What Can You Do?

If you see something that needs to be done, it is yours to do.
What do you see that needs to be corrected?
What do you see that calls for attention?
What do you want to fix or change?

If you see it, what are you to do?
When you tell someone what they should do about it, they feel criticized.
When you make someone feel guilty, they tend to withdraw or blame.
When you put someone in position of being wrong, they may believe you.

How can we be truly helpful?
By trusting that everyone is doing the best they know in each moment.
By recognizing that only we can change our own mind.
By valuing our perception and responding in the most helpful and healing way we know.

How can we encourage, educate, inspire and support others to participate and take responsibility?
Appreciate and value what others do.
Openly acknowledge how you learn from the mistakes you make.
Create opportunities to offer help and encourage others to be helpful.

Ignoring something that is needed encourages ignorance.
Responding with energy and enthusiastic helpfulness encourages the same.
Giving your best and keeping your agreements inspires others to contribute their best.
Valuing the efforts that others make and trusting in their best intentions is rewarding and inspiring.

Do what you can do.
Give others credit for what they do.
Offer help only when you can do it without criticism.
Be happy and willing to step in when others will appreciate the support.

Loving you and me in responding with respect and appreciation when there appears to be a need,
Betty Lue

Movement

Keep the flow going so that you experience health, happiness and fulfillment.
To flow chi, energy and life force requires circular breath, gentle movements, water, good digestion and elimination. Ingesting whatever is best for you and letting go of what is complete, toxic or no longer needed. Life is about learning what to receive and when to let go and move on.

When things are slowed down, don’t push or rush.
When things are flowing swiftly, let go of resistance and enjoy the ride.
When things are bumpy, be flexible and trust the movement to carry you.
When things are fun, safe and easy, be grateful.

Life is a ride, sometimes an unpredictable roller coaster and sometimes a merry-go-round.
We can choose the rides that are more our cup of tea.
We can learn more about ourselves from whatever our reaction or response.
We can be willing to enjoy whatever the weather, the movement, the outcome.

With our conscious acceptance, openness and appreciation, we will be benefitted and blessed by it all.
Life is our opportunity to explore, experience and express our vision, our learning and our growth.
We can with willingness create an experience for ourselves that we appreciate.
We are participating in the outcome with our expectations, our affirmation (or condemnation).

Mercury has been in retrograde since May 6 and will turn direct May 30. Communication, travel plans and schedules, agreements and contracts, sometimes are confused, conflicting or interrupted during these times. So relax and let it be whatever it is.

Enjoying the journey and flowing with the flow.
Blessings of peace,
Betty Lue

LOVE

There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer;
No disease that enough love will not heal;
No door that enough love will not open;
No gulf that enough love will not bridge;
No wall that enough love will not throw down;
No sin that enough love will not redeem.


It makes no difference
How deeply seated may be the trouble,
How hopeless the outlook,
How muddled the tangle,
How great the mistake.
A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all.


If only you could love enough, you would be the happiest
and most powerful being in the world.

Emmet Fox

Make a Difference!

What can I do to make a difference in my world?
What can you do to make a difference in your everyday life?
What can we do together to make a difference for our children?
What can each one do to really leave a legacy of peace and gratitude?

Smile at each person you encounter.
Say “thank you” for every service given.
Offer a blessing to those who seem in need.
Live a life of balance, open-mindedness and appreciation.

We are each playing our part on the grand stage of physical life.
Everyone else is acting, observing, contributing or joining with us.
Together we are creating a musical, a comedy, a drama or a tragedy.
With the vision we hold, the lines that we speak and the character we play, we influence the outcome.

This life is in our hands.
When we open our hearts to giving our best and loving without quitting, we will experience happiness.
Life is working for us whether we are aware or not.
Our opinions, judgments, diagnoses and predictions are all shaping our performance and the finale.

To speak with gentleness creates more gentleness.
To act with kindness encourages more kindness.
To be grateful inspires gratitude in others.
To be truly happy teaches others to be happy.

You are making a difference in your homes, in your workplace, in your friendships and in your world.
Thank you for being aware, and responsible for all that you are choosing to do for the Good of us All.
Loving you,
Betty Lue

Remember the Good

What we remember, we strengthen in ourselves and others.
What we remember, we enhance and amplify.
What we remember, we hold in our minds and attract in our lives.
What we remember, we allow to inspire us and create more.

On this day, we are free to choose what we wish to remember.
We can choose to bless, to forgive, to appreciate, to lift up.
What we hold in our memory is a tribute to those we remember.
So let us give our best to those who have gone before us.

