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Latest Daily Words
Follow Your Dreams
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.” — Henry David Thoreau
Every one has dreams, no matter how big or how small they may seem to you. You may dream of starting a garden, building a business, or saving the world. You call yourself into your greater life through the power of these dreams, but you may wonder how to start.
Following your dreams is like getting into a cool pool on a hot summer day. You can dive in head first or you can slowly ease yourself in, step by step. Standing at the edge in fear or uncertainty will never get you into the pool or moving in the direction of your dreams!
Reflection: How do you like to start something – ease on into it or take the plunge? What dream is calling you to start?
Affirmation: I go confidently in the direction of my dream. I live the life I have always imagined.
Stop Complaining!
“Constant complaint is the poorest sort of pay for all the comforts we enjoy” — Benjamin Franklin
“As selfishness and complaint pervert and cloud the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision” — Helen Keller
Become part of creating a complaint-free world. Complaining about the weather, taxes, children, or freeway drivers simply focuses your attention on what you don’t like. Every time you start to complain, find something else to praise instead. It will change everything!
Reflection: List your favorite things to complain about. Pick three that you will never complain about again. Then add three more.
Affirmation: I live in a complaint free zone in my mind, in my thoughts, and in my speech.
Talking to Yourself
“The inner speech, your thoughts, can cause you to be rich or poor, loved or unloved, happy or unhappy, attractive or unattractive, powerful or weak.” — Ralph Charell
The way in which you speak to yourself about yourself, your life, and the events around you will share the way you see them and how you will respond. The things you say over and over again to yourself in your head, things like “I’m tired”, “I’m too busy”, or “I don’t have enough money for that” – become affirmations which your subconscious mind accepts as real. Noticing and changing your habitual self-talk is one of the most powerful spiritual practices you can do in your life.
Start speaking to yourself about the good, positive and beautiful things that are going on. Speak to yourself in the same loving and supportive way you would to a friend. This way you are speaking those things you want to experience into your subconscious mind, which than shapes into your reality.
Reflection: What is the nature of your habitual self-talk? What do you talk to yourself about? How do you talk to yourself?
Affirmation: I speak loving, positive, and spiritually grounded words to myself about myself and my life.
Feel Your Feelings
“See that each hour’s feelings and thoughts and actions are pure and true; then your life will be also.” — Henry Ward Beecher
Feel your feelings; They are a natural part of this life experience. The important thing is to feel them cleanly and express them purely. Do not act upon your feelings in a destructive and hurtful manner neither toward another nor towards yourself. When you are hurt or mad, simply say so. You can say it with a great deal of vehemence and energy that is without attack or blame.
Just as importantly, when you are joyous and happy, enjoy it without guilt or shame, just don’t require others to be in the same place. When you are determined, go for it without running over anyone else. And when you feel like playing, invite the whole world to play with you!
Reflection: Which feelings am I most able and willing to feel and share? Which ones do I avoid or express inappropriately?
Affirmation: I allow my feelings to wash over me like waves on a beach. I enjoy surfing them, without avoidance or drowning.
Pay Attention
Pay attention to what you are paying attention to. Do you tend to point out what’s not working, what needs to be corrected, or someone’s faults or flaws? IF this is all you are noticing, then you are missing what’s working, how much someone is doing, or how perfectly something could work out if you’re not getting in the way. What you pay attention to becomes the magnet for your life. The very things you don’t want or like become the mold for what you are creating.
Pay attention to, focus on and speak about what is working, no matter how small. Notice how things work out. Speak about the best in people and how much they do actually give and do. Watch how your life begins to grow in a more positive direction instead of recreating more of what you don’t want.
Reflection: What is my favorite litany of complaint? What could I focus on instead?
Affirmation: I turn my attention to what is working. I notice the positive. I speak what I like and want into being.
Making Choices
“We cannot live a choiceless life. Every day, every moment, every second, there is choice. If it were not so we would not be individuals.” — Ernest Holmes
Remember that you are never stuck, it only feels that way. You are always free to change you mind. You are free to take a new road, make a new decision, make a new choice. This does not mean that there won’t be consequences for make a new choice, but you already know that. It is only your fear or your unwillingness to be uncomfortable, that keeps you stuck.
