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: Religion and Spirituality

August 27, 2014

Bless You

“Personally, I believe that prayer is a sending out of vibrations from one person to another and to God. All of the universe is in vibration. There are vibrations in the molecules of a table. The air is filled with vibrations. The reaction between human beings is also in vibration. When you send out a prayer for another person, you employ the force inherent in a spiritual universe. You transport from yourself to the other person a sense of love, helpfulness, support—a sympathetic, powerful understanding—and in this process you awaken vibrations in the universe through which God brings to pass the good objectives prayed for. Experiment with this principle and you will know its amazing results.”  —Norman Vincent Peale

This is an excerpt from The Power of Positive Thinking.  The author goes on to explain that he has a habit of praying for people as he passes them and he shares lovely stories of how this works is his life and examples of the choice to bless those around us.  I read this a few weeks back and I loved it.  I believe in the power of prayer.  I believe our life is a living prayer.  I believe our creations are offerings of prayer.  I believe our intentions and actions are prayers instructing the universe.  I believe we speak to our truest self when we pray.  I could go on.  I suppose I believe a lot of things about prayer.  I often tell people I will send them prayers for whatever they may have going on in their lives.  I always remember at least once in that very moment. Whenever people randomly pop into my thoughts, I often remember to send them a prayer.  I try to remember to keep the prayers going.  I am sure I could improve my prayer habits with regards to consistency.  Prayer shouldn’t be pressure though, I’ll just chug along and experiment with different ways of enhancing my prayer life and have complete faith that it will go well.  I like that plan.

Yesterday the idea of praying for people as I pass them popped into my head.  I began blessing people as I passed them on my drive to drop my daughter at her lesson.  I was having so much fun and filling up with so much joy that I shared my prayers with my son in the backseat on the way home.  When we got back into the car the next time, we continued blessing people together.  It was a thrill to find someone to send a prayer to.  It felt right.  I realized that if we cultivate this practice of blessing people we merely pass on the street, it will bless all those we come into contact with.  I always try to brighten the day of those I interact with, but I think this all goes much deeper than that.  I think this habit can tie us to our purpose and bring more meaning to our days and our dearest relationships.  It is sort of like plugging into the universe and the moment we are in.

Blessing strangers as we pass has profound impacts for us and for the strangers. Our blessings go out in infinite miraculous ways we will never fully understand. It’s too miraculous for understanding.  In addition to the miracles, this habit of prayer can build joy and strengthen our love for all.  It then can extend to those we are familiar with. Familiarity can erode the true purpose and joy of the relationships we are blessed with.  The practice of prayer can bless the interactions with those we are most familiar with and keep us fresh in the moment and able to see the blessings and constant change around us.  As we pray for and bless what is before us, we must see it more clearly.  We will see our loved ones as they are in the moment, rather than the image or memory we have of them in our heads.  We will be more alive to the present and more in touch with our purpose and the various ways we can bless this world.  We can become at home with the idea that we have the power to bless everyone around us.  We can become better at blessing strangers, acquaintances, those nearest and dearest to us and the entire universe as we go.  When we bless another, we bless ourselves and we strengthen the bond of oneness that we have with all we can see and all that we cannot.

Let’s experiment with all the wonderful ways we can use prayer today—blessings to strangers, art, kind words, smiles, knowing glances, gentle touches, loving thoughts, creativity, stillness, helpfulness, forgiveness, good old conversation with God and the universe, quiet reflection, deep asking, faithful knowing, complete attention, deep listening…the list goes on and on.  Prayer is so many things.  The power of it is real and true.  In our hearts, we can hear how to practice today.  Sending you love and joy through my prayers today and always.

