Thoughts

The whole problem of mindfulness

January 13, 2013 — 2 comments

Is that it's boring. Well, at least to the egoic mind, anyway. The IDEA of it is thrilling. The ego LOVES the idea -- how could it not? It's so lofty and yet so sensible at the same time. It clearly would solve the world's problems.

But once you get past the abstract stuff, it's about paying attention to the boring details - anything from washing your hands to listening to your own breathing - until they aren't boring anymore.

This is easy when you're in emotional pain and boring details are like a warm beach you want to lie face down on while the turbulent sea of your unmanageable life churns at the drag marks you've left in the sand. But when life is pretty good and things are fun and you're having, as described in A Course In Miracles, "a happy dream", there's certainly less motivation to put down that newspaper or stop thinking about that to-do-list or even to stop congratulating yourself on the number of minutes you've been working out this time.

Mindfulness, as I understand it, can be lived every minute of every day of your entire life. But it takes enormous effort. At first, anyway. And then it becomes second nature. I hope. What inspired me to create the Remindfulness app was something Eckhart Tolle said. Not sure where - could have been "The Power of Now", or "A New Earth" or a few years ago when I heard him speak to a crowd of 2000 people at the conference center in Sydney. He said something like, 'instead of sitting in perfect meditation for two hours and then going out into the world and living the rest of your day egoically (is that a word? my spell check says no...) it's far, far better in terms of your spiritual development to return to the present moment for even just a few seconds, multiple times throughout your day'.

That really hit home with me.

That, and this second thing which I also believe Tolle said which was that we need to stop thinking of enlightenment as something to be attained at some future time. That the truth was we are all, most of us, enlightened for at least a second or two each day. The key is to expand on that, make those seconds longer and happen more frequently.

Cool!

So, cut to a few years later and a head full of great spiritual concepts and I am not sure I have expanded on those seconds of enlightened mindfulness a great deal. Well, I just keep forgetting to! Life is so...busy and that "to do" is just too damn sexy. But what if this smartphone I spend so much time on could help me instead of distracting me?

Ta-da!

During a meditation at a find-your-true-groove-in-life workshop/retreat run by the gifted Naomi Nonu-Carling (called "From Mainstream to Your Stream") the idea for the app was handed to me in its entirety - the name even coming in a moment later like I'd ordered it from some kind of quantum vending machine.

I'd never made an app before. I was a screenwriter, not a programmer. "Ding" the quantum vending machine plopped out a lead. One of the other participants in the workshop had a geography teacher daughter who had just lost her app-ginity creating a test-study app for students and I could tap her for guidance.

Well, it's been a long and wildly fun process making this app a reality. But it's also been challenging - to my skills, my patience -- and my purpose in even creating it! Imagine how many times I was stewing frustration over a bug that STILL hadn't been fixed...when one of my lovingly crafted reminders came popping up on my phone's screen instructing me to feel gratitude or send Love light to someone I was angry with. Grrrr. LOL. I had the thing set to deliver them every 5 minutes for most of the testing phase of development, in order to more quickly move through the process. It was sometimes HILARIOUSLY ironic, the contrast between what was on my screen and what was in my mind.

I found myself often longing to have the app DONE so I could just be the user and enjoy it the way I had always intended. It did not escape me that this was the ULTIMATE irony! Those challenging times are exactly what the app was designed to help keep me mindful through. I have to admit I often failed the (let's not call it a test...) the opportunity that the app presented to float mindfully through those times. Instead, I'd just promise myself that when the app was done...

Okay, so it's done. And I love it. And I'm proud of it. And now I have to use it - really use it - no more putting off the practices when they come up. I'm starting with 5 random reminders per day and random sounds. Wish me luck - and I'll see you back here to report how it's going! Highest and best (trying), Naomi

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My interest in the unseen forces began early...

March 3, 2013 — 1 comment

Okay so this isn't the post I promised you on Tapping - or the post I promised myself on my latest adventures in mindfulness...

Those are still coming, I promise (us) :-)

In January I was approached about doing a bit for February's Women In Horror Month, in celebration of and support of women writing for the horror genre. The event's coordinator couldn't have been nicer and I was happy to contribute. Especially when she said one of my episodes of "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" was her favorite. Turns out it's also one of my favorite things I've ever written. In case you're interested in reading my little bit of advice to horror writers, here's the LINK (womeninhorrormonth.tumblr.com).

