Here’s a question from a reader of last week’s post on How Are You Playing The Scarcity Game?  

How do you implement an anti scarcity campaign when it seems all around is just that. I personally am seeing a reduction in my work and in my work day, I see so much increased poverty, lack of funds/person power, and people falling through the cracks. In the past months, I find myself going numb though my anxiety level is pushed as I feel that there really isn’t enough for all people that I see (professionally and personally). I would so appreciate any insight you may have.…..

What a perfect question to launch into exploring a conversation about what does it mean to be abundant when so much of the world is suffering from not enough? Is it even possible?

How can one be abundant if they’ve lost their job and have no money? How can anyone feel abundant when we’re awash in media messages 24/7 reminding us to be very afraid, the sky is falling?

I consider this to be a topic of critical importance for our time, as where each of us individually and collectively comes down on this subject will determine how we’re going to experience this period of human history and our own individual story within it.

So first, what do we mean by the term, “abundance”? The dictionary defines it as:

1. An extremely plentiful or over sufficient quantity or supply:

2. Over flowing fullness

The standard image of abundance is a cornucopia overflowing with the harvest. The message is “There’s more than enough for everyone. Come, take what you need, there is plenty.” Let that message sink in for a moment. There is plenty.

Consider what is plentiful in your own life.

How about time? Do you experience time as plentiful? Do you have plenty of time to do the things you love? If not, how come?

Everyone has the same amount of time in a day to use as they choose. OK, I know, you’re going to say “But I don’t have much choice about how I use my time. I have to work 8 or more hours a day and that only leaves me 16 left. And I have to try to sleep 8 hours a night, so that only leaves me 8 hours left to get everything else done. And I spend an hour commuting to and from work and 2 more hours shopping for food, bringing it home and preparing it, so when it gets right down to it, I only have 1 or 2 hours/day maximum to spend with my family or go out with my friends or just catch my breath before doing it all over again tomorrow. No, my time is not enough!”

But what if it is? What if exactly what you have is enough? What if you could choose to regard your current life circumstances as enough? Hear me out. Even if you don’t have a job and you’re living in fear, could you change your mind on the very next breath and bring abundant kindness, love and compassion to yourself in the midst of your fear?

Do you have enough kindness and love to nurture yourself and plenty to give to others? If not, how come? Where is it? Did someone take it from you? Or have you closed yourself off and no longer have access to the well of kindness and love within?

It’s extremely challenging to find one’s inner abundant resources much less draw from them when the external world is awash in scarcity. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe these times are the way they are exactly so we’ll ultimately discover, there is no where else to turn but within to find what really matters.

When the external resources have disappeared, can you count on you to be there for you or do you abandon yourself and give your power away to fear? Do you have abundant courage to face difficulties when they arise or are you lacking faith in yourself, compassion for your fellow human beings?

In the end, it’s not about how many “toys” we have when we die or how many vacations we take, or how many pairs of shoes we have in our closet. It’s not about the “things” we amass, even though we can look around and see there are those whose entire lives are devoted to accumulating more “things”.

We can also point to the Enron’s and Bernie Madoff’s of the world and see where the game of greed and self absorption leads. It’s never a happy ending. Look at all the so-called “celebrities”, those in whom our culture invests some false images of plenty. They’re supposed to “have it all”. I wonder if Mel Gibson or Lindsay Lohan are feeling “enough” about now? Did Michael Jackson or Elvis Presley, the most successful recording artists of all time, have enough? Did they feel they were enough?

Obviously, the answer is “no”. There will never be enough “stuff” to fill the hole of lack when we think that something outside of ourselves is the source of love and acceptance.

These times call for a new conversation about what it means to be abundant. We are living in the aftermath of our collective binge on excess. We see where that road has led. The “Inconvenient Truth” we all know is that this way of life is not sustainable. It’s irresponsible to think only of ourselves and pay no mind to the impact of our choices on future generations. The day of reckoning is already at hand. Look no further than right here, right now for the invitation to shift your way of thinking.

Lynne Twist, founder of the Hunger Project, global activist, and author of the best selling book, The Soul of Money, says about the times in which we live:

It’s a difficult time. I don’t deny that.

But it can also be a beautiful time. Because we can move towards thrift rather than accumulation; we can move toward appreciating what we love rather than being afraid of what we’ve lost.

We can focus our attention and intention not on what we’re losing, but on what we already have that’s so valuable and nourishing to us. And we can stop clamoring for more of what we don’t really need and take care of what we have.

This is a time that I think history will look back on and say, “These are the people, this is the generation of humankind, that made the changes that went through a transformation that made the future of life possible. These are the people who had the courage to make profound changes in the way they were thinking–as well as in the way that they were behaving–that gave the future to life itself.”

So, I’m privileged to be living at this time. I’m excited about being the generation that goes through this courageous period.

