Being a woman, I realize from my own awareness’s and other women around me that we think we are valuable and lovable for things that we do or a status that we hold. Are we really only lovable if we have a great job that brings in substantial income, raise outstanding children,  keep a clean home or prepare meals like an iron chef? Perhaps the mind  tells us to fulfill one of these things or something different. What does your mind tell you? Perhaps there is a list of things that the mind is telling us to accomplish and THEN we will be lovable. What does that mean exactly? What does it really mean to be lovable? Is it that we are finally worthy to find ourselves as good and whole? Is it that we are finally able to accept a compliment without brushing it away? I remember I used to respond to the question “what do you do” with, “I am JUST a stay at home mom,” and I would feel bad about it! There was something inside of me that said that “job” wasn’t good enough. What did I have to do to become lovable and worthy? Would me working make me more acceptable and lovable? What if I had no job and no kids and my husband supported me, am I worthy of love?

What I have become aware of is that we are only love and when we don’t see ourselves as such we are blocking ourselves from seeing it. We don’t have to do anything to be worthy of love. I believe we are all a sliver of God, the Divine, Source, whatever you would like to call it. We as souls, wandering around on this planet are all part of God, who is only unconditional love. So if I am created from unconditional love, this would mean that I am love. The question is, why do I feel so bad about myself?

It’s because we learn at a young age that “we are bad,” “we make mistakes,” “we do something ‘wrong’ and get punished” etc. Well my friends, it’s all an illusion. Our minds go haywire leading us to believe “it” knows how to make us fit in, feel acceptable and become lovable. We must listen to our minds. It’s not true!

It’s time we realize that WE ARE ALL a part of God and the only reason we ever feel bad about ourselves is because we have simply forgotten that. If we are not living a life everyday looking in the mirror saying “I love you” it’s our mind telling us “not yet…you will be lovable when….” THIS IS NOT TRUE! In fact it’s impossible! We are already love! Accept this fact! What I realized is that it was ME that was blocking myself from feeling acceptable and lovable. No one else had that power over me, it’s how I THINK I am seeing myself in the world.

Is the person living on the streets as a homeless person and a socialite in NYC deserve any more or less love? Each person is simply having a different GOD experience. God is flowing through both people, having beautiful experiences in both scenarios. Life is just a series of experiences and we are lovable in each and every one of them.

The mind tends to term something as bad or unlovable if what you are doing or how you are living is not meeting the minds (ego) expectations.

How do we break this?

Ask yourself one question…

“What do I have to do or when will I become lovable?”

I encourage you to really sit with this question and find your truth on it.

The answer may surprise you…you might already be lovable.

Fill in the blank…What do you THINK will make you happy? So many of us get on that hamster wheel of happiness only to hit dead end after dead end.

It seems happiness can come briefly then we go on a hunt for it again. How do we make it stick?

I myself look back and thought (like most girls) that getting married will make me happy, then the build-up of the wedding happens and it’s bliss, bliss, bliss. After the wedding, “normalcy” sets in then I said, “Time for a baby!” Then a new bigger car to accommodate all of these babies and stuff.

Every “new” thing that happens in our lives brings a burst of (temporary) happiness and joy then normalcy sets in.

Our ego/mind is on a quest,  promising to find happiness for us and continues to find new things to create what it thinks is the end of the road, true happiness, then that too fades. Then the search goes on again.

In the last 15 years, we have lived in 5 houses, ranging from inexpensive to very expensive and we have rented and owned. I was no more or less happy because of any of those houses. We have had money in the last 15 years and almost lost all of it a couple years ago, same feelings-no more or less happy with our without money.

So what is the answer!??

As the saying goes…”Happiness in an inside job.”

This could not be more true. It does come from inside and not the mind. Our ego/mind thinks it knows the way to happiness and sends us like a dog chasing its’ tail to find it, but we never do.

So how do we find true happiness?

We get off the treadmill and spend time in the moments of life. When we appreciate the small stuff we find that is where the most giant happiness is hiding but we look above and beyond it, in search of something bigger.

It’s when we finally slow down and notice that it’s right in front of us and always has been.

When we stop in the moment and appreciate, we find joy.

For example, when the person at the grocery store is struggling to get out the door with her hands full and we stop and hold the door for her and she responds, “Thank you so much,” with eye contact, we must stop to feel that response. In the feeling is when we know we are experiencing joy and happiness.

When my sister sends me a card for no reason at all, just to say hi and that she loves me, I sit in the moment and feel that. THAT brings me joy and happiness.

