eyeofspiritcoach.com

Isn’t it exciting when so much change is happening, and you feel the flutter of creativity, positivity, hope and renewal in the air?!  I’ve really been enjoying the energy of the collective on the planet lately.  Barack Obama’s recent inauguration was certainly a large part of the enthusiastic celebration energy in the world, but I see it as symbolic of a much greater change taking place as well.

A feeling of renewal or newness is stirring our collective dream into greater awakeness.   For many, this looks or feels like a longing or willingness to start afresh in their lives, change old habits, renew commitments to Self, or transform their entire outlook on life.  For others there is an inner calling to break from the past and really show up in their lives.  However you experience the energy of newness, know that it is here to bless you with inner strength, hope, trust and certainty in your abilities to create, transform and become who you truly are.

What I’ve noticed amidst this sense of renewal is an often challenging beginning stage, where many people get stuck in discouragement, confusion and fear.  After an initial boost of enthusiasm, commitment and clarity, many hit a wall of energy and lose sight of that great joy and enthusiasm for change and newness. This “wall of energy,” although it is not real, seems very real, threatening and even debilitating.  It is a collection of thoughts that say “You can’t do that,” and “But look what happened in the past,” and “What do you think you’re doing anyway?”  Doubt, fear and a sense of lack and helplessness can crowd the mind and hinder us from knowing the power of our will to choose Spirit and be free from this fear.  When we choose Spirit–choose Good–we remove our power from that “wall of fear” and give it to the unlimited, all-Loving, free and fearless Self that is always in communion with God.  With that Self, the fear disappears.

With the tide of newness in the air, people’s perceptions of what is possible are beginning to change as well.  Perhaps there is even a greater sense that anything is possible.  Indeed, it is.  And with this sense in limitless possibility comes a greater understanding of ourSelves, for, in Truth, we are limitless.  When we know that we are limitless, infinite, immortal Spirit, we are less likely to believe in, or become the effect of, thoughts of fear, resistance, limitation or lack.  When we know that we are always free, no matter what the outer circumstances appear to be, we are empowered to follow our inner guidance, make dramatic changes in our personal lives if need be, be creative and express ourselves, and respond to our inner callings with greater certainty.  We are also free  to love, without fear, limitation or condition.

The change and newness happening in our world and in our lives is a sign of our choice to have and be the limitless, fearless, free and joyful Being of Spirit.  I embrace and celebrate this newness with gratitude and enthusiasm.  And I encourage you to look at what changes you have been making, are currently making, or would like to make.  Validate your choices for positive change, and celebrate the energy of newness that connects you with your creativity and enthusiasm.

Fortunately, there is a lot of help and support for us to choose Spirit, always, and it is especially tangible right now.  The energy of newness is the energy of the Holy Spirit:  alive, inspiring, creative, loving, innocent and enthusiastic.  It is the energy of “Anything is possible!” and “Yes!”  May you know and experience the continuous blessings of the Holy Spirit now and always!

“Dashing through the snow, in a one-horse open sleigh, o’er the fields we go…Laughing all the way!  HaHa HA!!!”

Jingle Bells is one of my favorite Christmas songs, full of mirth and cheer.  I love the energy of Joy and celebration that the holidays inspire.  And this song has one of my favorite lines, reminding me to laugh all along the way!  There’s another mirthful song I love for its great lyrics and happy energy.  It’s actually a nursery rhyme, but a very profound one, really:  “Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream, Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream!”

Aaah, if only we could remember to Laugh all the way through life, as we dash over the landscape of our collective dream!  Isn’t it great that we have timeless nursery rhymes and holiday songs with profound little messages in them, reminding us of what’s really important in life?!

This morning a variety of Christmas songs danced through my mind as I took a walk in the sunny cool morning.  I was delighted to be aware of the various hidden gems in these songs.  My favorite, of course, was the Jingle Bells song, because finding my amusement has been even more important to me lately than ever before.   Amusement is our ability to be mirthfully entertained by anything.  Notice I stress the word anything, because the amusement I speak of, as an ability we have, is not conditional.  Our ability to be amused is not limited by what it is that we appear to be amused by.  This is because amusement comes from the inside.  When we are amused, we are at cause, not effect.  It is not what we are experiencing that makes us amused, but who we are that inspires great amusement no matter what the circumstances.