It’s a gift, it’s a blessing; a tough one, but something that will create the profound transformational change that’s absolutely necessary and required for us to have a future on this planet.”

How’s that for a reframe?  So in answer to the reader’s opening question: this is not an “anti-scarcity campaign”. If our focus is on combating scarcity, we just produce more of it, since the Law of Attraction brings us more of what we focus on.

Five Keys To Claiming Abundance

1) Treasure what you have- Gratitude begets abundance, so count your blessings every day. Not like in a Hallmark card, but seriously, for real. Read Anne Naylor’s wonderful article on Learning To Treasure Yourself. It’s impossible to be fearful or depressed while contemplating what you already have and are grateful for. What are the biggest blessings in your life? Fully acknowledge and appreciate them. We get more of what we’re focused on, so why not focus on what you have instead of what you lack?

2) Give from generosity  - What we share multiplies in the giving, what we hoard shrivels and dies. Do you have enough love to give to those you love and those who need love? Love increases as you give it. So do kindness and compassion. The more you give, the more you have to give. What would the world be like if we were less about getting and more about giving? Remember the story of the Loaves and Fishes when a little boy gave up his five loaves of bread and two fish to feed a crowd of 5000 and everyone got fed? This is a parable intended to teach us about the power of giving from generosity. Giving expands abundance.

3) Stand as the source of abundance- Abundance is who you are. Claim it. You are an infinite possibility unfolding every moment and there is always enough of what you need on every breath. On this breath; know that nothing is missing. On this breath; know that all is well. On this breath, know that you are loved. On this breath, know; and know that you know, that you are enough. Know that the source of your supply is infinite and that you always have access to it. Know there is nothing to fear.

4) Choose what you have- No matter what it is, choose it. You already have it. Lost your job? Choose it. Don’t have any money? Choose it. And then, in the fact of all “that”… Declare yourself enough. Declare your life enough. Declare yourself as creative, resourceful and courageous enough to come through these times with flying colors, not in spite of your circumstances, but because of them. Choose to have what you have and make it work to your benefit and to the benefit of others.

5) Bless those who are afraid- Breathe in love, breathe out fear. Pass it on. Become an infectious agent. Start a pandemic of loving generosity. Seriously, if we were all breathing in love instead of fear, no matter what the world says, we’d have this thing licked. Those who are afraid are simply reflecting your own fear. Bless them and in so doing, you’ll be blessing yourself.

Know that, as Lynne Twist brilliant reminds us; today, right where you are, you can be part of a critical mass of human beings, transforming the collective consciousness from fear and limitation, to being abundant; living in the flow of enough.

Know that your time here is short, so make the most of it. Know that you matter. Know that what you think matters and the actions you take matter. Live from this knowing and you’ll be living in abundance, no matter what the world may say.

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“Laura” (not her real name) has the kind of life anyone would envy. She’s been happily married to “Larry” (not his real name) for over 30 years. Laura and Larry adore each other. They have a grown son who’s independent and happily pursuing his dream career.

In their late 50’s, Laura and Larry are extremely successful by almost any measure, and quite probably never have to worry about money again in their lives. Their investments generate a handsome positive cash flow every month, which allows them to live the life of their dreams.

Laura and Larry are generous with their abundance. They support causes and organizations they believe in and feel a sense of responsibility for making a positive difference on the planet. Free to go anywhere and do anything they want at any time, they want for nothing.

Well, almost nothing. For in spite of all the material abundance in her life, Laura lives inside a conversation of scarcity. She can’t for the life of her figure out why her life is so abundant yet she feels so undeserving. It isn’t that she’s not extremely grateful for what she has. She and Larry have worked hard and earned every bit of success they’ve achieved. Nothing was handed to them.

In return, life has spread its banquet in front of Laura and invited her to the feast. Her plate is overflowing with “cake.” But like clockwork, every so often, Laura pushes the “renew” button on her self-doubt and ends up leaving the banquet feeling empty, disconnected and alone. She has her cake alright, but deems herself not worthy enough to eat it.

I asked Laura who she thought was responsible for all her success. Who is the person who was smart and creative enough to put together her life scenario?

“Well I did that”, she admits, “but I think I’m just a good actor. That’s not the “real” me. I think I have everyone fooled,” Laura replied.

“Who do you think is the real you?” I asked.

“The real me is the one who’s scared and thinks she’s not enough,” she responded.

“Really?” I asked. ” How do you know she’s any more real than the one who generates abundance? Maybe you’re the one who’s fooled,” I suggested.

““I never thought about it like that,” she responded. “I just assume the depressed one is really who I am. I feel so uncomfortable when I’m happy. Feeling good just doesn’t seem real.”

In the end, it doesn’t matter how much “cake” one has. If you live in an inner conversation of scarcity and lack of awareness about and acceptance of who you are, you are not much better off than a homeless person. You might not be sleeping on a cold sidewalk or worrying about your next meal, true. But oddly enough, the inner experience is the same.

