Universal Spiritual Principles for Success: Compassion

Today is Monday, October 7, 2013.

This is the third in a series of articles about eight universal spiritual principles for success in any occupation of life. Previously, I wrote about humility and purity.  Today's spiritual principle is compassion. 

Compassion is defined as empathy or understanding of the suffering of others, but compassion has to start with ourselves.  We must learn to give ourselves some slack when we are feeling stressed or under pressure, when we've made a mistake that we feel badly about, or when we have been through a traumatic experience.  In order to do this, we must be in touch with our own feelings, and acknowledge them.  Once we have done this, we can begin to deal with anger, frustration, or impatience about our own affairs, so that we will not transfer these feelings to the people that we deal with in our working lives.  Self-compassion is especially important for people in high-stress jobs who deal with the public, such as teachers, firefighters and police officers, in order to prevent job-related burnout.

When we extend compassion toward others, we recognize that they come to us with their own anger, frustration and impatience, and that their feelings don't necessarily have to do with us.  If their words or actions are colored by these negative feelings, our challenge is not to react negatively in response.  Rather, we must see clearly where they may be coming from and choose a response that will not exacerbate the situation. 

It's clear that this doesn't always happen.  There have been disturbing stories in the last few months about an old man who was made to lie on the ground, then get up without the aid of his cane, a woman who was tasered even though she told officers she was having a diabetic attack, a young woman who was shot because she was acting improperly in the throes of postpartum depression, and a young, emotionally disturbed man who was beaten to death for resisting police officers.  There have also been stories recently of teachers who slapped or verbally abused children.  A couple of years ago, there was a story about a Native American man who was abused while he was in the hospital for a surgical procedure.  All of these situations could have been avoided had the people involved had more compassion.

Although compassion is commonly thought to have an emotional component to it, compassion coupled with detachment from emotion is actually the most effective.  Health care workers have many chances to practice detached compassion in the course of a day.  They understand and empathize with their patients who are in pain, but remain emotionally in balance so that they are able to respond, especially in emergency situations, when it is important to remain clearheaded.  Teachers also have many chances to practice detached compassion with students who come from homes where they may be abused or neglected.  People who handle insurance claims and customer relations departments also have chances to practice detached compassion, as do 911 emergency dispatchers, firefighters, police officers, and those who operate homeless shelters.  

Tomorrow: integrity.  :-)

Universal Spiritual Principles for Success: Purity

Image credit: Darlene Kwiatkowski

Today is Sunday, October 6, 2013. 

This is the second in a series of articles about eight universal spiritual principles for success in any occupation of life.  Yesterday I wrote about humility.  

Physically, purity means being free from contamination or harmful substances.  In other words, it means being healthy.  Purity also means freedom from negative thoughts or from evil. (For the moment, let's simply define evil as doing harm to ourselves or others.) How can this quality in all of its connotations help us in our daily occupations?

When we focus on maintaining our physical and emotional health, we know that we will be able to do our best in our jobs.  How can we serve our clients when we are tired or in pain?  How can we do our best when we are wracked with guilt feelings, angry with someone, or worried about something?   When our bodies are healthy and our emotions in balance, we are capable of putting out higher vibrations, and we find that people are more comfortable around us, and interactions with others proceed more smoothly.

Another way of maintaining our purity is to walk our talk, or practice what we preach.  When we do this, we don't have to backtrack on something we have said to our students, our clients, or our patients.  We maintain our integrity by taking our own advice, and leading by example.  

It is well known that those who are "pure in heart" speak the truth.  This is always good business, whatever your occupation, and when you are known for always speaking the truth, people find that they can trust you.  They feel confident about taking your advice, or taking direction from you. 

Another way that you can exercise purity in your daily work life is giving people the purity of your attention.  In other words, give people 100% of your attention while they are talking.  Don't be rehearsing a reply or a comeback.  Just listen to what they have to say.  So many times, we miss what people are really trying to tell us because they don't always say it in words, and we miss their underlying message. 

Still another way we can express the principle of purity in our daily lives is purity of intention.  What are our intentions? Are we working to serve our clients, students, patients? Or ware we simply there to make a buck and then go home and spend it?  Are we selling a product that we can stand behind, or are we selling something that we know is imperfect?  Do we view our clients as suckers or as people that we are here to serve in some way?

When we exercise the principle of purity in our daily lives, we are free to do our best work, and serve others with a clear conscience, knowing that we have been truthful and that we have acted for the highest good in every situation.  

Tomorrow:  compassion.  :-)

Universal Spiritual Principles for Success: Humility

Today is Saturday, October 5, 2013.

