Expectations and Attachments

My office was burglarized the other day. The person who broke in only took the cash and that was less than $150, so we didn't loose much but our sense of peace and safety.

It's interesting how difficult it is to bring that back. I think this goes back to something I spoke about earlier about expectations. When we have an expectation that isn't met, we are frustrated and that brings about a lack of personal peace. So here we had this expectation that our building was safe and that people shouldn't take stuff that doesn't belong to them and that wasn't met. So now we are trying to find out what the boundaries are of what we can expect.

However I wonder if it's better to have no expectations. I mean if we expect to be burlarized every few years or something and that we can't stop them, then we are setting ourselves up for a burglary from time to time. This is not to say we would be disappointed if it didn't happen but we might act in ways that would make our office easier to victimize. If we expect that it will never happen, then we are hurt and upset if it does. With no expectations of the outcome, then at least we are open to never being burglarized again but also are prepared if the event does occur.

We are working on some new security measures. We have been using the mantra of we can't stop someone who really wants to break in but we can make our office as undesirable as possible (for a theif). We'll also be doing an energetic clearing when we can get together. The holidays coming up make that a bit more difficult than we would like but with any luck the group can gather.

It's tough to work on not having expectations but I think expectations are just another word for attachment. We expect an outcome and so we are attached to that outcome even if we shouldn't be. I guess I need to work on what my expectations are if I expect... err.. hope to overcome my attachments!

A quote from Goethe (via Debbie Ford)

In her newsletter this week, Debbie Ford quotes Goethe. I think it's a wonderful quote and I'll use a bit of it here:

I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the deciding element.
It is my personal approach that creates the climate.
It is my daily mood that makes the weather.
I posses tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous.
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.
In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated,
And a person is humanized or dehumanized.
If we treat people as they are we make them worse.
If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.

Goethe

Hope and Cynicism

I heard a radio advertisement while driving the other day. It was for a Church. Their advertising was that if we were tired of cynicism, then we could try hope, which they would provide.

I liked their marketing.

It seems like we often do feel very cynical lately. What can we do to change things? It seems like the problems facing the world are too big for just one person. When we think that and believe it, we loose hope and become cynics.

It's time to bring back hope. Realistic hope, not false hope, but hope is important all the same. We need to keep hoping for things to be better than they are and taking action to create those changes. It seem like it's a feeble attempt in the face of overwhelming problems and disasters but it's important to keep hope and to keep working and doing what needs to be done.

Today, let's all remember what it is to hope.

Words from His Holiness

Okay as I am feeling uncreative this afternoon, I thought I'd just use a quote from His Holiness the Dalai Lama:

Every person has the same potential for inner tranquility, but negative forces such as fear, suspicion, selfishness and self-hatred can destroy inner peace.

Movement and Change

We like things to be predictable and we like to think that things stay the same, but really--when do they?

We are constantly changing. Look at the seasons. We don't try and hold onto summer when the weather changes. Well maybe we do. I like to ski so I don't, but even so at the end of winter I am ready for spring. The Earth keeps turning and doesn't allow us to hold onto seasons even if we want to. The Earth doesn't hold back and keep the seasons from changing.

I'm using that analogy because we don't enter into a state of peace and then never leave it. We may only have fleeting moments of that perfect peace but it is our striving that is important. Often the most beautiful places in the world seasons that are in stark contrast to one another. It allows us to experience the full range of what the universe can provide. When we can see that we can see it's wonderful. We each have preferences but none of us gets to stay in that one perfect season forever.

When I talk about creating peace by starting with ourselves, this is an energetic idea. Energy flows. We must allow things to move on and then allow other things to move into our lives. We must also remember to allow emotions to move through us, some of which are decidly unpeaceful. If we focus on peace, we'll stay closer to that point but there will always be changes and places that we stray. It's not straying that creates a problem. It's believing we can never come back to peace.