I love writing blogs based on the weekly Oracle reading. Even though there are typically four cards in a reading sometimes only one jumps out to talk about. This week the glorious Greek goddess Artemis, the virgin goddess of the hunt, really stood out for me. I am an empath and boy can I get distracted by other people’s “stuff”, by too much on my plate, and by social media and news. I have to go on a media diet (kinda like a mental energy cleanse) and stay off the usual suspects especially when I have a creative project in front of me. So when I need to focus, I imagine calling up this goddess energy from within and pretending I am Artemis with my bow and arrow holding it taut, focused on my target. Would Artemis let herself get distracted by other people’s noise? No way she is the queen of the forest, not interested in gossip, in the noise of complaints or the fears accompanying the din of the world. Nope, she picks her target, gets super quiet and waits until the perfect moment. Then, because she is laser sharp in her focus and fully trusts the relationship between what she wants and what becomes possible, she always makes her mark. Rarely does the goddess of the hunt miss.
It's easy to forget that we are all perfect in our own design. Sometimes we muck it up with habits and choices that do not serve us.
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“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” — Maya Angelou
It was early evening when it happened.
I was walking back to my car after a boxing session (yup, I box!), when I turned the corner and encountered a homeless man lying face-up on the sidewalk. He was motionless. Quiet. Had little sign of life. I wasn’t sure what to do or how to help him. So instead, I just kept walking with my head down.
A moment later, a thought flashed through my mind. “Did I really just walk past a man lying on the ground and keep going?”
I got into my car and felt a deep sense of shame.
This morning I woke up and meditated, hand on heart, waiting for that click that I know will turn on my miracle mindset. Sometimes that’s not the case and I don’t wake up loving my life. When that happens it’s a call to action! I need to make a change-clean house, start again. And, once I get back in the zone of wonder, to keep the “love engine” oiled and running I need to redo those steps again and again.
So how do you get to that miracle mindset? Where do you start, how do you get there and what do you change when you’re not really sure?
Sometimes the change is internal, about perspective and perception, sometimes it’s environmental, about the state of your surroundings and its effect on you, and other times it’s about the act of dropping resistance and surrendering to what is to be liberated from judgment so your heart can open wide. I know when I’m in love with my life I’m automatically aligned with a miracle mindset and then anything becomes possible.
In every life, reminders arrive about what's really key.
What matters most to you?
The Practice:
Remember the important things.
Why?
In every life, reminders arrive about what's really important.
I’ve received some myself, as I’m sure you have, too. Perhaps it was news of a potentially serious health problem, the death of a loved one, or an accident that could have turned fatal. These are uncomfortably concrete messages that sooner or later something will catch up with each one of us.
When I’m pierced with one of these reminders, it’s like there are three layers in my mind. The top layer is focused on problem-solving. Beneath that is what seems like a furry little animal that’s upset and wants to curl up and be hugged. The bottom layer feels accepting, peaceful, and grateful.
While everyone knows you should be practicing gratitude on a daily basis, it can be difficult when times are tough. But it is during these challenging times that you most need to see the silver lining. This is a learned skill, and one that becomes much easier when you’re able to recognize the point where you’re at a crossroads. You can go left, and continue down the rabbit hole of negativity, perpetuating the energy that is surrounding your struggle, or you can go right, and break that cycle of negativity by consciously looking for the good that you know is there.
Here are four ways to discover the silver lining in any situation:
Will you do something for me? Go look out your window. It's okay, I' ll wait.
It doesn’t matter where you’re located. It doesn’t matter what time of day or night. Go to that window and look out. . .don’t glance. Even if it’s a view that you’ve seen hundreds of times before, take the time to slowly drink in everything that you see. Don’t filter the results or categorize them. Simply look with open eyes.
What will you see? It depends. You might see a neighbor walking their dog or the push and pull of traffic on a street or even just the bricks of the building next door. What you are seeing, in some sense, doesn’t really matter. It’s how you are seeing that makes all the difference. When you look out with eyes that are truly open, what you will see is life - real life, raw life, life in its purest form, replete with possibilities.
Roughly thirty years ago I was working in a bicycle shop in Sacramento, California. I loved it! I had eclectic coworkers and I received discounts on bikes and gear. After two years, I was ready to move on to a new adventure. I wanted to ride a mountain bike from Sacramento to Moab, Utah. My route was drawn on a map and I purchased the camping gear needed.
I was young and my entire life plan only took me to Moab; I was open to what the Universe offered me.
