October 31, 2008

Awaken to Change


Life is a journey comprised of many steps on our personal path. Each day, we are provided with a myriad of opportunities that can allow us to transform into our next best selves.

One moment we are presented with an opportunity to react differently when yet another someone in our life rubs us the wrong way; on another day we may find ourselves wanting to walk away from a particular circumstance but are not sure if we can. Eventually, we may find ourselves stuck in a rut that we can never seem to get out of. We may even make the same choices over and over again because we don’t know how to choose otherwise.

Rather than moving us forward, our personal paths may take us in a seemingly never-ending circle where our actions and choices lead us nowhere but to where we’ve already been. It is during these moments that awareness can be the first step to change.

Awareness is the first step to change because we can’t make a change unless we are aware that one needs to be made in the first place. Awareness is when we are able to realize what we are doing. We observe ourselves, noticing our reactions, actions, and choices as if we were a detached viewer. We are no longer asleep to the truth behind our behaviors. We also begin to realize that, just as much as we are the root source behind the causes for our behaviors, we are also the originator for any changes that we want to happen.

There is a freedom that comes with awareness. Our past and our present no longer have to dictate our future when we choose to be aware. We are then free to move beyond our old limits, make new choices, and take new actions. With awareness, we won't stay stuck and we can continue to consciously evolve.

(excerpted from the Daily OM)

October 29, 2008

Wisdom from Abraham-Hicks

A bunch of weak people, even in numbers, aren't strong. Get a whole bunch of confused people together and see how much clarity comes out of it. In other words, you just can't add one more confused person to the pot, and expect to get any more clarity… One—standing outside of the confused group—who is clear, is more powerful than a million who are confused.

*****

When you reach for the thought that feels better, the Universe is now responding differently to you because of that effort. And so, the things that follow you get better and better, too. So it gets easier to reach for the thought that feels better, because you are on ever-increasing, improving platforms that feel better.

*****

Make a decision and then make the decision right. Line up your Energy with it. In most cases it doesn't really matter what you decide. Just decide. There are endless options that would serve you enormously well, and all or any one of them is better than no decision.

*****

You are perceptual beings with different vantage points and -- it does not matter how much information is given -- you cannot see beyond the vibrational limits of where you are standing. You cannot live or see or experience outside of your own individual beliefs.

*****

It's rather obvious...providing you believe the above....that keeping the same beliefs will result in the same kind of life. I drove my last car for 11 years in spite of always having been a new car buyer. I believed that I did not need a new car, and also that I could not afford one. Both were true because that's what I believed. When my belief changed, I went out and bought a new car! It was just that simple.

My finances had not changed. My old car had not broken down. Nothing had changed except my thoughts.


October 27, 2008

Missing Old Habits




Whenever we make the effort to free ourselves of an addiction or a habit we no longer need, we are often surprised to find ourselves missing the old pattern as we would a familiar friend.

This sounds counterintuitive, because we think we should instinctively gravitate toward that which is good for us. And yet, it makes a lot of sense when you consider that we humans are creatures of habit. This is why we gravitate to people and places—and patterns of behavior--that make us feel comfortable. Therefore, many of the habits we form are not conscious and are based instead on learned behavior from role models who were not always making the healthiest decisions.

Most addictions begin as a way of avoiding feelings that are extremely uncomfortable, so it makes sense that stopping the addiction means, for a time, a fair amount of discomfort. The same, of course, is true of habits that we have developed over time that we are ready to release.

Just knowing that this is hard, and having compassion for ourselves as we work through this process, can help us to stay the course when we feel the urge to backtrack. It’s also helpful to remember that in time we will establish new, healthier patterns, and the yearning for the old ones will disappear. Eventually, we will instinctively reach for things that are good for us, and the longing for positive change may form the basis of a new habit.

The only way to get to this new place is to endure a time of difficulty, which is a challenge we can confidently handle, if we remember that it will lead to the change we seek in our lives.
Our bodies, hearts, and minds always need time to adjust to a new way of doing things, but they will adapt, and even become our allies, if we remain true to our vision of a new way. (The Daily OM)

October 26, 2008

Telling the Truth






The truth heals. Telling the truth is about freedom. It is about joy and peace and health and living a life that is meaningful, powerful, connected, and loving.

