Inspirational Articles, Quotes, Musings

[Melrm]

Today’s Quotation:

Every person must follow his or her own process. No one else knows what is right for another. There is no goal in living our process, except to live it. Our processes can change. Our lives can change as we participate in the process. Our only requirement is to trust the process and live in faith. Our responsibility is to live out what our Creator asks of us. To live our lives. Living our process demands a deep spiritual commitment of being one with one’s life.

Anne Wilson Schaef, Living in Process

Today’s Meditation:

Our lives are a special and unique journey gifted to us alone by our Creator, no one else will live it. This means, of course, we have a responsibility that comes along with it–to live out our lives in faith and to trust the process. This requires us to be in tune with who we are, how we are meant to be, and what we are meant to do, which can be a rather difficult thing for some of us. After all, how many of us can say that we are truly committed to becoming the person that we were created to be and not the person that we want to be or the person that others expect us to be? This also means that we must be willing to accept the obstacles, difficulties, and changes in our lives as we journey down our paths with trust and faith in God’s divine providence.

In truth, a loving Creator has given our lives to us; and although we each have this gift, and we have some control over it, we do not have complete control. This is a good thing, though, because in our folly, many of us would steer our lives in unpleasant and harmful directions if we did. I, for one, remember foolishly wanting things with an unhealthy desperation–relationships, wealth, power, material objects, and other such things–only to realize later that those things were not what I needed.

I believe we each know deep within our hearts what is right for us. And if we can ignore the noise of the world around us–trusting life and having faith in our Creator–we will find that life is a wonderful journey, a blessed experience filled with great treasures of joy, love, friendship, compassion, and other spiritual riches.

Allow yourself to live life through your authentic heart and soul, and not through your logic and intellect. For when one understands that he is a divine creation, he knows that his life has purpose and meaning to it other than that which his logic and intellect assigns. And it is from this perspective that he may come to discover who he is, and the depths of his capacity to truly give to the world.

Today’s Challenge: Spend some time in reflection of the path of your life.

Questions to consider:

In what ways do you feel that you are one with your life? Why?

How often do you trust the processes of life? How often do you try to control them and make them turn out how you want them to?

What processes have you noticed recently in your life? Do you attempt to guide them, or let them guide you?

For further thought:

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.

Anais Nin, D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study

Sent from InspireMe™ for Android

[Melrm]

[Melrm]

Cultivating Authenticity

The idea that we can choose authenticity makes most of us feel both hopeful and exhausted. We feel hopeful because being real is something we value. Most of us are drawn to warm, down-to-earth, honest people, and we aspire to be like that in our own lives. We feel exhausted because without even giving it too much thought, most of us know that choosing authenticity in a culture that dictates everything from how much we’re supposed to weigh to what our houses are supposed to look like is a huge undertaking.

Given the magnitude of the task at hand—be authentic in a culture that wants you to “fit in” and “people-please”—I decided to use my research to develop a definition of authenticity that I could use as a touchstone. What is the anatomy of authenticity? What are the parts that come together to create an authentic self? Here’s what I developed:

Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.

Choosing authenticity means

· cultivating the courage to be imperfect, to set boundaries, and to allow ourselves to be vulnerable;

· exercising the compassion that comes from knowing that we are all made of strength and struggle; and

· nurturing the connection and sense of belonging that can only happen when we believe that we are enough.

Authenticity demands Wholehearted living and loving—even when it’s hard, even when we’re wrestling with the shame and fear of not being good enough, and especially when the joy is so intense that we’re afraid to let ourselves feel it.

Mindfully practicing authenticity during our most soul-searching struggles is how we invite grace, joy, and gratitude into our lives.

This inspiration is from

The Gifts of Imperfection

[Melrm]

Practice Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a choice, not a feeling. Forgiveness helps you let go of hurt and anger—it may or may not help others. It is a process that frees you to live life more fully. Forgiving is not forgetting, excusing, reconciling, or being weak. As one person put it, “Forgiveness was one of the hardest things in recovery for me, but now it means to let go and not to let the people who hurt me keep me locked to them with anger.”

Action for the Day

Practice forgiveness by writing a few practice letters that you will not send. Write the response you’d like to hear from the other person. Then write a letter of forgiveness to that person, accepting the apology and letting the issue go. Remember, don’t send these forgiveness letters. They are meant to help you let go and be free from hurt. You don’t need anyone else in order to achieve this freedom.

Thought for the Day

“When you forgive, you in no way change the past—but you sure do change the future.”

—Bernard Meltzer

[Hmm]

Enjoy the 4 before you lose it.
Health before becoming sick , wealth before becoming poor, your young age before becoming very old, life before death.

[Hmm]

Spread peace, feed the poor, and pray in the dark at night thats the path to a peaciful heart

[Elisabeth]

[Elisabeth]

Waking up clean and sober is the first gift of every day.
If you chased your recovery like you chased your high, you would never relapse again.
Insist on enjoying life!

[Elisabeth]

[SallyD]

Ha love this

[Hmm]

Four things support the world: the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the good, and the valor of the brave
2 of 2
To overcome evil with good is good, to resist evil by evil is evil.

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[Needhelp1128]

Happy International Day of Calm! May you all find peace within your souls

[Twowaymirror]

To grow you must suffer, and I mean suffer.
That is the only way to find out what your capable of.
David Goggins

[MrCade]

Someday, emerging at last from the violent insight, let me sing out jubilation and praise to assenting angels.
Let not even one of the clearly-struck hammers of my heart fail to sound because of a slack, a doubtful, or a broken string.
Let my joyfully streaming face make me more radiant; let my hidden weeping arise and blossom. How dear you will be to me then, you nights of anguish.
Why didn’t I kneel more deeply to accept you, inconsolable sisters, and, surrendering, lose myself in your loosened hair.
How we squander our hours of pain.
How we gaze beyond them into the bitter duration to see if they have an end.
Though they are really our winter-enduring foliage, our dark evergreen, one season in our inner year–, not only a season in time–, but are place and settlement, foundation and soil and home.

—FROM THE TENTH ELEGY , FROM RAINER MARIA RILKE’S “DUINO ELEGIES ,” TRANSLATION BY STEPHEN MITCHELL