“These Things Don’t Move Me.”

Posted on November 5, 2013 by Cathy Thomas

During the past several weeks I have been reminding myself of what I know about energy. I have had to remember to draw Divine energy into the crown of my head, instead of relying on my personal will power to move me in life. I have had to relearn to focus on grounding, and letting go of old memories as they arise. These are all things I have studied and used in the past decade. Yet, during this long period of stress, I fell back on my childhood responses and allowed myself to run seriously low on energy. It is good to be back in the swing of it all.

In rereading an author I love- Florence Scovel Shinn, I was  reminded  of her words ” these things don’t move me”, meaning that once you are clear in your convictions, outside events or words do not throw you off course. WOW, I have to say that when I am low on energy, almost anything seems to throw me off. To simply hear those words in my head is to bring a feeling of immediate calm to me.

I am sure that I am not the only one who holds full fledged battles  in their head. I can easily give voice to both sides of an issue and whenever I run out of things to say, I simply start over with the inner battle. Now I apply the magic words and a hush descends on my mind. I actually am able to gather myself and remember what I hold true in my heart. That ends the fight, soothes the nerves and just makes me feel much clearer.

I know that Florence would not be using these words to mean that she does not care about someone’s plight. She honestly means, that she holds her perspective of the deepest truth within her and is able to simply hold her place. Florence was writing all this wisdom about abundance and applying the metaphysical laws to everyday life in the early 1900’s, and she is still completely on point. If you need to be taking extremely good care of yourself and you would like to be reminded of how to work with “The Game of Life”( the title of one of her books),  I highly recommend this book to you.

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Strange Messages

Posted on October 15, 2013 by Cathy Thomas

Many of you will remember that I had a female cardinal smash her face into my window over and over again. I finally realized it was a message to me to stop trying so hard to change a situation over which I had no control. I did get the message and I did stop doing that one crazy thing.

During the past several months I have been saying aloud to friends that I needed to stop working for awhile. I knew that I needed a full time out to heal emotionally from the past several years. And still, through a sense of duty, I continued to do things that I thought I needed to do. I had many reasons that I could articulate for why I had to keep doing things I did not want to do. My life was a daily struggle because it was filled with things I had to do and nothing else because I was too worn out to do anything more than the have to list.

A couple of weeks ago I felt faint. I tried to shake it off, but I still felt faint. I decided to walk into the bedroom to let me husband know that I needed help. I never made it. I crashed my face into a table on the way. I was literally doing what the cardinal had done a few months ago. I had to go to the ER, have 12 stitches in my face, have short term memory loss and generally felt like I had been in a car accident. All of my friends asked kindly why did I think I needed to come to a full stop?

Although I really did not want to look closely at myself, I also did not feel safe ignoring the latest message. I had to honestly assess the fact that I was continuing to do things I did not want to do. I was being overly responsible to everyone but myself. The Universe finally stopped me in my tracks. And I got the message.

I wish I would have listened earlier to all of the zillions of internal messages that told me to stop doing what I was doing. I simply did not seem to be able to stop. This is not a new issue for me, in fact, I believe it is what I came to learn in this life. I hope that this latest message was big enough for me to truly get it and follow my inner guidance. Just so you know, there is absolutely no lasting consequence to my extraordinary accident other than my visceral memory of being smacked in the face with a message.

Now that I am listening to my inner voice, I am enjoying my life immensely. I am taking naps, reading fiction and visiting with friends. I am loving the fall, looking forward to the holidays and cooking. I am simply being and only doing what will bring me peace or joy. I noticed that this month’s Oprah magazine is all about this concept. If you know in your heart that this message is for you, skip the traumatic experience and just stop. Listen to your own inner guidance. It won’t steer you wrong.

 

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Your Precious Gifts

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Cathy Thomas

So many people are asking the question ” What am I here to do?  What is my precious gift to give  in this time of transformation?” I see people really struggling with this issue and they feel genuinely confused. They believe they are here at this time for a reason, but they don’t believe they know what the reason is.

What if your most precious gift to give is something that comes naturally to you? What if it is something that you can do almost effortlessly and so you discount its value? I believe that we are here to offer what is our most natural ability. I believe that being yourself is the gift and that each of us can do things easily. Those natural abilities may be the very things that we are here to offer.

For example what if you are a very calm person who rarely has drama in your life? Maybe you naturally are the grounding for others who are overwhelmed. Perhaps you are a person with a natural gift for telling jokes and lightening the energy wherever you go. What  if this is your precious gift to offer? I find that I have always seen the treasures in other people and have tried to help them see their own gifts in a new light. I never thought this was a particularly great thing. Now I realize that people are just hungering to understand what they have to offer and they seem to be almost blind to their own innate strengths and the value that they can add to any situation.

Ask yourself what you do well, effortlessly and often without thinking about it. This may indeed be what you came here to do. We need everyone’s precious gift. Maybe you are the one in drama all of the time and you feel guilty about it. What if you are the one to sound the alarm that saves people from an impending natural disaster. Your dramatic energy could be what moves people to seek safety. We all  have different energy and each of us is needed to create this new world that is arising. Share your precious gifts.

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Arms Wide Open

Posted on September 24, 2013 by Leslie Evelo

Recently, someone I love very much decided to admit himself for inpatient alcohol treatment.  He said that he just could not stop drinking on his own, and he felt that the only real hope for him was to seek inpatient treatment.  Since he is a health care provider, he must submit to at least 60 days of inpatient treatment.  This means that he says goodbye to his spouse, children, and friends – of whom I am one – for 2 months.

To me, this sounds like an eternity.  To him, too, especially since it is the gateway to his living without alcohol for the rest of his life.  Alcohol has been  his friend, his confidante, his solace and his co-celebrant for the better part of 15 years, and that will not be an easy goodbye.

I feel my own longing and missing him in advance of his leaving.  His spouse shows herself as strong and together, despite the pain that I know is searing her insides.  She has prayed for the day when he would seek treatment and finally, fully enter recovery.  She has also feared it, not knowing who he would be when he left alcohol behind.

What do I say to all of us?  How do we all deal with the pain of this gracefully?  And how do we open ourselves to the many lessons of this difficult time in our shared lives?

I hear within me the phrase, “arms wide open.”  It repeats itself again and again, insisting that I listen.  What does it mean?

As I contemplate this throughout the day, I come to the awareness that it is instructing me and all of us to stand with our arms wide open and let the emotion of this experience blow through us like a breeze.  I envision us opaque, like soft cotton fabric hung to dry in the fresh air.  The feelings are like that, sometimes gentle and flowing, sometimes strong gusts of air that whip the fabric back and forth in unexpected bursts.  In all cases, the fabric eventually returns to peaceful stillness once the breeze dies down.

And we must greet and receive each other through this process with our arms and hearts wide open.  My friend, especially, must receive himself with his heart and his arms wide open, extending to himself the same compassion with which he has received so many others throughout his life.  Loving himself, he will grow and he will heal.  Loving each other, so will we all.

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