Having Compassion For Yourself

In the years I've been writing I haven't yet gotten to this topic, which isn't surprising given how much easier it is for most of us to offer compassion to others than it is to have deep compassion for ourselves.  It seems that the very definition of being a good person must include trying to understand that others have different perspectives than we do, seeking to forgive when others have somehow wronged us, and just generally taking the high road and cutting other people some slack.  I think we would do well to remember to include ourselves in this gentle approach.

Many of us tend to be harder on ourselves than on others.  I see other people facing challenges and sometimes acting in negative ways, and compassion comes easily.  My deep intention in those times is to find a way to understand, and to forgive.  I send my prayers out into the universe for the best to happen for them, and I know that it is done.  I try to remember to allow my best and highest to express in the situation, too, and know that it is also done.

I'm finding that compassion for myself needs to go deeper than that.  I'm seeing now that it's not wrong or selfish to focus more on compassion for myself than for others. That's a different approach for me, but I see the importance of it.

The more intentional we are about listening to ourselves, taking the time to hear what we need to do to take care of ourselves, feeling and honoring our emotions, and holding ourselves in compassion and love, we are a light in the world, allowing others to do the same.

When I step out of trying to fix a situation for someone else and focus instead on my own wholeness, I find myself again in truth where everything around me is already perfect, and there is nothing that I or anyone else need to do better or differently.

When I seek first to understand myself, and forgive myself, and then cut myself the same slack I would for another, I am holding a space for divine love.  When I shift my awareness to seeing myself, and the situation, as God does, there is limitless compassion.

May you find compassion first for yourself, and may this tool be a blessing. . .

Asking for Help

It can be hard sometimes to ask for help. We feel the need to manage things on our own because we don’t want to appear incapable or weak, or because we don’t want to burden others. Or maybe we just get so caught up in pushing our way through something that the thought of seeking help doesn’t even occur to us.

There have been countless, everyday situations in my life when my load was made lighter because I decided to ask for help. There have been times when I probably should have asked for help but didn’t, and other times when I felt uncomfortable asking but did it anyway, and was later gratefully aware of what a gift it was to be unexpectedly held by another in my time of need. I’ve also been able to move forward from major, life-altering events in my life because I reached out and someone was there on the other side to grab my hand.

We all experience these times in life when maybe we could go it alone but it’s difficult, or when we just can’t manage something by ourselves. When it’s hard to ask for help, I’ve found that just choosing to be willing to seek help with something opens the door for Divine Consciousness to present the help I need in the most perfect way.

As the song says, “We get by with a little help from our friends,” or from our family, a stranger we encounter, a caring professional, or from that perfect passage that jumps out at us from a book we’re reading. The key for me seems to be the willingness part - being willing to acknowledge that I am confused and stuck, and that God in her infinite expression will provide the answer I need. I just need to ask so that I can be answered.

I’ve learned what a gift asking for help can be to the person providing the help. There is a state of grace inherent in caring for, and being cared for by another. In helping another we know ourselves as strong, and loving, and compassionate. And in being helped by another we are able to experience the truth of how precious we are.

May you trust that the help you seek awaits you, and may this tool be a blessing. . .

Letting the Best Happen

The world shows up to us in the way that we expect.  We have no idea of the extreme power that our expectation has in taking what we are given, and turning it into reality.  It's the difficult times that allow us to bring this power forward most dramatically, when we can turn a distressing circumstance into a miracle, all by what we choose to expect.

I've learned to be grateful, or at least be willing to try to be grateful, when a situation arises that makes me feel hopeless or out of control.  In these moments I am given the opportunity to own who I really am, a child of God able to spin the rough straw of an unpleasant situation into the bright, precious gold that is the truth I wish to create.

There is no painful reality that can persist when I hold it next to Divine Consciousness.  Sometimes I picture the problem out in front of me, looking very dark and sharp-edged, and then watch as Divine Consciousness surrounds it in a gold light that opens and softens, and all good things are again possible.  For me this is an example of heaven on Earth, our ability to create as God in human form.

