March Weekend Wisdom with Brandon Nappi

3.29.2020

COVID-19 is our letter from Hogwarts,
an invitation to wake up to our deeper calling
and realize we are the healers and elders
the world has been waiting for.

An unswerving truth arrives more persistently than COVID-19 itself: Sometimes life is hard, really hard. After all, who told us that life would be easy all the time? All wisdom traditions anticipate that the hero’s journey would include heart-stretching hardship. Growing in wisdom is not quick, nor easy. There is no lifehack to enlightenment. Distrust any guru who teaches otherwise. As we peer into the dense fog of the future and wonder what life will be like in the weeks ahead, what’s clear is that COVID-19 has arrived as our letter from Hogwarts, an invitation to awaken to our deeper calling. We are unlikely sages in training shocked out of a warm bath of distraction. Just like in the Harry Potter classic, if at first you don’t get the message that you are a magical creature capable of boundless courage and selfless love, then you’ll receive it ten-thousand times until you heed its sacred message--the world needs us to wake up and claim our heart’s true calling. We are healers in the making. We are sages in training. This is our opportunity to become the wise elders that our aching world has longed for. Who knew that a pandemic would call forth all the skills of the heart that our ancestors cherished and handed on for millennia—bravery, trust, patience, selfless-love, and kindness? Weekend Wisdom is a weekly sharing from Copper Beech Institute’s founder, Dr. Brandon Nappi.

3.22.20

May these days reveal our true nature
so we may see ourselves clearly as the
light-bearers that we are.

While so much has changed in these past days (and changed so rapidly), it’s also important to remember what hasn’t changed. We are capable of immense love. We all long for connection. We are all afraid sometimes. We all struggle with doubt. All of us feel lonely sometimes even when surrounded by loved ones. We all have a calling to be of service. All of us are invited to discover that this challenge can help us grow into a stronger, wiser, and more compassionate version of ourselves. So much has shifted in the past week—and shifted so rapidly. We’re not gathering in public. We cancel plans. We wake up with a sense of unease. We wonder how long it will last. We wash our hands and wonder if it’s been 20 seconds. We peer out into the dense fog of April and wonder what life will be like in a few weeks. A pandemic will teach us just how interconnected we are. Even as we distance ourselves, we do so out of a deep sense of connection and responsibility for each other. It seems clearer than ever that we belong to each other. Isn’t this our greatest lesson to learn in life? What doesn’t change in a pandemic is that the light of compassion and awareness shines brightly within all of us. May this challenging moment stretch our hearts open to care, to meditate, to pray, to volunteer, to donate, to nurture ourselves, to learn, to grow, to play, to sing to dance, to reach out, to rest, and to expand. This is not always easy, but we invite you to join us in trusting that we are all in this together. We are breathing with you. Weekend Wisdom is a weekly sharing from Copper Beech Institute’s founder, Dr. Brandon Nappi.

3.15.20

Blessing for Waking Up Amid Fear

When the path is clear,
may we be brave enough to follow it.

When the path is unclear,
may the light of trust guide us through the unknown.

May we trust that our natural capacity for fear
stands alongside our boundless capacity for courage.

May any trace of prejudice within us dissolve
as we remember our shared humanity.

May we not shrink in an impulse of self-protection,
but wake up to the power of compassion within us.

Even in the grip of fear, may our hearts stretch open
letting love guide everything we say and do.

May we remember that we are always connected to Life.
Each time we forget, may we be guided back
to this unshakeable truth.

It’s possible to be swept away by a flood of fear as real concern about coronavirus spreads even more quickly than the virus itself. It’s critically important that we take seriously the wise directives of our health professionals from around the world. And it’s also important to use this moment as an opportunity for mindfulness practice so that the heart does not shut down and armor itself against the world. Mindfulness helps us to meet each moment with courage and open-heartedness. Our practice of mindfulness allows us to respond skillfully with wise and compassionate action amid challenging situations. As we face this difficult moment, as a global community, we remember just how interconnected we are. We offer this prayer as a way to wake up to our true nature amid an unsettling moment in our world. May these words offer healing, comfort, and solace as we remember the deep reservoir of equanimity that lives within all of us.

3.8.20

Deep listening seeks to understand another’s
experience without judgment.
Predatory listening is waiting to catch someone
in the act of messing up.

I’m struck by how we miss each other when we assume the worst intention of others. We put ourselves on the pedestal of righteousness and put those with whom we disagree in the pit of pathology. In this scenario, we no longer simply disagree with others, rather we pathologize them, labelling them as crazy and sick. When we are forced into dialogue with these folks we have labelled, we scan their words and actions for evidence of their neurosis. Not only do we fail to assume the best intention of others, we create a fiction that ‘these people’ are evil and out to get us. We become predatory listeners, waiting for the “gotcha” moment where we can reveal the hypocrisy and enjoy the intoxicating drug of self-righteousness and indignation. If we walk through life in this way, waiting to catch others in the act of messing up, we will be imprisoned by joyless cynicism and haunting paranoia. We will convince ourselves that we are protecting ourselves from the sinister motives of others. We will put on so much armor that we will be immobile under the weight of what is supposed to be protecting us. Our hearts will be protected, but they will also be removed to a vault of isolation; while our hearts will be “safe”, they will also loose the capacity to be vulnerable and connect with others. We practice mindfulness to keep our hearts open and soft. We practice to remember that we are always connected. We practice so we can listen deeply so that the same compassion that has been offered to us can be freely offered to others. Weekend Wisdom is a weekly sharing from Copper Beech Institute’s founder, Dr. Brandon Nappi.