MUSE-INGS: Choose your focus – and laugh?

August 3, 2010 — Rosemary

Focus on the beauty?  Not so easy to do when things are looking bleak or when our attention takes us down a rabbit-hole into the space where everything is ugly.

But have you ever noticed how, when you DO focus on something besides ugliness, you can actually feel uplifted?  Have you ever been really down and had a little child come up and give you a hug?  There is true beauty in that hug, even if it’s full of mud or comes with a bouquet of weeds.  Or have you been feeling sorry for yourself, feeling lonely, and had a friend call out of the blue and invite you out?

We really can control our thoughts when we become aware of our power over them.  We all have knee-jerk reactions to situations or problems or even joy.  Becoming Aware [with a capital ‘A’] means learning to assess those knee-jerk reactions and making a conscious decision about how to act next.  A thought does not have to hold us in its grip without letting go if we choose not to allow it.

Sometimes thoughts do come unbidden into our consciousness but the important thing to learn is to process the thought and ask:

What is this?
Is this true for me now?
Is it in my highest good to hold onto this thought at this time?

Unbidden thoughts often stem from our insecurities and they masquerade as the reality of the moment but we must ask ourselves if they are actually true in that moment.  We can worry all we want about the next tornado or earthquake or hurricane but if the sun is shining now isn’t that what is real?  Isn’t that where we can find the beauty?  We can always worry about something that might happen but if it is not true in this moment then there is something else to look at, to think about, something else on which to focus our attention.

Look around you today and see if you are focusing on the thoughts that are uplifting or if you are attaching to those thoughts that bring you down, that distract you from the beauty of the day.  Even if you are wrestling with a problem today, can you find something of beauty to think of for a moment?  Scientists are now saying that smiling can make us feel happy – it’s not just the other way around!  Try looking in the mirror when you are focusing on problems and force yourself to smile.  I guarantee that you will either laugh at the way you look when you are worrying and/or laugh at the way you look when you force a smile.  That single laugh will shift your body’s energy and allow the Light to come through in that moment.

That is an important shift, for allowing the Light to shine also brings with it resources that better equip you to find a solution to your problem.  You are more resourceful with the Light in you than when you shroud yourself in darkness.

So go ahead and let your thoughts drift across the sky of your mind while you choose which ones on which to focus your attention.  And if you need help, remember to look in the mirror and laugh a beautiful laugh!

________________________

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THIS WEEK’S MYSTIC MESSAGE from The Divine Feminine: Focus on the Beauty of the Moment

August 2, 2010 — Rosemary

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.

________________________

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THIS WEEK’S MYSTIC MESSAGE: Are you still throwing tantrums?

July 12, 2010 — Rosemary

Dear Ones,

When troubles come into your life, what do you do to deal with them?  Have you established strategies to cope with problems or do you allow them to take over your day, your life?  Have you thought about the coping strategies that you use and examined them for relevance in your current life or are you still doing what you did when you were a child, a teenager, or someone much younger without the experiences and the learnings you have gained over the years?

Think about that.  When your life is upset, by your own internal emotions or responses to external stimuli, or when external events upset your plans, how do you react?  Children learn very early in life to react to stimulus.  They learn to assess their situation and to figure out a way to get what they want or need.  A tiny baby craves attention and food and dry clothing and will do whatever it takes to get what they need in the moment.  A toddler learns to test the boundaries of their world by saying ‘no’ and pushing on the limits set by authority figures.  Older children learn to acquiesce when a tantrum won’t give them their desired outcome.

And some adults have never learned skills beyond what they practiced as teenagers.  Do you have some coping mechanisms in your skill set that are outmoded and inappropriate for your current life?

Look at some situations that you encounter in your daily life and then examine how you react in those situations.  Are you awake, aware, fully conscious of your response or do you act with a ‘knee-jerk reaction’ that might have been appropriate earlier in your life but might not be appropriate today?  Do you take time to pause and consider your response or are you consistently acting from habit not conscious thought?

