I ushered in the New Year on a virtual meditation retreat.  The experience cannot be adequately captured in words, and I’m deeply grateful for the teachers, the community and learnings.
 
During one of Tara Brach’s guided heart meditation, she quoted a beautiful truth by Arne Garborg: “To love someone is to learn the song that is in their heart and sing it to them when they have forgotten.”  I love this because it captures qualities that accompany love:  i) a desire and receptivity to learn, ii) attention to the beloved on her/his/their terms, and iii) reminding/uncovering their life-force.  
 
In early stages of romantic love, we can feel we “know” our partner and become disappointed when things aren’t quite as they were perceived early on.   In family life and friendships, we can lock others whom we love in old experiences and understandings, blocking both relational growth and learning the many facets of our loved ones.  Love is ongoing learning.
 
We tend to give our attention to what most pleases us.  But love involves commitment-even when we don’t feel like it. It can mean recognizing what brings forth ourselves to the beloved more spaciously in mind and heart, and what constricts/narrows or creates distance between ourselves and loved ones.  Attending is not construed as time and proximity-although it can be.  It can also mean the emotional/psychological sense of presence. 
 
Finally, love uplifts: “Singing the song in their heart” can take on so many different forms.  Isn’t it true that in the presence of Love, creativity flows. And, most poignantly, the felt-sense of being well-loved, fully accepted, may be the song that awakens in them all the favorite “songs in their heart.”

A Blessing by John O'Donohue:
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May you listen to your longing to be free
May the frames of your belonging be large enough for the dreams of your soul.
May you arise each day with a voice of blessing
whispering in your heart that something good is going to happen to you.
May you find a harmony between your soul and your life.
May the mansion of your soul never become a haunted place.
May you know the eternal longing which lives at the heart of time.
May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within.
May you never place walls between the light and yourself.
May your angel free you from the prisons of guilt, fear, disappointment and despair.
May you allow the wild beauty of the invisible world to gather you, mind you, and embrace you in belonging.
(O'Donohue, J. 1999, Eternal Echoes p.143).

​That our words take on a limited space in communication (80% non-verbal), does not render them less important.  In fact, it’s an argument for their importance!  For example, If we have fewer dollars, we sometimes will use them more wisely than if they were unlimited; it’s the same with words.  But while many of us can have a felt-sense of the power of words, we may not hold them in awareness in our day-to-day lives and may not think about optimizing their use.  From spiritual/religious traditions to philosophical movements and academic discourses, which note how language and the naming of things/people/groups shape us, to approaches within psychology, among other fields, we are drawn to and reminded about tending to our words for both ethical reasons and personal/societal implications.
 
Consider a couple examples: We can think of the eight-fold path in Buddhism noting “right speech” as a principle for ethical conduct, including but not limited to, the use of words.  One teaching Rami Shapiro notes in The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness is a Jewish mystical teaching by the Baal Shem Tov.  Shapiro comments on this teaching and poses an important question: “…Hasidism taught that each of us is born with a fixed number of words to speak, and when we have spoken the last of these we die.  How would your everyday speech change if you really believe that?”  (Shapiro, R. (2006), p. 78).  Here, words are important for leading a life worthy of the best part of ourselves.
 
Beyond the ethical injunctions, words matter in creating psychological and societal ease.  A therapist attuned to the mindfulness of words, will use language as a tool for self-discovery, repair, and wholeness.  Noticing (compassionately) how words can activate a reaction in us can uncover deeper beliefs.  Assisting clients in locating the genesis of unhelpful reactions and tracing associations with them can assist in self-awareness.  Here, the conflux of language, experience, emotion, physicality, culture, etc, can be encountered and uncover how perceptions and their underlying beliefs are formed and reinforced.  Amidst the felt sense of some affirming feelings, often there are untrue, unreliable, unhelpful and/or harsh understandings of ourselves, others and our world.    Through awareness, intentionality and compassion, heart, mind, and physicality can be experienced more gently, more wisely, more skillfully-and, the words we utter may come closer to capturing the gentleness, wisdom, and skill needed for ourselves, others and out communities.
 
What words might you speak to yourself or another today?  What words will you withhold for yourself or another today? What words will you consume today in the material read, watched or listened to? 

"In the story of the Ugly Duckling, when did the Ugly Duckling stop feeling Ugly?  When he realized that he was a Swan.  Each of us has something Special, a Swan of some sort, hidden inside somewhere.  But until we recognize that it's there, what can we do, but splash around, treading water?  The Wise are Who They Are.  They work with what they've got and do what they can do."  Benjamin Hoff

See your inner beauty today and express the unique gift of you...

