Showing posts with label X. Show all posts
Showing posts with label X. Show all posts

Monday, November 24, 2008

X is for X Marks the Spot

X marks the spot. We hold a picture up at eye level on the wall, then adjust it higher or lower. We then move it laterally, until we instinctively know That's it! So we mark it, nail it, hang it. We step back and savor where and how it wanted to be all along. 

We can do right placement with objects, and we can practice it with ourselves. I moved to San Francisco somehow knowing it was the right environment for who I am and who I'm becoming. We are beings existing in space AND time, so right timing is just as important. I wrote about that some weeks back, that timing is often beyond our control. But we can try. I suspect right placement comes first, having some physical place to show up and say I am here. When we place ourselves well in space and time, with intention, life just opens up.

A friend and I are both redecorating rooms in our respective homes. Getting current by recreating our external places to match our insides. Her touchstone is that the parts and the whole should make her heart sing. This phrase and its accompanying emotions and sensations allow her to check in: Does this material's texture do it? What about that color? This style of furniture? This heart singing is an essential quality to creating a home that feels like it's really hers.  

I'm seeking to create and experience a grounded and uplifted feeling in my new healing space. That means putting in a chair rail, with a darker color below and above it all warm light and possibility. Something soft under foot, no clutter, a gauzy curtain to block out the ugly light well. The room's palette comes together, all with the sense of that grounding and uplifting.  

When placing ourselves well, we take time to check in with ourselves to find what is just right. Like Goldilocks, we assess:  too this, too that, just right. We muddle our way through by trial and error.

But how do we know we've gotten to YES?  More on that next week... 



  


Monday, September 29, 2008

P is for Perception

From my father I inherited the ability to see what's wrong. A pathologist, he spent most of his life in front of a microscope hunting down the cause of diseases. But I was made for the more elusive task of being Medicine and seeing beauty. It takes a lot of practice to choose moment to moment to focus and build on what's right in the world and in myself. 

On a beautiful hike yesterday I watched my mind do its habitual thing. Tree stumps and ugly military bunkers bummed me out, so that I didn't really take in the serene views of the bay and the city and the lovely sailboats. I was too busy imagining horrible things - my cat dead upon our return home, my partner mangled in a bike accident, gloom and doom. Each time I became aware of my tragic daydreams, I physically made an X in the air, a sign to the Universe that I'm not putting any more energy into manifesting those thoughts.

Try it now. Let a worst case scenario come up in your mind's eye. X it out and say 'that doesn't have to happen.' Then imagine something yummy, productive, helpful, ideal. Does it make you smile or laugh? Spend some time with that imagining and mark it with a + plus sign. Say 'thank you' for it already manifesting.

When I'm feeling grateful and open and willing to play, the world opens up with wonders. What lens are you using to perceive your world?