Live What You Know

Waking up is more than it seems. You KNOW more than you've ever been "taught"! You chose to be here now. Make yourTRUEself proud!

Tag: peace

April 1, 2014

Self Trust = Faith In All

“Self-trust is the first secret of success.”  ―Ralph Waldo Emerson

The true self is much more than words can express.  I’ll continue attempting to express it anyway.  🙂

We are meant to evolve to completely trust ourselves.  Our true self.  The One that is connected to All.  When we trust our truest self, rather than our ego, we can be sure of how we will handle any situation and circumstance that may arise.  This kind of trust in ourselves isn’t about trusting our little personality that shows up in the world or our bodies and programmed logical perspective on things, it is about much much more.  Self-trust is about knowing who and what we truly are in our deepest essence.  It is Being.  A deep self-trust can take hold and we can shift how we live in the world.  There are many parts to this, of course, but, we can do it.  We can know and live in our being so much that we can be sure and steady in knowing we are rooted in something deeper than the sway of daily events.  This trust in something deeper is an important step in our evolution.  Once we can trust completely in our higher self we open the door to all that we are meant to experience.

Self-trust is the only trust their really is.  Placing your trust in and on others is a precarious endeavor.  It adds expectations and burdens to them.  People are out there doing the best they can and that is all we can truly expect.  We are all evolving along our own path and pace and it is all fine.  We don’t need to go around expecting people to pick up the pace or wait for us.  We can accept and love people just as they are.  We don’t need to trust them.  We only need to love them.  We can support the growth in each other and be authentic in our interactions with them.  This may include helping others see themselves as they truly are or it may be a complete and utter acceptance of where they are at.  We will  know what authentic interaction is called for in each moment.  This comes with the self-trust we can cultivate and share with the world.  This self-trust blesses everything we do and everyone we meet.  It is not a selfish endeavor, it brings peace, love and consciousness to All.

When we no longer feel the need to surround ourselves with people we can “trust” we allow people to simply be who they are and we know deeply that we can handle whatever that may look like.  When we no longer need to have people behave in a certain way that works for us or makes us feel safe, then we can experience more of what life has to offer us and we can give back to life what we are meant to bring to the world.  When we no longer need to control and manipulate situations and circumstances to fit our desires we can just be in the world in whatever way we are meant to.  We open up to life and we open up to more of everything.  We no longer need to limit life to the parts we have labeled as trustworthy or desirable.  We are open-hearted beings.  We have faith in All.

Years ago I was seeking a path to this shift — perhaps even a shortcut.  Over time, moment by moment, I can feel that in my case it is a slow and gradual shift in being that gradually envelops our choices and state of mind so that it feels like a warm embrace from a peace that has been there all along just waiting to welcome us home.  Love is home.  Trusting our higher selves and radiating a light that helps others do the same is the divine glow that lights the path home.

Wishing us all the courage to forgive ourselves when we forget what we are.  Wishing us all the courage to forgive others for everything as we realize there is nothing to forgive.  It is All well.  Sending you love and joy!

 

8 Comments
March 6, 2014

Living The Questions of Your Life

‘Instead of asking, “What do I want from life?”, a more powerful question is, “What does life want from me?’ —Eckhart Tolle

It is a miracle to be here.  We are all here to do something.  We are all shaped by our experiences.  Every experience is meaningful.  We become who we are meant to be so we may bring what we are meant to bring to this world.  We are connected to Everything; there is no-one and no-thing we are not connected to.  Our choices, intentions, interactions and energies ripple out to others and come back to us.  Once we are aware of all this happening, synchronicities abound that connect us to more of ourselves while enhancing others’ ability to do the same.  The Universe/God works perfectly in assisting all of this, but once we are aware of it, we co-create with Life.  This all happens, not by figuring out the answers to life, but by asking and living the right questions.  We all have specific questions we are working with at any given time to assist us along the way.

To live a question, we must acknowledge and accept that we don’t know the answer.  We are then in the unknown.  The unknown is where we can experience more of life.  We must open to the present and live each experience fully to get from it what we are meant to.  In this way, we embrace the art of not labeling situations and accepting that all things are unfolding as they should no matter what the details appear to be.  We widen our perspective.  We no longer need to declare if things are good or bad.  We just flow with the circumstances and try to hear what life is saying to us and what question it is presenting for us.  We let go of seeking the answers as we flow with the questions.  Seeking answers requires future and creates the illusion that we will be somehow better or more complete once we have them.  This can only create suffering as we long for a moment other than the one we are in.  We receive only the answers we are ready for and they change over time and circumstance.  The Divine joy and love is in the questions and allowing them to flow through you at the perfect time for you.

Once we know how to live the questions, we can dwell in peace that has tinges of fearless excitement within.  We won’t sit idly by and simply watch everything, we will live authentically with clarity and purpose as we ground our actions in our true essence.  Life will show us how to do this if we can only listen.

