Kintsugi: Filling in the Cracks of Your Life with Gold
The time has come to get started on the biggest work you will create in your life, the most important house you will ever own, the home of your soul. Let’s rebuild your life with strong materials of confidence, self-esteem, and courage. I want you to be a free and confident person, and to achieve that, we need to work hard.
Begin by getting to know yourself. You have no idea what you are like or what you are capable of achieving. During the most vulnerable years of your life, people made you believe that you weren’t capable, that you couldn’t do things, that you didn’t know how to, and that you were worthless. They ignored you, overlooked your achievements, and punished you, and all that has wreaked havoc on your self-image. Look for silence and try to reconnect with your essence. Discover yourself, and explore yourself. It’s no easy task, I know, but that’s no reason to avoid it. Observe yourself without judgment, and get to know yourself a little better each day, the same way you would with a new friend, car, or house.
Start analyzing. Stop being afraid, stop worrying, and stop running away without looking back. Forget about fear, stop reacting, and start analyzing. That is the key: to analyze instead of reacting. Life is a dynamic process, which is good news because you can grow, learn, change, and above all gain confidence.
Contextualize what happens to you without rushing in your appraisals. Now you are capable of identifying when you are carrying out partial appraisals based on fear or a negative self-image that do nothing but activate your alarm systems and generate anxiety for you. The first step toward gaining confidence is understanding, the second is detection, and the third is management. Engage in rational thinking to avoid the tunnel vision effect that a closed and imperceptive mind has tried to contaminate your soul with. Simplify reality, and eliminate the fear factor. I propose an exercise of imagination. Imagine you are at a meeting expounding your point of view on a project, and that suddenly your boss takes out a piece of paper and starts taking notes. You don’t actually know what they are writing, but if you feel afraid, you will believe they are taking notes on the things they didn’t like, when you don’t really know. Perhaps they loved it. Or perhaps they have simply remembered a task they still have to do. So when you don’t know something for sure, don’t rule out any of the options, either negative or positive. This, precisely, is what tunnel vision consists of.
You have many more virtues than the ones you imagine, and you are capable of many more things than you may believe.
Learn more about this powerful practice of healing trauma in Kintsugi: The Japanese Art of Embracing the Imperfect and Loving Your Flaws by Tomás Navarro.
Tomás Navarro is a psychologist who loves people and what they feel, think, and do. He is the founder of a consultancy practice and center for emotional well-being. He currently splits his time between technical writing, training, consultancy, conferences and advisory processes, and personal and professional coaching. He lives in Gerona and Barcelona, Spain.
Read Kintsugi today!
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Interspiritual Invocation by Mirabai Starr
I wanted to share with you the invocation given by our dear friend and author Mirabai Starr at the recent Wake Up Festival. Invoking the great wisdom traditions throughout our world, Mirabai led the community in prayer and gratitude as we opened this year’s event. Several of you mentioned that you were really moved by Mirabai’s words; we wanted make make a copy available here. May you drink deeply.
Beloved One,
Living Light,
Spirit of All That Is,
we give thanks.
Thank you for welcoming us
to this sacred circle.
We come from everywhere,
and we find you wherever we are:
inside the holy houses of each of the world’s faiths,
and out in the wild places of the earth;
shoulder to shoulder in the mosque,
bending to press our hearts to the ground in surrender;
in the haunting Hebrew melodies of our ancestors
as we call on the Shekinah to infuse us
with her indwelling feminine spirit;
in the communion bread and wine,
which we take in remembrance
of the Prince of Peace.
We hear your voice joining with ours when we chant the Divine Names
in Sanskrit and Tibetan, Tiwa and Maya and Maori.
We meet you high on alpine trails,
where we stop to rest among fragrant wild herbs,
beside a stream rushing with melted snow.
We feel you holding us when we float in the arms of the ocean
and she sways us with her breath.