If we dwell on the negatives, the hardships, the pain, we feel depleted.
If we remember the good, the contribution, the gift given, we feel blessed.
If we focus on what we want to eliminate, it stays in our mind and will be repeated.
If we remember what we want to continue, it will grow naturally and be enhanced.

Let’s remember the blessings of liberty and justice that are growing around the world.
Let’s focus on the good that many unsung heroes and ordinary people are doing.
Let’s appreciate how humanity is awakening to the creative potential within.
Let’s celebrate the transformation in attitudes of political leaders and nations.
Let’s give thanks for those who have served and are now serving to protect civil liberties.
Let’s honor all who have pioneered with mistakes, forgiveness, learning and wisdom.
Let’s send out blessings to those who have died for the love of all people.
Let’s be glad our nation is turning toward working with all peoples as partners in peace.
Let’s let the past be past while remembering the blessings of our heritage and history.

Let remember Good and the goodness of Those who seek to do Good for the Good of All.
Betty Lue

Update:
Home from Alaskan Vacation.
We are very glad to be home with our full lives.
Learned lots about ourselves.
We prefer a life of contribution and service.
We love our natural resources and beauty.
We so appreciate all the cultures and native peoples.
We are grateful there are so many environmentally conscious communities and cultures.
We celebrate the incredible beauty and goodness we see all around us.
We are happy for ourselves, as a tribute to our mothers, to have visited the expansive beauty of Alaska.

I love being home with you, Loving Reminders at my fingertips, a day of creating and relating and always Loving You and All that Is.
Betty Lue
Pictures coming soon.

God’s Country

Pure nature at its best!
It is very early spring with the deciduous trees just budding out.
Skunk cabbage with its brilliant yellow flowers is the bears’ post hibernation laxative.
Arctic Turns, a simple bird that can hover, has arrived to nest. It travels from Antartica to Alaska and back every year with a life time travel of over 600,000 miles. Amazing!
And the whales come here to breed! Brrr!
Because there is lots of food for mother to get fat and then return to warmer climates like Hawaii.
We saw a white mountain goat yesterday perched on a little ledge high in the mountains.
Birds, birds everywhere and eagles and ravens and bald eagles and sounds of spring.
Glaciers melting way too fast!
We are actually on an environmentally conscious cruise line…Celebrity the “Infinity”.
Highly recommended for those who love the natural simple beauty.
Yes, there are lots of tours and shopping at every port, but for those of us who just love the quiet and small population, this is great. Cold—37-46 degrees, but if you dress warm, its refreshing!
**************************************************************************************
Body defenses beget more to defend against.
When I listen and focus on what I can give to each one in every moment, my body serves me well.
When I focus on my body experiences and symptoms and needs, I find I am distracted with thoughts, sensations and concerns that become more important that being the Presence of Loving Kindness.

Where I place my attention, I increase and strengthen.
When my attention is on hunger, I feel more hungry and am consumed with thoughts of feeding myself.
When my attention goes to an ache or fatigue, I strengthen the experience and begin seeking cause and cure.
When I judge my condition as wrong or dangerous, I then obsess on how to take better care of my body.
All of this leads to a self concerned defense system which creates ever more concern and need for attention.

By forgiving my errant thoughts, I can choose to focus my attention on Gratitude and Givingness.
When my attention is on serving, I feel truly helpful and seek to extend kindness.
When my attention is on blessing, I offer the joy in my heart with smiles and encouraging words.
When I am grateful for being full of life and love, I naturally contribute to my world and those around me.
All of this leads to an experience of connection, unity and a powerful sense of well-being and Peace.

Yes, I am learning and reminding myself of a higher Truth.
Simple is better.
Simple eating, living and loving.
Simple living without attachment or judgment.
Letting my inner Light lead me to love and trust is the key.
Forgiving all fear and stuckness is the path to happiness.

I love the way life teaches me everyday to remember only Goodness and Love will prevail.
I am loving you and will return home to my desk and morning routine on May 24-25.
Email access is irregular, and now have phone reception, but not when on the open seas.
Loving you with mighty connection of Gratitude and Peace.

Betty Lue

We will be at our Sunday Services at Unity Center for Inspired Living in Brentwood, Sunday 5/24 10 AM.

Happy Mother’s Day

“Give your Self to Love and Love will Give to You.”

Everyone has a Mother.
Whether you know your mother or not, you grew in her womb.
Whether she loved and nurtured you the way you think you wanted, you are here now.
Whether you like her behavior, she did the best she knew.
And perhaps you are the aware and good person you are because of your early mother experiences.