Watch the synchronicity in your life.  Watch the dots connect.  Notice what you are meant to receive from each person you come into contact with.  Notice what you can give back in return.  Be with nature in a way that fills your energy to assist your higher frequency vibration.  Watch your conversations.  Notice the books that appear at just the right time.  Notice Divine energy assisting you.  Be kind to yourself.  Forget trying to know and embrace living the unknown.  See the beauty all around.  BE nature instead of in nature.  Listen with all your heart.  You can function this way always, you don’t have to return to surviving and struggling all the time.  Peace can envelope you as you live your questions and evolve to the next, never rushing or resisting, just living in the present.

Lean back and look at the whole of your life.  See how it has all connected in meaningful ways to shape you into who you are now.  See all the ways that Life has provided for you.  Let that feeling embrace you.  I call it a Universe hug and I believe that the more you can feel those hugs, the more frequently you receive them.  We all need hugs.  Feel that hug from the Universe and love and embrace who you are now without judging how you got here or where you should be instead.  Just love you now and connect to everything around you as you expand and fill up with peace.

Living the unknown and loving the questions, the “little me” in us quiets down and the larger “I” that is connected to all things Lives.  It is a Divine paradox to realize that the only true knowing is found in living peacefully in the Unknown.  The question IS the knowing.  Living the question is living what you know.

Today I pray to be still and live the question of my heart.  I pray to gratefully and peacefully abide in the joy of connectedness to All.  I pray to remember this message as I live the moments of my day.

I am sending you love!  May you hear your question and feel the joy of living authentically with it.

12 Comments
February 28, 2014

Fresh Eyes

Whatever we look at today, may we see it with fresh eyes.

All too often, we look with the eyes of yesterday.  We allow our past experiences and judgments to drag us through our life and relive themselves again and again.  This isn’t living.  We can’t fully come to the present moment and live our soul’s purpose and essence until we can put down our veil of perception grown in the past and grounded in fear and future.

We can practice looking at the world and everything in it with fresh, clear, new eyes.  When we do, we will experience the flow of life in miraculous ways.  We can shift how we experience everything.  Everything that passes through our vision has our thoughts attached to it as we take it in.  We look and attach a label, draw on past experiences as we assume they will repeat themselves and then react accordingly.  Living this way, we miss the actual moment and what may be possible within it entirely.  We can change the thoughts we attach and open up to the Life we already have waiting for us to experience it fully.

I arrive again and again at the miraculous truth that the unknown is all there really is and it is much better than knowing everything…or at least thinking we do.  We really don’t know what the future holds and we would have much more peace if we didn’t feel the need to know.  As we shift our perceptions and feel what is really going on in the Divine Universe, we can begin to trust that whatever lies in the unknown is far better than anything we can conjure up with our little ideas about how things should go.  Even when things seem to be against us, we usually see the reason it was the perfect for us later.  We can trust it all.  It is so much more meaningful and, in fact, fun, to just go with the flow and see what happens.  My favorite saying lately is simply, “I don’t know, let’s see what happens.”  It is a joyful relief that comforts me so…much better than gripping life too tight and continuously striving for some semblance of control.  That “control” only blocks Life and all its miracles.

We never really know what we are looking at…even the most familiar things.  Once things become familiar to us we no longer see them.  We must make the effort to see them fresh.  It will awaken our soul and we will come alive to Life simply by seeing what is really there in front of us rather than seeing our thoughts attached to it.

Yesterday at the grocery story, I saw my kids beside me with absolutely fresh eyes.  The magical love I felt gave me chills all over.  They looked like little miracles standing there near me.  I felt like the luckiest person alive just to have them hanging out with me.  I watched them for a few moments, one intently looking through items at the counter and one surveying the people all around…it was as if I had never seen them before.  I saw them so clearly and I knew throughout my being that I have been blessed in the most amazing way.   I could have been distractedly handling that grocery line moment that we have been through what seems like millions of times…instead I was there with fresh eyes and filled with the tingle of Life running through my senses.

I cherish John O’Donohue’s words on the unfamiliar…with gratitude I keep his lessons on seeing the unfamiliar in the most familiar things close to my heart.  I love what A Course In Miracles taught me and continues to teach me about perception.  I try to remember these lessons as I go through my days…sometimes with fresh eyes, often a bit blurry with flashes of clarity.  Recently in my reading, Mark Nepo spoke of these ideas as “love at first sight”… it opened up a new understanding in me.  I like the term “love at first sight” used in this way.  That was what happened to me at the grocery store.  I looked at two of the most familiar people in the world to me and my eyes were so fresh that it was indeed Love At First Sight!  Perhaps that is why they say love is all that matters and love is all there is…because when you get your eyes right…love is all you can see and all you can Be.

These ideas are not reserved for easy situations and circumstances.  We can apply them to Everything.  These fresh new eyes are the ones to use even if we have people in our lives that we feel have wronged us or our loved ones or are in conflict with us in some way, we can look at them with fresh eyes and live only what is in the actual moment in our meetings with them.  We don’t have to bring our past experiences with tough people to every interaction with them and we don’t have to replay old movies in our head of how we already know them and what they are all about.  We are never exactly the same in any two moments, we can meet everyone fresh in the moment we are actually in.  If we can do that, we will surely see that things are always much better in the actual moment without brining all the thoughts about it to keep us distracted or reliving past moments.

