Watching clouds go by

Do you remember when you were a kid and you laid in the grass and watched the clouds go by?  I have talked occasionally about wonderment, about finding the beauty in everything that comes into your life.  Part of this is opening yourself up to your inner child. 

When I was a child I could spend hours just watching the clouds and imagining what shape they pretended to be.  The hours seemed like minutes because I was totally entrenched by the beauty and the fun of the clouds.  I still do this on occasion, although I rarely lie down in the grass, I just sit and look upward to enjoy the clouds.  Are you willing to be a child again?

We are all so busy in our busy world that we refuse to take time for ourselves and time to play.  Why do we lose the joy of a child?  The answer is because we refuse to cultivate it as we grow.  Our society says that is childish and we should be more responsible.  I say baloney!!  I say to truly know joy we need to feed our inner child, we need to be willing to just watch the clouds go by.

We refuse to open our minds to the joy we knew as a child because we are afraid to let go of the noise of the people around us.  We need to find comfort in our own self and not be so concerned about what everyone else has to say about us or what we are doing.

Rediscover your inner child, feed its imagination and joy.  By allowing this simple act your heart will be lightened and joy will return to your life.  It is ok to be silly, it is ok be childish.  Do not allow anyone, including yourself, to take that joy away.  When you are able to just let go and watch the clouds go by you feed your soul and you begin the process of bringing joy back into your life.

Till next time,

Bill

Quote of the day: “By finding time to watch the clouds go by we feed our imagination and rediscover the joy of being a child!”

Who am I?

Do you know the answer to this simple question?  Or is it simple at all?  So many of us have our different faces; a face for work, a face for home, a face for play & a face for friends but do you really know who you are?  This was a question that dogged me for years, I thought I knew what I wanted, I thought I knew how to get it & I thought I knew what people expected of me.  But the truth is none of this matters if you don’t know who you truly are!

There’s no easy way or quick fix to find the answer to this question.  This takes time and lots of self-reflection.  You need to move beyond the roles you play in life and discover who you are.  For me this started with meeting my wife Heidi and really gained momentum with the death of my father but it took me way too long to figure who I really was and what I wanted to do with my life.

It is so easy to hide in the different roles we play that often we totally lose ourselves.  I worked for 16 years in taxes not because it was a part of me but because I needed to provide for my family.  I did many things in my life for a reason but is it always good to justify the actions you took (read Tuesday’s blog)?  The truth is NO!!  Even things we do with the best intentions can be a way to avoid learning who you are.  You are not defined by any role, you are not defined by any action; you are instead discovered in every moment!

The work of discovering yourself begins with dealing with your past.  The past for most of us is like the elephant in the room; always there but never acknowledged.  For me I had to forgive:  Forgive the man that sexually abused me, Forgive my father for making me feel not good enough.  This wasn’t easy but over time and through reflection, I was able to forgive and let go of the things that happened to me.  I am a totally different person than I was before I did this.  I love more, give more and believe now that by opening yourself to the world you find much more joy than the sorrow people believe.  Yes there can always be someone out there that is looking to take advantage of you but there are far more that will return the love you give a thousand times over.

The process of self-discovery took time for me but it was the best time I ever spent.  I learned that my life was filled with decisions based on my Ego rather than my soul.  I learned that by forgiving we become a better person and I learned that when we truly trust God/universe everything is possible.

Take time, discover the person you truly are, always start with love and the world will open up to you like never before!!

Till next time,

Bill

Quote of the day: “Only by knowing who you really are (not who you pretend to be) can you find the lasting joy that is meant for you!” 

Justify

Do you try to justify everything in your life?  No matter the mistakes or choices you make you always have a reason for your actions.  Many of us do this to try to create a false sense of security.  The truth is no action that is taken by us should need justification.  When we act from a place of love or from our true self everything flows and we never need to justify the actions we have taken.

The reason we seek to justify is to placate the Ego, the Ego makes wrong decisions all the time because the decisions are based on instant gratification and embellishing itself. So to take command of your thoughts the Ego needs to be able to justify everything it does.  This is true no matter how wrong the decision is.  We can always find a ‘good’ reason for our actions because it gives us comfort that we made the correct decision but by opening yourself up to your true self you’ll learn that there’s no need to justify for every action you take is in harmony with everything else in your life and in the world as a whole.