 

12 Comments
August 18, 2014

Spiritual Simplicity

To become a happy person have a clean soul, eyes that see romance in the commonplace, a child’s heart, and spiritual simplicity. —Norman Vincent Peale

I came across the above quote in my morning reading recently.  The idea of spiritual simplicity struck me deeply.  I instantly loved that notion; the deepest part of me knew exactly what it meant when I came across it.  That idea stayed with me all day and carried me through my choices of love and non reaction.  Simply put, it helped me stay firmly in the moment and accepting of all that each moment brought with it.  It is a very helpful thing to remember first thing in the morning, so I want to share it here this morning.

Spiritual simplicity means loving all that we encounter.  It means accepting and truly living each experience as it comes.  It means knowing that whatever circumstances we are experiencing, they are the perfect ones for us at the exact moment the Universe has created them for us.  It means listening to Life and flowing with it in the rhythm that our spirits know.  Living in acceptance doesn’t include feeling like we don’t want to or cannot change things.  It empowers us to know the impulse of the Universe and give our attention and energy to changing things that are ready to change.  In some cases, our mere acceptance of things allows them to change before our eyes; like how a hug or loving smile can melt the anger, sadness or frustration of a loved one.  Other times, our acceptance of what is allows us to hear the Universe/God/Life telling us about what it would like to bring to us or through us.  Resisting anything is a force that does not allow listening, it makes hearing Life’s messages impossible.  Spiritual simplicity is love and listening.  It is only found in the sacred moment we are in.  It isn’t found in the thought stream and stress of daily life.  It is in the flow of our spirit.  Our spirits flow together.  We are all connected and we can flow through our days in spiritual simplicity.  Let’s listen and love.

As for the rest of the quote above:

  • A clean soul — we all have that.
  • Eyes that see romance in the commonplace — we can do this by opening our eyes and truly seeing all the amazing miracles that are constantly around us.  I like to think of it as seeing the unfamiliar in all things and never assuming we know how things are going or how they will turn out.  It is staying fresh and alive to each moment.  Love is all around.  We can choose to see it.
  • A child’s heart — we all have that.  We must remember what it feels like to live from it.  Be amazed.  Be present.  Expect wonder and excitement.
  • A very important note — the quote begins with the idea of “becoming” a happy person.  We don’t need to try to do that.  We already are that.  We came into this world with that intact. We simply choose when we are ready to remember it.  “Happy” becomes peace and joy and is accessible in every moment.

Let’s set our intention this morning and feel how well it will serve us.  Today, I choose to live spiritual simplicity and I intend to spread it to as many lives as I can touch and as many places as my energy can visit.

Sending you love and joy!

11 Comments
May 1, 2014

The Frequency of Love

Love will immediately enter into any mind that truly wants it.
(p. 55) —A Course In Miracles

We pick our vibrational frequency.  We decide what we see when we look, what we feel as we experience and what we hear as Life is speaking to us.  We choose our vibration we send out into the world and we pick what vibrational frequency we will receive back.  The only true frequency is the vibrational frequency of Love.  All the rest is noise and reactionary fear-based emotions.  It’s like the fuzzy sound on an old radio as you try to tune into your desired channel.  Love is the desired channel.  All the rest is fuzzy noise, it’s not real.  It’s nothing.  Nothing happened.  Once we can break free from reactions and fear, we can raise our energy vibration and watch it go out before us to transform all that is around us.  We are no longer at the mercy of what levels everyone else is vibrating at.  We can use our energy wisely and bring more love into every encounter, thought or action.

An interesting thing about Love — you cannot feel it from outside yourself, no matter how much is coming your way.  Love comes from within.  We cannot experience it outside of us without generating it and sharing it from within.  No matter how someone else loves us, we cannot feel it until we have experienced the love within.  This is how loneliness is possible.  Loneliness is simply the outcome of not generating the love within; it is turning away from the source within and instead trying to find it outside of ourselves.  Love cannot be found outside of us, only within.  Love is our true essence, it is what we are.  Once we can dwell in the frequency of love, we can no longer experience loneliness because we are never without the source of Love within.

