Oh May, What A Treat!

What a treat to get up every morning and greet the day ahead!  Don’t you think?  As a glass 1/2 full type of gal, I enjoy mornings and the clean slate on which to etch the day.  As I sip my morning coffee, I begin my day in quiet stillness.  It’s my favorite time of day.

Ode to May’s Treat

I hope that today brings you peace within. 

May the sun shine into your life. 

If you have clouds and rain as I do, know that it is within the darkness that the stars become brighter. 

May gratitude and peace surround you.

May your wishes be fulfilled.

May you revel in God’s love.

Open your heartlight to the Universe and allow love to flow to you, from you and within you. 

May healing encompass you. 

May peace within you germinate and grow. 

May love fill your heart to overflowing and may you extend that love to connect with all whom you meet. 

May forgiveness be yours – to be given and received. 

May mercy follow you and ignite your being. 

May grace and dignity walk beside with you. 

May you take the higher path without stumbling. 

May joy guide you on your path. 

May this day be a new beginning for each of us!

Shine On!

xo

What Are You Doing With Your Free Will?

We have plenty of choices in this lifetime.  We all have the free will to choose and to change our minds and to choose again.  Perhaps on this Monday morning because I’m feeling so centered, I can seem very black and white on this issue.  But when I’m feeling centered, it’s so clear to me.  Is it clear to you?

We make excuses when our choices don’t pan out and deliver to fruition what we want.  So we blame others for what we think they made us do.  Believe me, I’ve been there too.  But the reality is that we all have free will to choose again, to change our thinking and to let go of what we believed was supposed to be, what was fair in our own heads and what we deserved.

But that’s not the way life lessons come to us all the time.  Sometimes, we have to get out of our own thinking, out of our own way and see the big picture in whatever scenario is taking place in the forefront.  And then, deal with it.

We’ve all made choices that perhaps we regret.  We make decisions in an instant that hurt us or hurt others.  But to own our own stuff takes courage to be responsible for what is and not what we believed should be.  That’s the lesson that is hardest I think for all of us to wrap our minds, our beliefs and our hearts around.

But in order to heal, it’s necessary.  To work on ourselves takes time and baby steps towards healing.  If we don’t do the work on ourselves though, we are stuck in that place of pain and nobody wants to stay there.  But oftentimes, we do for lack of knowing how to release our limiting beliefs.

Use your free will to choose again.  Choose wisely by being the observer in your life.  Treat yourself as you would your best friend and be open to possibilities that maybe you haven’t been aware of before in your life.  Wherever a door closes, there’s a window which opens.  Be courageous to look outside that window to see the big picture.

Allow God and the Universe to guide you to freedom of choice and to choosing what serves you with joy and love.  Your heartlight shines when we allow ourselves to be whom we are meant to be.  To be anyone else doesn’t serve our souls, nor our life purpose.

Don’t regret the path not taken.  Take it.  Embrace it and if it doesn’t fit, then choose again.  This is your life and nobody else’s.  Live.  Choose.  Forgive.  Let go.  Move onward and upwards!  It’s a beautiful day!  You can always choose to be happy.

That’s your free will choice.  Choose happiness.

Shine On!

xo

 

The Essence of Forgiveness

A friend recently sent this video to me.  I found it really interesting so I thought I’d pass it along to you.  Have you ever heard of Matt Kahn?  Do you know anything about him?  Here’s his bio from his website.

If you have some time, take a listen to his thoughts on The Essence of Forgiveness and let me know what you think!  Keep your heartlights lit – it’s Monday!

Shine On!

xo

 

The Shack

Last night, I curled up on the couch after eating a warm bowl of homemade chicken soup that I had made for my family yesterday while the temperatures dropped into the single digits outside.  Cuddled under a big, fluffy, warm blanket, almost falling asleep, instead I turned on the movie The Shack.  Years ago, I remember reading the book which I found confusing.  So as the movie began, there were parts that I remembered from the book and much that I had forgotten.

I’ve told you about a few movies which I’ve found to be keepers – ones which touched me spiritually and this one, I need to add to that list for you and for me to watch again.  You see, after I finished watching it and dried my tears, I knew I would have to sleep on all that I’d just experienced along with the lead character in order to absorb what I could.  I also know that I will need to watch it again to absorb more, but that I will know when to watch it again – when my mind and body are receptive.

Click here or on the photo of the book to check it out on Amazon.

Have you ever read the book The Shack or seen the movie version?  The book came out in 2007 and the movie in March of 2017.  I would love to hear from you if you’ve already read the book or seen the movie.  I admit that it can be confusing at times and one needs to keep an open mind.

It’s the reminder of God’s presence in all of our lives healing us in a storytelling way.  The theme of love and letting go of the past are such strong universal truths that those are the additional reasons why I recommend reading and watching The Shack. 

Forgiveness is part of letting go of the past and as the end of 2017 is upon us, perhaps it’s time to let go of 2017 in order to begin again, our next year, with a clean slate and love in our hearts, minds and souls for all.

Shine your heartlights dear friends.

The time is now to heal our wounds and to be at peace.