You are free to express your life uniquely as you choose. There is no prize for staying and no reward to going. In either case, you will learn and grow and have the opportunity to become more of yourself. The joy is in being true to who you are, no matter where your choices lead you.
Reflection: Where are you stuck? What choices are you unwilling to contemplate because you don’t like the consequences?
Affirmation: I exercise the power of my choice and walk confidently through the changes in my life.
Earth School
“The world is your exercise-book, the pages on which you do your sums. It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish. You are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or to tear the pages.” “Illusions” — Richard Bach
You are enrolled in Earth School. One of the major courses in this school is the education of your power of choice. You are learning about the freedom you have to choose and, then, to take responsibility for your choices. Every choice you make teaches you something about you, and life and the Divine. Your choices show you how what happens when you choose in alignment with yourself and your true nature, or when you don’t.
Not every choice is the right one, or works out the way you think it will. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes; just remember to learn from them. Learning which choices support your joy, love, growth, expression, happiness, and connection, and which don’t, is what it’s all about.
Reflection: What choices are you making these days? What are your choices teaching you?
Affirmation: I am confident and capable of making choices that are in alignment with my highest truth. I learn from every choice and every mistake.
The Call of the Soul
“Find me one person who can get his own littleness out of the way and he shall reveal to me the immeasurable magnitude of the universe in which I live.” — Ernest Holmes
Joy and happiness are not experiences you find or create. These are the product of a soul in tune with itself and in alignment with Life. What calls to your soul? What is your life about? These are questions that reveal your purpose, your reason for being in the world, on the planet, at this particular time. Answering these questions will help you discover your purpose.
Then seek to be about the purpose that is unfolding in your life, and you will find joy and happiness where you least expect them. Go looking to live your purpose, be about what you are here for, and joy will sneak into your life and your heart. Happiness will no longer be something you want or look for. It will be the place you live from, every day.
Reflection: Explore how you are chasing happiness? Notice when you are living your purpose and see if happiness is already there?
Affirmation: I am aligned with my true purpose. This fills my life with Joy and Happiness.
From the Expanded Vista
“By fighting for the impossible, one begins to make it possible.” — Oscar Arias
For the mystic, it’s about the constant conscious contact with the Infinite. When a less than pleasant dynamic arises in life, can you remember to touch the Infinite and trust this union will provide all that is necessary?
It’s easy to get caught up thinking, “I know what’s best here and how everything is supposed to turn out” … then outlining the orders to the universe as to how to fix things. A healthier approach is to courageously pause and turn within and listen for a higher guidance to show a way beyond the present engaged human perspective.
Allow your perspective and proclamations to come from an expanded vista and your resolutions from revelations.
Reflection: Where in my life would it be good to pause and listen for a higher perspective in a difficult situation?
Affirmation: I am a positive contributor to life!
Accepting Responsibility
“Responsibility is to keep the ability to respond.” — Robert Duncan
One of the greatest challenges on the spiritual path is to realize that you are responsible for your life and your choices. At first this can feel like a heavy burden or assuming you are to blame for everything in your life. The best way to understand responsibility is to realize that be taking responsibility for something you are giving yourself the ability to respond to what it. If you don’t take responsibility, you can’t actually do anything about something for which you are not willing to take responsibility, not for creating it, but for responding to it.
When something happens in your life, blaming yourself or looking for who’s at fault simply keeps you stuck in being a victim. Taking responsibility means looking at the choices that you now have before you.. What is the healthiest, sanest, most wholesome choice you can make, from where you are right now? What choice can you make the makes the greatest contribution or makes a difference. Now you aren’t a victim nor are you stuck. Now you are taking responsibility for your life!
Reflection: Is there some part of my life for which I don’t want to take responsibility? How could I engage my ability to respond? What new choice does that give me?
Affirmation: I am willing and capable of taking responsibility for me life. I have the ability to respond to any situation or circumstance because I have the help and support of Spirit!!
The Law of Attraction
“We do not take what we wish, but we do attract to ourselves that which is like our thought. MAN MUST BECOME MORE IF HE WISHES TO DRAW A GREATER GOOD INTO HIS LIFE.” — Ernest Holmes
The Law of Attraction works like a magnet. What you are on the inside, who you feel yourself to be, and how much life you can imagine yourself experiencing, this is what your magnet is made out of. Since Like attract like, your magnet attracts to itself exactly that from which it is made.
