The Art of Appreciation through Transformation

The Art of Appreciation

“I woke up this morning and looked out my window, Kelly started. The simplest thing… There are Rhododendrons blooming profusely near the white gate in my yard, showing the first signs of spring. In that moment I was in deep appreciation for the simple treasures in life and I realized I couldn’t be looking out over the ocean on the San Diego bay and see more beauty.”

“Sometimes I pull a card from my bird deck,” Kelly started, “and this morning I pulled the red Cardinal. The meaning on the card means transformation and the exercise asked me to meditate on the first four thoughts I could come up with.

Drink In

Expand

Massage

Be Light

These key phrases resonated with me. As I put a bracket around these expressions it occurred to me that this could be the embodiment of transformation in appreciation. Transformation is something that happens to you. It is not something that the ego can negotiate. Therefore, it takes all the risk out as one transpires. There is no striving. 

The definition of the word, transformation, according to Webster’s dictionary is:

A thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance. Add to that the recognition and enjoyment of the good qualities of something or someone and you have the art of appreciation through transformation.

Transformation concerns a certain morphing that has little to do with what we put on the outside of our body. In the spiritual context, it is a transcendent metamorphosis. When we change the inner structure, we change the outer countenance as well.

In conscious appreciation, we acknowledge and then lure what it is we value in communion with the spirit.

The law of attraction tells us that we magnetize into our lives those things, feelings, and aspirations we declare. It makes sense, and then that whatever we are grateful for in deep appreciation will mirror and reflect our future circumstances.

Appreciation is recognizing, in gratitude and thankfulness, respect for principles, ethics and moral codes. One gets to choose to incorporate appreciation into life – or not. It creates a conscious awareness that a change in attitude is taking place, and for this I am thankful and grateful.

Stepping into the risk - excerpt from my book True North

Stepping into the risk

The earth quakes from the cry that erupts from my soul, rooted as it is to the ground like a spring bubbling through my veins. The magic that is longing can only be tasted as it applies itself to risk.

A stolen moment of interlude with intimacy is most often felt when one dares to be still and live there, waiting to be taught how to carry the dream from the moment of it’s birth.

An unbearable ache, these seducers of hearts desire. So often suppressed, the longing bears witness in pent up passions striving to be free.

A breath is the only way of escape, the traveler of spirit on her journey through life. I wish to occupy eternity in the journey from day to day. Living life into the corners, stretching seams that are skin, bursting veins that breed stories that perpetuate the longing that the ache should live on, and on and on…

In a way, the nineteen sixties were the beginning of the end of the idealism that we baby boomers were ushered in with. We were naive to believe our parents could protect us by pulling us into the folds of a fifty’s housewife skirt. Although we were vaccinated against the debilitating phenomena of polio, nothing could prepare us for the rise in political warfare with the assassination of John, and Bobby, and Martin Luther King.

With the dawn of television came visual access to the threat of communism (The Red scare), and the Cuban revolution. Faith was replaced by fear with the threat of Russia having secret knowledge of the atomic bombs production. As children we watched in awe, as America put men on the moon and in the same decade, introduce the first passenger to jet flight. In The Prisoner TV series, people were replaced with a number, and there seemed to be no escape.

Television changed the way we could see the real or fabricated American lifestyle, and an extension of the world. For me, it marked the beginning of oppression. By the time I was in the fifth grade, I was hospitalized due to the conditions of stress. I couldn’t blame my parents. It was the feeling surrounding our emotional and physical economy. I had a sensitive pulse and silently reacted to adult talk about the coming crisis, one after another. I was never invited into the conversations my Mother and Father had, as children were often seen and not heard in those days.

Now I am a woman over 55 and am in the midst of a movement of the most famous generation in American history, children born to parents who survived WWII. As teenagers and young adults, we buried boyfriends who were killed in Vietnam. We have protested or appraised situations surrounding abortion. We have seen world famine, and national disasters while we raised our children and cried for their future we once hoped to celebrate. We are a sensitive generation who grope for some source to explain what we did not anticipate.  We have too much information coming in over the net to be comfortable anymore. We are soul sisters ready to make a mental and physical shift into another stage, living under different lights, with a different plot that will require different acting. We are moving from pleasing to mastery. The life we lead now is due for some reconsideration as we accept the sacred invitation to step into the risk.

Valerie Bertinelli and Being Comfortable with your Existence

Valerie Bertinelli is speaking out against what she sees as a cultural tendency to focus unnecessary attention on a woman’s weight, as if her identity were wrapped up in her dress size.

“We have to take the shame out of It., “ she told news reporters.

This is a good lesson to remember.

What you do and what your body looks like does not define you. It’s about being comfortable with your existence.

Reflecting on how you identify yourself – through work, social status, or body image – might give you a greater sense of who you think you might be but not necessarily who you are.

How we reflect on our identity should be distinguished by who we are at the core level, created beings full of light and spirit and not by what we can accomplish.

In our success driven world it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that our value lies in our work, or our weight or how we describe ourselves in social media. Who we say we are and the amount of responsibilities we take on can become a trap of thinking our value comes from outer appearances. We can even fall for the lie of being defined according to other people’s standards!

I challenge you to see yourself through the eyes of Source as you come forth to joyous expansion. I encourage you to orchestrate your goals in conjunction with the lessons you have learned through diversity as well as peace, joy and love.

In the light of fulfilling your greater purpose through your contributions on this planet, remember…

You are capable enough just as you are.

“

The Goal needs to be created out of the inspiration Inside of You

As a writer I am sometimes plagued with the surmised need to attach to the outcome of my project. I was in this space when I happened on to an interview between two of my favorite authors, Wayne Dyer and Eckhart Tolle.

