A New Year's "Light" Show

After the magical days of Christmas holidays…when pine-scented boughs and cranberry candles perfumed the air and glittering lights whispered their grace-filled secrets into our happy hearts…decorating our spaces with joy and celebration…

after these magnificent days have passed and things have grown so very quiet and restful the steady, sure-footed march of the New Year alights on our doorstep, enters our homes and slides into our hearts.

It’s time…to renew and redirect our energy to the wonderful life we have imagined and make the changes that were placed on hold as we made merry and felt merry and loved the "merry" of the holidays.

Now, there is a NEW JOY that awaits us and it is born of reflection and inspiration and discipline…our New Year’s Resolutions.

Much has been said and advised about NYR’s…suggestions that we examine our lives, compiling a list of every change we can imagine…suggestions that we make NO resolutions and not place ourselves under that kind of stress... even a suggestion that we only try to improve ourselves by one percent in the category we identify as “most needed” or, even better, “most desired” and, thereby, let our accumulated steady, slow progress become its own source of motivation.

This morning in the quiet moments when I found myself awakening a different thought occurred to me.

I had been searching for a simple resolution…one that would be easy to hold onto and yet would change my perspective and this is what arrived in response to my request:

As you go through the day and encounter many moments…some relaxing and some difficult and challenging…as you go through the day, just take a moment and imagine how your Higher Self would respond to what is happening. Do not put any pressure on yourself TO DO what Higher Self would do. Only IMAGINE it and TAKE NOTE.

This sounded wonderful to me…and it feels instinctively that just choosing to put myself in the place of imagining a Higher Response would do some subtle, behind-the-scene work for me even while I went busily about my day, impressing my consciousness with a more beautiful, more loving, more joyful way to navigate it…and, most importantly, a way to be my own SOURCE of happiness and satisfaction.

And it actually sounds and feels quite practical, too, to become, on a continuing basis, the ANCHOR for my joy.

So I am going to give it a pop!   This means I may pause a few seconds before I react and respond to what is going on…allowing myself the time and perspective I need to call up a Higher inspiration than what would automatically appear on my default button.

It will be very interesting to take this journey and, no doubt, it will have its own BRILLIANT  LIGHT SHOW as I enter into this universe!

                                                                     
                                                                        

                                                                                     
                                                                            Marie Helena

What Are You Here to Teach Me?

 

Recently I saw a presentation on OWN, Oprah Winfrey's television network, in which she was telling spiritual writer Gary Zukav about a dream she had experienced.  Oprah said she was flying in the dream and she kept encountering groups of children who asked her the same question: 

Where's the magic?
What are you here to teach me?


Oprah commented to Gary Zukav that every time she was able to express those very words of the children in her dream, she would fly higher.


What are you here to teach me?
Where's the magic?

What are you here to TEACH me?


There is a special innocence and wisdom possessed by children because they have not yet become enmeshed with the more worldly values of society and culture.  Children speak the truth...exactly as they see it...purely, directly, authentically. They are OPEN to learning.  They do not censor their thoughts or words. 

And so it seems perfectly natural that it would be the voices of children that Oprah heard in her dream asking her such an important question...and asking it with such eagerness and curiosity:  What are you here to teach me?


Underlying this question is a MOST POWERFUL PREMISE:   
the promise that everything we encounter in life is here to teach us something. 

Quantum physics tells us that we CREATE our life and, if that is so, then we must be CREATING the lessons we want to learn AND the circumstances that catapult and propel us into that learning.  We are busy, indeed, going about the work of our lesson/creations.  And, we become so engaged and involved with these adventures, that we "forget" we designed them...and with the very highest intention in mind.  As Gary Zukav says, we will never encounter any experience in life that is not designed for the healing of our soul.


Given all of this, it seems very wise for us to be focused and alert as these challenging moments enter our lives.  EVERYONE  and EVERYTHING we encounter are carrying a message for us.  Talk about a five star, Tony winning  Broadway production!  No wasted, empty, boring moments here.  Oh, no...here we live through the MAGIC of what we have imagined and set in motion to keep us on course and making beautiful progress in achieving the dreams of our soul.


BUT we have to stretch beyond our ordinary mentality to recognize these gifts. 

We have to vacate the role of "victim" and fly to the spiritual level of eagle to metaphorically scan the universe and solve the mystery of the sometimes frustrating and sometimes extremely painful messages that LOOK like the illusion of suffering but are, in reality, the GATEWAY to our enlightenment.  These adversities influence us to step up to a grander, more beautiful, more powerful version of ourselves.


What are you here to teach me?

Asking this question every day...every moment of our lives...with true desire to recognize, to embrace and to master our self-created lessons is THE PERFECT WAY to participate in the awesome journey of our lives in the illusion of earth school.

