Listen to Gayle reading the blog aloud.
Hello my friend,
It’s risky to talk about greed. Few folks want to go there. However, I love you too much to let a little fear and discomfort stand in the way.
Most often we think of greed in terms of money. A lyric from the old O’Jays song, For the Love of Money, rings in my mind: “Money can drive some people out of their minds.”
For sure, money is a common source of greed. Yet if we believe that money is the primary or only thing to be greedy about, we lose the chance to liberate ourselves from greed.
We all possess a “special” greed. When we recognize our special greed, we are closer to liberation. And that greed doesn’t necessarily have to do with money. It begins with our “have to haves.”
“Have to haves” are wants gone feral. We feel we deserve them, we desperately need them, we can even be addicted to them. In fact, greed strengthens with addiction gone mad.
Breathe for a minute.
Seriously, take six to ten breaths letting greed, and the possibility that you may be possessed by a special greed, find you.
Liberation waits for you at the end of facing greed.
Three examples of special greed follow. They spontaneously arrived in a conversation I had with a dear friend and my beloved. Catching up, sharing, listening, wondering and dancing in Somatic Finance together, we landed on the subject of greed and the importance of honestly exploring greed in oneself.
My awake friend is highly attuned and open. She’s willing and ready to evolve. Being with her is total pleasure and invites me into my own evolution and A-game.
So, it is no surprise that when she asked about current events, and the subject of greed joined our space, she naturally opened to her own special greed. Recognizing no financial or material greed, she wondered, “hmm, what does greed mean for me?”
Immediately she said, “Well, of course, I am greedy with food.”
She’s been giving clear attention to her physical health since January 2021. This practice, which has resulted in losing significant weight, has helped her become more aware of her food greed and as she strives to stay in balance with sufficient sweets, specifically chocolate. Unlike an ascetic diet of impoverishment, she tempers her sweet tooth with homemade hot chocolate and ten cocoa seasoned nuts.
Could food be your special greed?
Quickly joining my friend with her discovery, my beloved recognized information as his form of greed.
Daily, he feeds his mind with facts, news, discoveries and more. He wakes to many news threads telling him the state of the nation and the state of the world. Throughout the day he returns to articles and listens to NPR to gain more facts to figure. He reads books online in the evening. The more information, the better…
Could information be your special greed?
I used to be greedy for experiences. What with FOMO and boredom, I was a champion of go go go and do do do. What’s true now? My experience greed has lessened, perhaps given to exhaustion. Today I am greedy for its polar opposite: peace, silence, stillness and space. I cognitively know my desire for peace is a form of greed, even though peace is positive.
Could experiences or peace be your special greed?
Greed asks us to dive deep. When my friend continues her inward exploration, she might recognize ancestral trauma—from the Irish famine—as the source of greed. She might see how her family’s survival came from food, entwining that greed into her DNA. Of course, she might be greedy with food. It’s her heritage, just like the freckles on her skin.
When my beloved reflects on his passion for information, he might discover his survival, or community, or self-worth is delicately woven in with the need for more and more information.
Greed often sits in polarity with fear. Feast sits opposite famine. Information faces ignorance. Opening to greed lets us unwind and discover what is underneath it.
Liberation meets us at the end of our discoveries.
As I look at my peace-experience polarity, I come closer to my fears of too much and too little.
Scarcity hugs me tightly, and my awareness of how scarcity moves me slowly nudges me to rest in sufficiency. Pops of liberation arise each time I open to greed and see the places scarcity has crept in; sufficiency lands in my heart and breathes my belly.
Someday, I’ll abide in sufficiency. There, too much or too little won’t matter because I will feel both full up and at peace.
Until that happens, I practice exploring greed, my special greed.
Facing all ways of greed,
Tiny Body Practice
What is a Dead End?
What is a Dead End?
Do you feel like you are walking toward a dead end, in some area of your life?
Walk with me as we explore together our dead ends.
As we face dead ends, the path toward that end is open for surprises if we listen to our inner voice and motivation. Our authentic voice tells us to continue toward the dead end rather than automatically following direction from the outside.
I’m using new muscles and strengthening others as I honor my unique wisdom telling me there are no real dead ends-only limited views and opportunities to consciously move through transitions.
What are the places in your life that say this is a dead end?
Do you turn left?
Or is there something deeper inside telling you to keep going?
Deepening Practice
Walk With Me
by Gayle | Sep 30, 2021
Hello my friend,
Do you feel like you are walking toward a dead end?
What qualities and characteristics create a dead end?
Have you ever experienced a dead end that turned out to be something else?
Walk with me as we explore dead ends together.
I’m discovering the invitation of dead ends and how we sometimes thwart dead ends prematurely; we are told there is no life, or this situation offers no progress or development.
Our inner voice might say continue toward the dead end rather than automatically follow outside direction. What’s possible is the elegance of stop. Life and progress remain even when it seems we are not moving.
Stopping naturally takes our awareness inside – inside our body – where we feel and sense life, our lifeforce. Here, in this deeper tuning, we see our choices and gain direction for our way to continue.
Tiny Body Practice
Contemplating Dead Ends
What is a Dead End?
Practice Preparation
Read the instructions to the end prior to beginning.
Total time, including 10 minutes of journaling, is 30 minutes.
Pre-reflection:
Consider one or more current dead-ends:
- What are the places in your life that say this is a dead end?
- Are you wandering back and forth, in limbo?
- Is there a sign telling you to “go left”?
- Does your authentic voice say keep going toward the dead end?
Practice
Experiment walking toward a wall, a dead end, with three different themes as follows:
- Just walking.
- Walking with a preference to keep moving or to stop.
- Walking with a current topic important to you.
Walk each theme two different ways:
Just walking:
- Walk toward the wall and keep moving by turning left before you hit the wall.
- Walk toward the wall and slow down stopping before you hit the wall.
Notice the differences and similarities between going left and stopping.
What thoughts, body sensations and emotions arise?
Walking with an agenda – either to keep moving or to stop
- Walk toward the wall, hold tight to a preference, and follow that preference.
- Walk toward the wall, hold tight to a preference, do the opposite.
What happens in your experience with a preference?
What thoughts, body sensations and emotions arise?
Walking with a current topic
- Walk toward the wall with your current topic on your mind and turn left before the wall.
- Walk toward the wall with your current topic on your mind; slow down, stop before the wall.
What happened with your topic with each walk?
What thoughts, body sensations and emotions arise?
Post Practice
Reflect on your experiences above and journal answers to your experiences.
What are you learning about dead-ends?
What possibilities emerge with a full stop?
How does following an instruction to “turn left” serve you? Not serve you?