Category: Deeper Meaning

What is the deeper meaning behind becoming aware and sensitive to touch?  When we make physical contact with another person who is disconnected and detached, when there is touching but no consciousness associated with the touch – what comes back to us from that other living being is the same:  detachment, disconnection and distance.

When we touch another living being with compassion, when the touch is “mindful” – what returns to us is the same: love, compassion and a deep connection.  When I say “living being” I’m not just talking about persons.

Many of you are well aware of what it means to touch an animal; a dog, a cat or a horse.  Horses, cats and dogs are no different humans; when we touch tenderly and lovingly what returns back to us is the very same delicious energy.

Let’s step down one level, for there is a deeper meaning to this particular challenge.  To what extent are you mindfully connected in a loving way to your own body moment to moment?

• Are you disconnected?
• Are you disassociated?
• Do you refuse to send loving energy to every cell of your body? 
• Are you angry at your body?
• Are you furious at what your body is doing to you?

Each time you have those thoughts, they convey an energy to every cell of your body that is not in your best and highest good.

What happens when you touch yourself, when you hold own hands?  Is that done tenderly or is it done out of fear and anxiety?

What happens when you touch your knee?  Is that done with disconnection without any knowledge of the fact that you are touching your knee, or as you touch your knee with your hand do you do so with intention, love and compassion as loving energy is sent to each and every cell in your knee?

How we treat objects and how we treat other people, and quite frankly how they treat us is a mirror image of our relationship with our own body.  When we can become tender and loving and mindful of the messages that our body sends to us as we are touched moment by moment, by the sensations we receive and feel,

• We will be in communion with our body.
• We will be listening to the messages our body sends to us.
• We will know what is required for us to move into a place of full recovery; a place where symptoms cannot rear their ugly head.

Once we are mindful and loving and attentive and appreciative of all the messages our body touches us with, we are solidly on the road to recovery.  When we remain detached, distant and uncommunicative with the messages that our body sends to us, we are out of touch. We are disconnected. In this  place of disconnection there is little opportunity for true healing to unfold. We become detached from the signals our body so desperately wants us to receive and acknowledge.

Get in touch with your body. Be receptive to its messages. Welcome them. They are giving you the information you need to take the steps that are needed for you to come into your full power and manifest your destiny.  The world is patiently waiting for you to show your full power.

Make it happen now. Be sensitive to touch. Be aware of the signals.  Become intimately compassionate with the moment to moment messages your body sends to you, for you are continuously in touch with your body whether you acknowledge it or not.

Robert

© Parkinsons Recovery

While I focused the three challenges of this week about time – on intentionally being early, on intentionally being exactly on time and intentionally being late – the three challenges actually have little to do with time itself.  They have everything to do with our mind states, our habits and our thought patterns.  Our relationship to time is wrapped up in the state of our ego which does not always have our best interest at heart.

Time is actually irrelevant when we are living in the present, when we are mindful.  Time has no meaning whatsoever other than the meaning we ourselves attribute to it.  For example, if we habitually find that we want to always be late, we may be carrying certain thought forms like,

• “I’m a very busy person and I don’t have time to wait around for other people to arrive to the meeting.” 
• “I’m a very important person so in order to be able to assert my importance I will arrive late to every meeting that I actually attend.  I want everyone to see that I am important and I can not attend any meeting that happens to arbitrarily start at a very specific time.”

Perhaps you are a person who is routinely and habitually always exactly on time.  What are the feelings and thought processes driving that habit?  Is it perhaps because you like to be seen as:

• A person who is a perfectionist?
• A person who is reliable?
• A person who is trustworthy? 
• A person who cares about others so you do not want them to be waiting around just for you? 
• A person that wants to be precisely on time because you cannot tolerate the anxiety that is associated with being early?

Or, perhaps you are person who is routinely and habitually early to all appointments. Is it perhaps because you:

• Do not want to be seen if you come late?
• Do not want to be judged as unreliable?
• Do not want to waste other people’s time because they are more important than you? 

Of course I could go on and on with many different types of rationales that might float through our minds whether we are early, on time or late, but they are all connected to thought forms that certainly do not serve our best and highest good.

Although there are no doubt thought forms connected with the habit of always being early to appointments, the ideal strategy to reduce stress is to give yourself plenty of opportunity to get wherever it is that you need to get; to plan ahead of time so that you may be a bit early to all of the appointments. This way there is no stress involved in worrying about whether or not you might be late – if in fact being late is a worry you find that you oftentimes have.

The challenge this week is to evaluate and to assess your relationship with what it means to be “on time,” and to consider the possibility of loosening the link between when you arrive and when you are planning on arriving to your appointments. This will enable you to be more in the moment, more mindful of each and every experience that you are having now.

When we are focused on time we are always thinking about the future.  In other words, we are always focused on being at a place at some future point in time.  That, as it turns out, is not being mindful.

Set a new habit so that you give yourself plenty of time.

• Start preparing to leave early.
• Slow everything down.
• Relish the pleasure of dressing to get ready.
• Hear the sound of your footsteps.
• Enjoy the journey as you enter into your car or bus or train or plane.

Moreover, take in the full experience of the taking each step of the journey to wherever it is that you are going without worrying about being early, about being on time or about being late.

Continue if you will your own self-examination.  See if you might be able to cast aside some of the habits that you might have adopted over time about time so that you can be more fully and completely focused on the moment. This is the place you will derive limitless pleasure. This is the place where stress has no opportunity to enter into your body. This is the place that requires no travel. You are always there.

How much time did you allocate today to read this follow-up to your mindfulness challenge of the week? Are you behind time now? Will you now be unable to accomplish everything on your daily plan of activities? Did it take you longer than you had planned to read this email? Or, was there no anticipation or plan for the day? You see, time is simply whatever we make it out to be.

Robert

© Parkinsons Recovery