Friends and An Ancient Lesson
We have a lovely couple visiting for a couple of days who we met on the Pacific Crest Trail this summer, Lyndsay and Jordan. They ended up finishing a couple weeks after us, and spent some time enjoying Canada. It’s great to get to spend a couple of days with them before they head back home to Tennessee. We actually met them somewhat early on in our pilgrimage this year, and actually last saw them in southern California. I had wondered about them many times along the trail, and did not hear how they were doing. I am glad we got in touch right at the end!
We had a lovely day today. It was relaxing, and we visited some beautiful places around Bellingham. I really liked this picture of them enjoying the views out toward the islands. Tomorrow we journey to the San Juan Islands. It should be a great outing, and I hope to get some nice pictures out there! We get to go on a Ferry ride, and thats always a great experience.
Tonight we all watched the movie Kung Fu Panda. Cute, as expected, but it also had a great message. I love the disney movies, because even though its usually a basic concept they are very profound if you take a moment to reflect on it. So I leave you with this thought:
There is no ‘hidden ingredient’ to transform us into something special,
We are special.
Love
Love is our natural state of being,
We are often out of balance with this state of being,
It takes more work to be out of balance
than to experience Love in each moment.
Watch the world around you,
How many times each day can you see examples of Love?
How can you bring more Love into your life?
How do you experience Love on a daily basis?
This thought was inspired by these carrots that I pulled out of our garden.
The Two Big R’s
There are two words that I think are very powerful in our human being experience,
Respect
&
Responsibility
These seem simple enough, but our society seems to have lost any concept of what they represent. If you spend some time watching whats out of balance in how our society functions on a daily basis, I think you will find the lack of Responsibility and Respect.
When we take responsibility for ourselves, we acknowledge that we are the writers of our own story. We create each situation that we are in, and the concequences that go along with it. Of course this is big, and not easy to do all the time. So we have found it much easier to simply not take any responsibility for ourselves or our lives. Why admit that we might not have made the right choice when we can blame someone else? When we take responsibility for ourselves, the world can no longer push us around, because we realize that we have created every moment in our life, and we can change our direction at any time.
Respect is a pyramid effect. We start by respecting ourselves, and with that simple action we will respect everything around us. If we respect ourselves we have to surround ourselves with things that we respect, whether that is the food that we put into our body, the people that we spend time with, the nature that envelops us. As we start to pay attention to respect we can’t help but make a difference in the world around us.
If you start to feel helpless or frustrated in life, ask yourself if you are practicing the two big R’s. In what way do you take responsibility for yourself, and respect yourself the most?
Inspiration
When you are Inspired by some great purpose,
some extraordinary project,
all your thoughts break their bonds,
your mind transcends limitations,
your conciousness expands in every direction,
and you find yourself in a new,
great and wonderful world.
Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive,
and you discover yourself to be a greater person
by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.
~Patanjali Yoga (c.200 BC)
When we are inspired by the now, we do what we love with each moment.
What Inspires you?
What have you discovered about yourself?
Daily Reminders
When we are trying to incorporate a new point of view/thought process into our lives, it’s important to have daily reminders of what we are trying to accomplish. This is a central point to many of the different books I have read over the last couple of years.
Every thing we do/think/say is part of our programming. We pick up programming from everywhere, our parents, school, society, friends, etc. When we become aware that we are stuck in a program that no longer serves us in how we want to live, we need to reprogram ourselves. This starts with identifying the aspect we would like to let go of, and figure out what we would prefer to have in its place. An example that many people might be able to identify with is worry. Fear is a highly utilized manipulation in our society, so it is easy for us to get swept up in worry. Ok, so I want to ease out of worry in my life and bring in confidence and calm.
The first step is to acknowledge when you are feeling worried about something. Don’t punish yourself when you become aware of it, simply note that you are feeling that, and replace it with a more confident, positive thought. The more you practice this, you will find yourself doing less of the thing that you would like to experience less, and more of what you want. Now one of the best ways to help with this is to have a daily reminder. It can be a little note that hangs in a place you look often, it can be a bookmark that says something profound applying to your situation if you read a lot, it could be so many endless things I can’t even begin to list them here. What ever it is, you will know if it helps you!
Two of my most powerful daily reminders is two rings that I wear. It’s the only jewelry I wear most of the time. They are simple, but pretty. When I saw them I knew I had to have them. The one I wear on my left hand says “life is good” and the one I wear on my right hand says “do what you love” on the outside and “love what you do” on the inside. This ring was the inspiration for my blog title. Sometimes I only see their message on a subconscious level, but most days at least once I really do stop and focus on the words inscribed on them. These words are endlessly important to me, because my main goal in life is to enjoy it! This can be hard to do once in a while, we all get wrapped up in our own personal drama, or outside drama. But if we have that daily reminder, it makes it easier to come back to the place that we want to be as the world swirls around us.
So find that item(s) that does it for you, that thing that really speaks to you. So that every time you look at it you get that deep down feeling that you are reading one of the sacred truths in life.
