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Latest Daily Words
Seeing Clearly
“And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?” — Matthew
How much of what you complain about in another person is actually a projection of what you yourself do? When someone really gets your goat and you have a lot of judgment about what they are doing, it may be time to stop and ask yourself “How is this person’s behavior a reflection of my own?” We often project onto another our own suppressed or unconscious feelings and beliefs. Thus if we tend towards arrogance, but don’t want to admit it, we may find ourselves immensely irritated by the arrogant people in our lives.
Spiritual maturity seeks to understand what is triggered within you that produce the feelings of blame, shame, anger, or withdrawal. You begin to see that this person is simply mirroring yourself back to you. Seeing yourself clearly allows you to admit and own a way of believing or behaving, which then allows you to change it. In turn, this allows you to see the other person more clearly, and with more loving eyes.
Contemplate: Find someone in your life that is really irritating you, then ask yourself “when have I acted in this same manner?” You may be projecting your own stuff onto that other person.
Affirmation: I look clearly at myself an others, with loving eyes and an open heart.
Accept the Good
“Give thanks, and praise the Spirit of God for the law of the self-increasing potency of every substance….There is good in the Universe, and I ought to have it.” — Emma Curtis Hopkins
Your life can never be too good. Your happiness does not take anything from anyone else. You do actually deserve to have a wonderful, fulfilling and meaningful life. You don’t have to earn it by being perfect nor do you have to be worry about there not being enough to go around.
Sometimes you may feel you have to pay a tax for your wonderful life. You may pay your tax in worry, control, waiting for the other shoe to drop, or simply an inability to accept your good. However, there is NO tax to pay for Spirit’s bounty, joy, love, and presence. Simply practice enjoying it!
Contemplation: Are you enjoying and accepting the bounties, joy, love and meaning in your life? Where is worry draining your joy away?
Affirmation: I accept my good. I accept my good. I accept my good!
Taking Responsibility
“People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.” — Unknown
Knowing that you create your own reality is one thing, but what about when you are confronted with someone in your life that you don’t remember actually wanting, choosing or creating? Perhaps it’s a difficult boss or a disgruntled client, or a whiney friend. Do you have to take responsibility for creating them too?
Think of it like we are all actors playing in the movie of life. Everyone gets to write their own script, but then them other people to play the parts. Those folks are also writing their own scripts. When two scripts fall into alignment, we get to play in each others movies.
Sometimes people are playing a role in our movie–we attracted them to live out our beliefs about life. Sometimes we are playing a part in their movie. Usually, it’s some portion of both. Determining which part is yours and which is theirs, helps you do the healing work that is here for you to do, and not take personally the part which is theirs to heal.
Contemplate: Who have you attracted to play out a part of your story? Where are you playing out a part in someone else’s story?
Affirmation: I take responsibility for the script I write and the part I play in my own and other people’s lives. I allow them to take responsibility for the parts that are theirs.
Presence is Always Present
“It is ideas of God which if you shepherd well, will get you into that state of mind called heaven, when you have health, judgment, prosperity.… To say that ‘My Good is supply, God is my Good, therefore God is my supply’ is to stir the mountains and the seas to bring us our new provisions.” — Emma Curtis Hopkins
The most powerful spiritual practice is more than simply sitting on your meditation cushion in the morning and seeking the Presence. It is taking that experience of the Presence with you into your daily life. This means that you know that Spirit is in every situation or circumstance, all you have to do is notice it and call it forth.
So this means that whenever you are uncertain about what is going on, bring a spiritual principle into the process. Find a quality of Spirit that could be revealed. Seek a healing thought within yourself. Remind yourself of a spiritual truth that is applicable to the situation and watch everything turn around.
Contemplation: What are some of your favorite spiritual principles/truths?
Affirmation: Spirit is all there is, in every situation, person or event. I remember a spiritual truth in any moment of concern, worry or doubt.
Good Must Come of It!
“Trials, temptations, disappointments — all these are helps instead of hindrances if one uses them rightly. They not only test the fiber of character but strengthen it. Every conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.” — James Buckham
There’s an old Chinese story about a framer whose only horse ran away, and all his friends said that’s too bad. Then when the horse returned followed by a string of mares, they all declared in amazement how good this was. But then the farmer’s son tried to break on of the new mares and fell off and broke his leg instead. Wasn’t that too bad? The next day when the army came marching through to take all the young men off to war, the farmers son wasn’t taken because his leg was broken. And so there was great good that came from the horse running away!
