by Connie Habash | May 1, 2020 | Articles, Being, Doing, Freedom, Nothingness, Presence
It’s in nothing, not in doing something, that we find true freedom. The freedom of Being.
As I write this blog, I’m ending week 7. You may think I’m referring to the corona virus shelter-in-place, but I’m actually referring to something else: my journey through hyperthyroidism, which has incidentally overlapped, for better or worse, with the global pandemic.
It’s been a humbling experience. As a yoga teacher, I’ve been quite attached to my state of fitness. Within a few weeks, I went from my regular cardio workouts, weight lifting, and my yoga practice to stopping on each step of our stairs to slow my heart rate down. I couldn’t walk more than the length of the house without triggering heart palpitations, and I had to rise very slowly from bed. At one point, I couldn’t even do the most gentle of seated yoga poses.
My work and family life have suffered, too. Unable to cook or clean for a while, I needed to rely on my husband and daughter to pick up the slack. No more could I sit down and play a game with the family, and even a short walk through the neighborhood together was out of the question. I let go of control, and also released my attachments to the state of the home, doing things with the family, and my personal physical appearance.
During the worst part, I had to cancel all my client sessions. In fact, I even had to cancel one in the middle of it, because I couldn’t think clearly. All my events – even the online ones – were wiped off my schedule, if temporarily.
It has been a lesson of surrender into the nothingness.
For that’s pretty much how I felt – like nothing. I was used to making a difference, doing something that mattered to others. Now, I was faced with being nothing, as if I were irrelevant now that I was ill.
Most of my life – certainly my adult life – I’ve based my sense of self on doing. I was capable. I could succeed in school, and I could create my work. If I needed more income, I could offer more classes, workshops, or expand my counseling offerings. I could write more, do more events, speak more places… always doing more, more, more.
Sure, I’d stop and be present. It’s a hallmark of my spiritual practice and what I teach. But I didn’t stay there. It was a breathing point, a place that I could have a break. A break between all of my doings that kept my sense of Who I Am established.
All of that broke down over the last 7 weeks. Slowly, everything that I defined myself by was stripped away. Good enough mom? Now I can’t help my daughter or cook a meal for the family. Therapist? I had to clear my calendar of client sessions. Writer? I couldn’t put together a sentence. Speaker? Teacher? No way! Nothing profound was coming out of my mouth, and I was mostly filled with fear. The fear of watching everything you defined yourself by dissolve in front of you.
One night, when I was up for hours once again, unable to sleep, it occurred to me that I couldn’t hang on. I had to let it all go. I didn’t know for how long. But I needed to embrace the nothingness.
It’s vast. It’s scary. I traveled through the fear of dying as well as the fear of living. Because living is a risk. We all risk, every day, stepping into the world. I’m not talking about corona virus – that has just amplified our physical risk. But I mean the vulnerability of being ourselves. Stepping out and being who we are. Sharing what we have with the world. But sometimes, just being in the world.
Being had to be enough. I needed to learn that my beingness – out of that nothingness – was sufficient. In fact, it was Who I Am.
All the doings are like whirlwinds, like the hurricane swirling around that calm, quiet, clear center. That’s Who I Am. In silence and presence, without any doings, is the I AM.
The hurricane couldn’t exist without its center. I had to take this journey to find my center, and stay there. Nothing is the foundation of the Universe. It’s only because of the nothingness that something can arise. Otherwise, we wouldn’t know it as something, as a doing. We must have the non-doing, the being, the nothingness as the foundation.
I needed this time to let go of the flurry of winds, the untamed doing in my life, to find the being of my Self again. Still, my heart begins to pound when I am caught up once again in the doing; my rapid, run-around-on-rocket-fuel doing to try to be that “something” I believe I am.
This illness returned me to Presence; to simply being in this moment. Nothing, without doing. In this nothingness, I could be whatever I was in the moment. No expectations to live up to.
What I found as I allowed this process to unfold, to embrace that I was becoming nothing, is that everything flowed. When my body was ready to see clients, they were there, and even more showed up unexpectedly. People contacted me to be included in their projects. The more I aligned with my nothingness and allowed myself to be, the more I opened to allow the flow – and it showed up. Sometimes, nothing happened; other times, things to do showed up. Either way, I was still the I AM, still the unchanging nothing that was peaceful and more than enough.
