I keep thinking about a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. A fixed mindset asserts that your intelligence, talents, and personality are fixed traits that cannot grow. There’s no improvement, there’s no change. A growth mindset is the opposite – it’s a belief that your intelligence, talents, and personality improve and change over time. However, instead of only applying the growth mindset to myself, as in, my novel-writing skills will improve, I also apply it to how I approach the world.
My spiritual tradition is a tantra-oriented practice, which if you break down the literal definition of tantra means liberation through expansion. In practice, tantra uses everything as a vehicle for liberation. That means every situation, every struggle, every everything is an opportunity to move closer to the Divine Beloved or further away.
Grow, baby, grow! Photo by Victoria Strukovskaya on Unsplash
Here’s a silly, but perfect, example of how I use everything as a vehicle for liberation. In June 2016, I went to a cat café and none of the cats came up to me. I consider myself a cat person even though I don’t have one and usually, cats rub against me, want to sit on my lap, etc. But these cats didn’t and I was offended, especially because they came up to my friend. What the heck?!? Was she special and I wasn’t?!? Truly, it threw me into a tizzy and it’s what prompted my post, “You So Special.”
My interaction (or lack of interaction) with a random cat, once, spurred me to start affirming that I’m special and unique. It showed me that I was relying on other people to do that for me but using that method is like trying to fill up a colander with water – there are too many holes and the water will keep streaming out. I had to, and have to, give myself what I need first.
Bringing it back to tantra, my spiritual teacher says tantra is an all-around fight, both internally and externally. That means facing my fears, protesting injustice, and always asking, “How can I use this situation or experience to grow?” In my personal life, it also means becoming more accepting of whatever is in front of me because I understand it’s there for a reason and the reason is not to torture me.
My friend Ramesh Bjonnes, author of Tantra: The Yoga of Love and Awakening, wrote about this on Facebook in 2016 and I’m partially quoting him now. He said:
“In meditation, we do not deny anything, we actually become more accepting of everything, and in doing so, we realize where peace and true satisfaction is truly found – not in the fluctuating reality of the body and the mind, but in the stillness of the soul. And that stillness is so big that it contains everything, the only change is that our focus has changed, our identification has changed. It is from this state, we can more soulfully deal with pain, heartbreak, stress, and all the other stuff of life. This is the gift of meditation, to be able to dip into the ocean of the soul and thus return spiritually refreshed.”
Dipping into the ocean of the soul means taking a broader perspective. It means approaching life not from a fixed mindset of, “This will never change” or “I just need to find the right configuration of ____ to be happy.” It’s approaching life from a growth mindset of, “How can I grow from this situation? What can I learn?”
I dream of a world where we recognize we have a choice about how we approach life. A world where we understand we can view the things that happen to us from the standpoint of a victim or as something we have agency over. A world where we recognize we can grow from our experiences if we wish. A world where we have a different orientation toward the world that’s about moving us closer to the Divine Beloved.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
Looking through my Facebook memories, it seems February is frequently a month that I walk along the razor’s edge of fear and faith. At any moment it’s easy for me to slip onto one side or another. It seems only fitting because February starts with the letter “F” after all.
While watching TV this weekend, I heard a line that resonated with me: “Faith is worthless if left untested.” How true. Faith doesn’t have any weight if it’s something passive or taken for granted. Faith only means something if you’ve had to live it. My journey, especially as an adult, is living in faith over and over again.
On Valentine’s Day 2008, I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area without a job, without a plan, knowing only my dad’s best friend and one other person. I had $2,000 in the bank and that was it. The journey was one big test of faith – how much did I want to live here? How much did I believe things would work out?
Similarly, the same situation happened again when I quit a stable job with zero savings and no job offers on the table. My safety net was thinking if I really needed it, I could move back in with my parents or start a GoFundMe. These days, I have my own business, which is something I never planned for myself, never anticipated. It always seemed too scary, too unstable. How would I get steady income? And sure enough, this week that’s exactly what I’m confronting.
This picture, my goodness. Photo by Jordan Donaldson | @jordi.d on Unsplash
My highest paying client announced they’re going in a different direction and that means our work together is coming to an end soon. Cue the freak out as well as self-doubt. I’ve made an effort this week to come back to faith, to remember I’m not alone. That I’m in partnership with the universe and there’s a loving presence that wants me to be happy, joyous, and free.
