Gratitude – Voices in My Head

We Are One

Speaking of family, allow me to sing a few praises about a community of bloggers I’ve never met, nor likely ever will. I’ve spent most of my many years on the planet in search of like-minded souls with whom sharing from the heart is the main topic of conversation. Mostly what I have found is that surface chatter, small talk, and gossip usually rule the day.

In these times of world crises and uncertainty, it would not surprise me to learn that more and more people are searching for a safe place in which to share from the heart and find comfort among others who are struggling with similar issues. If you are one of them, read on. If you’re not, read on.

Finding just one such person in real life (IRL—I learned that from Vicki) is like finding a ginormous gold brick in the middle of a mud puddle. Bloggers, however, seem to have an uncanny ability to be magnetically drawn together in a clump in some mysterious, mystical way. I figured that there must be some gold out there somewhere—I just didn’t know where to look. My search finally culminated in finding soul mates inside my computer in a world of bloggers, far removed from the dense physical plane of in-person 3D reality. Allow me to introduce you to my favorite blog platform and its creators, Vicki and Wynne . . .

The Heart of the Matter blog platform was co-founded by two of my favorite Wonder Women, Wynne Leon and Vicki Atkinson. Along with eight other lovable bloggers, Vicki and Wynne regularly contribute articles for Heart of the Matter readers. Together, this talented group of writers has created a growing community of caring souls who speak their truth in words that resonate with me on many levels.

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

The Heart of the Matter banner reads, “Here we write and talk about inspirations….our journey to discover what matters most.” Humor, poignant experiences and relatable first-person stories abound in a space of openness, honesty, vulnerability and authenticity. What is nearly impossible to find in real life is alive and well within the virtual reality of a blogging community of like-minded souls. It is a pure delight to be a part of such a loving, caring group within the virtual world, and nearly impossible to find IRL. If you’d like to taste test the love fest, check out The Heart of the Matter.

WYNNE LEON

Wynne Leon is the extraordinary single mom of two, former courageous climber of very tall mountains, business consultant of techie things beyond my understanding, and author of the engrossing memoir, Finding My Father’s Faith”. Wynne, ever the Energizer Bunny, never ceases to amaze me. Her story of wandering away from the Christian family fold to find her own way on the spiritual path parallels the difficult road that I have also taken as I wandered away from my own Presbyterian upbringing. As the daughter of a devout Presbyterian minister, Wynne seeks and finds the unbreakable bond of love with her beloved father, and celebrates finding common ground in spite of differences. Wynne’s blog is Surprised by Joy.

VICKI ATKINSON

Vicki’s resilient spirit shines through in her recent book, Surviving Sue. Sue is an incredibly heartfelt, touching, and beautifully written memoir of Vicki’s life as the daughter of a seriously dysfunctional mother and developmentally disabled sister. Her ability to survive a broken childhood and emerge as a healed and whole human being is an inspiration and powerful testimony of her strength of character. I was sad when the I finished the last page, but glad that I can keep up with Vicki on her blog, Victoria Ponders.

VICKI’S BOOK REVIEW

I am beyond grateful to Vicki for writing an unsolicited, amazingly glowing review of my book, “Voices: Who’s in Charge of the Committee in my Head?”. I didn’t pay her to do it, honest—but she did such a fabulous job that I suggested she consider a second career as a book publicist. Please read her review here. Vicki also wrote a pre-review of Voices which can be found on her blog, Victoria Ponders.

(We interrupt this program to bring you an embarrassing little true confession. Do you remember reading that all things techie are beyond my understanding? In what appears to be a shameless act of self-promotion, all “Victoria” links point to her book review of Voices. I confess that I simply could not figure out how to link to the home page of A Heart of the Matter. I rest my case.) We now return you our regular programming…..

Now is a really great time on the planet to be looking for love. But if, like me you’re looking for kindred spirits and like-minded souls, you’ll need to look in the right places. So if you’re looking for love, look within first—you’ll find someone beautiful in there. And if you need a little help from your friends (the ones you’ve never met), drop by and enjoy the daily lovefest at The Heart of the Matter.

Who are we? We are family. We are one.

The Light Dawns

Okay, so let me tell you about my yesterday.

It started with a pre-dawn 0’dark thirty meeting after a scant three hours of sleep. From there it slid downhill and crash landed into a multiple tangle of tasks with deadlines that jumbled together like stew in a pot, resulting in a day spent careening from one misstep to another at warp speed.

I invited people to attend meetings on incorrect dates, then had to send out corrections to the corrections. As brain fog gathered a head of steam, I couldn’t figure out where to file which version of what draft, resulting in multiple frantic searches of lost work and embarrassed apologies to recipients. There was more, but mercifully, my brain has taken pity on me and blanked them out.

