“A Place for Everything.”

What’s alive in your practice?

What would I like to experience even more of?  And what would I like everyone and all to experience more of?

Joy! Happiness! Abundance!  Connection!  Freedom!!!  Lightness and Ease.  Health. Loving Acceptance of What Is in the Present Moment.  Harmony.  Feelings of Significance and Contribution.  Flow.  Creative Expression.  Laughter!  A sense of growth and becoming better and better each day, learning, growing, expanding, evolving!  Wonderful, loving, joyous, relationships with people, plants, animals, all life!  An awareness of the interconnectedness of everything and ‘my’ oneness with all.

Eckhart Tolle once wrote that the key to happiness and success comes down to three words: One with Life.  When you live in the oneness, your identity expands way beyond the physical body and brain, but you begin to identify with the whole of whatever you’re experiencing in the Present Moment.  And then you realize that any judgment is ultimately self-judgment..hence Jesus’s wise words : “Judge not lest yet not judge, for as ye judge so shall ye be judged.”  It all reflects back to you!

Being aware of The Secret, the idea that thoughts create reality, means that in some way, you’re responsible for experiencing and manifesting whatever is with and within you in the present moment.  And then to also realize that in some way, the present moment is absolutely perfect for you, perfect for your learning, growth, healing, and evolution…that’s magical place to be.  There then is no bad, but only a higher good.  Even pain, suffering, disease, illness, heartbreak, hunger, grief, anger, fear…all of it is your teacher.  Everything you experience throughout the day, each and every moment – it’s perfect for you!  It’s just what the Divine Doctor ordered.  So gulp down that medicine with a smile on your face trusting completely that it’s for your greater good, also knowing that your greater good is the greater good of the whole!

You can only give what you have.  So what do you want to give?  Cultivate it yourself!  These bodies are amazing instruments and tools for consciousness to flow through.  “I’m” beginning to realize that the body can be (and possibly always is) a vessel for divine energy to flow through.  And if you don’t like the word divine, it’s a vessel for love to flow through, for peace and joy and happiness to enter in and flow through.  As you experience the peace, it flows outward to you.  The internal and external balance.  Yin-Yang Harmony 🙂

If you don’t like what you’re experiencing, you can always change it.  You have the power!  Pratipraksha Bhavana, perhaps one of ‘my’ very favorite teachings I learned at Yoga Teacher Training, suggests that you can only have one thought at a time.  So if you notice your thoughts aren’t vibing well with you, replace them with a positive thought. That is, change the yin.  You have the power!  However, sometimes, depending on where you’re at along the journey, changing the yin can be tough, especially in a ‘toxic’ environment.  In that case, change the yang!  Move the body, go outside, go inside, call a friend, read a book, listen to a song – change something about your external condition to free you from that feeling/vibration that might not be all-that-enjoyable.  You’ve got the power!

As you can guess, what’s significant here is you have the power!  Whether you change the internal conditions to connect more with the Kingdom and that Happy Place inside or if you shift your external reality, you can always come to a place of Peace.  It is always with you.  Deep breathing and smile are generally liberating.  As is dancing, laughing, or singing.  Fake it till you make it 😉

Fake it until you become it!

We are on a journey of becoming.  Learning, growing, expanding, evolving – becoming and realizing the very best that inside us and beyond us.  Sharing is caring.  Gratitude feels good.

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Let’s return to the title of this post…”A Place for Everything.”

Whatever happens in the external word, it’s ehhhh.  Whatever you witness, accept it.  Even if it’s violence, cuss words, lewd behavior, ultimately – who are we to judge?  Embracing our own ignorance is super liberating, because if you accept complete ignorance then ultimately you disable yourself from judgment.  Literally, if you are completely ignorant and aware of complete ignorance (knowing nothing but knowing that you know nothing ;-)), then you are incapable of judgment.  You cannot judge!  You can only observe, witness, and take action in the flow.

What’s real is experience.  Trust your experience.  And, as much as the Yang of our worlds are constantly shifting – external conditions are impermanent – perhaps there is an essence that we can connect with always.  If there is one thing that is permanent, it’s likely something of the Yin nature, something internal, like spirit that flows through everything.  Like the Oneness with Life, as Eckhart Tolle says.  The Oneness of Experience.

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Think of yourself as a vessel to flow through.  A vessel for all goodness to flow through, a vessel to increase feelings of goodness, warmth, connection, harmony, abundance, flow, creativity, freedom, laughter, joy to flow through.  When you think about how much you like a person, realize that what you like about that person is the energy they carry – the quality of consciousness.  So too, people like you because of the energy you carry, which can be called the principles you align with.  If you’re a practicing Christian and pray every morning and read the Bible and think about Jesus often, people enjoy your presence because you’re connecting with very powerful principles like selfless love and service, fearlessness with faith, being willing to give your life for another – at least, these are some of the principles that come through in the teachings and life of Jesus.  Significantly, many of the teachings come through the living.  Anyone can say the same words, but can they practice them?  Thus a life well-lived comes down to practice.  How much do you practice unconditional love?  Unconditional forgiveness?  Non-judgment and loving acceptance?  More than words, let’s focus on actions 🙂  It’s not about how much we know, but how well we live.

Follow the good vibrations.  Follow the synchronicities / “coincidences” / God-winks 😉  Follow your bliss.  Feel good and you’ll inevitably do good.

You can only give what you have.  And what do we all really want most?  Find that within yourself.  Carry joy in your heart and unconditional love for all, and imagine all the goodness you are giving each and every moment.  Even if you do not tangible observe the positive ripple effects of your alignment with love and peace and joy, trust that you are doing Wonderful Work.

And free yourself too! You don’t need to judge.  You don’t need to create us vs. them dichotomies.  Forget about separation.  Let yourself become of the Spirit that is in you that is also in All.  Resist Nothing.  Love Everything 🙂