‘Honor yourself with choice’ – Iyanla Vanzant

I am presenting you with  One Day My Soul Just Opened Up  by Iyanla Vanzant

“That which you do not choose will choose you and that which you fear, will find you.   In most cases, the failure to choose, is the result of fear of letting go of the old for the new, the familiar for the unfamiliar – to let go and stand on new and unfamiliar ground.

“Choice is a Divine teacher, when we choose we learn that nothing is put in our path

 without a reason.  When we refuse to choose, we miss the divine opportunity to develop our 

intuition and obey the whispering of our heart. 

“Choice teaches us to listen, and why we must obey, the consequences of our choices or our failure to choose, teaches us how to live in harmony with our self.  It is up to us to listen what the Self is saying.  It speaks to us as feelings.  When the pace of life or habits, force us to choose, we may not take time to listen within and weighing the consequences.  These forced choices teach us what works and what does not work in our lives.  Your choices become your personal library of victory and success, or the need to spend more time honoring your self.

“The willingness to make conscious choices is another way of demonstrating that you are ready to find new ways of living, before you are forced to do it.  When what we do, how we do it, and the way we do it, no longer fits our purpose in life, we must choose to do something else.  It means we are aware of our patterns and no longer choose to embrace them. Choices makes it easier and when you see that you make the wrong choice, you have the ability, right and power to make another choice.”   Iyanla Vanzant  

‘The breadth of your vision determines the quality of your life’ – Dr John F Demartini

Here follows a small extract from  The breakthrough Experience  by Dr. John F Demartini. 

His work as well as his history are highly inspirational.  You should read some of his work or go to his workshops!!

“As you expand yourself and your vision grows, your resources increase, and broader domains of space and time are yours to play in.  You have a sphere of influence, and you also have a realm of resource; and as your influence increases, so does your resource.   Re-source means to get back to the source.  Stay with the inner heartfelt source and the resource is yours.  Love and appreciation connect you to this true source of wealth.

“The magnitude of space (how big your vision is) and time (how far you can see in the future and how much patience you have) determines the level of conscious evolution you obtain.  Short-term pleasure leads to long-term pain, like overeating and getting fat, or watching TV every night and ending up with a life that doesn’t fulfill your dreams.  But the greater your vision and patience, the greater your power and scale of creation.   A child wants immediate gratification, while an adult has hopefully learned some patience.  When you’re 70 years old, a year is no big deal, is it?  It’s like a day, but to a child, one day seems like a year.

“And what opens up consciousness?  You see, your immortal soul is vast;  it doesn’t have a limited consciousness.  But the mortal part of you is based on a limited time-event horizon, and this horizon is in the future or the past depending on your perception.  If your perceptions are finite, you see things locally; but if you’re more patient and your vision approaches the infinite, you see things nonlocally.  In other words, you could be standing on the earth saying. ‘This is terrible!  Look at that awful devastation,’ while on the opposite side of the planet is some magnificent, terrific experience.  No wonderful event happens anywhere in the world without a terrible anti-event that exactly balances it in magnitude.  The sage sees the whole earth simultaneously and says, ‘Thank you.’

“What I’m offering is the awareness that in all events of life, there is this nonlocal, equilibrating anti-event.  That’s where the mystery is;  that’s where the magic is;  and that’s where your mission, love, and heart are.   Your spirit is trying to tell you that everythin is balanced, but your senses give you lopsided perceptions.  You evolve by finding the balance in all things and acknowledging the Intelligence greater than yourself that governs it.”

Dr. John F Demartini

‘The Smile’ from Chicken Soup for the Soul – Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

Smile at each other, smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other – it doesn’t matter who it is – and that will help you to grow up in greater love for each other.  – Mother Teresa

Many Americans are familiar with The Little Prince, a wonderful book by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.  This is a whimsical and fabulous book and works as a children’s story as well as a thought-provoking adult fable.  Far fewer are aware of Saint-Exupery’s other writhings, novels and short stories.

Saint-Exupery was a fighter pilot who fought against the Nazis and was killed in action.  Before World War II, he fought in the Spanish Civil War against the fascists.  He wrote a fascinating story based on that experience entitled The Smile (Le Sourire).  It is this story which I’d like to share with you now.   It isn’t clear whether or not he meant this to be outobiographical of fiction.  I choose to believe it to be the former.

