When I first heard the phrase, “Namaste and send them on their way,” I thought it was a joke. I thought it was funny. I thought it was a curious and funny saying. Then my teacher explained to me that it was very serious business. It seems as if, “Namaste and send them on their way,” is a tool we have, a choice we make when we want to honor somebody in our life who is no longer in alignment with our values or our thinking. This might be an acquaintance or a very dear friend. It can even be a family member. We’re not banishing them from our lives. What we’re choosing to do is remove ourselves from their energy field for a period of time. We may make this choice because they constantly speak of things in a very negative way, or they’re not honest. They’ve done hurtful ...
What part does drama play in your world, in your life? Does it sneak in just a little bit? Is it not at all apparent? You don’t let drama into your life? Or do you live for drama? Let me tell you what I mean when I say the word drama. Living for drama, living with drama is staying inside of the stories of perceived hurt, pain, and disrespect that you experience in life. One of the very first steps when one begins a journey, on a spiritual path, is to stop living inside your stories. Leave them behind. Telling stories over and over and over, the calling of the friend, the support groups, over and over and over, leave it behind. Why? Because when you repeat your stories you are bringing the energy of the pain into your existence. If we’d like to leave that pain behind, why would ...
In this blog post I’m going to discuss one of the most important tools that we can use as we make our life our practice. We who choose to build a deeper, more meaningful life, who choose to work with our inner life and not just the outer life work with this tool every day. It’s an important tool. The tool is choice. Choice. It’s yours. I want you to take it. I think back to a few years ago when my older son was about to graduate. It was the day of his graduation and I was so excited. I was proud. I was pumped. I was looking forward to sharing the day with my family. The morning of the graduation arrived and I received a call very early in the morning from my younger son. Then the day seemed to begin to spin out of control. The circumstances ...
Fear. I am going to suggest a new way to experience and use the state of fear. I’m not talking about the kind of fear we experience when we walk off a curb in the middle of a busy street and realize we haven’t looked to the left and right, or the kind of fear that we put ourselves through when we sit in the front of a roller coaster at an amusement fair. I’m talking about the fear that creeps up, when we wake up in the middle of the night. The fear that paralyzes some people when they’re starting new projects and they can’t move forward. The fear that tells somebody that they can’t accomplish a new project, a new goal that they’ve started on. We’re told all the time that fear is not a state to live in. it’s not an experience we want to move forward ...
Years ago when my children were little and I was married and I had my consulting business, I was a very busy person. I was a very stressed person. I was beginning to really bring the elements and the understanding I had of spiritual principles into my life. I was just starting at that point to integrate them. I was very far away from where I am today, 20 years later. It was a possibility for me and it was a very big practice for me that was important. Here I was, in the middle of this learning of this integration-the beginning of this integration and I was still very stressed. One day, in a particularly stressful moment – I don’t even remember the story, the reason behind the stress-it really never matters. The reasons never matter. The results are what we work with. On this particular day I was ...
“Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your values. Your values become your destiny.” The quote by Mahatma Gandhi has always been a mantra for me. The power of this statement for me truly lies in the sentence, “Your words become your actions.” From there, everything flows or it doesn’t. Are you aware of your thoughts, your words? Really aware? Are you able to listen to yourself as you speak? Are your words and thoughts open and expansive? Do you relish your world? Do you seek to be of service to others? Or, when you listen to your words, do you notice that your pattern is to worry, to doubt, to dampen your own enthusiasm? Are you challenged by life? Are you eager to find solutions? Or, do you feel defeated even before you ...
Walking your talk. Three words that are possibly the most important words you can live by as you walk the spiritual path. When I discuss walking your talk I am really referring to the ability you have to stay in the values, the spiritual values that you hold dear 24/7. When you are able to respond from the energy of your natural inheritance of love, when you are able to respond with tolerance, compassion, patience, when you are in your awareness, when you make choices, then you are walking your talk. It’s very difficult in the world to walk your talk. That’s why we call spirituality a practice. That’s why awareness, observation, discipline, effort are tools as we seek to walk our talk. If you choose to walk in your spiritual values 24/7, you have work in front of you. It is possible your life will be richer and deeper, ...
Years ago I had a partner. He was a very deeply spiritual man, he was a very intelligent man, a very good man. I was so excited because I loved being in a relationship with a man who had a lot of awareness. We used to have great conversations. We had a wonderful, wonderful dance of the mind. During our conversations he would very often talk about his goal to be enlightened. Everyone has different ideas about what enlightenment is about. For him, it meant that he had reached a state of maturity with his spiritual work and he was at an elevated state of consciousness and would probably leave the planet. I used to think about that. Teachers talk about enlightenment and the enlightened being. Very often we hear that the goal of spiritual work is to become enlightened. I decided a long time ago that having any state ...
In my work as a teacher, I know that accountability is probably the most important tool you’re going to need if you want to make your life your practice and use your choices, your decisions, your relationships, your challenges as a vehicle, as a springboard, as a palette for your spiritual growth. Think about it. All plans, every effort, and each action you think about needs to be actualized in order for it to reap results. In our universe, thinking is not enough. You need to put muscle behind the idea in order to manifest any results in our physical world. This is where many people fail. It’s easy to think about our ideas. The video, The Secret, told us all you need to do is think about what you want and you become that. I take exception to that. It’s not enough to think and to wish and to ...
You know, from the time we are little, we hear stories. We make up stories. We share stories. Through most of our lives, stories have a very big meaning and a purpose. There is a time and there is a type of story and there is a way that we often use stories that don’t serve. There is a thinking in the world of spirit that in order to be in the present you must be out of your story. I’m sure you’ve heard people say, “Stop with all the stories and be in the present moment.” What does that actually mean? What is the problem with a story? What may be happening for you is that you may be getting stuck in your stories. Let’s see how that might happen. Very often, when things don’t go our way in the world of physicality, when we have hurt or conflict, ...