BE HAPPY…...

This hangs in our stairwell to remind us each day of those things that will make us HAPPY!

 

my email attachment…...

Yesterday I received an email that was sharing information with me. I won't go into details of that information as it really isn't relative to what I learned about the email today. After reading this email I was very, very angry. What I was being asked to carry out was not the problem at all. I was angry at the composition of the email and how the writer immediately went to a place of suspected non-compliance on my part and laid out in no uncertain terms what the consequences would be for my inaction. My goodness …. I haven't even been given an opportunity to comply and I'm already being painted with the brush of disobedience.

This email was sent out to many people and not just myself. I believe there is a way to communicate that will achieve results in a positive fashion and have people feel positive about it. And then there is communication that is not positive. For me, I felt this came across as a threat. That is my personal opinion. As a finger-wagging in my face. Neither of these methods leaves me feeling very good. I discussed the email with my partner at dinner and I could feel my anger once again and it was rising even higher. I am disturbed by people who communicate in a way that is negative, leaves a person feeling negative and feels that this way of communicating is worth the outcome. This email was meant to be intimidating and nothing else.

Now here's the good part. I learned something from that email. I know there is negativity around us everywhere, but yesterday it came through in this email. It was like an attachment that I didn't have to open though because it was simply in the written words and maybe it was in my interpretation, but then again my interpretation is my reality. The next time this happens I will immediately cleanse if I'm in a position to do that and if not I will make sure that the negativity does not attach itself to me and clear it from my environment. Dry brushing is also a good practice to participate in to make sure that your body is cleared of negativity. Even meditating quietly for just a few moments will clear the negativity. Make note of the pertinent information in the email and then delete it.

The power of negativity is amazing and we all deal with it differently. Yesterday I was having a great day and then I read this email. It didn't turn my day upside down, but I certainly was upset when I read it and when I talked about it later. It was still affecting me hours later and now I realize that I could have changed that. I needed to deal with it immediately and then let it go. Let my frustration and disappointment go. Let my expectations of better communication from this person go. Just let it all go. There, I feel better all ready. If we let all of the negativity around us cling to us it will weigh us down and we will feel very heavy with its burden. Let's lighten the load.

Thanks for listening……

Blessings to all,
Maggie

Turn down the volume on life…...

Life has required a lot of smudging lately. Much more than what is our usual. It's a ritual that we share here at home as a part of our spiritual practice and it brings us balance and clarity and grounds us in our life. But lately it seems that we have been drawn to the meditation room more frequently to smudge and find that balance. Things just seem 'off' in a bigger way than normal causing us to look deeper for that balance. I know we have just finished a time of retrograde and this is often an unsettled and interesting time to work through. But having said that, it still seems that there is an energy present that is not settled. And I have felt it for a while now.

Weeks ago I kept hearing a phrase in my head that talked about life being too loud.  It seems as though there is a 'loudness' that prevails in so many ways from the macro to the micro and it is deafening us from what we really need to hear. And what we really need to hear should be soft and loving and not loud and harsh. It feels as though my mind and soul is assaulted with all of this loudness and it is so unsettling. 

Just watch the tv news or listen to the radio and you will hear it. Listen to conversations in line at your local grocery mart and you will hear it. It's at work in the lunchroom and its even in traffic when you head home from work. There is this 'loudness' everywhere. Everyone wants desperately to be heard. Everyone wants to be noticed. Everyone is desperate for acknowledgement. Yes, that's exactly it….. desperation. The world has become this desperate place that seems to exist in a chaotic fashion much of the time. And lately it just seems to be louder. Sigh……

It saddens me that we feel we need to live this way. I look around me at the world at large and am not convinced that this chosen path is working. There is strife everywhere. There is unrest everywhere. There is war that has gone on for far too long. We as a human race struggle and it seems to be getting louder. And as I said previously the microcosm is just a smaller version of the macrocosm. It's what we have been exposed to and let creep into our own lives. Once again I sigh……

