Tag: Eckhart Tolle

Lost: Life Force. Answers to ‘Mary’

Published on by Mary Gelpi1 Comment

*I Wrote this last week. I’m feeling better now ;)

Universe, God, sky, grey clouds, screeching frogs outside– helllp meee. Someone drained my life force in the night, and now I lack the will power to even use an exclamation mark. Not sure what happened. But I couldn’t go on letting myself be buried by the wet blankets of my mind. I had to do something. Something positive, and fight back against the road to stagnancy. I felt like I was slowly turning to cement! Hey look there, I used an exclamation point. 

Of course the weather is that in between weather that makes entire cities look like they could use therapy. Not sunny, on the cusp of rain but not raining, just a wet, grey, dish rag that drips sometimes and peeks the sun out in others and never definitively decides what it wants to do. So, can’t rely on the weather to help put humptey dumptey back together again. Find something else. 

I would bathe but I don’t have the energy. My arms are getting weaker. I need to lay down again. I’ll try to think of good things. 

***

OK, I’m back. It’s been almost two hours. I didn’t sleep. My willpower seemed to be dropping like a heartbeat beeping slower and slower on the heart rate monitor. Beep. Beep. Beeeeeeeeeep. She’s a gonner. It’s like all the feel-good, or feel-right chemicals in my brain have truly drained. The stuff that makes you want to go and do and play were drying up. Or already dried. 

While I’m a little weak, a little dizzy, the residual migraine still thudding behind my eyes, it’s not my body making today so hard. Well maybe that’s the setup for this mindset, but it’s calming my frenzied mind when I have no physical ability to match it that feels impossible to do. Keeping your mental sanity while waiting on your body to come back to you is probably the hardest part of all of this—a challenge that needs constant knowledgable reminding about from people who know better. I’m amazed how easy it is to forget simple truths. Clearly I’m still learning. I guess that should probably always be the case, if only I were a bit quicker at picking these things up. 

I feel the need to do so many things, but most of them aren’t doable right now. Then I feel doubly bad about not being able to do what needs getting done. I guess that’s why I’m sitting at this chair and typing, because writing is one thing I can do. 

I have learned that you can fight back against days like this. Despite nothing sounding good—for example, no type of music sounds decent to listen to, and the idea of watching TV or a movie feels even more depressing. (During the day) Even reading the book I’m thoroughly enjoying (19Q4) doesn’t feel right. I read fiction at night. None of these give the impression they would fit. If I were healthy I would go for a run, or to the coffee shop, change up the scenery and get those endorphins going. But since that’s a no-go, it’s another creative challenge to figure out that comes with the territory.

Sometimes just admitting that you’re having a crappy or hard time helps create the tiniest gap between you and the experience you’re having. This is what Tolle teaches—finding space between you and the circumstance so that you might see it from the outside objectively and not get lost in it and take all of it personally. (The Why Me Route) 

You can write it, say it, draw it, sing it, whatever it is. But transferring some of the weight onto some other medium helps prevents you from becoming tangled up and trapped in it—where every thought flowers at once and the idea of living the rest of your life frantically swirls around your head like a hurricane and feels impossible. The enormity of it all piles up because you think I can barely get through today…how will I ever get through the next three months? You start thinking 5 years into the future, your will power plummets, until something—in my instance, Monty scratching at the door— snaps you out of this useless futuristic angst and brings you back to right now. 

All I have to do is survive right now. Which sounds easy but when your willpower is at a zero, it’s actually a praiseworthy task to achieve. I survived another day!  I can’t survive anything 3 months from now, I’m right to think it will be impossible, because I can’t have a clue what will be in 3 months from now. It’s easy to think everything will be the same, and it might. Or it’s easy to see a dozen problems that all feel unsolvable. But all I have to do is look at the history of my life for proof that it can change in a snap, and 90% of the time, you don’t control the change, or predict it. You only go about figuring out how you’ll respond and adapt to it when you get there.

