“God needed to place some mirrors around so we could see ourselves. An actual mirror reflects our physical appearance, so what would reflect our being, our true self? What would reflect energy? Enter the laws of the universe: the law of cause and effect, the law of attraction, and Karma itself. God wanted it to be as simple as possible, and he wanted to make sure we didn’t miss our reflection. So he made everything a mirror. We attract things into and create our lives through cause and effect. Every thought and action we put out comes back at us. Welcome to the looking glass of life. Take a look around and see your reflection.” From the site Finding Ourselves, by Gregory Campisi (http://www.finding-ourselves.com/index.html)

A friend of mine is going through a difficult transformation right now, and as a result she occasionally asks me for advice or spiritual wisdom to get her through the day. A couple weeks ago we were talking, and after I shared what I thought she needed to hear, she said, “Thank you. When you say it, it just sounds so right. I really can’t thank you enough.”

Flattered, I had to immediately remind myself that God just works through me. It’s never me doing the talking, despite how much my ego would love to believe that.

So I replied, “You don’t need to thank me. In actuality, it was just you talking to you. You already had the answer within you, but needed someone to remind you, so you manifested me!”

She laughed and said, “Well, you just make it seem so easy and can I just say that I’m thrilled I managed to manifest you as my friend?!”

I laughed a little, too, expressed equal sentiments toward her, and said goodbye.

Afterwards I sort of mused to myself about this glorious life we’re all living, which is nothing more than a reflection of what we believe. As the opening paragraph says, God needed a way for us to see our beings, so he made everyone and everything we come across reflections of who we are.

This theory tends to thrill people when they think about all the good things happening in their life. On the other hand, it tends to horrify them when they realize that with the good comes the bad. Therefore all the unpleasant people and experiences they’ve chanced upon are simply reflections of themselves, too.

But therein lies the grace and perfection of the Universe. We are able to look around at any point during the day and see exactly where we are in our spiritual progression. The things people say to us, the way we’re treated, the situations we stumble upon or the experiences we have – they are nothing more than a reflection of us. When viewed from this perspective, our true power and interconnectedness with the whole (GOD) comes to life in a magnificent and magical way.

And if you’re reading these words and they’re resonating with you, please stop and take a moment to thank yourself. For truly, all of this has just been you talking to you.

Be well & joyful!

I’ve been given the gift of knowing true and unconditional love in my most recent relationship. This was the first time in my life that I experienced real love – the kind that means loving for love’s sake, as opposed to loving for a purpose (aka, the “what’s in it for me?” or “I love you if…” syndrome).

I know my love for him was pure and absolute because even though we’ve decided to go our separate ways, my love for him will continue. I honestly believe we were brought together at this point in our lives to teach each other about unconditional love. He was the first person who ever touched my heart in such a way that it felt physically different in my chest, and as a result I was changed.

So no matter where he goes in this world or what he does, I will always love him because true love lasts eternal.

And truthfully, having experienced such miraculous love brings me more joy than I can express.

~ Thank you, Andy ~

So many of us are walking around attracting situations that don’t feel good to us – that cause us to stop and say, “Hey, wait a minute? Why do all these sucky moments keep showing up?”

I know in my own life, I’ve certainly experienced that. Being on a spiritual path you’d think I could sidestep some of that garbage, but no… Fortunately or unfortunately, I’m still human, so spirituality means less of an “up and over” and more of a “oh, so that’s why it’s happening to me…” It’s like having a brighter flashlight is all.

That flashlight is helpful, though, because it lets me shine a spotlight on whatever mistruths I’ve been holding onto that continue to attract whatever I don’t want to my life.

On of the biggest challenges I’ve had to come to grips with in this life deals with romantic relationships. For a long time I couldn’t understand why they kept failing. What was I doing wrong? I had a knack for inviting only those people into my life who were most certain to be crapweasels. Why? I even had to ask a spiritually enlightened friend once what the heck was going on. You know what he said to me (as I sat there at the ripe old age of 30)? “I think it goes back to your dad.”

My response, “My dad? Come on. I’m 30! I’ve been actively studying spirituality for five years and have let all of that stuff go.”

Apparently not. Letting go from our conscious mind is one part of the equation. Letting go from our deep-seated unconscious mind is quite another. And believe me, if there are things showing up on the outside of your life that you don’t like but can’t consciously understand why they’re there, it’s time to turn to your subconscious. That’s where we store all that “lies” beneath.

The subconscious mind is like a machine. It doesn’t reason or filter – it accepts everything it’s told. True? False? It doesn’t care. It takes all of it. It’s also the part of us that controls our involuntary body functions (heart rate, metabolism, nerve response). So it’s a very necessary – if not indiscriminate – part of our minds.

The blessing and the curse of the subconscious mind is that, indeed, it takes in everything. If someone does something mean to us as a kid, and we never intercept and rewire our thinking to say “That was wrong; we deserve better,” then the subconscious mind will act on the belief that “mean” is okay and start to attract more stuff like it to us in the future. Likewise, if we’re only treated regally in our life, the subconscious stores that away and continues to attract similar treatment to us. (NOTE: There will also be the occasional outlying moments that don’t follow whatever pattern we’ve set up in our lives, and those serve either to steer us onto a better course, or to test our resolve. I like to call those Divinely Intended Moments.)

The good news is that the subconscious, being the machine that it is, can be reconditioned through things like affirmations, hypnosis, or new and repetitive experiences.

