by Ginger | Jul 27, 2023 | Blog
I’ve recently been reminded by my soul that being kind, forgiving and accepting of others flows directly into being loving and appreciative of myself- and vice versa. We cannot see the beauty in others that we are unwilling to see within ourselves. In honor of that insight, I was guided to revisit a blog post of mine.
In a 2017 episode of Oprah Winfrey’s “Super Soul Sunday” (1), she featured an experiment on self-perception conducted by BuzzFeed. A group of volunteers each stood for a few minutes in front of a two-way mirror sharing their perceptions of themselves while other volunteers secretly hidden behind the mirror were taped sharing how they perceived that person. Then, the volunteers were shown their particular video about their positive features. Time and again, those features which others noted as particularly striking or beautiful in the person were the same aspects that the person disliked or doubted about themselves.
One volunteer shared that he was self-conscious of his round face, especially his cheeks, yet his nice cheek bones was one of the features that the secret observers said they appreciated. Another admitted that he didn’t feel particularly manly, yet one observer saw him as definitely masculine and another as a “cool guy”. One volunteer said that she was self-conscious of her dimples, yet one of the observers commented that he really liked her smile, especially her “cute dimples”.
Upon seeing the strangers’ comments about themselves, many of the participants were blown away by the differences between their self-perceptions and the impressions of others. One participant said, “You’re better than who you think you are. And… you’re enough just the way you are. So be kinder to yourself.” This could be a message directly from each person’s soul.
Marsha Hankins has twice posted a wonderful blog called The Parable of the Cracked Pot about the beauty of a cracked pot that thought it was lesser than others because it was broken. Then the water bearer pointed out that the water it leaked along the path had helped beautiful flowers to grow for others to enjoy. It is the illusion that we are lesser than or broken for being unique. What we may perceive as flaws are hidden strengths that are still lost in the illusion. All we need to do is shine our light of awareness to see the truth and beauty of the perfection underneath.
Ask your soul to help you answer this question: What beauty within are you still hiding from yourself and the world? In her blog “What Gifts Do You Have to Offer?”, Lori Rock reminds us of the value of continuing to look for ways to bring forward our uniqueness, both for our own healing and for our part in helping heal the world. In closing, she shares this wisdom: “As you embrace your own self-love, your gift for each other will flow easily and your adoration will surely show you as the wise one you are.”
picture courtesy of FrankWinkler on Pixabay
1 “Geneen Roth.” Super Soul Sunday, created by Oprah Winfrey, OWN, originally aired April 30, 2017.
by Lori | Jul 1, 2023 | Blog
My husband often likes to quip that “better is the enemy of good enough.” The saying comes from many wise people including the French writer, Voltaire, and the French philosopher, Montesquieu. Shakespeare writes a similar phrase in King Lear, “striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.”
Most of the time, this is a philosophy of mine that I whole heartedly practice. I do not strive for perfection that often – partially because in the third dimensional world the concept of perfection is both subjective and judgmental. Partially because when it comes to gadgets, stylish furnishings and fashions, I am frugal. (I don’t need to tell you all that! You have seen it!) And partially because my self-worth is rarely tied up with how things look in the outer world.
However, there are times, especially in our healing and spiritual work, where striving for the best is worth it. That is what I have been guided to do lately. I have been guided to ask my soul to let me know if I am holding an energy technique long enough. Am I looking deep enough at a situation in order to pick up on a nuanced issue that I have been running over because of thinking that “better is the enemy of good enough”?
Ginger Withee’s blog entry for last month does a nice job of explaining Sir David John Brailsford’s “marginal gains” philosophy. She explains that by making incremental improvements, we can really make huge shifts. Every Step Counts – Standing in the Light (iamstandinginthelight.com)
I have been focusing my intention on these incremental improvements in order to access as much energy and light as I can within the practice and time that I have already allotted to my inner work. I have seen the changes by simply being more mindful of how I practice healing techniques. You may want to check with your soul regarding what practice you may be able to improve simply by asking and setting your intention to be more mindful instead of getting stuck in a pattern than doesn’t go into enough specific detail for your evolution.
