Archive for April, 2010
The Giving Hearts: Time to Give Telecall
By Meghan McChesney Gilroy
- Monday, April 26th, 2010
The Giving Hearts
The greater world has been penetrating my consciousness lately in a most visceral way.
Volcanoes in Iceland. Earthquakes in Haiti, Peru, California, China, Tibet. I can feel our Mother Earth rumbling, releasing energy and stress.
Lack of clean water in Africa. Food banks in LA. Books needed to increase literacy in Appalachia. The demands out there are numerous. Tears fall down my cheeks as I imagine being a mother with any one of those needs.
Over the past year, like so many others, our income has decreased. While it has made a moderate impact on our lifestyle, we’ve mostly felt the contraction in our lives as a form of deflation. We lost a little faith in our power to create our dreams.
And yet when I turn on my tap, clean clear water flows out abundantly.
Our family has plenty of food to eat. Anything we can long for can usually be bought from our local Whole Foods or one of the many nearby restaurants.
Did you know that lower income communities have 1 book per 300 homes? Bodhi, our three year old, has nearly 300 books on his shelves and can access thousands more at our local library.
When I enter a space of lack – what I don’t have – or limitation – what I’m not seemingly capable of manifesting right now, my energy tightens. My ability to adopt a broader vision and see beyond my own challenges shrinks.
Have you also been experiencing this kind of constriction?
Yet as soon as I lift my head up and take a look around me, I see abundance everywhere. In the trees that are blossoming. In the friend who shares childcare with me. In the extra bit of money that unexpectedly appears.
As soon as I have an ounce of gratitude for the many moments I am blessed to spend with a healthy husband and child, I start to expand. I open to life, to possibility.
Any time I give from my heart, I receive so much in return. We all have heard the biblical expression “It’s better to give than to receive.” Scientists are now proving why this is so. They’ve discovered that our limbic brains cannot distinguish time and space, giver or receiver. So when we give of ourselves, our limbic brain also receives what we have given.
So when we give, we are also receiving. Now we are being called to give from our hearts.
My husband Jamie and I have a long-standing dream to be philanthropists. That sounds so lofty yet we have every intent of making it so.
For us, it starts with taking responsibility for how we energetically contribute to the world. Are we sending out fear, constriction, or frustration? Can we contribute acceptance, expansion, kind words, and infinite possibility?
Can we be financially responsible for ourselves and also make a conscious choice to help others?
Can we share some of our fortune and abundance; whether it’s through a blog, a free class, a donation, or volunteering our time?
Over the past three years Jamie & I have been focused on raising our toddler, running two businesses, writing books, and living a full life. Now we’re ready to lift our heads up once again and send out energy, into our bodies, into our own dream, and into the world at large.
I have no doubt that in the process we will reinvigorate the power to create our dreams – only this time our dream will be even more expansive. It includes not just our own family, or even our own spiritual community, but also the greater world at large.
Won’t you join us?
The Giving Hearts is a community of individuals who believes in the power of restoring, rejuvenating, and reinvigorating ourselves so that we have an abundance of energy to send out into our world.
Jamie and Meghan Gilroy, Master Teachers, lead these monthly teleclasses that are filled with heightened awareness and a high vibration of energy. From this space, we then direct our energy to those in need, particularly Mother Earth.
The call is by donation and 50% of the income will be donated to non-profits that support the wellbeing of humanity and the Earth. Invite friends, give what you can, and feel the benefits of giving and receiving.
Telecall Dates, all at 8:30pm: Thu, May 20th, Thu, June 17th, Thu, July 15th
Call: 218-486-1600 Enter PIN 920454
Donations are on the honor system.
HOW TO DONATE: You can donate through PayPal or mailing a check to “Meghan Gilroy” Life MasteryPrograms, PO Box 261, Marblehead, MA 01945.
How to Respond to BIG Emotion
By Meghan McChesney Gilroy
- Saturday, April 17th, 2010
I consider myself to be fairly competent when faced with big emotion. After all, I teach others how to accept and clear their emotion – particularly disturbing, uncomfortable ones. So I have been present and centered in the midst of some epic emotional releases.
Yet when my almost three-year old, Bodhi, awoke from a nap wailing uncontrollably, I watched myself react to Bo’s big emotion in all the ways that I used to before I had awareness: with judgment, by trying to fix it, distract him from it, and run from it. But when I “awoke” from my old reactions and squarely faced Bodhi’s distress, it transformed in just a few deep breaths.
Bodhi and I rarely nap together, bodies snuggled close. The preciousness of naptime is usually reserved for plowing through as much work as possible. Yet on a cold, wet, March afternoon after a busy week, I couldn’t resist burrowing under the flannel sheets with Bodhi.
The sweetness of this rare resting time abruptly ended when Bodhi awoke sobbing in my ear. As I came back from my deep slumber, my first reaction was annoyance. This is not a pleasant way to wake up!
But as soon as I had my wits about me, I picked Bo up and drew him in close; A surefire way to calm him down. But his eyes remained squeezed shut and tears kept streaming down his face.
Next I started rocking him; another tactic that usually works. But no dice. After a few more minutes of this uncharacteristic upset, my mind began searching for a cause. Was he hungry? Did he have a bad dream? What he sick? I tried gently asking him questions, but he was too upset for me to understand his replies.
As one part of me was experiencing the full force of his emotion and reacting to it, another more aware aspect of me was witnessing my reactions. Oh look! You love him and truly care for him, but mostly you just want this to stop. You are trying to fix him and his emotion.
