Affirmations:
Everything happens more exquisitely than I can plan.
All things work together for Good.
I am alive, alert and enthusiastic.
Live works for me, because I do the work.
Do you know what is happening in your life?
Do you have any idea of its purpose or value?
Do you really understand what anything is for?
Are you aware of what is going on for you and others?
Life happens.
How we react or respond determines our experiences in life.
You can react to what happens with fear.
You can respond to what happens with Love.
When we react to what happens with fear, we may feel victimized.
When we react to what happens with upset and anger, we may feel hurt.
When we react to what happens with outrage and terror, we may feel traumatized.
When we react fearfully to anything, we get stuck with our physical experience and emotional feelings.
Reactivity (fear) creates stuckness, blind spots, inertia and fear-based decisions.
Reacting to what happens with fear and judgment, avoidance and ignorance creates a sense of weakness.
Reacting with judgment to anything or anyone creates a feeling of powerlessness and victimization.
Being at the effect of what is sets up the likelihood of recreating the same experience again and again.
Responsibility (love) creates flexibility, open-mindedness, movement and creative decisions.
Responding to what happens with love and forgiveness, awareness and acceptance creates strength.
Responding with forgiveness to anything and anyone creates a feeling of safety and sovereignty.
Being responsible and at cause sets up the likelihood of never creating a similar unwanted experience.
Often troubles, accidents, problems or issues are simply “wake up” calls.
This means we may not have been paying attention or have been unaware.
Difficulties may mean we need to make a new life choice or simply forgive our fears.
We need to learn to first forgive our own negative thinking and be willing to see the gift.
The gift in any shift, change, interference is usually in the lesson that needs to be learned.
The blessing may be that we allow the change to happen and trust its value.
The lesson may be learning to trust, to allow, to respond with love and acceptance.
The value will always be easily known, when we respond with love instead of reacting with fear.
Insights, healing, growth, inner guidance and intuitive awareness show up when we are at peace.
The greatest transformation or growth and development often occurs during more difficult times.
Challenges are a sign we are invited to grow in faith and release our fears.
Happenings are the growth material for our lives and life learning.
Embrace what is and it will embrace you with good learning and gratitude.
Resist what is and it will seem to linger and even get worse instead of moving on
Responding with love to the changes in life allows us to flow with life and enjoy the journey.
Reacting with fear to the changes interferes with flow and generates prolonged upset and suffering.
Forgive your fearful reactivity.
Appreciate your loving responsiveness and response- ability.
The more we are able and willing to respond to what happens, the more life is fun, safe and easy.
Loving you with an open mind and happy heart,
Betty Lue
The Power of Now Meditation 8 of 52
The contemplative secret is to learn how to live in the now. (Saints knew and taught this long before Eckart Tolle re-taught it in our time, but many Christians still called him “New Age.” Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S.J.already spoke of this as “the Sacrament of the Present Moment” in his classic book of spiritual direction in 1735. My book, Everything Belongs, came out in 1999, the same year as Tolle’s immensely helpful book, The Power of Now.)
The now is not as empty as it might appear to be—or that we fear it may be. Try to realize that everything that we really need is right here, right now. (Don’t think at the lower dualistic level, or you can’t get this.) When we’re doing life right, it means nothing more than it is right now, because God is always in this moment in an accepting and non-blaming way. When we are able to experience that, taste it, and enjoy it, we don’t need to hold on to it nor are we afraid to let go of it. The next moment will have its own taste and enjoyment.
Because our moments are not tasted—or full—or real—or in the Presence—we are never fulfilled and there is never enough. We then create artificial fullness and distractions and try to pass time or empty time with that. God is either in this now or God isn’t in it at all. “This moment is as perfect as it can be” used to be a mantra we would repeat at the community of New Jerusalem in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Perhaps this quote from Psalm 46:10 can be your entranceway into the now, if you slow down in this way:
Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.
Adapted from Everything Belongs