In rejecting our own worthiness to just simply be, we become like orphans, cast out in the coldness of life at our own hands. All the magnificent homes and “stuff” doesn’t make any difference if you don’t deem yourself worthy to come to the banquet.

The soul of scarcity is rooted in the depths of not trusting or believing in one’s self. It is a fundamental belief that who you are is not enough. Nothing from the outside can make up for the deficiency of belief in one’s self as a worthy human being. Where those beliefs come from can most often be found in one’s childhood. The most innocent remark insensitively delivered can sometimes mark a person for life.

John, a beautiful young man in his mid– 30’s, stood up in a seminar I led this past weekend and shared that in 6th grade, a girl accused him of being “too much.” After that experience, John shut down his voice and has lived under the radar since then, afraid of ever ruffling anyone’s feathers again. Today, some 20 years later, John finds his life unsatisfying, even though he has everything he needs to be successful. He’s handsome, intelligent, creative, well educated and quietly passionate, but no one knows who he is or feels his presence. He’s become a “stealth person.”

John and Laura are poster children for playing the scarcity game in the face of overwhelming abundance. It’s not that they consciously choose to live their lives this way. But the choice is made at the unconscious level, where fear sets up the limiting beliefs that determine how we think, feel and what kind of actions we take in the world. As such, they are a perfect demonstration for how it is with human beings. We all have our own version of their stories. Yours or mine might look different at first glance. You might not enjoy the level of material things as Laura, you might not be as shut down as John, but look to see how you push away abundance by insisting on your belief that:

1. There’s not enough… (time, money, opportunity, jobs, etc.)

2. You’re not enough… (smart enough, educated enough, pretty enough, etc.)

3. There will never be enough… (love, respect, attention) to fill your needs.

The world, indeed, appears to be a scary place right now. Uncertainty abounds. Paul Krugman, the Nobel-prize winning economist and New York Times op-ed columnist, says we’re in the Third Great Depression.

Every day, 24/7, we’re fed a diet of bad news and it’s not getting any better. We read about the unemployment rate going up and the number of jobs going down. We see the value of our homes eroding, our retirement savings and the kids’ college funds disappearing. We’re running out of oil, ruining the environment, and killing each other in the name of who gets to control access to power and resources.

Scarcity = scare city.

In the scarcity game, we give our power away to the belief that what we fear is real. We allow fear to triumph over all other possibilities and disown the qualities in ourselves that demonstrate otherwise. Laura’s belief that her “successful self” is just a good actor dishonors the parts of her that really are successful and have the results to prove it. John dishonors his voice of passion by swallowing it and keeping it all inside.

Are you playing the scarcity game? Ask yourself the following:

1) Do you believe that there is “not enough to go around?”

2) Do you define yourself based on what you lack, not what you have?

3) Are you motivated by fear, and/or do you motivate others by fear? 4) Do you think that if others gain, you lose; or if you give, you have less?

If you answer yes to any of these questions, you are playing the scarcity game. Getting to the source of these limiting, fear-based beliefs and unraveling them creates the freedom to consciously choose from the present rather than the past.

F.E.A.R. = False Evidence Appearing Real

In the face of a world filled with fear, what does humanity need now, more than anything? What can only you bring to the world that you’re not bringing because you’re afraid? What impact is the collective conversation about scarcity having in your life? How are you perpetuating the conversation of fear in your own life?

I’m listening for your answers. I have my own thoughts about it and surely our discussion will continue. But let’s hear from you.

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This is a continuation of  my last post, Choosing Freedom,   Let’s take a closer look at the dynamic I referred to as “waging the inner war” with one’s self.  

When I say I’m choosing freedom, I’m declaring a peace treaty with myself.  No more inner wars, the battle is over and I’ve won!  I’m freeing myself from being locked in the past, being at war with what is, in the present.   Sounds good, huh?  

“Well, of course”, you say.  “Of course I choose freedom!  Who, in their “right” mind wouldn’t?  Can you think of anyone who would prefer to be locked up, constrained and bound, like slaves?  This seems like a no-brainer!  Why are we even having this conversation?”

This may sound good and seem like a no-brainer, but I challenge you to look in your own life (and me in mine) and not be able to find at least one or more places where you, in fact, are not free.  

Human beings talk a good game when we talk about personal freedom.  But at ground zero of your life, if you are radically honest, you will most likely find several areas where you are living inside of beliefs that keep you enslaved to an old idea or pattern that restricts your freedom.

For example, take a look:  what are your compulsions or obsessions?  Where do you experience that you have no choice in your life?  Is it around food?  Work?  Looking good?  Being right?  Needing to be in control?  What are you driven to do and in fact, do it, sometimes against your own sense of good judgment or well being?  Do you overeat?  Drink too much alcohol?  Take too many drugs?  

