My Favorite

I love Jesus with all my being. There are a few things I feel sure of as I let go of the Christian religion and hold tight to my Favorite.

• Jesus did not come to establish the religion of Christianity. He came to establish the pathway to intimate and personal relationship/oneness with Creator, Father God.

• Jesus did not come to speak the red letter edition of Scripture into existence to guide us. He came to give his very God Spirit to indwell humanity in order to guide, teach, speak, love, fill, and flow out of those who would say yes and be in tune with God Spirit within.

• His death and resurrection covers every single thing that humanity has done, is doing and will do that is not in line with LIFE. It is all forgiven and His Love, Mercy, Forgiveness, Kindness, Voice, Healing, Presence is what he is wanting us to experience. Judgement was settled in his sacrifice on the cross.

• Creator God is waiting for us to be in tune with His very Spirit within and to step into the role of bringing Love, Healing, Presence, Kindness, Creativity, Abundance through the glorious power of Spirit to a hurting and fearful world.

This is my perspective. Jesus is my Favorite.

Quote of the week

Live in Love

Live in Fear or live in Love? 

The two cannot co-exist.

I choose Love.

The places I find fear within

are the places I have yet to expose to Love

that casts out every fear.

There is such Love in the universe.

It is supernatural.
It is The Divine.

Always I can feel it flow from parts of Creation:

solitude,

beauty,
nature,

music,

art.

I feel Love flow through
spiritual practices:
meditation,
fasting,
prayer,
journaling,
generosity,
worship,
silence,
faith.

I'm learning to receive it through
humans who let Love flow.

The key to experiencing Pure and Perfect Love
 is to want it more than my comfortable
fear;

open my heart and mind to Love,
turn my back on fear;
position myself

to look in the face of Love-

receive it,

& allow myself to be lost in Love.

To uncover areas where Love
has not been perfected,
all I need to do is
pinpoint the
fear.

Perfect Love casts out fear.

I choose to live enveloped in

Love.

Nothing else is really living.

-emie

Rhythms of Fall

I've always had a love-hate relationship with the fall.

I love the shift from intense summer sun to glowing fall sunshine. I love the trees changing colors, leaves falling, getting ready to rest for the winter. I love the cool air that makes me want to stay in bed and snuggle up, and everything warm and cozy about fall. 

I've hated the slowing down of fall. I've hated the chill to the bone of fall. I've hated the depression I've experienced almost every fall that I can remember. Some years it's worse than others. This one has been the least depression so far. I think it's because I'm finally flowing with the rhythms of the season and my body. 

I've been practicing observing the rhythms of life, seasons, my body since my emotional, physical, and spiritual crash after our year in Africa. The car accident has been a clear opportunity to tune in even more. I never want to go back to ignoring the rhythms. As I observe and tune in, I give myself permission to slow down when I need it, when all of nature around me is giving the cues to snuggle up and pull in. I'm trusting my body when it's craving warm soups and tea rather than chugging down the smoothie routine just because it's good for me and it's what I always do. I'm giving myself permission to say no to activities that feel overwhelming rather than plowing through and saying yes just because I have no good reason to say no.

Flowing with the rhythms of life means listening for the song that's playing. It means changing my dance step when the rhythm changes. It means releasing and relaxing into the rhythm rather than fighting it to maintain my schedule and forward momentum. For the first time in all my memory of fall, I'm relaxing in. And I like it.
Happy Fall.

I am not afraid

Being Present

In my personal development class we discussed how many of our actual problems are in the room with us presently. Very few. Almost none. But most of us walked into the room heavy, overwhelmed, swirling in a dark prison of problems. How and where do our problems actually exist? Most often, in between our ears. How do we break out of that prison?

Be Present. Now. What is happening right now? I look up. I wake up to see the sky, the people next to me, the tree and the bird that just flew by. I refocus myself on the right here, right now. Now is usually beautiful. Now generally has some beauty to behold. Right now, I probably have everything I need. I might not have everything I need for the bill due next week, or the relational struggle I might face when I get home, or the energy I will need for a house full of kids who need my attention the second I walk through the door. But right now, do I have what I need for this moment? Can I find the beauty happening right now? Can I switch my focus from the swirling darkness in my brain to the sun streaming in the window and the beautiful music playing in the background? Can I turn off the negative self talk in my brain and find a new perspective on the difficult situation at hand? Or do I like the dark? Do I like the pit? Do I like the swirling feeling that makes it seem like I'm accomplishing something when in actuality I am wasting my brain space and my precious moments spinning on a hamster wheel of my vain imaginations.

Life has been a giant storm the last few months/weeks. But I am learning how to be in the moment. And I continue to be in awe of how few moments there actually are that present real difficulty when I stop living in past pain or future fearful projections. When I am in the moment, most of them are neutral. I used to fill the neutral moments with negative self talk, negative problem swirling, hashing and rehashing, ruminating instead of finding the beauty. Now I am learning to stop the darkness, open up and let the light in. I can choose to look outside my swirling pit of despair happening inside my head and see the butterfly and the sparrow and the beauty of the moment I'm in. It's truly amazing how dramatically this is affecting my days for the better. Until I'm actually living in a prison camp or running for my life or have nothing to eat but the food I can scrounge out of a garbage can, I have decided to quit living like a POW, refugee, or poverty stricken in my head. Life is beautiful.

Codependency Unraveling

Being an intuitive, people pleasing, helper personality has its definite drawbacks, especially with all the baggage I've carried. Those potentially good qualities have become the cause of burn out for me on more than one occasion.

Just because I am reading a situation or a person, doesn't mean I have to respond to what I'm sensing. (What? Really? Can that be true?!)  I am only responsible for what is happening in me. If the person I am picking things up from doesn't feel like sharing or wants to deny it (ie: they are upset about something and won't talk about it), then it isn't my job to fix it before that person is willing to own their own feelings. I may be off on my read of the scenario anyway. (Probably not, but maybe! I've had 39 years of practice.)

I lived the majority of my life tiptoeing around people's emotions that they refuse to admit, communicate, own, or work through. That means I am the primary one taking responsibility for the bulk of the difficulty in the relationship. I sense the struggle. I shift to "make it better." The other person feels better and waalaa, problem solved. Everyone is "happy" and eventually I D I E. That would be called enabling in codependent, dysfunctional relationships. Bleh.

Until I get in a car accident and I actually have NO capacity to carry that relational load anymore. I literally cannot do the shifting. I can still intuitively pick up on unspoken stresses and emotions. But it is taking everything in me to stay present with my kids and keep my empathetic radar on for them alone.  Everyone else, I'm sorry . . . ability to shift, gone. I can't take care of anyone else right now. Once again, people in my world are having to adjust simply because I have changed. It's uncomfortable. Change always is. But in the end, I am healing. I will not be the enabler in codependent relationships anymore. I will be responsible for me. And though it is terribly painful for people closest to me, I believe it will bring wholeness as we all adjust whether they wanted change or not. This is a monster of a healing journey. Just be glad you don't live with me. :)