Posts Tagged 'present moment'

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.

Every subject has two subjects, that which is wanted and the lack of it. ~Abraham-Hicks

The broad-brush stroke of my business is that I inspire people to let go of their conditioned mind or resistance (in all it’s various forms) in order to align with their Spirit and Soul’s purpose. Such an alignment naturally creates happiness and joy.  One of the keys to alignment is to let go of the need for other’s approval.  Since I possess a level of mastery over the external approval-thing, you would think that as I write my ‘business book’, I would not worry about genre, or structure, or following someone else’s rules about what such a book should be.

I wish.

Occasionally, I slip into worry about such things as whether I can allow the poet in me to come through and still write a book about my business.  Then there’s the voice that says, You must have clear steps for people to follow! which, of course, doesn’t sit well with the poet in me either.  The ‘darkest’ voice of all is the one that says, You can’t be an expert and also reveal your personal journey (like I’m doing here!).

Thoughts such as these block the flow of writing.  They are not aligned with my Source or with the book.  How do I know this?  Because of how they make me feel: worried, afraid, and stuck.   However, because I practice what I preach, as soon as the worry-story surfaces, I open my Transformation Tool Box, a virtual container stored in my consciousness that houses all the tools and processes I use to shift into alignment with my true Self whenever I notice I’m out.

On this day, I choose the tool called my Sacred Stick, a new tool I am using with clients. It is a real stick, one I found at the dog beach in Santa Barbara.  Using the stick is based upon the Law of Attraction teachings of Abraham-Hicks.  The stick represents the ‘issue’ and provides a visual tool to consciously shift one’s focus about a subject from what is not wanted to what is wanted.  As part of our human conditioning, we tend to focus on what we don’t want rather than what we do want, especially around subjects that carry any sort of baggage.  Unfortunately, when we focus on what we don’t want, we will get more of what we don’t want. (The Law of Attraction at work.)

To begin, I simply stare at the left side of my stick, which represents where I am right now. I say aloud, “The subject I am focusing on now is the subject of writing my book.”  Then I ask, “What thoughts am I thinking and what is the vibration of those thoughts?”

You may ask, “Why do this?  Of course you know what you’re thinking.”  You’d be surprised how unconscious some thoughts are.  The more conscious you make each step of this process, the further you shift your vibration in relation to the subject you are working on.

The thoughts I hear in response to my question are: ‘I’ll never finish my book’; ‘It’s crazy’; and ‘I don’t know what I’m doing’.  All of these statements create a story, one with historical roots, which I won’t elaborate on here.  The vibration or emotion of this story feels frightening, doubtful, and at times hopeless and powerless, feelings at the bottom of the emotional scale.

I look at my stick, holding it tightly.  I ask, “Is this worry-story a story that matches the lack of my book or the presence of my book?”  I feel into the question, molding the clay of my conscious awareness.  These thoughts match the lack of my book, of course, the lack of writing it and the lack of joy I experience when I allow it to come through me.

With this awareness firmly planted in my consciousness, I look at my stick once more.  The left end is the lack end.  The right end is the BOOK, which my Spirit knows already exists on the vibrational level.  I turn my head.  I note the turning of my head.  This is another moment of choice.  I choose to look at the BOOK-end of my stick, the end where what seems to be in the future is here now when I imagine it to be so.  I search for thoughts that I know are true, thoughts that create the presence of my book, such as, ‘I love to write’, ‘I have so much written that is really good’, ‘I have support for finishing the book’, ‘I know my writing inspires people’, ‘I have finished books before’, ‘I feel the finished book’, and ‘Spirit directs the flow’.

With some effort, focus and practice, suddenly, I feel free and aligned once again with my Desire.  By focusing on the end of the stick that represents the book itself, by giving myself time to consciously tell a new story, I change my vibration in relation to my book.  I align with what I want rather than the lack of it. I feel the presence of the book; I expect its unfolding; my natural happiness returns.

And so, I write.  It flows.  Soon, I notice the sun, which has been shining all morning.  I eagerly anticipate the joy of sharing my book with many people.  I anchor the feeling of inevitability.

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copyright 2009 Nancy Swisher

(Note:  I have used the feminine pronoun to refer to self-love.  However, self-love is neither male nor female, but encompasses All.)

– Self-love brings her total awareness to the present moment of her life. And when she does not do this, she shifts into a learning mode to discover what she is making more important than the present moment.

– Self-love invests resources in learning how to love herself.

– Self-love takes time to breathe, to the point of actually appreciating her breath, feeling the intimacy between her body and her spirit made manifest by the breath.

– Self-love forgives. She learns how to forgive in a way that feels aligned with her Soul.

– Self-love learns to recognize the story playing in her head.  She feels the impact of the story and inquires about its truth.

– Self-love reaches out for support when she needs to.

– Self-love follows her Bliss.  Self-love learns to make this real. Self-love acts upon what brings her joy, even if it means going against the opinions of others.

– Self-love listens to her Soul. She brings forth those words into the material plane, forming a relationship to her own wisdom and taking responsibility for it.

– She releases fear of judgment. She releases self-judgment, and thus judgment of others.

– Self-love cherishes and honors all aspects of her body. She eats to support her organs and systems; she learns about herbs and natural healing; she stretches her muscles and monitors the vibration of her energy level.

– Self-love knows that the body is a manifestation of her consciousness, so when her body has pain, she looks to the place in her consciousness that hides in the dark.

– Self-love invests in learning to love herself with the same excitement that she invests in a vacation or a new home.

– Self-love realizes that her very core is Love, that she is a Being of Light.  Self-love makes this real in her daily life by practicing Stillness.

– Self-love reads books that resonate with her own knowing of Spirit.  She doesn’t adopt others words, but allows them to support her alignment with her own words.

– Self-love devotes time to mastering energy release techniques so that she can easily pivot away from her programmed mind as quickly as possible.  She also understands there may be wisdom to learn within the lower vibrations of memory and story as she works to rise above them.

– Self-love expresses her Soul’s purpose and takes the time to discover that purpose as it evolves throughout her life.

– Self-love practices contemplation, for without contemplation she cannot know who she is.

– Self-love studies Universal Laws: the Law of Giving and Receiving; The Law of Attraction; The Law of Thinking.  She observes these laws at work in her everyday life.

– Self-love connects to the Oneness of Nature, knowing that she and the dragonfly are One, that she and the tree are One, that she and the mountain lion are One.

– Finally, Self-love knows she is responsible to discern what is loving to her, that no one else can tell her that, that only God, Divine Mother, the Infinite Field, and Great Spirit, as they flow through her can guide her to the next moment of enlightenment, where Love and Love meet, and all is well.

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How would your life be different if you could embody these statements?  If this is something you can imagine and desire, I invite you to register for my 9-week Choosing Self-Love Tele-class Intensive starting Oct. 1. http://tinyurl.com/mlu8r5 Questions? Please call Nancy at 319-338-7833.  Blessings and Light!

copyright 2009 Nancy Swisher and Choosing Self-Love Inc.