Let's be real 7-6-2016

I am and always have been an honest, truthful person and I tell it like I see it.  If you are my friend and you ask me if the pants make your butt look big (and they do) I am going to tell you that yes, they do.  If you don't want the truth, don't ask me.  I will not sugar coat anything and just tell you what you want to hear, so don't get offended when I tell you the truth.  There are plenty of people who will tell you the opposite to make you feel better about your butt, but I am not one of them.

This was really sparked by a recent conversation with a loved one.  Normally our conversations are catch up sessions each week, you know, "how are things and what have you been up to?" and just sharing our lives, like loved ones do.  In this case it was more of a "I need to unload my problems" kind of conversation and I honestly did not know what to say.  I can be blunt when I am honest and I did not want to cause any harm emotionally to this person I love by spitting out the wrong thing.  So what I ended up saying was to compare these two things, gave examples, and tell me which is more pressing as problems go.

The truth is, she was facing a large challenge and yet so was I but the difference is she was trying to figure out how to manage or control hers and I was trusting in the Universe to help me resolve mine but since she was unaware of mine, hers seemed the larger problem of the two.  Because that is what humans do, they center on themselves and their "problems".  I am not saying people are self centered, but on the other hand it is about self preservation so to some degree they can seem that way.

Flip the coin and people who are centered within themselves will tend to trust the universe and their own intuition for their preservation and try to help others do the same.  Sometimes that means smacking them upside of the head with the truth.  And the truth is that if you live a life with a pattern, it is the universe telling you to change your pattern for a different result, if the pattern always ends badly.

I am not always eloquent when I hit you upside the head with the truth.  My bad.  While I was trying to figure out how to word it to my loved one, in the moment I did the best I could.  I always get the great insights after I have a moment to be still and reflect, after the fact.  And so I texted her and said what I was really thinking as she told me her challenge was that I would gladly trade her for mine.

And for this one time, I sincerely would have traded her for her "problem"  In reality, if we all got together and put our "problems" in a pile, odds are good you would choose the one you put in the pile to begin with.  You would see that there are so many other bigger problems in the pile that yours wasn't nearly as "bad" as you thought.  And at least it is a "problem" you are familiar with.  And honestly it is yours and meant for your highest good.

Our purpose here, in this time and space is to grow and learn.  To grow in awareness and learn that at our very center we are love and love conquers all.  That the universe ALWAYS conspires in our favor and strives to show us, by what comes up for us, to show us what we need to overcome to reach our highest good and potential.  And so I am:

Not always eloquent, but being honest and keeping it real since....forever.

Blessings 7-5-2016

I say that in all seriousness.  If you think of food, shelter and material things when you are counting your blessing, though they may be so, they are more provision than blessing.  Because they can be taken from you.  A true blessing is something you cannot hold in your hands or touch in a physical sense.  That can not be taken from you.

The sun rising every day, that is a blessing, as when it sets every evening.  When I was younger I would marvel at sunsets and sunrises and say aloud "ahh, the Universe is finger painting again, just for me" and although I was not literal about the me part, as it was for anyone alive who could say "me" who actually saw it, I did appreciate the painting made for me by the Universe.

The rain is a blessing, cleansing and making everything new and smelling clean again.  The night sky, with all the starts shining, is a blessing.  The ocean and her waves coming in to kiss the shores is a blessing, what is more calming than that?  Nature herself is a blessing.

And LOVE, that is free for the having by all living things, is the greatest blessing of all.  It cannot be touched and yet it is felt, it cannot be wrapped up but it can be given like the gift that it is, it is everywhere and yet you cannot see it with your physical eyes. These, my friends are blessings.  So:

If you think of material things when counting your blessings, you may not understand what a blessing is.

Happy 4th America 7-4-2016

No "poster" today, it is an American holiday and I was not inclined to be that creative today.

But I do have a nice read for you:

I love life and holidays bring to mind the many reasons why I love life (beside the fact that life loves ME!) and all that I am grateful for.

1) I love and am grateful for my housemates Anita and Rob, who give me the space for solitude in the mornings and again in the evenings and yet are there for me when I need, amusing me no end and sharing their kind hearts with me.

2) I am grateful for holidays that open up the roads and stores for me to get things done that I need to do, all without any fuss whatsoever. I am also thankful for those folks who work the holidays so I can access their wares and goods.

3) I am grateful to live in a country, despite her flaws, that offers me a life of freedom. I am FREE to make my own choices about so many things. We have the freedom of religion (though I abstain from religion as an institution and I am FREE to do so, I do not look down on anyone or think less of them for choosing any organized religion) so I am FREE to believe in love and kindness above all else.

