My “outer” world is most often focused on the outcome, the goal, the achievement.  Being a man who loves his projects, such as this one, I lose sight of how Spirit is operating in-the-world.  Being caught by distractions, most often repetitive and obsessive, my mind has little time to gain the space to drop down into what matters the most– what my heart is sharing with me.  My heart?  Yes, the place within me which can, if I choose, help to “center” my attention.  So the first point I’d like to make about this blog is that it is an attempt to speak from heart about what truly matters to me and the people I work with and the world I know.

I am a psychotherapist by profession.  I chose this professional role in order to journey with others on the spiritual path.  Modeled on the ancient idea that a mentor, an elder has gained wisdom to share with one who chooses to take part, I see the work as a long-term commitment toward self-discovery.  Not a fix, as much as a redirection of one’s attention.  Thus inner attention refers to seeing what we call life, from the inside-out not from the outside-in.  When we see from the inside, there is a step which must precede our evaluation of what comes our way.  And that step is what I call “pausing.”  In pausing, I am asked, we are asked, to simply be with what presents itself and let our hearts weigh in.  How that is done will be part of future blog entries.

When I refer to Spirit in the World, I am asking how it is that Spirit, the realm beyond our immediate awareness, infiltrates life and changes, may I say charges, the moment with an aliveness unknown before.  To be connected to Spirit, I believe is the entry way to life being embodied with soul.  And when we are in touch with soul, we are grounded.  Not caught by the fascination of ideas but in learning to apply an idea into my life.  Making it real, not leaving it out-there, being caught by the mind’s attachment to potential.  Ah, potential.  We all love it, especially  when the idea inflates our head with possibility.

So I invite you to join me in taking a look at what our hearts have to say and how Spirit lives in the world.  My goal is to speak about the here and the now, and the many ways life is simply a mirror for us to see ourselves as we really are and at the same time, a mirror showing us what can be if we drop our heads into our hearts.