I love knowing that instead of feeling powerless in front of the news of violence at home and abroad, I get to make choices every single day that promote peace and spread the energy of love.
We kid ourselves if we think our lives have nothing to do with what is going on in the world. We are like pebbles in the bigger collective pool. Our ripples extend way beyond where we can see. The energy of our thoughts, feelings and actions merges with the universal soup in which we all swim and, the more we choose peace, connection and love, the more we create the kind of world we want to live in.
This story takes place in a super-market: full carts, long lines- a potentially high stress situation. It is a success story told to me by a client. I could see how far she has come in her ability to deliberately create her own reality, feel better and have a positive effect of those around her.
She was waiting patiently on a long line. She was relaxed and had brought a good book. The cart in front of her was full but the shopper in absentia and not back by the time my friend was “next up”. She pushed the cart to the side and started to put her stuff on the belt. Just then, the shopper, an older woman, returned – hands on hips, poised for resistance and a fight. My friend explained the cashier was ready, she hadn’t known what to do – then she said, “OK, get back in line.” The woman behind pointed out that the line in the next aisle was shorter and the woman reclaimed her cart and moved. More waiting and just as my friend was loaded on the belt, the woman returned and said she wanted her place back. “You’ve got to be kidding,” my friend said. The woman said the other line turned out to be really slow and she wanted her spot. Hesitating, my friend said, “Oh, OK, go ahead,” and resumed reading. The woman looked surprised and grateful. She took her hands off her hips and accepted, thanking my friend.
The woman behind my friend worked at the store and was shopping on her lunch hour. She was being called to bag groceries and didn’t know what to do with her stuff. My friend said, “Go ahead and bag. I’ll pull your cart along, put your stuff on the belt and then you can pay for it.” Thank you so very much. My friend continued reading. Good book. Good vibes. And it’s not over yet. Just after my friend had checked her stuff out and was about to put the employee’s stuff on the belt, she noticed a woman with on 2 items chomping at the bit, looking at the full cart in front of her. My friend said, “Go ahead.” Yet another grateful, happy person.
As she was telling me this story, my friend was smiling. Her intention is to spread peace and love where ever she goes and she did and it felt good. All four women – the absent prodigal shopper, the store employee, the chomping at the bit 2-item shopper and my friend connected in meaningful ways that created a small community, demonstrated that people can be surprising generous and helpful and that a situation that could have gone the angry, confrontational ,blame way could morph into its opposite.
When we choose to think new thoughts and new ways of being and doing, our lives change and the world changes. We are extremely powerful energetic beings. We are faced with many choices each and every day. We kid ourselves if we think they don’t count. They do. The way we treat our husbands and wives, our children, co-workers, people on lines and the friends and strangers who cross our paths – indicates the direction that we’re traveling AND the direction in which the world is heading. We get to point our directional arrows.
Which way will you point yours? How will you decide to further peace in the world right now, today?
I went to a memorial gathering for a long-time employee at the wonderful, only bookstore in St. Thomas. A diverse group of people showed up and told stories of their relationship with him and how he had figured in their lives, their growth as readers and human beings and how much they will miss him. Poems were read and people told stories that warmed hearts and filled the room with tears and laughter. Someone pointed out that even though we live in a small community and pass each other, nodding and smiling over the years – too often we don’t really know one another or reach out and touch each other. We’re missing out on treasure troves and living connections that could enrich and support us. I kept wishing I had spent more time getting to know this guy as I heard about what a unique, funny, smart, great guy he was.
Sadly, I was reminded of this again all too soon at yet another memorial service. It was unspeakably tragic and sudden, a violent end to the peaceful life of a loving family man and preservationist. I couldn’t stop thinking of all the hours I’d spent standing next to him and his wife at soccer games as we watched his son and my daughter do super human things on the soccer field. We cheered loudly and were the kind of parents who showed up and took great pleasure in our kid’s lives. I am sorry that I never really got to know him and, as is often the case, I know far more about him now that he is gone.