As I explained when telling WIHM about my app, "it's about mindfulness - the lighter side of my interest in unseen forces". (How cool is it that they added that bit about Remindfulness to their site. Thanks, Women In Horror Month!) If you're a fan of or an aspiring writer of horror, I encourage you to get on their list. I personally think horror is a genre that can only benefit from the addition of feminine perspectives. Am I right about that? I'd love to hear from you.

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My Impatient Ego

April 22, 2013 — 6 comments

So, here I sit waiting for a massive file to upload to Google Drive so I can share it with the developer who is building the Android version of my app. And I couldn't watch that little upload progress bar any longer. Which got me thinking about impatience. Which got me thinking about -- my app. The version that is working, the iOS version. Because it's working SO beautifully that there is nothing to distract me from doing the practices that come up. Nothing except...

Up comes a reminder when I'm in the middle of doing something that of course seems very, very important. The other day it was my quarterly taxes. I was making my way through my categories, filling them in, checking my records in one place against my records in another, feeling pretty good about the whole "wow, once I get going, this actually takes so much less time than I think it will" thing...when up came:

"Take 20 deep mindful breaths" accompanied by Kyoto Forest Bell.

Half of me felt delight. I love Kyoto Forest Bell. It's my current favorite. So I made a quick mental note of where I was in my calculations and then took my first breath.

That's when the other half of me whispered, "I hope I don't lose my place and have to backtrack too far"

Zen half: Shhh. It's just 20 breaths. 19 actually, because that was the first one.

Crazy egoic busy tax-doing half: I know but what if we did this after we're done with the taxes?

Zen half: Seriously? You're harshing my deep mindful-breath mellow. Relax.

Crazy egoic busy tax-doing half: (silent for 10 seconds, then) I'm just saying -

Zen half: SHHHHH!!!!

Crazy egoic busy tax-doing half: I'm not saying don't DO it, I'm just saying do it in half an hour when we're done.

Zen half: No. The point is to do it when it comes up.

Crazy egoic busy tax-doing half: Yes, in theory. But this is taxes and they're so close to being done and then we can relax and really be present.

Zen half: You so don't get it. And you've made me lose count.

Crazy egoic busy tax-doing half: See? That's what I mean. You can't concentrate anyway. Just make a mental note to take the remaining whatever number of breaths when everything's finished. You can even start over. For that matter you can do 40 breaths! Or make it 50. Wow. How does that sound? Talk about a deal. You'll get MORE mindfulness that way. Right? Doesn't that make sense?

Zen half: Well...no! No, no bargains like that! It has to be NOW. This is the NOW, this is when it has to happen!

Crazy egoic busy tax-doing half: Fine! You were at 10 or something. Knock yourself out.

Zen half: It wasn't 10 it was 15 or something! Nice try. You know what, I'm going to start over.

Crazy egoic busy tax-doing half: What?? No-

Zen half: And YOU, you're going to ZIP IT.

Crazy egoic busy tax-doing half: Really? Zip it? Really? Gee, sounds a lot like something ego would say.

Zen half: Not listening...Two...Three...Four....

Crazy egoic busy tax-doing half: Maybe you haven't made any progress at all.

Zen half: Five...Six...Seven....

Crazy egoic busy tax-doing half: Any progress you have made is just ego creating itself out of a sense of smug accomplishment.

Zen half: Eight...Nine....

Crazy egoic busy tax-doing half: Remember when you read that? Who said that? Was it Regina?

Zen half: Ten...Eleven...

Crazy egoic busy tax-doing half: What if you get audited someday? Are you sure the receipts and everything will make sense looking back on them way down the track?

Zen half: Twelve...Thirteen...Fourteen....

Crazy egoic busy tax-doing half: I feel like I'm going to scream from boredom.

Zen half: Fifteen...Sixteen...Seventeen...

Crazy egoic busy tax-doing half: Taxes!!!!!

Zen half: Eighteen...Nineteen...

Crazy egoic busy tax-doing half: Hey, look - someone just replied to that Facebook update I did.

Zen half: Tw- Really? Who?

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Hours passing by

May 20, 2013 — 4 comments

It's after 11pm - way past my bedtime - but I won't be going anywhere near my mattress until I've checked to make sure my first Screenflow upload has gone well!

Having said that, I have been working all day, so there's a chance I could fall face down on my desk and wake up here at about 3am..

In which case you will see this LIVE and ONLINE before I do: The demo video for Remindfulness (youtu.be/17fmY5RZ7IM) -- at long last! Please be sure to leave a comment under the video!

