1-31-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. My car running well
3. My body
4. Creativity and talent
5. Chanting
6. Silence
7. Responsibility
8. Endless possibilities in every moment
9. Safety to feel joy
10. Unconditional love

I have a very active imaginative life. I can get inspired by an idea and be off in my imagination watching a whole movie unfold in my mind. I can entertain myself for hours sitting still because I am in my imagination. I've learned that I'm still connected physically to here and now. My body is the bridge. I can imagine an exciting chase scene and feel my body tense up reacting to what I'm imagining. When I'm aware of what my physical body is feeling, I am brought back to the present moment. When I pay attention and actively begin to relax my muscles and check in with all my parts to feel what tension is hanging out here, I am brought back to this present moment. This is a good thing for me to learn and know because I have spent many years in my imagination. I desire to be in this world. And maybe I'll bring more of my imagination into this world.
Love and Light.

1-30-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog and listening to him snore
2. Chanting
3. Meditation
4. Creativity and talent
5. My car running well
6. I ask with the Light in me, I am answered with the Light in you
7. Knowledge and ability
8. Abundance
9. Paper and pens and pencils and colors
10. Unconditional love

I'm excited for today. I have a few projects to work on at work to keep me busy and the day will go by fast. And tonight I have all the ingredients and instructions to "open" my wok. I received a new cast iron wok for christmas and I've been scared to "open" it. There is a process to get all the metal residue off of it and start to create the natural non-stick patina of cooked oil on it. I'm excited and have committed that once it is "opened" to cook at least 3 times a week in it. I enjoy chinese stir fry. I needed "chinese chives" which go by many names and are usually only found in asian markets. There is only one asian market near me, that I know of. I went there forgetting my book that has the picture of it and I found my stainless steel scrubber and something that looked like the chives. I get to the counter to ask if this is what they were and ran into a bit of a language obstacle. Also, it was cash only and I'm so used to just having my debit card. I went home and got the book and cash and went back. I pushed through a little fear because I felt a little stupid and I knew that the only way I was going to learn was to ask questions. I am safe and okay not knowing something new. I'm okay asking for help. The lady behind the counter was amazed I came back and thought the book was great and that I got the right thing. I'm on the right path.
Love and Light.

1-29-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Cargo shorts
3. New Years Celebration with my Tai Chi community today
4. Water
5. Waking up naturally with no alarms
6. Chanting
7. Sacred Space
8. Writing, Journaling
9. Responsibility
10. Endless possibilities in every moment.

I chant in the morning while sitting in half lotus position and this is usually when my dog eats his breakfast. This morning my dog climbed on my lap and laid down on me for chanting. I love that feeling of him lying on me or sleeping on me. I feel I have created safe space for him. I am so grateful I have learned to create that safe space for myself also. And it's nice to be in a friend's arms who has created it for me, too. I'm ready for my responsibility and service for this day.
Love and Light.

1-28-30 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. My Aunt stopping by to visit
3. Napping
4. Chanting
5. Moxa Stick
6. This blog space
7. My home space
8. Endless possibilities in every moment
9. My car running well
10. Unconditional love

Now is the time for me to clean my kitchen and make some pumpkin bread. I have a New Year celebration to attend to tomorrow. This is the year of the Water Dragon. And we are all bringing potluck items. I'm bringing pumpkin bread. I say now is the time for me to clean, because I haven't been. I'm searching for what rythym do I need to stay ahead of the curve of the things I need to do to take care of me. A big step for me is to learn and know that I am sacred. I deserve sacred space for myself. I have a small area where I do my chanting and meditating and sacred practices and it is not hard to keep that place clean and sacred (even when it's the only place my dog will eat his food). I feel scared and a bit overwhelmed when I think I could make my entire place sacred. I deserve it.
Love and Light.

