Today I express my soul…

By taking a risk.

I recognize that self-confidence is about knowing I can fully accomplish a specific task. My confidence lies in direct proportion to my being willing to take a risk or do something unknown to me. Today I will be a decision maker, accepting that my decisions cannot be evaluated until they are carried through. If at that time I am not content with the decision I made I am blessed to be able to make a different decision.

The right time is always now. This is a lovely clip that shows you always get a second chance.

This is what it’s all about. Compassion begins with tolerancee of all religions, all countries, all people, including yourself.

I was on the phone talking to a friend as she was getting prepared to go out of town. Over the past couple of days I had heard her say, a few times, that she wouldn’t get everything she needed to done. I remember a time in my life when I felt that way 24/7. It had the adverse effect of keeping me up at nights as I my mind went through lists of everything that had to be accomplished the following day.

One day I realized that when I die I was still going to have unaccomplished items on my to-do list. I started to relax a bit at first and with time I am now far more relaxed, with the exception of panicking every tax season. Tells you where I’m headed at the moment!

What I have come to understand is that I am the one who gives meaning to what is important or a priority in my life. Furthermore, it is I who then puts pressure on myself to accomplish these tasks. When I apply such deep pressure as to cause mental or emotional harm to myself I am not being true to myself. Is it any wonder that I’m unhappy in those moments?

I also came to realize that as I was hurrying through the tasks that I was hurriedly trying to get done I never got the opportunity to be in the present moment and enjoy what I was doing. Living that way totally takes away from the quality of life that I deserve. The irony is that the entire time it was in my power to turn around, I just didn’t realize it.

I changed my thinking in order to change my life. We create the illusion that something is so important that we can actually cause most of our own stress and lack of enjoyment. In the end we can only ask ourselves if is it worth it. I know my answer; do you know yours?

I’m having a weird dog week. As a psychotherapist I work with people who are having issues with specific things in their life. Yet I’m at a total loss now that my beloved dog is having a fear issue. She must have slipped on the icy stairs leading down to the back yard and now she’s afraid to go up and down those stairs.

So I made her go down the stairs and after she did her business she just stood at the stairs (only 4 steps) and stared at me with those doe caught in the headlight eyes. Hmmm…ok I can handle that. I went to the cupboard got her favorite treat and stood at the top of the stairs. No dice she didn’t budge. Now I know it has to be the ice because she’s bounding up and down the stairs in the house without a blink. So I tore off a piece of her cookie and tossed it to her. Yes she ate it up just about smacking her lips – she still didn’t budge up the stairs. So I gave in and went down and lifted her to the middle step. With me in back of her she bounded up. She knows mom has her back.

While I still don’t know exactly how I’m going to deal with her I am wondering if my dog is being a mirror for me. I can’t look at her without pondering on my own fears and if I am letting anything paralyze presently without realizing it. Though I haven’t completely clued in to it I do have a gut instinct that there is truth to that statement and I need to take a deeper look inside. I’m very grateful that I have my dog and all life around me to mirror me and help make me aware of myself. Sometimes as we go through the motions of life we are so focused on what we are doing outside of ourselves that we forget to stop and check in with our insides.

The Universe communicates to us in a myriad of ways. I think maybe I better go and say thank you by giving the pup another treat!

Today has been a wild ride for me. Though I’m not caught in the middle, I’m watching family members duke it out. It’s very difficult to watch the people that you love the most tear each other apart. Words were used as weapons and once spoken can never be taken back.

I have to admit that’s it’s been having an extremely emotional effect on me. First and foremost I feel helpless. Secondly I am angry that they don’t see what I see; their egos are getting in the way of the decision to love each other.

I spent most of the morning completely unable to concentrate on anything. I couldn’t even watch mindless TV. So I decided to start putting away the Christmas decorations because it needed to be done and something inside of me said it was exactly what I needed to do. I find listening to my inner voice helps a lot. So now I’ve put away almost everything except the Christmas tree. I feel much better. I’m reminded that e-motion is “energy in motion”. In this case it was negative energy in motion in my body. By doing something physical I feel clearer and my head is no longer foggy.

I’m always amazed and inspired when I listen to that inner voice and it’s always exactly what I need in the moment.

I did some grocery shopping this morning and as I was turning an apple over in my hand I started thinking about abundance. It makes perfect sense that fruit brings this to mind for me. How I used to remind myself of my abundance was keeping a beautiful fruit bowl full of fruit. So I’m not completely weird…just a little!

There was a time in my life that I considered abundance to be something outside of myself. Things like how much money I made and what I possessed; sometimes I still get caught up in the rat race and my thinking goes there, especially if an unexpected large expense occurs. This happened to me yesterday.