There is a silver lining to every cloud and good must come of everything you call “bad.” This is true because you declare and demand it from the Universal Law of Life! So, good is made of something that starts out as bad, even if you don’t know what that good is… today, or next week, or next month. Simply trust that it is so!
Contemplate: When have you had something that you thought was bad, turn out to be a blessing or a great good? Is there something going on right now in your life that is calling for this perspective?
Affirmation: I trust that everything turns out for the best, for myself and for everyone involved.
No Separation
“As there is no screen or ceiling between our heads and the infinite heavens, so there is no bar or wall in the soul where we, the effect, cease, and God, the cause begins.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is no barrier between you and the One Infinite Spirit! Life is a continuum from the infinite to the finite, from energy to matter, and from spirit to form, from the Divine to the human. As with any continuum there is no switch or door that marks the passage from one side to the other, simply somewhere in the middle things shift. Right at the point where the one turns into the other – where spirit becomes form and energy becomes matter – right there is where you live.
You are the place where heaven and earth meet. This is what makes you a co-creator of your life. You can use the Laws of Spirit to create in the realm of your human experience. This means you can bring about Heaven on Earth.
Contemplate: Become consciously aware of this open channel between the human and the divine. Can you tell where one starts and the other leaves off?
Affirmation: There is no place where I stop and Universal Spirit starts. I am not all of the Universal, but Universal Spirit is all that I am.
Doubt and Faith
“Here we may meet difficulties, uncertainties and doubts, barriers walling our passage. But we must not be discouraged when so confronted. We must climb over the rocks of unbelief, pass around the barriers of doubt and plunge into the stream with faith. The stream will ever widen; the barriers will gradually disappear; though we walk through the plains and valleys of indecision and doubt, the stream will still carry us back to the ocean of our being.” — Ernest Holmes
How many times have you been confronted by doubt? Each time you set out to grow, deepen or leap across into a new possibility, and something inside you wonders if its real or true or even possible, you have the opportunity to root out your own unbelief, face your doubt, and reveal a deeper faith..
When doubt creeps in, reach out for help. When your belief is faint, find someone whose belief is strong. When you forget Truth, seek out spiritual reminders. When you do not know what else to do, remember to pray, and have others pray with you. Yeah, though you walk through the very Valley of Shadow, do not let your fear run away with you. You do not walk alone.
Contemplate: When was the last time you reached out for help, support and prayer? Are you comfortable and willing to ask for help?
Affirmation: I courageously face my doubt with the conviction of my faith. I rely on the faith of those around me until my own faith is strong.
Walking in Oneness
“Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Centre, a speaking voice, to which we may continuously return. Eternity is at our hearts, pressing upon our time-torn lives, warming us with intimations of an astounding destiny, calling us home unto itself.” — Thomas R. Kelly
There is something so inviting about the idea of the Garden of Eden, a magical place where humans walked and talked openly with Spirit. This myth speaks powerfully of the longing to return to an innocent, ideal state of Oneness with the Divine. This longing is often captured in a nostalgia for an innocence of childhood, of the “good old days” of our youth.
This intuition of your childhood innocence and sense of oneness is the very thing driving your Spiritual Quest. But you cannot go back. You can never unlearn your own self-awareness You can only go forward. Do not try to re-live or re-create the “good ole’ days”. Seek a deeper oneness and a conscious innocence within your life today. You discover the Presence as your constant companion. You will discover a conscious, mature communion with the Divine, knowing you have chosen Oneness over everything else.
Contemplate: Imagine what it would be like if you knew and experienced that you already walk and talk with Spirit, and live in the Oneness every day, right now. Now contemplate that this is actually true.
Affirmation: I walk in oneness with the Divine. Spirit is my constant companion.
Cultivate Beginner’s Mind
“The mind that dies every day to the memories of yesterday, to all the joys and sorrows of the past such a mind is fresh, innocent, it has no age; and without that innocence, whether you are ten or sixty, you will not find God.” — J. Krishnamurti
In Zen Buddhism there is a notion called “beginner’s mind.” This is the mind you have when you approach something completely knew for the very first time. It is a mind open to discovering this new thing, unburdened by judgment, comparisons, or pre-conceived ideas. It is a mind open to possibilities and receptive to to what is immediate and current reality in the present moment. This mind is capable of anything.
