I am supposed to be able to sleep in after a Dreaming weekend. This isn’t how I want to start my day. As I lift him from his crib, I remind myself that I made a commitment to choosing love. I assume this reminder will make the crankiness go away.
We head downstairs for breakfast and I am aware that I still feel cranky and I still don’t want to feel cranky. I catch what I am doing and laugh at myself. The program in the mind is so subtle, so sly. I made the erroneous equation crankiness does not = love, which is my intent, therefore I should not be feeling this.
I shift my attention. I remind myself of the process I taught. Welcome the emotion. Breathe. Let it flow. I welcome the crankiness. I breathe. I let it flow. This is love. Allowing what I am in the moment, cranky. This is acceptance. The crankiness moves through me, flows.
I look around our home. There are piles and piles of stuff strewn about that haven’t been unpacked from the weekend (and trust me, with a one year old in tow that’s a lot of stuff). The dishes are teetering on top of one another in the sink from last night’s dinner. This morning I was supposed to unpack, clean up, prepare for the week but I decide to be gentle on myself and take a walk with Bodhi and Gorda, our dog, instead.
We run into DaDa (Jamie) at the local coffee shop. Bodhi learns that a “rose” (pronounced “wose”) is a kind of flower. We take the time to sniff one and the petals shower down onto Bodhi’s feet. We admire the boats (boats! boats!) in the fog-shrouded harbor. We push the stroller in circles until we are laughing and dizzy. We see two friends, three dogs, more flowers.
By the time we return home, I am not so tired. I am grateful that Life sent a message to awaken this morning (literally) - in the form of a crying baby. I appreciate my beautiful mind, and its good intentions for knowing how Life should be. And I am so pleased that I no longer believe what it says because, as always, Life had a much grander plan on this day, filled with light, for me.
In the Moment of How
- April 17, 2008
We all have had them. Those days (weeks or months) when you are trying to do two (or more) activities at once, when you feel like you are being pulled in two (or more) directions at once, when it’s the end of the day and you have no idea where it went.
Yesterday was one of those days for me. By mid-afternoon, I was cranky. Cranky over interruptions from people I love. Cranky from having to deal with minor problems. Cranky from not making the time to work on a project that I passionately, purposefully believe in.
As the crank developed into a funk, I watched my mind start to question everything currently happening in my life. “What you are meant to be doing? Why aren’t you making the time to work on what matters to you? Why aren’t you living your life in the way you envisioned?”
I felt all the judgment soar to the surface of my consciousness. Judging other people for taking up precious time, judging myself for not doing what I “should” be doing, judging the projects that have to get done but aren’t necessarily what makes my heart sing.
The mental wheels churned, creating a fog. I hardly noticed my husband, my son, the flowers that have poked through the ground within the 24 hours. I chomped on the “Why aren’t you…?” and “What should you….?” questions for hours.
Then I had an epiphany. What if I stopped debating with myself over what I should or should not be doing? What if I stopped having a judgment that one project was better than another? What if I stopped asking the “why’s” and the “what’s” and started asking “How?”
How do you want to interact with others?
How do you want to feel when you work on this project (or are with someone you love)?
How can you be compassionate, kind, and happy?
This shifted me into The Moment of How. We’ve all heard about “the moment of now” or about “living in the moment.” I’ve heard it so often that it’s lost its meaning to me. Yet when I shifted into The Moment of How – How do I want to feel? How do I want to be? I returned to the present. I remembered that it’s not the destination, it’s the journey. I felt a sense of spaciousness. I could take a deep breath.
All of us have ideas about what we think we should be doing in life. Should I be working at this job or that one? Should I be with this person or be by myself? Should I live here or there? We are constantly judging and comparing our present experience with our concept of our ideal life. Yet how often do we let go of the concept and accept what is present in the moment? How often to we focus on the emotional quality present in all our interactions and doings?
And that lead me into a place of mastery. When I live in The Moment of How, embodying peace, purpose, and passion in each moment, it really doesn’t matter what I am doing. I am fulfilling my Life’s Purpose, which is to be that un-nameable force that permeates everything. My Purpose in Life is not to have a job, or live a certain lifestyle, or play the role of businesswoman, friend, wife, or mother. Life was giving me, just like it gives all of us, another chance to be this truth. Just be. In this space, I am flexible, fluid, open, whole. I am breathing. I am aware. I just am.
And so I relax and let go. From this place I can create in any direction. I can play any role. I can allow Life to flow through me, trusting that all will be taken care of. I remember that there is enough – enough time, enough money, enough resources. I pause and smile and offer thanks. To one small word, “how.”
The Transformation of FRUSTRATION
- March 07, 2008
I love being married and being a mother. I know that this is part of my Life’s Purpose, along with being a messenger for this wisdom.
