by Ginger | May 3, 2015 | Blog
Most of us have a lot of ideas about what makes us successful. Some are more concrete markers, and others are more intangible. Whether we’re conscious of all of them or not, those thoughts guide our direction and choices in life so that we can meet those goalposts.
I’ve recently experienced some successes in several areas of my life, meeting several milestones which I’ve been working toward for quite some time. At first I allowed myself a pause for some celebration. It’s perfectly divine to acknowledge our accomplishments! And then I got back into the flow of my life, encouraging the momentum of my accomplishments as they continued to unfold. I was really enjoying myself and the ease with which everything flowed.
However, after a while I began to feel a sense of anxiety and pressure. The joy in my successes was fading. The momentum seemed to be ebbing. I felt a little directionless and unsure of my next steps. I realized that I’d been operating by the old goalposts for so long, I hadn’t really taken time to set up any new ones. My mind began to race about future possibilities, new projects I felt that I should be working on. But that didn’t relieve the anxiety or bring back the joy. Instead of inviting creativity, it just created pressure.
As always, the key was to go within for guidance. The answer is always there when we open up to our inner wisdom. And my answer to the question of what my new goalpost should be: there is no new goalpost. My new goal is to let go of my need to have a new goal and allow myself to enjoy the flow!
There will come a time when it is appropriate for me to have a little more structure about my direction again and follow some concrete action steps. But if I try to force that now, it will come from a place of frustration and it won’t take me forward. In truth, the real success all along was the joy and flow I was feeling. The goalposts were just a means to get me there. And from that continued place of joy and flow, my new vision will naturally take shape and carry me forward to new successes.
by Lori | Mar 30, 2015 | Blog
I was using some great hand lotion the other day – Everyone Lotion – and I just happened to notice the directions. It said, “Use Freely and Enjoy”.
How do you think our current world vision would look if one of the Ten Commandments was – Use Freely and Enjoy?
What a wonderful outlook for life that would be. No – “thou shall nots”, No – “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain”, But instead – Use Freely and Enjoy.
Regardless of which version of the Ten Commandments you look at, the majority of them have a “shall not” in it. In the Catholic Version, which is the one I was originally taught, only two don’t have the word “not” in them. (Keep holy the Sabbath and Honor your father and mother.)
Would it be easier to take the underlying message and good ideas of how to live in a society and how to have self-growth if the suggestions were written in a positive way? That way the focus would be on the positive actions instead of restricting negative actions.
If the commandment of “Thou Shall Not Kill” was instead “Love All” how would we react when faced with the situation where we were debating an action that might seem like killing someone was justified. If you are in the situation where you are trying to justify killing someone, would you be less likely in that situation if the other person also had as her commandment “Love All”. Can we change the dynamic and change the energy if we focus on the things we want to create instead of restricting the things we don’t want to create? It goes to the old saying of it is easier to get bees with honey than with vinegar.
With that as the idea, I believe we would have a much different world if our Ten Commandments were more like life suggestions on the ways to improve ourselves and improve our world. I would rather use the name “Ten Suggestions” to take away the judgment and punishment aspect of the energy associated with “Commandment”. Again, I believe this “lighter touch” will pay dividends in the execution of the suggestion.
So let’s try these alternatives on for size.
The Ten Suggestions
- You are part of a wonderful loving and powerful universe. Use freely and enjoy.
- Know yourself as peace and joy.
- Know all intelligence and all beings as wondrous and abundant. Speak of all of creation well.
- Every day is beautiful and wonderful. Be in gratitude for it and keep it holy.
- Honor your father and your mother, in whatever form they take.
- Honor and love all humans. Hold them in the highest regard just as you view yourself. (Yes, this is a paraphrase of what Jesus taught. He is right. We should live this more!)
- Create what you need from the abundance of the universe.
- Know yourself as Love, Loved and Loving.
- “Be impeccable with your word.” (To quote don Miguel Ruiz from his book The Four Agreements. He is right. We should live this more, too!)
- Be abundant and compassionate with all you meet.
Try these Ten Suggestions for a while. Use them freely and enjoy!
by Ginger | Mar 29, 2015 | Blog
Got projects? These days, it seems like most of us are juggling several balls in the air in various areas of our lives almost constantly. The reality is that with nearly instant communication available 24/7, the pace of modern life is just fast. So how do we, as Lightworkers, balance the need to still operate in this world without getting caught up in it?