Now, I spend time each day sitting in the sun, listening to the birds, as I did before – but now, I sit as nothing. I smile as I write this. It fills me more than all the doings.
What freedom in nothing, in allowing myself to be and knowing, trusting, that nothing is sufficient. More than sufficient; it is the fullness of All That Is. It’s a relief and a joy.
Allow nothing to be here right now for you, and open to the freedom of being.
by Connie Habash | Nov 6, 2019 | Authenticity, Connection, Freedom, Growth, Projection
Life certainly has its ups and downs, as we all know. But those ups and downs are often not perceived accurately by us. We are like movie projectors, carrying around a screen that we place between us and our lives. If we can catch ourselves projecting and take the screen down, true intimacy, connection, and healing can occur. It is the key to our personal and spiritual awakening.
We Create Simulators with Projections
Have you ever been on a simulated ride, like the Star Tours ride at Disneyland? Do they actually fly through space as hundreds of miles an hour? No, they don’t. They are on hydraulics, lifted up and down and shifted side to side to simulate motion.
If you didn’t have a screen, you’d feel yourself jerked around and moved back and forth, which might be kind of fun and maybe jarring. But the projected screen in front of you gives you the impression that you’re dropping thousands of feet, accelerating rapidly, or narrowly missing a crash. The movie you are shown as you travel through it makes it feel incredibly real and much more intense.
We’re setting up our projection screens around us all the time, much like that ride. We may experience a difference of opinion with someone else, or a sharp retort by our partner – something that makes us feel uncomfortable or upset. But when we turn on our projector and set up the screen – unconscious and almost immediate, if old issues are triggered – the situation takes on a completely different feel. Suddenly, it’s life or death, or appears far more significant or upsetting than it would to someone else who isn’t watching our movie.
Projections Make Things Bigger
A small event – like forgetting to take the trash out – can take on big proportions when we project on it. If we were told as a child that we’re lazy and no good (especially when we forgot to take out the trash!), all those old feelings can flood back in. Shame arises. We may want to curl up in a ball or hide in our room, avoiding the situation. We may even feel angry and defensive, worrying that someone may judge us for forgetting. And if someone, heaven forbid, does mention it, we can lash out angrily in that defensiveness. We could accuse them of being mean, or we might burst into tears and fall apart.
All that happened was that we forgot to take out the trash. It’s an easy thing to forget, and an easy thing to change, if we are seeing it clearly without our old story projected on it.
If you happened to be triggered by a relatively minor thing (or even if it’s a major one), it’s worth it to consider projections. What might my old story be that I’m overlaying on this situation? What is the source of where this unnecessarily strong emotion is coming from? What is being projected on these people and circumstances?
Casting Our Movies
It is very easy to cast ourselves, and others in our lives, in our old movie. We replay our part, again and again, when we let the projector continue to run. And we find people that are similar enough to cast in the story’s roles, much to the detriment of those relationships. We can’t have authentic connection and communication when we’ve already written the script.
Recognize when you are using a projector, and take down the screen. That means seeing the story that it originated from as it is, separate from present time. You may still feel the attraction to want to tell the story again, but don’t project it on the current situation. Get to know the story. Feel it in your body, recognize the emotions and the old thought patterns. See it for what it is, and acknowledge that it isn’t happening right now, no matter how similar the current situation may be.
True Freedom
Personal growth and spiritual awakening happen when we take down the screen and turn off the projector. We can be present with whatever is, knowing we are capable of responding to it. We can see the essence of others and find common ground, rather than make assumptions. Our true essence, which is beyond thoughts or projections, can shine forth. Possibilities for healing, renewed relationships, and empowerment arise when we turn off the old movies and relate in the present moment.
Recognize and honor the story. Then release it. Beyond our projections, true freedom is at hand.
by Connie Habash | Jul 1, 2019 | Attachment, Fear, Freedom, Unknown
Many of us, myself included, like to be in control; knowing what will happen or understanding a situation makes us feel more in command of our lives. But I’ve come to appreciate the freedom and ease of not-knowing.
