Category: PersonalGrowth

“I used to pray that God would feed the hungry, or do this or that, but now I pray that God will guide me to do whatever I’m supposed to do, what I can do. I used to pray for answers, but now I’m praying for strength. I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us and we change things.”

These words of Mother Teresa reflect how her approach to prayer evolved as she grew older and had more life experiences.  When she says she prays that God will guide her to do whatever she is supposed to do and what she is able to do, she is affirming her faith.  Asking for and receiving direction from our Creator are essential to living a purposeful life.  And acknowledging that we are only able to do whatever direction we are given because our Creator makes it possible for us to do that is a truth we need to embrace.

When I was a young adult I would sometimes question whether I should pray, mostly because I wondered whether praying would have any effect.  As a child I was taught and I still do believe that our Creator determines what does or doesn’t happen, and therefore it seemed to me that praying wouldn’t make a difference.  I’ve continued to pray, however, both because Jesus prayed and taught people to pray and because praying is one of the ways that I feel a connection to the Divine.  I also believe that heartfelt praying adds positive and healing energy to our world.  I pray each day–praying for family members and friends, praying for all the people and creatures in our world who are suffering, saying prayers of thanksgiving, praying for causes that I believe matter, and praying for guidance.

Mother Teresa’s words that “prayer changes us” and that by being changed we are able to “change things” are insightful.  The positive and healing energy of prayer and our sense of connection to the Divine when we pray, combined with our hope and desire to do our part to make this a better world, all help to bring about changes within ourselves.  It’s important to acknowledge such changes with humility, for they are gifts.  And it is through being changed that we are more able to hear inner guidance, to access our creativity, including to do creative problem solving, to take action, and to persevere as we do our best to act on the guidance we’ve been given.  And thus to do our part to “change things,” to use Mother Teresa’s words, for the better.

“My obligation is to do the right thing.  The rest is in God’s hands.”

This quotation by Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks of purpose and of faith.  Having both are essential to living in a meaningful way.

In order to find our purpose we need to try to discern the messages of our inner voice.  We do this by paying attention to intuitive promptings, writing down our dreams and being open to what the images and actions of our dreams might symbolize, recognizing as gifts from the universe unexpected happenings that lead us to make positive changes, and noticing synchronistic occurrences and their possible meanings.  It’s also important to remember that what our ego wants to have or to do can be deceptive, sometimes seeming to be inner direction when it isn’t.  Therefore, we need to become more adept at distinguishing ego desires from inner guidance.  And we need to pray to our Creator to help us to discern those things we were created to do and to help us to do them.

I recently watched a film, part of which depicted some of the peaceful protesting that people did during the 1960s civil rights movement.  It included Dr. King preparing the people who would participate in the protests by teaching them about nonviolent resistance and guiding them to be as ready as possible for what they would experience.  The film also included footage from the actual occurrences that took place during that time.  As I watched the peaceful protesters being attacked by angry white people and by the police but not fighting back, I thought about the courage that took.  The courage to put oneself in a dangerous situation because it was essential to such an important cause.  They had courage to do the right thing.

It also takes courage to leave the rest in God’s hands, to have that belief and faith.  It’s natural to wonder about and question why some things happen in our world.  And yet the only person’s actions over which we have control are our own.  Which is why it is essential to discern from within what we need to do and try our best to do what we discern.  That is how we do our part in making this a better world.  And the more people who do that, the greater difference it will make.

“Happiness derived from mere physical comfort tends to be shallow and fleeting.  It fails to pacify anxiety and fear.  Whereas if we have a calm mind it is effective in overcoming even physical pain; therefore we should not neglect the inner values that are a source of a calm mind.”

This is a quote by the Dalai Lama.  As with other people who have acquired wisdom, he is able to express much in a few words.

The Dalai Lama telling us not to neglect inner values reminds me of the importance of trying to listen to and discern messages from our inner voice.  It is by endeavoring to follow our inner direction that those values are formed.  Sometimes when I’m walking or driving and see other people, I think about how the Creator wants to speak to each of us to help guide us each day.

It’s important too that we keep in mind that, as the Dalai Lama points out, happiness which results from physical comfort is temporary happiness.  The majority of people who live in the United States and in the other wealthy countries have many forms of physical comfort, including nice places to live and an abundance and variety of food from which to choose, along with many other blessings, for which we should be thankful.  But we need to remember that acquiring possessions isn’t what matters most.  Acquiring inner values is what matters most.