The other day I read an article published for Humanity Healing written by Laura Fine, healer and therapist, about eight universal spiritual principles that healers and therapists should use in their healing practice.  As I read the article, I realized that these eight principles can be used by anyone, in any line of work.  Today and for the next seven days, I will present these eight principles for your consideration.

The first is humility.  I think a lot of people confuse humility with humiliation, and that leads to some uncomfortable associations.  They are completely separate concepts.  Humiliation involves a sudden loss of social position, embarrassment, or shame, often brought on by intimidation, mistreatment, or trickery on the part of another person.  Humiliation, generally, is brought on us by someone else.  

Humility, on the other hand, is a quality that we can cultivate for ourselves, and it involves looking outwardly toward others, and de-empthasizing our own importance.  This is not quite the same as debasing ourselves.  Rather, we simply recognize that others are as important as we are, and we treat them that way.   We don't necessarily have to elevate others above us, either.  Just treat everyone as if they are an equal. 

Humility doesn't have to do with refusing to recognize our own talents and strengths, or pretending, for the sake of modesty or social reasons that we are not skilled, talented or accomplished.  That's where Frank Lloyd Wright got it wrong when he said, "Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility."  He thought humility meant not recognizing his considerable talents.  Not at all.

If we didn't have to deal with anyone else in life, I suppose we could dispense with the quality of humility, but that's not an option.  When working with others, whether they are our patients, students, customers, clients, or colleagues, we exercise humility when we recognize that we don't know all there is to know in every situation, and we don't necessarily know everything about the people we are dealing with.  It's a temptation to pigeonhole people, to put them in a box, so that we can deal with them more easily.  Many times, we judge people on the basis of years of experience, and we may be right in many details, but that doesn't prevent us from being surprised.  When we exercise humility, we acknowledge that there is always something new to learn, and that the processes of our lives are guided by higher forces that are at work in the background.  

Humility is often contrasted with pride or arrogance.  Let's look at this contrast to get a better sense of what humility is all about.  

Pride loves an audience, and uses conversation and contact with others to broadcast itself.  Pride loves to hear itself talk.  Pride assumes that it knows everything it needs to know, and that it has nothing to learn.  Pride refuses to be vulnerable, fearing that others may mistake openness for weakness.  Pride sees others as merely stage props in the play of life, in which it is the star.

Adinkra (West African)
symbol for humility

Humility, on the other hand, loves honest, two-way dialog, a give-and-take situation.  Humility asks questions to learn more about the other person.  Humility assumes that it may not know all the answers, and seeks input from others.  Humility values other people's input.  Humility knows that it needs other people, and engages in interdependence, willing to take a vulnerable position when necessary.  Humility puts effort and energy into listening to others and really hearing what they have to say.  Humility doesn't make assumptions about other people.  Humility sees others as fellow travelers in the journey of life. 

A friend of mine told a story once that illustrated the principle of humility brilliantly.  He was in training for a job with an advertising firm in Europe. In the training, small groups of trainees teamed with one employee of the company, who posed as a client.  The trainees were told that the client was an airline, and that they wanted to use a paper airplane in their ad.  The groups had a limited time to figure out what the client wanted, and they could only ask yes-no questions.  

Most of the trainees thought they knew everything there was to know about folding a paper airplane.  You know how to fold a paper airplane, don't you?  Simple.  Bing-bang-boom.  Most of them didn't bother to ask questions of the client.  They simply presented their client with a ready-made paper airplane.  Voilà. The problem is that every group that did this failed to please the client. 

What question could they have asked the client?  They could have asked, "Do you have any criteria for the plane you want us to make?"  and "Will you tell us what those criteria are?"   If the trainees had bothered to listen to their clients, they could have come up with something that the client actually wanted, instead of just presenting something that they knew how to do, but that the client wasn't looking for.  

Tomorrow: purity.  :-)

Because I'm Worth It

Photo credit: Linda LeBoutillier / Random Thoughts

Today is Friday, October 4, 2013. 

Yesterday evening I attended a Weight Watchers meeting in which it was announced that one of the members had lost 100 pounds.  We've all been cheering her on, but this was a special day.  When I arrived, her son and daughter were standing at the entrance, giving out these bracelets.  I was told I could have either the pink or the black, or both.  I decided to take both, and realized later that a lot of people at the meeting did the same.  The bracelets were this woman's gift to the people in our Weight Watchers group for supporting her in her weight loss efforts.  She's done a fabulous job, and my hat is truly off to her.  It's taken her a year to do this, and she still has at least 100 pounds left to lose, but I have no doubt that she will do it.  

