A friendly chat.

I am here to challenge the wordings "We want to hear about how you disconnect from the world and give yourself a well-deserved mindful making break".

Maybe it is disconnection that is the issue and that I/we all ought to re-connect with the world and the true self?

Maybe we perceive the 'outer' world like a mirror of how we see ourselves. Broken, Chaotic, Worthless? Or Perfect, Still and All That Is? Perhaps it's a choice.

@afriendlychat is a service that I offer to anyone. My role is to help them re-member (that is, re-build) Who They Really Are. Beyond the conceptual thought forms in the mind. Dropping the story of the ego; socially, hobbies, achievements, attachments, relations and so on.

During these chats, whether they are 20 minutes or an hour, is where I "make room for [my] inner peace". You see, inner peace is simply presence. Instead of focusing on my self-ish thoughts about the conceptual past or made-up future, I get to focus on a self-less presence; being empty space for that person in need, Here and Now.

One could argue that I offer this service for self-ish reasons and I guess I do, because every act is simultaneously self-ish and self-less. They are the same thing disguised as one another. This is another way of saying the Chinese proverb 'No man is your enemy, no man is your friend, every man is your teacher."

I love holding these sessions; they are definitely creative. They actually re-create connection. They definitely give me a "well-deserved mindful making break". We all deserve it. “The experience of living is not something that one should have to “earn". Life is a gift, given to all of you, and it is not something you should have to make yourself worthy of every day of your existence.”

I have started to light incense, play beauty-full frequency music and I am now going to use a Tibetan Tingsha bell at the end of each chat. Incense for the smelling sense, music for the hearing sense and the bell at the end for a re-minder of pre-sence... after having gotten used to the music and smell after chatting all things deep.

Oh my, the minimum for this entry is 600 words and I'm at around 390 at this point. I would like to keep this as short as possible, so that any learnings (or rather, remembrances) taken from these words can be applied here and now. We know that tomorrow never comes, we just seem to forget throughout the day.

Serving others does in-deed, keep me "grounded and ease[s] the stress of [my] routine". Although, here I am again, challenging the status quo of how "important having routine" is. I would say that having a strict routine or maybe even just a routine in general is avoiding the pleasure of getting to re-member Who We Really Are in our essence. Which is stillness.

Saying this, I do take some form of routine each morning in order to practise the stillness. It more often than not includes a cold shower/bath, Tony Robbins 'Priming' session on Youtube and 15-25 minutes of yoga for my beauty-full body. I change it up sometimes with less, more, or varied practises. I'm learning to listen to my body and its needs recently.

Sure, it is fun, pleasant and entertaining to practise hobbies, I love doing them, too. But we can't run away forever and we will be faced with unpleasant situations in our day-to-day lives. The best way, I have found, to realise (that is make-real) contentment and connection is to fully accept any situation or experience that comes in the present moment. The way I look at it is that pain and suffering are two very different experiences. Pain is something unpleasant that is being experienced, but suffering is rejecting that pain. That is rejecting the present moment. What Is. Of course that is going to amplify the pain tremendously. You could still choose to do something care-full to alleviate the pain, whilst simultaneously maintaining acceptance. Your mind, paired with awareness is ineffably power-full.

In acceptance, follows stillness on this path. Even when busy, we can Be still as we Do daily tasks. "Life has very little to do with what you are doing and very much to do with what you are being while you are doing it".

I recommend making friends with the present moment as much as you can re-member to. Things will change for the better for you, and quickly.

With you on your journey, in Love, Play and Presence,

Agapē ♥✨ ️