Feeling Good About Ourselves

by Susan Ann Darley

What have you done lately to nurture yourself, enhance your creativity and honor your soul? Feeling sad lately? When we neglect ourselves in the mad rush to make a living, take care of business and raise our families, we die a little with each passing day. A thousand daily deaths can lead to a barren life starved for affection and love. And yet we don't understand. Our partner loves us, our children need us, our friends are there for us and our employer counts on us. We are loved and needed we defiantly state. So we continue our frantic pace and fill up our lives with busyness.

Our faces, with well-applied make-up, mask the pain of our souls that lie waiting for us to discover what real beauty is. Until we touch the beauty of our souls and live from our own heartfelt inspiration, we live with a profound sadness and longing.

Some women desperately search their entire lives to find a cure for such emptiness. The quest for a man, success and eternal youth override the longing of their souls.

Our obsession with our physical appearance has reached epidemic proportions. Women seem more dissatisfied with their bodies than they were even two or three decades ago. Some types of plastic surgery on any number of body parts can be performed on our lunch hours. It's time to ask, "What in the world are we teaching our daughters?"

And why the impossible quest for perfection? Why do we mold and reshape our faces and bodies? Do we do it to appear younger, to keep our jobs, to attract a lover or to feel better about ourselves?

How long can we feel good about ourselves when we seek artificial means to make our lives work? How long can we feel good when we value our appearance more than ourselves?

Why can't we say "no" to societal pressure to conform to impossible beauty standards? What will we lose? Why does the risk seem so high?

We could choose to grow old gracefully. When enough join the chorus it will change. But we are caught in the glamour of the external world in search of the eternal fountain of youth. We are under the influence of the opinions of others and afraid to rock the boat. So again and again we give our power away and by doing so, give our permission to be taken for granted, used and
exploited.

In other words we play the role of the victim - an all too familiar role for women to play. Over and over we play this role as it is handed down from generation to generation. Regardless of where and how we play it out, our complacency blinds us to its often-subtle disguise.

From a victim state-of-mind we become needy. Neediness is a form of negative dependency that brings up all kinds of negative emotions such as resentment, jealousy, and anger. Not knowing how to nurture ourselves and take care of ourselves emotionally, we depend on others to do so. When they fail to do so, we rage. And oddly enough, even when they do so, we rage even more. Why? Because we know deep inside that our emotional health is not dependent on others, but ourselves. We know that our strength to move beyond the victim state comes from within. Deep inside we know that absolutely no one can have power over us unless we allow it.

Yet we make excuses for the abusive people in our lives. We blame ourselves for their insensitive and harmful behavior. We take care of others at our own expense. We stay in destructive relationships out of convenience. And the cycle perpetuates itself over and over.

From neediness to rage, these are the collective deep wounds of women. Only truth will soften the edges of our pain. Only learning how to honor ourselves will heal our sorrow.

If we are so good at taking care of others, then why is it so hard to take good care of ourselves? Perhaps we haven't been taking such good care of others. I can feel the caregivers of the world -- overworked, overtired, underpaid and rarely acknowledged, glaring at me with vengeance.

When we take care of ourselves first, then we can give freely and generously of ourselves without resentment. With our own needs met through self-acknowledgment we can lovingly help others. However, the very thought of putting ourselves first usually produces major guilt. How dare we?

Get over it. Take good care of yourself. Show the world how much you value you. Learn to say no. Set healthy boundaries. Protect yourself. Tell the truth. Be honest with yourself. Live your life with integrity. Take care of your emotional, mental and physical well being. Take care of your finances. Acknowledge your feelings. Trust your intuition. Follow your heart. Honor your creativity.

Easy to suggest and write, but not always easy to do, for where there's a victim, there's a bully not far behind. When you've been beaten up enough, you begin to believe you're damaged. And when you start to believe that lie, you beat up on yourself. The bully can be long gone, but the script is still read, in fact memorized all too well.

It takes conviction to rewrite the script. It takes courage to prove to ourselves that we're intelligent, talented and valuable. It takes perseverance to nurture our dreams to fruition.

And in our solitary moments we realize what is possible. Not only can we forge beyond the past, we must. So when you lose your confidence and it all seems to fall apart and the journey is too damn long and you're too tired to care anymore, ask yourself, "What will be my legacy?"

Stop. Pray. Ask for strength and the wisdom to understand your true identity. Look past appearances and stop comparing yourself to others. Reconnect with your spiritual essence. You will become stronger, more powerful, more confident and desirable. There is nothing more appealing and sensual than pure love and joy.

Allow divine feminine energy to flow through you as a healing force. Be filled with its grace and let it overflow into the world. This energy when used consciously is a powerful force. It has been dormant for too long, buried deep within our souls. Let it rise and stand. Allow it to join forces
with the masculine energy of the world in order to create and give birth to your vision. It will temper, teach, heal, and balance. When both forces, at long last, stand side-by-side, we will then experience true equality. We will then know that our journey has been worthwhile.