Shine On!

xo

 

Leave The Past Behind

Sweet friends, it’s challenging when our parents get older and we begin to take care of them.  Sometimes the past relationships get in the way of our thinking and it gets harder to be patient and kind.  Few grown children don’t carry some reminders of injustice or hurts that they sometimes unwittingly carry into adulthood and that can spill over into the present day relationships with our parents.

I understand.

But dear friends, it’s time to let go of the past and focus on the present.  This can be a hard task to accomplish, but I have faith in you and I am willing to hold your hand while you walk this path.

Guilt, shame and frustrations build when we are tasked with parenting when we are still holding on to hurts from the past.  Also, parents can do the same so that the relationship can be hard to navigate, especially when you, their child, is now in charge.

Why can’t he/she be nice?  Can’t they see I’m trying to help?  Why do they act that way?  I’m tired of this!  This is not my responsibility because they did x, y or z to me when I was little, a teenager, an adult….this list of complaints can go on and on.

And yes, I agree that this is hard for you (and for them).  My heart goes out to you all as I’ve been there and I have felt similarly to some degree.  I get it.  So you may be asking, How the heck did I get into this place of peace?

I let go baby!  I rose above the hurts to a place of peace in my heart.  I did it for them and I did it for me.  I love them innately and I see them as human beings doing their best, just as I am.  I love from a place of understanding, of forgiveness and with peace in my heart.  I go into the day with prayer for patience to help me throughout the day and to help them.  I get out of my own head and try to see things from their perspective and then it dawns on me, how they’re feeling.  I come from a place of healing hearts and simply trying to make all of our lives happier.  Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don’t.  So then, I ask for forgiveness, to myself and to them and to God and I just begin again.

When you don’t feel like you’ve succeeded or when it’s been a really hard day, let go of the bad and just hang onto the good.  Let the hard times fall away from your thinking and hold onto that kernel of goodness.  There is some goodness every day.  Sometimes you just have to search a bit to find the blessing, but it’s always there.

Allow the past to have no power over you.  Live solidly in the present and allow the future to take care of itself.  Be present with loved ones and find the joy in connecting with them.  Role model love, kindness, caring and joy.  Innately you are a healer so use your gifts wisely.  And if you need to throw up your hands in frustration, by all means, do it in privacy.  Give yourself a time out to recoup before exploding with negativity.

Remember, your parents/elderly loved ones aren’t necessarily trying to make it harder on you.  They are simply doing what they can at this time.  And even if you don’t believe that or you think I’m full of Pollyanna hooey, give them the benefit of the doubt and give it to yourself when it comes to doing your best.

We are all on this journey called Life.  Lessons come to us in many forms to deepen our understanding of love.  Because let’s face it, love is what this life is all about and sometimes love and forgiveness walk hand in hand.  It take a lot of love to be someone else’s lesson.  Perhaps that thought will give you peace in your heart.  Your parent loves you enough to teach you a life lesson, whatever the lesson my be.  Be grateful for their love and for the lesson.  Hold them closely.  Forgive and forget.  Heal yourself and others.  You are more than capable to choose the high road and now’s the time.

Don’t do it simply because I suggested it.  Do it for yourself.  Raising the love vibrations in this world helps us all.  And it starts with you, dear friend.  Shine your heartlight.  I believe in you.

Shine On!

xo

 

 

 

Everything Is An Act Of Love

Today I watched a video from Mind Valley where Neale Donald Walsch was speaking with Vishen Lakhiani (founder of Mind Valley).  I have included the video below and some of the phrases which beckoned to me in understanding what Conversations With God Book 4 is all about according to its author Neale Donald Walsch.

Here are a few highlights…

Every act is an act of love….even if it’s a distorted act of love.

Love expresses itself in many forms.

If you loved nothing, you’d fear nothing.

What do you love so much, that you’re willing to hurt me to experience it?

What hurts you so much, that you feel you have to hurt me to heal it?

God doesn’t have to forgive us for anything

Love is all there is.  There is only one energy in the universe.  Love is expressed in many forms.  Fear, for instance, is an expression of love.  Fear is love demonstrated in a particular way.  For instance, if you loved nothing, you’d fear nothing.  The only fear is the loss of what you love or the not getting of what you love.

We don’t seek to heal or to end this by fighting, we seek to end this by understanding.  Remember this always, understanding replaces forgiveness in the mind of the master.  You understand why they did what they did.

Here’s the video clip which explains it better than I ever could.  What do you think?

Shine On!

xo

 

Life Is A Give And Take

Life is like riding a see-saw I think.  We have our ups and downs.  We give and we take, sometimes more, sometimes less.  Ideally we want equilibrium, but we don’t always get it.  Because, life isn’t always fair.

So we take the good with the bad and hopefully learn our lessons through the experiences.  We become good at exploring the passages where we grow in thought, word and deed.  We make mistakes.  We forgive.  We move onward or stay stagnant and grieve.  We take risks when we grow restless.  We realize that the more we put into this  life, the more we reap in benefits and experiences.

