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Posts from the ‘Clarity’ Category

May 30

Slow Down and Follow Through

“In the age of speed, there’s something to be found in slowing down.”― Kristen Butler

“If you’re always racing to the next moment, what happens to the one you’re in? Slow down and enjoy the moment you’re in and live your life to the fullest.”― Nanette Mathews

I haven’t picked up my golf clubs in years. This is the year, I am taking golf back up again. Part of my diversification plans – mix things up and play more. I went to the golf range yesterday afternoon to hit balls. Large bucket please. The first 10 balls – swinging fast and hard. Going faster and harder are our natural instincts.

Then it came to me. Slow down and follow through. When I listened, I got my rhythm and cadence. Hitting several balls 220+ yards. And it felt easy. Slowing down and following through – good advice for life too. We jam so much into an hour, our days. Busy, busy. Faster and wearing ourselves down. Autopilot and cruise control.

Slow down and follow through. Enjoy this day as you pump the brakes to take in the scenery. There’s joy to be found. Partake.

“Strange, what being forced to slow down could do to a person.”― Nicholas Sparks, The Last Song

May 17

Explore and Discover

“There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more.” – Lord Byron

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.” – Carl Jung

So many answers reside beneath the surface.
In arms reach, but unseen until we are quiet enough to let them rise up.
To see the light of day.
If we dare.
Often choosing busy over clarity.
Denial over discernment.
Running over facing fear.
Of the unknown, of change, of transformation, of growth, of loss, of gain.
Slow down.
Reflect, inquire, listen.
Writing, reading, nature.
It’s in you.
To find, to face, to put down, to carry on.
Going through is the only real path that moves us out of cul-de-sacs and dead ends.
New mountains and journeys.
Break trail.

“The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.”― Jonathan Swift

Jan 11

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Aright

“Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness.”― Pearl S. Buck

“We can either spend this moment wishing it could be different, or we can embrace this moment.”― William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

Receive this day with open arms.
A clarity.
A bright smile.
A fresh outlook.
A sense of delight.
A zest for laughter.
A hunger for connection.
An invitation.
An allowing.
An ease.
Embrace, hold, release, be held.
Joy. Peace. Light.

“Childhood is not a state which only applies to the first phase of our lives in the biological sense. Rather it is a basic condition which is always appropriate to a life that is lived aright.”― Karl Rahner

Oct 22

Glimpses

“The sun will not rise or set without my notice, and thanks.” – Winslow Homer

“We look at life from the back side of the tapestry. And most of the time, what we see is loose threads, tangled knots and the like. But occasionally, God’s light shines through the tapestry, and we get a glimpse of the larger design with God weaving together the darks and lights of existence.” – John Piper

In the dailyness of living, glimpses of light enter to remind us that beyond our efforts, circumstances and struggles, grace is ever present. In the unknown and mystery, there is an unfolding, becoming and assembling. Beauty in the order and in the mess. A gift to be opened, not figured out.

Beyond the doing, the hustling, the calculations, the planning, the striving, the wrestling, we are held by grace, buoyed, carried. Take the next step, keep going and allow grace in. Pay attention, listen for the whisper, be held.

“There is a design behind the world that we are living in, which is veiled to most of us most of the time, but every once in a while, you catch a glimpse of it.” – Mark Frost

Jul 23

Unravel and Revel

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”― Rainer Maria Rilke

Allow unraveling
Lean into mystery
Question, then question again
Listen
Revel in the unfolding
Come home

“Unraveling external selves and coming home to our real identity is the true meaning of soul work.” – Sue Monk Kidd

Jun 22

Glad Awakening

“I only know there came to me…a sense of glad awakening.” – Edna Saint Vincent Millay

“You do not think yourself into a new way of living as much as you live yourself into a new way of thinking.”— Yes, and…: Daily Meditations by Richard Rohr

Listen
Look
Listen harder
Look longer
Clarity by tuning the instrument of your senses
To see the same differently
To find familiarity in the different
Awaken to small moments, tiny changes, a flower unfolding.

“True life is lived when tiny changes occur.” – Leo Tolstoy

Jun 11

Reasons and Seasons

“I have learned that there is more power in a good strong hug than in a thousand meaningful words.” – Ann Hood

There are reasons and seasons that make up lifetimes, a day at a time.
What are you learning?
What are you teaching?
What are you giving?
What are you receiving?
Listen carefully.
Look with fresh eyes.

