Have you heard the Eagles’ song Love Will Keep Us Alive? Released 30 years ago, it is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. I’ve heard it hundreds of times over the decades and yet when I listened to it recently, its beauty sent me sailing in an unexpected way. For many years, we’ve been hearing the outcry of the human existential song. Nuclear obliteration. Insufficient food supplies and clean water. Daily, more than 25,000 people die of hunger and more than 15,000 are children — when there’s plenty of food to feed all of us. Massive storms, floods and war. Rape, sex trafficking, genocide. Colossal use of pharmaceutical medication to combat anxiety and depression. Suicide… Repeat… Repeat. Souls are in despair, globally. This is not a pretty song. How could we not be afraid? Watching “the news” feeds our consciousness with fear. Stories are chosen that speak from fear. The reporter starts talking and Oh, no… Gasp. Begin shallow breathing. Lock your door. Get your guns ready. Stockpile food in your basement. Wear a mask and stand six feet apart. Isolate or die. Our mortality is being shoved in our face by the metacrisis we created. Our choice for fear over Love is killing us. Having spent college and the first 10 years of my career in the environmental field, I’ve felt fear up close. We’ve been abusing our life support system, choking her lungs and clogging her seas with plastic. Imagine choking and clogging the life support system in a hospital ICU. What do we expect? It’s scary. How about this — let’s stop running around scared of our own body’s death. To truly feel freedom, we must accept our mortality. When we do, a heavy weight is lifted off our chest. We see that life is now. We feel truly alive, filled with the beautiful desire to express our own unique self. If you haven’t yet “seen the Light” inside of you — the galactically gorgeous spray of divine stars glimmering in your being — this is your invitation to see it. Now! Ask Spirit, God, Love, for help. Get out of your mental head and move your body in a way that makes you feel totally alive. Before a job interview, I like to walk around at a cemetery and feel the mortality, the lives passed. It helps to ground and humble me. It helps me remember that the only time I’ve got is now. Love brings us alive while we’re living, and Love keeps us alive when we die.Let me humbly admit that I didn’t “get the memo” in an easy way. It took five years of horrid monthly migraines, a massive brain tumor, brain surgery and a near death experience (NDE) for me to expansively “see the Light” of the one moment we’ve got: the moment of now. Seeing death’s face up close helps us wake up to — Life! Life. Living! Being alive. My God, what an ecstasy laden existence this is. It is also an inconceivably atrocious “reality” we’re living in, so my dearest darling you, for all it’s worth… CHOOSE LOVE. Choose to see, breathe and live the LOVE you are. Love is the Light that illuminates darkness. Choose the joy that Love wants to feed you. Choose people who uplift and see you, who you uplift too. Choose to feel good, come together and enjoy Life while you’re living. If an extremely unfortunate situation greets us along with the last breaths we take, it isn’t a full basement of food — and it certainly isn’t a gun — that will give us Life. It is Love. When we need food for our children or a sense of safety, it is those relationships we’ve invested in with our time and attention, that will provide us with deep breaths of comfort. Alas, the Eagles were tuned in — that great thing called Love will keep us alive.
When we take our last breaths, it is a feeling of being loved that will make our final breaths peaceful, sending us into the realm of timelessness with sunlit, oceanic beauty swimming in our souls. And I’ll tell you from having “seen the other side” in my NDE, death is not actually death; what we call death is actually rebirth into a whole new landscape of Light. Here’s the song. Play it loud, let it in and with every part of your blessed, breathing being, feel it.
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Since summer, I’ve been overwhelmed. Moving through life as a single mother, stabilizing my financial landscape after a treacherous decade leading my family through nine moves, a divorce and brain surgery, all the while feeling brilliant ideas stream through me like a waterfall during a storm… Intensity, to put it mildly. Too many things to do. Too much, too much, too much. Overwhelm. I ask, How can I escape this battle happening inside of me… Sound familiar? I wonder where simplicity lives. My body reminds me that days are better when we start off with a hike. Morning comes. I hike up steep hills, letting my thighs revel in the blood that moves through them, letting my eyes be massaged by the grace of morning light on rolling hills. I feel relieved, then the storm comes again. I empathize with suicide. It’s not for me in this life, yet I feel like I get it. This human thing is literally insane. And it’s not just the war in Israel and Palestine-- It’s the war inside each one of us, including me and you. So again, I hike. I watch the fog lay God’s breath along the curves of Mama’s body. I see serenity. I keep climbing. My heart rate stabilizes. I feel calmer. I see other people walking up the hills and I imagine they are doing the same work. Feeling overwhelmed, wondering where peace really lives. A flock of small birds lands to rest atop an untrimmed oak tree. They seem to have answers. They rest. They choose peace. Not tomorrow, not overseas, but here in this moment. The only one there is. Oops. It hits me for the 10,000th time. I forgot that Now is the only moment. I forgot that the only place I can be is here, and I can only do one thing at a time. I remember the sticker on my bicycle that I’ve had for 20 years: Begin within. I remember wise ones saying, “Peace begins within.” This morning, a friend called from Vermont and shared about how her meditation practice is reminding her that the way she does anything is the way she does everything — that every single choice she makes has a ripple effect into the vastness of everything. And so as I climb this hill, admiring fog, I remind myself that peace begins with me. If I don’t want war overseas, I need to calm the war within. May these words invite you to join me. P. S. I’m taking a leap! After all, we live in an economy.