Ultimately, it is about feeling good in your skin, unencumbered, free, and having the life that you want to live.

The truth is often uncomfortable because it has been suppressed so long, because there is such shame and guilt attached to it, because it has not been spoken for years, if ever.

The truth is an energy force of such magnitude that it pushes itself to the surface one way or another. Its denial or suppression will manifest as ill health, dysfunctional relationships, or financial problems.

Everything that happens to us is stored in our energy field and in our body. Ultimately, healing and health happen to a body/mind/soul that wants to know the truth. Even after a life-time of suppression, a body/mind/soul that wants to know and is willing to let go of painful secrets can heal itself, a family, or even a nation. What ultimately saves us is what we were certain would kill us....the truth.
(excerpted from Truth Heals by Deborah King)

October 25, 2008

Radical Honesty



Believe it or not, Radical Honesty simply means telling the truth. It's radical because hardly anyone does. Even the most honest among us usually have some things that they hide. Telling the truth hides nothing. Because hiding anything at all is not telling the truth. And so Radical Honesty means all of the worst things you might imagine it means. It means telling the truth about everything you have hidden that you have done in the past to the very people who you think would be most hurt or angry or surprised or embarrassed by the revelations.

Telling the truth means telling all your secrets and your secret feelings to whomever you don't want to tell. Worse yet, it means being expressive of feeling -- being mad when you express resentment and, warm and moved when you express appreciation, and silent when you don't yet know what you feel.
Telling the truth has to do with being expressive of feeling and using descriptive language regardless of ideas about tact or propriety. The first thing you have to get over to tell the truth is politeness modification of your report of your experience out of "consideration" of the other person's feelings. Honest people speak simply, using language more to describe than to evaluate.

When a person chooses to make the transition from habitually bending the telling the truth, the passage is scary and difficult. We have learned to assign value dishonestly and pitch our point of view with everything we say. We have been trained by scores of moralistic authorities, like Nurse Ratchet in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, to keep our mouths shut and behave as we should instead of speaking the truth. We have been blackmailed into a common interpretation of reality by hundreds of male and female Nurse Ratchets.
Learning to describe, to speak what is simply true, requires an unlearning of hard-earned preconceptions and a relearning of how to perceive with as little preconception as possible.

Knowing the difference between perception and conception and getting good, through practice, at distinguishing between the two can save your life. Both the quality and length of your life can be increased through learning to focus on making the distinction over and over again between value laden words and descriptive words.

Descriptive words make pictures happen in the minds of the speaker and the hearer, pictures of anger, righteous indignation, embarrassment, sympathy, sadness, joyfulness, or laughter. An honest person is one who is creating vivid pictures, feelings, sounds, and smells in the singular attempt to portray what has occurred or is occurring within her or around her. An honest person is concerned foremost with accuracy.

Being honest is not just for the sake of feeling good about being a virtuous person; it is a vital necessity. Learning how to be honest and being willing to do so is the cure for all non-environmental stress disorders. It is the key to managing the disease of normalism.

It is the most worthwhile focus of our attention as humans of this time and the only thing with half a chance to save us from ourselves. This is vital to our life and to the survival of life for all of us. Our problems do not arise from not thinking enough before we speak. Just the opposite is true. The way we learn to think and modify what we have to say before we speak kills millions of us unnecessarily and lays waste most of the cripples left injured but still alive.

In a Centers for Disease Control study, the list of causes of deaths in individuals under age 65 goes like this: environment is responsible for 21 percent of deaths; the health care system for nine percent; and human biology for 17 percent. Think about that. Twenty-one percent of the people who die before age 65 are killed by war, traffic, accidents, acts of God, and crime. Nine percent get killed by doctors, nurses, hospitals, and medicine. In 17 percent of the cases, the human biological machine breaks in some way that is not blamable on the way the people took care of themselves. That means the remaining 53 percent of the deaths prior to age 65 come about as a result of the way people choose to live their lives.

I believe the ways we take care of ourselves so poorly arise out of the starvation we experience from being cut off from the nourishment of commonplace experience, including the experience of intimacy.

We are responsible for cutting ourselves off from experience by substituting our interpretations of reality for reality. We invent some fundamental lies about how life should be and shouldn't be, how life is or isn't according to what we have taught ourselves to ignore or deny and what can or cannot be talked about. We compensate for our sense of something missing and our boredom with a kind of frenetic, compulsive use of food, alcohol, and drugs to try to get temporary relief from imprisonment in our own minds.