Everything around us can feel how we are using our eyes and other senses.  Our eyes can bring love or fear.  When we’re fresh and present, everything expands to be more fully and authentically alive…even the flower can stand taller.  We open life up and we live authentically.  The simple choice to use our senses to see things fresh brings the frequency of love that is all there really is to see.

Wishing you countless moments filled with the true and infinite “Love At First Sight” that is always available to us.  May we all have the courage to look at it all anew.  Let’s see it all fresh!

Sending you love and joy!  May the tingle of Life run through your senses!

7 Comments
February 6, 2014

Problems vs. Peace

We choose which we will bring to this world — problems or peace.  Which one will we bring with us wherever we go today?

Finding problems is the easiest thing in the world.  There is no shortage of them.  It can always appear as if something has gone wrong, we made a mistake, something is happening that shouldn’t be happening, someone has wronged or offended us, something is annoying us, we can’t be happy until something else happens, etc.  Living in a world of labeling, comparing and judging all things mixed all the while with the struggle to survive without awakened presence makes it feel impossible to see anything but problems…they just roll in…one problem after another.  There is another way to live.  We don’t have to see things as problems, we can turn toward peace instead.  We decide.

As we come to realize that we want more peace in our lives, we have to find ways to practice peace that work for us in our current life situation.  Observing how we see things and how we allow them to come through us is a great practice.  As Life gives us things to work with, big and small, we can choose how we will let them come through us.  Will we find a problem and stay stuck in our head as we resist it, find faults with it, label it, judge it and spend out time trying to convince others to see it as a problem as well?  Or, will we put some space around it and let it be what it is (Life) without the label, content in not knowing whether it is good or bad while trusting that all thing are happening as they are meant to?   It is as simple as that — each little thing…label, think, cause suffering about it or let it be and live in peace.

I have the good fortune of practicing with children.  They are at the beginning stages of labeling all things.  In many ways they must learn countless labels as they grow, figure things out and strive for a great education.  Still, we make an effort in our house to understand the difference and dance between the labels that help us learn and the ones that aren’t necessary.  It is an intense practice with them, because they are so open with their labels and judgements, they don’t hide them secretly in their head and fester, they just blurt them out or have a melt-down and present their problems.  We always have a lot to talk about and practice with.  It is my practice and it works for me…most of the time.  Of course, I don’t have it mastered.  I start the days saying things like, “okay, let’s not look for problems, let’s find peace”… I always tell them that problem-finding is just too easy, we could find a bunch at any time…but what we really want is peace…let’s find that.  Then it takes helping them do that while keeping my peace in tact…a delicate balance.  By the end of the day, it gets a little harder for me to stay with the peace.  The more tired I am, the easier it is to judge things as problems.  It becomes harder to put space around my reactions and choose peace.  This week I began adding some quiet time with a clear-minded meditation for me in the afternoons to gather my energy and keep with my peace in an effort to start fresh even late in the day.  Always something to work on.

Life isn’t trying to annoy us, it’s trying to wake us up.  We choose again and again whether we will create problems or peace.  We create with Everything.  We can feel apart of everything and flow with it or get stuck slugging it out with the smaller stuff and trying to bend things our way.  We can thrive in the ride of not knowing and truly living or we can think we know best and struggle through it all.  We never really know when things are good or bad.  We have all lived through thinking things were one way and finding out we labeled it wrong.  Real Life is lived in the not knowing.

Just this morning after writing the above, I stumbled into this lovely poem that works so well here.  I want to share it with you.

Repeatedly We Are Asked

to embody or consume;
to be in kinship with everything larger
or to order and manage everything smaller.

We are asked, every day, to align or separate;
to coordinate our will with everything living
or to impose our will on everything we meet.

And not choosing is a choice.  Acquiescence
is different from patience or surrender.

All this leaves us needing to know:
whether to better the song through practice
or to better ourselves through singing.

–Mark Nepo

I want to better the song.  Today I pray to answer well when asked again and again if I want problems or peace.  I also pray for those that aren’t yet aware that they too want more peace.  I pray that they may be blessed with a little bit of peace today so that they may learn to search for it and practice it.  I add my gratitude for the practice to the song.  Life is a great practice.  It really is.  Peace and blessing are all around and I am so grateful!

Sending you joy, love and peace today and always.

9 Comments
February 4, 2014

Nothing Happened

“Seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world.”  –A Course In Miracles

Life IS and nothing happened.  Sometimes it seems like something either good or bad has happened and we swirl in the aftermath of either label we chose to put on it.  It really seems like something has happened; we’re quite sure of it.  What if it didn’t truly happen?  What if it is just our thoughts about it that make it seem like it happened?  Aren’t someone else’s thoughts about that same occurrence possibly quite different from ours?  In the after-current of seeming events, we often try to pull others into knowing what has happened by telling them our version of it and keeping the thing alive by continuously naming it and discussing how it feels and what may happen next.  We then add all sorts of projected future scenarios on top of the thing that may or may not have happened.  Our mind quickly begins living out future things that haven’t happened either.  It is all a messy emotional surge that isn’t good for our bodies, minds or souls.  It all takes us away from the only thing we can truly live…the moment we are actually in.