When the Dalai Lama refers to the inner values, some of the values that come to mind for me are generosity, honesty, integrity, creativity, and courage.  These qualities matter far more than any material belongings.  These qualities lead to a sense of peace, to having a calm mind.

As I was driving home today, I saw groups of children playing outside in the nice weather.  They were having fun, running, playing games, smiling and laughing.  Being carefree.  Enjoying the energy and spontaneity of youth.  It brought back memories of when I was a child playing with the neighbor children and also memories of when my daughter was a child playing with her friends.

It’s important to children’s healthy development that they have opportunities to interact with other children, to be active and carefree.  Although effective parenting includes a certain amount of direction-giving and limit-setting, some parents, guardians, and other caregivers overdo these.  This can result in decreasing and possibly stifling the development of certain qualities in children, such as curiosity, a sense of exploration, and creativity—qualities that not only enhance their childhood experiences but also that affect how they approach life as adults.  As adults, these qualities make possible a more interesting and enjoyable life.  They also are the impetus for ideas that result in advances and discoveries in fields of study and research which improve the lives of a great many people in the world.

Being creative and having a sense of exploration are also vital to artists of all kinds—dancers and choreographers, playwrights and the actors who perform their plays, writers of fiction and nonfiction, musicians and composers, and creators of the many types of visual arts.  All of these artistic creations enrich our lives, are often thought-provoking, and can help us to be more in touch with our own creativity.

Many years have passed since I was a child.  How quickly the time has gone by.  I have had much to be thankful for during those years.  It is only natural and to be expected that there have been some difficult, sad, and challenging times.  But I have also been blessed with times of joy, with having a special daughter, with friendships, and with good health.  And my life has been enriched by experiencing the creations and talents of artists and performers.

One of the most helpful things we can do for our wellbeing is to remember those things for which we are thankful.

“It is our collective and individual responsibility to preserve and tend to the world in which we all live.”

This quote is by the Dalai Lama, who often writes and speaks about treating others with compassion, respect, and dignity.  When we do that, we help to preserve a way of being that has much value.  It’s one of the ways we can tend to the world which we all share.

When I think of tending to something, the image of tending to a garden comes to mind.  In order for the vegetables to grow, a gardener needs to choose a place to have the garden where there will be sunlight, and then to cultivate the soil, plant the seeds, put time and effort into weeding, and provide the plants with sufficient water.  Carefully tending to the garden will result in the gardener enjoying the tasty and nutritious vegetables when they are ready to be harvested.  And also enjoying sharing them with others.

Similarly, when we tend to the world, we both give of ourselves and are the beneficiaries of the care we give to others.  In addition to treating people with compassion, respect, and dignity, we tend to the world by listening to others, helping them, showing affection, and being genuine.  Sometimes tending to the world also requires being assertive, saying something to someone that may be uncomfortable but that needs to be said.

We also tend to the world in which we all live by doing our part to protect the health of the earth, by making choices to live in a more ecologically responsible way.  These choices usually involve some sacrifice as we change ingrained habits.  But once again we are the beneficiaries of our efforts because we help our earth to be a healthier and more beautiful place for ourselves and for future generations.

By embracing the responsibility to which the Dalai Lama refers, we can and do make a meaningful difference.

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”

This is a quote by Mother Teresa.  Several of my past posts are based on her words of wisdom, faith, and concern for others.  She often spoke about the connection among all human beings, and she spent most of her life helping others through the Missionaries of Charity which she founded.  Much of the work of Missionaries of Charity involves helping people who live in poverty.

There are many ways that we belong to each other, from relationships between two people to the interconnection among every person in the world, for we all share this earth.  There are connections between parents and their children, wives and husbands, teachers and their students, volunteers and the recipients of the volunteers’ assistance.  All of these and other ways of relating, when approached from the heart, add meaning and specialness to people’s lives.  We relate to others through our actions and the choices we make as well as by what we say.  In our families, at our jobs, in doing volunteer work, in attending support groups, and in many additional ways we make our world a better place by doing our best to use and share the abilities we’ve been given by the Creator as we interact with others.

