Speaking

I am terrified of public speaking. Small groups or individuals are totally OK, but when it is a room full of people, it gives me panic attacks and anxiety. In meeting today, I spoke for the first time; from the Spirit and from the Heart. I was completely taken by surprise... hashing over a thought in my mind relating to what someone else had said a few weeks ago in meeting and how it related to what someone had said today. My mind was still sitting down and thinking while my body stood up and spoke, seemingly involuntarily. Despite my heart pounding out of my chest and most of my brain racing around trying to figure out what the heck was happening, my words were clear and concise. A couple of people thanked me after the rise of meeting and told me that I spoke directly to their condition. It was a slightly unnerving, yet it felt right. For those who are unfamiliar with various religious phenomena, it is a sensation not unlike speaking in tongues, except maybe it just comes out in one's native language. I am probably over-analyzing. I have a way of attempting to dissect and understand everything that happens in my life and I need to learn to just put certain things away and wait for new perspective. Regardless, I think I am gaining a more intimate understanding of how this works.

Just A Thought

At meeting today, a man spoke of intentions... how they relate to the outcome of many of our decisions. It brought me into contemplation about the base reasoning of our intentions and how the course my own life has snaked back and forth between two well-defined and diametrically opposite types of intention. In retrospect I have been made to realize that most every decision I have made which resulted in ultimately negative consequences... was based in an intention rooted in the pursuit of self and ego, and on the other end of the spectrum almost every decision which resulted in an improvement of self, a building of maturity and character, and a general richness of existence... all of these were based in an intention to pursue That which is Truth and the purest form of Love. I won't expound on this any further, it speaks for itself and reminds me of where my energy needs to be focused.

I am still wrangling the raging ego but getting better at cutting off it's supply of energy and causing it to retreat back into the darkness where it belongs.