So I strive to find and most importantly keep that balance and clarity. It is difficult though. It needs nurturing all the time. It needs a reminder often. So we smudge, we meditate, we takes walks in the forest and maybe sometimes when we need to we just close our eyes and travel in our minds to a peaceful place. Even just being 'present' allows us to better realize what might be going on around us and then not allowing ourselves to be drawn in. But if we continue to allow the loudness to prevail then we will become deaf to what real life should and was intended to be. Loving, peaceful and with less loudness. Let's try to live a softer life. Let's turn down the volume. We don't need to scream to be heard. We can speak softly and still share our message. 

Blessings to all,

Maggie

hello from here…...

I look at my last post being from June and I realize that I have once again been away from the blog for a long time.

A lot has happened since June. We had a wonderful holiday in B.C. and made many memories and we also got married! Had a wonderful garden party and shared our happiness with our family and friends! Maybe I could share a blog post about our special day soon. And the rest of what kept me away from here I guess is just life in general. The daily grind, which I will touch on later. So I'm back sort of and know that not anyone at all is depending on me to write an blog post, but I guess for myself it's a place to write down a few words and share something of how I feel about life and other things. I go through periods of time where words in my head just want out and this is my 'out' place it seems. Some things shared are not at all important (in the true reality of life)  and other things I might be a bit more passionate about. Yet I try to be careful in sharing passion because you can walk a fine line there in terms of sharing vs. preaching and I am not at all passionate about preaching. I feel like preaching is an 'in your face' kind of activity and that is usually uncomfortable. It just seems 'loud'.  I find lately that life being 'loud' is something I would rather steer away from. There is so much 'loud' around us and  I have been craving the opposite lately. It may be the change of the season from the active feeling of summer to the settling of autumn and the nearing of the ultimate cocooning in winter. Maybe I'm experiencing that shift. This suits me quite fine. Give me a snowy afternoon with the fireplace burning, a movie and my partner close and I'm a happy girl. Quiet is good.

Reading is quiet. I feel empty if my bookmark does not have a pair of pages to lie between. My reading passion lately has again been about Julia C, having gone through this phase once before and yet I needed to pick up another of her bio's and touch on her life once more. There is something about her 'passion' that makes me smile for her, knowing that she was so desperately longing for something to round out her life or at least become involved in and then found it in Paris no less!! What fun! As I read her bio's she just seems to have had a love for life that I think maybe we find hard to experience in these times that we live in now. That 'joie de vivre' that we all want so much! Yes, we secretly want this for ourselves and I am no different in wanting it also. I'm no fool! It's out there and an arms length away but there is so much else out there too and we often grasp for something that is not as satisfying. It's all about choices. Don't get me wrong my life is not an unsatisfying one by any means but we all have moments where the drudgery sometimes takes over……yes, admit it, it does happen, and we can tend to get our mindset stuck there and that is not a good thing. I know that life is not all fun and fabulous ….. lol…..as much as we want it to be but a balance just tipped a little over to the side of fun and fabulous would be perfect right? We would all take it in a heartbeat. The perfect life aside, I can truly say that while reading of Julia's life I had many, many moments where I would outwardly smile at her experiences. I loved those moments because I am truly then taken out of my own world and can feel joy for another. I think this is so important so that we can step out of this self centred world that we live in for even a moment and enjoy happiness for someone else. Julia seemed to have a balance of good proportions in her life. Wonderfully tipped to the side of fun and fabulous I must say! I've learned much from reading of her life. I only need to see a picture of her and I smile for so many reasons.

Well I've landed here again and I'm thinking that I want to be back blogging more but I write that hesitantly because it's always the time factor that needs attention to it in the end. So, we will see how it goes and I will end this post feeling no pressure.

Keep smiling and find your 'joie de vivre' even if just for today!! Oh, and I'm off to the library soon to pick up my next book to slip my bookmark into!

Maggie