We kiss you when we are making love;
we mourn you when an elder releases her final exhalation;
we soothe you when we rock a tired child in our arms.
We look for you in the pulsating emptiness,
search for your true form in the heart of formlessness,
unexpectedly recognize you when we give up and turn away.
You shine through the ecstatic stanzas of the poets and mystics,
each one singing your praises in a different language.
You well up in our aching hearts
when we cry out for the pain of the world.
You are the call to justice,
and the answering response of mercy.
You are in the wounding of the earth
and you are the only hope for mending her.
Oh Great Spirit,
Father-Mother God,
True Self and No-Self,
Invisible animating energy of Life:
We claim our place at your table
and find ourselves home at last.
Here may we eat and be filled,
drink and become unbridled,
lay down our burdens and take refuge,
drop into your sacred silence and remember.
And let us take this remembrance back out into our lives,
That we may truly be of service
in this broken and beautiful world.
AMEN.
-Mirabai Starr
The Integral Operating System – with Ken Wilber
Upgrade the Way You Think—and Live
Are you ready to ramp up the performance of your human hardware? If so, then welcome to Version 1.0 of Ken Wilber’s The Integral Operating System.
No, it’s not computer software. It’s a course that crystallizes Ken’s lifelong investigation into the truths of Eastern and Western thought into a cutting-edge tool for sparking a revolution of your mind and spirit.
Ken Wilber has spent more than three decades creating an all-embracing vision that incorporates the best elements from all of humanity’s spiritual and scientific traditions into a model that reveals even deeper levels of truth—the Integral Map. Now, this profoundly versatile tool has been formatted into a multimodal “platform for the soul,” one that you can self-install to accelerate the growth of your spiritual evolution, intellect, relationships with others, and even your physical health.
As one of the most influential figures of human spiritual development, Ken Wilber has been called the “Einstein of consciousness.” Here is an unprecedented chance for you to “download” this remarkable thinker’s teachings as he illuminates the intricacies of The Integral Operating System.
Sounds True Radio!
Come on by and take a listen to Sounds True Radio! – http://www.soundstrue.com/radio/
Our free, 24-hour-a-day, streaming radio station offers music for yoga, meditation, relaxation, and inspiration; audio teachings from bestselling and highly respected authors; and insightful and provocative interviews with spiritual teachers and authors on the cutting edge. We also have a new channel which provides selections from many of our new releases. Sounds True Radio is an easy (and free!) way to connect with our authors and to immerse yourself in heart-opening and life-changing wisdom. Through the station, you can also access our our acclaimed Insights at the Edge podcast.
Whether you’re interested in mindfulness, personal growth, emotional healing, awakening and the spiritual journey, creativity, meditation, mantra, sacred chant, brainwave and other healing music, kirtan, or world music of all kinds, you’ll be sure to find something to inspire and open you to the preciousness of the journey that we share together. We look forward to connecting with you at Sounds True Radio soon!
Letting Go of Shame, with Rick Hanson
For many, shame is one of the most difficult emotions to work with. It is so pervasive in contemporary life, yet it is often hidden underneath layers of more “obvious” sorts of feelings and emotions like rage, sadness, anger, and despair. Sounds True author and dear friend Dr. Rick Hanson, organizer of The Compassionate Brain free online video series, has spent decades studying shame, self-worth, and self-acceptance, as a neuropsychologist and as a psychotherapist working with clients.
Additionally, Rick is the author of a number of audio learning programs, each of which offers simple guided meditations to open you to your true nature – that of a happy, content, aware, alive, and loving human being.
To help you begin to let go of the shame you may be carrying, Rick has put together the following simple, yet very effective guided exercise. We hope that you find it helpful. If you’d like to read more about Rick’s work in the area of shame and self-acceptance, you are welcome to read his article, “From Shame to Self-Worth.”
Guided Exercise – Letting Go of Shame
Imagine that you are sitting beside a powerful river on a beautiful sunny day. You feel safe and contented and strong.