I am striving to remember that evolution and Ascension are the goals. To paraphrase another saying – Ascension is in the details. Let us continue to focus our attention on Ascension and the details that will take us there.
Gratitude to Adina Voicu for the above image from Pixabay.com
by Ginger | Jun 30, 2023 | Blog
Do you sometimes doubt your creative abilities? Some people identify with their creative aspects early on and pursue the path of an artist, dancer, writer or other fields traditionally labeled “creative”. Others may live their whole lives believing that they are not creative in any way. But divine truth is: to be human is to be creative. To be divine is to be creative. And we are all divine.
There is creativity in the way an engineer designs the structure of a bridge. Of course, there are principles of physics and math involved. But there is creativity, too. And there is creativity in math itself! There is creativity in problem-solving, parenting, rule-making, athletics and healing. There is creativity in getting dressed in the morning and making breakfast! We each do it in our unique way. On a fundamental level, every action we take, thought we have and sentence we speak is an act of creation. Every experience we have in every moment is our creation. We cannot not be creative!
As divine beings, part of our spiritual path is to expand how we see ourselves and the world, how we define our creativity and the limits we place on that creativity. Expanding our light is an act of profound creativity. Knowing this fundamental truth about our nature can feel exhilarating, scary, uncertain, daunting and uplifting. But it is most certainly liberating. You have creative freedom in every moment.
This may be a good time to check with your soul and make a list of ways that you are creative in your life. Allow yourself to be surprised. some creative expressions you may have long believed about yourself and others may open up a whole new way of experiencing yourself and the universe. You are a creative being! Own it, honor it and celebrate it in every aspect of your life.
Image by Beate Bachmann at Pixabay
by Ginger | Jun 2, 2023 | Blog
Have you ever wanted to make a big change but weren’t sure where to start? It can feel overwhelming trying to figure out where to start on the road to a major shift. In Standing in the Light®, we teach that the best source of guidance is your own soul. Checking in with your soul at each step of the way will reveal the highest frequency path. But trusting that each step will lead you to your ultimate destination, even when you can’t see how the steps relate, can be its own challenge.
Sir David John Brailsford made a name for himself in the cycling industry with his “marginal gains” philosophy. Within several years of becoming the British cycling team’s performance director, they won their first Olympic gold medals in almost 100 years. Four years later, the team won more Olympic cycling medals than any other nation and continued on a years-long winning streak in various world championships and international races. Brailsford’s philosophy was that making even a 1% improvement in every aspect of cycling, no matter how small or mundane, would combine to create a significant overall improvement in performance. No aspect of cycling was too small to consider, right down to reducing dust particles on the equipment. And it worked. His philosophy was discussed in Great Britain for years and used in many fields outside of athletics, including business and education.
In spiritual mastery, even a subtle shift in our energy field and intention can create a significant change in our experience. The higher our frequency, the more powerful each choice we make in how we resonate and how we focus our intention. We can each do our own version of reviewing our choices, including the seemingly inconsequential ones, to see where we can shift another 1% more into alignment with the divine plan. Much of our spiritual journey is the accumulation of small choices made to become a little more conscious of our creations and allowing a little more Light. The big leaps forward can be fun and exciting, but there are also significant opportunities for lasting change in the commitment to a steady approach and attention to detail.
We will soon reach the halfway point in the calendar year. Many people do some form of visioning at the beginning of the year but lose track of where they are with those intentions throughout the year. This mid-point is a perfect time to do a self-evaluation with your soul and see where you can make your most effective changes to either get back on track or even expand what you’re working toward creating. Little changes now can create miracles further down your path.
Image courtesy of:
Adrian on Pixabay
by Lori | May 31, 2023 | Blog
Some people like to say that we are humans having a divine experience. Lightworkers like to say that we are Divine having a human experience. I believe we are both.
We are being guided to remember that we have incarnated as a human in this lifetime in order to experience our divinity in human form. Our divinity and our humanity are not mutually exclusive. In fact, our divinity and our humanity coexist, because we need both to understand each aspect and to understand the whole.