“Great writing is valuable and deserves to be rewarded with money,” wrote Substack. Not everyone enjoys my writing; all art is for some, not for all. Many of you have shared gorgeous words about how my writing serves you. Thank you. Last week, I turned up the volume in response to the passion streaming through me. Every single day, I get pierced as a “channel for Love” with writing titles and topics that want to be shared as gestures of Love for humanity. To support myself, I am now inviting readers to become paid subscribers — $8/month, $80/year or, you can join as a Founding Member of this “launch” moment, and pitch in more to help me leap from solid ground. I’ll continue to share all my writing every month with all subscribers. Being a paid subscriber helps to encourage me and support me, my children and my vision for a Love-based world. For today, that’s a wrap — in a fog-kissed, gluten free tortilla, of course. Today marks 92 days out of pain from severe sciatica. Most cases last 2-3 weeks; mine lasted 12. A mirror stands in front of me, now free from an embodiment of lightning in my rear left thigh just as long as I seemed to be imprisoned by it. Though the pain was horrific, the gifts offered by this trauma outweigh it 10,000-fold. Trauma presented a doorway to bliss I never knew existed. Succinct isn't my middle name. I write like flowers bloom. My heart writes for me. She is unlimited. She spills, she's wide, she's vast. Yet sometimes brief is worth a try. So here I go.
When it takes nine hours of heavy opiates to cut thunderous pain from your thigh, you are then gifted with patience while standing in a grocery store line. Thank you, trauma. When your pain is on such hellfire you either ask for help 200 times a day or suffer more, you never hesitate to ask for help again -- and are gifted now, with eyes that see Love's constant motion via the act of giving and receiving. Giving and receiving. We were born to serve each other. Thank you, trauma. When you wonder if dying would be better than feeling pain like this another day, and you breathe, and you breathe, reminded that all you can do is your best in this. moment. now... You've been given a heavy dose of Wake-Up! And on those days when you're stressed out or grumpy, afraid our planet is dying and our species is going extinct, well... then again you remember that while you might not be able to save the planet from sinking, you can still do your best in this moment now. Healing doesn't live in tomorrow. It lives now. Thank you, trauma... for endless invincible truths that offer freedom. All I can do, I now see, is choose Love over fear in one moment and then the next. Even if the limitless version of me -- the Oneness in which our truth resides -- is pain-free, I love being here in a body for now. I choose this Life, and Life chooses me. I am breathing. I have walked through trauma's doorway, holding hands with the divine. Thank you, trauma. Today I choose to focus on where the glass is half-full, not half-empty. Brain surgery for a massive tumor followed two months later by severe chronic pain? OK. Well guess what? I've never been raped. I wasn't abused as a child. I've never been physically locked up or chained in enslavement. I have food to eat and a safe bed to sleep in. My daughter is alive and healthy. OK? Thank you, trauma. Empathy in me is oceans deep. For those of you who've experienced sciatica or other forms of striking pain, I wish you peace of mind and ease in body. One day I will finish Ten Steps to Heal Sciatica. For now, here's Step 1 out of 10 and Step 2 out of 10: Reduce Pain and Inflammation. Today I celebrate the gift of Life in a body, and the glorious gifts trauma has given me. How about you? What are you celebrating today? It's been a long winter in California. While grateful for rain, it seems everyone was out hiking or otherwise soaking up the sun this weekend. Finally, spring came. Spring has a way of inviting humans to open up like flowers: our smiles, our sidewalk hellos, our eagerness to create and connect. Spring says, "Come, try something new, let me see your petals too." One way I show my color, my petals, the life inside of me -- is through letter writing. This spring I'll begin a yearlong workshop guiding participants to create or deepen intimacy with key areas of life: your body, food, family, friends, money, ancestry, home. We'll write letters to all these areas, these places where we are in relationship. Life is relationship. Just as we can share human experience and deepen connection with a close friend or spouse, we can do this with non-human relations. Truthfully relating with anything or anyone -- in this case, through letter writing -- brings enhanced mindfulness, communication, and personal power. Participants can join in person north of San Francisco in Sonoma County at Literic Petaluma, where I will lead the workshop. Those unable to attend in person can join the separate (but similar in content) online version, which I will post the week after. Oh, letters... I've written thousands of cards and letters in my life. Some delivered, some not. Some graceful, some clumsy. Some potent with love and wisdom, some flapping in a sea of insecurity. Each letter has given me greater clarity