Imagine that sitting with you is a wise and supportive being. Perhaps someone you know personally, perhaps a historical figure, perhaps a guardian angel, etc. Know in your heart that this is a very wise and honest and caring being.
Imagine a small boat tied to the bank of the river, there near you. Imagine an empty and open box in the boat that you can reach easily. Alright.
Now, continuing to be centered in feelings of worth and well-being, bring to mind lightly something you are ashamed of. Represent it, whatever it is, as a small object on the ground in front of you.
Imagine that the being is telling you, or that you are telling the being, some of the many causes and conditions that led to that thing you are ashamed of. You don’t need the whole story; often a few seconds in your imagination can summarize the heart of the matter.
With that summary of the causes of the shame, see if you can feel a letting go inside.
If you like, in your imagination, bow to the object representing the shame: it exists, it is what it is.
Then put the object in the box, and let it go as much as you can.
Now bring to mind, lightly, something else you are ashamed of. Represent it, whatever it is, as a small object on the ground in front of you.
I’ll be repeating the instructions, and feel free to go at your own pace, slowing down to dwell on certain parts, or speeding up to get through them to additional things you’d like to put in the boat.
[Repeat as many times as you like.]
Love is Being Present
How do we stay truly present to whatever is happening in our lives? How do we practice living from the deep gratitude that each of us has experienced in fleeting moments? How do we remember, with every breath, the miracle of simply existing, the miracle of this body that sustains us from the moment we come into human form until the moment we go out again—while remembering also that our true being is not confined by the body, did not begin with birth, and does not end at death?
Truthfully, for me at least, it’s hard to navigate daily life from this place of grateful remembrance. It’s hard not to get caught up in bills and deadlines, irritations and disagreements, until life begins to feel like a series of problems to be solved or tasks to be crossed off the to-do list. Sometimes it takes the shock of the unexpected to open us again to a truer sense of who and what we are.
A month ago, my Uncle James came down with what he thought was bronchitis. By Thanksgiving, he’d been given supplemental oxygen to cart around, but still no one knew what was going on. A week ago, with breathing an increasing struggle, he went to the hospital in hopes of finally getting an accurate diagnosis. After a series of biopsies and CAT scans, the news came back: idiopathic interstitial lung disease. There’s no known cause and no treatment. In fact, idiopathic means simply “arising spontaneously from an obscure or unknown cause.” I guess one could say the same about life itself.
Today, my uncle is headed home to enter hospice care. He’ll be surrounded by his sisters and brother, his nephews and nieces, grand-nephews and grand-nieces. His kindness and his humor remain intact even as his body fails. He’s not afraid, he says, of death—only of dying. I have been through this before, with my father. I know the strange stew of thankfulness, sorrow, love, regret, joy, loss and celebration that comes with the imminent loss of one you love. In times like this, it’s easier to be absolutely present, knowing it might be the last moment we spend with someone dear to us.
But every moment could be the last moment, and every breath along the way is cause for celebration. It’s an absolute miracle that we’re here at all; that there’s something rather than nothing. These bodies, these lives, these relationships we have with other beings—all of it is miraculous. That being pours itself unceasingly into existence to experience all this—as earth, sky, stars, wind, water; as you, as me, as my Uncle James—is miraculous. And when we can remember this, even in the midst of the most ordinary tasks, then we really live the miracle of our own being, and know how vast we are. Through all our losses, nothing is lost. Through all our changes, what we are is unharmed, unchanging, eternal. The great German modernist Rilke captures this sense beautifully in his poem “Autumn”:
We all are falling. Here, this hand falls.
And see—there goes another. It’s in us all.
And yet there’s One who’s gently holding hands
let this falling fall and never land.
Whatever life brings, may we not forget those gently holding hands.
Postscript: James Mitchell passed away on Friday, December 27, surrounded by family. He was 67 years old.
