by Elly van Laar | Apr 30, 2015 | Acceptance, Compassion, Mindfulness, Personal Growth, Self-compassion
“The path of the spiritual warrior is to have the courage to face life.” Geshe Lama Phuntsho talks to a visitor at the Sand Mandala Dissolution Ceremony at City Hall Austin, April 17.
“We have six consciousness: ear, eye, nose, tongue, touch, and mind. Our suffering comes from our desire to see beautiful views, hear beautiful sounds, feel something pleasant, taste something yummy, and have enjoyable thoughts and feelings. We crave what we like, and resist what we don’t. That is the source of suffering. The spiritual warrior accepts all that is, and learns to see reality for what it truly is, without distortion and illusion.”
Did you ever sit on your meditation cushion, yearning for a sense of peace and quiet of mind? Did you ever get frustrated, self-critical, or hopeless, because your mind was racing with thoughts you didn’t want, you had the urge to get up, you got antsy, felt uncomfortable? “This is not what meditation is about! Meditation is about calming yourself, having these alpha and theta waves get stronger, being still! This meditation stuff is not for me. Meditation just doesn’t work!!!” And there you go, ready to give up on sitting on your cushion.
Wake-up, beloved friend! Meditation and mindfulness are not about trying to be this smiley, peaceful Buddha. Mindfulness is about having the guts to acknowledge all the places where we are stuck, all the places we feel hurt, and all the places where we want revenge, slash out, hide, disappear, disconnect, possess, hold on to, and be reassured that everything will be okay. Mindfulness is about opening up to what is true for you in each moment, engage with your very own, personal experience, accept that that’s your reality, and embrace it with care and compassion. That is what it means to be alive, to be a full human being, and to walk around on our precious Earth in your one wild and precious life. Your feelings, thoughts, sensations might not change on your meditation cushion, AND your compassionate and courageous heart can grow in the experience!
Isn’t that what we all want?
You want help to embrace your experience on your cushion with compassion? Contact me 512-589-0482 for a free discovery session to see if and how I can help you.
by Elly van Laar | Apr 14, 2015 | Acceptance, Compassion, Personal Growth, Self-compassion
She is quiet. Her eyes are closed. “I want to talk about my jealousy…. I feel shame around my jealousy…. As if there is something wrong with me…. It is hard to talk about it…. I am so afraid I will be rejected when people know about my jealousy….”
She looks down, her head slightly turned away.
“I feel jealous of you…. As soon as I saw you walk in, I felt this surge of jealousy overwhelm me…. Out of the blue…. It has nothing to do with you, I like you….”, she says with some sadness, “You just have something I want…. It is always about wanting something I don’t have….. I’m gonna be quiet now, I don’t want to get into stories, I’m gonna self-connect….”
After 50 seconds, “The way the group listened to you, with so much empathy, care, compassion. Ferociously protecting space for you to express yourself, to share your pain…..”
She looks at me. “It has nothing to do with you. I can be jealous of anyone who seems more successful, lovable, attractive than me.”
“My jealousy is harmful. I want other women to fail, to be less popular, less loved.”
She starts crying. “My jealousy is like a child with bloodshot eyes and a hot, iron rod in her hand, chasing other children to poke out their eyes.”
Tears roll down her cheek. “She is not the kind of child you would put up on stage. She is not the adorable five-year old in a tutu, doing a pirouette, who keeps twirling, till she finally loses balance and falls down, and when she gets back up, looks at her teacher with wide-open, blue eyes full of wonder about the next step…. My child wants to cripple that girl, harm her.”
She is quiet. “I understand that everyone is afraid of her and wants to get rid of her.”
She sobs. “Don’t take her away from me…. Don’t put her in an asylum.” She looks at me, “Please, form a circle around me, …. and let me learn how to be a good mother to my child. How to take care of her, surround her with love and compassion, hold her closely, and prevent her from harming others.”
Her breath is deeper and slower. I see a shimmer of peace on her face, her muscles relaxed. “Let me just practice the first Buddhist principle ‘Do no harm’. And then, maybe, I will learn to connect with her, understand her, support her, so that my jealousy can calm down.”
