"I am a complete, mature, self-sufficient being." ---W Taylor

"There will never be continuing peace on earth until a transformation is wrought by LOVE in the heart of man." ---Brown Landone

The heart of man can be transformed by learning to self-love, tapping into the Great I AM.

---Joan Baxter

"'To look behind or to look upfront is not as important as to look inside'"

---Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Being happy requires that you define your life in your own terms and then throw your whole heart into living your life to the fullest. In a way, happiness requires that you be perfectly selfish in order to develop yourself to a point where you can be unselfish for the rest of your life."
---Brian Tracy

"Loving Yourself is Healing the World!"
---Jaymie Gerard


"You can never truly love anyone else until you love yourself. Until you really love yourself, your love for others is purely selfish. It is an attempt to fulfill the missing part of you with whatever you enjoy about them. Therefore, I cannot trust others who don't love themselves to truly have my best interests at heart."
---Danielle Marie Crume


"Selfishness comes from poverty in the heart, from the belief that love is not abundant."
---Don Miguel Ruiz


"Self-rejection is the biggest sin that you can commit."
---Don Miguel Ruiz


"There are no perfect human beings! Persons can be found who are good, very good indeed, in fact, great. There do in fact exist creators, seers, sages, saints, shakers, and movers...even if they are uncommon and do not come by the dozen. And yet these very same people can at times be boring, irritating, petulant, selfish, angry, or depressed. To avoid disillusionment with human nature, we must first give up our illusions about it."
---Abraham Maslow


"My imperfections and failures are as much a blessing from God as my successes and my talents and I lay them both at his feet."
---Gandhi


"Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God: for it is perhaps your own coldness and avarice and mediocrity and materialism and selfishness that have chilled his faith."
---Thomas Merton


"All that is required for you to live the freedom of your Divinity is to again become familiar with returning back to your true nature. Being it and sinking deeply into living as it."
---Julie Sarah Powell


"Self-nurturing means, above all, making a commitment to self-compassion, to the creation of a loving and positive attitude toward yourself."
---Jennifer Louden


"The first thing to do is to break the circuit between bile and brain by resolutely turning one’s thoughts away from the vexatious subject. This does not means finding convincing arguments, but simply breaking off the contact by, for example, forcing oneself to careful observation of some object or another. When the train of thought has thus been redirected, a few moments of mediation will prevent the reaction of the bile from continuing.

This small act of control has the highest importance, for it ensures that when the anarchistic Automaton attacks the conscious self, victory shall go to the latter."
---Isha De Lubicz


" I believe this '_____' because it allows me to be happy, healthy, wealthy and whole in every way that I can imagine."

---Mark Firehammer


"You were born to achieve, to release your inner power, to fulfill your uniqueness."
---Eric Butterworth


"In my life there is an infinite supply of love, it is in exhaustible, I can never use it all in this lifetime so I don't have to be sparing with it!"
---Louise Hay


"Believing in yourself never goes out of style."
---Elle Woods


Do you know how to learn to love yourself? You practice. Day in and day out, you practice. With total compassion and patience, you practice. Yet, for most people, love is seen and accepted as a commodity that only comes in spurts: People may experience romance and physical attraction and think that love operates like the internal "magic" they feel from time to time while they are around their lovers; people connect in varying extents with friends and family that afford them a brotherly type love; other people demonstrate selfless qualities toward their innocents---toward their children and they know that as love; and some people give and experience love through a temporal expression of Agape. [In other words, the people preach/teach the love of God and feel the love of God as a disciple---even if the love fails to last an eternity or even just a day.]


The other night I "heard" how most people are selfish. I beg to differ. I believe that most people are trying to survive; and, some people are more adept at surviving, so for those people selflessness can come much easier than for others. Also, some people have been subject to perpetual forms of insecurity, doubt, and/or treachery so that the people actually have zero understanding regarding survival which places them in a state of deficit. The people may constantly suffer and struggle because survival is just like a fantasy to them. To them there is no such thing as a "win." Or if there are perceived "winners" to those who struggle, the victors are all on some sort of pedestal. They are experienced as untouchables!


How many people really love themselves deep down to the core? I would venture to say, "Not many."



For me, the path of self-love started approximately four years ago. I have come a long way, but I would like to get even further. And I am, one breath at a time. The title of this blog is an affirmative statement about my present state of being. I am affirming that I am currently complete [whole], that I am mature in terms of being a human woman, and I am absolutely on my own two feet. This statement is something I use daily to manifest my will as a healthy person. Positive self-talk is vital in self-love.


In the last couple years the metaphysical Law of Attraction [LOA] got brought to the attention of the public through the mass made video hit, The Secret. The Secret was/is a philosophy and marketing ploy that is quite genius! It is loaded with celebrities and testimonials. It is flashy, emphatic and repetitive. But, in my mind, that marketing genius has, also, dinked its appeal to a lot of Americans. Many people in the U.S. thought the tactics in the film were fanciful. Not real. Slanted toward wishful thinkers. [Like snake oil and healing tonics during the time of the Wild West.]


"Thomas Troward, who was a strong influence in the 'New Thought Movement,' [New Thought is a loosely allied group of organizations, authors, philosophers, and individuals who share a set of metaphysical beliefs concerning healing, life force, Creative Visualization, and personal power.] claimed that thought precedes physical form and that 'the action of mind plants that nucleus which, if allowed to grow undisturbed, will eventually attract to itself all the conditions necessary for its manifestation in outward visible form.'"


"Some proponents of a more modern version of the LOA say it has roots in Quantum Physics. According to the proponents, thoughts have an energy that attracts like energy. In order to control this energy, proponents state that people should practice four things:
---Know what one desires and ask for it.
['Ask and you shall receive.' Luke 11:9]
---Focus one's thought upon the thing desired with great feeling such as enthusiasm or gratitude.
---Feel and behave as if the object of one's desire is already acquired.
---Be open to receiving it."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Attraction


For further information about Metaphysical Laws and how they work... There are literally dozens of Universal Laws that exist, but for ease of understanding, they can be distilled down to a main seven:

1. Law of Control
2. Law of Accident
3. Law of Cause & Effect
4. Law of Belief
5. Law of Expectation
6. Law of Attraction
7. Law of Correspondence

From these seven, everything else flows. The beauty of the Laws is that once one understands and lives in accordance with them, life becomes extremely simple.

Law of Control
The Law of Control simply states that we have high self-esteem and feel good about ourselves to the exact degree that we feel we are in control of our lives. Unfortunately, the majority of the population does not live according to the Law of Control, but rather by its inverse, the Law of Accident. The truth of the matter is that every one of us is in total control of our life, but until one takes the step to determine that they are personally responsible for what happens to them, then they cannot help but live by Accident.

Law of Accident
This Law states that we feel badly about ourselves and have low self-esteem to the degree that we feel events and circumstances control our lives. In other words, we are the victims of whatever else happens around us. If good things happen, then we benefit, but if bad things happen, we play the victim.

Law of Cause & Effect
This Law is also known as the Iron Law of Human Destiny because it is so profound and powerful. Simply stated, the Law of Cause & Effect says that everything happens for a reason. All actions have consequences, as do all inactions. Distilled down to the simplest possible terms, this law states that for every effect in one’s life, there is a specific cause. The law can also be applied in the physical sense through examination of Sir Isaac Newton’s third Law of Motion, which states that “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” If, for example, you were to hold your hand over a candle’s flame (the cause) the effect would be that your hand would burn and it would hurt!
The truly wonderful thing about this law is that by definition then, we should be able to manifest that which we truly want (the effect), simply by exerting the same causes that others before us have exerted and been successful.

