Don't Sweat the Small Stuff!

And it's all small stuff, or so the saying goes.  It was a favorite of my grandmother's, who used to tell me, "Don't sweat the small stuff, Sweetcheeks!"  Sometimes the simple, common sayings that we take for granted can be a source of great wisdom.

I'm not sure that it's all small stuff, but I think most of it is definitely small stuff.  It's human nature to project our what-ifs out into a future that hasn't even happened yet.  I do know that for me, most of the things I find myself concerned with on any given day I won't remember six months from now, let alone at the end of my days when I'm looking back at what made my life exceptional, worthwhile, and uniquely mine.

The small things can take a big amount of energy if we let them, so there's a balance to be found in attending to them.  Keeping my house clean, or at least clean enough, I consider small stuff, but the quality of my life would be greatly reduced if I didn't consider it at all.  And I'm really grateful that I have a house, and this particular small thing, to deal with.

I remember a message at Unity a few months ago in which Rev. Ken suggested that we ask ourselves, "What am I willing to do to create an exceptional outcome?"  It occurs to me that we can ask this of ourselves about a particular situation, the day in general, or about our lives as a whole.  Focusing our attention on how we can be our best selves in a moment or with our lives helps take the attention off of the frequent, nagging, and in-the-long-run less important issues that surface.

A common example that comes to mind is those drivers on the road who cut us off in their hurry to get where they're going.  Rude drivers don't get to me very often, but they drive my husband crazy.  (Honey, are you reading this?)  One response is to sweat it, and thereby give it more power than it deserves over the quality of my day.  Another response would be to ask what I'm willing to do to create an exceptional outcome in the situation.  I find this amusing to think about - a very lofty consideration for a very small event.   Maybe blow the driver a kiss?  Or perhaps just choose to bless and see the Christ within him (or her) and move on with the gift of what's ahead.

What am I willing to do to create an exceptional outcome in this day?  It's a bit hard to think about, because I'm accustomed to just doing what I do in the roles that I fill, and that takes up quite a bit of the creative energy that I put into my day.  But what if I took back just a little of the energy that it takes to fulfill my roles, and use it to decide what I will do that's new or different, something exceptional.  I don't think exceptional has to mean untoppable each and every day, but special in a way that will make the day more memorable.

What am I willing to do to create an exceptional outcome in my life?  I believe this is a work in progress, and is created each day, in every thought we have and each choice that we make.  The answer to this question certainly changes as we learn and grow, accomplish our goals and move on to new ones.  In each moment we can choose to create an exceptional outcome, for this very moment is the moment that we live.

My husband's aunt, who is beginning to be affected by Alzheimer's, is coming to dinner along with my father-in-law, my son and his girlfriend.  I think I'll make cupcakes for them, just because.

May your moments be every shade of exceptional, and may this tool be a blessing. . .

Joy

At a meeting last week, some coworkers and I were talking about something one of them had read recently, which I thought was wonderful. It was, simply, “What are the 10 things that bring you the most joy? Why aren’t you doing them?” For me this is a very worthy question, and gets right to the heart of the matter of creating the life we're meant to live.

We are here to fulfill every dream for ourselves that we can conceive, and in this way honor God within us, as limitless creators in our own right. But what is commonly accepted is that we will move through our days mostly doing what is expected of us, and not give nearly enough thought to choosing to do what brings the most joy.

Watching my son, who is now in college and juggling work, school, rehearsals, and a growing number of responsibilities, it occurs to me how early in life this happens. I'm grateful that he loves what he does.  We work hard today for rewards to be had later, hopefully, when school is finished or we’ve found a good job, or it’s time for vacation from work or retirement. I like to think that in most cases those rewards do come to pass, but what about now? I believe that we can strive to accomplish those things that are important to us, but not get so lost in the striving that we miss knowing joy in today.

I tried it this morning, writing a list of 10 things that bring me the most joy. And what I found is that it contained simple things like dancing and backpacking, listening to God within me and nurturing my body, the beloved expression of my soul.

I’m finding that joy is a very moment-to-moment thing. There have been many big things that I’ve worked hard and planned for in my life, and they were unforgettable, but the conscious decisions that I’ve made to find joy in the small daily events are what have brought the most peace and happiness.

When the big things come up that I want to do, I find a way to do them with relish and remember them always - one noteworthy example is skydiving.  I've done it a few times and it's always amazing like nothing else I've experienced.  It's huge fun, but I can't say that having done it brings joy to my life.  As great as the big things are, they don’t add as much depth and meaning and love to my days as the simple things on my list.

Others will likely find a completely different focus in considering what 10 things bring the most joy, but the important question remains, if there are things on your list that you are not doing, what better time to begin than now?

May this tool be a blessing. . .

Sound Healing

I was blessed today to experience the profound healing that can come from sound.  I don't know a whole lot about the subject, because sound isn't the type of healing that I have focused on in my life.  But I understand the importance of changing vibration in order to initiate healing, and sound is, of course, vibration.  In my own meditation, I have experimented with my breathing and allowing myself to release by sighing with the outbreath, and I have noticed that it creates a deeper sense of connection and softening within my body.  I know many of you have experience with sound healing techniques and I hope you share them here.

