Big Bang

As I look out over my life I can see how many times I started off doing something to change myself and my life and then became frustrated and gave up. It's as if I was thinking when I do this and this and this, then BANG I will be all better, my life will be all better, the world will be a happy, easy place. When I worked really hard and the big bang never occurred I became discouraged, wondered why I bothered and went back to just not trying anything to improve my situation. Instead of focusing on all of the work I had done, the experiences I'd had, the lives I'd touched, I was upset about not seeing a huge drastic change in my world. I felt like a failure because I was focusing on what I hadn't yet gained rather than what I had gained.

How sad. How often do we expect a Big Bang and only get a gentle ripple? How often do we not see all that we have gained and accomplished because we are so lost in what we feel we've lost or not accomplished? How often do we set ourselves back by feeling that our work has been useless and in vain?

Could we really accept change if we did get our magical Big Bang and our life was suddenly everything we thought we wanted it to be? Honestly, I have a difficult time wrapping my brain around the small,gentle, beautiful changes that have happened in my life, I imagine a Big Bang moment might literally cause me to explode in disbelief and uncertainty!

Perhaps this is why change doesn't come in a big bang, but in a gentle, step by step process that occurs as we are really prepared and ready for each change. When we stop expecting big changes and shifts and accept the gentle flowing and reshaping of our selves and our lives, perhaps we will be more persistent and patient with ourselves and others and slowly, gently, in a pace we are ready for, our life will become something even more beautiful than what we originally imagined.

Perhaps our lives are meant to change not with a big bang like a bomb, but with a gentle opening and unfolding like the blossoming of a beautiful flower.

Recalculating

For some reason this word has been popping into my head a lot recently. It's one that I often hear while I'm driving in my car because I have taken a path that my GPS has not plotted out for me. Sometimes I am not paying attention and accidentally miss my turn, other times I choose to take a shorter way, often I want to stick with a more familiar route and occasionally I am just wondering what will happen if I go a different way then one my GPS has chosen. No matter what the reason, when I get off of the chosen path I hear the word recalculating ring through the air.

I often find myself wondering if there is someone watching over us all as we travel on the "road" we call our life path. Have we worked with them to plan out a route for our life and then set out on our journey, plotted out path in hand? Then, as we've traveled along and experienced life, we've changed our mind and chosen a different path or side road every now and then causing our "watchers" to yell out...Recalucalting! Suddenly everyone around us shifts and recalibrates to the new route we've chosen for ourselves.

I also wonder if, as each important turn comes up, they are clearly pointing out our designated route saying, "Turn left on exit 333", like my GPS does repeatedly until the turn goes by. Are we sometimes just too distracted by traffic or life to pay attention to their voice? When we aren't paying attention to our guidance we are likely to miss our turn and have to travel a longer distance to get to where we need to be. We aren't lost, we've simply had to recalculate and make some changes in our path.

Perhaps, as the end of the year draws near, it's the perfect time to pull over and assess where our "driving" has been taking us. As we pause we can look out over our lives and determine if we are content on the "road" we've been traveling or if we'd like to make some changes and take a turn that leads us in a different direction. Is the path we are on taking us to where we want to be or do we need to recalculate?

Traps

We have to be very careful not to fall into the little guilt and blame traps we like to set for ourselves. We can fall into these traps when we begin to over analyze and dissect our illness.

If we understand that what we experience outside of ourselves comes from within ourselves, we may fall into the trap if blaming ourselves for everything and then feel guilty. If understand that our bodies have the ability to be healthy, but we continue to become ill, we may fall into the trap of blaming ourselves and then feel guilty. We may even begin to think that the whole world is sick because we are sick and we may fall into the trap of blaming ourselves and feeling guilty for everything. If we don't recognize what our over analyzing and negative thinking are doing to us, we may stay stuck in those traps of blame and guilt for a very long time.

What is the purpose of over analyzing our illness. What is our intent behind looking at our illness? Is it to find a place to place blame or is it to find a way to heal ourselves? Does it really matter where our illness came from or does it matter how we deal with it now? Would it serve us better to focus on casting blame and feeling sad, angry, regretful or guilty, OR would it serve us better to let go of looking for a place to cast blame and instead focus on finding what helps us our body to feel healthy, whole and strong?

I think the answer to that is very clear...what benefits us the most is to let go of blame and guilt and seek instead to focus on feeling healthy, whole and strong. Let's free ourselves from the traps!

Try this meditative or refocusing technique if you wish:

Stop thinking and focusing on clinging to blaming anything for your illness right now.
Take a deep breath in, hold it for a few seconds, then slowly let it out.
Quiet your mind and take another deep breath in and out.
Now focus on how your body feels. Where are we holding tension? Where do you feel pain?
Take a deep breath in and think of those areas.
Now release that breath and as you release that breath feel the tension and pain in those areas of your body flow out from your body.
Take another deep breath in. Feel any areas that are still tense.
Now release the breath and visualize all of those areas relaxing and all of the tension flowing out of your body with the air you release until your body feels relaxed, limp and free.
Now remain relaxed and loose and envision your whole body floating free and loose.
Envision your whole body surrounded in white light.
Take a deep breath in and a slow breath out.
Now repeat these words in your mind, I am healthy, I am whole, I am strong.
Take a deep breath in filling your lungs completely and then slowly release it until your lungs are completely empty.
Envision the white light warmly flowing from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet. Let the warmth of the white light soak in, fill us and surround us.
Now say again, I am healthy, I am whole, I am strong.
Take a deep breath, fill your lungs completely.
Let the breath out very slowly, gently emptying your lungs completely.
On your next breath in focus on saying, I am healthy, whole and loved.
Allow yourself to feel that love, allow yourself to soak that love into the very center of yourself. Envision your body healthy, whole and filled to the brim with love. See that the love comes from deep within and radiates outward to the rest of the world.
Relax in this vision for as long as you wish.
Remember to gently breath in and out, do not hold your breath.
Then when you are ready to return, slowly, refocus on feeling your toes.
Feel your fingers.
Feel your feet and hands.
Remember, they are healthy and whole.
Feel your legs and arms, your hips and chest.
They are healthy and whole.
Feel your shoulders, neck and head.
They are healthy and whole.
As you return to your entire body feel the love that fills you, feel that you are healthy and whole.
Hold that feeling and thought throughout your whole day.

We can do this process or any relaxation, refocusing process whenever we feel the need. We do not have to remain stuck in our traps.

Negative overload

Hanging on to anger, resentment, fear, guilt and regret can actually cause us to be physically ill. When we hold ourselves in these feelings we are pretty much asking our bodies to function normally in a state of constant negativity. How well do you think this works out for us?

Think about this, I am in a store and I suddenly feel ill. I think, "Wow I feel sick." Now what is your reaction to this? Do you focus on being sick, or do you acknowledge that you feel sick and then try to focus on something else. I can almost guarantee you if you continue allowing your thoughts to focus on how sick you feel, you will feel worse and worse as time goes on. Wouldn't it make more sense instead of focusing on how bad you feel to focus on some type of breathing technique to relax your body or focusing on anything other than the pain or discomfort you feel?

Wouldn't it seem that if this works with feeling sick, it would also work with anger, fear, guilt and regret? What do you think it does to our body when we hold ourselves in the pattern of feeling angry, fearful, guilty or regretful. As I write this I find myself wondering if any doctors or scientist have done any types of studies as to how focusing on these emotions effect our brainwaves, heart rate, blood pressure and such. Wouldn't it be interesting to see a study on that?

What I know from my own personal experience in this body is that when I am feeling those emotions my whole body reacts. When I am in these emotional states, my heart rate increases, my muscles tense up, everything seems to go into hyper sensitive overload. It's difficult to focus, concentrate, think, sometimes it difficult to breath or even move. When we hold ourselves in this state that has to have a huge effect on our whole system. I also know that if we are willing to do the work, we can train our mind and body to function in a different, more positive way.

This is why it is so important to find a relaxation technique that works for us. We have to find ways to relax our bodies as well as our minds, the two are connected and if we can keep them both from going into overload, the health benefits will be amazing! If we aren't able to train our mind to relax and focus on positive thoughts, it will be difficult to allow our bodies to relax and if we can't get our muscles to relax it may be very difficult to keep our minds from focusing on how over stressed and painful our bodies feel.

In the very first installments in this blog I gave several suggestions for relaxation techniques you could try. There is no set technique that you have to use, you need to find what will work for you and your body. For me music is always very helpful as well as soaks in warm tubs and especially gentle yoga. Meditation can be extremely beneficial. I know when you think of meditation you think of sitting quietly and focusing within, but yoga is a form of mediation in action. Any kind of mind lulling activity can be considered meditative, such as mowing the lawn, washing the dishes, driving down the road. Add some relaxing music to those activities and they can be even more relaxing and mind calming if you allow them to be. These are just a few examples. You will know what works for you and if you don't experiment and try a few different things. As long as you are able let go of negative thoughts and focus on something else you will feel some positive benefits.