Let’s face it. We may be able to schedule our calendar in advance, look up the meaning of the word apoplectic on the internet, and set an alarm clock to wake when we need to. There’s a lot that we know or can find out. But many things in life just aren’t in our control. Even with using the Law of Attraction, a popular spiritual practice of focusing our intent on what we want to create and experience, we can’t control or know our outcomes for certain.
That book we ordered will get here when it does. The weather has a mind of its own, much to the chagrin of forecasters. We want our children to behave properly (according to what we think is proper), but even a well-behaved child still has their moments (especially when they become teenagers!). Our best laid plans for a vacation often don’t turn out exactly the way we envisioned.
Needing to Know Feeds Into Fear
Sometimes, we just don’t know what life has in store for us. That can bring up a lot of fear – to not be in control and to not know what might happen next. But most of the time, it brings me joy.
The only reason we become fearful when we don’t know what’s going on is that we’re projecting something to worry about onto that blank screen. We image the worst. It’s kind of funny when you think about it, that we have this tendency to believe that things are going bad if they aren’t going our way. We don’t like the unknown. In this way, needing to know feeds into our fears, because we believe we should know in order to feel safe.
The Magic of Not-Knowing
But it is in the unknown where the magic happens. Developing trust in the Universe to deliver our highest good turns stepping into the mystery into a joyful, daily revelation.
If you could, would you really want to mail-order your ideal partner? Check all the boxes and just have them sent, and you’re done. Now get married. I don’t know about you, but my energy drops when I think about that. There’s no life in knowing exactly what you are getting. There’s no story that builds the foundation of the relationship – how you both ended up pulling the same number in line at the deli, or when you met at the Mindfulness workshop. Total predictability makes life dull.
The Limits of Knowing
But more than the lifelessness of knowing how everything would unfold, it’s tremendously limiting.
Do we really want to limit what can show up in our lives, so that we can be in control and know? I know I don’t. I have limits to what my imagination can create. But when I open to the boundless, infinite possibilities of the Divine, more than what I personally can imagine or know is possible.
It’s hard when we’re waiting to hear back from a job interview. We want to know the outcome, and either celebrate or move on. But if we can let go of our need to know and trust in the highest good, flowing in our life, then we can enjoy whatever is in the present moment – even while waiting for test results or a response to a pitch for a contract.
The Good We Can’t Imagine
Rather than investing our energies in wanting things to stay within our known realms, it’s freeing to allow the unknown to bring us good we couldn’t have imagined. This attitude can transform how we perceive change. Why focus on what bad or scary thing could happen, when we can envision that something better than we could come up with will show up. Even if we don’t get the job, a better one may be on its way.
Reframing Change
This allows us to reframe situations in our lives that are less than perfect. No, I didn’t like it when, over 10 years ago, I pulled open a door and ripped my big toenail off. It was a painful and slow recovery. Had I known it would happen, sure, I’d try to prevent it. But maybe I would have simply caused myself unnecessary suffering, worrying about whether it might happen.
Instead, I got to experience the healing process and model for my daughter, who was just 3 at the time. Things we can’t predict happen in life and we can handle it. It’s not the end of the world. We have strength, resilience, and trust in the healing process. She was quite curious about it when I cleaned it each evening, and wasn’t afraid to look. Perhaps she was a bit less upset the next time she skinned her knee, because she knew I managed when I was hurt. In the end, my toenail regrew, and I saw the hidden gifts in an unpleasant situation.
Freedom: Leaving the Results Up to the Divine
Sure, there are some things that I’d prefer to know about so I can be prepared. And I like envisioning my life, setting intentions, and being creative. But as I set my intent and create my reality with my attitude and perceptions, I leave the results up to the Divine. I relax as I allow a greater wisdom and knowing to steer my life than my own. I trust that it brings me my highest good, rather than just what I had in my control.
That’s freedom in not-knowing. We don’t need to spend our time thinking about it, figuring it out, or worrying about the outcome. All that energy then becomes available to us. We can focus on what we’re creating in this moment, plan for the future, and then let it go, trusting the process.
