The "What Goes Around Comes Around" Challenge

A few entries back (I wish I knew how to make those cute links) I decided to try a simple practice for a few weeks: To give to the world what I felt it was withholding from me. I gave more love and nurturing to my husband. I gave more present attention to everyone. I gave myself out to more social situations. All of these things then did come back to me tenfold, although just the acts of giving out completed the circle of richer, deeper satisfaction in life - the "get back" was a bonus, like a third round buy back. The wine is good... the free 3rd glass is crisp bliss.

So last pay period, I gave away all my money. I gave to friends who have small businesses by purchasing their products. I gave to anyone doing a walk. I bought presents and sent presents. It was richly satisfying. The "get back" consisted of an enormous leak in my roof which happened to spring right over my brand new couch which I haven't even seen yet. Better luck next time!

That said, I saw an episode of some cartoon with penguins that live in a zoo and do good deeds. The moral of the episode definitely involved karma, and doing a good deed so that the universe will give you something back. There is a similar breakdown of karma in Deepak Chopra's book on spiritual parenting. I'm not sure about my feelings on karma being used to describe relationships between giving and getting. You can find any pattern you look for - if you believe bad things happen to good people, then they do. If you believe that you get what you give, then you do. You will see the patterns that fit your world view. If you pigeonhole karma into a "what goes around, comes around" kind of scenario, then I suppose eventually, it will.

And if you do believe what goes around, comes around... feel free to leave a donation for my new couch.

Skimming

Despite the recent focus to a) give out what I feel I'm missing in life and b) stay more present in the moment, if there is marrow in my days, it's going unnoticed by me. Clearly I haven't been practicing the put-out long enough for a return, and also I shouldn't be doing it for a return because then.. the focus is on the return. Basically I feel like I'm skimming the surface, me and the water bugs. I won't give up until I'm a tuna, at least. Or one of those bottom-dwelling things seen only on the Discovery Channel, with many eyes.

Sometimes I want to blame the lack of depth in my life on my surroundings, on living in a development in suburbia, being pregnant, having caved to all the standard "things" we have to have for baby that I swore I would not cave to... I do think when you live your life out of alignment with your authentic values, it's hard to access anything authentic at all. However, I also think it should be irrelevant - I am not where I live or any of those things, our identities lie outside of these trappings. The ironic thing about where I live though, is that for the most part everyone does identify you by your labels and things and trappings so it is extra hard to escape that.

Get me back to the beach.

I did read a cute tip: Yogurt containers - use them to plant seeds, and use the little plastic lids as the drip trays.

Higher Power?

This morning I woke up to Oprah's Sprit Newsletter in my email box, which I always mean to take the time to read but usually end up deleting as one of the endless helpful daily newsletters I receive.

I happen to be having an insomniac morning so I glanced over Wayne Dyer imploring me to put my relationship with my higher power (can we agree that could mean anything?) first.

Relationship with my higher power? It took 5 readings of Dance of the Dissident Daughter, two years of purposefully avoiding church, more years of re-programming myself every time I started to envision the Old White Guy with Beard hovering somewhere higher than me.. to finally come to see the source of life as a mighty river. To finally eliminate the idea of a HIGHER power and replace it with an interconnected web of intricacy beyond what I can understand... a "universe" powered by one source of life.

I don't even know if I have a relationship with that metaphor. I don't call out prayer to the universe. I don't ask the universe for this or that. I don't set intentions. I tend to get in the river and see where it goes, and I tend to do my best not to fight it. (As Deepak Chopra says in his Seven Spiritual Laws for Parenting, "Don't say no- go with the flow".

My challenge for the couple weeks that I sit home waiting for the baby to come (tomorrow is my last day of work, and I have mixed feelings about that but I know December will come in no time) will be to see if there is a relationship between me and "God" or consciousness or the Life Force or whatever you want to call our true selves - the divine within myself. It's either a) not there or b) so present I take it for granted.

Do you have a relationship with a higher power? Is that power "higher" than you? Does it consist mostly of you asking and hoping the higher power will deliver? How do you nurture that relationship if you do have one? If you don't have one, (a higher power or a relationship with a higher power), where do you see your place in the universe? If you were raised with a higher power and don't have one anymore, do you feel a hole?

Unravel

It's completely unraveling, all these efforts to embrace my spiritual side - the sleep deprivation, the exhaustion, the complete boredom that comes along with insomnia... SLEEP is something I want so badly and can't have it, it's driving me to distraction. There's no middle of the night meditation going on here!

People love to say "Wait 'till the baby comes..." That's the easy answer but in the meantime, there has got to be a way to get some marrow out of these now nightly insomnia attacks. Any thoughts?

Pockets

Today I was waiting at the doctor's office, on the table, probably about 20 minutes. I checked my email in my phone. I responded to some texts. Then I threw the phone over on the chair and tried to just... be. Tried to take the sheer joy of being alive as all the activity I need. Not anticipating the doctor, the next email, getting to work late... just being alive. With this other little life inside me also (who, incidentally, has the fattest cheeks to ever grace this planet and last we checked in, was chomping on her own arm).

It's not easy being here now. Especially being here, now, sleep deprived, hormonal, impatient, and uncomfortable.

The beauty was returning to the breath. After a few false starts and a few deep, cleansing breaths, the wonder and awe of being came back to me.

Then I called into work late.

Strawberry Container

Any ideas for ways to use the plastic containers that strawberries come in?

Challenge: Spiritual Quick Fix

Solution: "Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world. You are withholding it because deep down you think you are small and that you have nothing to give. Try this for a couple of weeks and see how it changes your reality: Whatever you think people are withholding from you - praise, appreciation, assistance, loving care, and so on - give it to them. You don't have it? Just act as if you had it, and it will come." -Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

The old "Do unto others..." golden rule, reframed. How hard can this be, for a couple weeks? Of course, I'd like to see them withhold the epidural from me... other than that, I can see a lot of instances in the past where this was applicable. When I was a manager and didn't feel my staff respected me, I'm pretty sure I didn't respect them either. When I have felt like I wasn't getting my fair share of my husband's attention compared to his job, I'm pretty sure I wasn't giving him his fair share either.

Giving gifts of spirit is an easy thing to do and might be the quick fix I need to get through the next couple weeks, where the pregnancy will be taking over my life and it is hard to stay present and conscious. I can, however, stay abundant.

What are your experiences with doing unto others?