The importance of amusement is even greater when the circumstances seem to call for anything but laughter and enjoyment.  For example, lately I’ve been experiencing a good deal of physical discomfort (hmmm , I’ll announce the reason for this later, in case you don’t already know ;)  Throughout this ongoing experience of uncomfortableness, I’ve reminded myself, as often as possible, to be amused.  When I can become aware of my experience and witness it, rather than identifying with it and losing myself in it, I can choose to be amused, to  witness myself in the great divine comedy and give my experience space to complete.  In that awareness, and amusement, there is great relief, because when we are truly amused, we are identifying with Who we really are, rather than what we are experiencing.  And, it is only our identification with our experience that causes any suffering.

Give it a try!   Practice this with something that appears to cause you suffering, “unavoidable” suffering.  Decide to be aware.  Witness yourself having whatever experience you are having: simply notice, take curious interest in what you are experiencing, as if you are in a movie and you are watching yourself in this movie.  “Hmmm, isn’t that interesting,” you say to yourself, “I’m feeling tremendous fear and panic right now…How curious…”  This may seem silly, but really, just notice, become aware, of what you are experiencing.  This awareness is who/what you are, not the experience, or the body experiencing it.  Then, with that awareness, let it be.  Let whatever you are experiencing be.  Don’t fight it, try to change it or fix, solve it or figure it out.  Don’t resist it in any way (ah…this may be tricky :)  Just say to yourself  “I can have this.  I can let this be, because I know that it’s not really me, and that it will pass if I give it space to.”  Allowing and accepting is not saying, “Oh yeah, I want more of this, bring on the pain.”  It’s really saying, “I see you pain, I know you’re just the product of my resistance, so I’m going togive you space to be, and watch you dissappear.”

Go ahead, try it.  It’s simple, not always easy, but simple.  We tend to immediately resist pain, naturally, because it’s not something we’d like to experience.  But pain is actually the product of resistance deep withing our Being.  So resisting it only makes it worse.  Allowing it actually undoes it, releases it.

How can we possibly not resist the experience of pain?  By having amusement, of course! :)  Remember amusement.  It’s not dependent on what you are experiencing.   Amusement is a great and important ability that will free you from experiences that seem to bind you.  When you are amused, you have your power: you have not given your power over to your experience.   You are amused because you recognize that you made the whole thing up in the first place!  There is nothing outside of you effecting you.  You are it.  You are the cause, your experience is the effect.  So, remember to laugh!   Be gentle with yourself.  You are powerful!

“Into eternity where all is One there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not (ie forgot!) to laugh.”  (A Course in Miracles)

What an exciting time of transformation we are all taking part in!  It’s not every lifetime you get to watch the planet go through such massive change!  Congratulations for signing up to be a part of it!  Woohoo!

As you can tell, I’m feeling rather enthusiastic about the current state of affairs in our world.  The appearance of so much falling apart–economic collapse, political facades crumbling, personal crisis intensifying–shows us we’re at the end of a very big cycle, and ready for a new world.   Things fall apart when they need to, in order to clear the way for the new.  “Out with the old, in with the new” is literally what is taking place all around us on a grand scale.   Humanity has been realizing more and more that the way we’ve been operating on this planet for so long just isn’t feasible: it’s not sustainable, it’s not loving, it’s not in balance, and it’s not truthful.  Humanity has also been asking for something better, something much different, something that reflects a greater sense of sharing, caring, peace and prosperity, for all of us.  And what our collective heart has been asking for is now coming into fruition.

This is cause for celebration!  On the surface, we may only notice the chaos of the current collapsing systems, and feel the fear, panic, doubt and disappointment this brings up.  However, if we look beneath the surface, it is very apparent that what’s happening is a clearing of the slate, so to speak.  What’s happening is simply a very huge house cleaning.  And this house cleaning is so long over due that we’re discovering some pretty nasty, old, rotting, decomposing trash and what-not in the basement and the backs of the closets that take a bit of time and emotional resources to remove. :)  This part may not seem like much fun, but it can be when we remember what it’s for.  When we remember that it’s all happening in order to clear the space for a very new, clean and bright “house,”  then it really is cause for celebration.

