FINALE - what the heart might say

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Shall We Gather At the River

http://www.lianneschneiderart.com/DigitalPainting/A-Simple-Life/i-rbshcM7/A

I have spent several posts discussing why we should and how to listen to our hearts and before I have to take a few weeks offline, I thought I should finish up this series with the last steps. Already, we've looked at the groundwork in quieting the mind and beginning a discipline and a practice of meditation. But it's important to look at what we can build on that foundation and how that brings us to a more wholehearted life.

According to Steve Mueller, author of Personal Development Blog Gone Wild, there are an additional eight steps to the practice of listening to one's heart. I'll try to simplify those as much as possible. After learning to meditate and focusing on one's breath, the next step says Mueller is to "go with the flow." By that he means don't try to force your heart to speak or demand that your intuition suddenly become a perfectly clear message. Expecting to "hear voices" dooms us to disappointment - just begin to tune in for the way the messages might come - as a calm certainty, or a profound insight. And when you do recognize an intuitive heart message - make a note of it. Keep a journal or diary of hunches, observations, certainties. Mueller says it's important to keep a record of every time you followed your intuition and found your life improved or felt lighter in spirit. The journal serves another purpose and that is to identify the pattern - the particular way your heart speaks to you, whether that's through hunches or a physical reaction or a sudden clarity. We begin to trust the messages, the voice of our hearts, when we keep a record of what a wonderful guide it is. As Helen Keller once said, "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen nor touched but are felt in the heart."

Learning to trust our heart messages involves using the mind well - once we've learned how to quiet the mind temporarily in order to meditate and listen to the heart, then we can allow the mind to speak as well. Now it is influenced by the heart rather than being at odds with it. Now our intellect becomes an additional tool for clarifying the heart messages. We need to let our bodies speak as well because the body can translate the language of the heart into language that we may understand more readily. Your throat might tighten, your heart race, your stomach tie in knots when your heart is saying no, wrong choice. You might feel suddenly more energetic, more creative, more peaceful when you're hearing a "yes" intuitively. 

It takes a lot of practice - and it takes time to learn how to listen to the heart without ignoring the intellect and the messages the body sends as well. Don't be impatient and don't give up. For some of us, it's a lifetime of practice. But as Steve Mueller says, "When listening to the wisdom emanating from deep within, you will begin to experience unexpected but supportive synchronicities, things will show up when needed and lessons will be taught once you are ready to perceive their contents, always accompanied by the knowing that your heart will always take care of you.

*** I will be off for several weeks and unable to post or respond to comments. I thank you in advance for coming by, taking the time to read or comment and I'll get back to you as soon as my recovery permits. Thanks for all your lovely support these past months. Lianne xox 

Wholeheartedness - a journey into living from the heart

A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.

Thomas Carlyle

Farm Country Autumn

There is a lot of talk these days about living from the heart, speaking from the heart and following one's heart. Self-help gurus have written volumes on the subject and the internet is chock full of blogs on similar subjects. Oprah has had whole series on opening the heart so as to live a happier life. I just couldn't resist jumping into the topic with both feet for a lot of reasons. (So I'm going to be spending the next few posts on the subject in one way or another). For me, the idea of living from the heart is like coming home to these rolling hills and autumn colors.

In the first place, something I learned in grad school that is closely related to this idea has stayed with me a long time...in fact, I can still quotes sections of my thesis having to do with just how the heart plays into the concept of living well and living right and I'll share that first today. But beyond that, I'm a big fan of social researcher Brené Brown and have heard her speak a number of times about the importance of wholeheartedness in having a happy life regardless of circumstances. And then I belong to a group of women who get together at least once a month to talk about alternative spirituality - living our lives not so much in accordance with traditional religious practices but guided by what seems to us to be something bigger, broader and more inclusive than that. Such conversations have led inevitably to talk about the role our heart plays versus the role of the mind. 