                                                                                                 
                                                                                             Marie Helena





image from www.list.co.uk

Once Upon a Time

As little children we often looked forward to hearing a bedtime story as we were being tucked in for the night.





In this story there were often princes and princesses, magical castles, beautiful pastoral settings with fields of flowers and sunshine sprinkled all about. Of course, there was also the evil stepmother or stepfather (or some such figure) who represented trouble but always, always the good prince and princess prevailed in the kingdom. In the end of the story everyone rejoiced and PEACE reigned everywhere.


We loved those stories because they engaged our imagination and desire for drama and also because good always triumphed over evil.

These bedtime stories which soothed the hearts of little children were truly gifts from the angels because the effect of the stories is that little weary bodies relaxed into a place of comfort and safety and let themselves drift peacefully off into the night.


When we grow up, we somehow feel we have to leave our child’s playthings behind. And so we learn to look at the world as a difficult and sometimes jolting place in which we have been planted. And we feel that there are lots of hard knocks to be endured because we are grown up.


And, because we expect that these things will happen, we invite them into our lives. And when they appear, we suffer.

We suffer because we feel someone is doing something to us…Someone is trying to get into our space…or trying to take what is ours…or trying to get us to do something we don’t feel like doing.This place of victimhood seems to be part of what we believe is our legacy and we feel we just somehow need to endure it.


And yet, an entirely different outcome is possible.


The same loving magic of our childhood still exists and is just waiting for us to recognize it and let it reenter our lives.

This magic is the principle called Changing Our Story.

Alberto Villoldo describes it so beautifully in his book Courageous Dreaming. And here is how it goes.

When something happens “to” us, we feel like a victim…like what is happening is beyond our control and that we have to somehow LIVE with it or, perhaps, we might choose to put up some resistance. In either case, our reaction translates to SUFFERING.

But, and this is so very important, when we change our role from victim to HERO (think the glorious bedtime adventures of your childhood), everything looks different…feels different…those beautiful moonbeams have fallen on our lives and have given us a look into what is really happening on a soul level.


If we truly believe that everything in our lives exists to teach us something (and I do), this totally changes the story of our lives. Our lives become an adventure of discovering what new wisdom and insight await us in each set of circumstances.

We believe that we are loved and guided and are being led to astounding discoveries. We become the hero who finds the gold (think alchemy) in every new challenge.

In this way, we are not only empowering ourselves to learn life’s lessons we are also comforting ourselves as we did with our childhood bedtime stories. If WE become the heroes of our stories, if we accept the challenge of discovering what there is to learn… we are left with feelings of joy and satisfaction.

Like being tucked in by someone who loves us…who has just given us the gift of the bedtime story... but this time we are giving it to ourselves.

Once upon a time…they lived happily ever after!

Not just a childhood fantasy…but a formula for dealing with life.

                                                                    Marie Helena

Sleepwalking in Your "Night"

 
If we're sensitive and paying attention, the universe can teach us what we need to learn by tickling us with a feather. 

 If we're resistant to learning and sleepwalking through life, we require the universe to use a sledgehammer to deliver the same lesson.
 
 Gay Hendricks

 


Great artists who produce amazingly beautiful masterpieces seem to hold a profound sensitivity in their souls which informs and directs the expression of their artistry.  They are profoundly aware of this soft whispering.  This voice of inspiration  which we all possess IS the voice which silences all others...the voices of enculturation, limiting beliefs, questioning of self-worth, fear and doubt...when we recognize and embrace it.


With clear intention and awareness we can learn to discern this whisper even amidst the clamor of the world which is "too much with us".   

 
This stunning sensitivity of artists can be found in every human heart.  It may not be uncovered, but this does not diminish its power or presence.  It is the guidance of the Universe which has the governance to bring us into the blossoming of our Spirit Self.
 

I have found that this soft voice will reveal itself after we have bravely observed what it is that disturbs us and how we would like things to be different.


The process of speaking what we feel "in this moment" seems to open the PATHWAY to recognizing the obstacle in our heart that is preventing us from acting with the pure LOVE of accepting "What Is".   Whatever is blocking us always comes from an unhealed pain.  By giving ourselves COMPASSION for the experience we have suffered behind the pain we calm and soothe our souls, clearing away the clamor of default buttons and trigger reactions,  It is then that the SOFT WHISPER can be discerned...and it is ALWAYS the next, beautiful step in our soul's evolution.  In that moment the whisper is feather soft...and profoundly powerful.

Can you sense this exquisite expression of Divine caring or are you  
sleepwalking in your "night"?

                                                                                              Marie Helena



image from crasheconomies.wordpress.com