He said that he was captured by the enemy and thrown into a jail cell.  He was sure that from the contemptuous looks and rough treatment he receiveld from his jailers he would be executed the next day.  From here, I’ll tell the story as I remember it in my own words.

“I was sure that I was to be killed.  I became terribly nervous and distraught.  I fumbled in my pockets to see if there were any cigarettes which had escaped their search.  I found one and because of my shaking hands, I could barely get it to my lips.  But I had no matches, they had taken those.

“I looked through the bars at my jailer.  He did not make eye contact with me.  After all, one does not make eye contact with a thing, a corpse.  I called out to him ‘Have you got a light, por favor?’ He looked at me, shrugged and came over to light my cigarette.

“As he came close and lit the match, his eyes inadvertently locked with mine.  At that moment, I smiled.  I don’t know why I did that.  Perhaps it was nervousness, perhaps it was because, when you get very close, one to another, it is very hard not to smile.  In any case, I smiled.  In that instant, it was as though a spark jumped across the gap between our two hearts, our two human souls.  I know he didn’t want to, but my smile leaped through the bars and generated a smile on his lips, too.  He lit my cigarette but stayed near, looking  me directly in the eyes and continuing to smile.

“I kept smiling at him, now aware of him as a person and not just a jailer.   And his looking at me seemed to have a new dimension, too.  ‘Do you have kids?’ he asked.

“‘Yes, here, here.’ I took out my wallet and nervously fumbled for the pictures of my family.   He,  too, took out the pictures of his ninos and began to talk about his plans and hopes for them.  My eyes filled with tears.  I said that I feared that I’d never see my family again, never have the chance to see them grow up.   Tears came to his eyes, too.

“Suddenly, without another word, he unlocked my cell and silently led me out.  Out of the jail, quietly and by back routes, out of the town.  There, at the edge of the town, he released me.  And without another word, he turned back toward the town.

“My life was saved by a smile.”

Yes, the smile – the unaffected, unplanned, natural connection between people.  I tell this story in my work because I’d like people to consider that underneath all the layers we construct to protect ourselves, our dignity, our titles, our degrees, our status and our need to be seen in certain ways – underneath all that, remains the authentic, essential self.  I’m not afraid to call it the soul. I really believe that if that part of you and that part of me could recognize each other, we wouldn’t be enemies.  We couldn’t have hate or envy or fear.  I sadly conclude that all those other layers, which we so carefully construct through our lives, distance and insulate us from truly contacting others.  Saint-Exupery’s story speaks of that magic moment when two souls recognize each other.

I’ve had just a few moments like that.  Falling in love is one example.  And looking at a baby.  Why do we smile when we see a baby?  Perhaps it’s because we see someone without all the defensive layers, someone whose smile for us we know to be fully genuine and without guile.  And that baby-soul inside us smiles wistfully in recognition.  – Nanoch McCarty – Chicken Soup for the Soul

Tapthemasters’s Weblog

Tapthemasters’s Weblog

Dr Stephen R. Covey – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

If you haven’t done so already, buy this book by Dr Covey and study it carefully. Here follows one extract from his book and it is titled “Begin with the end in mind”

“Please find a place to read these next few pages where you can be alone and uninterrupted.  Clear your mind of everything except what you will read and what I will invite you to do.”

“In your mind’s eye, see yourself going to the funeral of a loved one.  Picture yourself  driving to the funeral parlor or chapel, parking the car, and getting out.  As you walk inside the building, you notice the flowers, the soft organ music.  You see the faces of friends and family you pass along the way.  You feel the shared sorrow of losing, the joy of having known, that radiates from the hearts of the people there.  As you walk down to the front of the room and look inside the casket, you suddenly come face to face with yourslef.  This is your funeral, three years from today.  All these people have come to honor you, to express feelings of love and appreciation for your life. 

As you take a seat and wait for the service to begin, you look at the program in your hand.  There are to be four speakers.  The first is from your family, immediate and also extended – chilren, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents who have come from all over the country to attend.   The second speaker in one of your friends, someone who can give a sense of what you were as a person.  The third speaker is from your work of profession.   And the fourth is from your church or some community organization where you’ve been involved in service.”

