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I received this forward a few days ago and wanted to share it with all of you. Not sure of the original source ...
A young lady confidently walked around the room while leading and explaining stress management to an audience with a raised glass of water. Everyone knew she was going to ask the ultimate question, 'half empty or half full?'.. She fooled them all ..... "How heavy is this glass of water?" she inquired with a smile. Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz.
Read moreWhat are you worth? A few years ago, I was reading this article about a man in Australia who had sold his entire life on eBay for slightly less than half a million dollars. He was tired of his life, the way he was living it, and so decided to sell everything and start over. Reading this story, it really made me think about how one decides what one is worth. Just for fun, I did a web search to see what others were saying about how you determine your worth as a human being. Sadly, I found a website called www.humanforsale.com I went through the process because I wanted to see what questions they would ask and to get a sense of what they would tell me I am worth. I never finished it, because they required information I was not willing to share (my name, address, email, phone, etc). In the process, I did learn that I have an IQ of 142 (www.free-iqtest.net) and that I am smarter than 61.5% of people (www.am-i-dumb.com ). While I found that information interesting, I don’t think it makes me worth more or less in this world then anyone else.
Read moreHave you ever felt like the older you get or the more you go to school or the more you try to understand people, the less you understand? Do you miss the days when you thought you understood it all? I know I do. But I have come to this place in my life when I realize that there is so much in life that I do not understand. In fact, the more I learn, the less I feel I know. The more I read, the more questions about life I have. The more I work with people, the less I understand about humanity.
This lack of understanding used to drive me nuts. I used to feel like I needed to understand everything and have all the answers and I didn’t. I found relief in a scripture from Isaiah 55:8 which states, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” This scripture gave me permission to be okay with this sense of not understanding. Ironically, it was a piece of paper that I found left behind in a photocopy machine one day that made me understand, that this lack of understanding was actually a sign of growth. It said “NOTICE! We have not succeeded in solving all your problems. The answers we have found only serve to raise a whole set of new questions. In some ways, we feel we are as confused as ever, but we believe we are confused on a higher level and about more important things.”
Read moreThis morning I was sitting on my porch and thinking about what I wanted to write about today. As I was looking at the sky and praying for inspiration, this flock of birds flew by. As they did, it reminded me of a story I first heard an African American pastor, Rev. Moss, in Chicago tell. Moss saw this slave tale as part of his story. In some respects, however, it is part of all our story.
It is said that this story has been passed from mouth to ear somewhere among the sandy palmetto dunes of South Carolina, a story passed down from West Africa to the North Atlantic, and trickled down the generations to the coast of South Carolina. It is the story, a unique story, of the people who could fly. And as stories go, with each telling the story gains a little different twist.
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If your life was a piece of paper, how big would your margins be? Would you have one inch margins all around your paper? Inch and a half? Two inches? Or is your life so overflowing with stuff that you HAVE to do that you are not even sure you have any margins. If you do, then maybe they are like 1/100 of an inch.
As I have learned the hard way in my own life, some of us have gotten so used to living life without margins, that we do not even know what they are. While we might like the idea of having more time and space in our life, we have no idea how to begin to function in a world where that might even be possible. Some of us have lives that are so filled to the brim with stuff we have to do, especially this holiday season, that there is no room to squeeze anything or anybody else in.
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We all have something that we struggle with, but it seems as if most people that I know struggle with one simple thing – receiving a compliment. Many of us find it hard to accept a compliment from someone. For many people, when we hear a compliment there is this little voice in the back of the head that negates the positive and affirming words that someone just shared with us. We tend to pay little attention to the positive and affirming words of others, finding it much easier to unquestionably accept the criticisms of others. For many, these criticisms seem to be affirmations of the belief that we are not worthy; that there is something inherently wrong with us. Many of us have become experts at self-rejection. We have come to the place where we believe that we are unworthy until proven otherwise, rather than believe that we are worthy and to question why others would criticize who we were created to be.
Read moreThere is a Buddhist story I love and would like to share with you this week. It is, as the title suggests, about a group of six blind men and an elephant.
Long ago six old men lived in a village in India. Each was born blind. The other villagers loved the old men and kept them away from harm. Since the blind men could not see the world for themselves, they had to imagine many of its wonders. They listened carefully to the stories told by travelers to learn what they could about life outside the village.
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Looking at the title of my blog for today, some of you might be thinking it looks like a mathematical formula. Let me see if I can walk us through this mathematical expression. Metamorphosis is the transformation that occurs in some animals as they move from one state of being to another, like from a caterpillar to a butterfly. Over the course of our lives, we have been in the process of our own transformation, physically and spiritually.
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The journey to find the authentic self, the self you were created to be is not always easy. It is as W. Somerset Maugham wrote about like the razor’s edge. This novel, The Razor’s Edge tells the story of an American, Larry Darrell, who, traumatized by his experiences as a fighter pilot in World War I, decides to search for some transcendent meaning in his life. This is the story of a man who refuses to conform to the ways of the world, rejects conventional life, and searches for his authentic self. This is the story of one man's quest for inner peace and enlightenment. It is the tale of one person’s spiritual journey.
Read moreI have a dear friend, who I may never meet, who lives in Australia. I love Jane because it seems as if whenever I am thinking about her I get an email from her. The other day was no different. I was thinking about what I wanted to share about empowerment and how you can empower yourself, when up pops an email from Jane. She was at fair where her daughter-in-law had a booth when she came upon a booth “run by Ben Lee. He is a very famous Australian musician but resides in the US.” Ben’s booth was about Handmade Postcard Making: The purpose of this booth was to help “combat spiritual amnesia. Send yourself an important truth that you forget too often. A friendly reminder from your Self to your self.” He invited people “to take stock, think about your truth and what needs some work? Whatever it is, own it. Write it down. Make a postcard and send it to yourself as a reminder of what you have decided to let go of.” She thought this sounded like me and something we could do here at Inspiritual.