On Saturday, I attended a live tarot card reading to offer guidance for the new lunar year. The cards that were pulled were about exactly this: Remembering we have gifts to offer others, that things work out when we follow our intuition, and also that there’s a mysterious force undergirding it all. When I reflect on numerous Februarys, I see that.
My spiritual path is based on the philosophy of Tantra and advises practitioners to: “Jump into your environment without the least hesitation. Don’t be afraid. Fear will leave you step by step. Tomorrow you will not be as fearful as you are today, the day after you will be even less fearful, and 10 days from now you’ll notice that you are completely fearless.”
I wouldn’t say that I’m completely fearless, but when I remember there’s a spirit that moves me, that moves everyone, I feel more faith. And in this moment, it’s hitting me strongly that I’ve done this over and over again: taken a leap of faith and wound up somewhere better than I ever imagined.
I dream of a world where we remember faith and fear are two sides of the same coin. A world where we realize faith is worthless if left untested. A world where we see there is a benevolent force in our lives that guides us, that loves us, and wants to see us succeed.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
As you likely know, famed poet Mary Oliver died recently. Oliver wrote many poems and one, “The Summer Day,” gets quoted frequently. The last two lines are: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do/with your one wild and precious life?”
People regularly use that quote as an aspiration to live life to the fullest, but in the context of the poem, Oliver writes of a person who kneels in the grass and strolls through fields enjoying the summer day, asking, “Tell me, what else should I have done?”
Love this image. Photo by Michele Bergami on Unsplash.
All the poems I’ve read of hers have a certain poignancy as she reflects on the transience of life. But instead of lamenting this fact, she revels in it. I’ve been thinking about the transience of life, not only my own, but also as it relates to climate change.
As I write this, rain streaks down from the sky prompting coastal flood and high-surf warnings. Ice caps are melting. Scientists predict we’re hurtling toward another extinction. It raises fear, anxiety, and nihilism within me. I think about my nieces and nephews and feel sad they won’t experience the Earth the way I have. That they won’t know the wonder of witnessing countless fireflies lighting up a summer night. And yet the time we do have left, the fireflies that are still around, are worth enjoying.
I realize it’s always been true that people die, that one generation experiences something the next does not. But right now I think we’re experiencing a collective grief because we’re all undergoing the same loss at the same time. (However, I have to say some of us are getting hit harder than others.) Our grief is no longer solely personal because the world we live in is going through a metamorphosis. And that metamorphosis makes our lives wild and precious. Our lives are wild and precious because everything matters.
A monk friend of mine describes our spiritual philosophy as exactly that: Everything matters. In materialism, only matter matters. In idealism, nothing matters. But in tantra everything matters. It seems to me more and more of us are taking on that perspective, that everything matters. That everything is important. That everything is valuable and sacred. I’ve used this quote many times before but my spiritual teacher said, “If one ant meets a premature death, it will disturb the balance of the entire cosmos. Therefore, nothing here is unimportant, not even an ant.”
Even a tiny ant matters. From the smallest creature to the largest one, they all matter. And every moment matters as well. Not in a heavy, weighty sense, but rather each moment contributes to our life. The boring ones, the sad ones, the relaxing ones, the adventurous ones. They all make up our existence. They all make up our wild and precious life. If we have a little time left or a lot of time left, we can savor all of it as the beautiful and rare thing it is.
I dream of a world where we realize everything matters. A world where we remember the tiniest creature to the largest one matters. A world where we remember life is fleeting and we do our best to be present to it all. A world where we maintain perspective about our wild and precious lives.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
One of my favorite quotes is by Marianne Williamson who says, “Romantic relationships are like getting a PhD in spirituality.” Preach sister. However, for me, every relationship is like getting a PhD in spirituality. There is not one relationship that doesn’t teach me something, even if it’s a relationship with an animal. Why is that though?
I’m pretty sure it’s due to my upbringing in a tantric practice. The psycho-spiritual tantra I practice uses everything as a vehicle for liberation. It also uses symbols to approach something that is ultimately beyond symbolization. This manifests itself primarily through relationship.
People are our teachers of course.
To back up a bit and to give some context, the tantric worldview is one in which a universally abounding macrocosmic Consciousness comes to know Itself through each of Its microcosmic reflecting forms – not only in humans or animals, but in plants, planets, and stars. The Consciousness in all things may lie seemingly dormant in something like a rock, but in humans, the Consciousness becomes self-aware and allows us to actively co-create in this great “knowing,” so to speak. What that means is we as humans come to know and understand ourselves symbolically through the form of others.
