We may be presented with a health challenge. Or our spouse asks for a divorce. Or we experience a loss. Or we switch jobs. Or some person place or thing really just pisses us off, on a regular basis, and a pattern emerges.
These are all calls for change. These are all nature demanding that we change in order that we may advance.
The reason for the call then becomes irrelevant. The story: the health challenge, the divorce, the loss, the job switch, or whatever is pissing us off, it is all irrelevant. What is important is the call for change resulting from those things. What is important is that we heed that call. It isn’t an invitation. It is, as Holmes calls it, a demand.
In heeding the call, we do what is necessary to change our own thinking, our own beliefs. The action will then seamlessly follow. And healing will occur. And then we will become grateful for the call to change.
This is how life works. It has been proven to me over and over again.
So when I read words of wisdom such as these, from Ernest Holmes, found of Centers for Spiritual Living, I take comfort for I know that I have taken advantage of all the calls to change, and I have. I hope you have as well.
Today I’m thinking of the joy of living. What makes it possible for us to live joyfully? And what do we do when things would attempt to get in the way of joyful living?
Ernest Holmes says in his book called 365 Science of Mind: “I know that in my true self I am joy, for I am God-Life.“
So joy isn’t something we experience. Joy is something we ARE. And yes, we know we are joy when we have that feeling of experiencing it.
But Holmes tells us that we can only receive as much as we will allow, and we can’t be joy unless we allow it. The truth is that we are joy all the time, we just allow life stuff to get in the way of that knowingness sometimes.
So if we aren’t feeling the joy, what do we do about it? I believe a clue exists in what Holmes said, we ARE joy. So if we are joy but are not feeling it, then maybe the place to begin is in knowingness. In believing that what he said is true. The we are inherently joy. Then the task becomes to go within and examine what within us is getting in the way of that. If it is physical, perhaps a lifestyle change is in order, in what we eat or how much we exercise. If it is in relations with another human, since we cannot do anything about them and their behavior, we look within to our own stuff and examine what within us is asking for change? If the block to joy is in a lack of faith, a lack of knowingness, if we simply do not believe that we are joy, then the invitation is to examine that. If we aren’t joy, then what are we?
As for me, today, I needed to remind myself of joy and the reminders showed up freely in my life. This morning I got to see the sky change color as the earth tilted to allow the sun to greet us. It’s a beautiful warm spring day here in Northern Nevada and after the long challenging winter, that right there is enough to allow me to experience joy. And when I get right down to it, I need no outer “joy fixes” because I do believe that I am joy. There is simply no other way to be. The outer joy fixes are simply evidence of that, because I would not be able to see and appreciate them if that quality were not already inside of me.
So today, I affirm: Today, I am joy. I know this because I see it and I feel it and I would not be able to do so if it weren’t already inside of me.
About the photo: this is a cell phone shot of the inside of a tulip. I found this little guy nestled in a perfect place, open shade, with light bouncing off the wall to give it “pop.” It was growing at a friend’s house and I was filled with joy to see these tulips lining the walkway to her front door. I did a bit of editing and cropping in photoshop to focus on the details of the inside of the flower. Sometimes mother nature’s intricacy fills me with awe. As well as with joy. Feel free to share the meme, but please do not alter it in any way.
My ortho doc asked me to write a review, which I did as a gesture of gratitude for him. But I don’t really believe much in reviews because I know that any review speaks more to the reviewer than it does the reviewee. Really. What we see out there in the world is a direct reflection of who we are. What we see in others we have in ourselves. This can work to our advantage. For example, we can’t see beauty unless we have that beauty in ourselves, even if we have hidden it under layers of low self esteem. I remember once seeing such talent and skill and other good yummy stuff in some of my peers, while simultaneously feeling a bit less than. And a mentor pointed out to me that I wouldn’t be able to see that in them unless I had it in myself, and that my job was to reveal that part of me, to bring it out into the light so that it would illuminate that shadow of feeling less than. This is a law, this thing that says what we see in others we have within ourselves. And it also works to our advantage because if we are looking out at the world with suspicion, anger, bitterness or hatred, guess what? We have it within ourselves and if we can acknowledge this, we can bring all those negative feelings to the light of day and heal them, replacing them with trust, acceptance, sweetness and love. Why would we want to? Because I don’t know about you, but I don’t like feeling that way. My teaching says that heaven and hell are states of mind and I can tell you from personal experience that living in suspicion and anger is living in a state of hell. I’d much rather live in a state of heaven. Another reason for changing those feelings is because those negative feelings will make us sick. They turn inward and cause all sorts of havoc in the body.
Our consciousness is a holistic system that consists of our emotional, mental, physical and spiritual selves. In other words, all those pieces of us co-exist together. If one part of us is experiencing a malady, the entire system experiences it. So if we are feeling those feelings of anger or hatred, sooner or later the body will express those feelings. And because we ourselves are simply a small part of a whole, what we think and feel and believe does indeed have an effect on the whole of humanity. So not only do we have a responsibility to ourselves to heal ourselves and replace those feelings of anger, bitterness and suspicion with acceptance, sweetness and love, when we do so we contribute to the goodness of all of humanity. It’s a win win!
Self awareness is a spiritual practice that can and will allow us to reveal that which wants to be healed. So today I look at the ways in which I view the world, and I ask myself if it is good for me to view the world in the ways I view it, and change my views, my thoughts, my feelings and my beliefs if necessary.