1-27-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Moxa stick
3. Shooting video outside this morning
4. Trust in my talents, ability, and creativity
5. Meditation
6. Music
7. Breathing
8. Smells
9. Giving, asking, receiving, help, love, light
10. Oneness of the universe

I have food issues. They have come up over the intense weekend and I have been resisting looking at them for a long long time. I have food issues. I don't want to deal with thinking about what I'm going to eat, how it's going to be cooked, how it tastes, I don't want to care about those things. Food is something I need throughout the day and the thing I'm least aware and present about. Eating happens with me, I wait long enough and my body takes over to drive me to the store and buys food. I am ready now to look at my food issues. I am open to start processing all that got twisted about food and eating with me. My acupuncturist who is a Taoist told me that everything has the universe in it. As I am Light and you are Light, food is Light. As I eat food I am eating and taking into me the entire universe. I like that.
Love and Light.

1-26-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Moxa stick
3. Sleeping gently and well
4. My car running well
5. Therapy
6. Chanting and music
7. Meditation
8. Creativity
9. Abundance
10. Sacred Space

I need to remember to ground myself more often. Surrender like water flowing down a hill. Sink into my being like sinking into depths of water. I was reminded of all this at my acupuncture appointment yesterday. My jangled nerves were soothed and I relaxed and balanced more with all that was revealed over the weekend. I slept gently and with lots of dreams. I sank into sleep with an ease. I have eased into my day. I am grateful for all things.
Love and Light.

1-25-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. My car running well
3. Being on my spiritual path
4. Acupuncture
5. Happy Hour
6. Creativity and talent
7. Sacred Space
8. Water
9. Breathing
10. Unconditional Love

I created time this morning to consciously, with Light, to place myself in sacred space. I am sacred. And then I placed my Dad in sacred space. In the past, I have been very good at placing others in sacred space and forgetting about myself. Especially if I am in conflict with the other person, there was something in me that was set on either/or. How could we both be sacred when there is conflict? I've learned that resolution is not making one person right over the other, it is placing both in sacredness. Placing all in sacredness. Every person has that of god in them, including me. I am The Light, as are you.
Love and Light.

1-24-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. New beginning
3. Cool weather and warm blankets
4. Breathing
5. Working together on a project
6. Silence
7. Chanting
8. Joy
9. Surrender into the Light
10. Unconditional Love

Today is a new day. I am free today to make choices, new choices. I am not bound by the choices I made yesterday or last year. I am clear on my committment to being a healthy, higher version of myself, to growing my capacity to love, forgive, and heal. Yesterday I let doubt creep in and twist up my truth and my world. I reached out and connected back to what restores my faith. I reached out and sat with friends who fed me chinese stir fry which (oddly enough) felt like healing food. Happy New Year! The year of the Water Dragon!
Love and Light.

1-23-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Plenty of projects to work on
3. Abundance
4. Being of service
5. Holding others in sacred space, The Light
6. Music and chanting
7. My car running well
8. Breathing
9. Water
10. Unconditional Love

It was asked over the weekend what path I want to be walking on. I realize that I used to be, for most of my life, on a path where I fought with life. I fought against, resisted, and struggled with life. Struggled with loving, with allowing others to love me. Resisted feeling anything and fought against changing and transforming. I am no longer on that path. The path I am on now is gentle love. There is a strength in gentle love. A strength of a tree standing firmly grounded in the earth and reaching slowly and lovingly toward the light. Of bending with the breeze, wind and even storm. Gently accepting and loving and constantly reaching for the light. Also the gentle love of a river, moving around and surrounding obstacles with gentle love. Wearing down the hardness of my walls and eroding them completely. Gentle Love.
Love and Light.

1-22-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. An amazing weekend of group therapy
3. New beliefs and New behaviors
4. Beginners mind, back to the basics
5. Chanting
6. Opening hearts connecting
7. Being of Light, being held in the Light
8. Healing
9. Gentle Loving Healthy Touch
10. Unconditional love

I opened myself to The Light and could feel the energy of it vibrate through me and I could feel the light of others. I ask with the Light of me, and I am answered with the Light of you. Deep wounds of mine needed to be healed so that I could see myself as The Light. I healed a lot of my pain from hurtful touch today. To heal it I had to feel it fully and express it and I was blessed to be in group therapy and had a partner that kept her hand on me so that I could receiving in all the gentle loving touch I was denied and kept denying from myself for so many years. To remove the blocks around my heart I have to feel them.
Love and Light.