At first I panicked and then I calmed down. Took a good look at expenses and figured out how to fit the bill in. Time and experience has taught me that there is always a way, more importantly that The Universe always provides.

True abundance is being able to look inside myself and find the resources to make things work emotionally and spiritually. Taking the time to remember that I have qualities about myself that I can use to ease any difficult situation. After all I not only have The Universe around me, I have it inside me as well. How much more abundant can one be?

The trick is to perceive my life from that place of abundance. It’s the difference between placing my focus on the areas that I feel less sufficient in, most people do this, to the holding on tight to the areas of my life that I know I am proficient in. I used to only focus on what I felt I needed to improve on, yet how could I move forward working from a resource that I didn’t have. It’s like being in a completely barren desert and trying to start a fire with nothing but sand. If there’s a way to do it I haven’t yet learned it.

When I use the inner abundance I have I am always true to myself and therefore all around me; for me that’s what life, love and The Universe is really about.

My desktop computer upped and got sick on me, which is really rare for Macs. My semi-fear here is that I’ll lose everything. I say semi because there is a part of me that believes I will be fine even if I am missing some work information, I have avenues to get the most important pieces of info back. I have learned my lesson and will be getting a back up drive.

So for now I’m using my laptop. I really glad I bought it last spring, as I would have been in dire straits without it presently. The thing is that it’s newer than my desktop, has a faster processor – though a smaller hard drive, is filled with RAM and is so slow it reminds of my very old desktop that I got rid of due to it’s snail pace! So I’m wondering, is this a valuable lesson in patience being a virtue, a synchronistic sign or both?

There’s no doubt that when I’m doing my writing I’m slowing down which has its benefits. I’m considering my words a little more carefully and remembering to ask The Universe to guide my words to be of benefit to all. I’ve been sick myself recently and had to slow down a bit. There have been things that I wanted to forge ahead with and get done as quickly as possible; there’s no option for that at the present time, as I need my desktop computer for that.

If this were happening in your life what would you consider it to be?What I know for sure is that I may not presently see it now, however, there is something great that’s going to come out of all this and it will be a delightful surprise – this is how I believe The Universe works. I will most certainly make an entry about it when I have my answers. For now all I need to do is hold the intention and carry it forward with faith. That’s not so hard – is it?

Something great did happen – read the update here.

By this point most people have heard of the Law Of Attraction and the movie The Secret. I was taught this law many years before the movie came out creating public awareness. What I always knew instinctively is that whatever I truly believed, with all my heart, that I would accomplish or attain came about. My mother reminds me of this all the time.

What concerns me as I watch people work the Law Of Attraction is just that – they’re trying to work or manipulate it. The Law Of Attraction is in play at all times, there isn’t anything for anyone to do; that’s what makes it a universal law. When was the last time you tried to make gravity work? You don’t, it’s just there doing what it naturally does.

I’ve watched friends and clients go through the ups and downs of getting what they want and then not getting what they want. As this happens they grow confused and lose faith in the law, their dreams and themselves. It’s no wonder, as they haven’t learned to just be with the law.

Part of the problem is that we are trying to manipulate our thoughts and feelings. We connect to The Universe from our soul and our soul knows when we are trying to do a snow job on ourselves – for that matter so does The Universe. I don’t want you to think for a second that you can’t achieve whatever you desire because you can. What I’ve noticed personally is that the accomplishments that I’ve had, that came as a deep knowing that it was the right thing for me, happened much quicker than those that came about from changing my thoughts. Frankly the dreams that were achieved from manipulating my thoughts and feelings took years. They manifested once they were so instilled in me that they were part of my inner knowing as well, and that type of manipulation takes time.

Maybe another factor is that we tend to desire what we think we want, what sounds and looks good outside of ourselves. What if there is a difference between what we perceive (think of) as desirable in our life and what the soul really desires? What if the soul’s desire wins every time? Then the real task isn’t creating what we think we want, instead it’s learning what our soul desires to experience and working with that as our true happiness lies there. It makes perfect sense – in manipulating the law we are looking outside of ourselves, in other words going without, in learning about soul desires we need to go within. The best choices, the most loving choices always come from within. When we search without we go without.

Learning to go with the flow is a key here. Allow everything outside of yourself to happen and work on accepting all situations and seeing the gift or the positive aspect of them – yes there is always a positive aspect whether or not it takes a year to finally see it. Take comfort in the fact that the things we have absolute faith in that make us joyous are a done deal to the Law Of Attraction and learn to be happy with everything in your life. This is when we can really grasp the blessings The Universe sends us in each moment and they’re all blessings.