THE DAILY SPARK

When our brain registers that we are stuck in some way... telling ourselves a story -  Oh you're bad, you're failing, something is wrong with you.  Or when we notice we are stuck in a familiar anxious feeling... or resorting to an addictive behavior that we know numbs us... if we pause, create space for the feeling , we can begin to break out of this trance.  This sacred act of pause can support you in dismantling the habits that create suffering.Pause and change that pattern.Paraphrased from a podcast by Tara Brach -Tara Brach is an American psychologist, author, and proponent of Buddhist meditation. She is a guiding teacher and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C. REFLECTION:What story are you telling yourself?Is it positive or negative?Is it a repeating pattern?Next time you are overcome with negative thoughts or anxiety, pause.  Try it, it works!

In the beginning of the creation of the world, something happened and the original light of the universe was shattered into countless pieces.  They lodged as shards inside every aspect of creation.  And the highest human calling is to look for this light, to point at it when we see it, to gather it up, to see it reflected, to pay attention to it and in so doing, we repair the world.  This story of creation is often attributed to the Jewish tradition and known as Tikkun Olam.This is a paraphrased from a story written by Rachel Naomi Remen’s book:  MY GRANDFATHER'S BLESSINGS   Stories of Strength, Refuge and BelongingREFLECTION:Each and every living thing (including humans) has a shard of light inside them.  Do you look for this light?What are you doing to see it, point to it, gather it, reflect it, pay attention to it (in self and others)? You can help repair the world by finding the light in self and another. Identify the light in another today and take steps to call it out/reflect it for them.

“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” Quote by Sir Issac Newton -  Sir Isaac Newton was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, theologian, and author who is widely recognized as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution. (1643 -1727) REFLECTION: How do you "seem" to yourself? How do you divert yourself? Is there an ocean of truth that remains undiscovered?  Lifting your eyes from the sand on the beach to the larger horizon of the expansive ocean, what truth can you discover?