1-20-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. My car running well
3. Feelings being understood and validated
4. Personal growth retreat starting tonight
5. Creativity
6. Surrender into The Light, into process, into peace
7. Music
8. Being of service
9. Unconditional Love
10. Openness

I am me. All of me. With my beliefs, my emotions, my thoughts, my body. Feelings inside that have trouble finding words. Art is essential for the expression of that which is beyond definition, beyond explanation. Feelings in the heart can be talked about and they come alive when felt.
Love and Light.

1-19-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Gentleness
3. Crying
4. Chanting and music
5. Abundance
6. Therapy session
7. Trust and Faith
8. Unconditional love
9. Connection
10. My car running well

That is my list today. I don't know what else to write about today. About 20 years ago I walked straight into a forest alone, promising myself I would never return, it was night and I walked through brush and around trees and kept going straight through everything not caring that branches and pickers were pulling on my clothes and scratching my skin. I came to a lake and was going to keep walking right into it and sink to the bottom. I sat down on the bank, I don't know what stopped me. I saw a glow rising from behind the trees on the other side of the lake. It was so bright, I was surprised it was the full moon. It looked so big and close. I sat and watched it rise, saw it's huge reflection in the water of the lake. I watched it rise and rise above me and I saw something that looked like a streak of light in the night sky. Not a meteor because it was staying where it was, not moving and getting brighter. Like cut of light through the black night. More and more streaks appeared and colors and glows and the whole night sky was lit up with these streaks of light. It was the aurora borealis.
That happened, I remember everything of that experience. I was alone. There was nobody there to ask "did that really happen?" I didn't need anybody to say "yes, it really happened." I also don't have anybody telling me it didn't really happen. That's the difference between knowing that experience happened and having trauma inflicted on me by another person and that person denying that it didn't happen at all. I'm looking for that person that will tell me "yes, it really happened." Trusting in my truth doesn't seem to be enough.
Love and Light.

1-18-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Sore muscles
3. Chanting and music
4. Trusting the next step even when it doesn't make sense
5. Feeling inside physically and emotionally
6. Honoring all my emotions
7. Honoring those around me and their Lights
8. Faith in the Light that is everything
9. My car running well
10. Unconditional love

While sitting here making this list I felt the blanket of numbness that I have put on myself lift. As that happens, I hear my hurt from a long time ago crying to be let out, to be free. I have held in buried and prisoner for so long, muffled and stuck under so many layers to keep myself from feeling the fullness of hurt. It's crying to be free and the only way out is through me. That's the only way I know. My acupuncturist tells me of another way, of dissolving. I don't understand how to do it. It sounds like a gentle way to freedom. They way that I know, is to let hurt rip through me and out. Is there a gentle way? Am I not seeing this gentle way because I believe I deserve to be ripped apart? Gentleness is something I am grateful for.
Love and Light.

1-17-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Cool weather
3. Working outside today
4. Breathing
5. Speaking my truth
6. Listening to my body
7. The Light surrounding and within all
8. Faith and Trust
9. My growth process
10. Unconditional love

I need to clear up somethings that happened yesterday. I was outside doing physical stuff with co-workers, putting doorhangers around the neighborhood, and I was resisting my body's signals that I couldn't do much more. Sometimes I will push through this and find that I open to a greater capacity of breathing and physicality, other times I push and damage myself or make myself sick. I become foggy of this clarity when others are around because my unhealthy need to appear strong and unaffected comes out. And when this happens, the anger at myself for not speaking my truth of needing to rest or stop comes out sideways at others. I said mean things to others in my group with the veil of a mischevious smile and illusory blanket of "I'm joking". Mean words are still mean words, "joking" is an illusion I put up so I blind myself to my mean self. I will be apologizing to my co-workers this morning. And paying attention to my body.
Love and Light.

