There’s a quiet irony in how hard we work to improve ourselves, only to deepen the very fatigue we’re trying to escape. The striving becomes its own burden, reinforcing the sense that we are somehow not enough as we are. Yet in moments of true exhaustion, when the effort finally gives way, something softer can enter. Grace doesn’t arrive through force, but through the spaces left open when we can no longer keep pushing.
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Read MoreYears ago, one of my long-time mentors taught me that the hardest thing in the world is to engage and reckon with the bruising effects of life. Not by battling life, but by softening myself. And that softening would open up incredible potential within me, though it would ask me to examine every agitation, every judgment, every wound within, and ultimately, every belief I hold, in order to allow healing to find me. Then and only then, would I be able to embody the great virtues to which so many of us aspire. More challenging still would the need to forgive every one and every thing, over and over and over again.
To be broken open ... and available for life … which is an uncommon kind of Grace.
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Read MoreThe Christian Mystic, Joel Goldsmith, once said that anytime someone brings forth the remarkable reality of a Radical Grace, a great example being the Gospels, it’s only a matter of time before most people regress to some kind of retribution. It seems the ideas of unconditionality and forgiveness are simply too challenging for many of us to fully embrace. When we are wounded, we seem to need to find someone or something to blame. Retribution always follows.
Who would we be, and how would we act if fairness and equity were first in our approach?
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Read MoreIt makes sense that we often think of grace as something warm and pleasant. But many of the changes we hope for are usually preceded by pain, struggle, or things falling apart. We naturally want to skip over those hard parts because they feel safer and more comfortable. Yet some ancient traditions, like the Tibetans, have long understood that renewal often begins when something has to end before something new can begin.
What might change if we met loss and difficulty with humility and gratitude instead of resistance?
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Read MoreCarl Jung, the renowned psychologist, coined the phrase “shadow work.” It doesn’t mean ugly things within our unconscious, rather those aptitudes, beliefs and perspectives about ourselves and the world that lurk in the shadows where they cannot be seen. Yes, that includes our brilliance and talents as well. The whole point of “shadow work” is for our interior beings to come into the light of our awareness.
What might be revealed that is hidden within the shadows of our being, and what might that do to change us profoundly?
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Read MoreThe notion of reconciliation is a powerful one, suggesting that we can find a way to make peace with ourselves. In the end, it may be that is a good working idea for Grace, that it allows us to align to reality, whatever it may be. Maybe that’s a kind of spiritual magic.
What in my life needs a way to reconciliation, and what might it take to experience it?
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Read MoreIn the rooms of recovery we commonly hear that FEAR either means F*** Everything and Run or Face Everything and Recover. Such a simple notion, and yet daunting. It’s a great challenge to decide to reckon with our reality. Still, the Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron urges us to “lean into the sharp points.”
What holds us back from the full experience of our reality, and there finding Grace?
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Read MoreAfter years in healing work, the late Stephen Levine suggested that the nature of life is to wound and bruise us. And that the nature of spirituality was to attend to those psychic scars. So that would mean that even the painful experiences are part of the grand design of life and living.
Can we find a way to allow pain and sorrow to be a part of the whole of Grace?
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Read MoreThere is a hypothesis that evolution made us likely to include and exclude, presumably as a survival strategy, or perhaps it is so we can feel some kind of connection to others. A most amazing reality is what science teaches us; when we come into contact with others we are likely to no longer to wish to exclude them.
Could it be when we cooperate by including, we simply make ourselves available for Grace?
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Read MoreThere is something about those things that are unacceptable that brings us to a reckoning with Grace, especially violent circumstances. Things that don’t make sense push us to the brink of our ability to use self-reliance as our strategy to cope. Then we arrive at a jumping off place.
In the face of that which is reprehensible to us, where do we continue to cling and why?
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Read MoreThe law of cause and effect, often called the "iron law" of the universe, posits that for every effect there is a specific cause, and for every action, there is a reaction. Nothing happens by chance; events are results of prior actions, thoughts, or decisions, making it a foundational principle in science, philosophy, and personal development.
How then can we exclude anything from anything including Grace?
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Read MoreBrene Brown, the researcher known for her explorations on vulnerability, discovered that as soon as we find fault or assign blame, not only does our curiosity cease, the possibility for open-mindedness is much diminished. Imagine that, when we judge, our eyes and hearts close. It is not long before condemnation follows.
Who would we be, and how might we act if we were to let go of judgment?
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Read MoreIt’s ironic that Grace is without conditions, and yet, it seems that until we are willing to allow it, Grace doesn’t flow. It’s not that it’s not there, and not available, it just can’t be received by us. Somehow we have to become ready. Somehow we must open ourselves to it.
What is within us that keeps us holding back or resisting the gift of Grace?
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Read MoreIt’s said by some mystics that the biblical story of manna from heaven that falls every day to sustain the people is in fact the story of the gift of our lives and the living that we experience each and every day. No wonder gratitude practices have such value to so many, especially when applied to our difficulties and challenges.
Could it be the first breath of our days is a Radical Grace that is beyond understanding?
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Read More“Everyone is always doing the best they can given time, place and their circumstances.” ~ Master Samwise
Those wise words from a long-time mentor are like fighting words for many. It seems it is very difficult to extend the Grace of this possibility, even though we ourselves likely wish others would offer us such consideration. It just pushes us farther than our woundedness and certainties seem to allow.
What if it’s true though? What if every moment really is our best moment?
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Read MoreSeeing True is a framework and practice for living an engaged life through forgiveness.
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