We would tell you that most adults on Planet Earth are acting unconsciously in the 21st Century.  Most are using strategies that might have worked when they were 10 years old but that are no longer appropriate.  Have you ever seen an adult pout, perhaps in an adult way, when they do not get their way?  Have you ever caught yourself wanting to say something a 7-year-old would say in response to something upsetting?  That automatic pilot that searches your personal unconscious data base might not know that you have grown beyond the age where tantrums were appropriate, and if you are older than 2 and are reading this then tantrums are most likely not appropriate.

The person living a Conscious Life chooses very deliberately how he or she will respond to an upsetting situation.  It is impossible to remove all troubles or concerns from a human life so upsetting situations will occur.  You cannot prevent that.  You can, however, control your response to those situations.

The best strategy for responding to upset is to have considered this before the upset occurs, when you are calmly assessing your life and your responses to stimuli.  Think about situations in your recent past that have been upsetting to you.  Did you respond in the moment the way you would respond today given time to be calm and consciously choose your response?  Or were you on unconscious automatic pilot?  Program into your tool box a new response to that situation so that, if it or something similar occurs again, you can choose a different response.  Think about your overriding values and decide that you will respond to upset in accordance with what you value highly and who you wish to be.

This is especially important in dealing with your family.  You might be a different problem-solver at work than the person who deals with upsetting situations at home.  Examine this honestly for yourself.  Can you bring some of those business skills home with you?  When you are tired do you react to your children’s antics differently from the way you react when you are rested and relaxed?  Do they understand the difference?  Think about your spouse or partner and how you react to things that they say.  Are you choosing a conscious reaction or are you being a recalcitrant child throwing a tantrum?

Be conscious.  Choose your behaviors for you do have control over those.  Plan your response to things that don’t go your way.  You become a Peacemaker when you are not the one throwing a childish tantrum!  Live a Conscious Life and you will be teaching others how to be a Peacemaker, too.

And so it is.

________________________

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MUSE-INGS: Who did you come here to be?

July 6, 2010 — Rosemary

‘Robot Doing’?  Great way to describe ‘sleepwalking through history,’ as Sen. Byrd said.

It is so easy to sleepwalk through our lives.  Doing the next urgent thing.  Focusing on what has to get done today.  Creating to-do lists and getting satisfaction from checking off the items on the list.  We might get a lot accomplished but are we really ‘living’ when our days go from arising in the morning to collapsing at night without having taken time to relax, to go inside, to seriously consider the choices we are making?

Maybe being busy is a distraction from being fully conscious as a human being.  We can use the requirements of our to-do list as an excuse for avoiding the self-examination that a conscious life requires of us.  Sometimes that self-examination is painful, especially if we have been taught to judge ourselves harshly.  It’s easier to slide through our days being busy than to face something that feels uncomfortable to face about ourselves.

But maybe we need to do that self-examination in a non-judgmental way.  I like to go back to my mantra – Everybody is doing the best they can with the resources they have at any given moment, even me.  This might be the best way to set ourselves up for self-examination, to accept that, no matter what, we were making the choices to do or to be the best we could in a given moment.  The only moment that matters is NOW, this present moment, for we can begin to make new choices right now and in all the moments forward.  We can give up decisions and choices we’ve made in the past.  We can also give up worrying about the choices we will be making in the future.  The only moment that we need to fully examine is the present moment.

In this moment you can make a choice about who you want to be as well as what you want to do.  The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive, for who you want to be determines what you do, if you let it.  Decide who you are, at your core.  Go inside and find the person you wish to be.  What you do will follow from that.  The decisions get easier because you are led from within.  The values are clearer when you are coming from a place of being the Real You.

And in the context of preparing for the changes that are coming isn’t being the authentic human being that you came to Planet Earth to be the most important aspect of your life?  You weren’t born to ‘do’ something, you were born to ‘be’ someone!  Life on Planet Earth is requiring that we all determine who we were born to be, and to do this now.  The changes that are coming, into each life and into life on Planet Earth for all, will be facilitated by our determining our own inner needs, our own inner calling, and our inner voice that guides us.

