Ponderable

Blessing Your Surroundings with Your Soul’s Creation

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The title of this post may sound a bit dramatic; however, it is the opposite – it is more about simplicity in your daily routine.  On an earlier post, I talked about creation for and with love.  Blessing your surroundings with your soul’s creations is related to that love.  Doing things lovingly for you, your family, and everyone who will share your surroundings is part of that love.  However, there are many ways in which you can enrich your surroundings, and one of them is by being creative in what you do.

We live hurried lives, and many times we function on the auto mode.  By minding the moment and giving it your own touch (creativity) you will enhance the mood, the moment, the task …  When you do this you operate from simplicity, and you bless your surroundings thru your creative spirit.  A simple task of washing dishes (or loading the dishwasher) can become significant, as opposed to being a menial task.  Creativity comes in many forms, visual and non-visual, as a colorful arrangement of fresh-cut flowers at the dinning table or as a gentle breeze flowing thru an open window.

As you continue to bless your surroundings with your creativity, inspiration will continue to flow.

Censor Yourself

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I made one of my goals not to entertain negative talking of any kind.  Negative talking just sucks your energy out – energy that you need to be creative and get better at what you do best.  With so many people around you exuding negativity or not into positive talk, how do you do that?  It is simple, by making the effort.  You may catch yourself giving in into negative thinking or negative talk – and when you do, change the tune, change the channel, reverse the process.

If other people start talking negative around you, excuse yourself if possible, if not, change the conversation.  If changing the conversation does not work, then kindly and in a friendly tone say that you have made your personal goal not to talk about anything that is not positive.  This will put the ball on your court, as your personal project, and the other person will not be offended.  In addition, you are not mentioning the word negative, you are just saying “anything that is not positive,” so the person doesn’t feel attacked.

It may be difficult in the beginning, but I have found that when I am around any type of negative talk, I feel drained and sad, so I decided to cut that issue.  This does not mean that you cannot lend a friendly ear to a friend that is going through a hard situation.  This is different; it means the kind of talk that does not edify, puts you down or anybody else, and has no true meaning.

I have found that when I am around negative people my creativity suffers.  You can find negative people anywhere – post office, supermarket, work … sometimes even making small talk while waiting on line at the store.  I remember this line from an episode of the old series Kung Fu – “When words are not better than silence, it is best not to pronounce them.”  I was a kid when I watched the series, but for some reason, that phrase stood with me until adulthood.  It is good advice.

The Blessing of Each Day

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We are by instinct, a species that will do anything to survive.  We survive the Ice age, and the human race continues to evolve, learn, invent, create, destroy, love, hate …. and survive.  In tragedy or hardship, we seem to bring the best and the worst of us; we help others, injure others … and we keep on going – surviving.  The survival instinct is ingrained in us very deeply; however, one thing puzzles me – we fail to live every day.

We live daily, sometimes in a daze.  We go thru the motions, like zombies in a hurry.  We wake up each day, sometimes in a frenzy.  We fail to acknowledge the blessing of each day (me included).  Why (as species who will fight for survival) we seem to forget of everyday living?  Do we take living for granted?  How can we be sure that when we go to sleep, we will wake up the next day?  There is no guarantee to that, we know it, we ignore it.  Each day is a huge blessing – no matter what it will bring.  If you opened your eyes today, you were given life.

Trust, Be Still, Listen

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Now Listen

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We live hurried lives, and at times, we think that multitasking and 24/7 doing is the answer to moving on, moving up, or getting it right.  Doing is good; goals without a plan and a purpose stay stagnant.  However, there are times when we must trust, be still, and listen to what Spirit – God – or what you want to call it – has to say to us.  All we have to do is ask, trust, be still, and listen.  Many times, the simple things are the hardest to do.

Monks have mastered the art of meditation and listening.  We think that it is impossible for us to master such high art; maybe, because we are approaching it from the hardest point of view.  When we slow down and learned to trust the divine voice inside us, learn to quiet ourselves down, and listen to it, there are new insights to our situation, question, or concern.

Maybe the hardest part is for us to trust.  To trust that what we have asked, pondered, or dreamed is just around the corner if only we would be still and listen to Spirit.

Focusing Effort

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I have found thru my experience that effort without focus is just hard work without results.  We are raised thinking that hard work is all it takes, coupled with effort and dedication.  Although those are very important ingredients, those have to be focused, directed, and sometimes redirected to accomplish what we want. 