We are all terrible liars. People with notable stress disorders like ulcers, insomnia, spastic colitis, etc., are worse liars than normal people, although normal people are generally unhappy from lying, withholding, hiding, and avoiding and evading as well.

Unfortunately in this society it is normal to be unhappy; most people are. It is normal to discover that life doesn't live up to its billing. It is normal to be disappointed but getting along and doing the best you can. It's not normal to be honest. What is normal is to be concerned foremost with having a good cover story. Normal people are concerned with figuring out the right thing to say that puts them in the best light. They want to live up to their own best guess about what the people they are talking to want to hear.

An honest person, in contrast, focuses on saying what is so. Getting back to honesty rescues people from being normal. Sanity is getting back to basic, funky, hometown reality, down from the clouds of good cover stories.

What passes for sanity is an agreed-on form of insanity, which is an attempt to make life work out by legislating ideals and imposing values in our own minds and selling them to other minds. It is normal to be insane. Being sane is abnormal. Abnormal, sane, honest people are less worried and more free than normal people.

The most real truth is the immediate and ever-changing truth of direct experience. Evaluations are never the truth. We all tend to get lost in the swamp of our evaluative minds trying to make decisions and figure out how to behave and what to do next while constantly considering what we imagine others might imagine about us as a result of any action we anticipate taking. This concern about controlling the opinions of others and keeping control of ourselves kills more people than any form of environmental stress. Even worse, most of those who don't die would scarcely know the difference if they did.

The main thing that can free a person from his or her own mind is telling the truth. Telling the truth is always interpreted by the mind as a threat to its security. When people think that who they are is their mind, they feel like they are committing suicide when they start telling the truth. What dies in telling the truth is the false self, the image projection we have presented to the world. All real suicides, where people really died, were the result of a battle between being and mind. In those cases the mind won. But the person who learns to tell the truth is the most free, most alive kind of adult human being you'll ever see.

Copyright © 2008 by Brad Blanton.
The above is an excerpt from the book Radical Honesty by Brad Blanton.

October 23, 2008

Loss as Gain




When we lose anything that we cherish, the sense of emptiness we are left behind with can be overwhelming. A space that was filled, whether in our lives or our hearts, is now a void, and the feelings of pain, loss, and separation can sometimes be difficult to bear. While it is always important to honor what we’ve lost, sometimes a loss can also represent a chance for a new beginning. When we are ready, the void left by a relationship, a job, or a dream can then be viewed as open space that can be filled with something new: new experiences, new knowledge, new job opportunities, new dreams, new people, and new ways to grow.

There are many ways to weave the threads of loss into a blessing. If you’ve lost a job or ended a relationship, your first thoughts may revolve around filling the void with a similar job or the same kind of relationship. Try not to rush into anything just to fill up the emptiness. The loss of a job can free you up to explore new opportunities, especially if you’ve outgrown the old one. Likewise, the loss of a relationship can give you a chance to rediscover your own interests, explore new passions, and meet different people.

If seeking the good in what seems like a bad situation makes you feel uncomfortable, then try to remember that you are not devaluing what you’ve lost or replacing it cold-heartedly. You are surrendering to the fact that, in life, we sometimes have to let go and allow for what is new to enter into the open spaces created by our losses. In doing so, you are honoring what has left you and welcoming the new into your life with open space, an open mind, and an open heart. (The Daily OM)

October 21, 2008

Giving Up Control

We grow when we have the freedom to decide our own paths and determine what makes us happy. Sometimes, we think we have difficulty granting that freedom to others. Most often we are driven by fear, insecurity, or our ego's need for power.


We have no right to impose our will on others, and it doesn't work, anyway. We are met with resistance and resentment. No surprise here. When we try to control the behavior of others, we are sending the message that they are not o.k. as they are, that they need to do more, be more, and that we are the expert on what is right for them. Your good intentions do not change this.


I think that the issue of control is a spiritual matter. Required is the willingness to "turn it over", and trust that everything and everyone will be not only o.k., but just as they should be. We need to trust that our "help" is not needed!

October 20, 2008

Quotes of Wisdom


Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for,

it is a thing to be achieved.

