5 Ways to Learn to Trust — Open­ing your heart is a great metaphor for liv­ing a life ‘out of your head, and in the present moment.’ Like any­thing else, we find a skill­ful means for doing this by exit­ing our sto­ries in favour of liv­ing in the here and now. The liv­ing is com­pas­sion­ate, joy­ful, aware, and with­out a need to explain.

This week’s quote:

Open­ness, pres­ence and a ten­der heart all go together

We’ve all heard the expres­sion, “Once burned, twice cau­tious.†This expres­sion is the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for shut­ting down, exit­ing our bod­ies, and liv­ing in our heads–in our “story line.†I’ve been hurt, I don’t like feel­ing the pain, so I’ll just hide in my head.

The hard les­son is that our sto­ries are fab­ri­ca­tions made of mist and dung — phan­tasms that we are will­ing to waste our lives on. It’s the back story and the expla­na­tion for all that we per­ceive to be wrong with the world, with oth­ers, and with ourselves.

I was doing Body­work with a new client the other day, and as we were talk­ing before­hand, I com­mented on how rounded for­ward her shoul­ders were. In Body­work par­lance, that’s a marker for pro­tect­ing one’s heart from fur­ther hurt. It’s really all about keep­ing oth­ers at arm’s distance.

I was work­ing on her belly, and specif­i­cally under the lower ribs. I got to the right side, and was met with a ton of mus­cu­lar resis­tance. She later said that as I pushed, she was nau­seous, angry and scared. I replied that the diaphragm is the metaphoric gate­way to the heart — it’s mov­ing from “caught in the games and sto­ries†to ten­der­ness and compassion.

After Body­work, she stood up, and her shoul­ders were back — no longer rolled forward

Not a fix, as she’ll likely revert to old pat­terns pretty quickly in the early get-go, but an indi­ca­tion that our bod­ies do want us to be whole, free, flex­i­ble and heart-ful. This is only pos­si­ble if we let go of our defend­ed­ness, and open our­selves to the “messy stuff†— the pains and pas­sions, the actual feel­ings and expe­ri­ences, the unedited ver­sion of life.

Let me give you a five ideas for exit­ing the “stuck in your head, alone†dance — it’s an invi­ta­tion to boogy­ing down in the real­ity of the present moment

One — Play Dumb — spend six months not knowing.

As I hang out with friends, acquain­tances, clients, one thing is “for sure†— if they’re stuck, they are cer­tain. In other words, what­ever their world view is per­co­lates to the top and gets applied.

And on and on it goes. Stuck in the mud of their defen­sive stories.

The smile of never knowing

Try this: This is the sit­u­a­tion in front of me, and I have no clue what it means, how it will come out, or whether it even needs deal­ing with. So, “I’ll just say, “I don’t know.†Then, I’ll have a breath, and look at each sit­u­a­tion with naked eyes. If I choose to do some­thing, I’ll do it, full bore, and see what hap­pens. Then, like sham­poo, I’ll wash, rinse, repeat.

Two — Do One Thing Per Day That Turns You On

I’ll do that:

On vaca­tion.
When the time is right.
Some day.
When I retire.
Only behind closed doors and with the lights out.

We limit our­selves. Our pas­sions run hot and deep, are charged and gooey, and we scare our­selves. So we put them off, rel­e­gate them to hol­i­days, or stow them com­pletely. As our bod­ies rebel, want­ing the be set free to feel, we tighten down, clamp down, and make our­selves sick. Pretty soon, all we feel is what’s left — a sense of help­less, depressed futility.

Give your­self a hand

Try this: one thing min­i­mum per day that feels chargy, tempt­ing, scary.

Open the door you’ve been keep­ing locked, turn on the light, and go in and play.

Then, find a play­mate or two, and see what hap­pens next. Stop stop­ping yourself!

Three — Sit Your Ass Down

On a cush­ion, that is. I am con­vinced that my med­i­ta­tion prac­tice, spo­radic as it is, is a key aspect in my find­ing peace in sim­ple presence.

Yet, excuses abound.

Wayne in hot water again

Try this: com­mit to 8 weeks of med­i­tat­ing at least 15 min­utes per day. You can learn to med­i­tate — let me show you.

Why? See point one. I don’t know. There is no point. Scar­ily enough, I don’t believe there is a point to any­thing, other than to expe­ri­ence life until you die. What’s there is what’s there, and that includes on the cush­ion. Watch your thoughts, let them go. Breathe. Feel your body.

Four — Com­pas­sion is as com­pas­sion does.

Open-heartedness is an action, not a con­trivance. It’s not a bar­gain­ing tool, and it’s def­i­nitely not some­thing to be reserved for “When every­one else starts behav­ing.†Once we get past our sto­ries, (but not our feel­ings… I cer­tainly still yell at stu­pid dri­vers, AKA “not me.†I just know it’s a story…) we find our­selves stand­ing in awe. Here I am, here you are… how juicy, full of poten­tial, interesting!

And a hola to the vaca, too!

Try this: reach out. With peo­ple you know, hug them, walk with them, be present with them, be inter­ested in them. Notice the word “them.†Direct the light inside of you outward.

In Costa Rica, espe­cially in the small towns, peo­ple make eye con­tact and say, “Hola,†or “Bue­nas dias.†There might even be chit chat. I liked it, a lot. So, I decided to do it here. I’m crack­ing jokes with store clerks, greet­ing peo­ple on the side­walk, mak­ing ver­bal contact.

One store clerk said, “When you come back to the store stop in my depart­ment and say “hi!â€

Then, extend the com­pas­sion and con­tact to peo­ple you are neu­tral about, and even try hold­ing a com­pas­sion­ate thought for the peo­ple you judge to be unen­light­ened ass-hats. You’ll notice that your com­pas­sion sees to shift the cos­mos just a bit toward… compassion.

Five — do a free favour, once a day

I know. This one shows up in e-mails, and movies like “Pay it For­ward.†But the trick is to do some­thing just to do it — because the present moment requires it.

I’ve sent free copies of This End­less Moment to peo­ple I hear of who have had a loss or are in dis­tress. There’s a lit­tle, nig­gling ego voice, going, “What’s in this for me?†I smile, pat this voice on it’s pointy lit­tle head, and drop the book in the mail.

Join oth­ers in the pad­dle of life

Try this: get your mind into “being of ser­vice†mode. Extend your­self for oth­ers, get over your need for recog­ni­tion or under­stand­ing, and just, well, “Do unto others…â€

There. Five things to play with. And hey, leave a com­ment and let me know how this is going for you.

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