Saturday, November 26, 2005

It's in my interest to choose to think positively

"You are the creator of all that occurs in all of your life experience.You create your physical life experience through your thoughts. Literally, every thought that you think gives birth to a creation."

Abraham-Hicks, From the workshop recording 2/12/94. All quotes are copyright Abraham-Hicks Publications - see link in sidebar.

Then it's certainly worth it to think things that I enjoy, that please me, to think about what I want, believe it's possible, and to make choices during the day that feel good to me. Why not? I'm getting much better at this type of thinking all the time and realizing that thinking negatively was a habit. I'm finding I have the ability to choose to think positively. I can distract myself with things I enjoy. I was barefoot today and dropped something very heavy and pointed on the top of my foot. It really hurt. I limped into my office and read some articles in How to Survive a Day Job While Pursuing the Creative Life by Joel Eisenberg. Artists, writers and entrepreneurs were interviewed or wrote articles describing how they practiced their craft, how they view success and the types of jobs they did until they could earn their living at what they love. The articles are very short, interesting and inspiring. After reading two or three articles I realized my foot didn't hurt a bit. Works for me!

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Wow. Allowing small miracles.

11/23/05 I've just had some wonderful emails from Gina. In answering something she said and explaining to her about how I felt about myself, I got into a funk. I turned my thinking around and deleted the stuff that didn't feel good and sent her a very nice email that felt good and said what I wanted to say. She sent me back a stunning email, short but stunning, about how special I was to her as a friend and that she had asked for me. She'd asked for someone who lived close enough to talk who was studying Abraham and reality creation, too. It just hit me when I opened the email. I was feeling toadlike even though I had gotten my energy at a better level, but still wasn't feeling good. There was so much light in her email I couldn't answer it right then. I had to do some allowing inside myself, did some things around the house, and then answered it a bit later.

What I realize now from all this is how important it is to have friends who match the best in us. We call each other forth. When you are walking consciously with a friend that is exploring life the way you are, you call out the best in each other because you have to allow yourself to love yourself a bit more and a bit more and more and more to let that friendship grow. We are truly creating then, truly being leading edge for ourselves.

And this is the third day for miracles for me, for something very sweet. Monday my niece bought my dinner and ticket to a movie. I had $5 to last for two weeks and it was so much fun. Then the next day my brother unexpectedly sent me a check for $100. Then today, Gina sent her email.

I feel like I'm filling out, filling out with love, like I was an outline before or maybe possibilities. I just wasn't fully alive in here, not filling the space of this body, and now I feel like I am. It's like the light was inside and hidden and now it feels to me like it is shining gently through the flesh of my body and out into the world.

Wow.

11/24/05 in the wee hours of the morning. I had so much energy I stayed up until 4 am. Wrote this.

Small miracles. We allow the small miracles and that helps us allow the bigger ones. We get comfortable with allowing ourselves to feel good, with having people appreciate us. It begins to match...inside and outside.

Bask in every pleasure. I was stopped at a light in my car a few days ago and a flock of swallows came into the bushes by the road looking for food. They were puffed out with the cold and cheerful and happy, chirping at each other, busy about their daily business of just plain enjoying life and living it. I watched them for probably less than a minute, but what a pleasure they were. Life is filled with seconds and minutes just like this and when we appreciate, that's what we see all day. It's always there.

That's why it's important to appreciate and enjoy and allow ourselves to bask in our enjoyment. Love is the miracles that come to us and when we appreciate, we send them out.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

The path we are on leads us to who we are

A Civil Campaign by Lois McMasters Bujold, pp. 404-405

Regret . . . And what if she and Miles had met at twenty, instead of she and Tien? It had been possible; she'd been a student at the Vorbarra District University, he'd been a newly minted officer in and out of the capital. If their paths had crossed, might she have won a less bitter life?

No. We were two other people, then. Traveling in different directions: their intersection must have been brief, and indifferent, and unknowing. And she could not unwish Nikki, or all that she had learned, not even realizing she was learning, during her dark eclipse. Roots grow deep in the dark.

She could only have arrived here by the path she'd taken and here, with Miles, this Miles, seemed a very good place to be indeed. If I am his consolation, he is most surely mine as well. She acknowledged her years lost, but there was nothing in that decade she needed to circle back for, not even regret; Nikki, and the learning, traveled with her. Time to move on.