(William Jennings Bryan)


The surest sign of spiritual progress is a total lack of concern about progress. There is an utter absence of anxiety about anything like liberation and a sort of hollowness in one's being,

a kind of looseness and involuntary surrender to whatever might happen.

(Balsekar)


Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear

and obstacles vanish into air.

(John Quincy Adams)


Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always

throw stones at those who are showing a new road.

(Voltaire)


Whatever we perceive in the world around us tends to reflect who we are and what we care about most deeply, as in the old saying, "When a thief sees a saint, all he sees are his pockets.

(Robert Frager)


Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice;

it is not a thing to be waited for,it is a thing to be achieved.

(William Jennings Bryan)

October 18, 2008

Beautify the World


It's so easy to complain. We all do it at times, some of us more than others. We all have various and sometimes numerous reasons to complain. We complain about our job, our health, the weather, our neighbors, our kids, our families, our government, the environment, the state of the world…


However, the question is, does complaining help? And, of course, we all know the answer… complaining does not really help.


We've all heard that "what we focus on expands" (if you hadn't heard it before, now you have). The more we focus on something, the more it seems bigger, even if just in our minds. Just think about it. If the weather is not to your liking and you keep focusing on it (complaining about it), it doesn't help at all -- it just makes you more upset or depressed about the state of the weather. However, if you choose to go on about your life and make the best of it (rain or no rain, sunshine or not), you can create a great experience for yourself, which you would not have had if you had just sat there and complained about the weather.


Complaining about something in the state of the world (whether we're talking about our small world or the world at large) is not a constructive solution. It is rather destructive. The more we complain, the more we feel negative, and the more the people we are complaining to feel negative (either about the situation in general, or about having to listen to us complain).


We do have a choice. We can choose to complain about our life, about events in it, about the situation in world politics, about the environment, or we can "get off the pot" and do something about it. We are not helpless. We have the power to make decisions, to take action, to make changes. Our life is as we make it.


Yes, things happen "to us", but how we react, and what we choose to do about it is entirely up to us. We can focus on personal growth and healing our lives. Yet, we need to remember that healing our lives involves the healing of the planet which is our home. We are not separate from the world. We are not in an alternate reality. This is our reality, here and now. However small your effort may seem to you, do your part.


Excerpted from Marie T. Russell


I invite you to participate in an Angel Project I am leading. See complete information here.

October 17, 2008

Personal Drama

I’m offering the possibility of approaching existence from a different perspective.

The external world claims to be real, but it, too, is an image created in consciousness and projected outward. Once you realize that you alone are the projector of reality, you will no longer be dominated by external events.

You are standing center stage in your own personal drama. Surrounding you is a much larger stage, and if you find yourself in dangerous times on that larger stage, danger will be present. However, this situation is very different from seeing yourself living inside a swirling chaos of impending doom. The point is to take your place inside the drama of the larger stage with confidence.

Everything is as it should be.


Deepak Chopra


October 16, 2008

Lessons of the Eagle





This is a wonderful short inspirational movie.



http://www.reach.ind.in/movies/inspirational_movie_the_7principles_of_an_eagle.htm

October 14, 2008

Loving Yourself


Many people, in seeking out love, tend to look outward rather than inward. Yet falling in love with yourself can be just as wonderful an experience as falling in love with someone else. While the idea of falling in love with ourselves may be perceived as conceited or selfish, choosing to fall in love with who you are is a powerful act of self-love.

When you fall in love with yourself, you can’t help but experience a wonderful sense of discovery. You begin to look at yourself again through fresh eyes, becoming more attentive to the little details that make you so unique. Once you discover how much there is about you to fall in love with, you can’t help but want to treat yourself as lovingly and respectfully as you would treat anyone who is special to you. You start to give to yourself more because you become more attentive to your own needs and desires.

Choosing to fall in love with yourself is a very personal process that takes time. There is no magic wand you can wave to make this just happen. But there is the magic of your intention and the power of your actions, whether you are taking the time to do the activities you like, speaking to and treating yourself with respect, taking inventory of all your wonderful qualities and accomplishments, or nurturing yourself with plenty of rest and self-care.

When you fall in love with yourself, you begin to see yourself more positively, appreciate your unique outlook on life, and treat yourself in a more nurturing way. In loving yourself, you are acknowledging that you are special and deserving of love.