Embrace this day, all that is in reach.
Open arms require us to lay down the unnecessary.
Open hearts let the light in so we can cast it back out.

Reason, Season, or Lifetime, Author Unknown

“People come into your life for a reason,
A season or a Lifetime.
When you know which one it is, you will
Know what to do for that person.
When someone is in your life for a
REASON, it is usually to meet a
Need you have expressed. They have come to
assist you through a difficulty, to provide
you with guidance and support, to aid you
physically, emotionally, or spiritually.
They may seem like a godsend and they are.
They are there for the reason you need them to
Then, without any wrongdoing on your
part or at and inconvenient time, this person
will say or do something to bring the
relationship to an end. Sometimes they die.
Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they
act up and force you to take a stand. What
we must realize is that our need has been
met, our desire fulfilled, their wake is done.
The prayer you sent up has been answered
and now it is time to move on.

Some people come into your life for a
SEASON, because your turn has come to
share, grow or learn. They bring you an
experience of peace or make you laugh.
They may teach you something you have never
done. They usually give you an unbelievable
amount of joy. Believe it, it is real.
But only for a season.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons,
things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional
foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person and
put what you have learned to use in all other
relationships and areas of your life. It is said that love is
blind but friendship is clairvoyant.”

May 11

Energy Investment

“Most of us have two lives: the life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” – Steven Pressfield

“How you deal with your energy flow has a major effect on your life. If you assert your will against the energy of an event that has already happened, it is like trying to stop the ripples caused by a leaf dropped into a still lake. Anything you do causes more disturbance, not less. When you resist, the energy has no place to go.” – Michael A. Singer, the unteathered soul

Where will you put your energy today?

Invest or squander
Scatter or seed
Praise or complain
Cling or release
Open or closed
Gratitude or gripe

The river flows, overflows, plentiful
The current is strong and steady
Enter the flow or sit idle in the back channels, pooled up, unmoved
Damned up or flowing through
Our daily decision

Choose well
Allow
Release
Flow
Ease

“Stop and think about what you’re capable of achieving. Up to now, your capacities have been constrained by constant inner struggles. Imagine what would happen if your awareness was free to focus only on the events actually taking place. You would have no noise going on inside. If you lived like this, you could do anything. Your capabilities would be exponential compared to what you’ve ever experienced. If you could bring this level of awareness and clarity to everything you do, your life would change. – Michael A. Singer, the unteathered soul

Apr 15

The Bait

“Wisdom begins in wonder.” – Socrates

“Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.” – Oliver Goldsmith

The bait is all around waiting for our response. Choose with intent between contemplation and complaint, between optimism and gloom, between resentment and release, between scarcity and abundance, between clarity and clouds, between ego and soul, between the past and now. We dance in between, play it safe in the middle. Make a conscious decision and recommit daily.

Dare to take the bate of beauty, joy, light, of seeing snow laying on the bud at the tipping point of spring where winter releases its grip and transformation comes in the change of seasons. Allow wonder, awe and ease to do their work and sit in reverie.

“Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Apr 12

Luminous

“Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” doesn’t make any sense.” —Rumi

When I turned on my laptop to write my daily post, the camera lit up for facial recognition to bypass the log in. I leaned in and a message popped up: “Too close, move farther away.” When I leaned back a bit, it worked. If I was too far away, it would probably say, “Too far, move closer in.” I didn’t expect to get my post today from the Artificial Intelligence on my laptop, but here goes.

When we get too close in or too far away, stuck in a fixed mindset, ego and spiraling thoughts, go in the opposite direction. Scan and then zoom. Zoom and then scan. It’s a dance. Live with intention and attention rather than by accident.

“Your attitude is like a box of crayons that color your world. Constantly color your picture gray, and your picture will always be bleak. Try adding some bright colors to the picture by including humor, and your picture begins to lighten up.” – Allen Klein

Search for color and light, find color and light. Choose awareness and gratitude over speed and scarcity. Find awe in the ordinary. Surrender your need to be right, to know everything, allowing the mystery and unknowing to expand and deepen to your very soul.

“There is a land beyond the ego’s striving to be “better than,” or its fears of being “less than.” That land is where we know ourselves to be both sovereign and connected—“ part of” as opposed to “better or less than.” When you come home to the truth of who you are in the marrow of your soul, you begin to break the ego-shell.”— Marrow: A Love Story by Elizabeth Lesser

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