I am frequently healed by music.  I have a playlist on my IPod called "spirit songs," which has many of the songs that help me feel connected to the peace and truth that is the God within me.  Today, I was healed watching my son's final concert of the season with the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra.  I was enraptured by the first piece, called The Chairman Dances, composed in 1985 by John Coolidge Adams.  My son tells me that I prefer minimalism.  I don't understand much about that because I'm not  a musician, but I did notice that the pace and starkness of it allowed me to feel as if I could almost taste each sound, and was left waiting expectantly for the next one.

The concert brought me to tears, listening to those young people making such perfectly exquisite music.  That a fellow human being had the talent and vision to conceive such beauty to begin with, and the musicians had the commitment and passion to pour their hearts into the beauty of it, and that they can all come together and weave each of their parts into such a heart-rending, exquisitely beautiful whole speaks to me of the never-ending good that is us, expressing our greatness.  There can be no real ill in a world where that can take place.

I received another sound healing earlier today, at our Unity service.  A woman by the name of Denise DeSimone spoke about a video she created called "Pray Peace," which is a compilation of prayers for peace from all around the world, set to moving images and music.  Denise had stage IV cancer and was given a very short time to live.  She now coaches other cancer survivors and has created a program around sound healing, which includes chanting, breath and sound techniques, and specific combinations of tones (my son would understand more about this).  She also has a CD available called "Make a joyful noise - a meditation using sound."  I'm really grateful that I was able to learn about the amazing work she is doing in the world.  You can visit her website here.

Edgar Cayce is quoted as saying that the medicine of the future is sound.  May we be open to its healing vibrations, and may this tool be a blessing. . .

In Nothing Be Anxious

My mind lately has been tending toward worried thoughts, for reasons not fully known to me.  I believe I'm matching the energy of fear that is so pervasive in the world today.  It's also likely that some of it is hormone-driven. . . such is life.   It's amazing how quickly my thoughts can turn to concern if I let them race by unchecked.

As I began my meditation today, I was wondering about what tool I could use for the worry that creeps in for no apparent reason.  I decided to pick up my copy of The Writings of Florence Scovel Shinn, and flipped to the back of the book looking for a table of contents.  There wasn't one, but the very next thing I flipped to was the first page of a chapter called "In Nothing Be Anxious."  Perfect!  It caused a chortle, in my delight at yet another demonstration of the unfailing truth that we always find what we seek.

I was reminded that I just need to change my mind.  For as many years as I've been practicing meditation, and learning about the truth of myself as the creator of my experience, my mind still runs amok at times.  That is the nature of the mind, and I'm learning not to get too stuck on where it goes.  Rather than resisting the unbidden thoughts, or even trying to understand them, it's much easier to acknowledge them and then just let them go.  Holding on just gives them more control over my experience.

Scovel Shinn adds another important piece to this in her book when she says that "Infinite Intelligence will express through (us) as success, happiness, abundance, health and perfect self-expression, unless fear and anxiety make a short circuit."  She goes on to say that it is more than just a matter of visualizing, or making a mental picture of Infinite Intelligence expressing freely through us, but "it must be a spiritual realization, a feeling that you are already there; . . . in its vibration."

For me, this spiritual realization is faith, in life, in myself and the process, and in the God who made me.  Faith creates within us the vibration of being open to our good.  When we have our eyes open to the perfect creative intelligence that we're part of, we'll always find the right chapter, and exactly what we need on our own divine path.

May this tool be a blessing. . .

Being in Your Bubble

It takes all kinds to make a world, as one of my favorite sayings goes. There is room for humanity to express itself, individually and collectively, in absolutely any conceivable way under the sun, in order for us to know ourselves more fully as God. There is no limit to how a life can declare itself, or to the circumstances that it can create in finding its path to the truth.

I honor and appreciate the profound grace inherent in our ability to choose a life of our own making, but that doesn’t always mean that I want to be part of what other people think, or create. As sensitive spirit inhabiting physical form, we are all affected by the energy of others’ creations in both positive and negative ways.

If you bump into someone who is in the middle of creating a very accepting, love-filled day and you get a big smile or a hug from that person, you will likely be affected by that reaction in an uplifting way. Similarly, if you encounter someone who is in the middle of nurturing a belief that they are not good enough for some reason, they may feel angry about seeing someone who appears to be doing better than they are, and that anger may cause you to walk away feeling like you somehow failed, regardless of how you had felt previously. These exchanges of energy happen to all of us on a moment-to-moment basis.

One reaction to finding ourselves affected by another in an uncomfortable way is to resist the person. Resistance doesn’t tend to help. It causes communication to break down and negative feelings to grow. A very helpful and proactive way to limit how much we are affected by where others are is a simple technique called being in your bubble, which goes as follows:

1. Spend a few moments with your eyes closed, quieting your thoughts.
2. In your imagination create a bubble all around you that is about a foot out from your body. I like to picture this as a big soap bubble that is clear but indestructible. Picture this in any way that works for you.
3. Notice yourself within this bubble, and acknowledge that any type of energy you don’t want to experience in your own body will be unable to get through the bubble, and will just bounce off.
4. Walk through your day within your bubble. Take a look at the bubble periodically just to affirm that it is there, and recreate it whenever you want to.

There are some really great reasons to use this tool to manage the energy that bounces around us all of the time. A big one for me is that it frees me up to create my own experience the way I choose, as I leave others free to their own expression. I don’t need to get into the struggle and discomfort of resisting what others are doing or thinking, because it happens outside of my bubble and doesn’t need to affect me.

Being in my bubble allows me to stand quietly and witness, and even admire the myriad ways that my fellow humans choose to express their greatness, and still be true to my own experience.

May this tool be a blessing. . .

The Miracle of Being in the Body

Beverley at Dragon Intuitive kindly asked me to do a guest post for her called The Miracle of Being in the Body, which I was happy to do.  Dragon Intuitive brings together an amazing amount of information on many different topics relating to spirituality and mysticism.

My son is home from college this weekend for Mother's Day.  I'm really looking forward to his visit!  My thoughts today are on being very much in the moment, and creating joyful memories.

May your Mother's Day be joyful as well, and may this post be a blessing. . .

Seeking Out Your Blessings

I was inspired to write today by a piece of chocolate – specifically by one of the Dove dark chocolate promises that have the little messages on the inside of the wrapper. I’ve always wondered why they’re called “promises,” but to me it implies that I will be receiving some type of special gift, and dark chocolate is definitely that! I would buy it even without the inspirational messages, but the spiritual tool that came with today’s after-lunch bite was (chocolate) icing on the cake!

My chocolate promise reminded me today that “Blessings only come to those who notice.” Such profound words of wisdom from a snack food! It is very easy to allow our blessings to go by unnoticed, especially when we are distracted by what we need to accomplish in a day. If we are too busy to take heed of the little things, we miss out on that delicious feeling of receiving gifts for no reason other than just being here.

I’ve noticed many blessings already today, both large and small. The alarm was set an hour early for some reason this morning, so when it went off, I had an extra hour to sleep! A man I didn't know held the door for me after lunch with a big, bright smile. I also got a very clear answer today from the God of my heart about an issue I’ve been pondering, and that was an even bigger blessing.

I had originally thought to title this post “Receiving Your Blessings,” but I changed it because I think the real spiritual tool here is the “seeking out” part. It isn’t that our blessings are lacking; they are ours for the taking. Spiritual “law” tells us that what we seek, we shall find. What we expect, we will receive. And what we focus on, we will create more of in our lives. Actively searching for the blessing inherent in each moment allows us to live more fully in well-justified gratitude, and honors the glory of our being.

May you find all of the sweet blessings your heart can hold, and may this tool be a blessing. . .

Prayer

My husband was dedicated today as a chaplain at our Unity church.  It got me thinking about the many different ways that we pray.  For years I was uncomfortable with the idea of prayer, because whatever special connection people I knew who prayed had with God, I didn't seem to have it.  It seemed to me at the time that prayer was all about someone asking God for something, and then having it materialize.  But the people I saw never seemed to be getting anywhere in the things they prayed for.  When they didn't get what they had asked of God, they explained it as "God's will," and left me wondering why people prayed in the first place.  I wasn't sure what talent or skill a person needed to have God not only hear them, but also answer.  Whatever it was, I knew I didn't have it.  It didn't seem like the people around me had it either.

As I've moved along on my own path, I've come to see prayer much differently.  I see now that because God lives in all things, she expresses not only through me but as me.  There is no separation between the God who hears my prayers and, well, me.   And so it is for us all.

Prayer for me now is ever-closer communication with the God within.  When I pray to the God outside of myself, I am praying to myself as well, to that all-knowing, ever-perfect and light-filled part of me that is God.  God and I are co-creators in this game called life, so I am in constant connection with divine order, perfect intelligence, and love that knows no bounds.  All that I choose to be, I am.  Prayer is saying hello to that.

I have always resonated with the way it is described in Neale Walsch's Conversations With God:  "The correct prayer is therefore never a prayer of supplication but a prayer of gratitude.  When you thank God in advance for that which you choose to experience in your reality, you, in effect, acknowledge that it is there . . .  Thankfulness is thus the most powerful statement to God; an affirmation that even before you ask, I have answered.  Therefore never supplicate.  Appreciate."

I recognize now that it is not about a God outside of me who answers prayers, sometimes.  We are part of a much more flawless reality.  There was a quote in the service at Unity today whose author I don't remember, but it went something like, "When God sees me in prayer, he sees me through the same eyes that I see him with."  The kingdom of heaven is within.

My husband has learned to pray with people, helping create a space where the truth of their own heaven within can come to light.  I still get down on my knees, sometimes, when I most need the comfort of feeling held by a power greater than myself, although I recognize that I exist as that power, too.  We can pray out loud, or in our heads.  A favorite form of prayer for me is writing letters to God, which I've described in previous posts.  I love writing, and for me the act of grounding my thoughts on paper, and then waiting for my hand to know what to write in response, is very clear and direct.

Prayer can be out loud, or silent.  It is not only speaking to God, but listening also.  Sometimes that's all I do, just sit and listen.  In truth, every thought we have is a prayer.

May you be grateful for prayers answered, and may this tool be a blessing. . .

