Many are finding out what their true purpose is. Maybe it’s the heart of a caregiver, a nurse, or a doctor. Maybe your true purpose is to be a helper. Some help on the front lines, and some, like me, work from the energy that is present all around us; in the quiet, in the ether.
I started meditating when I was 18. Yoga was a thing back in the 70s, and I stretch and balanced my body in postures that have been around for thousands of years; postures that open up the energy centers of the body. Somehow being young helped.
Maybe it was because I had less dross floating around in my mind. Maybe it was because I had less defenses, and was more open. But it was a delicious experience that I expanded over time: regression meditations, sitting meditations, walking meditations, meditations lying down, meditation in the lotus position.
For awhile, things got so busy that meditating became more difficult. I had to make time to find that quiet place. But I never stopped. Now, once again, I have the time to focus on the energy. Right now I am focusing on the earth. When I look at the trees I think: the earth is so magnificent. Does the she know there is a pandemic raging? Maybe she does. Maybe on a quantum level, this pandemic is healing our dear Mother Earth.
So I sit in God’s light sending out good energy to the earth, the universe and everyone in it. I pray everyday that all sentient beings be free from suffering. I pray we find peace in stillness, and that the earth will heal, and that we will heal, and find a new way. A way, perhaps, that is more conscious of our Earth, and all we and she holds dear. I pray, and meditate on the thought, that we, and our dear Mother Earth, find our balance.
Love, peace, health and happiness always and forever,
The holiday most associated with February is Valentine’s Day. And so my blog will happily share what I’ve learned this month about the day.
Saint Valentine has long been associated with romantic love and Valentine’s Day. Since the 12th century, the day has become a recognized celebration of romantic love. Not only is St. Valentine a patron saint, but Valentine’s Day is a modern religious holiday. Before that, people celebrated a mid February pastoral festival for purification and health. Mid February was also connected to the belief that birds began pairing at this time. Whatever the origin, Valentine’s Day is now widely recognized as a day for romance and devotion, and why not? It makes sense to have a day where the collective consciousness of the planet is focus on love, instead of a myriad of other feelings.
To truly celebrate love in all its glories on Valentine’s Day, get quiet and bring the feeling of love into your heart center when you first wake up. Let it bloom into a mediation of the most romantic ideas you can imagine. Perhaps someone has brought you flowers, or made it a special day for you by spending the day with you in love and celebration. Think of thoughts like these. Or think of the person or persons in your life that have made your life meaningful. Dwell on your heart swells and let them expand out until they fill up your whole being. Then let the feeling of love cascade like a waterfall out to your partner and the world.
Give hugs and kisses, and other expressions of your affection. Take a day off from work and walk and hold hands, or cuddle up on the couch. Be present every moment of this one day in love. It will bring renewed joy into your relationship.
If you are still visioning a partner, spiritually wrap your love around everyone you meet. Be extra kind, considerate, caring, compassionate and joyful. On this day when love is celebrated, you may bump into your life partner just around the corner. With your love-beam shining, anything is possible!
You will find that the more you spread love, the more it will naturally come back to you. And don’t forget: you are worthy of all the love in the world. So give yourself a great big hug, too. Spoil yourself with a warm bubble bath or buy yourself some little treat if no one else does. Remember, God’s love is always there, waiting for you to embrace it, and God will embrace you.
I’m sure St. Valentine will be smiling, as will our God in heaven, when you spread love out into the world. For me, I send you warm, cuddly snuggles and heart candies that say, “Joy” “Bliss” “Love” and “Be Mine.”
“True symbiotic Love is pure, free, and enduring. It is a joyful dance of reciprocity between the giver and receiver. Neither person is the center of the equation. Love is the equation. We don’t act out of love; we act in a state of love at all times. It does not wax and wane depending on external or internal conditions. It is unconditional, unchanging and permanent. Our deepest desires and fears can be heard by our significant other because trust is abundant and both are filled with deep respect.
“True Love, Agape Love, embraces the totality of our experience here on earth, every emotion. Even if we make mistakes, and we will, True Love is different than raw desire or needy passion, because our motive is pure. Love can never abandon us unless we lose it in ourselves. We love because that is who we are. We love unconditionally all living creatures, all human beings, because love is all we know, and all we can be. . . .
“True Love is the threshold to all higher energies: bliss, which is a bubbling up of spirit; compassion, which is empathy for another; peace, a prolonged state of joy; and enlightenment, which is the level of powerful divine inspiration—the peak of human consciousness. . . .