I don't think my group is unique - I think that millions of people around the world are seeking what in Eastern thought is called "enlightenment" - awakening to the idea that we are all so much more than just brains and minds sitting on top of a physical body designed to just carry it around. People are studying about energy centers, chakras, learning to "breathe into the heart," to get their minds out of the way or to silence it in order to hear what the heart has to say and feel the difference between heart energy and mind energy. 

As I said, this whole subject has been of great interest to me for most of my adult life and remains an active focus of my own spiritual practice. I find that the more I learn of this, the more I truly understand what my traditional religious upbringing should have taught me, what authentic religious practice ought to look like and feel like. It started with a simple statement in a theology book that I was using as a reference for a section of my thesis in grad school. The section was called "knowledge of God" and referred to a passage in Hosea 4:6 that reads, "My people perish (or are destroyed) for lack of knowledge..." Reading further, I discovered that in the Hebrew faith, one can only know something, but especially can only know God, from the heart. The heart is the center of knowing. That's it...one "knows" only from the heart - not from the mind. If you only comprehend something with your mind, you actually don't know it at all. 

Remembering this lesson many years later, when I took up the pen to write poetry again, and embarking on a relationship that many people cautioned me against, I wrote this poem, entitled "Heart Knowing."

Heart Knowing

          The heart has a language of its own.

Though I must silence my mind to hear it,

it thinks better than my head and remembers too;

this perfect center of my self-knowing,

is an ever faithful guardian of my truth.

The heart listens, hears a voice in the silence,

attending its ear to a word no other hears.

Attending its sight to a vision no other sees,

at the farthest edge of my hermetic solitude,

the darkest shadows of the moonless nights,

my trusting heart is lighted from within

with the incandescent flame of love.

My heart knows what my logical mind

cannot begin to even contemplate,

recognizes the sublime where my eyes

see too often a world both stark and cold

or the desolate dry expanse of the desert.

Only the graceful heart can truly know

another shining soul with loving intimacy.

It was my heart that knew you first,

a love my head could not have known,

and my heart that felt your inner beauty

pass through my very being like sunrise

through stained glass windows facing dawn.

My heart it was that named you Beloved,

Anam Cara, soul companion of my life,

my heart that takes its comfort, its very purpose

from the hopeful dreams of exquisite longing

for your heart, your body opening to mine.

This heart I offer you, my love, this mystical portal

through which we might together enter heaven’s gate;

is my simple gift of joyful, true “heart knowing”

after a graced and lifelong apprenticeship of love.

According to Jennifer Hoffman, author of the blog "Enlightening Life," The potential of your life exists within the knowing of your heart and soul. Yet you use your mind to determine what is possible and its limitations prevent the highest potential from being available to you." 

I cannot help but agree that the mind can be an obstacle to the kind of knowing we need if we are to live "wholeheartedly." I won't say that listening to my heart, knowing something in my heart, led immediately to happily ever after or that such knowing can't and won't ultimately "break" your heart (but that is a subject for another post). But I will say, quoting diplomat and poet Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, "A good heart is better than all the heads in the world."

Farm Country Autumn

STOP...how to make room for happy

There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty to be happy.

By being happy we sow anonymous benefits on the world.

Robert Louis Stevenson

I don't usually do this - and to tell the truth - Blogger doesn't let you easily reblog someone else's post like WordPress does. But I thought this post was so important that I should pass it along with only a very little commentary (and not to bore you, but I do have another prose/poem to go with this topic!)

I've made the point before and will again in the poem below, that we choose who and how we'll "be" in the world. We can choose love or indifference, hope versus despair, optimism versus pessimism and happiness versus discontent or sadness. We can alter our stance toward life and others by our conscious desire and thoughts to do so. But...while I absolutely agree that we can change ourselves when we cannot necessarily change others or change the circumstances in which we find ourselves, there are, nonetheless, certain things we absolutely have to stop letting other people do to us if we are to even have a chance to choose happiness. In these cases, "choosing" happiness involves modifying our external circumstances at least in terms of how we allow others to create negative situations for us. Marc Chernoff in the blog "Marc and Angel Hack Life" has this list of 20 things to stop letting people do to you.  

