Winter, who would have thought?

We get a break from all the guilt of not doing MORE for a season:  "The law of growth is rest.  We must be content in winter to wait patiently through the long bleak season in which we experience (seemingly) nothing, believing the truth, that these seasons which seem to be the most empty are the most pregnant with life.
The soil must not be disturbed.  Above all we must not disturb it ourselves by our own egoism.  We must not turn it over and dig it up by anxieties and scruples.  We must not shift it by fretting for a sense of personal perfection: to feel sinless that we may feel free from the pain of guilt and anxiety;  to feel pure for the sake of vanity.
The seed must rest in the earth.  We must allow what wants to emerge to frow in us in rest." 
Inward/Outward

Beautiful

Beautiful snow but not enough to worry about, wonderful time together with my family, time with great friends,  days off from work, got an ipad, so incredible - what more could I ask for?  Love flows.

Empty Your Mind...

...and fill it with happy thoughts.  What a concept!  Nothing new about it.  We tend to dwell on our problems, worries, day to day obligations.  Let all that go, empty your mind and let happiness in - not shallow "happiness",  not stupid "happiness", not Mary Sunshine "happiness" but real down deep peace, trust  and confidence in yourself, God and the future.  Smile and feel good about what you have accomplished in your life, vow to be proud of that and look forward to what you can accomplish in the future. 

"A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind," wrote psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert of Harvard.  So stop wandering!

This is a message to myself. 

Beautiful Moments

The most inspiring quote I have ever read:

“In moments of powerful beauty, emotions move that can melt the most cynical skins.  Endorphins flow.  There is a release of tension.  Energies, internal and external, flow and connect.  The experience is not only soft and calm, but it also contains the power and creativity of nature and the universe.  To create and to work consciously with these moments of connection is to exercise what we might call our spiritual muscles and our spiritual intelligence.  What do I mean by spiritual?  I simply mean that whole reality and dimension which is bigger, more creative, more loving, more powerful, more visionary, more wise, more mysterious than materialistic human existence.  There is no theology or belief system that relates to this meaning of spiritual”. 

William Bloom, The Endorphin Effect

Just what I need

Right now I am pretty anxious and uptight about a lot of important things.  Spent yesterday afternoon with a very dear friend who is the opposite of anxious and uptight.  I now know that she is in my life to teach me very important lessons.  She is completely spontaneous and untroubled by convention, what time it is, what's next, etc.  And yet she makes her kids and friends her priority.  She is a lovely person and I aspire to learn from her, to be more spontaneous, worry less and enjoy every moment of my life.  Thank you God for the wonderful, unexpected gift of Sherrie. 

Learned something new last night

We all have those little flash backs to unpleasant things that have happened or things people have said to us that ring in our heads when triggered by a similar situation.  Here's the solution:  Answer those things in your head, decide what you would say back next time and these pesky flashbacks will eventually dissappear.  Also, you will form new and better attitudes toward similar situations that occur in the future.  I believe this will work.  Try it for your self and see.