Kimestry

Every act is an act of self-definition. ~Neale Donald Walsch Life seems crazy sometimes. On a daily basis, we are inundated by responsibilities that seem overwhelming. There are multiple roles that we fulfill: husband, wife, son, daughter, employee or employer, sister, brother, mom and dad. There are bills to pay and those vacations we desire to take but feel that we cannot afford. Sometimes our resources appear very lacking. Other times, our health can be less than optimal. In addition to all of that, we are constantly subjected to prevailing thought forms in society that would convince us that all is definitely lost. The news brings us reports of school shootings, a discordant government, and economic collapse. The question then becomes, how do we maintain a feeling of peacefulness and centeredness in the face of all of these responsibilities and all of this bad news? One way to do this is to consciously and strategically expose ourselves to positivity in order to balance

October has been an interesting month. Several seeming setbacks have occurred and relationships with some loved ones appear very fragile. Sometimes I've been tempted to "throw in the towel". Other times I've been tempted to perform a spiritual bypass. What's spiritual bypass? It's when you are feeling really badly but you attempt to skip the grieving and anger and move straight to happiness because it just feels better. And most of the time it doesn't work. Why? Because underneath the "fake it til you make it", your true inner core is hurting. To loosely borrow Course in Miracles speaker Jacob Glass' expression, "It's like putting pink icing on a cake made of feces." At times like these I remember that I am not my feelings. My feelings are human experiences that I cannot bypass. I can, however, be kind to myself and walk through these emotions. As Abraham Hicks advises, we cannot necessarily move from sad to happy, but

Recently I had a friend unexpectedly stop returning my phone calls. That friend also de-friended me on Facebook. What's interesting is that I have no idea why. Any attempts to call and discuss whether there's a problem were met with silence. I felt sad and confused. I was left to ponder what I had done wrong. After thinking for awhile, I could not come up with anything that would cause someone to stop speaking to me. I'm just not one to mistreat a friend. If I do something wrong, I apologize. Yet, I cannot make amends if I do not know what I did wrong. Fortunately, I was encouraged by another friend to stop taking it personally and to allow myself to feel compassion for this uncommunicative friend. A fundamental spiritual concept was made popular through the writings of Don Miguel Ruiz in his wonderful book The Four Agreements. In it, he discusses how much of the pain and suffering we endure is a result of taking things personally. The truth is that when people do th