Who Are the Guests at Your Tea Party?

..Pay attention to your thoughts and how those thoughts feel to you. If they feel good, then you are open to life and open to positive life experiences. If, however, those thoughts don’t feel good, then please understand that the beliefs those thoughts are based upon are restricting your life experience in some way.

                                                                                Grant Connolly



What's the simplest way to be open to having beautiful life experiences?  Listen to your body.


Your BODY is an amazing, sophisticated barometer which will tell you instantaneously (if you are listening) whether your choice of behavior is good for your well-being...your body, your emotions, your spirit.  All you need do is tune in to the messages it is broadcasting. 


Can you recall a time when your body felt light, relaxed, in-the-flow? This lovely feeling meant you were doing something that was good for you.  And can you also recall a time when you felt anxious, wound up...frustrated, perhaps, and angry?  The activity going on in this space was obviously NOT enhancing to your life and your body let you know it so ask yourself what was happening at that time...what were you thinking about.  Thoughts often pass randomly through our mind throughout the day so the issue here is what was the nature of those thoughts that were roaming through you.and what emotions did these thoughts stir up in you?


Thoughts that produce good feelings promote expansion, opening of the heart.  Thoughts that produce distressing, uncomfortable feelings make us contract, close down, shut off.  As Grant Connolly says, "they restrict our life experience."


And,  significantly, those thoughts ARE in our control because on some level we choose what we want to think about, dwell on, rhapsodize over...whether that's through conscious choice or a default reaction.  And the default reactions (which were often formed a long time ago) ARE pesky critters but they can be tamed through commitment and conscious choice.


If we find ourselves thinking about scenarios laced with the lower energies of fear, anger, judgment or self-doubt, for example, we can respond by acknowledging their presence, thanking  them for visiting and informing them that  they will NOT be having "tea" with us today so they either have to transform themselves to a higher vibration or leave the premises.


Remember, this is our territory, our body, and WE get to decide which thoughts visit and which get to stay.  By carefully choosing the high-vibration thoughts and their corresponding high vibration beliefs which we entertain at our on-going tea party, we make sure that we keep our bodies in the state of peace, joy and relaxation.  And, when we are in that beautiful place of open-hearted expansion, our behavior and life experiences will surely reflect our high vibration field of vision.


Who are the guests at your tea party?



                                                                                                              Marie Helena

image from www.thaivisa.com

Secrets of the Orange

Nature has gifted us with so many beautiful fruits…each with its own special appeal. The cornucopia of delights is amazing…and so life-giving…a bounty of the earth just waiting for us to partake of its pleasures.


Of all of the delightful earth offerings, my very favorite is the orange.


Hold the orange in the palm of your hand and notice how perfectly it fits…a microcosm of the earth and all of its natural opulence.

Feel its texture…the ambivalence of the contrasting smoothness and edginess…the story of our life journey.

See its glorious color…radiating warmth and energy.*

And, very best of all, witness how INSTANTLY it reveals its truths to the world in a burst of goodness, of flavor, of clarity and appeal.

What a gorgeous message to us regarding how to navigate the pilgrimage we have undertaken:

With joy and gratitude,
in glorious color,
sharing our warmth and energy with others,
and manifesting for all to see the truths of our hearts and souls!

Once again, the Divine has gifted us with a guide to mentor us by its very beingness…still another beautiful lesson for us viewed all by itself.

I think the orange is probably not so very determined to hold onto its secrets but rather is waiting patiently for us to foray into Sherlock Holmes discovery of the clue sitting right on our kitchen table.



                                                         Marie Helena



*www.squidoo.com/colorexpert

Groundhog Day Revisited

You are here to learn from experience and create yourself over and over again.

Paradigm Shift




In the movie Groundhog Day Bill Murray plays a weatherman who is assigned to cover the annual emergence of the groundhog from its hole.  He finds himself enfolded in a blizzard that he didn't see coming and relives the same day over and over, experimenting with his actions and reactions each day, eventually evolving into a Higher version of himself.


On a primal level,  this is the story of every man's assignment in earth school.  We run into "blizzards" we didn't see coming and eventually learn to surrender to what IS happening...or not.  The choice is ours.  We can flow with the energy or push against it with resistance.  Our work is to choose a reaction or response to each blizzard and see if we like how it feels to us.  If we don't like the feeling we get from our choice of action or reaction, we can choose to do something different and see how that feels.