Feeling lonely can be a blessing.  It can make us figure out what we have within.  We must feel it and figure out what it is telling us.  If we run from it, it will only worsen.  From the time I was a small child I had what felt like a deep sadness and the only way I could explain it was to call it “the lonely feeling.”  I was tortured by my loneliness and I found it so very difficult to understand at a young age.  I was often surrounded by people who loved me when I was feeling it and it felt like the worst feeling in the world.  To be lonely in the company of others is deadening.  It felt like an overwhelming urge to cry without a known reason why.  Now, I am so grateful I suffered with these feelings because that suffering brought me to seeking for meaning at an early age.  It also brought me to make many mistakes along the way as I tried to ease my loneliness.  Lucky for me, I believe that sometimes mistakes are simply shortcuts to figuring out what we need to learn.  I learned a lot throughout the years, sometimes repeating mistakes and sometimes hearing the messages.  This lonely feeling continued to be my background hole I would sink into in tough times.  Until I was able to understand that it was me choosing and creating it, it plagued me.

Life has been teaching me to turn towards Love and away from the lonely feeling over the years.  Life has shown me that the Love I can turn to is actually the real me.  Life has shown me that I Am much more than I ever dreamed possible and so is everyone else.  Life has shown me that I can’t make that choice for others, they must generate their love from within as well; that way they can meet their real selves. God/Universe designed the perfect love curriculum for us!

There are many types of love.  People like to label the different versions.  I am not really interested in labeling love anymore.  I just want to dwell in it and use my energy to help others do the same.  The key to using  your love energy well is to expect it to work.  We must expect it to go out before us and surround us.  We must be centered, calm, still and sure of our intentions.  We must stay in the frequency of who we are and not sway into reactions over our outer circumstances.  We must expect that we can dwell in love and act from love at all times.  When we feel drained, we must learn to replenish and get back into the frequency of love right away.  We don’t need to waste any more time in the fuzzy noise of life.  Let’s Love.  Let’s Live.

Accessing Love Ideas:

Look deeply in the face of another.
Watch a child play.
Look at flowers in stillness.
Stand by a tree and feel its energy.
Help someone.
Share.
Smile.

Wishing you joy, smiles, laughter and Love for all.  Be you!  Be Love!

13 Comments
April 16, 2014

Knowing vs. Living

To know God
without being God-like
is like trying to swim
without entering water.
—Orest Bedrij

Life is speaking to each of us in a specific way that is perfectly designed so we can hear and understand.  Life chooses the language of experience that will speak to our hearts and bring us toward our truest self as we remember what we are here to do.  Being “God-like” means different things for each one of us and only we know if we are following what it means for us.  Sometimes we may follow easily and stay grounded in the synchronisities of Life’s messages and sometimes we let fear creep in and lead us to distracted meaninglessness or ego based swirling which can only bring suffering.  All of my writing here is my living prayer to live what I know and continue to expand what that means as I strive to help others feel inspired to hear the voice inside them that wants to learn, grow and live what they come to know as well.  We know what we know for a reason and we must follow it home to our God-like selves.  We all have that little spark of God inside us that wants to grow and experience Life.  Living what we know is the way home.

When we can live what we know, our knowing brings us to a peaceful existence.  Knowing without living what we know becomes a burden until we can actually live it.  We each have our own knowing as we navigate what life is showing and saying to us.  No experience is wasted and we are always learning and being shown what we are meant to know and live.  I have experienced the way Life is patient with us for a while as we listen and learn and then Life gives us more and more nudges to move us along towards living more authentically.  The patience life shows us can sometimes wane and the messages can accelerate and become louder and our circumstances more uncomfortable or whatever is necessary to keep us open to evolving as we are meant to.  In some cases, we are too afraid to listen and grow, so life can send us a blow.  I believe that we all know different things and we each find meaning in the perfect things to develop our specific Life path.  There are many different paths to the same essential truths found along all of them.