about who I am and what I want. Each piece of hand written correspondence has conveyed to its recipient, however short of long, that I value them and want them in my life. Some friends have hundreds of letters and cards from me tucked away in a box. Not emails, as those can't be touched. Letters please the senses. Letters say spring. If you want to deepen intimacy with key areas of your life, infusing your world with truth telling power and vision in ink, on paper, for the senses, for the fullness of life... Join us! If you're in Petaluma, call or email Literic at litericbooks@gmail.com / (707) 658-1751 to sign up. Cost per workshop is $30. It's usually when I walk around in my underwear. On occasion my daughter, who just turned five, chases me squealing, "Mama your legs are so biiiiiiig!" She giggles and wants to touch me and play with me. The first time she said it was about six months ago and it caught me off guard. Did she really just say that? It was one of those semi-shocking moments, when a child blurts something you just wouldn't say as an adult. Women don't want to hear that. But plain truth be told, my legs are bigger than hers. She has a slender build and I am almost twice as tall as her. Plus her body is lean and I spent my early childhood snacking on Oreo cookies and ice cream. Mine's not so lean. So once I got over the reaction I would have had 20 years ago: Whaaaaaat? Ohhhh this hurts, ouch, she's right, I really need to get more exercise or stop eating sugar or... which took about three seconds to move through me, I simply said what seemed true and loving: "My legs are just the right size for me." Frankly I almost couldn't believe what I'd said. Was that really me talking, saying words of self-acceptance about my body? Who was this matter-of-fact-I'm-fine woman that I'd become? Let me answer that question. This woman is a woman who has experienced so much culturally and self-inflicted criticism, yes mostly self inflicted, about my body that I refused to ever, no I have not ever, said one negative word about my body around my daughter. I don't talk about women's bodies as if they are to be criticized. Spending 30-something years in the pain of that world was enough. This is a woman who birthed a girl child, for whom I want as little of that kind of pain as humanly possible. Magazine ads and peer chatter will be enough for her to pick up on society's sick perspectives about the female body. I will not be contributing to that. We all get to choose our parenting style. We all get to choose what we say to our children. So many of us want our children to be free of the wounds we lived through in our own childhood. Will we teach our daughters to focus on their bodies' strength, on how they feel? Will we teach our sons to respect girls' bodies, by respecting our own in front of them? As for me, the best I can do is let the outrageously big love I feel for my daughter escalate my own process of accepting that I am fine. I am just fine, just the way I am, whether it's summertime and my skin is glowing, or a long dark winter where I'm pale as a pigeon plucking snow from the curb. At age 14 I had magazine covers plastered on my walls because I thought supermodels were it, and I wanted to be like them. Now, things are different. Age has freed me up. Something like that. Yes I know full self acceptance is a tall order. Yet I know it is worth wanting. Thank you, child, for calling forth my wiser self. May you always know your legs are just the right size for you, too. May you have no idea how many thousands of hours I've spent criticizing my own body, and especially my legs, until someday by the fire while we're camping, it feels like time to tell you that story. Dear child, may your life show you a way that is glorious galaxies beyond the wisdom of mine. Sometimes life feels hard. And sure enough, sometimes circumstances are muddy, mucky and real rough. Especially with our closest relationships, things can be intensely challenging. Sometimes though, we make our own lives more difficult — usually without realizing we’re doing it. Each of us has much more power to influence our lives than we accept. The good news is that this is changing. Every time one of us steps up to sharpen our communication skills, we bring more skillfulness and humility to our relationships. And every time that happens, the world becomes a place that is more loving, safe and kind. Whenever I discover a simple tool that helps bring about this kind of world, I share it. Reflective Listening is a widely known skill in the world of interpersonal communication, coaching and couples therapy. It is exceptionally simple and I’ve detailed it below so you can practice. All humans would benefit from communication classes starting at a young age, with this exercise being practiced starting around age 10. If you’re in a committed partnership with someone who’s open to learning new things and wants to see the relationship become more fulfilling over time — someone who’s willing to do their part and not just expect things to improve on their own — you are fortunate. Practice with them. I am extremely thankful my husband is willing to use these tools with me. Reflective Listening has been transformative for our our marriage. Otherwise, ask a good friend or family member to practice with you. It doesn’t have to be deep or intense -- you can talk about ice cream or travel if you want. For a short taste of what it’s like, you can take 10 minutes, five each, trading places halfway through. For a fuller experience that might be more rewarding, set aside a whole hour and each take 30 minutes. Or, you can have your turn today as Sharer, or Listener, and switch places tomorrow. Benefits of Reflective Listening often include:
Ready for some of that sweetness? Reflective Listening: The Basics
Try it, let me know how it goes for you, send me an email if you want to share what worked and what didn't. Be gentle with yourself. Even a simple exercise can be challenging, especially when it has the potential to bring about so many positive changes. And if you find yourself all jazzed up about the power of Reflective Listening, share this link with a friend who’s struggling in relationship. Or if you have the spirit of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and Sesame Street running through your veins like I do, and being a good friend is enormously important to you in life, call a friend on the phone today and tell them you want to gift them 20 minutes of your time, as Listener in this exercise. Lead them through it. It feels really, really good to have someone truly listen. Of the hundreds of people I’ve met and had conversations with, there are probably 10 who I consider to be masterful listeners. To those people, thank you. I’m not there — yet. I am definitely on my way. To all of us who are heading that direction, kudos, it is good to be in your company! As published by the Findhorn Foundation. Have you ever wondered what life on Planet Earth might be like in 100 years, when maybe, just maybe, humanity has reached a point of valuing spiritual intelligence (SQ) as much as we seem to value rational intelligence (IQ)? We have barely begun valuing emotional intelligence (EQ) so how long might it take before we value what is seen as yet another essential leap into the intelligence and potential of humanity — spiritual intelligence? With the future being unpredictable, that question may be less helpful than those presenting themselves more readily in the here and now. What is SQ? And as for our own inner questioning, how does each of us embrace it more fully in our own lives? Exhibiting how humanity is grappling with this relatively new area of study, many definitions have been presented for SQ. Whereas IQ is associated with the left brain and EQ is associated with the right brain, SQ is noted as a “third way” of human intelligence, including elements of the intangible or immeasurable aspects of living in a human body. Perhaps the most succinct definition comes from Richard Griffiths, former National Chairman of the Transpersonal Psychology section of the Australian Psychological Society, who says, “Spiritual intelligence equals IQ and EQ exercised with presence.” Griffiths defines presence as the movement of awareness from ego to soul. Coming from ego, we tend to focus more on fear, short term vision, our limitations, and seeing ourselves as small or insignificant — even if that small sense of self is sometimes masked by conceit or arrogance. Coming from a sense of soul means our view is more vast. We see ourselves as part of a great web of life, relationships, patterns, all of which are significant in their impact on the world we live in. The term Spiritual Intelligence was coined in 1997 by Danah Zohar when she introduced the concept in her book Rewiring the Corporate Brain. In this book Zohar explores the implications of SQ and other sciences that were new at the time, relating them directly to organisational problems and challenges faced by corporate leaders. She wanted to illustrate how humans can exercise full creative capacities, rather than making IQ the indisputable heavyweight among our intelligences. Considered one of the world’s greatest thinkers in the realm of management, Zohar studied Physics and Philosophy at MIT and did her postgraduate work in Philosophy, Religion and Psychology at Harvard. To be clear, definitions of SQ note that spirituality is distinct from religiosity, equating SQ with existential intelligence. In his 2004 book The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness, Stephen Covey wrote, "Spiritual intelligence is the central and most fundamental of all the intelligences, because it becomes the source of guidance for the others." While there is yet no universally accepted method of measuring SQ, there are many well developed tools. Principles and measurement criteria found in them include: valuing other people for their differences, not despite them; self-awareness; spontaneity; positive use of adversity; bilateral respect in our relationships; maintaining a sense of tranquility regardless of workload; the ability to utilise spiritual resources to solve problems, and; ego self mastery. One assessment tool which has been tested and also cross-correlated with an instrument from Harvard University is called SQ21. It uses a framework of 21 skills to map strengths and identify development areas. The Findhorn Foundation will be hosting a workshop in June 2018, Next Level