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Dreaming of Eckhart

May 30, 2013 — 4 comments

It's not often that I have a dream that is as completely transparent as the one I had last night in which I had a chance to sit down and talk for hours with Eckhart Tolle.

By transparent, I mean that the dream made absolute emotional and logical sense in hindsight. Usually, my dreams are a bit harder to figure out - or bits of the dream seem relevant to my current waking life but other bits seem rather stuck on as though my subconscious, having succeeded in assembling the important info, had then just tossed in some random crap filler in a big hurry to get the dream shipped.

Okay, so here's the dream. I was somewhere (semi-random - it was, still, a dream afterall) that was in any case away from home. As I remember it now, it was vaguely some sort of restaurant with outside cafe tables on the sidewalk. I was sitting at one of these tables when I spotted Eckhart Tolle approaching, looking tired. I was galvanized immediately into better posture. Tolle is one of my favorite teachers and I'd only seen him from afar - on TV or online and once on stage when he came to Sydney and spoke at the convention center in front of 2000 of us. Though I'd arrived early enough to get a front row seat that time, I'd certainly never had the chance to talk to him. Would this be that chance?

To my absolute delight, he came right to my table and asked if he could sit down, explaining that he'd just come from an interview with Oprah and was walking back to his hotel but didn't realize how far it was. Could he please have one of the empty chairs to rest for a moment before continuing on?

Of course I jumped up to pull one out for him, surprised - but not surprised - that he preferred one of the empty chairs at my small table over an empty table of his own. This man's message is Oneness. Why would he choose to sit alone?

A moment later he was sitting, smiling warmly at me, his umbrella and briefcase settled by his chair, shoulders relaxing, relieved to be off his feet. I think he sensed my eagerness to talk to him because, without prompting, he said, "I'm not in a big hurry to be anywhere." I felt immediately comfortable. He was very approachable and humble and rumpled. I didn't know where to start but I wanted to keep him there as long as possible so I jumped up to find a waitress and order him a tea.

That was the start of the frenzied activity.

Once I had her attention at the wait station, I called over to him, "What kind of tea?"

"Anything is fine," he laughed.

My mind swam. What kind? What kind? "Green. No, wait - do you have herbal teas?" Eventually I settled on jasmine, for some reason, and raced back to the table. My heart was pounding. Eckhart looked just as relaxed as ever, his hands folded on the table. "Do you have anything on your mind, which you would like to discuss?" he asked.

Did I! I wanted to talk about his books, his interviews, his teaching, his experience of living in Vancouver, the city I grew up in -- my app! I wanted to tell him about my app and how he'd inspired it! I wanted to ask him if he'd try it and comment on it. An endorsement from him would be invaluable and go a long way in helping me get the word out about it. And I wanted his approval, too. I wanted to be told how good I was for creating it --

There was no WAY he was going to sit there long enough for all of this, was there? In a bit of a proactive panic, I got the idea of giving him my business card so that we'd be able to continue any conversation beyond the space of time he would be able to sit at this cafe with me.

And thus began The Search For A Business Card that took up most of the dream. I looked in my purse - not just the wallet but every pocket and compartment of the purse itself, several times, unable to believe my bad luck at not having a card on me. What an idiot!, I chided myself. But I couldn't give up. Maybe there was one in my car...

Throughout all this, I kept looking back at the table, waving to let him know it was okay, that any second now I would find a card. First he had his tea, then he was halfway through his tea, then his cup was empty. Yet, still he sat there patiently, never losing the kind smile on his face as I tore the planet apart looking for a f***ing business card. When I realized he was waiting for me (and in the dream about an hour had passed at this point), I changed my tack. "Giving up on the card!" I decided and turned instead to the task of finding a piece of paper to simply write my name and contact details on.

I'll spare you the search for a piece of paper...and equally epic search for a pen...and jump to the outrageous series of attempts at writing down my name and phone number. My hand shaking uncontrollably by this time, the result of my panic, I was absolutely incapable of either writing legibly or simply spelling my own name. Soon, the miraculously procured paper was so obliterated with appalled, frustrated scratch-outs that I had to find another one.

It was at the end of the hunt for this second piece of paper that a friend of mine appeared (spontaneously, as friends often do in dreams), and remembered she had a business card of mine somewhere in her purse.

While I waited, panting, for her to dig it out, I saw Eckhart get up and stretch. He had to go.

Ta-da! She handed me the scuffed up, dog-eared card - not the EFT practitioner Freedom Techniques card with the pretty logo but one of my old screenwriter ones. I flinched that the card I had to give Tolle wasn't truly representative of who I was now in my more spiritual career (would he still want to contact me later?) but at least the phone number was the same.

