Who Is the Miraculous

I am a fierce, creative, powerful and grateful being
Who is the miraculous.

I am the strength, vision and vibration of my dream.

I allow the notion of unworthiness to drop away.
There is no such thing.
Worthiness is inherent by nature of existence.

I know the Divine.
I know my own Divinity.
I know Pure Potentiality
which I shape with my Divine authorship.

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I know the miracle of me.
I know the way of magic.

I know my ability to hear and notice
when magic speaks.
I allow the magic to flow through me.

When I resist, second-guess or deny
my Divinity, my magic,
I thwart or block my natural, abundant flow.

When I align with and allow my Divinity,
all nature of magic and miracles
Unfold naturally and consistently.

I am the strength, vision and vibration of my dream.

I am a fierce, creative, powerful and grateful being
Who is the miraculous.

(Excerpted from my forthcoming book, “Strong from Within: Simple perceptions and practices for returning to the joy of you”)

Everything Is Waiting for You

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

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The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

~ David Whyte
From Everything is Waiting for You
©2003 Many Rivers Press

You Are a Bright Light

Yesterday morning as I was meditating, I realized that each and every one of us is a bright light.

This realization brought a huge smile to my face. The understanding is so obvious and, at the same time, it seems quite easy to find lots of exceptions.

And yet, there are no exceptions.

You are a bright light.

Take that in. What’s it like for you to acknowledge yourself as a bright light?

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So beautiful that each of our lights shine differently . . .

Let’s experiment. What would it be like to go through our day today remembering that we are bright lights and so is everyone we encounter?

I love this experiment! I will report my findings next week and I would love to hear yours.

And, in this moment, what are you noticing? Insights? New perspectives?

StrengthsFinder®: The Precise Strength in Your Top 5

For years I’ve been curious about the brilliance, the genius, specific to each of us in our own unique combination of top StrengthsFinder® strengths. I’ve occasionally glimpsed mine. I’ve often articulated to my clients pieces and parts of theirs.

Not until recently did I realize how many clues can be found in one of the reports we receive from Gallup® when we invest 40 minutes of our time and plunk down our $19.99 to learn our top 5.

Once you’ve taken the StrengthsFinder® assessment, the 18-page Strengths Insight and Action-Planning Guide can be found by logging into your dashboard at the Gallup® website.

The beauty of this report: when it describes Connectedness (my #3 strength) for me, it describes something entirely different than for you (If you have Connectedness in your top 5). For each of us, it’s describing Connectedness with the influence of our other 4 strengths. So your Connectedness reads completely different than mine, because, more than likely, your other 4 strengths are different than mine.

Why does this matter? Because those 5 unique descriptions give us clues to ways that we be and do in the world completely different than anyone else. The 5 descriptions tell us about our completely unique lens with which we view the world.

What happens when we integrate these 5 descriptions? If we squint, read between the lines, become willing to see, have someone else tell us what they see, we will come to know the genius, the brilliance, of this person described in this one report.

It seems easier for many people to take in their report as if they are reading about someone else, rather than themselves. And, many times, it seems to take an outside perspective – someone else who can tell them what they see.

StrengthsFinder: The Precise Strength in Your Top 5

Here’s what I recognized in mine:

The glorious amalgam of Maximizer, Empathy, Connectedness, Activator and Individualization (my top 5) –

This delightful human being (me) takes a stand for the full expression of our human and divine nature. In every way she senses would be effective, she share the wonderful news of who we really are! Both specifically and Universally. She insistently and consistently calls forth the Beauty and Love of who we each are – fully ourselves, radiantly alive and gloriously messy.

What about you? If you’ve taken the StrengthsFinder®, have you read your Strengths Insight and Action-Planning Guide? What are you noticing? If you haven’t taken the StrengthsFinder® assessment and you’ve read this far, I urge you to take it now! See that glorious amalgam of me at work?!?

If you’d like an outside perspective, click here and we can schedule a time to chat!

How to Notice When You Are Creating Heaven

Heaven: “This is wonderful. I could stay here forever.”
Hell: “This is not quite perfect.”
– Byron Katie
From her book, I Need Your Love – Is that True?

What separates us from animals involves our intellectual capacity, our ability to think and reason. Yet, for the most part, most of us, most of the time don’t notice that our thinking causes our misery.

The minute we think any external circumstance, experience or person causes our happiness, we have begun to create our own private hell. And, we do this innocently, often without conscious awareness, thousands of times a day.

“I wonder if he likes me.” “If I can just hang in there until I get more clients.” “I’ll feel better when the kids calm down.” “I can’t wait until it stops raining.” “When I make more money…” “As soon as I lose the weight…” “Once I get the car fixed…” “It will be better when I get divorced, married, retired…” “If only…”

You get the idea. Once we become aware of our particular brand of this regurgitated thought, we can begin to consciously question it and/or take it less seriously and allow it to pass without engaging with it.

How to Notice When You Are Creating Heaven

When we remember that our essential nature is Love and well-being, we begin to become aware of the wonder in every moment, in every experience. When we remember that we are like the sun and the eternally blue sky and our thoughts are like the clouds, we can enjoy our Light and be gracious about allowing the clouds to pass.

And, we may just notice ourselves saying more and more frequently, “This is wonderful. I could stay here forever.” Regardless of what our circumstances look like.

(Excerpted from my forthcoming book, “Strong from Within: Simple perceptions and practices for returning to the joy of you“)

How to Easily Change a Habit without Willpower. Really.

I have just finished reading a phenomenal book that will revolutionize our ability to live fulfilling lives. While I realize that’s a bold statement, it actually seems like an understatement to me.

