Of Redemption, Kindness, Acceptance, and Jedi Mind Tricks

Before I hit the main topic, I wanted to address something from one of my posts regarding integrity and trust, In said post I mentioned a lot of crucial and critical things that I wasn't really good at, honesty being one of them. I will say I still struggle with this because it's not who I want to be for myself. However as I read through I noticed a lot of judgement and criticism leveled at myself.

There are a lot of things I been in the past, good, and bad, (the VAST majority of bad with a small b). However I find now that self criticism is generally not self serving, just the opposite. Today I choose growth mindset, today I choose now. The latter being a play on words from Ekharte Tolle's "The Power Of Now." The latter is really the first book on spirituality that I read, based on the recommendation of my first spiritual "teacher," Ken Goldberg. A little history about this guy. He owned DFW Gun Range in the late 90's early 2000's. He was into drugs, alcohol, and strippers, not quite in that order. He sold the business and would ultimately make his way out to Tuscon Arizona, where he would meet and befriend a Buddhist monk, which would ultimately lead to walking meditations in the mountains, sitting meditations in the temple, through the practice of mindfulness, and loving kindness. The process changed him, and when I saw him again in Dallas, I saw just how powerful a change it was. Don't get me wrong Ken wasn't transformed from who he was, that was still there, but he was aware, and he was different, in a very positive and profound way, an acceptance of who he was/is, embracing loving kindness and wisdom. It's one thing to read about this, but very different from experiencing up close. Experiencing this lesson courtesy of the Universe, presented me with another path forward

I started to meditate mindfully, sporadic at first, inconsistent. However I do it without judgement towards myself, and attempt strongly to be present to kindness, compassion, and equanimity for myself, and others. I don't do it long, generally 20 minutes a day 4-5 days a week. Twenty minutes is not a long time, but trying to stay focused to the "Now" and/or breath for that long without the mind drifting is difficult, and as it should be. The mind likes to think, ABOUT everything. The mind does not like awkward silences, and more likely than not it prefers to drift in what many of the modern day mindfulness teachers call "monkey mind."

No Jedi Knight here. I have a long way to go, but one of the benefits I've experienced from this practice is the acceptance of my past. I use to have a lot of questions/regrets about my past. Now for most of the questions I realize they don't matter. There is really no satisfactory answer. The best to do is to acknowledge them, hopefully learn, and like when a thought drifts into your head during meditation, acknowledge it and like a cloud in the sky, let it drift by without judgment. So for purposes of integrity, it's far easier to type what I just said to do, than to actually do it. But I acknowledge the latter, with no criticism. no judgement. However just that much is a source of comfort. For me mindful meditation, with an emphasis on loving kindness is really the antidote of trying to fix myself, then, or in some future. It is really about focusing and paying attention to what I can do in this moment.

All that said, and my intention for this post was to talk about my foray into the healing career of massage therapy, maybe next time. Namaste.