Each of us is unique and has been created for certain purposes.  To know what those purposes are we need to try to discern the messages from our inner voice.  Those messages come to us through the symbolism in dreams, synchronistic experiences, intuitive promptings, and unexpected happenings that seem to have symbolic meaning.  It’s also important to recognize when we’ve made mistakes, to forgive ourselves, and to try again.  By growing in consciousness in these ways, we are better able to discover our purpose, to remember that we all do belong to each other, and to experience the peace that comes from being the person we were created to be and doing those things we were created to do.

“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors.  We borrow it from our children.”  -Native American proverb

I recently read the book The Story of More by Hope Jahren.  Dr. Jahren is a geochemist and geobiologist who has received many awards for her work and findings in these fields.  In The Story of More she writes about climate change, the various causes of climate change, the serious problems that it has caused and continues to cause, and actions that can be taken to decrease those serious problems.  Jahren did considerable research to support the facts she presents in her book.  She also has an engaging and down-to-earth writing style and presents information in a clear, understandable way.

The consequences of climate change have caused much suffering and, if it isn’t taken more seriously by manufacturers, corporations, and government officials who make policy decisions, as well as by each one of us, climate change will continue to cause suffering.  Suffering resulting from more damaging storms and wildfires, reduced land mass in some areas due to rising oceans as a result of melting ice fields and glaciers, temperature changes in the oceans which affect marine life, drought in many areas, and much more.  All of these changes cause harm to human beings and also to animals and other creatures in our world.

The author points out that those of us who live in the countries where the most natural resources are, and therefore who have the highest standards of living, produce the most carbon dioxide, which is the primary cause of climate change.  She also points out that a smaller percentage of people in those countries are negatively impacted by the effects of climate change as compared to many people in other parts of the world.  It is the people who live in poor countries, often in very crowded conditions, who are most adversely affected.

By choosing to take action to decrease the harmful effects of climate change, we help to decrease the suffering of others.  We also make our world healthier and safer for those who will live here after us.  That is why the quotation I chose for this post is fitting.  We have a responsibility to our children, grandchildren, and generations beyond theirs to make efforts to improve this situation.

And there is reason to believe improvements can be made.  For in addition to the information Jahren presents, she also gives reasons to be hopeful.  Although it is vital that the corporations and manufacturers make changes, Jahren identifies many actions that each of us as individuals can take to help as well:  we can be thoughtful about our food choices, avoid purchasing items that have excessive packaging, use mass transit if available, drive fuel-efficient vehicles, set our thermostats a few degrees cooler in the winter, recycle, use reusable bags when shopping, and research which companies are taking steps to be more ecologically responsible and buy products and services from them.  There are many websites that outline these and additional ideas.  And the more of us who take these and other actions, the greater will be the results.

It takes effort to make changes.  As we endeavor to change habits and to live in a more ecologically responsible way, perhaps it will help to remember the quotation I’ve cited.  Instead of thinking of the resources we presently have access to as “ours,” we can remind ourselves that they are resources that belong to future generations as well.  And that we are borrowing them for now and will be good caretakers of them for others.

“No one has ever become poor by giving.”

This quotation is attributed to Anne Frank, who, along with her family and others, needed to go into hiding during World War II because they were Jewish and Hitler’s Nazis were imprisoning Jewish people.  After being in hiding from 1942-1944, they were discovered and transported to concentration camps.  Anne was only 15 years old when she became ill and died.  Her father was the only one in her family who survived, and when he returned to where they had lived, he discovered her diary.  Through his endeavors, Anne’s diary was published with the title The Diary of a Young Girl.  In reading it, I’ve been impressed by the wisdom Anne possessed at such a young age.

Anne’s statement “No one has ever become poor by giving” brings to mind the many ways that we can give.

We can be generous with our time by, when we’re with our children or grandchildren, giving them our undivided attention; by being there for our spouse or partner when she or he needs us; by visiting and calling elderly people who can no longer drive and who spend a lot of time alone; and by volunteering to help with causes that we believe matter.

We can be generous with the abilities we’ve been given by volunteering in programs to tutor children, by teaching English to people who have come to our country from other countries, or by teaching other types of skills at which we’ve become proficient.