4) I am FREE to choose to have an Anchor Steam on the 4th of July to celebrate my freedoms. Those who know me know I do not drink (and they say I am so much more fun and funny when I do) but I choose not to drink 99.999% of the time. I am FREE to choose otherwise today. I have nothing against anyone drinking in moderation and fail to see the logic in drinking to excess and numbing oneself from the beautiful life we are given. There is nothing quite like a GOOD cold brew on a hot day such as today. Yes, they cost a small fortune here, but if one is going to have a GOOD beer, one must make that sacrifice in order to purchase one.

5) I am grateful to live on such a beautiful planet in such a beautiful place as I choose to live. Living in the forest is AMAZING and I highly recommend it. There is nothing like driving up the hill, feeling the temps drop and have a house with so much greenery surrounding it.

6) I am grateful that God has given me a kind heart and gentle spirit and no fear to stop me from using them.

7) I am grateful for the many friends I have and people I am friends to. I made that distinction since I love all my people even if they do not consider me THEIR friend, I will always be a friend to them. For me it is once a friend, always a friend. Sure we all may go different ways and choose different paths, but I will always be there for them.

8) I am grateful that happiness is a choice, as are love, peace, joy and any other emotion. One can always choose the opposites of these but for me the opposing ones suck too much energy and I find them to be time wasters. I choose to live my life in joy.

9) I am grateful to be alive and healthy.

And as with my quiet times, I do reflect and always on the joy in my life and how blessed I am. And how much I actually CHOOSE to be blessed and to be a blessing to others. Today, for me, it was not about picnics or BBQ's but about being thankful for those who paid the price for me to have my freedoms, for them it was not free.

Do not judge 7-3-2016

You may believe that what you think is right and what another thinks about the same thing is wrong.  That is a judgement my friends.  You are deeming their reality as wrong when it does not agree with your own.  Stop that!

It is entirely possible not to agree without placing any labels, it really is.  Only thing is, you have to give up your attachment to being "right" and that is an ego issue.  It is one of its devious little tricks to keeping you asleep to who you truly are and that is the energy of love.  Read 1 Corinthians chapter 13 sometime.   Oh, fer heck, just read it now:

 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 Love never fails.

THAT is what we are made of and to do.  How many of the 14 traits can you say you practice?  I cannot say that I am myself 100% of them 100% of the time but I can say I come pretty close most of the time.  I am in a human body after all.  And though it does not say love is not judgemental verbatim, if you judge another you do dishonor them, and it is self-seeking in a fashion, seeking to be better than another.

Everything just IS, there is no right or wrong until you label it as such.  And we are not meant to fail because love never fails and we are love, in human form, experiencing itself.  So:

In saying one thing is right and another thing is wrong, you are making a judgement.  Stop that.

What you see, 7-2-2016

I heard a little southern lady say this and it cracked me up.  But she is right of course.  You can sugar coat anything and it still is what is was before the sugar coating.  Look for what is truly inside people because no matter what they look like on the surface, it is not necessarily what lies within.

I think that people are good on the inside, at the basest level of who they are, I know they are good.  People do show what they are in a crisis situation, they do.  You may not know your neighbor before a tornado hits your block but by golly they are there for you afterward. Or any other natural or man made crisis.  People come together to care for each other and the world itself will send out loving prayers for you because they feel your pain.

While this may not have been her true meaning or what she was trying to say, But this is what I got from it.  There are many unenlightened souls  who only see what they want to see, even a sugar coated turd as a piece of candy, but bite into it and you will find out that you were only looking at the surface and seeing what you wanted to see.

But really you can only see in others what you see in yourself.  If you see beauty and love in yourself, that is what you will see in others.  If you don't see, because you are asleep going through life, beauty and love in you, then the mean, ugly, unkind people will reflect back to you what is in you and you will only see that in others.

And I honestly don't believe people are mean and nasty, only unaware of the beauty and love that they are deep down.  Maybe they had a hard upbringing, which has a lot to do with how people behave because they learned it as a child, or they just have not yet awakened on a spiritual level, but either way they have the power to change all of that.  Look into your own eyes in a mirror sometime, that soul deep within you, that inner child who just wants your own love.  Put that mirror up close so that all you are looking at are your eyes so that you are not distracted by the beauty of your face.

You deserve your own love as much (more so really) as anyone else in the world deserves your love.  Until you see the reflection of the divine in you, you are not likely to see it in anyone else, and so how deeply can you love others if you don't love you?  And that divine reflection is there in all of us.  As it always has been and always will be.  So look past the sugar coating, past the surface of the physical that you see, to what is truly there.