The crowning blow was a confounding glitch in my computer that kept popping up in the middle of whatever I was doing to halt and/or wipe out what little progress I had made. The prospect of having to spend another ninety minutes on the phone with Apple troubleshooting the problem for the fourth day in a row loomed large in my mind. Oh Lord have mercy on my poor beleaguered soul.

So how was your day, dear?

Happily, today started on a brighter note, with a good night of sleep and a deep dive into gratitude knowing that yesterday is over and today will be better. As the bliss of gratitude began to settle in, it slowly dawned on me that maybe yesterday’s misadventures were a test. There’s just nothing like a little pop quiz to wake me up and take me on another stroll down Self-Inquiry Lane.

And so it begins. How am I doing on the road to enlightenment? Where am I on the journey? Did I have control over my mind? No. Did my emotions get the better of me? Yes. Was I rational? No. Was I frustrated, angry, or judgmental over all of my self-perceived shortcomings? Yes, yes, and yes. Did I let my mind and emotions get the upper hand? Oh, you betcha! Oy what a day—to say that it was humbling would be a gross understatement. Her Royal Crankiness blasted her way through the door of insanity and ruled the day.

Now that yesterday’s misadventures are in the rear view mirror, I can look back, and see it as gift to show me where I need improvement—and enough self-awareness to recognize where I went astray and make a vow not to do it again. Well—I might do it again, but with luck I’ll catch myself in the act and make in-flight corrections before I get too far out of hand.

A morning that started at 0’dark thirty resulted in a day that saw me bumbling and stumbling along searching for the light. Then in a flash of aha-ness, it dawned on me that my dark yesterday was a microcosm of how life is when I wander around asleep to the recognition of the Truth of who and what I am. As I go, so goes the world.

The words in the meme above say: “The growing light of awakening souls is transforming the darkness of our world.” For me, that simple statement boils down to just one thought: “The darkness of the world is transformed when I wake up.”

Whoa! Powerful words indeed. The more awake and aware I am to the reality of my soul and the love within, the more darkness is transformed. As I contemplate this thought, I realize that as members of the human family, we are solely responsible for bringing about the changes that we would like to see. As I change myself, the world changes along with me. As I shine my light in the darkness, the light expands exponentially and the world becomes a brighter place.

Again, I ask myself where I am on my journey to enlightenment. Am I awake? Am I doing my part? Are there bits and pieces of myself that need a bit of readjustment, realignment or reevaluation? Do I need a bit of tweaking to get myself back into proper working order?

And again, I answer yes, yes, yes to all of the above. The process of awakening can be a daunting and sometimes scary trip. Yet to make the decision to wake up and take the first step onto the path of self-awareness is the most important, and ultimately the most joyful and rewarding decision one can ever make.

Just imagine—when enough of us decide to flip the switch from dark to light, from asleep to awake, the wonderful new world that we are promised will become a reality sooner, rather than later. The darkness of the world is transformed when we wake up. Just imagine!

Full disclosure: The yesterday of which I speak was actually three yesterday’s ago. I’m just a little slow on the take.

To support your journey into the light, see Atreeoflight.org “You will see things that will amaze you”— messages from The Coming One

Sunny Side Up!

Occasionally I am jolted awake by the sudden realization that I have been sleepwalking through my days in a full-blown funk attack. Yesterday, for example, I suddenly woke up from my somnambulism and saw that I had been duped by the voice of fear again! This time, guilt was the culprit that managed to con me into a false belief that I am a worthless, useless slug. Drat. I hate it when that happens. It always gets me when I’m not looking—when I relax the vigilance necessary to protect myself against the sneaky chokehold of fear. Ah, the human condition. When will I learn?

Last night as I was trying to drift off to sleep, the unrelenting voice of the untamed ego reared its tricky head to remind me of my many shortcomings and the things about myself that I think of as unlovable and unworthy. As a final zinger to my self-esteem, it also refreshed my memory about the plethora of undone things that I promised myself that I would do and haven’t—which, as it happens, turns out to be the source of the guilt du jour. Heaven help me!

As I wrestled with this unholy, unhealthy state of mind, I was reminded of the horrendously negative aspects of guilt. Then it dawned on me that when I allow myself to succumb to it, I am actually doing something—but what I am doing is the exact opposite of what I want to do. I am sending ever-expanding ripples of negativity and fear out into the world—and that is not the job that I signed up to do! Oops—I got it bass-ackwards again. Where is vigilance when I need it?