To move more easily and openly in your life, to discover new possibilities and to be available to intuition and Divine Guidance, you must learn to let go of your pre-conceived ideas about “how it should be”. Release your need to be in control! Let judgment, comparisons, resentments and unforgiveness die from lack of attention. This is the tomb of the dark night of the soul. Rest here a moment, and revel in the freedom.
Contemplate: What situation in your life is calling for you to have “beginner’s mind.” What needs to die in you today, so your life can blossom into the beauty it’s meant to be.
Affirmation: Today I approach my life with an open beginner’s mind. I release and let die any old hurts, judgements, and expectations. I embrace my life fresh and new.
Inviting in Joy
“We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.” — Buddha
Many people spend their lives chasing happiness, trying to buy it from the store, find it in a new relationship, or looking for it in the approval of others. Any one of these things may make you happy for a moment, but then it fades, and the search is on again. Joy, on the other hand, is natural state of your inner being because it is the Natural State of the Divine. The Divine Love experiences only Joy in its expression of creation and in it’s own Boringness.
Joy sneaks into your life when you are least expecting it. Joy creeps in when you are busy living life to the fullest, being happy with whom you are becoming, and finding the good in the people and situations around you. Make space for Joy to find its way into your lap, like a contented cat!
Contemplate: What is the difference between chasing happiness and discovering joy?
What is your joy quotient today?
Affirmation: Joy wells up from the center of my being. It is the natural state of my soul. Everything in my life conspires toward greater joy.
Enjoying Newness
Spring is a wonderful time of new beginnings, new life, new growth. After a season of disruption and feeling isolated and stagnant, now is the time to create something new. Life is inviting you into the spring of your own life. Don’t go back to the old ways and old habits. Create something new, make space for something new, or decide something new.
Contemplation: How can you create spring somewhere in your life? What would you like growing in the garden of your life?
Affirmation: Out of disruption comes possibility and my life is renewed this spring
Bloom Where You are Planted
Sometimes a new life seems to be calling us. Is it really? The most useful question to ask yourself is “Are you running to something or running from something?” If you are running to something, then by all means, set you intention, take the plunge and go for it.
Sometimes, however, what we really want to do is run from something. Yet we know that wherever we go, there we are. Perhaps this is the time to stay put and use this opportunity to grow. As we grow, we bloom in unexpected ways – giving up old stories, letting go of old beliefs, no longer re-creating the same old situations. When this is true, we can bloom right where we are planted.
Contemplation: Am I running from or to something? Can I bloom where I am planting?
Affirmation: I learn and grow wherever I am. I savor my life and bloom right where I am!
Expect Great Things
The bird stands ready at the edge of the nest. Never having spread its wings before, it still expects to fly! You stand at the edge of your life. Perhaps you have not had everything as you would like them to be in the past. However, you can still expect great things.
You were meant to be all that you can be, because you are the very incarnation of Spirit as You. Right now, just as you are, this is already true, even if you’ve not experienced it before. Stand at the edge of your life, spread your spiritual wings, and expect great things!
Contemplation: What is pulling you forward? Where does your life want to soar? Are you ready to fly?
Affirmation: I joyously expect great things in my life and for our world.
Put a Spring in Your Step
Your life is a gift to be enjoyed. You are part of the universe; you have a right to be here. Let this light your path, lift your heart and put a spring in your step.
Allow this truth to seep into your soul – your very being is a gift to the world. Your smile spreads love, your joy is infectious and your positive outlook lifts situations and people all around you.
Contemplation: How is your life a gift to you. How are you a gift to Life?
Affirmation: I give my gift and it makes a difference.
Weeding Your Mind
Once again you find yourself feeling the same doubts, the same anger or the same unpleasant feelings you’ve felt before; and once again they feel true and real. Where do these feelings come from? They are a product of thoughts and believes that are growing as weeds in the garden of your mind; Weeds of doubting yourself, because of something that happened to you in Jr. High; Weeds of inadequacy because of things your parents said to you; Weeds of anger, because your family constantly fought. However these weeds were planted, they are bearing fruit that is no longer what you choose to have in your life.
Contemplation: When have I felt this feeling before? When was the first time I felt it? How is this feeling being recreated over and over again in my life? What do I choose to believe instead? What do I know is my spiritual truth?
Affirmation: I weed out fear, anger, doubt, tension, and inadequacy. I know who I am and how I can make a difference.