Setting the Body's Energy

Everything we experience in this world is vibration.  Our thoughts and words, our interactions with others, and the interactions between groups of people all produce a certain vibration.  Our bodies, too, experience vibrations of energy, and are very sensitive to the energy happening around us.

An example would be answering the phone, and after hanging up noticing that you feel very different than you did before the conversation.  You may feel down and tired, or you may feel energized and uplifted, depending on the energy of the conversation, and of the person you were speaking with.

There are many tools we can use to influence the energy we experience within our bodies.  All begin with first choosing what you want to create, in your present experience.  It's not difficult to do in practice; probably the hardest part is remembering that we can choose how we want to experience our moments.

The other day I wanted to change the energy I was experiencing, to a higher level.  I wanted my body to match the vibration of my highest good.  At the Berkeley Psychic Institute, they sometimes use a technique called "bringing yourself up to gold."  Gold is often seen as the color, or vibration, of God, or truth, or our highest.  It is the color of clarity.  So I decided to use that tool to set the energy in my body.

A great thing about BPI is that they really focus on keeping spiritual growth like being in kindergarten, so many of the techniques are simple, and profoundly powerful in their simplicity.

The other day I practiced it in this silly way, in the energy of kindergarten:
1. Get comfortable and close your eyes
2. Breathe deeply and focus on yourself
3. Affirm to yourself that the color gold embodies the vibration of your highest good
4. In your imagination, see the color of one cell in your body (I used the tip of my nose) change to gold
5. Watch as the adjacent cells in your body match the gold one, and the gold vibration of your highest good spreads from cell to cell down and through your entire body
6. Feel yourself as gold, and expressing the truth of your highest good

You can use this technique to bring into your body any specific energy you'd like, such as peace, or enthusiasm or self-acceptance.

If you choose to try this, remember that it works best when we don't try too hard, so just have fun with it.  Our intention to have it be so is enough.  As we watch this manifest in our mind's eye, we enhance the strength of bringing it forward as our truth.

May this tool be a blessing. . .

Let There Be. . .

My life works best when I step back from all of my trying and worrying, and rest in the truth that it will evolve just as I envision, gently, beautifully and perfectly.

In the graceful, quiet days when everything around me is in peace, I joyfully affirm that divine order is at work in my life and in the world.  In the hectic, questioning days when I’m feeling like I’ll never get it right, my memories of infinite peace and trust in the process seem very far away indeed.  Creating a conscious life feels like a pretty big undertaking, like it should somehow require a great deal of thought, or study, or . . . ., something. 

By this time I’ve learned some tricks and tools for navigating my life’s course with intention.  I’ve practiced meditation for many years, enjoyed creating treasure maps and doing affirmations.  I love all of the many wonderful tools we have for experiencing truth.  They are all great, proactive things in creating a life with purpose. 

But how amazingly powerful that space is where we can allow the God within to express fully through us, where we can simply let there be, and it is done.  In just allowing something, there is no effort, no trying, no need even for being proactive.  Just an acknowledgement that all we need do is choose, and our experience reflects our decision.

There’s an amount of faith and trust needed in creating this way.  When I remember that I don’t need to try at all, but can simply allow whatever I need or want to be, my body calms down.  There is more space for me to be present in my body and in my experience.  I can express more of who I want to be because I’m not struggling against anything. 

It’s a peaceful place, in those moments.  But inevitably I’ll move on in my day, and some other detail will capture my attention, and I’ll forget about whatever I had decided to just allow to be.

It’s all part of the process.  Once I turn it over to the God within, it is done.  It may take some time for me to realize it, but my prayer has been answered.  I just need to have faith in the process.  Situations may arise that cause me to doubt that what I have allowed into being is real, but that is part of the process, too.  Faith really can move mountains. 

Tonight, in my quiet writing space, I choose to let there be perfect expression of the song in my heart.  And it is done.

May this tool be a blessing. . .

Being Impeccable With Your Word

Because our words have such tremendous creative power in our lives, it is important to be very conscious about the words that we use.  Just as we need to guard our thoughts, it is even more essential in living the life that we intend to use words that embody the energy we wish to manifest in our lives.  Our words are even more powerful than our thoughts in creating how our moments will unfold.

The words we choose, like our thoughts, are mostly unconscious.  We react to something and speak before we've decided if the words are a true representation of who we want to be.  I know I do.  It's very easy for me to forget to be deliberate about the words I speak.

In his book The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz devotes an entire chapter to being impeccable with your word.  It is one of the four agreements.  In it, he says that "Through the word you express your creative power.  It is through the word that you manifest everything."

Literally every word we speak promotes either truth, or fear.  Our statements act to enlighten ourselves and our world, or help hold them in darkness.  Even small, seemingly innocuous statements, like gossip or judging anothers' behavior, have far-reaching effects because they plant seeds of negativity.  Whether from truth or from fear, the opinions, ideas and concepts that we plant grow quickly in the mind's fertile soil.  Ruiz makes the point that our minds become fertile for the type of words that we use.  When we use words to promote positive thoughts, those are the kind that latch on and grow in our minds.  Such is the nature of the spiritual law of attraction, which is always at work.