October 13, 2008

Stand Tall




You are not what goes on around you. Yes, you are connected, but your innermost being, your soul, is entirely your own. When you tune into that deepest part of you, you bring peace to yourself and to others.

No matter what happens in the world, you are still you. No matter how strong the winds blow, you are still connected to your higher self, your soul self. Self now, with a bright ball shining above you and a golden shaft pouring down from that ball into your head and down your spine, down your legs and through your feet and into the earth. See how tall you stand. See how the golden energy warms and fills you. See how brightly you glow.

And now, see that around you there is a great storm. A powerful wind blows through, causing the trees to sway. But still you stand tall, the golden shaft of energy running all the way through you, anchoring you in strength and courage. See how you are warm and glowing, even though the storm rages around you.

Wind and rain, lighting and thunder, but still you stand tall, because your source of energy is not from outside you. It cannot be touched.

And now see that the storm has ended, as they always do. The sky is blue, the breeze is gentle and the trees are still, full of birds singing out to greet the dawn. And still you stand, connected and centered, grounded and glowing.


October 10, 2008

We Are Brilliant

We have been hypnotized to believe that we are dumb, while we are actually brilliant. Every answer you seek is available to you either inside you or through someone you can access without a lot of struggle. Seeking is not the problem; our angst issues from the notion that the answer is beyond our reach. Yet if you can conceive of the question, you are just around the corner from hearing the answer.

One of my favorite cartoons portrays a classic truth seeker clawing his way to the top of a Himalayan mountain, where he approaches a bearded guru sitting in deep meditation. At the guru’s feet the aspirant reads a simple sign etched with the words, “The Hokey Pokey.” The stunned seeker, eyebrows raised, asks, “That’s what it’s all about?”

Genius is not a gift reserved for a select few. It is given to all, yet few act upon it. Ten-year-old art prodigy Alexandra Nashita, hailed as “the next Picasso,” noted, “the difference between me and others is that I am willing to do what I am good at.” When you and I have the same confidence in who we already are, we can and will rock our world as Nashita has rocked hers.

Live as if you already know. Imagine that you have access to all the answers you seek, and trust your inner wisdom. Then you won’t have to ask anyone for the time, for all your time will be your own. (Alan Cohen)

******

The challenge is to allow ourselves to KNOW, and to BELIEVE our own inner voice. For a great many of us, success is no less frightening than failure, and the nature of our fears may be buried deep in our unconscious minds. It is because PSYCH-K techniques can reach where our conscious minds cannot that I chose to study and work with it. I don't know whether it is "the" way, but it is "a way", and it is much faster than traditional therapies.



October 9, 2008

Follow Your Bliss













Joseph Campbell states that it's characteristic of democracy that majority rule is understood as being effective not only in politics but also in thinking. He adds that in thinking, the majority is always wrong.


Do you remember Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt? The last line is "I have never done the thing that I wanted to do in all my life."

You may have a success in life, but then just think of it....what kind of life was it? What good was it if you've never done the thing you wanted to do in all your life? We are all told what to do, every bit of the time, but what do you want? What if you were to live your own life, not the one that you think is expected of you?

October 8, 2008

On Gratitude

When we are having a particularly difficult day, or when we are going through a great number of difficulties with no seeming end to them, it can be a challenge to reach for gratitude. But, it is exactly during our most trying times, that we need to reach for gratitude. It doesn't have to be a huge thing.......Were you able to wash your hands? Do you have shoes to wear? Is the sun shining? Is it raining? Can you see? Can you hear? Does your dog love you?

******

Whatever you focus on grows. So, when you focus on every thing in your life you have to feel grateful for and all the wonderful people you appreciate, the universe hands you more to feel grateful about. It's a wonderfully reciprocal consciousness raising process. (Ronya Banks)


Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts. (David McKay)


Gratitude is the intention to count-your-blessings every day, every minute, while avoiding, whenever possible, the belief that you need or deserve different circumstances. (Timothy Miller)


You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you. (Sarah Ban Breathnach)





October 7, 2008

A Different Vantage Point








The ocean can look very different, depending on whether you are standing at the shore, soaring above in a plane, or swimming beneath its waves. Likewise, a mountain can look very different relative to where you are standing. Each living thing sees the world from its unique vantage point.

