One of the things I have learned through my studies on Toltec wisdom is that the way we see ourselves is not the way other people perceive us. As don Miguel Ruiz teaches, when we write in our minds the story of our lives, we are the main characters, and others are the supporting actors and actresses. In their stories, we are written in as the supporting roles. How they construct our character in their story may or may not be the way we construct or perceive ourselves. Rarely, are we fully aware of how others perceive us. Even if they share their perceptions with us, they are limited by their ability to communicate their perceptions of us.
When people speak to us, it is a reflection of what they are saying as the character they have created in their minds. How we respond to what others have to say about us is about us. It is this self-awareness of how we respond which can become a tool in our own spiritual healing and growth. What others say to us are just lines from their story. They only have the power to affect us to the extent we allow them to do so.
Read moreWhen I first began to think about the word Q very
few things came to my mind. However, one of my readers suggested quiet. Ironically,
I am sitting here unable to speak as my wife and I are both healing our way
through viral laryngitis, which can take 1-3 weeks to run its course. The second
thought that crossed my mind was a line from a poem I recently was blessed to
hear. In this poem, she wrote about the “symphony of silence” which she heard
while sitting in the garden. This made such perfect sense to me as so often
some of my most powerful moments of enlightenment have come during those
moments of silence, those quiet times where I am so in tune with the Spirit. In
the midst of the quiet, we can hear the symphonic wisdom of our Spirit guides,
the Infinite, and the cloud of witnesses surrounding us.
Read moreMichael Beckwith once wrote, “The daily headlines describe a global culture that has been cur off from the soul.” One need not look farther then the headlines on any form of news media for stories about violence, whether it is overt, subtle, verbal, physical, emotional, psychological, or spiritual. We manifest violence through our words, actions, and thoughts. Violence is associated with power, either the misuse of the power one has or an attempt to feel powerful in a world where they have felt disempowered. Violence can be individual or structural. We hear about individual violence in stories of wars, abuse, neglect, murders, rapes, bombings, terrorism, etc.
Read moreZoë and I have lived in our home for about 6 years now. While we have slowly made changes to the inside of our home to make it feel more like us, our yard was another story. I have long felt like somebody should have nominated us for Curb Appeal: The Block. We definitely had the worst yard on the block. Now mind you nobody has said anything, but we knew. The original owners had had over planted and neglected the maintenance. We had continued that tradition and now things were dying because they were overcrowded. With neither of us being gardeners, we were not even sure what to do to enhance the curb appeal of our home.
Read moreA few weeks ago, I wrote a blog called No More Poison! Here I wrote about the need for us to refuse to internalize any message from others that is not of love or to present a message to others that is not of love. When we do this, we are eating or serving emotional, mental, and spiritual poison to others.
I have been thinking a lot about the effect of the global poison of fear, which presents itself in so many different ways in our world. One of the ways this poison presents itself amongst our youth is through bullying and hatred. The news has been filled lately with stories of at least ten young lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered youth who had ingested so much poison from their peers and their society that they were no longer able to see hope or joy in life.
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