What Matters 6-29-2016

I believe that most people have multiple groups of friends and I may well be wrong or delusional about that, but I myself have different groups of friends, from different places.  Some I grew up with, went to school with, many I have met in different places along life's journey.  And I love them all equally, from my heart and soul.

It doesn't matter to me if you are or are not a part of any one of these groups or all of them, I love each person individually because they are in my life.  Your affiliation with anyone else does not matter to me, I love you because you are you.  Period.

It is called unconditional love and it is not based on you meeting any criteria or standards.  I simply love you as another soul that I see the beauty in.

And I don't really comprehend the logic of a group mentality that if one person should step back from the group for their own growth, why many in the group will turn their backs on someone they claimed to love.  That is conditional love folks and not what we are meant for.  That person who steps back has something the group needs because only they have that gift to give. 

And it is one thing to wish them well and another thing entirely to basically cast them out of your life altogether.  You can give a person space without deserting them, completely erasing their existence from your life.  If you do that you are the one who will suffer the most, not the one who stepped back.  They will go merrily on their path, as they should, without abandoning you, just doing what they are meant to do.

If the group or pack mentality is not beneficial to your growth, it is in your best interest to step back.  Not desert individual people from those groups, but to step back from the crowd, as it were.  You came into this physical world to shine, like the light that you are, not to be dimmed by others around you.  If they desert you, it is for the best as they did not love you unconditionally anyway.

Your soul has a purpose and it is to love, unconditionally.  Imagine a world where everyone did.  Can you?  So those who do not yet understand or practice unconditional love are not meant to be in your orbit until they do.  Our actions speak volumes and letting your light of love shine will draw them to it when they are ready for it.  Let your light shine <3

Faith 6-27-2016

Faith, the substance of things hoped for, a belief in something you cannot yet see, is a wonderful thing.  But leaving yourself out of the equation may not get you as close to it as fast.  Since we are all connected to the Divine, and made in its likeness,  with the same power as our creator, if you do not have faith in yourself and that spark of divinity within you, how strong can your faith be in the Divine itself?

Not to get at all religious here, but biblically speaking, the scripture says that if you have faith the size of a mustard seed you can say to the mountain to move and it must move.  But where does faith dwell?  Like the Divine, it dwells within you.  So if you do not have faith in yourself and your power, then you lack the faith to move the mountain, relying on something outside of yourself to move it.

If you believe that you were designed by a divine creator or deity, how can you not see that when you look in the mirror?  How can you not love that person in the mirror the way that your creator loves you, who is loving itself within you, created you in its likeness?

And by likeness I am not referring to physical attributes as anyone can plainly see, who looks, that we do not all resemble each other physically at all.  It is that spark, that love that is within you that is the likeness, the power to believe in your power. A power you cannot see until you trust in it, put faith in it and watch it manifest what you ask of it to manifest.  Be it moving a mountain or providing you clear guidance each day.  That still small voice they speak of, that is your divine voice, the one who wants to guide you to your highest and greatest good.  It is within you and so:

Faith in yourself is the bridge to what you want and where you want to be.

Unconditional Love 6-26-2016

I have said this most of my life.  It is true for me.  And my true meaning is that I love unconditionally or without conditions placed upon it.  Does it mean that I will agree with everything you say?  No, but I will love you anyway.  Does it mean I will condone bad behavior? No, but I will love you anyway.  And in loving myself the same way, without condition, it may require that I distance myself from you if you are unkind to me, but I will love you all the same.

There is no switch within my heart that I may turn my love on and off because I simply love, unconditionally.  And should I choose to separate myself from you to protect myself for a time, it does not diminish my love for you.  I told my son, many years ago,  I love you but right now I do not really like you all that much and it is not you personally but your behavior.  Which was true.  As a mother, it is hard to watch your child self destruct by their own choices.  So as much as I loved him, it was hurting me and I chose to distance myself from his activities.  He was an adult and free to make his own choices but I did not, out of love for myself, have to, nor choose to, witness any of it.

And even while distanced from those I have chosen to distance myself from for periods of time, I loved them, thought about them and prayed for them.  Because I truly love them.  But I also love myself.  In order to love fully, you cannot love yourself less than you love anyone else.  And since we are all connected what you do against yourself, you do against all.  Yes, it hurts when I hear others demean themselves or anyone else and more so when they demean themselves.  Because you cannot demean anything you truly love.

Yes, people lash out when they are hurt and it hurts others when they do.  And I get that people do that as they are human.  But if you can remember, in the heat of that moment, to stop, take a deep breathe, let it go and not lash out in hostility, you will not be adding negative energy to the world, which affects everyone.  If there is a wrong done, it is possible to state it calmly, to point it out, then move on.  There is nothing wrong in speaking up, it's how you speak up that matters.

