I feel so sick and awful today. Not my pain but my heart. I'm hurting for some great friends of mine who are going through a horrible situation. I want to fight for them to get them out of it. I wish I could just snap my fingers and make it all better for them. Its so hard to watch others learn their lifes lessons. You feel so helpless and even when you know someone you care about is making the absolute wrong decision there is nothing you can do. You can't fight other peoples battles for them no matter how much you want to. They have to be willing to fight for themselves. I'm just so heartbroken for the whole family.
I could turn this into a message about growing and learning but right now I'm just to upset to write anything that would even make sense so I will just leave it with a message a friend wrote today. No matter how many times I am thrown down, I will find a way to stand. If it matters to you, then you must fight for it and never let go.

New Found Hope

I've recently moved from Ohio to Florida and have had a lot of changes in my emotional stability. I've been happier and able to fend off my depression that comes along with my chronic pain easier and it has me thinking "What could be causing this change?" It can't just be the change in weather or scenery although those things do help I'm sure. Being able to be closer to nature and not have to lock myself indoors 6 months out of the year to stay out of the cold is of course a big help but there is more. I can feel it inside. There has been a shift in my energy, in my familys energy. I can feel it around me like tiny surges of electricity. How can these amazing changes be happening since I left all my friends, my family, my home, the life I knew for so many years? What is happening here that was not happening there amongst so many that I loved and held dear to my heart?
Something pops into my head that a friend told me once. People will try to keep you where you are. They don't like it when you step out of your norm and will try to bring you back there. They may not even realize what they're doing but they just know that they don't like what is happening. You try to better yourself or begin growing and learning. Those that are not growing and learning or don't embrace that don't want others surpassing them or playing different roles in their lives than the roles they have been playing. If you don't submit to their pleas they will begin pushing you out of their lives because you no longer fit where they want you to. I think that this makes sense to me in this situation because I saw these things happening around me in the months before I left and I know its happened before. Every time I would try to learn and grow I would feel resistance from certain people around me. I succumbed to them several times, falling back into my old ways. My old destructive patterns. Slipping right back into the pain that I had been trying to let go of. Towards the last couple months before I left it seemed to be happening again but I refused to succumb. Then once I moved I was able to continue my path toward bettering myself. No one knew me or my past. I wasn't seeking anyones approval but my own. I was able to truly be me and I liked who I was...who I am, who I will be. No one was there to try to put me back in my place. My husband was there but he was in the same place as me. Wanting to be himself and learn and grow with his family.
I have also escaped the pity that was put on me with my chronic pain disorder. There were those who supported me, those who, understood or showed understanding, and those who showed me sympathy or pity. Support and understanding are amazing tools to use to help others in their journey no matter what life throws at them but pity...well pity keeps us stuck. Pity doesn't help us out of holes we've dug ourselves into, or heal our pain, depression, or anguish. Pity lets it fester. Helps you stay stuck in that hole or seclude ourselves with the pain. Which as anyone with pain knows its easy to seclude yourself and just live with your pain if your not careful. You allow the pain to become your friend...as sick as that sounds. You get comfortable with it and then don't know how to live without it. Not that you could even if you wanted to. Then the pity..."Poor poor Missy. She suffers sooo much. How sad a life she will have. What a dismal existence." When you hear these words enough, you begin to believe them. You let them become part of you. What a dismal existence indeed. This is not what God wants for me. He doesn't want me to just accept my suffering, my sadness. We are meant to overcome it. Pain is another obstacle, another opportunity to grow. It is in fact, a gift. I know, I know. What a way to think of something that brings so much suffering but the fact is we can choose how to live with it or better yet overcome it.
I think this pity that I was getting from so many was one thing holding me down. Helping me stay in that place of darkness and dismalness. Now don't get me wrong...I do not blame anyone for my being unhappy in Ohio. The fact is what I'm discovering is that it wouldn't have mattered in what state I lived. It seems the move was just a great transition for me to help me break out of my "dismal existence." True not being around it and hearing it or feeling it from others makes it easier to stay focused on overcoming my pain but I don't fault them for their way of dealing with what I was experiencing. Its hard for those who don't experience it to know how to comfort or feel about those that do. Even here I have had some moments where I sense others having a difficult time knowing how to feel about it. But honestly its not their burden to bear. They don't have to understand it. Yes, being supportive and understanding is definitely something a good friend or family member should do for their loved ones in times of crisis but some people just don't have the ability to deal with things like that very well. Having said that it is a great opportunity for those friends and family members to grow and learn by practicing being supportive and understanding. Asking questions, gaining knowledge, connecting with another persons soul. I have not yet felt pity from those around me now so maybe this is God allowing me to see something I had not seen before. How harmful pity can be and how uplifting a little understanding can be. Like there are fans in the background pushing me to keep going. And even if I have to fall a lot, which I kinda do, I will get back up and I will get out of that bed and I will continue my journey.

