Give up the fight and lean into your pain.  What you resist, only persists.  Keeping a lid on things, just getting through, looking outside,  and trying to fix problems, only prolongs your suffering.  It takes so much energy to resist what upsets us.

Instead, face what is bothering you while turning your heart to God.  When you turn your heart to God, many beautiful and wonderful things happen.  You will receive the perfect medicine for you.  You are turning to the One who made you, who knows you inside and out, and who loves you more than you love yourself.  Why go anywhere else, but to the Love.

When you finally realize how miserable you have been and that you can’t do it on your own anymore, this is the real blessing.  You heart softens, say yes to the pain and it opens the door for your healing, for your transformation.  It is much easier to let go of what no longer serves us, when we see how miserable we are.  The letting go , creates space for us to receive what we are really needing.

I love this quote by Rumi.  It made me think of how we can use our wings everyday.  What are you spending your time everyday focusing on?  If you want to live the life you dream of, it helps to have direction as to where you are going.

Happiness is something you have to work at everyday.  Our emotional states can change on a dime.

It is a healthy thing to feel, you are a human being, not a robot.

Your feelings hold the key for your healing, if you know how to navigate them.

Lasting happiness has nothing to do with the outside world and everything to do with the inner.  We forget this sometimes and chase what will give us pleasure and avoid pain at all costs. Instead, lean into the discomfort.

What are you upset about?
What are you stressed about?
What are you angry about? 

Don’t stop there, you are not done yet.

When you realize what the problem is, go a step further and see what you believe this problem means for you.  This is the key to unlock your problem. 

See how this belief has been affecting your life.  The belief is always an unsupportive, limiting belief, that keeps us feeling like we are trapped.

This is not the whole truth, this is your version.

The way out is through, when you realize how miserable you have been, and have decided it is enough, turn to the One who loves you more than you love yourself.

Put yourself into the hands of Divine.  Let yourself be loved and cared for, drink up from the source of unending love and peace until you feel full.

How do you do that?  Repeat the name of Divine into YOUR picture of the  limiting belief and experience how Divine changes it.

When you experience change on the inner, the outer experience will be different too.

It’s Monday, and you wake with a thousand things to do.  You know you have to get so much done today and plan for the rest of the week.  The calls, the emails, the kids, errands, dog, work goals, what to cook for dinner, you get the idea.

Feels like the to do list never ends and you go to sleep and start the same thing over the next day.

Instead of getting through your day and waiting for the fun on the weekend.  You can find real meaning and beauty in everything you do, in every moment .  Imagine feeling like you have everything you need to move forward in peace and harmony no matter what you are doing or facing.

How do you do that?

Open your heart to Divine care, call upon the Name in your heart.  Turn to the one who made you and loves you more than you love yourself.

Repeat the name of Divine in your heart, listen deeply, and receive completely.  Fill up  and then launch into your day.

It is not once and you are done, you got to keep checking in through out your day.  Think how many times you check your email?

Make your connection to Divine, then do your life.  

There are many spiritual lessons we can learn from anything we experience  in life.  I got inspiration for this topic from watering my flowers this morning.

How caring for our garden is a great metaphor for living an amazing spiritual life…..

1.  In order for your flowers to really blossom, you have to care for them everyday.
Do the flowers have enough water?  Do they need fertilizer?  Do they need to be weeded?  What is the condition of the soil?  What about pests and diseases?   Are they getting too much sun or not enough?

To really blossom as a person, you have to put some time into nurturing  and caring for your spirit.   Whether it is prayer, spiritual practices or some type of meditation – cultivate this everyday.  Think of yourself as a spiritual being dressed with a human body, not the other way around.  Absorb yourself in Divine reality and move from that place.  Let  the Divine be the foundation for your day.  It takes both inner reflection and outer action to beautify ourselves and rise to our potential.

2.  The external conditions will always change.
When you look at flowers, they are in complete surrender to what God has for them, whether it is the rain, the heat, the cold or pests.

There will always be difficulties in life.  We grow from facing our challenges and walking through them.   Adversity shows you who you really are.  When we feel we are completely sufficed by Divine in any given situation, we can then respond beautifully to whatever we are facing. 

3.  Plants live in the earth and turn towards the light.  Are you turning toward the world to fill you with what you need or are you turning to Divine?  Turn to the One who made who, who loves you more than you love yourself.

4.  Flowers need to be cut back in order to grow, dead blossoms need to be trimmed.  The blossoms need to be trimmed, so the energy of the plant is not wasted on what’s dead and instead can be directed to what can grow. The plant grows bigger, stronger, produces more and is healthier with regular trimming.

We need to prune ourselves.  We have to clear away the old baggage in order to really thrive and change.  Let go of what you don’t really need, so you can live a life you long for.

5.  Give Love.  Everyone and everything grows beautifully when given love.  Love something or someone for no reason at all.  When you are loving anything in God’s creation, you are loving God.

6.  Plants, flowers, trees and shrubs are always giving.  They  provide food, medicine, shelter, beauty and so much more.

Be of service, really give of yourself.   When you really give, you also receive.   The more you give, the more you grow.

