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Hidden Treasures

Sun, 31 Jul 2011 14:07:28 -0500

Beneath the coarse surface of material being I managed to touch the purple hue, and I came to know the radiance of divinity. Solovyov

My father grew up in the desert town of Kimberly.... his ancestors were fortune hunters and adventurers who went rushing there from Europe when diamonds were discovered in 1866. The first diamond of 21.25 carats was discovered by a teenage boy on his father’s farm on the banks of the Orange River. The area is inhospitable, thorn scrub and when the wind blows the desert sand forms dust devils and the tumbleweed dances across the bleak flatlands. In 1866 there were only a few brave, outback subsistence farmers, struggling against the elements with their hardy sheep, goats and donkeys. And yet deep under the earth in round cores of hard rock called Kimberlite are found some of the worlds most beautiful diamonds. Kimberlite was formed from underground volcanoes of molten rock (magma). Diamonds are formed deep down in dark black Mother earth through immense pressure and incredible heat.
The surface of the planet does not reveal her secrets easily. And we are no different.
The outer presentation of our lives tells us nothing of the suffering, the heat, the pressure, the long process of formation and cooling and the eons of our finest qualities lying unfound in the darkness.
The process of extracting diamonds is a long and tedious one. They have to be discovered, then the rock is mined ~ a treacherous and dangerous process. The rock is crushed and the diamonds extracted. Then they have to be cut, and polished. The final product is a gem of great beauty with many facets that glow and and sparkle with light, reflecting little rainbows in the sun.... a worthy symbol of love, joy, peace, kindness, generosity, faithfulness to what is true, self control and gentleness – the words so often used in wedding ceremonies – and meant not just for the other person but for yourself too. The rock and impurities become sand and return to the desert. It is no longer distinguishable from the rest of the earth. The diamond however is indestructible.
Our diamond nature too is indestructible but hidden at the core of our earthly selves. It is not always visible on the surface of our lives, even to ourselves. We are often not really aware of the heat and pressure that caused the diamond of our true Self to be embedded in rock. The process of extraction is long, tedious and hard. It requires discipline, faith and desire. We can avoid the work in many ways and stay on the surface by making excuse for ourselves and others or jumping to conclusions about what the external surface manifestations mean. Remember tumble-weed and dry desert dust storms may conceal hidden diamonds.

Don’t make excuses
or
jump to conclusions
about your behavior
or
that of others.
Stay open
Stay attentive
Ask
Dig deeper

You know very little until you have found the hidden treasure of yourself.

© Lyndall Johnson August 2006

Learning to “do something”

Tue, 5 Jul 2011 08:54:40 -0500

It was 1962 and I was ten when I saw, in a magazine, the first graphic photos of rhino’s lying dead in the African veld, with their horns removed and the rest of their carcasses left to rot and be devoured by hyenas and vultures. I was horrified, outraged and tearful. I read how poachers had decimated the numbers of rhinos virtually to the point of extinction, just for the horns.
I confronted my parents. How could this happen? Who were the people who did this? How could people get away with this atrocity? Who was going to stop it? I remember my mother looking at me sadly – she is the one who taught me a love of animals and I knew she felt as heart sore as I did. Clearly she did not have an answer, just empathy.
We lived in what was then called Southern Rhodesia, which was still a colony of Great Britain. It would be another three years before Ian Smith would unilaterally declare independence from Britain.
My mother’s helplessness always propelled me into outraged indignation and determination to “do something!”
“I will write to the Queen,” I declared – this is her country and she should do something!” And so, with my father’s help, I did. (The grammar and spelling had to be perfect!)
I waited and waited and finally an official looking envelope arrived from England. I was not surprised at all, but clearly my parents were! It was a letter from the Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh. And with the dignity of royalty and the kindness of a good king, he said, “I too am saddened by the slaughter of innocent animals. I am happy to know that you are outraged and I trust that you will do something to help stop this tragedy from happening. I depend on my loyal subjects to accept their responsibility as citizens and I am grateful for your efforts.” Signed, HRH Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh! I was dumbfounded – he was expecting me to do something?
“So what are you going to do? “ asked my mother. “Perhaps there are other people who are also sad about the rhinos. Perhaps we should find out?” And we did – we discovered that in South Africa a young game ranger called Ian Player had started “Operation Rhino” in an attempt to save a viable population of White Rhinos in Umfolozi Game Park. My young heart leapt with excitement – I would raise money to help him!
My mother was wonderful – she helped me make little cardboard boxes decorated with different colors of crepe paper and then we made candy of all kinds – fudge and peppermint creams, toffees and peanut brittle, pink and white coconut ice and chocolate covered dried fruit to put in the little boxes and we had a sale at school. I made a small profit which I proudly sent to Operation Rhino. This was the start of all kinds of sales to save the rhinos. While my paltry amounts did little to save the rhino, I felt an immense sense of satisfaction in being part of a large effort that did eventually save the white rhino.
It turns out I was the one saved through my efforts – saved from a mental attitude of expecting someone else to “do something,” from a victimy stance of helplessness and dependency. I am forever grateful to Prince Phillip for his wisdom and clarity in telling a ten year old child that she was capable of being responsible and empowering me to accept the challenge to participate and contribute. If there is a problem – then do something about it instead of complaining. I am grateful for his expectation that even a child has something to give and can think of ways to help. I am grateful for parents who supported my intense passion and actions to attain a goal and insisted on follow through to complete what I started.