I recently took a trip to downtown Denver on the I-25 corridor and that gives new meaning to the word fast. The road twists and turns through the center of the city with at least four lanes of traffic all jammed next to each other and just about everyone seems to be traveling at least 10mph over the speed limit. I don’t make the trip often, but it’s a great opportunity for me to practice being slow while traveling really fast.
As I drove, I noted my tension rising (and my grip on the steering wheel tightening!) I kept wanting to drift over into the right lane where the entrance and exit ramps were slowing down traffic. But a little voice suggested that I didn’t need to go slow, just to feel slow. So, I did some deep breathing and re-focused, so that I cleared my mind of anxious chatter. The inner peace and calm became my experience, and the speed of life around me became mere blips on my radar screen. I no longer felt fast (even traveling at 70 mph) and the pace of life felt calm and relaxed because what I was feeling came from within.
My little car trip reminded me that I can apply this same principle anywhere else in my life. I realized that I had allowed all of the projects that I am currently working on to create feelings of stress and a desire to constantly put on the brakes by delaying and even canceling some of my projects. But the projects weren’t the problem. By getting caught up in my anxiety over deadlines, I had allowed my inner speed to match the outer speed of life, which felt too fast. I was trying to slow down the outer by putting on the brakes instead of focusing on the inner.
Once I began approaching my projects from a place of inner slowness, I found I could still work through them very quickly and make rapid progress. I was able to get back in the fast lane, while still experiencing life from the slow lane. I still feel as if I have all the time in the world, while outside life is speeding up all around me. Now I’m back to asking my Soul with confidence, “Got projects?”
by Ginger | Mar 8, 2015 | Blog
Many Lightworkers hold a vision for achieving Oneness, but have you ever asked what that really looks and feels like? Recently, I’ve been involved in group projects in several areas of my life, each requiring all participants to come into consensus before we move forward to the next step. Working on these group projects has really just been practice for coming into Oneness! I’ve enjoyed the camaraderie and community spirit of collaboration, but I have also struggled with differences of opinion on how to work together to accomplish a project. How do you move forward when you don’t agree?
During this process, I’ve realized that one of my greatest fears about coming together in Oneness is that we’ll all end up being the same; that in order to work in unity, we’ll have to meld together into a bland, cohesive blob without creativity or originality. And yet, the ocean of Oneness is not a lifeless blob at all. Each drop in the ocean is indistinguishable from the others when merged as one body, and yet they are expressing very differently. Drops at the bottom of the ocean express themselves as slow motion in the cold and dark, while drops near the top are often dancing around in a frenzy of activity. They all carry the same properties of the ocean, while manifesting those properties in unique ways.
So, the question of how to be “we” and also be “me” is best answered by looking within to the “why.” If you ask a group of people the best way to get to the top of a mountain, one person might say Route A since it’s the most scenic, while another might suggest Route B as the most direct, and a third might prefer Route C because it’s the safest. When we are working toward the same goal, such as reaching the top of the mountain, we can see that how we get there is really a matter of stylistic difference. Attachments to how we do it fall away when we focus on why we do it. Because in the end, the “why” is what really matters.
True consensus is about following a common inner vision. That common goal still allows for creativity in how to express the vision on the outer. Android is currently showing a fun television ad campaign that illustrates this concept. One ad shows unusual pairings of animals who have become close buddies- such as a dog and an orangutan hanging out together. Another ad shows people of very different backgrounds giving each other versions of a “high-5.” They are all celebrating their originality while honoring their commonality. When we work together in Divine Consensus, we can work in harmony and cooperation while still being unique. As the tag line for the ad campaign says, “be together. not the same.”
by Ginger | Mar 8, 2015 | Blog
Do you remember reading the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), perhaps as a kid, and wondering what it all meant? The story is rich with messages of Love for us, and yet I often struggled with its deeper meanings until I began to see that it truly holds the keys to going Home, uniting in Oneness with the God/Goddess/All That Is.
At various points in my life, I have been guided to work with this story from the different perspectives of the 3 main characters. Initially, I identified with the “good son” who stayed home and conscientiously worked the fields. It did not seem fair that a wayward brother should spend years squandering resources and then come home to receive the same wealth. But from the Divine perspective there is value in everyone’s experience. As we come back together in Unity and Oneness, each of us has key pieces of Wisdom to share from our unique experiences in this experiment of separation. God/Goddess places no greater value in one path over another. There is no right or wrong way to do Love. It is simply our choice of what to experience.