We meet people who teach us lessons in humility and those who lend a hand and grow our thinking.  Our hearts expand with love and nurturing or shrink with diseased thoughts and stony unforgiveness.  Our souls shine brightly, sparkling with strength and endurance as we tally up life’s experiences, both good and bad.

We learn the important lesson of love, gratitude and presence by our choices.  We can become bitter when hurt, but love is resilient and we can bounce back with forgiveness, caring and kindness.  We embrace relationships for their lessons and for their beautiful connections.  We hold tenderly those precious moments when all is right in the world, when being in the present is powerful, no matter the circumstances.  We free ourselves from the bondage of ego’s tyranny when we allow love to take its place.  We restore peace within our souls and shine our heartlights of love to the world around us.

Faith, hope and love are significant contributors to life.  We can chose to embody these mindful thoughts and actions or we can turn away in fear.  We each have a choice that we alone choose as we alone are responsible for ourselves.

I am not your keeper, nor are you mine.  But I am your friend and companion on this path of life.  Come on, hold my hand.  Let’s love this present moment together!

I have to add that a blogger friend reminded me of a post he wrote too about Give and Take!  Please stop over to see Ray at his post called The Key To A Happy Life!

Shine On!

xo

 

Genius!

Gadzooks!  Eureka!  That’s genius!

Have you ever been given advice or learned something new that was completely mind-blowing to you?  Have you ever found an invention that you thought was genius?  Have you ever realized something that you found to help you and in turn felt like shouting Woo Hoo!?!

My life opened up in sparkling rare form when I began my journey spiritually.  I realized the genius in simplicity, kindness and love.  I had always known that I thought differently than others around me.  I saw things that others missed.  I had a knowing that I couldn’t explain why or how I knew what I knew.

For example, back in the olden days before caller ID or even message machines, I often had a feeling just before the phone would ring and I would often know who it was.  My family laughed when I told them, disbelieving my gift.  So after awhile, I just stayed quiet.  I didn’t try to expand the gift of knowing.  Instead I put my intuition on a shelf and let it get dusty from non-use.

I also experienced deja vu from a young age and would recognize strangers’ faces or maybe even their souls, but not be able to place how I knew them.  This caused unrest in me when I felt darkness in them.  But how do you explain that to others without sounding crazy or fearful?

It’s just in the last few years that I have begun to re-emerge by allowing my gifts to blossom again.  Feeling safe to do so has done wonders for the expansion of my spiritual toolbox.  Finding like-minded people has helped too.  I am pretty much an open book when given the opportunity to shine so I have begun to show myself a bit more slowly.

Empathy comes easily to me, probably I have too much empathy if the truth be known, by giving more than the chances needed to others who may not have deserved them.  Seeing how they felt when duality was evident has caused me much pain.  I have always wanted to see the good, the essence of good in people.  Forgiveness for myself and others has been healing to me.  I am not a perfect being though.  In a few situations, I’m still rough around the edges on certain points at this juncture in my life.  But, time is healing my wounded soul.

I enjoy bonding with others who are courageous enough to be vulnerable and to allow their heartlight to shine.  Closed-minded people who hold superficiality above all do not interest me.  It is with love and light that I surround myself now.

And that to me, is genius!

Shine On!

xo

 

 

 

Which Wolf Do You Feed?

I’ve seen this Native American parable before, but I think it bears repeating, so here it goes:

A grandfather is talking with his grandson and he says there are two wolves inside of us which are always at war with each other. 

One of them is a good wolf which represents things like kindness, bravery and love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, hatred and fear.

The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?”

The grandfather quietly replies, “The one you feed.”

 

We can use this parable in our daily life by which story we feed our souls, especially when life gets challenging and we feel like we are alone.  We can become depressed and angry for the circumstances we find ourselves in or we can feed ourselves and the situation with love, kindness and forgiveness and move beyond the hurt.

Just like the parable suggests,

it’s all in the wolf that you choose to feed.

It is that simple dear friends.  Come on, hold my hand.  Let’s feed the good wolf together and make this world a better place for us all!

Shine On!

xo

 

 

Be Like Impatiens

I buy certain flowers each season and for summer, it’s always impatiens.  There’s something about them that brings me joy.  Perhaps it’s because they are good reminders to me of how to grow in this life and how to recover when life hands me a drought of goodness.

Here’s a photo of my red impatiens the other day.  Scorching heat and my not tending them as I should along with no rain for a few days made them look a bit dreary.  Like humans, when we don’t meditate and nourish ourselves, we become a bit downtrodden and sad.  However, if we realized that all we needed was caring and nourishment, we could come back from:

To this!

The non-green thumbed gardener that I am just watered my sweet impatiens and Voila!  They bounced back beautifully within hours!

Wouldn’t it be nice if we humans could be healed and bounce back from depression, sadness and even stony unforgiveness by a little watering, some kindness and love?

We can, dear friends.  It’s possible to be like the impatiens.  We can nourish ourselves and others with love, forgiveness and understanding and perk up!  Imagine if we, as a world, all watered eachother’s souls with nourishment instead of hatred and hurt?

We would have a lush, beautiful, spiritual world of love!

Shine On!

xo