Law of Belief
The Law of Belief states that whatever you believe with feeling and conviction becomes your reality. It is not until you change your beliefs that you can begin to change your reality and your performance.
You have heard the doubters and the naysayers out there who always proclaim “I’ll believe it when I see it!” In reality, it is the other way around; it is not until you believe it, that you will see it (no matter what “it” is)! Self-limiting beliefs are perhaps the most detrimental of all thoughts, since they absolutely will keep you from the success that you may want, but don’t believe you can attain. There is an old saying that goes ”whether you think you can or you can’t, your right!” This saying is completely congruent with the Law of Belief.

Law of Expectation
Simply stated, the Law of Expectations tells us that whatever one expects, with confidence, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. When one expects with confidence that good things will happen, they usually will. If, on the other hand, one expects a negative outcome to a situation, then the outcome will usually be negative.
Our expectations play a key role in our own outcomes and they also have a remarkable effect on the people around us. What we expect from those around us determines our attitude toward them more than any other factor. In turn, the people around us tend to reflect our attitudes right back at us - whether the expectations and attitudes are positive or negative, good or bad.

Law of Attraction
The Law of Attraction states that we attract into our lives, that which we focus our thoughts upon. If your thoughts are constantly on positive outcomes and good results, then that is what we will manifest. If, on the other hand, your predominant thoughts are on negative outcomes and poor results, then that is what you will attract. This is based on the fact that the Universe is simply vibrational energy in motion. Emotions, thoughts, feelings and objects – absolutely everything has a vibrational frequency. Since like attracts like, it is only logical that the vibrational frequency of your predominant thoughts will attract results that have a similar vibrational frequency. We know that emotions that are love-based (love, desire, happiness, wonder, joy etc.) have a very high vibrational frequency, whereas emotions that are fear-based (anger, hatred, intolerance, fear, sadness etc.) vibrate at a very low frequency.

Law of Correspondence
“As within, so without” is an old saying that perfectly describes the Law of Correspondence. This simply means that what happens on the outside is merely a reflection of what is happening on the inside. Your outer world is a reflection of your inner world. An individual that is unhappy and living in conflict with themselves, will always exhibit negative behaviors on the outside. Sometimes, one can mask these negative behaviors and thoughts, but the true feelings will eventually reveal themselves. Everything in our lives is a mirror of what is happening within us. If you want to make your outside life better, the only way to accomplish this is to change what is happening on the inside.
http://www.whatismetaphysics.com/universallaw.html


We, as people, are co-creators of our realities. We have been since the dawning of time. But for a very long period in our world history, we lived our lives more in the dark than in the light. We repetively thought that we could not access the Divine within. So instead, we depended on outward signs, rules, and regulations to experience righteousness. During that time, there was a steady period of growth and development where mankind learned to think and reason---where mankind discovered what life meant personally, socially, and spiritually.

But, I want to point something out. The dark was never discarded as mankind grew and diversified. It was simply shifted around. The Renaissance period in Western society dissipated mankind's ignorance in many ways. One such way was through "mystical" pieces of art that were created by brilliant artisans who were thoughtful and highly educated. Chiaroscuro was a technique that the artists used to really make their subject matter "pop" dimensionally.


"Chiaroscuro comes from the Italian words for bright or clear and dark or obscure. It is usually translated as 'light-dark'. Prior to the Renaissance, with its ferment of intellectual activity, painting as an art was what we would now characterize as 'primitive'. Shapes were delineated with outlines, and colors were flat planes, cartoonish by today's standards.

Chiaroscuro may sound simplistic, yet most people cannot easily reproduce a colored object with a 3-dimensional feel because the brain, in a sense, 'over processes' what the eyes see. A black car on a sunny day is a perfect illustration — it will reflect blue hues from the clear sky and other colors from its surroundings, including the colors of any cars nearby. Yet most people will subtract out the reflected lights and shadow and 'see' the car as simply black.

A primitive painter might paint a shiny red bowl on a blue tablecloth as a flat crescent of red, perhaps with a black outline. The painter adept at chiaroscuro would incorporate white or yellow highlights at the point of the bowl closest to the light source, and the parts of the bowl unlit by the light would perhaps be maroon, deepening to brown or black. The blue cloth would reflect a blue tint onto the bottom of the bowl, light on the light side and darker on the side away from the light.

All artists since the Renaissance have been influenced by the development of chiaroscuro techniques. Since modeling three dimensions on flat surfaces via shading and highlighting is the standard today, rather than a radical departure, the term chiaroscuro is typically now reserved for very dramatic uses of contrasting light and darkness.


The painter most often associated with chiaroscuro is Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, who is usually referred to by his 'town-name' Caravaggio, possibly to prevent confusion with another Michelangelo."
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-chiaroscuro.htm

[Christian Scripture relays that: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the deep. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.---Genesis 1:1-5]

Many have used such Christian Scripture to state that light is good. Dark is bad. But, that was never stated in the beginning. The only statement that was made in Genesis was that light was good and God separated it from the dark which then created morning and night---a day.


And as I enjoy the works of art created during the Renaissance, I see the profound relationship between light and dark. Shape and volume are created from the intersection of the artistic values.

And as a day is birthed, man's soul is, also, birthed.


Enlightenment is a term frequently used by New Age believers and Eastern religions and philosophers. Salvation [which is secondary to grace-given realization] is frequently used by Christians. And to me, this brightness in thought and feeling is man's real live form of chiaroscuro. Suddenly a realization comes to mind! And by and by, a desire and a belief spring forth from the person's heart. The various belief systems across the world experience one form of this kind of "awareness" or another to define the "Ah-HA!" moment(s) they have.



Later in Christian Scripture, darkness did eventually get pegged as related to evil. But to me, that is no big surprise. Man likes to objectify things in order to separate himself from the things. Darkness countered light. And thus man could escape his reality via darkness. Or, at least he thought he could. As man continued to learn, he was introduced to advanced concepts dealing with light and darkness.



"However, one of the founding fathers of psychology, Carl G. Jung, points out, not only is darkness known through light but conversely, and as a logical equivalent, light is known through darkness."
http://punctum-saliens.org/2008/05/16/carl-jung-and-the-problem-of-evil/



Moreover, Jung stated that, "Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it. Furthermore, it is constantly in contact with other interests, so that it is continually subjected to modifications. But if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected."
http://psikoloji.fisek.com.tr/jung/shadow.htm



The darkness is not evil per say. The darkness is a conscious mind that is buried beneath the surface for one reason or another. It hides itself from spectators. It denies itself to the Self. The conscious then becomes known as subconscious. Easterners evaluate the "darkness" situation very differently than Westerners.



"Kali is a particularly profound representation of Divinity. Her images contain elements that are both terrifying and reassuring. In short, she represents all the dualities we experience in life, pleasure and pain, good and evil, etc., combined into one Being who is also much more than can be captured in descriptions of her or in the various roles she plays. She also represents the Source of all things, the Mother. There is no absolute Good or absolute Evil in the Hindu understanding of Reality. Good and evil are relative to our desires and understanding--what gives what we want is good, what takes away what we want is bad. As our desires and understanding changes, our concept of good and evil will also change. Kali teaches us to see the good in what may seem bad and the bad in what may seem good. She also teaches us how to transcend these limited ideas and attain a higher wisdom or enlightenment, that enables us to find the resolution of all apparent conflicts."http://en.allexperts.com/q/Hindus-946/Kali.htm



At this stage in the game, I don't use dieties to explain good or bad. Evil or not evil. That, in my opinion, is just another way mankind objectifies things so that there is very little personal responsibility in decision-making.



