What are you most grateful for? Who are you most grateful for? What experiences do you cherish with all your heart? The power of gratitude is in align with the power of love, and love is the highest vibration there is. To practice gratitude is to practice love. When we find ourselves in a negative or positive experience the best action we can take is to take a moment and thank it. By thanking the moment we let the universe know that we accept and take responsibility for what we have attracted into our human existence. When we have acceptance we are metaphorically saying that we are a co-creator in this life.

By being a co-creator, it is up to you to manifest what you want into your life. Do you want love? Do you want peace? Do you want true, deep relationships? What do you see when you look at your life? How deep are you looking? When you swim through the depth of your life you realize you are swimming through troughs and crests of your own ocean. We live in cycles, and if we cannot be thankful for both the darkness and the light in and around us we become out of sync and sometimes deranged.

Gratefulness is love from every inch of our soul. By defining a circumstance as good or bad we are resisting and what we resist persists. Allowing the shadow to surface and becoming friends with it, we then resist no more and the flow of life force flows through us with ease, hence raising our vibration.

Gratitude makes all the difference on our path. On our journey when we come across certain ‘obstacles’ we can either see them as ‘obstacles’ or as lessons. To learn our lesson is to acknowledge our lesson, by thanking it. And so shall we transcend. We can all look back at a situation in life where we didn’t truly appreciate what life was laying before us, only to realize later that it was the perfect piece to our puzzle. Gratitude is the key to our purpose, and expands awareness of ourselves.

Gratitude is a new perspective. It is living through Source. Source doesn’t look for Beauty, source sees Beauty. Source is love, love is a vibration, and gratitude is the practice. Be grateful. Be love and watch your life transform.

Flow with uncertainty. No need to resist. This is for sure a gift, for you certainly cannot control things when life seems uncertain. And control is a subset of fear. Love the opposite of fear allows and trusts life. Life takes care of you. All that arises in life on the spectrum of positive to negative can teach you beautiful lessons.  You are continuously in the right place at the right time. See how things are always unfolding for your benefit? Uncertainty helps you be spontaneous and flow with the unknown. It helps you flow with the many surprises that come with uncertainty.

Intimacy is the non-physical part of the connection that exists when you are close to someone.  As defined here, it is a closeness of soul rather than a physical closeness, although the two can exist together.  It is sharing a part of your Inner Being with someone in a way that creates a bond between you.  If you have a strong capacity for intimacy, you find it easy to become close and form a bond with someone when the circumstances are right.

If you are intimate with someone, the bond you have makes you feel in tune and connected with that person, and emotionally at home with him or her.  You find it easy to exist comfortably within each other’s space, and you almost can’t help feeling some part of each other’s emotions.

Intimacy has both a doing side and a knowing side.  The doing side is having the ability to be truly close to another person, to feel what he or she feels because of the bond that exists between you.  The knowing side is recognizing who is good for you to be intimate with, since you don’t have this kind of compatibility with everyone.  The doing and knowing side of intimacy work together as a duality.  This means that as you develop the ability to know who is good for you to be intimate with, you also increase your capacity for intimacy in general.

If you have trouble with intimacy, you have difficulty knowing who you are compatible with.  You tend to become involved in relationships that are bad for you because you are never quite sure who is good for you to be with, and who you should walk away from.

 

What are your dreams? For yourself and for humanity? Do you believe they can happen?
LOVE is the key. When you love the food you are about to eat, when you love the water you are about to drink, when you love the clothes you are about to put on, when you can see the world from a perspective of love, and especially treat yourself with love, your world will come alive, and you will be able to make more compassionate choices. Focus on love from the moment you wake in the morning to the moment you fall deep asleep.  Love is a high frequency of energy that is contagious and in the moment. Love allows, love flows, love uplifts, love is our true nature. Love is a state of being that is timeless…..Love is truth. What is your truth? Are you living your truth? Your passion? Love opens all doors and dismantles all barriers…Love dissolves separation and fear……Love mends broken hearts….Focus on love in each moment and experience the magic that this state of being reveals….

To study the Way is to study the self.

To study the self is to forget the self.

To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.

To be enlightened by all things is to remove the barriers between one’s self and others.

Dogen

Great receptivity attracts exceptional results. The natural responsiveness of pure Being energy brings about success through support and perseverance, rather than through bold action. Thus, the wise person demonstrates strength through openness and non-doing. Being is the power of the feminine principle no longer honored in our modern world, but such receptivity is most auspicious.