Are you addicted to micro-managing everything or every one around you?  Are you super-careful, extremely cautious, never daring to take any risks?  Where does your behavior veer towards the extremes of the continuum?  Look closely and you’ll find several areas that have heretofore been invisible to you.  

In my Life Fitness Coaching Boot Camp sessions, several participants have realized they have no freedom around their relationship with food.  Their lives are driven by being obsessed with eating even when they’re not hungry, losing weight, worrying about how their bodies look and feeling guilt and shame because they can’t get this part of their life under control.  

Other people recognize in themselves an obsession around the need to look good, both physically and/or related to what others may think of them.  While this is not a gender specific issue, it’s a common one in women.  Being consumed with worrying about what others might think of you puts the brakes on self expression.  You won’t do or say anything that could draw negative attention.  This is how we humans play the game.  And it’s also how we begin to learn to be inauthentic and dishonest.  Not consciously.  Not like we mean to be dishonest.  But at the core of what we call “relationship”, is the need to please others and reign ourselves in in order to be liked.  And in the process, honesty gets white-washed in the name of “political correctness” and we settle for a watered-down version of the truth.  It’s all around us.  It’s in the air we breathe.

The common element in all such issues is the experience of having no choice in the matter.  So look to see, where do you experience your freedom to choose (fill in the blank) being constrained?  What are the things you do, day in and day out, and you do them, not because you like to or want to, but because it feels like you have to?  And in the experience of having to, there is no choice?

Dig around here for awhile and come back.  We’re just getting started.

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234 years ago today, our thirteen colonies declared their independence from the country that spawned our birth, Great Britain.

 In order to justify breaking away, our founding fathers and the radical revolutionaries who fought the war for our independence had to make King George the bad guy and England our enemy.  It took an all out war to establish these thirteen colonies as an independent country.  Such was the consciousness on which America was founded.

Fast forward 234 years to July 4, 2010.  We are still at war, only this time, we are fighting in a distant land for a cause we aren’t even sure of anymore.  The consciousness of war is steeped into the DNA of our country.   

America’s wars have resulted in economic disaster, greed, corruption, unemployment,  environmental devastation, and unprecedented polarization.  We’re being torn apart from within.  The terrorists planted the seeds of fear and suspicion on 9/11 and we’ve fertilized, watered and grown them from there on our own.

And what about us, its people?  How deeply imbedded into your own DNA is the consciousness of war? 

I’m talking about  the kind of wars we have when we look in the mirror and inflict harm and injury on the person we see reflected back. The kind of wars we wage with ourselves by holding on to guilt, shame, humiliation over what we’ve done in the past or over what others have done to us.

These kinds of wars are waged every moment in our lives.  The wars between head and heart, body and soul, ego and Spirit.  We may succeed in masking their ravages to the world at large, but we pay an inner price for such conflict.  Heart disease, high blood pressure, insomnia, eating disorders, obesity, divorce are just a few of the costs of these wars waged on the personal level.

So while wars wage around you, how about today, declaring your independence from the inner wars you wage?  Declare today, July 4, 2010, as your re-birth day, the day you are born into your own freedom.  It’s a choice.  Every moment, it’s a choice.  

The freedom to choose one’s own destiny is what our founding Fathers fought for.  I choose freedom today.  I choose my own freedom from the past and the freedom to choose the present. 

May all people be free and peaceful.  It may sound like a lofty goal or a Hallmark card, but many lives have been shed for this ideal.  May they not have died in vain. 

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This is a continuation of a conversation we began in my last article published in the Huffington Post on The Soul of Relationships   In an effort to explore the subject in more depth, let’s dive beneath the surface and explore the challenges and promises of authentic, intimate relationships. 

 A common pattern that passes itself off as an intimate relationship often goes like this:  two people meet and have a strong attraction to one another.  She can’t believe how present and emotionally available he is, he can’t believe how “hot” she is. 

 She finds him adventurous, intellectually stimulating, creative, and into the things she adores like travel, going to concerts and movies and best of all, he cooks!  He finds her incredibly “hot”.  She’s great in bed, always wants sex when he wants it, is adventurous in that department and best of all did I mention he finds her incredibly “hot”?

 She doesn’t notice at first how driven, controlling and righteous he is.  He fails to notice that she can’t cook, doesn’t have a job, many friends, or interests outside their relationship.  And the trance begins.

 Each of them is on their best behavior for a while.  They try their best to please each other by being the way they think the other wants them to be and doing the things they think the other wants them to do.  And for a while, everything seems to work just fine.

 All relationships have a courting stage and by definition, “courting” requires that couples place them selves into a certain kind of “trance”.  To court someone is to literally do a dance in which you put your best face and best foot forward.  Warts and other anomalies are best kept deftly concealed, hopefully forever, but at least until such time as the fate of the relationship is sealed, when slowly or sometimes abruptly, the guard is let down.  And the trance becomes a different kind of dance.

