As the end of the year approaches I love taking the time to contemplate my journey over the past year. What did I accomplish? What did I create? What could I have done better? How could I have been better? Is there anything I didn't do or be that I wish I had? 

Once my personal inventory is complete my intentions for the coming year begin to formulate. I contemplate what I would love to see come into form, the ways in which I would love to get to know myself better, and the qualities of being I would love to exude. Then I formulate a vision statement for the year, a word of focus, and I might even choose a theme song to match it!

Photo by Elizabeth Rowley
#TakingStock #CountYourMarbles #Inventory#BeginAgain #TheFutureIsNow

I Am A Finder Of Things

I am a finder of things.

I find my own things and the misplaced things of others too. It's not by ransacking drawers and frantically searching for the items that this is accomplished.

I sit down, I get quiet, and I surrender to the Divine.

I let go of thoughts that arise and also the desire to go ransacking and frantically searching. I remember that there is nothing lost in the Universe. I may even say the incantation of, "Tony Tony come around, what once was lost must now be found."
 
Then I let my body go where it wants to go without any thought process, logic, or questioning. I arrive at my destination and look around. I feel around energetically, with no thinking involved and then suddenly, voila, I find the lost item!

This is something I have learned to pay close attention to. It is that within me (Source Energy) that knows. It is my innate wisdom. It knows what to do, when to do it, and how to do it, and it does not involve thinking or analyzing.

As I practice tuning into that frequency, I know that I am guided, directed, and sustained by my Source. I find comfort in that knowing and it soothes the soul. I can do this anytime too - sit down, get quiet, surrender to the Divine, and listen.

That is my super power.  What's yours?

Surrender to the Mystery

Today I surrender to the mystery. I release my need for control as I lean into the sunlight of the Spirit, just as tulips lean toward the light.

I am backed up by the Universe, supported in every moment by the sublime Divine presence. 

I focus on what's happening in the now and let go of the past. Even 5 minutes ago.

I have faith in God and I am peace. All is well.

It's a beautiful time of year to let go of the past and resentments, old or new. Forgiveness is a gift that we give to ourselves, offering us great freedom. It's like a clean slate or a blank canvas upon which we can create anew, or begin again, whilst anchored in pure Truth. Let's let it go before the new year, yes?

I am forgiving, forgivable, and forgiven.

I forgive everyone. I forgive me, I forgive you. Even if you are not sorry, or know not what you did to hurt me, I forgive you. Please forgive me too. Even if I haven't apologized, or know not what I did to hurt you, please forgive me. Even if you do know what you did to cause me pain, and even if I do know what I did to cause you pain, I forgive you. Will you forgive me too?

Where there are no words that can be spoken to change the past, there is a known apology inside of the deepest part of me and inside of the deepest part of you. I'll meet you there.

When we meet again, in whatever form that takes, we shall each be created in a new image and likeness, not bound to, nor by the past.

The deepest place within you and I are as eternal and vast as the space that spans beyond the myriad universes. When I meet you, I know that I am meeting and greeting my secret and unseen self, none greater or lesser in whole or worth. Here we are wrapped in Divine Love; here there is never anything to forgive in the first place. Where there is no I and no you, where we are one, I forgive.

I am forgiving, forgivable, and forgiven.

Photo by Elizabeth Rowley

I Release All Fear

I have learned to release unwanted thoughts of fear, doubt or worry quickly.

In my minds eye, I wrap the thought in a bubble. I then place the thought bubble in the palm of my hand.

Then I blow the bubble off of my hand.

 If another unwanted thought arises, I do the same.

What I'm left with is the eternal, unborn reality of the present moment, liberated from the bondage of fear, doubt or worry.

From here I'm free to create on the canvas of mind, and my next thought is always anchored in Love.

Random Kindness

I've been at a conference all week in San Diego.

It's been a great trip and pretty cool that my company paid for it. Wow.

So grateful for the opportunity to learn and grow! That seems to be my motto as of late: always learning and growing.

I hadn't traveled for a while and I forgot how expensive it can be, especially for basic things like good drinking water.

These water bottles were available for purchase at the Hard Rock hotel for $7 each. 😱

The software company hosting the conference was giving them away to the attendees. 
I asked them if I could take a few out to the homeless folk outside and they were all for it, so I did! 