The receptive force is sensual as well as powerful, and it can be missed by too much talk and planning. When spring comes, does the grass plan to grow? This is a time to concentrate on realities rather than potentials — how to respond to a situation rather than how to direct it. Allow yourself  to be guided, and become skillful at graceful acceptance. In a strong spiritual way, your quiet contribution is most effective and brings success.

Take your time. Draw strength from carefulness and you will be doubly fortunate. Focus more on feeling than on action. Be broad and deep in your attitudes so that you can accept everything that comes your way with grace and equanimity. Be receptive and spacious like the ocean; let the river of changing developments flow to you. Allow others to take the lead for now. Strive for a natural responsiveness that is based on inner strength rather than outer show.

It is imperative to be cognizant of where you’re placing your thoughts. This doesn’t mean that you can’t have one single bad thought. We’ve all had them. The most important aspect is to learn from these thoughts and to understand why that particular thought arose. Sometimes, these thought will come to us as a way of reflecting that of which we need to work upon, so try to look at it from an objective observer perspective and you’ll know exactly why that thought occurred.

You can practice sending the thought pattern of love anytime you’re out in public. For example, if you’re at a mall, simply smile at people and in your mind, say, “I love you.” The smile alone can change the world in a positive way…..the love can send waves of energy that have profound effects as does the above water/thought experiment shows.

 

With each breath the world is renewed,

And so are we…unaware of this constant renewal.

Life arrives anew, anew like water in a stream, 

But appears, in form as a continuous thing.

So swiftly it arrives that it looks continuous 

Just as fire does when you move it rapidly.

If you set a branch on fire and move it swiftly with your hand,

It appears as a long line.

Creation occurs at an astounding speed;

Thus time appears continuous, and long.

Through the divine word form is born;

Then once again the wave returns to the ocean.

Forms come out of formlessness, then return to the divine.

So every moment you die, and are reborn;

As the prophet said, 

The world is but a moment.

 

Life is essentially meaningless……Until you consciously or unconsciously project meaning onto whatever situation, moment or space you are perceiving. What FREEDOM! To become aware of your power over creating your life in any given circumstance. Lets take for instance a situation you may have automatically seen as unfortunate. For example, being pulled over in your car by the police. A policeman gives you a warning about a broken tail light on your car, your registration has just expired and your car insurance card is two days old. Automatically you see this as a grave inconvenience, wasting your time. Your mind swirls with thoughts like “Don’t the police have better things to do, like catch robbers or murderers?”Or “This ruins my entire day!” Another option could be seeing this as  a reminder to take care of your safety with your car lights working properly. It was also kind of the officer to give you a warning and not an actual traffic ticket. Also, a nice reminder to update registration and insurance which could result in costly fines or violations if not taken care of. There are options in any situation of how to live your life. You can choose the path of difficulty and strain.You can choose to flow  and relax in life. Each moment is an opportunity to practice choosing the meaning you prefer. This may appear to be impossible as you become conscious of any automatic conditioning that arises. Simply stop and ask yourself one question. How can I make meaning of this in another way that I prefer? Emphasis Prefer instead of reactive conditioning. Do you prefer ease over strife? Again, Its up to You as the meaning maker of your life….With patience, practice and love this will come with more ease and grace. This is true Freedom….

With each breath you have a choice to choose how to perceive and experience your reality. The moment you open your eyes from sleep, direct your consciousness in the state you prefer. For instance, you wake with anxiety. Your mind is racing about the list ahead or the answer you are anticipating, all future worry. You have the power to stop yourself and with intention choose to be Here in the Now. To comfort your mind from fear of the future by simply making the choice to cease the habit of fear creating a story. Instead, you could ease your mind with thoughts of Now, such as I am safe, I am loved, I am….Living a life where you shape your consciousness and not let fear shape you Is possible. The mind can be like a wild horse out of control with regrets of the past or worries of the future. At any moment you can halt your mind and choose another perspective which is Now in the Present moment. This is a practice that can begin Now. The power is in You of how to experience your reality. Intend to live from your heart, from love. Intend to be kind in all your encounters. Intend to be authentic with others. Through these intentions and then actual practice, you begin to shape your consciousness….So what in the past was a reaction to life…can now become a conscious response.