Boiling that concept down, people, but not just people, are teachers. I’m sure you’ve already found this to be true. I bring this up and find this concept to be so important, that I learn about myself through what’s outside of me, because it gives everything a different spin. It means other people, places, and things are not conquests, are not objects that exist outside of me, are not around solely for my pleasure and enjoyment, but rather are me. This worldview explains why it makes sense to say, “We’re all one,” because I learn about me through you, and you learn about you through me. There is no “out there.”
In other words, the whole world is a reflection of me in different forms, like a potter using clay. There are bowls and vases, but they’re both made out of clay.
I’m not sure I can convey why this concept is so profound for me, but there’s something about recognizing you are an expression of me, that we are not separate from each other, that’s mind boggling. It means when I see a homeless person, I don’t view them as “other,” I view them as me. Can you imagine what the world would be like if we all felt that way? If we saw refugees as us? If we viewed nature as a different expression of ourselves? Would we be so cavalier to inflict harm? To cut down all the trees, to drain lakes, to build high fences, to abuse our brethren? Somehow I think not. I know this to be true because I’ve seen a new way of being and I have that dream for all of us.
I dream of a world where we view each other as ourselves. A world where we understand we come to know ourselves through a myriad of forms. A world where we treat everything around us with reverence and love. A world where we view that which is outside of us not as things for the taking, but as beings to behold.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
I’ve been thinking a lot about tantra, which some people misunderstand to mean performing crazy sex acts. That form of tantra does exist, but the form I practice is psycho-spiritual and thus about seeking union with the divine, not the divine in the form of another person. The tantra I practice is all about liberation through expansion. My friend describes tantra as using everything as a vehicle for liberation. My spiritual teacher says tantra is an all-around fight, both internal and external. But what does that mean exactly?
For me, that means confronting everything. It means facing my fears, battling my demons, having tough conversations with people, but it also means embracing all parts of myself. That is much tougher than I thought it would be, particularly when it comes to my emotions. I don’t mean in big ways like suppressing my anger, I mean in small, subtle ways.
Tantra is an all-around fight, like this mushroom pushing through the earth.
For instance, I am single and a part of me thinks I’m going to be single for the rest of my life. Usually this is where I or someone else will jump in and say, “No, of course not!” and proceed to tell me why it’s impossible that I’ll end up alone. The thing is though, no amount of optimistic thinking, compliments, or affirmations vanishes the part of me that thinks I’ll wind up a spinster. She still exists, but instead of voicing her thoughts and feelings, I suppress her. My therapist suggested to me that I allow her to speak and I allow her to feel without judgment and without meaning. Once I did, wouldn’t you know it, I felt better and I started breathing more deeply, a sure sign of release.
Feeling all of my feelings has consequences on my physical body as well. There’s scientific evidence that shows people who developed malignant melanomas often tended to be people who didn’t express emotion in a healthy way and who suppressed or repressed their anger. The repression of anger suppresses the immune system as opposed to healthy expressions of anger. “It’s not a question of philosophy,” Dr. Gabor Maté said.
How does this all relate to my spiritual practices, meditation in particular? My friend Ramesh Bjonnes, author of Tantra: The Yoga of Love and Awakening wrote about this on facebook a year ago, and I’m partially quoting him now. He said:
“Meditation is not about trying to stop our thoughts, our feelings. In fact, it is not possible to stop the mind from having thoughts, the body from having sensations, and the mind from having feelings based on those sensations….
So in meditation we do not deny anything, we actually become more accepting of everything, and in doing so, we realize where peace and true satisfaction is truly found – not in the fluctuating reality of the body and the mind, but in the stillness of the soul. And that stillness is so big that it contains everything, the only change is that our focus has changed, our identification has changed. It is from this state, we can more soulfully deal with pain, heartbreak, stress, and all the other stuff of life. This is the gift of meditation, to be able to dip into the ocean of the soul and thus return spiritually refreshed.”
What this means for me is I’m not denying anything, I’m not suppressing anything, I’m not running away from anything. I’m embracing all of it: the easy and the difficult because I know it’s what’s best for me in body, mind, and spirit.
I dream of a world where we feel all of our feelings and allow ourselves to voice even our most secret fears. A world where we confront everything, where we express everything. A world where we use everything as a vehicle for liberation and practice the real spirit of tantra.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.