By allowing guilt and fear to take up residence in my head—even for an instant—I am defeating myself before I ever take my first step onto the path of good intentions. And if guilt, fear, and every other negative feeling and emotion known to humankind had an agenda, that would be it—to prevent us from gaining a foothold into a healthier direction.

Miraculously, in the space of just that one instant of recognition, guilt evaporated and the void was filled by a powerful desire to exchange a negative attitude for a positive one by flooding the Universe with light and love rather than fear and negativity. If I do nothing more than that, I have done the most important job possible. And with that thought, I drifted off to sleep in a blissful state of gratitude, and awoke this morning inspired to write a blog.

It isn’t easy to keep one’s spirits up in the face of such dire world circumstances, is it? No wonder so many are in such a funk. If left unchecked, fear and negativity spreads like a virulent cancer and silently destroys any hope of peace on earth—or within oneself.

We do ourselves and others a serious disservice by succumbing to the temptation to fall into fear, or the belief that we are less than who and what we truly are. Our TRUE service comes from finding the love and light within ourselves and each other. One light shone upon another casts the awareness that we are One, and we are Divine.

We can do it. We can create peace on earth, but first we must find it within ourselves. All we need is a little willingness, a bit of awareness, and the desire to wake up. It’s a beautiful world when we see it right-side-up—and how we choose to see it is up to each one of us.

Please add your light to the war against darkness. We can change the world—one mind, one light at a time.

Peace and love to all. Sunny side up!

Speaking of doing more, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t give at least one quick little mention of my book, Voices. It’s chock full of them—mine, yours, ours (we all seem to have many of the same ones, have you noticed?) Please pop in here and have a quick look . Thank you! Happy voices everyone.

Hopes, Dreams, and Expectations

Okay, I confess—I am a little disappointed—a rather uncharacteristic feeling in the face of my usual Pollyanna worldview. Life on my planet is bass-ackwards. I recognize, of course, that my mild disappointment is but a drop in the ocean compared to current world events, but still—it’s my drop, my ocean, my planet. So in the overall scheme of things, my mini-discouragement doesn’t really matter very much, does it? Or does it?

So I ask myself—what is the source of this momentary dismay?

Well, my follow-up appointment on the status of my shattered patella dashed any hope of being sprung from the cumbersome knee mobilizer that I’ve been sleeping with and dragging around behind my walker for the past six weeks. Instead, I was sentenced to another six weeks of same old-same old. Bummer. The good news is that healing is much better than expected, surgery is off the table, and physical therapy can begin next week. Focus on the donut, Julia—not the hole.

Then, the dream of soaring sales of my newly released book, Voices: Who’s in Charge of the Committee in My Head, is—for the moment at least —nothing more than a mere pipe dream, but hope springs eternal. Perhaps reality manifests only when it receives a little help from the dreamer.

At the onset of my first six-week sentence in the Lazygirl, I had high hopes for a miraculous transformation from flawed human persona to heavenly angel with ginormous wings. Apparently, I slept through the first opportunity, so I have been given a second chance. That’s the thing with us humans, I figure. We are given endless second chances and opportunities to move ahead on our way toward miraculous transformation until we figure out how to get it right.

Some of us are simply slow learners. Well, I hope I get it right this time around so that I can be sprung from my knee trap and released back into the wild abandon that lives behind the wheel of my car. Meanwhile, I’ll do my best to do my best. I’ll attend to business, write blogs, dream dreams of healed knees and soaring book sales, and cross stuff off of my list of things to do—all the stuff that I promised myself I’d do during the first six weeks, but didn’t. Man, is that ever a long list.

Well, at least these are the things that I say I will do. But will I? Ah—therein lies the question. Can I be trusted to keep the promises that I make to myself? Have I followed up on my hopes and dreams in the past? If I fail to live up to my own expectations, will I become my own judge and jury, or will I simply become an observer and say, “Huh. Well would you look at that? Maybe there’s a better way to do it in the the next round.”

So again, my inner voice (the noisy one) launches into overdrive with questions that seem to defy answers. Does my disappointment really matter in the overall scheme of things? Do my thoughts and feelings make a difference in the world? Do my hopes, dreams, and expectations have an impact on my life, or on the lives of others? Where is the quiet Voice of Reason that has answers to these mysterious questions when I need It?

Oh, We are here, patiently awaiting your realization that you have wandered away for a spell. We know that you are aware of your wanderings, and that you have allowed distractions to lure you away from your inner being; We know that you feel as if you have disappointed yourself yet again. Your discouragement comes not from outer circumstances, but from within the part of you that yearns to reunite with your True Self. Your salvation will come when you realize that the only way for you to be sprung (to use your word) back into freedom is to reaffirm your commitment to doing those things which you know are in your own best interests, and in the best interests of the world.