Some of the worst tragedies in the history of the world had justification for the actions they took and people bought into these justifications because it was more comfortable to believe the justification then to stand up to the tragedy they witnessed.  We as a society need to speak up when we see wrong, we need to stop listening to the justification and start revealing the horror of the action.

On a smaller scale in our own lives we need to move away from our Ego and become more and more aligned with our true self (soul).  Once this shift happens in our life we will begin to see how easily life flows in the natural course of things.  This does not mean everything will go your way all the time.  As I have written before, look to nature there is a natural rhythm there and as in nature there are fallow times and harvest times in all of our lives.  By listening to our soul though we can even out the fallow times and still find joy when things are not going as well as we would like. 

Remember that even in fallow times we can prepare for the next harvest.  Through this preparation we can be stronger than we were before.  Let go of the need to justify your actions, move closer to your true self and discover the true joy that is missing in your life.

Till next time,

Bill

Quote of the day: “When we listen to our true self there is never a need to justify our actions.  Move away from the Ego and the need to justify and you will discover true joy!”

Where are you going?

Do you know where you are going in life?  Do you have a plan?  Or do you just vacillate moving from one disappointment to the other never knowing when things will be different?  God/universe allows us to create whatever we want in life but first we must have a plan!  We have talked before about thoughts and intentions and these are part of the plan for your life but in order to create the life you truly want; you need to have a plan!  You need to have a dream!!  You need to aspire to something.

So how do you create a plan for your life?  I believe the most important part of any plan is flexibility!  You have to be willing to adjust your plan as you move through life.  Look to nature that always adapts to whatever comes its way.  In the case of nature some things take centuries but nature always adapts.  Far too often in our lives we have a vision and we are unwilling to adjust that vision to things that come into our life.  By being open and in touch with your true self (soul) you will know when to adjust the plan and when to stay the course.  We often need to move away from what we believe the vision is to truly discover the vision again.  We all know of stories of people that found their true passion when they were much older (in their 60’s or 70’s).  God/universe has no timeline for your plan or your life, what God/universe wants to do is give you everything you want, the problem is we all get so distracted in our day to day life we do not know what we truly want.

This is the true paradox of life:  God/universe wants to give us what we want but we cannot give God/universe a clear message to work from!!  I believe the answer to this paradox is simple; start each day with gratitude.  Thank God/universe for what has come into your life before today.  Next, focus!  Yes take time, even a few minutes every day, but take time to focus on what you want.  Move beyond your head (Ego) and into your true self (soul) and listen to what your soul is telling you.  This is the path you need to be on.  If we betray our true self we may have instant gratification but we will never know true long lasting joy!

After starting with gratitude and focusing on our true vision the next step is open ourselves up to whatever comes into our life.  You never know who can help you along the way to your dreams and sometimes the forward movement you need comes from a very unlikely source, so as with focus the answer is to be flexible and pay attention to what comes into your life.  As you do this, more and more things will come into your life that moves your vision forward.

Believe in this process, know that everything is possible.  Believe in yourself, know that you are a divine being and all God/universe wants is to give you what you want.  Remember to be open, to love and to listen and your life will change forever!

Till next time,

Bill

Quote of the day: “Where are you going in your life?  Do you even know?  Find your true calling, believe in yourself and you can do anything!”

My Heart is full!

Yes, my heart is full of love, love is the only thing I know as I move forward in my life.  I open my heart to everyone that comes into my life and try to help them anyway I can.  I find great joy in giving to others and in my life I have found by giving that I receive much more back than I give.

In the world today some people call me crazy for this & I am OK with that.  Yes, I have been hurt by people in my life because of my willingness to give but I believe I have discovered true joy even through the few times that people have hurt me.  I believe that the only way for the world to move to a better place is to learn to love more and judge less.  We are all humans and we all make mistakes, even if we don’t want to admit it.  Through love we move beyond our own imperfections and into a state of joy and fulfillment that can not be reached without love in your life.