1-16-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Cool weather
3. Breathing
4. Surrender
5. Movement of stuff in my house
6. Purging
7. Chanting
8. Creativity
9. Unconditional Love
10. Being of service

I rearranged some big furniture in my house yesterday. Got rid of my bulky wooden entertainment center. Well, I took everything off of it and put my computer and video stuff in the living room with the TV and entertainment equipment and made more space in my bedroom. The bulky entertainment center piece of furniture is still in my living room on its side and now I have the obstacle/challenge of getting it out of my house. It's still very sturdy and usable and calling a charity to come and pick it up seems very hard to do for me. I am using my energy to move things in my house, so much has been stagnant and static, not touched or moved or looked at. Then that becomes my life. Static, patterned, stagnant . . . . Change in the present moment.
Love and Light.

1-15-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Quaker Meeting
3. The Light
4. Breathing
5. Rearranging
6. Being of service to myself and others
7. My action of cleaning is healing
8. Unconditional Love
9. My back brace
10. Connection in the highest good

I came across a Quaker reading this morning talking about atonement. And they separated it to be at-one-ment. At Meeting I received further clarification that atonement begins when I realize/know that I am one with everything and everybody. If I do violence to another by word, gesture or physicality, I begin my atonement for that violence when I know I am that other person I have violated. It's not an imagining how they feel, nor a "put myself in their shoes". I am me and I am them. The Light is the same in all and makes us all one. This at-one-ment realization is the beginning for compassion and forgiveness to happen. This is also true if I am the one being violated/hurt. Compassion and forgiveness for the person that is hurting me begins when I realize we are one. At-One-Ment. For me, being one with the person that hurt me is much harder . . . and more powerful.
Love and Light.

1-13-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Clarity
3. Guidance from my soul
4. Being of service
5. Touching and hugs
6. Connection
7. Trust and faith
8. Unconditional love
9. My creativity and talent
10. My wonderful job

Around number 4 that word "surrender" popped into my head. Interesting that it would pop into my head after writing about being grateful for guidance from my soul. I started wondering where I am now with my definition of surrender. I know it used to be an unhealthy definition of "lay down and die before you have the chance to knock me down/to take all abuses believing I deserve them without defense". And then I was introduced to "surrendering into the process", the phrase "let go and let god", of accepting what is happening while keeping myself safe inside and healthy boundaries intact. I believe trust and faith has a lot to with surrending in a healthy way. I am grateful for this reminder to surrender as I have been struggling with this recent uncovering of hurt and pain from so long ago.
Love and Light.

1-12-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Therapy session
3. Client liking my work
4. Breathing
5. This day, wonderful, beautiful, and ever changing
6. My warm comfy jacket and soft blanket
7. Chanting
8. Affirmations
9. Silence
10. Unconditional Love

I don't know what to write about today. I have a therapy session today after work and I'm grateful for that because I feel like I'm carrying a dead rotted thing way down deep inside me. I believe it is a part of me that died a very long time ago and has been rotting way down deep inside. Now I've uncovered it and the stench and pain and hurt are coming up. Maybe this is why my dog is afraid when I release these emotions and the sobs come out from so very deep inside. I'm bringing Light to a very dark part of myself and I don't understand much yet. I need to trust and have faith.
Love and Light.

1-11-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. My car running well
3. Support from loving noble friends
4. Happy Hour
5. Imagination to create with
6. Shower this morning
7. Soft fabric clothes
8. Gentleness with myself
9. Breathing
10. Love and Light

I am expressing and releasing my pain and hurt from a long ago memory in amounts that I can handle. I am an adult now with strength and power that I did not have as a child. It's odd to feel like if I let it all out at once, I will be ripped apart in the releasing. My sanity will be ripped apart. If I let it just go it will rip around like the tasmanian devil cartoon, bouncing off of everything inside of me. If I take it by the hand gently and walk slowly a few steps having it focus on me, I will feel all that powerful pain and horror and I will keep my sanity. Please hold me in Light so that I can look my pain and horror in the eye with love and caring and gentleness.
Love and Light.

