Tag: Acceptance

Making Choices with Love

I've learned that I regret not so much the choices that I make, but the choices that I don't; not so much the things that I've done, but the things I haven't done. Not so much "mistakes" made, for there are truly no mistakes, only opportunities not explored. And there is the seed of growth and development in each of these. I've learned to allow myself to become, more and more, the witness and the witnessed, the seer and the seen, the observer and the observed. And I've learned to do this with a minimum of judgment. Although not with…

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Allow Today to Unfold as it Should

Embrace what is. Let go of any notion of what should be. You believe in the power of positive thought. You have learned to anchor yourself in the morning. You pray. You meditate when you rise. You do your yoga stretches. You envision the graceful unfolding of your day, a day in which you experience joy and are of service to the world. These are all terrific habits. Sometimes, however, the universe has other things in store. Better yet, sometimes what the universe has planned for us is better than anything we have envisioned for ourselves. Even if what unfolds does not…

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Love is the Only Answer

If I only had one word to describe and answer the questions I have posed to myself since I have been a little girl, the word would be Love. I would wish people were able to reach out to one another, to share, to cooperate, and to serve, realizing there is nothing to lose by being open-hearted, generous and fearless. There are only two emotions - love and fear - that determine our success and our joy in life. If one chooses love, there can be no fear because that person is willing to risk being different, unique, and to…

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Access Your Good!

I found a truly remarkable book by John Randolph Price that helped me to move forward in my spiritual life at a time I needed guidance. This article is a summary of that book entitled The Manifestation Process: 10 Steps to the Fulfillment of Your Desires by John Randolph Price, A Quartus Book Publication. I asked Mr. Price's permission to print this summary and it was granted to me. I have found his book to be very inspiring in my life and in sharing it with others through my workshops, seminars and lectures, we've all been blessed. If you practice or go through…

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Flowing With The River Of Life

Imagine walking through the woods when suddenly you begin to hear the sounds of running water. The sound touches you like music. It calls to you. Then imagine coming out of the trees and finding yourself standing on the banks of a stream that is cascading over moss-covered boulders. Pause for a moment and allow that image to nourish you. Why does moving water touch us so deeply? It may be because water flows! To watch a river is to see a glimpse into what Life is really like – a great river of dancing energy that has been flowing and…

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A Radical Approach to Healing Your Pain

A friend of mine is having a lot of back pain and she hasn’t been out of her house in days. She is hyperalert around her pain and is afraid to do anything. The pain has so affected her life that she told me if it doesn’t get better soon, she feels like “checking out.” I invited her to consider the possibility of opening to the healing of being with her pain rather than always resisting it. I explained that so often we amplify our physical pain through our resistance to it, not realizing that we create more pain by trying…

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An Invitation For The New Year

It's that time of the year again…that time when you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and decide how you want your life to be in the new year. We call this a New Year’s resolution. Now I ask you, have your resolutions ever really worked? We keep on rising to the challenge of resolutions and yet in the past, most of them have faded by the middle of January!  The reason why they don’t work is in the definition of the word resolution: “a firm decision to do or not to do something.” Resolutions are all about doing because they are made…

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How To Be Compassionate With Your Compulsions

My friend, Jane, has a very high pressure job, plus she travels a lot. On a Friday morning recently, she arose feeling stressed and anxious about her weekend trip out-of-town. When she got to work, she had a conversation with one of her co-workers that did not go well. Then, when she got to the airport, she discovered that her plane was delayed for many hours. Jane had a traumatic childhood and has struggled with overeating for much of her life. So what did she do to soothe her anxiety and stress? She ate. Then she got angry and berated…

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How You can Recognize Fear and Be Present

Allowing yourself to be exactly as you are is such an important part of awakening. Author Jeff Foster, who is an amazing voice of consciousness in the world, talks a lot about acceptance and allowing. He says, “You do not have the power to accept this moment. You do have the power to allow it. This moment does not ask for your acceptance. It is already the way it is.” Jeff is saying that whatever is showing up in your life has already been accepted by life. It is all okay because whatever is happening is exactly as it should.…

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As Is, I’m Here

During a weekend recently three big challenges came up for me and and I used one of my favorite mantras over and over again, “As Is, I’m Here.”  Saying “As Is” reminds you of the willingness to allow yourself to be exactly as you are in this moment. It invites you to let go of struggling with whatever is (your usual mode), so you can move into the place of healing that comes from allowing yourself to be exactly as you are. “I’m Here” reminds you to be keenly attentive to what is, in a way that invites your heart to be open to…

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You Are Beautiful As You Are

A friend of mind has been struggling recently with her body image. She says she feels a lot of shame when she looks in the mirror, and the stories in her mind keep on trying to convince her there is something wrong with her at her present weight. She is caught in the land of fear, where her mind keeps telling her stories that she is not skinny enough, pretty enough or sexy enough. In other words, she is not enough, period! Our western society basically deems women’s bodies unacceptable unless they are a size 2 or less. Just take…

