When our arteries are blocked with plaque, a cardiologist may recommend bypass surgery. But when our emotional heart is filled with blocked feelings, we also resort to bypass. The difference is that emotional bypass is not helpful.  I know that setting aside negative feelings and judgments only makes them stronger, and deeply wounding. Taming the mind for me is not denying my judgments but facing them, just as I try to notice when my ego gets in the way of enjoying the moment. I try not to get obsessed with being positive when I’m more authentically angry or frustrated. When I’m angry, I do not serve my pain to others, but instead I face my anger and decide how I will respond. When I pass judgment on someone or something, I face the pain and anguish of those judgments in myself, and then try to find out where they are coming from within my own mind and heart. I realize that to be alive is to have thoughts I don’t like, feelings that hurt, and behaviors that I regret. When I meet ” the plaque” I look deeply at what I am feeling. I stop and get still so that I can decide on a compassionate response, not just for others but also for my own clearing. I try not to beat myself up about what I do or think. Instead, I try to remove the plaque by not bypassing who I am or what I am experiencing in the moment.

Peace and blessings,

Ndidi

Source: The Inner Child is Crying Out

“The most potent muse of all is our inner child.” – Stephen Nachmanovitch

News of lives lost and sadness in response to painful events shakes my heart to the core. I have been meditating and encouraging peace and love in my posts on Facebook and Twitter, but my inner child is crying out for relief.  The perpetrators of these horrific acts were once innocent babies and toddlers who asked for something and did not receive it. They felt something and it was not pleasant. They tried to create from their core and the path seemed too difficult to manage. They were too young to understand that if they just stood still, what they wanted would come to them; the love we all seek is right here now.

Inside all of us sits an inner child that offered herself to the world and did not always get a good reception. We react in different ways to thwarted dreams and internalized aggression. We  bump around through life and try to create a life that we love as teenagers and adults, but that inner child keeps crying out. Some of us offer our talents and professional expertise, and when it seems rejected or questioned, we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and keep learning and trying. During these times, the inner child cries out again,” Please don’t abandon my innocence and my passion to create something unique in my life.” We hear it in our own way and feel it in our disappointment, like a heavy weight on our chest. For some of us, a compassionate hand or voice comforts us in these moments, and we find a way to carry on. For others of us, the pain remains, and the cries continue.

Stop for moment. Listen to the cries of your inner child. Offer forgiveness. Say, “Please forgive me for not always listening to your cries.” Tell your inner child that he  is loved; that love has always been present for him. Introduce your inner child to the present moment of peace, and reassure  her that peace is available any time it’s needed.  Honor your crying inner child. Offer to wipe away the tears, and invite that inner child to breathe deeply with you in the silence; and with a compassionate, soft voice, whisper to your inner child that the way to love is to be love, and that the universe hears all cries. Do this as a testament to the power of our oneness. The love you allow to emerge from your true self is the same power that honors the muse that is our inner child.

With much love,

Eleanor

Inner peace

Abundance

Contemplation

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