At this stage in the game, I try to place everything in the context of love or not love. [And yet, paradoxically, if you know me, you also know I believe that God is Love.]



The shadow I see in other people is actually the shadow that I have as well. So when I hate something, when something makes me angry, or something causes me to have some kind of negative reaction, I try to recognize [bring it to my conscious attention] it is my shadow telling me to stop and listen, to observe and notice. Conversely, another person might be very attractive to me because the attractiveness is actually a quality I contain and would like to come forward with but I lack confidence or something else in order to make that happen effectively. Either way, my shadow is "speaking" to me.



Knowing all this information can enable each of us to learn to love ourselves. [And we must learn to love ourselves if we are to heal the world of its pain, suffering and separation.] First, if we realize our overall thought system is disempowering for us and others, then we must start deep inside ourselves. We must settle down [Lay on a bed or a couch, sit in lotus pose, etc.] and be still.


Then we must focus on our heart. Get a visual image of your heart. In your mind's eye watch your heart beat. Feel its power. Experience your blood pumping through the majestic vessel. And as you get lulled into a sense of comfort and rhythm, let your thoughts just start to flow with your coursing blood.



Don't try to stop the thoughts or DO anything with them. Just become an observer of your them. Let them flow from your mind. Let them run through your veins. Just BE with those thoughts. There is no right or wrong. The thoughts are merely thoughts. Just let them go.



And as you begin to sense some degree of oneness with your heart, still to listen to its wisdom. The wisdom is there. Connect with it. And after you cannot "hear" the wisdom any longer, refocus on the coursing blood. Feel your veins experiencing the rivers of life again and again. And acknowledge your heart pumping. Touch the center of your chest with one of your palms. Feel the beats of your heart.



Let yourself come fully back into your physical body one breath at a time. [You have been using meditation techniques to allow you to connect with the lesser "known" parts of yourself.] Experience the fabric of the place that surrounds you. What does it feel like? Smell the air. Are there any noticable scents? Run your tongue across the front of your teeth. What does your mouth taste like? You are fully cognizant.



What did your heart's wisdom have to say to you? [Act on this.]



Trust in yourself enough to empower your thoughts with the heart wisdom. Now, apply LOA by creating a "script" for your brain that manifests your inner self into your outer self.



State your reality. "My desire is self-love. Please fill me with my desire. I AM self-love." And then just get out of the way. Don't question your statement. Just allow God through his perfectly manifested imagination and heart, the universe, to bring your statement into Being. The universe is perfectly ordered. It is perfectly timed. Trust in the Most Intelligent Being Ever's perfect plan. Afterall, the sun sets. The moon rises. The sea ebbs and flows. You breathe in. You breathe out.



Be 100% open to receive God's love for you. [If this is difficult initially---and it may be---visualize yourself pulling your shoulders back as your chest cavity broadens. Conceptualize God's blessings circulating in and out of your chest cavity.] You are His creation. He made you to love you. He made you to love Him. We manifest our love for God through our choice to be open to His abundance and fruitfulness.



As we learn that there is no part of us that is separate from the Great I AM, we become empowered with God's omnipresent love. Our heart houses the Divine. The world about us houses the Divine. We ARE in God ALWAYS!!!



Darkness is not inherently evil. Darkness often allows us to cope with the light we feel ashamed to carry inside us. God feels no shame toward us. He never has. He knows how worthy of His love we are. Like a parent-teacher, God from the very beginning gave us tools to overcome our naivete and our learning choices (some poor some good). He, also, protected us in that naivete by removing the "Tree of Life" from our young, material-oriented beings' grasp. We ARE/WERE/WILL ALWAYS BE His children.



We ARE creatures of love and splendor. We were made in the "Image of Them."



Intellect and heart-centeredness have frequently been confusing to mankind. But, there is no split between the two. The heart and the mind are one. There are pathways moving between them in the body-mind and in the energy bodies as well.



In addition, the emotional heart is said to be different than the physical heart. But this isn't so.
"The physical body is always guided by the emotional body, therefore the two aspects of your heart, one in the physical, the other in the emotional, are linked. If the emotional heart is happy, in a high positive frequency, the physical heart will generally be healthy as well. Heart disease goes to emotional problems and their manifestation in the physical body. All illness begins at the soul level, moves to the emotional body, then manifests in the physical.



Dean Ornish, M.D., has served as a pioneer in this work. In his book, Love and Survival, the Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy he reports on many such studies. For example, he helped conduct a study at Yale that involved 119 men and 40 women undergoing coronary angiography. Those who felt the most loved and supported had substantially less blockages in their heart arteries than the other subjects. In a related study, researchers looked at almost 10 thousand married men with no prior history of angina. These men had high levels of risk factors, such as elevated cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, and electrocardiogram abnormalities. Those who felt their wives did not show them love experienced almost twice as much angina as the first group, who felt their wives did show them love.


While feeling loved appears to benefit our heart's health, giving love seems to do the same for our aging process. The results of a study of more than 700 elderly adults showed that the effects of aging were influenced more by what the participants contributed to their social support network than what they received from it. In other words, the more love and support they gave, the more they benefited.


Social ties with friends, family, workers, and community that involve love and intimacy of any type also may help protect against infectious diseases. In a study of 276 healthy volunteers ranging in age from 18 to 55, all participants received nasal drops containing rhinovirus, which causes the common cold. Researchers assessed subjects on 12 types of relationships, including relationship with spouse, parents, parents-in-law, children and other close family members, neighbors, friends, co-workers schoolmates, and member of various groups. They scored a point for each type of relationship if they spoke to a person in that category at least once every two weeks. While almost all of the people exposed to the cold virus were infected, not everyone developed the signs and symptoms of a cold. The participants who reported only one to three types of relationships had more than four times the risk of developing a cold than those reporting six or more types of relationships.


"When you feel loved, nurtured, cared for, supported, and intimate, you are much more likely to be happier and healthier. You have a much lower risk of getting sick and, if you do, a much greater chance of surviving," Ornish concludes in his book.
http://www.crystalinks.com/hearte.html

If we can reconcile in our heart and in our mind [And WE CAN.] that we are complete, and that any part of us that believes to the contrary of our wholeness is still in the dark; we can learn to nurture that part---especially by showing it over-whelming compassion. By nurturing, we become consciously aware of our thoughts that are active in both the lightness and the darkness. We have an opportunity to heal the disparities that exist and are affecting our body-minds daily.

Life has not remained stationary from the beginning. Life has continued to grow, expand, deepen. I AM, we ARE all a part of that expansion. If we read various Scriptures as though the world stopped revolving on its axis, we are in the dark somewhere within our body-mind.

Love is the most important feature to living. It vibrates at the highest frequency within the energy fields. We can all manage the love we were born with with some effort; but for some of us, that may be harder than for others. Regardless of our situation, forever abundant love is available in us and around us at any given moment. All we have to do is open ourselves enough to breathe it in and out---
consciously accepting that it is a natural part of us.

I, fortunately, lived in a family that shared love (even when much of the love was highly dysfunctional and misunderstood between members). So, I can only fathom growing up in situation where love was seemingly not in existence at all. I hurt for people that live/lived such an experience. But, I do know that these people do not have to remain in the "darkness" of their upbringings. Love is but a breath away.