We get to choose how we see the world and everything in it.  Often, we barely see anything before us as we rush through familiar surroundings and assume our way through our days.  If we do encounter the unfamiliar, we label it right away and attached a bunch of thoughts to it.  It is so easy to spend our moments assuming we already know how things will go and labeling anything surprising.  Assuming and labeling isn’t Living, it’s viewing things through our skewed perception.  We can easily see our version of things, but there is so much we are missing by living this way.  We don’t want to view things, we want to Live them.  We can open our hearts to the exact moment we are in and feel more of the life and peace that surrounds us waiting for us to tap into it.  We can become open to the idea that it is just our thoughts about things keeping them alive.  We can let go of the suffering we cause ourselves and others by staying stuck in these thoughts.  We must practice letting the thoughts pass and opening up more stillness and silence to live how we are meant to…in peace.

Something I find quite comforting is the fact that there is ever only one answer to all of the questions we may have about the suffering we encounter or the journey to more peace…just come fully into the present moment…you can handle anything you encounter by fully experiencing it now.  Not the now in your mind with all the thoughts about it, but, the now that just is and brings peace.

I have heard Eckhart Tolle answer hundreds of questions live on his website…sometimes after a lovely answer to exactly the question presented and formed in stillness exactly the way it needed to be heard, he gives a chuckle and says, “always the same answer”… so true.  I love that he always patiently hears the questions and allows the answers to come through in stillness…of course, always the same essential answer with different words around it…but it is quite comforting to watch him reach the same conclusion again and again in peace and ever patient and present stillness.  Watching what presence looks like brings more presence and makes all these things seem possible.

We all have sacrificed so many precious moments to be caught up in some other thing that we think happened to us.  We hold on to other moments and give them so much more power than the one we are in.  We turn away from love when we do this.  I know and pray to live the truth that love is always accessible and we can live from love found in the moment rather than the chaos of a mind that isn’t free of the swirl of reactive thoughts.  Whatever we give our attention to expands.  Today, let’s let those thoughts pass through without our attention as we awaken fully to the life we have available to us now…each now that comes.

Today I pray for presence.  This is my prayer.  I pray to Live a lot rather than see, label and assume a lot, which leads to living a little.  I pray for the only answer…living fulling in the moment.  I pray to remember that each breath is a death of the prior moment and we constantly have a fresh moment to enter.  I pray that I may bring presence and peace around me and help it spread, giving joy to others.  I pray to live what I know.

Sending you love, joy and presence.  Your visit sends me those things in return.  Thank you!

10 Comments
January 30, 2014

Love Everything…It Makes Everything Loveable

Meet Mouska The Duck!

Mouska 1

Mouska has taught our family many lessons about love.  I want to share some of what we have learned here.  The picture above shows what Mouska looked like the day he came into our lives.  We were on a family vacation and we told the kids they could pick out a souvenir in the hotel gift shop.  George spotted a little duck on the top shelf in the back corner beyond our reach, we had to ask for assistance to get him down.  Once in Georgie’s sweet little hands, he was immediately hugged and named Mouska.

George changed the day he got Mouska and the little duck changed as well.  George tapped into his loving and nurturing side as he showered this little duck with so much love that continued expanding toward many more things in his life.  Mouska ceased being a little ducky made of terry cloth and stuffed with cotton…he came to life for George, and soon after, for our whole family and even many friends.  The love Georgie felt for him made him so lovable to the rest of us.  We all love this little ducky dearly.  He isn’t just a stuffed animal, he is love.  He became lovable because he was loved so much.  Georgie became more of his natural loving self by having the sweet relationship with his beloved Mouska.

George and Mouska have been together for over four years now.  They have been through many things together.  That sweet little duck has been all over with us.  He even survived being left behind at a Disneyland hotel and getting a “makeover”… George fully understood what it meant that Mouska had gotten a makeover…he felt the loss and embraced the solution.  When the new Mouska arrived in the mail all fresh and fluffy again, the love was no less.  Mouska’s spirit and all the love and precious memories had moved on and inhabited the “refurbished” version.  What a lucky duck and what a lucky ducky family we are.  We all love Mouska so much.

Mouska and George’s little family has expanded over the years; they have plenty of love to share.  Meet Coco and James.  They are a loving little bunch.  At first I resisted more and more animals coming to live and sleep in George’s bed…but Mouska and George live the lesson that there is plenty of love to go around…there is no limit.  George does a great job sharing the love, leaving no one out, making everyone feel special and creating joyful moments with all his little buddies, no matter how many in number.

Mouska 3

The family has continued to grow and much love is always beaming out of the room and lingering around the house.  The current gang that lives and sleeps on George’s bed are Mouska the duck, James the Monkey, Coco the big bear, Ben the little bear, Dan the big giraffe, Bob the little giraffe, Snoopy the dog, Eagie the eagle and Jones the jellybean duck.

Mouska family

There are stories of love behind each animal.  Many were precious gifts from loved ones, one was George’s first purchase with his own money.  I have watched these little love stories and felt more of my own heart along the way.  It truly is amazing to see these little spirits come to life just by being loved.