The smiles on their faces were beautiful and priceless.

"I envision a world where there is a generous and continuous sharing of resources..." [The global vision of Centers for Spiritual Living...]

Open Hearts See Love Everywhere

One day I was doing household chores. It was just an ordinary day. As I was moving from one room to the next I heard the following words whispered in my head: "I love you. I love you. I love you." It was my own voice.

I stopped what I was doing and sat down on the floor to allow this love to wash over and through me. In that moment I knew that I had changed.

This new voice of unconditional love was different than the predominant voices heard in the past which I had grown all too familiar with. 

This was the soft voice of a gentle, loving Spirit within me. 

As I began to court this Love, it shifted my view of the world, and it continues to change me, even today. 

Today I court Divine Love. I let this love wash over and through me and I am transformed by it.

Radiating Love out to all who I come in contact with, it illuminates darkness, casts out fear, and renews my joy of life.

What did you eat for breakfast?

They say it's the most important meal of the day!  So what did you eat for breakfast?

Please tell me in the comments here.

What I had for breakfast today was the same thing I've have had for the past 8 months - Bulletproof coffee!  This is coffee of the purest form possible (according to the budget) which is currently Josie's french roast.  I grind it on my own.  It smells amazing when I open a bag and tastes even better!  I love this coffee!  I add 2 tablespoons of grass fed butter, one tablespoon of MCT oil and blend for 20 seconds in the vitamix.  The fat from the Medium Chain Triglyceride and grass fed butter jump start my brain and offer a steady distribution of the caffeine from the coffee over the next several hours.  I never get jittery nor hungry until about noon.  If I do get hungry or feel like I need a snack before lunch I will have a hard boiled egg, sliced in half, with a couple of drops of mct oil, a sprinkle of sea salt and organic black pepper.  MMMMM, it's so delicious and satisfying.

This was the foundation for my weight loss and feeling great in 2017!  I released 22 pounds so  and I am happy with my body, I feel good in it - like comfortable in my skin, I have tons of energy, don't get cravings and I look great too. HAHA!  If I do say so myself.

I am so thankful that I never feel the guilt from eating that donut, or huge breakfast, or bagel and cream cheese or coffee with copious amounts of hazelnut creamer or whatever the flavor of the day is.

I'm asking you what you had for breakfast today because that's the place to begin.  If you want to feel good about yourself, feel amazing in your body, and at peak performance, give it a try.  Then listen to your body and listen close.  It knows.

The Greatest Gifts Cannot Be Wrapped

Blessings & Happy Christmas Eve dear friends!

Remember as a child how thrilling Christmas Eve was? I remember being so totally excited and filled with anticipation of my good in the form of presents that I could hardly sleep that night! I'd wake up either very late at night or very early in the morning and tiptoe out into the living room to see if anything new had arrived under the tree from Santa. And it always did! Then I'd go back to my bed and lie there awake for hours waiting for my parents to wake up.

On this Christmas Eve, I carry that same childlike joy, wonder, and awe throughout my day and into my night. I contemplate and give thanks for the many gifts and wonderful blessings already here - friends, family, prosperity, health, love, joy...

Simultaneously I wait in joyful anticipation for the multitude of infinite gifts that continue to pour forth into my life from the kingdom of heaven within...as light, forgiveness, trust, prosperity, love, faith, courage, joy, strength, and oh so much more.

The Presence that cannot be wrapped is that of God in my life, and it is the greatest gift of all. It is truly the gift that keeps on giving. She who has God lacks nothing.

Choose Love

Today and every day I choose love.

I appreciate the polarities that Life expresses, honoring both the darkness and the light within all.

I hold them in a close embrace of tender, loving care, and affection.

I see everything and everyone through the eyes of love because I am love, and it is my nature.

I am loved, loving, and lovable.

Beached!

I've been living on the Central Coast of California for close to two years now.  It's radically different living here than it was living in the Silicon Valley.  There it seems everything moves at a breakneck pace and here things move in a very chillaxed way.

I believe the ocean does something to the people who live near it. The waves, salt water, and beauty are healing and meditative. The variety of colors of the sunsets and the water are magnificent, like a great painting, only real.

In the Silicon Valley you have to plan your life around the traffic patterns lest you'll spend two hours traveling a short distance of 20-30 miles.  The only traffic here I've seen regularly is coming around the bend of 101 South into Pismo Beach.

The ocean suddenly appears to your right and it's jaw dropping beauty causes one to stare.  Traffic slows to a crawl here and then inches along.  It's not troubling though because there's this expansive beauty to gaze upon while you wait.

Living in a beach town you plan your life around the ocean tides and the rising and setting of the sun.
You ask yourself when and where might I find the most beauty?  Instead of how can I avoid traffic?

I am so much more connected to Mother Nature - Mother Earth - Pachamama - here and I am grateful and LOVING it and living it up!

Grateful To Be Me

I used to compare myself to others, thinking oh how I wish I were more like this person or that person.

When I stopped doing that and started appreciating my own gifts, talents and awesomeness, a whole new world opened up for me.

A world filled with self love, affection, joy, appreciation, acceptance, and freedom.

Today I am grateful I get to be me!

There's no one else who I would rather be.

New Beginnings

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

Sometimes I am so focused on the ending that I cannot see nor experience the joy, possibility, and beauty of the beginning.

I may be in denial or disbelief of what's just ended.

Slowly as I begin to detach from the past, a new hope emerges. I start to realize that what just ended was no longer serving me and my highest potential good.

As I begin to bless my past, my heart forgives, and an opening or a clearing is made for brand new baby energy to reveal itself.

And then, boom!

Bloom!

Tadaaaa!

Voila!

Magic begins to happen.

Today I say yes to the magic blooming in my life.

Oneness Does Not Equal Sameness

This is a rewrite of a previous blog post I wrote back in 2011.  What a joy to revisit and edit this important topic to share with you for such a time as this!

Often times our brains get busy trying to understand and make sense of Spiritual principles intellectually while the body is unknowingly re-tuning itself to the vibrational match of a newly (re)introduced eternal verity.  Something which was always known, but at some point became unknown or hidden, as the result of the conditioned experiences of one’s life.

What I have learned along my personal Spiritual path is that my body often gets it long before my brain does.  Then when the time is right, the spark occurs followed by a resonant mental understanding, followed by a heartfelt sense of grace and knowing.  Magic.

“Oneness does not equal sameness.” 

Consider the simple hindu greeting and salutation upon meeting or the valediction upon parting ways of “Namaste.”  Namaste literally translates as “I bow to you.”  It also has the deeper spiritual meaning that the life force, the divinity, the Self or the God in me is the same in all. “Namaste - the God in me honors the God in you.”

Honoring the God in another person is becoming aware that we are all made of the same stuff, yet we are not identical expressions of that stuff!  Wouldn’t that be boring if we were?  A bunch of me’s or a bunch of you’s walking the planet and nobody else?  Spooky thought.

I had an experience of embodying oneness at a 5 night silent retreat with one of my favorite enlightened guys, Adyashanti.  There were 400+ attendees on this retreat and we were four days deep into the container of silence.  In the second silent sitting of the afternoon I opened my eyes suddenly, looked around the room and noticed that everyone was together in the same silent container, observing the same things: passing thoughts, coughing, inner peace, still body, still mind - through different eyes, in different bodies.  Suddenly I was hovering above the crowd. Then I was looking through the eyes of the person next to me, then before me, then the person across the room to the right, and then across the room to the left.  

I shook my head quickly in an attempt to think something.  I have the subtle memory of attempting to get back into my body or brain but I couldn’t seem to locate that little me.  Another good head shaking was enough to wake up my thinking and all I could say was, “WOAH,” to myself silently in my head before closing my eyes again. 

While it may sound a bit strange or different, it was a profound mystical experience that transformed me.  I recognized that the magnitude of the realization for me at that time, in where I was spiritually, was a bit vast for me to reside in for more than a few seconds.  Gratefully it has gradually integrated within me over time.

The realization of this type of eternal verity - oneness - presents the same dilemma as many other realizations on this path.  It's the great paradox that we are, in fact, spiritual beings having a human experience. Not one or the other, but both at the same time.  God in form.  Individualized, unique expressions of the Divine.  I have discovered that as long as I am having this human experience I must honor both the Oneness, the Divinity in me that is the Divinity in you, and the uniqueness of me and of you.  I can't afford to forget nor undervalue the human experience expressed in so many different ways.  Nor to pretend that we are all the same.