I went a little wayward there, as I do tend to digress, but this is my process and I speak from the heart, where:

My love does not have an on and off switch.

Habits are mental 6-25-2016

Habits are mental conditioning, plain and simple.  And yes, the feelings can be quite physical as well as I will demonstrate shortly.  Our brains are a phenomenal thing really and can adapt as need be.  Think of an animal (or person for that matter) who loses a limb, they do not just roll over and die for the lack of it, they adapt to what their new physical reality is and the brain helps accomplish it through our neuronal pathways there.

For the sake of showing you how habits are a mental process, clasp your hands together as in the photo above, (not exactly as the photo, it is there merely for reference as to clasping hands in case my verbiage is incorrect), without looking because whether the left or right thumb are on top is irrelevant at this point, which is to clasp your hands in what feels comfortable to you.

Now, look down at your hands and see whether the right or left thumb is on top.  Ok, got it?  Now unclasp your hands and turn them just enough to re-clasp them with the opposite thumb on top.  Feel awkward?  Chances are good that if your right hand is your dominant one that your right thumb was on top to begin with and vice versa.  But if you practice both, then either feel "right" because  you have sent the message to your brain that triggered a new neuronal pathway.

And any habit can feel comfortable, good or bad, on a mental or physical level, until you practice other habits that create new pathways.  Having sustained a brain injury years ago where I did not know my own name, let alone how anything in the world was done, I had to create new pathways and now I can pretty much do anything comfortably.  I have always been curious and loved to experiment, that is how we learn, and it is just easier and more comfortable for me to be a little ray of sunshine.

Not that I haven't always been, mostly I have, but I have been through things that caused situational depression and I have learned that it did not help my situation one bit or myself and my mental and emotional health for that matter.  And so I always strive to look for the next best feel good thought, to stay in the flow of feeling good because that is where our power comes from that best suits us.

I prefer to choose happiness for myself rather than reach for a pill that will help me not give a crap how I feel, which really only benefits big pharma and not the individual they hook on their drugs, unless the person has an actual chemical unbalance.  Most do not, in my opinion, it is just such a chaotic world that many people see who are glued to the media, who would have you see all the negative and not the positive which takes place right next to it.  I digress, as my point is that happiness is an inside job and if you tap into the power that is within you, you shall find it.

Your brain is a very powerful ally and can help you if you are willing to tap into it, experiment, and see that nothing outside of you need have any affect on what is inside of you.  The universe has a sense of humor.  It has laid the most powerful tool in the spot that most will never look, right within you.

If you catch yourself clasping your hands and going back and forth with it, you are on the right track to seeing the power within you.  Plus it brings a smile to my face thinking of people clasping and re-clasping their hands in practice :-)

Poop sandwich 6-23-2016

It is not what you are thinking, which is part of the problem.  For the younger generation, let me first say that back in the day money, currency was referred to as bread and I heard this sentiment uttered more than once.  But money is not your true currency.

For me, my currency is love and kindness, what I am made of and to do and my thoughts and feelings dictate what that looks like in my reality.  Your true currency is the inherent value of you, which is immeasurable.

So yes, if you look at life in less than positive terms, you are going to taste a lot of poop.  And though poop may surround me, I do not allow it in, not into my thoughts or feelings or into that peaceful center of me.  So I taste very little poop in my sandwich of life.

I don't personally know of anyone who has not at least heard of the Wizard of Oz, or anyone who has not seen it.  It was a fantastic metaphor of life and in the end the good witch Glinda says "you had the power all along" and we do.  It is in us from our beginning and with us at our end, all we need do is recognize and remember that fact.

If you are tasting a lot of poop, chances are good that you are living from your ego, which would have you believe that your happiness lies somewhere outside of yourself (it is vicious like that because it would have no purpose if you woke up and knew that it was within you all along) and so you are seeking outside for your happiness and contentment.  And so you are disappointed when that thing you thought would make you happy is not "it" and you seek for the next thing.  You shall never find it.  It does not lie outside of you, it is within you.

But I will tell you that you are the source of your own unhappiness or happiness, your "sandwich" and it is all in what you think, say and feel.  No one can make you feel anything, you choose your feelings.  Period.  If another can make you feel anything it is because you have given them your power.  And then you will taste more poop.  I prefer not to give my power to anyone else. Therefore I taste less poop.

So love yourself and others, it is the best currency one can have because:

Life is a poop sandwich, the more bread you have the less poop you taste.