My son has a unique good night kiss that’s just for me and him. When we are done, I look in his eyes with such love and gratitude. THAT brings me tremendous joy.

How about noticing our beautiful outside, nature, look at the flowers, beautiful trees or even a plant in your house!

There is so much to stop and notice that we miss because we are looking elsewhere.

Many of us live life so unconsciously, we don’t know if we are happy, sad or just existing. If you are an “existers” why not exist with happiness and joy instead of just living the routine of life?

In the moments of life, when we can stop, notice and feel the joy and happiness we find that those moments begin to grow. Before we know it we are walking around most of the day just being happy and we don’t even know why.

What’s happens is in those mini moments of joy, we rest in the heart and the heart is where God (or something greater than us) resides. Ultimately we are connecting to God every time we stop, notice and feel and taking power from the ego.

It’s time to lessen the power our ego’s have over us, alert it that it’s not in charge anymore. True happiness awaits, it’s waiting for us in the heart.

A few months ago my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. It’s been an interesting journey and have had many epiphanies that I am excited to share.

The question that my mother has asked since her diagnoses is, “How did this happen to me?” Being that she is in my family, she has been exposed to the Law of Attraction (what you think about comes about/manifests in your life.)

My mother’s mother died of breast cancer and my mother’s sister is a survivor of breast cancer. With this disease “running in the family” my mother decided long ago that this was “not for her” and “she would never get cancer.” She held the belief, “I’ll never get breast cancer.” My belief has always been that a gene may run in the family but it’s the vibration of the illness and buying into it that gets passed down the family.

Because of my mother now developing this disease she has asked me repeatedly about how she “attracted” this in. I am not God but I do have my theories…

The Law of Attraction states that “Like attracts Like” and “What you think about comes about.” These are cute little statements but what do they really mean and how do they really work. With disease we want a deeper meaning of this Law.

ENERGY AND VIBRATION

We know and scientists have proven that EVERYTHING IS ENERGY. Energy also holds a vibration (meaning, it moves either fast or slow or somewhere in between). Because everything is energy, our thoughts are also energy as are our emotions and feelings. A positive emotion and thought illicit a light, expanded feeling in our body (fast moving energy) and a negative emotion carries a heavy and contracted feeling in our bodies (because of the energy moving slower).

The Law of Attraction matches our vibration, and we must tune into our body to determine how a given statement feels then we will know what is being manifested for us.

Remember the universe doesn’t hear words like “no, not or never,” it’s matching our feeling.

The universe reads the dominant vibration ALWAYS. When my mother was stating all of this time, “I’ll never get breast cancer,” the dominant vibration is “breast cancer!” The better statement would be, “My body maintains excellent health” or “I am healthy!” For a moment, state these two statements out loud and feel the difference. Where do you feel it in your body? Which statement feels better? “I’ll never get breast cancer.” OR “I am healthy!” The latter is expansive and feels better. THAT would be the vibration I would want manifested in my life.

My guess is that my mother did have fear of disease or tragedy etc. and that was her dominant vibration. There are many variables and disease is not this black and white. But I know for sure that Law of Attraction is ALWAYS on, and always working.

While exploring my mother’s dominant vibration with her, we discovered that in the last year she had lost 2 of her close friends to cancer, another two were diagnosed and treated for breast cancer and yet another had quadrouple bypass surgery. Now for anyone THAT would be a lot to handle. More importantly, we examined what her feelings and emotions were around these events. We discovered fear of death, disease and tragedy. So regardless of her thoughts, her dominant feelings were fears.

SO WHAT COULD SHE HAVE DONE TO HELP HERSELF?

When something “bad” happens, we tend not to want to feel it. We may acknowledge it, cry about it but don’t process it. We are taught as children to “be strong,” “don’t let things get you down” etc. We have a lot of programming in our brains that don’t serve us. We learn when something bad happens we need to disassociate from it, basically take our energy out of our body so we don’t really feel it.

Instead what’s better for us is to feel what happens to us. Notice in our body where the fear, sadness, anger resides. Is it in our stomach? Throat? Chest tight? Where is that energy in the body? Notice it and be with it. Allow the emotion to process through the body until it’s gone. We may cry, punch something or just notice the energy move. There is no right or wrong way to do this. The important part is to allow the energy to move out of our energy field and not keep it in the field.

When we keep the negative energy (unprocessed emotion) in our field it becomes our new dominant vibration, our new point of attraction.

My mom has a mastectomy over Thanksgiving and is now cancer free.  It’s been quite the experience for her as she is healing physically and emotionally and is now willing to look at some things in the past year that could have triggered this as well as looking into her future and how she is going to live a more balanced life, with less stress, more meditation and paying attention to her words, her vibration and how they feel in her body.