And even though it's not up to other people to "make" us happy, it is entirely possible that we are allowing others to make it impossible for us to choose happiness. Check Chernoff's list to see if you're permitting anyone to get in the way of that choice for yourself. No one can be a victim who refuses to be one and Marc's advice is to absolutely refuse to let anyone treat you as if you are one. I think you'll find it a worthwhile read - if not for yourself, then perhaps for someone you care about who doesn't seem to be able to choose happiness. 

What is happiness you ask me? 

It may seem odd to approach 

such a seemingly easy subject from the negative, 

but it is easier to begin with what it is not. 

It’s not love – though it can lead to it or come from it. 

It’s not joy – which is a breathtaking kind of elation 

born of full awareness, 

an enlightened sense of the rare 

and unique beauty of the present moment. 

Happiness is not found “out there,” 

in the grasping after or ownership of things or persons. 

It’s not something earned or won like fame or fortune. 

It’s not some romanticized quality of life 

represented by trilling bluebirds or colorful rainbows. 

It’s not something you get; 

it’s something you are 

and something you choose.

Happiness, like love and joy, 

is a state of being one chooses for oneself 

regardless of circumstance or luck. 

It’s a softening and an opening 

of one’s heart and soul 

that empties them of dissatisfaction, 

sadness and regrets and makes room 

for love and joy to fill them up. 

It’s a kind of calmness rather than giddiness, 

peace of mind and spirit rather than elation. 

It’s a contented sigh rather than bawdy laughter. 

Happiness is a general cheerfulness about life 

and a gentle sense of satisfaction with who you are. 

It’s a stance, a posture we assume 

in the face of difficulty or hardship, 

a view of life as more good than bad, 

more hopeful than despairing.

Choose happiness...and then 

allow it to just be.

Are you "first rate?"

“You cannot be really first-rate at your work if your work is all you are.”

Anna Quindlen 

Mockingbird Have You Heard

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/mockingbird-have-you-heard-lianne-schneider.html

In case you haven't noticed, I've spent a good deal of time in this blog advising - myself more than anyone else - how to live our artistic lives with integrity and purpose. And not just our lives as artists either...but more importantly life in general. I've given a great deal of thought in the past few years to meaning and purpose...to what the point of it all is. At the beginning of the year, I began my commitment to this blog with intention and along the way, I've explored with you the heroic virtues required for our sacred quest for a good life, a worthwhile life. I've spoken about success and motivation and goals. I've even spoken about happiness as if I had some answers different from those the rest of you have arrived at on your own! In the last post, we had some great exchanges about burnout - whether it's possible to successfully market ourselves without losing our creative edge and purpose. Whatever your answer to the question was, one thing is certain - we cannot be "first rate" artists/writers if that is all we are. Even the most successful of us cannot eat, sleep, breathe and market our art all the time or I would venture to say, it soon stops being "art" and becomes "work." 

Which brings me back to Ms. Quindlen...or rather to Maria Popova's blog about Ms. Quindlen's beautiful little book about life - "A Short Guide to a Happy Life." Quindlen, says Popova, "considers the question of the self and what makes us who we are, what makes us worthy of being...Even those trying to find their purpose, even those engaged in fulfilling work, and even those of us lucky enough to have no separation between “life” and “work,” can get consumed by our modern cult of productivity. Quindlen’s words come as a vital reminder of what matters, what counts, what the true aliveness of life is." 