The trek was going to begin in June. I chose the roads least traveled, combined with some of our National Parks. I was planning a solo adventure, when a frequent customer, at the bike store suggested he join me. I don’t remember thinking it was either good or bad; just a different plan.
“Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.” — T.S. Eliot
On the first day of 2019, I sat down and meditated on how blessed I am to get this chance at a new year of life.
I focused on my intention to embrace the year ahead as one big magical adventure. My mind raced at times while thinking about this challenge to myself, but as I slowed down and focused my breathing, I found myself feeling calm and hopeful about what’s ahead.
If I have one big goal for this year, it’s to approach all of my professional and personal decisions from a place of adventure in 2019. Or, as one of my favorite poets the late John O’Donahue writes, I want to “awaken my spirit to adventure” this year. (You can read his poem in the “Sunday Reflection” section below.)
This year, I want to venture out, venture forward and venture into the unknown. I want to make decisions by asking myself, “Am I going to see and/or experience something new by doing this? Will it scare me or push me outside my comfort zone? Will I be able to look back and feel like I learned something or grew in some way? Will it be fun, meaningful and worthwhile?”
If my answer to these questions is “yes,” then I’ll know I’m making the right choice.
In 2019, I want to push myself to try things I might have said “no” to in the past. I want to challenge myself to keep an open mind about new opportunities. I want to stop looking at the items on my calendar as things I have to do, and instead, view them as experiences that I get to embark upon. And, I want to keep track of it all along the way.
That’s why I’m excited about “I’ve Been Thinking… The Journal,” which came out last week. This journal is a place for me (and for all of you as well) to write down what I’m thinking and experiencing throughout the coming year. It will also be a place for me to document how I’m feeling, what I’m excited about, what I’m scared of, and what I’m hopeful about.
Dearest you,
Tis the grand finale of 2018 this week and I’m curious about something. How do you say goodbye to the year past and welcome in the new year? What kind of rituals do you practice if any?
In past years I would spend a few days creating a vision board looking forward to the year ahead, setting my intentions, affirmations, cutting out pictures from magazines claiming the images that aligned with the feelings I wanted to emulate in the events of my life. The truth is I spent a whole lot of time focused on the outcome of my desires and little time on what had already transpired.
I had come to notice that without a closure, an inventory of my evolution and growth for the previous year I find that I’d be still somewhat motivated by a sense of “ more” or “ not enough”.
Has that happened to you?
When you look over the past twelve months, what is the first thing you feel? Joy or frustration? Accomplishment or disappointment? Excitement or dread? Or is it a combination of two or more of some opposing feelings?
Life is full of peaks and valleys, so it’s completely normal to look back on your past and have mixed emotions. Bad days, weeks or months eventually make way for the good times. Taking all of that into account results in a year recognized only in moments – major moments that changed your life for better or worse.
Whatever it is you are feeling now about the past, present, and future, I want you to take a moment to do these three things:
- Make peace with it.
- Embrace it.
- Plan to either grow or change it.
If you look back on the previous twelve months and only see a succession of choices that resulted in negative outcomes, make peace with it.
- Maybe you lost your job.
- Took a big risk that left you in the red.
- Went through a nasty divorce.
- Lost a loved one.
Whatever happened, find a way to make peace with it. If you’re still struggling to get back up from bad experiences, don’t get too down on yourself. We all heal at different paces. Remember, life isn’t a race. Take the time you need to lick your wounds. Cry. Get angry. And when you’re ready, make peace.
Wanna spread some holiday cheer?
I love doing an attitude of gratitude challenge for the last week of the year. It helps me move through the maze of socializing (believe it or not I’m kind of a hermit!) which honestly exhausts me even though I really love my friends and family.
First thing is I do a personal list which includes people who have inspired me and helped me grow etc. Yup, I’m gonna share mine with you for 2018! Then YOU share yours!
Then every day until the end of the year begins your day hand on heart tuning into Gratitude- the essence of it and all it means to you!
First this year I am really grateful for YOU. I know you could be reading a gazillion other people’s blogs. You chose to sign up for mine and for that I am so so grateful.
Multisensory Thanks Giving is a celebration of the loving parts of our personalities. They are the parts that are grateful and content and caring and in awe of the Universe. They are the parts that distinguishing between love and fear within ourselves reveal, and as we recognize them, we use them to create and cocreate with love rather than collaborate in fear.
Multisensory Thanks Giving is giving thanks for being a part of the transformation of human consciousness that is occurring for the first time. It is giving thanks for the ability to create futures of contribution and care. Thanks and Giving go together. As our lives become lives of Thanks and Giving, they become unified expressions of love, because gratitude and contribution without attachment to the outcome are expressions of love.