So how do I make now better? Unfortunately having a rebuttal for your mad mind doesn’t make it simply stop in it’s tracks and suddenly you’re grounded and fine. I’m not that good yet. Just knowing what’s helpful and what isn’t doesn’t immediately make you feel happy and give you your life juice back. But it might help slow that thought whirlpool down. It might allow for the smallest stillness to get through to you and allow the truth to calm your fast beating heart. Mostly it involves just having to live through the tension of the feelings and the knowing simultaneously that they won’t last. They may not even be true. As hard as it is to work against something inside you that feels like it’s actively dragging you down or drying you out, I know that trying anything is typically better than rotting on the floor like roadkill and trying nothing at all. 

On my two hour break, I listened to a podcast called Revisionist History by Malcolm Gladwell. I highly suggest listening to it, but it surprised me how just hearing someone else’s voice and someone else’s story can help pull you out of the thought whirlpool of your own. It’s nice getting out of your own head and being exposed to what people before you have met and endured in their life. I listened to Sammy Davis Jr.’s story A Hug Heard Round the World and hearing of his life and challenges put things in perspective, at least temporarily. This is the importance and power of story telling, I think. It straightened me out for a while.

I also downloaded some foreign language apps on my phone a few days ago so I can start to remember and re-learn french. I’ve forgotten so much of it and I miss it. I plan to visit France for a while when I’m better, so I’d like to get back to moderately fluent. I can’t wait to sit on the sidewalk again, drink my cafe au lait at at a table with a white tablecloth, and write in a fresh notebook Well, I’ve finally made it back to Paris. 

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I didn’t want the invisible vacuum of thoughts inside me to win, so I had to fight back and share these crappy thoughts with you, sorry guys. I guess writing these thoughts out was my way to create the gap. The ability to step back and watch today unfold was my way forward. Otherwise I was slowly being swallowed and nobody wants that. This was my version of winning! Hey look at that, I used another exclamation point. That’s my comeback for today, using an authentic exclamation point. A sign of life. Beeeeep. Beep. Beep. She’s back people!

I think for now that has to be enough. 

Health, Happiness, Surviving

Miami, Migraines, Diners, Doctors

Published on by Mary Gelpi5 Comments

I am sitting at a booth in one of those themed diners in a shopping center, adjacent to the clinic where I saw the specialist on Monday and had what looked like hundreds of vials of blood taken today for more testing. I figure I should eat even though I’ve no appetite. I never trust a menu this long, so I play it safe and order the soup and salad, which is neither good or bad. I guess that’s what you’re really asking for, a meal to quickly forget.

mp,550x550,gloss,ffffff,t-3.3u2.jpgThe music is too loud in here and I find myself strangely annoyed with the gimmicky decor. License plate style plaques fill every inch of wall space boasting phrases like “Stressed is Dessert spelled backwards!” and “Soup of the Day: Whiskey.” I stop. I just close my eyes a minute. Adjust. The problem is not the restaurant. It’s me and this body I have to animate—it doesn’t fit in the world in comfortable or easy ways. It’s like dropping a wild tiger in suburbia, except maybe the opposite. It’s like trying to build suburbia in the middle of a jungle, then complaining the tigers are noisy and sometimes scare the kids. No one else seems bothered by the music.

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“Hey, you don’t belong here.”
“I might say the same thing about you.”

I don’t want to be this young and think like a curmudgeon. Better to let go. It’s because it’s 11:30 and I’m on day 9 of a migraine cycle and I’m wearing real pants. I had to get blood drawn and I don’t normally exist before noon. Mornings are just constantly, reliably painful and tough.

Everyone has days where life feels so tired, so repetitive, that you want to hit snooze and wake up under some alternate sky where there is no weight to carry. No gravity, no effort required to move. Where everyone looks each other in the eyes. We listen. We don’t say the words “Sorry” followed by the word “but…” or “if”. Our hearts resonate with each other, and our heavy bodies have shed like snake skin, like the useless, heavy weight they’d become. There is a lightness in every capacity.