You can read the rest of Popova's blog post here: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/03/11/a-short-guide-to-a-happy-life-anna-quindlen/

And then you might want to go out an buy Quindlen's book so you can reread her beautifully intuitive advice again and again. "Get a life," she says, "Get a life in which you are not alone...get a life in which you are generous... All of us want to do well. But if we do not do good, too, then doing well will never be enough." We won't find our happiness in being or having nothing in our lives that is more important than our art or our writing. We cannot be happy if art is all we are and all we do. I think all of us know that already...but in the push to be commercially successful artists, we may find ourselves on that slippery slope at the bottom of which our art has become work and our lives are consumed with productivity and marketing, rather than an expression of our very human spirits and our desire to generously share the goodness we see all around. To be happy is to share our dreams and our passions and to inspire others to share theirs and most of all, to be truly, gratefully present to every moment we are blessed enough to have. 

All work and no play...

Maybe it's because I'm getting older, I'm finding enjoyment in things that stop time.

David Hyde Pierce 

Cup of Sunshine

 http://fineartamerica.com/featured/cup-of-sunshine-lianne-schneider.html

A commonly used proverb, attributed to James Howell, says, “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.” We’ve all heard this old aphorism and the implication is that we can’t allow work to consume our whole lives, our whole being. Workaholics are just not much fun to be around. So, perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise to discover that the sixth heroic virtue is enjoyment – the state or process of taking pleasure in something. Aristotle proposed that enjoyment was to be found in the wholehearted engagement in expert activity – and that certainly includes those activities which make up our avocations, not simply our day jobs – arts, sports, reading, travel or even community activism. There’s a difference too, in being the kind of virtuous hero with regard to enjoyment and simply doing the virtuous thing.

A virtuous person according to Hungarian psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is one who acts readily and with pleasure (enjoyment) as opposed to the person who does the virtuous thing “reluctantly and without enjoyment."  Described by Richard Flaste of the New York Times as “a man obsessed with happiness,” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi* has “contributed pioneering work to our understanding of happiness, creativity, human fulfillment and the notion of "flow" -- a state of heightened focus and immersion in activities such as art, play and work” (TED, 2004).  Such immersion involves a spontaneous state of ecstasy due to entering into some creative activity that is so focused that one loses track of time and place.  The art, the music, the writing, the vision, even the work simply seem to come effortlessly because one is deeply enjoying the activity.  

Sam Keen, in “Fire in the Belly,” introduces the virtue of enjoyment with a remarkable story of Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jew who went voluntarily into a concentration camp because as she said, “A camp needs a poet, one who experiences life there…and is able to sing about it.” She writes movingly about finding enjoyment in every possible thing – the slant of sunlight, the sight and smell of jasmine. “I can’t,” she says, “take in how beautiful this jasmine is…even though the lice will be eating me up in Poland before long.” From that example, Keen draws the conclusion that in life, paradox is the rule and that is exactly why enjoyment is a heroic virtue. “In considering the whole of life, we must at once hold before our eyes visions of horror and wonder, cruelty and kindness. As you read this sentence, somewhere in the world everything lovely and terrible is happening” (Keen, p.170).

The virtue of enjoyment lies in the fact that it keeps us from seeing ONLY the evil which would result in our anger, moralizing or despair. “To get through the world alive, we have to care until our hearts break and cram our lives full of enjoyment. Both/and not either/or.” And that is exactly how and why our work in the creative arts is a virtue even if we are unable to pursue it as a living. Enjoying our creativity allows us to bring that joy into our work lives, our home lives, our relationships which in turn can change routine into adventure, plodding into enthusiasm, duty into passion.

 

So how do we develop the capacity and the virtue of enjoyment? Here’s an article that gives us three approaches – emotional, mental and physical – that suggests time-tested ways to enjoy life more.

“Enjoying life is often thought to be a mindset, the result of reflection, action and gratitude. And while most of us lack sufficient free time to escape to some mountaintop temple to follow our bliss, the best way to find happiness is to...”  Read the rest on WikiHow  http://www.wikihow.com/Enjoy-Life

 

References:

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. (2004, February). Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Flow, the secret to happiness. [Video

        file]  Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html

Keen, Sam. (1992, April). Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man. Bantam Books, New York, NY.