© Lyndall Johnson May 2011

Overwhelmed?

Mon, 4 Jul 2011 15:33:47 -0500

When I first came to America I remember how I felt “overwhelmed” every time I entered a supermarket. It was the cereal aisle that really got to me! The boxes would stretch out in front of my eyes reaching down to an infinity point at the end of the aisle and I would panic. How would I ever be able to make a decision - each one looked more alluring, each one had so much written on the box telling me about it’s innards. They all had their hands up like a class of kindergarteners saying, “Me, me, me, choose me.” It generalized to the whole supermarket - I hated going in there - it took hours to decide which cereal, which brand of peanut butter, which fruit juice until I had a full blown supermarket phobia.... I wanted to run out of there screaming, “Leave me alone!” I started getting mad at the cereal boxes - in fact I got mad at the whole supermarket and then I got mad at “Americans,” for providing me with so many choices. It was easy to judge this as a land of unnecessary excesses.
It took me a while to recognize that if I really looked a little deeper into this projection of blaming the cereal boxes for feeling overwhelmed, that there was a whole slew of beliefs and feelings as a result of my socialization causing the feeling of being knocked over by a tsunami of cereal. All that the cereal boxes were doing were innocently sitting there gently knocking on the door of my own dark unconscious and triggering fears and beliefs about making the wrong choice because I didn’t know what I was buying... what if I fed by children junk, wasted money... what if they and my husband hated what I bought and criticized me, wasted what I bought. What if I wasted the whole day in the supermarket trying to read all the labels and make decisions and didn’t get everything else done? If this were to happen I knew I would feel shame - I would have to eat the whole box myself to prevent it from being thrown out, and I would believe I had failed as a mother and housewife.
I grew up with the motto, “Waste not, want not,” and being taught that wasting food was the worst crime you could commit on a continent of rampant poverty and starvation. I grew up knowing that eating healthily was essential and important with a mother who knew exactly what she was feeding us and why! I heard my father’s voice in my head saying, “I don’t know who would want to eat that stuff - it is factory floor sweepings,” referring to cereal. I grew up with the choice of rice crispies or corn flakes as a very special treat but only with fresh fruit chopped into it. Mostly the choice was oatmeal or maize meal porridge. I wanted to get reactive and tell the kids, “NO CEREAL - it is junk!” I was creating quite the inner drama!
The word “overwhelmed” evokes images, for me, of dark external forces threatening to engulf and annihilate me. It is a big word and yet is commonly used in the context of the smallest of external events. It has become abundantly clear to me that the use of the word is pointing to some big inner force, rather than external reality. And the big force within that threatens to engulf, take over, annihilate, is when fear of feeling shame is triggered by some internally imposed expectation.
We live in a world of increasing choice, increasing demands and expectations, of greater and greater complexity and so it is no wonder that this triggers old childhood fears of making the wrong choice, fears of the unknown, anxiety of failure, judgment, criticism, not doing it well enough, not being good enough, and feeling shame. Overwhelmed is merely the fear of feeling shame and with some self reflection will reveal it’s many facets rooted in old programmed beliefs.
So how did I get over my “supermarket overwhelm?” I recognized the irrationality of using the word overwhelm in relationship to buying groceries. I mean, really? I explored my fears around food, shopping, being a “good housewife and mother,” of criticism from men, my fear of not eating healthy food, of the unknown.... Then I took steps to educate myself on healthy choices in a new environment. I read consumer reports and started shopping at health food stores to eliminate some of the obvious bad choices. I processed through the fears of feeling shame and examined beliefs that could be changed. I took back my projections (judgements) and accepted responsibility for my own inner condition.

