Category: transform

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Peeling away the layers

onion-peelWhen I’m peeling an onion, I often think about the phrase, “peeling away the layers,” which, of course, is what we do. I heard that often during my college career, again in my banking career, and even later, when I was a contractor, I used to peel back the layers of a house I was renovating to reveal the underlying skeleton of the structure to get a true picture of how to begin a project.

Now, when I’m speaking with a coaching client, I find myself listening while they peel back the layers of their life, so that we can find a point to build something new for them. Peeling away the layers is a process that is sometimes painful, but ultimately fulfilling, if you’re willing to stick with it, because it brings us back to ourselves. If we are willing to dive deeply into our problems, and do it objectively, and not assess blame to anyone, we may find freedom from whatever issues we may have had. When we do that, we create a void, which can be filled with something completely new.

It requires deep inquiry and a willingness to look at the times that were difficult as well as the times that were good. When you get back to the starting place where things started not to look so good, dig a little more to make sure that wasn’t just another effect of the original problem.

When you find that will you then be willing to make that change, to correct the original error and move into a new idea or direction for yourself? If you need help in finding the starting point or initial error, there are a variety of people you can speak with from spiritual or life coaches, to ministers and mental health professionals.

Change can only happen, if you’re willing to do the work. Are you ready?

from Love, in Peace,

~revjim

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Giving Up!

man_with_question_mark.epsFunny, this word never used to be in my vocabulary. It still isn’t in the conventional sense. I have never given up on something I’ve thought was worthwhile. As I think about this, I know that I’ve almost never done something that I didn’t think was worthwhile, for me or someone I was trying to help.

So what has changed? Only the most basic reason, that I am doing it for me, or that I am doing it at all. It used to be when I was doing something I truly thought that it was me doing it. That I was in charge. I believed that it was my intellect that made it happen and I was the Mr. smarty pants that was responsible for all the great ideas. Then I realized that I was part of something greater. I realized that there was something at work here that is without equal in the universe, and it’s all a part of me, a part of all of us really.

There is a power in the universe, no, it is the universe, and it is the infinite source of our good. We can ignore it, or try to, but when we do that it is still there operating in and as us. It is our thoughts, and as we think about things the landscape of our life is being painted for us. The details of how our life unfolds, is pretty much up to us, and how we paint it. The colors we use and the detail we put into it paints a picture of greater and greater clarity.

Sometimes the colors we use don’t work, but luckily our canvas is not indelible, and we can scrape off what doesn’t work, or paint over the old, or better yet, begin with a new canvas. It is totally up to us. We are always supported from within as we fill the canvas of our lives.

We can start with a blank canvas anytime, and this clean canvas can be filled with our most precious thoughts, or our grandest dreams. We can paint this canvas in black and white, allow for shades of gray, or paint it in glorious color. It’s always best to keep it light of course, allowing for great and glorious things to unfold in full, living color. So, pull out that brush, spatula or crayons, and draw yourself a beautiful life. Allow the broad brush strokes of life to move through you in grandiose ways. Paint your thoughts like you life depends on it. Dreams become reality, and thoughts are things. If you keep your thoughts in alignment with with how you want your canvas and your life to look, both will become the masterpiece your mind has painted.

So, give up. Yes, give up on your old thoughts and ideas, if they’re not working for you and know that you are the artist of your life, and your thoughts out-picture as your life. The universe always gives you what you paint. Keep it bright and give it up to the power that resides within you, within each one of us!

~revjim

#spirit-edu.com -Spirituality Online
#aworldthatworks
Spirit Education is a CSL Authorized Virtual Education Provider

We’re having a Zoominar September 28th
1st Century Mystics  October 4th
https://spirit-edu.com/learn/courses/zoominar/
https://spirit-edu.com/learn/1st-century-mystics

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The Sounds in Mindfulness

“While everybody is nodding off, I find those moments where I see sunsets and sunrises and all the times in between that are fascinating and so beautiful and it’s almost like [being] free.”
-Julian Lennon

It’s funny. When I found this quote, I saw the brackets around the “being” implying that the person who added the word, did so for clarity, and maybe he did, and that was Julian’s intent. The quote is obviously out of context, but that doesn’t make it any less powerful either way.

And either way, the meaning is the same. That unconscious place where most people spend most of their lives is just the fine line between sleep and freedom.

Most people never notice the sunrises and sunsets and enjoy the incomparable beauty that is there in that moment, let alone see the beauty and the expression of life in the rest of the day. Most people walk through life asleep, and without a conscious thought of the constant change around them. They see their lives as static and uninteresting, a drudgery they endure, but seldom enjoy.

When was the last time you took a moment in a simple task like washing dishes and noticed the way the water flowed over your hand or the way the bubbles have an iridescent property. Or, took a walk and noticed the sound of rustling leaves or, in colder weather, the steam rising from the drains. Have you ever listened to the music that some trees make or the whirring sound of flag pole wires, or, in the city, the music the hi-rise buildings make? I often just sit on my back porch in St. Augustine, close my eyes and listen to the wild sounds of nature. I can imagine myself somewhere else, a jungle maybe, listening to the “gronks” of the herons, mixed with the finches, mockingbirds, laughing gulls, and myriad other birds, mixed with the deafening sound of cicadas, crickets, and other critters of the undergrowth amidst the background music of the wind whistling through the longleaf pines, live oaks and cedars.

It is amazing how much life we miss with our headphones or our music cranked up.

~revjim

#spirit-edu.com -Spirituality Online
#aworldthatworks
Spirit Education is a CSL Authorized Virtual Education Provider

We’re having a Zoominar September 28th
1st Century Mystics  October 4th
https://spirit-edu.com/learn/courses/zoominar/
https://spirit-edu.com/learn/1st-century-mystics

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The Company You Keep

crowdThis is often a very touchy topic, but I wouldn’t be me, if I wasn’t willing to put my foot in my mouth. Have you ever thought about how your friends or those around you affect your life, as in your thoughts, feelings and attitudes?

If you’ve been trying to change your life and how it’s working for you, one of the things you must change is all the negativity that goes on around you. The negative thoughts and feelings that they bring into their conversations and communications arouse certain negative vibrations which keep them where they are and ultimately help to create the chaos in their lives.

As you make that move to a more peaceful, productive, and loving life, these same vibrations can create confusion and block your transformation, as you become sucked back into their vibrational field. It can and is often a difficult thing to distance yourself from these vibrations, but it really is necessary to do to attain the new vibration you wish to attract.

~revjim

#spirit-edu.com -Spirituality Online
#aworldthatworks
Spirit Education is a CSL Authorized Virtual Education Provider

Grace in Aging class starts September 18th Online
International Day of Peace Meditation September 21st
We’re having a Zoominar September 28th
1st Century Mystics October 4th