You'd better getchya a cuppa coffee and pull up a chair. This post is gonna be a bit winded. This past weekend I was blessed to be able to attend a Celebrate Your Life conference. It was PHENOMENAL!!
Now. This is where I might lose some of my dearly beloved friends. This is where I might offend some of you. I only hope that you will stay with me until I am finished with this post. However if not, that is ok too.
I grew up not associating with church and organized religion of any kind. Many of my friends were mormons and I attended many of their social activities. I enjoyed myself but again, I never went there on a Spiritual level. Church was always SOCIAL. Then when I moved to the South. The Bible Belt. I was quickly taught that Jesus was our savior, that I now had this book that was full of rules that I needed to follow. I was taught who was acceptable as people and what was acceptable of those accepted people. I was taught "right from wrong" and I was taught that I was better than everyone because I was a "Christian". It was those same beliefs that taught me to have a melt down when my darling child came out to me that she was lesbian. It was those same thoughts that told me to tell family members that I adored, that because of their actions they were simply going to hell.
I have seen memes all over social media telling me that if your religion tells you to hate someone -- that is NOT God. I never really grasped this, until now.
Since stepping away from the church and essentially resenting organized religion I have been floundering. Never ONCE has my faith in God faltered, but many other aspects of my Christian faith have. I have awakened knowing that I should be studying my scriptures and going to church, but since I was angry, I'd neglect it, which of course has lead to more bad feelings.
People, God is not like that. God's rules are sooooooooooooo simple. Love. Love yourself. Love others. Love the trials and tribulations. Simply Love. No words to tell me I am doing something wrong. No words to tell me that I am better than someone else simply because they are different from me. However the biggest one that I am learning is to love myself. ME. Love ME. I am worthy. If I don't love me, forget it, ain't no one else getting in the gate. The Bible is full of Christian stories. In no way am I saying that the Bible is false, I am simply saying it is no longer my shelter. My shelter is in God. God alone. I do not need to feel the guilt of not studying, I do not need a church to tell me that I am better than someone else because I was there. Will I attend church again, oh of course I will...however my views will be completely different.
God's already done all He is going to do, except for what he does through you and I. So it is up to us to send love out and broaden our love.
What is really really remarkable is that I had a bit of business to handle with my almost-ex this morning and it was peaceful. I wasn't trying to figure out his hidden agenda or get one up on him. It was simply an exchange of information that ended with "Have a great day"---I gotta admit a few weeks ago my little mind would so have twisted that 4 word sentence and wondered what THAT was supposed to mean. I am still angry and upset with the events that have happened. I still feel like I was definitely wronged and that I did wrong as well, but that is NOT who I am. My past does NOT define me and I have to stop with that. What I have perceived to have happened, may or may not have. It doesn't matter, it is not who I am.
Did you know that the average person only sees 4% of what is actually happening?? That means that 96% we do not see. Is that not astonishing??? We are soooo small in the realm of our world. We are basing our opinions on 4% of the entire picture. 4% of who we are as individuals. I don't know about you--but I am greater than 4%. I know that God and the world has more for me than 4%!!!
Everything is God, God is everything. Really look at that sentence. If God is love and everything is God, doesn't that mean that everything is love? If we emit love then we will get love. If we emit gratefulness then we will receive more things to be grateful for. Have you ever had a bad day and it seems like there is just one thing that happens after another. From hitting your head on a cabinet to dropping your favorite earring down the sink. Then you get in your car and just can't seem to catch a break in the rush hour traffic. Your boss seems to be in a particular nit picky mood and then you get to go home and face all of the trials of making your darling family happy as well. All day you have cussed, and yelled and had thoughts of anguish. All day you have been miserable...so all day you have attracted misery. You contracted a virus of the mind and slowly it infected every aspect of your day. All thoughts are not equal, so be very careful of which ones you allow to take up real estate in your mind. Of course everyone has bad days. I am certainly guilty. However it is up to us to stop the insanity and take control of them. Remember that we are NOT our mind. We HAVE a mind. We are NOT our thoughts. We have thoughts. No thing can take away from us because the universe is abundant. What God wants us to have is already there we just need to ask for it.
HELP > Hello Eternal Loving Presence
Once we ask for help are we receptive of it? Can I really commit to feeling good about myself? Can I commit to celebrating myself?
I know that I have a huge upper limit problem. A glass ceiling that keeps me at a certain level. Not too much success. Not too much love. Not too much happiness. My entire life has shaped and molded how high (or low rather) that ceiling can be. So of course when I start hitting my head on this ceiling I self-sabotage. Beating myself back down, blowing up my relationships, procrastinating and ignoring my work, being mean to my physical body. I KNOW that I am great, but my mind is programmed to stop that from getting out of hand. So feeling good about ourselves takes commitment. Breaking thru the limitations of that will take time and dedication. Remember tho that this glass ceiling is a perception. Remember the 4%? You are soooo much bigger than that!