This article was excerpted from The Power of Constructive Love, by Susan Ann Darley.

What it Takes

"I believe half the unhappiness in life comes from
people being afraid to go straight at things."
-William J. Lock-

*~*~*~*~*~*

What It Takes

You have what it takes to make an ordinary day into a great one that will always be remembered.
For what it takes is nothing more than the willingness to live every moment like it will never come again.
You have what it takes to transform small, easily performed actions into great accomplishments.
For what it takes is nothing more than the persistence to make one small step, and then another,
and another, until the job is done.

You have what it takes to make every moment better than the one before.
For what it takes is nothing more than choosing to learn all you can from both the victories and the defeats.

You have what it takes to live a life of meaning and fulfillment.
For what it takes is nothing more than committing yourself, in each moment,
to what you know is right for you.

You have what it takes to move beyond your fears.
For what it takes is the understanding that fear is not there to stop you, but to prepare you.

You have what it takes, right now, this very day.
So choose to make it happen.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Rockets of Desire

Participant: So on these difficult subjects that come up and they are a part of the daily life and they are always a frustration … such as money, love and health. And you have said not to tackle the most difficult, the most pressing one first …

Abraham: Well we say that if you can focus upon things that you don't have a big negative vibration built up around, the Universe will delivery it to you quickly which will give you confidence in your ability to focus, it will give you confidence in the Law of Attraction, it will give you confidence in your worthiness. So we always say start with easy things until you've proven to yourself the power of the Law of Attraction and proven to yourself your ability to focus. But once you've got that then we encourage you to clean up your vibration on every subject under the sun.

Your vibration is right where you last left it on every subject. So let's say when you were in high school someone miss treated you in some way. And you never really got over it. You remember the hurt. You remember the wrong-doing. You remember how you felt. You remember the disadvantage that you took away from it. But then you left there. Eventually you stopped talking about that person. And while you still occasionally have people treat you in that way, it doesn't come up very often and you don't think about it that often. And then somebody says something to you that triggers that. And so now it is active again. And as you begin pondering that again, you feel that hurt all over again. That means your vibration never moved from that hurt. You haven't been thinking about it so it hasn't been a big player in your vibration. But it has been lying there dormant with the potential of being activated and now something has happened that activated it. Now because it was there where you last left it, and you are living in the world and you are observing things around the world, different things that you observe have the potential of activating that because it is still where you last left it.

So our encouragement is that sooner of later you take it and you talk it downstream. You do it on purpose. It might that you two or three days, here and there, here and there. But you leave it in a whole different place. Now you've left it in a different place. It doesn't have the potential of ever being activated again. In other words you've moved yourself to a new place and now it's not going to curb out of the bushes and club you over the head over and over again, because you've shifted the vibration of it.

Participant: Even though that thought still exists?

Abraham: The thought exists but you took that subject and deliberately morphed it … in other words, while that happened, you launched Rockets of Desires. So the Source within you saw that relationship, saw that happen, saw what you didn't want, saw what you did want, and the Source within you gives its undivided attention to what you want that you derived from that experience. And that Source perspective on that has been potentially active with you all along. So when you deliberately talk about that subject and talk yourself into alignment about it,now that can never creep up again. All of your power is right here because you ability to focus is right here. So as you use your "power of now" and you focus right now on something that closes the gap and causes you to align with Who You Are, you become this vibrational being that is the extension of Source energy and before you know it those vibrations become your dominant vibrations which makes you impervious to mistreatment. It makes it not possible for anything other than what you want to flow into your experience. As long as anything other than that is happening, it means you got those vibrations still active so there's still some work to do.

So it's fun for us to watch people get hold of this idea of finding relief, finding relief, finding relief because when your intent is to feel good no matter what the subject is that moves through your mind … so subject after subject, you just find the best feeling thought about it that you can find. Before you know it because of all this different variety of subjects, you've cleaned up these core issues that you've been carrying around for a while. And then you are finally this loving being who feels invincible.

Abraham – San Francisco 2.24.07A

It is the Law!

Quote:

"Ask and it shall be given you; seek and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you." -Matthew 7:7

"The Law of Attraction and its magnetic power reaches out into the universe and attracts other thoughts that are vibrationally like it. You get the essence of what you are thinking about, whether it something you want or something you do not want." -Esther & Jerry Hicks, "The Law of Attraction"

Thought:

"The Secret" is one of the most popular books this season. The reason it has such a wide readership is that it presents the Law of Attraction, the basic premise of which, is that we all have the capacity to create everything we want in our lives; we can create and fulfill our dreams, goals, and become who we want to be. The "secret" is that our thoughts, coupled with our feelings, radiate a vibrational energy that will attract similar or like energy patterns. There is nothing we cannot create and nothing we cannot release from our lives.

Many truth students think the law of attraction is a passing fad. But there are numerous scriptural passages that validate this universal law: "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." "Ask, and ye shall receive," "Judge not, lest ye be judged." These passages, as well as numerous others show how our thoughts and consciousness will manifest our reality.