The Choice Is Ours

Part of taking responsibility of ourselves is understanding that we all have a light side and a dark side. It won't do us any good to try to hide either side from ourselves or deny they exist. If we really want to heal we have to acknowledge all aspects of our self. Pretending we have never done anything "wrong" or will never do anything "wrong" isn't being honest or authentic with ourselves or with others. Beating ourselves up and hating ourselves for the mistakes we feel we've made or the "bad" things we feel we've done isn't beneficial, it's destructive. Not giving ourselves credit for the "good" things we've done or denying there is any light or goodness in us serves no purpose. Being humble does not mean denying our gifts or dimming the light within us so others feel lighter around us. Hiding who we are or feeling guilty about who we are really only hurts us and isn't a very wise choice to make.

If we want to grow and heal, being authentically real and being ourselves is part of what it takes. Being ourselves means not being afraid to show the world who we really are inside. Being authentic means realizing that we do have a darker side and we do make mistakes and "bad" choices, but we also have a lighter side and we do many great things and make a lot of "good" choices. It's accepting all of who we are.

Our choices help us to learn and grow, sometimes in very painful ways, some times in a more joyous delightful manner, both ways serve a purpose and are beneficial. When we realize this it becomes easier to let go of the guilt we feel for our "bad" choices or inappropriate actions. When we are able to see that even our worst moments served a purpose and we can learn from them, rather than beat ourselves up about them forever, it frees us and helps us to learn from ALL of our experiences, let them go and move forward.

Does this mean that we should intentionally choose to continue to display "bad" behavior or constantly making choices that cause pain for ourselves and others? No, this means we become more aware of who we are and the choices we have made and how they have affected our lives and the lives of those around us and we begin to seek to choose ways that are more beneficial to everyone and less painful or difficult.

Life does not have to be full of pain and suffering, we do have many choices to make that can help to alleviate a lot of the difficulties we may have experienced in our life time. We can choose to look at all of our difficulties and see what there is for us to learn from these experiences and then let them go, while also remembering to look at our life to find the gifts within all of our experiences and hang on to those. Instead of focusing and clinging to the dark, difficult, "bad" times to create how we see ourselves, we can use our lighter, less stressful, "good" times to define who we are. If we are willing to take an honest look at ourselves we can embrace all of us and then choose who and how we want to be in the world while letting go of who and how we don't want to be.

It's our choice what memories and experiences we use to define who we have been, who we are and who we'd like to become. It's up to us to decide, do we want to choose positive experiences and build on those or do we want to chose negative experiences and cling to those, recreating them over and over again in our minds and lives, refusing to learn from them and let them go. Neither choice is really right or wrong, they just create a different way of living in the world, they simply create either a positive experience or negative one. It's all in how we choose to look at ourselves and our lives, what we choose to focus on, what we want to build our lives and what we base our perception of ourselves on.

Do we want to focus on pain, suffering and darkness creating a negative painful experience or do we want to focus on love, happiness and light creating a positive experience? It's our choice whether we are positive or negative regardless of what our circumstances are. Whatever we choose our lessons will be learned and we will move on, it's up to us whether the journey is a forward moving joyride or repetitive march of doom.

Stepping Into Myself

Learning to take responsibility for myself and my own choices and actions in life is another very important step I took in my journey towards healing. It was as if in learning to do this I was able to step away from my pain and suffering and step more fully into being myself.

Letting go of focusing on the pain and suffering that my body felt was very, very important. But I figured out in a hurry that what I focus on is what I experience, so being overly focused on the pain was not a good thing. I needed to learn to focus on other things, mainly what I could do to help myself. I also had to learn to stop being mad that I was in pain. In a sense I had to stop choosing to suffer. I had to learn to let go of my ideas about who and what was to blame for how I felt and where I was in life, physically, emotionally and spiritually. It was not easy.

We waste so much of our time and energy looking at everyone around us blaming them for how we feel, who we are and what we do. We are stuck in thoughts like, "If they wouldn't do this then I wouldn't have to do that or if they wouldn't act in this way or say these thing then I wouldn't have to feel so bad." It can take us a long time to realize that we are wasting our time and energy feeling sorry for ourselves and blaming others. We aren't going to get very far focusing on others and working to change them when what we need to do is look at ourselves and work on ourselves.

Deciding to stop blaming others is not an easy step, but it is crucial because it's the only way we can begin to take responsibility for ourselves. Really looking at ourselves and how we have acted and reacted and chosen to take no actions in our life can be extremely painful. We might not like what we see and we might start to feel badly about ourselves or judge ourselves. Beating ourselves up defeats the whole purpose of looking at ourselves, we are looking only to learn, not to judge and condemn.

We've all been trained to believe that someone or something HAS to be to blame for everything, but if we are focusing on casting blame it is difficult to move forward. Instead of focusing on blame we want to focus on simply seeing what is making our life so difficult and determining if there is any thing we ourselves can do to change the situation. Is there anything at all that WE can do differently that would help to bring about a different outcome in the situation? What sense does it make to focus on anything other than what WE can do or change within ourselves.

If we can let go of casting blame and can look at ourselves and take responsibility for our own actions and how we are in the world, then we may gradually begin to see changes occurring around us. Even if things outside of us do not seem to change right away, we may begin to feel changes within us. We may feel less angry and judgmental, we may relax and stop focusing so much on the things that others do that seem to drive us nuts, which may lead to us being able to be more relaxed and compassionate with others, which may in turn lead to those around us being able to relax more and be more caring and considerate.

There is no guarantee this will happen, but if we are focusing on ourselves, then it should be easier to interact with others, which will make our lives much less difficult and stressful. When we feel less judgmental and angry and aren't focusing on changing others, our whole system can relax and we become less tense and our bodies are more able to be opened for healing. We become less likely to get distracted by the behavior and actions of others and less likely to allow ourselves to get sucked into how they are behaving.

Taking responsibility, letting go of judgment and not blaming others may not be easy, but if we are patient with ourselves and persistent we can learn to do this and this will help us to begin to heal from within. It doesn't happen over night, it's a process like everything and we may take a few steps forward and a few steps back, but the benefits are well worth it, the "healing" that we may see in ourselves and in our lives can be amazing! The new "us" that emerges may be even brighter than we imagined. At least that has been my experience. By looking within myself and making changes and learning to listen carefully to what my body needs, I've gone from being nearly bedridden to being able to travel occasionally and take care of myself and family with much less pain and exhaustion. I've still got some healing to do, but I've come a long way!

One Big Puzzle

It seems to me until we truly learn to love, accept and forgive ourselves we can not fully love, accept and forgive others. What has been difficult is figuring out exactly what it is that I have felt was so unlovable, what was so unacceptable and needing forgiven in myself? I had to look within myself and see how I really felt about who I am and who I have been and come to an understanding of why I view myself in that way. I had to be willing to look at myself without judgment, I had to be willing to look at everyone in my life without judgment. The key was looking to learn and understand, not to cast blame and point fingers.

As I looked I saw many issues, many misunderstanding and reactions to the things that had happened throughout my life time. I could see choices that were made that caused a lot of problems, but also led to some really important lessons and much growth. I could see chances to love that went by the way side, chances to reach out to others that had been missed and many times when I had reached out and been hurt. I saw many times when people had seen me in a way I was not capable of seeing myself. I saw many times when I had seen people in ways that they were not capable of seeing themselves. I saw how capable we often are of looking at others through the eyes of love and compassion, but are often blind to seeing ourselves with love and compassion.

What I really saw was that underneath the surface all of us all just want to be loved and accepted and want to be capable of loving and accepting others. Whatever we all appear to be on the outside, on the inside we are all the same. We are all little pieces of God wanting to reconnect with the other little pieces of God. I suddenly understood no matter what our physical appearance, social standings or beliefs God loves us all even when we can not love ourselves.

Seeing and accepting that we are all pieces of one big puzzle just trying to fit ourselves back together is what helped my healing process to begin.

Under the Surface

It seems what I needed was a reality check, a time of inner reflection and learning about what was really important to me in the world. I needed to take a good look under the surface of my life. In the end that big job, the clean house, and looking nice didn't really count for anything. When you don't have enough energy to clean your house, can't raise your arms long enough to curl your hair and can no longer function well enough to really hold down a job, you begin to realize how much you thought those things made you who you are. In fact, losing those things can sort of really change who you are if you allow yourself to continue to believe they made you who you were because you can become angry and resentful.

The interesting thing is that when you loose all of the outer things that everyone thinks makes you who you are, eventually if you are willing to look, you will see the inner things that make you who you are. If you are still hanging on to the outer things and are angry that you no longer have them to define you, your inner self may appear to be rather frightening and ugly, but if you learn to let all of those outer things go and look deeply you can see that none of that really matters, deep within you is the real you, the you that only wants to love and be loved. The you that literally glows with love, but was so covered up and confused by all of the worldly stuff that you forgot it was there.

Don't get me wrong, letting go of that outer stuff, the illusion of who we really are is not easy. We are all programmed to think what you see is what you get and we really do forget that we shouldn't be judging a book by it's cover. We get so caught up in outer appearances and how they define us that we forget to look deeply within. Our vision has become clouded and confused and we really believe that what we have and how we look defines who we are.