If you missed out on a loving environment, if you suffered/suffer great pain and indifference, I am so very sorry for your experiences and your pain. I knew love in my early life; but I, also, knew pain, suffering, and illness, so I can identify with you on that point. But, know that you can experience the glimmering hope of a soul transformed today. You just need to open your mind and your heart so that you can slowly and methodically learn the powerful Being of Eternal Love.

Get still, again. Breathe in and breathe out. Continue to breathe again and again until your body is relaxed. Imagine a pink light radiating around you. Now see that same pink light moving in circles in, around and through your heart. Let your body-mind know that this light is the essence of your love blending with the essence of God's love. God is omnipresent. You are therefore a very natural part of Him.

[Some people may be very negative about this tool to help you experience love. Listen to your own heart, though. Does it feel threatened by this creative visualization? If it doesn't, continue. If it does, ask your heart what is right for you to find everlasting love. Each one of our paths is different. Some people may require an even "stronger, more meaningful" visual and experiential tool---like the crucifix. That is totally fine. And it, also, totally fine to have a "Come to Jesus" moment if that is necessary for you. That kind of moment usually encompasses you connecting with Christ directly. Asking Him into your life as your personal Savior. As your Lord. As your Counselor---your Prince of Peace. The main idea here is to feel safe, comfortable, uplifted, and connected to Love. Use whatever works for you, and that may change with time.]

As you begin to feel the pink light moving in and out of you through the use of your breath, imagine the most beautiful concept/thing/person you could ever conceive of. What is it? Can you speak with it? If so, what does it say? What does it do for you? What do you do for it. Define the interaction in as much detail as possible.

Now, in your heart and mind, open to this beauty and call it a tangible form of your love. Spend some time just being with the beauty. When you tire of the exercise, come back to your body one part at a time: in the toes, in the fingers, in the feet, in the hands, etc. Feel your breath. Separate from your inner vissions. Experience the room around you.

Exercises such as this creative visualization can be expanded or changed. They can be used over and over. At some point, you will be able to recognize and experience God's love in you and around you totally independent of such exercises. But much practice is warranted. Be compassionate and patient with yourself and the process. Watch the love become greater and greater. Notice how other people begin to interact with you. Notice how you begin to interact with others. See the love grow.

[If you find a lot of darkness abiding in your soul, you may want to practice such exercises a few times a day. You are worth it! Also, you may want to get connected to a group or church that will support you as your love deepens. But, make sure LOVE is the primary reason for getting involved. Other people have agendas that may not support your ability to learn how to love. Psychotherapy and/or holistic forms of medicine may be a good idea as well. Whatever works for you. Just remember it is all about learning self-love.]

As we learn to love ourselves, we replace the darkness with light. But, don't be surprised if the dark memories stay around to supply us with depth and volume. For me, my dark moments are very important. I can look at my sadnesses, my injuries and my pain as learning experiences. And as I recover from the experiences, I tend to grow stronger.

But, I, also, believe I am entering a new age. I am learning that love is absolutely abundant, and as such, I don't have to expect such dark moments. This concept goes every bit against my religious training and my familial upbringing. No pain no gain was the motto that I adhered to early on.

I have been learning about LOA. And, I definitely believe in it. But, as with most things in my life, it takes me time to implement. Our conscious minds are often riddled with disempowering habits, and our subconscious minds often self-sabotage our good intentions. As with most new habits, time and effort are required. As I like to say, "Practice, practice, practice."

This is not magic. This is focused effort. And while you are focusing, remember to tell yourself [use self-talk] you ARE WORTH every second of your energy. Begin to believe that you are God's beautiful, unique creation. You are God's love!

"Be my friend."---Albert Camus

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."

---Anais Nin



"Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow.Don't walk behind me, I may not lead.Walk beside me and be my friend."

---Albert Camus



"Your friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you."

---Elbert Hubard



"Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe."

---Gail Devers



"People only see what they are prepared to see."

---Ralph Waldo Emerson



"Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others."

---Jonathan Swift



"Vision looks inward and becomes duty. Vision looks outward and becomes aspiration. Vision looks upward and becomes faith."

---Stephen S. Wise



"A vision is not just a picture of what could be; it is an appeal to our better selves, a call to become something more."

---Rosabeth Moss Kanter



"We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view."

---Mao Tse-Tung



"Most people are not really free. They are confined by the niche in the world that they carve out for themselves. They limit themselves to fewer possibilities by the narrowness of their vision."

---V.S. Naipaul



"Here is a test to find out whether your mission in life is complete. If you're alive, it isn't."

---Richard Bach


"I learned the most important lesson of my life: that the extraordinary is not the birthright of a chosen and privileged few, but of all people, even the humblest. That is my one certainty: we are all the manifestation of the divinity of God."

---Paulo Coelho



"Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills -- against misery, against ignorance, or injustice and violence. Yet many of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and a 32 year old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal. Give me a place to stand,' said Archimedes, and I will move the world.' These men moved the world, and so can we all."

---Robert F. Kennedy



"Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built."

---James Allen



I have been living a thought---back and forth, back and forth---for a few months. Sometimes I grasp it and am grateful. Sometimes I shake my head and wonder, "Oh, brother, why me?" It is a thought about vision and relationships.



As I grew up there were many times when I stood alone amidst the crowd of my peers. Kansas was foreign ground for my soul (it still is). But I lived there for 13 years. My mother and father were having marital difficulties and my mom's homeland was Salina, KS. She took my three brothers and me back to her home state to live. Eventually, my dad made it to Kansas for one last "go of it." He lasted there until I was 12. That was pretty impressive considering I moved to Salina when I was 4.5.



At any rate, my connections to people were rarely fluid as I lived in the Midwest. I had to work very hard for my relationships. But, I did become the fringe of the popular crowd---as well as the fringe of every other group. And most people would never have known the great unhappiness I felt...for years.



I had a best friend all through grade school and the first part of junior high school. Her name was Jody. She and I shared a creative and religious spirit. She was a Methodist. I was a Lutheran. We talked God and Church a lot. We drew, we painted, we danced, we sang. In general, we had lots of fun.



Jody became very sick in junior high. She got Viral Encephalitus from a mosquito bite. She almost died three different times. When she returned to school, she had temporary brain damage that she had to work through. Our friendship ended during that time frame. I didn't have the courage or the skills to see the situation through. Jody didn't even know who I was most of the time. She had no connection to our friendship. I was a virtual stranger to her.



It was five more years before I found a group of people that opened my heart and mind simultaneously. I went to a humanities camp in Oberlin, OH. There I met people from all over the United States. For teenagers, so many of the individuals were highly sophisticated, highly educated. I was in heaven. But, I actually got quite ill because I was staying up night and day and doing so much learning, viewing so much art, hearing so much that was different and new. I developed cluster migraines that kept me bed ridden for part of the time. Yet, overall, I started to blossom and become the Joan I was supposed to BE.



When I returned to Salina I fell apart. Like the frog in the well I was narrow-sighted. I couldn't bear living in the colorless and voiceless world of Kansas. I wanted life. I wanted wonder. I wanted excitement. I wanted the friends who made "my world" come into plain view. Nothing else would suffice. Not after Oberlin.