I found it interesting that impeccable means "without sin."  Ruiz states that "a sin is anything that you do which goes against yourself."  Ultimately, all that we sow in our thoughts and words comes back to us, as the energetic code of that communication forms the reality of our experience.

According to the book, "When you become impeccable with your word, your mind is no longer fertile ground for words that come from (negativity).  Instead, it is fertile for the words that come from love. . .  How much you love yourself and how you feel about yourself are directly proportionate to the quality and integrity of your word.  When you are impeccable with your word, you feel good; you feel happy and at peace."

I am grateful for the reminder!

May this tool be a blessing. . .

Living From the Heart

I wrote some time back in a post called Heart-Focused Breathing about some amazing software I bought for my computer, called Em-wave, made by the Institute of HeartMath. The idea of heart-focused living is very interesting to me, and I've really enjoyed working with the software in my spiritual practice. I'm finding that, as with most things, it's easy to forget to stop and take advantage of this tool, but when I do, it creates alot of peace and grounding in my life.

The idea of it is that the normal changes in our heart rate as we inhale and exhale become more irregular when we are in stress. The Em-wave software uses biofeedback techniques to help people learn to focus their attention on the heart and quiet thoughts, thereby producing regular patterns of heart rate change - a state they call coherence.

It is accomplished by focusing on breathing through the heart, and then holding in mind a positive emotion, such as gratitude or caring. With practice, it gets easier and easier to maintain coherence, and the software lets you know how you're doing. It's an amazing product, really.

I recently became aware of another group doing research into heart-focused living, called the Institute of Noetic Sciences. The word noetic is derived from the Greek nous, for which, according to the institute's website, there is no exact equivalent in English. It refers to "inner knowing," a kind of intuitive consciousness—direct and immediate access to knowledge beyond what is available to our normal senses and the power of reason.

What fascinates me about the work they're doing is the idea that our thoughts and emotions affect the heart's electromagnetic field. The electromagnetic field produced by the heart is the largest in our bodies. This very powerful field can affect not only us but also those around us, and the entire world! I am excited and encouraged by this emerging field of study. Think of it, that as people learn more and more how to manage their thoughts and consciously choose what they hold to be truth, the electromagnetic field that they project into the world affects others! We have known this intuitively and clairvoyantly, that our energy affects people around us. But I really love the idea that science is learning ways to quantify the affect that each individual can have on the world by choosing to hold a positive belief or emotion.

What I'll take away from this new information is to more often place my attention on breathing into and out of my heart, from a place of gratitude, as explained in my earlier post on heart-focused breathing. From my practice on the Em-wave software, I know that this very quickly changes my heart rate pattern, as my focus turns from worry to one of peace and gratitude. And it's exciting to know that as I create peace in my heart, I help create peace in the world.

Click on the video clip above to watch a short video from the Noetic Sciences Institute.

May this tool be a blessing!

Guarding Your Mind

Unity is a big source of inspiration for me, as I'm sure you've noticed reading my posts.  Reverend Ken mentioned today that  "you need to guard your mind," and it jumped out at me as an important spiritual tool.  As I took it, guarding my mind means being the sentry at the gate, protecting my mind from any thoughts that diminish me, or others, or the world.  It is choosing to be that ever-vigilant, benevolent guardian that always serves the truth.

I am very aware of wanting to be the crafter of my own thoughts, and thereby bring my own dreams to light.  But it is so very easy to get caught up in speaking or thinking in ways that I don't even really want any part of.  I catch myself doing it all the time.  It's an interesting place, that moment when I recognize that I am holding something as true that I certainly don't want to perpetuate into the future.  But habit, or the old need to please others by not disagreeing with them, or some other form of unconscious, fear-based response kicks in and there I am again on auto-pilot.

I like the idea of being my own benevolent protector guarding my experience and serving truth.  To do that, I realize that I need to be more committed to being watchful of the words and thoughts that I don't want to give life to, and deny them, regardless of who might not agree, or understand.

As probably happens in many workplaces, among my coworkers the conversation lately turns fairly often to the economy, job losses, cities needing to eliminate emergency personnel, programs in public education being cut, the world going to hell in a handbasket.  I have many times joined in with the tsk-tsking, and nodded my head in agreement.  Surely, it is sad.  It is scary.  But that is not the reality I wish to seal our future with.  I am no longer in agreement to acquiescing, not even to a nod of the head.

I spoke to my dad a few days ago, and he was worrying about my husband's job (he's a public school administrator), and talking about how bad things are getting, people wanting to carry guns, and other things that the fear-promoting media is so adept at focusing on.

I am happy to say I didn't buy into the fear of the moment.  I told him that we trust the outcome and that the best will happen.  I told him that we are choosing not to participate in the recession, and that we will continue to look for the gift in all of it, because this life is nothing if not an amazing, enriching and wonderful gift.  At the end of the conversation my dad, who is an avid follower of the television news, said he was going to do something else with his time, and we both affirmed the perfection and divine order that we are part of, each in our own way.

That conversation could have gone a very different way, had I not been guarding my mind, and very consciously choosing the truth I wish to serve.  It would have been easy to just agree.  But in making a conscious decision to choose the reality I see and speak of that, his perspective was lifted, and mine, and the planet's.

I am grateful yet again for another tool in remembering the unlimited potential we have in creating the world we choose to see.