When things fall apart, we can choose to focus on what’s falling apart, and how horrible that might appear or feel in our experience, or we can choose to focus on what’s coming in to take it’s place.  When we focus on the new, the emerging beautiful bud of our next step, we stay in that space of enthusiasm, joy, surrender, peace and grace.  We can then be present with what is–the seeming chaos of collapse all around us–and be full of peace and love, rather than fear.  When things fall apart, we can rejoice and say “Yay!  I must be ready for something new, different and much better!”

The world is ready for something new, different and much, much better.  The hearts of humanity have opened enough to birth a more loving reality here.  That loving reality is now taking form, and old systems based on fear are crumbling in the face of the greater awareness of Love here on the planet.  Fear dissolves in the face of Love, and so old systems, whether economic, political, social or personal, are now dissolving in the face of Love.   This is sometimes the painful part the transformation:  the part where fear and resistance dig in their heals and say “No! I can’t take it!”  But if we surrender, if we say “Yes!  Let’s have something new and beautiful! Let’s welcome the Truth!”  we will sail through the enormous changes with greater ease, grace and peace.  And we will be open to the many blessings and opportunities available to us as something new and much, much better emerges.

We will be open to receive the tremendous Love that Is.

May we all have this change and allow things to fall apart…for only unTruth falls apart, and That Which Is is everlasting.

I received a message this morning from an old grade-school girlfriend I haven’t seen or connected with in…15 years maybe.  Wow!  As we exchanged messages, I watched hundreds of “pictures” (scenes from the past) cross my awareness.  How interesting to review all the memories from that time in my life!  It brought tears of joy to recall the fun, playful years of girlhood with my friend.

What I noticed most as I watched the memories surface was how many different dramatic changes in perception and identity I’ve been through in the past 20 years.  For those on a path of transformation, rapid and frequent shifts in how we see ourselves, “others” and the world become quite common, until one reaches the inner-most sanctum of true Identity.  When we reach the place within where all is One, where we are the Self that lives in each seemingly separate individual, we come to truly know ourSelves.  Until then, in and throughout the process of transformation and awakening, there are epochs or waves of identifying with this or that role, ability, personality trait or relationship.  We may create our identity around our job, our primary relationship, our most useful talent or ability; yet as these roles, jobs or relationships change, so does that identity we held onto.  During times of great change, many experience an “identity crisis,” and are required to really look at who they are.  If they are ready, their awareness will reveal the Truth: the unchanging Self that remains unaltered behind the veils of the identities created out of the various appearances that come and go in the world.

This is the practice of detachment, or non-attachment, that so many Eastern traditions teach.  It is not a resistance to, or an avoidance of, any of the appearances, roles or identities we take on in the world.  It is simply an awareness, throughout any roles or appearances we wear, of Who and What we truly are, and an identifying always with the eternal unchanging Self, rather than any of the transient aspects of our roles, relationships, talents and experiences.  Non-attachment allows us to Be while we are being a parent, a student, a lover, a lawyer, a teacher, a doctor, an upset person or a challenged person.  We can Be no matter what our being is experiencing.

What we come to realize as we know the Self, is that identity creates, or determines, perception.  And, likewise, perception reflects our identity: who or what we think we are.   Any identity build around the idea of a separate self results in perceptions of separateness.  In fact, perception is separateness, for there needs to be more than one in order to “perceive”: the perceiver and the perceived.  When we identify with our Identity–our True Self, the One Self that Is–we are simply Aware.  We are Awareness aware of the various perceptions or appearances that come and go in the mind filled with thoughts of “what if we could be separate?”  (Fortunately we can’t

When we perceive pain or suffering of any kind, we have identified with separateness and the cascade of beliefs (or thoughts) that follow: fear, guilt, confusion, shame, resistance, anger, etc.  When we become aware, we know that these perceptions are simply that: perceptions, appearances that come and go.  We can then give them space and allow them to be.  We can step back, so to speak, with our awareness, observe them from the space of Love: Acceptance, Forgiveness and Peace.  We then find that the appearances/perceptions shift again.  Eventually, the more space we allow, the more peace emerges in our experience, until all that remains is Love.

Jesus said:  “Identify with Love, and you are safe.  Identify with Love, and you are home.  Identify with Love, and find your Self.”

May we all seek until we find this Self.  May we all remember to identify only with Love, and thus set the world free.