That heart schism brought me to my first disabling crisis. And that crisis introduced me to my first miracle. I experienced angels. [They were not audible, they were not visual, they "lived" in a realm all their own; but, I experienced their touch---their wisdom one night when I lay in my room in complete despair. My heart ached terribly. The angels guided me to life-saving help.] I would be forever changed. There was no going back.



After surviving my crisis, I buried myself in my art work that year. I created pictures in my mind. I developed my skills. I clung to the idea of studying art in college. I set up a 2 hour back to back course for my senior year. I adored my art teacher.

And, then, unexpectedly my life shifted radically. My mother and I had a huge falling out. I suddenly found myself moving to my father and step-mother's prior to my senior year in high school. Fate took a strong hand. My senior year I had to take random courses so that I could graduate from high school with the appropriate Florida criteria. Moreover, I was to go to college in Florida at an unknown university. University of Florida. Student body population 40,000.

And did I mention? I met a new and faithful best friend, a girl named Ginny who lit up my life in so many ways.

Ginny and I shared partying, gossip, boys, sexual intrigue, God and so much more. She taught me all about flirting. [Thank goodness.] Who knows what I taught her! We were on the edge of life. We were life! Our relationship was well-rounded enough for it to survive 10 years as best friends. And then, one day, we ceased to know one another very well at all. She was married and newly pregnant. I was single and grappling with my disease's second major eruption. Suddenly life was too big for both of us.



Our friendship was seriously frayed, and it remained that way for approximately 7-8 years. Recently we got to see one another. She looks great. She has three phenomenally gorgeous children. Her oldest is 8. And I enjoyed our time together. It was lovely to be with an old friend so near and dear.



After Ginny came a period of tremendous searching. It was a dark night of the soul. I looked for myself down many shadowed paths. I finally found most of myself in a spark of powerful creative unison. I met a man that would transform me. His name was Chris.

Chris was hungry for love and so was I. I was running on empty, so was he. We were kinetic. We were desperate. We were chemical. Our hearts collided and became one. Just one not two. We managed our relationship through some of the hardest times [through many horrible hospitalizations and disparities]. We spoke to each other daily for 3.5 years---sometimes for many, many hours at a time. We lived for one another. And, then, after all was said and done, we ended what we had so the other could be healthy---so that the other could live. It was devastating.



Chris is married now. I believe he has at least one child. And I still miss him every single day. The pain of his loss has seriously lessened. It is fairly numb. He is now just a special space that my heart holds open. Someday someone or something will fill the gap. But, who knows when that will be.



My father left my house in Salina when I was 12. I scarcely heard from him for a couple years. His relationship with Mom was pretty disasterous.



I waited and waited for things to mend themselves. I had no sense that I was waiting for the impossible (or perhaps the barely plausible). I just knew my dad came back to me when I was 4.5 and he would come back to me again. I didn't know I would return to him rather than have him return to me.



I hold onto the people I call friends because of my dad and his continuous absence. I wait out dark periods as I can. [My illness has given me much strength and endurance.] As I have aged, I have learned that relationships rarely stay the same, but that they can last despite circumstances and situations. And I know that each person on the planet is filled with a luminous treasure that beckons me forth to find it.

Sometimes letting go is a must. Sometimes letting go is truly impossible for me. I simply can't. I, also, learned that infinity feels like forever when love is on the line. I learned that love cannot be measured by man's standards as we dwell in finite bodies.

I trust, I have faith that love is eternally true. It is our view of love that seems inadequate and stricken with deceit or incompetence.

In the Christian Church I learned that at least three types of love can be classified: Agape, philos, and eros. My heart thinks with all three classifications at once. Sometimes I feel a higher percentage of this or that, but usually I know the blend of all three. It is that blend that shows me the path of eternity and bliss.

And it is that blend that sings to me to know everyone I can: deeply, hungrily, with passion. For I am the lover of each person's soul. Each person's soul belongs to me and my soul belongs to everyone. That is the reality that calls us to live and to BE.

We ARE One. All of us. Separation is simply an illusion that haunts our minds and toys with our hearts. An illusion that started with the dawn of time. An illusion to help us be one amidst the One, like training wheels are used for new bike riders to learn biking. That is why the blend is my true guide. It opens me to long-standing visions of beauty and grandeur. It enables me to see everything I can imagine, and that is a lot. My heart is the vessel that steers me to and fro. As I get to know it, I get to know my Way. And I find myself on a path moving straight toward my visions.

It is my visions that ask me to write this blog. For as the years have passed and I have grown older, I have come to the awareness that much of my life is a simple story about me or for me. No one but me has an interest in this thought or that thought. And, thus, no one but me understands or will understand the significance of the thoughts except me. Crazily this understanding brings one part of me great peace. Yet, there is a space in my heart that denies this limiting perspective as well. It is the space that has known patience in the face of eternity. It is the space that saw relationships go away and then, many years later, come back again...somehow, somehow. It is the space made in true Faith.

I---or my friend, Mary---have bounced the following sentences back and forth over the last few months: You (they) don't have to get it. Only I have to get it. It only has to make sense to me.

Sometimes I feel freed when I hear those words. Sometimes I feel very lonely. And, I know how important their contexts are as well. A lot of inner strife ceased inside of me when I came to accept that I don't owe an explanantion to anyone for anything. I am a woman of great depth. Many individuals continually miss the boat when it comes to my visions and/or thoughts. But just because they miss the boat does not make the boat (or its contents) worthless or damaged in any respect.

By the same token, I often find myself in the boat by myself peering through the navigational equipment looking---hopefully (and with my mind's eye)---for the shore on which I can land and rediscover the group of people that know my name instinctively.

"Joan," they say, "welcome home. It has been far too long."

Life is completely whole always. It is brimming with love and beauty. Somewhere along Our Ways we forgot our most basic truth. We are God's creation. His LOVE.

According to my heart and mind, God is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. That means that YES, we are undoubtedly One. For how can we be separate from the Great I AM? That means that we are Love itself as God is Love itself. The Divine rests in each of us, and each of us rests in the Divine. There are no lines dividing us from one another. Any premise that says we are only this or that is tied to the perspective of Mankind.

Mankind typically separates in order that it may count and make sense of things with ease. But Consciousness has surpassed the old ways of thinking and doing. Technology races forward and backward. Holographic landscapes have become visible where they once weren't.

Mankind is opening itself to the Revelation that LOVE is the only fair judge or jury that will ever "Come again to 'judge' the living and the dead." No other source can "see" with such unconditional Truth and harmony. Any other truth will perpetually fall short of the glory of the Source,The Tree of Life.

Love is the highest vibrational energy within the energy fields. It has the power to heal. As we as a people accept more and more love, and we give more and more forgiveness, we begin to "see" more and more globablly, more and more universally. We begin to view all of our visions from the same lense that brought forth this world we live on. All of our visions are important. All of our visions bring excitement to the hearts of the people. Love is the thread that weaves us all together.

