Dear Ones,
We are pleased that so many of you are taking time to ‘smell the roses,’ as the saying goes. It is so important for the human soul to take time to enjoy beauty, to be present to the beauty that is surrounding life, and to share beauty with others.
When you are immersed in your work or your problems to the exclusion of what is around you then you are not living a fully human and conscious life. There is beauty in every moment, somewhere in your vicinity. Look for it. Is it the magnificence of the sunrise or sunset? Is there a beautiful hummingbird at your window feeder? Can you see a child’s perfect smile or hear an older person’s knowing laugh? Is there a color nearby that looks beautiful to you? Did you hear music that you love or see someone who made you smile or enjoy your pet today?
You do not have to look far to find beauty. But what if your attention is focused on what is NOT beautiful around you? What if you are struggling or looking at clutter or tired of drab surroundings? What can you do?
Do you realize that to live a Conscious Life you must be the one who chooses where to focus your attention? Just because something pops up in your awareness does not mean that you must linger with that thought or focus all your attention on it. This is the first lesson in stilling the mind for meditation. It is not that you must expend effort in trying to keep thoughts from arising in your mind, for your mind’s purpose is to bring thoughts into your conscious awareness. Rather, it is your lesson to learn to allow the thoughts to drift through your awareness without your attaching your awareness to them. Just as you allow clouds to drift across the sky, so can you allow thoughts to drift across the sky of your mind without trying to cling to them or hold onto them in your awareness. Letting go of thoughts so that they can drift through your consciousness allows you to deepen relaxation into the meditative state.
When you are not meditating, you can choose whether or not to attach your focus to the thoughts that are drifting through your consciousness. Ask yourself, ‘Is this thought that I am having the one that I wish to focus on?’ If the answer is ‘No’ then shift your focus. If you feel that this is too difficult for you to do, then look for the beauty around you. Hold the thought in your mind with the awareness of the beauty that is there for you in that moment. Allow both thoughts to be in your awareness. Can you find a way to understand, in that precious moment in time, that whatever problem you have in your focus is counterbalanced to some degree by an element of beauty that also exists in that moment for you? This is true in every moment, no matter what the problem is that you are facing.
Beauty is important in life so that you can see beyond the troublesome energies that try to bombard you. The media, the naysayers, the negative commentaries, the news – all are trying to get you to focus on something that drains your energy and takes your focus away from beauty. But you are conscious human beings. You have the ability to choose where to place your focus. You can seek beauty where other forces would have you see only negativity.
There is tragedy in the world. There are uncomfortable things to see and experience. But there is also always beauty. Watch a raindrop slide down a windowpane and wonder about Nature rather than curse the thunderstorm. When you are feeling lonely go out and smile at a stranger or two. There is beauty in the faces of other people if you but look for it.
Surround yourself with beauty in your home. Is there a peaceful place where you can enjoy looking around you? Have you created a haven of beauty that allows you to shut out the outside world? If not, create that haven as soon as possible. Use Beauty to create peace for yourself.
And remember to look for the beauty in every moment, even if it is just to look in the mirror and see the perfect human being gazing back at you!
And so it is.


MUSE-INGS: Oh, how tempting a tantrum can be!
July 13, 2010 — RosemaryAren’t there times when you would really like to throw yourself onto the floor and bang your fists while kicking your feet and screaming at the top of your lungs? Who of us hasn’t seen a little one doing just this and envied them their ability to drop down to the floor in the middle of a department store and let their feelings out?
I remember stepping over my daughter when she threw her tantrums, allowing her to cry herself out. She got so smart that she would move to a room with a carpet on the floor so that she wasn’t throwing herself down onto a hard kitchen or foyer floor where the tantrum wasn’t so comfortable!
But most adults have eschewed such behavior. Or have we, really? Maybe we don’t get down on the floor but do we shut down and ignore others when we are doing our ‘adult pout’? Do we ‘accidentally’ say or do something that causes hurt to another when what we really want to do is throw ourselves on the floor and scream at the unfairness of it all?
Being honest with yourself, can you see a way in which you might still have some of the strategies you developed as a child working in your life today? It’s easy to wish that the world was fair – which it is because we all get our share of lessons, some easy, some difficult — and that everyone around us treated us exactly the way we wished they would – which might be easier if we didn’t expect them all to be mind readers. So what do we do if we find a coping mechanism at work in our life that we no longer desire to choose?
The best strategy to develop is what I call ‘The Pause Button.’ Can you learn to catch yourself reaching into your unconscious database and pulling out an inappropriate response? Hit The Pause Button so you can be conscious about your choice of reaction/behavior. This is what the old ‘count to 10’ maxim is all about. Pause. Reflect. Act consciously.
As we move through life we are giving challenges to our personal growth and how we react to stimulus is one of the ongoing life lessons with which we must learn to deal. What challenges do you face that you must find resources to handle? Who in your life is bringing you practice lessons in finding your ‘Pause Button’? And who knows exactly how to ‘push your buttons’ so that you find it nearly impossible to pause?
Challenges are with us. Our response to challenges can change with each encounter. Living a Conscious Life requires that we learn to grow through all our experiences. We’re not allowed to throw ourselves onto the floor and do a tantrum anymore, even when that unconscious little child within is begging to be allowed to do just that. Find another way. Think about it now and tell your unconscious mind to latch onto the new, preferred response before it goes back to childhood memories and chooses that old strategy. Plan to hit ‘The Pause Button’ when somebody pushes your other buttons. Breathe and consider. And make sure that your new choice isn’t just an adult form of that toddler’s tantrum on the carpet!
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