Building from the End

"Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it." 
- Charles Swindoll

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This is my mantra today.  I'm having a little bit of trouble with my 90% of the deal.

But I know that when I'm in bed for the night, and I look back on this day that I'm about to embark on right now, I won't remember specific things that happened throughout the day.  Some, yes, but mostly not.

What I'll take with me was the overall tone that my day took on.  And the overall tone of my day will be determined by how I'm reacting, and the feelings and thoughts that I nurture throughout it.

I will move through my day nurturing good thoughts and blessing everyone around me.  I will share the best part of me because that's the part I want to remember when I contemplate my day, later.

There's something to be said for beginning a new day by contemplating how you want to feel about your day at the end of the day. 

Close your eyes and imagine you're in bed for the night.  How do you want to feel?

I imagine being tired and near sleep as soon as I lay down.  It's been a fantastic and productive day for me, and I'm rightfully tired.  I drift off to sleep sending blessings out to all my loved ones, smiling happily to myself.

Now, off I go to shape my day into whatever will make me feel like that later.  I will hold my tongue, and just go where the Spirit moves me.

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Great Titles by Charles Swindoll 

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Today I Smile

"Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy."
- Thich Nhat Hanh

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Just smile.  Even if you don't feel like it.

That's where I'm at today.  Just smile.  My attitude sucks because I just can't control everything, and that bugs me.  But I'm going to smile anyway.

It is my dominant intention to feel good, so I will smile.  And that smile will attract things to make me smile.
And the wrong side of my bed will be but a fading memory.

Today, I smile.

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Great Titles by Thich Nhat Hanh

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See and Say

"If you propose to speak, always ask yourself, is it true, is it necessary, is it kind"
- Buddha

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I've been wrestling with my gossip muscle lately.  I want to stop talking about people, a feat easier said than done.  But I am doing my best, and I talk a little less every day.

This lesson is carrying over to my son.

He found himself in a situation at school the other day.  He watched a girl pull another girl's cell phone out of her coat pocket, stare at it in surprise, and then say, "This is *whats-her-name's* phone... (insert confused look) What should I do with it?"

My son and the other girl present both agreed that she should give it to their teacher, and she did.  She was spotted by the phone owner as she was walking toward the teacher, and the girl promptly threw a tremendous fit, jumping up and down and screaming that "So-and-So" had stolen her phone.

Later that day, at home, my son was telling the tale and said that the teacher told him he would likely have to speak with the principal tomorrow and relay what he'd witnessed.  He sat here telling me that So-and-So is a "mean girl" and likes to get in people's coat pockets and turn their phones on (there's a rule against having your phone on in school) and then secretly call them from HER phone so they get in trouble.

This also isn't the first time her phone has ended up in someone elses pocket having been "stolen."

Then he starts telling me how he's going to tell the principal all these nasty things.

We ended up having quite a lengthy conversation about how just because he has suspicions about something doesn't make it so... And how would you feel if you said all those things and it turned out that it wasn't her at all, but someone else trying to set her up?

"You're going to be asked what you saw," I said, "and what you SAW is what you tell... period.  If you don't see it with your eyes, then don't see it with your mouth."

He was a little upset by that concept because he's VERY uncomfortable with what appears to be happening, so I drove the idea home a little more by saying, "How would you feel if someone THOUGHT you did something, and got you in trouble?  Most people won't remember that you were innocent after investigation.  Most people will only remember the accusation.  Would you like to be labeled according to something bad that someone assumed about you once that wasn't even TRUE?"

Then we talked about kindness.

"When asked what you saw, you say what you saw.  That doesn't include what you think or feel about it.  Don't relay that you think she's mean or sneaky or underhanded.  Those are not facts, they're just unkind things to say.  You're not being asked your opinion of her actions or personality.  You're being asked what you SAW.  If you go and run off at the mouth about what a JERK someone is, that only states plainly that YOU are a jerk."

I think he got it.  At 11, it's a tough concept to grasp.  But over the past week, that sentence has REALLY taken root in our house...

If you don't see it with your eyes, don't see it with your mouth.

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Great Titles from Amazon.com

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Be Angry!

"You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger."
- Buddha

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This reminds me of another saying... Resentment (or anger?) is like swallowing poison to kill your enemy.

Anger isn't an unhealthy emotion.  So many on the path to enlightenment or who are working with the "Law of Attraction" fear being angry, worried that they will simply bring more negativity to themselves.  This is just untrue.

Now, don't get me wrong, if you skulk around all the time, pissed off at the world, then yes, you're going to attract negativity to you.  In a case such as this, anger is less an emotion and more a state of mind.

Anger as an emotion is not only harmless to your conscious creation, but sometimes essential.  Anger ignites fire within us.  Anger sets us in motion.  When anger doesn't set us in motion, then it becomes a state of mind.  When you're overcome with such a strong emotion, you need to act.

The Universe will not "punish" you for feeling anger... for being passionate enough about something to feel angry at the state of things.  But if you do nothing, and just hold onto that anger, the anger itself will punish you through the all consuming thoughts and feelings you will end up if you don't release it.

So BE angry!  If you see injustice, get pissed!  Ignite change!  Create passion!  Just remember that anger is the beginning.  When anger is the end, then you are punishing yourself.

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Great Titles at Amazon 

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A Good Morning to You

"Every morning when we wake up, we have a choice to either open to a potential miracle and celebrate it, or to choose complaint and control."
- Deepak Chopra

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I also recently heard Joel Osteen talking about how every morning is a gift of joy from God just waiting for us to open and unfold in it.  And it's up to us to accept the gift of joy we're given each day.

