Power of One

"While many of us don’t know yet how to realize our potential,
we can all learn. Most important, we can learn this while we live our
everyday lives. The key is to act in ways that shape what happens
to us day to day, instead of passively allowing events to shape us.
For example, by learning how to embrace all our experiences, we
become strengthened, expanded, and spiritualized by them, and our
extra-ordinariness then emerges."
from the Urban Mystic by Ken Mellor

This is the power of choice which is our greatest asset. We may not be able to control what happens to us but we can control how we respond to what happens to us.

Do your thoughts control you or do you control your thoughts?

Many say "I cant help it, the world gets me down, its overwhelming." I am not unfamiliar to being sensitive to the suffering I see and having moments of feeling immobilized by my own life challenges but my belief, that we still have choice in how we talk to ourselves in these moments, is what gets me moving again. I look for the smallest step I can take now and do that. Even if its as small as cleaning out a drawer or making a phone call. These are the increments of a life and start my momentum. Often its the getting started that is the hardest part.

Never underestimate the power of one, one consciousness - yours - to transform your day. That can ripple outward to those around you and if you choose to be a positive influence in the world there is no limit to how many you can inspire. So no excuses today, you hold the power. Go use it well. 

Paradise

"If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it."

I can hear the skeptic voice in all of us rise up in response to this statement instantly, this paradise? Look at the poverty, look at the wars; how could anyone call this life of struggle and suffering heaven? Yet if I invite you to look at a freshly bloomed rose or the innocent smile of a child your heart would open to the beauty you see before you. Similarly if you recall a struggle from your past that you have surmounted and from which you have grown you can also see the beauty in that experience.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Behind us all things assume pleasing forms, as clouds do far off. Not only things familiar and stale but even the tragic and terrible are comely as they take their place in the pictures of memory.” 

Even in my darkest moments I have known that there is beauty and good and love to be found and if I can adopt the pace of nature as Emerson says; "her secret is patience," it will reveal itself in time. So take heart if you are in despair or off kilter today, all things come to pass and not to stay.

For the Glee version of the song "Pure Imagination" from Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTBG7FZvmc0&feature=related

Thank you for being just as you are. Every part of you fills this world with such undiluted light the stars gotta keep their shades on to catch a glimpse of your brilliance. And I'm not just talking to the "Spiritual Folk" I mean everybody! You can't help but shine! You are the unbounded light of Love knowing itself as this very moment! ♥ Ash Ruiz

 YES, its true. Each and every one of us is an expression of the same energy - how you use that energy is up to you. Knowing there is good in everyone I know that even when someone chooses to act in an unloving way it is not the greatest Truth of that person.

When someone acts unkindly it is because they feel angry, sad, not enough, envious....any way you can describe not remembering who they are as LOVE, as LIGHT, as the ONE Energy of the Universe, which is INFINITE and available always. When we feel bad we separate ourselves from that source and feel lacking in some way. 

Practicing "remembering" by reading inspirational materials, meditating, praying, choosing to honor our selves in how we eat, work and play helps us feel connected to that source and allows us to channel that LOVE more freely, making our own lives better as well as those around us. In essence making the world a better place!

So remember to "remember" and know the power of one consciousness to change more than one persons experience today.

 

Tell me a story

We all love stories, as told in movies or novels, in short stories or tall tales. I like to write stories about events in my past and I may get that from my father who loved to tell stories from his childhood. In many ways telling our own stories helps us appreciate the life that we have been given, the journey that has been ours alone.

There is a branch of psychology called narrative psychology which has explored the effects of telling our stories in the third person. This is done either as the story told back to you from the therapist's illuminated perspective or as told by yourself as if you were describing the events as seen on a movie screen. The effect is in the removal of ourselves from the emotion of traumatic events. From this vantage point we may be able to make sense of what happened and find the meaning as it fits into the flow of our lives. This is a powerful process that serves to integrate events and shift who we see ourselves as today. We become empowered and more confident.

We do love to tell our stories! And tell them and retell them. If you are sick of yours this could be the catalyst for change you have been waiting for. If you feel stuck in your life this could be a great tool for removing blocks. Its worth a try and could be fun. Sharing our new third person stories with friends who support us helps authenticate our revised interpretations and creates an opportunity to connect which always increases our life satisfaction. So tell me a story and not the one about Johnny McGorey!!
Shall I begin it? That's all is in it!

Mental health?

The new year brought news of the suicide of someone I knew from my church but had not seen in some years as she had moved back to her native England. It was news that rattled many as suicides do. This woman was a Spiritual Counselor and part of our core of practitioners. She was a very spiritually aware individual having been a seeker and a student along side me and many of my friends on the path. Thoughts of her have been my companions since her passing and I recognize our kinship in my moments of disillusionment or doubt. I wonder but will never know the thoughts that led her to take this drastic measure.

As I get older I find I have fewer answers to life's mysteries. More and more I simply give up resisting what is and find that acceptance provides me with more energy to act. Otherwise I get bogged down. Things change for good and for bad without our input - we have only so much control.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said,
"The measure of mental health is the disposition to find good everywhere."

In order to find that good we have to look for it and sometimes even do some digging for it in some circumstances. I'm not sure I can find it in a suicide but I can certainly try to find it in my life. In fact, despite my many complaints, if I decide to shift my focus to find good, there is more there than I even imagined. That feels better than complaining. And again I have more energy to be creative and take action when I feel grateful for the good I find. It is my hope that we can find some good always in our lives and if we can't that we can call a trusted friend who can show it to us.
Namaste

End of Year

Endings always mean new beginnings.
Every new moment affords us the opportunity to begin again. At the end of the year I tend to look back and evaluate as well as look forward and make resolutions to improve the quality of my life in the year to come. At the very least I set intentions or wish lists. For the last 7 years I have written a list of ten things that happened last year and ten things I would like to happen in the year to come. The events I record are not only in my life but the lives of those close to me. It is a record of changes.
The list for next year often includes my wishes for someone close to me too.

If you don't choose to mark the passage of the year, after all it is simply another flowing moment - just know that each moment has within it the possibility for newness. At any time we can choose differently than we have in the past. At any time we can choose to act from love and not from fear, to be kind instead of critical, gentle instead of harsh, patient or compassionate instead of judging. Each and every hastening moment has the potential for a new experience and it is unbound by the past unless we decide to let the past define it.

There is freedom in this moment, take it!

Love again

Who or what represents love in your life? When you close your eyes and picture the face of those you love truly and completely without question, who is there? 

For me, the faces of love are my parents, first and foremost. In the past I may have had anger or resentments toward them because I felt that I did not receive some form of love I believed I needed from them. Now that is all dissolved as I have come to take responsibility for my own experiences and stopped asking for perfection from them and myself. All that remains is love. My relationships with them are the longest standing relationship of my life and our differences have been resolved.

I am still working on the relationships I have with everyone else in my life and they are at varying stages of resolution. I would like to come to that same place with each and every one but unlike with my parents their influence on me has not been as deep or demanded such urgent attention. Even so I am making a conscious effort lately to resolve issues and develop better relations with those I love because I believe it will greatly add to my peace. Being at peace I am more free. Free to be myself and to feel more connected knowing my oneness in the universal energy of life.

I am practicing by giving the compassion, understanding and generosity I would like to receive. Some days its not easy but having set the intention I am more conscious of where I am not being love. I have a long way to go yet. I begin the journey in hope and enthusiasm.

Blessings to you this day and may your circle of love grow with each moment in time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhMCBnwS220&feature=related