30 day challenge: sending love to everyone I come in contact with

As if I haven’t taken on enough self-improvement stuff, here’s one more. I got the idea from the intention circle I attended last week, but it’s something I’ve been hearing here and there, so I decided to really give it a go. In modern society we’re very used to constantly judging, labeling, and dismissing others, in effect sending out negative energy as we go about the day. In my spiritual groups, I have heard a few too many stories about how things just work out better when we send love to a difficult situation or difficult people. It increases our vibration as well as theirs. So I’ve decided to practice it for 30 days and change my habit of judging to accepting.

When I say “everyone I come into contact with”, I mean somebody I interact with in some way. Somebody I say good morning to, a cashier at the store, the bus driver, co-workers, friends, acquaintances, etc. I started out trying to do it with everyone I pass by on the street, but that just became overwhelming since I live in a city.

If I forget to send love when I’m interacting with the person, I’ll send it afterwards when I remember, or I might send it to an entire group at the same time (say when I go to choir rehearsal tomorrow night). More importantly, I want to send love to each person who bothers me, by which I mean anyone who triggers my judgment, defensiveness, anger, insecurity, etc. This is because the person who provoked that emotion in me reminded me of some hurt I experienced in the past. I’m taking responsibility by sending love to them and therefore to the part of me that felt hurt.

For the next 30 days I’ll write entries daily or as often as I can about what I experienced. I’ve had trouble with keeping up a regular practice before, so here’s hoping for perseverance.

See more progress on: Send love to everyone I come in contact with for 30 days

turning 28 courageously

I was reading a fictionalized memoir the other day called The Love Spell, in which the main character is a public interest lawyer living in New York. I found her sophisticated, focused, and accomplished. At one point early in the book, someone asks her how old she is, and she replies, "almost twenty-eight." I stopped and thought, oh my god, she's my age! I'm almost twenty-eight, too!

That thought really depressed me. Look where she is, and look where I am. Growing up, I couldn't help but have these ideas planted in my head that you're supposed to be in a particular place in life by a certain age. For myself, I thought I would've been established in my career by my late twenties, not still bumbling around trying to figure things out. God forbid I should turn thirty without having figured out what to do with my life.

Even though by this point I understand that people grow and figure out who they are at their own pace, it's hard to go against your ingrained beliefs. Growing up, I was always the smart one, the one who was mature beyond her age. I thought that made me better than other people and that I would always be that way. Now I look around and see people my age who are more established, and I've realized that it's an identity I've been hanging on to make me feel better about myself. Now I've lost that identity and I feel grief coming on sometimes if I let it. I can feel my egoic self flailing around trying to find some other identity to anchor myself with.

Eckhart Tolle's teachings have been a godsend for me at this time, because I recognize that clinging to an identity prevents me from being conscious and living in the present. Being confused about who I am is actually good, and eventually I would get used to it (unless my ego finds something else to glom on to). Everyday I am being challenged to be myself and be okay with that - to know that it is enough to just be me.

off to a flying start

I feel like I've bolted out the gate of 2009 and haven't stopped. My temp job "ended" the last day of December, and I spent a week relaxing over New Year's and feeling great about having some time off. After going home for Christmas and talking to some friends, I decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and start my own reiki practice (been meaning to write about the reiki classes I've taken and just never got around to it!). I'm now writing content for my website (using an awesome e-business system called SBI), which will include reiki as well as the spiritual topics I'm passionate about.

SBI has gotten me excited about becoming self-employed, so I've been reading books on the subject. It turns out that self-employment is perfect for me. It's what I've always wanted, but I had this idea that you had to have a lot of experience or expertise in one field before you could be self-employed at it. Creativity and brainstorming are really the necessary skills, and expertise is secondary.

But anyway, I got so excited about my new projects that it occurred to me I was job-FREE, not jobless. I was thinking about this and feeling great when I went shopping the Tuesday after the new year, and while I was shopping, my temp agency called and said my work wanted me to come back for a couple of weeks. So back I went, and two weeks turned into two months (though likely not any longer). I'm kind of tired of working here now, so it'll be nice once I finish here and get to work on my projects full time while I job search.