Something came through to me loud and clear this morning that I need to share: This heart-centered practice of wholeness begins from a place of wholeness. We’re not doing this practice while looking at ourselves or others or our world as broken or lacking or less than or flawed — not whole. We are looking at what seems to have gotten in the way of seeing ourselves as we really are, which is always whole, holistic, holy, healed.
Imagine a beautiful new window. New glass, new frame, new hardware. You look out of this window and the world is clear. The sun comes through the window and lights up everything inside. But over time, that window begins to get dirty. Rain streaks the outside along with dirt and pollen. The hardware gets gunky or even rusty. Bugs accumulate in the sill, and maybe at some point the window become harder and harder to open.
If you think of the window as something that should automatically stay clean, then you’re going to feel disappointed by the dirt and grime. If you don’t realize that you have to clean windows, one day you’re going to look out the window and wonder why the world looks a little dimmer and why the sun coming in doesn’t seem as bright. But if you understand that the outside world is always going to be trying to gunk things up and that you have to clean it, oil the hardware, get the bugs out from the sill, then you’re going to be able to enjoy that window, the view it provides, and the sun that comes through it for a very long time.
Heart-centered practice is the practice of keeping our windows to the Light of Love clean, well-oiled, bug, dirt and pollen free. We know that windows are supposed to let in the light and show us the view. We don’t fall for the lie that over time windows will inevitably get so dirty and buggy and gunky and rusty that they eventually will go dark altogether.
This is critical to understand. If we lose sight of our inherent wholeness we might begin to believe that we are not whole. That something is wrong that needs to be fixed, when all that really needs to happen is some good deep spiritual cleaning.
This heart-centered practice of wholeness is about re-learning how to begin and end in wholeness. Not how to fix something that has gotten irrevocably broken. This is true of ourselves, of one another, and of our world. This means — and this is the tough part — if we don’t want to see ourselves as broken, we can’t see anyone else as broken. If we want to see a vibrant and hopeful future for our economy and our planet, we have to start from its place of inherent wholeness.
Mother Earth shows us this every single day — as skies get bluer and bluer, rivers run cleaner, birds, fish and animals return to places they had long abandoned. A little cleaning, Mother Earth reminds us, goes a long way. She is showing us the way.
So as you work through this process each day, remember to think of yourself as WHOLE. Think of yourself as that window — and start cleaning.
Run through this process and with each step affirm your fundamental and unshakeable wholeness instead of a lie of brokenness.
WHAT HAPPENED: I fell into the habit of thinking of certain people as broken or damaged or out of control.
WHAT I INITIALLY FELT: Judgmental. Superior. Self-centered. While also concerned and worried by their behavior and its potential effect on me and our world.
WHAT I INITIALLY TOLD MYSELF: Have boundaries. Pray for them.
WHAT I INITIALLY WANTED: Not to have to deal with it at all.
WHAT I DID: I checked in with myself and my inner circle when I realized that something felt off kilter. I realized that this didn’t feel either true or good — and that something needed to shift.
WHAT I WOULD HAVE LIKED TO HAVE DONE: I would have liked to have gotten there right away without falling for the lie.
WHAT I DID INSTEAD: I shifted my perspective to a much more inclusive wholeness in Love.
WHAT FEAR SAID: These people are out of control. They have lost their minds. They are too far gone. You need to find a way to get rid of them. (Not as in hire a hitman, but as in tune them out, get them out of power.)
WHAT LOVE SAID: Either Love is All-in-all, or Love isn’t. You can’t have it both ways. You need to hold everyone, see everyone, love everyone in Love. Period. The end.
WHAT FELT UNTRUE AND/OR OLD: Seeing the world through a dirty window that I’ve gotten out of the habit of cleaning.
WHAT FELT TRUE AND NEEDS ATTENTION: The habit of living out from a place that doesn’t seem fully whole or holy or healed.
WHY THIS MATTERS: This is ALL that matters. Seeing us all as Whole in Love.
WHAT IS NOT WHOLE: The habit of checking in with the news or a person and letting that run the show instead of checking in with Love and living out from there.
HOW I WILL PRACTICE WHOLENESS:
I will wake up and listen to Love.
I will check in with Love instead of my emails, the news, my texts.
I will begin my day and live out from all our essential Wholeness.
I will clean my windows through the heart-centered practice of loving everyone and everything, including myself and others and strangers and those who dominate headlines.
I will be grateful for this practice and everything I see something that seems less that whole.
I will know that nothing can be less than whole and that I just have some cleaning to do.
I will stand in Love’s presence unafraid. Always.
I will know that we are all the loved of Love. No exceptions.
And I will trust that the heart-centered practice of wholeness, of cleaning our windows, of leaning into Love is available to us all. No exceptions.
And then I will love some more. Because I will let Love love through me.
Listen to today’s video to picture yourself as the clean clear transparency to Love that you already are!