Top

peace Tag

Home is in the Heart

As a storm prepares to hit my hometown, I’m reminded that home is not outside of us, but within us. When everything was taken away after Katrina, a storm my family survived but in which we lost much, I learned that lesson in the extreme. Never before had I been so grateful for my friends and family. Never before had I felt so close to all the people I had known growing up there, people I normally took for granted. Eventually, things evened back out, but obviously occurrences like these are not always predictable. Our world is full of unpredictable events such as wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, and more. We can’t always know how our world will look tomorrow, but it if we are able to...

Letting Yourself Change

When undertaking to follow your heart, you may feel called to change the outward circumstances of your life. You might be called to change a relationship or a job, or even where you live. You might feel compelled to change some friendships. It can seem hard to your mind to start showing up in a different way in the world, but if it is what your heart and soul is truly asking you for, making these changes will only result in more joy for you in the end. Some of the things I’ve felt compelled to change since beginning this journey include my occupation, my orientation to work, my relationships, and where I live. These changes have happened in varying ways over the years. When I...

Free Choice

“Every single free choice you ever undertake arises out of one of the only two possible thoughts there are: a thought of love or a thought of fear. Every human thought, word, deed is based in one emotion or the other. You have no choice about this, because there is nothing else from which to choose. But you have free will about which of these you choose to select.”Conversations with God, Book 1 I thought today would be a perfect day to explore freedom, in a spiritual sense. Freedom in the form of "free choice" is one of God’s great gifts and allows us to live out a life of our own choosing. We are always able to choose to create our lives, and to create...

Healing the Heart

Healing your heart starts with getting still and centered. Healing your heart is the path to the self and to joy. To heal the heart, begin by bringing awareness to your heart center. You will feel it with some attention and patience. There is your connection to God, and there you can feel great love once you’ve cleared the debris of your wounds. I used to have a great deal of anger and sadness in my heart center. At first, I was unaware that it was even there. But once I began healing in earnest, I focused my energy on trying to feel my heart. I knew at a base level that it was covered up with something. I felt my heart to be somewhat detached...

p

Staying Present

My childhood trauma, my angry parents, and our dissociated society in general taught me as a young child that life was easier if I could protect myself. For me, that meant learning how to emotionally, mentally, and spiritually detach myself from the people and places around me. I began dissociating, removing myself and my consciousness from the world around me. Of course, no one except the very smart healers could see that I was living away from my body and acting out my daily life as if my body were a puppet. I felt very far away from it all. It made me feel safe and helped me get through my daily life. When I began to truly heal, I needed to learn how to...

Forgiving Small Slights

The people around us are only human. We are also only human! From time to time, people may say or do something hurtful, such as saying a harsh comment, forgetting to invite you to something, or any number of things. It’s ok to forgive them. In fact, it’s excellent to forgive them. Jesus said we should forgive others “70 times 7 times,” a symbolic number meaning endlessly. For much of my life I’ve been a silent grudge-holder, remembering many slights from others and secretly replaying them in my mind. That doesn’t lead anyone to love or peace or friendship, and only left me exhausted. Now, I’m working on just letting it go. I let it go because I love myself, and I am learning that nothing...

When the Suffering is Great

The news coming from my country has been so dire these last few days (and years), particularly in regard to the immigrant children. Many of us feel hopeless and aren’t sure how to help. I can’t imagine how anyone could think separating parents from children at the border is a good policy, and yet, families keep getting separated and children are put into internment camps. It seems to me like a modern-day Holocaust.  Growing up Jewish, I learned about the Holocaust a lot. And the Holocaust is not the only example, there are so many more in our world – it is only the mass genocide I was raised hearing about the most. As a young adult I became convinced none of it would have happened...

Doing What Makes You Happy

Move towards those things that bring you happiness. What brings a smile to your face? What brings you genuine joy in your heart? Find what makes you happy and do it. It doesn’t have to be amazing, big, or impressive. It can be something small. And while I believe it’s possible to create happiness within before you do anything outside of yourself, I also believe that certain things in your outer world will be a match for your heart, and will light you up in a way that feels uniquely happy to you. Growing into adulthood, I often judged the things that made me feel happiness, as if they weren’t important enough. I also didn’t value happiness or joy as something that mattered. I thought it...

Keeping a Clear Connection

Finding and keeping a clear connection to God and your heart is such a huge part of living an awakened life. Having a clear connection means you are able to feel and sense your heart and God. Just like we get dirty from living our lives and have to bathe, our spiritual connection needs to be maintained if we are to live lives that are whole.  There have been times in my life when I thought God had left me, especially after my beautiful experience. When I had to learn to life in the world again, it felt like God and my angels took a step back to help me learn to stand on my own two feet. I used to cry and feel completely abandoned....

Being True to Yourself

“To thine own self be true. And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.” – William Shakespeare Being true to yourself means honoring what is true for you by knowing and acting on your truth. It means being in touch with who you are and living into it, because you are a beautiful creation from God. It means listening to your heart and then taking steps to create what you found there. In my young life, it was harder for me to honor my truth. I was afraid of what people would think of me if I made changes in my life based on what I felt in my heart. I was timid about it. Writing and sharing...