• Willing to Live

    • August 29, 2011 9:12 am

    Dearest Readers,

    This post is for you if you are feeling overwhelmed, run down by life, paralyzed by fear, stuck in a rut, cynical, helpless, hopeless. I would like you to know that you are not alone.

    Before I go on, I would like to preface what I am about to say by telling you that I have a great life. I am young, healthy, talented, loved, and pretty cute. AND I struggle with anxiety and fear. So despite the fact that I have enormous amounts of abundance and opportunities for joy in my life I go to bed some nights and wake up some days in cold, naked, fear.

    Last night was one of those nights and this morning was one of those mornings.

    When I went to bed last night I told myself that when the cat pounced on me at 5:30 the next day I would not go back to bed after getting up to feed him. I would do the morning routine and embrace the day. I was determined because I knew that if I didn’t, if I let the fear plague me it would end up driving the bus of my day and I would sink deeper into the mire.

    So this morning at 5:30 a.m., right on schedule, “Pounce!” The cat jumped on me and began his mournful sing-song to waken me. Guess what? I ignored him. I pulled the covers over my head and stuck a finger in my ear.

    Fear: 1, Celia: 0

    Now because I am aware of my shortcomings, because I am aware that I rebel against my Highest Good, because I well know that I get in my own way more often than I care to admit, I did not stop there. I did not let the fear win.

    Despite myself, I began to ask for help. Buried under those covers with a finger in my ear listening to the cat cry for his breakfast I began to pray like a motherlover.

    “I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to face the day. It’s too much. Please help me. Please forgive me. Please give me the strength and courage to pull my covers off and sit up and get up and feed the cat and start the morning routine and live the day. I don’t want to because I’m afraid but I’m willing. Give me the courage, please, I need strength, please help me.”

    I kept on like that for some time. I just kept on. Then out came the finger. Off came the covers. I sat up. I got up. I fed the cat. I splashed water on my face and drank water. Life-giving water. I felt relief.

    Celia:1, Fear: 0

    I began the morning routine, entering into deeper prayer and meditation. I did a yoga practice. I WENT FOR A JOG. IN THE RAIN. When I got back I picked raspberries from the bush in our yard for breakfast.

    Miracles all.

    Somewhere around the five-minute mark into the jog (those of you who have been following this blog since the beginning will be most impressed for I began hauling myself up an outdoor staircase two years ago to build cardio activity into my life and nearly had a heart attack) I began to feel better. The fear began to lift and I could feel my energy changing. Hallelujah.

    For a person who is gripped by fear or anxiety the most difficult thing in the world to do is to get up off the proverbial couch. And yet it is the absolute solution to the problem. We must get up off the couch and step into our lives for the fear to lift, for things to change, for the miracle of thankfulness to overtake the dread. And yet how? How do we do that when we are paralyzed?

    Ask. Ask for the strength and courage. Beg for it if you have to. It will come. It. Will. Come.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: I am willing to live despite my fear. I am willing to move forward with love in my heart. I’m terrified of what lies ahead and life feels too big for me to handle. But I’m willing because I trust the shift will come and when it does I will be returned to thankfulness and inner peace, which is my true state of being.

    The Anxious Man

    • September 9, 2010 8:41 am

    Dearest Readers,

    Yesterday I heard a man tell a story and I’m going to re-tell it for you because it is powerful testament to what Marianne Williamson calls “the miracle”. The miracle is the Shift in Perception.

    One day a man left his office feeling very heavy. The weight of the world was on his shoulders. He was a newspaperman and stories of oil spills and murders and mayhem crowded his mind and held his thoughts hostage.

    As he walked along the street he could feel his anxiety increasing. All around him was pain and despair. He clenched his fists and tightened his jaw against the air around him, which felt oppressive and thick.

    He saw ahead of him on the sidewalk an old lady. She was tiny and frail and she used a walker. “How sad,” the man thought. “How terrible. A lonely, old woman who has no one. She can barely walk. Her bones look as though they might break at any moment. How tragic.” He sighed heavily with the sadness he felt for this woman’s situation.

    As the old lady approached him she looked up at the man, raising her head high from between her stooped shoulders. The man expected to see a hollow, empty face. Instead, she was smiling.

    “Isn’t it a beautiful day?” she said to him, beaming radiance and great warmth from deep within her fragile frame.

    “Y-yes,” the man replied, barely able to speak.

    The old lady continued on and the man stood watching her slowly push her walker down the sidewalk. It seemed as though a light had suddenly been turned on outside. Everything was brighter.

    The man looked around. The sun was shining. He had not noticed this before. It was a beautiful day after all.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: When I look around me what do I see? Do I see the darkness or the light? The Light is everywhere, all around us, all the time. Today I will look for it no matter how I am feeling.

    Introducing…

    • July 15, 2010 3:52 pm

    Dearest Readers,

    I’ve just spent the last twenty hours with my sister and her partner assisting them with the birth of their first child. I’m officially knackered and totally blown away.

    With a little less than two hours of sleep I don’t have a lot of words to offer you today but honestly, what words could possibly do justice to this extraordinary, everyday miracle?

    As my sister likes to say to her man, “We made a brand new person from scratch, baby.”

    Inspiring Message of the Day: It’s a boy!

    The Ultimate Agent

    • June 2, 2010 9:02 am

    Dearest Readers,

    Yesterday, as my brain went on a future-trip and my anxiety began to rise due to the fact that none of the issues the mind sought to resolve were immediately solvable I went out on a limb and asked for a miracle.

    The dictionary on this computer has two definitions for the word “miracle” and both are very appealing:

    A miracle is “a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.”

    A miracle is “a highly improbable or extraordinary event, development, or accomplishment that brings very welcome consequences.”

    The reason I asked for a miracle was simple enough. I had no peace. My mind was hard at work to figure out things that it simply has no control over at present. I needed that Divine Agency to take over.

    So I asked for a miracle.

    A short time later the phone rang. It was Beverly R. Down, the President & CEO of the Creativity Coaching Association, of which I am a member. She asked me if I would like to come and do a presentation at their conference in October in Lake George, New York.

    This was the miracle.

    Why? It’s just a phone call. It’s a job offer. It’s not too extraordinary. But it is extraordinary. Because the brain activity that was causing me so much stress was all about my path as an Inspiring Leader and should I really continue to pursue it?

    Earlier in the week I’d sent out a couple of inquiries to speaking agencies and, of course, not hearing back immediately my mind went into big-time negative-thinking mode. The itty-bitty-shitty-committee was now in session.

    When I am being attacked like this by the voices of dissent the only way to get them to shut up is to call the Divine Agency on the direct line and ask for help.

    “Send me a miracle, please.”

    And what happens? A surprising and welcome event occurs with very welcome consequences. A veritable miracle occurs.

    I always say this, folks: I don’t know how prayer works I just know it does.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: When the negative thinking becomes just too much to bear I will ask for a miracle and I will expect extraordinary results. The Divine Agency is always open for business.