What a summer!  Today I remember, with gratitude, all of the joys and blessings I experienced this summer.  What a full, fun, fantastic voyage it’s been!  Every event, from singing in Yellowstone at The Gathering of One, to recording more music with Barry Goldstein in Manhattan, to spending an eternity of bliss with my spiritual family in Mt Shasta, to packing and moving into a new home, and all of the mini voyages inward and outward in between, was an opportunity for me to open to greater Havingness.

Accepting and allowing more and more Joy, Peace, Grace, ease, Love, laughter, abundance, well-being, harmony, and miracles in our lives is what I call Havingness.  And, Havingness is also about giving space to what is, even if it isn’t wonderful, and allowing it to be as well. Havingness means when we’re having a bad day and things don’t appear to be going well, we can have it.  Having, or allowing, the events, circumstances and people in our lives that we don’t necessarily want or enjoy makes room for what we do want and enjoy!  When we give ourselves, no matter what we are feeling or experiencing at the moment, total permission to be, we allow the energy to keep moving.   When we don’t hinder, block, resist or try to change what is, it naturally and effortlessly flows to the Truth, which is Joy, Peace and Eternal Love.

It’s really quite simple!  But, so often, we make it extremely difficult and painful.  Why is that?  :)  Well, it happens when we take ourselves and our feelings, experiences and circumstances seriously.  In effect, we believe what our senses tell us is reality, and we either rebel against it, resist it, try to change it, hold onto it or run away from it.  Silly us (can you hear my laughter?   When we believe what our senses tell us, we have fallen asleep in the dream.  We’ve become hypnotised by the physical world and it’s very convincing and distracting menu of emotions and sensation.  In any moment, however, we can wake up and say to ourselves (with a good hearty laugh!) Wow! this is a fantastic dream: such dramatic special effects and entertaining dramas!  We can then be grateful for our awareness, and remember Who and Where we truly are.

Havingness is our ability to remain awake, aware and accepting, giving space for everything that appears to be, so that, just as clouds in the sky: they appear and disappear, changing form and appearance as they drift in and out of the sky.  The bright blue sky (in this analogy) is the ever-present, unchanging, still and certain Reality.  And the clouds are the experiences, people, roles, circumstances, feelings and emotions of this world that constantly shift and change, appear and disappear.  Our havingness for those clouds, our ability to just let them be, give them space to appear and disappear, is linked to our havingness for what lies, always, beyond those clouds.  When we can have God, when we can truly have our divinity, eternity, Love, Joy and Peace, we can let any and all people, situations and experiences be.  We can walk in peace through this world, knowing that our presence, our loving awareness free of judgement and resistance, is what truly brings about the appearances we would like to have.

The first step to changing an appearance  (ie circumstance, situation, person, experience etc) we do not like, want or enjoy, is acceptance.  We have to be able to have it.  If we judge, resist or deny what is happening in or around us, we are putting our energy, which creates what we call ‘reality’ (the clouds:), into it and literally strengthening that appearance.  However, if we accept what is happening in or around us, if we have it, give it space to be, we are withdrawing our energy from it.  By not fueling the fire, so to speak, it dies out on its own.  We are always the only fuel for any ‘fire’ (ie circumstance, person etc).  If you can have it, you can change it.  In fact, if you can have it, it will effortlessly become what you truly want anyway:  all of the qualities of Reality~ Joy, Peace, Love, Grace, Freedom, Eternal Serenity….

What a gift and a fantastic tool Havingness is!  I’m certainly reminding myself, as I write this, to practice more Havingness.  The more you can have, the more you have, and the more you have, the more you can have!  And the more you can have it, the more you will have what you already have because you are:  Love, Joy, Peace, Freedom, Eternity!

Yay!  (It’s always fun putting words to the experience of God because it’s a bit of a challange:  you really can’t put what is beyond words into words…but you can enjoy seeing how close you can get

There’s a very simple analogy I like to use when I describe the nature of reality and this world to people.  Let’s go on a little journey together for a moment shall we?  I’ll share this analogy with you in the form of a brief visualization.  Of course, since you’ll be reading these words, you need not close your eyes to visualize.  Simply see the images in your mind as you read these words, and allow your awareness to open up and receive the messages meant for you at this time.

You’re at a movie theatre.  A grand complex with many shows of all varieties available to choose from. You’ve just bought tickets to see a fantastic drama-action-thriller-romantic-comedy-mystery movie called “My Life in the World” :)  You enter the theatre, the kind with stadium seating and cushy reclining chairs, and you take your seat right in the center.  You sink comfortable into your seat as the movie begins.