 The courting stage generally lasts anywhere from three to six months before “reality” begins to set in.  The carefully crafted character each partner in the dance has been portraying begins to fray just a bit around the edges. 

 She doesn’t seem quite so hot anymore or ready to engage all his sexual fantasies as frequently as before and is a terrible cook besides.  She not interested in finding a job and doesn’t show much curiosity about life outside the relationship.  She’s become boring and bored.

 He’s not so emotionally available as he once was.  She never noticed how driven he is.  He nags her about finding work or getting some kind of a life and has become downright judgmental about how she chooses to live.  Besides, she’s not so hot in bed anymore, so “who needs this?” he wonders. 

 The trance of seduction becomes the trance of disillusionment and disappointment.  They each discover the “other” as not being the one they signed on for.  Suddenly, the warts they’d overlooked in the beginning start to look and smell like boils, and this unbelievable person they’d met just a few months before becomes unbelievable, only not in a good way.  The blame game begins. 

The former red-hot lovers, now simply tolerating each other, look at each other as being the source of the “problem”.  If the other one would only change, everything would be fine. “Just go back to being the way you were when we first met”, they say to each other.  “You’re the one who changed.  What happened to the person I fell in love with?”  And so it goes. 

 What we fail to see in this trance is how we are the ones who deceive ourselves and the other person by not being who we authentically are in the first place.  But humans are basically wired to do the courting dance.  It’s a survival mechanism built in to insure the species will continue.

 In the animal kingdom, the dance is more obvious.  The male of the species puffs himself up to look grander; his colors become brighter.  He literally dances to attract his partner.  Among animals, the courting dance has a single purpose: perpetuating the species. 

 Among humans, the dance becomes more complicated.  Not only are we charged with the continuation of the species, but we also layer over this dance a cultural necessity to be in relationship. 

 In theory at least, humans like to think we mate for life.  In actuality, in the 21^st century, this idea has been relegated to the junk heap of history.  A life-long relationship that remains monogamous is so rare as to be unheard of.  Perhaps only among cloistered nuns and their vows with Christ. 

 In the animal kingdom, gibbon apes, wolves, termites, coyotes, barn owls, beavers, bald eagles, golden eagles, condors, swans, brolga cranes, French angel fish, sandhill cranes, pigeons, prions (a seabird), red-tailed hawks, anglerfish, ospreys, prairie voles (a rodent), and black vultures — are a few that mate for life and even they are known to “cheat” on occasion. 

 So it doesn’t look good for the human ideal of monogamy and fidelity and finding happiness in our intimate relationships.  However, all is not lost.  We humans have big brains and developed minds for a reason.  There is a way out and a way forward.  Please stay tuned as we continue this conversation in future posts. 

 What are your thoughts and comments about this subject?  What have you experienced in your own relationship trance dances?  I’d love to hear from you………

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 Two-year old Vladimir stood patiently in line waiting to have his new American passport stamped on his exit from Russia, the land of his birth.  He neither wiggled, nor spoke, but held on tightly to the hands of his new American mother and auntie.  On the way to his new home in Oklahoma City, the life of Vladimir was ending and the life of Colton, his new American name, was about to begin. 

Colton’s former home was a small town orphanage in eastern Russia, where his new mother traveled to meet him the first time last December.  She returned at the end of May to finalize legal adoption proceedings, and on June 24, 2010, Colton began his journey to America and a new future.

The statistics on successful adaptation by adopted Russian children are somewhat grim.  According to a recent Time magazine article :

 Nearly all Russian children adopted by American parents have come from orphanages, where children 3 and under lose one IQ point for every month spent inside, researchers say. Russian orphans are more likely to have fetal alcohol spectrum disorder than those adopted from elsewhere. They are also, on average, older than adoptees from other countries and have spent more time institutionalized — the factor that most impedes adjustment to life in an adoptive home. (Doctors and agency workers who have visited the worst of these facilities in Russia have described zombie-like toddlers who sit alone, rocking back and forth, staring blankly or banging their head against walls.)

 In most cases, Russian children end up in orphanages because they were abandoned, abused or neglected. Some are lucky enough to land in private institutions with adequate staffing and nutrition or to come from biological families that, though ravaged by poverty, aren’t abusive. Experts say nearly all institutionalized children must catch up to their peers developmentally and academically once adopted, but in extreme cases, even remediation and counseling aren’t sufficient to get adoptees on track.

In April, Torry Hansen, a single parent and registered nurse in Tennessee, gave voice to those families’ experience through an act both desperate and cruel. Sparking an international scandal, Hansen sent her adopted Russian-born son, age 7, alone on a plane to Moscow. In a note addressed to the Russian government, she wrote that the boy was “mentally unstable.” She was promptly and brutally condemned by the Russian state and the American public.

