To listen to Nancy read this post, click here.  (highly recommended!)

Today, the most important thing the Earth reminds me of is the perfection of life.  The five bluebirds sit on the telephone wire, perfectly.  They fly up a few inches, trade positions, like a game of musical chairs, perfectly.  The black cows rest under the shade trees, some lying, some standing, all still, perfectly.  The meadow comes to life this spring, dry grasses from last year amid the new green ones, a perfect mixture for the wind.  The petals of each flower; the shape of each tree; the juxtaposition of hillside, stream, meadow and oak groves; all perfect.

Even where humans have altered nature, if you look closely, you can see the perfection.  The wild mustard flowers, their shade of yellow-green is the perfect shade for that particular flower.  How could it be otherwise?

Early this morning, before the night fog lifted, a hawk flew low from limb to limb, watching me walk my dog, Horton, through our neighborhood.  I asked the hawk, “What are you doing here?”  He said, “Watching over you.”  I said, “thank you.”

If you learn nothing else from the earth this year, learn to see the perfection that she teaches.  Then, learn to see the perfection of your own life, for you are part of nature.  And from this, you will gradually begin to stop thinking there’s something wrong with you, with your moment, with your life.

copyright 2010 Nancy Swisher

It is a common for humans to focus on what we do not yet have but want.  It is also a common thing not to be grateful for what we do have when we know that we desire something other than what we have.  Learning to feel gratitude, no matter what the circumstance or issue in your life, is a wonderful undertaking.  Why?  Gratitude feels lovely; gratitude signals the flow of divine energy through your Being.  And most importantly, gratitude is our natural state when we are fully present.

“But how do I feel grateful when I want so many things to be different than they are?”

Well, the answer is by wanting to focus on gratitude, by choosing to be grateful.  Everything is always a choice when it comes to our focus.

Being grateful, however, is not about pretending to be grateful.  It’s not about just saying the words.  It is not a mental exercise.  You must feel it.   And you can feel it even when circumstances may seem grim.  To quote Eric Butterworth’s Spiritual Economics, “This is precisely the time to stir up the gift of gratitude!  Remember, it is not a reactionary emotion but a causative one.”  In other words, by being grateful, you cause or draw to you more experiences to feel grateful about!

Gratitude and appreciation are powerful, high frequency emotions. You don’t have to look outside to your environment for things to be grateful for in order to feel and experience gratitude.  You can choose to be grateful, to feel grateful, to experience gratitude.  In other words, gratitude is not a response to something external, but a state of Being that you bring to the world.

When you do this, amazing things happen in your life!

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If you want to explore how to access the power of gratitude to reveal your
Soul’s Purpose,  please contact me at nancy@choosingselflove.com

copyright 2009 Nancy Swisher http://choosingselflove.com

One morning my dog Horton and I were on our morning drive to the Iowa City dog park.  It’s a short drive (less than 7 minutes) and a wonderful way to begin my day.   I take my small tape recorder with me to record inspiration and guidance about my book or other projects.   I felt great joy driving on this beautiful morning, with Horton to my right, blue sky, birds everywhere.

We turned the corner from our block and right in front of me was a beautiful patch of Bee Balm, one of my favorite flowers.  Bee Balm is in the mint family (thus it has a square stem) and grows to about 4 or 5 feet.   Hummingbirds love it.  This particular patch was a deep magenta.

When I saw the bee balm, in an instant, I thought of another patch of bee balm, the bee balm that I planted at my house in Massachusetts, the house I sold before moving to Iowa City.  In another instant, a feeling of sadness arose.  Why sadness?  Because my conditioned mind has been programmed to think thoughts that cause sadness, to focus on loss as reality.  (I’ve explored all of the reasons for the conditioning, actually spent the greater part of a decade ‘looking there.’)

The speed at which this happened truly amazed me.  I went from joy to sadness literally in seconds.

This is how the conditioned mind works.  In a moment, something in our environment can trigger an old way of thinking and perceiving oneself or life, and KA-BOOM (a technical term), off we go down the slippery slope into a low vibrational feeling, into a story so familiar we don’t realize it’s a story.

This time, however, very quickly, I brought myself back to the bee balm in Iowa, twenty feet away from me.  This was my point of power.  This was my present moment.  I saw what was happening.  I made a choice not to go into the past and into the story.  You see, we lose the present moment when we look back.  The spiritual connection to All That Is and our Essence is eclipsed by the mind when the mind dominates, which mine tried to do on this day.  Because of practice, I was able to shift it within seconds.  It wasn’t always that way.

