Getting Back to the Basics That Saved My Life and Can Change Yours

I am reading a  life-altering book in terms of spiritual growth.  I haven't been this excited since I discovered Marianne Williamson.  Now I've read Julia Cameron before, particularly, "The Artist's Way," and some of her other books on creativity.  I always gain a lot from her sharing her experience, hope and strength of her recovery.  But I recently read an interview with her in a writing magazine, and I learned she had written a book called "Faith and Will: Weathering the Storms in Our Spiritual Lives," which you can get in hardcover from Amazon (here) new copy for $2.56 and used for $1.70.  It speaks about what happens when you are left wondering where your higher power has gone to.  You're just not feeling that old connection.  You'd like to do His will, but He's not letting you know what it is as far as you know.

          There are clues as to why this might be other than the old standard, "Who moved?" when God is
          missing.  She writes, "Most of us are too hurried to know God.  And yet we act as if God is too
          hurried to know us."  She's right of course.  It's not God, our Higher Power, or the Creator who
          is afraid of missing Pilates at the health club at 2:00 so you can get in the step workout at 3:00.
         "It is we who have abandoned God."  She adds, "It is easy to be addicted to anxiety.  It is easy
         to make worry our home vibration."  "Just for today, I am going to reach out toward God.  Just for
         today, I am going to act as if I am a believer."

         
         Just as love, I know,  is a decision, Cameron writes here that faith is a decision.

       
        Just remember that we are right where we are supposed to be in the here and now.  God, the world,
        your significant other, aren't going to finally love you in a few years when you are a perfect human
        being.  They love you as you are, right now, this minute, and never forget it.


        
        I need people--writers and teachers--like Julia Cameron to bring me back and help me remember
        what's important. Like only worrying about taking the next right step.  That's all I have to worry about.
        After that I don't know what happens.  I'll know when I get there. 


   
        Cameron suggests we reunite with our H.P. by praying something like this, "Dear God, I want to be
         united with you.  Here's where I am at right now:  (List what you're doing that doesn't feel good.  You
         won't shock God.  He's heard it all.  List your failings you need to have removed.  Ask for help to
         forgive yourself and others and to be forgiven.  Ask for guidance and follow it.


--------------------

I have been caught up in arts and crafts suddenly.  I decoupaged a flowerpot, and now want to decoupage either fish or stars on my coffee table.  I am art journaling up a storm and releasing so much it's like writing my memoirs.  I am even scrapbooking.  I've been reading about why you should do scrapmoir as a form of memoir and I'm sold.  Listen to this insightful quote I didn't just come across at the same time: 








                                 "No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly
                                  where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present
                                  place." --Maya Angelou

I am learning so much about my healed and still healing places.  I am putting together a newer, stronger, more flexible version of me and I feel open, free and joyful while I shape the pieces and figure out where each goes. Last night I did a lot of scrapbook pages on some people who have made a difference on the journey of my life.  It was good to stop and recall and write a few words.  I still love many of them.  I even made a tiny beaded necklace to wear among a certain group of groovy peace, love and good drugs old pals. It's amazing the creativity that comes out once you get going. 

I'm cheating on my scrapmoirs and I'm glad.  I started it some time ago and then let it collect dust because I lost interest in it.  No wonder I lost interest.  It was a very boring project that went from my birth to preschool, grade school, and quit just when things were going to get good as a teenager.  But then I had to think about my first husband, getting married at 18, being so poor, a miscarriage--just so many sad things I didn't feel like jazzing on.  Instead I did a page on a few of my lifetime jobs and then went into adult friends, which is where I still am.  It won't be a normal scrapbook or scrapmoir.  I have the feeling I'd be utterly bored if I were to take a class in it--same for art journaling.  It conflicts with one of my new favorite quotes that I hung up on my desk over my monitor: 

              "Don't play what's there.  Play what's not there."  Solid advice from Mr. Miles Davis, who knew.

So go do the next right thing.  I hope for the benefit of your inner child it's something creative.  I just bought some fingerpaints, and they felt good.  I felt five again.

 
     

    

I Am Enough! You Are Enough--Now, Not In 5-10 Years

Yes, as the motivational speakers like to say, we truly are human beings and not human doings.  You wouldn't know that or stay mindful of what that beings from the information we are deluged with on the Internet and everywhere else on productivity, personal development and schedules for it,  getting things done, becoming an entrepreneur, doing it, just do it, what we should with any free time,  and the whole "Be All You Can Be" themes of the writing, speakers and culture.  Let's not forget the emphasis in these medium on how to make more money.  That must be the hottest ticket on the auction markets for keywords.

Why can't we be enough just as we are for a minute?  Aren't I good enough as I am?  Why does everyone want to convince me that I'm lacking, a slacker and a bum if I just want enjoy who I am today and what I do?  Who do we have to be and what do we have to do to be loved, which is really all we want?  Can even God love me as I am?



