Thanks GP and Goop for today’s newsletter. My response below. What’s yours and can it be expressed in a neutral non-judgemental way on both sides?

Normally a shop, travel, recipe and fun blog by Gwyneth Paltrow- Today she gives a little of herself in support of human acceptance and human growth. In this case homosexuality. And regarding the Bible no less.

http://goop.com/?page=newsletter_vn&id=most_recent

It really doesn’t need to be a heavy subject – it’s pretty simple actually. So thanks for posting GP and getting me to think about this for a moment, once again.

Here’s my reply:

photo by thayer gowdy (click photo to see her fab website)

I would just like to add that I interpret when Jesus speaks of “ I am the way” or “let me show you the way” and of the “Father”, that HE himself is saying “watch me” I am the Father and son and spirit in one, in this human form. Just as YOU are and have the potential to be here in this present life. The “way” is within us, not outside of us… When we see this we have found truth, found ourselves, found how to heal ourselves and the world… The Father is that all-encompassing LOVE that we came from and are part of, all of us, each one of us, connected by and through the “Father”. When you know this you are “saved” because you will become this grace and compassion and ultimately what Jesus and every other sacred evolved soul through time and history have been trying to show: LOVE. There is no room logically or scientifically and especially not spiritually for anything to exist that resembles judgment, within LOVE. Who are you to judge anyone but yourself. And furthermore, what you see in others is in yourself somewhere whether it be fear or unworthiness or lack of trust or love. So, heal yourself and heal the world. Don’t worry about others choices and avoid looking at your own. Care about your own spirit. You chose this life as a gift to learn, don’t waste it hating yourself deep down inside when you are truly worthy of the love you desire. Strive to “be who God meant you to be ( to me this is LOVE ) and you will set the world on fire.”  – Saint Catherine of Sienna. 🙂

Namaste. (I bow to the god within you:)

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Ask and you shall receive, because you already have it in YOU.

Russell Simmons has a book out now on the top sellers lists called Super Rich: A Guide to Having it All. Meaning we all have abundance. He said, We, all of us, need nothing. That when you ‘know’ this you are the ultimate giver (and thus receiver). That is what this “having-ness” is about.
The View compared him to Buddhists and mentioned the Dali Lama because Russell said it’s about compassion and smiling and ‘laughter’… Very interesting to me. It’s exactly Michael Tamura’s (and many others’) philosophy. Check out his book: YOU Are The ANSWER.  www.michaeltamura.com
The worldly connections are getting closer 🙂
Jay Z said recently, I think to Oprah “The worst thing you can do is be successful as someone else. I want to be successful as myself.” This again is about his true self, his soul that is bigger than his stories here and there, than his ego, than his fears. I love that Jay Z and Russell are sharing this. True givers and receivers in action. Of what that giving/receiving truly is. And directly in the midst of pop culture. That ‘compassion’, that ‘grace’ that we talk about or maybe you hear about and wonder, or you’ve felt in moments and remember, but weren’t sure how to hold it.

It’s not about holding, because as my teacher said yesterday, when you hold something it is because you don’t have it. When you learn to let go or ‘allow’ it, you see it remains within you and is part of you. You ARE that Grace. You ARE that Compassion. WE all are. Why do we resist exactly what we think we want then. Well, that’s a longer conversation, if you want to THINK about it… or you could just meditate and KNOW it :-). But basically, it’s not our fault. It’s part of our experience here on earth and in our human bodies. The great thing is, we can get back to who we truly are any moment we decide to do so. I believe that’s exactly what we are all here doing together in this world. Some faster than others, some not in this life but in the next. Whatever. We are all on this healing journey together regardless of our limiting ‘ideas’ of our world, of time and space and of right and wrong…

Rumi said: “Out beyond ideas of Wrongdoing and Rightdoing, there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, and even the phrase ‘eachother’ doesn’t make any sense.”

Even in 532ish A.D. we were on this path. 🙂

9 year old vs Paulo Coehlo. Who said it better?

photo by marianne campbell

My almost 9 year old goddaughter texted me last night from iphone to iphone using a majority of emoji  symbols (Japanese icons) saying:

“go drink ‘icon of beer’ meet a ‘icon of man’ get (engaged/married) ‘icon of ring’ get a ‘icon of big diamond’ have a ‘icon of baby’ then look (back) ‘icon of an arrow pointing back’ at what you have done”

This just after my discovered quote for today:

God will ask only: ‘Did you love while you were alive?’ For that is
the essence of life: the ability to love, not the name we carry around
on our passport, business card and identity card. – Paulo Coelho

Put’s it bluntly and in perspective huh. We speak the same longing, we want the same things, if only that being to love and to be loved- yet once again realized in so many different expressions and languages and visions. Difficult not to judge or even be defensive as an independent 38 year old woman, her “directions”. But I get it. As I told her in reply, nice plan: maybe with out the “beer” so I can recognize a good man 😉 but if I do one day have a child that is half as amazing as she has been to me in my life, I would be luckier than I ever imagined. And I imagine a lot. What a gift that wise child is. And a sweet teaching of not to judge the words of people, but the message within them.

My regards to the blamers and the non-speakers.

