How to Tap into the Strength of Your Truth

My writing has been described as lyrical or even whimsical.  I know my words as truth; they carry an awareness of a kinder and compassionate world.

We are living in a time that allows our actions and reactions to be far reaching into our world.  Humanity has documented challenges and successes of our planet throughout the ages.  Our ability to be aware of current situations across the oceans has gifted us a unique knowledge and challenge. The media is sharing terrifying footage of fires, wars, and other devastating events that are portrayed as out of control.  It might appear like humanity is being brought to our collective knees….

I choose to look at this moment in history as an opportunity to gain a higher perspective of our options.  We can unite, bring light, and vibrancy to the areas where fear has trapped us.  To achieve this, we need to look deeper into every image.  For example, we see animals fleeing the fires in Australia.  This has triggered emotions for many of us.  Seeing the animals loosing lives to an out of control fire stirs up grief, fear and sadness.

Self-Empowerment

Wishing you a Healthy, Happy and Harmonious New Year!

What can we look forward to in the new year? We must recognize that we are truly engaged in a planetary turning point. In the same way that it’s hard to see the forest when you are lost among all the trees, it’s hard to see humanity’s evolution when we are surrounded by so many crises.  The confusion may lie in the fact that this is one of those rare cases where the “bad news” is actually the “good news.”

A Thoughtful 2020

Many people start off the New Year with resolutions – but I’d like to help you (and I include myself) in stating that beside making resolutions this year – I think it’s so important to try and become more aware of the idea that ‘life follows thought’.

To put it simply … YOU are what you think. Most people don’t realize how powerful thoughts are and how each thought has its own unique energy signature. You’re a magnetic energy being – so that when you have a thought – it’s immediately lodged in your magnetic field, which is more commonly known as your aura.

When that thought remains in this field for any length of time, it often radiates out to be absorbed into the Universe. It’s easy to imagine what’s likely to happen to someone who constantly fears certain things will happen in their life. They’re consciously thinking about it, dwelling on it, obsessing on it, feeding their precious energy into it. The net result is that they end up sending that stream of fear-based thought out into the universe. It’s like they’re holding up a sign above their head with a giant arrow saying: “Hey, come to me!” So, it usually does. Then you’ll hear them say: “I knew this was going to happen!” It’s not rocket science to see that we attract what we think.

Only One Step

You can educate the conscious mind and yet it never, ever changes the program. If we don't own it we can't change it. Step one, own it!

You don't get habits to change just because you want them to. The subconscious mind resists change because if it changes then the habits change. You have to understand how the programs were put in the first place and then go back and do the same process. That means practice. If you want to play a musical instrument, a nice conscious idea, you have to practice. 

So practice driving a car, practice playing a musical instrument, practice a relationship.

I love the new agey slang for it, "fake it till you make it."

6 Tips for Staying in the Present Moment

Far too often, people are stuck waiting for future happiness rather than staying in the present moment and enjoying the moment they find themselves in.

The problem is that life doesn’t last forever, and one day these people are going to look back and realize they spent their whole lives looking forward to the future rather than enjoying the moments they were given.

If you would like to make the most of the present and enjoy every minute you are given to its fullest, consider following these tips.

Stop Singing the Notes of Discord

We are all notes. We are all the notes of the kingdom. Each of us is able to resonate with things we would never dream could produce either such a soothing or scary resonance in us. What should be evident in this fact is that when the "sound," or manifestation, of someone else sets us off and sends us into a fit, it is not their vibration that vexes us and makes us a "victim." What really disturbs us is the internal vibrations of a few of our own unknown strings as they sound off (within us) in a natural sympathetic response to the dominating tones of the moment.

Our recurring resistance to these undesired moments, to such people and conditions as create in us this discord we mistakenly blame on them, keeps us from learning how to utilize these relationships in order to realize their true purpose for us. For instance, say there is someone at work who tends to irritate us. Our usual approach is to avoid this person, as our errant thinking tells us that being out of sight is out of mind. The only thing is, as we have all come to experience, we cannot escape the sound of our self; so if it isn't that person we dodge at work, surely someone else will come along and strike a similar chord, "making" us hear those same sorry sounds of self again.

What is the answer? To realize deeply, personally, that we cannot outrun any one of these sounds of ourselves anymore than a piano can move out from under the strings by which it plays; and, as an integral part of this new self-understanding, that we need not, must not, resist some unpleasant note of our own, or that of someone else. These notes, whatever their tone, do not define us unless we make the mistake of identifying with their sounding. The false sense of self that each such sound produces within us is just that: a temporary self that is, itself, little more than a passing effect of the blending of these sounding notes.

The Important Information Confusion Has For You

There are two kinds of situations that can cause confusion:

1) You might feel confused when your wounded self is in charge and you are judging yourself. This confusion is telling you that your wounded self is telling you a lie.

2) You will likely feel confused when you are with someone else who is lying to you. 

Confusion Stemming From Self-Judgment

In a session with Glenn, he told me about an incident involving his wife, Diana. Diana was telling him something while the TV was on, and he couldn’t focus on what she was saying. He became confused, and in his confusion, he got annoyed with her.

As we explored his annoyance, he became aware that he was judging himself coming from a false belief: “I should always know what to do.” His wounded self decided when he was very young that he was supposed to know what to do, since he often got punished for doing things wrong. So his feeling of confusion was not okay with him.

I asked him to go inside and lovingly embrace his feeling of confusion. Immediately he said, “My little boy is giggling in delight! He likes the feeling of confusion. It opens up his sense of wonder!”

“Glenn, are you willing to take your judgment off your feeling of confusion, and instead recognize that the feeling is informational?”

“Yes!”

“Now, go back to the situation and ask your Guidance what would be loving to your little boy in that situation with Diana?”

“I already know. I would say to Diana, ‘I can’t focus on what you are saying with the TV on. Do you mind if I turn it off?’ I can see that once I judged myself for feeling confused, I didn’t know what to do, so I got annoyed with her.”

Mark Nepo's Weekly Reflection: What It Means to See

To see takes time like to have a friend takes time.

—Georgia O’Keeffe

I was born a seer. Early on, words became the brushes with which I tried to paint what I saw. In time, I learned that while art is movement through space and music is movement through time, poetry is both. And each of us is born with an inclination toward seeing or hearing. I was born a painter and sculptor in a poet’s body.

Over the years, I’ve come across several legendary crossovers in the arts: those whose vision comes in one form, while their expression comes in another. Michelangelo’s genius came from being a sculptor forced by Pope Julius to paint, forced to compress and express his gift for three dimensions into two dimensions. The result was his masterpiece, The Sistine Chapel ceiling. George Bernard Shaw was a social theorist and critic in a playwright’s body. Aldous Huxley was a philosopher in a novelist’s body. And Robert Frost was a masterful short story writer, a weaver of potent yarns, born in a rhymer’s body.

The insight here is that each needed to express what they saw through the instrument they were given. This dynamic is what gave rise to their genius. I suspect that if George Bernard Shaw had expressed his social ideas in pure social writing, their potency would have been lost.