I welcome any questions or comments on this topic as always.

In my meditation this morning, I was sitting in silence and began asking a few questions about my day and how I may serve. I immediately “knew” the answers. It happened so quickly it amazed me.

I realized that all of life’s answers are in the present moment because this is where God sits and waits, patiently, lovingly and without judgment, for us to come and merge with him.

When we sit present moment and stop our thoughts, we begin to feel and remember we are part of something MUCH greater. We merge with the divine and we remember there is no separation, only the oneness. It is the ego that wants us to believe we are separate, not worthy, not good enough, not loveable etc. and wants to pull us away from the silence, the oneness.

I was amazed at what I automatically just knew this morning. Even more than what I knew it was the feeling that came over me, the calmness and peace. God emerges through us and we step into the all knowing stream of truth. All of the answers and wisdom that we seek are sitting there waiting for us in the present moment.

I looked around my house at all the laundry, the dishes, the cleaning up, the office that needs cleaning, filing, my voice mails, my emails that I haven’t looked at in 2 weeks and more, and asked myself, “How will I ever get all of this done?” The more I looked around the more rapidly my heart was racing and I realized that I felt anxiety! So much to do and not enough time…I then stopped myself and said, “What happened to me?”

I then realized that it had been 2 months since my last blog post, 6 weeks since my last true meditation and a week since my last deep breathing session. And what do you know…I feel out of balance! I asked myself how did I get here and realized how tricky the ego/mind can be. I remember so many times hearing myself say, “Oh, I need to write about THAT,” and “Wow, I really need to meditate or do my breathing.” And what I would inevidably hear every time was…”Later…”

When the ego takes over (or when we allow it to take charge) it feels that we need to “do” more and more to feel good and feel calm. The problem is that it’s the exact opposite! We need to stop what we are doing and meditate for 5 minutes or do some deep breathing or just STOP the treadmill we are on and just be for a few moments. It’s in these moments of “nothingness” that we find peace and regain balance. When we don’t stop, we fall out of balance. The ego/mind has it backwards it tells us to do more, go, go go, don’t stop!

It’s amazing to me how quickly we can fall out of balance when we don’t take time for ourselves. One of my favorite things to do is to write and it would wind up last on my list!

I have learned a lot about balance in the last 2 months and now feel grateful for the experience as I can write about it. We all have our things that will pull us out of balance if we let them. Meditatation/breathwork/quiet time is like hitting reset on our computers, clearing the slate. It lets the ego/mind release the grip it has on us and our to do list. It allows for us to hear our own God given guidance, our intuition to guide us to what we do next and what we cross off our list next.

This piece is partly a review of Eva Hoffman’s book Time. But Father Martin Boland frames this with his own reflections:

We can become so focused on busyness and speed that we begin to lose a proper sense of ourselves. Individuals can feel that their lives are “spinning out of control” or worse, are about to “break down”. The common response to the question, “How are you?”, has become “I’m busy.” We define ourselves in terms of frenetic activity. At the same time, other aspects and dimensions of our life (family, friendship, the social and the spiritual) are eroded by the constant pressures on our time. “We are money rich, but time poor.”

We MUST stop for ourselves and reset. It will create more time, but more importantly peace and bring us back to balance.

I remember growing up saying a blessing before we ate our meals. I never quite understood why we did this until a few years ago when I learned the relationship between food and energy.

This is a beautiful excerpt from the book Nourishing Traditions that reminds us the importance of being present in performing every daily task, even preparing our meals.

“If woman could see the sparks of light going forth from her fingertips when she is cooking and the substance of light that goes into the food she handles, she would be amazed to see how much of herself she charges into the meals that she prepares for her family and friends.

It is one of the most important and least understood activities of life-that the radiation and feeling that go into the preparation of food affect everyone who partakes of it, and this activity should be unhurried, peaceful and happy.  It would be better that an individual did not eat at all than to eat food that has been prepared under a feeling of anger, resentment, depression or an outward pressure, because the substance of the lifestream performing the service flows into that food and is eaten and actually becomes part of the energy of the receiver.  That is why the advanced spiritual teachers of the East never eat food prepared by anyone other than their own chelas.  Conversely, if the one preparing the food is the only one in the household who is spiritually advanced and an active charge of happiness, purity and peace pours forth into the food from him, this pours forth into the other members and blesses them.  I might say that there are more ways than one of allowing the Spirit of God to enter the flesh of man.”  (Maha Chohan Electrons)