The lessons of Mouska and friends makes me think…What else could be changed just by being loved?  The real question is…what wouldn’t be changed by being loved?  I love this Emerson quote…

Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is.  Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.”  –Ralph Waldo Emerson

If Mouska had been treated like terry cloth and cotton, none of this love would have been felt.  He was treated like family and filled with love and he gave it back to us.  More Mouska lessons show just how much we benefit from giving love.  The more love you give, the more love you have to give.  We all know all these things of course, but I am so grateful for our little ducky friend and Georgie who live them so clearly for us to witness, allowing us to expand our own love from having seen them.

Some things are easy to love and some are more difficult.  We must learn to love it all and spread love wherever we go so there can be more love for everything and everyone to feel.  Love is always the answer.  No matter what we are going through or who is appearing before us, we can always step back and put some space between the thing or person and our reaction to it.  If we can add space and stillness, very soon, we can feel our heart soften and our willingness to act from love expand and fill us.  It is always possible and with more and more practice, it becomes much more automatic…we can more easily embrace what we are truly capable of…pure love.  We truly can love everything and make everything more lovable.  It is a practice, but it is worth it.  I pray to get better and better at it each and every day…just a breath, or a moment can help us be our truest self, with plenty of love to give to every circumstance.  Some things take a few more breaths or a bit more time, but watching the process can shorten the time between our little reaction and the true one that comes from our heart to add love to the world.

These days Mouska isn’t as fluffy as he used to be.  He has lost his hair twice and he is quite worn by love now.  Each year at his birthday party (yes, the kids throw him a birthday party each year), it is easy to see he is changing over time and his experiences are showing.  But, no matter how flat he becomes or how much fluff he loses, the love for him is still growing.  I love to think that all of us aren’t aging, we’re simply showing our experiences and being worn in with love.

Wishing you the space to live from the place of love for all things that transforms how you see the world and how you can BE in the world.  Lets leave nothing on the top shelf unloved, lets pull it all down and fill it with love.  No matter what it appears to be…love can change it!

Sending you so much love and joy today and always.  Happy love spreading!

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January 15, 2014

You Are Already There

Time is a bully!  Let’s stand up to it!

In our culture, our days are split into segments of time and our moments are given varying degrees of importance.  It is kind of crazy how we have allowed time to push us around.  We watch the clock, waiting for things to happen…”When will they arrive?”, What time do we need to be there?”, “When should we get ready?”, “How long will the drive take?”,  “When will this line get moving?”, “I can’t wait until…”, “I will be so happy when…”, etc.  We constantly think the next thing is what we are waiting for.  The truth is, we are already there; but, unless we can really feel that, we stay stuck in the world of being pushed around and bullied by time.

We are all at our own perfect place on our path toward self-realization and awareness.  We each have varying degrees of presence we are able to access throughout the day.  No matter where you are on your path, you can observe how you are treating the moments in your life and find ways to honor them and experience them more fully.  Are you using parts of the day that are your least favorite or that you dread as a means to an end?  Do you rush through things to get to the next?  Do you allow yourself to feel that things will be better when this chore or task is complete?  Is there constantly some future moment that seems like it will be a better one that will bring you happiness?  Is there some change that would make things much better?  Are you distracting yourself from your real life?  Are you truly present to the Life you already are (we don’t have life, we are Life)?

Many people live in the state of waiting for the next thing much of the time and don’t even know that they are not present in their life and much of their experiences are passing them by.  It is like sleep-walking without knowing it.  Your real life is there waiting for you to join in and you’re busy wishing something else was happening and resisting what already is.  Our life is made up of a bunch of moments and the one we are in is the only one we can ever actually live; life only comes in the form of now.  This crazy relationship we have developed with time is truly a dreadful way to live and sure to bring suffering as we dwell in resisting what is.  If we have a certain number of moments while here on Earth in this form, why should standing in line at the pharmacy be any less meaningful and present than attending a party or celebration?  Why is the drive to the event something to hurry and get over with?  How do we treat any moment as something to throw away?  We don’t have to; we can treat all of our moments the same and enjoy Life the way we are meant to.

Here are a few ideas that may help us do this no matter where we are on our path; they should apply in every situation (easy to say, harder to actually do…wishing us all the ability to live these things…with practice, we can do it!):

