Aldea Messages Aldea Spiritual Community

Enjoy this guided meditation on self-compassion and forgiveness!

As we near the end of our THRIVAL series, tune in to this message about the interdependent nature of reality and how we can experience ourselves most fully in community. 
 
Quotes: 
 
Steve Jobs:
"I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow I did not breed or perfect the seeds. I do not make any of my own clothing. I speak a language I did not invent or refine. I did not discover the mathematics I use. I am protected by freedoms and laws I did not conceive of or legislate, and do not enforce or adjudicate. I am moved by music I did not create myself. When I needed medical attention, I was helpless to help myself survive. I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor, object oriented programming, or most of the technology I work with. I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well being."
 
Dalai Lama:
“Things are highly interdependent. The very concepts of “we” and “they” are becoming irrelevant. War is out of date because our neighbors are part of ourselves.”
 
Martin Luther King Jr.:
"Before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world. This is the way our universe is structured. It is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going to have peace on earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality"
 
J. Krishnamurti
“Action has meaning only in relationship, and without understanding relationship, action on any level will only breed conflict. The understanding of relationship is infinitely more important than the search for any plan of action.” 
 
Leviticus 3:22:
“When you harvest the crops of your land, do not harvest the grain along the edges of your fields, and do not pick up what the harvesters drop. Leave it for the poor and the foreigners living among you.” 
 
Acts 4:32-35:
"The whole congregation of believers was united as one—one heart, one mind! They didn’t even claim ownership of their own possessions. No one said, “That’s mine; you can’t have it.” They shared everything…And so it turned out that not a person among them was needy. Those who owned fields or houses sold them and brought the price of the sale to the apostles and made an offering of it. The apostles then distributed it according to each person’s need."
 
Adrienne Marie Brown:
“Do you already know that your existence--who and how you are--is in and of itself a contribution to the people and place around you? Not after or because you do some particular thing, but simply the miracle of your life."
 
Albert Einstein:
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. (They experience (themself), (theyir) thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of (their) consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”  
 
 

Enjoy this guided lovingkindness meditation, also known as Metta. 

Laugh with us as we explore the healing and transformative power of humor, including an interview with Tucson comic Nancy Stanley!
 
Quotes:
 
Maya Angelou:




“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”
 
Alan Watts:
"Real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter."
 
Gospel of Thomas (63): 
"Jesus said, "There was a rich man who had considerable wealth. He said, 'I shall invest my wealth so as to sow, reap, plant, and fill my barns with crops, lest I run short of something.' These things are what he was thinking in his heart, and that very night the man died. Whoever has ears should listen!"
 
Lao Tzu:




“If it were not laughed at, it would not be sufficient to be Tao.”




 

Add another tool to your thrival toolkit as we explore "parts work" such as Internal Family Systems, a form of therapy and introspection that sees the inner self as a diverse collection of "parts".
 
*IFS Intro for Kids video by Kenny Dennis
 
Quotes:
 
Ralph De La Rosa:
“We are not one-dimensional, and our multiple dimensions are not static. Just as our bodies are made of many parts that form a dynamic, interwoven system that works together, so it is with our psyches. We are more awake, alive, and complex than we know.”
 
Richard Schwartz:
“When you were young and experienced traumas or attachment injuries, you didn’t have enough body or mind to protect yourself. Your Self couldn’t protect your parts, so your parts lost trust in your Self as the inner leader. They may even have pushed your Self out of your body and took the hit themselves—they believed they had to take over and protect you and your other parts. But in trying to handle the emergency, they got stuck in that parentified place and carry intense burdens of responsibility and fear, like a parentified child in a family….Your protectors’ goals for your life revolve around keeping you away from all that pain, shame, loneliness, and fear, and they use a wide array of tools to meet those goals—achievements, substances, food, entertainment, shopping, sex, obsession with your appearance, caretaking, meditation, money, and so on.”
 
Sigmund Freud:
“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.”
 
Gareth Gwyn:
"Our triggers become welcomed signs that we have rejected something inside us."
 
Richard Schwartz:
“The goal of IFS is not to eliminate parts, but to get them to work together in harmony. This leads to a greater sense of wholeness and integration.”






 

Join us as we take a new perspective on the disruptions of life - exploring the metaphors of wind & alchemy! 
 
Quotes: 
 
Travis Brownley (Marin Academy): 




"Without stress wood, a tree can grow quickly, but it cannot support itself fully. It cannot withstand normal wear and tear, and survive. In other words, the trees needed some stress in order to thrive in the long run."
 




Matthew 7:24-26:
"You are like a wise man who built his house on a rock, on a firm foundation. When storms hit, rain pounded down and waters rose, levies broke and winds beat all the walls of that house. But the house did not fall because it was built upon rock."
 
Wendell Berry: 
"It may be that when we no longer know what to do - we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go - we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed - The impeded stream is the one that sings."
 
Alan Watts:
"I have always been fascinated by the law of reversed effort. Sometimes I call it the “backwards law.” When you try to stay on the surface of the water, you sink; but when you try to sink, you float. When you hold your breath, you lose it—which immediately calls to mind an ancient and much neglected saying, “Whosoever would save his soul shall lose it.”
 




“If we cling to belief in God, we cannot likewise have faith, since faith is not clinging but letting go.”
 
John Stuart Mill:




“(They) who know only (their) own side of the case knows little of that.”
 
Malcolm Gladwell: 




“I feel I change my mind all the time. And I sort of feel that's your responsibility as a person, as a human being – to constantly be updating your positions on as many things as possible. And if you don't contradict yourself on a regular basis, then you're not thinking.”
















 
Carl Jung:




“Only by discovering alchemy have I clearly understood...the real metamorphosis of the psyche.”
 
Rumi (The Undressing): 
"Learn the alchemy true human beings know - the moment you accept what troubles you have been given, the door opens."