loving gaze

The advantage of accompanying people in psychotherapy is that I also have to learn to wade through my own darkness. How else can I be an effective companion on their journey if I am equally lost as they are? If the terrain is somewhat familiar due to having walked a similar path before, then my steps can be surer and more able to emit a certain confidence and energy that the other can pick up and be fuelled by. *** One common concern that people bring up is on how to manage their emotions. Anxiety is host to a lot of fears, nervousness, pain, helplessness, wanting to fight, flee or perhaps tending to just freeze for lack of any agency. All of us are full of these reactions, accumulated from our past experiences and learned ways of coping. Usually our coping when confronted with difficulty is to push back our feelings. They are looked at as interfering with our rational thinking, so a disturbance. Not to be trusted or listened to. An unnecessary liability in this game of life. Press d...

It is great to have goals to give direction to our life, to guide our actions. But one thing I have started to realise at an older age is that working from ideals can be a double-edged sword. To learn about ideals, to form some for ourselves is ok but too overdo it can be detrimental to our emotional health. I believe in the continuum of life... in almost everything we engage with, reality is neither just black or white, although many times we tend to see things that way. Reality is that there are many shades of grey along the line leading from black to white and from white to black. The same way we have the undesired and the ideal on both sides of the continuum. Reality is we need to find where to place ourselves and our desires. Rather than an all-or-nothing approach which hooks us up to ideals that we eventually find very hard to let go, we may need to temper these, out of enlightened awareness now that living on ideals rarely bring us to love, peace, joy.. the true pearls of ou...

Just as soon as July came, it is soon to go. The end of July is already next week! I sit by this window just as I have been sitting here for the past 4 months. Over 4 months in fact.. Week after week, I sign on to accompany people through psychotherapy sessions. At first many were thinking that this period of lock down would soon be over, and we would be able to resume face-to-face therapy. Then the weeks stretched into months. Today it seems this will stretch till at least the end of the year. I daresay even most likely till at least the middle of next year.. but one can't be too sure. We can still hope for the miracle vaccine. The drop from heaven. The blessed cure we are all praying for. Gradually I have gotten used to connecting through the computer screen. To listening amidst the crackling sounds of either my or the other person's earphones. To the moments of now you see her, now you don't image on screen, as the wifi power fluctuates. A few months ago, we would at ...

We just got word that there are two cases within our immediate neighbourhood. This is something different from the past months when the virus seemed more "out there" but that we were quite free of it closer to home. Of course it was always a possibility that sooner or later it would enter our space. And now it has. There are just so many possible ways one can contact the virus. Deliveries can bring infected packages. So even if one does not go to the grocery or drugstore, as long as there is contact with a person or thing from outside one's residence, this sneaky virus can find its way in. No one can say they are fully protected or shielded from this possibility. In a sense, the whole world population is one. We are all vulnerable. We are one. When we see the virus only as an enemy, we can get overwhelmed. Imagine this enemy... it is so sneaky. It can come from anywhere and everywhere. Perhaps we really have to be still, and see from a novel perspective. The virus...

it's Monday again... the start of a new week. this is the day I get to spend some time doing house chores as well as hopefully engage in some of my interests and pursuits. today I look forward to listening to the online mass, a great way to start the day. then to explore a bit my growing interest in samadhi, or way of making space for consciousness about who we truly are. there is a lot of material online, and there is also the daily moment by moment practice of just being... of letting go of all thoughts, most especially the ruminating kind or the critical voices in the head, so that the space for quiet, peaceful stillness within can just be that - a space. I have come to realise that it is also in this space that His presence is full. empty space and yet full. this will be a busy week ahead, and yet, today is meant to be a quiet day. it's like the rise and fall of musical notes. the rhythm of the week has that up and down. not up and down of mood but up and down of activiti...

This is the beginning of a new blog - entitled so aptly, "loving gaze" .  Whose loving gaze? Yours, mine, ours, His! We are one. I envision this space to be quite a free flowing one. Less consciously deliberate, more perhaps sub-consciously or unconsciously free to express whatever is in the heart and mind and spirit in the moment. Why loving gaze ? The image of a young, carefree, spontaneous child who just goes about her or his day as naturally as she is drawn to... secure in the thought that anytime she looks over her shoulder for her mother, oh, she is just there, perhaps busy with her own activities, but who can easily sense that her child looked in her direction, and who then turns to the direction of her child with a warm, connected and knowing look that immediately allows this child to receive the love and affirmation she needs so that she can get on with her play. Isn't that so wonderful a state of being? Don't we all wish we could be in such a state for...