Yet at 1:30am last night, I wasn’t in love with any of these roles and I wasn’t so pleased with Life either. For the past hour, my husband Jamie had been popping in and out of bed to determine what was causing the strange, loud noises coming from next door. It was our neighbor, in her pajamas, dragging who-knows-what through her yard. Then my 10 month old, Bodhi, who has recently been sleeping through the night, started wailing.
I was groggy and unhappy to be jerked awake by all three of the offending parties - husband, neighbor, and baby. As I crawled out of bed and pulled Bodhi into my lap in our rocking chair, I was aware of a sensation racing through my body. I felt FRUSTRATION. The stillness of the night amplified it. Since I knew I’d be rocking for awhile, I placed all my attention on what I was feeling.
With the world now quiet, I was keenly aware of Life passing through me. This omnipresent energy was moving and vibrating - and then thunking against the jumble of thoughts in my mind, causing the FRUSTRATION. I suddenly had an image of a child jubilantly riding his bike, legs pumping, flying down a hill with so much momentum. A playing card vibrated against each spin of the wheel. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
My mind was no different. As I heard each story whiz by - Can’t Jamie just stay in bed? She shouldn’t be out there at this time of night. Bodhi should be sleeping. - I saw that each of these opinions was a belief that crashed into the magnificence of this moment in the night, impeding Life from flowing. My idea of how everything should be was causing me to get lost in the noise inside my head and this resulted in the unpleasant FRUSTRATION inside of my body.
What is frustration? I wondered. It’s having an expectation or judgment about Life not being the way I want it to be. It’s my small “me” believing that I know the right way, the way it should be, instead of accepting the way it is. It’s seeing the world through only my lens, without consideration of others.
I took a deep breath. And another. I asked for acceptance and compassion. I sent loving energy to myself. May my heart be full of peace. Another slow, deep breath.
Was there another way to be in this moment? Swiftly I felt a shift in my point of view. I looked down at Bodhi snuggled in my lap. What has he been experiencing? He’s growing at an astonishing rate - learning to talk, crawl, walk, teethe. Ah, compassion. May his heart be full of peace. My awareness traveled to my husband. What was he experiencing when he got out of bed? A desire to protect his family? A frustration at being awoken as well? Ah… May his heart be full of peace. I continued on to my neighbor. Anyone wandering around in the middle of the night is more disturbed than I. May her heart be full of peace.
The night gently settled around me. Enveloped, I sighed, let go and sunk into the rocking motion of the chair, enjoying the warmth of Bodhi nestled into me. I relaxed not knowing how much longer I will have the opportunity to sit quietly in the darkness with a little bear cub in my arms, my husband slumbering soundly in bed, alone with my thoughts and feelings, receiving another message from Life.
Ah… That’s transformation. That’s peace within on a beautiful night.
Please feel free to comment.
Are YOU Happy?
- February 12, 2008
Many, many years ago my spiritual teacher asked me, “Are you happy sweetheart?” He was known for lecturing on happiness as your birthright, happiness as your purpose in life; he wasn’t known for asking casual questions. And he had a habit of focusing his intense and bottomless black eyes on you while you floundered for an appropriate answer. This wasn’t a question to be taken lightly. My mind began to whirl. Did he mean happy in this moment? Happy with every last aspect of my life? I busily weighed all the pros and cons of the current state of my personal, professional, familial, and spiritual lives. Good, good, bad, just okay. Or did he mean happy as in having a big smile on my face at all times?”Well?” he asked, “Are you happy my love?”
Finally, I stammered, “Yes?… No…. Hmmm. I don’t know.”
For several months he would periodically ask the same question: “Are you happy?” Such a seemingly simple question, but it pierced my nighttime dreams and haunted me throughout the day. I desperately wanted to be happy, especially since this seemed to be the point of his teachings and my studying, and yet the idea of being bubbly or putting on a fake smile didn’t resonate with me.
Eventually the question faded from my mind. Then years later a student asked me if I was happy. The question sent a jolt through my system. Without thinking, and with genuine joy in my heart, I answered “Yes, I am happy.” My response surprised myself until I considered it further. After years of personal growth work, my understanding of what happiness is had deepened, softened, mellowed. I no longer associated happiness with smiling all the time. I had learned to look below the surface of any question, to go beyond my interpretation of a concept like happiness. I had translated the question into a more meaningful query for me.
Yes, I felt happy as in content, authentic, and balanced. This sensation permeated through every part of my life. It was, and is, solid and lasting. My mood may fluctuate slightly on a daily basis, but in my heart I am content. I am living the life I’ve dreamt about even though it looks nothing like I envisioned.
That day my student pressed me further, strangely mimicking my wise, old teacher. “Really? You are happy all the time?”
I smiled at her and replied in an echo of the man who originally led me on my quest for authentic happiness, “Yes. And without a doubt, one day you will be too.”
So my question to you is, “Are you happy?” Please post a comment!
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