“As we study love, become masters of love, and let go of our negative programming, we can know love, joy and peace as we have never known it before. We can have heaven on earth. . . .
“Today, I challenge you to begin anew, and reach for higher levels of loving. I invite you to bring the highest and best qualities of love, Agape love, True Love into all of your relationships.”
You are wonderful, you are beautiful, I love you just the way your are.
Recently I listened to a “Love Meditation” by Deepak Chopra, one of my mentors. You may be able to find it on the internet. It’s about putting yourself in a state of love consciousness, and you’re not going to believe how to do it! You do it by saying this to yourself silently in the mirror, to someone who is looking at you with love, or to someone whom you manifest and imagine is looking at you with love:
I am a beautiful person;
I am a wonderful person;
I love myself exactly as I am.
Now it may seem strange that the best way to send out love to the world is to love yourself. But it’s true. Just try it. Imagine your mate or significant other looking at you with loving eyes, and everything about their face and body language says, “I love you.” And silently in your mind you say:
I am a beautiful person;
I am a wonderful person;
I love myself exactly as I am.
Do you feel it? Do you feel that feeling of buoyancy that happens when you give love to yourself? It radiates out from you as love to others. Isn’t it amazing how the love you are able to receive, is directly related to the amount of love you have for yourself?
That’s worth saying again: the amount of love you are able to give or receive is directly related to the amount of love that you have for yourself.
So, the next time someone says, “I love you,” look into their eyes, and smile, and say silently to yourself:
I am a beautiful person;
I am a wonderful person;
I love myself exactly as I am.
Bask in their love, then say, “Thanks for sharing your love with me. I love you, too.”
One day I made an intention to see butterflies. It was an experiment from a book I read by Pam Grout, called “E3.” The main focus was on the notion that what you focus on expands. For the next 48 hours, I saw butterflies, a lot of them, beyond what I expected. Butterflies flew up to my window when I was sitting in the car and hovered over the driver’s side window. Butterflies almost crashed into me when I was riding my bike. Butterflies, I noticed, were everywhere. I just needed to focus on them and see them.
So it is with everything.
What if you thought every morning of the ten things you liked about your life. What if you spent ten minutes every morning being grateful for the gifts you have in your life. What if you spent 10 minutes every day telling a person in your life how grateful you are for them. Do you think your life would change?
Even with great conflicts in our theater movies, do you notice that most of the movies have a pretty good resolution at the end for the heroes and heroines? Be a hero to yourself. Focus on your good. Bet a hero to others. Focus on their good. Be a hero to the world. Focus on the good in people, and what we’ve accomplished for humankind. Give positive reinforcement. What you focus on expands. See butterflies.
One day I woke up and knew I had changed dramatically. But the process took a while. Sometimes, I didn’t even know that I was making little progresses. But, in the aggregate, change happened and I began to see the effects in my life, little by little, until one day, I started to fly. I was becoming the person I imagined I could be.
The most important thing is to take one step, and then another. As you do, the next step appears. The universe is conspiring to allow for your success. Then you start to flap your wings and jump, and the next thing you know, you’re flying! It all begins with your desire, which moves to courage and a willingness to move forward.
Start by writing down what you want: positive feelings, positive actions, positive dreams, and things you are grateful for. Listen for the guidance. Each year we are given an opportunity to change. To begin again. Start by waking up with positive thoughts, finish the day being grateful for the good things that happened in the day. Gratitude will put your mind into a place where dreams can come true. Once in the dream state, you can do anything.
Write down your dreams. Write down what you want to dream about. Meditate on that. You mind will expand, and so will you, as you move forward in your life.
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step…” Lao Tsu
Excerpt, from “What Is Love” by Helen Berg, pp. 1-2:
“Love has been defined by masters and sages. Endless stories have been inspired by love, both lamenting and chasing after it. Every movie has love as part of its plot, and Love inspires endless songs and poems. But, what is this emotion that inspires so much passion, playfulness, fun, joy, longing, loyalty, and when we are separated from it, heartbreak and pain? That is the burning question.
“I like to say that Love is a force that cannot be measured by any technology we have today, but it is as pervasive and expansive as the universe itself. Scientists say that there is a force beyond gravity that holds galaxies, in fact the entire universe, together. They call it “dark energy.” I suppose they call it this because it is the space between the atoms, and the unseen energy that holds light bodies together. I like the name “love energy” better, though I doubt the scientific community will accept it. As indefinable as “dark energy” is, “love energy” is the same. I believe it is love energy that not only holds the universe together; it holds all meaningful relationships together. Love energy is the essence of real love, “True Love,” that binds us to each other, to the world and to everything in it. When you have love in your heart, and in your life, it feels good.