Over many years and many hours of listening to people’s stories of their early experiences, it seems apparent that what hurts us is our lack of love and appreciation for those who brought us into this world.
After consideration of the alternatives, it seems likely that we each chose the parenting we experienced.
And with our forgiveness and gratitude, we can embrace and celebrate the “rightness” of our choice.
What shapes us is the attitude with which we embrace or reject what was our beginning, our creation.

Everyone is a Mother.
Like it or not, male or female, young or old, all of us are creating ideas, projects, opportunities and love.
All of us nurture, coo, nourish, care for and foster many people, pets, plants, meals, conversations, etc.
The mothering instinct is to protect and defend, to feed and to provide warmth, to encourage and support.
While this may not happen with those we birth, we reach out to love and care for many.
The blood family bond may not be ideal, but there will be those we mentor, coach, encourage and support.

Family systems are usually idealized into being parents providing wisdom and parenting for the children.
However, in many instances, the children parent and provide wisdom and inspiration for their parents.
Many children care for the home and their siblings.
Many children look out for the safety of their parents and the family home.
Many children begin mothering when siblings are born.
Let’s celebrate ourselves and the many ways we mother and encourage those around us.

From me to you…..
No matter your life experience…..
I want you to know …..
I love you.
I honor you.
I appreciate you.

You give more than you know.
It is in your giving to yourself and all others that you are creating a better world for all of us.
I thank you.
I bless you.

Always loving you the best I know,
Betty Lue

Being Responsible

For those who are willing to be responsible, we must be response-able.
To be able to respond, we must be healthy, happy, aware and willing.
To respond appropriately in each circumstance, we must listen within.
To respond with Loving kindness, we must forgive our judgments.

Being responsible is a life work.

If we see something that needs to be done, it is our responsibility to respond in some way.
If we have a fear or concern, we must first come to a place of peaceful willingness to respond effectively.
When we are afraid, angry or emotionally upset, our creative and helpful response is often distorted.
When we are not thinking clearly we may overreact or create more drama and less peace.

Being responsible is an opportunity to forgive.

When we notice that our world is lacking or limited, disrespectful or irresponsible, we must look within.
What we see outside can often be healed and transformed within our own mind and heart.
When we believe someone is behaving in an unloving way, we must first clean our own lives.
If what we see is a reflection of something in us, the first place to respond is to forgive ourselves.

Being responsible invites us to remember Love.

Love responds with Love to the lack of Love.
Love is patient with the healing process.
Love forgives the past and responds in the present.
Love is consistent and never quits.

Being responsible insists that we take care of ourselves first.

When we give with sacrifice or out of duty or obligation, the gift is less than whole.
When we live giving others what we have not given ourselves, others may dismiss or resist us.
When we teach and speak about what we are not living everyday, we may be seen as hypocrits.
When we are not fully receiving the gift being given, we are denying ourselves and feel resentment.

Being responsible is remembering everything is a gift of learning, healing, blessing and creating for us.

Offer everyone at all times, the best you know in each situation.
Listen within for the highest way to respond to each perceived need.
Sometimes we are called to act, sometimes to speak, sometimes to pray, sometimes to do nothing.
When we listen to our inner voice, our intuition we find great peace and joy-filled appreciation.

Being responsible means to be present, to notice, to act or speak and to let go and trust.

Being conscious and awake is our responsibility.
Being aware and observing is our responsibility.
Being willing to follow the voice of kindness and respect is our responsibility.
Being open to letting go with blessing and trust is our responsibility.
Yes, all of life is our responsibility. We need not add burden or sacrifice, stress or demand, we need merely respond in each moment to the unmade bed, the dishes unwashed, the gratitude not expressed, the smile that is missing. Respond right now to everything and everyone in the most loving way you know.

Bless you for your willingness,
Betty Lue

Giving Is Receiving

All that I give is given to myself. (A Course in Miracles Lesson #126)

Life is for giving. What we give we receive.
When we forgive another, we are giving ourselves the gift of forgiveness.
When we serve another, we are serving ourselves.
All true “service” is truly “serving us.”

When we give the blessings we want to receive, we receive the blessings being given.
When we appreciate another’s well-being and accomplishments, we enhance our own.
When we offer healing and wholeness to someone, we receive healing from the Universe.
When we lend a helping hand, we reaffirm, we will be helped in our time of need.

Each one of us is building the world we want to be.
Each of us is doing our part in healing the world we seem to see.
Each one of us is offering forgiveness to our corner of an apparent dark work.
It is with our light, our love, that we remember what is true, beneath the illusion.

When we are afraid of being judged, rejected, punished and even killed, we hide under layers of defense.
When we are afraid we “protect” ourselves with attack and blame against others.
Our “protection” becomes our enemy as it teaches the world to attack and condemn us even more.
Our defenses betray us and beget ever more attack and fear, judgment and separation.

