The Virtue of Detachment
05 Jun 2010 2 Comments
in Detachment, Self-Discipline, Thankfulness, Trust
Detachment is experiencing your feelings without allowing your feelings to control you. Instead of just reacting, with detachment you are free to choose how you will act. You use thinking and feeling together, so you can make smart choices.
(www.thevirtuesproject.com)
Detachment is a powerful and profound virtue. Unlike the virtues of Creativity and Joy, Detachment calls us to our True Self by requiring a more focused attention to our thoughts, feelings, actions, and consequences of those actions.
Without really knowing, Ekhart Tolle, auther of the wonderful books “The Power of Now” and “The New Earth” is calling us all to the virtue of Detachment by teaching us how to be more detached and he explains that when we are detached, we become free and we experience bliss.
At the beginning of trying to detach from something it doesn’t feel like bliss. It usually feels like hell. Whether we are attached to a certain outcome in a job interview, or attached to a certain material object, or even being attached to a certain part of ourselves that we thought was permenant. When we lose something — don’t get the job, have a house fire, or receive promptings from a doctor to change our diet — it is hard to let go.
Change is hard. Detachment reminds us that though the change is difficult, with detachment it becomes easier, and then with patience we will find that the change was for the better. It is easy to be grateful in hindsight. Detachment helps us to have gratitude before hindsight kicks in.
When we are striving towards personal empowerment and well-being, detachment will be both the sliver and the balm. Detachment hurts — but it also heals.
What is something you have been clinging to that has been causing you pain? Is it time to let go and try something new?
Day 184: The Gift of Self-Acknowledgment
23 Feb 2010 Leave a Comment
in acceptance, Courage, Detachment, Integrity, Peacefulness Tags: Integrity, personal growth, self-acknowledgment, virtues for well-being
Yesterday we reflected about Detaching from Self and now today we honour the Gift of Self-Acknowledgment. Is it a contradiction? No. I’ll tell you why.
The Virtue of Self-Acknowledgement is Integrity. Integrity is “living by your highest values. It is being honest and sincere. Integrity helps you to listen to your conscience, to do the right thing, and to tell the truth. You act with integrity when your words and actions match. Integrity gives you self-respect and a peaceful heart.” (The Virtues Project)
When we can look back at our past or look into our present moment and acknowledge the things that we have done that were Noble, Courageous, Honourable, or distinctive, then we are noticing our strengths and capacities. These strengths, virtues, positive characteristics, are worthy of notice and recognition.
If our goal is to achieve Inner Peace, we must learn to relax the thoughts that tell us we are not Peaceful. When we can acknowledge our “power virtues” that have gotten us this far on our path towards well-being then we can begin to turn our negative I-am-not-peaceful-because-I-don’t-deserve-it-thoughts into positive I-have-actually-done-a-few-notable-things thoughts. This is not easy and won’t be accomplished in a day. So be Gentle with yourself.
All it takes is to make one effort today that makes your life an improvement over yesterday. And tomorrow you will do that again, making one small effort (or big one as the case may be) to make it better again.
The Gift of Self-Acknowledgement is not for boosting the ego. If you take this approach you will find no gift. The gift is in the stillness of meditation when you can become at Peace and Acceptance with who you are. In that quiet state of calm, you can acknowledge yourself Compassionately, and therein you will find the gift.
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And now onto something totally different….some “references” in regards to the above post.
Let’s give it up for Shania!!!! Let’s Go Girls! What a great song about being okay with being you!
More on the 21 Day Consciousness Cleanse can be found at http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Get-Started-Take-Debbie-Fords-21-Day-Consciousness-Cleanse. (It’s Day 7 of this online course which I am participating in and journalling about)
The name Abdu’l-Baha, who I quoted above, translates to “Servant of God” and He is loved and recognized around the world for sharing His never-ending message of Peace and Unity. He was imprisoned for 40 years for the sole reason of being a Baha’i. When He was released, He traveled around the world giving presentations about spiritual transformation, eliminating all racial, economic and gender prejudices, about bringing about a Most Great Peace into the world. He is the truest example of living a life of being completely conscious, being completely awakened, and being at total peace with His self and with the world around Him. So I included a quote from Him that I hope readers will enjoy. Reference to Him is capitalized because He holds such a high station of respect within the Baha’i Faith, but He was not a profit or a saint. He was a man who devoted His life in service of humanity, by teaching about and living a life of True Peace.
