The gift that keeps on giving

This holiday season, many people are overwhelmed about what to give others as a gift.  Watch what happens as you give the gift of yourself, that is your time, your effort, compassion and acceptance. Discover why giving the gift of love is the gift that keeps on giving.  What goes around comes around.  

Giving freely of yourself is being open to receive gestures of love from unexpected sources.  As you truly love, you make choices with heartfelt insight.  Being honest with yourself is doing the right thing.  Love and accept love in all forms seen and unseen.  Recognize all everyone does invites you to love.

Take life to new levels.  See love as the new currency.  You are creating and living a love-propelled economy.  Here, mutual appreciation nurtures and sustains all.  Love is a gift. Discover you are the gift you give yourself.

4 Ways to live more authentically

It is common for people to desire to live more authentically, that is, to feel more at ease with life.  To be honest with yourself about who you are and why you what you do is actually easier than you think.  Make changes as you see fit.  Consider four ways to live more authentically right now;

1) Pay attention to your body.  Your body language is always sending you signals.  Where you seem drowsy, feel restless, slouch or or are generally inattentive, you are expressing disinterest.  Its possible you are in one place in body but another in thought or soul.  If you do not wish to be somewhere, you are acting against deeper will.  This tells you that you are not listening to the subtler or natural tendencies inside.  Where posture exudes confidence and you are at ease in your own skin, you know you are in the right place.

2) Notice your thoughts. The more you notice the kinds of thoughs racing through your head, the better you get to know your true self.  Where the mind is focused on the past or future, or if you find yourself dwelling on judgment and comparison, this is ego or fear based living.  Shifting attention is simply shifting focus from thought-to-thought.  To be focused on this present moment is where you are most true to yourself.  Awareness takes over from thought in the here and now.  Only love and acceptance exist.

3) Recognize emotions as a gauge.  Such energy originates as thoughts in the mind and is often mistaken for feelings (of the heart).  When you make choices that resonate, you do not doubt, fear or question. Negative emotions indicate how far away you are from making the best choice for yourself at a given moment.  Positive emotions reinforce how authentic or good you feel about your choices.  If you feel torn in some situation, then emotions point you in the most suitable direction.

4) Be aware of your feelings.  These are the unexplainable vibes you get. It is your intuitive side that has no logic the mind can grasp.   True feelings are a synonym for pure awareness and the feeling centre is in the heart.  When you live in this moment, you appreciate where you are and see it in realtion to the big picture.  You feel interconnected to all that is and gain insight into yourself from everything, seeing it as a reflection of divine nature.

3 Ways to get to the Root

Get to the root of the matter. All approaches have merit. Reflect on these three ways: 

1) Engage in analysis. Some people want to know where to start. They want tools to deal with a situation, to find the way beyond the conditioning that trips them up.  They wish to manage ego.  If tools become the focus, using them can obscure or hide what these people really want.

2) Assume the answer relates to missing knowledge.  Some people seek outside what can take the insecurity of not knowing (self-doubt) away. Everything you think you know or not arises as conditioning. When you do not take this to heart, you allow ego and fear control you.  Be aware of a shift in feeling, the spontaneous recognition of the emptiness that is.   When the mystery of being remembers itself, its not about finding something you do not have or do not know, but accepting what you do not initially allow yourself to be.  Fear is a passing thought.

3) Take a direct Path. Stay with something very simple. The direct path does not tell you what to do with what is not working. It is for anyone who is completely ready. Know that the mind is conditioned to steer you away from this very perspective.  Who is it that suffers? Who has the pattern? What owns the mind? This is going to the deeper root.  Notice whether you are willing to get to the root of suffering, to be at the centre.  Its very different than what you are used to dealing with.  Every moment is an all or nothing opportunity.  From the moment you accept you do not know anything, you accept you cannot know who or what you are.  When you are no longer searching you know yourself by being.  The question 'Who am I?' is not meant to get an answer but to dissolve the questioner.  In truth, there is no questioner, only moving thought.

"The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me." - Meister Eckhart

15 Benefits to seeing things as they are

For some people, seeing with genuine clarity happens spontaneously.  Other people journey through life and reach for guidance during stages of awakening, that is, a process of letting go of who they are not.  The more you come to see things as they are, the more revelations unfold.  As how you view changes, what you see also changes. Ponder what transforms as you:

1) Take nothing personally.  E-motion is energy in motion and no longer gets the best of you.

2) Feel complete and secure. Know what it is to require nothing outside to feel whole.

3) Be soul-centred rather than self-centred.  Discover purpose without being ego-driven.  

4) Realize all beliefs and intentions manifest.  Direct the true power of mind and thought.

5) See through behavior patterns.  Self-sabotage ends. The unconscious grows conscious.

6) Accept no answers exist to life. You know you always seek true nature or love.

7) Observe what you resist persists.  Surrender is accepting yourself as you are.

8) Activate quantum level healing.  Any imbalances re-align instantly & permanently. 

9) See Oneness rather than separation.  This allows deep appreciation of infinite diversity.

10) Act as your own authority. External approval is irrelevant.

11) Love fully.  This is about being light-hearted, feeling free. You live as joy.

12) Listen to stillness. Take breathes as a detached observer. Listen is 'silence' re-arranged.

13) Feel true nature is awareness. You are self-recognizing. Everything emerges here. 

14) Be in the now. All suffering resides in the past or fear of the future. When you live in this moment, the past and future are irrelevant.  Suffering cannot exist now. Awakening is knowing now is all that is. It never began and never ends. Core essence is aware being. From awareness emerges consciousness, the ability to think, from thought, the thinker arises in perceived time. 

15) See time as illusion. Recognize all suffering only exists in a period of perceived time where there is a lack of self love. The mind cannot engage in something with no points of reference. You cannot stop thinking.  Yet, as you come to see thoughts are unreal, you can let them flow. When you do not give them attention, they pass. That which never changes is real and never threatened.  

5 Ways to See Nothing

To see and be nothing requires no effort. It is to be calm and embody whatever arises in silence without judgment. This may feel familiar some of the time or none of the time. If it is not every moment, then you choose to shift attention elsewhere. What do you choose to see instead?

Often, people see an 'obstacle'. This creates a roadblock or resistance rather than allowing life to unfold. Be aware that each obstacle is a gift. It offers ways to understand why you perceive things as you do and the root cause. Consider these 5 ways you create obstacles and forget nothing:

1) Self-talk- Notice where you say, "I would like to [do something], but..." What you are really saying? Look deeper into yourself to see for the real reason you hold yourself back from inner peace, balance and acceptance of what arises. Hesitation is a pointer. You may fear change or allow fear to control you.

2) Redirection- Notice the difference between creating an obstacle because you you do not wish to do something and creating one to point you in a more suitable direction. How does the obstacle help you to see what you are not yet allowing yourself to see?

3) Who? Notice how you feel about the direction of your life when things do not appear to be going to your plan. Who's plan is it really? Explore why you are attached to a particular plan.  Is it really for you? Or, is it someone else's idea of what is for you?

4) How much? - Notice when the obstacle that arises appears to be financial.  Notice what your own thought, body language and words are saying about abundance and scarcity.  Where you focus attention is powerful.  When you focus on what you are not doing, you channel energy into lack.  When you focus on feeling joyful about what you have, then abundance is your focus and this invites more abundance in.

5) When?- Notice when you feel impatience.  Notice whether you wonder when that special relationship is going to enter your life or when your situation will change.  You may resist deeper intimacy or commitment.  You only ever stand in your own way.

Ultimately, to accept who you are, where you are, and love whatever arises is to be in the flow of nothing. To see obstacles is revealing your own illusions and resistance.