Leadership, that uses this model, giving participants a full assessment. What becomes possible when we amplify our own spiritual intelligence? Reflecting on how SQ might have touched my life, I am reminded of a noteworthy moment in 1997 during my last year of college when something called to me about Hawai’i. From someplace deep within me, I wanted to go. And I wanted to go all by myself. In my mind I recalled images of endless, lush greenery. Specifically Kaua’i, I had heard, was “the most beautiful place on Earth.” Some close friends had traveled alone, but in my family this wasn’t common for a person my age. My sister was concerned. My dad was concerned. I was cautioned against it. Still I felt called to go. And while there were left-brain (IQ-related) reasons supporting my longing — such as the knowing that it was part of the USA, my own native country, and that the main spoken language was English — I could have also followed the advice of the TV media. Don’t travel alone; it isn’t safe; stay close to home; bad things happen to good people. What if…? What if…? What if…? Those messages simply didn’t resonate. There was a tug too strong in my heart, an instinctual tug, that urged me to listen. From an EQ perspective, my feeling of trust that it would work out just fine, took centre stage. Very clearly there was a feeling in my heart that knew I was safe. Perhaps my intuition and soul awareness, both aspects of SQ, intermingling with IQ and EQ in the dance of this decision, were what allowed this to become a defining moment in the rest of my life. Sure enough, though I stayed only with ‘strangers’ and went with very little money, it took less than a week for one of the most life changing experiences of my life to occur. Almost as in a dream state, I found myself sitting in the living room of a man who is internationally renowned for his spiritual clarity, a teacher of forgiveness, who ended up being a dedicated spiritual mentor and friend to me over the last 20 years. Something tells me it was this deep-rooted sense of safety — an unwavering sense of certainty in who I am rather than what I am being in this moment or that moment, the connection I had to my own soul, the refusal to buy into messages of fear — that led to this experience. When we have a strong internal sense of who we are, on a bigger and deeper scale than what is showing up in our present moment circumstances, our decisions are enveloped in SQ. In those moments when we are aware of who we are, our essence, we may find ourselves in places we would not have imagined ourselves. Something much greater is at play. This is what SQ can lead us to; this is leadership when SQ is engaged. Had I listened only to left- or right-brain information, I might have had a great trip. But I don’t suspect it would have been epic. We are in good company. SQ is universal; each of us can access it when we choose to. No one has “a corner on the market” as my coach likes to remind me. Whether afraid or not, whether others approve of our explorations or not, when we open up to our own SQ, it smiles back at us like a lavender bush stretching for the sun. Today, we live in a world with almost incomprehensible human suffering. The atrocities that happen every single day due to humanity’s unloving choices can feel debilitating, like a heavy dark cloud that zaps our motivation. Fortunately, to provide leadership for addressing the magnitude of these problems, there are many, many examples of SQ in our midst. Now that there are various tools for measuring SQ in individuals, hundreds of humans have been widely recognized as having high levels of SQ. Among them are Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Don Miguel Ruiz, Caroline Myss, Adyashanti, Deepak Chopra, Paulo Coelho, Clarissa Pinkola Estes and Gary Snyder. This is just the very tip of the iceberg. It is not necessary to know someone personally to benefit from the chemistry exchanged between us. Reading a book by someone who embodies SQ or listening to a talk in person or online are both good ways to enhance our sense of spiritual wisdom. Simply deciding that SQ is important to us is an act of commitment as it expresses our values and vision and leads to thoughts, feelings and actions that support this decision. May we all find ways to engage playfully — and even engage a bit of spiritual ‘mischief’ — with our own SQ, inviting it to surface from our wise inner depths before we have a chance to think too hard about it. A simple question I like to ask myself sometimes, when faced with a difficult situation such as conflict with a loved one, is: How would my spiritual self guide me here? It is almost shocking how quickly we can seem to trick ourselves out of fear-based thoughts, turning instead to our own timeless wisdom. (also published in Holistic Parenting Magazine, spring 2017) |
AuthorJessica Rios, Founder of Leaning into Light, was born with a divine pen in her pelvis. Her heart writes for her; Love is her 'religion'. A lifelong letter writer and a thought leader in Love, her blog is devoted to her greatest passion: illuminating the beauty of the human spirit so we all move closer to remembering that Love is Who We Are. Categories
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