Copyright Rachel Leigh Perry Pellegrini 2010
Day 183: The Gift of Surrender
22 Feb 2010 Leave a Comment
in Detachment, Joy, Joyfulness, Love, Peacefulness Tags: acceptance, personal growth, self-improvement, surrender, virtues for well-being
Surrender is found when we allow the virtue of Detachment to come into our awareness.
Detachment is letting go of our identification with our thoughts, feelings, belongings, even our family and friends.
In Detachment we can surrender ourselves to the moment and without judgment, evaluation or criticism can allow negative feelings to be released and we can make room for Light, Love, and Peacefulness.
In the spaciousness of Detachment or Surrender we can feel at ease, in complete trust that all is exactly as it should be. When we are in that condition we no longer feel that we are suffering and we can feel true Joy.
“Let us not keep on forever with our fancies and illusions, with our analyzing and interpreting and circulating of complex dubieties. Let us put aside all thoughts of self; let us close our eyes to all on the earth, let us neither make known our sufferings nor complain of our wrongs. Rather let us become oblivious of our own selves, and drinking down the wine of heavenly grace, let us cry out our joy, and lose ourselves in the beauty of the All-Glorious.” (Abdu’l-Baha – www.bahai.org)
See more about The Gift of Surrender from Debbie Ford at http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Get-Started-Take-Debbie-Fords-21-Day-Consciousness-Cleanse
May you feel a spaciousness between yourself and your suffering today in a gentle knowing that you are in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, doing exactly the right thing.
Copyright Rachel Leigh Perry Pellegrini 2010
Day 182: The Gift of Reverence
21 Feb 2010 Leave a Comment
in Detachment, Forgiveness, Integrity, Love, Peacefulness, Reverence Tags: inner peace, Reverence, self-improvement, virtues for well-being
Last night, when I was looking for an inspirational video on Reverence I happened across this video of David Sides and my heart is still soaring in the heavens of inspiration on the melody of this song.
Why Reverence is so important on the path towards Peace is because it is the beginning steps of removing ourselves from ourselves and turning ourselves towards the Divine.
In truth, we have two sides to us — whether we call that our Higher and Lower self or our True Self and Ego Self or our Animal Self and our Spiritual Self– these are all titles (which is why I capitalized them) for the same condition.
Our True Self is our Soul, is our link to God, or Love, or the Divine Spirit.
Our Ego Self is a creation of our thoughts, our minds, our thoughts, feelings and experiences.
Our True Self seeks Unity, Love, Beauty, Oneness.
Our Ego Self seeks distinction, separateness, power, authority.
Reverence is the beginning of saying to our ego, “listen, what you’ve been telling me has not worked out for me so far. There’s got to be a better way.”
And the ego doesn’t like that because the ego likes fear and hurt and negative emotions better. (Ekhart Tolle writes much about this so well in The Power of Now and The New Earth!)
But then there is the prompting of our Soul, of our True Self, which keeps calling back. And it hurts when we don’t follow the promptings of our soul towards Peace. And it begins to hurt more and more and more until we make that great big choice and say, “Okay, I don’t know what this “True Self” business is all about…but there’s got to be something to it.”
We have Free Will and that is what allows us to choose between our higher promptings of the soul and our lower desires of the body.
When I listened to David’s music it was as though my soul was singing.
I hope for everyone that you may catch a breeze of that soft flowing fragrance of beauty that comes when one sits in stillness and breathes in the serenity that is Reverance.
I just feel compelled to say, “Namaste” which means “The Divine in me bows to the Divine in you.” (My Yoga background is coming out here accidentally…sorry!)
I wish you all well today on your journey towards Peace. You will achieve that goal which you desire. You will.
http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Get-Started-Take-Debbie-Fords-21-Day-Consciousness-Cleanse