One of my very first observances in the morning upon waking is how cozy and warm I am in my bed.  That simple observation of pleasure makes me smile and sets the stage for my entire morning.

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A Piece of Peace

"Peace is not merely a distant goal we seek but a means by which we arrive at that goal."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

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We cannot have peace tomorrow.  If we choose peace, it's a choice made now.  Right now.

Choosing a peaceful life is something you choose to embrace "now," and then all actions and thoughts from that moment forward are based in the preservation of that chosen peace.

We can't decide we want peace, but we want it right after we show these people who's boss, or right after we get our way.  We can't bring peace by force.

Peace, in my opinion, isn't something that IS, it's the lack of something.  When you take away the disagreement and hatred and violence and force, you are left with a calm, acceptance called peace.

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Great Titles by Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Influences

The future influences the present just as much as the past.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
 

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The past influences our present because its happenings cause us to take a perspective and form thoughts relating to it.  Those thoughts are the first step in our actions.  Our present actions.

The future influences our present because its happenings are in their first step stage, our thoughts.  Our present thoughts about our future actions.

If you know in your first step stage, thoughts of future, where you are heading, your present changes to support the creation of future.

If you know in your present only that which is past, your past is all you will create presently.

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Great Titles by Friedrich Nietzsche

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Kindness Personified

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
– Abraham Joshua Heschel

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It's not always easy to be kind.

I've always been a person who enjoys gossip.  Who's doing what, and with whom?  Did you SEE what he did?!  Did you hear what she said about him?!

Oh yeah!  LOVE the gossip!

Mostly because talking about other people's lives makes me feel a whole lot better about my own.

And it's FUNNY!  People make me laugh.  Mainly their stupidity.

How kind of me, right?  I know.  It's not at all, not one bit.  Even though I hold my tongue and only vent such things when the subject of my rant isn't around, that doesn't make it any better.

I've been doing a lot less gossiping and felt inspired to make "not gossiping" a new years resolution of sorts this year.

Being clever, and wielding a sharp tongue was always something I was actually proud of.  Cut them down, put them in their place, and leave them speechless.  Piece of cake.

Not so much anymore though.  Now, I listen to those younger than I (and sometimes often older too) throwing around their sarcasm and unconscious observations and I want to simply smack them for their lack of compassion and excess of rudeness.

So it is because of these personal observations that I've resolved to not be that way anymore and instead make a conscious choice to stand in their proverbial shoes for a moment and try to have compassion for them instead of pointing out their obvious "sins" and stroking my own ego with the knowledge.

Maybe I won't be admired by the same group as before, but I can at least admire myself  And if we're truly honest with ourselves, we can see that our own admiration is the only admiration we've ever really been seeking.

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Great Titles by Abraham Joshua Heschel

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The Pain of Joy

Consciousness is the ability to release the old and embrace the
new with the awareness that all things end at the appropriate
time and that all things begin at the appropriate time.
– Carolyn Myss

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I have suffered, so completely, throughout my life in times of loss.

The loss of my first real, adult relationship rendered me a blubbering mess for weeks.  How could he leave me?  How could he just walk away like that?

The loss of my Gram when she died.  She was more a mother to me than my mother.  It left a hole in my soul when she moved on, leaving me behind.

When I was forced to move eleven hours away from the best friend I'd ever had up until that point.  The one person I felt understood me.  How did they expect me to just pick up and move on, all by myself?

And there's SO many more instances.  So much more loss and pain that I've felt through my short life.  It's easy for me to understand how people come to completely identify with that pain and loss they experience and become less.  How they can let that loss carve a hole into them that stands forever a gaping chasm in their lives.  I can understand.

I experienced a shift in my consciousness when I was about 21.  A shift that forever changed the way I perceived all loss from that day, forward.  It was the most deeply profound moment of my lifetime and I'll never forget the staggering reality that it left behind.

I knew I could have been saved so much pain had I had this realization years earlier, but I understood at that point that I had to reach a place of contentment first.  I had to be happy to be where I was before I could realize the beauty that was the pain I had suffered.

How can pain and loss be beautiful?  How can it be divine in its heart wrenching misery?

I realized, very suddenly, and with amazing clarity, that if I had not been through each of those losses and experienced each of those miseries, the path I was walking would have forked me off into another direction.

Each pain was a crossroad in my life where I gathered my faculties and made choices.  Where I changed and grew and became this wonderful woman that I was in the process of becoming.

Had I not become her... Had I not took those steps and felt those things and found the new, and unexpected path beneath my feet... I could not have ended up at this particular destination.  This beautiful, fulfilling, loving, accepting, warm, and wonderful destination.

I stopped looking back on my pain and using it as the definition of my shortcomings.  I stopped defining my lack by my loss.

I began to see that it was actually my happiness that was defined by my loss.  It was the indescribable joy I was living in that was the result of my loss, because I wasn't actually lacking anything.

We are spiritual beings, here on earth, having this human experience.  Loss is form.  Where there is form, there will inevitably be loss.  But our joy in this experience isn't based on our possession of form, for that only sets us up to experience loss.

Our joy is based upon the growth that we experience through loss.  Upon our seeing that all things, gain AND loss, have conspired and are always conspiring to bring us to the place of our ultimate joy.  Our ultimate realization that our own happiness IS the reason for the happening of all things.

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Great Titles by Carolyn Myss

Anatomy of the Spirit
The Seven Stages of Power and Healing

Defy Gravity
Healing Beyond the Bounds of Reason

Archetype Cards

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