Monthly Archives: August 2013

A Tree, A Rock, A Cloud

Posted on by kgoodman

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I remember reading a powerful short story in college, A Tree, A Rock A Cloud. I do not recall the name of the author. The story described a man that was trying to learn to love again. He had been hurt and was trying to start over. He found it very difficult to love and as a result was taking baby steps. He started by learning to love small things and moving up the chain. Naturally, based on the title he started with a tree, a rock, a cloud. Over time moving up to a crowd, and his ultimate goal was to be able to love a woman again.

As I’ve learned more about life and love over the years, I’ve begun to think he missed a step. I believe he should have started with himself. Once you love yourself and accept that you have worth and value, you can truly love others. Once you have practiced compassion and love for yourself then you will understand what is needed to practice compassion and love for others.

I think that love, when pushed outward, without first loving and accepting yourself, often does more harm that good. It sends a confusing message to the recipient. Tainted love, as it were, comes from a source that says “I will give you something that I am am unable to accept myself.”

Once you have learned to love yourself you can then radiate compassion and love that is a comfort to others. There is a natural and smooth progression that will then be easy to share with a tree, a rock, a cloud, a crowd and an individual. It can be freely accepted and transmitted without baggage to those around us.

Learning to love yourself is one or our life’s challenges and one of life’s great gifts. There are many practices that can help, but at the forefront are acceptance and compassion. Allow for the truth that you are worthy, valuable (priceless really) and a blessing to the universe. Practice endowing yourself with love and that love will radiate from you like the warmth of a star.

Namaste,

Kevin

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Walking The Path

Posted on by kgoodman

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On average, the average human being is not average.

There is really no such thing as an average person. We are all legendary, and we are all boring. We have moments of extraordinary exhibition. We have moments we would rather forget we were involved in. Even someone living an average life, has room and opportunity to excel and thrive.

When it comes to the path we have chosen in life, we often use that to define ourselves by labels. “I’m an Engineer”, or, “I’m a Pastor”, or, “I’m a receptionist”. You are not a label, you are the whole package. You are, “All that and a bag of chips” as colloquialism clarifies.

We in turn hear labels coming from other people and mentally pigeonhole, assuming that the label sum up the person. But these are only indications, glimpses of the fullness that comprises each of us.

The full definition of your person comes from and is defined by countless decisions you make each day as you walk your path. It is easy enough to see the path that lay ahead of you. Or to imagine the path that lay ahead of and behind another soul. However, there is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.

Do not judge your neighbor until you have walked a mile in his shoes.

The challenge doesn’t lay in knowing the path, but in walking the path.

The truth about your life is, that there is more to you than meets the eye. You have depth and capabilities on standby for the occasion when they are needed. Walk your path with grace and compassion, for yourself and others.

Go do something extraordinary with your life.

Namaste,

Kevin

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Conceptual Spirituality

Posted on by kgoodman

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Remove words from your spiritual world and find peace.

Words are powerful, they take the intangible and make it concrete. Words are the translation of though into an encoded message of meaning. Words are expansive and words are limiting. Words save lives…words kill.

It is challenging, if not impossible, to remove words from our experience. I am sharing this concept through words. Words are crucial and fundamental to us. We train ourselves so well to use words that many thoughts can’t exist apart from words.

Emotions, experiences, feelings, these are all things we struggle to put into words. Often, once we do find a way to put an experience into words, we somehow comfort ourselves that we’ve captured it. This comfort leads to releasing the actual experience in favor of the simpler words. But the experience was the gem and the words are only a single facet of that gem, a glimpse of the moments true beauty.

We have to remember that words are just symbols, shadows of the ideas they represent. Without words there are still ideas. Without words there is still imagination. Without words we can live without limitations, in our minds.

Without a creative medium to export the ideas they remain locked in our heads. There are many mediums through which to share ideas, sculpture, drawing, interpretive dance. However, the most common currency of conceptual conveyance is conversation. Without words many ideas can’t go beyond our own minds. We are social creatures and as such a common means of sharing ideas was developed. We become liberated from our own minds. And shackled to the power of words.

So when it comes to spirituality it is interesting how heavily words are relied upon. When it comes to religion, we find the power of words driven to their fullest power. Wars have begun over disagreements in translation. Fought over perspectives on concepts from the ethereal laid out into words and deemed as different as good and evil. Millions have lost their lives in holy wars over a difference of interpretation regarding out divine spiritual nature.

So I invite you to release the power of words, if only for a few moments each day. Move into the silo of your higher thoughts, apart from words, and see the common threads that bind us all.

Remember next time you’re listening to someone talk, and their words ram into your mental boundaries, try to look past the words to the ideas. Reach into the deeper meaning. Forgive their potential heresy and love their abundant humanity.

Namaste,

Kevin

 

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The Price Of Independance

Posted on by kgoodman

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All progress comes at a cost.

 

Riding the BART train the other day I saw a young boy hugging his fathers legs, he was probably about 5 years old and barely came up to his fathers waist. He looked around uncertainly as the train moved on, but clearly unafraid. His father was the strength, certainty and wisdom needed to deal with this situation, he needed nothing more.

 

As our eyes narrow with age and our experience broadens, we lose the ability to trust and accept unconditionally the comfort of that trust. It is both tragic and inevitable. Each lesson over time teaches us, sometimes painfully, how far we can trust others. We establish boundaries and historical references, these frame our future trust relationships and reign us in from granting unconditional trust.

 

When we are children we have limited capacity see the end from the beginning. We have yet to learn all the ways we can be let down, disappointed, or simply have others fail for us. Over time we learn to trust ourselves and guard against others. Protecting what is ours and keeping out those that would threaten it. Sadly, I believe this is a required skill here.

 

This doesn’t mean that we need to stop trusting. Life is a balancing act and in our daily lives we are always walking the tightrope between trust and exposure. Learning to both trust others and protect ourselves is a challenge all adults must face and seek their personal balance.

 

But seeing that moment again between the child and his father. Knowing the energies shared…

It reminded me of what I have lost.

And it made me weep. Partially with joy at the beauty of the moment, and partially at sadness for my loss.

 

Namaste,

Kevin