Appreciation & Gratitude
What is the difference? This is something I have thought about many times … is there a difference between gratitude and appreciation and, if so, what is it?
It has been something that has always stuck with me … this feeling that they are so similar, yet different. As I tuned in and asked Spirit for guidance, I understood what the difference was for me. I FEEL appreciation more than I do gratitude. I am sure, because I am clairsentient (a feeler), that it makes it different for me than for someone who is Clairvoyant (a seer) or Clairaudient (a hearer). I always knew appreciation “felt” different … deeper to me, but I wasn’t sure why.
“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” — Mark Twain
And so it begins…
The holiday madness. The holiday rush. Everywhere you look, you see ads for this and that. Must buys. Must haves. Must gets.
I, for one, find it all to be overwhelming. That’s why this holiday season, I’ve decided that I want to try and stay present and focused on what the holiday spirit really means to me.
For me, the holiday season is about joy. It’s about my faith. It’s about generosity of spirit (not generosity of my wallet). It’s about kindness to my fellow human beings.
“ Life is messy, tragic, terrifying, but also unbelievably breathtaking. There are deep gifts hidden in the most demanding challenges that life throws at us. In a time of crisis, gratitude is the key to opening your heart and unlocking the magic contained in these truly profound gifts.” - Jan Desai
In the ring stands a boxer. He is clearly exhausted. In the early rounds of the match, he was a fighter. Then, there was a hope of winning. That hope now seems long gone. Now, the boxer is simply trying to survive. Cut and bleeding, he attempts to defend himself. Taking one body blow after another, he endures the punishment, waiting for the sound of the bell.
Does life sometimes leave you feeling like this boxer? Are you dazed and exhausted, struggling to navigate your way through whatever challenge or crisis you are facing? Do the overwhelming negative emotions that you are experiencing feel like crushing blows? Are you barely enduring, waiting for some relief, believing that you may never find your footing again? If so...come sit next to me!
Life can seem like a brutal and overwhelming opponent. Believe me, I know this feeling firsthand. One doesn’t make it into their sixth decade without experiencing a multitude of potential knock-outs. Death. Divorce. Illness. Infertility. Depression. Addiction. Really, any kind of loss is like an unexpected sucker-punch. You don’t see it coming and, when it hits, you are overwhelmed by the crushing unfairness that sends you reeling into the darkness.
How I Made it Through My Toughest Fights
Let me share my toughest fights with you. Let me be completely transparent about how I’ve felt during these insurmountable times. Let me show you how I’ve made it through to the other side. My prayer is that, in doing so, you will no longer feel completely alone. In fact, I hope you recognize my words as those of a dear friend who is reaching out a hand in recognition, comfort, love and inspiration.
I wonder where you are tonight.
Each of you. You who I lived with
Are some things getting better?
The Practice:
Be aware of progress.
Why?
There are always things that are getting worse. For example, over the past year, you probably know someone who has become unemployed or ill or both, and there's more carbon in the atmosphere inexorably heating up the planet.
But if you don't recognize what's improving in your own life, then you feel stagnant, or declining. This breeds what researchers call "learned helplessness" - a dangerously slippery slope. It typically takes only a few experiences of painful entrapment to create it but many times as many counter-experiences to undo it.
When on the go, there are more
places to go. When stopped, I’m
Let it sink in that receiving generosity is good.
Do you accept the gift?
The Practice:
Receive generosity from others.
Why?
Life gives to each one of us in so many ways.
For starters, there’s the bounty of the senses – including chocolate chip cookies, jasmine, sunsets, wind singing through pine trees, and just getting your back scratched.
What does life give you?
Consider the kindness of friends and family, made more tangible during a holiday season, but of course continuing throughout the year.
He was thirteen before he knew what a hand drill was. His father saved and bought him one for 75 cents. Before that, he made holes in wood by twisting coal-fired nails into the grain. It was his job to throw wood in the fire after school. When red hot, he’d pinch a nail with a pair of pliers and twist it through the wood, which went soft and dark until there was an opening. Now his skin is thin and just last week he stumbled out of bed and landed hard on the radiator, his forearm tearing like a thin curtain. It took an hour to stop bleeding.
He just took care of it himself. We are held this way in the fire of time where we go soft and dark till our skin goes thin and just waking tears us open.
A Question to Walk With: Ask an elder in your life for a story about the first tool they learned how to use.
This excerpt is from a new book in progress, Compass Work: Finding Our Fathers While Finding Ourselves.
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