But if we continue to fill our days with busy-ness we will have to, at some point, play catch-up with our inner work.  I’m vowing to do the work in a proactive way, not when it becomes a necessity but while I can have more control over my day so that I take time to listen to the inner proddings.

I’m a big believer in listening for the messages from The Universe before Spirit picks up a 2 X 4 and hits me over the head!  I hope you’ve learned about that choice, too!

________________________

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THIS WEEK’S MYSTIC MESSAGE from The Divine Feminine: “Are You a ‘Robot Doing’ or a ‘Human Being’?”

July 5, 2010 — Rosemary
Dear Ones,

Change is coming.  This is a theme that you are hearing from many quarters, but are you ready to change?

We are not talking about the simple changes that are indicated by external circumstances such as a move of residence or a new eating program.  We are also not referring to a change of jobs or partners. No, what we are referring to here is the kind of internal change that will be required in you as you are dealing with all these external changes in the world around you.

Preparing for change does not mean laying in supplies as if planning for disaster, nor does it mean worrying/fretting/creating anxiety over not knowing what is coming.  The preparations being required of you now are those that require you to examine yourself, your life, your relationships, and the details of your days.  These days of preparation are for you to go inside your own inner space and peer into all the nooks and crannies of your existence to decide if what you find there is something that you wish to keep within you.

For example, when is the last time that you examined your daily schedule to consciously choose what you do each day, what order in which you do those tasks, who you spend your time with, how much attention you give to your inner life, how much time you spend expanding your horizons with new knowledge, what food you eat?  So much of every day of human life can be spent moving like a robot that many people are being robots throughout their days, never stopping to become the examiner of what they are doing.  Are you a ‘human being’ or a ‘robot doing’?

Before you can grow and evolve as a human being you must first be conscious of the choices you are making at all times.  Examine the way in which you spend your time to see what it is that you actually value most, not just what you think you value or what you hope you value.  At every given moment you are making choices:  about how you are spending that moment of your precious life, about how you are speaking to another, what you are thinking or doing, and whether or not you are fully present to that moment or focusing on something in the past or the future.  You are always at choice.

So notice how you are making choices.  What values determine the choices you make?  As you prepare for change, are you eschewing that which really doesn’t fit the values you wish to focus on?  Are you looking for ways to grow and to evolve?  And are you valuing your own inner life and inner growth?

Some think that preparing to change is about the actual moving forward, like packing to move to another home.  But the real preparations must be made inwardly.

If, for example, you are ready to move to another house and have everything packed in boxes, ready for the movers, have you also examined how you feel about your move?  Is there any unfinished business about the home or neighborhood or town that you are leaving?  Have you even taken time to think about this?  This example shows how easy it is to be distracted by the external activities and to forget about the inner life and its needs.

Think about your life today and make conscious choices to be prepared for any changes that might be coming.  Get rid of the unnecessary and bring in what is needed.  Create a daily schedule that supports your inner life.  Make your choices from advancing consciousness.

Live a conscious life as a ‘human being’ not a ‘robot doing’!

And so it is.

________________________

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BOOK LIGHTS: from “Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything”

June 17, 2010 — Rosemary

“Think about a time when you were transported beyond what you normally define as yourself.  When time stopped.  When you felt the edges of ordinary life dissolve and a door open to another dimension.  Maybe it happened only once, when you were in the middle of a rain forest or gave birth to your child.  Maybe it happened when you were twenty and on drugs.  Maybe it happens whenever you are in nature or when, for no reason, you are suddenly happy.  Five minutes ago you were dragging your feet. The sun was too hot.  Your kids were screeching or your boss was yelling and you hated your life.  And suddenly you caught a glimpse of beauty and it’s as if someone opened the cage door and let you out of the iron vise of your mind.  And not one thing has changed from the moment before but everything looks and feels and is completely different.”

by Geneen Roth

We all know that Joy is here, in this present moment.  Life sometimes causes us to forget, but it’s accessible.  Just remember…

