Weeding

I have been meditating for over a week now, and WOW! I can totally tell a difference. I meditate between 10-45 minutes a day in the morning when the world is still sleeping and quiet. I sit in my living room and I breathe in and breathe out. I focus on my breath and how it feels going in and out of my lungs. I focus on how my body feels when I give it breath, I focus on my lungs expanding and going back to normal. I feel so much better doing this every morning, it’s amazing how this simple act is helping me with myself.

Monday’s group meditation group discussed this idea of cultivation. This idea of cultivation sits with me well because I can apply it to both my spiritual path, as well as my life of gardening. When you want to get rid of a weed, you have to pick it from its roots. You can’t just pull it out and hope it doesn’t ever show up again. You have to really get to the “root” of the problem in order for it to not show up. If you just get angry with this weed and start ripping it and all its friends to shreds, they are going to come back tenfold. In order for the weed to be gone, you have to take time with it, work it from the bottom, and pull it all out. I mentioned in our discussion that a lot of the times, people get aggressive with weeding (figuratively and nonfiguratively) and I suggested that we learn to love these weeds, since we’re the ones that essentially put them there (consciously or unconsciously). We could use this weed that we’ve plucked and put it in our compost to make something we do want. Even if we say we have a strong shield to others opinions, the truth of the matter is we don’t have one that’s 100% effective. I am sure Monks and Buddhists do, but those are people who have worked with building this guard for most of their lives. Most of us don’t spend our entire day focusing on building up this impeccable soil because we work, we have kids, we have a family, we don’t plan on becoming monks. We start to cultivate when something has happened to us and we realize we need to change something in order to feel better.

Like I said in my previous post, I have been struggling with a weed in my garden that showed up out of NOWHERE last year. This weed has taken a pretty good liking to my garden, and it has been incredibly hard to pull it up. Part of my practice at the moment is to say “I forgive you. May you be happy” and actually mean it. Because I can say it, sure, anyone can, but that doesn’t mean I am actually forgiving and wishing them happiness. I get MAD and ANGRY and want to SCREAM. I think these weeds are hard to get rid of than most when it comes from someone who is in your family. We all got family issues, but when someone is deliberately cruel and says horrific things to someone in their family, it strikes a little closer to home. My theory on this is because we have this preconceived notion of what family actually is. We have these ideas of how you’re supposed to act, how you’re supposed to feel, what you’re supposed to say, and how much love you’re supposed to give to these people in your family.  

My family is a lovely and diverse group of people. I have my blood family who has helped me grow into the person I am today, and who have never stopped rooting for me to succeed. I have my partners family, who love me, support me, and are willing to help even though we’re not “technically related.” I have my friends, who may be dwindling down, but are now a solid base of friends that I can rely on. And I don’t really consider these people separate families; I consider them my entire family. It isn’t about separating it out anymore. The people that are in my life are people I WANT in my life. For example, the weed I am trying to pull, isn’t in my life. I don’t really want them in my life at all at the moment, because the fact that THAT much negativity can come out of one person, and have it be aimed at me is someone I don’t want to know or have in my life.

I made a resolution for 2013, and that is to not take shit from anyone. I am not being a pawn in anyone’s game. I am not doing this as a hurtful thing or an angry thing, I have just decided that I want nothing but positive people around me. People with good energy, healthy lifestyles, kindness, love, and happiness in them, because that’s what I am. Sure, we all have our off days, even I do, but I don’t want to surround myself with negative people anymore. So I have started doing some weeding and have said goodbye to those weeds who are no longer necessary in my life, weeds I don’t feel bad getting rid of.

I may have currently lost two of my family members, but I look around at all the new ones I have, and I feel happy. I feel love. And while I will continue to try in my spiritual practice to forgive, and wish people happiness, I will not do anything I am not ready for or willing to do. Especially if it will harm my spiritual journey.

I recieve Abraham quotes daily, and I really enjoyed today's. I hope you do too:

Nobody else knows your reason for being. You do. Your bliss guides you to it. When you follow your bliss, when you follow your path to joy, your conversation is of joy, your feelings are of joy--you're right on the path of that which you inteded when you came forth into this physical body.

--Abraham