Author: Anne

This author has written 807 articles

PEACE

PEACE IS THIS MOMENT WITHOUT JUDGMENT

Do you think peace requires an end to war? Or tigers eating only vegetables? Does peace require an absence from your boss, your spouse, yourself?… Do you think peace will come some other place than here?  Some other time than Now? In some other heart than yours?

Peace is this moment without judgment.  That is all.  This moment in the Heart-space where everything that is is welcome.  Peace is this moment without thinking that it should be some other way, that you should feel some other thing, that your life should unfold according to your plans.

Peace is this moment without judgment, this moment in the Heart-space where everything that is is welcome.

Poem by Dorothy Hunt    Info about Dorothy…  https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKhuntD.htm

REFLECTION:

  • As many begin to gather with family and friends for the Holidays, consider creating a space of peace… moments without judgment. 
  • How would you days be if you could release that “it should be some other way … that you should feel something else?”
  • What if your life is unfolding exactly according to plan?
  • Can you create Heart-space today and the days going forward to offer peace without judgment.
  • HAPPY HOLLIDAYS!!  Enjoy being with yourself and others in the coming days.

THE MIND

“My mind is my main problem almost all the time. I wish I could leave  it in the fridge when I go out but it likes to come with me.”  

Quote by Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott  is an American novelist and non-fiction writer. She is also a progressive political activist, public speaker, and writing teacher.  Her nonfiction works are largely autobiographical. Lamott’s writings, marked by their self-deprecating humor and openness, cover such subjects as alcoholism, single- motherhood, depression, and Christianity.  Some of her best selling books include: Help, Thanks, Wow; Traveling Mercies; and Bird By Bird.

REFLECTION:

  • What trouble has your mind gotten you into?
  • Perhaps you can take the “story in your head” and ask a few questions*
  • Question 1: Is it true? …
  • Question 2: Can you absolutely know it’s true? …
  • Question 3: How do you react—what happens—when you believe that thought? …
  • Question 4: Who would you be without the thought?            (Source of Questions is THE WORK by Byron  Katie)

LIKE STAINED GLASS

How like stained glass are we.  Honesty enables us to discover the images of life that shape us, the images that scratch and stain us with experience.  But these are nothing without the sincerity of heart that will fill them and us with color.  And then, if we are to come alive at all, we must place ourselves in the light.  We all know how sudden and brilliant a stained glass window can be: dirty and opaque one moment and breathtaking as soon as the sun floods it and we can see it from the inside.  We are the same:  sacred windows in the making.  So to place ourselves in the light and to see each other from the inside are the most important skills we can learn.

FROM: The BOOK OF AWAKENING Having The Life You Want By Being Present To The Life You Have by Mark Nepo

REFLECTION:

  • You are a sacred window in the making. 
  • Is there some truth telling/ sincerity of your heart that can let more light in?
  • How can you see others from the inside letting in more of the light?
  • How can you see yourself more in the light – to be more fully alive?