Know that you can attract a beautiful, meaningful, fulfilling life. You begin by becoming on the inside what you want on the outside. Become the Love you want. Become the Joy your desire. Sense on the inside what a generous, prosperous person would feel like and imagine yourself living from that place.
Start expecting to experience these things. Start imagining yourself in this beautiful, meaningful, fulfilling life. By creating the space in your consciousness to BE it, it will be attracted to you like a butterfly to a glorious flower!
Reflection: What kind of a magnet am I? What have I been attracting?
Affirmation: I am a magnet for love, joy, prosperity, and blessing. I attract only good to me, because only good pours out from me!
Seeing Inner Beauty
“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.” Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
A friend once said “People, you can’t live with them, and you can’t live without ‘em!” People can be challenging and frustrating to work with and relate to. They are also a source of compassion, connection, and down-right fun in our lives. The world is full of amazing, committed, powerful, and sensitive people. The world is full of flawed, challenging, and troublesome people. It just so happens that they are the same people. Which ones are you focusing on?
The thing is we can’t see in others what we don’t have in ourselves. Often we project unto others what we don’t want to see in ourselves. In this way, the people in our lives become a mirror in which we can more accurately see how we are feeling about ourselves. And as we change what we focus on in others, we will change the focus within ourselves, too!
Reflection: How are you experiencing the people in your life, in general. Are you finding yourself irritated by many folks or do you constantly run into the helpful sort? How is this a reflection of where you are right now?
Affirmation: Everyone I meet is a radiant child of the One Life. I shine my light and love by focusing on their light and inner beauty.
Look for Possibilities
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” — Helen Keller
Quantum physics teaches that we live in a Universe that is influenced by the observer. In experiment after experiment, it has been shown that what the observer expects to see influences the way the material in the experiment behaves. Who is the observer in the experiment of your life? You are. What you expect to see influences the way your life unfolds.
So stop looking for what doesn’t work. Stop trying to find the weak point. Every time you focus on these things you help make them appear in your reality. Start looking for the greater good. Start looking for the possibility. Start imagining how it might be true or might work. With your optimism you are now positively influencing the very fabric of creation to conspire for your great good. Now, go out and expect your good to unfold in your life!
Reflection: Where are you looking for what’s wrong or focusing on what’s not working? What positive thing can you focus on instead?
Affirmation: I focus on my life with optimism and enthusiasm. I look for those places where things are working and where I am fulfilled and happy.
Beyond Either/Or is Possibility Thinking
“A false dilemma (also called false dichotomy, the either-or fallacy, fallacy of false choice, black-and-white thinking, or the fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses) is a type of logical fallacy that involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there is at least one additional option. The options may be a position that is between the two extremes (such as when there are shades of grey) or may be a completely different alternative. “ — Wikipedia
In an infinite Universe, there is so much more creativity and possibility than “either-or”. Black and white thinking limits the Limitless. Seek other alternatives by thinking outside the box. In addition to something in between, or something completely new, there may be a 3rd way which “transcends and includes”, as Ken Wilbur describes it, the two seemingly opposite sides.
Reflection: Where in my life do I only see two options or alternatives? What might be some alternative ways of seeing or doing this? List them here no matter how silly or stupid them seem to you.
Affirmation: Spirit is infinite, so there is never only “either/or” choices. There is always 3rd, 4th or 5th alternative. I am creative and open enough to see these other options.
Compete or Cooperate – Survive or Thrive
“If you want to be incrementally better: Be competitive. If you want to be exponentially better: Be cooperative.” — Unknown
Competition comes from a scarcity mentality. In a soccer game there may only be able to be one winner, but this is seldom true in almost any other area of life. In business there are certainly many more than one customer; in creating or inventing there is more than one idea. For resources of people, money or energy there is always more than one source; and for recognition there are so many opportunities to go around..
In truth, there is no competition, unless it exists in your own mind. Spirit is infinite, so how can there be competition for resources, recognition, or success? In an Infinite Universe there is enough to go around. Try moving from competition to collaboration. You’ll be amazed at how much more relaxed life can be.
Reflection: Where does my belief in scarcity show up as a sense of competition. How could I cooperate instead?
Affirmation: I know there is enough, and more than enough of everything I need for my success. I no longer fear or engage in competition. I cooperate with the Universe for my, and others, highest good.