"A longing for what is real." Anne Hillman

"Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it." Rabindranath Tagore



“Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility: For this hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen…” Kahlil Gibran



"Out of pain, comes poetry." Ashley Highland



"If you engage in positive thinking to overcome negative thoughts, the negative thoughts are still there acting. That's still incoherence. It's not enough just to engage in positive thoughts when you have negative thoughts registered, because they keep on working and will cause trouble somewhere else." David Bohm



"Freedom from pain is also freedom from love, growth and joy --Like the four seasons, these make one wholeness, forever changing and yet forever inseparable." Laura Teresa Marquez



"I did not know I was on a search for passionate aliveness. I only knew I was lonely and lost and that something was drawing me deeper beneath the surface of my life in search of meaning. There is a hunger in people to go to those deep depths; to know that our lives are sacred; that our hearts are truly capable of love. It is a yearning to be all that we can be. A longing for what is real. " Anne Hillman


I have to wonder what pain is all about---for instance, what purpose(s) it serves. It is not clear to me. I have confusion where the topic is concerned. Pain seems to always be slinking behind me waiting for me to fall---waiting for me to forget who I am and what I am all about so it can wrap itself around me and make me hurt. And yet, I read how pain is self-chosen so that we might heal ourselves and that makes some sort of sense. What a conundrum, though! I contemplate this detriment to derive more understanding.

Do we come into this world, memory "erased," to find our chosen heart path and to grow by leaps and bounds so that we might ultimately know deeper and deeper states of love and forgiveness? So that we can give and love with depth and gratitude? Why must we experience forgiveness to experience a shade of love so red and true? Why must separation be felt in a world brimming with wholeness and abundance?

I encountered someone quite awhile back that I just HAD to know. He was neat. I can't explain it. I never can in such cases. When they happen, I just go around telling my friends, "Yes, but..." I, of course, want to share my intrigue and enthusiasm! My friends look at me with blank stares, sometimes with complete annoyance. They don't get what I get. They cannot. It only lives in me. [How frustrating!!! I want people to understand the specialness I feel. I want people to understand me.]

Maybe I feel the power of such unusual connections because I played one too many games of Kismet as a child. Maybe it is because I have known greatness that has taken me half way around the world. I don't know; but, I do believe in special connections nevertheless. And, I am learning all too often these days, how those type of connections are not necessarily brought forth into my life for pure ecstasy or joy, but sometimes for pain---pain that will shape and mold me as the crucible's fire.

I am a smart girl with a strong memory. For as long as I can remember, I have disliked most pain. I would do anything to avoid it. Ironically, my health has been poor since I was a child. And when I was 21 I was diagnosed with a severe, chronic illness called Bipolar Disorder. My illness would spike me to the heavens and plummet me into hell all at once. Therefore, as you can imagine, I have experienced magnanimous levels of pain and suffering throughout my adult life. Pain that was both physical and emotional. Pain that I would not have chosen for myself. In fact, I gained a major fear of my illness' impending and/or possible episodes so that I could ward off my disease's rampage. I would go into "red alert" mode if I didn't get to sleep by a certain hour or if my emotions escalated and my mind began to race.

And so, looking at such fear factors, I have to speculate that the special connections I sometimes come across are aligned with my highest self. Afterall, they draw me in. They make me curious. I feel compelled to seek them no matter where they go. Even if one of their final destinations lands me in a pile of hurt.

Currently, I am working to overcome the emotional pain I stumbled into recently because of my latest special connection. You see, I am tired of living from breath to breath as I assimilate agony in one form or another.

My new "pain-free" outlook started when I was in a four car crash in 2004. Afterwards, I had to learn to live with a great deal of physical distress in my neck and back for nearly a year. I don't believe such events are accidents. I, now, believe they are openings to learn to live better---with more ease. And, I thank God for my intelligence. It is my intelligence and my heart that enables me to view life through a creative lens or a closed one. What I mean to say is that I had no choice but to master the physical distress from the car accident. I woke up every morning to pain and I went to bed every night doing exercises to conquer the pain. Yet the pain hung on and on. And I had to accept it for what it was and what it was doing in my life---whatever that was. That experience taught me how strong I was---how I was able disallow the pain's grip on my world. It showed me a "way out" for future painful ventures.

As a result, I feel that we must open ourselves up when we are down and out. That is our doorway out of the pain. Yes, it may be necessary for a short term to batton down the hatches so that nothing gets in to hurt us more, but we certainly don't want to stay that way for long. We must allow the healing to come in and to go out. And the healing starts in the heart---in our love center. Our heart intimately knows our Truest self. Therefore, it can guide us through thick and thin and sick and sin.

If we go to our heart right now, we can learn what we need to do first to heal. However, we must be still to hear its wisdom. Lie back. Open your chest wide, shoulders back, so you can open the heart muscle inside. Imagine your heart beating...beating...beating. Talk to it and tell it how great it is that it provides you with a place for your eternal love. Ask it what steps you should take to create healing. And then listen.

Be patient with the process. Breathe through any pain. Visualize yourself healthy and whole. Form a mantra that is indicative of positive healing results. Repeat it as often as necessary. You are worth every effort.

I am placing myself in the healing zone. Yes, I will breathe through pain as I must; but, ultimately I am believing in a "pain-free" Joan. Each moment that I live, I dedicate myself to wholeness. As special people enter and/or leave my life, I will praise them for their role in strengthening my resolve to grow and to overcome adversity. I will praise them for making my love for myself that much greater. My desire is to live a real and fufilling existence. I do that by first believing and then receiving everything my heart wants to show me. I refuse to shut myself down. And as I open my heart to the deeper, harder messages---the messages brought forth in struggle and/or suffering---I become the woman I was designed to be. A lover of people's souls. A spirit of giving and receiving.

This world is One. God is true. Love prevails even amidst the illusion of separation. I want to love. I am love. That is what is real!

"Life is what you do with it, so follow your heart!" ---Unknown

I believe in being heart centered. From my perspective, the heart is the residence of God and spirit. We are inseparable from our Creator. All points of the universe are wrapped inside His being. The heavenly Father loved us in the beginning of time when He made us, He loves us now as His children, and He will love us always. As we learn to trust in that omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient love our own individual portion of love grows and develops until it becomes One with all that IS.

Living is a process much like walking. When we were born we spent months being held and nurtured before our bodies were strong enough to start trying out the power and sturdiness of our limbs. Each day various stimuli inspired us into a forward momentum. Eventually, we put one foot in front of the other. And eventually we became adept at walking. There was nothing we could do to speed the process. We could get frustrated. We could fall down and get back up and try again. But, ultimately, we had to accept the journey of learning to walk.

Life is rarely a straight shot from A to Z. Everything we do, say and experience has meaning and importance. And that passage usually has many, many layers for us to travel. Every breath we take brings us forward through the various portals allotted to us. I don't know anyone on earth who holds all the answers or the keys. Certainly there are some who are very wise, very seasoned and very studied; but, in general, we all are taking things as they come...AND as they go.

I have been learning that my heart is the source of being. It is not a place that can be rushed. It is a place that cultivates our inner knowing. As we trust our hearts, we become closer to the Great I AM, and eventually, that closeness brings us into the path of others. Deep within the recesses of the heart, we find our most true self, our essence, our highest Self, our spirit.

As we know and accept ourselves as such we find infinity. Most of us spend our lives searching for love and belonging when they already lie within us. As we reach out beyond the barrier of our skin, we get further and further away from our cores.

Love starts with our centers. If we find love outside of ourselves, the love can only speak to us so far and so wide. It is not ours, it is the world's which is reaching back to us. It is our "mothers and our fathers" as we have grown to know them after our births. However, the love within our own being is eternal and full of power. It is the heart of God beating next to and through our own.

Yesterday was Easter. I try to celebrate important dates and/or festivals as I can. And I don't mean Christian holidays per say. I mean holidays that address my individual desires and needs. The earth is filled with traditions. I adopt the ones I find meaningful and then I practice them accordingly.