Rosemary

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BOOK LIGHTS: from “The Power of Focus”

May 19, 2010 — Rosemary

“A friend in Arizona, George Addair, told us about a firefighter who attended one of his self-knowledge workshops.  He said, ‘Firefighters deal with fear every time they prepare to enter a burning building.  Just before they go into action they experience it – the uncertainty of not knowing if they’ll survive or not.  An incredible transformation takes place as soon as they go inside the building.  They literally step into the fear, and because they do, the fear disappears.  They are 100 percent in the present moment.  They are then able to concentrate on fighting the fire, evacuating people and doing all the things they were trained to do.  By confronting their fear, they can focus on the immediate situation and get the job done.'”

by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen

The answer is always ‘Be fully present in this moment NOW.’  That’s where all the resources are.  If you find yourself in fear, ask what is going on in this moment, what you can learn from it, and what the fear has to say to you.  When you are totally present to this moment, you will find the resources you need to move beyond the fear!

Rosemary

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THIS WEEK’S MYSTIC MESSAGE from The Divine Feminine: Feeling fear? It’s only a signal to help you live a Conscious Life!

May 17, 2010 — Rosemary

Dear Ones,

There is so much fear in the world in the 21st Century!  We are concerned that some of you know ONLY the feeling of fear, not joy or happiness or peace or contentment.  We wish that you could learn to dispel the fear that arises within you.

Here is why this is so important for you.  Fear is a very limiting emotion.  It causes you to create for yourself scenarios of disaster that have not yet occurred and your body and mind react to these fabrications of doom.  Your physical body must generate chemicals in response to the images that you conjure up in your imagination because that is its job, even though those images are imagined and not real.  Fear is a response to a stimulus, often coming from outside you but sometimes from thoughts of distress that you create yourself.  And there are many who believe that if they can keep you in fear of something [anything!] then they can control you.

Our wish for you, Dear One, is that you be empowered to resist efforts to control you with fear and that you find a way to live in peace, harmony and contentment so that you can, instead, experience joy in your life.  This requires, though, that you learn to use the feeling of fear as a signal that you feel out of control about some situation about which you have expectations.  Think about that statement, for if you have expectations then you are creating possible scenarios in your mind and you are reacting to those imagined scenarios.  What if something else were to happen in the future, something other than the scary scenario that you pictured?  What good would have come from the fear that you generated for yourself?  Think about fear, whether you create it yourself or someone outside of you causes you to feel fear, as merely an indicator that you are to pause and become conscious about your current situation.  Remember, fear is an emotion created in response to thoughts, sometimes to thoughts of a future that has not materialized yet.  Your body only knows that fear means there is danger and its response to danger is to create the ‘fight or flight’ mechanism readiness in your physical body.  In the 21st Century, however, there are probably not as many life or death situations as there were millennia ago in human history.

Practice using the feeling of fear as a signal that you are to examine your current situation and the thoughts that you are having in that moment of feeling fear.  Are you fully in the present moment?  Or are you considering something that has not happened yet or that might or might not occur in the future?  Are you responding to an indicator that there is an action you must take now or are you anticipating a scenario that is not real in the present moment?

If you decide that you are truly in danger, then take the most appropriate action for that situation to remove yourself from the danger.  That is the purpose of feeling fear – an indication that there is something threatening you and you must take an action in that moment.  But considering your options and examining the perceived danger vs. the real danger is an important step in living a Conscious Life.  Are you reacting to a news report because there is an immediate danger to you in your current situation or are you reacting to an attempt to manipulate you into fear so that you will take the action that someone else wishes you to take, while they are hoping that you will not pause and consider the reality of the situation?  Move to safety if there is a tornado heading toward your home but don’t jump to a conclusion about a political situation because someone has told you a piece of information that might not be valid.

We hope that you can see the differences we have pointed out.  USE the feeling of fear to open yourself to wider vistas of possibilities and solutions, not to narrow down your thoughts to the single option proposed by someone else.  And do not be afraid to feel fear – it is a natural human emotion.  DO, however, choose to observe and examine the fear for its message so that you can keep from being controlled by that emotion.