In your wanderings, you have temporarily lost sight of your mission and purpose. We encourage you to reignite the flame of expectancy. So dear one, hope your hopes, and dream your dreams, and know that the power and energy of your True Self will fuel their manifestation. Coupled with faith, you cannot fail.

Know that We love and support you; We stand behind you always; We are ever ready to be the wind beneath your wings as your soar toward the highest and best within yourself. You have as many opportunities as you will ever need to realize your True Self, and we joyfully await your arrival at the ultimate destination of the Soul.

Thank you, dear Friends, for helping me to reconnect with my Self. As I do so, it suddenly occurs to me that my one drop in the ocean does indeed affect the entire ocean. Meanwhile, should I become lost amidst the waves again, I trust that you will come and find me.

If the focus of my mind becomes the reality of my world, then what is it that I wish to manifest? Well for starters, how about an ocean of love?

That sounds like a mighty good place to start, right?

And by the way, I am happy to report that as I come to the end of a newly-written blog, yesterday’s disappointment has morphed into today’s gratitude for second chances. Six more weeks to manifest hopes and dreams. Hallelujah. Ground hog day lives on!

A final note from a reluctant author: self-promotion is the bane of this writer’s existence, but I’m going to do it anyway. After all, how else will hopes and dreams become reality if I’m afraid to give them a little push? So, here goes folks: Please check out my book on Amazon. Voices: Who’s in Charge of the Committee in My Head? For more information, see Something New is on the Way (October 31, 2021). I thank you so much!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Note: The photo above is courtesy of New Waves of Light, a website designed by anonymous individuals around the world who share the intention of bringing light and love to a world of darkness and chaos. (newwavesoflight.org or NWOL.us)

The Power of Kindness

This morning while I was bumbling around in my unbelievably jumbled computer files in hot pursuit of an elusive file and lamenting the fact that I haven’t published a blog for three weeks, I unexpectedly came upon a letter that I had written years ago in praise of a fellow employee who was the manager the espresso bar where I worked.

It wasn’t my intention to plagiarize myself today, but hey—desperate times call for desperate measures. Three weeks is a long time in a blogless world, and the message in this letter is a timeless reminder of the power of kindness and of how I want to be when I grow up. So self-plagiarize I shall, and here we go . . .

“You know that you’ve arrived when they see you coming, greet you by name, and have your favorite drink ready for you by the time you get to the counter to pay for it. But the other day, I had more than “just arrived.” Thanks to Fred, fabulous manager that he is, I became Queen for a Day.

As always, I allowed myself enough time to get my favorite coffee fix before starting work. When I saw the length of the line, my shoulders slumped and my heart sank a little as I turned on my heel, departed from the line, and headed for work sans coffee to be there on time.

About a half-hour later, I decided to try my luck again. The thought was barely complete when I looked up to see Fred rounding the corner with a cup of coffee in his hand, and he was headed in my direction. He stopped, put the coffee on the counter, smiled, and said, “I saw you in line, and didn’t want you to be disappointed. I don’t know what you like in it, so I brought you several choices.” With that, he dropped a variety of sweetener packets beside the coffee and turned to leave – but he didn’t get away before I raced around the counter to give him a big hug—back in the day when it was still safe to hug an employee regardless of gender.

It doesn’t take very much to put a smile on someone’s face, and the smile that Fred put on mine with his random act of kindness spread to all the other faces I met that day. Never underestimate the power of one small act of kindness toward another. Like throwing a pebble in a pond, the ripples extend outward into infinity and touch lives in ways that we cannot possibly know. Just imagine how many lives may have been uplifted by that one kind act on the part of one very thoughtful person.

I’m going to love and appreciate Fred for all I’m worth while he’s there, because I know that he won’t last long. He’ll be moved on to bigger things before I can say “Tall American with caramel, please.” On the other hand, maybe if we’re lucky, Fred will decide to be like the enlightened monk who spent the later years of his life in the service of others simply by making omelets with such love that people came from miles around to just be in his presence. Yep. That’s just how I want to be when I grow up.”

With gratitude for all kindness both great and small, and love to all.

The Happy Factor

Do you ever wake up in some sort of a vague funk and wonder why? Me too. Sometimes I go through half the day before I realize that the sun isn’t shining in River City, and that things aren’t quite the way I’d rather have them be. If I’m lucky, the light dawns before the day ends and I have a chance to adjust the settings before my head hits the pillow for another night of sleep.