At other times, I worked on pieces of unworthiness, seeing myself as the lost son, the wayward supplicant who erred so greatly during this Experiment that I was undeserving of being truly welcomed home with open arms and must “earn” my way back into the Garden of Eden through toil and struggle. I began to see myself through God’s eyes- to see the inherent value within myself without judgment, independent of what I had created, and to be willing to accept the Unconditional Love of the father (God/Goddess/All That is). The Garden of Eden, the experience of Heaven on Earth, is truly our birthright and is never lost to us.
More recently, I have been working with this parable from the perspective of the father, who sees no difference in his two sons, no preference of one over the other as better. For the father in this story, there is no demarcation between what is his and what is theirs. They are family, they are One, and what is his just as equally belongs to his sons. There is no judgment or expectation of any kind, but simply the understanding that the abundance and riches of life are available to us all who allow ourselves to partake. He never forced one son to stay and work hard to prove his worth, nor did he deny his love to the other son who left to follow a different path. In the father’s eyes (God’s eyes), there was never any separation.
The door back to the Garden of Eden and Oneness with the God/Goddess has only one lock- and that is on our side of the door. We are the ones who place ourselves into the struggle or deny ourselves a warm welcome upon our return. The moment we have the realization that we are One, the resources of the universe are ours. Past deeds, “good” or “bad”, fall away and the only relevance is in this one moment of Love.
by Lori | Mar 5, 2015 | Blog
Do you ever wonder, like me, about the sound-bites you hear in the media, from politicians or even from your own guidance? Sound-bites like “we need to do something about income inequality” from our politicians on both sides of the aisle. And from our own guidance, “hold more serenity and release judgment of self and others?” You usually don’t hear anyone arguing that the sound-bite is invalid. You also don’t hear the next 10 sentences beyond the sound-bites that might actually give you some ideas or some action steps to work on these “universal good ideas.” When I heard from my guidance that I needed to have and hold more “serenity” and to “release judgment of self and others” in 2015, I was thinking, “tell me something I don’t already know!” So – my guidance told me more! Here are some excerpts from our conversation.
Our Lower-self looks out at the world and judges a situation. Is the situation good or bad? Does it affect me or my loved ones? Does it affect my livelihood and my way of life? Does it challenge the way I look at myself or the world? Whereas, Our Souls look inward and discern, “what is my truth? What is the universal truth regarding this situation? What is in the highest good of all in this situation?” These are the type of questions that concern us at the Soul Level.
Next, the Lower-self looks out at the outer world situation and judges who is to blame for the situation. Can I be viewed as the victim and therefore, blameless? If it isn’t my fault or “they” started it, can I be viewed blameless or justified, if I retaliate? Again, Our Souls look inward and discern, “what do I need to do to raise my vibration and the vibration of all to heal the situation?” Our Souls aren’t concerned about keeping a scorecard, who may or may not have started it, who may or may not have dirt on their hands. The Souls are concerned about returning to when all we felt was love. There is no scorecard. We aren’t playing for keeps. We are just playing. Life on earth is a grand experiment and illusion.
Finally, the lower-self looks out and asks, “How can I save face?” The Soul isn’t concerned about saving face, it is ONLY concerned about learning all that can be learned in the experiment zone, wrapping up the experiment and recognizing the Love and the Light in Everyone and Everything.
I remember visiting a resort town in West Virginia. My husband and I were eating lunch next to three families who had been skiing. One table had all the kids and one dad at it. The second table had the rest of the adults. The kids were playing a board game where the goal was to get to the center of the board first and then, the game would be over. The first girl to get to the center of the board said, “Let’s play until we all win.” That is how our Souls feel about this grand experiment and the board game we call Life on Earth. There is no loser, there is no scorecard, we play until we all win. No one is left behind.
If we can start to look at everything from the perspective of Our Souls and The Spiritual Hierarchy with discernment about what we can learn from the situation instead of looking with judgment as to who is to blame, we can start to tailor our actions and beliefs to be more in alignment with universal truths and hold less judgment. That is how you hold more serenity. Eliminate judgment of self and others and what is left is serenity.