Sweaty, out of breath and frustrated, I handed him the card just in time before he stepped into the taxi he'd called because he'd spent all his walking home time waiting alone at the cafe table for me to get my sh*t together.

He smiled as he took the card. "Please, please call me," I said. "I really, so badly want to talk to you."

"That is fine," he smiled. And got in. And drove away.

And it wasn't until I was standing there watching the taxi drive off that it hit me like a cyclone what I had done.

It was the perfect message at the perfect time.

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How To Pop Your Cork

June 13, 2013 — 3 comments

Have you ever come to a place in your journey where you feel sort of stuck and, after existing that way for a while, possibly using distraction to avoid facing why you're stuck, it hits you to ask for help? This happened to me recently. When it hit me to ask for help, it felt like the most natural solution in the world and, as always, made me marvel at the fact I don't automatically think to do so every time I'm in that place.

I don't, personally, think it matters where you direct your request for help. I think all that matters is you feel your sincere desire to be given help - along with at least a shred of faith that the help will come. I guess the reason it surprises me that I am still capable of floundering around, feeling stuck, is that I KNOW from experience that all I have to do is ask for a leg up, or a hand out, or a bit of guidance and magical things will start to happen!

This time was true to form.

What I was feeling stuck about was how my spiritual journey and my desire to invite others to join me (I like group activities!), aligned with my desired career path of teaching others to Tap away their suffering. It seemed the two didn't really go together. I mean, if I really believe the spiritual goal is Oneness, mind-less-ness, a transcendence of belief in the illusion of the material world -- then how does busying myself helping others change their material reality from painful to less painful have any real value?

Like I said, all I had to do was ask. I put the question to the Universe (God, guides, angels, enlightened masters - the whole peanut gallery - why not poll everyone?) and sure enough the answers began to roll in.

I won't try to remember all the little ah-ha moments that have arrived over the past few days since I lobbed the request into the ether, or where they arrived from, though at some point I think it might be of value to do so, but I want to tell you about the biggest and most recent one. It rolled in two nights ago, on the wings of one of the Hay House World Summit audios (I really should become an affiliate sponsor so I can make money if you get interested and buy the DVDs from this mention :-) -- the one with Esther Hicks.

I was sorry to have missed it the first time around so when an invitation to access all 100 audios in a special 24 hour free opportunity arrived in my inbox, I cleared my schedule to hear Esther, over all the others.

I love listening to Esther and the Abraham material. It just feels good to me. So, I was enjoying the audio very much when I noticed that I had just missed a portion because something happening outside or on my screen had taken my full attention away. I stopped and scrolled back a few minutes to replay. Again I got distracted...Which told me THIS WAS PROBABLY IMPORTANT. When my ego works that hard to prevent me from hearing something, I can assume nothing else!

On the third replay, blocking out all distraction and really listening, I finally heard and understood the best answer of all to my lingering question.

Abraham, via Esther, said that we are not here in this material 3D plane to GROW as so many believe...we are here to EXPAND IN JOY. Because joy raises our vibration and the higher our vibration, the more beautifully we can co-create our experience of this material reality -- and the more beautiful, the higher our vibration is -- and the higher our vibration is, the closer to Oneness and God we are. Here. Now. Not down the road in some place called Heaven.

S/He went on to say that our NATURAL STATE is that of a very high vibration, the way a cork naturally bobs on the surface of water. Negative emotions pull down on the cork, dragging it under the surface. When we release those negative emotions, the cork pops up naturally and with great energy to its proper place. She then went on to say that one of the best ways to release these negative emotions is to quiet the mind! She said the moment we empty the mind of thoughts, our vibration POPS UP to bob on the surface where it belongs - where our power is, where our effectiveness at reflecting and expanding Love is. We don't have to DO anything else! Isn't that amazing??? I loved it and felt myself respond with a huge internal "YES". I hadn't consciously known this. But, clearly, I had known it in my Higher mind, enough to recognize the truth of it the second I heard it.

And it was an answer to my question.

My spiritual quest and my chosen career are indeed aligned. If I can help others while I myself strive to get better at mindfulness -- and I can also show others the way, through acupoint tapping, to dissolve the negative emotions being held in their bodies, then I am working, in two complimentary ways, towards the aligned goal of raising vibrations and doing my little part in the Oneness movement.

Ah-ha...and ahhhhh.....

