Insight Timer

A year or so ago, I discovered a free app called Insight Timer to help me with my meditation practice, and I wanted to share some information about that app here for anyone who might be interested.   Insight Timer is available for both Android and I-Phone smart phones.  It can be downloaded through Google Play (for Android) or I-Tunes (for I-Phone).  My favorite feature of this app is the meditation timer, which allows me to specify the length of my daily meditation in minutes and provides interval bell sounds of my choice to keep me on track for the duration of each session.  I also recently started using the guided meditation feature which consists of a library of over 1,800 guided meditations on topics like gratitude, forgiveness, letting go, self-compassion, and stress relief.  

Insight Timer connects users with a worldwide community of meditators.  It offers a number of different discussion groups, provides a message forum for sharing with like-minded individuals, and displays a map showing all of the people (symbolized by dots) using the app all over the world at any given time.   There is a journal feature for recording thoughts and insights gained during and after meditation.  There is also a feature which keeps detailed stats and milestones for tracking growth and progress of one's meditation practice..

The overarching goal of the folks at Insight Timer is to help the world reach 10,000 years’ worth of collective meditation - with the idea that meditation can be instrumental in promoting world peace.  The app is offered for free.  If you would like help with downloading this app onto your smart phone, contact me at the Unity office and I will be happy to assist you.

~REBECCA

Best Laid Plans

I had it all figured out.  I have three children who will be ready to go off to college in the blink of an eye, and six months ago, in a flash of brilliance, I realized that if I could land a job at Rutgers University I would be able to send all three of them through school AND earn my master’s degree at no cost.  Genius!  So I started sending my resume to Rutgers for every office admin position that popped up on their employment website.  My thought was that I could work full-time at the university, put in 10-12 hours a week at Unity, and start taking graduate courses in the fall – no problem, right? But thirty resumes and five months later I hadn’t received a single reply from Rutgers.  I even applied for a job at Raritan Valley Community College but was informed several weeks after my interview that they had hired another candidate. 

I have recently decided that if I want something it’s up to me to go after it.  I understand all about prosperity consciousness, but as far as I'm concerned, God is a BE-er, not a DO-er.  I have to do the DOing, while God does the BEing.  I can have what I want, and God is behind me 100 percent.  But taking action to make it happen is up to me.  So I said to myself, “I am in no real hurry – I can wait – I’ll just keep sending resumes to Rutgers, and eventually something will stick.” 

Then one day, a thought came to me out of nowhere.  “Maybe this isn’t going to look like you thought it was going to look . . . maybe instead of a 35-hour/10-hour split, this is going to be more like a 20-hour/20-hour split.”  I interpreted this to mean that maybe rather than looking for a full-time job and reducing my hours at Unity to 10, what I might actually be looking for was another part-time job and to reduce my hours at Unity to 20.  At the time I knew that this was a significant mental shift.  In fact it felt like the idea, as mundane as it seemed, had come from somewhere other than me.  Now the field of possibilities had expanded, and I began to consider new part-time positions.  

Not long after that, I saw an ad on monster.com for a part-time office admin position at a local synagogue.  “What?” you say?  “A synagogue?  How did we go from Rutgers to a synagogue?”  Well, quite honestly, I have no earthly idea.  But for some reason I felt compelled to apply for the job, and within a day of submitting my resume, I had received a call from the Rabbi.

After my interview at the synagogue, I just knew I had gotten the job.  And for some reason, beyond every reasonable explanation, I felt compelled to accept it.  “Okay, so apparently this is the direction we’re going?” I said to God.  And God said, “Yes.”  So now I work 20 hours a week at Unity and 20 hours a week at a synagogue.

The older I get, the more tempted I am to think that I am squarely in control of my life.  That God doesn’t really play as big a role in the events of my life as my starry-eyed younger self used to think.  But there is no question in my mind that something larger than myself has led me to this new job at the synagogue.  And there is also no question that the purpose of my working at the synagogue is to enhance my work at Unity.  So apparently this is the direction we’re going now.  Not only can I live with it, but this strange turn of events has somehow renewed my faith.  For the first time in a long time, I'm excited to see what Spirit has in store for me. 

~REBECCA

Creature Comforts

I don’t consider myself a pet person.  I don’t particularly enjoy cuddling with furry creatures, and most of the time I feel like I barely have the wherewithal to sufficiently care for myself and the other humans in my charge, let alone members of various other species.   But I do have two cats, and every once in a while, one of them teaches me a valuable lesson.  Like yesterday, for instance - by some miracle, I found myself at home alone, as all three of my children and my husband had accepted last-minute social invitations and were out of the house for a couple hours.  In my normal Type-A fashion, I took this to be the perfect opportunity to complete every ounce of the housework I hadn’t gotten to earlier in the day.  So I set about doing chores, but I quickly became tired – it had been a long, long day - and eventually I decided, reluctantly, to sit down and rest with a cup of tea and an episode of one of my favorite television programs.  I am not exaggerating when I say that this was the first time I had sat down to rest all week.  

No sooner had I settled on the sofa and laid a blanket over my legs than Macy, the older of my two cats, came crawling up onto the sofa and plopped herself down on my lap. Macy is a gorgeous, striped brown and black Bengal cat with beautiful green eyes and a whole host of neuroses – one of which is that she doesn’t like to be touched.  Usually any time we reach out to stroke Macy’s fur, she recoils and slinks quickly away.  She spends most of her time hiding in our basement or in the darkness of our linen closet.  So for her to feel comfortable enough to approach me, first, and then to sit on my lap is significant.  After a few minutes of allowing her to get settled, I slowly reached out to pet Macy’s head.  At first she winced, but then she allowed me to stroke her head and then she allowed me to scratch behind her ears and to pet her back.  She closed her eyes, and I could tell from her stillness and from the weight of her body on my legs that she was finally relaxed - and so was I.  

I felt like Macy was giving me a gift in that moment.  I had finally allowed myself to be still and the result was a beautiful, peaceful exchange of energy that left me feeling spiritually nourished and completely at ease.  I wondered to myself, what other blessings would come to me if I would just allow myself to be still?  

~REBECCA

Putting it into Practice

I just finished volunteering on the Friends of the Hunterdon County Library Used Book Sale - Their 20th, my 14th. It was a terrific opportunity to use my spiritual principles. I read the Daily Word every morning before I went to volunteer and they were great. Yet when I started to journal about my experiences, when things got tense, somehow many of my principles went out the window. I realized that I had been triangulating (talking to one person about another), complaining and criticizing.

It wasn't all bad. I like to encourage other volunteers and tried to be upbeat and positive - especially when we were still wondering if we would get all the books sorted - there were many thousands of books donated to the sale.

Nevertheless, I have something to work on. The best thing for me to do when I notice I've let down on my principles is figure out how I can do better next time or, in this case, next year. I carry a box - Jean's box, each day to the volunteer site. I keep pens, scratch paper, a box cutter, phone numbers I might need, a painter apron, a calculator and a bunch of other things in that box. It's my traveling supply center. I decided that I need to put something in that box - taped to the top perhaps - that will remind me, from the first day, to use my spiritual principles.

I haven't decided yet what that will be - a photocopy of the five Unity Principles perhaps, a copy of the Four Agreements perhaps. I haven't decided yet. But ... I will put something there now when I'm thinking about it so that when I open my supply center box next April, the first thing I see will be that reminder of how I want to show up each and every day.

I love our Unity principles and especially the fifth or action principle: Through thoughts, words and actions we live the Truth we know. And that is what I intend to do out in the world.

~ JEAN