My divinity is my humanity. My humanity is my divinity. My humanity and my divinity are together like oxygen and hydrogen in a water molecule – both are required for the essence of water to be water. Whether the water molecule presents itself as ice, or as liquid, or as steam, it is still H2O. It is the combining of hydrogen and oxygen that makes the whole of the water molecule, not the physical form it takes. Ice is not better or inferior to steam, it is just a different manifestation of H2O.
As I evolve from only knowing myself as the 3D Lower-Self Ego to the 4D Self into the 5D Being – I AM LORI. I am just different versions and different frequencies of Lori – both human and divine. My divinity and my humanity will hold the key to why I volunteered to be in the experiment and this knowingness is what will allow me to continue to clear my issues, raise my frequency to the point I no longer need to be in the experiment. No matter where I go from there, as I absorb more light, I will evolve into a higher frequency being, but I will always have the essence of Lori within me. No physical transformation will take away the experiences I have had as Lori – human, divine, both. I am all. I AM SOURCE.
May you know yourself as Source,
I AM LORI
Gratitude to Willgard with Pixabay.com for the above image.
by Ginger | Apr 30, 2023 | Blog
Have you ever found yourself contemplating buying something you might not otherwise have purchased in order to take advantage of a special marketing offer? It can be tempting. We live in an age of consumer culture which showers us with sales, discounts and coupons if we act now or just add a little more to our shopping cart. Intellectually we know it’s all designed to get us to buy more, but emotionally we can get sucked in. While some offers can be a helpful windfall, it’s important to remain discerning of whether it’s the best offer for you right now.
I recently received a coupon from a grocery store that I frequent for a significant discount on my next order. A nice, unexpected bonus, but I had recently made a grocery shopping trip and didn’t have a lot on my list for this next order. As I put my order together, my total fell short of the minimum purchase for the offer and the expiration date was only a few days away. I went back to see if adding a few extra non-perishable items would get me to that total. After re-calculating, I saw that I would need to add still more to my order. In that moment, I realized this offer no longer felt like a gift. I was going to have to buy more and more to fit the requirements and I just didn’t need those extra items. The mental body might reason, “But if they won’t go bad before you eventually use them, why not?” But the energy of stocking more and more beyond my true needs just didn’t feel good. So, I checked in with my soul about whether I should try to use this coupon and heard to let it go. If the coupon didn’t fit my needs, then it wasn’t really for me. I downsized my order back to its original size and felt lighter again.
Did I really check in about a coupon? You bet! The moment something feels discordant within is our signal that we are likely stepping out of alignment with our divine selves, and we should immediately take a pause, take a breath and check in with our divine guidance. This is how we heal ourselves, one moment at a time. Small steps count! In this case, I would have been coming from scarcity if I made myself buy things I didn’t really need in order to get a discount. Again, the mental body might question this: “But isn’t being able to get more things for less money an example abundance?” Not necessarily. If we have to scramble and jump through hoops that we weren’t otherwise going to jump though, then we’re re-enforcing the fear that we’re going to lose out on something. This is not Divine Abundance! It is lack and limitation. Anything we manifest in our lives from that energy, will carry that energy. Do we really want lack and limitation radiating all around us?
Author Lynn Twist, who wrote The Soul of Money, has a wonderful saying about abundance: “What you appreciate, appreciates.” When I’m getting my needs met while focusing on joy, flow and ease, I’m holding that energy of gratitude which expands and creates more abundance. That consciousness leads to many wonderful new creations when we’re open to how and when they come into our lives. When I let go of that coupon, I felt abundant because I could let it go. A week later, I received a new coupon with another significant discount, this time with an expiration date much further out. Maybe I will have enough in my next order to get the discount. Maybe not. But I feel at peace and whole either way and that is the true gift.
Marsha Hankins recently posted a blog with some great insights about abundance.
10 Keys to Unlimited Abundance
Image by Nattanan Kanchanaprat from Pixabay