  • Accept Everything – Yesterday, for example, I woke up with excruciating back pain that was making it hard to breathe and a sore throat that felt like swallowing cement.  As I groaned in pain at every move I made, I also felt this wonderful sense of peace in the background.  I knew I had all these reasons mounting that would prevent me from doing what I needed to do for the day (or thought I needed to do)…but it really didn’t matter.  It slowed my day down and gave me many joyous moments I may not have experienced otherwise.  I resisted nothing, adjusted with the details, and in doing so, my throat pain eased up and my back improved dramatically.  I had a really peaceful day filled with a lot of sweet moments (even the kids and I cleaning up our third plumbing issue in the past few weeks…we just made it fun).  I could have resisted and been frustrated and stayed in all kinds of pain and misery, but in going with the flow, I accessed my inner peace and it was quite lovely.  I know from past experience that resistance and worry over things helps them hang around longer.  My day didn’t improve because I started feeling better…I was already there in the peace found in the moment and the details came to match the real me…rather than me allowing my circumstances to pretend to be me.  The truth is that everything happens as it should and everything passes.  So, why resist anything?  Just accept it all.  Sometimes we face little things like the examples above and sometimes we must face major difficulties and tragedies…practicing on the little things will help us when things really get tough.  Accepting every little thing as if you chose it will prepare you for anything and lead you to true inner peace that won’t depend on your outer circumstances.
  • Label Nothing – Part of accepting everything is learning to label nothing.  We have a tendency to label every single thing that happens as good or bad.  Truth is, we don’t really know which it is and we’re just guessing or reliving past experiences and assuming they will be the same…the experience is really neither good, nor bad, it just is.  By not labeling, we don’t have to draw on the past or take ourselves to the future to project how it will work out.  We get to truly experience each thing and each moment and use the energy we would have wasted on labeling it for actually living it.  We open ourselves up to all that Life is and expand to more of ourselves and the world around us.  We truly grow.
  • Get Comfortable With Not Knowing – If we already know how this is going to go, then we aren’t really present to it.  If we are playing things out in our minds by reliving things and projecting futures that may never happen, we aren’t there, we’re lost in some other experience.  Not knowing means we really open up our senses and awareness and see what happens.  It is magical.  I actually think this is an entire post on its own, so I will try to keep this short.  The not knowing is so much better than the knowing…it is amazing.  You know how the more you learn, the more you realize that you have so much more to learn…well, it’s kind of like that.  It’s like, the more you don’t already know, the more you have to live.  I love it!
  • Slow Down – Just try it.  Nothing bad will happen, you can add more space around things, take more breaths before you talk, more quiet before you react, more opportunities to just be.  You can build your life to support slowing down, even in today’s world.  You can choose your pace and make it stick.  You can make little choices and little changes slowly that point you in the direction of taking all the time you need to enjoy all the life you are.  You can do it!  On time is when you get there because you are already there.
  • Ritual – Anything can be a ritual.  We recently started a tea-time ritual at our home.  It’s a work in progress, but we’re trying to have a midpoint in the day that reminds us to slow down and enjoy where we are.  We are assigning duties to each family member to put it together and we are formally sitting down to sip tea, talk, enjoy silence together and eat our crudités, fruit and tea cookies in presence.  As we prepare it, enjoy it and clean it up, we can bring honor to it by making it a true ritual.  This ritual is a new one we are adding midday, we have our morning meditation and prayer, then we have poetry at night.  This added reminder in the middle of the day is quite helpful.  You could pick anything and make it a ritual worth honoring and as a tool to bring more presence into your life.  We recently added meditation bracelets to our morning practice; we put them on to remember the peace we felt on our mat and bring it to whatever moment we are in throughout the day.  Pick anything and make it sacred…even sorting the laundry, sweeping the floor or brushing your teeth…it really can be done.  Taking the time to honor things and make them sacred is so healing and can add so much peace to your life.
  • Listen — To everything and everyone.  Rush no person and no experience.  We are not in this world, we are of this world…everything is speaking to us and telling us something.  Manage your relationship with time so that you can hear Everything.
  • Love — Just had to put it here because it is always the answer and of course, all we ever need.  Spread it and receive it well.

These are just a few ideas to help us stand up to time.  Your soul already knows which ones will help you most; sometimes we just need the reminder that the time to do it is now.  Now is all there ever is.  Wishing you presence, peace and freedom found in timelessness. Sending you love and joy today and always!

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January 10, 2014

Becoming The Ocean

If you don’t become the ocean, you’ll be seasick every day.  –Leonard Cohen

This quote is such a great realization.  I came across it in my reading this week and it put all I was feeling into clear, loving and true perspective.  To live on the surface of life, where we allow our inner state to depend on our outer circumstances is rocky, stormy and sickening.  It does feel like navigating during fluctuating storms that just keep rolling in.  It is possible to live from down deep in calm waters and to be fluid as we flow through life with the understanding that the moment is all we have and things are happening just as they should.  How do we do it?  We use every experience we encounter to build more presence in us, to ground us in our true essence of love and connectedness to all things…which can only be found in the present moment.

As we grow our presence and ability to live from the quiet place inside us, we still have to navigate the circumstances and people around us.  As we get better at this, the opportunities to practice it seem to mount.  We all have loved ones we hold dear and often those very relationships are the ones that allow us to grow the most.  I spend a lot of time with my two precious little ones.  They bring so much joy, laughter and moments of love, but, they also bring many many opportunities to practice all of the things I have learned about presence and consciousness.  If I didn’t have the day-to-day challenges with the kids, I would probably have myself convinced that I have evolved to a much higher level of consciousness.  I have little encounters with them all the time that remind me of what I can work on and just where I am at.  It is a gift to have these two to work with as I try to stay in the deep waters for longer periods of time and teach them to do the same.