Surely if we can't work we must be lazy or worthless. Of course if our hair is a mess and we don't have make up on we must not care enough for ourselves to put up the appearance to everyone that we are perfect. I am sure if my house isn't clean enough or I don't cook that must mean I don't love my children. Isn't this the way we all think? Isn't this the way we view the world around us? Isn't this what we base our judgements on. Of course it is, especially if the person we are judging appears outwardly to look perfectly healthy and doesn't want to complain or even speak about their condition with others.

I've learned the hard way that to find who we really are and who those around us really are we need to look within, not at what we see on the surface, not even what we see just below the surface, but deep within, to the very center of people where their true self lives. It's easy to get distracted by outer appearances and behavior and focus on only those, but if we remember that people may be suffering in silence and dealing with issues we can not even imagine, then it's not so difficult to look past the surface into what really counts.

I seem to be much more forgiving and accepting of the outer surface behavior of others than I am of my own. I seem to be able to extend love and forgiveness easily to others and not to myself. That was a big factor in my illness and another huge lesson I had to learn, how to love and forgive myself.

What We Need

Seven years ago I was in terrible shape physically, emotionally and mentally. I had burned myself out going to school, taking care of three children and teaching preschool. That was difficult work, but the actual overload seemed to come from the emotional, mental experience of dealing with the issues of setting up a daycare center. Watching as that all unfolded was both amazing and frightening. To see how a group of people can meet with a common goal of creating something together and agree to work together and support each other no matter what was absolutely amazing. To see how a few people who had their own agenda that weren't willing listen to others and take into consideration what was best for everyone, as a whole, who literally began to attack those they were supposed to be working with and supporting was frightening and very disheartening to say the least.

By the end of that experience, coupled with helping to care for my dying father, I was left almost an invalid. My doctors feared the worst. Cancer, Lupus, RA, all kinds of tests were run on me. I was barely able to get out of my bed or function in any manner, my mind could not recall simple things, I was in severe pain and basically felt useless and wished my life would end.

My diagnosis was Fifth's Disease, which I had picked up from the children in day care and Fibromyalgia, a mysterious condition which wasn't that well known at that time and had very little treatment options. With that diagnosis came a lot of medication and learning a whole new way of looking at the world and myself. I had to learn that I was no longer able to do everything, in fact, I could do very little for a long time.

I had to learn that my self worth didn't come from what I could do or where I worked or how I looked, but from how deeply I loved others and how deeply that love was returned. Going from doing it all to having to allow others to take care of me, being in the position of receiving so much more than I was giving, was heart breaking for me at first. But, I learned many things from this, one is that others are thankful when you allow them to give to you and another is that people didn't love me just for what I could give to them or how I looked. Gradually I learned to stop judging myself for not being able to do things or for how I looked to the world and learned how to accept help, accept my limitations and not care how I looked to the world.

The interesting thing is that once I really accepted my situation and kind of gave it all up, then I began the long process of healing. Once I accepted that I did have this mysterious condition and I couldn't just wish it away, I was able then to relax and stop beating myself up and fighting it. I then was able to reach out to others in a similar situation and through them I began to rediscover who I am and to heal.

We are taught from early on to never give up and to fight for what we want, but sometimes, it seems that in giving up and no longer fighting, we find what we truly need, not what we want and what we NEED is usually much more beneficial to everyone than what we want.

Be The Change?

We hear all of this talk about being the change we want to see. What does that really mean? How do we be the changes we want to see? HMMM seems first we have to understand what changes we want to see. To do this we have to look around and see what is bothering us and we have to look inside and see what is bothering us.

When we've examined all that we find it would then probably be a good idea to ask, what would I do differently? What changes would I like to see in the world around me? What would make the world I see feel like a better, more comfortable, loving place to be? Can we imagine a different world? Can we sit quietly and picture the world the way we would like to see it?

When we've done all of that it would seem helpful to then ask, how can I change what I see outside of me? How can I change this situation? What can I myself, this one tiny human form among many, do that will change the world? (This is where I personally tend to feel overwhelmed).

The world is a huge place, full of many people and I am just one, how can I possibly make the changes throughout the whole entire world that will help create what I would like to see? How can I possibly get all of the people of the world to change and be what I would like them to be so the world is a more loving comfortable place?

Guess what...we can't! We can not change the people we see outside of ourselves. They have free will, they have the choice to be whoever and however they want to be in the world. So, what can we possibly do to change our world?

You probably already guessed it...change myself. YEP, there it is again, the only thing we can really do is change our self. The only one we can really change is our self and according to many, we draw to ourselves what we put out into the world, so if we want to see a happier, healthier, more loving, comfortable world, what can we do? Learn to be the change we want to see. WE have to learn to let go of all of our suffering, pain, negativity, hate, fear and judgment and be more loving, understanding, caring, accepting, easy going, fearless, nonjudgmental, positive and hopeful. We have to be the change we want to see and when we do this, the world we see will begin to change around us.

Sounds easy...but we all know it's not or we'd have the world we want to see right now. We've had many, many years of learning to be negative and judgmental towards ourselves, towards the world, towards each other. Letting go of the learned behavior is a process that may take a lot of time, but I think with practice and patience, we can all do it and once we do, we will be the change we want to see in the world. What changes do you want to see? Picture them and hold them in your heart.

The Games People Play

Have you ever wondered why they call us the human race? What are we racing towards? What are we competing for? Why are we in a "race"? Are we really in a race? Is it all just a game?

I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel like I am a lab rat of some kind. Running here and there reacting to different situations and different people, needing to sniff every single thing I encounter in desperate search for a hunk of cheese. I often wonder if someone is watching me or if perhaps I am somewhere watching myself and laughing or crying at the way I react to each situation. I'm sure there are many times when a clear, simple solution has been available to my "problems", but I've complicated my own life by casting those aside for more interesting, messy, sticky solutions. Am I sitting some where watching myself and shaking my head at the messes I've made? Probably saying...WAKE UP IDIOT, it doesn't have to be that complicated! Just take the shortest route to the cheese already!

Maybe I'm just confused and crazy from all of the cheese chasing, but there also seems to be an awful lot of tail chasing going on around here...you know, when you are running around in a circle trying to catch your own tail like a dog! What's the point of that game anyway? What prize do we win when we capture our own tail?

I'm a little tired of the tail chasing. I find myself more and more exhausted with taking the difficult path and learning the hard way. Maybe I'm getting old and tired or maybe I am finally wising up or waking up, who knows? What I do know is that I am more willing now to take a step back in situations, to really look at what is going on and try to figure out why it is going on and to not make any moves until I am really clear in my heart about what move to make. I don't just spot my tail and chase it any longer, I eyeball it and see whether it's something I really want to chase or just a distraction that will take me around and around in circles. Is what I am seeing the "hunk of cheese" I want to chase after? I really have no desire to go round and round in circles any longer or run through mazes, I'd much rather break free from the mazes and circling and find myself spiraling upward.

The problem with breaking free from the circle is sometimes you spiral downwards instead of upwards. When this happens it's easy to get distracted and scared and long for our safe circular motion again. That little maze suddenly doesn't seem so bad, it's familiar and safe even though it drove us nuts! But, perhaps, we need to spiral downwards to see what it's like down there and if we are patient and loving with ourselves and hang on and really look within ourselves instead of falling back into our old game pattern, we can begin to move ourselves upward again.

Perhaps, some day when we stop playing games and searching for the cheese or chasing our tails, we will become more focused on always looking within ourselves. We will learn to focus on connecting with our heart and stop falling back into our old game patterns, we will no longer be caught circling or spiraling downward, we will only move up. Wouldn't that be amazing!

Learning What's Right on the Wrong Path

We are all human and we are on this journey we call life to learn. How do we humans learn? We learn through our experiences, we learn through lessons, through listening, looking and finding understanding of the observations we've made.

It seems that each experience in our life is a lesson and if we look at each experience we will find there was something important to learn whether the experience felt "good" or "bad", "right" or "wrong".

When we experience a "good" or "right" experience we can feel happy, excited, relieved, we recognize what we've done felt "right" with our soul. We learn that what we've done, how we've acted, who we've been in that experience felt "right" it felt "good".

When we experience a "bad" or "wrong" experience we can feel guilt, shame, pain, suffering, confusion, anger, resentment, we recognize that what we've done has not felt "right" with our soul, we feel something was "wrong". What can we learn through these "bad" or "wrong" experiences? What purpose do they serve? Are they meant to bring us down and cause us to suffer and feel guilty for the rest of our lives or is there something more going on here?

Perhaps what is going on here is that we've just experienced what it feels like when we do something that doesn't fully agree with who we really are. Perhaps we aren't meant to beat ourselves up about it, judge ourselves and suffer for our choices for the rest of our lives. Perhaps we made those "bad" choices simply so that we might learn a lesson through them. Perhaps we have chosen to experience what it feels like to be on the "wrong" path so we will appreciate what it feels like to be on the "right" path.

If we believe this and understand this, we can use our "bad" lessons, the times where we've "gone wrong" to learn something and move on. It seems to be a matter of looking to see where we got off and what we could have done differently and then making changes in our current situation so that we don't repeat the same pattern of "wrong" doing.