We all know a lot.  Life has shown us a lot.  Whatever you have read, heard, felt, experienced or seen lately is part of Life speaking to you.  Will you hear it?  Will it change you?  Can you enter the water and swim?  You can!  We all can.  We must.  If we continue to be shown things and do not find ways to live them, Life will turn up the volume on the messages.  We can choose to listen to the whisper that feels like a Universe Hug or we can wait for the nudges, shouts and blows.  Life isn’t trying to annoy us, it’s trying to wake us up.  Let’s wake up with hugs!  We can listen.  We can know.  We can grow and live what we know.

As we set our intentions to live all that we know, Life shows up and gives us the tools that will help us on our path.  We are never without the tools.  We may set them aside for a bit and forget to use them, but they are always available when we are ready to pick them up and use them to stay on the path.  Today, let’s think about what tools we use and let’s commit to using them to help us become more God-like.  My tools are reading, writing, meditation, prayer, compassion, proper nutrition, exercise and connected conversations.  If I focus on these things rather than other distracted fear based habits, peace is more readily available.  Sometimes I can do these things well and sometimes I am over-scheduled, busy and tired and some of these things fall off.  We all have our own set of tools that have brought us closer to our God-like selves.  They are different for each of us.  Some people may find God in singing, dancing or painting.  Our tools are not to feel guilty about when we forget to use them, they are simply to remember and pick up to bring peace again.  Our tools lead to presence, peace and consciousness.  Ultimately, they lead to Love.  Love is always the answer.  Today I pray to remember to use my tools that lead me to Love for All.  That is what God-like means to me — Love For All.  Love is All.  God is All.  You are All.  I Am All.

Thought for the day — If it doesn’t make you feel good, it isn’t love.  If it isn’t Love, it isn’t real.  The real you can replace any thought or feeling that doesn’t feel good with one that comes from Love.  You have an infinite amount of love inside you.  Love is the only real thing.  Don’t try to push unpleasant thoughts away, they will only grow, just turn towards Love and replace the thoughts and feelings with Love and Compassion.  You pick what you give your attention to, find a Loving thought to replace the unpleasant one and you are on your way.  You pick.  You will amaze yourself at the amount of Love the real you is capable of.  If you are reading this, you are ready to live this.  The Universe sent it to you.  Thank you for reading this!

Sending you Love and wishing you Joy!

8 Comments
March 28, 2014

The Soul – Let’s Face It!

“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.” —Oscar Wilde

We are much more than our bodies and personalities.  We have infinite depth to us that is always there.  We are all souls.  We are growing, sharing, learning and becoming more of ourselves all the time.  Even if we are stuck in a distracted existence that isn’t aware of this, it is still happening.  We will not remain stuck forever.  Life moves us along with every single experience.  Moment by moment, we evolve.  Joy begins when we experience our soul.  Joy occurs more frequently when we listen and allow ourselves to be guided in our choices by the soul.  Joy becomes constant when we live from our Being on a regular basis.  There are many parts to figuring out how to do this, and even more to remembering to let it happen in each moment.  We are meant to let the soul shine through and see it in others.

Where should we look for the soul?  The face.  It’s in the face.  It’s not the eyes, or certain features found in the faces we see.  It’s in the whole of the face.  It’s in every face.  We can learn to really see each other and our seeing helps others see themselves and live from their higher self.  In return we see ourselves in their faces as well.  We can shift reality to a higher perspective.  My soul has always known this deeply.  I have intuitively done this on countless occasions.  I just didn’t know exactly what I was doing.  I had it spelled out to me recently in my reading and my heart soared at the description.

