What is a Moment to you?

Mindfulness is the key to everything. It opens the door to gratitude, forgiveness, acceptance, peace, and unconditional love.

Sometimes Falling Down in a Dark Place is a Blessing

"Sometimes, when you're in a dark place,
you think you've been buried but actually,
you've been planted." ~Christine Caine

Becoming Authentically You is on Facebook

Becoming Authentically You just passed 180 likes on Facebook. I am grateful to everyone who has joined me on this journey, both there and here on the blog.

I've been tapping into my creativity, doing a lot of art work, crafts, and some design. I've also been reading and learning and soaking up all the messages that continue to come to me through synchronicity. I believe with the holidays approaching, it is time for some deep reflection on all that has been happening so that I can begin to work on embracing my vulnerability and enhancing my self-expression. It's not an easy feat facing your inner self but I am ready for the challenge!

Don't Replace Negative Thoughts...Challenge Them

I’m learning that we can’t just shut off our negative talk. And why should we bother? It is too hard to do and we have to constantly be considering what would be the best positive thought to use instead. Then we have to try to convince our conscious mind to accept it as a realistic truth.

Rather than replacing our negative thoughts, we can allow them to have space in our minds without resisting their existence. We can then choose to challenge their truth and validity. We can take a step back to get a new healthier perspective. We can take control over the thoughts we believe, and we can choose the story we tell ourselves and others.

I read an interesting article about subpersonalities by Aletheia Luna where she listed the following questions to help you challenge your self-talk.
You can read the full article on Loner Wolf

7 questions to help you acknowledge how your self-limiting talk may be deceiving you:

1. Are you being objective?
2. Is this always true?
3. Was this true in the past?
4. Are you looking at the big picture – or simply focusing on the details?
5. What are the objective odds of this happening? Why? Why not?
6. What is the factual evidence for this?
7. Truthfully, what’s the worst that could happen? Why is this so bad? How would you deal with this?
Other questions that I would add are:
Is this important? Right now? Has it been for me before? Will it be later?
Is this helpful? To me or others? How?
In what ways will this assist me in reaching my goals or bring me joy, happiness, peace, contentment, confidence, or to become more authentic?

A True Friend is Someone You Can Be Authentic With

I am forever grateful for the friends I can be my authentic self with. They treasure me in all that I am. Even on all my days, whether they may be good ones or bad ones, they are there without judgment, only a heart full of love.

Happy Holidays!!!!

Saying "Happy Holidays" is about including everyone. However you choose to celebrate this season, I wish you many blessings filled with love and laughter surrounded by friends and family. May this holiday season bring miracles to you and your loved ones.

Have the Winter Blues Started Already?

It seems every Autumn my mood takes a downfall. This year isn't much different. I've been finding myself in a state of confusion, unsure about myself or the next step I should take. I've learned to be grateful for these moments because they always lead to better times ahead. Rather than resisting, I have decided to go with the flow of events and emotions as they come. Grounding work and tapping into my creative side are proving to be great motivators for me to stay present in the moment and help me focus on the things that are most meaningful in my life.

"Eastern cultures believe that people experience better health when living in harmony with the natural cycles of their environment. Winter is at it greatest Yin in nature this time of year expressing its inactive, cold, and damp nature. Emotionally, it is best to remain introspective, restful, and consolidate your energy.
In winter, the cold and darkness urges us to slow down. At this time of year we are encouraged to reflect on our health, replenish our energy, and conserve our strength. Winter is ruled by the water element (the greatest body of our emotions and is expressed in nature as well as in the body. Fear and depression tend to become the dominant emotion this time of year often because of the lack of light the eyes receive. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) also called winter depression describe a form of depression that occurs in the winter months. Women are affected more often than men, and the prominent symptoms are low mood, starting in autumn or winter, lack of energy, irritability, overeating, weight gain, a craving for carbohydrates, lack of interest in socializing and increased sleep and daytime sleepiness. In Winter, people should stabilize their emotions and cultivate their mind."

I found some wonderful suggestions for having a healthy winter, you can check them out at: Peaceful Mind

Stop Resisting Your Struggles and Have a Little Faith

We put so much effort into resisting our struggles that we barely have enough strength left to rise above them. When we focus our attention on resisting the situation, we don’t have enough resilience left to actually overcome it.

“Spend your energy looking at your struggles
to see and feel what is going on deep inside.
Once that is seen for what it is, you are free of it.

We focus our attention on struggling to avoid and trying to solve problems.
Sometimes that is a distraction from looking deep within ourselves. We would rather deal with the problems of the outside world than face what is inside.
When we face what we see and feel inside and stay with it, we get to the core of it and see it for what it is. Then we are free of it and the outside problems resolve without effort. The feeling of gaining and loosing energy is a distraction from focusing on looking inside.

The more mindful you are the more you see that.

I have found that when there is a situation in my life that I see as a problem and I am struggling to solve it there is an unresolved conflict within myself that has not been resolved. When I turn the focus of my attention from struggling with the problem to seeing and feeling what is going on within myself, I see the unresolved conflict for what it is. Remorse, forgiveness, love and thankfulness naturally follow. I have found if my attention seems stuck on the problem I can accept I am contributing to the problem and I do feel sorry for that. Then I naturally seek insight which happens and forgiveness, love and thankfulness flow.” ~Erin Lee

“Faith is a belief in something greater than ourselves. Having faith is having trust.
Having faith is acknowledging that there are things that happen that we do not know why they happen at the time. When we exercise faith we are letting go of control. We are throwing up our hands and saying I don’t know why this happened but I trust that everything will be alright.

Control is an illusion. The only thing we have control over is our thoughts, words and actions.

Faith means acknowledging that there are greater forces at work than us alone, and that, maybe, if we stopped trying to force things to happen the way we think they should unfold, we could spend more energy trying to align ourselves with what is actually happening. By acknowledging that we do not have all of the answers we are also saying that we do not have all of the solutions. By learning to let go of some control we are taking a step closer to living in the world the way it actually is.

When you catch yourself frustrated at something, stop and ask yourself if it is something you have control over. If it is then act, think or speak differently. If it is not something you can control, practice having faith and then let go of attachment to the outcome. Then notice how much more energy you have and how much better you feel now that you have stopped worrying needlessly.” ~ Dr. Kaleb Montgomery