My heart, mind, and body feel lighter with letting go my attachment to knowing. I have more energy, a sense of adventure, and just plain fun. It’s far more joyful for me to be in the sacred flow of the Great Mystery, allowing unexpected good to show up. How about for you?
by Connie Habash | Sep 7, 2016 | Aliveness, Courage, Fear, Freedom, Openness, Risk
There was a book written by Shirley MacLaine by that title, back in the 80’s – you may remember it if you’re old enough. One of the first new age/spiritual books that I read, and it deeply touched me.
As the name implies, she was writing about going in a direction most people don’t go – in her case, into spiritual and psychic phenomena. I am relating to the title in a different way, though, right now. Perhaps a bit more literally.
Over the long holiday weekend, my family and I went to Point Reyes National Seashore, a diverse and beautiful piece of coastal wildlands preserved for those lucky people who take the time to drive out there. The three of us were that blessed to explore the secluded beaches, hiking myriad trails through brush and forest, and enjoying the quiet and pastoral countryside.
My daughter was finding every climbable tree in sight and embarking on a gingerly ascent. You can see her and my husband here on one that didn’t require climbing, just carefully walking across the fallen trunk above a stream.
She brought out the explorer in me. Although I was mainly the person holding the camera while she climbed each trunk, I also scaled some small ones with her. We found a bay laurel with a couple cozy niches in the center of its trunk, which she mused would be perfect for crawling into with a good book.
She also relished stepping off-trail to a small waterfall to wash her feet, or to scaling the reddish-brown sand of a crumbling cliff, determined to seat herself in a depression high on its wall. Don’t worry, it wasn’t that risky – the crumbling created a soft, red, sandy slope that lead gently down to the beach. Still, it was edgy for me to climb up there nearby and take her photo, beaming delight to be in her throne carved into the cliff’s face.
You may know, from my last newsletter, that I’m been exploring the edges a lot lately. It’s still uncomfortable. But when I hold back from fear and don’t at least try, I feel a gripping in my body. A tension, as if I’m simultaneously holding something in and pushing something out. When we give in to fear we often freeze, and in that freezing lose something precious. We lose aliveness.
I could feel myself at times squeezing that life out of myself, because I wasn’t willing to venture out on a limb. And at other times, when I went past the fear and “just did it” (thinking restrained, rather than my body), something opened up and flowed, and aliveness was there. Openness in my chest, movement of energy, and the mind falling silent.
Have you noticed that tension when you hold back, when you run away from the edge and shut down? What does your body long to do? Can you feel what shifts when you step into something new, something daring – not by force, but by joyful choice? What is it like when your body is open, free, and alive?
Maybe you’d rather not actually climb a tree. But you can imagine what it’s like to sit out on a limb, just high enough to see the blackberries growing on the other side of the fence, and the ocean in the distance. Lean back against the support of the trunk, feel the breeze in your hair, and let your body feel alive. Close your eyes and try to feel the freedom in your chest, your back, your belly. Take that feeling with you into your journey. How do you want to go out on a limb in your life?
by Connie Habash | Aug 16, 2013 | Being, Freedom, Growth, Love, Presence, Space
For several weeks, I’ve been contemplating the nature of many things in the universe, including the nature of the Divine. I believe and feel that God is the source of love, and indeed is the energy of Love itself.
But in further exploring this idea, I realized that I needed to more deeply understand what I felt about the Divine. If God is Love, then what is Love? Because we all have different experiences and interpretations of love, it may cloud our true understanding of what that Infinite Consciousness or Intelligence is. We must come to a clear understanding of what Love is in order to understand God.
Many of us, consciously or unconsciously, have ideas of love. Some are based on what we did or didn’t receive as children growing up. Other ideas come from relationships we’ve had. And still other concepts come from what we’ve observed in the world or read in books.
Most of us base our concepts of love on what we feel inside. While I respect the power of feelings and the importance of honoring them and working with them, it can be a little deceptive to interpret love simply based on what we feel.
Why is that deceptive? Because feelings change. For example, many of us think we feel love when we’re “falling in love” with someone. We’re elated, we feel great, the world looks rosy. The thrill of being loved by another is ecstatic. It can be lusty, romantic, sweet, and make us feel worthwhile. At the same time, if circumstances change and we are rejected or betrayed, that same love can feel like jealousy, rage, despair, or hopelessness.
Is that love?