These hot  days of summer, have me thinking about swimming in the ocean.  Splashing about and riding the waves is a thrilling experience!

Riding the waves made me think of how often we resist what we are feeling and swim against the current.

I have been there, believe me.  I understand how it seems overwhelming to feel, you are too busy, there are so many other things you would rather do then work on yourself….right? – I get it.

What you resist – persists.  Feelings just don’t go away.  They will show up somewhere, somehow.

You have to feel to heal.  The only way out is through.

It takes so much energy to bury or ignore our feelings.  Have you every paddled upstream, or been swimming against the current?

It takes  a lot out of you! Wastes time and energy and makes it harder to get where you want to go.

Take the easier route and go with the current, reach land and then walk.

Dip into what you are feeling and move with it.  People often think if they go there, it will be so much worse or bigger then they are.  This is not the case.

What is the cost to you?  Living a life using energy to bury or ignore what you are feeling, versus taking a few minutes to see what you are not at peace with.

If you learn to swim with the current, you will enjoy the ride so much more.

Take a moment right now, and check in to see what are you feeling, what are you not at peace with?  What’s going on?

If you have trouble getting to shore, contact me, I will be glad to throw you a line.

Seeing the Divine in our lives…

This is a short personal story of witnessing the Divine in our everyday lives.  I pray that it fills you with what you need and at the very least offers you HOPE and INSPIRATION for your healing and your life.

It was the summer of 2004 in Baltimore, MD.  I was going through a very difficult time.  My health was headed downhill again, emotionally and spiritually I was bankrupt.

I was ripe for taking the next step in my journey.  Often it is when we feel we can’t do it anymore that the space opens up for transformation. 

I live in a small condominium with a shared courtyard in the center of our building.  In the center of the courtyard is a  pear tree.  The root system of the tree is in a container and not in the ground.

This pear tree blooms beautiful white blossoms in the spring, carries on with green leaves through the fall and then sheds its leaves for winter.

I noticed our pear tree was not doing well in the summer of 2004.   I don’t recall any blossoms in the spring, then came the summer and the leaves were turning brown and falling off.  The tree was sick.

Tried as I might to continue to care for the tree; I couldn’t do it anymore.

Summer turned into fall and I was headed to  my first session at a healing school called the University of Spiritual Healing and Sufism.   My experience that week at the healing school is hard to put into words.  There was so much love, so much beauty and light.  I knew I was home, only it was a different kind of home, one that I had never  known before.

The school session was over and I came home to Baltimore on a cold October morning.  It was dark, I was tired, and on California time.  Couldn’t go to sleep, so I did a spiritual practice we were taught at school called the Remembrance.  It is an ancient spiritual practice of opening your heart to God and repeating His name.

When I was finished I was drawn to go look out my sliding glass door in my dining room.

I looked out and couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  I rubbed my eyes and thought I was dreaming.  I thought it was snow!  I took another look and then opened the door to go outside on my 2nd floor deck.

And then I saw it, the most magnificent, beautiful, white blossoms I had ever seen.  The whites of the flowers were bursting forth in the cold crisp air of the dark night.  They were glistening and twinkling as if they were speaking to me.  The branches were extending themselves as if they were trying to reach me.

It was then that I knew, I knew what this was all about.  The tree was dead and now it was alive.  This witnessing touched me so deeply, I bent over weeping and received something special in my heart, almost like a whispering to the deepest place in your heart from the Divine.  The message is complete and is so much more than what you ever could have imagined  for yourself.

This tree was sick, was empty of leaves, and in a container that could not adequately support it.  Now it was living.

This is from God.

Open your heart to the Divine, call upon his Name and be expectant of a response.
It is said when you walk to God , God runs to you.

On a final note, our pear tree was replaced this summer with a new tree.  Our pear tree gave us all she had, but it was time for her to move on, she grew too big for the small container she was in.

“Life is a journey sometimes walked in light, sometimes in shadow.”

This is a short story from KEEP GOING by Joseph M. marshall III.

This is a wonderful story about facing our fears.    The author sets the story of a wise grandfather ( Old Hawk) talking to his grandson (Jeremy) saying, “We are all afraid of something.  But that shouldn’t stop us from going on every day.  We should not always walk in fear of the shadow while we are in the light.  It is certain we will not know when or how the difficult and bad times will come, but if we accept that they will come, then they are easier to face when they do.

“And always remember that anything that causes the shadow is smaller than the source of the light.”

To further illustrate shadows and sunshine the grandfather tells a story of two travelers.

Two men journeyed the length and breadth of land bathed in sunshine.  One was a woodcarver and the other was a reader of the law.  Their journey was pleasant.  The road was wide and there were inns at which they rested for the night.  Constables and soldiers frequented the road, so the two travelers knew they were safe from thieves and or anyone else who intended harm,  Therefore, though these things were blessings, the journey was without excitement or challenge.  After several days the road led into a tall, very dark and thick forest.  The reader of the law stopped at the edge of the forest and refused to take another step.

“We must go into the forest,” said the woodcarver.  “It is a part of our journey.”

