ONLINE RETREAT FOR CREATIVE LIVING & INNER HEALING
DAY 1- KNOW THYSELF
What a paradox! Man, like the this lily, needs a toxic, putrid environment to grow into a beautiful person!
The Paradox of Our Human Condition
A paradox means `an apparent contradiction’: it combines two realities that don’t seem to belong together, thus challenging our assumptions about “seeming.”
The prime paradox that underlies our quest of spiritual perfection is the haunting sense of incompleteness, of being somehow unfinished, that comes from the reality of living on this earth as part and yet also not-part of it. For to be human is to be incomplete, yet yearn for completion; it is to be uncertain, yet long for certainty; to be imperfect, yet long for perfection; to be broken, yet crave wholeness. All these yearnings remain necessarily unsatisfied, for perfection, completion, certainty, and wholeness are impossible precisely because we are imperfectly human – or better, because we are perfectly human, which is to say humanly imperfect.
This is the essential paradox of human life: we are always and inevitably incomplete, on the way, slipping and sliding, making mistakes. But the ancient sages console us that this is not failure; it is rather the necessary reflection of the paradox that we are.
Paradox is the nature of be-ing human, of human being; paradox is the way it is meant to be, the way it should be, for it is the way we are made.
Lizensker Rebbe shared his wisdom with us,
“Only God is perfect. Man’s actions must be basically defective in part. If one believes his good deed or holy study to be thoroughly pure and perfect, this is a sure sign that they are thoroughly bad.”
A spirituality of imperfection suggests that spirituality’s first step involves facing self squarely, seeing one’s self as one is: mixed-up, paradoxical, incomplete, and imperfect. Flawedness is the first fact about human beings. And paradoxically, in that imperfect foundation we find not despair but joy. For it is only within the reality of our imperfection that we can find the peace and serenity we crave.
(Adapted from `The Spirituality of Imperfection’ by Ernest Kurst & Katherine Ketcham)
In the journey to wholeness and recovery, one has to take full responsibility for one’s flaws and mistakes. One has to own up one’s failures. This is the essential first step one has to take on the long road to recovery. Self-honesty is so crucial for the difficult journey to wholeness and inner healing. Unless one is totally honest to oneself without any form of denial, any attempt to recover will be an exercise in futility. You simply cannot make any form of improvement in yourself if you don’t admit that you have committed mistakes or you have some defects in your personality.
Make a pledge to yourself that you will be honesty to your self and to God before you begin your journey. As long as you are honesty to yourself without any form of cover-up or self-rationalization, it does not matter how many times you fail, you will get the power and grace to stand up again. God is not concerned about the uncountable number of your mistakes and failures. He is only concerned about your denials and false excuses to cover up your failures or mistakes. He is only worried that your self-deceptions will sap your will and your inner resources to try one more time. Most people fail to climb out of the dungeons of shame, depression or compulsive disorders because they succumb to their self-deception and denials. More importantly, your self-denials will also shut the door to God’s grace and love.
Submitted by David YKK
DAY 2- UNDERSTANDING YOUR PROBLEMS AT A DEEPER LEVEL
Understand That Your Depression Is Interlinked With Toxic Shame
In order to get past depression, loneliness and a sense of failure- or whatever it is that plagues us- we must learn to stare at it straight in the eye. We need to look at our shoes and see not only the shoes, but the person who is inside. That is what is meant by the expression that every adversity contains the seed of an equal or greater benefit. Every failure can lead not to more failure, but to success. But we must stare the failure in the eye and see through it in order for that to happen… A painter spends hours simply staring at the blank canvas before he begins to draw. In the same way, we must stay at the canvas we have before us right now… and see through it.
Finding your soul means beginning where you are, with your present worries, cares, joys, love and confusions and allowing all of that to take you to the world of mystery, the world of God…
Job, in the Bible, endured suffering unequalled by anyone, and had to turn away from the conventional wisdom that blamed God when things went wrong in his life. In the end, he was led to a return of everything he had lost, because he was able to accept the invitation to surrender to the mystery of it all. A sailor has to learn to navigate the seas whatever the winds and storms bring him and in the end to enjoy the process and the wonder of it.