“The Little Book of Big Change: The No-Willpower Approach to Breaking Any Habit”

Amy Johnson’s new book, “The Little Book of Big Change: The No-Willpower Approach to Breaking Any Habit” just came out last month. Amy describes both the spiritual and scientific foundation of habits in a clear, easy to understand and compelling way.

The book addresses both behavioral habits like gambling, lashing out at a loved one and overeating as well as thought-based habits like fear of heights, thinking others are judging us and thinking something bad is going to happen.

She points out that when we’re frustrated about yet again returning to a habit, we are not self-sabotaging, but rather attempting to take care of ourselves. It’s our best effort at self-love in that moment.

She then guides us through seeing that all of this is an innocent misunderstanding. The more we become aware that all habits come from thought, we develop the ability to pause before acting on the thought or continuing with more thinking about the thoughts.

As we pause more and more, we break down the hard-wired pathway between urge and the knee-jerk response. Oh, freedom.

If there is any habit you’d like to break, do yourself a huge favor and read this book.

If you’d like coaching support in implementing this deceptively simple approach to changing your life, I have 3 appointments available in the next week. Visit my online calendar to schedule an appointment for a Coaching Conversation:
https://www.timetrade.com/book/ZV3CM

We’ll take 30 – 40 minutes to explore if we both feel we’d be a good fit for me to serve as your coach.

I am so excited for everyone who wants to make changes to have this understanding!

What’s It Like to Remember Our True Nature?

A couple of weeks ago, I gave a talk at church about reading and experiencing the material in the book, A Course of Love.

I choose to talk about this because I know that in this very moment, each of us is so much more than we are currently expressing. Somewhere inside each of us, we know that we are more than our physical, human experience.

In the talk, I share some of my own recent experiences beyond my own physical, human nature …

If you’d like to hear the talk, click the microphone (20 minutes).

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What If You Didn’t Believe Everything You Heard (in Your Head)?

Last week we looked at two types of thought: regurgitated thought and inspired thought.

When we don’t distinguish between the two, we tend to give all of our thinking the same weight. When we name regurgitated thought for what it is, we give ourselves the opportunity to take ourselves far less seriously, to quiet our minds and live our lives with far greater contentment and ease.

What if you noticed regurgitated thinking and named it? What if you didn’t engage with it? What if you didn’t heap regurgitated thought about your regurgitated thinking on top of your regurgitated thought? Think about that!

What if you then smiled, took a deep breath and went on with your day? What if your mind then became far quieter? What if you then could more clearly notice and distinguish inspired thought?

What If You Didn’t Believe Everything You Heard (in Your Head)?

The more we become aware of these two types of thought, the less sense regurgitated thought makes. With awareness and without effort on our part, we then tend to have far less regurgitated thought.

What might your life be like if you didn’t believe everything you heard in your head?

(Excerpted from my forthcoming book, “Strong from Within: Simple perceptions and practices for returning to the joy of you”)

The Happy Reason to Replace Special Relationships

Do I really want coffee to be my God? Or, do I want my lover, my Audi A4, my beloved niece or my precious kitty to be my God?

Or, am I willing to know my Divinity?

Both A Course in Miracles (ACIM) and A Course of Love (ACOL) ask us to choose holy relationship rather than special relationships. From ACIM, I’ve been aware of this concept for probably twenty years, but didn’t take it seriously until recently revisiting it in ACOL.

A special relationship is a relationship with anything or anyone that we believe will make us more worthy, loveable, whole, safe, happy, important, powerful and the list goes on . . .

A holy relationship is with our Self. It calls for joining of our mind and heart in unity. The holy relationship makes our Self one with all and brings the holiness of Self to all.

The Happy Reason to Replace Special Relationships

My ego has wanted a whole bunch of special relationships. And, every day that I read more of ACOL, the less that appeals to me. I am sensing more and more what it’s like to be one with all and to bring the holiness of my Self to all.

And, I am in awe of the freedom I’m noticing in my relationships with my coffee, lover, car, niece and kitty! My judgments, demands, attachments and expectations are vaporizing and my happiness is exponentially increasing.

(Excerpted from my forthcoming book, “Strong from Within: Simple perceptions and practices for returning to the joy of you”)

A Couple of Reasons to Drop Your Protection

“You are not a drop in the ocean.
You are the entire ocean in a drop.”
– Rumi

A Couple of Reasons to Drop Your Protection

I used to think of myself as a lone wolf. I rather liked that image of me. Today, I see that I thought I could protect myself by pretending to be separate.

Not only was it not very effective protection, it was also pretty isolating and lonely. Maybe you have your own strategies for protecting yourself?

As I’ve kept more of my attention on my Divine nature, I realize the absurdity of trying to keep myself separate. I’ve always known we are all One. I just hadn’t spend much time imagining what that really meant.

As my knowing of our Oneness has slowly shifted from concept to experience, I recognize that not only can I not keep myself separate, it also doesn’t serve to continue seeing myself as small.

Sometimes I do experience myself as the entire ocean in a drop. Sometimes I do experience Oneness with those around me, the environment, Life itself. And, other times, all of this still feels like a nice concept rather than reality.

I so appreciate you, here, on this journey with me! Regardless of how much I experience or don’t experience my entire Ocean-ness, I no longer want to pretend I’m alone.

You and I may know each other personally. Or, we may never have met. Regardless, the fact that we are both here now means we have created this opportunity to experience our deep connection.

I still have times when I make choices from fear, from protection. I also usually catch myself pretty quickly. Then, I take a deep breath and ask, “How can I choose from Love, from Oneness?” And I usually have the courage to act on the answer . . .

(Excerpted from my forthcoming book, “Strong from Within: Simple perceptions and practices for returning to the joy of you”)