Posts Tagged 'Nature'

On my daily walk, I stop at a bridge to look down at a beautiful stream.  Before I stop to look down, I pick a twig with flowers or leaves.  Then, I drop it over to watch as it flows downstream.  This bridge is about 50 feet high over the stream, which is about 30 feet wide, with woods on either side.  It’s in a park so very quiet and undisturbed.

A very long time ago I realized that whatever I need to know I could learn from nature.  As my twig falls into the water, the current sweeps it up.  There are rocks that it moves around.  At times, it gets pushed under the water. Sometimes, it gets stuck on the side of a large rock, until the water dislodges it.  Finally, after the rocky white water section, the twig rests in the large still eddy, where the water is calm.

Yes, this is all a metaphor, which is how we can learn from nature.  In this instance, the water is the flow of our Spirit, or Divine Essence.  Our spirit is always expanding or flowing.  We either allow this to happen or resist the flow.  When we get stuck on a rock—-a false self concept—then we get out of the flow, stop moving, stay focused on the fear or pain or whatever it is that we are believing at the time.

Being in alignment means that our mind, body and spirit are lined up, that what our spirit desires our thoughts support.  And we keep our body open and healthy to support our Spirit.

My question is, do you need a nudge?  Have you been stuck on a rock lately?  It’s only normal to be there.  It’s part of the journey downstream.  We will encounter the rocks.  But our responsibility as conscious creators of our life is to look to see why we are stuck, what we are believing that’s keeping us stuck, and what the learning is that will release us so that we can move downstream again.

1. Blame
2. Demeaning internal dialogue
3. Loneliness and isolation
4. Numbing out to your Soul’s purpose with food or television
5. Unforgiveness

If you feel stuck in your life in any way and feel that now is the time to consciously empower yourself to get unstuck, give me a call 641-233-5072. This is what I do as a transformation catalyst~I support you to create a breakthrough transformation so that you experience your unlimited possibilities again and fully connected to your Soul.
I also hope you are enjoying this amazing spring season.

Love & light,

Nancy
http://www.choosingselflove.com/sessions-self-love.htm

copyright 2010

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

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.

I love putting these two words together because I don’t think they are often associated.  In reality, you can’t have one without the other.

What is self-love? The foundation of self-love is the realization that you are love.  You live a life of self-love when you identify with your spirit, with the non-physical Being that you are.  When you really know that you are a spiritual being having a human experience, you become committed to mastering the tools of self-love that help to release your conditioned mind, all those beliefs and feelings that block your experience of the love that you are.

What is success?  I prefer to use Deepak Chopra’s definition.  It’s a good one: “The continued expansion of happiness and the progressive realization of worthy goals.”

There are no right goals or wrong goals.  Worthy goals are those that bubble up from within you that bring you a sense of joy when you imagine them.

If you do not give yourself the time and space to go inside, to touch the Being that you are, to feel your unique energetic vibration and frequency—if you are always on the go and seeking the next accomplishment while ignoring your Being, your success will not bring you happiness.

Soul-aligned success can only be accomplished by learning to love you. The worthy goals are those that outform your heart’s desire, your soul’s-purpose.

You can work hard and make lots of money and have all the things that make the world label you as a success.  And there is nothing wrong with wonderful things.  But the new paradigm of success that is being birthed in the world now—success that comes from soul-alignment—cannot come to fruition without the practice of self-love.

How does one practice self-love?  That is a much bigger question than I can answer here, but the most important starting place and the #1 practice is this: Stillness.

If you want to learn to master 15 self-love practices check out my 9 week Choosing Self-Love Tele-class Intensive at http://tinyurl.com/mlu8r5

www.choosingselflove.com