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Finding Joy Within

True joy cannot be found outside of yourself. You may find some happiness there, in the people or things around you, but it will not be lasting. People will change, things will go away, and you will be left again with yourself. For real, true joy, you must go within. Get still and awaken the flame in your heart. There joy is.  I used to put a lot of stock into how successful I could be. I thought if I made good grades and built a great resume, then I could be happy. I was always making plans for myself in a vain attempt to find happiness. Of course, I could not be happy that way. I still had healing to do. I learned to go...

Bringing Who You Are into your Daily Life

After I had a beautiful experience of the Divine, the daily world seemed really awful. I didn’t like it. I wanted to leave it. I could not see all the beauty of God in the world around me. Over time, I’ve learned to see beyond appearances into the divine light within – most of the time. OK, a lot of the time. At least, definitely more than some of the time! I’ve also gotten better at connecting to love and God in my heart and bringing that into my world instead of letting the world overtake me.  Learning to keep this experience of God in my life alive has been a long climb, and I still work on it every day. I still struggle with understanding how such beauty...

Creating Your Reality

“The Universe is just a big Xerox machine. It simply produces copies of your thoughts.” - Neale Donald Walsch Thoughts are things. You create your reality by what you think about. That can be a lot of responsibility to handle, but it’s also very powerful and beautiful. You have the power to create your reality by what you notice, what you pay attention to, and what you think about. I don’t always understand the ins and outs of how it works, but I’ve seen it happen in my life again and again.  It is important that you begin to pay attention to what you’re thinking about. I’ll often catch myself thinking something in fear or anxiety. That is a surefire way to create a situation...

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Walking Gently on the Earth

Take time today to step softly on the earth. The earth holds so much and is going through powerful changes. How can we honor her? This is not just about doing the right thing as it pertains to the environment. It means developing a completely new way of approaching nature. It means learning to respect nature. It means beginning to see the holiness within nature. It means living as part of an ecosystem and respecting the lives of all within it. In my society, in the world in which I was raised, the earth was here to be exploited. I never noticed trees with awe or appreciated birds and animals as creatures of God. Yes, I enjoyed nature as a kid would, climbing trees and playing...

From Fear to Faith

Living in fear means being disconnected from your heart, your source, and your true self. Fear can manifest as anxiety, anger, depression, and insomnia, to name a few. It can make your mind race and make you wilt. Though it may seem difficult in the middle of a fearful moment to see the way out, you don’t have to stay there. There is a pathway out of fear, and I believe it goes through your heart.  After my trauma and childhood, I lived in a constant state of fear. It became second nature for me to live this way. I had difficulty sleeping. I had anxiety. I always felt shut down. Though it manifested as a diagnosis of P.T.S.D., it felt much different than that. It felt...

Moving Towards Joy

What makes you feel joy? What sparks that feeling for you? What makes you smile? Whatever it is, do that more! Even if it is something small or if it seems insignificant. I believe feeling joy is one of the big reasons why we’re alive. Feeling joy, happiness, and contentment is a sure sign that you are aligned with your soul’s purpose.  As a child, I knew what joy felt like. I fell into a joyful state relatively easily, if memory serves me correctly. There seemed to be so much light and peace, and things were safe. As an adult, it takes some practice. It’s easy to get caught up in my day to day life. Jobs, family, finances, stress all end up in the forefront...

The Next Step

In tragedy or in triumph, whether you’re building something beautiful or repairing something broken, often all we need to do is to take the next step. When I’ve been in very difficult situations and very lost, it was easy to see a big world in front of me, become overwhelmed, and just shut down. Conversely, when I’m working towards making something I care about, I can get ahead of myself, become anxious, and also shut down.  The next step is right in front of you. Don’t make a situation more daunting than it needs to be. Just take the next step, whatever it may be. Hopefully, it will be easy for you to discern what the next step is, for whatever is occupying your mind and...

God and Religion

How do God and Religion go together? After my experience, that question came to the forefront of my mind very regularly. It still does. Having come from a mixed religious family and having a love of many religions, I’ve often struggled to make my experience make sense in a strictly religious way. I will say, many parts of the Bible made much, much more sense to me after my experience. But the prescribed ways of being in all the traditions to which I'd been exposed couldn’t encapsulate the beauty I saw in my experience. As I wrote in my bio, my father is Jewish, and my mother is Christian. Having been raised Jewish, I had a Bat Mitzvah at 13, and went Synagogue my whole...

Keeping the Faith

Keeping the faith in times of darkness, sadness, or confusion, can seem impossible, but it is doable. Stay strong and grounded in the hope of things to come – truly, things that are already so, but hard to discern on the earthly plane. When we are able to center ourselves in our spiritual reality, we can experience heaven on earth in this moment. Despite any appearances to the contrary, God is in everything.  During my experience with God, which you can read about more here, I felt true peace in a way I had not thought possible beforehand. I experienced so much beauty, light, and joy by connecting to God that I became seriously sad and depressed when I looked out into the world after my...

The Bigger Plan

Sometimes things happen in life that don’t seem to make any sense. You may lose a job, have a falling out with a friend, go through a divorce, or any number of things that, at the time they’re happening, seem unfair and incomprehensible. However, I do believe is a greater plan, and a reason why these things happen. You may not be able to see it right away, but if you give it some time, the reason will be made clear.  Throughout my life, I have sometimes found myself in situations in which I couldn’t see why I was there. Things happened to me that I couldn’t understand or didn’t make sense. This includes the “bad” things I’ve been through, like trauma, as well as “good”...