We can be generous with the money we’ve been given by donating to nonprofit and charitable organizations to help them continue operating and working toward their goals of improving people’s lives.  We can also be generous with the money we’ve been given by donating to arts organizations to enable dance, music, theater, the visual arts, and other art forms to thrive and to be available to others to enjoy.

When I write the words “abilities we’ve been given” and “money we’ve been given,” I do so as a reminder that everything we have has been given to us by the Creator.  It’s important that all of us who have been blessed with talents, intelligence, good health, and/or loving relationships keep in mind the source of those blessings.  By giving in any of the ways I’ve listed or in other ways, we help to improve the quality of life for others.  By being generous, not only do we not “become poor by giving,” but the opposite happens:  by giving, our lives are enriched.

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”

This is a quote by the Dalai Lama.  He often speaks and writes about compassion, emphasizing the importance of having this quality when we interact with others and also in how we think about other people, including people of other ethnicities, races, religious traditions, and cultures than those with which we are familiar.

Thinking about compassion reminds me of the expression “walking in another person’s shoes.”  We become more compassionate when we try to gain a sense of what it might be like to be that other person, to consider that that person has experienced difficulties and has been confronted by challenges we do not know about.  And to remember that some people do not have others in their lives who care about them, that blessing that is so helpful to those of us who do.

In my work as a crisis line counselor, I try to be compassionate.  I remind myself that, no matter how much the person who calls shares with me, there is still so much about her or him I do not know.  This helps me not only to have compassion but also to refrain from making assumptions about the person.  Too often people make judgments about others based on their perceptions of them, and those perceptions are based on limited knowledge about the life experiences of the people they are judging.  Related to this, we need to keep in mind the concept of projection and to try to notice whether what we perceive about a person might be us projecting negative aspects of ourselves onto them.  Although projection is an unconscious phenomenon and therefore not something we consciously do, we can be watchful of when it might be happening, especially at those times when we have strong negative feelings about the other person.

In his quote, the Dalai Lama makes an especially strong statement when he says without love and compassion humanity cannot survive.  I think of his words in two ways.  Humanity as a whole would end if love and compassion no longer existed, for those qualities are needed for nurturing, teaching, providing for, creating, healing—all aspects of life that are essential.  His words also cause me to think about how each of us has our individual humanity.  His words are a reminder for us to look into ourselves and contemplate the degree to which we have compassion and love for others.

Humanity is made up of every one of us doing what we can to make our world a better place, each of us trying to grow in the qualities that make life meaningful for ourselves and for others.

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”  This quote is by Robert Louis Stevenson, a Scottish novelist and poet who lived in the nineteenth century.  Two of his best known novels are Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Treasure Island.

Very often the quotes I choose to write about serve as helpful reminders to me.  This quote is a reminder that the seemingly small things we do each day do matter; they have an effect on people.  And remembering that helps me to remain hopeful.  Sometimes thinking about the things that are wrong in our world can cause us to feel discouraged, making it difficult for us to believe things can improve.  We want so much to see clearly visible positive change.  And when we don’t, it’s easy to fall into the trap of losing hope.  But when we remember that small, incremental change has led to and continues to lead to positive results, we are able to stay hopeful.  The small, incremental changes are seeds that were planted by people through their actions and words.

Through our words and actions, through the choices we make and the way that we live, we “plant seeds” every day.  We plant the seeds of positive change by treating others with respect and compassion, by being fully present with and listening to others, and by expressing appreciation and gratitude.  By reading to children, we plant the seeds of a love of reading that has the potential of benefiting them throughout their lives.  And by doing whatever work we were created to do to the best of our ability, each of us is an example that will help others on their life paths.

I often think of the idea of “planting seeds” in my work as a crisis line counselor.  Unlike a counseling setting where the counselor and the client meet on a regular basis and therefore have the potential of building on what has occurred in each of their previous sessions, listening to and talking with someone who calls a crisis line is a one-time occurrence.  When the person who calls shares with me her or his reason for calling, I try to do what is possible in the moment to assist.  In giving the person my full attention, communicating empathy, and talking with him or her about self-care possibilities to try, I hope that our work together is planting seeds of ideas that will be useful after the call and be another step toward emotional healing.

As I said, Stevenson’s words serve as a helpful reminder to me.  I hope you will find his words to be a helpful reminder to you too.