”…When you recognize all the repetitive actions you take every day, many of them without awareness, it is easy to understand why making the larger changes of creating new thought patterns and beliefs, such as unconditional self-love and self-acceptance, can be so challenging. Just the simple act of making little changes in your daily routines can help you remember that you have a choice in how you live your life and remind you of the magnificent creator you are.
Creativity comes naturally when we are living a life of awareness.”
—-Don Miguel Ruiz Jr. Living a Life of Awareness p.105
choice
Another Aries Ponder
Sat down hoping to locate a nice quote for being joyfully incorrect. Nothing. Crickets.
Tried the music and sound motivation and located something fantastic to go along with the intent of joyfully incorrect, wrong. Video appeared with Revenge on the opening view. I chuckled and thought how fortuitous this was. Shoved to write my own and FEAR! Now a spiritual eye roll occurred. Haven’t written in a very long time. Streams of running energy and thoughts, how do I do it to please all of you. Ha! Another spiritual eye roll.
Paused a moment and thoughts of Getting to wake up this morning. To suit up and to show up. My plan had me irritated, agitated on such a beautiful morning. I then resented the loss of my idea of what ought to happen. The inner itty-bitty-shitty committee was awake and having a party veering toward the poor me pity party. And then…. I got to see the outcome of what happened instead! Nearly empty store, safer for me, deathly allergic me…who cannot get a COVID vaccine, yet. Got food I needed! Cleaned fridge, meal planned, prepped, portioned, peace and enoughness, before 8 am!
My perception, sometimes I call it a disease of perception, my way is can be full of wrong judgement, wrong thinking, wrong actions. It can lead me into a hot mess, in my mind, quicker then the blink of my eye. No matter, the truth of the situation right there in the midst of all the false, the reactions I have.
It is fantastic to see, in hindsight, the outcomes I sought to control, end up simpler, or better than what I imagined. Even those ones that appear to be OMG you will have Nothing to eat for a week, you will just DIE, can be very, very wrong.
With my old way of thinking, I’d ruminate and fester and weave all of these wrongs I had, into resentment, and plots of revenge. I’d call them fixing situations. Good management. Resiliency around obstacles. HA!!
This morning I got to be JOYFULL about being incorrect. The more I can pause before that resentful and fear-based catastrophizing (think I made up a word) and the longer I can hold the pause to see what happens next before taking a drink of fear and anger and anxiety, the more I can hear my heart beating. I can remember the feeling of grounding and keep it. I can joyfully see the outcome. No need for that revenge.
The music when I listen, I can feel that beat, unfalteringly showing me the way of the grace of that steady pause and trust that It remains. I get to choose to weave resentment and revenge OR I get to choose to weave JOY! What a choice, seems difficult maybe (insert sarcastic tone). Leaping into the joy of experience freer from my clouded thoughts, every day.
Morning Trip (339)
Letting go helps us live in a more peaceful state of mind and helps restore our balance. It allows others to be responsible for themselves and for us to take our hands off situations that do not belong to us. This frees us from unnecessary stress. – Melody Beattie
Morning Trip (317)
“I’m not an expert on terrorism, but I’ve studied fear for over fifteen years, and here’s what I can tell you: Terrorism is time-released fear. The ultimate goal of both global and domestic terrorism is to conduct strikes that embed fear so deeply in the heart of a community that fear becomes a way of life. This unconscious way of living then fuels so much anger and blame that people start to turn on one another. Terrorism is most effective when we allow fear to take root in our culture. Then it’s only a matter of time before we become fractured, isolated, and driven by our perceptions of scarcity.”
–Brene Brown
Donald Trump and those who support him(those in office doing nothing) are Terrorists and are tacitly agreeing to acts of terrorism. Now that we are aware of this, we, as a people, can move toward restoration and resiliency.
–me
Morning Trip (316)
The Untethered Mind
“The transformation of the world is brought about by the transformation of oneself, because the self is the product and a part of the total process of human existence. To transform oneself, self-knowledge is essential; without knowing what you are, there is no basis for right thought, and without knowing yourself there cannot be transformation. One must know oneself as one is, not as one wishes to be, which is merely an ideal and therefore fictitious, unreal; it is only that which is that can be transformed, not that which you wish to be. To know oneself as one is requires an extraordinary alertness of mind, because what is is constantly undergoing transformation, change; and to follow it swiftly the mind must not be tethered to any particular dogma or belief, to any particular pattern of action.. If you would follow anything, it is no good being tethered. To know yourself, there must be awareness, the alertness of mind in which there is freedom from all beliefs, from all idealization, because beliefs and ideals only give you a color, perverting true perception. If you want to know what you are, you cannot imagine or have belief in something which you are not. If I am greedy, envious, violent, merely having an ideal of non-violence, of non-greed, is of little value … The understanding of what you are, whatever it be – ugly or beautiful, wicked or mischievous – the understanding of what you are, without distortion, is the beginning of virtue. Virtue is essential, for it gives freedom.”
–J. Krishnamurti
Daily Reading: Remembering Our Choice
“It’s easy to blame, the media, our culture, or our community for perpetuating unrealistic images of what it expects of us. But at the very core of these expectations, there is no one to blame; because a commercial, like self-judgement, has no power over us unless we agree with its message. It is only when we willingly attach ourselves to these images and distortions that our happiness is compromised.
We do not need to take the blame for these self-judgements. We can simply become aware that they have been developing in our lives since childhood through the process of domestication.
Once we are aware of our self-judgements, we can regain our freedom by choosing for ourselves to transcend the reward and punishment model that has been imposed upon us and eventually arrive at a place of self-acceptance. We have a choice. That is our power.
Practice: How many of your ideas and beliefs about the world and yourself are results of domestication and outside influence? Do you assume things should be or look a certain way because that’s what you’ve seen on TV or in your community, and it seems normal? With awareness question those assumptions today. Ask yourself if things might be otherwise and if you could be happy without these rigid ideals of perfection.”
Taken from: Living a Life of AWARENESS Daily Meditations on the TOLTEC Path by Don Miguel Ruiz Jr. ISBN: 9781938289231
Morning Trip (209)
“Awareness, or the practice of being in communion with this moment and my present environment, is the key.”
–Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.
Morning Trip (200)
“But there is one vocation–philosophy–which knows that all men, by what they think about and wish for, in effect wield all tools. It knows that men thus determine, by their manner of thinking and wishing, whether it is worthwhile to wield any.”
–Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, November
Elisa's Spot 