1-10-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Sleeping well
3. Chanting
4. Creativity
5. Endless possibilities in every moment
6. Abundance
7. Being in the present moment
8. Love and Light
9. Connection and Touch
10. Safety

I had a busy day yesterday and not much sleep the two nights before, so when I got home about 6 pm, I was exhausted. After walking the dog and having a little dinner, I went to bed and slept. I slept well. In the past month, I've uncovered a painful memory. It was too painful for me to feel as a child, so it has been "frozen" and I'm feeling it now. I need to remember that now is the present moment because the emotions are powerful as if it is happening now. I need to member it is an opened memory and none of my emotions of the event were dulled with time because I didn't feel any of them over time. My time with these emotions is starting now, it is the event that is far away in the past. Sometimes I am confused and believe that I am that small child, not strong enough for this pain. I am now a strong adult and I am safe and able to feel everything now.
Love and Light.

1-9-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Patience
3. Honoring all my emotions
4. Chanting
5. Meditation
6. Silence
7. Unconditional love
8. Creativity and talent
9. Breathing
10. My car running well

I'm having a hard time feeling grateful today. This morning has been full of frustrations. I'm doing my best with not falling into the "It's all their fault!" angry trap. And when I look honestly in myself to see what emotions are coming up for me, I feel like crying . . . a lot. Frustrations that bring up deep beliefs and emotions that I feel I'm not good enough at this job that I love, I don't deserve a job I love to do. Frustrations that I feel I don't exist in the insurance/western medicine world. And those feelings bring up frustrations that I feel that showing and expressing what I'm feeling right now is neither appropriate or valid. It's not okay.
Mistakes happen. And feeling sad that I made one or two or three is okay. Feeling mad that someone else made one that changes my schedule for today is okay, I can feel my anger and go underneath to the hurt I feel because I believe that I'm not important. I know that comes from me. I know the other person did not make the mistake on purpose to hurt me, the other person doesn't even know me, never met me before yesterday.
How can I be of service now? And that includes me. I may be of service to the greater good if I go take a walk now and cry some and call a friend for support. I am part of the whole.
Love and Light.

1-8-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Breathing
3. Quaker meeting
4. Abundance
5. Calm, relaxed morning
6. Commitment
7. Joy and Peace
8. Unconditional Love
9. Insight and divine messages
10. Dreams

I'm very grateful to breathing this morning. I had an asthma attack last night and Primatine Mist is no longer available. I bought one back in August and have had problems with breathing since then after about 3 years of the clearest breathing I have ever felt. Last night was a mild attack, and still scary. A mild attack for me, I feel like I'm pulling in half or a third of the air of a normal breath. I know I am getting air and know to relax, not move and concentrate on breathing and try to slow it down and or make it deeper to get through it. Which takes a lot longer than a puff on an inhaler. And my breathing muscles hurt and are sore from the effort. I don't move because I can only take a few steps before I have to stop and catch my breath. This was my first attack after my Primatine Mist inhaler ran out a couple of days ago. I threw it in the trash. I tried not to be scared or panic, however I dug through the garbage to find the inhaler. Even though it was empty, I tried to get it give out whatever drops were left in it, and there was a minute amount that did come out and it was enough to open up some of my lungs. Did some last dredge come out of that inhaler? Or was the security of holding the inhaler in my hand and going through the motion help to release my unconscious grip on my own breathing?
Love and Light.

1-6-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Cool weather
3. My car running well
4. Being of service
5. Meditation
6. Breathing
7. Music and chanting
8. Blankets
9. Love and energy
10. Friday

I am happy to be of service at work. I'm grateful I have projects to work on. I have struggled this week in taking care of myself at home: every dish is dirty, etc. I'm focused on this present moment. I am safe and loved.
Love and Light.

