8-31-12 grateful for today

1.  My adorable dog
2.  The full moon
3.  My car running well
4.  Friends and connection heart to heart
5.  Cross channel and end of month duties
6.  Friday
7.  Chanting
8.  Silence
9.  Unconditional Love
10.  Ability and Talent

It is a Friday and a long busy week.  I catch myself full of anxiety and worry about a few projects that have deadlines today.  When that happens, I look back and count off all the mistakes I have made along the way to make the project late.  This is an old habit.  A lot of the time when I am making the mistakes, I tell myself I'm doing it on purpose just to screw up the project.  Most of the time I am not making mistakes on purpose, other times I am.  Especially when it is not a mistake, it's a decision that I'd rather play video games all day than work on the project.  My excuse during those times is that I'm just to tired to get my brain functioning.  Which there has been days where my brain and thinking seem very tired, very close to exhaustion.  Am I just getting old?  Or am I coming from a place of fear where my instinct is to sleep or play dead?  I now consciously break my old habit and I "Start where I am, use what I have, and do what I can."  I am living.  Love and Light.

8-30-12 grateful for today

1.  My adorable dog
2.  My car running well
3.  Noble friends
4.  Ability and talent
5.  Silence
6.  Music
7.  Working within a team
8.  Unconditional Love
9.  The Light
10.  Honoring all my emotions

I have the office to myself again.  I've had almost a whole week by myself.  In one perspective it has been very nice for me.  Quiet, with the TV off so that I can work and think creatively.  In another perspective I am sad that I am by myself because my officemate has had a death in his family, which is why he is away.  Life continues on in its tides and turnings.  And I'm okay and healthy in enjoying my time alone in a quiet office, and at the same time hold sacred space and feel sad and compassion for my officemate who is away.  Everything in the universe exists at one time, so it is with emotions and being human.  Love and Light.

8-29-12 grateful for today

1.  My adorable dog
2.  My car running well
3.  Noble, loving, gentle friends
4.  Asking for help
5.  All my emotions
6.  Music
7.  Chanting
8.  Centering, grounding
9.  Unconditional Love
10.  Compassion for myself

I did it.  I asked for help this morning.  My house is a wreck, disorganized and dirty.  And I asked some good friends to come over this holiday weekend to help kick off a major cleaning.  I'm sitting at work and I'm feeling scared enough to cry.  I'm scared of friends (with good hearts and good intentions) throwing out my stuff that I want to keep.  And scared that my stuff is going to be put away in places where I don't know where it is.  I like to see my stuff.  And it's all over the place now.  Not really organized.  I'm safe and loved and supported.  I don't know how people can say "it's just stuff".  My stuff was my friends and support more so than people for way too long.  Step one: Asking for help - completed.  Love and Light.

8-28-12 grateful for today

1.  My adorable dog
2.  My car running well
3.  Creative projects to work on
4.  Sleeping well
5.  Breathing
6.  Ability and talent
7.  Unconditional love
9.  My humanness
10.  The Light

I'm ready to work today.  It is the beginning of my work day and I'm excited and ready to finish up some projects today.  I'm ready to work hard and not disappear into video games.  Whenever I feel stuck, that's when I go to the video games.  I need to practice and learn how to push through my "stuckness" to get unstuck.  I've figured out how to do that when I have writer's block.  That's when I put a timer for 10 or 15 minutes and my pen has to keep on writing with no stopping for that time.  Even if I repeat over and over "I'm stuck" eventually something else comes out that looks awkward and not that great and then its followed by something better and better and usually something that amazes me gets written down.  Then the timer goes off and I continue writing.  Rarely do I stop when the timer goes off.  And when I start the timer, I think I'm not going to make it, or I think about how relieved I will be when it goes off and I can stop.  And I keep on going.  That's what I need to do with other "stuck" places in my life.  Here comes today!!
Love and Light,
Cathy

