• Eight…

    • September 13, 2010 9:51 am

    Dearest Readers,

    “By living regularly in the spiritual consciousness–making it your habitation–no trouble can touch you.”

    This comes from the book Power Through Constructive Thinking by Emmet Fox. I read that passage this morning during the time I take to practice prayer and meditation. Part of me balked. “But I do that and still I get burned!”

    This resistance is also known as the dis-ease. The rebel. The pessimist. The faithless. She’s real and she has a voice but guess what? She’s not the boss of me.

    “No trouble can touch you” does not mean nothing “bad” is ever going to happen. It means with a positive mental attitude we can be free no matter what the situation. We can be free with second-degree burns, with illness, with physical disability. We can be free in prison, in concentration camps, in the darkest of places. We can be free if we make Spiritual Consciousness our mental home.

    My thigh is now marked by a giant red scar. It may go away. It may not. The skin is very smooth. It’s new. It regenerated itself after trauma. The pain of that experience was excruciating and yet I have managed to overcome it by changing my attitude. It wasn’t a punishment. I didn’t attract it because I’m not living rightly. I was presented with an opportunity to practice compassion (for myself and others) and non-judgment (of myself and others). I was presented with an opportunity to turn it around, to ask instead, “Where is the Gift?”

    We can always find the Gift through the power of constructive thinking. I was able to move beyond self-pity. I was able to triumph over physical difficulty. I gained humility. I gained a deeper sense of be-ing. My ability to practice of mindfulness opened up wider than it ever has before.

    As a result of all of these things I can look back and see that despite the grief of the whole burn experience I managed to become mentally free. By dwelling in the Spiritual Solution no trouble really touched me.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Everyday the dis-ease of fear comes knocking. “I want the power!” it shouts. “I wanna drive the bus!” Everyday we may seek refuge in the Spirit to send it packing. Today I will dwell in the Spirit and be free.

    To Be Or…

    • May 18, 2010 9:20 am

    Dearest Readers,

    One of the things I have a hugely difficult time doing is making decisions. Big or small, it doesn’t matter. I once stood in the linen section of the Superstore for what seemed like hours trying to decide what sheets to buy. It took me a whole year to buy a truck.

    When I do the deeper investigation into what’s behind my indecisiveness I discover, of course, fear. In this particular case, it is the fear of making a mistake.

    Making the wrong decision would lead to all kinds of bad consequences. This is what the fear tells me. But is this really true? Of course not.

    A few years ago I went on Silent Retreat and during that time was given the opportunity to work with a Spiritual Director. I had a big decision to make and I was struggling with it. This wonderful woman (who is my SD to this day) said, “Why don’t we talk through each option and see what the outcome is for both?”

    So we did that. I imagined “going left” and talked through that scenario until I came to some kind of conclusion and then I did the same for “going right.” What I discovered is that both options had consequences and rewards. Both options would bring challenges and gifts. This was a revelation.

    Knowing I couldn’t make a mistake, that either decision would be a learning experience, it then became a matter of deciding which consequences I was willing to live with. I still had to make a decision but I had more information and clarity with which to decide.

    Today, it can still take me ages to make a decision and I readily admit that there is that old fear wrapped up in my hesitation. But there is also a commitment to clarity inside my waiting. If my Intuition isn’t speaking loudly enough for me to hear it or if the options are too many or the situation too vague, I wait.

    This can be very inconvenient, especially if there are other people involved in the outcome. But this commitment to clarity assuages that old fear. It means I get to feel sure, safe and connected. This is important. These are my needs and I deserve to have them met.

    On the other hand, if I cannot make a mistake because either way I’m going to learn something, then “Make a decision already!” would be a perfectly appropriate thing to shout at me next time you see me standing for hours in an aisle at the Superstore.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Despite my fear, today I am going to make a concrete decision about something. Big or small, I will decide and I will trust that the consequences and rewards of my decision are teaching tools from which I may learn.