Life is precious. As my Abraham-Hicks quote said this morning, it is measured in joy, not length. As with gemstones, it’s not only the surface that matters. Its important to know that, to an untrained eye, the shimmer or shine or dullness of an unpolished stone is only scanning the surface. The depth of each and every one of us is measured in fathoms. Endless and magical, we are full of untold treasures and an abundance of love. We are so often preoccupied, self-absorbed and distracted. We have learned to say good morning and good afternoon but how many of us know whom we are talking to, what matters to them, what successes and failures and joys and sorrows live in their hearts. How often have we not shared our treasures with those standing next to us at a soccer game or working away upstairs at the bookstore – or those people who we pass over and over again at K-mart, PTA meeting, in a line or at some public or private event.
Our community may be small, but like a life being measured in joy rather than length – it is measured in depth and connection. I am sobered and saddened at the loss of these two fine men so much earlier than anyone would have expected or wanted. I am inspired to seize the day, cultivate joy, be loving and, above all, take the time to get to know the people who cross my path over and over and to tell those around me how much I love and appreciate them as I share my treasures and ooh and aah over theirs.
I just put my old friend Martin on a plane back to frigid Montreal after a great weeklong visit. We’ve been friends for 40 years and have seen each other through many ups and downs and life changes. What a gift to still be in each other’s lives in that continuous way that only friends and family enjoy. You get to check in – outer signs noted in greyer hair, more wrinkles, a few new aches and pains perhaps and inner signs of personal growth, spiritual evolution and progress in our respective endeavors.
I’d been feeling low energy – my cold had gone to my lungs and was (still is) taking forever to be gone. I’d also been feeling like I was spinning my wheels – not moving as fast as I’d like in my business, cleaning my house and moving toward short and long term goals. I was feeling discouraged and down on myself – focused on what I wasn’t doing and what wasn’t working.
Well… Martin’s visit changed that! I got to see myself through his eyes and, like when you are painting a painting or viewing one in a museum, it always helps to step back and get the bigger view – I got to see the bigger picture of my life through his eyes and, I have to admit, I like what I saw and am still seeing.
We all have blind spots. When we’re driving on the freeway and pull out to change lanes and barely avoid a major crash because the approaching car was in our blind spot, we learn to turn our heads to see what’s happening in that place that we can’t see in our mirrors. We always think that what’s happening in our blind spot is bad and out to get us.
I have a different take on this. I am wondering what’s happening in my blind spot that is GOOD. After Martin’s visit, I realize that I have lots going on. It’s as though there’s been this party going on all along and I just never opened that door or turned my head at that particular angle. Through his eyes I see I’m making steady and even impressive progress in creating my Attracting Paradise coaching business. I have a radio spot, this blog, write a column in The St Thomas Source, speak at events and have created Every Day a Rainbow (TM) an exciting new product to help people raise their vibrations in a delightfully easy way. I’m on the verge of launching my group-coaching program, Attracting Paradise. Fireworks please!
As Martin said, “You have such a full life.” I have truly created a life that I love which continues to grow and evolve and I enjoy it on a daily basis.
It’s like when you look at a photo of yourself and, instead of the usual default reaction – yuck ‘ I look so (fill in the blank: fat tired, frumpy, old, bad hair day…)” you think WOW “lookin’ good!”
Martin’s visit had that effect on my life. He helped me to see it from a new angle and to like what I am seeing. Thank you Martin. You had a week to thaw out in the tropical sun, enjoy pumpkin soup on my deck overlooking the sea, be welcomed by the big hearts of Virgin Islanders, enjoy great music, long hikes and…. you gave the gift of shining a light in the blind spots where the good stuff has been hanging out all along. Bon Voyage and come again!
What good stuff is hanging out in your blind spots? Step back to see the big picture and ask a friend or family member to tell you what they see about you that’s working and what is beautiful about you inside and out. Lap it up and go forth and enjoy the party that might just be your life today and always.
We have all experienced being hurt, betrayed and angry with someone. It doesn’t matter if it was one person or a group or if it was someone who was close to you or whom you didn’t even really know. It could also be you. It doesn’t even matter what they did. What matters is how you feel and how all consuming those feelings of hurt and rage can be.