The question becomes, are you aware when your ego takes control of the manuscript you are working on?

It happens to all of us. One minute we are listening for the revelation that comes from our higher self, the next minute we are incorporating our experiences to control the writing.

Our sense of fulfillment comes from being rooted in a deep sense of awareness so we don’t need attachment to the outcome to define our success.  It will come by the Divine.

As Authors, we can do it the easy way or the hard way, which, clarified, means, wait on a conscious connection to divine inspiration, or leave it to the devices you can dream up through your walking, sometimes insufficient self.

In the meantime, don’t sweat it! Relax and receive.

To quote Eckhart Tolle:

“A goal needs to be created out of the inspiration inside of you.”

If we pay attention, our goal will be delivered to us by divine inspiration that comes from deep within.

It wants to come into being and you become a channel for it.

In this way there are no attachments to fame, fortune or notoriety.

There is no need to be vigilant. Source will take the necessary care to move the project along. You know you are working from ego when you become stressed out while writing. Don’t be attached to the fruit of your actions.

 Pay attention in the now, as Eckhart Tolle suggests, and the energy will come in the doing while the goal looks after itself.

Gods Currency is Ideas

Most of us think of currency in terms of money. However, the word currency is derived from the root word, current; the time during which something is in use or operation. Water comes to mind as the most obvious description out of context, but what if, in thinking about ideas as currency, we could use a divinely inspired suggestion as a proposal worth considering?

Up until now I have found myself thinking small… utilizing my own ideas as the end all… trying to figure out  and work through mental dilemmas. Don't we all have them? Problems with finances, illness, children, grandchildren, aging parents, career decisions, and anxiety.

What if we could tap into Gods currency, ideas?

How our world could expand!

I find myself, in the moment, stepping out of my own egotistical format of thinking things through. In exchange, I sit quietly, get grounded and tap into the force that is in each of us - divinity that knows all and gives all but has to be invited to speak.

I find Gods currency in ideas provide a thought or suggestion that comes easily, pointing me toward a course of action through a mental impression worth considering. As I step outside myself and look toward opportunities that are divinely inspired, I find the flow becomes as abundant as water flowing in a brook.

Gods currency is ideas.

And I write them down, making them twelve times more powerful in that form.

Lose yourself and tap into Gods currency. Once you are in the flow you will be glad you did!

Strangers Risking the Shift

The shift began with a simple and profound conversation I had with a man sitting alone in a hotel chair, poolside. He was cordial as I approached, and sitting near each other, we were soon engaged in small talk. Stimulated, the conversation expanded. He shared with me the loss of  his sister to cancer some years ago. She was thirty three.

"She was my best friend." he mused, looking sadly at the concrete beneath his feet.

 He was in the midst of a reminder, sitting in the warmth of the Arizona sun, that life can be stolen from you in a moment with no notice.

""She got the cancer and six months later she was dead."

In the divine moment of meeting this man, I found myself in a tizzy, displaced with recent travels and medical tribulations. Before I made the decision to be grounded in love and light, I found myself saddened by my circumstances; caught in an aura of discontent..

In providence we were in the same place at the same time pondering life issues that I felt no one else seemed to care about or understand. I choose in this moment to take a risk, and I found a new friend by allowing myself to be in a place of harmony with this fellow traveler. I was free to be myself, as certainly this man knew not my past or my future. Sometimes a person will tell a total stranger things they wouldn't ordinarily expose.

In light of this young mans dilemma, my situation seemed to pale like the last trace of a powerful sunset. He was in the midst of a determination himself, recently out of a long term relationship he deemed toxic.

"I'm approaching fifty." he said.

He had all the trappings a man could want. Boy toys that included a new Harley Davidson motorcycle and a cigar boat.

"But I still have not reached my goal of sailing around the world." I'm caught in a booby trap. I feel valued and irreplaceable as Vice president of my company, and at the same time I'm the fall guy," he smiled sadly.

We bounced ideas off each other, determined to soothe our wounds and teach each other through feedback. I didn't know him; he didn't know me, and yet our spirits were kindred, as so many are once they stop and listen without judgment of what is.

"We only have the moment", I offered, " to decide if we want to feel good or bad. I think this is where we start."

We do get to choose to risk the shift in our thinking. Do I want to feel good? Or do I want to feel bad?

 Ah ha...

The Secret Solution

I'm going to ask you a few questions and tell you a great secret.

Are you striving to get to the spiritual side of yourself? What do I mean by that?

When we are in the midst of living, it is difficult to have a divine perspective because our humanity  takes over. What's in it for me? the human doing might say.

We make our own messes but we hardly are the first ones to sign up for taking the responsibility for our actions. So what's the secret solution?

Wake up! Embrace your spirituality before the pain of staying the same is too great to bear. What if I could impart a great secret?

You can't always make something happen! What if I told you you could experience an amazing shift by going from striver to receiver by letting go of your ego - the part of you who ignores the consequences of pushing to make things happen. Has it been your experience that only creates frustration?

Ever heard the expression, Let go and let God?

When we do let go and let God our feminine awakens and is pushed to question:

Who am I now at this time in my life? Am I on the track that aligns me with my soul?

You can get to the other side of yourself when you get committed to your own personal growth and healing. Be like a rose in bud form who waits to receive the bloom. Release what is no longer important to create a void that can be filled up with self care. Bravely sit like the potted plant in a historically poignant painting and allow what is next to find you.

Stop striving to make something happen, let go, and sit with the nothingness long enough to allow your life to refill. It will!