In those moments when we are most challenged, all we need do is offer the prayer to "Let the very best happen," and it is done.  In this way we are like alchemists, using the laboratory of our human experience to transmute what is the most base in us to our highest, most noble expression.  We can repeat this prayer as often as needed, expecting that it will happen, and then stand back and watch as our unlimited power manifests and we express ourselves as God.

When we are confused or angry or scared, turning it over to Divine Consciousness to simply let the best happen relieves us of the burden of staying that way, and of needing to have solutions when we're feeling the most stuck.  It creates space for the vast creative power that lives within us and in all things to work its magic.  As we expect the best and highest outcome, it is done unto us.

May you invoke many miracles by letting the best happen, and may this tool be a blessing. . .

Standing in Grace and Gratitude

I heard a song at Unity last weekend, and woke up with it in my head this morning.  It happens fairly often, and I always appreciate the voice of God, speaking to me as I dream, helping me remember.
The song is "Grace And Gratitude" by Olivia Newton-John.

All I have and all I feel
Is all because of you
All I reap is all I sow
And love is our living proof

Thank you for life
Thank you for everything
I stand here in Grace and Gratitude
And I thank you

Seasons come and seasons go
No matter what we choose
A thousand names
A thousand roads
All lead to one simple truth

Thank you for life
Thank you for everything
I stand here in grace and gratitude
And I thank you

Being God, in the Middle of an Otherwise Ordinary Life

Another door has opened on my personal spiritual path, and so the direction of this blog is getting ready to take an exciting new turn.

Daily Spiritual Tools has always been about remembering the deep, abiding truth within us that we are God. I've delighted in sharing many of the tools I've learned and used, and in celebrating the spiritual teachers who have affected me so profoundly, both in person and through the books they've written.

The spiritual tools in this blog have literally saved my life, as they have helped me remember that I am its sole creator. Knowing that with ever-growing certainty has taken me from seeming hopelessness to truth, and has been a deep joy.

My heart is urging me now to put more "feet" to the truth that the tools so consistently help me remember. And so I move into a new phase of turning my remembering truth into practicing it much more consciously. Jesus said, "Ye are Gods," and I believe that to be true. As God, I'm ready to try my hand at creating some miracles!

I've been aware of creating miracles before, at least I thought they were miracles, except when my head was telling me they were coincidences. Creating the job I now have was the most conscious act of creating the seeming impossible that I'd ever done, and it's still hard to own it as the miracle that it was 13 years later. One thing's for sure, if I'm God, then I want to take all I've been given and run with it!!

Right now, thinking about it, there are quite a few miracles in the hopper. As God, I can heal my back of the herniated disc that's been keeping me in pain at night and thinking of the troubling stories I've heard from others with progressing back troubles. Mostly I forget that I can create this miracle and so I worry instead.

In the middle of having a son in college, an aging mom who needs financial help, investments that sunk, housing values that went in the wrong direction, and approaching retirement, I forget, too, all the time that I can create the miracle of abundant money. This is just the beginning of the many small and large miracles I want to create!

I plan to focus on creating the miracles that are important to me, especially the ones that seem unattainable. If all goes well, I'll move on to even bigger ones as this becomes clearer to me. The highest and best part of me knows that I can create any and all miracles that I choose, but that part is also very quiet, getting lost in the noise of why I can't. 

I was was going to say wish me luck, but God doesn't need luck, right? I have a feeling I'm about to find out. . .

Living in Prosperity

Sometimes when I need inspiration I open one of my favorite books and let a chapter speak to me, knowing that the right words will appear. Recently I opened Florence Scovel Shinn’s The Game of Life and How to Play It, and was again awed by her vast understanding of the unbounded creative power that we all have. What an amazing teacher she was!