Now think deeply.  What would you like each of these speakers to say about you and your life?  What kind of husband, wife, father, or mother would you like their words to reflect  What kind of son or daughter of cousin?  What kind of friend?  What kind of working associate?”

What character would you like them to have seen in you?  What contributions, what achievements would you want them to remember?  Look carefully at the people around you.  What difference would you like to have made in their lives?”

“Before you read further, take a few minutes to jot down your impressions.  It will greatly increase your personal understanding  of Habit 2″  (that is Begin with the end in mind)

“If you participated seriously in this visualization experience, you touched for a moment some of your deep, fundamental values.  You established brief contact with that inner guidance system at the heart of your Circle of Influence.   Consider the words of Joseph Addison:

‘When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out;  when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consideer the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow:  when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions and debates of mankind.  When I read the several dates of the tombs of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider the great Day when we shall all of us be Contamporaries, and make our appearance together’ “ 

Invisible acts of power – Caroline Myss

In this gem of a book by Caroline Myss are so many wonderful lessons to learn, that I will often come back with another jewel from it.

One evening during the summer, she was sitting on her balcony and noticed a young man, slacks dragging on the street, three tatoos on his arms, pierced ears and eyebrow, and she was wondering. “What is wrong with these kids today?  At the same time an elderly woman began to struggle across the street with oversize, heavy boxes.  The young man noticed her, walked over and offered to help her.   He placed her belongings in the trunk of her car, nodded and turned to go, but in the most remarkable, touching way, the woman “wrapped her arms around him and gave him a warm hug of a thank-you. Then she drove away. He stood smiling before he turned back to the bus stop. Perhaps this young man would never think about that older woman again, but the woman certainly would.  She had been graced with help that had come out of nowhere just when she needed it. ”  Caroline had the same wonderful experience when a man assisted her on a flight.   He didn’t know of her inflamed shoulder or back pain.   She began to think how little it takes to do a lot for someone else and about the amazing, long-range consequences of a single thoughtful act.

What really takes place inside you when you respond to someone in need?  Caroline says she thinks it is the invisible power of grace, moving between the open hearts of the giver and the receiver.  The act in itself may be small, but the energy that is channeled through that action is the high-voltage current of grace.  It contains the power to renew someone’s faith in himself.  It has even the power to save a life

As a result she undertook a project.  In a newsletter she e-mailed to her subscribers she asked them to share their experiences of being either the receiver or the provider of some form of grace or assistance.   Within six days she received one thousand two hundred letters from all over the world.  They wrote about the right words at the right time, the comfort of a couch for the night, a hug that helped them keep going, a cup of tee, etc. etc.  She looked for three elements in the stories: the crisis, the gift, and the consequence, and she was particularly interested in the “size”(as she put it) of the help or gift in relation to the “size” of the effect it created.  And she concluded that it takes very little to make a profound difference in someone’s life and that every one of these experiences is an invisible act of power, a cleverly disguised means through which the vital energy of grace is channeled into someone’s life and then she went on to discribe grace, beginning with a wonderful poem by William Blake

To see a World in a grain of sand,

And a Heaven in a wild flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,

And Eternity in an hour

” Although it is difficult to capture its full nature in one definition, grace is unmistakable when experienced.  Grace is a noun and a verb, it is a state and an action, an energy that flows between two beings.   Grace is gratis, a gift.   In theology, grace is defined as unmerited divine assistance, aid given to help us regenerate our spirits and lives – a virtue coming from God. We humans are blessed to be both generators and receivers of grace.   ……the message that stayed with me was that grace and guidance do come to those who ask for it.”

“……Grace has a spiritual quality. It is energy infused with a force greater than our own, a divine intention.  When it arrives – usually unannounced of unrequested, ’out of the blue’ – it fills you with a luminous awareness that is different from everyday consciousness:  it makes you come alive with vision and determination and the strength to act.   Grace illuminates your path by moving through your intuition, influencing the choices that you make” 

 ”divine fingerprints all over it”

Lessons from the Magic Story – Told by Frederick Van Rensselaer Day

Lesson 1

Man should not be blinded to whatsoever merit exists in the opportunity which he hath in hand, remembering that a thousand promises for the future should weigh as naught against the possession of a single piece of silver.