In suffering from depression, despair, shame, or anxiety, it is important for the person to be aware that all these toxic emotional problems are interlinked. In one way or another, they are like the leaves and branches of a sick dying tree being traumatised by the decaying roots. If you want to get well, it is important to pay serious and close attention to the overall environment that you are living in right now. You have to take a holistic approach toward your physical well-being, your relationships with your family members and your loved ones, your social life, your spiritual health, your emotional problems, your home and working environment, and the quality of your food and water that you consume daily.
When any one aspect of your life is impacted negatively, it may upset the overall balance of your well-being. Above all, use a positive perception or attitude to look at the big picture of your life. If anyone part of your life is out of balance, do some fine-tuning to restore the equilibrium in your world.
Submitted by David YKK
DAY 3- CHANGING YOUR SELF-PERCEPTION
`Why me?’ has been voted as the most popular question asked during times of trouble
Everyone Needs To Discover One’s Soul
Once we discover the place called soul, we do not have to feel like failures ever again. No matter how we are perceived in the eyes of others, we know that there is a mystery lurking inside us that is longing to be expressed. Once we know that, and once we absorb the impact of that truth, our lives and our world begin to change. It is almost as though we begin to inhabit another world even while we continue to live and move in this one… We find ourselves drawn to the core of our hearts as we struggle to reconcile the world outside us with the world we are discovering inside.
In the face of suffering, we ask the question “Why me?” We must remind ourselves that we might just be on the verge of an important discovery about who we are and what we are here for. The soulful guidance that lies deep within us contains an important secret about the destiny and the mission that is ours… We too readily write ourselves off when the course of our lives has made us feel alienated from the good fortune or success that we imagine others to have. Soulful living means being ready for surprises, and learning to take those surprises not just with a grain of salt but as a grain of salt, something that can add zest and interest to our routine lives if only we will allow it.
Allowing ourselves to discover the place called soul- and, more important, allowing ourselves to live there once we discover it- means opening ourselves to a loveliness, a depth, a beauty, a graciousness in life that would otherwise be closed off to us.
(Adapted from `Good News For Bad Days’ by Fr. Paul Keenan)
Thoughts To Ponder-
In my case, when I experienced my most traumatic suffering from toxic shame caused by gossips, there seemed to be no way out of the dark gloomy dungeon. During that period, I asked myself this classic question “Why me?” many times. After a lot of reflection on the pattern of my suffering and my life, it gradually dawned on me that I was given a life that has been embedded with toxic shame and wounded self-esteem from the moment I was born until my old age. The search of life meaning came little by little until I am enlightened that it is my life mission to craft my experiences into stepping stones for others to transcend their fears and cross their chasms to live more meaningful and fulfilling lives. As one wise philosopher says, `The elixir of life is hid in the toxin.’ Truly there is a lot of paradox in our human condition!
Submitted by David YKK
DAY 4- SEEING THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE
Get a bird-eye’s view to be aware that all aspects of your life are in balance.
A Bird’s Eye View: Keeping Everything in Perspective
Many people are looking for a quick solution to a very difficult situation or perhaps a simple answer to a confluence of stressful moments. Unfortunately, there is no one simple answer. There are, however, countless viable options, proactive steps we can take to strengthen our personal integrity. Each option or each strategy is designed to do one thing: bring you back to a sense of balance and, in doing so, restore a sense of inner peace. One of the effective strategies to reduce stress is to nurture a bird’s eye view.
A popular adage says, “I felt bad because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” No matter how bad our troubles may be, there is always someone who has it worse. In essence, Einstein was right; everything is relative. When we become stressed, it is very easy to lose perspective, particularly to keep in mind how good we really have it. Our view of life can become rather myopic… The implications of limited sight go well beyond the metaphorical aspects of “vision” to the literal aspects of vision…
Whenever I talk about ways to cope with stress, I always emphasize the importance of keeping things in perspective. Perspective is one of the hallmark themes of stress-management wisdom.
Thoughts To Ponder-
Copy the following quotations on a card and reflect on them throughout the day to motivate you to change your negative thought patterns.
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. (Chief Seattle )
What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous. Thomas Merton
Stepping Stones- When you find yourself focusing on the foreground of an issue, a problem, or a crisis, make a habit of taking a step back (detaching) and pausing to look at the big picture. Perspective helps us to keep things in balance.