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In positive psychology, forgiveness is a character strength that supports the virtue of temperance (www.viacharacter.org).  In our day-to-day lives, the idea of forgiveness can take on different meanings, and be fraught with unhelpful notions of what forgiveness is, what it entails, and what it might mean for the person extending forgiveness and for the perpetrator.
 
The academic literature on forgiveness demonstrates that it supports well-being and clearly sets guidelines as to what forgiveness is and what forgiveness is not:  Forgiveness is voluntary, it is a process (there’s actually stages of forgiveness and therapeutic approaches that focus on the processes),  does not include condoning, excusing, and/or the necessity of reconciliation (check out Thomas Freedman and Robert Enright). 
 
Considering forgiveness on a philosophical and spiritual level, there’s a teaching in the Bhagavad Gita--echoed in other texts of both Western and Eastern traditions-that introduce the qualities of courage and love: “If you want to see the brave, look at those who can forgive.  If you want to see the heroic, look at those who can love in return for hatred.” (BG 14).  As I am in conversation with this idea of love in return for hatred, I ask how would one know she/he is loving-or at least moving into the quality of love?
 
One possible first step in the process, might be to engage in a mindfulness-based practice that supports acknowledgement and soothing of the pain resulting from the perpetrator.  Start with noticing the thoughts and the feelings in the body.  Pain, confusion, abandonment, fear, anger, constriction of the throat, chest, fists may all be present. Mindful self-compassion practices (Check out Kristen Neff and Christopher Germer), and RAIN practices (Tara Brach) can guide this process.  Once our own pain of the situation is encountered, recognized, and soothed by our own process in the cradle of self-care, self-compassion and self-love, we can take additional steps to touch the aspiration of loving the person who has objectively transgressed our personhood, emotionally or physically, on any level.
 
Two practices that can be helpful in this regard is to do intentional acts of love in honor of the person (donations, kind notes to people, visits or assisting a sick person, any small or large act) can all be offered for the goodness of the person who has hurt you.   The only person who will know this is you, or your therapist, or an intimate, if you so choose. The loving acts may include an intention that somehow there would be an awakening for the person, or that they would show kindness to others and not treat others the way that they treated you.  Loving-kindness meditation practice (check out metta meditation) can also be helpful. Succinctly, it involves envisioning the person with the qualities you desire for them:  love, safety, kindness, compassion, peace and/or any quality that is most immediate in your sit.  You can experiment with imagining you're breathing your breath of compassion and they're receiving it and it is imbued in their being.  It’s important to note that if this practice is too activating, stop and return to self-compassion and/or compassion for others for which a neutral or positive feeling is found.   (A mindfulness-informed therapist or teacher can help with determining if this practice can be helpful and/or best utilized within a framework that can allow for processing and/or grounding/calming through other somatic and therapeutic practices with a trained practitioner or in a group).   
 
As we think about forgiveness and its relationship to love, one might ask if loving the transgressor is desirable.  This is a question only you can answer.  If you feel a greater lightness, energy, flow, and deep knowing in your spirit that love is being asked of you, you will be led to the right practices, people, groups environs that support you.  Along this life long journey of loving well in the most difficult situations, It’s important to keep in mind that love is a process, it doesn’t require reconciliation and/or engagement with the individual.  And, that we may move in an out of the feelings, that our aspiration and will may be more or less salient at times.  It’s all ok. Setting intentions, providing gentleness with oneself, and doing small acts of love when possible-for oneself and others-support us in touching LOVE, feeling our humanity with softness, and sharing in the humanity of others.  

"Nobody sees a flower-really-it is so small it takes time-we haven't time-and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.  If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for a moment."  Georgia O'Keefe

​Won't you allow some time for wonder today?  You might find something wonderful there.  

​This “Wonder Woman” was a lot less glamorous.  She wore no makeup, and most days, had her hair pulled back in a bun.  In all my years, I never saw her in pants: She wore dresses-just below the knees.  Much like the rest of her, she didn’t want to draw attention to herself.  Her ways were those of modesty in presence, and generosity in heart, care and love.
 
“Wonder Woman” had little formal education in the “old country,” and when she came to the U.S. in her thirties, she learned to read, write and speak her third language, English, with diligence and pure force of will.  This was a gift because many sought her company, I believe, because she was gentle and affirming of others, and could listen well. 
 