1-5-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Changing my decision
3. Chanting and music
4. Acupuncture and moxie stick
5. Communicaton
6. Breathing
7. Energy awareness/feeling
8. Creativity and gifts
9. Being of service
10. Unconditional love

There is a freedom that we all have that I constantly forget about. The freedom to change our mind. The freedom to change my decision. I recently made a decision, a large one, it is a committment to a group for the next 6 months. And I decided to be in the group in a certain role. And last night the question was brought up if I wanted to be in a different role. I had to sit with the question for a while so that I felt that this opportunity was open to me. My first reaction is to be confused because I had already made a decision so changing it is not open to me. Once I realized that this suggestion does not disregard nor disrespect my original decision, then I was free to consider what would be in the highest good of the group. How would my gifts be of the best service to the group? I was able to see that recent changes and discoveries about myself did change which role I would be of the highest good to the group. This is a big step for me. I've been known to be stubborn (a regular "bulldog") of chomping down on a decision or path or plan of action and not letting go to the detriment of what I really was trying to accomplish. I am open to change.
Love and Light.

1-4-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Cold weather and lots of blankets
3. Music and chanting
4. Connection with good friends
5. Breath of wind
6. Creativity and imagination
7. My talent and abilities
8. Expressing my emotions
9. Depth
10. Unconditional Love

We are 4 days into the new year in the Western world and almost to the chinese new year. It seems to be a period of transition. I feel like I'm in transition inside. My therapist used a good phrase yesterday, sorting it out. Have you ever watched a small child while they are learning something? I believe that's a good phrase for that process, sorting it out. There were some times in my small child past that I was never given the chance to sort out. I have that opportunity now. It's a strange feeling. Because the process was frozen at such a small age, I'm processing first at that age, and adults process differently.
Love and Light.

1-3-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Cool weather
3. Music
4. Integrating more of everyday chores into spiritual growth
5. Chanting
6. Therapy session
7. Abundance
8. Endless possibilities in every moment
9. Unconditional love
10. The Light

There are practices and teachings that I am told about and sometimes I am told over and over and the most inner movement I feel about it is: hmm, interesting. Then I am told about it, sometimes in a different way, sometimes from a different source, sometimes from the same way I have been told before, and this time my inner self feels much more: OOOoohh, or WOW! The most recent time this happened is bringing/integrating daily chores, things I do every day into spirituality. Do my chores with spirit and/or mindfulness. This concept became deeper for me when I read the beginning of a book "The Wisdom Way of Knowing" and she talked about the rhythm of the day to enhance learning/spirituality. It was to chant and meditate to prepare for the teaching, be present for the teaching and then do physical labor after the teaching. Right now my words for describing what happened inside of me is that sparks went off and this fits in with my post from yesterday of doing my chores to take care of me, to change to learning something new or chanting or meditating before I begin the chores . . . I'm not quite sure how all this fits together yet, and I'm excited to find out.
Love and Light.

1-2-2012 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Chanting
3. Sleeping and waking up naturally
4. Endless possibilities in every moment
5. Responsibility for my decisions, even when I don't make one
6. Breathing
7. Strength
8. Unconditional love
9. Time
10. Naps

I need to clean my place. For my own self care. I need a lot of motivation to clean my place. I feel more comfortable sitting in dust and dirt and clutter rather than go through the pain of cleaning. I hurt emotionally to clean for myself. I have the skills. I'm an excellent and thorough cleaner when I'm helping somebody elses place to get clean. I feel good cleaning their place, I do a better job than my own place. I have been imagining that I'm cleaning for somebody else, that it's somebody elses house I'm cleaning. I do a good job until that charade wears off. Then I pretend that somebody is coming over and I want to have my place clean for them, and that works until I become sadder knowing that nobody is coming. I need to clean for me. I need to clean out the dust and dirt and clutter from my place . . . and also inside of me. The only way I'm going to find out why I hurt to clean for me is to start cleaning and let the emotions come.
Love and Light.