“But I do not like the deep shawdow,” said the reader of the law.  “I do not know what could be hiding there in the darkness.  There could be thieves ready to fall upon us, or perhaps fierce, wild animals.”

“True,” replied the woodcarver.  “The forest is where many things do dwell.  There may be other travelers, or dangerous and unknown things.  Yet we will not know until we walk into these shadows.  But there is something in there that is the most dangerous of all.  That I know.”

The fearful reader of the law recoiled.  “Whatever do you mean?  What can be more dangerous than thieves or wild animals?”

“Your fears,” replied the woodcarver, as he enterd the forest.

He walked deep into the shadows.  More than once he hid from bands of thieves looking for people to rob.  Another time he climbed a tree to escape the reach of an angry bear.  Before he reached the other side of the forest he had to deviate from the trail to find water, and he became lost.  But he managed to find the trail once again and after several days and nights he emerged on the other side of the forest, and found the sunshine again.

The reader of the law, meanwhile, remained at the edge of the forest, afraid to face the shadows.

“What do you suppose happened to that man, the reader of the law,” wondered Jeremy.  Did he stay at the edge of the forest?”

“What do you think?”  countered Old Hawk.

“Well, I guess sometimes we ceate our own shadows,” reasoned Jeremy.  “So maybe he never figured out that his fears made the forest darker than it really was.  If so he could not have learned what the woodcarver did.”

“And what did the woodcarver learn?”  asked the old man.

Jeremy thought for a moment.  “Sometimes we have to endure the darkness, and what it holds. If we do that, we apprecaite the light.  So the man who wouldn’t go into the forest was trying to deny that shadows are a part of life.”  Jeremy decided.

“True.  Furthermore, he gave into his fears and denied himself the experience of facing them.”  replied the old man.  “So he learned the wrong lesson.  We all do that from time to time.  Instead of worrying how I will face life without your grandmother, I will make the most of the time we have left together, and thank Grandfather for the life he has given us.”

This story illustrates the point beautifully about facing our fears.  When we say yes, transformation happens and we move forward.  Make the decision to face your stuff and take an action, say ‘yes’ even when you feel like a ‘no’.   If you are needing some help on your journey, please feel free to contact me for help.

Whether you are facing physical disease, emotional illness or a difficult challenge in your life, there are some simple things you can do to help yourself heal.

1.  Want it.
You have to really want healing.  Even the smallest amount of desire will help move you forward.  Setting intention is key.

2. Have hope.
Never give up hope, always hold it out there.  Even when you feel you don’t have any hope, I firmly believe it is inside of you, you just have to uncover it.

3. Keep going.
Say, Yes!  When you feel like you don’t want to ‘go there’, say ‘yes’ and open.  Please understand, I don’t mean force yourself unnecessarily.   Just the power of saying ‘yes’ will do wonders and help you to open and move in ways you could not have imagined.  Seek until you find your answers.

4. Learn to just ‘BE’.
Being present with what is happening for you is important.  This is something that may take some practice, but once you get this you will really take off.  Feel your feelings and let them flow.

5. Inner and Outer Actions.
Healing happens on the inner and the outer, one will influence and transform the other.  Both are needed.  To completely heal and change your life, you have to do the work on the inside and the outside.

6. Spiritual/Emotional/Mental/Physical.
I believe in the approach of multi-dimensional healing.  If you want to change your life, I recommend doing work that hits all the levels of the mind, body, heart and spirit.  Do what is necessary to support and care for yourself.

If you have any questions about this or anything else, please let me know.  I would love to hear from you.

1. Joy!
My dog Sammy, a 4 year old Lab/Golden Retriever mix, wakes me up every morning with a tail that wags around in circles, like a helicopter ready to take off.  His ears move up and down, his eyes are wide open, his nostrils are flaring as he waits with anticipation of my response.  Whether it is the slightest movement to show him I am awake or I say the word, “breakfast” he then washes my face with a lot of kisses, gleefully jumps off the bed, grabs a toy and dances around me as we walk to the kitchen or go outside.  He is happy to  just be awake and start his day.

2. Wonderment.
No matter how many times my dog has walked the same path, it is new to him.  Everything is important and beautiful to him.  I would liken it to a child looking at everything with amazement and innocence that sometimes we adults tend to take for granted.

3. Live Simply.
Eat. Sleep. Poop. Play.  Need I say more.

4.  Community.
Dogs are pack animals, they are happiest when they can be a part of something.  They learn so much about each other and themselves when they are part of a group.  We all need one another, no one should go it alone.

5.  Affection.
My dog, Sammy is the most affectionate dog I know.  He gives me so many kisses throughout the day, I am surprised his tongue still works.  Wherever I sit there he is, on top of me, right up against me, cuddled up to me, always touching.  Everyone needs hugs and kisses.

6.  Live in the now.
Dogs live in the present.  They are honest about their feelings and will show exactly what is going on with them.  No repression of feelings, no playing games, no pretending.  Just be where you are.

7.  Love.
 Their love is unconditional and overflowing.

These are just a few observations.  If you have a pet, what are some of the things you have learned?  Please feel free to share your thoughts.