It is easy to get distracted into a ton of effort – I am guilty of it – and forget our focus or take our eye from the target.  It can happen while we are pursuing the target or it can happen without even noticing.  One day, the target gets blurry, and the vision needs to become clear again.  If we are lucky, or in tune with Spirit, we recognize that we need to clean our lenses and re-focus.  This time it becomes a bit easier, because you know how easy it is to lose focus while working hard.  In the end, you emerge a bit wiser, more alert, and thank God for waking you up.

Move! Motion Gives Life

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Motion

Bodies were made to be in motion.  Motion is creation, so if you move, you start the chain of creation.  To move is like mechanics, but more as in the spiritual level.  Spirit is not quiet and stuck in a place – Spirit moves around and while moving around it creates.

A body in motion invites Spirit because blood flows; blood is life – life is energy – energy is the fuel for Spirit.  Got it?

Small Steps – Every Day

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I used to get frantic trying to do everything at once.  Worried to the point of becoming stressed, even about the things I could not control.  It took me a while to realize that there is “time for everything under the sun.”  I had read that many times, but never grasped the deep significance the phrase had. 

We go nuts multitasking and running around trying to get everything done.  In the end, we feel burned out and unhappy, the colors of life lose their brightness, and there is no music to our day – just the hurried stomps of our feet as we run like robots without a cause.

It took me a while to realize that small steps everyday accomplish a lot.  Sometimes, even the best antidote against procrastination.  Small steps everyday take you closer to your dreams and goals, and let you feel and see some progress.  Today, I don’t run with the pack, I take small steps, but surely, and everyday – I am happier that way.

Just Be

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What would happen if we allowed ourselves to just be?  To do as we genuinely felt and not as we tought we would look better in front of others?  What would happen if we acted by true care as opposed to having to care?  I think we would be happier, and only give the best of us to others by just being. 

Being genuine to yourself entails being true to others as well as your own self.  It is applying the golden rule.  Many times, we covet the ideal lives of others – the successes that we view as perfect lives – without realizing that the only way that we can meet a fullness of life is if we just be. 

When we embrace ourselves, our creativity, our spirituality, and our physical state of being, along with our lives, we are in the path of becoming what we are to become – of being as real as we can be – of fulfilling our purpose as human and spiritual beings.

When we write, many times we worry about rules, about sounding like our favorite best-selling author, or about setting writing goals according to somebody else’s standards.  However, we forget one important thing, that life, goals, writings, and anything else that goes with it, will not mean anything if they are not centered and meant for the true self and its true purpose. 

 Just be and the rest will follow is a good way of approaching life, but in our way to letting the true self shine, we can strive to better each day by asking ourselves – Am I letting myself be?

Show Up to Life

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Many times we think that life is hard enough, specially when things are not going our way.  In an “instant society,” we expect fast results and want things to take shape right away.  In writing, it is the opposite, patience is a virtue, and the slow mode of speed seems to have two lower sub-modes.  Many talented writers give up early, when they don’t see fast results proportional to the hard work they put in.  It is discouraging; however, when you love what you do, you never know what hanging around just a little longer will bring.

Life is like that too, no matter what you happen to do, or be, if you want to beat the “instant expectations” and hang in there, just show up.  Show up to life – show up to write every day, show up to be a parent, to be a doctor, a teacher, you … just show up to life and things will start taking shape.

Giving Through Creation

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Have you ever read something and felt alive, inspired?  Have you listen to music that has captured your soul, and touch every fiber of your heart?  Read a poem or looked at a painting that transported you to unexplained heights?  All these are examples of creations.  We are human, but also spiritual, and the need to create is embedded in us; it is our spiritual nature.  We give to others thru our creativity, we create to inspire, to please, to entertain, to love …

My spiritual path has been one of investigation and of finding the divine thru a non traditional approach.  In order to find true spirituality, I had to put aside everything that I have learned about it, and start fresh, with the intention of finding my true spiritual path.  It has not been easy, it still is not; I keep learning every day.

We all have a purpose, it is up to us to find it.  However, there is creativity on each one of us.  Divinely inspired I have learned that creation is like water, it gives life; it is the fountain of the spirit – the myrrh of the soul, the soul’s path to spiritual closeness.  It is contentment and happiness for our souls, and we can find it by being happy where we are, by listening, and be perceptive to our spiritual awareness.  When we feel happy where we are and we make happiness an internal issue, separate from outside circumstances, we are receptive to the divine and we fuel the creative forces within our soul.  This is how we give to others and we bless our surroundings with our soul’s creations.  By giving back we thank the Great Creator.

And how would a Creator see its creation?  How do we feel when we create something that we are so proud of?  In the eyes of God all his children are good, in the eyes of the man, the children are limited by the limits they establish themselves.  To God, there are no limits, and his children are precious – more precious than the treasures of the Universe.  When we give back through creation, we are acting thru the same love that made us.