A Mother’s Love

Whether you have ever parented a child or not, you are a Mom.  There comes a time in every woman’s life when she discovers that she is the ultimate mother of her own body and soul.  It is during this beautiful discovery that she can shift from placing everyone else’s needs above her own to fully understand why that emergency oxygen mask must cover her own mouth first.  It’s true when they say we can’t give what we don’t have,  and the more we humbly and faithfully we love ourselves first, the more love we have to give the world.

I was given up at birth for adoption by a woman who carried me to term so gently and lovingly that I was born with no deficiencies, addictions, or disabilities.  How does a woman carry a baby like that for nine months and then give him/her away at birth?  That is a mother’s love.

Later I discovered my records had been misplaced or shuffled in with others at the agency, and now I have no way to discover the identity of my real mother to even thank her for that ultimate sacrifice and let her know things turned out well.  Meanwhile, I was raised by loving parents who adopted me immediately.  A woman unable to have children of her gave me all she knew and all her love until her death when I was 30.  That is a mother’s love.

Helping my husband to provide for his stepchildren and assist in raising them to the best of my ability taught me much about the other side of the experience.  While they already had a mother, I gave them the only kind of love I knew in whatever capacity they would allow me.   I may never know what if any impact I had on their lives, but I do believe I made some difference, good and bad, intentional and unintentional.  That is a mother’s love.

With my adopted mother gone and my stepchildren grown, I’m now a single 47 year old woman redesigning the next season in my life.  I look in the mirror and see the results of how I have parented my own self up to now.  I am met with a mixture of satisfaction and desire to improve, and a sense of peace in the love I have developed for myself of late.  Healing old wounds and forgiving (mostly myself) have really improved my self-esteem.  One day at a time I continue to encourage myself but in a gentler way than my warrior-take-charge attitude of the past.  That too is a mother’s love.

Happy Mother’s Day and remember to give that mother’s love to yourself first.

Namaste,

Sheryl Sitts, Chief Inspirational Officer

Journey of Possibilities

How to Find Our Real Power by Slowing Down

After years of moving through my life at a fast and deliberate pace, I have spent the last couple of years discovering the power of meditation for clarity and purpose.   When I discuss this with people, most respond with comments about how they could never get their mind to be still for that long, or how they don’t really have the time.  Believe me, those were my exact feelings about it!  Ironically, it is the very act of meditation that will train the mind to be still, so our job is to make that daily commitment and keep showing up.  Thankfully, the benefits occur long before we ever perfect our practice!

If you would like to try meditation, there is a wealth of information online and many guided meditations for you to begin.  All you need is 20 minutes once or twice a day, and you can work up to that!  I’ve found a couple of articles to help you get started.   Terri Cole wrote Flexing Your Mindfulness Muscle on Positively Positive,  and Davidji (popular speaker on  Hay House Radio) shared Meditation: As Taught by Someone in the Real World.

We are complex creatures who can easily get so caught up in our own thoughts, experiences, and stories that we can soon get stuck in patterns that don’t serve us well or allow us full freedom of expression.  Then there’s the busyness that consumes us until minutes turn into hours, days, or weeks spent reacting to life rather than consciously creating our soul purpose.  Meditation is a way to reset ourselves from all of that, sweeping everything off the surface of that proverbial cluttered desk so we can begin anew with clearer intention.  We accomplish more and our lives shift into proactive creation.

Please let me know if you find this helpful to you in beginning your own meditation practice, or share other effective meditation links below.

Namaste,

Sheryl Sitts, Chief Inspirational Officer

Journey of Possibilities

Grief – An Important Expression of Love

This has been a week of loss for me.  One person I love dearly passed away and then we celebrated the life of another and committed his ashes.  Although I know their spirits now soar in a beautiful space, I am sad.  I miss enjoying them here with skin on!   In this age of technology, knowing that I cannot pick up the phone and hear their voice is a constant reminder that they are no longer here.  Feeling their absence through their loved ones leaves a profound void in this place where there energy once radiated.