I love teaching my Choosing Self-Love Mentoring Program because in the first module you learn to many tools for shifting into the present moment.  Nothing is more important, really.  And, I want to emphasize that this does not mean that you ignore the difficult feelings.  When there is wisdom in them, you explore them and learn.   When there are thoughts and stories and ‘children’ who need love, you bring in love.  But when they are simply repetitive patterns long ago processed, you pivot in another direction, toward your happiness.  You choose.  You select your thoughts, the ones that take you in the direction of your desire.

In our busy lives, it is easy to forget that we walk upon the earth, that we are part of the earth.  What does this mean?  To me, it means that the vast, powerful, loving energy that rises up from the earth nourishes, inspires, heals, and guides me when I open my conscious awareness to her.

Yesterday, my neighbors had a tree cut.  The tree was in my yard but belonged to them.   It was a very old pin oak tree, diameter much too large for even two people to hug.  Since I have lived here, the energy of the tree has been part of my home.  In less than three hours, the tree company had it down.  Needless to say, I had many feelings arise, feelings of grief, helplessness, love, loss, anger, and even physical sensations of pain. You see, I knew that the tree was healthy except for a few dead branches at the top. But the tree ‘experts’ instilled fear, saying the tree would fall on the house, etc.

As I processed the loss of the tree, I called on the Earth to help me.  I tuned in to the vast waves of energy flowing through the vortex where the tree had been.  By evening, I was guided to realize that the energy of the tree was still present.  The physical form had been taken, but the energetic form was still there.  I could feel it.  I could see the energy of the tree and its branches.

My heart lifted when I realized this.  I felt such a profound awareness about the relationship of physical form and Being or energy.  This is not to say that I do not grieve the physical form, I do.  But the non-physical reality of our existence, both of our own Spiritual self and the spirit of Nature is where we need to focus at this time.

It is through our awareness of Spirit, our own, the trees, the birds and flowers and our oneness with All That Is that our lives will shape-shift into our highest and best Self.  The beauty of our natural surroundings are here to help us see who we really are: Spiritual Beings having a humanly spiritual experience.

Blessings to you and to the Earth,

Nancy

Generally, when someone says they feel like they don’t belong, they are referring to something external, such as their family, their neighborhood, or a peer group at work or school.  The feeling of not belonging, no matter where it comes from, is a very painful feeling.  It can be debilitating.  The latest scientific research shows that the feeling of not belonging and isolation is one of the biggest causes of stress in the body.  We all need to feel like we belong.  The feeling of belonging is an essential part of experiencing a full life.

In my work as a transformation catalyst and guide, I find that at the root of many issues is this sense of not belonging.  Exploring your personal experience of belonging provides the potential for healing and aligning with your true self.

Inner Belonging and Outer Belonging

There are two aspects to belonging—inner and outer.  Inner belonging is the deep feeling of knowing who you are.  It is your connection to your Inner Being, to your Spirit, your Soul.  It is also a connection to your body, knowing that with each breath you take, you affirm that you belong to this body and that this body belongs to you.  Inner belonging cannot exist without the practice of self-love.  They go hand in hand.  When you love yourself, when you allow the love that you are to flow through you and from you, the feeling of belonging is always present.

Outer belonging is the feeling of connection to others.  This is a wonderful feeling. External belonging is based upon shared ideas, values and experiences.  After the recent presidential election, many African-Americans shared that, understandably, they now have a new sense of belonging to America that they have never had before.  This feeling of belonging with others can even happen virtually, through blogs, social networking, and tele-classes.  What a great benefit to living in this time of global interconnectedness.

The good news!

One main difference between inner and outer belonging is that we have complete control over our experience of inner belonging, whereas the feeling of outer belonging is dependant upon circumstances.  The other big difference is that inner belonging is primary; outer belonging is secondary.  By this, I mean that if you don’t take the time and space to cultivate a deep sense of belonging to yourself, to your Spirit as it flows from the larger Universal Field of Spirit, and to your body, then you will never feel the joy of external belonging either.  You may feel it temporarily in certain situations, but it won’t last.  You will have to keep finding new external sources for the feeling.  But when you master creating the feeling of inner belonging, the outer circumstances that give you the wonderful experience of belonging to others will show up.