Tolle says this alternate side of the sky I am referring to is possible here on this side. And I believe he is right. But it takes so much practice and learning and presence. Presence. How easy it is to walk into a cheap diner and complain about decor. ap,550x550,12x16,1,transparent,t.u2.pngThat kind of observation lacks creativity. Not to mention, it’s very counterproductive to complain about these things when you’re already feeling down. So I’ll tell you what I like about this costumed diner. All four booths in my vicinity are filled with at least parties of two people eating, and all of them are talking to one another. None of them have their phones out. A phenomenon! Particularly this couple across from me.

They are in their 60’s, and somehow it seems obvious they’ve known each other a long time. I could be wrong of course. They could be divorcees who met on ourtime.com and newly in love. But it’s not the sense I get. In my mind they’re in their Act III of their marriage with grandchildren they have pictures of on their phones to their friends at Bridge. I like that they haven’t run out of things to say or lost some kind of delight in the simple pleasure of each others laugh. They seem to laugh a lot, casually, throughout their light hearted conversation and this feels so good to watch. I always used to fear I’d marry a man and eventually he’d lose interest in me and I’d find his stories boring and then we’d be at a restaurant eating one day with nothing to say to one another. As though there was nothing new to discover about the other, or that we’d lose curiosity in the way each of us experienced the world.

But I know that only happens when we’ve decided we know a person completely and with total certainty. And if we’ve decided that, the issue is not the other person.”The human mind mistakes its opinions and viewpoints for truth…but it is no more than a viewpoint, one of many possible perspectives. Reality is a unified whole. Thinking fragments it into pieces.” Tolle says a lot about the “thinking” mind, and that it’s very useful in our world. But it’s also “very limiting when it takes over your life completely. It’s only a small aspect of the consciousness you are.”

Sometimes I seek the daily, thoughtless things about a person with such aggressive interest I think I might be dumb. Their calendars, notebooks, what they keep in their cars. One of my favorite hobbies is to take apart a guys wallet, piece by piece. All the useless receipts he saves. The frequent customer cards. An old crumbly picture, maybe. Movie stubs. Concert stubs. Their license—are they smiling in the picture or does it look like a mug shot? What made the cut for making it into the billfold and what didn’t. All tiny stamps of a person and his non-sequitor, paper trail of places he’s been. You can have the same fun or more going through a woman’s’ purse. Many clues in there. But these are little traces so few people see. Instead we go to dinner and say “Uh huh and what do you do? Oh interesting, tell me more about your boss. What a jerk!” I think first dates should be silent a exchange of wallet for wallet, or purse for purse, or wallet for purse, whatever. You get the picture.

My last boyfriends wallet, unless I’m remembering incorrectly, was a basic brown leather wallet that seemed to old for him and contained some concert stubs, because he was a music guy and not a whole lot else because he had a straightforward way of being in the world. A wallet was a thing to hold money and his license. But maybe more memorable was the night we went to dinner and left Monty and his dog Gracie home. When we returned, his wallet that he’d left on the coffee table had been chewed. His license, a credit card, social security card, and a one dollar bill perfectly torn in half littered the living room floor. We both loyally defended our own, claiming that “100%, my dog would never do that.” I thought it was kind of funny—a mystery we’d never know the answer to. Maybe it was Monty (it wasn’t), telling me Run! This thing isn’t gonna work! Mayday! Owell. Fun while it lasted. I still have the half chewed dollar.

I could say that the two buzzing gnats flying around my side salad are concerning, but you can basically always reduce these impulses to complain or feel disturbed by something or “talk to the manager” to nothing, because when you start to break them down, they just don’t mean all that much. We forget that so much of our devoted focus, particularly when it’s negative, is essentially meaningless. I am one person, and I chose to eat at a diner where children under the age of 12 eat for free between noon and 3. There may as well be a sign that says FREE BUGS. This isn’t the RITZ. The meal costs $10 and the waitress is nice.  If you’re always making noise about your tiny discontent, you just become a human gnat. We should ask ourselves what our questions or actions or statements are intended to do for five minutes before we go running to every manager. It’s so often just a thoughtless impulse. Gnats! We could just as easily forget about it and move on with the day.