8-27-12 grateful for today

1.  My adorable dog
2.  My car running well
3.  Completion of a beautiful group retreat weekend
4.  All my cross channel spots for Sept ready and downloaded
5.  Sleep and rest
6.  Being of service
7.  Centered and grounded
8.  Endless possibilities in every moment
9.  Unconditional Love
10.  The Light

I had a beautiful, intense, and amazing weekend at group retreat.  There is that of The Light/God in every person.  I love blustery rainy weather and hope that everyone is safe.  I'm at work now and if you are wondering what cross channel spots are, it means that I have all week to work on them which will be more of a slower pace than usual.  I download commercials from other providers and a lot of the time I'm waiting for them to complete them to have them available.  And then the rush to download them, process them and have them ready in two days.  It's never a mad rush, it's just more stress than usual.  I'm grateful to have them all early to process because I have more projects all due at the same time than I normally do.  So I will be gratefully busy creating and processing video all day.  Love and Light.

8-24-12 grateful for today

1.  My adorable dog
2.  My journal
3.  My memory
4.  Unconditional Love
5.  A day off from work
6.  PTI
7.  Meditation
8.  Endless possibilities in every moment
9.  The Light
10.  My dishwasher

I am oscillating between anxiety and excitement.  I have an opportunity to do something very special this weekend, being of service.  I'm excited for the opportunity to also continue my personal growth.  And I'm anxious about screwing it up.  I've done this retreat before as a participant, and now I'm a helper and it's a different role and I'm afraid of messing it up.  I'm also afraid of not remembering everything that is going to happen.  I can only watch a movie the first time once.  After that, I know what is going to happen, and it's nice to revisit it in a different part of my life, and I'll see some parts in a new light, and I know what's going to happen.  I need to let go.  It probably also might not have been a good idea to start some new asthma medication as it is generally some form of adrenaline.  I am safe.  I am Light.  Love and Light.

8-23-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. My car running well
3. My friend coming to see me work today
4. Creativity and talent
5. My wok
6. Unconditional Love
7. Being of service
8. Coming from a place of love in everything I do
9. Music
10. Endless possibilities in every moment

Sometimes this list seems more like goals of what I want to put out into the world today rather than what I'm grateful for. I know I have resistance to receiving in good and Light. If I don't receive it in, I'm not going to be able to be grateful for it. I am grateful for my dog. He is cute and adorable and when I'm home, he positions himself so that he can see me at all times. He's getting older, so he falls asleep a lot. I love the feeling I get when my dog falls asleep while he's laying on me. Love and Light.

8-22-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Breathing
3. Creativity and talent
4. My car running well
5. Music
6. Relaxing
7. The Light
8. Unconditional Love
9. Endless possibilities in every moment
10. Friends

The day is chugging along. I am feeling afraid and I'm not allowing myself to acknowledge that feeling. So I'm lightheaded and dizzy and having difficulty breathing. It may be anger. I have so thoroughly been able to dismiss my anger to where I am not conscious that I even dismissed it. I need to get busy at work. Love and Light.

8-21-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Thunderstorms
3. My car running well
4. My wonderful job
5. Creativity and Art
6. Silence
7. Music
8. Breathing
9. My wok
10. Unconditional Love and Light

I am safe and loved. I am held in the Light. I am part of the Light. I have a hard time believing that I deserve these things. We all deserve these things. Love and Light.

8-20-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. My car running well
3. Therapy session
4. Music
5. Chanting
6. Creativity and Talent
7. All my emotions
8. Silence
9. Unconditional Love
10. The Light I am grateful for all my emotions.

