How Your Peace Affects Others

Yesterday, my Internet went out.  For a blogger that can be detrimental, especially if we forget how to actually write with a pencil on paper.  I had been given homework after having an animal communicator visit this week to help diagnose my draft horse’s behavioral problems and I was eager to write about it.  The communicator is helping us learn to interact with our horses in a more natural manner;  letting them be horses, for example, rather than high-stepping prisoners that should never misbehave.

I thought that he would have me perform certain exercises on the ground with my horse, but his assignment went in a completely different direction. My homework was to clear out my own fears.

Now horses are big, and they can sometimes hurt us without intentionally trying.  So fear would be a healthy and natural emotion in the presence of these large animals.  But it also gets in the way of communicating with the horse, and this is what was happening to me.  After three stitches in the head last week from close contact with some large hooves, my fear was keeping me from letting my horses be what they are:  fight or flight animals that just may have a difficult time trusting a prey animal such as me, who (in their eyes) might eat them at anytime.

So the fear is reciprocal, and it takes effort on both sides to eliminate it.  I had a hard time believing that an 1800 pound Percheron would fear me, but if I had taken the time to view life from his perspective, it makes perfect sense.

In order to clear my fears, I was told to visualize the knot in my stomach, and melt it away.

I didn’t even know it was there, but when the communicator mentioned it, and I focused on that area just between and below my breasts, there it was…a tight knot that sat like a giant pit, blocking me from acting with love.  Deep breaths ensued, and by the end of yesterday, I could melt it inside before interacting with my horse.  He could tell right away;  his demeanor changed from fearful and easily spooked to calm and tender.  His eye softened.  He obliged my gentle requests to exercise without the argument that had often preceded previous attempts.

I sat in a lawn chair in the middle of the round pen and he paced around me in circles for over an hour.  Since past experience had related that pen with intense exercise that left him exhausted, it took a very long time for him to realize that I was going to ask nothing of him today.

Simply by melting my own fears, I had helped alleviate the fear of another.

Next time you wonder, “How can one person make a difference in this world?” check for that pit in your stomach and determine if your fear is projecting to others.  Do you see it in their eyes?  If so, take deep breaths, and envision the pit melting away, and replace it with love with no expectations.

Now that’s peace.

Are you ready for anything?

Guilt Free Risk Taking

I wonder if I should be the one to write about this subject just now, but they say that you learn by teaching.  So yesterday, I quit my very well-paying job to…well I’m not sure what I am going to do.  Being a Scanner (a term penned by Barbara Sher in her wildly successful book Refuse to Choose!: Use All of Your Interests, Passions, and Hobbies to Create the Life and Career of Your Dreams) I have a Basecamp account filled with money making options that span from beekeeping to equine stem cell generation.  Each of these options provides opportunity for income, growth and life experience for me, but which should I do first?

Perhaps I could do an in-depth financial analysis of the viability of each possible venture (boring) or go work as an employee with someone who’s already successful (dishonest and sneaky in my opinion).  But it’s the starting from scratch, making mistakes, and learning from the ground up that appeals to me.  Of course I will do basic market studies, and pay someone to research regulations, best practices and insurance needs.  But all in all, I just took the jump without being prepared for any one venture.

That last day at work was a scary one, and when I handed in my badge and was walked out of the door one last time, I was struck with a debilitating fear that perhaps I had made the wrong decision.  My mother, who grew up during the depression, was all about safety.  Living on the least amount possible and stashing the rest of the money for hard times.  She used rubber bands to bind soap chips together to get more use out of them.  Were she alive, I can hardly imagine that she would support my decision to up and leave a job–any job–in order to pursue something that at the moment eludes me.  She would have wanted a solid plan in place, bills paid for a year, and then the jump would have been condoned.  But not the way I did it.

We all know that times are different now, and people change careers all the time.  My careers have spanned from bartending to goldsmithing to home appraiser.  I have been a professional quilter, and a gemologist and a published author.  Each time I changed careers, I was told to “grow up” and make up my mind.  However, these rash changes seemed to make sense for me at that particular time in my life.

And this one does now, despite the fear.

So off I go, with the support of many people who are confident that I will do just fine, even if I doubt myself at brief intervals during my day. It’s a risk I’m taking to propel myself closer to Who I Really Am.  I may have to bind up my soap chips for a little while until adjustments are made, but I’m ok with that. After all, abundance is everywhere.

How Quickly Do You Manifest?

I have been on my spiritual journey since I was 18, with years here and there where I was on the opposite side of the spectrum.  Lately, in my forties, I have focused the majority of my daily inner reflection on my self-evolution, which includes manifestation of my desires.  I attempt to police my thoughts very carefully lately, for as I discovered recently, the time  between when I project my desire to when I see it manifest in my reality is decreasing very quickly (see below for a comment about my use of the word “time” here).

