Happy Sunday!

No matter what you have done up to this moment, you get 24 brand-new hours to spend every single day. Brian Tracy

***

Whatever you are going through today is training for tomorrow. You need today to reach tomorrow. Harold Klemp

***

Anyone who has ever made a resolution discovers that the strength of that determination fades in time. The moment ou feel that is when you should make a fresh determination. Tell yourselves, "OK! I will start again from now!" If you fall down seven times, get up the eighth. Don't give up when you feel discouraged. Just pick yourselves up and renew your determination each time.

***

What is important is not what happens to us, but how we respond to what happens to us. Jean-Paul Sartre

***

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit. Helen Keller

***

Never regret. If it's good, it's wonderful. If it's bad, it's experience. Victoria Holt

The Joy of Being

The moment that judgment stops through acceptance of what is, you are free of the mind.

******

Be aware of the space that allows everything to be.
Listen to the sounds; don't judge them.
Listen to the silence underneath the sounds.
Touch something.....anything.....and feel and acknowledge its Being.

******
Always say "YES" to the present moment.
Surrender to what is.
Say "yes" to life....and see how life
suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.

Eckhart Tolle

Releasing Guilt

Accept and forgive. (adapted from the Daily OM)

Learning to accept the things that we perceive as wrong can be a difficult task. Often we have been brought up to accept that it is normal to feel guilty about our actions. Even though we might feel that we have a reason to make up for the choices we have made, it is much more important for us to learn how to deal with them in a healthy and positive way, such as through forgiveness and understanding.

When we can look back at our past and really assess what has happened, we begin to realize that there are many dimensions to our actions. It is ironic that being hard on ourselves is the easy way out. If we truly are able to gaze upon our lives through the lens of compassion, however, we will be able to see that there is much more to what we do and have done than we realize.

Perhaps we were simply trying to protect ourselves or others and did the best we could at the time, or maybe we thought we had no other recourse and chose a solution in the heat of the moment. Once we can understand that dwelling in our negative feelings will only make us feel worse, we will come to recognize that it is really only through forgiving ourselves that we can transform our feelings and heal any resentment we have about our past.

Giving ourselves permission to feel at peace with our past actions is one of the most positive steps we can take toward living a life free from regrets, disappointments, and guilt.

The more we are able to remind ourselves that the true path to a peaceful mind and heart is through acceptance of every part of our lives and actions, the more harmony and inner joy we will experience in all aspects of our lives.

New Ideas

We cannot focus upon the weaknesses of one another and evoke strengths. You cannot focus upon the things that you think they are doing wrong, and evoke things that will make you feel better. You've got to beat the drum that makes you feel good when you beat it. And when you do, you'll be a strong signal of influence that will help them to reconnect with who they are.

It doesn’t really matter what religion anybody believes. If their life is working (and there are many different approaches to life that are working very well) then why not let them believe whatever they want to believe? It’s all working in the way that it is supposed to be. There are religions that you wouldn’t want anything to do with, that are perfect mechanisms for the people who are involved in them. And therefore, they are a very good thing.

The best you can do for anyone is to thrive fully and be willing to explain to anyone who asks how it is that you are thriving, and what it is that you've discovered—and then, just relax and trust that all truly is well. (Abraham-Hicks)

Willingness

We go through life fighting....fighting with our thoughts, or we stubbornly clamp down, insisting "there is no other way" to see an issue. Whatever the reason for this may be, I invite you to consider another way.

Opening to Understanding There are times when we may find ourselves struggling or even fighting with our thoughts and emotions. We may feel that something must be done in a certain way or not at all, or there may be some other situation that feels absolutely black and white. But life is not this way—it’s the way we are looking at our experiences that is causing the turmoil within us. When we become aware that the struggle we are having is with ourselves, we can turn our attention to the source in order to solve the problem, but we must be willing to look where we need to and feel emotions that may make us uncomfortable at first. Then we can choose to really open ourselves to understanding all the options we can imagine. We are likely to discover that we are resisting something based on a limited understanding, and we must then open ourselves to willingness. When we are willing to look at all the possibilities, we also become willing to accept that there is room for more than we can imagine. We can release ourselves from the grip we had on our emotions and stop limiting ourselves. We may have been unwilling to experience feeling loss, confusion, fear, or even joy for some reason or another, but when we realize that our understanding was limited, we allow space for the universe to move in our lives. Opening ourselves to willingness may feel like we are surrendering or abandoning all that we believed. But at the same time it is an act of power and courage because it is a conscious choice we make about how to apply our personal will. Being willing is to be in a state of willing something into creation. It is at once allowing ourselves to be while also choosing to direct our energy in a focused way. It is being and doing from a place of openness, where we can work with the universe rather than resist it. It is an open hand rather than one that is clenched into a fist. When we make a step toward willingness, we open ourselves to possibility. (from the Daily OM)

Healing What Hurts

Many of us are going through our lives aware of a well of pain underlying our daily awareness that we’ve felt for so long we aren’t even sure where it comes from. It almost seems as if it’s part of who we are, or the way we see the world, but it’s important to realize that this pain is something that needs to be acknowledged and processed.

The longer we sit on it, the harder it is to work through, and the more likely it is that we will be forced to acknowledge it as it makes itself known to us in ways we can’t predict. Rather than waiting for this to happen, we can empower ourselves by identifying the pain and resolving to take action toward healing it.

The very thought of this brings up feelings of resistance in most of us, especially if, on the surface, our lives seem to be in order. It’s difficult to dig up the past and go into it unless we are being seriously inconvenienced by the hurt. The thing is, when we are carrying the burden of our unprocessed pain, sooner or later, it will inconvenience us. If we can be brave and proactive, we can save ourselves a lot of future suffering and free up the energy that is tied up in keeping the pain down.


There are many ways to do this, but the first step is to recognize the pain and honor it by moving our awareness into it. In this process, even if it’s just five minutes during meditation, we will begin to have a sense of what the pain is made of. It might be fear of abandonment, childhood abuse, anger at being mistreated, or some other long held wound.

As we sit with the pain, we will also have a sense of whether we can deal with it by ourselves, or get a professional's help. Resolve to go deep into the pain, so that you can release it fully, and set yourself free.

It is never too late in life to heal what hurts. (from the Daily OM)

Just Take One Step!

Which people or events do you spend too much time worrying about? Think about it, and make a list of these things. Clarifying what you cannot control frees you to spend time and energy on what you can control. Your stress level goes down. The drama factor in your life decreases. You create space in your life for your dreams to emerge.

Next time you feel frustration creeping up on you, take a deep breath and let it go. Realize that you really do have a choice. Ask yourself, "Do I want to waste my time being angry, or can I accept the situation and leave more energy for the ideas, relationships, and events I want to create in my life?"


Too often, we stand at the edge of a theoretical cliff, indecisive, needing to have everything aligned in our lives before we move forward-in other words, driving ourselves completely crazy with no real results. Needless to say, this is a dangerous place to be. (You wouldn't hang out at the edge of a real cliff, would you?) We humans are masters at self-deception; our minds tell us what we need to hear all the time. So staying in our heads isn't exactly the right path to clarity or positive change. The only way to reach your goal is through action… one step at a time.

Even when we know the steps we would like to take, we tend to procrastinate. Break out of that inertia by giving yourself a short-term deadline. Make meeting your goal into a game. Accomplishing one action creates momentum and excitement for following though with the next one. Remember, you don't have to do everything at once. What one step can you take today? (excerpted from Marty Dillingham)