I just had a conversation with a friend and I realize, I actually am not one of those “blaming” people. I wrote about, in the last post, what I have experienced through others regarding that (blame) and yes, a bit from myself- but I handled things different in those matters for the most part. Not better just different. So, to clarify, I wasn’t ever a blaming type. I was probably a “make everything look alright”, “let them walk away and don’t stop them because there could be too much confrontation and pain”, or “they might abandon me and I might see there IS something wrong with me” type. Just let them be and have no reaction- until you explode and feel insane because you held your feelings in so long- type. Make sense? It shouldn’t but most likely it does.
WHY?
Why are many of us conditioned to believe our feelings “should not be”, or aren’t good enough, or are crazy or stupid? Even if they are crazy or silly, they are our feelings. They “should” be validated but there’s no guarantee for that. What we can do is validate them ourselves. And most likely if we get them out, they then have the chance to alter and become something else, rather than protecting them and keeping them there for too long to become stagnate and eventually a “sickness” or yucky thing inside.
IT IS OKAY TO FEEL WHAT YOU FEEL.
So get it out and then it can change and leave you… Right? This leads me to the fear behind the fact of doing this:
Judgment.
Well, yes, someone may judge you. And I say what you see in someone else is a reflection in yourself. You can’t recognize what isn’t in you. SO THERE. Let someone judge and then you can change it and they may be stuck wallowing in it OR they may change it too, then judge you differently. Either way, try to make decisions for yourself, for your health and soul- not for what you THINK others want, need or expect.
You are probably wrong anyhow. Think about that.

are you super angry, bitter, guarded? who can blame you? i can.

here’s what I know (today). being angry feels horrible. feeling bitter gives a strong sense of yuck-iness. And you are lying to yourself if you think it feels good. Maybe temporarily yes- of course! Throw things, yell, cry to your self and your friends. But hating someone because i think they “did me wrong” is BS.  it is much easier to blame someone and to continue to ignore the true essence of who YOU are. I did this for years… maybe always. and I’m not saying I don’t fall back into every now and then- I’m not perfect – well I am perfectly human so that’s another conversation- but a few years ago I “woke up”. it’s a process so even though I knew something drastic had changed in my own being, it is now, years later, where I see it has been growing and I’m in it and will continue to be the rest of my days here. the difference is- i’m awake within this process now. life. what I mean is I’m not resisting any longer. I’m not blaming others and looking outward. people create scenarios and relationships “together” and you can only hold yourself accountable for your part- where they are concerned it is their own personal path and honestly you have your part to play within it and beyond that- little to do with that other individual. no matter how close you were at one time- or for those many years- or because he said she said… Promises are promises yes, but I also realize that MOST people are not trying to harm you. The make mistakes too. They want to believe in something- their potential, yours, and may make promises or say things then guess what!!??!! They change. And because they may not be awake – they don’t have the tools to be honest to themselves about what is really going on. Maybe it could have worked maybe not… But what are you left with now? And what do you want to do with it.
Through a series of relationships and life experiences I realized I never knew what I wanted nor lived for myself. Truly. What I’ve learned is those relationships contributed to my getting to that awakening moment and I am forever grateful… The difference now is I choose differently, because my path has taken a new direction. Those times or relationships ran their course-even if the people involved are or are not in my life at this time. So trying to hold on to something that is past- literally- is resisting where you are going now. I’m not saying forgive and forget. Although that would be terrific because then no energy would be draining from me or mis-used- but that takes a lot of determination and you have to be willing. I had 3 different types of therapy during a 3 month period. Did what I thought was healing thru yoga/ meditation at the time- when I honestly had no idea HOW to meditate. I could barely sit still. Now I can meditate 2 hours- guided that is- but that’s a step!  and another topic. I read Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth nightly to set my ego aside and be able to sleep. and yet another topic- but back to being open vs. being closed: if you resist, your life will continue to challenge you emotionally, spiritually and so on… If you allow yourself to be gutted open, and say bring it on- you will be amazed how crazy and messy it will get yes! But how right it feels and how much better you will breathe AND that fact that you might be happier in moments than you ever dreamed possible.

“Universal language”

We are often saying the same thing in a different way… what does this mean? we speak in so many different words, tones, languages, emotions but often- it is the same thing or same intention we are speaking of- the truth or understanding of this gets lost in the language or the translation or the tone. I believe there is a universal understanding out there- and in here within us. this gets lost as we grow and age and become immersed within the earthly world- however, it is still there. it’s up to us to learn to see this clearly, to learn to listen and to truly “see” – beyond the pain and emotions and differences and things we are conditioned to believe are “truth”.

Here’s a passage taken from my teacher Juli Somers at the CFIT in Santa Fe:
“We not only forget what God is like, we forget what we are like – who we really are.  We forget why we are here and see ourselves as these one dimensional beings. We get lost in believing we are these bodies – I am this pain, I am these emotions and all the roles we play. As Carlos Castenada so brilliantly put it, we need to remove our awareness from the “numbing effects brought about by living at ordinary states of consciousness”. It isn’t easy being in these bodies at times. Daily life gives us our spiritual practice. If we are awake, we are always being encouraged to stretch into more of an authentic being-ness. The secret of life has been hidden inside each of us and we only have to look within discover why we are here.”

Thoughts?

“Find that which makes you enthusiastic-that which brings you enthusiasm. Whether is be a job, a cause, a family, a hobby, an activity, so on… alot may be revealed from that experience of enthusiasm discovered and nurtured…” Paulo Coelho