The steps to dealing with the world “overwhelmed?”

• Notice your use of the word
• Notice judgments (they are always a way to get away from some inner fear)
• Ask yourself, “What am I afraid of?’
• How did this fear originate?
• What beliefs are connected to this fear?
• How was I shamed for things I did not know, mistakes in choices that I made?
• What unmet need does this fear point to?
• What do I not know?
• How can I find out more about what I do not know?
• Do I give myself the option of changing my mind once a choice is made?
• Who/what could help me gain both external and internal awareness and knowledge?

Although I still dislike it, the external supermarket environment has become less threatening, less overwhelming, and sometimes really quite fun! I still think cereal is overrated - there is nothing quite like a good bowl of oatmeal!

© Lyndall Johnson June 2011

Devotion

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:22:25 -0500

All the great mystical traditions of the world agree that devotion is the single most direct practice to enlightenment. And what is devotion? It is to fall in love – to have an “ardent, selfless affection and dedication to a person or a principle.”
There is an ancient alchemical text that says, “Your heart is the wound and your heart is the key.” Devotion is not possible until the heart awakens. And the heart awakens when it breaks. When all the armor and tactics of defense fall away. Not until we have faced, with courage, insight and compassion for ourselves, the heartache, shame, fear and loss in our lives and awakened to our own suffering – can we awaken with love to the suffering of our world.
And our world is dying. Our world is dying because humanity has not yet awoken to its heart, and lives in its head. Only when we awaken, heart and soul instead of relying on head and reason can we see into the heart of the matter, and find that everything matters, and that our planet can be saved from needless destruction, conflict and suffering.
This morning I want to tell you one story of a man who awoke, heart and soul, and then devoted his life tirelessly to a principle and to people. His name was Sandy D.
In the early 1980’s, I worked with Sandy. He was involved in introducing the Laubach system of literacy to underprivileged people in South Africa and at the time I was involved in grass roots community development with rural Black South Africans for whom there was at that time, an 80% illiteracy rate. It was in the context of my job that I met with him as a resource for the people with whom I was working. He was then a man in his seventies. He had a large balding dome of a head that had once sported sandy colored hair – hence the name – a large roman nose, a twinkling smile, a quiet sense of humor and intense blue eyes – intense because they bored into your soul. He related to the poor and disenfranchised differently to other South Africans. He was lacking the usual paternalistic, condescending, do-gooder attitude of most so-called humanitarians offering aid. The people loved and revered him and he tackled the task of literacy with an unusual intensity, passion and devotion. I asked him about his great love for the work he was doing. He told me this story:
“Well, I haven’t much time left. I spent most of my life doing nothing constructive at all. Until ten years ago I was a down and out drunk – a complete alcoholic. I had lost everything. My wife had left me years ago. My children had given up hope and would have nothing to do with me. I could no longer hold down a job. I had lost all my money and was living in a cockroach-infested flophouse in downtown Durban. I had enough money left to my name to buy one last bottle of whiskey. I decided that is what I would do – I would buy a bottle of whiskey and when I was drunk enough, I would blow my brains out. I lay down with my revolver in one hand and the bottle of whisky in the other, determined to end this miserable existence once and for all. Fortunately I passed out before I could follow through. I woke up in the morning thinking that I was a worthless failure of a human being – I couldn’t even succeed in killing myself. I had the D.T.’s so bad, I could hardly keep my hand still enough to shoot myself. I drank down the last dregs of whiskey just to stop the shaking. Then I dragged myself up and staggered to the window. The room stank; I had a pounding headache, was nauseous and had peed myself. I threw open the window and the sound of rush hour city traffic and vendors yelling, the smell of gasoline and pollution filled the room.”
He paused, lost in memory. Then his voice softened and he went on,
“It was spring and the jacaranda trees lining the avenue were in full bloom dropping their blossoms and forming pools of violet shadow on the sidewalk. As I stood there, wondering how I could face another day, there was a sudden lull in the noise of the traffic, as sometimes happens. I suppose it was a few seconds, or so. In that quiet moment, a miraculous thing happened.”
He paused again to look at me sideways, watching for my response, knowing he had a captive audience and went on, “I heard a bird singing its heart out at the top of a tree.” His eyes moistened with emotion. “It must have just been a moment or two and then the noise of the traffic resumed – but I could still hear the bird singing – it was as if my ear was attuned to the sound of the song despite all the other sounds – that is the miracle,” he gazed off for a moment lost in the wonder of his inner discovery and then went on,
