What was the question?

What was the question?

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”   ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

What are the questions *you* are living today?  

Here are some questions I have been asking myself:

If (and please note that this is a playful, curious if), If it is true that some higher or broader or metaphysical *ME* has invited all of the events, situations, and people that populate my life;  What is that *ME* trying to teach me?   In other words, What can I learn from this situation or this person?  

If there is some deep truth in this quote by Rabindranath Tagore, “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”;   How can I be of service in this very moment? 

If it is true that a practice of gratitude brings joy;  What can I be grateful for in this very moment, in this very situation, in this very interaction?  When is the last time that I practiced “Counter-Intuitive Gratitude” and how did that affect my physiology, my emotions, and my outlook?  Have I taken a moment to be grateful for the gifts I have been given and for the beauty right in front of me? 

If it is true that we live in a “post fact world” (as the author of this article postulates:  http://granta.com/why-were-post-fact/ );  How can I come to know the most important truths?  

If it is true that we should be very careful about what we ask for;  What do I *really* want?  What do I deeply yearn for?

How do I want to be in the world today?  What do I want to contribute?  What do I have to offer? 

What do *you* deeply yearn for?  

What are the questions you ask yourself in your daily life?  

Me?  I usually find that if I just come to a full stop and sit quietly and listen inside until it gets very quiet in my bodymind, something soothing and nourishing and difficult to describe in words becomes apparent.  Sometimes it takes a longer amount of quiet than other times for this to happen.

 

 

 

Confabulation Challenge

View fullsize

In the spirit of April Fools, I offer you the Confabulation Challenge.  

Confabulation is, basically, a very specific kind of making shit up.  It is an awesome superpower.  Actually it's a super common power.  Pretty much all of us not only can do it, but we do it quite often, without even realizing we are doing it.  (One of the main reasons why eye-witness accounts are unreliable and shouldn't be solely relied upon to condemn people to jail or worse.)

In my mind Confabulation is the three way lovechild of Story Telling, Can't Remember, and Pattern Recognition;  not too distantly related to Spin Doctor, Placebo, Nocebo, and Liar Pantsafire.  All of these are in the common, human superpower family.  

"Art is a confabulation. Perhaps only with the addition of confabulation can art deliver its wizardry and magic. Scientifically defined, confabulation is the confusion of imagination with memory, and/or the confusion of true memories with false memories. In the art of art, falsehood gets to a deeper truth."

 ~ Robert Genn

Confabulation

    ▸ noun:  (psychiatry) a plausible but imagined memory that fills in gaps in what is remembered

    ▸ noun:  an informal conversation

So what's the challenge?  

Just for today (or for as long as you like) tell yourself something fabulous about you.  

Something like.....

You are a creative, wise, witty, lighthearted, healthy, strong, flexible, loving, creative, sexy genius.  

Now spend the rest of the day "remembering" all the ways this is true.  Prove it to yourself.  

Then tomorrow, or next week, or whenever you like, you can try the same "trick" on a loved one....  prove to them that they, too, are the best versions of themselves, by "remembering" all the times that they were fabulous.  

It's a fun game.  I promise.  You could even ask my friend, Cate.  We play it all the time when we are together.  Remember, Cate?