 I'm having difficulty acknowledging or expressing or understanding anger. I got things confused because I was told that anger always travels with a buddy emotion. That being angry at someone or an experience means that I'm covering over another emotion with anger. So I made the incorrect assumtion that anger wasn't useful and I would skip over it and process the buddy emotion. This would be the equivalent of a treasure buried underneath a burning campfire. I would lift up the burning logs of anger with my bare hands, hold them to my chest while I took a free hand to dig out the treasure. All the while this fire of anger is setting me on fire and I would just tell myself that I don't feel it. That it's not important. The buddy emotion is the important one. I would sit there aflame and tell myself and everybody else that I'm not angry. And ashamed that I'm on fire. There's another way to do this. A way that I missed, I didn't understand. The buddy emotion is under the fire and I'm to process the anger first. It's after the fire is out where most people forget that there was a buddy emotion. Or that's the more intense emotion that they don't want to deal with. It's to process the anger first and then process the buddy emotion (which is usually fear, pain, hurt, shame). I tend to learn and do things backwards. Love and Light.

8-18-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. A relaxing day
3. Thunderstorms
4. Unconditional Love
5. Choices and responsibility
6. My car running well
7. My computer running well
8. Silence
9. Music
10. Friends

A relaxing day where I'm not pressed to do anything. Am I avoiding things that are healthy for me? Or do I truly need the rest? Am I so used to being sedate? Is it in my nature to be in motion more which I am very comfortable denying? I'm relaxing and watching a thunderstorm roll in. It's kind of rolling backwards because it's heading away from me, but growing faster than the wind pushing it away. Is that like anything in my life right now? Love and Light.

8-17-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Nothing planned for this evening
3. Friday
4. My car running well
5. Creativity and talent
6. Love and acceptance
7. The Light that is in every person
8. Endless possibilities in every moment
9. Nature, forests, trees
10. The Light

I have a lot of projects to finish with short deadlines. I'm feeling very tired today and just want to stare at the computer and not accomplish much of anything. I will accomplish all my projects and wonder if I could be more focused. Is this as focused as I'm capable of? Is this my average work mode? Are the times when I feel inspired and intently focused, are those times rare because I can't keep that intensity all the time? For today, this is what and who I am and I'm okay. I'm magnificent and doing my best. Love and Light.

8-16-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Release hose and pillow
3. Music
4. The Light
5. Unconditional Love
6. Breathing
7. Creativity and talent
8. The rain and thunder
9. Drumming Circle
10. The Light

I want to run away from it all. Run north in to some mountain forest and disappear. Have my whole world be completely different. No cars, no cell phones that do everything but wash windows or your laundry, no flourescent lighting, no restaurants. A friend of mine is sad and I'm holding her in the Light as best I can, and I'm having a rough day on top of it. One of those days where I tell myself I'm safe and I have a real hard time feeling it. And I keep going. Love and Light.

8-15-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. Silence, especially at work
3. Music and Chanting
4. My car running well
5. Therapy
6. Sleep
7. Journaling
8. Fun projects at work
9. Unconditional Love
10. Friends

My office mate has today off, which means the TV that we share will be off all day. YAY! I am busy with many projects at work, and staying focused managing multiple projects with overlapping deadlines can be a bit confusing or overwhelming for me. I am going to do my best and stay focused on one task at a time. It will be what it will be. I give myself permission to be human today. Love and Light.

8-14-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. My car running well
3. A nice patina forming on my wok
4. My creativity and ability to create and imagine
5. Music
6. Silence
7. Chanting
8. Permission to be human
9. Unconditional Love
10. Friends

Meetings and appointments are being moved around on me this week. I'm going with the flow as best as possible. I also have a lot of projects at work. I'm not great at keeping on top of things. I'm good at looking like I've come through when I know that I could have done more if I wasn't avoiding being here in the present moment. It's hard for me to get any work done when I'm imagining another place and time. I am here in this place. It is today. It is time now. Love and Light.

