Beauty's Way: Inspiration on the Path of Awakening - Softcover

Myles-Carullo, Lorie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1452537178 ISBN 13: 9781452537177

Verlag: BalboaPress, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

Inspired by the Navajo tradition's 'Beauty Way', this book acts as an exposition on various vital aspects of life, as well as how to uncover and create true beauty within them all. Author Lori Myles-Carullo struggled with chronic illness for many years and, through the depth of her own healing journey, developed a passion for sharing the wisdom she gained in the process. The essence of beauty explored here is neither about personal appearance nor image, but rather the rich, lived experience of the heart awakening to love and letting go of fear. Each one of us has a great capacity for radical honesty, courage, and transformation-and often life provides us with exactly what we need to draw these forth in dramatic and powerful ways. Whether our wake-up calls occur through loss, transition, illness, or relationship struggles, we all have the choice to either contract or expand through our experiences, creating therefore less or more beauty in our lives and the lives of others. Beauty's Way gifts you with practical suggestions, through personal story and anecdote, of how to bring more beauty to your existence and to the greater whole. Each chapter ends with specific exercises that will assist you in gaining greater awareness into key parts of life-some naturally thought of as 'good', such as love and joy, as well as other, more challenging ones that we often do our best to distract ourselves from due to fear, including pain and grief. By offering our heartfelt compassion and love to it all, a greater realization and manifestation of healing beauty is forever possible.

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Beauty's Way

Inspiration on the Path of AwakeningBy Lori Myles-Carullo

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2011 Lori Myles-Carullo
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4525-3717-7

Contents

Preface: The Beginning before Beginning........................1Chapter 1 The Beauty of Awakening..............................17Chapter 2 The Beauty Of Joy....................................27Chapter 3 The Beauty Of Change.................................35Chapter 4 The Beauty of Love...................................47Chapter 5 The Beauty of Friendship.............................65Chapter 6 The Beauty of Freedom................................75Chapter 7 The Beauty of Pain...................................87Chapter 8 The Beauty of Fear...................................97Chapter 9 The Beauty of Gratitude..............................109Chapter 10 The Beauty of Grief.................................119Chapter 11 The Beauty Of Forgiveness...........................135Chapter 12 The Beauty of Peace.................................149Afterword: A New Beginning.....................................165Acknowledgments................................................169

Chapter One

The Beauty of Awakening

"And the day came when the risk of remaining tight in a bud became more painful than the risk it took to blossom." Anais Nin

"God has never been missed. Maybe you have forgotten, that's all. Maybe you have fallen asleep, that's all." Osho

"May our heart's garden of awakening bloom with hundreds of flowers." Thich Nhat Hanh

Waking up to truth

Before exploring the many exquisite facets of our awakening, we must first acknowledge where we have been chronically fast asleep—and I don't mean the kind of sleep we all need in order to regenerate and recharge on a nightly basis. We have become dull sleepwalkers in our collective and personal ignorance of certain key truths, without which we are destined to remain in a state of sadness, loss, despair, craving, and on the whole, suffering. Such a state is gray, cold, lifeless, heavy, and energetically dense. Awakening is all about returning to our natural state of love and joy and following a path that forever puts us back on the perennial course of love when we detour into fear's dead-ends.

While walking early one morning along a mountainous road in north central Costa Rica, I was surrounded by lush green hills and cows pondering the abundance of a new day's grass. A light, refreshing rain began washing over me. By the side of the road, were many weeds and dusty plants, thirsting for wetness to soak in and nourish them in their low-to-the-ground lives. In the midst of the weeds, I found, to my delight, a beautiful little pink wildflower, brimming with the simple ecstasy of existence. She was so small that I had to kneel down in order to get a better look at her, and I was awed by how such a tiny part of existence could be so intricate in beauty. I observed the various shades and hues of pink at her bubble-like core, a hundred fragile tendrils making their way up to bright yellow nodules at the tip of each one. This little flower was clearly an exquisite gift of life, beautiful simply for beauty's sake, growing from the weeds and what seemed to be insignificant plant life on the side of the road. What a perfect metaphor for awakening.

This gorgeous little sparkle of life speaks brilliantly to how each of us has the capacity to transform through the grimy muck of our human lives, extracting exactly what is needed from the dust and ashes in order to arrive at our vibrant blossoming beyond the surface. Each of us is called by name to become the unique and precious flower of creation that radiates our true essence. If we are open enough to see things as they truly are, we find that we are often longing for that which we already possess. The Buddha found nirvana in his own way—under the bodhi tree, after years of extreme seeking for some sort of inner peace and freedom in the midst of the pain of human existence. He was gracious enough to dedicate the rest of his time on this earth to teaching the awakened practice of liberation in mind, body, and spirit from the suffering that inevitably comes from mental and emotional patterns based in fear and ignorance. Jesus, too, knew the truth of love that would set us free; and it was to this end that he taught, healed, prayed, and lived his life in a way that would forever remind humanity that life and love are far more powerful than death and fear. Amma, a modern saint of a woman, is hugging people into awakening on a daily basis. She is an inspiration to us all, proving that the loving power of the heart is truly what is needed in order to offset the tragic direction in which our world has been heading, blinded and paralyzed by fear.

Awakening is a pervasive, archetypal leitmotif that runs through a variety of spiritual and psychological traditions. There is an undeniable, collective yearning for a peace and happiness that transcends what we know and experience in the messy drama of everyday life. For the most part, we seek to escape the pain of our realities through addictions and obsessions that lead us farther away from our ultimate goal of peace. What originally promises to offer us everything we could ever want or need in order to save us from pain, ends up causing even more suffering and does nothing to heal the original wound. Ah, the bittersweet symphony of life here on earth. At the end of the day, many of us are often left with a lingering sense of emptiness and futility. As things go from bad to worse, we often give voice to the slightest glimmer of a hopeful thought:

"There must be another way." "There is," Life whispers. "There must be a better way." "There is," Life sings.

And finally, we are brought humbly to our knees, and we stay there long enough to genuinely pray to a Higher Power, a Greater Force, a Spirit that hears and answers us as we find that we are willing to do whatever it takes to change our lives:

"God, please show me the way."

And she will ...

Awakenings

Certain films come to mind as I consider the pop-culture images of awakening, each with its own impact. The first film is Thelma & Louise, in which two women find themselves together on the run, rebelling against all that has caused them pain and suffering, fighting for their lives in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways. And men—please stay with me here—I know there can be a tendency for the male population to cross themselves and run the other way when they hear those two names; but the lesson is the same for us all, regardless of gender. The deep wounds of these two women—one stemming from a haunting past rape, and the other from a recent abusive relationship—lead them to go to extremes in order to taste freedom. It is, however, a radical and short-lived liberation, as their wild spirits lead them to courageously choose death over certain imprisonment.

The one scene from this movie that stands out starkly in my memory involves Thelma and Louise on the run, driving in their sleek convertible across the hot desert roads of the southern states. With little sleep and a high level of alcohol coursing through her veins, Thelma exclaims triumphantly, "I'm awake, Louise! I don't remember when I've ever been so awake." She is free from the chains of her abusive husband, and she is traveling an uncharted course that fills her with the ecstatic drunkenness of possibility. She is free from the old version of herself that...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: BalboaPress
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2011
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1452537178
• ISBN 13: 9781452537177
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 184
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland