Dream Big

Allow your dreams to become reality.  What does your heart most want?  What is your deepest desire?

As a child, when others would ask, what do you want to be when you grow up?  I would say, happy.  And as I got older, I would realize that happy means loved. 

Real love.  Not the f^cked up kind of love we are culturally and socially conditioned to think love is. 

Love is real.  Love is divine.  Love is everything. 

Love comes in the form of a breeze against your cheek.  Love is the smell of fresh rain.  Love is the sound of a child’s laughter. Love is kisses from your dog. Love is the taste of sweet summer berries. Love is everything and everywhere.  When we focus on love, we see it.  We realize we are not separate from it but a part of it. 

We are the love that others need.  We are the love we need. 

Look for love.  Always.

Messages

Message of the day.

Love, love, love.

Why do I focus on love so much?  Because it is at the center of everything.  Literally.  We want love; we do things to be loved; yet, we also deny ourselves love.  We get in the way of letting love flow through us and to us.

Send out love.  Make love your signature. 

Melt fear and break down defenses by projecting love.  Just by being.

Feeling Stuck

I feel stuck.  Do you feel stuck? 

How do I get unstuck?

Sit.

Center.

Breathe.

Relax back into your body.  

Down, down, down.  Deep into the security of the Earth’s energy.  

Ground, ground, ground.  Grounding is the act of tethering yourself to the earthly experience.  All that you do in this life is through the eyes of Earth.  I believe you have a saying, you must know where you come from to leave?  Knowing you are of the earth and the earth itself, allows you to know yourself and that way not be swayed or altered by other consciousness. When you ground, you are anchoring into your knowing.

The Earth holds each of us. The Earth is one with all of us.  We are made of the same DNA. Feel your connection to the Earth.  Feel yourself tethered to the Earth’s love and the complete acceptance of you. 

Just the way you are.  Just where you are.  Just how you are.

I am loved. You are loved. 

Learning

Knowing yourself is what is most important. 

Learning to listen. 

Learning to love. 

Learning to live.

Start there.  You are the sun. You are Yew.

Self-Care

Self-care needs to be constant. I seem to be repeatedly asked to make my well-being a priority.

What if this is because I don’t know what true self-care is?

Defining self-care, changes.  It’s not that I don’t believe in the need. It’s more of a problem that I don’t really know what it looks like, for me, in any given moment. Being full and being bloated can feel the same.

Where can I look?

First, breathe. Look within you to find the answer in each moment the question is asked. The answer is not always the same. Then, look to nature.  There is no imperfection in creation. How do the birds and bees take care of themselves?  What do frogs do? No singular organism lives in isolation. Have others fill in where you need help. There is no shame in asking for help. Each ant in a colony has a job. One is no better than the other. They must all do their “jobs” for the whole of existence to thrive.

Learn to care for yourself as nature does.  Sometimes branches fall and break. Growth is not always consistent and straight. Winds blow. Droughts happen. Dormancy does not mean death. Fires destroy but does not mean death.

Fire removes low-growing underbrush, cleans the forest floor of debris, opens it up to sunlight, and nourishes the soil. Reducing this competition for nutrients allows established trees to grow stronger and healthier.

Stop, drop, and roll?

Feel the fire. Let the fires inside guide you.

Stop. Breathe.

Drop down into your body.

Roll with the information you are given in the moment to best care for yourself.

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*https://www.fire.ca.gov/media/5425/benifitsoffire.pdf

Love Yourself Into Wholeness

"Nothing can harm you as much as your own thoughts unguarded." - Budha

There is nothing to fear. 

I am held. 

I am loved. 

I am safe. 

My worry is not needed. The outcome may not be as expected but I will be okay. 

How do I trust this to be true?

You know.  You know as much as the sun rises and sets each day.  You know as the wind blows.  

Make me believe.

We can not do this.  We can only show you what we see.  You make up your own mind when you look.  That is the way.  That is part of the human experience.  You can love any part of yourself into wholeness.  That is what we want you to do.  Love yourself into the wholeness.  Love yourself into the healedness of life.  There isn’t judgment when a tree is injured.  It scabs and grows.  It does not think of itself as less than or less “deserving” because of the damage.

You are worthy.

You are whole. 

You are loved. 

We can not say this enough.  Because it is the truth and the truth of what is.  It is as true as there is no beginning or end of any great energy.  Choose to hold sadness or disbelief towards yourself or you can choose the truth to set yourself free.

Be The Ocean

Why be the ocean? 

Being a piece of the whole and still a the whole. A drop of the ocean is still the ocean; vast, deep, and wide. So much to the ocean is unknown, like love.

Love is all that there is. To love the self. Not my brother, or neighbor, but myself. 

If I love me, I love ‘other’ too. There is no separation. 

This is my birth rite. Yours too.

A Relationship With Self

I look outside myself for validation.  Even when I know the secret is to look within. Holding truth, trust and love for myself. 

Can I trust myself?

Can I trust myself to be honest with myself? 

Can I trust myself to act with love for myself? 

Can I trust that I will care fully for my body, your mind, your soul with love and respect? 

Most people value truth and trust and love in relationships.  Those are indicators of how “healthy” the relationship is.  Am I in a healthy relationship with myself?

"You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection." - Budha

I have work.  Lots of work to do one this.  Not as much as before but it’s a process that I must dedicate to working on it daily. Time to get to work.

I am loved,

I am cherished,

I am safe.

That is my truth, today.

Truth Within

Enlightenment is really just the awareness of the truth of your being.  New truths are revealed in the moments of every day.  Whether we see them or not.  Truth and wisdom is given when we listen with all our senses. 

I will listen. But can I listen even if my body is the messenger?

Just listen.

Connection

I can stand in a crowded room and feel completely alone.  But if I am standing in nature, I feel at peace and one with all.  That is because when I am standing in the presence of another human, I can hide from myself.  I turn away from my authentic nature. I shut down the wisdom of my body. I silence the truth of my soul. 

I hide.

You hide.

We all hide. 

We deny our connection with others every time we look for the differences instead of seeing the wholeness of us all. We deny our connection with others every time we look for the differences instead of seeing the wholeness of us all. We end up seeing ourselves as alone…lonely. Believing that we are not connected.

(How do we feel connection?)

See others as beautiful and wholly. We belong together.  We need one another to see ourselves.  Find and honor the humanity within. Then, we can reconnect to ourselves and to each other. 

I need you.

You need me.

Freedom

Go where your heart leads. Listen to each moment of every day. Listen, and you will know the path you must take.

What does it say?

Start. Acknowledge the truth of what you are hearing.

Can I let another see me and believe that I am worthy of love and forgiveness?

You are perfect in your very nature of being human.  With your wants, your desires, your fears, your regret. Never has anyone been brought to enlightenment without a mirror.  But when looking in that mirror you only see what is behind you.  What if it was possible to see yourself fully?  Having vision is not just about seeing but using all your human senses.  And the heart is one of those senses too, feeling, emotions.Feelings and emotions can lead us to greater awareness and aliveness. 

Be good to yourself.

Be true to yourself.

Be honest with yourself.

Honoring Presence

(What can I do to honor presence and make it solid?)

Make it unmovable.  Bury your roots deep.  Allow the winds, the rain, the snow, the ice to come, and still, you grow.

Where birds can nest.  Where critters climb.  Where one can find shade and rest.  Everything you need is right in that spot you have chosen to stand.  Root. Root. Root.

Deep.  Deep.  Deeper.

Allow yourself to go deeper than ever before.  Connect to the source you have only previously touched.  Allow the nourishment to be constant and pure from the source.  You are one with Source.  Never can you take away the power of your presence.  You are the yew.  Growing from within.  Never dying.  You are the one we have waited for.  The one to bring the message of hope, love, and wonder to this planet.  You are the one to allow others to see the love that they possess and have access to.  No one can keep away the power of connection to their Source.

Keep in mind that the self is not selfish.  Selfish is when you look nowhere but at yourself.  You look within to be able to look without….looking without a covering.  Without a lens of grief or solitude.  

You are one with the universe.  Just as you are one with the earth.  You are one with the air.  You are one with the ground.  You are one with the sky.  You are the ocean depths as well as the ocean surface.  There is no separation between the two.  As above, so below.  Not as in religion but as in self-awareness and true consciousness.  

Go in peace.  Go in love.  Go in knowing.

Love.

How did I start to hear myself?

I created a ritual out of this practice.  Mostly so that my unconscious mind knows I’m ready, even if my day-to-day self isn’t.  It’s hard to quiet the mind when my to-do list is long and arduous. It sounds crazy, but I find it really is that simple. 

My ritual.

I light a candle.  

I put on my headphones. 

I start the Reiki music with a 2-minute bell.  

I ground my energy into the earth and find the tether that allows me to recycle any gunk needing to be released.  

I breathe.  I breathe again.  And again.  Until I feel the release of the tension, preoccupation, baggage… 

I allow the Earth’s energy to fill me and hold me.  I sink into the warmth of being.  Being with myself. 

As the space within begins to open to the possibility of only this moment, I start to write. 

This ritual started out as a way to connect with my inner goals and really hone in on what I want to do with the second half of my life. The thing is, Spirit took this time as an opportunity to speak.  For me, Spirit is my higher self.  My soul.  My connectedness to the all.

I find that what my soul wants to speak, is beautiful.  Everyone deserves to hear their soul speak.  So I am taking my words and making them public.  So that you can hear the beauty that is inside you too.  I am no different other than maybe I have learned how to get out of my way a little faster.  

There seems to be a rhythm and flow to the messages in the writing. Topics that are pressing on my mind filter to the surface and it is like a floodlight making bright what was previously dark, hidden, or unknown.  Nothing is crystal clear with one morning of writing.  It usually leads me to other questions for subsequent days. 

I find that each topic I mull over ends up being like a prism.  There are so many facets and viewpoints.  And the only vantage point is from where I am in the present moment.

Love

I learn through love, laughter, and light. Cherishing the beauty and not the sorrow.  Yes, there will be others that need to be in shadow but that is not mine to take on.  I show light, love and joy in the life that I created.  From darkness, I rose to find my truth when I fell in love with myself.  

My dear one...

The heart.  The heart is where the ground and the air meet. 

Who is this speaking, you ask?  I am you.  I am me.  I am other.  I am earth.  I am the sky.  I am land.  I am a bird.  I am light.  I am an earthworm.  I am the energy that holds and anchors you in this three-d consciousness.  I am your thoughts and feelings.  I am where all creation exists.  

Just be.  Start with yourself each day.  Do not allow others into this time when you connect, ground, and rediscover your presence… your essence.  Presence and essence are one and the same.  One is of the mind and one is of the heart.  

Your time is your time alone.  A reminder of where you were and where you are going.  No matter the circumstances of the day.  Being one does not change the day-to-day. It changes the perception of the day-to-day.  Being in love with the experience and being in love.  Reconnecting to your essence is how you find the love of the moment.  Seeing love in each moment allows you to see love for each being’s essence in front of you.  

Essence is in the bird.  Essence is in the forsythia.  Essence is in the sunlight as well as the moon.  Essence is even in the darkness.  Waiting to be seen.  Darkness does not cover the essence it only hides its truest nature.

(I don’t understand. )

You don’t have to.  It’s knowing.  It’s a state of being.  Not seen but felt.

(How do I build a love for the self?) 

By trust, truth, and presence of mind.  Love your body.  Love your soul.  Love your mind.  Love your essence.  Love. Love. Love. Go now in peace, love, and beauty for the day.

Now go, and begin.

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Today, I begin.

My life is mine to do as I wish.  Because my life is of the all. I am the beginning and the end.  I do not stop just because I choose to “turn off” at times and stop listening.  

I am the whisper in my unconscious pushing me forward.  To find love and laughter.  To share love and laughter.  There is no darkness where I stand.  I stand inside of me.