May this tool be a blessing. . .

Enlighten Up!

Most of us know at least one person who has the uncanny timing and ability to lighten the mood in a group of people, to raise the vibration when things start to get too serious. David, our music director at Unity, is like that. We can always count on him to keep things light with a spontaneous quip that gets us chuckling. He doesn’t take himself too seriously.

It is easy to regard ourselves and our life path with too much seriousness. I know I often do. It can seem like hard work at times, moving forward, trying to be the people we know in the deepest part of ourselves that we are, striving to be our best selves. We are taught that hard work brings results, and we apply that maxim to everything, including growing in our spiritual understanding. On the physical plane, hard work may accomplish results, but as unlimited creators of our experience, no more than our intention is needed to bring a dream to fruition. I need to enlighten up!

For me, there is absolutely nothing better than remembering that I don’t have to try so hard. We really don’t have to try at all. What a delicious truth, that perfection exists in and through everything, and we can just relax and bask in it. In our most peaceful, or most chaotic, days, divine order guides all. We can let go into the experience of all of it, comfortable or anxious, light-hearted or totally stuck. We have designed all of it as part of our soul’s playground.

I spent some time last night being incredibly grateful. I was thinking about some of the experiences I’d had yesterday, and became aware of the absolutely perfect way they provide me the opportunity to choose who I am, and who I want to be. In that moment, I knew myself as the designer of those experiences, every part of them, and I was God. There was no effort, because I knew that all that comes to me is good. I felt larger than I’ve ever been as I reviewed lifetimes of experience, and knew it was created not only by me, but though me, and also for me. It is all done for me. And I knew for just a few moments the profound love that called forth my being. I am forever changed.

May you know the lightness of being God’s love, and may this tool be a blessing. . .

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is the energy that turns the moments of our lives into magic.  Enthusiasm isn't something we must wait to feel; it is something we can cultivate as often as we remember.  I am always amazed by the incredible creative power we have, in each instant, to choose what we will experience.  In any moment, there are countless different things that could capture our attention.  We tend to focus on what we expect, based on past experience or what we've been taught.  In this way, experience can limit the flexibilty in how we see things.  We will always see what we expect, if we don't resist the temptation to believe everything we think.  Much of that thinking is old, outdated, and never originated with us anyway!

In order to be as fully open as possible to the gifts of this life, we must claim our power in creating a world of our own making.  We are not seeing the world as it is, we are making the world we see, based on our thoughts and beliefs about it.  Experience is not hard-wired, it is infinitely variable depending on what we decide to accept into awareness.

Right now I am delighted by the possibilities.  Am I struggling to find the right words, or am I writing with ease the thoughts that come from my heart?  This moment is an incredible gift in choosing my experience, and I send the vibration of that choice outward into ongoing creation.  How much importance and immediacy will I place on my awareness that my office is messy, and needs dusting?  There is no judgment here, for me just a decision about whether to deal with that now, or not.  Is needing to get ready for work soon an interruption in my enjoyment of the peace and warmth of the morning, or a valued opportunity for learning and growth, hearing the wonderful stories of my fellow travelers, and making my own contribution in the world?  In each moment there is the potential for any and all possibilities, but what I focus on dictates my experience.  It also creates the habit by which I begin to experience similar situations in the future.

Life is a struggle when in our awareness we are always responding to unwelcome situations that are thrust upon us to deal with.  When we choose to create our own experience instead of respond to the world according to a programmed set of expectations, it is so much easier to live in gratitude, enthusiasm, and ease.

So work awaits!  I will take the warmth of the sun, and the peace, with me through my day.  I will hold it in my awareness as I teach, and learn, and enjoy hearing the stories of the people I meet today.  And I will thank God for the ability to find the right words to gracefully convey the truth that I hold in my heart.

Today is the day that the Lord has made; rejoice and be glad in it!

May this tool be a blessing. . .

Living Your Bliss

Our dear Reverend Ken at Unity recently quoted Joseph Campbell as saying that the purpose of life is to live your bliss.  I do love that idea, that all we need do is decide what brings us the most joy, and allow those to be the most important things in our lives! This prompted me to consider bliss as the main purpose in life, and also to learn a little more about Joseph Campbell's philosophy.  I really enjoyed what I read, and have included some of his quotes here.  They reminded me of my son, Eric, so I dedicate this post to him.

It has occurred to me many times on my personal journey that the main reason we're here is to be happy.  I believe that we are meant to glorify as grandly as possible in our countless different ways the God that lives in and through each of us.  Moving through our periods of doubt and forgetting is part of the process of finding, and living our truth.  According to Campbell, "Where you stumble and fall, there you will find gold."

Campbell's ideas validate the incomparable gift of our being.  He said, "The priviledge of a lifetime is being who you are."  How well said!  It's so easy to get wrapped up in doing, that we don't delight in our awareness of being.  At the end of my days, what I did won't be nearly as important as how present I was in experiencing all of the moments of my life.

His idea that we create meaning through our experience was simply and rather bluntly put:  "Life has no meaning.  Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life.  It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer."  What is the meaning of life?  To simply be.  That is miracle enough.