It seems to be a matter of being willing to really look at each situation and be completely honest with ourselves about what we were up to and what our intentions were and determining how our actions made us feel and those around us feel. If they didn't feel "right" or "good" changes need to be made with us if we want to avoid experiences those "bad" feelings again or causing those "bad" feelings for others.

Some people will use the cop out of saying, "But others have a choice in how they react to what I do, I shouldn't have to change my behavior so that others feel better, it's their choice how they feel." To them I would say, it is true others have a choice in how they feel and it is also true that WE HAVE A CHOICE in how we act and if we are choosing to act in a manner that causes harm to others, that makes others uncomfortable, they probably will choose to not be around us. We can continue to choose to act in the manner we are, but we have to accept the consequences of our actions. We can continue to feel entitled and be self serving by acting in whatever manner we choose whether it hurts anyone or not or we can choose to become aware of those around us and how are actions are effecting them and we change our behavior so that we are serving everyone, not just our own selfish needs.

It is our individual choice whether or not we will take responsibility for our own actions or not. If we are willing to really look at our self, see what we've been up to, take responsibility for our own actions and make the changes necessary to create a "good" feeling, we will move forward. If we refuse to do that, we will remain stuck in our "bad" situation feeling something is "wrong" and "bad".

It is completely up to us whether we want to recognize our "wrong" behavior and what lessons we want to learn from our "bad" experiences. It is up to us to take responsibility for ourselves in each and every situation and see what we part we ourselves have played in causing them to appear as "wrong" or "bad". It is also up to us to choose whether or not to continue being a part of a situation that feels bad or if it's time to remove our self from that situation. It's our choice whether or not we want to be on a path that feels "right" or a path that feels "wrong". Each path will lead us to the same place, it's just a matter of whether we want to experience an easier, less painful path or one that seems filled with a lot of pain and suffering. It's our choice. It's that simple.

"When we see that we have gone wrong, it is our duty to
retrace our footsteps and proceed again by the right path."
- Mohandas Gandhi

Uncovering Who We Are

We are in a process of seeking to understand our self, to uncover who we are underneath all of the layers of drama or illusion. It seems there are several steps or understandings or tools that are important in this process. Some may refer to these as levels, keys, jewels, the label is not important, it is our understanding that matters. I will use the word step.

It is important that we not become stuck in a pattern of understanding, but need to become aware that we are always in a process of understanding. In other words, the understandings that we have, our knowledge is not concrete, it is fluid and can flex, bend, change and grow to fit each situation we encounter in our daily lives. Knowledge/understanding is a tool we are given to use in our daily lives to shape and create the world around us.

We should not be looking outside of ourselves for someone to give us the answers, to tell us what we should or shouldn't do. What we need to seek is help in dealing with whatever comes to us in our daily situations. Each situation we encounter is different and serves a different purpose. We should be asking for help from others as to how to use the "tools" of our understanding to see what we can actively "do" in a situation rather than focusing on what someone else has done, will do or could do. Instead of asking for answers from others we need to ask the question, "What can I do? How can I best serve everyone, including myself?" Things don't just randomly happen or happen by accident, we know this, they happen because something was done, they happen with purpose.

We often get stuck in thinking that there is a certain way we "have" to think about a situation. For example, I have to be mad about this, there has to be someone to blame, someone has to be right or wrong. The idea is to become unstuck and be more open, not tied to old patterns of how we "have" to think. The goal is to learn to think differently, learn to assess each situation as it arises and use our understanding to discern how to act in each situation. There is no set way we "have to" think or react. We always have a choice, we can think differently and act differently, but it is not always easy or natural to do so. We are all different, each situation that arises is different, how we deal with it will be different, there is no set pattern, no one size fits all answer to any situation.

There are several steps to understanding who we are. The steps are fluid, they are not concrete, you can be experiencing them in different order and be at different levels of understanding on each of them.

It is important to understand the possibility of reincarnation. Perhaps we come into a body to experience different situations and learn from them. We leave that body, review what we've learned from the situations we were in, plan a new life and come back into a body to experience the situation from a different view or to experience a completely different situation. Each life is a learning experience, we are learning about the expression of our soul, seeing how we react in different situations or the same situations while in different forms. Not everyone is ready or willing to accept this idea and that is fine. I'm not asking you to, that is a personal choice a personal understanding.

With each life a reaction carries over from our actions. This is understanding what some people call Karma. When we understand Karma, take responsibility for our own actions, see that WE are in control of our destiny rather than looking outside of ourselves for someone to blame or tell us what to do, we will begin to have more influence or control over our situations. In other words, when we look within ourselves and take responsibility for our actions we will gain more control over what we are creating. Once again nothing happens by chance, everything is as it should be. If we want our situations to be something else, WE are capable of making them something else.

Understanding that there is no division, no separation is very important. Is it possible there is no such thing as high, low, far, within, without, no right, no wrong, no good, no bad. Is it possible that everything just IS, that hose words are just labels, judgments placed on people, places and situations. Some people speak of Hierarchies and levels and the differences in all of us, but perhaps that is only to help us understand the nature of man. What if in reality there is no separation. There are no good guys or bad guys, no us and them. What if we are all ONE, each one of us having different experiences, learning lessons and fulfilling certain roles. Can we see that we are in the right place at the right time functioning and evolving.

We are here to become what we already are. We can only become what we are. In other words underneath all of our layers lies who we really are, that is what we are striving to uncover, seeking to become. There are no limits to what we are other than the limits we've placed on ourselves with our minds/thoughts. We have an active role to play in what is happening, this doesn't necessarily mean we have to "got out and do" but rather be aware of and conscious of each situation we find ourselves in. It means seeing the influence we can and do bring into each situation by whatever we do or do not do. It's about being observant and aware, paying attention to how our action or inaction effects those around us and our world. It also means taking responsibility for what we ourselves have done or not done in each and every situation.

We are all in the process of evolving. We are uncovering, unwrapping, unfolding into our Spirit. We are in an "ever-upward" spiral which has no beginning and has no end. As we evolve there is constant motion and unfolding, with no set pattern adjustments are made along the way.

It is important to initially pursue development of "ourselves". We ourselves must become informed through our own individuality. We see who we are as a separate person with a unique body and personality. We use our separate "form/body" to experience life and learn about our "self". The development of our "self" leads to knowledge of self. This is how we find out about ourselves and get in touch with who we really are. When we get in touch with who we really are we move from development or growth of our "self" to growth of all/the whole, we move into seeing we are a part of a whole and that everything we do effects those around us so we begin to base all of our choices for the greater good of all people, we become selfless. At this point we are ready to become selfless servers.

When we have gained knowledge of who we are, knowledge of our "true self" and are willing to become selfless servers, we are in a state that is difficult to express with words. We've uncovered who we really are, we've connected with what we've been trying to get in touch with for so long, our beautiful inner self.

Getting to this state is a process. We learn to use our "tools", what we know, what we understand. Each one of us works at our own pace, using our own methods, our own style, yet nothing takes place in isolation. Each step is important, we are the totality of them all. Our task is to know this and to keep our minds fluid, opened and flexible. Our task is to look within ourselves and find our own understanding, to hold fast to that which our soul, our conscious tells us is "good", but to be accepting of others and their process along the way. Our task is to use our own understanding to be discerning and to know what speaks to our heart/soul and when necessary to take action or to wait.

As Thich Naht Hanh said, "Each thought, each action, in the sunlight of awareness becomes sacred."

Walk the Walk

It seems so many times we are full of understandings of our own and want to share them with everyone around us. But what use is just talking? How beneficial is talking the talk if you aren't willing to walk the walk? Speaking the words without putting the actions behind them seems kind of useless really.

Most of us understand that we learn the most about someone by observing their actions rather than listening to their words. As a preschool teacher and mother I understand that modeling behavior is the best way to teach. So what purpose does it serve to only speak to others about how things "should be" or how people "should act" if we ourselves are not willing to act in the manner we are "preaching" about?

I remember when my children were young taking them into a store and telling them not to touch and then finding myself touching everything...I'm very tactile oriented and want to touch everything. The irony of it all made me laugh. How can I expect my children not to touch the pretties if I myself have to touch them?

We can't yell at our children to be quiet and then wonder why they are so loud? How can we say we are for peace, but spread hate against anything, it is impossible to find peace through hating something. It really is pretty simple to understand, but not always each to put into actions.

As always we have to be the example we want to see. If we want to be loved and accepted unconditionally, WE have to love and ACCEPT EVERYBODY UNCONDITIONALLY. If we want to create peace, WE have to ACT IN A PEACEFUL LOVING MANNER. If we want to end hate, WE have to STOP HATING. If we want to see things getting done in our world, WE have to TAKE ACTION. If we want to be accepted in groups, WE have to REACH OUT TO OTHERS. If we don't want to be judged WE have to STOP BEING JUDGMENTAL. I could go on and on with this list, but I believe you get the idea.

Yes, we will all stumble and fall as we walk our walk, but we simply pick ourselves up, see what tripped us up, regain our balance and start walking all over again.

If we aren't willing to back up or talking by being willing to do the walking, we will never get anywhere and we are just wasting our time and the time of those around us.