“This book is about tapping into this positive, free-flowing energy and expanding it in our everyday lives. We start with what we know, and what we were taught. I believe that we knew what love was when we were born, because we came from pure love; we came from a source of True Love. Some call it heaven. But then we were “taught” what love is by our parents, caregivers, books, television and movies. Even thought it didn’t always feel good, we accepted what we were taught both consciously and subconsciously. That knowledge is what we carried forward into our future relationships. Sometimes the programming was right, but many times, it wasn’t. Yet we strove on, looking for that which we could not define but which we knew in our hearts existed. For me, there was a disconnect between the wildly romantic dramas that always led to happy endings, and the romantic relationships in my life. I sought to figure out why. I wanted my happy ending. And so I began a journey of discovery that led to me writing this book. Did I find True Love? Yes. But the path wound around confusing me often, but also delighting and inspiring me. This is where I started.”
Excerpt from “What is Love?” by Helen Berg, p. 57-59; All rights reserved.
“Do you want to be real? Write your own life movie. Pen the words and melody to your own song, your own conflicts of heart. Don’t let romance novels, songs, T.V. dramas or even Shakespeare plays define you. Know who you are. What is the story of your life? Start to make a picture. Remember the good and bad, but then write it down the way you would have liked it to have been, and then start living your life that way. Write down how you would like your life to be now. What changes you would like to make. Frame your life in the most positive light possible. What’s missing? Do you want the love of your life? What does he or she look like? What does s/he act like? What is your perfect job? Think the thoughts you would think if you were a famous singer, composer, painter, CEO, writer; lover and/or partner. Bethe characters that you would love to play most! See the relationship you want to have, the partner you want to have. To be it, you must see it.
“Many people spend numerous hours in front of the T.V. But watching someone else’s exciting life is not going to get you there. How much more meaningful would your life be, if instead of being a silent witness to other people’s lives, you started living your own life, fully, without reservation, honestly, saying what was in your head and in your heart. What if you lived your life authentically, accepting and being who you truly are? Not letting fear, guilt or self-judgment prevent you from living your life courageously, joyously and peacefully. What if you could lovingly accepting all that was in your heart, and be able to express it? What if you could fully open up and not only be compassionate to what other’s need, but compassionate about what you need and want? What if you were willing to talk, to listen, to share the human drama however it unfolds every moment of every day, without judgment and without fear? It would be great. It isgreat. You just need to see it and do it!
“Our bodies want to live. Perhaps that is why so many seek the high of drinking and drugs, escaping the hollowness, the emptiness they feel because they are quietly watching their lives go by, and want something more. The high makes a person feel more powerful. “But the balance of nature dictates that to artificially acquire that state without having earned it creates a debt,” and the cost of such stolen pleasure is the desperation of addition. So drugs and drinking are not the solution, they only cause a greater problem.
“Interaction with other human beings is the answer. It doesn’t really matter what you do, as long as you do something and pay attention. Each interaction helps us learn. We learn what works for us, and what doesn’t. We get to know what is in our hearts and in our head. We learn when we fall down, and when we lose our reason. We look at everything, everyday with new eyes, accepting the mistakes or failure as just one more way not to do a relationship. You know what is real and good. Affirm what works for you. Affirm your values, every day, and don’t compromise what is really important. If someone can’t accept your values, move on. But don’t accept others’ values as yours. Don’t let the scripted, edited interactions of T.V. or movies guide you. Know yourself. Know your triggers and sensitivities. Find someone who is compassionate to these. People fall down, make mistakes, get up, brush themselves off, try again, fall down again, stand up again, laugh, cry, hold hands, kiss, smile, frown, weep and bounce off the walls. We’re sane, and a little bit crazy, but at the end of the day, the sun sets for all of us.
“Don’t let the illusions in books, on T.V. or in the movies guide your life. Live your own story. Give all your life to it.”
Excerpt from “What is Love” by Helen Berg, pp. 73-74, 84:
“Sometimes I do an active appreciation meditation. From the moment I wake up, I think about how much I enjoyed sleeping; maybe I feel the softness of the comforter I’m laying under; I smile at the light coming through my window; and if it’s sunny I smile even more. I think about how wonderful it is that water is showering me and that I have soft towels. And when I sip my tea, it is incredible, the taste! And food! I’m even crazier about food. We have such abundance: God has given us such a bounty of fruits, vegetables, grains; and when I eat vegetables or meat, I bless the spirit of the plant or animal that died so I might eat it; and I take its spirit into me and make it alive again—because all things taken within us become alive in us.