I also appreciated reading his thoughts on our path in life.  "If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path.  Your own path you make with every step you take.  That's why it's your path."  Also, "If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's."  This for me emphasized the importance of living in the present moment.  Try as we might to nail things down into some manageable and predictable future, plans change as priorities shift.  We are constantly evolving, in the midst of creating who we are, and who we want to be.  Life happens, when we're busy making other plans.

Campbell had some wonderful ideas about our experience of challenge, and even though he died in 1987 his thoughts resonate today:  "We have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us.  The labyrinth is thoroughly known.  We have only to follow the thread of the heroes' path.  And where we thought to find an abomination, we shall find God.  And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves.  And where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our existence.  And where we thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world." 

The heroes' path, then, is having the courage to do what brings us joy, and not make any excuses for it.  It is choosing to seek the gift inherent in all circumstances.  It is taking ample time to revel in the glory of being alive, here and now in this small segment of eternity. 

Living our bliss is the heroes' path. I am grateful to have stumbled upon these wise words.

May you live your bliss, and may this tool be a blessing. . .

Declaring Yourself

When I was studying spiritual hands-on healing and clairvoyance at the Aesclepion Healing Institute, we practiced a technique called declaring yourself.  I was aware that this exercise creates more space to validate our unique expressions of being.  It is in effect a way to claim the space in creation to be our own extraordinary selves.

From that place where we are aware of being all that is, but also aware of being a unique person inhabiting a finite body, we declare ourselves using our names.  For me, it is "I AM, Sherry."  After spending some time quieting your thoughts and bringing your attention within, breathe deeply, and declare yourself to creation as many times as you feel comfortable with.  In this way, we bring our awareness of the vastness of our spirit into our human experience.

Eric Butterworth in The Creative Life explains a similar exercise of declaring our intention for ourselves in ongoing creation.  This exercise focuses on consciously denying our automatic negative thinking about who we are, and aligning with the truth of us, as expressions of all that is.  Habits of negative thinking are never the truth of us.  They come from ideas we've accepted throughout our lives, from various sources, all stemming from fear.  We can recognize our truth, though, because it always contains our highest thought.  When we are aware of a thought that comes from a lesser place, we can choose love, for the thought's source, and for ourselves for our forgetting.  In that moment we consciously create heaven on Earth.

Declaring yourself, from The Creative Life, is as follows:  "Take an inventory of negative or limiting declarations you have claimed for yourself.  You know your own list.  Recognize this is the conscious mind (the intellect) that judges by appearances and is not in tune with the creative flow.  Now turn them around using the words 'I AM.'  Identify yourself by the name of the Lord, I AM:

'I AM Life, vibrating as perfect health in every cell, organ and function of my body.'
'I AM the radiant Light of pure knowing.'
'I AM established in the divine flow of substance.'
'I AM protected.  I live under the shadow of the almighty.'
'I AM Love, and I AM secure in the energy of all true relationships.'

This is your creative genius, which knows its oneness with the Source (Infinite Mind, or God), and the words are powerful -- they are the spoken word of creation."

We always have a choice in the expression of ourselves that we paint onto the canvas of ongoing creation.  What picture of yourself do you want to bestow upon eternity?  Some of my declarations are that I am safe and protected as a blessed child of God, that I am a perfect and beautiful expression of light, and that the power of God the creator expresses in and through me.

Declaring yourself is claiming your best and highest as a being of light created in the image of God.  May your declarations always be worthy of you, and may this tool be a blessing. . .

Letting the Day Come to You

I am sure there are people in the world who live in constant awareness of divine order.  I am not one of them!  As I'm sure you've noticed in my writing, I often forget.  I get caught up in worrying about people, or anxious about how things will turn out.  Thankfully I get back to remembering that I have a choice about the reality I create through my thinking.   I write and teach to reaffirm this for myself.

This morning, I found myself swept up into my most common fear du jour, that I don't have enough time to do it all.  Oh, how enticing this false belief is!  When I'm not aware of myself beginning to slide down that slippery slope, before I realize what's hit me I am caught up in all kinds of negative thinking.  I get very focused on all that needs to get done, instead of just enjoying my moments.

One real benefit of life experience is that we are able to notice when we end up in places that we've been before.  Our stuck places are more familiar, and we gain more ability to navigate them.  We can acknowledge that the thoughts we are having are habitual, but not reality.  

I noticed this morning that the to-do list in my head was taking way too much energy.  I had the whole beautiful Sunday in front of me, and I was spinning about things like grocery shopping and laundry and writing bills.  The funny thing was, the list in my head wasn't just of chores; I was also worrying about how to fit in my get-to-do things like working on my stained glass, meditating, walking, writing, all of the things I do to nurture my spirit.  The programming to get it all done can cause even the nurturing things I do for myself to start to feel like too much to accomplish.

Thankfully, I remembered to let the day come to me, instead of the other way around.  I decided to stop grasping the possibilities for this day and controlling them, and stand still, and see what happens.  I decided to just stop.  Stopping is a great spiritual tool, and I'll write more about it in another blog.  It is a small leap of faith to turn my attention away from the voice that warns that the sky will fall if everything doesn't get done.  It did try to advise me about the dire consequences of starting my week with piles of folded laundry on the living room sofa!  The voices of fear and lack always seem so much bigger in the moment.  But I persevered.  My commitment for today was to just see what the day brought.