When “Wonder Woman” wasn’t with “Tarzan,” (the love of her life!) or sharing recipes, creating something delicious for us with other family members in the kitchen, she could readily be found in the garden, tending to the fig, apricot, apple, other fruit trees, rose and flower garden. Mom seemed to get such joy out of feeding others, entertaining and did it with such ease. We had such a large extended family and I can’t figure how she would create so many different dishes for tens of tens of people just like that.  As I was a vegetarian, she took the extra care to create special vegetarian versions for me of whatever she was making for everyone else.  In those days, food was not just physical nourishment, it was her way of gathering us, and implicitly, a celebration of- and will to-life itself, in the microcosm of a meal.
 
 “Wonder Woman” taught me a lot about day-to-day living in those ordinary moments; and, even though she held a tangible sadness (the weight of burying two children), I am in awe of how she loved, forgave and cared so deeply about people.  The deepest teachings have been more salient as I’ve journeyed through my own life and family history, and uncovered aspects of her own, which help me understand how she might have made sense of her world, what she might have tried to create for her family.  
 
Heart is what she offered in affirming others.  Heart is what she extended in pure acceptance, which seemed so natural to her.  Heart is what she spoke in progressive views way before her time and no training in multiculturalism.  Heart is what she demonstrated in forgiving.  Heart is what she created in the spices, flavors, textures of food, life, surroundings!  No doubt, heart carried her sorrow, embodied her, and plunged her into Life and depth to love so well.  
 
Dad would call mom Wonder Woman and me and my sister were “Wonder Girls.”  Today, would have been Mom’s Birthday and as I think about her and her teachings, I’m asking myself what part of heart can be more fully developed along my Wonder Girl to Wonder Woman journey at present.   In mindfulness, we can set intentions and provide offerings for our efforts along the way.  We can do this in honor of someone, a group, a cause, a particular situation, quality.  This can enhance practices.  Is there an intention that comes to you through someone, something, that may be calling to you to put in motion building upon your life-force?

 "...In the final analysis, it would seem that our support is being placed with the unpopular ancien regimes, which seem to rebound to our detriment, rather than with the people and their nascent forces.  To choose to buttress the collapsing ancien regimes is to choose to ally oneself with the forces of yesterday in an effort to impede the advancement of the forces of tomorrow..."  John Duncan Brewart, June 1960

My father wrote these words in relation to international events back then, for which he made comparisons to the French Revolution of the eighteenth century and Iraqi Revolution of 1958, the bloodiness, political aspirations and reactions.  Today, had my father been living, we would be celebrating his birthday and I would likely be sitting with him and trying to make sense of events of our day.  As I sat in conversation with some of his writings, I was thinking of the pandemic and protests against racial injustice, and felt the above excerpt is germane to both.

The particulars of our social revolution are different on some level, and the forces for change are not so nascent, : Economic, racial, gender, and other social justice issues related to inequity are rather tangible and enduring.  Even with some improvements in policies over the last sixty years, what we see today is a result of insufficient policies and widespread and growing disparities.  To what extent will our approaches to societal ills today, advance or impede the forces for tomorrow? The forces of "the people"...

No doubt, standing in solidarity in mourning Mr. George Floyd, among others, who have lost their lives to racial injustice, is a small way of "advancing the forces of tomorrow." As we stand (through vigils, peaceful protests, ongoing collaboration and discussions in our communities) we take steps to decrease the likelihood of complacency, of "rebound to our detriment."  We need not focus attention on the minority engaged in violence.  We stand tall in peaceful expressions, giving life-force to the vitality and truth of dignity, and the value of all life!

The upheavals of the pandemic are also inviting awareness at the deepest levels of needed changes in economic/healthcare/educational structures, which can protect, preserve and advance life for all.  I imagine wise solutions might be generated from a diversity of thought, ideologies and hopefully, emerging systems of ideas that bring forth strengths from the past, address injustices, and formulate completely new ways of thinking about the challenges, the assumptions, and solutions.  (I find the work by Stephen Dinan Sacred America, Sacred World particularly compelling in outlining ways to collaborate across political orientations.)

In positive psychology, civic engagement is a quality that supports the virtues of justice, courage and love. Is there a way(s) you can engage civically in an effort to create a world that is HOME TO ALL?  Is there a cause(s) that speak to you and might nudge involvement?  Homelessness, antipoverty, immigrant and refugee rights, criminal justice reform, GLBTQIA, environmental...Sometimes, we can begin with a donation of money, and other times, we can begin with a donation of time in helping on some level, raise awareness or even more tangible efforts.