Feel the fear and get the message being offered to you.  THEN take the appropriate action!

And so it is.

________________________

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BOOK LIGHTS: from The Power of Focus: “What the World’s Greatest Achievers Know About The Secret to Financial Freedom & Success”

April 28, 2010 — Rosemary

“Success isn’t magic or hocus-pocus.  It’s simply learning how to focus.”

by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Les Hewitt

Success in LIFE comes from learning how to focus on the JOY in the moment.  The people we want to be around are those who can uplift us when we struggle to find joy in a particular moment.  Let’s try to be the one who uplifts others because we are well-practiced at looking around until we find the joy available to us RIGHT NOW!!!!

Rosemary

________________________

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THIS WEEK’S MYSTIC MESSAGE from The Divine Feminine: Find the Joy!

April 26, 2010 — Rosemary

Dear Ones,

There is joy to be found in every moment of your time on Planet Earth if you will but search for the joy instead of dwelling on the painful aspects of that moment.

Are you in a place where you feel there is only pain?  Then we would tell you to look outside the window into the wider world and find one thing to delight in.  Is there a flower in bloom?  Is there an animal or bird to watch?  Is someone walking by and can you determine their story from their posture?  If you cannot see out a window at the moment, then look around you and find one thing to be grateful for.  Do you have all your fingers?  Be grateful for that.  Are you able to see or hear or taste?  Be grateful for that.  If there is a sense that does not work so well for you, then do not dwell on what you do not have but, rather, think about that which does work.

What joy has there been in your life in the last hour?  Day?  Month?  Year?  If you were to make a list of things big and small that have brought you delight there would be many things, from the simple meal that you enjoyed when you were so hungry to the smile on the face of the recipient of a gift you gave.  It might be the good news from the doctor about a loved one’s health or the happiness you felt when an old friend got in touch with you.  There is always something to focus on when you look for something that was a joy in your life, even if, at this moment, you can only think of small joys.

What we are wanting you to learn is that joy comes into every life but must be noticed before it can have an affect.  If you spend your precious moments of Life focusing on what is lacking or what is painful or that which you wish were different you will miss the joy that is available at all times for you.  If you find yourself always focused away from this present moment, either dwelling in the past or worrying about something that has not happened yet in the future, then, again, you will be missing the joy that is available in this present moment.

All you ever have, Dear Ones, is this present moment.  What has happened in the past has been a stepping stone that you have used to arrive at the present moment.  What will happen in the future will be shaped by the energy that you send out in this present moment.  Dwell only on this moment.  Ask yourself, ‘Where is the joy to be found in this moment?’  Even if you are in tears about something sad that has happened, bring your attention to something around you that has a positive effect on this moment.  Even if you are sad or depressed or struggling with Life, bring your focus onto something that can make you think a life-affirming thought.

This is why so many people have pets in their lives.  This is especially important for those who live alone, without other human companions in their homes.  A person with a pet has a reason to arise every morning and has someone to greet them every time they return to their house.  They must be concerned with having food in the house for the pet.  They must return home to care for the pet.  The moments watching the antics of a pet can be joyous!

Everyone needs to have a reason to get out of bed in the morning.  If you find yourself struggling to do that, then create a good reason.  If you love to arise and face the day but find yourself feeling lonely in the evening, then create a way to find joy in those moments alone.  If you are in a job or relationship with people who feel as if they are dragging you down, then do something about the situation.  If you can’t change situations today, then spend your focus finding something, anything about which you can feel joy or delight.

It is up to you to find the joy in the present moment.  Moments are fleeting.  If you look away from the sunset you will miss the spectacular colors.  If you are not looking at the bird feeder at the right moment you will miss the hummingbird.  Take time to look around you for the reason to feel joy.  We guarantee that it is there, even if it seems insignificant at first!

And so it is.

________________________

Please feel free to re-post this article and share it with your readers. All I ask is that you include the following information when you do:

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