8-13-12 grateful for today

1. My adorable dog
2. My car running well
3. My wonderful job
4. Friends and support
5. Music
6. Chanting
7. Art, Creativity, Creating art
8. Unconditional Love
9. The Light and being open to let it in
10. Silence

When I let go and open up spiritually to let the Light in, I can breathe. Letting the Light in then touches and expands my own Light. When I was much younger this was dangerous for me to do. Now, it is something essential I must do for myself. I need to shine my Light. I need to do what is coming from inside and create what I am led to create. What I create are gifts for the world. It doesn't matter if people like what I create or not. It is a gift, given with no strings attached. A gift put out in a public place for people to look at, pick up, or ignore. Whatever moves them. I only need to place the gift where it can be seen, then it is up to others. I've done what I need to do. Love and Light.

8-11-12 grateful for today

1.  My adorable dog
2.  My car running well
3.  Children playing
4.  Music
5.  Movies
6.  Friends
7.  Uncondtional Love
8.  The Light that is in everyperson and everything
9.  Choices and responsibility
10.  My computer

I'm doing this list in the evening. I'm usually doing it in the morning. It's funny, I still put things on the list like I was starting my day when I had this great opportunity to put things on my list to be grateful for that already happened today. Now I'm thinking about it, I don't know. I'm grateful for places like His House that provide a help and support and a family atmosphere for kids that have no where else to go. I'm having a hard time coming up with things to be grateful for. I'm having trouble with eating, I'm on this new food plan and there seems to be a lot of food on it and I feel like I'm always thinking about my plan, or cooking, or eating. I know it's a healthier relationship with food than I've had in a long time. I'm very uncomfortable. Love and Light.

8-10-12 grateful for today

1.  My adorable dog
2.  An evening at home
3.  My car running well
4.  Choices and responsibility
5.  Music
6.  Breathing
7.  Big puffy white clouds
8.  Unconditional Love
9.  Noble Friends
10.  The Light.

I need to let go and relax.  I'm so tense.  I catch myself all tensed up, my mouth clenched, my shoulders in my ears, even feeling my toes trying to grip the inside soles of my shoes.  Relax, Relax, Relax.  Today would be a good day for a guided meditation.  Let go.  I'm holding on so tightly to everything, let go.  I tense myself up so much I can't breathe.  I would like to be a puffy white cloud.  Drifting on the breeze, floating.  Letting the edges of myself drift and flow and even to the point where my edges are blurry.  I am a cloud and the wind can go through me without tearing me apart, and I can expand and reach almost until I am transparent and I am still a cloud.  Love and Light.

8-9-12 grateful for today

1.  My adorable dog
2.  My car running well
3.  Sleeping
4.  Breathing
5.  Music
6.  Creativity
7.  Choices and responsibility
8.  My wonderful job
9.  This new day
10.  Unconditional Love

I've had asthma almost my entire life.  Serious asthma.  I didn't know what it was like to take a clear breath.  Not until a few years ago.  I have done a lot of personal therapy, mental health counseling, and I finally was able to face terrifying memories of my childhood.  And after an intense session, I was amazed at how clearly I was breathing.  It was gone, my asthma was gone.  After that, it has come back, last year with a vengeance and I ended up going into the hospital.  And then I was clear again for a few months, and now it is back again.  I can almost feel it switch in me.  I can feel the shift, almost like a muscle tightening up.  Kind of like a muscle cramping and I can't make it relax.  Right in my chest, I feel a tightening and I'm doing all I can to relax it, but it's not listening to me.  It makes sense that I would tighten up my breathing and fall into asthma when I'm about to step fully into my life.  Just another way I sabotage myself and keep me exactly where I am.  I'm going to step into my life anyway.  Love and Light.

8-8-12 grateful for today

1.  My adorable dog
2.  My car running well
3.  Air Conditioning
4.  The sun rising
5.  My wonderful job
6.  Creativity and talent
7.  Unconditional Love
8.  Choices and responsibility
9.  The Light
10.  Water

Every day is a chance, an opportunity to engage fully in life.  To feel everything fully.  To keep my soul expanded close to my surface to be able to feel and be transformed by what comes in, to express my light and give my gifts to transform this world.  Every day, every moment is that opportunity.  I have rarely taken that risk, that chance.  I believe that is changing in me.  I feel I'm excited to take those risks, to dive in and take those opportunities.  I know what will happen if do my usual frozen in fear, and avoid stepping into life, the moments will pass and I will be left with: Same Shit Different Day.  I create the experiences that validate my new beliefs.  My new belief that life is fun and interesting and adventurous.  I have everything I need to create experiences that validate that.  Time to get to work.  Love and Light.