So, in conclusion, I have decided that yes, the weather and the beauty of Florida has great appeal, but ultimately I really think that maybe its all the success of this new and exciting path I've been given, the faith I have had through it, and the hope I have for tomorrow. May God bless your journey. Namaste.

Our search for happiness

Our eternal search for happiness. We all search for it. We all pray for it on bended knee at some point in our lives. Its what drives us through every day. We do all kinds of things trying to find it. We love for it, work for it, some even kill for it. We will do horrible hurtful things just trying to find that one thing that will bring us the happiness we long for. The majority of us are or have searched in all the wrong places. I personally have shamed myself, hurt others, been selfish, and stepped over others all in the name of wanting to be happy. All along all I had to do was look inside myself. It took many mistakes for me to figure that out. I kept looking on the outside or to other people telling them it was them that had to make me happy. When all along it was only me that could do that for myself. We put so much stock in things and other people. Some of us including me think that other peoples approval will give you what your looking for. I must say I still struggle with that one from time to time but truly we are all flawed and to accept someone else's flawed approval of you is just plain silly and will definitely not bring you happiness accept maybe for a moment.
I think that true happiness is when you discover who you really are, embrace it, and love it. You find God within you and the beauty of what only He can create. All the details are important. Each gift big and small that makes up who you are. Your body has nothing to do with any of it so for those of you thinking " if I were only skinnier, if I only had this color hair, if I only got that manicure or pedicure, if I could just make me skin smoother or get rid of my wrinkles" can stop thinking those things. Our bodys are merely the vessels we create to carry us through this reality. The inside is all that matters. The way we feel and give love, our talents, our truths, our hopes, the way we express ourselves, our knowledge and wisdom, our ability to comfort another person or our inability to do so. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. We are each special in our own way....each of us given the strengths we need to get through our journey in the way that we are supposed to. I don't even believe that our weaknesses are really weaknesses. They are just another gift we are given as an opportunity to learn from this life. It doesn't matter what our strengths or weaknesses are. God will find us and show us the way. Every encounter we have is just another opportunity to find Him, to find happiness, to find love.

We could just keep walking through life and ignoring all these amazing signs we are being given and many of us do. We are sleep walkers. Just because we get out of bed does not mean that we are awake. We must truly awaken our souls. To find happiness we must awaken that deep place inside of us that the world tries to force us to keep asleep, look into the face of our creator, and release the energy inside of us. The energy we keep all balled up inside these bodies....trapped just waiting to be let out. That is true freedom, true love, true happiness. We use the word empty when we are unhappy. I don't believe we are truly empty because inside of us is where the answers lie. Maybe we are too full because it is once we release all that we have trapped inside of us that we feel relief. We pack down all the pain and push down all the feelings while at the same time packing all of this poison around our souls. Around the enlightenment that lies within us. We allow it to destroy us from within instead of pushing it out into the universe. We must breathe in all the positive energy that the world has to offer us and expel all the evil, all the hatred, all the negative and seething pain that we have been holding onto for so long. We are all dealing with things in our lives. Painful and hurtful things. The situations may look different but they are truly the same opportunities to learn and grow. To become pregnant with the love of our creator. We don't have to go through this alone. He is there and He gives us each other to help us through it. We are all balls of energy separated only by other smaller balls of energy and until we learn how to share those energies and see each other and ourselves for who and what we really are we will not find the happiness we are looking for. You are already full....just free yourself and you won't have to feel that "empty" feeling anymore. You will be happy and you will be free. Your questions will be answered.