I determined that yesterday wasn't a good time for me to visit a Christian church. It was time to spend my day reaching inside myself, trusting my inner most being, and, also, remembering and celebrating my God. I cannot share my experiences from yesterday because they were both too significant and personal. But, I can say that I did expand my consciousness as the experiences processed.

There was a time when my world was so out of balance I was afraid to be by myself. I am thankful that those days are long since past. I do have some hiccups now and again, but nothing major interferes with me these days.

Anyone who has known me for a time, knows that I have great strengths and great visions. I am filled with dreams that span decades. I want to take my "local" perspective for healing and for love and expand it into something very "global" and mighty. This point consumes me almost daily. I have seen three or four big prayers of mine come to fruition in this lifetime. I expect to see many more than that before my life is finished on the earth plane.

One huge answered prayer (vision realized) I can share was my heart's desire for the perfect job. I gained access to missionary work when I was hired as an art teacher at the International Christian School in Hong Kong back in 1997. The job called my spirit. God called me. My soul followed suit. Most of you know that that time ended devastatingly, and it took me years to get back on my feet after "the fall." But, I know without a doubt that the experience was a profound "God moment."

My homeroom Bible class was transformative---for me and "my kids." I awoke everyday living to see those boys and girls growing and becoming closer to God, and to me. I lived for their singing, their laughing and their awnriness. They were amazing! I love them so---even ten years after the fact as they are now all adults!!!! God used me beautifully that semester. I submitted myself as a vehicle for His touch and I was rewarded with unexpected gifts day in and day out. I'll never forget it.

I became ill while I lived and taught that year. My medications got messed up. The overseas' time zone disturbed my circadian rhythms. The doctor who oversaw my health was ignorant about my condition. I didn't understand my disease. I became hospitalized and soon had to return home. But in the meantime, I almost died of a prescribed drug overdose before my brother, Chris, could reach me and bring me back to the States.

Furthermore, I suffered great humilation due to the stigma of the condition and the beliefs of the population of people that surrounded me. The peoples' beliefs were so religious-based that I often heard things like, "You just have to pray harder," or, "You are going to be stripped of everything until you give everything over to God."

I wasn't stripped of EVERYTHING. In fact, after a desperate search for understanding and acceptance, I found one of the most beautiful people alive to love. He was (is) such an original man. He, too, was heart centered. We lived for our version of love! It was very passionate and dedicated. Our relationship scaled many walls/obstacles. But, in the end, we had to break apart in order to remain living. Neither one of us knew how to go inside ourselves for love. We devoured one another as a result. In the end, we just couldn't find what we needed to sustain ourselves.

After that heart break and near-death experience, I began to search for myself...for the love I'd always heard of but didn't have the nerve to try. I eventually found it---right where "they" said it was. In my heart. And when I learned of its whereabouts from first hand experience, I began to believe in God again---the way I had prior to Hong Kong.

For three and a half years, I have practiced and practiced loving myself and finding love within. I am a believer of the heart and it is what I must follow. The trick is that very few outsiders will be able to meet you there. It is a precious place that demands caution and great care. It is the center of your world. It is the holy of holies. It remains well after the body dies and disintegrates.

Mother Theresa said that if you judge people you have no time to love them. This woman is my mentor! I used to be an ENTJ according to the Meyer's-Brigg's test. I am now scoring as an ENTP. Rooting out our judgment system is quite intense. It takes devotion. I still have a lot of judgment lurking about in my mind. But, there is a better way than depending on our minds. Learning to follow the heart is simple but not easy.

We come into this world and we are educated from our place of birth and then on out into the world as a whole. People have been called provincial because their understanding of the world is rather narrow. Those people's life experiences have been saturated in the "local." Other people, by the same token, have been called worldly because they have had more exposure to the world as a whole. Their life experiences are saturated in the "global." The Internet and TV has shifted major paradigms in people's understanding of the World and the Provencial.

Laura Teresa Marquez said, "We cannot discover the best inside ourselves while we are dwelling on the the worst in anyone else."

Wendy Slee said, "Hell is a creation of the mind, Heaven is a creation of the Heart...."

If we start with our heart, we allow for an eternal perspective that often overrides the power of simple judgment. What we see as impossible during one moment (e.g., Can man walk on the moon?) becomes reality in another. My brain conceives of this all the time. That is the beauty of my chronic illness, Bipolar Disorder. It opens my heart and impresses my mind with the infinite possibility of the universe and the God that houses it. What I once thought was heaven eventually became my hell.

Currently, I have a dream. That dream is to learn how to heal---both literally and figuratively---both personally and impersonally. Then I want to touch as many lives as I can free of charge. I want to take what I have learned and create a "center" which reaches into the heart of as many beings as I can. I want to give and receive love every single day in that "center." I want beauty to saturate my experiences and the experiences of others. I want to love as deeply and as widely as I can. I have a picture of this "place" in my room and in my books of attraction. And I try with all my might to be dedicated to praying for and meditating about its forthcoming fruition daily. I work on attracting and creating the vision. I believe in it. I follow it with my heart.

Every person I know, every thought that I have is getting me closer and closer to the path that is built into my heart. Like Dorothy, I learn to click my heels.

Often I get discouraged. I think, "What? How can I believe in such a dream when I seemingly can't even find a job that pays the bills?" But, I know...

Hong Kong did come when many said it couldn't.
"My kids" did come when I couldn't imagine them in my mind's eye.
My Christopher did come when I believed I would always be alone.
My prayers have been answered and they did come after years passed away.

And, I remember, "Be still and know that I AM God." And I feel relieved. And I know, "I AM."
I AM in God.

Hearts create relationships. Spinning "straw" does not make gold. Straw is straw. Hearts are where our love begins.

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
- Anais Nin

"If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?"
~Stephen Levine

"I like her because she smiles at me and means it."
~Anonymous

"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being."
-Goethe

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them."
- Mother Teresa




I have spent my life cultivating relationships---of many kinds. I believe relationships are among the most important things this world has to offer. Anyone who knows me probably also knows how "love" conscious I am. [I write about it. I speak of it. I feel it. Often.] I say it like that because despite my focus toward loving and being with people, I have difficulty maintaining a 100% love-oriented perspective. [Most of us do.] It is definitely my desire to love 100% of the time. But, for now, I am someone who is on this planet to learn what loving really is.



I believe everyone has the ability to love with his/her whole heart. But many have challenges obstructing the ease of such a feat. Some people are born into lives full of deficits, and for those people loving is an excessively difficult issue.



I further believe that God knows us, loves us and IS sovereignly giving us the most amazing relationship with Him that is possible [Then. Now. Always.] (I have not always believed this). God is not into saying, "Tell me of what you are NOT and what you do wrong. Then, and only then, will I freely give you all that is mine." No, I believe that He freely gave us all He was and more before we were even conceived. He is Love. He is eternal. We are His creations. We come from love.



I believe that we are all designed to be loving people. I believe if we all consciously select that Way of being, then the world will shift so radically upon its axis that our perceptions will be
forever changed. But, I also believe for that to happen, we all must choose to live the highest lives we were given before the dawn of time. Yes! BEFORE the dawn of time. This means that we all must take one step at a time to understand what loving ourselves means first.

Loving ourselves is not selfish. [Though it may appear to be in a child.] Loving ourselves is the only Way to love others. And, really, it is the only way to survive.