Here are the top 50 productivity blogs for those of you who are human doings.  It wears you out just to read the titles of the articles:  "Five Ridiculous Reasons You're A Couch Potato," (being tired and wanting to rest is no excuse) (Dumb Little Man); "Top Ten Reasons to Upgrade Your Daily Routine, " (Lifehacker), "Tying to Pursue Too Many Goals At Once," (Lifehacker); "Thinking Only in the Short Term Halts Your Ability to Pursue Multiple Goals," (I feel another stern lecture coming on.  Lifehacker); "Putting First Things First," (Get Rich Slowly.  Are you surprised to learn that "first things" aren't developing more compassion, peace, your life's purpose, or anything that can't be measured, seen and touched.  No, things mentioned as coming first are investing as you can as early as possible for retirement, building an emergency fund ASAP, paying your bills as they arrive, being fit and following a fitness program and eating a good breakfast.) 

Oh there's so many more it makes me tired just to read the titles.  Why do we have to spend every free moment improving ourselves by making more money, working out, losing weight even if we aren't obese, building a platform, having good branding, on and on.  It never lets up.

Is it any wonder that there are so many unhappy frustrated people not getting enough rest or sleep who are driving themselves to early strokes and heart attacks because they cannot believe that they are enough as they are? 

The ego is driven.  The ego hates rest and tells you why you should pull another all-nighter on a work night.  The ego wants more money, fame, glamour, beautiful sex partners, and self-importance.  It wants you to make out that damn daily schedule where you write down what time you expect to be brushing your teeth at night and eating meals at six o'clock exactly, and making sure every free minute is scheduled for productivity and self-improvement. 

What do you want?  What does your higher consciousness want for your inner life?  What are your values, intentions and beliefs, and let's knock off goal setting for one day.  I don't want to learn more efficient ways to multi-task.  I have ADD and barely get things finished as it is. 

Don't I get a break at for what I have accomplished?  Doesn't any of the accomplishments we already have count for something?  Maybe only on LinkedIn and our resumes.  Some of us have had to overcome some major obstacles in our life such as alcoholism, addiction, mental or physical illnesses, losing loved ones, losing custody of our children, being homeless, being poor, being unemployed for long periods--just plain playing the cards we were given.  Don't these people get to rest on their laurels just a little bit?  Put that whip down please.  I never joined the Marines.  I don't want to go to boot camps of any variety.  My goals have subgoals and I work towards them everyday. 

I don't know about you, but as a result of all the mental conditioning to be more and do more and get more done, I don't let myself slow down for a minute.  I have too much to do to take the time to visit a friend or even call one.  Too much to do to read all the interesting information that drifts to my browser, but I really wish I could stop and read that.  I have too much to do to be bothered with taking walks, nature, meditation, cleaning and organizing, being compassionate to all, asking to know God's will for me...

Is God's will for me to go to grad school?  I hope not even if I can help others more with an advanced degree because it's more of too much to do.  I am already or planning to work on improving myself by learning French, Web design, digital photography, publishing my two novels, writing e-books, submitting mindful articles to major publications or at least getting the nerve up to query some of them, grant writing, start a grant writing business, start a nonprofit and mange it, find a solution and work towards using it on problems like homelessness, poverty, injustice of any kind, illiteracy, legal rights for only those who can afford them, Big Pharm's latest assaults, the artificial interference with our food, pesticide loading on fruits and vegetables, and more every day. 

What is my soul's mission and what was I put here on this Earth to do?  I hope it has nothing to do with Pilates, running, not eating cookies, shopping at Aldi's instead of health food grocery stores, being frugal till it hurts, having a brand and a platform, owning a second home for retirement, building anything with wood, bricks or paint, or reading more teeny tiny print and government publications.  I hope my soul's mission is to be joyous, learn, help, give, appreciate, develop and use my talents for the benefit of others not just me, provide humor and beauty to my small patch of the world, be a good role model for my children and others, listen to people with concerns and problems, and things of that nature.  Mostly I think I am here to love:  myself and my neighbor and everyone in the world. 

The Dalai Lama says we are here to find joy and be joyous.  I can go along with that.  It is the result of loving and giving.  I wasn't born with a soul and consciousness that are only meant for tangible accomplishments that result in getting more done, making more money or being successful in the business world.

I am enough.  I am enough right now, today, and I am worthy of love as I am.  I am enough in what I have accomplished and persevered to do,  and it's good I have dreams and plan to continue to contribute in a lot of different ways, but I need to make sure that I am not blocking today's self-acceptance on what I have yet to do to win approval by the world's standards.  It's good to  slow down to be attentive to the still, small voice within, and to pay attention to the synchronicity that delights with miraculous wonders and is always on time.

I think that for now I will just row, row, row my boat and be mindful that life is but a dream.  It is not a competition or a race.  There's no prize for who gets there first, wherever "there" is.   I will live in the eternal now or keep trying.