Lesson 2

Fortune is ever elusive, and can only be retained by force.  Deal with her tenderly and she will forsake you for a stronger man. 

Lesson 3

Failure exists only in the grave.  Man, being alive, hath not yet failed;  always he may turn about and ascend by the same path he descended by; and there may be one that is less abrupt(albeit longer of achievement), and more adaptable to his condition.

Lesson 4

Seek comrades among the industrious, for those who are idle will sap your energies from you

Lesson 5

The Ishmaelite (which I understand to be a man whose hand is against everybody, and who thinks that the hands of every other man are against him) and the leper are the same, since both are abominations in the sight of man, – albeit they differ much, in that the former may be restored to perfect health.  The former is entirely the result of imagination; the latter has poison in his blood.  There is a plus-entity and minus-entity in every human body that is born into the world.  Whichever one of these is favored by the flesh becomes dominant.

Lesson 6

Whatsoever you desire of good is yours.  You have but to stretch forth your hand and take it

Have no fear of any sort of shape, for fear is an adjunct of the minus-entity.  Start tonight; start now upon this new journey.  Be always on your guard.  Whichever entity controls you, the other hovers at your side;  beware lest the evil enter, even for a moment. The recipe of “success” is written.  If followed, it cannot fail.  Wherein I may not be entirely comprehended, the plus-entity of whosoever reads will supply the deficiency; and upon that Better Self of mine, I place the burden of imparting to generations that are to come, the secret of this all-pervading good  – the secret of being what you have it within you to be.

Copyright Cornerstone Publishing   http://newthoughtbooks.com

Burleigh

“I followed happiness to make het mine,

Put towering oak and swinging ivy vine,

She fled, I chased, o’er slanting hill and dale,

O’er fields and meadows, in the purpling vale,

Pursuing rapidly o’er dashing stream,

I scaled the dizzy cliffs where eagles scream,

I traversed swiftly every land and sea,

But always happiness eluded me.

Exhausted, fainting I pursued no more.

But sank to rest upon a barren shore.

One came and asked for food, and one for alms;

I placed the bread and gold in bony palms,

One came for sympathy, and one for rest;

I shared with every neady one my best.

When, lo! sweet Happiness, with form divine,

Stood by me, whispering softly,

‘I am thine’ “  -  Burleigh

On fear – Hellen Hannon

There is no greater disservice we can commit to ourselves in this life, than living within the grips and confines of fear.  You can’t lose.  If you let go of something or someone, that has been divinely ordained for you, it will come back when you are ready to receive it.  If you let go that is not divinely ordained for you, you are making room for the Divine to take its place in your life.

There is never a good reason that you are wrong or that you are losing.

God in you will not deny itself.  It will be fulfilled.  Fear only delays fulfillment.  Fear is the insidious activity of the belief that there is something that God cannot do or does not know.

Fear not! Realize that no matter what it is, no matter how you show up, no matter what you are experiencing, you cannot lose, because help is on the way.-  Hellen Hannon

The Granary – Ideas from Victor Frankl

“In the past, nothing is irretrievably lost, but rather, on the contrary, everything is irrevocably stored and treasured.  People tend to see only the stubble fields of transitoriness, but overlook and forget the full granaries of the past into which they have brought the full harvest of their lives: the deeds done, the loves loved, the sufferings they have gone through with courage and dignity.

From this, one may see there is no reason to pity old people.  Instead young people should envy them.  It is true that the very old have no opportunities, no possibilities in future, but they have more than that.   Instead of possibilities, they have realities in the past – the potentialities they have actualized, the meanings they have fulfilled, the values they have realized – and nothing and nobody can ever remove these assets from the past.

The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day.  On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively, is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it nearly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back.  He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest.   What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old?  Has he any reason to envy the young person? For the possibilities a young person has, the future which is in store for him? “No thank you”, he will think “Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past.  Not only realities of work done, but suffering bravely suffered.  These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these are things which cannot inspire envy”  – Victor Frankl