If we start with tiny acts of compassion, we can quickly find success at loving who we are and what we are all about. For instance, if we begin to exercise and we just feel consumed by negative attitudes and feelings so that the good we are doing with the exercise is cut in half, then we need to take two mental steps backward. We need to breath, and then realize we can show ourselves compassion by complimenting our courage to wake up and exercise in the first place. This is how we learn to separate ourselves from self-infliction, and it is how we create a loving realm for us to continue down the currently difficult path that will one day be MUCH easier.

I grew up as a perfectionist. I had teachers that expected excellence. I had schools centered around pride. I had a family that believed in achievement. And I learned the value of being the best.

This route was all fine for awhile, but it became very troublesome to live for a lifetime. [Eventually the world moves quicker and gets bigger than we can ever imagine it to be.] By high school, I often felt like I was on a bad carnival ride. The world was spinning, spinning, spinning. I wanted to get off! I was dizzy with demands. My ability to perform was becoming seriously compromised.

I don't know why this path was my younger years' pathwork. But it was.

It is not that important to me anymore. [Though questions always make me curious as a cat.] I am finally learning to leave the past behind me as quickly as I can. [I have a few issues that hang on harder than others!] I have so much to do in the here and now, and I need the "space" that the past has occupied in my life. My relationship with myself is on the forefront of my priorities list.

Authenticity is imperative to loving one's self. Authenticity sweeps away all the ghosts and replaces them with feelings, sensations, etc. of today.

I occasionally suffer from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is when an automatic feed occurs in the human body of adrenaline and intense physical reactions as the mind intercepts a cue from an external source and interprets it as highly dangerous. PTSD's origin is rooted to great amounts of trauma (emotional or physical) that previously occurred. The mind's interpretation of current events is actually erroneous in PTSD. It is erroneous because the original trauma is no longer viable. It is just a memory.

PTSD can inhibit people from being authentic. My work with the chakra system has enabled me to overcome many of the disabling effects of PTSD. Slowly, surely, and often quite painfully, I have had to walk myself through moments that made me feel like I was heading for disaster and demise. In the amidst of a PTSD reaction, I have had to re-program my mind and my cells that the trauma is no longer happening. The only thing that is happening is the similar cue (trigger).

Chakras are energy wheels within our psychic bodies. They are responsible for various concepts and actions. Sometime ago I realized that I was "escaping" into my upper chakras, completely by-passing my lower chakras (especially the first chakra), in order to avoid the pain of my younger years that was continually "resurfacing" in my present. I would hide out in my "spiritual" worlds so that I could minimize any hurt that I experienced. [[Looking at a stark example outside my line of experience, rape victims often do this type of "escapism" to the point that they actually dissociate.]] In my upper chakras, I could be rescued from all the uglies of the earth by forgiving everything and living in some form of denial. This is not a good thing. The bodies [physical, etheric, emotional, mental, astral, etheric template, celestial, and causal] we inhabit were designed to work in an orderly manner. If aspects are skipped, problems occur. Health will be damaged on some level.

My first chakra was significantly damaged.

By working on the healing of that chakra, I have recovered from a lot of my PTSD issues. I can now recognize that what is occurring now has no causal relationship with what happened a year ago. I can "speak to" the issue at hand. I do not have to accept the adrenaline rushes as necessary. I can use "self talk" to overcome the pain and physical reactions facing me. It is not easy, there is definitely a learning curve, but it is considerably better than feeling like I was being thrown in front of a moving mack truck. And, eventually, I know through practice, I will experience few effects [if any] of the previous traumas. My first chakra will be repaired. My rainbow bridge will function efficiently.

It takes effort. It takes giving kindness to myself as the process plays itself out. It takes giving love to myself and the world I live in every day.

As I have come into an awareness of who I am authentically, I feel empowered to love others. But, it is a strange awakening to love myself for who I am. It makes me realize that each one of the earth's inhabitants is authentic as well. People are "at once" the person that you see and also the highest person he/she will ever be. But not everyone "knows" that about him/herself.

Many people are nearly pure myths. They have lived according to the tribe's need, the social structure, and their own disbelief in their being. They often accept and are resigned to the label of unworthy, sinful, destined to fail. [Afterall, that is human nature!] They unknowingly create self-defeating, self-fulfilling prophecies. And as I reach out to those individuals, many times I suddenly and elusively lose sight of the real person "behind the curtain." It can be disconcerting.

Personal myths are very complex most of the time. It can take a lot of psychotherapy, enlightenment, and/or self discovery to discern the various parts of our temporary self and our highest self. From where I stand, the highest self blends with our every day "suit of clothes." The highest self intuitively knows its path---its Way. It is destined for greatness. It already is there. Life cannot deter it, death cannot censure it. It is our I AM. It is eternal. It is forever wise. And it perpetually guides us. It is One with God and All.

I don't know why this is. [Again, it is one of those fascinating curosities!] But I have a friend, that at one time, I could distinctly see both his every day-temporary self and his highest self simultaneously. It's as if the integration process was frozen or something. I haven't noticed anyone else that is/was like this. Maybe I will when I meet someone new. But, anyway, normally, it is more difficult to discern between the two selves. They are usually more mixed.

Relationships that begin with an element of love (whether that means two smiles penetrating one another, physical attraction, emotional bonding or what not) have every opportunity to grow into something powerful and moving. I have been fortunate. I learned what love was right from the cradle. That means I have been practicing love for 37 years. Over the course of my life I have learned many love lessons.

One particular relationship of mine has had quite an evolution. I met my friend in 12th grade. We bonded in so many ways right away. We became best friends quite instantly. But our senior year only lasted one cherished year!!! And when we left high school our worlds diverged. For the next ten years we shifted in and out of one another's understanding of the other. But we kept our friendship glued together. Until one day when our worlds got so different and filled with unharmonious thoughts and feelings that the relationship virtually ceased.

That relationship was resurrected this last year. I am not sure what made things a little more tolerable, a little more enjoyable, but something sure did. It is nice to hear my friend's heart through her voice again.

I think that as I age I know so much more about the human heart. People fall down a lot when they are small children. They fall down a lot emotionally when they get to be 30 or 40 something. Mid-life crises are an example of an unauthentic self being exposed. The body-mind can simply no longer keep pace with a life that doesn't match its core needs and wants. Suddenly a person wakes up to a world that is unrecognizable as being meaningful. Some people find healing in their mid-life crises. Some people need a little more practice at falling down.

Being authentic means we are owning our experiences and ourselves; we are viewing are inner and outer worlds subjectively and objectively; we are being just what and who we are.

If we seem to have many lives (a work life, a home life, a spirtual life, a love life, etc.), then chances are we need to integrate. We need to become one life. A "coat of many colors" can land you in a metaphorical pit. Your energy will be dispersed. You won't be able to maximize your potential. You will be tired or worn out on some level. Your body-mind will be unable to give and receive as it was designed to do. You will be in want. You will need something---maybe something quite profound---maybe several somethings.

Being authentic begins in your heart. Our highest self knows the desires which are pure and righteousness. We must stop and listen to our heart. Our heart has the "road less travelled" that will empower us to love and be loved. Our heart knows love starts with being good to "number one" first. I've heard it said that all our needs can be met from being heart centered. I haven't been convinced of this all-encompassing love yet; but, I am certainly investigating it.

The premise is that as we heal, we learn perfect love. As we know perfect love, we become cognizant of our unity with all that IS. We are all all that IS.

My heart dictates that love is the Way. That makes my relationships my everything. A good, sound relationship with my own heart is the place I start anew each day. I hope my view is adequate and true. I think it IS.