We shouldn't be afraid to talk the talk, but we need to be willing to do the walking if we are going to do the talking. Seems pretty clear and easy to understand.

Use Your Inside Voice

There will be many voices outside of us that will tell us who we are and what we should be in the world. I've witnessed many a "higher, advanced soul" tell us who and what we should be based on their own beliefs. Often they are the ones speaking of love, but displaying hate and judgment against whatever goes against their current belief.

From what I understand if we want to know who we are and what we should be doing, we need to stop listening to those outside voices and start using our inside voices. In other words...listen to our inner guidance. I understand that those outside voices are loud and repetitive and so hard to ignore they get you rattled, but it's the quiet voice you hear in the stillness of your heart that will tell you who you really are and what your purpose is.

It is important at this time for all of us to try to find at least 10 minutes a day where we can be quietly with ourselves. Time to reflect on what's going on inside of us and refocus on listening to our inner voice. Time to take at least 5 deep cleansing breaths where we can release the tension spreading across our bodies and return ourselves to a more relaxed state. We don't have to sit still to do this, we can do this while taking a nice hot bath or quietly washing the dishes or even mowing the lawn. It's getting our mind still that we are focusing on and getting our body still helps to do this, but isn't absolutely necessary.

As we quiet our minds and all of the outside chatter in our head fades away we can focus on one thought....I am loved, I am loving, I am lovable. We don't have to do this, but it will help to remind us that at the center of our very being we are LOVE. This will help us to let go of all of the other garbage that gets blasted at us all day long telling us what to be and who to fear in our world. It will help us to let go of our judgments of others and of our self.

If we can maintain this focus on being loved, loving and lovable it will help us to face those around us who tell us who we are and what we should be without letting their words and actions soak into us and distract us or mold us into what they want from us. It will help us to let go of fear and judgment.

Many people are very well intentioned and think they have all the answers, but if they really want us to be who we are and all that we can be, they will tell us to look within our self to find our self, not tell us who and what we should be. If someone is trying to force their beliefs on us, honor them for their commitment to do what feels "right" for them, do not judge them. Bless them, love them and continue on our own path. Focus on our inside voice, not the outside voices. If we are looking within our self, we will KNOW what is "right" for us and we won't be led astray by outside voices that don't speak directly to our soul/heart. When we use our inside voice we have nothing to fear.

Remember, we are ALL teachers as well as students and no one person has all of the answers, everyone still has something to learn and many times finding answers simply leads us to more questions. If someone acts as if they have all the answers and becomes frustrated when they feel you are questioning them, something is off. Asking questions is good, it is not a sign of weakness or stupidity. Asking questions is how we learn and grow and help each other to learn and grow, it's how we all work together to find new understandings.

Remember...let go of fear and judgment, ask questions, work together, use your inside voice, and focus on love. How simple is that?

I Doubt It

I understand that we all have inner guidance and if we can look within ourselves and listen, we can connect with that guidance and it will help to keep us on the path we need to be on. I also understand how difficult it can be to connect with that guidance and to believe and follow that guidance once we are actually fully aware of it.

Our guidance comes in so many ways, through thoughts that reoccur in our brains, through small quiet voices drawing our attention to something, through pictures that pop into our heads showing us scenes, through people outside of us telling us something we needed to hear, through songs, TV, books and through animals. The variety of ways we receive guidance seem rather endless and sometimes difficult to determine. We tend to not pay attention to most of the messages we receive because they are so subtle or we are too busy to slow down and just look. Sometimes we get hit with the 2x4 guidance such as injuries that slow us down, then we usually start to pay attention. Nothing like a kick in the pants to wake us up when we aren't paying attention to our guidance.

Once we figure out that anything and everything can be a message for us and we start looking for them and paying attention to them we then have to decide if we are going to receive the message or if we are going to let our doubts keep us from accepting that we are indeed receiving guidance that will help us. This is not as easy as it sounds.

We might ask ourself why would someone NOT follow their guidance if they are aware of it? There are a variety of reasons that I can think of one being self doubt. We live in a society that isn't very accepting of intuition or inner guidance. Most of our society is not opened to following their inner guidance and listening to the quiet inner voice within themselves. It may even be considered crazy to admit that you hear your inner voice or that you receive signs through visions or from seeing animals. Many are totally unaware of animal totems and the native beliefs of what certain animals can symbolize for us. Many are afraid to look for signs around them because of religious beliefs. We seem to have lost our connection with nature and with our own self and what we are capable of giving and receiving. In a society such as this is it any wonder that we would be filled with doubts about our own inner guidance?

Along with doubt there is fear. What if what my guidance comes from the Devil? How will I know if my guidance is "good" or "evil"? Won't the Devil be sneaky and come to me in ways that appear safe because he is trying to trick me? How can I possibly trust my own guidance? How can I know what is "right" and what is "wrong" and keep myself safe? Who am I to receive guidance, don't only the holiest ones receive guidance?

Doubts and fear can fill us and keep us from connecting with and accepting our guidance. Doubts and fears cause blocks, they confuse and distract us and can even cause illness in our bodies and minds.

Letting go of doubts and fears is not always easy. We may have been filled with them for so long that being in a doubtful, fearful state feels natural or normal to us. We may even feel uncomfortable when we aren't filled with doubt and fear. We aren't brought into the world full of doubt and fear, that is something that we learn and we can work to unlearn it.

Unlearning this is not an easy process and it takes commitment, dedication and focus. We need to decide that we no longer desire to be filled with doubts and fear, then we need to start reprogramming our minds. When we feel ourselves fill with doubt and fear we can put a stop to it. It's OK and even healthy to let ourselves look at our doubts and fears and see what they are stemming from, but then we have to get them in control by refusing to allow them to swallow us up and consume us. We have the power to stop our thoughts and control them and if we want to get past being filled with doubt and fear, that is what we need to do. We must learn to control our thoughts rather than allowing them to control us.

When a doubt or fear enters our mind we can stop and think, where is this doubt/fear coming from? Is this doubt/fear based on something that is happening right now in the situation I am dealing with right here at this time or is it coming from some past experience? Is this doubt/fear based on something someone outside of me has told me? Is it based on beliefs that have been built on fear and condemnation that I have learned throughout my life time? Is it rational to give into this doubt and fear and let it control me?

After examining where our doubts and fears are coming from, we can set them aside and focus on what we've received as guidance. Without the doubt and fear clouding our thoughts, how does the guidance make us feel? How does it speak to our hearts or touch our souls? Does what we are receiving touch something deep within us? Does it speak to the center of us and feel "right"? Does it cause us to feel the need to look deeper and really connect with what is going on?

We shouldn't allow ourselves to stop and think what those outside of ourselves would think about it, but look deep within ourselves and see what we think and feel about it, that is what is really important. When we connect with what feels right deeply within us we will be better equipped to deal with our outside world, to see where our guidance lies and discern what feels "right" and what feels "wrong" for us as we work our way through this world. If the voices we are hearing are filled with fear and doubt, they are not the voices of our inner guidance, they are voices of the world outside of us. Our true inner guidance will not use doubt and fear to lead us, it will use love and understanding with firmness.

I'm not saying this will be easy, overcoming doubt and fear has been a huge challenge for me, one I work through on a daily basis. Doubt and fear seem to have been deeply ingrained in us and our society, it's no surprise that it will take awhile for us all to be able to overcome them and let them go. With persistence, commitment and the intention to move beyond doubt and fear I don't doubt we can do it!

Being Prepared

It was interesting to watch as my daughter prepared for the birth of her first child. I observed with interest her anxiety over having everything just right and having all of the perfect things that she needed. I told her often that she really didn't need much to take care of a new born and that she should relax a little, but she wanted to be prepared, she wanted everything set in place just right.

Interestingly enough, once the baby was born suddenly all of that stuff that was so necessary to her peace of mind during pregnancy, no longer seemed important. It didn't matter what crib or dresser she had, she just needed a safe, convenient space for the baby to sleep and easy access to the diapers and clothing. All of the beautiful little outfits sat in the drawers unused for days because it was easier to keep the baby in just a tshirt until her umbilical cord came off.

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with having to have things prepared or having beautiful items ready to be used. It just was eye opening to witness someone realize how little importance having those "perfect" things was once they held that beautiful, perfect child in their arms.

Thinking over all of this caused me to wonder how many times in our lives we have missed out on opportunities for growth or happiness simply because we are so busy lining things up perfectly. How often have we missed out on what we were meant to be doing or finding joy in what we were meant to be doing because we were putting so much time and anxiety into focusing on getting things lined up or in order "perfectly" instead of finding joy in the process and just doing what needed to be done. Granted having things in order and lined up can make things easier, but are we going over board in our preparing? Are we stuck in rituals of getting things just right?

As a recovering perfectionist myself, I am working on learning to find balance between having to have things just right and not trying to get things just right at all. It feels as if it's important to prepare and be ready, but not to lose sight in all of our preparation of what it is we are preparing for and what it is that we truly need to focus on.