We often think of love when we think of our children. Certainly, there’s nothing like the love that a mother or father has for their child. It is elating, especially in those first weeks after birth. It is joyous, like when our little girl or boy runs to us with arms wide and throws themselves into our embrace. Being loved by a child touches us deeply, inspiring in us joy, responsibility, pride, and nurturance.
But this love also is painful, like the first time our toddler hits their head and cries like the world is over, or when they’re in bed with a fever. Our hearts ache for them, and we so much want to take away their suffering. Love for our children is also painful when our teen says they hate us, or slams the door on us. When our children don’t behave the way we want them to, love can feel like anger or frustration.
Is this really what love is? Does love change depending on the circumstance, or is love consistent, steady, always blissful? Or is it something else?
Well, clearly there are differences between the love we have for our favorite ice cream (love? really?), the love we have for our partner, the love we have for our parent or our children, and the love we have for the Divine. I could discuss the differences between them, but that’s really another article…
What I truly want to know and understand is, what is Divine Love? What is the Love, with a capital L, that I experience from and as God?
When I asked the question, answers started showing up. I was listening to a series of recordings by Dr. Vasant Lad, a renowned Ayurvedic doctor, about the essentials of the practice of Ayurveda, the health science of India. As he was describing the qualities of the 5th element, Space or Ether, he said something that surprised me. “Freedom is Love, and Love is Space.”
Huh? What did he mean by “Freedom is Love”? And why did he see Love as space?
It brought to mind the familiar quote: “If you love something, set it free. If it returns to you, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.” Giving someone the freedom to be who they are, without judgment or expectation, is a great act of love.
And that is exactly what the Divine has given us. The Creator gave us the universe in which to explore our lives, and the freedom to choose our actions, attitudes, and responses to life. So if the Divine is indeed Love itself, and it is everywhere present and infinite, then it makes sense that Love itself is that spaciousness of our universe and the freedom within it to explore, discover, and co-create.
A different take on Love comes from M. Scott Peck, author of the classic, The Road Less Traveled. He was, of course, describing love in relationship, but his view of love is just as applicable to the Sacred. Peck defines love as “the furthering of the growth of another.”
For lovers who choose to commit to a life together, or even just a season together, there is no greater love than supporting our partner in their evolution as a human and spiritual being. It is also what we sign up for as parents, nourishing the growth and development of our children.
Indeed, the Divine, too, seems to express as Love that furthers our spiritual evolution. Every situation and even every moment in life is rich with possibilities to learn, to open our hearts, to discover our true nature, and to expand our consciousness. We are given a grand universe and a life in which to grow and unfold into our greatest potential.
As I continued my query of What is Love, I remembered a sweet little book I had on a bookcase next to my desk at home. It’s called True Love, by Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn. Chapter number two says it very plainly: “To love, in the context of Buddhism, is above all to be there.” It’s presence.
He suggests that we practice this mantra with ourselves and those we love: “Dear One, I am here for you.” Don’t we feel most loved when someone takes the time to be present with us? To listen, to accept, to understand, to give us safe space to just be ourselves with them?
Whenever we are being present, we are Being Love. We recognize our connection to the one that we are present with. In that moment, we open to Oneness, to the Divine flowing through us, as us.
These three perspectives bring together, for me, a greater understanding of what Divine Love is. No wonder we all long for freedom, for space to be ourselves, for support in our growth, and for someone to be there for us. That is Love… and that is our greatest potential.
Do you have definitions of Divine Love to add to the list? Post them here!
Copyright @ 2013 by Rev. Connie L. Habash
It’s in nothing, not in doing something, that we find true freedom. The freedom of Being.
Life certainly has its ups and downs, as we all know. But those ups and downs are often not perceived accurately by us. We are like movie projectors, carrying around a screen that we place between us and our lives. If we can catch ourselves projecting and take the screen down, true intimacy, connection, and healing can occur. It is the key to our personal and spiritual awakening.
Many of us, myself included, like to be in control; knowing what will happen or understanding a situation makes us feel more in command of our lives. But I’ve come to appreciate the freedom and ease of not-knowing.
For several weeks, I’ve been contemplating the nature of many things in the universe, including the nature of the Divine. I believe and feel that God is the source of love, and indeed is the energy of Love itself.