If our thoughts and feelings control what we attract, then why is it that few of us possess all that we seek...abundance, health, fulfilling careers and meaningful relationships? Perhaps we concentrate our thoughts on the lack of what we desire. Whether we put forth positive or negative vibrations, the universe will not discriminate. What goes forth, comes back in "like" manner. Like attracts like, and if our thoughts are careless and focused on "want," the universe will respond accordingly and attract more "want." Job was the perfect example how fearful thoughts attract: "That which I fear has come upon me." So how can we change our vibrational energy to create that which we do want?

First, we must change the focus of our thoughts and stop complaining about all the things that happen to us during the course of the day. How often does the traffic upset us; how often does the fluctuation of the stock market result in frustration; how often do we bicker about the political arena; how often do we resent our co-workers or spouses for not living up to our expectations? Our complaints send out a negative vibration and so we get more of what we complain about!

Secondly, we should turn our thoughts to God. Life will always present challenges and issues that need resolution. Instead of concentrating on the difficulties we should focus on Emmet Fox's "golden key" rule of turning inward and turning to God. The inner turmoil will be transformed into God's peace, joy and love and we will experience the presence and power of God. By putting God first in all things, we will be amazed at the power of our prayer to bring about the perfect solution to our problems.

The last step we can take to change our vibrational energy is to praise, bless and appreciate all the things in our lives, whether it's a smile from another, a kind word, a beautiful sunrise or the loving welcome we receive from our faithful pet! As we bless and appreciate all that we experience we create a positive flow of energy that attracts even more of our good.

So let us set an intention of "no complaining," placing God first in our lives, praising, blessing and expressing appreciation for the gifts we have been given. We will become powerful magnets drawing unto us the fulfillment of our dreams, goals and aspirations. There will be nothing we cannot have, nothing we cannot do, nothing we cannot become. It is the law!

Published by Spirit Online

Desire

Desire
While prayer, affirmations and other efforts to concentrate the mind sometimes yield results, they do so only when there is a strong desire behind the mental practice.

Asking for something mentally is not enough.

You must ask for it with your whole being.

Swingin" on a Hook

The movie, “The Secret” and the Law of Attraction have been the buzz and talk on many talk shows, radio, as well as in the newspaper, books and discussed at many church groups for the last few months. It seems everyone has an opinion on it and does it work or not. What the law of attraction is really saying is what we focus on or “lock onto” with our thoughts is what we will see manifested or appear in our lives.

Some folks think of ships carrying their treasures, with such statements as “when my ship comes in a” My dad used to say “Someday when my ship comes in I’ll…………………” I never knew what was on his ship, as he never finished the sentence for me and it did not appear to come in. Maybe it did, and he had sought some other “treasure” than I was used to seeing when younger. For me, that ship at sea with its cargo traversing the choppy seas in storms and tempests was the law of attraction. Maybe someday, it would make its way to me. I had become my father, “Someday when my ship comes in I’ll….”

A couple of years ago, I was in Portland, Maine on vacation and took a tour of the harbor by land and by sea. The sea phase is the Lovers Lighthouse Tour, and the seas being choppy while I was there we never left the harbor! But it is a huge harbor. We did see many lighthouses, sailing schools training people to sail, and sights of local interest. The skipper gave us good explanations of what we were seeing, and off in the distance were several freighters that were on the horizon, seemingly at anchorage.

In the harbor I saw crab fisherman tending nets, colorful crab buoys, the old forts to protect the harbor during WWII, numerous smaller lighthouses, huge gun batteries on shore, sailing schooners, and islands used by permanent residents as well as tourists. But what struck me was the skipper’s description of the freighters on the horizon. He referred to the freighters as “swingin’ on a hook” as they were just outside the harbor anchored and waiting for favorable prices for the goods that were in their holds. The country or business they were here to deliver the goods for was in phone contact with the freighters skippers, and they would issue the order to proceed to dockage to unload the cargo when prices became most favorable for them. Until then, they rested at anchor - or “swingin’ on a hook” in nautical terms, the anchor being the hook. Once the order was given, then the freighters would pull anchor and head into the harbor, dock, and unload their goods to the warehouses, etc.

At this point, the light bulb clicked on for me, (an “ahah” moment) as realization dawned that this is the Law of Attraction in principle and how it really works. My dad used the ship at sea and someday it would pull into port analogy, but in all practical sense - that ship is a lot closer – a whole lot closer! Instead of the ship being off somewhere on the high seas, it is actually in our harbor or sphere of energy, and all we need to do is give the order to the universe to dock and unload. We are the owners and master of that freighter, and all that is required is for us to do is make contact, align ourselves with the Universe and allow the ship to dock and download its cargo.

Less is better than More

In the beginning we think “more” is the answer to our perception of not having enough. More money, more activity, more lovemaking. But, in time, we learn that “less” works better. Less stimulation, fewer relationships, less activity all lead to the deepening of our experience. When we focus deeply on what happens, we assimilate it fully. Then, we feel satisfied. We know that we have had enough. We don’t need more.