Within just a few moments, your awareness is completely immersed in this movie.  The theatre you’re in is a distant memory:  you are completely identified with the people, events and circumstances occurring in this most dramatic film you are watching.  You feel the emotions and relate intimately to the experiences of the characters: the fear, longing, despair, loneliness, sorrow, excitement, thrill, passion, pleasure, guilt, jealousy, anger, hatred, wanting, elation…  It’s a roller coaster of feelings and sensations and reactions.

As your awareness becomes more and more intoxicated by “My Life in the World,”  you catch yourself now and then thinking to yourself, “Oh yeah, it’s just a movie…” Sometimes this is disappointing, because the character you were identified with the most just got what she/he wanted.  And at other times you’re relieved, because tragedy struck, and it would be horribly devastating if that had actually happened.   Nevertheless, the excitement of drama is overwhelmingly appealing, and again, your awareness immerses in the movie, and you identify with the characters and events.

At one point, during the most intense experience in the action, when the fear, devastation and loss is overwhelming your senses, you take a deep breath and again notice that you are watching a movie, and that you are unharmed by the events you are watching.  You breath a sigh of relief and smile inside.

Now, let’s look around this theatre a bit more and notice how it works.   There are many instances in the movie that you really wanted to change the circumstances:  this person needs to do this, have this, go there, meet that person, feel better, look better, do better, act different, be different.   We know that, in order to change something we’re watching in the movie, we wouldn’t march up to the screen and try to rearrange the picture.  It doesn’t work that way.  We know that, in order to change the movie we see on the screen, we have to change the film: the pictures in the projector at the back of the movie theatre that are being projected onto the screen.   Ah, but we would have to be the film-maker, director and producer in order to do that right?

I’m sure you’re following the analogy, and realize that, in your life in the world, you are the film-maker, director and producer.  Your will and thoughts determine what pictures go into the film.  But what is it that makes those pictures project onto the screen/create the life you experience?  Well, again, it’s You!  The light that shines through the film that projects the pictures onto the screen is Who you are.  You are the Light.  In Truth, God is the Light and you are the extension, the shining emanation, of the Light.   God’s will, as the only producer, director and film-maker of Reality, is perfect peace, perfect stillness, perfect serenity, joy and wholeness.  When your will is God’s will, you have a great movie!  It’s a happy, peaceful, gentle movie for sure!

As you align yourself more with Who you are, the pictures in the film that were made from a will opposed to God’s naturally fall away.  They disappear.   And all that remains is the bright Light.  In the process, as old pictures (ie choices and thoughts) fall away, you may experience their chaos.  However, You will be untouched by the passing pictures when you identify with the Light shining through them.  Identify with the Truth, the Light of God, and all else falls away.  See the Light beyond the form, and all that remains is Love.

I spent the weekend in deep prayer and union with God.  After such an experience, what is there to say?  Words cannot even begin to convey the beauty of revelation.  Fortunately we have poetry and music.  These wonderful forms of expression bring us closer to communicating/sharing the power of truth.

As I sit resting today, I just picked up The Gift, poems by Hafiz, and of course opened right to the perfect poems to share with you in this moment.  Smile with me as we celebrate truth in peace and joyful laughter.

“I understand the wounds that have not healed in you.   They exist because God and love have yet to become real enough to allow you to forgive the dream.   You still listen to an old alley song that brings your body pain;….My love for your Master is such you can just lean back and I will feed you this truth:  your wounds of love can only heal when you forgive this dream.”

“Children can easily open the drawer that lets the spirit rise up and wear its favorite costume of mirth and laughter.  When our mind is consumed with remembrance of Him, something divine happens to the Heart that shapes the hand and tongue and eye into the word Love.”

“This is the time for you to deeply compute the impossibility that there is anything but Grace.”

“And for every reason in existence I begin to eternally, to eternally laugh and love!  When I turn into a leaf and start dancing, I run to kiss our beautiful Friend and I dissolve into the Truth That I Am.”

“Sing because this is a food our starving world needs.  Laugh because that is the purest sound.”

Aaahhh  Thank you Hafiz. 

Enjoy my 2 newest songs, just uploaded a few days ago at www.myspace.com/jeanyes1

Live, Love and Laugh often!