“One time I was meditating in the lotus position with hands open on my knees. I began sending the love energy that was within me out into the universe. I did this for a few minutes, then focused inward again, and sat quietly. Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, I felt a rush of love energy come right back into my hands. It startled me a bit, but then I realized that all around the world monks, priests, yogis, divine masters and ordinary people are sending out love energy to our world, to all sentient beings and to the universe!
“It was at that moment I realized I was not alone.
“We are never alone.
“We are all connected, whether you want to be or not.
“That is why, even when you’re not with someone, you still feel his or her energy.
“If you tune in, you can feel other beings.
“You can feel God.
“You can speak with God, or other divine beings; just like you can chat with your emotions.
“Meditation is the beginning of understanding, deepening, and opening to all that you are and all that there is.
“It is the beginning of finding True Love, the infinite love of the Universe.
“You find it in the world because you find it in yourself.
A relationship requires give and take. This is accomplished by talking and understanding each other’s feelings and dealing, especially, with issues that cause conflict. How do you do this? By being brave and having the courage to see the issue clearly, being willing to share your thoughts, and most importantly, to listen. That way you gain understanding and are able to reach a solution if that is your goal. Sometimes all we really want is for someone to listen, and help us figure out the issue for ourselves.
Perhaps your significant other needs help defining the issue, or seeing themselves more clearly. Perhaps your significant other needs you to see yourself, or your own behavior more clearly. That isn’t a “problem” that needs to be solved so much as it is a request to explore and express true deep feelings. Solving a conflict doesn’t always require action, sometimes just listening to our partner’s concern is enough. Don’t rush to action, take time to understand. We rush sometimes to defend our own actions, or to reach a solution, when all that is required is to understand how our actions may be making someone else feel.
We all must take responsibility for our own feelings. One should always avoid saying, “YOU made me feel this way.” Better to say, “I feel this way. Here is the action/inaction that precipitated the feeling. I know I’m responsible for my own feelings, but I’m having trouble getting past this one.” Expressed as an angry complaint, one would say: “YOU didn’t put the cap back on the toothpaste!” Expressed with love and compassion for self and your significant other, it might be said in this way: “When you don’t put the cap back on the toothpaste, I feel like you don’t respect our shared space in the bathroom, and that makes me feel like you don’t respect me.” Now we’ve gotten down to the real problem.
Almost all “problems” in relationships are feelings of not being loved. Ask your partner, “how can I better love you?” and “how can you better love me?” Another good question is, “How can I better love myself?” Maybe the solution is having your own bathroom space where you can keep it as neat and clean as you like. Sounds like love to me! If you can’t have a separate space, then tell your partner that when s/he puts the cap back on the toothpaste, it makes you feel loved, and happy. The saying goes, “A happy wife is a happy life.” While that may be true, an updated version might be, “A happy spouse is a happy house.” Both partners need to find joy in the relationship. It is never a one-sided deal.
If what you want is a great relationship, communicating, understanding and being willing to look at your own architecture, as well as know your partner’s true self (scars and all), is necessary. You wouldn’t be together if you didn’t love each other. Remember that. Think about the deeper feelings that might be involved. Maybe your partner wasn’t respected by a parent, or in another relationship.
Decide if you are magnifying the issue in your own mind. Improve your own thoughts. By doing so, you may improve your own mind state to the point that you don’t need to discuss the issue. But if you do, remember to be honest, friendly and loving.
Embracing conflict in a positive way, instead of running away from it out of fear of rejection, not only allows us to successfully negotiate relationship hurdles, but is honest and allows the other person to see the real you. Being vulnerable and real is attractive. No one wants their partner to fake happiness; that can be felt too. While discussing issues may be uncomfortable, how much more uncomfortable is it when a relationship ends for lack of good communication? It’s heart-breaking!
Understand. Be compassionate with your partner. Ask for compassion for your own internal struggles. You’ll be surprised at the result. You may even thank your partner for giving you a clearer understand of your own emotions. If you practice listening and understand, you can more quickly getting back to your heart center where love resides. Then, instead of dwelling on negative thoughts, small conflicts can be resolved quickly and they will stay small, and large ones will be met with compassion, a smile, and a positive mind set because you know any conflict can be resolved with kindness, understanding and love.
Peace, health and happiness, and most of all, Love,