There is something amazing when you create a safe container of radical, unconditional acceptance of someone’s experience. People learn to accept themselves, look at their pain with compassion, and find their own solution from a place of empowerment.
You want help to hold your jealousy with care and compassion? Contact me for a free, discovery session. I would be delighted to help, 512-589-0482.
by Elly van Laar | Mar 20, 2015 | Acceptance, Compassion, Mindfulness, Self-compassion
Mara brought me a visit today. Right during meditation.
He usually does that. I don’t know how he knows when I’m gonna sit -my schedule is rather erratic- but he knows. As if he is around the corner, waiting for me to ring the bell, then barge into my room, pull up a chair, and talk right in my face. Rather loudly too. I never understood how my husband sleeps through his barking, but he does.
Mara rants in a non-stop stream of words: “You should do butterflies to transform your pain, not this stupid chunking along with your plans. You’re too attached to your ego, you don’t live from your heart. You’re not funny enough, your website doesn’t have nearly as much humor as your sister’s. You’re not giving enough, you don’t really love from your heart, serving without attachment or expectation.”
A constant cascade of words that undermine my self-confidence, self-acceptance, and self-compassion.
This time it’s different. I remember how Mara threw arrows at Buddha, and how Buddha transformed each of them into flowers.
Mara is just doing what he is supposed to do: to create a world of illusion, of suffering, of despair. Nothing wrong with that. We each have a role to play, and Mara is playing his to the best of his abilities. There would not be any mindfulness, any compassion, if it were not for the suffering in the world.
No mud, no lotus.
All I need to do is to bring my awareness back to my breath, my thoughts, my feelings.
Breathing in, I know I am breathing in.
Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.
In.
Out.
Breathing in, I know I have feelings of loneliness, sadness, shame in me.
Breathing out, I smile to the feelings of loneliness, sadness, shame in me.
Breathing in, I know I have seeds of solidity and peace in me.
Breathing out, I smile to the seeds of solidity and peace in me.
I look at Mara. He looks rather cute on the tiny, red seahorse chair. “Hey friend, thank you for visiting me. I would love to hear what you have to say. I’ll listen to you after my sit.”
Breathing in, I know I have unconditional love in me.
Breathing out, I smile to the unconditional love in me.
You want help to smile to all your thoughts, feelings, and sensations? Contact me for a free, discovery session. I would be delighted to help, 512-589-0482.
by Elly van Laar | Jan 31, 2015 | Acceptance, Compassion, Personal Growth, Self-compassion
This Wednesday I flew out to Atlanta to renew my passport. At first I was frustrated about the hassle, and the consumption of time and money.
Then I decided to make it an adventure and see it as an unique opportunity to visit a city, its people, and its highlights.
So I visited the birth home of Martin Luther King Jr., the The Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site, and The King Center. I walked away with even more awe for the radical love, the ultimate fearlessness, and the relentless commitment to social justice, truth, and inclusion Martin Luther King Jr. had. Here stood a man who was dedicated to serve others, no matter the personal cost. I don’t think he spent much time hanging out in front of the television, chatting with friends, dangling his feet in the swimming pool. Here was a man on a mission , who did not waste his time mindlessly, who used every minute, every second of his life in pursuit of his dream.
My mind starts racing. “I should educate myself on philosophy, I should not watch Elementary, I should talk about big topics. I should be on a mission to convert everyone to veganism, to restorative justice, to Nonviolent Communication. I should volunteer to take the place of a death row inmate and let myself be executed or refuse to pay taxes as a statement of the injustice of the punitive system. I should not lull myself into sleep that I do enough.”
You know me well enough to imagine the rest of the drill.