Yesterday I observed myself laughing often.   Those of you who know me might be asking “what’s new?”  I laugh a lot.  It’s something people tend to notice about me pretty quickly, because not only do I laugh often, I tend to laugh pretty loudly as well.  The volume is something I can’t always control.  And the laughter I rarely control in the sense of hold back or limit.   Laughter is always an appropriate response to life.

Another thing I observed as I was laughing a lot yesterday is that, at times, I feel as though I need to explain myself!  Like the inner critic voice says:  what are you laughing at?, what’s so funny?  why are you laughing so much?  And, is laughter really always appropriate…what if someone is hurt, what about all the tragedies if genocide, war, starvation and extinction happening on the planet?  You can’t laugh at that!

We are so used to laughing for a reason: at a joke, at someone or something.  Most of us allow ourselves to laugh only when our intellect or analyzer decides something is funny or humorous.  And, unless we are laughing at another’s “expense”–out of judgment, condemnation or competition–there’s really no harm in intellectual humor.  However, the laughter I speak of when I say “laughter is always an appropriate response to life” is the laughter of the Heart in recognition of Truth and acceptance of Grace.

Aaahh…Grace : )  That ever-present, always giving, energy of divine love, peace, presence and awareness.  Grace is experienced in so many ways, but always as a gift.  It may appear as divine intervention, an epiphany or moment of revelation, an opening in our awareness, a feeling of contentment and gratitude, and a sense of absolute and certain peace.  When we are in acceptance of the all-and-ever-givingness of Grace that is Life, what more natural response is there than Laughter?!

Laughter is the song of grace, singing its celebration of joy, peace and acceptance:love.  This kind of laughter doesn’t always happen out loud.  Sometimes it is the inner smile of our awareness and acceptance of what is.  Sometimes it is a stillness inside in response to outer unrest.  And sometimes it bubbles forth like a song of enthusiasm, gratitude and celebration of Being.  We may laugh inside, in celebration of our infinite immortal Spirit, while we respond compassionately to the worlds pain through whatever form of action we are inspired to take.  Throughout that compassionate action and service, however, if we remember ourSelf, we laugh inside,  allowing Grace to pour through us to enable and strengthen our actions with Love and Peace.

When we laugh, we are in the present moment, our mind is not engaged in past guilt or future fear.  We simply Are.  In laughter, the doorway that allows Grace’s ever givingness to be received is wide open.  Resistance releases when we laugh.  We can not laugh and hold on to fear, anger, resentment, resistance or any other thoughts that hold back Grace.  Laughter says Yes! to Grace.

My favorite poet, Hafiz, says it so well:

“I have a thousand brilliant lies
for the question:
How are you?

I have a thousand brilliant lies
for the question:
What is God?

If you think that the Truth can be known
from words,

If you think that the Sun and the Ocean

Can pass through that tiny opening
called the mouth

O someone should start laughing

Someone should start wildly laughing–

Now!”

May the song of Grace give a smile to your Being and Wholeness to your Mind.

I live in Ashland, OR, a town where the word ‘awakening’ can be heard in spiritual circles daily. Many spiritual concepts, like ‘awakening’ or ‘waking up’ are tossed around spiritual communities, like Ashland, so often that we may overlook what they really mean to us, or to the person we are speaking with.

As you may have noticed, I speak of ‘awakening’ or ‘waking from the dream of separation’ often. It’s one of my favorite subjects really. Living in a town with such a high concentration of spiritually focused people, it’s become quickly apparent that we do not always give the same meaning to the spiritual concepts we toss around. So, today I thought I’d share more about the meaning I give to the word ‘awakening’.

I relate ‘awakening’ to the great advice Jesus gave humanity to be “in the world but not of the world.” For me, waking up/awakening is both recognizing the untrue nature of the reality we perceive through our senses, and living in it fully, with complete presence, passion and power. When we awaken to our true identity and reality, that of absolute oneness that cannot even be put into words or bodies, we do not try to get rid of or run away from the experience of being in the earthly/physical dream reality of bodies, emotions, perception and separation. Indeed, to resist the experience of the physical, no matter how painful, slow or monotonous, would be to give it power, and to deny the truth of who we are.

Heaven does not resist hell; it simply knows the truth, and quickly laughs at untruth.