What my day brought to me was peace, and alot of color.  I immediately noticed the vibrant spring green in my backyard, and the joy that comes from remembering that all I ever have to do is be.  That happens often; when I get back into present time the world is much more brightly colored.  It is not the world, but I who has changed.  When I affirm that things will happen in divine order, it is so.  My day was not really different from what it would have been had I struggled with the to-do list in my head, but it was much more gentle.  I really enjoyed the message at Unity this morning.  The grocery shopping got done, and that was colorful, too, not only the people I watched, but also the whole isle full of hokey pinatas that I don't think I've ever noticed before.  My day was blessed with so many delightful details and experiences that I miss when my thoughts are out in the future, or back in the past.

How the rest of today unfolds is left to be seen.  Tomorrow at work I plan to keep myself squarely in the present moment, by letting the day come to me, and I will sit back and enjoy the show.

May this tool be a blessing. . .

Raising the Veil

There is a song by this title that we sing at Unity; it is one of my favorites . . . "I'm raising the veil, between me and my God, no separation, no distance at all; God is right here in my heart, I'm raising the veil."  I believe that within each of us is a deep yearning to know ourselves and each other as the magnificent children of light that we are.  Even when we are lost in forgetting, even when we are identifying very strongly with that which is not the highest we or the world have to offer, that need still burns. 

Our dreams of lack, the veil of forgetting who we are, create the perfect stage for recognizing what is not true of us.  In that sense all that comes to us is an answer to a prayer.  I love the idea of carrying God in my heart; God expresses through me when my soul is having a dark night, and when I know the light of her presence living as me.  Without darkness, we couldn't know light, and so both the veil, and its lifting, are answers to a prayer.

We can choose to experience that veil as an almost physical thing.  It is solid in its ability to separate us from our totality, but also very sheer fabric, easily pushed aside by changing our thinking.  I have viewed situations in this way before, where an instance of fear or pain is playing out on a small stage, and at its edge a curtain hides a much bigger, brighter creation.  The drama occurring on the small stage has immense value as an integral part of the sacred production unfolding.

We are meant to get caught up in believing that the drama developing on the small stage is our life, and defines who we are.  But we are not our struggles; we are pure spirit, able to step back and see ourselves as experiencing something, but at the same time acknowledging that the experience is not who we are.  Raising the veil and stepping out onto the grander stage of living as an unlimited creator made in God's image is a brave act.  When we stand up and claim that truth about ourselves and others, in their fear and forgetting many will say no, you are not.  We stand anyway.

My husband and I have a print on our living room wall that some may have seen; it is entitled "Fra Giovanni - Letter to a Friend - 1513."  It says, in part, ". . . The gloom of the world is but a shadow.  Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy.  TAKE JOY!  Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty . . . that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven.  Courage to claim it, that is all!"

May this tool be a blessing. . .

The Spiritual Law of Attraction

The spiritual law of attraction states that we attract into our lives that which we put our energy and attention on. I believe this is the most important of the explanations of how spirit creates through a physical body. Consider the ramifications of this! If we remembered this truth a little more often, how much more deliberate we would be in what we focus on. This law manifests minute-to-minute, in everything we do. It is in effect when we are being conscious about our thoughts, in prayer or meditation, or when we are sitting at a stoplight worrying, when our thoughts stream by without our even noticing them.

When "Monkey Mind" is active in our thoughts, we attract those thoughts. Monkey Mind is a term used for automatic, negative thinking, or the frequent amount of time we spend with our thoughts spinning off in some direction that may have no connection to our best or serve the highest good in that moment.

Monkey Mind often contains the messages we received as children, or lies that we have accepted as truth. It is the voice of fear. The voice of Monkey Mind is the perfect vehicle for our forgetting who we are, because the things we fear we usually find, and the lie is then reinforced until we can find a way to stop the cycle.

We quiet Monkey Mind through practice. Many people practice mindfulness and meditation techniques to help quiet the racing quality of the mind and cultivate more dominion over deciding which thoughts are worthy of our attention, and which we want to release. Simple deep breathing techniques also help with this. Many use affirmations to reprogram automatic negative thinking to more productive thoughts. What we hold in mind manifests in kind. The really magical part of all of this is, we can always change our mind!

Worry about not having enough money or resources is common, for example. The chatter would be "there is never enough money (or time, or love, or . . .) to meet my needs (or make me happy, or keep me safe)." When we catch ourselves creating this reality in our lives, we can affirm, in the present tense, "I have an abundant supply of all I need," or "God is my source." In doing this, especially over time, we reprogram the subconscious.

Many wonderful resources exist about learning to use the law of attraction more fully in our lives. There are entire websites dedicated to this idea. Life coaches teach it. One author whose books focus on the idea is Florence Scovel Shinn. I just purchased another copy of her book "The Game of Life and How to Play It" on amazon.com for $5.49.

The spiritual law of attraction is what makes the world our playground. It is what we use to design the masterpieces of our lives. In any moment we can choose to remember that there is no reality in lack of any kind. In all things, we can affirm that abundance is here and now manifesting.

May this tool be a blessing. . .