In just about the same amount of time, I have lost less than 30 pounds, so my loss is probably a bit more "average" than my friend whose weight loss we celebrated.  Still, when you consider that each pound lost is 4 pounds less pressure on your knees, that's a pretty good number. 

"You're worth it" is my friend's motto and mantra, and it's one that is, unfortunately, all too uncommon for those of us who are on the heavy side.  It's hard to love yourself sometimes when you look in the mirror and see a really dumpy body.  It's hard to feel good about yourself when you've just downed a whole bag of chips and your main emotion of the moment is guilt.  Then defensiveness.  Then anger.  Then despair.

It's also hard to lose weight when you are not in the best of health.  For me, long distance power walking is not an option at this point. I'm lucky to be able to walk a couple of blocks very slowly, and I need to take it easy on my hips, knees and ankles.  There's no sense in doing a power walk, then having to spend the next three days in bed waiting for your joints to stop hurting.

Fortunately, there is an aqua exercise class I can go to, and I am strong enough now to lift very light weights to tone my arms a bit.  By next summer, I'd really like to be able to wear sleeveless tops without embarrassment. 

One of my goals was to lose 30 pounds by the end of this month, because I'm planning on taking a trip to visit friends.  I'm within 3 pounds of the goal, now, so mustn't backslide.  I just have to remember that I'm worth it.  These bracelets will help. 

I do not have to down a whole bag of chips, because I'm worth it. 

I do aqua exercise and lift weights because I'm worth it. 

I lose weight to feel better physically, as well as to feel better about myself.... because I'm worth it! :-)

Expanding Our Boundaries

Today is Thursday, October 3, 2013.

"A mind that is stretched by new experience can never go back to its old dimensions."  –Oliver Wendell Holmes

This quote reminds me of the expression, "You can't go home again," the title of a book by Thomas Wolfe that was published posthumously.  In the book, a writer leaves his hometown and then writes a successful novel about the place where he grew up.  The hometown people don't like what the author wrote about them, and make it impossible for him to return to the place of his birth.  At the end of the book, the main character, George Webber, says, ""You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."

 The expression "you can't go home again" or "you can't go back home" entered the American lexicon and has come to mean that once a person has left the small town that he or she grew up in and spent time in the big city, it's impossible to return to a simpler, less sophisticated way of life. 

Another way to express this idea is from a song sung by Nora Bayes in 1919, after the U.S. soldiers came back home from World War I, "How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm / After they've seen Paree [Paris]?"  

Just as it is difficult to move into a smaller home when we are used to a larger space, so also is it hard to go back to the way things used to be when we have learned something new.  Our personal space and our worldview keep expanding.  We may have felt fearful at one time about going beyond a given boundary, but now, going back inside that same boundary feels like a limitation. 

How has your world enlarged in the last few years?  If you feel that it hasn't enlarged that much, ask yourself if you have allowed yourself to have any new experiences.  What can you do to expand the boundaries of your personal world?  :-)

Women's Wednesday: Queen of Your Own Life

Today is Wednesday, October 2, 2013.

A friend shared a page on Facebook that spoke to me.  It is called "Queen of Your Own Life," and it's based on the book Queen of Your Own Life: The Grown-up Woman's Guide to Claiming Happiness and Getting the Life You Deserve, by Cindy Ratzlaff and Kathy Kinney.   They have a website you can visit, here.

One of the recent posts on the Facebook page gave a little exercise.  Write a thank-you note to yourself as if you were a friend.  The post asks, "What would you say to uplift, support, and thank yourself?"

I think this is a great exercise.  We are so much kinder to others than we are to ourselves.   It's also hard.  I was going to publish my own letter in this blog, but I discovered that there is within me a very strong taboo about being thought too full of oneself in public.  Would a man feel the same way about publishing a thank-you letter to himself on the web?  Good question.  Ah, well, I wrote it, and I'll keep it private, for now. 

If I were a queen, I would expect to get what I want.  As soon as I typed this, I had another thought, another very big taboo that says, "You can't have what you want."

It's true that life doesn't always give us what we want, but after thinking about it for a bit, I decided that there is a big difference between the statements "You can't have what you want," and "You don't always get what you want."  The first is a statement that limits us.  The second is simply a statement of the facts.

The truth is that you can have what you want, but maybe not 100% of the time, and when you don't get what you want, you generally get what you need, which is a good thing, after all. 

If I were a queen, people would do things to make me happy.    Perhaps a real queen expects people to make her happy, but that's something I have learned not to do.   It's no one's job to make me happy.  However, there is nothing wrong with accepting kind gestures from people and showing my pleasure.  I do know some people - mostly women - who seem to feel that if someone is making them happy, they must not be doing enough for others, as if receiving a gift of kindness is some kind of sin. 