When we experience loss, there are a myriad of feelings.  Although the most commonly expressed appears to be sorrow through many tears, there is a joy beneath our sadness.  There would not be tears without love, and the more tears and sorrow we feel, the more love was present.  Beyond that, we exchange much more love as others who care reach out with comforting words or touch.  We gather to share memories with others we love and have not seen in a while, and we even meet new interesting people who also cared for our loved ones while hearing aspects of their lives we didn’t know while they were alive.  At the foundation of everything in our awareness for these days is a river of beautiful love.

Often when we feel sad, we’re tempted to push it aside or get busy and not feel it.  It’s hard to feel sorrow, yet if we don’t it will simply become stuck energy somewhere in our bodies that make us sick later until we release it.  Why not view grief as a testament to the beautiful love we have explored here and express it freely as such?

Feeling emotions is quite possibly our greatest human gift.  Think about it: we do not feel unless we care.  (The opposite of love is not antipathy but hate, making even hatred a face of love.)  Grief is love missed.  What could we possibly do that is more beautiful than feeling and expressing love?  Could someone please pass me another tissue?

Namaste,

Sheryl

The Truth About Success and Failure

Do you ever find you’re getting sucked into seeing yourself as society views you?  A lean body is success; excess weight is failure.  Money in the bank marks success; low funds denote failure. Being involved with someone romantically is success, while being alone indicates failure.  There’s no end to these examples, and even if we usually disagree with them, we may give them a little too much consideration during moments of weakness or insecurity.  Once that begins, it’s a slippery slope downward until we struggle to even find hope in our gloom…even though all that’s really changed is our perception.

Since launching Journey of Possibilities, I’ve experienced setbacks, dry spells, times I felt more like I was moving in reverse than going forward, and even times others may have viewed as complete failures.  I suppose my recent decision to cancel Illumination Houston 2013 may be seen that way by some.   This roller coaster ride prompts me to blog about what I’ve been learning:

• Success and failure are relative, and our social measures for that change every few decades.  In truth, I’m highly successful in emotional and spiritual growth, happiness, and clarity.  I’m more focused and know myself better than ever.   My relationships are richer, and my experiences more fulfilling than I’d dreamed possible.  Materialism has never given me the joy I’ve had this past year, although my increasing financial success will now be enjoyed with a new level of gratitude.
• There is no shortage of people ready to criticize, discourage, redirect, and (mis)guide you.  Ignore them; these are not successful people.  Successful, happy people help others achieve the same.  They do not belittle others to feel better about themselves.  Insecure people do that.
• Contrary to popular media, many good people exist.  I’ve been supported and encouraged by complete strangers with such heart and spirit I feel honored to meet them.  Rest assured this world is in many good hands, whether you hear about them on the news or not.
• Every up and down strengthens us and shows us what is and isn’t important.  We learn gradually to ‘let go and let God’, and gain much clarity around what we do and don’t have control over.  We learn to work better with others and trust.  Aren’t these beautiful lessons learned through ‘failure’?
• Meditation and prayer are survival tools.  When the judgments of the world begins to eat away at our confidence and strength, finding cracks in our armor and chipping away at us, meditation and prayer center and ground us again while showing us how meaningless people’s opinions and judgments really are.  Following our Divine Path never misleads us, yet an earthly perspective suggests otherwise.   Beware heeding that and changing course; the prize is likely around the next corner.
• When we’re willing to let go of the big thing we have our eye on and trust God, we are then shown what a really big prize looks like! This does NOT happen until we have heard the call and taken our leap of faith.

Illumination Houston 2013 may be cancelled…for now…but Journey of Possibilities is becoming more successful every day.   We are excited about our new projects and can’t wait to share all of this with you.  Thanks for joining us on this Journey!