We lose sight of our ourselves and others as we really are.
The cover-up and protection becomes our “self-made identity” and we see and know no one.
To come out of hiding, to let the Truth shine through, we must create a “safe” world.
We must give ourselves and others a place to heal and clear away the defenses and cover-up.

To give safety is to teach the world to be a safe place.
To have no defenses is to recognize we are safe.
To teach others not to condemn comes only when we learn to stop attack.
To reveal what is Real, we must give forgiveness, peace and love we desire.

As I offer true forgiveness, I am forgiven.
As I share my appreciation, I appreciate myself.
As I give peace, I receive Peace.
As I remember Love, I am healed.

Loving you,
Betty Lue

Cinco de Mayo

Celebrate liberty and freedom for all!
Take a moment to assess your freedom.
Only when we are totally responsible for our freedom are we truly free.
Only when we are truly free, can we see what is our responsibility in life.

To be responsible is to be able and willing to respond to what life brings.
To be responsible is to learn from the natural consequences of our actions with no blame or guilt.
To be responsible is to be prepared to respond with Love to everything that happens.
To be responsible to is open our heart to teach and learn the highest and best with everyone.

To be free is to give ourselves the responsibility of choice.
To be free is to consciously choose what serves the Good of All.
To be free is to love ourselves enough to give our very best all the time.
To be free is to live joyfully and give abundantly of the good we know.

Yes, celebrate the freedom within you.
Trust the knowing you have as you align yourself with what you know to be True for you.
Live in integrity with your highest values at all times.
Notice the joy you have when you are listening within and following the Love inside you.

Life offers the opportunity to play to the audience, the outside voices.
When we are externally referring, we fail to honor our inner calling.
Our choices are based on the approval and rewards, as well as the disappointment and frowns of others.
The loudest voice comes from the one whom we fear and give our power and our authority.

When we learn to be Self-referring, we are quiet and listen within.
We honor the calling of our heart and the place where we find peace.
We are happy and willing to trust in the Love inside, where inspiration resides.
We allow the natural inner voice to be heard and honored.

To be free asks that we be responsible for our own choices.
To be free invites us to let go of the worldly ways and honor the calling of our heart.
To be free is fun, safe and easy.
To be free is to be wholly responsible for our own happiness and fulfillments.

Bless us all for choosing to honor ourselves, our highest selves, the Purpose we are here to serve.
Betty Lue

Happy Reminders

Personal Update:
Fabulous CA Assn Marriage and Family Therapists’ conference the last four days (4/30-5/3).
We offered Daily Holistic Renewal at 6:30AM for about 50 people each morning. Inspiring and fun.
The conference reminded me of some fun creative tools and processes that perfectly synchronize with the changes I am making professionally and personally.

Our Mothers encouraged us to take trips to Alaska and Australia. In their memory with their support, we are leaving in one week for Alaska, May 11-23, and for Australia July 15-31.

We will also be in Kalamazoo, MI from August 6-10 for the annual Dickerson family reunion and my Mom’s Celebration of life. We will be offer a workshop Thursday eve 8/6 and Ministry Reunion Sunday Afternoon, 8/9 and appts. available Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning.

Alameda Village Preschool plans are proceeding easily and naturally by helping the landlord complete the building projects he needs for licensing. We have three fabulous teachers, about eight students and lots of the preparations for city permits, state licensure and community involvement in process. Thanks for your financial and prayerful support. We joined for the Good of All make a difference.


Joy is our Natural State

When we are not joyful, we have reacted with a lack of love toward another. ACIM

I recognize that I mostly choose to be happy and I definitely prefer to be happy.
Happiness gives me energy. Happiness expands my creativity. I attract good people and experiences when I am happy. Happiness feeds my mind, my body and my soul. Being happy is the best gift I can give myself.

As I see it, my primary job is to clear away everything that does not support and encourage happiness.
This may not be your job. Happiness may not be your preference or your choice. You may have learned that being happy is dangerous and can lead to disappointment. Or that your happiness causes others to be jealous and unhappy in your presence. I have experienced that some people do not trust that I can be so happy. They avoid happy people. Ask yourself, “What is your primary job with you and your life?”

Five Happy Reminders (if you also want to be happy!)
1) Love and respect everyone , including your Self.
2) See the Good and the Gift in everything.
3) Enjoy life everyday and express gratitude.
4) Give always and only your best in everything you think, do and say.
5) Forgive all mistakes quickly. Erase “yucky” thoughts, words and interactions easily.

That’s it. Try it and notice your energy picks up and you walk around feeling and beaming Light!

Loving you and me in all we do to live joyfully,
Betty Lue