An example: When I was growing up I was a cute kid. Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I clung tightly to the idea of “cute.” My brothers, when asked, would say, “Yeah, you’re cute. I wouldn’t say that you’re classically beautiful, but you’re very cute.” So in my mind, I just came to accept that I wasn’t beautiful, but I was cute. OK good. Well, in high school I really didn’t date much, and most of the people I attracted to me were not people I was ga-ga over. On top of that, I was never told in high school that I was beautiful – by anyone other than my mother (thank you, mom). Now cut to college. Someone was thrown onto my path (Divinely Intended Moment) who said, “You’re beautiful,” and I trusted him. In that moment, I began the subconscious rewiring process. Every time he said those words to me, I tucked them away and added them to my newfound belief and since then, have only attracted people to me who have used the “b” word.

So how does your life look to you? What’s in your life that you like, and what’s there that you don’t? What “lies” could be operating beneath the surface that need you to shine a brighter light on? If you can’t understand why the things you dislike keep showing up, it might be time to investigate how your subconscious mind is wired. Think back to your childhood. That’s when most of our minds were initially programmed. Good, bad, right or wrong – kids are at the mercy of their parents, teachers, relatives and friends. We carry the imprint of what we learned, both directly and indirectly, with us throughout life.

If you can debunk some of what your subconscious has held onto and reprogram it (through affirmations, hypnosis, or new & repetitive experiences that you purposely seek out), you can begin to recreate the landscape of your life and make it as joyful as you ultimately want it to be.

I’m reading a great book right now – a collection of essays, actually – by first-time NY Times Bestseller Sloane Crosley. In her, I see the darker, funnier sides of myself and I have to admit, she’s great inspiration as I write my own first book. Anyway, I came across this passage and it resonated so strongly I knew I had to get it out into the blogosphere for anyone else who feels similarly:

“I have never pictured my own wedding. I do want to get married. It’s a nice idea. Though I think husbands are like tattoos–you should wait until you come across something you want on your body for the rest of your life isntead of just wandering into a  tattoo parlor on some idle Sunday and saying, ‘I feel like I should have one of these suckers by now. I’ll take a thorny rose and a ‘MOM’ anchor, please. No, not that one–the big one.’”

The river of life is fraught with change. Sometimes the river twists gently and easily, while other times it’s a series of rapids that test our ability to navigate.

And then, of course, are the waterfalls: the parts of our lives that guarantee we’ll never be the same once we go over them. That is, if we manage to survive the fall.

Last week, my partner came home from Iraq for a three-week break. I was ecstatic, and in some emails we exchanged weeks prior, he hinted that maybe he wouldn’t be going back. That’s all I needed to hear to start wishing like I’ve never wished before that he’d truly be home for good– that we’d finally be able to explore our relationship under more stable circumstances.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case. He’ll be headed back to Iraq in mid-April and when he told me the news, I couldn’t hide my disappointment. It worked out all right, though, because it forced the issue of “us” to the surface and was the first thing we talked about when we met up face-to-face.
To back up, the two of us only unearthed our feelings for each other two days before he was scheduled to head over to Iraq last summer. Since then, we’ve seen each other in-person a total of four weeks, with the rest being near-daily emails and some phone calls here or there.

Why would we do that to ourselves, you might wonder? Why would we start a romantic relationship when we knew we couldn’t see each other for months on end? I think the biggest reason is because neither of us had ever felt about another person the way we felt about each other. We both experienced the most honest emotional reactions either of us had ever known, and that’s not the kind of thing that’s easy to ignore! It still blows my mind when I go back and think about it. This magnificent man actually made my heart feel physically different in my chest whenever we talked or were together. What’s more, neither of us could have “thought” our relationship into being. Instead, we had to feel our way there.
And with that, we’ve ventured forward.

Now, though, eight months later, we’re at a crossroads and it’s not because we don’t love each other any more. It’s because there’s a chance that the things each of us wants, and the things we believe in, won’t allow us to walk the same path at the same time.

So as I sit and write this, I feel oddly relaxed – yet hopeful – about the outcome. More than anything, it’s my partner’s decision in the sense that he has immediate opportunities that need his attention. On top of that, I think the leap he’d have to make to join me on this side of life is over a wider chasm than if I were to jump and join him on his.

Three months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to sit here and talk about what’s happening so calmly. My conscious mind (aka, my ego, which “edges God out”) would have had me running around like a chicken with its head cut off, obsessing, worrying, running worst-case scenarios, reliving dialogue, planning what I’d say to my friends and family, and possibly acting out my irrational fears in unhealthy, self-damaging ways. I know, however, that doing any of that won’t change the way things are, nor will it shape the outcome. Letting my conscious mind get the best of me – which I’ve always done in the past – only serves to separate me from my Creator. It removes me from the creative source of love and joy that begot this beautiful relationship in the first place!

No. Instead I’m going to stay grounded in what I know – in what I feel. I will remain trusting that:

• Every process in life is perfect. This is just one more piece of the perfection that I know and believe in.
• I’m well taken care of by the powers that be, and regardless of outcome, my highest good is served.
• I manifested this – just like I manifested the beautiful start of our relationship. I did so to teach myself about love, life and about allowing others to be who they are and do what’s best for them.
• However this turns out, I will always love my partner because I know that true and unconditional love asks for nothing in return. It is love for love’s sake, and not love for a purpose.
• I will meditate deeply and concertedly each day that he’s home to ensure I stay grounded in the greater truth of our situation. Ego consciousness has no place here. I need to follow a higher knowing and stay clear-headed. Meditation is the way to do that.

So even amidst seeming obscurity and in staring down my waterfall, I know my inner joy will be maintained as I take in a deep breath, let it go and surrender myself to whatever will be. I am letting go and letting God.