Namaste and much love,

Sheryl Sitts

Are You Telling Your Dreams, “Maybe Tomorrow”?

Last night, I pondered what major part of my life I would need to bring in line to better fulfill my life purpose (from Ask and You Will Succeed, a great read by Ken D. Young).   As I held a clear image of myself living the professional and personal life I envision and saw the gap between the now-me and the then-me more clearly, I caught myself writing, “I will…and I would,”  and then I GOT IT!  Every aspect about which I keep saying I “will” instead of I “am” is keeping my dream in the future rather than today, only to wonder why it wasn’t materializing.

Our human mind is so complex we can actually be moving forward and holding ourselves back at the same time and not even realize it.  We really want to be lean but then we believe we dislike exercise and healthy foods, so we yo-yo for years.  We really want a happily-ever-after intimate relationship yet we stopped believing they’re even possible, so now we don’t fully give ourselves to a relationship anymore.  We want a successful business and yet push money away by believing people can’t afford us, don’t have any, or it will somehow corrupt us to have more money.  We are in essence creating a wonderful nature party in our dreams only to have our guests arrive to a TRAIL CLOSED sign while we wait inside wondering why they haven’t arrived.

As we visualize our dream and identify gaps between who we are today and who we must be for our dreams to come true, let’s begin with the aspects we recognize we’ve been telling ourselves we WILL do in the future.  We know if we want a different result, we must take a different action.  Why not move those to the top of the list and find ways to slowly begin those transformations?  Only then will we finally stop telling our dreams to come back tomorrow, and begin readying ourselves for that life today.

Namaste,

Sheryl Sitts, Chief Inspirational Officer

Journey of Possibilities

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO JOIN US APRIL 28TH FOR OUR HOLISTIC HEALING EXPO (CLICK LOGO BELOW FOR DETAILS)!

How Massage, Reiki, and the Like Can Improve Health…Even Save Lives!

Until a couple of years ago, I believed the widely advertised philosophy that if I simply “eat right, exercise, and see my doctor regularly”, I will live to a healthy old age.  While that may be good and well, I simply couldn’t get there from here.  The more I tried and fell short of that ideal, the worse I felt about myself.  The reality is that for the thousands of us carrying inside us some form of unresolved trauma (verbal/physical/sexual abuse, broken families, absent parent/spouse, divorce, death, impact of war on family, addiction, eating disorders), that is nothing more than a nice ideal we can’t achieve.  Then I discovered the power of massage and reiki in tandem with other healing forms.

I know that I carry anger and fear in my stomach.  I remember years of stomach aches beginning in childhood whenever I felt angry or scared and it wasn’t ‘safe’ to express it.  That reserve just kept growing over the years, and once I began to work through it, I would reached plateaus when progress seemed to slow or stop.  Massage, reiki and other ways of moving energy really helped me break through those barriers.

If we look at ancient cultural beliefs and even our own scientific research into how emotions and thoughts impact physical matter (like  Dr. Emoto’s work with water), we can see that  energy such as that accumulated in my stomach over the years (eventually turning into disease)  benefits from help breaking it up and guiding it into other areas of the body.   This is true for any chakra area where we have stored unexpressed emotions. Working to move energy in that region helps realign that energy power center and restore flow to support more balanced living and health.

When we restore flow throughout our bodies, what was previously a challenge (eating right, exercising, and regular exams) becomes a core desire in self-love and care.  We learn to truly love our bodies again and care for them more automatically.  So you can see that this is about more than just managing stress, the most popularly cited reason people seek massages.  Consider restoring the flow in your own body today.  You and those you love will be delighted.

Namaste and much love,

Sheryl Sitts, Chief Inspirational Officer

Journey of Possibilities ~ Inviting you to Illumination Houston 2013, Lighting the World One Soul at a Time!