Like Bill Murray in the movie, we have unlimited opportunities.  And it is very interesting to note that after some experimenting and experiencing of the consequences, Murray ultimately decides to become a Higher version of himself.  Given the opportunity to respond in any direction, he chooses the path of generosity and caring.  This choice brings him delight, leading me to conclude in this analogy that we are happiest when we follow the impulses of the heart.


Groundhog Day is a traditional holiday celebrated on February 2nd, but we live our "Groundhog Day" on a daily basis and that is a good thing for we get endless opportunities to become the next, grandest version of ourselves.


How best to evolve and find peace and serenity?  That is a question we all live with. It is my belief that we ARE MADE from love, that we in our essence ARE love and that when we ACT FROM love, we sense and enjoy our true nature.


Dennis Waitley, American motivational speaker, writer and consultant, has a beautiful prescription for this question.  Waitley says:

Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude. 


Regardless of how entangled we get in our own snowstorms and blizzards, how lost we might feel during moments of fear or distress… the simple formula of love, grace and gratitude feels like the way of Providence bringing us home to ourselves.

                                                                             Marie Helena



image from mycutegraphics.com

Projection

Projection is a clever mechanism your subconscious mind uses to make your partner responsible for your old wounds. It's like creating a movie and forgetting that you're the director and the camera person. It really looks like it's all about your partner.


     Katie and Gay Hendricks





The path to demystifying our troubling experiences in life is often clouded with many misguided interpretations. The challenges we face often seem so formidable that we try to solve them by leaping to what feels like a clear and easy explanation. To put it in contemporary advertising terms:  "Mikey did it."

And, yes, it is strangely comforting to always pin whatever is plaguing us on "the other guy".  It takes the spotlight off of us.  WE don't have to change.  Someone else needs to.  And, in doing this, we lapse into the default victim role. And it is completely ineffective in bringing any change into our lives because that "other guy" who is "playing the heavy" is only cuing up the subconscious part of us which has been brooding about some deep, unhealed hurt.  And, now, "the other guy" has brought that pain into the bright light of day.  He has partnered with us as an instrument of healing.  And, although he may appear to be our worst nightmare, he may emerge as our greatest gift in helping us move through the chaos...that is, if we can recognize his role in our process of healing.

And the very fact that he is appearing in this scenario is testimony to the fact that that the
Divine Universe feels we are ready to deal.

The appropriate response from us for this heroic act is
"Thank You".  Not one that immediately (or easily) comes to mind. But gratitude and appreciation are truly called for because thanks to the actions of "the other guy", we are now in the undeniable presence of something that is blocking our happiness. And it doesn't have to do with the other guy. He is just the messenger.    The MESSAGE is:  Still here.  Still carrying the pain.  Still waiting for grace and resolution. 



So what are we to do other than blaming "the other guy"?  We step up and deal. Though it may appear to be so, THIS scenario is not about what "the other guy" is doing. THIS is about how we react to it and, if we are feeling a HEAVY reaction, it is because we have hit a hotspot.  And that is where our attention needs to go.


If "the other guy" is having a MOMENT and it makes us very uncomfortable, then we need to own that feeling.  We need to hold space for the knowing of "the other guy's" stuff and, especially, our stuff:  noticing it, witnessing it...but not reacting to it.  And we need to calmly say, for example, something like this..."This is not working for me.  I can see that I have some heavy emotion around this issue and I want to deal with it before we work on understanding each other.

THIS disturbing, confounding experience involving "the other guy" is all about you and FOR you.  It's a gift from the Divine Universe who deems you ready for an "unfolding".  And, if you interrupt the unfolding, and make it about the "other guy", you lose your chance to take in the special meaning.  If your ego tries to influence the flow to move in your direction, you miss what is being presented to you.

The complex and intricate evolution of your life has just taken center stage.  And your body knows it.  There is no hiding from the experience.

What will your next move be? 

Will you push the chaotic emotional energy of the episode back down into your psyche, condemning it to unending replays each time the hot button is ignited? 
Will you be angry and resentful that you need to go through this storm?
Will you take out your anger on anyone close by?

Or,

Will you bravely acknowledge the soul's wisdom in unearthing this buried pain, thank it for protecting you by storing your pain from an experience you were previously not prepared to deal with, let yourself grieve whatever loss you may have sustained and offer yourself love and compassion during these cleansing and restorative moments?

If we do not own our own experiences but, instead,  project and portray them as someone else's issue, we remain perpetually stuck in this dark night of the soul.  But freedom is not that far away.  And, if we courageously claim our pain and our involvement in the melee, this very act EMPOWERS us to see with compassion a truth we had not previously recognized about ourselves...a truth that is ready to reveal itself and waits only for our loving attention.