Read moreI was once taught that the most dangerous states to live in are the past and the present. Today is a new day! One thing so many people do is spend their entire lives beating themselves up for something, which they said or did or didn’t say or do years ago, but today is a new day. The past is the past and you cannot go back and change it. What you do have control over is today, so live it to its fullest, focusing on being the best you that you can be today.
Read moreA few weeks ago, I received an email from my friend Jane Patterson, who lives in Australia. I like to say that Jane is one of the most beautiful spirits I will probably never meet. Jane told me about a woman, Natalie McComas, who was doing a photographic series called Beautiful in this Skin. According to Natalie, this series “portrays subjects with dramatic, visible birthmarks and explores the effects this has had on their lives and psyches. This series celebrates these unique skin formations whilst also inspiring those, who may have a similar condition, to feel special and beautiful in their own skin.”[1]
Read moreGo with God, but Go! I wish I could claim the creation of this statement, but someone I know borrowed the phrase from a nun. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging that someone no longer needs to be in your life. Finding the words and the strength within to acknowledge this and act on can be quite empowering. As a mentor of mine once said, it is not the what, but the intent behind the what. There are numerous ways to tell people you no longer desire to have them a part of your present life. You can do so with an intent of hate or fear or you can do so with an intent of love.
Read moreWe had just finished healing harbor last night. I was feeling spiritually fulfilled that we had been able to provide healing to so many people. At the same time, I was physically exhausted, my body ached from the rain, my eyes itched from my allergies, and every cell in my being just wanted to crawl into bed. It had been a marvelous and enriching day and then one of my healing staff said something, which just made the whole day a little brighter. “I really like your hair like that.” All I could do was take a deep breath and say was “thank you.” The funny thing was that I have wanted to shave it all off again, but Zoe has been encouraging me to let it grow.
Read moreThe last few days I have had some time, maybe too much time, to think about all the injustice in our world and the inhumane ways we treat each other. In the last few weeks, a number of people have lost their lives due to urban violence, people have put off needed surgeries because they cannot afford the deductibles, and this morning the Supreme Court gutted the Voters Right Act, leaving the door open for legislation, which would prohibit the rights of all Americans to vote. Each of these acts, as well as others, is related in that they are all forms of structural violence.
One need not look further then the local television station, newspaper, or internet provider for examples of physical, emotional, and mental violence. The one form of violence not discussed is structural violence.
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Several years ago, someone asked me how I came to this space of compassion for humanity in my life. I remember the question as if it were yesterday. At first, I was not sure how I was going to answer the question, and then this simple word floated up from my heart – LIFE.
I once heard LIFE was an acronym for Love Is For Everyone. The simplicity of that message resonated with me because it was part of what I have learned my entire life. It was a valuable lesson I learned from my parents who made room in their hearts for an infant who was looking for a home. My parents believed that their love, as parents, was for me and for my two brothers who arrived a few years later. Love is for everyone.
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Last week, I ended by asking how we use our status in the world to create a more humane world. How do we, consciously or unconsciously, contribute to the inhumanity in the world? How do we try to avoid and deny responsibility for our place in creating a more humane world for all of humanity?
We have this tendency in our culture to blame people for not having achieved as much or done as well as others. We see things at an individual level and rarely look at the systemic forces that make it more difficult for some to achieve or have access to what seems within the grasp of others. Rather than be willing to critically look at these issues and the ways they are embedded within larger institutions and systems of injustice and inequality, people tend to try to get off the hook by denying and/or minimizing the situation or blaming the situation on the “victim.”
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For the last 26 weeks, I have been working my way through the alphabet one letter at a time. It was not until I went to sit down and write again this week that I realized there are no letters after Z. Blogging my way through the alphabet had been challenging in some ways, especially towards the end of the alphabet, however, since being done I realized I had become conditioned to focusing on words associated with letters. This week, I moved back to the thoughts that have been floating around in my brain.
As I was working on my piece on humanity for this month’s newsletter, I found myself frustrated because I wanted to talk about some of that which has contributed to the inhumanity in the world. Over the next few weeks, I am going to continue to reflect on humanity and inhumanity and ask we each reflect on how we can be more humane in our lives with regard to the issues raised.Read more
I was sitting enjoying a cup of tea excited about how I had made it through to the letter Y. I was entering the last week, thinking just one more letter, and I will have made it through the entire alphabet one week and one letter at a time, A through Z. I was thinking about words that begin with the letter Z and after looking through my dictionary decided, Z was going to be for Zealous. I closed my eyes, rolled over and went to sleep prepared for a good night’s sleep and some amazing dreams.
Upon waking up in the morning, I was greeted by an email from a friend with an early morning meandering on her word for the day. You got it her word for the day was Zealous. I laughed and told her I was going to use her meandering in my last reflection of the alphabet. This is what she wrote:
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So much of the suffering we experience in our lives comes because we can compare ourselves to someone other then ourselves. You are you. I am me. Comparing myself to you is like comparing apples to oranges. They are both wonderful in their own right and just as they are. Each of them brings their own gifts to the table of fruits. So starting today, honor yourself. Honor the person you are. Who you know yourself to be may be different from who others know you to be and that is ok. How others see you is about them. Honor yourself for who you are.
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