Distractions

The things we do to distract ourselves on a moment to moment basis. Most of us use distractions to keep from having to think or feel pain or have to deal with tasks at hand. Then there are those of us that try to get rid of the distractions because we want to deal with them so that we can move forward but the distractions that we have previously created are always there struggling against us. Either way there is no balance. When our lives feel upside down more than likely there is no balance. We continue to allow distractions to take us away from the thoughts and emotions that we must let ourselves feel and work through. We give in because its easier than fighting against the world around us until eventually we stop trying to feel at all and just let life keep running us over. We release that voice inside us that tells us to work through our journey and hold our pain in. Our hurts, our losses, our anger. It all builds up and without release we become unbalanced, depressed, empty, and feel alone. The classic feelings of many in todays society. We sleepwalk through each day and just stick to our everyday distractions. We do what is expected of us by the world. Like drones we wonder through our day to day tasks. Running here and there, going to work, going to church, saving for that dream house, watching the news, discussing politics, joining the pta. All the while forgetting our soul purpose on this earth. The journey of spirit. Even when we go to church, the majority are just doing it because its what they've been taught is right and true. Its what someone else decided you should do, feel, and believe. Very few actually stop and really look inside for the answers they seek. Because to look inside is scary. Full of fear. Full of anger and sadness. To find the answers your looking for you have to stop letting your mind be cluttered with the mundane, look in your heart, and heal your wounds. Our wounds are like scar tissue clouding our true self. Covering up the spirit inside of us. We walk through our lives using good old common sense. The mind. It is a terrible thing to waste. But what about our hearts. Isn't that what truly matters? Everyone says: "Make sure your using your head." I say: "Use your heart" "They" tell you to use your head and not your heart because once you start using love to make your decisions you will no longer need them. We wouldn't need a government if we all thought and made our decisions with love. We wouldn't need the psychiatrists, the doctors, the police. If you want love then you must act with love. If you want peace, then you must act peaceful. How does our world truly believe that we will achieve peace with war? When you ask that question, does it really make any sense to you? It doesn't to me, and never has. Its just another distraction to keep us from seeing the truth and the real reality of life. We are all on a search here. A search for meaning to our lives. The God within is the meaning. The infinite power within us made of energy, vibrations....pure love. Pure light. As easy as it can sound....finding that balance, that love, that power...is overwhelming. You must go against all that you've been taught about looking outside for the answers and look in your own heart. The teachers, the priests, your own parents, can only teach you what they have been taught to teach you. It is your responsibility to seek the truth. Put the distractions aside, release the pain, breathe, and find your truth. Namaste.

Separating the Vessel

Today I find myself pondering the separation of my body from me...my soul. The fact is that our body's are just vessels to get us around in this life. It is only real because we say it is. Well, my body is full of pain so if I am not my body how can I learn to separate myself from it so that it doesn't affect my soul? Can I just meditate it away? Think it away? Its one of my biggest obstacles and I want to overcome it. The pain is keeping me from moving farther forward. When I am in a state of love and joy and admiration of beauty I barely notice it but as soon as I'm back to this reality there it is again. Haunting me and antagonizing me. Like an evil keeping me from the truth. Deepak Chopra talks in length about healing your own body but its not enough to read it or listen to it. You must feel it with every ounce of energy in your being. Believe it with all the threads of your soul. Yet the world fights you with this. Doctors give you meds and say there's no other way. They tell you that this is your life now and you just have to deal with it, manage it. They keep you coming back feeling that you need those drugs to get through so that you keep giving them your money. Why not right, they work don't they. Do they? Do they really work or do we just think that they work because thats what we are told. We tell ourselves that it will work because we've been told it will. And then it does. Why can't we just as easily put the same thing into effect without the drugs. Tell yourself the pain or disease is gone and it will be gone. But thats just it....you can do that but what is hard is the believing it part. We are told our whole lives that that kind of thing is ridiculous. We can't heal ourselves. Thats what doctors are for. But we can. We somehow have to train our minds to stop listening to what we've been told for our whole lives. Just because we say it once doesn't mean our subconscious will listen. We have to breed it into ourselves just as all the nonsense of the world has been bread into us. Its like relearning how to do everything without allowing the outside influences of the world sway us back to our sleep state. I know once I was awakened the world has constantly tried to put me back to sleep. Its so easy to just slip back into our state of unconsciousness and accept the realities of what "they" want us to believe. I refuse to close my eyes again. My whole life I have questioned this reality and known theres something more out there. Now that I know it is there I want to find out all that I can about it. I refuse to spend this life allowing my vessel to bring me down. I will not let my own vessel work against me. I will find the truth. I will heal myself. I will honor God within me and follow the path he lays out for me and no one elses. This is part of my path and I will somehow conquer it. Conquer the fear of being truly free.

Fear

Fear is the most difficult conscious thought to overcome. It is that which holds us back and keeps us from moving forward spiritually and becoming closer to the God within us all. It is amazing that something that does not even exist can so thoroughly take over us.