What To Do When They Don’t See You’re Right

Last week I had a disagreement which has been nagging at my mind and heart ever since.  Someone asked me not to charge for something and I perceived they felt entitled to it, which I resented so I declined.  The situation quickly escalated resulting in everyone involved getting upset.  Who ‘won’?  Does it matter if we both somehow felt we were right?  This was all still fresh when I attended White Eagle Lodge this morning and heard what I needed for clarity.

All that happens here on this Earthly plane is merely to build us up as we strive to bring the Christ Light to all of humanity through increasing our own loving kindness.  Well, there was definitely nothing kind or loving about what happened.  I took the position of ‘being right’, and that only ever serves the ego.  Being right didn’t really matter anyway since we’d all lost there.  Had I instead taken a deep breath to return to center, and then offered what she asked with love in my heart, it would have worked out beautifully.  Sure, I may have lost a few dollars, but in the beautiful way the Universe works, even that would have come back to me tenfold somehow, but we would have all felt good from a more loving exchange.

Our need to be right only helps our ego feel better.  It does not build relationships; in fact, it tears them apart.  It does not build wealth; relationships ARE true wealth, in addition to being the cornerstone for any material wealth.  Most importantly, it does not feed the soul or raise our vibration in love; it keeps us stuck in a lower vibration where discord and fear-based negativity breed.

The path to happiness, as White Eagle taught, is a walk of love, compassion, and kindness.  Making another smile feels so good.  Bringing joy to a distressed person is immensely rewarding.  Knowing we are right and conceding to another anyway feels loving and rewarding!

So, although I have apologized for the other day, it still felt like no one came away from that any better for it.  That is, until now.  Really feeling how much better it is to be loving than to be right is quite a beautiful lesson,  and I doubt I’d have gotten it any other way.

Namaste,

Sheryl Sitts, Chief Inspirational Officer

Journey of Possibilities ~ Don’t miss ILLUMINATION HOUSTON 2013!!!  Click HERE for details.

The Magical Player Piano

One weekend when I was little, we took a car ride that seemed to last forever out to visit my cousins in a neighboring city.  Although I’d been told there would not be any children there to play with, I was assured I’d find a wonderful treat awaiting me.  When we arrived I saw a beautiful piano and ran over to see if I could remember how to play Chopsticks after playing it with my kindergarten teacher at school.  As I tapped the ivory keys, my cousin took out a scroll of paper and loaded it into the front of the piano, anchoring one end on a clip and then stretching it upward and placing the roll into a slot.  I told her I didn’t know how to read the dots, and she laughed and told me to just press the pedals at my feet.  Soon a most complex, beautiful song began to play itself on the piano!  I was enthralled as the notes filled the house, and any time we visited them in the future I enjoyed the piano as much as I had that day.

This morning as I awakened to memories of my wonder at that magical piano.  I was surprised by the similarities of that piano to my own spiritual journey.  As souls, we choose the musical scrolls (life experiences) we want to have here for the evolution of our Spirit.  It matters not the song, only that we attend to the rich notes of that song in the most open and loving way possible, regardless of how we may feel.  We can add a note here and there any time we want, for we also have those ivory keys (our own mind) to co-create music.  Indeed, we can take control completely and bang out a very different song, but whenever we choose or are forced to let go, that scroll (our Divine Path) resumes.  If there are pauses in the song, we can ask someone to confirm and reassure us that all is well just as God is always there and our spirit guides and angels are only too happy to help any time we ask.

There is a Divine plan at work here, even and especially when we can’t see it or don’t understand the music that is playing.  Our role is as simple as a player piano.  In this concert, we are here to be willing participants and surrender the keys any time we catch ourselves overtaking the music.  Oh yeah, and our most important job is to enjoy this miraculous experience and love each other through the hard parts of whatever song is being played.

Namaste,

Sheryl Sitts, Chief Inspirational Officer

Journey of Possibilities

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Who Are You Really?