I’ve been reading through the Celestine Prophecy Insights again.  I read the original book (The Celestine Prophecy, by James Redfield) about seven years ago and loved it.  A fellow blogger reminded me of it recently and I dug it out of a drawer, dusted it off and picked it up again, only to discover that I am now able to understand it on a much deeper level.  I am so grateful the Universe brought it to me years ago and picked now to remind me of it again.  There are three other books in the adventure series and I am enjoying them immensely for the first time.  Here is the excerpt from second book, The Tenth Insight, with the description I am talking about regarding the face:

“If we look closely at another person’s face, we can cut through any facades, or ego defenses, that may be present, and find the individual’s authentic expression, his or her real self.  Ordinarily most people don’t know what to focus on when talking to another.  Should it be the eyes?  It’s hard to focus on both.  So which one?  Or should it be on the feature that most stands out, such as the nose or mouth?”

“In truth, we are called upon to focus on the whole of the face, which with its uniqueness of light and shadow and alignment of features is much like an inkblot.  But within this collection of features, one can find an authentic expression, the soul shining forth.  When we focus in love, love energy is sent to this higher-self aspect of the person, and the person will seem to change before our eyes as his or her greater capabilities shift into place.”

This lovely excerpt is part of a dialogue as insights are being explained along an adventure.  It is a lovely way to digest spiritual truths in a thrilling story as a picture of what living what we know would look like.  It goes on to explain more about sharing energy with people, it is a wonderfully exciting and spiritual read.  This particular part about the face touched me deeply.  I have seen people change before my eyes.  I imagine we all have.

Faces have always meant a lot to me.  The change in people when you really see them and send them loving energy is true to my spirit and deeply meaningful to me.  My soul delights at authentic interaction with others souls.  So does yours!  Over the years I used to get somewhat impatient or irritated with people who wouldn’t look me in the eye.  I understand and have a bit more patience with it these days, but eye contact has always meant a lot to me.  Now I know it is more than just simple good manners or even eye contact in general I was seeking; the face holds the possibility for authentic connection and a window to the soul.  Often, you can feel others’ discomfort with full focused energy.  People look away or down.  Sometimes they can pause and enjoy it and it always leaves both sides feeling more authentically joyful — more of their true selves.  I feel it is so rare that people receive full attention with a complete focus of loving energy that they may even mistake it for other things.  It would be nice if it wasn’t so rare.  I am deeply interested in faces and seeing the real person rather than the representative they often present to the world.  I know that with every interaction I have I can bring more loving energy to everyone around me and increase mine at the same time.  We all can!

As a mom, I have experienced many amazing moments where I look at my child’s face and really see them for the first time in the day.  I wake up from day-to-day stuff and look directly at the soul of my child.  For that moment, I am not the mom and they are not the child, we are just two souls looking deeply at each other.  They really feel seen and they shine.  It can miraculously transform any situation or moment to utter joy.  They usually beam back and giggle with delight.  They aren’t uncomfortable with it yet, they still feel comfortable functioning from the soul because they haven’t been in their body so long that the ego has taken hold completely.  Their willingness to show their soul to me has been the gift of motherhood, it has taught me a lot.

It is great to snap out of our day-to-day roles for brief moments and see the divine being in each other.  We have all felt glimpses of this.  How delightful it would be to function this way more frequently.  We can appreciate the faces of the souls around us and really see them to allow more authentic interaction between souls growing and learning together.  Every moment is an opportunity to allow more of our soul to shine through.  Every moment is an opportunity to remember that all things come from love or fear and we can see past the fear and allow the love to shine through.  We can see more than the personality, we can see the soul.

As we go out into the world today, let’s face the soul in each other and share our soul with the world.  Let’s not look away, let’s send love and awaken the soul in others as we feel more of our own divine being.  Let’s love every face and see the miracle that each of us are.  Each of us is a soul.  Each of us is a miracle.  We are all the same miracle and we can feel and see this on the face of everyone we see.

Thought for the day — What are you reading?  The Universe has something picked out for you now — be open to the signs.  🙂  Happy reading!

Sending you joy and love!

 

6 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 25, 2014

Sincerity

Given sincerity, there will be enlightenment. —The Doctrine of the Mean, 200 B.C.E.