8-7-12 grateful for today

1.  My adorable dog
2.  Mastermind
3.  Music
4.  Creativity and talent
5.  Breathing
6.  Choices and responsibility
7.  Art and images and expression
8.  Chanting
9.  Unconditional Love
10.  The Light

I create the experiences that validate my new beliefs.  Taking that action to create experiences is hard.  I'm so used to creating negative experiences for myself.  I'm so used to taking experiences, even joyful positive ones and finding or imagining that one tiny piece of negative for me to focus on and turn the whole thing into a negative experience.  Why do I imagine that feeling joy and peace and love ends in a horrifying fall?  That's been my pattern.  That's what I expect.  So I don't allow myself to feel those things.  I'm so scared of that horrifying fall.  But it's not true.  That horrifying fall is not there, not always.  And I'm older now, it's not as scary.  I remember the twin beds at my Grandparents house.  It used to be my Mom's and Aunt's old room.  I remember when I was really little, 6 or 7 years old, that jumping from bed to bed was a huge leap.  It was scary that large gap between beds was huge because I was little.  As an adult, the beds seem so close together and I could step across.  There wasn't any fear of making that crossing.  I'm older now, I need to have faith that I deserve to feel joy and that I have grown wings (or a parachute) fall safely.  Because I know I don't stay in joy, hurt and pain are a necessary and divine part of live also.  I don't have to live in just one, I live in all of life.  All experiences.  Love and Light.

8-6-12 grateful for today

1.  My adorable dog
2.  My car running well
3.  Therapy
4.  Music
5.  Creativity
6.  Writing, pen and paper
7.  Star Wars
8.  My wonderful job
9.  Unconditional Love
10.  The Light

I have lots of projects that need my creativity and talent to put them together here at work.  And now that I think about it, I have a lot at home, too.  There's a difference between anxiety and excitement.  Anxiety I hold my breath and become scared, not breathing is life threatening.  Excitement I breath deeply and am energized, breathing is life affirming.  My old habit is to hold my breath and I hold everything.  I stop moving.  I think that's what I do over the weekend.  Because I think I'm going to get a lot of things done and do stuff, and I end up sitting still a lot.  I let my excitement for transformation turn into anxiety and fear of change.  And I sit.  I see myself do this at work too.  I need to feel safe and let go of judgement.  Just do.  Love and Light.

8-5-12 grateful for today

1.  My adorable dog
2.  My car running well
3.  Quakers
4.  Letting go to allow The Light in
5.  Transformation
6.  Expression of all my emotions
7.  Music
8.  Friends
9.  Unconditional Love
10.  Compassion

There is difference between making or accomplishing things or being of service because I want to prove that I have overcome my inherent horribleness and making or accomplishing things or being of service because I know that I am truly part of The Light and have gifts to give to the world.  There is a big difference between those reasons.  A casual observer on the outside might not see any difference in my actions or the product of my behavior.  I can tell you that this difference feels like it is tearing my world apart.  I've done the therapy, the personal growth work, I've said the affirmations: "I am pure Love and Light", I'm a Quaker that believes there is that of The Light in every person.  I've been doing this.  I say I believe this because I want so badly to believe that who I truly am is Love and Light and Compassion and that I personally have amazing gifts to give to the world.  I want so badly to believe this.  What I've learned in the past week, what I've come face to face with, is that I believe that who I truly am is so horrible and monstrous.  That's why the difference is so huge.  I've been doing all this stuff to prove that I have overcome who I truly am.  That's not the purpose for me to be here.  That's not the purpose for anybody to be here on earth.  My purpose, your purpose, everybody and everybody's purpose is to be who they truly are.  That's scary to me.  I guess Faith is to let go and let who I truly am out whatever that is and have faith that I truly am Light.  I won't know until I let it out and see what comes out, Light or monster.  Love and Light.