I take an Uber home, and I find myself alone in the back of Ubers quite often. ‘Often’ is a relative term. I’m appreciating that the driver isn’t trying to engage in conversation. “It’s hot out!” “Yes, it is hot out! Also, I have a doggy!” I’ll tip him more for that.

Miami is a picturesque place, and I like the sidewalk traffic. Watching the world through 179389-3908867d8a204eebbcef4215613a5da0.jpeg  the window feels so much better than TV–and no commercials. Bonus! I see a couple kiss while they wait at the crosswalk. Then they smile and she says something that makes them laugh. I love seeing people kiss. Creepy? Maybe. I just like that kissing exists in general. There’s traffic, which is another easy thing to complain about. Tolle says complaining is one of the ego’s favorite hobbies. (Also being right.) But I’m in a quiet car. All I have to do is sit here, one of a few things where I’m actually quite skilled. Many beautiful things pass us by at a stop and go pace. I try to imprint the sights on my brain to take home with me.

I try presence. Just being aware of all my senses. I am grateful to be out in the world at all, when so often I am indoors. I try to remember how lucky I am that I was able to come here. What a gift it is to see a doctor who understands, who listens and looks you in the eye, who can help me find answers. (Thank you Dr. Klimas!) That I have my brother and his beautiful family to stay with and help care for me. That it’s time together we wouldn’t have had were I well. Yes, I have a body that feels like a decomposing pumpkin at times. And I actually feel I may look like a decomposing pumpkin at times. (See video below) But so many moments to be grateful for. So many gifts. Count them. Keep counting. They add up faster the more awake you are.

Keep fighting. Last year was hard. I believe somewhere in my depths, this one will be better, no matter the directional trend my health takes. I know we’re getting close. I tip the Uber driver and leave feedback. “Thank you for the quiet.”

Health, Happiness, Counting

All awesome artwork by Eugenia Loli

*Bonus*: I’m on Day 9 of my migraine cycle! Here is a clip of yesterday morning. It was kind funny in that tragically comical way.

Teach Me Somethin, Tolle! Today: The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Published on by Mary Gelpi2 Comments

“The primary cause of your unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.

Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral, which always is at it is. There is the situation or the fact, and here are my thoughts about it. Instead of making up stories, stay with the facts. For example, “I am ruined” is a story. It limits you and presents you from taking effective action. “I have fifty cents left in my bank account” is a fact. Facing facts is always empowering. Be aware that what you think, to a large extent, creates the emotions that you feel. See the link between your thinking and your emotions. Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.” (pg 5)

This is a small passage but it’s pretty rife with depth and possibility that I feel I could discuss it for hours over coffee and a crumpet, whatever a crumpet is. But it’s an interesting premise. Given that this is a blog mostly about life through the lens of being sick, I have to relate these things to my own experience. Sometimes I think, this is such an eye-roll. A bore. I want to tell others stories and look at these things through their lens, but I not only don’t have that access, I don’t have that right. I only know truly what it’s like to be in this world as me, Mary, and so I use what I read and try to apply it to my own life experience. Surprisingly, it helps. It’s funny how reading passages like this, you can think of other people and be spot on by saying “Yep, Dianna totally does that.” But the more conscious approach is to look at it and become aware of the ways in which you’ve “missed the boat” this same way at times, or catch yourself doing exactly what he’s (Tolle) talking about.