Our conscience is so much bigger than our physical beings. Our identity limits us. We are worthy of amazing things, we simply just have to embrace them and not settle into our own percepted personas. If you squeeze an orange, you will get orange juice. It doesn't matter if you squeeze it or if I squeeze it or if we run over it with a car, it will still only give us orange juice. So it is our job to insure that we, like the orange are sure of our inner self and are full of love. We are only capable of focusing on one thing. Make that one thing love. Reduce the noise of fear and self doubt. Always always always remember that you are a spiritual being having a human experience. If we just pay attention, the miracles are all around us. We must stop talking about great things and DO great things. I want to see the people making changes in the world, not quoting scriptures about how to do it. Let me see you. I want to BE a doer as well. I want people to go towards God because they see me living with faith, not because I have TOLD them about it. However in that same sentence it is not a DO DO DO thing, it is a BE thing. I want to BE more loving. I want to BE more helpful. I want to BE more empowering to others.
When you look into the eyes of another you can simply focus on nothing but their beauty. You can focus on NOTHING but emitting love and compassion to that person. However when we look in the mirror, how often do we see that our eyebrows need tweezed or that it is time to schedule a teeth cleaning or that we need to add a few more hours of sleep to our routine? How often do we look at the beauty within our soul? I know that I dont EVER! We must remember that we are each love. We need to start with SELF LOVE.
We are a headline culture. People don't want in depth perceptions. They simply want little bits. The world wants you to dislike yourself. If you have a body that you are not happy with, that is a problem and of course if you have a problem then someone can sell you something to fix that problem. How strange would it be if we all practiced self love. How strange would it be if we were simply content with ourselves? The invisible prison that we live in would simply lose its grasp on us. I mean face it, if we didn't have "problems" we wouldn't have a need for all these products and without that need many businesses simply close up shop. We have fear that is embedded in us.
A baby is not born with fear. They are born with needs. They demand that their needs are met. However as those same babies age they are taught that the world does not actually revolve around them. Their successes and needs are NOT all that matter in the world. Why not? Why is it that celebrating ourselves is looked poorly upon? One of the biggest things I want to work on is to be truthful to myself. I am going to be who I am. People will either adjust or they will move on. Period. End of story. No longer will I be made to feel less of myself. I have amazing talents and I am going to embrace them---I have beliefs and I am going to embrace them---I have love and I am going to embrace it. Disagree with any of those that is okay, you can leave my life. One thing I have expressed so deeply to my friends and to my kids, is never ever settle. So why do I do it so much? Hmmm....food for thought. However, NO ONE learns without getting it wrong.
Another speaker made the brilliant comment that our society has taught us that being sad is wrong. We all have traumatic happenings. Our parents die, we get divorced, we lose friends or jobs or many other things...but society doesn't seem to want to wait for us to grieve. I have been in the midst of a horrible divorce. I have never allowed myself to be sad for that. I would take offense if someone asked if I was depressed. Me? No! I am stronger than depression. However yeah I do have moments that Im lost and sad about my past. You know what though? THAT IS OK!!!!! Wow. How freeing is it? I know that I cant camp out there. I cant dwell in the coulda, shoulda, wouldas, but allowing myself the freedom to hold memories and reminisce is so empowering! We need to give ourselves permission to feel the entire emotional processes.
Falling down is an equal opportunity employer. Tragedies don't care who you are. They happen. Fall downs teach us to let go and surrender. But God is Intentional. Everything is working for the greater good for you. So if everything happens for a reason why then do we get so wrapped up in the negativity? We must remember that our eyes will adjust to whatever level we set our sites on. There is prey and predators within each of us. I don't know about you---but I am sick of being victim to society, to myself and to that which is happening around me. I am NOT a victim. I am NOT the things that have happened to me. I am NOT the bad decisions I have made in the past. I am love. I love my almost-ex. Sure I am not so thrilled with some things he has done, but you know what--they made me who I am. We had some magnificent times together as well. My childhood was crazy at times, again no resentment, only love.
The amount of peace that came over me in these two days was insurmountable. For the first time in months I was able to let go of the guilt. I was able to just be happy within myself.
So at this conference I had the pleasure of hearing: Michael Beckwith & Rickie BB , Gay Hendricks , Jean Houston , Bryant McGill , Marianne Williamson , Anita Moorjani , Sunny Dawn Johnston , and Iyanla Vanzant . I took over 30 pages of notes. I wish so much that I could convey how much knowledge each person had. Each and every single one of them brought something to the table but all had the same message:
God is everything, everything is God.
You CANNOT fail. God is working for your goodness and if He
is in everything you do, then there is no failure.
So I have a new outlook on life, on my faith and on who I want to be. My prayer is to ask for help each and every day. To lean on God, not on words. My prayer is to BE love. I want to embrace the fall downs and cling to up swings! I want to empower others with nothing more than LOVE. Simple love.
I had a good visit with my mom in Houston. I got to go to iFly (Skydiving flight simulator) and it was sooooo much fun!! I cannot wait to do it for real some day!! It was a whirlwind trip, but it was so awesome to break away from here.
So here we are a CARD~ hahahaha. I did get to play with mom's toys while there. It felt good to get inky again. Hoping to do it more and more!
Anyways---Ya all...go. Go right now and live the best life you can. Live with love and peace and embrace the abundance that is out there just waiting for you to ask.
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