If I were a queen, I would do things that make me happy.   This doesn't have to mean spending a lot of money on myself, although there's no reason why I can't.  I'm single and have no kids, so if I want to buy myself a diamond ring, then by damn, I will.  It doesn't look like anybody else will be buying one for me.  Why should I wait for some guy to buy me something I can get for myself, anyway?  Actually, I did buy myself a beautiful diamond nearly 30 years ago, but not only did I gain weight, I also broke the ring finger on my right hand, and didn't have the joint set properly, so I can't get the ring on anymore.  Time to sell that one, I guess.  Besides, a diamond ring is not at the top of my list anymore.

What makes me happy?  Well, writing makes me happy, and I do that every day.  And traveling makes me happy, and I manage to take some kind of trip two or three times a year.  My friends make me happy, and I correspond with friends every day, even if I don't get to see them in person that often.  Losing weight makes me happy - mainly because I feel better, physically.  Having something to do each day makes me happy, and I've got to the point, now, in my retirement, where I have a little schedule going - something to do each weekday and a couple of Saturdays or Sundays a month.  Not too shabby.

By golly, I guess I am, finally, Queen of My Own Life.  :-)

Some Thoughts About Time

Today is Tuesday, October 1, 2013. 

"Time is free, but it's priceless.  You can't own it, but you can use it.  You can't keep it, but you can spend it.  Once you've lost it, you can never get it back."   –Harvey MacKay

Harvey Mackay is a businessman and columnist. He is the author of five business bestsellers, including Swim With the Sharks, Beware the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt and Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty.  He sounds like a very smart man.

Physicists are starting to agree with teachers of ancient spiritual traditions: time and space may simply be illusions, or anyway, only an approximation that we can wrap our minds around of what's really going on.  Maybe we don't really want to know what's going on. Who knows? 

But if time is an illusion, it sure is a powerful one.  When we speak of time, what we really mean is presence in a physical body.  It may be that once we throw off the physical body, there is no need for the constraints of time.  A friend of mine died a couple of years ago at the age of 62.  I'm 60 now, and I occasionally think, "Gee, I hope I will get more time here than she did."   

In a recent blog entry, I explained that when I was 15, I had one of those "Soul moments" where I realized that I had only a limited amount of time on this earth, and that I didn't want to spend too much of it putting on make up.  It seems petty, perhaps, until you realize how much time some women spend putting on make up.  Anyway, I just thought that I had better uses for my time.  

I have spent a lot of time in this life reading, listening to music, and thinking.   I have not spent much time, relatively speaking, putting on make up, cleaning house, or cooking.  

I have spent more time than I wanted to waiting at bus stops, which is why I finally learned to drive in my late 40s.  Now I love  how much stuff I can get done in a small amount of time.

When I was teaching in the pubic schools, time was measured in increments as small as five minutes.  In kindergarten, you can only spend 10 to 15 minutes on one particular activity before the kids get bored and out of control.  In high school, passing time in the halls is generally only about five minutes.  I'm still in awe of what I could get done in those small amounts of time.

In the time it takes for a third grader just learning cursive to sign his or her name, I can type a couple of long paragraphs, or several short ones.  In the time it takes me to write one of these blogs can take only a few minutes or almost all day, depending on how much research I have to do or how much organization of information is required.  

Each evening before I go to bed, I review my calendar for the following day, and I sometimes make a list of things to do, such as a shopping list, a housework list, or an errand list (pay bills, mail letters, call so-and-so, etc.)  Each morning, as I enjoy my coffee, I check email, the weather, the news and Facebook.  Sometimes I can do all of this in about ten minutes.  Other times, I look up the clock and wonder how it is that two hours have passed.

I often end up altering my plan for the day.  Something crops up and suddenly, I don't have time to do one or two of the things on my list.  I have to make time somehow or put the activities off until the following day.  

I try not to think too much about the fact that I'm not getting back any of the time I've already spent.  Was it a waste of time to daydream?  To listen to music?  To read a trashy novel?  Was my time really well spent cleaning the toilet?  Doing the laundry?  Going to the local mall when I didn't really need anything?   Was it a waste of my time to wait for the doctor to see me?  To wait for the bus?  Was my time well spent laughing with friends, holding someone's baby, or playing with my cat?

If there's really no such thing as time, I guess I won't have to worry about being rushed when I get to heaven and start to review my life.  That's supposed to occur in a flash, anyway.  :-)