Focus On Yourself

Being the over achiever that I am I tend to find myself dealing with more than one difficult life situation at a time.  This used to really frustrate me and I used to wonder why I couldn't just have one difficult thing to deal with at a time instead of multiple challenges.  What I began to notice was that if I looked closely I would see that my challenges were somehow connected in some manner, that there was a thread that ran through the situation that seemed to hold them together.  It was as if I were weaving a quilt or tapestry of learning situations through my life experiences.  Facing one experience helped me learn and heal the other situations, they were all related in some way.  It's sort of "killing two birds with one stone."

When I began to look at each and every life situation as a learning experience, I began to understand that each situation served a purpose, each challenge was an opportunity to learn and grow and expand who I am.  I had to learn to stop feeling sorry for myself or wondering why me and start asking questions like why now and what is my responsibility in this situation.  I had to let go of looking for someone to blame for the situations and focus on  what I could do to move forward.

It soon became clear to me the way to move forward was to look at the role that I was playing in every situation.  The next step was to ask myself,  "What is it that I can change?"  I had to stop focusing on what I wanted to see changed and how I wanted others to change and focus only on what I could do.  I had to take responsibility for myself and my own actions and stop trying to force others into taking responsibility for their choices and actions.

As a healer filled with deep love and compassion for the world I often find myself wanting to take on the pains of those around me and trying to do their work for them.  The truth is no matter how much we want to, how hugely we open our heart to hold the pain of others, or how intent we are on healing everyone around us, we are only responsible for ourselves.  Everyone has to do their own work and take responsibility for their own actions and choices, we can not do it for them.  Some will choose to do their work and make changes and some will not.

Sometimes as givers and healers we tend to give too much of ourselves and not receive much back. This can deplete us and in the end serves no one.  We have to take care of ourselves.  In taking care of ourselves, we are helping  and serving others.  Receiving love and care is as important as giving.

I sometimes have a difficult time knowing when to step away from situations that deplete me, when to stop giving.  I literally want to save everyone in the world and will try my best to do that, but in doing so often sacrifice myself.

I was recently told that it's time to learn to extract myself from situations and people who no longer meet my own needs; that there are toxic situations and people that I should avoid.  This was difficult for me to hear.  It took awhile for the idea to sink in for me. It seemed narcissistic to walk away from others because they didn't meet my needs.  The understanding that there are people out there who will refuse to change, who will never change, who will use me and suck all of the energy out of me and that it is OK for me to give what I can to them and then walk away seemed foreign to me.  Don't I have to give it my all?  Don't I have to love everybody unconditionally always?  It was pointed out to me that these people tax my energy so much that choosing to be with them keeps me from being who I am and keeps me from serving others.  Choosing to continue being with them keeps me from fully serving my purpose.

It's easy to confuse helping people to heal with rescuing them.  It's important to remember that healers are here to guide and assist, not do the work for people and rescue them, as I stated before we all have to do our own work.  We are here to help and support each other, but no one can do the work for another and trying to hold the whole world and do everyone's work for them keeps us from doing what we are meant to do and that is focusing on healing ourselves from within.

If we want to heal the world we will start by focusing on ourselves and take responsibility for ourselves in every single situation we find ourselves in every single day.  We will see what role we are playing, take responsibility for our own choices, take whatever actions we feel are necessary to heal and forgive the situation, we will offer others involved in the situation assistance by relating to them with hope and compassion understanding that we can not change them and we will let go of the end results.  We can't control how others will react or act in a situation, all we can do is take responsibility for ourselves and stick as best we can to our own intentions and follow what our soul tells us to do.  If we do this, no matter what the outcome or end result, we will be able to believe in ourselves and walk boldly with our head held high in confidence that we are serving our purpose.

Pure love

AHHHHH the JOYS of babies!  There's nothing like holding a baby in your arms.  The smell of them, the sweet softness of their fluffy hair and perfect skin.  I love every part of them, their pudgy fingers and toes.  The shape of their furry little shoulders, tiny ears, eyes that squench shut and pop open so widely as if they can't believe they are really out in the world.  The sounds they make, the tiny grunts and squeaks, the pop of a binky being pulled from their lips and the hungry suckling noises are like music to my ears.  I'm amazed by their tiny legs that stretch out as if to say, WOW I can really move around now and then just as quickly pull back in as if to say,  WOW it's a big old world out here!  Those tiny toes just waiting to be tickled and have you say This little piggy went to market on them.  And of course their round little tummies and chubby little cheeks that make it so hard to resist blowing kisses all over them. I love the curve of their little bottom that fits so perfectly in your hand and they way they curl up into a tiny bundle as you hold them closely on your chest.

I think new borns are the closest to Heaven we get right now here on earth.

If I had to pick out one favorite thing about my grand daughter right now it would be the way she looks straight into my eyes and appears to try to communicate with me.  How she listen so intently to what I tell her and then tries to smile.  She just melts my heart, but then all babies melt my heart.  I'd say she's the prettiest baby ever, but how could this be when MY babies were the prettiest babies ever?

If you have children don't you wish you could shrink your kids down for just one day and love them up like you did when they were new borns only have them be able to remember THAT feeling, that emotion of pure, unconditional love that surrounded them.   Infancy is usually the only time we receive that kind of pure nonjudgmental love. Isn't that sad?  Wouldn't it be amazing if our children could remember that and hold on to it always no matter what is going on in their lives. Don't you wish YOU could feel that feeling towards yourself?  Wouldn't it be amazing if we all could remember being totally, purely and unconditionally loved just as we are?

It feels to me that each day we are born a new and have the opportunity to reach out to each other and ourselves with that feeling of unconditional love, that feeling of wonder and joy and hope.  If only we could let go of all of our expectations and learned perceptions of how the world is "supposed" to be.  If  only we could stop judging and instead just love with an opened heart.  Wouldn't that be wonderful?  Wouldn't that be Heaven?

Birth Day

Witnessing a birth and holding a newborn baby in your arms is a sure way to get you to thinking about birth and life and the whole process we all go through.  We all enter the world through our mother.  One minute we are comfortable and warm floating inside our mother who has sustained us for 9 months or so and the next we are feeling the strong contractions, the squeezing a pushing, a need to move that forces us out into the world, into our new life. What an amazing, breathtaking experience!

I wonder if we know for sure before hand, while we are still in our prebirth state, what we will encounter when we arrive here on this planet. I imagine us choosing our parents and the experiences we'd like to share with much excitement and thought, determined to come into the world and accomplish great things for ourselves and others.  I'm envisioning us full of hope and joy at the idea of all of the experiences we will have and the lessons we will learn.  I wonder if we stop and think of the work and pain involved in birth and life.  Perhaps we know full well of all the pain and hard work we will encounter and we choose to come anyway.  Perhaps we're oblivious to the idea of pain and hard work and just want to experience living.  Perhaps it's a mixture of both or something we can't even comprehend in our current state of mind.

What I'm noticing lately in my life is that I seem to be going through a new birth...the birth of my self.  I've watched over the past few years how I've grown and seen how I've been nurtured and sustained by many various "mother" figures on my path. The mothering has come in many forms, through friends, coworkers, bosses, family, sometimes even strangers who just happen to enter my life in times of need with just the right thing to say at just the right moment. Under the tender care of these assorted "mothers" I've felt a "new" me grow and form and become ready to reach out and enter the world again.

There have been pains, dark times, anticipation and anxiety of leaving the space were I have become comfortable and yet it feels more and more like it's time to move forward, to come out of that safe, familiar space and be born into who I was meant to be.  I wonder will this be a "new" me or will it be me finding my "old" self, the me I was meant to be, who got lost along the way.

It seems instead of having one grand "birth" day entrance this birth will be more of an easing out bit by bit, day by day, week by week, month by month until eventually I'm fully aware of who I am and what I'm meant to be.  It will take time and patience and some labor and some pain, maybe even some sweat and tears, but in the end there will be joy and it will all be well worth it.

Love Without Limits

Why is it that so many people feel the need to single out what they like or love most?  Why must one be better than another?  What is with the deep need to create first and last, greatest and least, best and worst?  Is it really necessary to always be in some form of competition or to place things in some type of order or categorize everything as greater than or less than? What's the purpose of creating separation by casting judgments of love and hate on people, places, situations or objects? Can we not look out at everything and see the light that shines within, see that underneath our worldly view of our selves we are all equal?  Can we not love without limits?

Busy, Busy

Sometimes we are so busy looking out at the world around us and trying to fix it or working to save others that we forget to look within ourselves.  Sometimes we are so busy listening to the advice of others or the hearing the "wisdom" of others or following the guidance of others that we forget to look within ourselves.  Sometimes we are so busy being lost in our own doubts and fears and worries that it's impossible to believe what we find within ourselves.

Let's face it, our world is a busy place.  We busy ourselves with taking care of our physical needs and the needs of others.  We busy ourselves with avoiding thinking and focusing on what lies within us by bombarding our brains with mind numbing activities.  We busy ourselves by looking outside of ourselves to find all that is wrong with the world.  We busy ourselves looking for explanations and answers.  We busy ourselves looking for where to place blame and casting judgment on everything.  We busy ourselves seeking, searching, worrying, longing, avoiding, denying, and fixing.