Today is one such day. The good news is that I have come to this realization early in the day, with time enough to make in-flight corrections before I hit the feathers again tonight. The other news is that sometimes that’s easier said than done. Though I may recognize that the sun is hiding behind the clouds, I’m not always able to get past the shadow back into the light.

So I meditate. I take a walk. I have a little come-to-Jesus chat with myself until it finally hits me. Ah—my happy factor is off. Why is that, I wonder?

As a kid, I remember doing silly little experiments, like closing one eye and then the other to see how my perception of things would change. Close the left eye and suddenly, half of my world disappears. Close the right, and the view shifts to an entirely new scene. If ten people witness an accident, they all see it from a different perspective.

It occurs to me that this morning, I awakened in the shadow of a deep sadness related to the way things appear to be in the world, and an ominous feeling that what I am seeing is just the way things are and that there is no hope for change. I am seeing what is wrong rather than what is right. The view from that perspective is enough to drag even the sunniest of souls down into the doldrums. That’s not a nice place to live. It’s not even a nice place to visit.

Nope. Now that I’ve realized it, I’m not buying into it. But then the question becomes, “Yeah, but how do I get myself out of it? I invite myself to check the level of my happy factor. On a scale of one to ten, I’m about a four. Oops. That’s not a great number. So how do I pump myself up? Well, I can meditate, take a walk, or have another come-to-Jesus chat with myself, but if that doesn’t work, then what?

Oh, right! I can ask for help. So often I forget that I have the capability to check into a part of myself that is so much wiser than the me that I think that I am. Why do I keep forgetting that? Just the simple thought that I have such a powerful resource within me comforts me and automatically raises my happy factor level up a few of notches. And so I ask, then I sit back and wait, grateful in the knowledge that because I have asked, I will be answered. Help is on the way. I close my eyes on a shadowed world and when I open them the sun is shining again.

I have always found that asking for help is the magic elixir that soothes the soul and solves all problems. Now if I can just remember to remember . . .

May sunshine spread light in your heart today and every day.

The Sound of Guidance

I hopped into the car with my big bowl of fruit salad and headed off to into the countryside to enjoy a nice visit with family. I had been forewarned of road closures and was well armed with careful instructions and my trusty GPS which soon gave out, leaving me with an ominous feeling of lostness along with a sense of mounting panic.

At a red light I saw my granddaughter hanging out of the passenger’s window of my daughter’s car frantically waving to get my attention. Ahh. Saved. They’ll know where we are going. The light changed and off we go, but a white pickup truck wedged itself between the two of us, and while she raced ahead, he poked. I had a few expletives deleted going on in my head as I willed him to hurry up, get out of my way, or disappear himself off on the next turn. It didn’t happen. He just stuck like a turtle on molasses while my daughter disappeared off into the distance.

Finally, things seemed to improve until we came upon an unexpected road closure and had to turn around and detour around the detour without any detour signs. All of us had lost GPS as well as reliable phone communication. Meanwhile, I still haven’t lost that $#$@#$ pickup. By now it is obvious that we are all hopelessly lost on country roads and I have lost any hope that we will ever get where we’re going.

Then, miraculously, we come across another granddaughter who joins the caravan and leads us safely to our destination where we arrive over a half an hour late. Damned white pickup is still with us. We park, get out of our cars in various states of temperament ranging from anger to hysteria. Mine was hysteria when I discovered that white-truck guy is my former son-in-law. I’ve been mentally screaming at him, while he was mentally screaming at my daughter trying to tell her that she was going the wrong way. Another family adventure to laugh about for years to come.

In my morning-after armchair recap, it occurs to me that sometimes I have gone along in life blindly putting my faith in a leader who is clueless. Sometimes I turn my power over to another who I think might know more than I do, giving my authority away to someone who may not have the best interests of myself or others at heart. Sometimes I place my misdirected anger at some poor unsuspecting soul who is just trying to get to his own destination while I am prodding from behind urging him to hurry up, willing him to go somewhere, anywhere to get out of my way. Sometimes I make a lot of assumptions, make a lot of mistakes, and take a lot of wrong turns.

Too often in life I have placed my faith in external systems like GPS—a Global Positioning System—rather than in my own personal GPS—Guidance Protection Service. In searching for a destination, my external system failed, but my internal system guided me to “accidentally” find my family caravan and arrive safely at our destination.

Let this be a lesson to me to relax, trust, and remember that even though I may think otherwise, I am never lost. I am always guided and protected by loving Beings who do indeed have my best interests are heart and whose intention and purpose it is to guide me safely to my destination. However in the world does one have enough gratitude to say thank you for such a blessing?