Questions & Inner Wisdom

Practicing noticing goodness does not mean the invalidation or denial of all that is in contrast (and stark contrast) to goodness (to kindness, beauty, generosity, hope, wonder, awe….). Practicing noticing goodness is simply practicing noticing goodness. It is the cultivation and allowing of noticing, breathing in, savouring, appreciating, even celebrating, of goodness in any given moment—without minimizing or dismissing it and without inserting any other add-ons, at least/even if just for a brief while.

“We have to open ourselves up to receive what wants to shine back.” — Jessica Dore.

I came across this line recently in the book, Tarot for Change, by Jessica Dore (2021, p. 17). It’s a sentence that has lingered.

There are questions and curiosities that might naturally follow from a sentence like this. Among them are curiosities such as: in any given moment, am I opening or closing right now? In what ways? (And is this opening or closing wise, helpful? Is it helpful in some ways and not in others?)

Everyone has a nervous system. One of the things that this nervous system does is it listens. And then it reflects, and then it responds.

I took this photograph today. Later, I noticed hearts lining the spines of some of the leaves.

“You expand and then you meet your own resistance. In the human body and experience, as in nature, there is a continuous play between these forces. We reach to expand and are held back by constriction.”

—Betsy Polatin, Humanual, from Chapter One, (c) 2020

I see a heart with wings.

Daily Questions—or what I have been tending to refer to as the daily question—is a wonderful resource available on the website, Gratefulness.org, that I wanted to share here in case you or another might sense it to be a nice fit/resource for you at this time and/or it might be something you experience it as beneficial.

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in December, 2017, Pema Chödrön shared that during her life, she has had an instinctual inner sense of what is forward. That really stayed with me, the idea, question, and inner sense for each of us of what is forward.

In any given moment, we can ask ourselves questions about our attention: “What is my attention focused on right now? Where is my attention going? Is my attention focused broadly or narrowly? Is it moving around or is it stuck on one thing?” In any given moment, we can also bring curiosity to what emotional tone is going with our attention. Read more ›

(As do I, as do we.)

Here is a pivotal question: how do you respond to the multitudes within you?

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