Perhaps it's time to let go of our doubts and fears and denial.  Perhaps it's time to stop listening to all of the voices outside of us.  Perhaps it's time to let go of blame and judgment and put an end to our need to fix. Perhaps it is time to stop seeking and searching and looking outside of ourselves.

Perhaps it is time to get busy quieting ourselves and focus on looking within and start working outward from there.

Gift of the Heart

The most important thing we can do in our lives is to simply open up our hearts and let love flow to everyone and everything around us.  As love flows out of us love will also flow back into us creating the most wonderful energetic pattern of all.

Let go of your fear and love for the sake of loving expecting nothing back in return.  When love is given with strings attached it's easy to become entangled.  When given freely without strings it's simply a beautiful gift from the heart.  Unwrap your heart and share the gift of  your love with the world.

Three Simple Words

There are three simple words that many of us struggle with.  We look out at our world and everything around us and want to utter them out loud, but hold back.  What are we so afraid of? What will happen if we push past our fear and simply say,  "I don't know" when faced with all of the questions of our world.  Does not knowing the answer to all of the questions of the world or admitting that we really have no answers or we may be a little confused about the answers make us less of a person?  Does pretending or assuming we do have all of the answers make us more of a person?  I wonder what would happen if we all embraced the three simple words, I DON'T KNOW.

One thing I've noticed as I've searched high and low for "answers" is that the minute I find what feels like an answer, the question changes.  It's almost as if once I finally am able to fully wrap my brain around a new concept or "answer" everything shifts and I realized what I thought I knew no longer seems relevant and is now replaced with a new understanding, then the new question pops up causing me to look even deep until I realize that even the "new" concept isn't set in stone.  As I open up to new questions, the answers seem to change.  How can this be?  Isn't the truth the truth?  Aren't my beliefs engraved in stone and set in my heart and soul OR are my beliefs merely what I have learned along the path of my life?  Are my beliefs perhaps simply understandings that I've picked up along the way from those who have molded me and directed me in my growth as a human?  Perhaps they come from outside of me rather than within me.  Maybe what I know and understand is an ever changing and growing process, something to be experienced rather than engraved in stone on my heart.

What if we looked at it this way.  I happened to be born in the United States, to Christians in a middle class family.  Who I appear to be, what I believe has been shaped by the life that I have experienced.  Because my family was a potluck of religions, I learned to be opened to loving people of many religions, but because my family was Christian I became a Christian.  Because one of my best friends was of Hispanic decent, my step family was full of Italian immigrants and and I was taught from childhood on that Jesus loves the little children, ALL the children of the world,  I didn't form any strong prejudices against those who were not of my strong German/Scottish decent.  My life experiences taught me to be who I am, they helped formed my beliefs.

What if I had been born in another country?  What if I'd been born into a family of a very different religion?  What if I'd been raised only with people of my own ethnic decent around me?  What if I'd been taught to only hate and fear those of other religions or races?  Who would I be then?  What beliefs would I hold?

It's apparent that my "beliefs" would be different depending on who raised me, where I was raised and what I was exposed to.  My beliefs would have been formed by my surroundings.  My beliefs could possibly be completely opposite of what I hold now.  I think though,  what would have remained the same is my inner spark.  Underneath all of those worldly experiences and beliefs would lie my inner spark, the divinity within.

Deep underneath all of those layers of what I believe and who I think I am lies who I really am, the "real" me.  My beliefs are not who I am, they are what I've learned.  Who I am goes so much deeper than just my beliefs. This is why it's important to not judge others for their beliefs.  This is why it's important to stop when we are judging and hating others based on their beliefs and try to see the divinity that lives deep within them.  It's when we realize that if it weren't for the good fortune of being born where we were born, we might have become who they appear to be, we might hold their exact beliefs.  It's time to see we can't fight hate with hate.

I'm not suggesting everyone has to let go of their beliefs, I'm suggesting that we stop using our own beliefs and the beliefs of others as a basis for judgment and hatred.  I'm suggesting that we understand that we don't have all of the answers, that no one has all of the answer, that our way isn't the only way and that when we think we've got everything all figured out and have all of the answers, everything will change again.  When this happens we have to be prepared to center ourselves, dig deep and see what new answers we find and explore those ideas and concepts with an opened heart and mind.  

It would be useful in times of confusion and change to meditate or pray to connect with the source of divinity and ask them to help guide us safely on our path.  We are never alone, the love of God lives within us and will always help see us through any questions, confusion, struggles and learning experiences that we must face.  They will help us to know that it's OK to not know the answers, we can let go of our need to know it all and say, "I don't know."   All we have to do is ask for their help and help will arrive.  This I do know.

Compassion Is Key

Having compassion seems to be a very important key to our healing.  But who exactly are we supposed to be compassionate with?  It's easy to see we should have compassion for our family and friends, the ones we are closest to and love deeply and have a connection with, but what about the nosy neighbor up the road, or the guy who's only purpose seems to be to see what he can get for free from others because the world owes him.  What about those who continually make choices that seem to make them miserable or those who are outright hostile towards us, certainly we shouldn't have to show compassion to them should we?  Shouldn't we reserve our compassion for only those who are truly deserving of it and how do we determine who is truly deserving of it?

I can think of one phrase or guideline that tells us who deserves our compassion,  Love Thy neighbor as Thy self.  In my eyes that pretty much covers everybody.  Notice, it doesn't say, love those neighbors who love you back or love those neighbors who share your point of view, beliefs, religion, skin color or any other outer factor that can separate us.  It simply tell us to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Couldn't we go further and say this also means, love our neighbors, ALL of our neighbors as if they are ourselves, seeing us all as one.  It seems, like most things in life, it's left us to us to interpret the phrase and see what feels "right" with our own soul.

I've often hear people speaking of compassion verses pity, saying that we should show others compassion, rather than pity.  I've found myself wondering  what exactly is the difference between the two.  What do people mean by this statement, this point of view that we should show compassion, rather than pity?

Let's look at the definition of the words.  Compassion is sympathetic consciousness of the distress of others together with a desire to alleviate it.  Pity is sympathetic sorrow for one who is suffering, distressed or unhappy. AHA do you notice the difference?  Compassion contains consciousness, pity contains sorrow.
Consciousness is a state of being aware, especially of something within oneself and sorrow is deep distress, sadness or regret, resultant in an unhappy or unpleasant state.  Which one of these would best serve us and be most beneficial to all involved?

If we are showing compassion we are being aware of the distress of others and desiring to alleviate it.  If we are showing pity we are finding ourselves in a state of deep distress or sadness and feeling regret for others who are distressed.  Basically we are now putting ourselves into a state of distress...Holy Cow!

After looking deeply into all of this it would seem to me that if we truly want to be helpful and transform distressful situations we will put our emotions aside to the best of our ability and look within our self to find compassion instead of pity for all of the people in every situation.  Doing this keeps us from getting sucked into being distressed ourselves and adding negative energy to situations that are already negative and stressful.  Showing compassion to ALL keeps us from causing division, it holds us all as one, worthy of love and understanding, even when outwardly we may not seem to deserve this.

With love and compassion to ALL, Mary Beth

Simple Words

Sometimes a few simple words can touch us more deeply than the most profound statements we've ever heard.  Simple heart felt words such as Thank You,  I hear you,  I see you,  I'm here for you,  You are not alone, I miss you, I understand and I love you, can have more impact on a persons life than the most brilliant of speeches.  Many times my whole outlook has been changed in an instant by these words. May our hearts and the hearts of those around us be touched and transformed by such simple words.

Cleaning Our Brushes

One thing I've learned on this journey is if we really want to heal something and be free of it, we have to take a really good hard look at it.  If we stuff the "bad" things that happen to us away instead of facing them and working through them, they live deep inside us festering and popping up when we least expect it.

It's important to look at our issues, the things that bother us in life and our difficult times so that we can work through them, learn any lessons there are to learn from them and then be able to release them so that they don't control us or hold us back in any way.

When we look at these experiences it's important to do it with an opened heart and mind, not looking for someone to blame, but looking to see what part we were playing in the story and what exactly it was that we were trying to accomplish in the scene.  It's important to see what role we played and take responsibility for our own actions leaving judgment out of the picture.  Instead of looking and thinking...who's to blame for this, it is helpful to look with the thought...what was the purpose of this?

If we desire to heal and move forward, letting go of the past is a very important step we need to take.  Our past forms who we are, but only because it teaches us lessons that we use as we move forward in our world.  We aren't meant to be stuck in our past or to use it to judge and condemn ourselves or others.  If we get stuck in our past and cling to it, there will be no room for growth and progression in our lives.  If we let go of our past we don't lose anything, the experiences are still a part of us, we simply no longer use them to define who we are.

Our life is a work of art and we are the artist. The future is ours to paint,  but first we must clean our brush of the old paint so that we can fill it with new paint and use it to create a beautiful picture.  Let's look at our past with the intention of cleaning our brush so that we can create a bright, beautiful new work of art.