*************
I've read so many times that we are to be grateful for the path we are on because it brings us to who we are today. I've never felt reassured by that for a couple of reasons. One is that I didn't particularly like where I was at anyway and the other is that I've always seen, at the time, what more I could be. And I've never measured up one way or the other. As I read this book I can see what it means though. I've watched this character grow. He took risks physically and in relationships to be the best Miles he could be. I've read one book after another in the series until I feel I know him as a person. I've seen him make what he considers mistakes, read his concerns in his own voice, and have also seen the wonderful strength and character he has. This is the first time in my life I can see that the path they were on led them to be the people they are today and that they are perfect for each other now.

So, one thing I take from my own experience in reading this book is that it's really worth it to allow myself to be everything I feel I can be right now. To stretch into myself. I think I would be happier with myself. It would be tremendously helpful to me to see myself in a better light. Instead of looking at what I feel I'm doing wrong, look at the things that feel right to me. To see myself on a journey in life in which I will always be learning and trying something new, but of inestimable worth right here and now. That would be how I would like to see myself.

The other thing I take from reading this book is that learning comes to us in innumerable ways. I'd love to write like Bujold does. To entertain, to tell a story, but also to illuminate life in a delightful way that invites the reader into the transformation of the characters. I've gone to movies like that, too, where I felt different after watching. Where I learned as the characters learned. High art: fun, delight, entertainment and being a part of the flow of love and light that nutures and encourages others to love themselves and be all they are meant to be.

And now I do think that the path that we are on leads us to who we are, but it isn't the path that defines me, I define the path. By allowing myself to risk living my hopes and dreams, I create a different path than trying to fit in or do the right thing. A path of adventure that I want to explore. The most mysterious universe is inside us.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Neale Donald Walsch: Get back to your senses

" It is the Soul's intention know Itself experientially- and thus to know Me. For the Soul understands that You and I ARE ONE, even as the mind denies this truth and the body acts out this denial.

Therefore, in moments of great decision, be out of your mind, and do some soul searching instead THE SOUL UNDERSTANDS WHAT THE MIND CANNOT CONCEIVE. If you spend your time trying to figure out what's 'best' for you, your choices will be cautious, your decisions will take forever and your journey will be launched on a sea of expectations. If you are not careful you will drown in your expectations."

Neale asks: " But how do I listen to my soul? How do I know what I'm hearing?"

God : " The Soul speaks to you in FEELINGS. Listen to your feelings. Follow your feelings. HONOR your feelings.

I tell you this- Your feelings will never get you 'trouble'- because your feelings are your TRUTH.

If you want to live a life where you never follow your feelings, but where every feeling is filtered through the machinery of your Mind, go right ahead. Make your decisions based on your Mind's analysis of the situation. But don't look for your JOY in such machinations, nor for celebration of WHO YOU TRULY ARE.

Remember this- TRUE celebration is MINDLESS.

If you listen to your Soul you will know what is 'best' for you, because what is best for you is what is true for you.

When you act only out of what is true for you, you speed your way down the path. When you CREATE an experience based on your 'now truth' rather than REACT to an experience based on a 'past truth' you produce a 'new you'.

Why does it take so much time to create the reality you choose? This is why; because you have not been living your truth.

Know the TRUTH ( feelings), and the truth shall set you free.

Yet once you come to know your truth, don't keep CHANGING YOUR MIND about it. This is your MIND trying to figure out what's 'best' again.

STOP IT! Get out of your MIND and get back to your SENSES! That is what is meant by 'getting back to your senses'. It is returning to how you FEEL, not how you THINK. Feelings are the language of the Soul- and your SOUL is your TRUTH."

~The Big G, from Conversations with God, Book 2 through Neale Donald Walsch

Adulthood -- Feeling childish falls away -- I'm becoming myself

A Civil Campaign by Lois McMasters Bujold p. 203

..."Nothing is more guaranteed to make one start acting like a child than to be treated like one. It's so infuriating. It took me the longest time to figure out how to stop falling into that trap."
"Yes, exactly," said Kareen eagerly. "You understand! So---how did you make them stop?"
"You can't make them---whoever your particular them is---do anything, really," said Ekaterin slowly. "Adulthood isn't an award they'll give you for being a good child. You can waste . . . years, trying to get someone to give that respect to you, as though it were a sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just . . . take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose. Say, I'm sorry you feel like that, and walk away. But that's hard." . . . .

********

I’ve been reading the science fiction series by Lois McMasters Bujold and this quote is so timely. I'm middle-aged, not a younster, but I do feel like I’m growing up now and it’s a most interesting process. It’s not like I’m becoming something else, an adult, it’s like the stuff that made me feel childish is falling away and now I’m becoming myself.