The part about making up stories is perfect, because it is surprising how often and how quickly our minds resort to this tactic, I guess as a mechanism of just not looking in or at ourselves in any meaningful way, (because that is both difficult and sometimes painful) but always pointing the finger outwards. It evades personal accountability. But telling stories has long been something we all do, and I can think of so many times I’ve done it, then facepalmed myself in the forehead later thinking, What was I thinking? I literally just made up some scenario in my head, and believed it, and was absolutely completely wrong. Someone doesn’t call back in a timely manner. You don’t like their response to something. Your jeans are missing and you’re convinced maybe they accidentally took them and GOD DIANA WOULD SO DO SOMETHING LIKE ACCIDENTALLY TAKE MY JEA…..oh here they are… in my closet…”

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It’s crazy how fast down the rabbit hole we go, convinced that Diana didn’t call us because she just doesn’t care about our friendship anymore, and you know what, maybe she NEVER did?! Maybe I should send her a mean text! “Oh, her grandma is in the hospital and she’s been away from her phone…”Oh, oh Diana, I’m so sorry to hear that. What can I do?” How stupid our egos can be! And what good story-tellers! They are always looking to be wronged, which is why they can start a fight about anything, literally anything. Frozen Yogurt? OH I’LL TELL YOU ABOUT FROZEN YOGURT! Um OK Diana, calm down. DON’T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!!! *turns into the hulk, flies away*

It doesn’t mean we aren’t sometimes wronged. Or we don’t sometimes deserve to feel hurt. All of that will happen. It’s more about response to painful stimuli that human behavior just seems to get wrong. We are clearly, still learning.

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Hey, this water is pink!

OK, so we’re really good at blaming. And great at creating scenarios in our head that aren’t actually true except in our own self-made ego reality. (Which isn’t actual reality) And we’re really bad at self-reflection. I say “we” because I’ve seen this actually happen in action. To me, to others. It’s crazy! Never seen it? Open your eyes and wait for the Holidays to come around or wait in line at Walgreens or get stuck in traffic, you’ll find plenty of it. Passive aggressiveness. Blaming. Gossip. Anger. Insensitivity. All the yucky stuff that makes things which are supposed to be fun, not so fun. And we’re all guilty. It’s easy to want to point a finger at one person, but if you’re offended or participate, even in tiny ways, you’re part of the dance too, my friend. And I have done plenty of dancing.

The other part of this passage that I think is so important is the difference between facts and stories. Saying “I’m totally screwed” is a story, like he said. But so often we get ourselves so upset, so anxious, so depressed about things that are going to unfold one way or another, and in that present moment, you’ll address them. But if you’re too far away from this present moment, always stressing about the future, you will never enjoy life in its natural form–which is always happening in the now. It doesn’t mean you just mosey around until “the future arrives.” If you’re truly present in the moment we call Now, you’ll be ready for whatever happens, which you have absolutely no way of knowing how it will unfold. He also says this:

“To be in alignment with what is means to be in a relationship of inner nonresistance with what happens. It means not to label it mentally good or bad, but to let it be. Does this mean you can no longer take action to bring about change in you life? On the contrary. When the basis for your actions is inner alignment with the present moment, your actions become empowered by the intelligence of life itself.”

Duuuude, deep stuff. It’s easy to be sick and tell myself stories like “This isn’t fair.” “I can’t catch a break.” “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” But all according to what? According to my version of what I thought my life should look like–none of it based in the reality that my life is. When I am in true stillness, and I’ll reiterate this time and time again– if there is something crucial missing from my generation, and the baby boomers will tell you we don’t know what hard work is and we’re ultra sensitive and have all kinds of nice things to say–what my generation is truly missing is stillness.

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It is very hard to self-reflect in a noisy, demanding office, a loud home, when you’re constantly with people, when you refuse to be alone, or as soon as you have solitude or quiet, you turn to your mobile device as some kind of virtual company. So few look at time alone as an advantage to reflect. Or do whatever you want. Pray. Meditate. Read. Just try to be still. Try not to get on social media and see if you can be comfortable, alone with only you. People think “being busy” means being important, but it really doesn’t. Try doing nothing. See how long you can do it without outside stimulation. Then tell me you wish you were sick and didn’t have to go to work. Hah. I always loved that line.