Earlier this week you were invited on our Facebook page to ask your Higher Self  (the Soul within you thru every human incarnation) to write your lower self (you in this lifetime & body) a note about Who you really are…without your looks, achievements, career, hobbies, desires, dreams, feelings, or history.  The root question was, who are you at the CORE and WHY do you believe you’re HERE? How did that go?  Any surprises?

It surprised me how many of my initial responses were about my education, family, friends, dreams, lifestyle, looks, etc.  Did you catch yourself doing that, too?  We sure can get caught up in all the distraction and busy-ness of Earth School, can’t we?  Anyway here’s my response as promised:

I am an old soul here for experiences that raise my consciousness and advance me in my Journey with the Divine.

How SIMPLE!  Was that anything like what you ended up with?  Amazing how all that we find so terribly important in our daily lives pales in comparison.  Thankfully we are evolving through our relationships, or we wouldn’t get anything accomplished once we got down here and lost ourselves in the hustle and bustle of these complex social structures we’ve created.  Isn’t it fun to get a fresh perspective on what really matters in your life?

That is what I do.  I help people get a fresh perspective on situations in their lives where they keep getting stuck.  If I can help you with that, please reach out.  I don’t give answers, only clarity to find the best answers within.  Have a great week!

Namaste and much love,

Sheryl Sitts, Chief Inspirational Officer

Journey of Possibilities

DON’T MISS Illumination Houston 2013 ~ Lighting the World One Soul at a Time!

Balancing The Heart and The Mind

How timely to finish reading the adventures of a young man faithfully following his deepest dreams in Paulo Cuehlo’s fabulous (and subtly, deeply spiritual) book The Alchemist just as we enter this powerful full moon in Virgo, sun in Pisces, and Mercury retrograde in Pisces.  This is a time for inner reflection and healing from the lessons we are gaining here in earth school through our connection with all of life…a time to really go into our hearts to heal and integrate our own Life Paths.

We get so caught up exploring the emotions of our hearts and the expansion of our minds that it’s easy to forget why we’re here.  As “spirits having a human experience” (de Chardin) we are clearly here for our own spiritual evolution.  In that great journey which lasts hundreds of years and many incarnations, we can really get so caught up in this incredible Earth School we may miss many of the great lessons themselves.  If instead we see our heart as the Divine Inner Compass, our mind as a Computer Processor, and our body as the beautiful living, breathing Vessel allowing us to have this experience, we can let our heart (compass) navigate us along the unique path for our own Highest Good without being so caught up in the why’s and how’s. The course of our Perfect Path has been lain, and our only responsibility is to follow it with much love and good intention in our hearts.

So how do we keep this heart pure and loving in the face of the challenging and sometimes truly horrific experiences we see and feel here?  It is NOT by getting as busy as we can trying to make a difference, although that is beautiful when done with a heart full of love.  It is NOT about the many, many ways we can busy or numb ourselves so that we don’t feel the experience, for emotion is the teacher that drives the soul lesson home within so we don’t have to go through it again!  It IS turning to that inner spark of God within us each day in meditation to lift up all our cares and the suffering of this world to the great Master Healer.  It IS spending time in quiet meditation connecting with the Divine as God speaks to us through our hearts.  It IS humbly, boldly following the Path before us without worrying too much as to why and how, those are not our concern in this moment.  It IS sending forth God’s Love and Light  to the world each day to strengthen and comfort all in need.  It IS silencing the busy mind of  getting itself lost in the past and busily troubling itself over the future, so that we are in THIS moment, grateful for all that really IS right here and now.

Mercury in retrograde for three weeks makes a real mess of communication and technology, and this is not a time to start new projects or busy ourselves.  Rather may this beautiful full moon Mother begin a time of greater inward reflection as we heal and grow along our life journeys.

Namaste and much love,

Sheryl Sitts

Journey of Possibilities invites you to ILLUMINATION HOUSTON 2013 ~ Lighting the World One Soul at a Time!