Upgrading Your Stories

Healing, Life, Story, Truth 0

When we upgrade, we are trading . . . Story for Story.  We’re not trying to convince ourselves we can change the truth about ourselves by reciting endless affirmations.  That hardly respects our intelligence and, furthermore, it doesn’t work.  As long as we hold that something is the truth, it is unchangeable.  As soon as we recognize it for what it is, however, a story, the story buffer line is open and we can help ourselves to a better one.

Regarding our Stories, the question is never “Is it true?” because it can’t be true; it’s just a Story.  The question also isn’t “Is it the right Story?” because that implies there’s only one correct choice.  The most helpful question is “Is this Story useful?”  Given what I care about, what I want to contribute, and what matters to me, is the story I’m telling myself a useful one?  Most of us constantly replay hundreds of inherited default Stories that trample our life energy and steal our peace of mind.

— Victoria Castle, The Trance of Scarcity:  Stop Holding Your Breath and Start Living Your Life, p. 35-36

The Present

Joy, Life 0

Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future.  Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment “as to the Lord.” It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for.  The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.

— C. S. Lewis, “Learning in War-Time” (The Weight of Glory), quoted in A Year with C. S. Lewis, p. 323

Miracles

Gratitude, Life, Story 0

It is a miracle if you can find true friends, and it is a miracle if you have enough food to eat, and it is a miracle if you get to spend your days and evenings doing whatever it is you like to do, and the holiday season — like all the other seasons — is a good time not only to tell stories of miracles, but to think about the miracles in your own life, and to be grateful for them.

— Lemony Snicket, The Lump of Coal

By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them

Life, Truth 0

You can only distinguish truth from error in one way: namely, by the fruits that follow in your own life and the lives of those who proclaim what they call truth.  That is, if the new illumination gives you the power to love and trust God more than you did before; to love all your fellow men in the One Body of Mankind; and to long to treat them only as you wish to be treated yourself; this is how you may discern the truth.  If you are able to love even those who wound your feelings and misconstrue your intentions; to accept it all with no resentment, bitterness, or self-pity, but with praise and thanksgiving, just as Jesus would; if this new belief raises you to a still higher level of love than you had reached before, then you may be sure that what you have seen is not false, but a part of a higher truth that you have not yet seen fully. . . .

It is possible, however, that in the future you may believe that you have been shown a yet higher facet of truth and find yourself reacting to reproaches and misunderstanding with resentment or anger.  You may begin to feel superior to others and to forget that even those who attack you are members of the One Body of Mankind in whom the Lord of Love is also conscious.  You may begin to belittle or to denounce them and to exalt yourself in your own thoughts.  Then you may well doubt whether the new supposed truth is true after all.  For only what is true itself can deliver you and set you free from everything which is not of the truth, and which is unlike the Ideal of the Kingdom of Heaven.  So, remember, you can only discern between truth and falsity, the good and the evil, by the attitudes, reactions, and way of life which they awaken in you as you accept them.

— Hannah Hurnaud, Eagles’ Wings to the Higher Places, p. 52-53

Exciting Possibilities

Joy, Letting Go, Life 0

When the heart is ready for a fresh beginning, unforeseen things can emerge.  And in a sense, this is exactly what a beginning does.  It is an opening for surprises.  Surrounding the intention and the act of beginning, there are always exciting possibilities.

— John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us, p. 5

Learning to Wait

Letting Go, Life, Trials 0

I’ve started to realize that waiting is an art, that waiting achieves things.  Waiting can be very, very powerful.  Time is a valuable thing.  If you can wait two years, you can sometimes achieve something that you could not achieve today, however hard you worked, however much money you throw up in the air, however many times you banged your head against the wall.

— The Courage to Change by Dennis Wholey

. . .

We don’t have to put our life on hold while we wait.  We can direct our attention elsewhere; we can practice acceptance and gratitude in the interim; we can trust that we do have a life to live while we are waiting — then we go about living it.

— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 293

New Choices

Healing, Letting Go, Life 0

That’s the heartening news for those of us on a spiritual path.  We don’t have to do what we always did!  We don’t have to think the way we always thought.  We don’t have to expect what we always expected.

— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, p. 19-20