“I fell to my knees sobbing. I never had another drink. I have been sober ever since. I have a lot of lost time to make up for.”
My eyes had filled with tears too. It was a dramatic and moving story: a redemptive story. At the time I thought I had understood what he told me. I thought he meant that he suddenly saw the beauty of the world, heard the loveliness in the song of a bird and decided it was worth living after all. And this is certainly true.
But the story was so much more profound than I realized. I could only understand it years later after I had lived a lot more life myself and was able to recognize that he had heard the call of his own true Self. He had realized how all his attention had been grabbed and imprisoned by the noisy, needy, clamoring and the harsh loud criticisms of internal shame and fear. Inside his head there was nothing but the incessant noise of ceaseless, obsessive thinking – rushing backwards and forwards, and going round and round in circles.
The clear melody of his own winged soul had never stopped singing, it just could not be heard above the din of his mind. But he reached rock bottom, as they say. And in that moment of complete hopelessness and surrender, there was a pause in his thinking. In the blessed silence he heard the music of his own being. And after that no matter how much noise there was in his mind he could still hear the inner music. He switched allegiance and followed the song of his heart, instead of the noise of his ego. For the first time he was in harmony with himself. He was a dead man, resurrected to new life.
In his last years Sandy D. brought hope and new life to all he touched – he opened worlds of knowledge to those who never believed they could aspire to an education. Although he has been dead many years, now, he lives – forever.
Joseph Campbell says, follow your bliss. This is the entire secret of life in three words. Devote yourself to following your bliss. Sandy was one of the many people and principles that I have devoted myself to in my life. The implications of falling in love with him and his work are that I worked tirelessly to promote his program. What does this devotion mean – it means I wanted to be just like him – I watched how he spoke to people, how he related, walked. I discovered qualities in him that I wanted in me – patient, kind, didn’t take things personally, understood deeply the apathy and lack of motivation in the population he served, his willingness to sit and talk, to stop and talk to the servants, to listen, to be present with the intensity of eternity to everyone in front of him. I wanted to be able to tell stories like he did. I wanted to be accepting and non judgmental like he was. My devotion to him and his cause changed me, awoke me a little more.
The result of his program can never be measured – it has had lasting ripple effects that will affect endless generations. When you raise the quality of life for people, the population birth rate goes down. South Africa has enough ground and underground water to support a population of 60 million people. The current census has the population at 48 million – however, this does not include the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants - there is no accurate census. Many coastal villages are now installing desalination plants to cope with water shortages in droughts.
When you live on the African continent the one thing you understand in your bones is the importance of water. If you have ever looked into the huge hungry and starving eyes of a small child, if you have ever seen a herd of elephants dying around a dwindling trickle of water during a drought with the rest of the veld littered with rotting corpses and gorging vultures… if you’ve seen acres of maize dried up and brown on the land, just before the cobs have ripened, then you really understand the meaning of water. Twenty six thousand children under the age of 5 will die today before you go to bed tonight because the standard of living of their parents cannot support life.
Unless the literacy rate is improved, which is one of the indicators of quality of life, the population growth rate outstrips the resources of water. Sandy’s program appealed to white farmers to send their black servants for cheap training in how to train the other farm laborers in literacy. I remember going to these farm schools myself – it was a special treat on Saturdays when I was not working to go and teach them knitting or literacy myself – the children sit in absolute silence, hungry, grateful, devoted to learning. There is no boredom, no sense of entitlement, no sassing. Just hungry bellies and hungry eyes in front of you absorbing everything you give as if their lives depend on it – and it does.
There were several principles in this program that made it successful where others failed:
Firstly, it came from this man’s heart and soul, from an awakening of love born of deep suffering – not from his ego that wanted glory, self importance, fame, acclaim or to feel good for himself. Because he was not putting himself in a one up position of superiority, he did not patronize or treat people with the usual condescending paternalism of imperialism and colonialism. People sense this immediately. They sense the authenticity and humility and quiet confidence he exuded. They sensed that he saw himself as their brother, as one of them despite his color.