Something happened to me a couple of months ago that threw me for a loop and left me feeling like a wounded animal. I just couldn’t believe that someone I had thought was my friend could up and disappear in a heart beat and never look back. Not only did I miss this person but it made me ask myself how I could have so misjudged that situation and what I’d done wrong. I was judge and jury, defense and offense all rolled up in one. I’d be driving along on a beautiful day and suddenly I’d realize that I was thinking about the whole situation and feeling bad. My thoughts had a life of their own and were magnetized toward wearing even deeper ruts in my brain and heart.
Since I am wholeheartedly committed to personal and spiritual growth and to seeing what-ever happens as an opportunity for learning, I couldn’t help but see this situation as an intensive course that I knew would leave me in a very different place.
I have learned a lot and more continues to be revealed. The main message that has been coming through loud and clear bears repeating over and over and over. When you are ready to hear something, you know how the message keeps reappearing in all kinds of forms and places as if the universe were also really committed to you’re getting it and getting it right?
Last week I was watching an Eckert Tolle DVD with friends. He was talking about forgiveness. He said that forgiveness is really about seeing others as unconscious and, like Christ said, “knowing not what they do.” It doesn’t mean what they or you did was right and doesn’t have consequences. It means that you can know that they came from a place of being asleep to their true natures.
When we continue to hold onto anger, we become just like the people we are angry at – unconscious. Forgiveness unleashes energy. When you forgive someone you let go of your negative judgments. You lay down your weapons and armor and proceed onward. You lighten up.
I received a daily quote from TUT, The Universe that sums it up with a smile:
“You can rest assured, Anne, that those who have hurt you had absolutely no idea of what they were doing and what was really going on.
It never occurred to them that you’d become even more magnificent. That they’d be invoking your sympathy, adding to your compassion, and increasing your “sparkles.” And it will still be eons before they can grasp that you actually welcomed them into your life and played their little games for some of these very reasons.
Love you with all my heart,
The Universe
This message is also for you. I hope that it inspires you to think of someone (including yourself) that you have not yet forgiven – to whom our heart has been closed – and allows you to bravely let go of your judgments and experience a fresh rush of love and a return of energy to propel you onward.
I saw “Yes Man” yesterday. It made me laugh. The message was right up my alley so, in the darkened theater, x-tra large bag of popped corn on my lap, I whispered to my friend, “I’m gonna blog about this.”
I’m all about positive energy, keeping the focus on what I want and climbing into the feeling of it all having already happened. I would rather say yes than no to what the universe presents in unfailing abundance each and every day. In fact, one of my intentions for the New Year is to welcome everything that happens as GOOD. I have a ways to go!
What got Carl (the hero/anti-hero) into trouble was saying yes automatically, no matter what he was feeling. In the beginning it’s sometimes as matter of “acting as if”, “faking it until you make it”, and showing up the way you’d like to be to over-ride centuries of negative programming and default settings on “No.” Often times your feelings catch up with your actions: – smiling and putting on a happy face can result in the world treating you like a happy person and into your actually feeling happier or choosing fruit over an Eskimo pie even if you’d rather have the ice-cream. It’s a crossover dance that gives you a chance to have a new experience and jumping over the rut you’re in.
But once you’ve jumped the rut and know what fruit and ice cream have to offer and how yes and no feel and are “at choice”, it is really important to check in with your feelings. Sometimes it feels better to say yes and other times it feels better to say no or, as the movie suggest – maybe.
The most sure-fire way to be, do and have whatever our little hearts desire is to picture being there and then power-up our visions with heart. The Law of Attraction is constantly reminding us that our thoughts are the engine and our emotions are the fuel that keeps us moving us toward the fulfillment of our dreams.
Saying yes when our hearts are in our dreams is the countdown to blast-off. Saying yes when we are still really unsure, afraid or blocked simply doesn’t work. It a message to take a look, do some inner investigation, clearing, cleaning, howling at the moon so we can get clear, lined up, tapped in, tuned in and turned on.
Carl found this out and instead of being compelled to say yes and afraid to say no, he was able to choose and take it from there. It’s a happy ending.