My husband and I have had more than the usual amount of money going out lately, and I’ve been feeling limited in our finances, so I wasn’t surprised when the chapter on The Law of Prosperity caught my eye. I appreciate Shinn’s perspective on creating abundance in finances, and in all things.

Reading that short chapter reminded me that I choose what truth I will serve. Holding on to worry about the possibility of not having enough money for everything we want to do is not me expressing the highest I’m capable of. I know this (on some days, at least!), but thank Goodness that life provides me with as many opportunities as I need to keep remembering the truth.

Shinn puts it well when she says that, “getting into the spiritual swing of things is no easy matter for the average person. The adverse thoughts of doubt and fear surge from the subconscious. They are the ‘army of aliens’ that must be put to flight. This explains why it is so often ‘darkest before the dawn.’

A big demonstration is usually preceded by tormenting thoughts.

Having made a statement of high spiritual truth one challenges the old beliefs of the subconscious, and the error is exposed to be put out.

This is the time when one must make his affirmations of truth repeatedly, and rejoice and give thanks that he has already received. ‘Before ye call I shall answer.’ This means that every good and perfect gift is already man’s, awaiting his recognition.”

The simple truth is that God is my supply, and there is a supply for every demand.

Financial prosperity is a vibration, a reality that I consciously choose to call to myself. What is mine to do is acknowledge what I need, and then give thanks for it, knowing that it is mine and will come to me at the perfect time, and in the perfect way.

I can do that! Thank you, Florence Scovel Shinn!

May this tool be a blessing. . .

Allowing the Noise

A friend of mine from Unity told me recently that he is never able to quiet his mind. One of the problems that this is creating for him is that he feels completely unable to meditate.  I felt a lot of empathy for him because it seemed that he felt like he should be able to quiet his mind, and wanted to, but for reasons unknown to him just didn’t have the ability to.

His feeling that he lacks something that is intrinsic to all of us as part of our spiritual nature moved me to jump in and suggest another possibility.  And his comments prompted me to think more about the idea of the importance of quieting the mind.

I agree that it can be difficult to hear the quiet voice of spirit within when our minds are busy with life’s many details.  And I do believe that we are better able to live from our highest and most conscious intentions when we take the time to slow down and detach from the world on a regular basis so that we can access our own deep truth.

But the reality is that minds like to be busy.  Our busy minds are the things that create our individual experience and expression, and that provide our humanness.  And through our humanness we uniquely express God within.  Our minds are a powerful and sacred tool in God’s expression.

I know there are those very special people who have practiced long enough that they can spend long amounts of time with a completely empty mind.  But what about the rest of us seekers who are doing our best to find the divinity in all of our experience, including the noisy mind that defies taming?

I have found in my own meditation practice that it’s not the level of emptiness of mind that matters but just that I’m paying attention to what’s moving through.  At times my mind has been so busy that successful meditation was setting a timer so that I could make myself just sit quietly for a prescribed amount of time.  That doesn’t happen much anymore, though, because I’ve learned a little better to not fight what’s happening when I meditate.

Just stopping to notice the mind’s activity is a meditation.  When we can notice and acknowledge a thought it loses its hold and we can let it go.  In unconsciousness our thoughts spin unchecked and we feel unable to quiet the mind’s din.  And what we resist we give energy to, so fighting the mind’s noise just makes it noisier. 

But when we allow our meditation to be an opportunity to just sit with ourselves and be with ourselves, in awareness of what is real for us in that moment, the mind will often quiet on its own, without any effort needed.  (Or not, depending on the day, but even that is a meditation as we learn to watch the noise and see it for what it is, thoughts passing by that we can choose to attend to or not.)  We gain mastery by watching the mind’s pandemonium, and seeing our thoughts for the fleeting things that they are.

So take regular time to be the watcher of your own divine mind, and honor its role in helping you define what you will hold as true, and what you will allow to move past you.

May this tool be a blessing. . .