Recently was reading(listening to) A Course In Miracles and a line about living through forgiveness really struck me and applied forgiveness to every interaction I had with others when I remembered to apply it. Of course, the more I did it the more second nature it became and I was astounded by the results.

When you live in forgiveness, you never have to apologize.

At first blush this concept sounds a bit holier than thou, but in fact it’s the farthest thing from it. Forgiving everyone before they even speak or whatever they may speak or do unsettles the ego and the mind and takes it out of defensiveness and prevents you from getting your back up. When you forgive someone deeply and completely over and over again, then when they say or do things that would normally set you off, not only does it prevent the trigger in you mind from being triggered, but it makes you see and watch your thoughts more closely as they happen. It allows you to watch your thoughts more rapidly and conscientiously, which ultimately means genuine mindfulness.

When you live forgiveness, then you live in peace.

This doesn’t mean you have to tell anyone that you forgive them. To the contrary, it would be self serving to do so and would also create strife. It’s a very simple matter of reminding yourself, that as you speak to this person, that you automatically forgive them for anything they may say or do that might offend you, hurt you, bother you, or annoy you. For some folks, you have to repeat the mantra of I forgive Sam(my friend) over and over. For others, it comes naturally and rapidly.

What’s amazing is how peacefully people respond to you and how much more you get from life and your relationships with friends and un-friends when you’ve already forgiven them. Not only does it advance your mindfulness practice in a rapid fashion, but it improves their life too. When you aren’t responding negatively to anything someone says then you reduce their propensity to do the same.

Give it a try today. Pick one person or everyone you meet and give yourself the gift of forgiving them no matter what they do, BEFORE they do it.

While trying to get my 4 year old son to sleep last night he said something that warms a mindful daddy’s heart; “Daddy, I want to go to sleep, but my mind won’t shut up”. Other parents might be alarmed that this points to some psychological issue, but that’s because they can’t see the wakefulness in this statement, because they long ago lost sight of the fact that they are not their thoughts or their minds.

I said, “I know what you mean, but there is one thing I want you to know if you don’t remember anything else I ever tell you and that is that you are not your mind. You are separate and don’t have to be controlled by it. You are not your thoughts.”

I sat quietly as he let his mind eventually quiet down and sleep, happy knowing that at 4 there is still a separation to be recognized.

Image by Nikita Kashner via Flickr

Sometimes it feels as if I am swimming in a sea of worry. My wife and mother-in-law spend excessive percentages of their lives worrying about anything and everything. One of the complications of a mindful life is those not inclined to a mindful practice become very frustrated with those that do. Being mindful it bothers me less and less that they care, but their point of view is either that I just don’t care or that I am plain crazy not to worry or naive and immature. You can explain conceptually why there is no value in worrying until blue in the face, but until they “see” that a worried moment is a moment lost, they will continue to be worried that you are not worried, which is exactly what the mind wants… any excuse to stray from mindful presence.

So, what can you do about it?

Nothing really. Trying to change someone’s mind is impossible. You may be able to change an opinion, but only they can ultimately see reality. You can be an example of mindful contentment for them, but not much else. Even that would seem pointless, because an example being set is an appeal to the mind. While they mindful presence may see it, it still needs to be ready. Other teachers will tell you that they know when someone is ready, but ready being a time-bound concept would seem to make that less than likely.

So, what to do about my stressed and worried loved ones? Not much. My mother-in-law is the feeder. She seems to almost thrive on creating worry. My wife is good at it too and has begun doing the same to our children. They are 4 and 1.5 years old and I can already see it growing on them. Especially my boy. For them I can only minimize the worry, walk them through why worry is a waste, and be an example.

To some extent I do waste some moments of now worrying about them. That accomplishes nothing of course. This concept that worrying will help you prepare or plan to handle the thing you are worried about is plain silly. Only a clear mind can truly resolve an issue or danger. Only a clear mind can plan effectively.

The key is to see a potential problem and plan if possible for handling it should it arise, but it is never helpful to spend a moment fretting about handling the problem. Accept the moment as it is and then act mindfully and deliberately to a solution.

My wife is constantly worried that my children are going to choke to death. It is fine to prevent them from choking by cutting their food up when they have fewer teeth, but you aren’t doing them any good if you continue to do that and they don’t learn how to cut their own food, bite what they need, or chew properly.

The other downside to worry or panic is that everything you do becomes much less effective, because you worry or panic. Your mind is filled with thoughts of stress or what if and you can not mindfully handle the problem or situation.

When my daughter was younger we all went to the beach together. Despite my wife having cut up her bites to a “safe” size, she choked and it was obvious she could not breath. My wife froze completely as did my Mother-in-law a nurse for 25 years with looks of panic on their face. I was able to apply the techniques I’d learned for infant choking in a calm manner and my daughter was fine. That’s not to say they would not have eventually done the same thing, but their worried minds that are supposed to help and prepare them for the bad things in life actually endangered my daughter’s life. There is never value in worry and it usually is a detriment. Science has already made clear to us that worry and stress are killing us. Why feed the beast?

One of my wife’s worries is that she will die first and I will be able to just go on with my life. Inherent in her worry is that somehow she will not be honored in her death and that somehow I love her less than she loves me. This is one of those worries that make me want to laugh. She knows that I will grieve and will mourn the loss of her in my life, but somehow she wants to have her existence validated in death by me not being able to function after she dies…. She of course would be dead and unable to care what I think or do about her death or even be able to get some ego level satisfaction from whatever level of grief I express. Grin…

Less worry seems to have come naturally to me later in life. It drove my first wife crazy too. Ultimately all you need to know is that you will never accomplish anything through worry and stress. At those moments when you feel stress arising within you, look at the feeling. Feel the temperature of your body rising, feel the sweat in your palms and watch the thoughts that follow with love, acceptance, and a smile of cute awareness. Then repeat to yourself “breathing in, I accept this moment exactly as it is and breathing out I am happy”. Keep repeating this until you can see the worry dissipate. Try to do this every time and you’ll live longer, happier, and ultimately a mindful life.

It’s always been pretty easy for me to move on from my emotions. I should say, easier than it seems to be for most people in my life. I’ve always been able to see that time spent on emotion is wasted. That is not say that I do not have my times of stress, compulsion, addiction, insecurity, etc. etc. etc. I have plenty and still do often, but now that I am more able to see my emotions, it is becoming easier to watch them float away than it was before for me. While this is a tremendously freeing thing to see and develop in life, it also can make it more difficult to interact with others. This is especially true for those I am close too, that are obsessed with their emotions, stress, and thinking and believe they have absolutely no control over any of it. Its difficult to interact without confusing or frustrating them, because it is so much easier to “move along” from our thoughts and emotions.

This has always been a frustrating quality for friends to understand. They feel like you don’t care about the big important emotions and moments that they care about, but in fact it just seemed pointless to waste energy on things I could not changed and/or that had already passed.

Certainly I won’t stifle the awakening, but it throws me off to see that happening. In addition, I find I am telling less white lies and sharing more things off the cuff than i would have previously. Again, in the normal mode of life operation, this can cause problems, but the benefits far outweigh as long as i try to be as compassionate as possible without the normal delusion within which I used to act.

My wife is the person that I am speaking about and tonight we had a moment where it was painfully evident what was happening for me. She has a tendency to turn everything that happens into a BIG problem that is ongoing. We have a 2 year old son and a baby girl on the way and I want them to sense I what they can be if they awaken and so I don’t want the negative influence over their day to day existence, but I “love” my wife and would never consider a different environment for them. So, I guess I will move along from hear and do the best I can in this moment.