I often remind myself, friends and clients that ‘what you resist, persists.’ What you feed grows, what you give your attention to manifests. Awakening is about waking into life, not trying to get out of it in search of something better, more heavenly. Its about bringing heaven to earth, seeing it’s already here and always has been. Heaven, our true reality, is not somewhere out there that we have to escape or ascend to. It’s right here, inside of us, all around us. (For everything we see around us is inside us!). And we bring it into our experience by accepting what our experience is with great amusement and unconditional love, recognizing what is a reflection of the truth of heaven, and what is a projection of the thought of separation.

This is awakening: bringing the awareness of truth/what is real, into our experience every moment, and allowing that experience to be what it is. When you’re asleep at night, dreaming while your body lays there in bed, you see and experience all kinds of things–fun, scary, painful, happy, sad, confusing. But when you wake up in that dream, you’re aware that where you really are is safe in bed, untouched by anything your experiencing in the dream. And so, when you wake up in the dream, you know “hey, this is just a dream, so it’s no big deal if I fall of this building, or show up to school naked or meet a scary monster”. You don’t try to fight the dream or run away from it. For, in order to wake up from the dream, you have to bring the truth of who you are into that dream. Bring your bright, joyful, all-giving and forgiving Self into the insanity of your experience and show it what’s real: show it love.

Love is unconditional, infinite, ever-present and unchanging. Love is presence. Love is whole, complete, One.

Waking into life means bringing this Love, this presence, into your life, your every moment experience. This means surrendering to and allowing what is, rather than trying to change, fix, get rid of or solve it.

And, “when you want only love, you will see nothing else.” “Seek first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things will be added to you.” There is no need to put so much effort into manifesting all of the things we would like to have in our experience. We can choose to have all that is fulfilling in our lives simply by choosing God. When we seek first the “kingdom”, the truth of our Being, our true reality of oneness, all “these things”, the desires of our heart, our given us. The desires of our heart manifest in our experience as a natural result of our choosing God, choosing truth.

This is the journey of waking into life. Our experiences do not always match what we want or would choose to have in our life. It’s a journey of becoming aware, and choosing again. When “all of these things” do not seem to be showing up for us, it is apparent that there is a choice, somewhere in our (unconscious) mind, against God, against truth, against That Which IS. And so, we choose again, choose Love, choose God, seek first the kingdom, the oneness that we are. And let the experience be, forgive the experience, allow it, laugh at its absurdity and its beauty. Wake into the life we have always had, and somehow, in an instant, forgot.

And now we are remembering.

(Note: this is the outline for a book I’m writing. Stay tuned for more, I’m filling it in, fleshing it out…Thank you for reading!)

I love to laugh. It’s not something I try to do. It just happens: laughter pours from my heart. And, unless someone asks me “what are you laughing about?”, or “what’s so funny?”, I usually don’t stop to ask myself these questions. There’s nothing to laugh at, literally. Laughter is. It’s truly an expression of the realization that only God is, and everything else that appears to be is just an absolutely laughable and absurd illusion. : )

This past weekend, I had the delightful opportunity to attend a Laughter Yoga leader training in Las Vegas. What a Joy! To laugh and laugh for no reason at all was the entire purpose of this training. How validating that was for me! Yes! my heart responded, there are more happy, laughing-for-no-reason hearts in the world, of course! Excellent!

Laughter really is the perfect exercise. As an aerobic activity that stimulates the heart and lungs while massaging other internal organs, it’s an excellent exercise for those who of us who don’t enjoy jogging or going to the gym. (They say 1 minute of laughter is equal to 10 minutes of jogging or rowing!) Of course, the benefits of laughter go far beyond the physical. When we laugh, we let go…of everything. You can’t hold on the fear, grief, pain, anger…you can’t hold on to anything. In fact, when you really laugh, and keep laughing, you can’t even think. Ha Ha Ha!! It totally clears the mind.

Laughter is an excellent prescription then for any ailment, whether it seems to be of the body or of the mind. Since we know our thoughts create what we see and experience in this world, what better way to experience joy, then to laugh?! Why wait to be happy about something to laugh? Let laughter be the cause, not the effect. And then, aaaaahhhhh….. nothing but a smile of peace and recognition.

My favorite poet, Hafiz, knew the secret of laughter. “What is this love and laughter budding in our hearts? ” he says, “It is the glorious sound of a soul waking up!”

Let’s wake up now, shall we!