Follow YOUR Path

How do we know when something or someone we come in contact with is off?  There will be times when we come across people who seem to have all of the answers and seem to be doing all of the "right" things and we may feel compelled to in a sense follow them or cling to them and their ideas and point of views.  What we have to remember is that we always have to use our own discernment with everything we encounter in our world.  We have been given a natural intuition, a sort of radar to help us know what rings true for us and what speaks to our soul and will keep us on our own path.

We all have our own path to follow, no one has a specific path that is the only path for us to be on, if someone tells us they have the only way, this might be an indicator that we should pay close attention to what is being said, feel for our self what we agree with and what we don't, listen for what rings true for us and what doesn't.  These people may be on the "right" path for them, but that does not mean it is the path for everyone and it does not mean that we we have to follow their exact path.

Another good indicator is the person's actions.  Observe closely, listen and see if the persons actions follow their words.  Are they speaking of one thing and acting out in another way?  Do they speak of love and then display judgment and hate?  Do they speak of Oneness and then shut themselves away from others or avoid groups.  Do they speak of the light within us all and then act as if only they have the true light?  Do they speak of understanding and then act as if they have no understanding of their own beliefs?  Do they speak of the power of positive thinking and then act out in negative ways or spread negative ideas?

We must use our own discernment, our observations skills, our ability to look and listen and understand when someone is speaking in one manner and acting in another.   We have the ability to open our hearts and minds and see for ourselves what speaks to who we are and what keeps us going in a direction we would like to go.  We can't be afraid to trust that and use it to help us along the way.

This doesn't mean we need to fall into judging those we don't agree with or those who seem a little off to us, it simply means that we are aware of our own inner truth and we are going to be brave enough to follow it.  This also doesn't mean that the information that these people are sharing is completely off, it may simply mean that they have information that they themselves are not fully ready to accept yet.  Remember, we all have our own lessons to learn, we all are on different paths leading to the same place.

The point is that we have to be paying attention, we have to look and listen and follow our own discernment when it comes to taking in information that is presented to us from those outside of us.  There are many who serve as great teachers, some will display behaviors that show us how we don't want to be in the world, some will display behaviors that show us how we do want to be in the world, the most effective teachers will show us that our answers are within us and will help us to learn how to look for them and embrace them, they won't be trying to change our ideas or beliefs or mold us into who they want us to be.

"New" Point of View

Sometimes life gets really difficult and it's hard to see any beauty or joy in anything around us.  It can seem as if we make it through one difficult situation just to be hit with another and another or sometimes they even pile up all at the same time.  It can seem almost as if no matter what we do life just keeps knocking us down.  How do we handle such difficult times?

It's easy when we go through times like this to get really down and depressed and to wallow in pity for ourselves and our situation, but what is this going to accomplish?  Will we feel better if we continually focus on all that is "wrong" or "bad" in our lives?  How will constantly focusing on our struggles, disappointments and frustrations effect our lives?  Some say whatever our mind is focused on is what is drawn into our life, so what do you think happens if we constantly focus on what has gone wrong, what is wrong and what could go wrong in our lives?

I understand that a lot of people think positive thinking is just a load of new age babble, but I've personally seen it help turn lives around.  Do bad things stop happening and lives become fairy tale like immediately?  No, probably not, but the way we deal with the things that happen, the way we react to the people around us and our world changes and it becomes easier to be in the world and WE become easier to be around, which helps those around us feel less stress and in turn creates a happier atmosphere for everybody.

Turning around from being a negative person to being a person with a positive point of view is not always easy, but it can create changes in our world that we never imagined were possible.  It might be very difficult at first, but like with all things, the more we practice, the easier it becomes.

First we have to have the desire to be different in the world.  We have to decide that we want to try living in a different way.  Then we have to set the intention to be different.  At night before we go to bed we can think, tomorrow will be a good day, I am going to be positive and happy.  In the morning before we get out of bed we can think, today is going to be a good day,  I am going to be positive and loving to everyone.  It's as easy as that to set our intention.  Then we have to put our intention into action by getting our thoughts under control and changing our negative point of view.  If a negative thought pops up, we simply allow ourselves to think it and then let it go and look for a positive thought to counter act  and replace it.  For example:  Uggg it's rainy again today, but the rain waters the flowers and helps cleanse the air, at least I have a nice warm dry house to be in.  It might take awhile to get used to doing this and we might even find ourselves laughing at the interesting or lame positive point of views we come up with, this is good, laughter is always good!

Most importantly we have to be gentle with ourselves and not get upset if we have difficulty while learning to do this.  We need to remember to be positive and loving towards ourselves!  If our mind wants to go on a rampage of negative thinking it is very helpful to simply say STOP and refocus our thoughts on something else.  Beating ourselves up about it will serve no purpose. 

We also need to remember to not get discouraged if we don't see any immediate changes in our world or if the people around us have a strong reaction to the "new" us.  It's a good idea to be patient and gentle with everyone, including ourselves, as we practice our positive thinking and way of looking at our world.  We have to understand that "bad" things will probably still happen, but we will be able to handle them better and work our way through them with less difficulty.  Perhaps as we work our way more gracefully through each situation we will even begin to see that life isn't so bad and eventually life will become not so bad!  How wonderful would that be?

Change Comes From Within

We can't change anybody but ourselves.  We hear this all the time, but what does it really mean?  For me it means that we need to stop trying to change everyone around us, we need to stop trying to get everyone to agree with our point of view or even understand our point of view and we need to stop looking outside of ourselves to find answers for our own questions.  It's accepting that everyone has their own point of view and their own truth within themselves and no matter what we do, we can not change what they see, understand or know.  It' realizing that we are only responsible for ourselves and that no one outside of us is creating what we see around us.

No one outside of us has all of the answers for us, our answers lie within us.  It seems if we continue to seek outside of ourselves to discover the answer  to all of our questions or the solution to all of our problems we usually only find more questions and more problems.  There is nothing outside of us creating anything for us, so it seems to make sense that we should look within ourselves to find the answers and solutions for our questions and problems.

I found all of this really frustrating and hard to believe, but once I began to take the time to look within myself and then trust what I found, I began to see changes in my life, some of them tiny and gradual, some of the life changing and almost over night.

Like everything important, learning to look within ourselves and trust ourselves takes practice.  First we have to learn how to quiet ourselves, to look past the voices of our ego and those around us who have told us who we are and what we should be.  There are many different methods for quieting ourselves, we can use yoga, meditation, breathing exercises, our process can be as simple as using focusing techniques such as focusing on the flame of a candle for a set period of time or shutting the rest of the world out while listening to relaxing music or as elaborate as lighting candles, putting on music and following a guided meditation, there is no set right or wrong way to do this.  The most important part of the process is taking the time to stop and look inside ourselves with the intention of going to the very center of our being and connecting with the very center of our heart, the love center where our true self lives.

We have to go into ourselves with the understanding that within each of us is the spark of divinity, underneath all of our layers of pain and confusion and ugliness is love and light, it's in there just waiting for us to see it.  We can quiet the voices of our mind and focus on the understanding that we are loved, we are full of love and we are capable of sending love out to others.  Once we understand this and can connect with this, we will begin to trust ourselves and will be able to speak from our heart.  When we speak from the deep center of our heart it is easier to relax and know that our words are coming from the truth within us.  All of us have love and truth within us, there are no exceptions, we just don't all look and trust what we see or follow what we know.  We have free will and we can choose to follow our heart center or not.

Others outside of us are like a mirror showing us either a reflection of how we would like to be or how we would rather not be, but we must look within ourselves to find who we really are and then choose what we want to present to the world.  WE have the choice to be who we want to be, no one around us or outside of us can make that choice for us or is responsible for who we are or the words and actions we present to the world.  Our choices create who we are, we can see ourselves as ugly and unlovable, miserable and pityful, beautiful and full of love or joyous and peaceful, it's up to us.

We have to be very careful about what energy we allow within ourselves and what energy we put out into the world because whatever we think, feel or do will be reflected in our world around us,  whatever we put out there is what comes back to us.  If we put our anger and hate, or world will be full of anger and hate, if we are judgmental and unloving, our world will feel condemning and loveless, if we begin to put out positive energy our world will begin to take on a positive form.  We have to decide if we want to focus on the positive or the negative, if we want to put out positive or negative energy and thoughts into the world we see around us.  We have to take responsibility for our own actions and thoughts and decide what we want our world around us to look like and then focus on the most positive vision of our self and our world as we can.

There will be difficulties in our world and we will come across many people who seem very difficult and unable to look within themselves and take responsibility for their own situations and their own actions, but if we can center ourselves and focus within, we will know how to handle these situations and we will not get sucked into their drama.  We will learn to have empathy for people and understand their struggles without being sucked into feeling pity for them or being dragged down to their level of negativity.  We will learn to be supportive of them without agreeing with everything they say or do and we will be able to speak to them from our hearts understanding they have the choice to hear what we say and accept it or not.  We will be able to let go of the idea of changing anyone else or teaching them to understand what we understand or to make better choices and we will merely offer our support with the understanding that they are on their own journey and we can't do their work for them, it is up to them to do their work for themselves.  We will learn to focus on our self and what we want our world to look like and be able to take responsibility for what we are putting out into our world.

If we want to change our world we have to start with ourselves and stop worrying about everyone else.  It's as simple as that.