Now, will I remember to ask for help next time I feel stuck? Oh, who really knows! But maybe if I keep my cork unburdened and bobbing happily, I'll be more likely to think of it a lot faster :-)

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The Hot-Buttered Smell of Mindfulness

July 25, 2013 — 4 comments

The first audiences treated to a cinematic experience, back in the late 1800's, were shown - on a screen about the size of a smallish living room window - grainy, black and white silent film of a train coming straight at them.

Some fainted. Some dove out of the way. All screamed. All believed.

Their minds were applying "old rules" to the visual information: If it's photographically real, and it's moving, and its perspective remains consistent, it's REAL. If it's a train and it's moving towards us at great speed, we're in REAL DANGER. Nowdays, we can sit in an Omimax auditorium with THX surround-sound, watching a 3D movie crafted to land us in the middle of the heart-pounding action or fly us through a fantasy forest on a distant planet in the future -- and though we're jumping with each jarring surprise or feeling the euphoria of flight, we never really forget that it's NOT REAL.

What's happening onscreen, if it's engaging emotionally and visually, might have us rapt but if a phone call comes from the babysitter we don't hesitate to answer it because THAT'S REAL and MORE IMPORTANT.

I imagine mindfulness is like this.

Most of us are like the early film audiences, so bedazzled by what our eyes are telling us in this very moment that we are capable, not only of forgetting we got here by walking into a cinema ten minutes ago, but that what we are seeing doesn't REALLY look that convincing.

We're staring at the screen, jaws slack, minds blown.

The ones who know it's just a movie - and not a very good one at that - can't even get through to us. Though they try...

Some of us are watching a movie called "Enlightened Me", I think. This is the one I've caught myself watching. In my version, it stars me being all deep and spiritual and there's this aspect that involves most others NOT being all deep and spiritual.

But it's still a movie. It still isn't REAL.

At least, this is what I've started to suspect. I'm not yet at the place where I can enjoy this - or any movie - the way the 3D surround sound audience above can: Never really forgetting they're in a movie because they're so media-experienced, yet able to enjoy the roller-coaster ride in all its empathetic glory. I'm truly grateful that I've noticed the glowing red exit signs once or twice. That I've had those moments of "Oh...I SEE... That's just a FILM of a train"

What was it that was different about those moments in which I realized I was in a theater and that REALITY is MORE IMPORTANT?

I was being mindful. I was sitting in stillness. I was concentrating on not concentrating. I was using my mind to outwit my mind, to fake left and go right and grab a fleeting glimpse of the ALL.

In those few and far between moments, the movie ceased to be more than hilarious. Its problems ceased to be more than fascinating little plot twists. Its visuals suddenly looked adorably, forgiveably grainy and hokey. Everyone in the cinema with me was beloved no matter how lost in the movie they were. And the exit door was open, just for a moment, revealing the joyful expanse of ten-billion-times-better awesomeness beyond.

The surprise was it wasn't empty and flat and dull. The surprise was how full and satisfying and EXTRA-DIMENSIONAL it was.

So now, when I remind myself to be mindful, I can remind myself that it's worth it. It's still hard. I still forget. I'm still so captivated by this silly movie called "Separate Me" with all its 'special effects'. But if I can make myself eat this popcorn mindfully, I sometimes notice where I really am.

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It's a good thing time is an illusion...

February 21, 2015 — 0 comments

It's a good thing time is an illusion because a lot of it has gone by since I last updated this blog!

At least, that is, "updated" in terms of typing text into a box on my web site. In terms of writing a blog post in my head while driving or walking or weeding the garden or standing in the shower...

...I do that almost every day.

An art teacher I had in high school once told me, "Never paint in your head. What you finish in there will never make it onto a canvas because there will be no need." His words come to mind as I think of all the blog posts that streamed out of me into the ether and perhaps landed on someone else's site via the collective unconscious creativity matrix we get any kind of art from.

Maybe I can do what Tom Waits does, according to Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk about the nature of the Muse. When he gets given a song while driving or in some otherwise-upredisposed-to-writing-it-down position, he politely asks The Muse to hold that thought until he can get to his notepad. And s/he does. Great TED talk. Check it out.

And while I have you in the mood to check things out, why not take a few minutes for some very funny, thought-provoking provocativeness about spirituality. I love when wisdom comes wrapped in laughs. If you do, too, you'll enjoy this post from a recent discovery of mine, JP Sears... [embedded video: JP Sears, "How to be Ultra Spiritual"]

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