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Welcome Yourself Exactly As You Are

Welcoming means accepting yourself exactly as you are and also accepting life exactly as it unfolds. It is the ability to allow all of it, including all the parts of yourself and your life that you don’t like, and letting it all flow without getting hooked into the stories created by your mind. Welcoming is not trying to make your life any different than it is.  Easier said than done, right? I know it's not always easy to welcome and accept life, especially your challenges, because you have been conditioned to continuously judge yourself and others. This is the inner voice…

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How You can Find Healing that Lasts

How would your life change if you trusted that your challenges are a part of your journey home – back to yourself and back to Life – instead of feeling that your challenges are here because you have done something wrong or you are being punished or God fell asleep on the job? What would happen if your illness, your difficult relationship, your demanding boss, your compulsions, and maybe even your troublesome dog were showing up in your life to help you heal? The healing you long for comes when you discover how to play the warmer, warmer/colder, colder game. Remember that…

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How You can Embrace Change

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change.” -  Charles Darwin So many people have a fear of change: changing jobs, changing relationships, changing cell phones, changing lanes…. The good news is, we are all born with only two fears: the fear of falling, and the fear of loud noises. These are quite obviously for our protection. That being said, all the other fears are learned. And whatever is learned, can be un-learned. Thus, we all learned (were taught) how to be afraid of aging, of riding a bike,…

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Allow Kindness to Heal Your Struggling Self

With the return of my son’s cancer, I have had lots of opportunities to be with fear and despair.   Sharing this journey with my son has taken me to a deeper level of presence than I have ever known. My body has been a very dear friend throughout this fierce process, especially my belly and my breath. Whenever I am caught in the fear-based mind, sometimes all I can do is soften my belly and allow a deeper breath. The belly is one of the best biofeedback mechanisms we have.  If it is tight, we are up in our…

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How To Use The Mantra, “Just This Much”

If you watch your mind, you will see that it goes into the past or future all day long.  It especially loves to go into the future and when it really gets activated, it moves from a whole different place.  It will convince you that that you can’t do it right, or you can’t do it at all, or something bad is going to happen, and the thoughts go on and on.   These thoughts are just not true because we don’t know what is going to happen.  All we have is this present moment, but you can begin to see…

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How to Honor Your Survival System

We all created a finely-crafted survival system to bury or numb our pain when we were young.  We had to, as it was absolutely necessary for survival.  Life was too scary, and we didn’t have the skills to meet ourselves in our hearts. Our survival system can include compulsions, such as drug and alcohol abuse, shopping, work, sex, the Internet, busyness, self-judgment, and chronic worry.  I think about all of those years that I shut down the pain with food, drugs and alcohol.  In one year alone, I gained 97 pounds.  I would have died of the pain if I…

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An Open Heart Heals

The willingness to meet whatever is showing up in our lives takes courage.  Did you know that the root for the word courage means “of the heart”?   It takes an open heart and deep compassion to see all of the conditioned stories in our heads that keep us separate from life.  It takes courage to see them, love them and, under that gaze of compassion, allow them to evaporate like the summer fog when it is touched by the morning sun. I have been experiencing a lot of pain in my back and leg for quite some time now. …

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In This Moment You Are A Perfect You

Where did you learn what a perfect body looks like? Where did you learn what is beautiful? Where did you learn what is ugly? How old were you when you came to these conclusions? We were walking down the street in Paris several years ago to find ourselves taken by a body image considered to be "beautiful." We were looking at the street lamps in front of the Paris Opera House. Built in the mid-1800's, those lamps are supported by statues of naked women. These castings done in the Neo-Baroque style are curvy with rounded bellies and by today's standards…

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How To Let Your Brilliant Being Shine

I recently came across one of my favorite poems, My Brilliant Image, by the fourteenth century Persian Poet, Hafiz: One day the sun admitted, I am just a shadow. I wish I could show you The Infinite Incandescence That has cast my brilliant image! I wish I could show you, When you are lonely or in darkness, The astonishing Light Of your own Being! Hafiz is telling us that the astonishing light, the brilliance of our own being, is already with us.  We are filled with great light that permeates everything.    Brian Swimme, Evolutionary Philosopher and Co-Collaborator of the documentary…

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4 Ways to Accept Where You Are

“Now that I am trying to change, I don’t like who I am.” At some point, many of my clients say this or something similar. When they finally see a new way to be, but are not yet capable of acting that way, they begin to attack themselves. “I am a horrible person.” “Being this way is bad.” “It is wrong to act like this.” These thoughts are natural, but not helpful. There are some very simple ways to begin accepting who you are so you can move into who you want to be. See the Truth When I work…

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