Then I read Martin Luther King’s ‘What’s Your Life’s Blueprint’ in The Radical King (Edited and introduced by Cornel West, 2015, 66-67)
“And when you discover what you’re going to be in life, set out to do it as if God almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. (…) If it falls to be your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures. Sweep streets like Beethoven composed music. Sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. And sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that the hosts of Heaven and Earth will pause and say, “Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.” “
And I realize that all I need to do right here, right now is to be the best Elly possible. As a wife, a nanny, a coach. As Elly. Be mindful of everything I am. Bring joy and delight to everything I do. And take a radical stance for compassion, acceptance, and love. For myself. And for others.
That’s good enough.
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Want help to take a radical stand for yourself? Contact me 512-589-0482. I would be excited to work with you.
by Elly van Laar | Jan 20, 2015 | Acceptance, Compassion, Mindfulness, Personal Growth
Let me talk about death. Not because it is my favorite topic, but because it was why I was in the Netherlands after all.
My aunt died 76. Seems a reasonable age, not too young, not too old, and yet I startle. That would only be 26 years away from where I am now.
My goodness, only 26. That’s the same time from here back to the end of my University life, a period I most vividly remember. What happened in these 26 years, what did I accomplish? Not much. Nothing that will gain me an award, a prize, a television interview.
I know, I shouldn’t be attached to these signs of public recognition. I should be satisfied with a life of service, grounded in understanding of our interdependence and impermanence. I should not be afraid of death either, for that matter. With all my Buddhist practice and trust in G*d, I should be beyond that.
I am not. The truth is that I am desperately seeking for ways to earn love, belonging, acceptance. I find it hard to imagine I am worthy of love for my own sake, that I matter just because I am me. I think I have to contribute and make a difference to belong. Gosh, after all those years, that didn’t change.
The good thing is that I had an interaction with an uncle, which highlighted with extreme precision how strong this habit energy is. It was most liberating. I have an automatic reflex to help, whether I am asked or not, whether I have the relationship or not, even whether it is helpful, or not. “Here, let me help you, I so much need to know that you love and accept me, and I think helping is the best way to get that.”
Hum. Not too bad for a two minute interaction. Quite an insight. Enough to reflect on for the next 26 years. Quite an invitation to better understand my intentions, and to free myself from patterns that are no longer helpful.
Maybe I will die at peace, accepting whom I was after all. Sounds good enough to me. No prizes necessary. Just honesty and love.
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You want help to free yourself from habitual patterns? Contact me 512-589-0482. I would be honored to help.
by Elly van Laar | Jan 9, 2015 | Acceptance, Compassion
This is a tribute to my aunt. Tante Ria. She died last Monday. Peacefully. Trusting that she would enter Heavenly Paradise, and be welcomed in the house of her Father.
I am flying out today to attend her funeral.
I feel a deep sense of sadness and loss.
And more deeply than that, of gratitude and appreciation.
Image courtesy to creativecommons.org
She offered a warm, welcome home every Summer holiday for my sister and me. She organized fun events, exuberant barbecues (and even now, being a vegan, I enjoy thinking of those gatherings), and special activities. I always had such a sense of love, acceptance, belonging, appreciation, and delight, whenever I visited her house, at a time when I didn’t experience much of that in many other places.
She never talked about my troubles. She never asked about my pain. She just offered love and acceptance.
Teyber and McClure call that a restorative emotional experience. Through tante Ria I knew that love, acceptance, belonging, understanding, and joy were possible. Also for me.
We cannot always prevent children from feeling pain, hurt, loneliness. We can’t always repair the damage done by neglect, criticism, and ignorance. But we can always offer our open heart, welcoming hands, and radiant smile to let a child know how delighted we are that they are in our world.
Tante Ria, thank you, for inspiring me to bring out those qualities in myself for all the children and grown-ups in my life.
I love you.
Did you ever sit on your meditation cushion, yearning for a sense of peace and quiet of mind? Did you ever get frustrated, self-critical, or hopeless, because your mind was racing with thoughts you didn’t want, you had the urge to get up, you got antsy, felt uncomfortable? “This is not what meditation is about! Meditation is about calming yourself, having these alpha and theta waves get stronger, being still! This meditation stuff is not for me. Meditation just doesn’t work!!!” And there you go, ready to give up on sitting on your cushion.
