Here are three short meditations for those times when we need to re-frame and/or re-imagine our situation.

Open to Possibilities

Close your eyes and breathe out three times. Find yourself in a cocoon, knowing how it feels to be in there and how much you can move around. Now break the cocoon and find your way out. Begin to stretch and with each movement emit a sound. Sense all the different ways your body is stretching and sounding. When you are finished, open your eyes.

Getting Unstuck

Close your eyes and breathe out three times. See yourself stuck in a hole in the ground. Using a little golden spade, a golden shovel or a golden backhoe (whatever you need). Dig yourself out of that place. Then open your eyes.

Changing though Difficulties. 

Close your eyes and breathe out three times. See yourself as a gem being polished through friction. Know that through your trials and difficulties you are being made to shine. Then open your eyes.

It may be that when we no longer know

     What to do

We have come to our real work.

     And that when we no longer know

Which way to go

     We have begun our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled 

     Is not employed.

The impeded stream

     Is the one that sings.

Here is an imagery exercise to experience being forgiven. It’s called Climbing the Waterfall.

Close your eyes. Breathe out three times. Imagine yourself standing before a majestic waterfall.

Find a large rope sack and place inside it – one by one – all the burdens and distresses of your life for which you feel guilty.

Now begin to climb the slippery rocks alongside the waterfall, pulling the sack containing your burdens, distresses, and guilt.

Feel and sense the weight of the sack, the sharpness of the rocks under your feet, the cold spray of water on your face. Knowing that this climb is your choice. How do you feel?

On the rock ledges at the side of the waterfall, you meet people you have wronged. Apologize to each one of them for what you have done and ask him or her for forgiveness.

Greet them, one after another, no matter how they respond to you. Know that with each greeting, a burden is being released. 

Breathe out one time. Reaching the top of the waterfall, enter into a rainforest, taking your sack of burdens, distresses and guilts with you.

Notice how the sack looks and feels now. At a clearing in the center of the forest, meet the being who finally removes the sack from you. As this being helps you bury the remains of the sack, know that you are forgiven. How do you feel?

When you are ready, open your eyes.

Portland Press Herald – Religion & Values 

Reflections: Trying really hard and failing may lead to enlightenment

By Teresa Schulz 

“But I tried really hard …” I heard my grandson Jack say as crocodile tears streamed down his face. He had just finished his last ice skating lesson and he was leaving the arena without the cherished badge. While we shared how proud we were of his newly acquired ability to skate, there was no comforting him.

He simply stared at the evaluation page that listed the two remaining ice skating skills required before completion of the basic level. He didn’t achieve the basic level of skating; therefore, he did not earn a badge. My heart broke as I watched him cry.

Why, I wondered, at such an early age, did he desire a badge? As I reflected on it, I realized that a badge or a trophy symbolizes acknowledgment of an achievement. It’s a way to measure performance, a milestone, a job well done.

Jack knew this – so of course he wanted a badge. He achieved a milestone – he learned to skate – yet he didn’t pass the basic level to earn the badge.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe in passing out badges or trophies to everyone. Yet at those times when we try really hard, accomplish a milestone, or make an improvement – putting our heart and soul into something – we, like Jack, can become very disappointed.

I was humbled in this moment as I was unable to comfort Jack. While he often appears to be an old soul with wisdom beyond his years, in this moment, he was 7. He didn’t want to know about failing forward or what a good job he had done or even how proud we were of him. He wanted the badge.

Jack is a special person. I often tell him that he tried very hard to be born. Jack was not easy to conceive; not easy to be carried during pregnancy; not easy in his delivery into the world. He came into the world prematurely and he tried very hard to leave the hospital. After several weeks in the hospital, he came home and tried very hard to simply eat. He later tried very hard working with an occupational therapist to sit, roll over, stand, walk and climb. In school, he tries very hard to capture all the information and process it.

Here’s the thing you need to know about Jack – he tries really hard at everything he does. In his trying, he accomplishes more than most boys his age. Jack tries really hard to improve his baseball swing, going to the hoop, running in soccer, snowboarding in his backyard, skiing down the mountain and especially skating.

The other thing that you need to know about Jack is that he sees things differently – bigger and grander than most of us. Jack also feels things deeper than most – both the joys and the disappointments. I believe he already knows confidence and humility as well as holiness and wholeness.

In his book “Breathing Under Water,” Richard Rohr tells us: “God seems to have hidden holiness and wholeness in a secret place where only the humble will find it.” Jack has found the secret place. People who try really hard and fail are those who often break through to enlightenment and compassion.

Now I am not saying that Jack had a breakthrough to enlightenment. But he is the most compassionate 7-year-old I have ever known. What I can tell you is that he learned that even though he “tried really hard,” he didn’t receive a badge – yet this won’t stop him from trying really hard in everything he does. That is Jack.

Teresa Schulz is a spiritual director, author, retreat facilitator and health care chaplain. She is the founder of Tools for Intentional Living and Transformation and co-founder of MaineSpiritus. She can be reached by email at: taschulz56@gmail.com

Pema Chodron on the art of forgiveness.

Pema Chodron shares there are three kinds of forgiveness that are inter-related: 1. Self-forgiveness which allows us to release our guilt and perfectionism. 2. Forgiveness we extend to others and receive from them. 3. Forgiveness of the Divine which assures us of our value and strengthens us.

All spiritual traditions raise up the value of forgiveness yet many of us find it difficult to forgive. We can start at a very basic level by looking truthfully at one hurt we are unable to forgive. We can identify our feelings – is it anger, denial, guilt, shame and/or embarrassment? Imagine what it would be like to live without feeling this offense –  then let it go.

There may be other steps for healing such as a confession to the conflict, making amends, changing behavior, or a commitment to the community. We can start by giving up our claims for and against ourselves.

We know some of the symptoms that may be relieved by forgiveness – feeling so wounded we want revenge, constant brooding over a list of grievances, feeling so guilty we don’t know how to approach someone we have offended, or worry that the hurt could happen again.

Bitterness and stubbornness can be signs that forgiveness is called for – especially when those attitudes are associated with a need to be recognized as the one who is right.

Forgiveness is freeing, it can remove the walls between others and us. Forgiveness can transform us.