Here’s the thing, the kids are constantly trying to pull me into feeling whatever they are feeling and as they grow and encounter new challenges and responsibilities, their emotions are all over the place.  Sometimes it feels like living with little emotional bandits, taking me on a ride over getting their jacket, tackling a math problem, clearing the table or tying their shoes, etc.  They are little, vulnerable and highly identified with me.  If they are stressed or upset about something, they want me in the same state.  I think they feel that if I am feeling the same stress, they will feel better or get help; its like they feel that if I’m upset too, they won’t be alone in it.  I can feel the pull between the three of us of how they want company in their emotions.  I am always trying to live from a place of non-reaction by putting more space around my choices.  It is kind of funny to hang out with people who really really want to get a reaction out of you when you so badly want to stop reacting to everything that comes your way.  There is a kind of perfection in it that allows me to feel just how connected I am to everything and how God/Life lines up the perfect circumstances to grow you to be more of your essential self.

You can be sure that whatever circumstances you are working with, they are the exact, perfect ones made just for you that will deliver you to all that you are meant to experience on the path leading in the direction of becoming more of who you really are.  Whenever I hit a bump or fall flat on my face by forgetting everything I know, I can feel the meaning in the experience and be grateful for whatever the details looked like.  Me and my little emotional bandits get up and forgive each other pretty quickly and jump back into the joy of life.  We talk openly about all these things, so they are learning right alongside me.  They teach me so much in such a pure way.

Let’s have a moment of get-real perspective here; perception is always a great teacher, it is usually a good idea to flip things around and see how they look from the other side.  As I was thinking about the “emotional bandits” part of things, I realized that I am an emotional bandit as well.  I have heard myself say, “Why can’t we just be in the moment?”, “Let’s get into the flow of life.”, “Joy is waiting for you whenever you’re ready.”, and many more such statements.  It would seem that I, too, am guilty of resisting the emotions others are experiencing and trying to get them to feel something I want to feel.  Even if I am trying to get them to feel “good” things, it is still me trying to get those around me to feel and act the way I want them to, so that it can come more easily to me as well.  To be honest, I have seen myself in bad times trying to get others to feel bad with me too.  It is a hard thing to admit, but as I look at things from this perspective, I cringe at some of the times I was down, stressed or overwhelmed and my husband was happily buzzing around and I dragged him through my emotions just to have some company.  Fear makes us do all kinds of weird things.  Thank goodness we have always come out of it pretty quickly and we know where it all comes from.  The yuckie stuff is always fear and the lovely stuff is love…no exception.

So, we all do it…we all try to bring our loved ones with us on our little emotional trips.  As we ride the waves in a storm, it is lonely to do it alone…we seek company and we drag them into our boat because we are afraid of making the trip alone.  Once we can learn to live from a more spacious place that allows others to have their feelings and express what they’re going through without it affecting our state of mind, we can be free of the seasickness and truly taste the freedom of acceptance, present moment living and inner peace.  Next time you notice an emotional bandit trying to take you for a ride, just give them love and let it pass through you.  Try comforting them by intense listening that allows them to be heard without resistance from you that would cause them to try to convince you and pull you into their emotional boat.  If you notice yourself trying to take others for your emotional ride, turn towards love and remember that everything passes, things are always as they should be and even though it feels like it would be lonely to go it alone…it isn’t.  Sometimes we just need to feel our feelings deeply and pass through them alone to let them lose their power over us.  We can grow and become more of who we really are by swimming deeper, feeling more stillness and realizing that we aren’t ever truly alone…we are connected to all that is around us…what we can see and what we cannot.

Picture it, if you are living at the surface of life, riding the waves, you need that little boat and you constantly seek company in there to endure all the seasickness and storms.  If you are the ocean, you don’t need the boat.  You don’t need to get in the boat with others and you don’t need to drag others into yours.  You can just be the ocean and heal yourself and others as you spread love and stay calm and peaceful in the moment.

Sending you love, calm, peace, joy and presence.

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January 1, 2014

Happy New Day…The One That Happens Each and Every Day!

So, it’s January 1, 2014.  It feels like a new beginning, a fresh start…full of possibility.  The newness of the first day of the year is a wonderful gift, but it only comes once a year.  The truth is that we have the opportunity to start each and every single day fresh and full of possibility.  We get to decide each day who we will be, what we will do with our day and what we will bring to the world.  We get to choose what we will see, how much love we will spread, how much joy we will live and how much peace we will feel.

We’re all doing our best, working towards becoming more of ourselves and showing up more authentically in the world; whether we know it or not, that is what we’re doing.  Some days it works well and some days we struggle and cause suffering for ourselves and others around us.  Each day and each moment, we have the opportunity and the ability to choose to start fresh and choose love.

“The human emotional system can be broken down into roughly two elements:
fear and love.
Love is of the soul.
Fear is of the personality.”

~ Gary Zukav – from “Seat Of The Soul” ~

This year as I continue to work on closing the gap between what I know and what I am living, and then expanding to a new gap as I learn more (I’m figuring out that life is lived in the gap and there will always be one), I do have one main goal in mind.  I hope to live from a place of love that leaves no room for fear.  I will use this space to share how that will look in my life.  I want to live with an open heart in each moment, allowing me to assume nothing, take nothing personally and listen to Life deeply as it continues to guide me to more of myself.  I want to choose more of the soul and less of the personality.  I want to spread love wherever I can.  I want to use all that I know and embrace the unknown as I continue to build habits that will support my growth, always turning away from fear and towards love as I push through to the essential me.  I will fail, I will try again, I will start fresh a lot.  I will share openly with us all here.