Secondly, he met the need of the people – he listened to their expressed need as a community. He was interested in understanding them. He did not decide what he thought they needed and then imposed it on them. He understood the importance of community and when community leaders came forward he gave them what they needed to take back to their community to teach with the same attitude and love and sense of devotion. Listening heals. This was the basic premise of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. When people tell their stories and others listen, really listen without doing anything, healing happens, forgiveness happens, reconciliation happens, community is preserved.
Thirdly, they had to pay and be invested in their training, if not with money with pay back in labor. Nothing is for nothing. He knew that limits and expectations are respecting of other people and preserves their dignity. Everyone has something to give. To not know that, is to not recognize their divinity, but to start the objectifying of others that leads to seeing each other as cockroaches and being able to exterminate others - as happened in Rwanda.
Recently I read Jacqueline Novogratz’s book the Blue Sweater on Social Capitalism. She is the founder and CEO of Acumen Fund (which is a non profit venture capital firm for the poor that invests in sustainable enterprises bringing healthcare, safe water, alternative energy and housing to the poor in the developing world. The book is about her story of doing aid work in Uganda and Rwanda and learning these principles as a young woman – today her organization is one of the largest, if not largest philanthropic organizations in the world, based on these principles. Philanthropy is not charity. Charity comes from the head, true altruism comes from deep understanding, a broken heart, from knowing suffering, from connection to others, from understanding our interconnection to all living beings on the planet – knowing them as yourself.
Devotion does not have to be to a huge cause. Recently I fell in love with two little chipmunks that have taken up residence in my back yard. For the last two months I have been throwing them nuts – first further away and then closer and closer to the back door, until they would come and put their little feet on the glass door and peer in wondering when their food would appear. I started kneeling, completely quietly and still, in the cold by the back door with a pecan in my hand. Last week one of them came and took it from my fingers – now he is tame. My grandchildren might never know the joy of raising an orphaned monkey, the utter delight of living with a warthog, pick up a baby lion, or take their pet mongoose to school, but they will enjoy holy communion with these little chipmunks and come to know and love all wild things that can be tamed by love and devotion.
This kind of love exists in this community. I do not know all of you, but I do know a little about some of you. I recognize a heart of devotion – it shines through the eyes, it is reflected in the passion of your voices, the joy in your hearts, the intensity of purpose. I recognize those who are not afraid to have their hearts broken in the service of life. Most recently I recognized these qualities in Catherine as she told me about her knitting project of teddy bears for Aids orphans in Africa…. If she does nothing else in her life, these teddy bears will change the world… because they come from a loving heart that reaches out to her brothers and sisters and understands the interconnectedness of us all. I recognize it in the passion to produce a little booklet called …. Only a soul awakened understands dance. It is in the voices of women gathering to sing to the dying. I recognize it in the enthusiasm and dedication of young people like Amanda, Kayla and Sam. I recognize it in recognition of beauty and harmony in the study of Feng Shui and the utter joy of a trip to China acting as an ambassador and bridge between lands – truly the work of the soul. I recognized it in the voice of my nephew when at 16 we were on vacation in Zululand and he said watching little kids playing, “Aunty Lyn they should make merry go rounds for the kids to play on and make the children’s play be the energy that pumps the water out of the wells. I stopped and looked at him in astonishment – his eyes lit up – he was so excited. Today he travels to rural areas all over Africa installing playground pumps, funded by Bill Clinton.
Find what awakens devotion in your hearts – fall in love with a person or as many people as you can that embody the qualities and principles that you want to live and grow into. Fall in love with an idea, and devote yourselves to a something that comes alive in your heart and soul. To do so is to fall in love with yourself, to awaken to the calling of you heart and follow your bliss and live a life of devotion.
And finally I want to mention someone else I am in love with – the nobel peace laureate, Wangarii Matthai, who is re-creating her country, Kenya, one tree at a time.
She says, “In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now.”
Jacqueline Novogratz says, “You may not be able to make enormous financial gifts – but you can give your heart and your passion and act like global citizens. We have only one world and the future is ours to create if we dare to imagine and awaken together.”:

It’s Not Fair!

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 16:48:10 -0600

I hear this cry often – “It’s not fair...” As I watch my grandchildren bicker over who got the biggest cookie, whine about who got the most attention, who sat nearest to grandma, who got the most Easter eggs - I realized that the whole world seems to be involved in a big debate about who did more, who gave more, who received less, who has been taken advantage of, who got cheated… and everyone feels aggrieved and deprived in some way…. it just sounds more reasonable when the whining and bickering of childhood is replaced by the lofty intellectual debate, rationalization and logic of the adult.
Underneath the cry for fairness is surely still the small, hurt child who sees the world through the lens of their most basic needs for love, attention, value, importance and to be special, not being met. At this age the external “punishments” and “rewards” of life are attributed the meaning of being valued, important, loved and special, or conversely not being loved or valued in some way.
Small children who do not have these needs adequately met feel the pain and hurt of believing they are unloved, not valued and unimportant to the grown-ups in their lives. They have not yet developed an intrinsic and aware sense of value, nor do not know themselves yet as loving beings. And without this knowledge, they seek proof – often the symbolic proof of getting as much as the next person, not having to do more than the next person, an insistence that everything is “fair,” according to their definition of what this looks like - and all this leads to the grown up version of bickering and whining, which is conflict and war.
At a certain stage in life, if we do our inner work of becoming aware of the unmet needs of our childhood that left us feeling hurt, shamed, frightened, we willingly give up the need to be loved, to be special, to be valued - and it is easy because we become aware of our intrinsic worth and need no external proof any more. We become aware that we are love, and so no longer need proof of this either. Then basic needs are superceded by the need to be of service to the world. When we shift in consciousness, we seek not so much to get but to give. The old wounds are no longer activated when life is “not fair.” We no longer insist on the world being “fair,” as proof of our value. We give up our comparisons, our self entitlement and our control.
The lower order needs are all about getting, the higher order needs for creativity, meaning, service are about giving out of the fullness of knowing who we really are… a never ending conduit of loving energy that seeks to meet the needs of suffering people.
And these needs are not met through external acts of charity, they are met by our loving presence, listening to the pain and empowering people to meet their own needs, heal their own wounds, find their own dignity, discover love in their own hearts. When this happens, comparisons stop, we feel joy at another’s success, happily take on an extra load, feel inner peace and this translates outwards into endless acts of love.
Because we ourselves no longer need external proof of our worth we no longer seek to primarily “give” things to people to help them feel internally better. We are more willing to do what we did for ourselves – listen deeply, lovingly, respectfully and help them find inner resources to find creative solutions.

An ancient Buddhist parable talks of a young Zen monk who asked his teacher what the difference is between heaven and hell.
His teacher replied, “Both heaven and hell have a huge dining hall with a steaming vat of noodle soup at the center. The soup smells delicious and everyone has equal access to the soup. The strange thing is that each person has to eat this soup with four feet long chopsticks.
The young monk asked, “So what is the difference, everything is equal and fair?’
The teacher replied, “Yes, they appear to be the same, but heaven and hell is within – it all depends on perspective and attitude and on how the diners eat their soup.”
“I don’t understand – how is that?” asked the student.
“In hell, everyone starves because no matter how hard they try, they can’t get the noodles into their mouths with their long chopsticks. In heaven, each diner feeds the person sitting across from them at the dining room table. Everyone is happy and full.”

So the challenge for this month:
• Notice the ways in which you insist on the externals of life being “fair” - recognize it isn’t and it never will be. Someone will always get a bigger cookie than you.
• Notice how you want it to be fair as a tactic to alleviate the inner pain of believing yourself “less than” in some way.
• Sit in meditation with this pain and belief and recognize where it comes from with compassion and understanding for yourself. Feel it fully and then release it.
• Think about the true injustices of the world, where the most basic needs of humanity are not met – for food, water, shelter and safety, for love, belonging, value and worth. Remember just one statistic – 22 000 children under the age of 5 will die in the world today from starvation. They will not live to know how unfair life can be.
• Are you willing to be present to suffering and give of yourself? Are you willing to meet the real needs of others by listening and being present to their pain and fear, shame and anger, rather than focusing on what is “not fair” in your life?
• Are you willing to shift from charity and giving handouts to being fully present and caring?
• Can you shift to being present to yourself instead of giving yourself everything you think you “deserve” because life does not feel fair.
• Can you make this inner switch in focus yet? Can you commit to working on making the shift?
• When others complain about things not being fair, or exhibit a sense of entitlement, can you recognize the childhood pain they still carry within with compassion?

World peace depends on it.

© Lyndall Johnson February 2011