Three Ideas for Good Living...

A advertising but uplifting email from JJ Virgin, weight loss and nutrition guru gave three things she had learned in 2012.  They are good for everyone, regardless if you are trying to lose weight or just trying to make life work.  She has quite an interesting personal story and some interesting weight loss ideas.  You can find that information on her website www.jjvirgin.com.  The three things she shared about living:
Take care of your Health.
Be Grateful.
Forgive Quickly.  

Living the Life that you Want...

It’s not always an easy thing to do but we can get a lot of guidance by just listening to our hunches.   Sometimes that nudge to make this choice over that choice is our angel or our Holy Spirit trying to tell us what is best for us.  And the more we watch for this and the more we experience it the easier it is to see and follow.   Our angels know what it is we want and need, sometimes more than we do.  So that is why it is important to refine your needs and desires.  The another important step to living the life that you want is gratitude.  Be grateful for everything.  Thank your angels for helping.  Thank God for what you want as though you already have it.  In review:  1.  Listen to your hunches... your first thought.  2.  Know what you want, and constantly refine your thoughts and desires.  3.  Be grateful for what you have and what you desire.  

Blessing and Gratitude...

Here is a suggestion for building compassion and releasing judgmental and negative thoughts.   First you must learn to recognize when you react in judgement and recognize when you are having negative thoughts.  It is fairly easy to know when you are being judgmental.  Often there are certain types of people, certain behaviors that we notice that trigger these judgements.   Negative thinking in general is more difficult to recognize because we do it so often.   Self criticism is a big one.  “That was stupid”, I’m so dumb sometimes”, or things like... ‘arthritis runs in the family’, “Our family is prone to fits of depression”.?
Practice noticing when you do these things.  Practice till you can recognize when you start to say and think negative things.    Now that you realize you are doing something judgmental or coming up with a negative thought step in to stop it.  Therapists used to have suggestions for thought stopping.  They may still use these.  They would suggest you say out loud a very emphatic “stop”.   Now this might work well for when you are alone but could be a bit embarrassing if you were among a group of people.  Another that they suggested is to wear a rubber band on your wrist and when you realize you are unable to stop thoughts feeding into your mind, you stretch the rubber band and sting yourself with it.  
Try this instead.  If you happen to see someone on the street that you know triggers your judgement make a choice to switch your thought to a blessing.  Under your breath or in your thoughts simply say ‘bless you’.  Using just this you will soon find yourself doing more blessing than judging.  But now combine that blessing with gratitude.   Bless the person your see and add a thank you to the universe.  One thing to avoid in this is saying to yourself “I am grateful I am not like that person”  however you can express your gratitude that you have a home, that its a beautiful day, something on that order.  Try it.  Make a game out of it.  You will find that your attitude will begin to shift.   

A BIG THANK YOU...

Thank you to all who have been reading these posts.  I am grateful for you.  It is often said that we teach what we need to learn and I think that is very much my case.  I have learned a lot and I truly hope you have received something from this.  I found out how to delete old images so I can continue use my nature photos on these posts.   One more time... thank you, thank you, thank you...

Be Grateful and Pray...

The year 2012 is drawing to a close.   Halloween is past.  Coming now is Thanksgiving in the USA, the winter Solstice on December 21, 2012, and, of course, Christmas on December 25.  Think about what these holidays mean to you and how you will celebrate them.   Be grateful for what you have and pray for those who have less than yourself.
There are other religious holidays during these times.  With the possible exception of the Jewish Holiday, Hanukkah, these other holidays do not get the global attention that the solstice and Christmas get.  The suggestion for these holidays is the same.  Be grateful for what you have and pray for those who have less.     

Revolution or Evolution...

I’ve been watching the first few episodes of a television apocalyptic drama called Revolution.   It’s another of JJ Abrams stories.  He is the man more or less responsible for LOST and a lot of other TV and Movies.   Revolution is about a world sometime in the not so distant future that has lost power.  All the lights go out. Trains, cars, and airplanes stop running.  No computers, no television, no phones...   It is a story about the break down of society, looting, survival.   As I was watching this show I started thinking about how there are some parts of our earth society even now that are not able to experience what energy and power does for us in the United States and other modernized cultures.  In the cultures in Africa that are starving and dying of disease many have never been able to turn on the lights, take clean water out of a faucet.  In a burned out bombed out street in Libya a man sits on a chair in front of his home.  The bomb killed his wife and children, he has nothing else to lose.  Whatever bits and pieces of modern luxury he might have had mean nothing to him now.  It is time we took care of the present and not worried about the future.  Find peace within ourselves.  Support Doctors Across Borders and other agencies that do so much good work in cultures that are dying.  Pray for peace.  Send love and peaceful thoughts anytime you hear there is pain and violence.
Teach our children, and this is perhaps the biggest one, teach them what they have and what they can do with themselves.  Teach them that they have choices and those choices might be the choices that bring peace, the end of hunger, the end of homelessness, disease.
Be grateful every day for who and what you are because if you don’t like who and what you are and have, you have a much better chance of changing it than a child in Africa or the Middle East, or Haiti.  

Seven Points for Positive Living That Work...

