Love is the Answer

"Be Impeccable With Your Word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love." ~Don Miguel Ruiz





This painting by Robert Donaghey is called "Winged Heart". I find it to be a beautiful illustration of the way to create positive, loving movement in the world. A positive, loving heart has magical wings made of mystical radiance. And as it touches lightly the hearts of others, blossoming miracles are its bounty.

Today this painting made me think about the power of words. While it is true that our primary methods of communication are non-verbal, words are the next step in the process of turning imagination (where all manifestations originate) into reality (on Earth as it is in Heaven). That fortunate bit of lag time between thought and manifestation gives us time to readjust any misaligned, out-of-control thoughts before they create havoc in our outer circumstances. But once those thoughts are put into the written or spoken word, they have entered your physical reality, and they become much more difficult to correct.

This being so, it follows that there is great worth in setting your intent on becoming "Impeccable With Your Word". I find that if I try to do this with my mind, the effects are limited. So instead, I set my intent on opening my heart, and speaking from there. An open heart is automatically in touch with the hearts of others. When you can feel in your heart the feelings of others, you know the truth of your oneness, and using "the power of your word in the direction of truth and love" becomes effortless.

Well, it's not quite effortless for me yet, but I thoroughly enjoy being an eternal work-in-progress. I love my life, and I love that it will never get old because there will always be another great height to aspire to.

For today, I am pleased that I have this opportunity right now to be "impeccable with my word" in telling you what my heart is saying right now: "Psst...Love is the answer. Pass it on!"

Surrender

Eckhart Tolle's
Present Moment Reminder: "It is not by resisting or running away from,
but by that deep act of surrender that the divine is realized. And that
amazingly does not take time. Surrender can only be now."

I am often asked how I've managed to maintain my fitness and flexibility after having 6 children. It's a strange question if you think about it. And the answer is in the question itself. In other words, my answer is that I don't question it. I don't say to myself what other people seem to be saying: You have six kids. Why aren't you stiff and out of shape?

I usually skip the more detailed explanation, which involves pointing out that they have some preconceived ideas in their belief system that are somewhat limited. Generally, I keep it simple. I tell them it's all about keeping a good attitude. Everyone can relate to that on some level, because if you pay attention to life for even one clear moment, you'll see that it's true.

One woman in a fitness class that I was taking decided to be more insistent in her questions about my level of flexibility. I said something about how flexibility of mind can translate into flexibility of body. And she gave me an eye-rolling look of disbelief that said: I know this is California, but spare me the hippie philosophy. What she said out loud was: No really, how do you do it?

And this was my answer: Most people think that stretching is about forcing your way through the tight spots, from the outside in. But it's not. It's about allowing your body to release the tension that you are holding within it. The point of release comes from deep within you, and works its way through to the outer layers of your body.

Pushing against resistance creates more resistance. Allowing its release creates freedom of movement.

I think she was sorry she asked.

I was reminded of this when I read the above Eckhart Tolle quote, because you create more freedom of movement in your life the same way you do it with your body. Both involve a "deep act of surrender". If there is something in your life that has been stubbornly resistant to change, the answer can never involve more resistance. Instead, allow it to be, and you will find yourself moving through that block as if it were never really there at all.

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE !!!!

Life is on your side. That's a really good thing to know. It's a really good thing to remember. It's absolutely amazing to hold as a dominant thought in your mind. To accept that absolutely everything Life brings is a gift for your benefit and highest good, is to accept Paradise as a state of mind.

I mean, this is for me - all of it, Everything, this whole world, and everything and everyone in it, and all the worlds beyond it! All of it is here for my pleasure, and I have the free will to do with it as I please. Wow. I'm awed.

And I'm humbled. To know the great power that I possess is to know great responsibility. Every thought I think is contributing to the creation of not only my reality, but to the experience of all others within their own realities, because we are all interconnected. We are in fact, all ONE.

Just a hint of such awesome responsibility can be enough to short-circuit the mind and throw it into a sleep-state of denial, separation, and powerlessness. I like to look at the many ways this manifests as being nothing more than symptoms of a minor and temporary dis-ease of the mind.
And everyday it gets easier for me to remember that there is only one cure: LOVE.

LIFE is a GIFT of PARADISE for your PLEASURE. Yeah, really. It is.

So there's nothing left to do but to LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE !!!!

NOW is the Time of Awakening

NOW is the time of Awakening.

I used to think that there was always someplace else I needed to get to. Nothing was ever quite good enough for me. I was always needing something more, more, and then more again.

And then I woke up. And I didn't even know I was sleeping. Ha! Go figure.

My life is perfect exactly the way it is. And on top of that, it keeps getting better everyday. That's a far cry from what I was taught to believe in the old sleeping reality. Back then, I believed myself to be no better than 2nd rate in any given area.

So I stopped rating myself. And I stopped thinking that the opinions of others should matter to me at all. And then my mind started to really quiet down. There were no longer dozens of different voices offering their expert opinion on what I should be doing with my life. Oh sure, they still float through. But it's the quietest voice that I hear most clearly now. That still, small voice that can only be heard deep within me, although its Source can found all around me, Everywhere.

There's no place I need to get to these days. There are places I would like to go. There are places that the still, small voice whispers to me that I will go. But it's NOW that holds my attention. Because it's NOW that's perfect. It's NOW when the Source of Everything can be found Everywhere.

NOW is the time of Awakening.