Just as a shadow that is concealed from one point of view is easily seen from another, it is possible to miss a fantastic view. That is, unless you are willing to see what’s in front of you through different eyes. Seeing the world from another perspective, whether spatially or mentally, can introduce you to all sorts of hidden treasures. The root of the discovery process often lies in finding another way of looking at the world.

Sometimes, there are experiences in life that from your vantage point may seem confusing, alarming, or worrisome. Or there may be events that look insignificant from where you are standing right now. Try seeing them from another point of view. Just as kneeling down sometimes helps you see more closely when you are looking for lost treasure, so can standing back help you appreciate the broader picture of what you are looking at. In doing so, you’ll experience very different worlds. (excerpted from the Daily OM)


This is a metaphor for how our opinions (views) are based on our particular vantage point. We assume we are correct....that our view is the accurate, correct one. But, this is not the truth! There are many vantage points. Why not explore them? You will gain an understanding and appreciation that you never imagined possible before.




October 5, 2008

How Do You Define 'Achievement'?

“It seems today that everyone is fueled by the golden carrot of achievement. This carrot is dangled in front of us day and night and it is something that gets ingrained in us from birth through social conditioning. We want to succeed; we want to be the good child, the one who does well. So we try harder, put more effort into it and develop our skills. We achieve, whether it is what we want or not. We achieve at school and at work. Then we show off our achievements to everyone through the house we buy, the family we build, and the wardrobe we wear. For men everything revolved around their car, for women it can be the size of the ring on their finger or their beautiful home." writes Nathalie Lussier in

What Is the Difference Between Achievement and Fulfillment


How many times have you felt inferior when asked "And, what do you do?" Someone is inquiring about your outsides, when you know your inner self is rich in all kinds of ways. A much better question, which I learned from Sheila's blog, Live Well, is "What inspires you?"



October 4, 2008

Confronting the Minotaur






"It's not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult."
Seneca




The minotaur, a bull-like creature that lived in a labyrinth on the island of Crete, represents all our inner demons---attachments, fears, failings in love and work. We can tame this monster inside by acknowledging it.....knowing it is there, and making peace with it.

October 3, 2008

Pivoting

You have the ability to pivot under any and all conditions. But most of you are habitual in nature, and your patterns are so well entrenched that at times the fastest path to the joy you seek is for you to take your pivot as you sleep. By reaching for good-feeling thoughts before you go to sleep and then experiencing the benefit of the quiet mind that occurs while you sleep—and then upon awakening, immediately turning to good-feeling thoughts—you can accomplish the ultimate Pivoting experience.

Abraham-Hicks

October 1, 2008

A Matter of Priorities


We experience numerous disappointments each and every day. Our expectations go unmet, our plans are blocked by circumstance, our wishes go unfulfilled, and we discover that our lives are subject to a myriad of forces beyond our conscious control.

In some cases, our response is powerful because we must invest ourselves and our resources to overcome genuine hardship. In others, our reactions are far more passionate than our circumstances likely warrant. The tension that permeates our bodies and minds when we are late for an event, interrupted at work, or sitting in traffic is not inappropriate, but it can interfere with our well-being in profound ways. When we stop worrying about relatively unimportant matters, we can be at peace and devote so much more of ourselves to what is truly important.

The small frustrations and irritations wield such power over us because they rob us of the illusion of control. But every problem is a potential teacher—a confusing situation is an opportunity to practice mindfulness, and difficult people provide us with opportunities to display compassion.

There is a natural human tendency to invest copious amounts of emotional energy in minor dilemmas and frustrations in order to avoid confronting those more complex issues that are largely outside the realm of our control. The intensity of our response provides us with a temporary sense of personal power that helps us cope with challenges that might otherwise overwhelm us. But it is only when we let the little stuff go that we discover that the big stuff is not really so devastating after all.
(based on the Daily OM)
***

I think that frequently we assume that something is a problem because our mind is busy chatting away with alarm. Once we learn to tune into our mind, observing it, we realize that the mind is busy trying to make sense out of what is happening, but......and this is important.....it is only chat. Our mind is not who we are. What our minds do is tell us stories, "Chicken Little" stories. When we learn to differentiate our true selves from our mind chatter, we will no longer be
swayed by little stuff......and, there is actually very little big stuff!