Here are seven points for positive living that work.  There is no special order for these ideas and they may or may not need to all be present.  You can decide that for yourself.
Gratitude:
It is amazing what gratitude can do.  Gratitude for what you say?  Gratitude for everything.   Emphasizing the positive is very helpful.  From the Morning Song from P’taah,  www.ptaah.com :  “I give thanks for the love that I am... Thank you for the gift of life that I am.... Thank you for the riches and the richness of my life....”
That is only a very small part of it.   It is very inclusive.  Try giving thanks for everything you can think of, P’taah suggests doing so as a song in your shower daily. 
Intention:
Make all that you want an intention in your life.  Think it, say it...Write it if you would like.  Here are some suggestions:  I intend to live a long life.  I intend to heal my life.  I intend to live a life free of pain, anxiety, fear.  You put in your choice.   You can only realize the power of intention by using it. 
Paying attention to the still small voice:
You can call this intuition, the voice of angels, God, whatever you like,  just know that it is that part of you that knows.  Sometimes this is only an urge, an inclination.  It has been called sychronicity.  The part of you that is in contact with Spirit, God if you wish. the part of you that is all knowing, will communicate with you if you only learn to listen and to pay attention.  
Positive Attitude:
It is not always easy to keep positive.  And if you are in a position where you are having trouble keeping positive work toward it.  Find the positive things and work to change your attitude.  You will be amazed what it can do for you. 
Acceptance:
Work to accept all things including all people.  If you can develop acceptance the negativity will flow off of you as the proverbial water off a ducks back.  Try it.  You will see that it works. 
Exercise:
The benefits of exercise have been touted for years.   Exercise such as a simple walk or yoga will do wonders.  And if you are so inclined, Dance.   You don’t have to be in a dance hall or disco to dance.  How about in front of your TV or Ipod?  Leonard Cohen, singer and songwriter, talks about dancing in his song, Dance Me to the End of Love”
with these lines.”Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love”
Meditation:
There are different ideas and definitions of meditation.  It has often been said that speaking to God is prayer, listening to God is meditation.  Dance and song can be forms of meditation.  Allow yourself to be quiet for a few moments.  Allowing yourself to become mindful, really present in your life is meditation.  

Find your own variations of the above ideas but by using these seven suggestions and making a practice of them you will find that they do work.   You may even by amazed by the changes in your life.  

By the Way... Thank You

A few years ago when I began riding the buses in Vancouver, BC, Canada, I was struck by and amazed at the fact that most of the people getting off of the bus would yell out, ‘thank you’ to the driver as they left.  Seeing it once, interesting, but I began to see it over and over again from most of the bus riders leaving the bus.  Why are they thanking him/her I asked myself.  The bus driver gets us where we are going, on an established route, no less.  Sometimes the driver accomplishes that fact better than other times.  So the bus driver is doing a job, not even necessarily a good job.  But people are still saying thank you.  I can’t say that I can think of too many jobs where you are thanked for doing a job, so often, by so many. 
I thought perhaps this was a Canadian phenomenon and chalked it up to that. 
I am now riding the bus in Bellingham, WA, and guess what?  People do it here also.  People leaving the bus are constantly saying thank you.  I am just deciding to not think it odd anymore and just accept it.  I am going to watch other places and see how many people say thank you for someone doing a job they are supposed to be doing.  We tip waiters and waitresses.  Sometimes we say thank you to them, mostly if they bring us something we asked for.  I guess its good that people are polite.  and perhaps they are teaching us something about gratitude. 
Oh, and by the way...  Thank you all who follow this and read these words.  I really do appreciate it. 
Thank you...

Today I am sharing with you the words of another.  These are words of the P'taah Morning Song. 
The morning song is found here on the P'taah website:  http://www.ptaah.com/page/page/4736851.htm
And here is a part of the morning song:
" From the God/ Goddess of my being
I give forth thanks
For the love that I am,
for the love in my life and the love that surrounds me,
thank you.
Thank you for the miracle of life that I am and
thank you for the miracle of life I see reflected all about me.
Thank you for the gift of life that I am.
Thank you for this perfect body, my health and well-being,
thank you.
Thank you for the abundance that I am and
thank you for the abundance I see reflected all about me...."

 This is approximately half of the morning song.  It is beautiful and the explanation of it on the P'taah website is also beautiful.  

May you walk in beauty......gratitude and abundance...

Acknowledging, Praising, Thanking...

 

There is an old hymn called “For the Beauty of the Earth”.  The first few lines of which read:
“For the beauty of the earth
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies”
This was originally a poem written by then 29 yr old Folliott S. Pierpoint (1835-1917).  
Wikipedia reports that “he was mesmerized by the beauty of the countryside that surrounded him.”
I often feel that way.    It is one of the reasons I take nature photographs.   It is my belief that we enrich our planet and our world when we acknowledge and praise its beauty.  Even as we enrich our children when we acknowledge and praise them.   And our friends and family and others around us.   I often acknowledge the beauty around me and even thank our sweet mother earth for her beauty.   It is a simple thing, acknowledging and praising and thanking.   Simple but with an unfathomable effect on that which is praised.  
“For the beauty of the earth
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies”

My Wishes To All...

My wishes to all and my gratitude to all who have read this blog.  

Thank you.....

You thank you...

Gratitude is often said to be of high spiritual importance.  And we often verbalize our sighs of relief with "thank god".   I am going to ask you to look in a mirror or just look at yourself in your mind's eye and say thank you to yourself.  Thank yourself for being the beautiful person that you are.   This is an aspect of gratitude I think we often forget or feel that it would be wrong to do.    I thank you for being the beautiful person that you are.   You thank you also.