A Life Worth Living: Embodying Your Dharma Code

What are you? Where do you live? Why are you here? What do you do? How do you do it? What is it for? These were questions posed by Rev. Chris Jackson at Unity on the Bay yesterday, ageless questions humans have been asking themselves for millennia, questions that have spawned the world's religions and philosophies.

For me, pondering these questions has led me on a quest for deeper meaning, and all roads lead to the same place: within. Last week I was in Northampton, Massachusetts at an intensive training in Dialectical Behavior Therapy, a third-wave behavior therapy grounded in a dialectical worldview and mindfulness practices. For several months, I have also been involved in self-reflection and yoga practices in the tradition of Rod Stryker's Para Yoga.

Whether in a professional development training or personal self-realization workshop, the roads are converging for me. This is a nice feeling, because I want to be authentic and transparent, regardless of the setting. I am aware that I am not a typical wine-drinking, Botox injecting, Ferragamo shoe-wearing, hair coloring "Miami girl." I have never injected Botox and I haven't had a drop of alcohol in almost 25 years. I will never pay $500 for a pair of shoes. I am a down-to-earth, Børn-wearing, quinoa-eating, yoga-practicing, cancer-surviving, gray-haired, (hopefully gracefully) aging woman in search for peace and enlightenment.

I was especially excited about  the DBT worldview that DBT is therapy between equals. I might know some skills that I teach  a client who is the expert in their own experience. I influence them and they influence me. They may engage in therapy-interfering behaviors, and so might I. We are engaged in a graceful dance. Does this approach mean I can bring more of my authentic self into the equation, and let people know that I also need to practice skills to suffer less? I hope so.

Working on Rod Stryker's "Four Desires" exercises, I have identified my Dharma, or life  code, as embodying the Divine, expressing Divine ideas, writing and speaking words that inspire and change lives. I am here to heal, myself and others. I do this by attempting to see things with clarity, by nurturing my connection with Spirit daily, by trusting in the abundant love of God (as I understand God), by resting in a benevolent Universe, by releasing all attachments, by having the courage to be transparent. This is a lofty task, given my judgmental, opinionated, and self-righteous nature. But I am up for it.

Can I release self-judgment and become more real? Do I have the courage to walk through fear and reveal who I truly am? I want to. It might be helpful to me, and maybe to others as well.