Looking at Colton’s sturdy build, I could see a future football player, wrestler or weight lifter.  But his cherubic face could not mask his bewilderment at being taken from the only home he’s ever known, even as his new mother described its deplorable conditions. I couldn’t help but wonder, what is the agenda of a soul that takes on such hard lessons?  

I caught up with Colton as we passed through customs in Washington, D.C.  He was still clinging to his mom and his face looked forlorn.  Was he merely travel weary, or sensing the enormous challenges ahead?   While statistics suggest that Colton and his new family will have a rough road ahead, I hope and pray their new lives turn out well. 

Colton’s English vocabulary so far consists of– “good job” and  “bye bye”.  To Vladimir, good job, dear, sweet boy.  You made it out.  I pray you’re one of the lucky ones who make this transition to a new life successfully.  God bless you! 

To Colton, may your life here reflect the sweetness of your little boyish face and may you grow up to be as strong and courageous as Vladimir and always keep the innocent heart he was born with.

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Wherever you stand

Be the soul of that place.

–Rumi

On Saturday, I am returning to a place imbued with a great deal of soul for me. It is a place where my soul feels at home. Having traveled there over 20 times in the past, I’ve not been back in eight years, and am returning now in response to a longing of my soul to reconnect with this land and its people.

That I should feel so at home in this place is a bit of a shock to me. It could not be more foreign to my Western sensibilities. For most of my adult life, this place, now called The Russian Federation, was known as The Soviet Union. Americans were taught it was the home of the “evil empire,” a mortal threat to motherhood, apple pie and the our way of life.

In theory at least, this place seemed like an unlikely candidate for a soul connection. Yet there it was, a confront to all I had expected to find. The Russian people and their culture housed a soulfulness that fed me in ways I didn’t even know I was hungry for.

Something about Russia touches me in ways for which I struggle to find words. Perhaps it helps me recognize a deeper truth about myself that transcends logic and explanation.

I cannot explain the tears that flow at the sight of old Russian women sweeping the sidewalks or witnessing the “Babushkas” mopping the floors of the Orthodox churches.

I cannot explain my facility with its language, even though I speak and understand only a few utilitarian words. Riding in the back seat of taxis, like a first grader just learning to read, I’m obsessed with sounding out the letters on shop signs, compelled to read everything I encounter.

I instruct my students to write their name tags in Russian instead of English so I can practice reading. I learn enough Russian to correct my interpreter when I know she’s given my words a different meaning than the one I intended. I even manage to mimic a decent Russian accent. I have a good ear that way.

I am consumed with the sounds of this country where my soul feels so at home. Its music brings me to my knees. The Russian song, “Joy”, радость, flattens me to the ground every time I hear it. Even though I don’t understand the words, the music stirs something in me. Some ancient longing is activated. I have no explanation.

As I witness the Russian people slowly emerging from decades of oppression, my own soul feels newly liberated. This is what a soul place will do. It opens something you never even knew was closed. Like stumbling upon a new room in a mansion you’ve been living in your entire life, a soul place embraces and amplifies an inner longing, long ignored.

In the face of such newness, in a soul place, you’re met with a sense of familiarity. The outer terrain synchs up with an interior landscape that has been waiting to be met. Something clicks, a piece falls into place.

The house I live in is such a place. Having moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to be near my daughters — definitely a soul calling — I spent several months searching for a place to live. Nothing was quite “it,” until I saw a photo of what would become my home on the internet. I was half a world away, working in Taiwan at the time, while scouring the internet for properties in the Bay Area.

Something about the photo beckoned me to take a closer look. From half way around the world, I could feel an inner “yes,” even before stepping one foot on the property. The minute I stepped inside, I knew I’d found my home.

Having wandered in my own personal desert for awhile, I knew at that moment, I’d found the place I would live in for the rest of my life. The still, small voice within whispered, “You’re home. You can rest now.” And so it is. My home has indeed been a sanctuary for my soul. Even though I have taken a very circuitous route to get here, the gypsy in me is finally at peace. She has come home.

“How long the road is. But how I’ve needed every turn of the road in order to learn what the road passes by.” 

–Dag Hammarskjold

A soul place can be anywhere. It needn’t be in a far off exotic land, although there are many such places in the world considered to be sacred, soul places. Your soul place might be in your own garden or a neighborhood park. It might be an island or a city, a special restaurant, or by a pond.

A soul place is anywhere you feel a greater sense of harmony and ease. There might be many such soulful places on the planet that inspire you, and open you to a new sense of freedom and joy.

Pay attention to the places where, in spite of whatever level of activity is going on around you, you feel rested. In a soul place, you can breathe more deeply, set down your burdens, let go of cares and concerns that occupy the mind.