Does everyone deserve to be loved?  I believe the answer to that is yes!!  The violence and pain we see in the world is based on fear not love and when we come together in a true loving state anything is possible.  By opening our heart without judgement to others we clear away the ego and move into a place where everything is possible.

Does this mean you have to agree with everyone?  Of course not!!  We love our family, we love our children, we love our spouse but we do not always agree with what they are doing or saying.  We all need to be true to ourselves but if we disagree with someone through love we can open our mind to truly listen and by truly listening we open the possibility of finding common ground even on issues we don’t agree with and even if we do not agree we can better understand where someone is coming from.  Through this understanding we may be able to find a solution to our differences.

Know that love is all that matters and no matter how much you have been hurt by love in the past finding the love in everyone that comes into your life is the way to a more joyful life!!!

Till next time,

Bill

Quote of the day: “My heart is filled with love for everyone in my life.  I let go of judgement and listen with my heart instead of my ego by doing this I find true joy.”

When darkness envelops you

We all have bad days, yes even me from time to time.  You the know days where you wake up and feel grumpy or angry or sad or maybe all of these things.  These feelings are a normal part of life.  To feel joy we need to know sadness; to know peace we need to know anger and to find calm we need to feel grumpy every now and again.  I learned over the years of my spiritual growth ways to deal with these feelings so they do not over take you and cause a shift into despair in your life.

We have talked often about focus and minding your thoughts.  The darkness that comes into our life is no different.  We need to acknowledge the feelings that we are feeling, we need to try to understand where these feelings are coming from.   Sometimes either of these can be very difficult to do but first look at what has happened recently in your life, then look at what you are afraid of.  Most often fear is the basis of bad feelings, we are afraid of what might happen, we are afraid of changes in our life that we have no control over or we are afraid of what we are missing in our life or the lack of something in our life.

Always remember that whatever you feel, you are allowed to feel.  No one should ever try to tell you differently!!  I propose only ways to limit darkness that comes into our lives so we do not fall into the darkness itself.  Look for ways to brighten your thoughts, always begin with gratitude for something in your life, through gratitude we change our focus automatically.  Find a song or a quote that lifts your soul whenever you hear it or read it.  Release the fear and know that just by moving forward you are moving towards your dreams.

I have discovered that life is rarely a straight line from point A to point B.  Often it is a winding path that we can only see after we have reached the goal we were looking for.  This alone can cause confusion and distress, just know that as long as you move forward towards your goal God/universe will bring you to it.  God/universe works through everything around us so the path is not always what we imagine it to be, often it is only by looking back that we can see how far we have come and that we are further than we could even imagine.

We all have darkness within us, celebrate the darkness, reflect on its part in your life and move beyond it to a more joyful life.

Till next time,

Bill

Quote of the day: “When the darkness envelopes us; listen to what it has to say, open your heart to the light and discover the pathway to joy!”

The lies within,

Do you lie to yourself?  Do you quietly tell yourself you’re not worthy of what just happened in your life?  The secret lies that we tell ourselves are some of the worst we can have to deal with in your life.  When we continue to lie to ourselves, we perpetuate a cycle that only leads to more disappointment.  Remember thoughts create things so what we say to ourselves even in the quietest part of our mind only create more of the same.

We all have feelings of “not being good enough” at some time in our life and we often interpret others actions as confirmation of our own inadequacies.  We’d much rather listen to the noise of the world to find the truth we’re looking for; then to go inside and discover who we truly are!

The more we tell ourselves lies the further we get from the truth:  You are a beautiful creation, your soul purpose in life is to know you are love and to find and spread love into the world.  We all make mistakes, move beyond them.  We all feel disconnected from the world at times, like we don’t belong or that we’re not good enough.  Don’t believe those lies!!! 

Your Ego is what wants to make you feel inadequate because it wants instant gratification in every moment of every day.  It feeds on your true self to keep itself going strong.  The greatest practice you can learn in life is to quiet the mind and truly listen to the soul.  This took me way too long to figure out and because of that I lived in a state of ego for far too many years.

Let go of the lies, move out of your head and discover the joy you are seeking in your life.

Till next time,

Bill

Quote of the day: “The lies we tell ourselves are the rarely based in truth.  Move away from your head and into your soul for the truth you’ve been looking for.”