I’m a 5’3”, 40 (something) year old, female, Hispanic, with brown hair, hazel eyes, and athletic.  You may be a 5’8”, 22 year old male, person of color, with brown hair, brown eyes, and not athletic.  Each of us with our own unique life experiences, conditioning, ancestry and heritage.  Privileged or burdened by circumstances that we were born into, beyond our control.

Living in this paradox makes life a thrilling adventure.  God is all there is and you are God in form in your own uniquely fabulous way.  Divine and human.  Just like the quarter has a heads side and a tails side.  Both are the quarter yet each side is uniquely different.  Yes we are one, but we are not the same. 

We are called to honor the Divinity within one another, and simultaneously honor the uniqueness of one another as the individualized expressions of the Divine that we are.  We cannot honor one without the other.  To do so is to bypass or dismiss the human experience and pretend that it is not happening.  This is like saying the quarter is only the heads side or only the tails side, or it is neither heads nor tails, it is just a quarter. That's the mistake or conundrum we may find ourselves in after embodying the verity of oneness.  It’s actually both and.  Many individualized expressions of the One.

I honor the Divinity within you that is you, and simultaneously honor the unique individual, expressions of the Divine AS you!  Now time to take that eternal verity and see the world through the eyes of the Beloved Presence, honoring all of it.

Today I invite you to look at the people around you with love and compassion, without judgment, noticing their unique beauty.  What do you think is their nationality or ethnicity? What kind of body shape do they have? What color is their hair and their eyes? What age are they? How tall, etc.?  Be curious.  What brought them to where they are today?  What was their ancestry like? What might their privilege or burden be? And then ask the same questions of yourself.  

Lastly ask yourself this: How might I help create a world of inclusion?  How may I contribute to creating a world that works for everyone? 

Namaste.

Which Frequency Are You Tuned Into?

Guitar players adjust the strings of their guitar to a specific tuning.  They do this such that when they play, it will sound a certain way that is pleasing to the ear. They are adjusting the frequency (the vibration speed) so that the strings are in harmony with each other.  When they aren't in harmony the sound is wobbly.  When they are in harmony the sound is smooth and steady. 

Setting my intention for the day is exactly the same. I get to choose the way I want my day to look such that it is pleasing to me and in calibration with Spirit.  This is how I ensure that my values and my actions are aligned for my greatest good, and the greatest good for all.  If I notice a wobble, I embrace that wobble, consider my values, adjust my frequency, and take new action based on my values!  

For example, if I value being grateful and I intend to be tuned into gratitude, then find myself complaining, I stop, sit, and write a gratitude list.  I continue to contemplate that which I am grateful for throughout my day.  

I'm not a victim to the circumstances and conditions of the world that may arise because that's not the tuning I'm in. The frequency I'm tuned in to is of the Spirit: love, beauty, perfection, wholeness, peace, compassion, joy, gratitude, and abundance!

Which frequency are you tuned into on this day? 

Finding Your Good

Remember when you were a young child and Easter was so thrilling because you knew there would be an Easter egg hunt?  You also knew that there were, without a doubt, eggs out there meant for you to find.  And those eggs were filled with some great treasure especially for you.  It just had to be something good.

When given the green light to find the eggs, off you went, searching for your good with joyful anticipation.

I am reminded of what Emma Curtis Hopkins once said,"there is good for me and I ought to have it."

As adults we don't participate in this sort of activity but when I contemplate it I am filled with that same wonderful energy as when I was a child.  That thrill of knowing my good is here, and it's already mine,  it's just a matter of me finding it.

Just thinking about it creates a new vibration within me and I feel uplifted.  Good and more good is mine.  I have adopted this habit in my daily life and I always look for and find my good everywhere I go!  In practicing this I've also discovered a multitude of ways that Spirit communicates with me.  My life has been filled to overflowing with joy in finding messages from Spirit everywhere.  It's like a game of hide and seek!  The best game ever!

I invite you to adopt this as a spiritual practice for the day, the week, the month, or however long you are called to do so.  It is fun and I believe that spiritual growth should be fun.  There is good for you and you ought to have it.

Go out and find your good, it's waiting for you.  It's here, it's there, it's everywhere, just waiting for you to notice it.

Happy Easter dear friends!