I don’t think you have to be absolutely quiet or alone in order to obtain what Tolle is talking about. If you are awake in these crucial moments–at work, with your kids, at the dinner table, then you’re effectively reaching consciousness. Take time to acknowledge what you have and the good in your life. It’s all there; it’s up to us to open our eyes and see it.

Health, Happiness, Reflection :) (:

*Awesome, awesome artwork by Sonia Pulido

Teacher Tolle Tuesday

Published on by Mary Gelpi5 Comments

johnholcomb-1I’ve been meaning to create a segment for a very long time where I take passages from Eckhart Tolle’s books and put them here for the world, all thirteen readers of you, to see. ;)

There are certain passages from all of his books that I have underlined, highlighted, circled, starred, tabbed…you get it. And they all come from separate times I’ve read the book. The passage I’m about to transcribe here comes from a book of his called Oneness With All Life. I fear even writing that because it’s an easy way to turn someone off to it–there’s so much “new agey” crap about solving the mystery of life and “finding happiness” that the more details I give I’m afraid the more you’ll be resistant to reading it. I can understand that, there’s a lot of people claiming to have LISTS and PROGRAMS and FIVE EASY STEPS promising you happiness that it’s almost depressing. Happiness is not some trophy you come upon and clench when you’ve truly done it. Don’t we know that by now? How can we not be blindingly aware that no, money doesn’t buy you happiness. Duh. Look at your rich friends or family…do they seem insanely happy? No. Of course they don’t. They’re just often unhappy living with SUPER awesome amenities. But they do get to fly first class and I always tell myself if I’m ever rich, THAT’S where my extravagant purchases will go to…traveling first class. I’ll remember with a shudder the horrors of the main cabin. See? Already spoiled. Complaining about the incredible GIFT OF FLIGHT.

I remember in an airport once, I saw a book called the Happiness Project….which was all about following these set of rules, because as many do, this woman had found herself married, two kids, a job and loving husband, and yet not really happy. So she began the voyage. And developed some program to follow to be happy. And guess what? She seemed to find happiness! And maybe she really did. But reading it I couldn’t help but think that it just felt a little obvious and maybe a little gimmicky. I believed she was truly trying to find happiness, I just couldn’t buy that these were the ways to “get there.”  There aren’t rules to being happy, people love knowing what to do, it helps them feel in control, and that alone assists with “happiness”. Which is why when things come up unexpected, we just lose our minds because WE DIDN’T PLAN FOR THIS DEBORAH! There’s a lot of people who will promise you can be happy, and live an entirely great life, if you just tweak a few things. And sometimes they’re right. But that self-help section is bursting at the seams with many more who don’t seem to know, and we’re gobbling it up for a reason: because we all want to know. TELL ME!!! I’ll do anything to escape my misery!!! Wait what? No I won’t do that.

The truth is, according to the modern mystics,  in order to achieve our own inner level of peace, we have to look deeply at ourselves, not others. We have to change ourselves, we have to see ourselves, become conscious of our life and our way of seeing things, our patterns we’ve been taught–to react and stress and yell, when really none of that is necessary. If it rains when it’s supposed to be sunny, it’s going to happen whether you lose your mind and freak out or say, oh well, what should we do now? And if there’s one thing I’ve witnessed time and again, it’s that when someone is freaking out because things didn’t go “right”, and other people are not freaking out and casually just moving along because um, hi, we don’t control the sun, THAT. PISSES. THEM. OFF. Interesting, isn’t it. That’s the ego, clinging for life, and now not just angry that its raining but that OTHER people aren’t angry it’s raining. It’s ridiculous. But it’s the way it bees, and it doesn’t have to bees that way. I just know that we should be incredibly leery of promises that your life and your happiness can be changed and attained all in five easy steps! I’m no Einstein, (REALLY!) but I know when it comes to happiness, more importantly, when it comes to true inner peace and joy, there are no shortcuts. Life is really hard, and you can’t evade the pain. But you don’t have to create extra pain for yourself. The “extra arrow” as my friend Daniel always talked about. The story we tell ourselves about the facts. You’re going to experience pain, but you’ve got to do your work to figure it out, find the hidden seed of grace, and find how to grow bigger from it bot let it swallow it you whole.  But a lot of our pain is self-created, and I do it to myself all the time. Convince myself of some madness or offense, only to find out later I was TOTALLY wrong and an idiot for believing what I did. That’s how we can help ourselves. Ignore ourselves. Haha. Ignore our thoughts, pay attention to our inner self–two very different things.  There’s no “List of “10 things to follow and you’re all set!” So burn that book, if it exists, and I”m sure it does.