When you come to a soul place, it’s like being put on an oxygen tank, even your bones can breathe. Because your soul is responding at a level that doesn’t involve the mind, all the tight and contracted places that have been “waiting to exhale” finally do. It’s like taking off a pair of tight shoes, or loosening your tie.

When the needs of the soul are ignored, life begins to feel like a desert. We find ourselves feeling parched and dry, thirsting for something we can’t quite name. A soul place is a drink of water for the thirsty soul.

We take vacations to such kind of places, hoping to “get away from it all”. While the conscious mind might not know it, what we’re really searching for is a way to get closer to ourselves.

In a soul place, we come to know ourselves in a new way, even if we only spend 15 minutes sitting on a bench in a neighborhood park. New sensory pathways are opened. We allow more of what nurtures to flow in and what constricts to flow out.

Along the way, I have come across many places in the world and right in my own backyard where my soul is invited to expand. While visiting India almost 15 years ago, I was asked to be a witness at the wedding of two women I didn’t know under a full moon on the grounds of the Taj Mahal. How much more soulful can it get?

Well, it turns out plenty. On that same trip, a friend and I were invited to the home of a Muslim pedi-cab driver, who’d been our guide during our stay in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. One evening, he picked us up in a motorized pedi-cab, unlike the bicycle one he used to ferry tourists like around during the day. He drove us to his simple home outside town, where his wife was preparing a typical Indian meal, prepared in the outside oven using dung patties as fuel for cooking.

We met his family, and learned of their customs firsthand when his wife abruptly backed out of the room, head down, when his elderly father entered. According to Muslim custom, we were told, women are not allowed to be in the same room as any man who is not their husband, son or brother.

This simple, humble, uneducated man, who lived in a small house with dirt floors, opened his home and his family to a couple of strangers — American women yet — and offered us what little he had. The evening lasted only a few hours, yet the experience has stayed with me for nearly 15 years. My soul was marked by this experience. The very next month, I would visit Russia for the first time and be received in the homes and lives of the Russian people in the same, yet uniquely Russian way.

Some soul places are intimate and very personal, sometimes captured in tiny moments. We get a glimpse of something transcendent and the place where those moments occur are indelibly marked on our souls. The hospice rooms where my mother and my ex-husband took their last breaths are such places for me. In those rooms, my heart and soul were cracked open and the bitter sweetness of loss and liberation were present at the moment of their deaths.

The exquisite art gallery, scene of my daughter’s wedding last fall, was another soul filled place for me. Walking her down the aisle, two years after the death of her father, I felt his soul, his joy, walking in step with mine.

Walking the labyrinth at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, the burning ghats of Varanasi,

scattering a friend’s ashes at Independence Pass, near Aspen, Colorado, all places and moments that invite my soul to expand and see something beyond what the mortal eye can behold.

And the newest addition to my list of soulful places: the Heart and Soul Center of Light, a Science of Mind (United Centers For Spiritual Living) church in Oakland, CA., with the incredible Reverend Andriette Earl as its minister. I’ve never been a “religious” person. Spiritual, yes, religious, no. But on a “soul scale” of 1–10, this place and this woman are a 20! If you are ever in Oakland on a Wednesday night or a Sunday morning, be sure to look this one up. This is not to be missed.

Just naming these few places, I’m filled with gratitude for a life lived with generous doses of soul. Perhaps this is why I’m compelled to be writing on this subject. The soulful nature of life is where the richness lies. I hope you won’t miss it in yours.

In your journey to nurture your soul, don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty. The soul’s garden beckons us to dig in, dig deep, and plant new seeds of creativity. As the garden grows, tending it becomes the journey of a lifetime, one that will take you far and wide to places where your soul feels fed.

What are your soul places? I’d love to hear from you. 

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I've been writing about the soul with several posts here and on the Huffington Post.  I came across this poem, written by Jewel Mathieson, which so captures what I imagine is indeed, the soul's dance.  Here is Jewel's poem:

                    We Have Come To Be Danced                        

by Jewel Mathieson

We have come to be danced

Not the pretty dance

Not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance

But the claw our way back into the belly

Of the sacred, sensual animal dance

The unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance

The holding the precious moment in the palms

Of our hands and feet dance.

We have come to be danced

Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance

But the wring the sadness from our skin dance

The blow the chip off our shoulder dance.

The slap the apology from our posture dance.

We have come to be danced

Not the monkey see, monkey do dance

One two dance like you

One two three, dance like me dance

but the grave robber, tomb stalker

Tearing scabs and scars open dance

The rub the rhythm raw against our soul dance.

We have come to be danced

Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle

But the matted hair flying, voodoo mama

Shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance

The strip us from our casings, return our wings

Sharpen our claws and tongues dance

The shed dead cells and slip into

The luminous skin of love dance.

We have come to be danced

Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance

But the meeting of the trinity, the body breath and beat dance

The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance

The mother may I?

Yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance

The olly olly oxen free free free dance

The everyone can come to our heaven dance.

We have come to be danced

Where the kingdom’s collide

In the cathedral of flesh

To burn back into the light

To unravel, to play, to fly, to pray

To root in skin sanctuary

We have come to be danced

We have come.

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                       Everyone should know that you can’t live in any other way than by cultivating the soul.” 

                                                                                      - Apuleius, Roman writer

Several readers responded to a previous post, How To Know The Way Of The Soul, with observations that their own soul’s process was extremely painful. One reader asked, ” Does it always have to be so painful?” while another wondered, “How can I stop this pain?”

Thomas Moore, author of Care Of The Soul, writes:

Care of the soul speaks to the longings we feel and to the symptoms that drive us crazy, but it is not a path away from shadow or death. A soulful personality is complicated, multifaceted, and shaped by both pain and pleasure, success and failure. Life lived soulfully is not without its moments of darkness and periods of foolishness.

 

Soul is the font of who we are, and yet it is far beyond our capacity to devise and to control. We can cultivate, tend, enjoy, and participate in the things of the soul, but we can’t outwit it or manage it or shape it to the designs of a willful ego.

So we can see that the very questions, “Why is the soul’s process so painful and how can I stop the pain?” are questions of an ego wanting to be in control. To the soul, this human life is a classroom, filled with opportunities for gaining wisdom, and as such, everything that occurs in our lives is simply “grist for the mill,” as Ram Das would say.

By trying to avoid our human mistakes and failures and by wanting to side step negative moods, emotions, bad life choices and unhealthy habits, we “move beyond the reach of the soul” says Moore. The work of our soul is found, not by seeing our life’s circumstances as problems to be solved or transcended, but by embracing precisely what is right in front of us.

“The way through the world is more difficult to find that the way beyond it.” -poet Wallace Stevens

Renaissance philosophers have said it is the soul that makes us human. We could also look at it as when we are most human we have the greatest access to soul.

Thus, the voice of the soul can most often be heard through our symptoms. When the soul is not tended, we feel its “longings” issued through emotions and feelings we consider most painful:

Emptiness

Meaninglessness

Depression

Disillusionment 

Loss of values

Unfulfilled

Hunger for spirituality

The soul begs us to turn toward our pain, not away from it, for there in the midst of our suffering, lies the path to liberation. “The only way out is through” could be the mantra of the soul.

Life offers up the raw materials the soul uses to craft our very being. Thus our experiences of loss, disappointment, betrayal — all anathema to the ego — constitute the very stock from which our human quintessence is lovingly cooked and carefully rendered. We gain depth, character and wisdom through this rendering.

The way of the ego vs. The way of the soul

The ego seeks cure. The soul seeks care. The ego seeks understanding. The soul seeks mystery and imagination. The soul invites us to bring our imaginations into the mysteries of life, where the outcomes are unpredictable and surprise is on the menu. Pain arises when we resist this process. Life is painful when we follow the dictates of the ego, which requires a certainty and guarantee of the outcome before we choose. The soul requires that we expose ourselves to the rich depths of life’s mysteries again and again.

“Never again. Been there, done that” is the ego’s response to emotional pain. The soul, on the other hand, is your inner “poet in residence,” hungry for the next line that will make its poetry part of a meaningful life. To live from the soul is to choose its path.

Think of your pain then, as flavors and spices to add to the stew of your life. The Chinese got it right with the creation of sweet and sour soup. All sweet and no sour would be a pretty boring concoction, as soups go. So would all sour and no sweet. It’s the blend of the two “opposing” flavors that create the magical elixir we all know and love. So it is that the soul is busily working to create a masterful stew called your life, flavored with enough loss and pain, joy and laughter to make it delicious!

What is required of us is that we learn to love and care for our soul, not as a separate entity or “thing,” but as the very essence of who we are.

At the end of the day, when your life is over, what do you want to be able look back and say about it? That you stayed close to the shore and made it through your life intact? Or that you navigated the rapids, allowed your heart to be ripped open, shredded into tiny pieces and given away?

Mary Oliver, from her poem “When Death Comes”

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

And so my friend, we can choose the careful path, the one of “visitation,” or we can take the world into our arms and embrace the mystery.

Both paths have pain involved. The pain of the “carefully lived life” is the pain never being fully expressed or knowing our own depth. The pain of the soulful life is the pain of letting go, the pain of trusting in something we cannot see, the pain of breaking through fear, the pain of being seen and of loving completely.

Your soul knows the path it must travel. Your job is to align and follow. You will suffer if you don’t. You will suffer if you do. For as the Buddha taught, “life is suffering.”

Rather than ask “How can I stop this pain?” ask yourself: “Do I choose to suffer in service to my ego (false self) or in service to my soul (essence)?” How you view life and your role in it will determine which path you choose.

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