I have several people a day ask me about how to develop their manifestation skills, and I tell them the same thing:

Be careful what you wish for.

A cliche, right?  There is no genie in a bottle, but only you sending energy at a certain vibration out to the Universe, and the Universe matching it.  That’s it, folks, that’s all there is.  You send it, it comes to you. It works every time, each time, and it always matches your strongest thoughts when mixed with feelings.

Why did I include feelings in that last statement?  Because, thankfully, the Universe does allow us–while in our physical bodies–to perceive a time delay between what we ask for and when it’s delivered.  This gives us chances to–ahem–update our thoughts to reflect on what we are requesting to ensure it really serves us.  Now we can KNOW that we’re doing this, or we can do it unconsciously.  It’s entirely up to us whether or not we choose to be self aware of our requests.  The Universe doesn’t care either way.

I experienced an uncomfortable example of this a few weeks ago, when I was negotiating the purchase of a beautiful palomino horse in Kentucky.  This being the first horse I was purchasing sight unseen, I was a bit leery about not seeing her first, and completely uncomfortable with paying $1000 to ship her here.  ”Highway robbery!” my ego said to me in a weak moment.  I began to second guess the purchase, and wonder if I shouldn’t just be satisfied with the three horses I already have.  It wasn’t but 24 hours before the whole deal fell through, and I was out of my obligation to purchase the horse when the seller sold her locally despite having made a deal with us.  I had manifested the failure to follow through in a matter of hours. (*I use the word “time” here in the context of human experience, for in reality everything is happening at once. )

I really wanted that horse, and upon retrospection, I see that my doubts about my transaction were sent out to the Universe, which responded in turn by giving me exactly what I asked for.

So if you are in the habit of deliberate creation, pay attention to the speed at which you manifest, and if that time frame between desire projection and manifestated reality is decreasing, then you are speeding ahead on the path to enlightenment.  And if this is the case, remember to be conscious about your thoughts and feelings, for you are well aware that sustained, focused thought is what is creating reality–and you get what you ask for.

 

Orchids are Ugly — But Watch Them Bloom

My mother raised orchids throughout my childhood, and I remember as a teenager how I used to comment how ugly they were.  With twisted roots that protruded from the pot, and leaves that flopped in various directions, I wondered why my mother had such an obsession with them.

But when they bloomed…I was breathless.  Not only were the flowers magnificent, but they lasted for months.  And I remember what she told me:  ”Don’t be so quick to judge, for you never really know much about a thing until you live with it for a while.”

And so, as I grew up, I experienced many quick-to-judge situations, and applied prejudice where it was never needed, and I suffered the consequences of missing out on some pretty cool experiences because I was too closed-minded on this subject or that.  I softened a bit as I aged, and my mother’s statements about letting people be “who they were” solidified into a belief that I could live a more guilt-free life if I only stood back, observed, and accepted.  My judgments of people did not change who I was judging; rather it just defined myself as someone who judged.

One of the keys to living a guilt-free life is to stand back, soften up, and just watch what blooms.  It’s about knowing who YOU are, and allowing others to live their desired experiences being who THEY are, without your deciding what is best for them; whether that be their appearance, their behavior, or their choices.

I now have a whole greenhouse of orchids;  much of the year they are still those floppy leaves and meandering roots.  But every few months, one will bloom in all its splendor, and I thank it–and my mother–for this important lesson.

Liberation from the Pilferage of Hotel Shampoo

Sometime this summer I realized that I no longer stashed my travel bags with the unused travel-sized personal care products that hotels provided daily for guests.  In my past years of traveling, I was sure to stow away the unused shampoo deep in my suitcase, so that the housekeeping staff would restock it the next day.  That way, I could bring it home for use during another trip.

I travel about once a month, and so you can imagine that I built up quite a stash of free shampoo, conditioner, and moisturizing lotion. On occasion, there’d be a score–mouthwash or a sewing kit–and I would really feel like I hit the jackpot.

Yet while packing to move into our new ranch, I looked under the sink in my bathroom and I found 3 gallon-sized zip loc bags full of these travel sized products.  I had rarely an opportunity to use them, for each time I traveled, I got more.

I felt a flash of guilt.  It felt like stealing to me, for I took something that I really hadn’t needed, just because it was free.

Today, I checked out of a hotel in Marion, North Carolina, and I looked long and hard at that triptych of products, lined up and staring me down.   I let them rest there, but I did take something I did need–a makeup remover package that I could actually use.

So off to the women’s shelter go my three gallon-sized zip loc bags, for at this time in my life,  I have enough.

Next Page »