These words bring me so much comfort.  Since stumbling upon this quote in my reading, I have recalled them throughout my days many times and each time they have brought me peace.  We never really stumble into these things…they are gifts we are given at the precise moment we can receive them.  I am grateful.

Along the path towards truly living what I know and continuously expanding what that means, I sometimes find myself coasting, sometimes walking a steady pace, often crawling, intermittently hobbling along and occasionally standing still.  Lately, I have been standing still and trying to let things come to me as I attempt figuring out Life’s whispers.

There are many helpful habits to support living peaceful presence and yet at the same time, so many things knocking on the door with their seeming need to get done.  The beautiful dance of a balanced Life uses those healthy habits to prepare for whatever may come…but, what to do when there just doesn’t seem to be enough time or energy to get it all in?  While standing still on my path lately, I have been fluctuating between my Life-giving habits that ground me in the peace that is authentically who I am at my essence and the smaller version of me that reacts and gets things done.

Over the past few weeks, I have struggled to find the balance and time to use my favorite habits to help me.  My observations indicate that I am able to live my best Life when I can read, write, exercise, meditate, pray, cook fresh healthy vegan foods so my family can eat well, have soul-to-soul time with my family and great conversations with loved ones on a regular/daily basis.  These are the things my soul craves.  Lately I get into a groove on a few of these habits and then fall as I try to honor another important habit all the while leaving enough time for my real life duties and commitments to others.  I have been trying to restructure, rearrange, reorganize, etc.  It has been rather funny watching me thrive at one or two habits and terribly miss the others as I juggle them around with very little consistency…it’s hard to even call them habits right now.  It will be fine.  It always works out.  It is just time for me to hobble about as I get my footing back.  I feel it coming and I have the deep knowing that all is well.

I can make the choices that support me as I regain my balance of my peace centered habits.  I have done it before and it will happen again.  At this point in my life, the not being able to do it all is actually quite good for me.  It is important to be able to be kind to myself even when I’m not at the top of my game.  I have always been hard on myself.  Over the past few years, I find myself fighting off the personality that won’t do something unless she can do it perfectly; it’s good to grow out of this type of pressure on one’s self.  Life isn’t about doing things perfectly.  There is no such thing as perfect.  There is only Life and striving for perfection keeps us from living it.

The other night, as I sat in the bathtub at the end of a long day, I  started to get down on myself and attempt a personal pep talk about getting up super early the next morning and really going for it with all of my habits…as if getting things done is the secret to peace.  Ha!  Then, I remembered the words from the quote above.  My perception shifted and I started leaning back in my mind and looking at the picture of my life in larger portions.  I quit looking at all the tiny little details and saw the bigger dots connecting throughout my years.  As I looked from a higher position, I saw how I have heard the whisper and wholeheartedly followed it again and again.  These whispers rushed through my head reminding me that no matter what my current status on habits looks like, I can still hear the whisper.  I live for the whisper that my soul’s current provides.  I saw so many beautiful connections that the whisper has provided and felt hugged and loved in the knowing that it is always there.  I returned to the moment.  Always the same answer.

Healthy habits are helpful and important and they can keep me centered in peace.  I will always strive to honor them well, but I must balance that desire and keep them as a sacred practice rather than allowing them to escalate to disappointment when not achieved.  Peace is not always found in achievement.  The peace that comes from knowing I have been listening to and living from the whisper brings me back to the moment where now is the only thing that matters and Life is living me well.

One thing I am never lacking is sincerity.  There will be enlightenment.  I can peacefully breathe and join in the connectedness I Am to all things.  Whether I am fulfilling all my desired habits or not, the moment is always there and love is all that truly matters.  Whew.

Wishing you peaceful presence today and always!  May you be blessed with the perception to see how life is whispering to you and the courage to follow it towards the joy it encompasses.  Life is whispering to us all.  Happy listening!

Sending you love and joy!

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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
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!

7 Comments
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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