Tending Your Inner Garden
How does your garden grow? Even if you are not currently growing a garden, close your eyes
and imagine what your garden would look like. What do you see first? Do you see the beautiful flowers or do you see the weeds?
I once know a gardener who spent so much of her time weeding that she was never able to enjoy her beautiful blooms. "You
just have get after those damn weeds," she would say. She focused so much on what she didn't want, that she couldn't
enjoy what she had.
If you want fewer weeds in your garden,
plant more flowers. The more that the space is filled with flowers means that there is less room for weeds. A garden, as in
life, takes constant tending. Take care of the weeds as soon as they appear and they will never become overwhelming.
As it is in the garden, it is in life. What are you growing in the garden
of your life? Are you filling it with positive uplifting thoughts and actions? Or do you feed the weeds of negative self-talk,
self-defeating actions and self-judgments.
As soon as we notice
something out of alignment in our life, a weed in our garden, we use the tools of Living Loving to root it out. Release the
things that no longer serve your garden. Don't hate the weeds; just remove them. The dandelions you want to remove from
your garden may be an expensive salad in an up-scale restaurant.
What
we focus on in life is what grows. Spend time each day being grateful for the beauty that already exists all around you. Fill
your heart with beautiful blooms. Plant more seeds. This is our choice, and maybe the only thing that we really have any control
over, the choice of developing an attitude of gratitude.
I
am reminded of this quote attributed to Gandhi among others, "Our thoughts become our words - Our words become our actions
- Our actions become our habits - Our habits become our character - Our character becomes our Destiny."
Choose your our destiny by focusing on want is already beautiful in your life. I am
grateful that you are a part of mine.
Peace,
Bill
Dec. 21, 2011
Sticks and Stones
“No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
My mother would often say, “Sticks and stones will break your bones but words
can never hurt you.” I didn’t believe her. Words did hurt me, sometimes they still do. It took
me years and years of deep inner work but I finally understood what this was about. There was something left out of the message.
“Sticks and stones will break your bones but words can never hurt you; unless you allow it.”
This was the critical part, “Unless you allow it.” I heard this more than a few times, but
it never helped. It would actually make thing worse. It didn’t seem true. Why would she tell me something that wasn’t
true? The words did hurt. I didn’t know that I had the power to choose what I took in and internalized or believed.
If someone says something to you in anger, you don’t have to believe
them or take in their negative energy. It is their anger that they are expressing, not yours, unless you allow it, unless
you take it in and make it yours. But, the words often do hurt. They hurt us in the places that we are already wounded inside.
They touch our unresolved issues.
It is often the people closest to us that we give the greatest power to. They know our
weaknesses. They know just where to poke our wounds. When we feel hurt we often strike back, escalating the confrontation,
creating more mistrust, misunderstanding and more wounds. You always hurt the one you love, because you know how.
They
are not the source of our pain and suffering. Instead of getting angry with them, we would be better served to thank them.
They are pointing the way to the places inside of us that are already hurting. They are giving us the opportunity to heal
some inner wound once and for all, healing a wound that will automatically move us to a happier more peaceful place.
There is a deeper level to all of this. It is one of those good news, bad news things. If at some level we didn’t
believe a part of what the other person was saying, it wouldn’t hurt in the first place. When their words touch a place
inside that is already wounded, it hurts. You have a choice on how you will respond. You
can go to that place inside where you are wounded and begin to heal the issue, however, it’s usually more common, to
just react at the same level, often times engaging in conflict.
It’s
important to note that whatever anyone else is saying comes from their own particular background and set of issues. Consider
that they may be projecting their negative perspective (baggage) onto you and trying to pull you down to their same miserable
level of existence. Their success depends on you and the action steps that you take for yourself.
Bill Stafford
February 7, 2011 As
we move into this New Year people are busy making their New Year's resolutions and, for many, already breaking them. Resolutions
are often about stopping unwanted behaviors. They are focused on the negative. They take a lot of will power (or won't
power.) It is far easier to release old behaviors or patterns when we are able to replace them with new more self-loving
ones. There is no magic to it, but it doesn't happen by itself. It requires a shift in consciousness and a little vision
and intention.
Resolutions tend to be either or, black
or white. If we break them, even just once, they go away and we promise ourselves we will try again next year. Whereas,
an intention focuses more on the positive and the direction you want to go. Creating an intention is like creating
a Guiding Star for your life. One of the beautiful things about an intention is that it cannot be broken. It
is a commitment to a life direction.
Create
a vision for what you want your life to look like this year. Close your eyes imagine and take control of your own destiny.
What does your life look like, feel like, smell like and even taste like? Use all of your senses. What do you see yourself
doing this year? Breathe life into your vision. This is more than a mere daydream. This is a life of possibilities. It is
creating your ideal life in consciousness first.
When
you commit to your vision your intentions become your Guiding Star. In our day-to-day lives it is easy to lose our direction,
to just doing what comes next and forget our dreams and visions. With a Guiding Star, if you find yourself "missing the
mark," you simply take course corrective actions. There is no need for self-judgments or to beat yourself up. Simply
look up, realign yourself and move forward.
This
year don't just dream about a better tomorrow, commit to taking the action steps necessary to making your vision real.
Write your intentions down where you can see them every day then follow your Guiding Star.
Bill
Stafford
January 3, 2011
THE ART OF GRATITUDE If
you go out looking for trouble you will probably find it in abundance. There are plenty of people around that are willing
to help you with this. They would love to hold you down and participate in their dramas. We seem to be programmed towards
the negative. We are more willing to believe the negative images of life than the good and the positive. But, if it is true
that trouble is easy to find, then it is also true that if we are willing to go out looking for the good and the loving, we
will find that, too.
What holds us back from creating
the most loving life possible for ourselves are the negative beliefs we hold against ourselves and the negative way we hold
on to the events of our past. There is often a part inside of us that believes that we do not deserve to have that loving
life; that little voice inside that is telling us to hold back, not now, you might be hurt again.
When we practice the art of gratitude we turn away from the negative images and
place our attention on the positive and loving parts of our lives. Whatever you are looking for you will find. With the practice
of gratitude we are looking for the loving that is all around us in every second of the day. It is always there, we just have
to be willing to see it, feel it and accept it into our hearts.
The magnificent gift we give ourselves of gratitude allows us to shift our consciousness to higher and higher levels
of peace and loving in the world. We have more to give and share. With each step we take life becomes that much lighter, that
much more worth living. We become more open to freely giving thanks for all of the good and wonderful we can find in
our lives right now.
As we practice and learn the art
of gratitude we have the opportunity to turn inward and begin the journey into our past experiences. Learn to be grateful
not only for the experiences that we judged as good, but also for the many challenges we have faced; the things we may have
judged as less than loving. The judgments we hold about the past are the very things that are holding us back from living
the most wonderful and loving life in the present. We give thanks for the learning and how the greatest challenges have made
us stronger or more compassionate.
Whatever we have experienced
in the past has brought us to where we are today. We always have a choice in the direction we turn; turn toward the negative
and judgment or turn toward the loving. The practice of gratitude begins to open those places inside that we have kept guarded
or protected and allows the light of loving in, if only a little at first. The dark, painful and wounded places that we all
have inside are the places that need this loving light the most.
Today I am grateful for my life and for the journey that I am making toward the light and the loving. I am grateful
for my many teachers along the way. At the time I thought some of the lessons were so painful I could not endure. Today I
am grateful for the depth of compassion and loving they have taught me. I am grateful that I am able now to freely share the
loving that always has existed in my heart.