Play

"Life is nothing to be very serious about. Life is a ball in your hands to play with."
~Ravi Shankar







I really love life. I love everything about it. It's the only game in town, so if you don't love it, you better learn to love it. Or not. That's the beauty of it in a nutshell: You can do whatever you want. You can even choose to hate life if that's what you think you want. I've tried that way of playing, and in the end I decided that it really wasn't very much fun for me. Of course, I learned a lot from the experience. Mostly what I learned was that I really like fun, and since fun goes hand-in-hand with love, hating life was pretty much out of the question.

For a long time I tried hard to figure out what would make my life more fun. And then I figured out that "trying hard to have fun" didn't make any sense, and was never going to work. So I dropped the "trying hard" part, and kept the "have fun" part, and just began enjoying my life. That's it. No more: Oh, but this isn't fun because I lost this, and I don't agree with that, and those people are stupid, and there's some very ugly things going on in the world, and there's some very ugly things going on in my own mind, and so on. Yeah, okay so there's always something to complain about if that's what you choose. And there's always something to be grateful for. It's all about choice.

I am choosing to take things lightly. I'm choosing to play at life with joyful abandon. I'm loving every moment that I have to explore life in this body. It's so much fun! Some parts are less comfortable than others, but that's okay. It's all just part of the game. And I'd rather be playing than complaining.

Get Ready

Some people think a miracle is only a miracle if it happens instantaneously, but miracles can grow slowly and patience and faith can compel things to happen that otherwise never would have come to pass. ~Boyd K. Packer



It's easy to tell if you're ready for a miracle. Just open your eyes and look around you. Do you see miracles? If you do, then you're ready. Because the truth is, Life is a miracle. If you're not seeing it, then your eyes aren't fully open, and you're not ready.

And that's perfectly fine. There have been times in my life where the eyes of my heart have been so clouded by grief and despair, that I was unable to see anything but my own sadness reflected back at me. At those times, I instinctively did my best to grab onto whatever scrap of blind faith that I could find. They were few and far between, but in retrospect I can see that those were the moments that saved me.

Now I can see that my thoughts are the seeds that I plant in the garden of my reality. And that is one heck of a miracle! It's my garden, and I can plant whatever I want. It's actually more accurate to say: That is one HEAVENLY MIRACLE! Because how else could this possibly be true? If this isn't Heaven on Earth, then how can I just think and create?!

I know that there are many people, myself included, that appear to be separated from loved ones by death. And if they are in the deepest throes of mourning, their thoughts on this subject will tend to run along the lines of: Well, that's a bunch of bull. I am thinking that I want to be with this person I love and it's not happening.

The truth is, that person is actually getting exactly what they are thinking. Their dominant thoughts are: I'm sad because this person is not with me and will never, ever be with me again. But if for the briefest of moments you can have even one pure thought of the love that will always connect you, you will begin to see evidence of the fact that you are not separate at all. It will come to you in the tiniest of whispers at first. And as your thoughts turn more toward the truth of everlasting love, your reality will turn more toward the kinds of big and instantaneous events that are more easily recognizable as miraculous.

If you can just trust life a little, and have faith that everything happens for your highest good, you will develop the patience to wait for your seeds to grow into the kinds of plants that produce beautiful and delectable fruits. These Heavenly fruits will nourish your life and give you new seeds to plant for even more miraculous joy.

Open your eyes and look around. Even if you see nothing but garbage, know that that is a miracle too. It's your thoughts that placed that trash where it is. It's your thoughts that will remove it. And now you're ready.

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Some people think a miracle is only a miracle if it happens instantaneously, but miracles can grow slowly and patience and faith can compel things to happen that otherwise never would have come to pass. ~Boyd K. Packer

Here is Good

People are where they are because that is exactly where they really want to be - whether they will admit that or not. ~Earl Nightingale

The surface details of my life haven't changed very much in the 7 years that I have lived in my current home. Even so, I'm a lot happier than I was 7 years ago. And my capacity for bliss grows larger everyday.

Three of my children were scheduled to work today, 3 different shifts, beginning at 11AM. When I was younger I would have been resistant to this, and would have interpreted these circumstances to be a great injustice. If I were feeling especially dramatic, I might even have gone so far as to insist this was irrefutable evidence of the unfairness of life itself. Poor me, boo-hoo, blah-blah...

That all gets old after a while. Today my perspective on life has changed. I see life as being fair and balanced. Not only that, but I no longer see life as something that's coming AT me. It's coming FROM me, created by my own thoughts, feelings, and actions with every passing moment.

So our Christmas celebration began at 6AM this Christmas. We opened presents, then went out for breakfast. After a lovely meal, we went to a local Lake Tahoe beach, and slid around on the ice, under a perfect blue sky, snow-covered mountains and trees all around, my husband, our 6 beautiful children, ages 11-20, all of us together in a stunning, life-affirming, magical, winter wonderland. Ahhhhhhh...Life is good.

When it was time to drive Ryan to work, Mother Nature gave us a special treat- the sighting of a huge bear, up in a tree. It had to be 600 pounds minimum. And we never would have seen it if we hadn't been driving Ryan to work.

I'm here because I want to be here. The circumstances of my life are the results of the choices I have made, and all of it happens for my highest good. The more I allow life to be what it is, the better it gets. I see things more clearly, and the love and light that was once invisible to me reveals itself in bold Technicolor, even when nothing on the surface has changed at all.

It's good to be where you are, wherever that is. Everything happens for a reason. And everything that happens is for your benefit. So wherever you are, it's gotta be good.