                                                                          Marie Helena

image from www.zazzle.co.uk

Forgiveness or Understanding?

One of the strongest messages we grow up with and continue to hear throughout our lives from all sources of authority is the importance of forgiveness.

 Forgive yourself!  Forgive everyone!
 
But what if there is nothing to forgive?

What if everything everyone does is merely a forward or backward move or perhaps even a filibuster in the dance of their life, all depending on the stage of their evolution?


What if everything they do has NOTHING to do with us and everything to do with their journey?  A journey which is based on their experiences, their personal growth, their unresolved issues, their unhealed pain.  Given all of these variables, it is truly impossible for us to judge or evaluate the choices they are making.  But, for some strange reason, we seem to think we can interpret their actions and that is our ONLY point of reference...ourselves.

It's pretty easy to do this...we all do it most of the time...It's our 
habitual response but it causes SO MUCH TROUBLE!  We can end up feeling hurt or angry or sad and depressed and what they are doing is NOT ABOUT US!  We are the subject of the scenario because we happen to be in the picture at this time; we are the scenery and setting for the playing out of someone's latest life challenge.  What if we really GOT that and, therefore, NOTHING felt personal?

 
There would be nothing to forgive.  For ourselves or others.  We are merely the playing field where someone works out the latest step in his evolution with any accompanying banging and clatter and others do the same for us when we are engaged in one of our "adventures".

 
I know it's pretty radical to expect everyone to see this...especially when our emotions are embroiled and our egos feel challenged.  But how wonderful it would be if we could navigate our lives from this trekking star:  Nothing to forgive.
 
We are ALL doing what we came here to do:  use the resources of earth school to finally get the Big Picture of our lives.

                                 
                                                                         Marie Helena




image from wallpaperswide.com

Changing the Locus of Control

In December I posted a blog entry entitled A New Year’s Light Show in which I proposed the following:

As we go through the day and encounter many moments…some relaxing and some difficult and challenging …take a moment and imagine how our Higher Self would respond to what is happening (not to place any pressure on ourselves to do what Higher Self would do but only to imagine it and take note).

Surprisingly and wonderfully, it seems that the powerful principle of Conscious Intention (even more powerful than I knew) is working its magic again.

I have found a new natural high without placing any pressure on myself. My intention to consciously consider what Higher Self would do has opened the doorway to a new perspective on life for me and this new view has begun to take me out of the realm of ego directed decisions. I find myself wanting to embrace the flow of life and meet its difficult moments in the way that my Higher Self would choose to do.

A few weeks ago I had a dream during a time that I was very upset about something and unable to release it. In the dream I was in Galway harbor (where my daughter Rachel now lives). The entire harbor was filled with boats which were carrying only the cargo of Love and Compassion. The feeling of the dream was that Love and Compassion are all that are needed...for everything.

This dream was very powerful for me and it felt like a Higher Self message on how to deal with the difficulties of life. I have thought about it often and follow its direction whenever I choose the path of Higher Self, always extending Love and Compassion to myself and others.

My adventure with all of this began with one or two opportunities (difficulties) occurring and my experiencing myself (actually, observing myself)…from the vantage point of Higher Self . In choosing the Higher Self path I found myself feeling very happy about my response and discovering that somehow I seemed to have whatever energy I needed to make the leap to the Higher choice. Amazingly, this was energy that was not there before.

I am finding all of this very exciting but also very comforting, too. And it is replacing other ways that I have comforted myself during difficult times which have not always been the best choices for health and well-being.
 
Best of all, I feel and know that  I have the power in me to make my day the beautiful one I want it to be. And that it makes no difference what comes into my space, what anyone says or does.

The only thing that is important is my choice of response.  And when that choice comes from Higher Self, there is always a deep and satisfying feeling accompanying it for me.


It seems I am beginning to shift the locus of control regarding how my day will go and how I will feel about it. Ultimately, I am no longer upset by someone else's behavior. And all of this just by my conscious intention to consider what Higher Self would do. Somehow the consideration of this question has presented the promise of such magnificent payoffs that I have naturally shifted my focus and conscious intention to it. What fascinating potential there is here for life transformation!

This seems as magical as anything I can imagine. Ours just for the asking. And it’s as easy as designing it into our day!

What would your Higher Self do today?

                                                                               Marie Helena