Submitted by David YKK
DAY5- GOD’S UNCONDITIONAL LOVE FOR EVERYONE
Our Compassionate God shines His Healing Love on all human beings regardless of their moral, spiritual, financial, political and social status.The Unconditional Love of God For All Human Beings“God is all bounty while we are all need.” St. Augustine
This focusing of our attention on being loved, rather than on being loving will be revolutionary for most people. Remember that the revolution will take place in your life when you realize that it is not so much your love for God that matters as the fact that God loves you.
Our ability to accept fully the love of God… which sustains us, is very tied up with our own image of ourselves. We are easily dominated by the voice of our own insignificance. This is the tragic illusion that results when a small, dark traction of our lives becomes the whole picture we see of ourselves. Seeing things in this way makes it very difficult for us to accept a vision of God as love and ourselves as lovable in His eyes. As a result, our acceptance of the essential invitation of Christ, to believe the Good News of God’s love and providence is very limited.
(Adapted from `Nine Faces of God’ by Fr. Peter Hannan, S.J.)
Thoughts To Ponder
The above insight by this scholarly Jesuit priest provides an unconventional perspective of the infinite God. The mainstream Christian and Jewish religious traditions focus heavily on God’s commandments that we become just, perfect and loving human beings. These conditions put us in a strait-jacket which provides little leeway for our freedom of creative expression and lifestyles. Due to our human condition, we, poor mortals have a strong tendency to err often along the way in the process of becoming better human beings. Because we focus so much on the strict justice of God, we are often filled with the obsessive fear of failure to live up to God’s strict standards. Above all, the ultimate fear of hell may put us into a state of irrational frenzy and depression. Our Creator, the infinite God, has many facets and the tragic fact that our mainstream religions focus predominantly on only a few facets that tend to stir up our fear of God. It is this focus on fear of God that tends to downplay the fact that God is also love.
The author, Father Peter Hannan, is an exception among the Christian spiritual writers, to focus predominantly on the unconditional love of God for man. Through his book, he has restored a sense of needed balance in our lopsided perception of God and hopefully this fresh perspective and valuable insight will bring crucial benefits that will quicken our recovery from toxic emotional problems such as deep shame, depression, fear & anxiety.
Submitted by David YKK
The Unconditional Love of God For All Human Beings
“God is all bounty while we are all need.” St. Augustine
This focusing of our attention on being loved, rather than on being loving will be revolutionary for most people. Remember that the revolution will take place in your life when you realize that it is not so much your love for God that matters as the fact that God loves you.
Our ability to accept fully the love of God… which sustains us, is very tied up with our own image of ourselves. We are easily dominated by the voice of our own insignificance. This is the tragic illusion that results when a small, dark traction of our lives becomes the whole picture we see of ourselves. Seeing things in this way makes it very difficult for us to accept a vision of God as love and ourselves as lovable in His eyes. As a result, our acceptance of the essential invitation of Christ, to believe the Good News of God’s love and providence is very limited.
(Adapted from `Nine Faces of God’ by Fr. Peter Hannan, S.J.)
Thoughts To Ponder
The above insight by this scholarly Jesuit priest provides an unconventional perspective of the infinite God. The mainstream Christian and Jewish religious traditions focus heavily on God’s commandments that we become just, perfect and loving human beings. These conditions put us in a strait-jacket which provides little leeway for our freedom of creative expression and lifestyles. Due to our human condition, we, poor mortals have a strong tendency to err often along the way in the process of becoming better human beings. Because we focus so much on the strict justice of God, we are often filled with the obsessive fear of failure to live up to God’s strict standards. Above all, the ultimate fear of hell may put us into a state of irrational frenzy and depression. Our Creator, the infinite God, has many facets and the tragic fact that our mainstream religions focus predominantly on only a few facets that tend to stir up our fear of God. It is this focus on fear of God that tends to downplay the fact that God is also love.
The author, Father Peter Hannan, is an exception among the Christian spiritual writers, to focus predominantly on the unconditional love of God for man. Through his book, he has restored a sense of needed balance in our lopsided perception of God and hopefully this fresh perspective and valuable insight will bring crucial benefits that will quicken our recovery from toxic emotional problems such as deep shame, depression, fear & anxiety.
Submitted by David YKK