I am grateful for this space.  Every time I hit publish on one of these posts, it feels like a fresh conscious moment to choose who I am.  As part of my love, not fear, open heart, lived moment by moment year, I am opening the site up for comments.  I am ready now.  I welcome the idea of connecting with my readers more.  I feel ready to hear how others are living what they know and I hope to build a nice space for us all to learn and grow.  Thank you everyone for sharing this space with me.

Wishing us all the courage and presence to awaken every single day to the possibility that we are.  Sending you love and joy!

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December 31, 2013

Honor The Little Things and Big Things Will Happen

It is in the air right now…setting goals, making resolutions, trying to make changes.  This is all fine and can be a lovely experience…until it isn’t.  For this process to go well, it is important to remember, it is the little things that make success possible.  All things are made up of lots and lots of little things that connect to each other in ways beyond our imagination.  Honoring the little things we do brings more awareness and roots us in presence that allows us to live a conscious and authentic life.  Doing little things well, with our fullest attention and awareness can keep us awake to life and bring peace to us and everyone around us.  The intention we put behind each little thing comes back to us in direct proportion.  Let’s talk about socks…

Little things done well is probably the greatest secret to success.  –Coach John Wooden

Coach Wooden has shared many great lessons about the little things and paying attention to detail.  Coach describes paying attention to detail as the difference between champions and near champions.  In many of his books, he gave us the beautiful story of how he instructed his players to put on their socks.  At the first squad meeting each season, he personally demonstrated with explicit detail how to start with the toes, how to run your fingers along the side to prevent wrinkles, how to handle the heel and much more (it is actually quite a long explanation).  He would demonstrate and then watch each player do it.  Then he would move on to the other foot and do that one, first demonstrating, then watching.  Next, how to tie your shoes.  He speaks passionately about preventing blisters and avoiding laces coming undone.

In various interviews with Coach’s players, they share their perspective of the sock lessons.  They recall being excited and ready to have their first meeting with the greatest coach of all time.  With enthusiastic anticipation, waiting to hear how they would win the championship, how he had been so successful, the secret to winning, etc., anxious to get down to those legendary practices, they would soon find themselves learning how to put on their socks.  They would start the season with intense sock training and end winning the championship; quite a powerful lesson on little things.

Coach left a great gift behind by recounting  his dedication to  the little things for us.  He planned his practices down to the second.  He was all about proper preparation and attention to the smallest detail.  No matter what success his team encountered, he always stayed true to his Pyramid of Success, living all of the little things explained within and doing his personal best in all things (big and small).  He started every single season with the socks.

I have heard Eckhart Tolle talk at great length about noticing how it feels to pull on your pants, how to feel the fabric on your skin, how to experience every part of getting dressed in the morning, bringing presence to it all.  He talks about truly experiencing our morning shower instead of not really being there because we have allowed our mind to distract us with thoughts about the day or worry about the past.  He describes the difference in really being there and feeling the water hit our skin and the joy of that everyday experience we so often miss.

Thich Naht Hanh tell us, “Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.  Live the actual moment.  Only this moment is life.”  I have heard him describe the experience of tea.  It is lovely.  When asked how long it takes him to drink a cup, he said it was about an hour.  A mindful cup of tea is an hour well spent.

If you do little things well, you’ll do big ones better.

I have a plaque on my desk that says the quote above.  It has no name attached to it; someone said it, someone made the plaque.  I am grateful they did.  It is a nice reminder.

Years ago, my son found his favorite poem.  He recited it quite frequently, even in front of his preschool class.  It just so happens, it is called Little Things.  It is by Julia A. F. Carney.  I included this image below in a previous post about Beauty.  To me, this is a beautiful image because it is my boy’s sweet young writing and because the words are so powerful and contain so much wisdom.  On his own, at three years old, he connected to these words and repeated them countless times throughout our days.  That little thing he did for us was really a huge blessing.

Little Things

Nothing big can happen without countless little things happening just as they should.  We create and design our world with each and every little thing we do.  This isn’t about doing things perfectly, there is no such thing.  It is about bringing presence to everything we do and doing it with our fullest attention and awareness.  It is also about learning how to set goals that will allow enough room to keep all the little things in sharp focus.  I have noticed how awful it feels when I cannot do things to the best of my ability and with my full attention.  I would rather choose not to do something than have to rush through and half-way go through the motions.  My soul knows about the little things and what grounding myself in them feels like, anything less is numbing, inauthentic and brings suffering.

Doing the little things well is truly living, it’s really being where we are and honoring every little detail.  All the little activities, choices, thoughts, etc., turn into how we are creating the world we live in.  Treating every little thing as sacred brings more presence, more love, more peace, more joy, more miracles, more alignment with our soul’s purpose — more of everything we are meant to live.  As you set your goals and resolutions this year, be sure you have enough room for honoring the little things.  Those little things add up, multiply and come back to bless you in countless ways — big and small.

May the goals you set for yourself this year be blessed with the proper attention, awareness and presence for honoring the little things necessary to achieve them.  Wishing you joy and presence found in putting on your socks, pulling up your pants, taking a shower and drinking a cup of tea.  Sending you love!

 

 

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