8-3-12 grateful for today

1.  My adorable dog
2.  Friday
3.  Music
4.  Chanting
5.  Meditation
6.  Breathing
7.  Creativity
8.  Sleeping
9.  Unconditional Love
10.  The Light

I am typing with tingly hands and fingers.  The tingling of not enough rest for my body to renew.  The tingling jangles of nerves that need to stop for longer than the alarm clock says to get up.  I went to bed at 8:30 pm, exhausted.  I've slept the best I have in a long time, and still was waking up quite often through the night.  And my adorable dog starts jumping on me and barking at 4 am, needing water in his bowl.  I need more rest.  I need a relaxing recharge vacation.  I have only 3 days of personal time to take for the rest of the year.  It's my life, my decision on when and how to use them.  I'm sleepy.  Tingling in my hands. Love and Light.

8-2-12 grateful for today

1.  My adorable dog
2.  Chanting
3.  My car running well
4.  Music
5.  Silence
6.  Choices and responsibility
7.  Permission to be human
8.  Unconditional Love
9.  Community gathering to create good energy
10.  Faith

I am feeling happy and light today.  My logical/rational brain can't seem to understand why I'm feeling so much better.  Yesterday I felt incredibly sad and weighed down and lonely and bad.  My logical brain is having a hard time understanding that reconciliation of feeling happy after feeling so sad and hurt.  I've made a drastic change in emotion and there isn't that big of a change in circumstance or experience.  My drastic change was all within me.  It is my choice.  That's hard for a part of me to accept.  The small part of me.  The part of me that was a child and was affected traumatically by forces outside of me that hurt me.  If hurt and sad comes from outside me, then happy and joy and feeling better comes from outside me, right?  All emotions come from inside.  That's the feeling I have, that this happy and joy is coming from within, outward.  Also, my anger, sadness, and hurt over the weekend I felt was coming from within, outward.  So, what happened that I felt that way?  That seems to be the question that we ask ourselves and each other.  Seeing somebody sad or crying, we ask, what happened?  I find that I'm not able to answer that question a lot of the time.  If I don't come up with an experience that I think validates my reason for crying, then I stop crying.  That's not healthy.  I feel sad and I am crying expressing it.  What would happen if I stopped trying to evaluate my "good enough reason" to feel whatever I'm feeling, and instead only FEEL it and express it in a healthy way.  All my emotions are valid at whatever moment I am feeling them.  Love and Light.

8-1-12 grateful for today

1.  My adorable dog
2.  Chanting
3.  Music
4.  Typing well
5.  Breathing
6.  Silence and sitting quietly
7.  My car running well
8.  Imagination and creativity
9.  Unconditional Love
10.  The Light in all things

There is the Light in all things, even me.  I have faith in that even when it is very hard for me to feel the Light in me today.  I have to believe that it is there.  There's a quote and I don't remember who said it first, or even that I have it quoted exactly right, but it is:  It is not that we are afraid of failing, it is that we are afraid that we are powerful beyond measure.  As a kid when I would metaphorically ride the crest of a big wave of joy of life, it would be great and I would feel as if I'm soaring, and waves have to crash on the shore, that is life.  As a kid my shore was hard, sharp unforgiving rocks and cliffs.  Now as an adult, I am still afraid of riding that big wave even though I can see the shore now is a smooth gentle rise of sand.  I have more tools and abilities to keep myself safe when the wave crashes on the beach, I know I can ride it up shore.  I'm not going to crash on the rocks and cliffs, and yet that is what I am afraid of.  Love and Light.