Even with this awareness, I watched myself promptly get up and carry him down to our kitchen – thinking a change of scene might soothe him and a snack would distract him. Look at you trying to use food to divert the emotion. Not a good pattern!
Meanwhile Bo wailed, “Noooo Mama!!!!!”
At a loss, I began walking around our house. I carried Bodhi into my office and sat down in the chair I usually process clients in. Through his gulping sobs, he cried out, “No! I… don’t… want… here!”
While I normally feel calm in the presence of my client’s emotion, my own child’s distress was tugging at my heartstrings. I briefly considered leaving him in the chair until he calmed down. One side of me just wanted to get away from the intensity of his emotional energy. Once again that inner voice spoke, How would you feel if someone you loved and trusted walked away from you when you were in emotional distress?
So I took a deep breath and we left the room. I tried heading back upstairs – more wailing. Sitting on the stairs – still more crying.
Finally, I sat down on our couch and wrapped him in a soft, thick, heavy blanket, hugging him to my chest. He struggled against me, but I gently covered all but a tiny window over his head so I could see his face and he could see mine. I invited myself to breathe more deeply.
As I did, I felt Bo’s body relax. He took a long, shuddering breath and for the first time in twenty minutes (that felt like an eternity), his crying subsided. I continued to sit and breathe. Every few minutes, he would inhale and exhale in deeper gulps. He began to calm down.
After a few more minutes, his head poked out of the covers. “Mama?” he asked sweetly, “Can I have some dinner, then make a car show?” I smiled at this mercurial child, grateful that the thunderstorm had passed. “Yes, of course.” I replied. With that, Bodhi hopped up and ran off to play.
I took several more deep breaths, amazed, shaken, and in awe. I witnessed all my old reactions to uncomfortable emotion and appreciated my willingness to finally stop. Sit. Be still. Breathe.
Later that night, I asked Bodhi if he knew why he had awoken from his nap so upset. He looked at me momentarily and shrugged, unconcerned – then went back to his car show. I fully let go of trying to figure it out, and finally just accepted the big e-motion for what it is: energy in motion that passed through his body.
By letting go of trying to figure out the reason, by taking the action to accept Bodhi’s emotion rather than stop or resist it, together we allowed that energy to clear and Bodhi returned to his usual happy state.
And isn’t that what all of us desire? To be happy and free from suffering?
When we have the courage to sit in the face of disturbing emotion – no matter how big or subtle, no matter where it came from or why it is here, we gift ourselves with the energy of self-acceptance. That energy is healing. And it frees us from our suffering. It allows the hurt to pass through us.
Time and time again, I have the opportunity to bear witness to the power of consciously choosing to allow emotion to move through the body – whether it’s through myself, a client, or Bodhi. And I know for certain that when we make the choice to embrace our emotion fully, we can enter a state of balance and happiness just as Bodhi did.
And that is true freedom.
Spring Equinox: Moving Energy with the Flow of Life
By Ellen Luksch
- Thursday, April 1st, 2010
The Spring Equinox marks the time of year when the light and the darkness are in equal balance. The light is growing in our Northern Hemisphere as the energy is rising in the earth, the plants, the four-leggeds and us humans. As the energy rises, it brings us out of our winter hibernation and the deep places we’ve been exploring in our dreams. It is the time when the inspirations and energies that have been gestating over the colder months get birthed into their beginning form. The energy also pushes against the stuck places in our physical and emotional bodies. Life is on the move and the obstacles it finds will feel the pressure. Meeting that pressure with our awareness, acceptance and breath make the transition periods of the seasons smoother.
At Dream of the Heart, we enjoyed a Dreaming weekend together during the Equinox in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was a gorgeous weekend of sunshine and deep blue skies. We spent the time exploring the fullness of our connection to each other and to nature; humans engaged in the process of recovering their authentic awareness and expression. We played with our awareness of ourselves as living fields of energy and presence.
We watched the sun rise on the first day of spring with eyes and bodies open to the experience. We felt that sun deep in our cells and our body memories. Later, each of us dreamed into the places where we trusted the flow of life and into those places where we still entertained doubt and dreamt the stuck feelings and experiences that reflected that doubt. Then we experimented! In the evening session, one person at a time would take their place in the middle of the circle, name their desire to move whatever stuck energy they had encountered and ask the group for its support. The circle in turn, would take that particular issue and dream into how it expressed itself in their life. The group practiced allowing each emotion or energy in the moment to be felt, breathed into and moved through the field of their heart (our center of compassionate awareness). One person expressed how they desired to move their fear in a particular situation and so we would all notice, accept and move our own experience of fear. The results were powerful. Everyone experienced a deeper connection to each other, to their own dreaming mind and to their acceptance of the emotional energy flowing through them. The felt sense of our connection to Life itself was enhanced through the power of combined intent. Many people felt a willingness to step more fully into their heart’s desire in the moment and express with clarity all they felt. Many discovered an awareness of feeling and connection outside the usual limitations their mind’s expectations. We all understood with more certainty that the field we create with our thoughts and emotions has a direct and palpable effect on our experience and the experience of those around us.
Spring met a willingness to allow, express and move closer to our heart’s full expression that weekend. At the end of our time together, we gathered outside in the sun on the warming earth and allowed our bodies to lead us in whatever way they felt led to express themselves and to move the energy we had played in all weekend once more. It was a delightful celebration of the body leading the mind and singing its freedom. Joyful humans feeling, expressing, releasing and moving with the flow of life!
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