Good Things Coming

Joy, Letting Go, Life 0

Do not worry about how the good that has been planned for you will come.

It will come.

Do not worry, obsess, think you have to control it, go out hunting for it, or tangle your mind trying to figure out how and when it will find you.

It will find you.

Surrender to your Higher Power each day.  Trust your Higher Power.  Then, stay peaceful.  Trust and listen to yourself.  That is how the good you want will come to you.

Your healing.  Your joy.  Your relationships.  Your solutions.  That job.  That desired change.  That opportunity.  It will come to you — naturally, with ease, and in a host of ways.

That answer will come.  The direction will come.  The money.  The idea.  The energy.  The creativity.  The path will open itself to you.  Trust that, for it has already been planned.

It is futile, a waste and drain of energy, to worry about how it will come.  It is already there.  You have it already.  It is in place.  You just cannot see it!

You will be brought to it, or it will be brought to you.

— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 368

Haunted by Goodness

God, Joy, Life 0

It strikes us that to hope in the kind of goodness that would set our heart free, we must be willing to allow our desire to remain haunted.  This side of the Fall, true goodness comes by surprise, the old writings tell us, enthralling us for a moment in heaven’s time.  They warn us it cannot be held.  Something inside knows they are right, that if we could do so, we would set up temples to worship it and the Sacred Romance would become prostitution.  We understand that we must allow our desire to haunt us like Indian summer, where the last lavish banquet of golds and yellows and reds stirs our deepest joy and sadness, even as they promise us they will return in the fragrance of spring.

— Brent Curtis & John Eldredge, The Sacred Romance, p. 140

Loving What Is

Letting Go, Life 0

I am a lover of what is, not because I’m a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality.  We can know that reality is good just as it is, because when we argue with it, we experience tension and frustration.  We don’t feel natural or balanced.  When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.

— Loving What Is, by Byron Katie, p. 2

The Best Attitude

Gratitude, Life, Love 0

Giving up judgmental attitudes requires that we replace them with some other attitude.  Our minds will not remain idle.  The best attitude to cultivate and the one that changes everything and everyone — you and all of the people you formerly judged — is gratitude.  Having an attitude of gratitude is what allows us to see everyone in our path as necessary and an opportunity for us to express unconditional love.  You see, judgment and love cannot coexist, and we’re expressing one or the other almost all the time.  Seldom are we indifferent to our experiences, to the people we are sharing those experiences with, and to the set of expectations we have created around those experiences.  Becoming more loving, attempting to develop the attitude of unconditional love, in fact, is the real assignment we have been given in this life.  No one can do the work for us.  No one can prevent us from doing the work.  And everyone benefits every time any one of us makes even a tiny effort to grow in our willingness to love rather than judge.

— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, p. 53-54

Angry or Joyful

Joy, Letting Go, Life, Peace 0

Starting arguments, blaming others, or internalizing anger is not the way to go through life.  Treat the problem knowing that you will get through it, and you will be a better person because of it.  Remember, you can spend your life being angry or joyful.  You control only one thing: your thoughts.  So find the serenity within yourself.  Or as my wife says, “Never go to bed mad.  Stay up and fight.”  Keep your sense of humor, express your feelings, and recognize your power, and you will spend more time at peace than at war.

— Bernie Siegal, M.D., Love, Magic & Mudpies, p. 186

Clutter Steals Our Space

Letting Go, Life 0

Repeat after me:  I only have the space I have.  It comes back to living in the present.  You need space to live a happy, fruitful life.  If you fill up that space with stuff for “the next house,” your present life suffers.  Stop claiming your house is too small.  The amount of space you have cannot be changed — the amount of stuff you have can. . . .  Hoarding for “someday” is never worth it.  If you’re really going to be that much richer, you’ll be able to afford the stuff you need when you need it.

— Peter Walsh, It’s All Too Much:  An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff, p. 40

Up to Us

Joy, Life 0

It’s up to us to determine our happiness.   No one else is in charge.  No one else is to blame.  No one else gets the credit.  Our happiness is tied to our willingness to be responsible for our own moods.  That’s a certainty — one of few in this life.  It’s also a certainty that any happiness we feel in the company of others is not the result of their attention, their happiness or good fortune, or their commitment to us.  It’s the result of our commitment to ourselves.  Let’s be grateful for that!  Accepting this, accepting that we are responsible for ourselves and ourselves alone, is the key to allowing the rest of our lives to unfold as they were meant to do.

— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, p. 51

Our Own Journey

Letting Go, Life, Relationships 0

Minding other people’s business simply isn’t the work we are here to do, regardless of how seductive the idea may be.  We each must make our own journey, and even when it appears that someone we love is making a poor decision about an important matter, unless we are asked for advice, it’s not our place to offer it.  Besides, minding your own business will keep you as busy as you would ever need to be.

— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, p. 45

What Now?

Joy, Life 0

Writing a novel and living a life are very much the same thing.  The secret is finding the balance between going out to get what you want and being open to the thing that actually winds up coming your way.  What now is not just a panic-stricken question tossed out into a dark unknown.  What now can also be our joy.  It is a declaration of possibility, of promise, of chance.  It acknowledges that our future is open, that we may well do more than anyone expected of us, that at every point in our development we are still striving to grow.  There’s a time in our lives when we all crave the answers.  It seems terrifying not to know what’s coming next.  But there is another time, a better time, when we see our lives as a series of choices, and What now represents our excitement and our future, the very vitality of life.  It’s up to you to choose a life that will keep expanding.  It takes discipline to remain curious; it takes work to be open to the world — but oh my friends, what noble and glorious work it is.

— Ann Patchett, What Now? p. 76-78