Tolle and a few other mystics are very upfront about truth and about how to go absorbing what they’re putting out there. But they are of such a different breed–they’re not writing about how to “get happy.” Which is what people want. 5 steps to get happy! They’re writing about how to be conscious. How to save yourself from causing undue harm or pain to yourself or others. And when you’re conscious in the world, you’re honest, with yourself and others–you’re honest when you’ve messed up, when you’re lucky, in pain, grateful, loved, sorry, and when you love. When you’re conscious and honest, you can’t lie to yourself about what the true source of pain is. You may not be able to know what it is, but you can definitely know what is isn’t.

SO, every morning, I read from Tolle’s repertoire of wisdom—books I have read over and over and over and I will continue to do so. Because all of them elicit further consciousness every time you read them. I feel similarly about Michael Singer, Marianne Williamson, and especially Gary Zukav’s Seat of the Soul. I’m sure there are more I’m forgetting. But I have long days. I don’t leave the house a lot. I have to learn how to harness the normally spent mental and psychological energy that would go outward into the world, into tasks and work and conventional effort, at home, in silence a lot, in solitude a lot, with no plans, no control. The biggy. This is not easy and can be a great source of pain, more than the illness itself. So, on Tuesdays, we’re gonna take Tolle’s words that really stick, with a cup of tea. And I’ll just write them here. Maybe they’ll stick with you too. But please don’t give up on this post because I’m rambling. I’m gonna stop. Here’s Teacher Tuesday’s Lesson One, and it’s one of the more profound and lasting passages I’ve read. SO here it goes. Also I just jumped right in to the center of his stuff so we’ll have some preliminary terms to go over. We’ll do that next Tuesday. I’m still learning. See you then.

People believe themselves to be dependent on what happens for their happiness, that is to say, dependent on form. They don’t realize that what happens is the most unstable thing in the universe. It changes constantly. They look upon the present moment as either marred by something that has happened and shouldn’t or as deficient because of something that has not happened but should. And so they miss the deeper perfection that is inherent in life itself, a perfection that is always already here, that lies beyond what is happening or not happening, beyond form. 

Accept the present moment and find the perfection that is deeper than any form and untouched by time. 

The most important, the primordial relationship in your life is your relationship with the Now, or rather with whatever form the Now takes–what is or what happens. If your relationship with the Now is dysfunctional, that dysfunction will be reflected in every relationship and every situation you encounter. The ego could be defined simply this way: a dysfunctional relationship with the present moment. It is at this moment that you can decide what kind of relationship you want to have with the present moment. Friend or enemy?

The present moment is inseparable from life, so you are really deciding what kind of relationship you want to have with life. Once you have decided you want the present moment to be your friend, it is up to you to make the first move: Become friendly toward it, welcome it no matter in what disguise it comes and soon you will see results. Life becomes friendly toward you; people become helpful, circumstances cooperative. One decision changes your entire reality. But that one decision you have to make again and again and again–until it becomes natural to live in such a way. 

Health, Happiness, Tolle Teachin

**Awesome artwork by Sarah Elise Abramson