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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
Following my passions this past year__launching my own business, healing deep inner wounds, and keeping up with my house and financial responsibilities as a single woman along the way__has been a beautiful yet scary journey into my deepest insecurities. I quickly learned to give the reigns to God each morning, but by the next morning, or sometimes even the next hour, I’d discovered I’d taken them back again! How on earth does anyone move through all the doubts and fears our minds so busily create?
Meditating every morning helps tremendously. It’s so important in fact that we’d be foolish to consider it optional. If only for fifteen minutes a day to start, training our runaway minds to settle down is very important. If we do not calm that wild beast, it will run away with our dreams before we ever have a chance to pursue them. The mind wants to be in charge, yet its highest good to us is as a loyal servant to spirit. Meditation reinforces that.
It is equally essential to reprogram our silly negative mind chatter! Every time we hear ourselves thinking or saying that we can’t/don’t/won’t, we should tell our mind to ‘shut up in there’, and quickly replace that statement with a positive. Our thoughts create our reality, so we must diligently reprogram them to reflect the life we want, not simply the stories we’ve adopted over time.
It is really all about building new thought patterns and habits that will transform our insecurities so that we will become our own best friend! This video has other good tips:
Go after those dreams, and stick with it! Don’t be someone we hear about who quit just before success burst through. It does get easier, and you become a better person in the process. Know that you are absolutely worth it, and everyone will benefit as you confidently bring forth your gifts into the world!
Don’t Miss our exciting new event: Illumination Houston 2013 ~ Lighting the World One Soul At a Time
Tickets and Vendor Tables Available – CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS
It’s time to tell on myself in the hope that maybe it’ll save you some time and embarrassment! I have a way of finding an exciting new opportunity, going after it until I hit a wall, trying a few times unsuccessfully to move forward, and then interpreting my stall-out as a sign that it must not be the right time. I continue to be involved while waiting for help to arrive, whether it be for hours, weeks, months, whatever, and grow increasingly frustrated by the delay. Soon enough, I’ll be venting about this to a friend and describing a hypothetically ideal person to fix things, when I suddenly realize the person I’m describing is me! I am in fact perfectly qualified to handle this, but something about it (usually that I don’t want to deal with) kept me from seeing that.
Are you being held back in your own life this way? Is there a situation in work/business, with someone you love or a friend, or with a project/hobby in which things seem to be stuck or at a stand-still? Are you waiting for the right person to help you resolve this? If so, state exactly what he/she would need to know to resolve this. Then, ask yourself, “in what way might I be the one I’m waiting for here? ” Do I have skills or knowledge to work this out that I’ve been unwilling to use or express for some reason? How could I shift the way I am looking at this to open myself to express those?
It’s a beautiful, powerful thing to realize that we’re the ones we’ve been waiting for. Take a few minutes to savor the hilarity of that discovery. After you’ve enjoyed a good hearty laugh at that, approach that stale situation with fresh perspective and you’ll be amazed at what you can do!
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” Wayne Dyer
Radio announcing was one of the most fun jobs I’d ever had until corporate mergers and automation radically changed the industry and I left to reinvent myself. I was sad for what I’d lost and even somewhat bitter for a few years. One day, I finally realized that I’d actually had the opportunity to work in radio while it was live, connected to the local audience, and FUN! That was something my predecessors would not get to do. My perception changed from one of loss to one of gratitude! I was thankful to have ever had that experience which many won’t have.
We spend a lot of time working to earn money to pay for things we already have, yet how often do we stop to truly appreciate them? Do we really love everything that we spend so much time and money to buy, maintain, decorate, clean, and house, or are we just caught up in the routine of it all until it’s more bother than reward? What if we sold or donated what we don’t want/need to recycle it back into the world for someone else to love it, and we actually committed ourselves to spend time/money only on what we really love? This applies to work, leisure, home, romance, friends, possessions, etc.
Life is too short to spend energy on less than what we really love! What else actually matters anyway? If we love it (them), do we appreciate it (them) every day, or instead spend our energy worrying about how to keep it or get more?
Let’s try the trick I discovered about my radio career. Let’s give thanks for having experienced all that we have to this point in our life, and then release our need to hold onto it or control our own destiny long enough to see what else the Universe has for us. This shift immediately increases our abundance as we recognize all that already IS in our life, choosing then to either continue holding and perpetuating that or releasing it for whatever else the Universe has for us, re-opening the flow of energy in our lives.
JOIN US for our first Sacred Wisdom Circle of 2013 from 12:30 to 1:30 PM on January 13th at White Eagle Lodge in Montgomery, Texas. All are welcome as we gather to support and encourage each other during this time of great change. Call 281.252.6600 for details.
“Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.” ~ Democritus, Greek Philosopher
Don Miguel Ruiz writes in The Four Agreements about how we are “domesticated” by our parents, schools, and society into a story about how things were, are, and will be. We’re rewarded for complying and punished for rebelling until we are finally fully domesticated, or locked away in either a prison or an insane asylum. How depressing to finish 18 years of school and realize I’d been a great drone programmed to succeed in the current story. After living the corporate story, the marriage story, the community leadership story, and ending up unfulfilled, I knew I’d lived everyone’s story but my own!
When we live outside what Democritus calls opinions, we can create our own reality. While many talk of living in faith, how much do we honestly trust our hearts and Divine Guidance, and fully surrender to find our own unique Path? We have all these stories about how we can’t just expect money to show up without working really hard for it, the right people aren’t simply going to show up in our lives, etc. Ironically, those things are completely possible when we live in faith and trust our spirit to guide us in the right way. Letting go and surrendering is the challenging part! It’s so much easier to believe the 401K, ‘secure’ job, married-with-kids, socially popular, and materially successful life we’re programmed to seek will make us happy. If so, great! If not, time to change it!
These stories are chains that bind us into lives that are not our purpose. We are here today to write our own story, and the only one who can author our happiness and best path is US. We must trust and have the courage to follow our inner compass to our own happiness, for if we live others’ stories for us, we actually prevent ourselves from getting there. I for one am happier than ever not having any idea what tomorrow brings, for even though I have my scary and insecure moments, the joy is off the charts!
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!
