peace
Monitoring The Blame Game
We are in a time where the human activity of assigning blame is more public and becoming a common habit for the individual, as well as the collective. Have you noticed? Hands up if you participate in the Blame Game!
This is no judgment. What, no hand up? Is that because you don’t or is it a half-hearted admittance to participating, depending on the situation?
Whichever category above you chose to place yourself in, remember the propensity for assigning blame is natural. We may blame our boss for the unnecessary challenges at work. And we may blame the government for our household budget not making ends meet, due to too much tax. There are instances where there is a valid and specific rationale for blame. We are allowed to define why something did not go to plan, or as expected. Continue reading
Learning To Deal With Toxic Individuals
If, as many teachings suggest, there is spiritual growth in every experience, and in particular the more difficult times, then being strongly affected by another person’s negative behavior must also be one of life’s lessons.
I have been pondering this because of the increase in psychic reading calls I have been getting related to this very topic. Some of my clients have been profoundly upset lately by the negative outbursts of people in their lives, including family, friends, partners, work colleagues, or even random altercations in public places.
I love these words from the poem Desiderata: “Avoid the loud and the aggressive – they are vexations to the spirit.” How very true. However, more often than not, we are not in the position to avoid those individuals altogether, in order to escape their toxic influence. Even in a friendship turned sour, we often want to give the toxic friend the benefit of the doubt, knowing that they don’t always behave that way. We might even be in love with a negative person, hoping we can change them one day. Continue reading
We All Thrive Differently
I love plants and enjoy sharing space with them. I several in my home and take very good care of them. I’m mindful to water them around the same time every week and I even talk to them. In many ways, I look at them as my friends.
I live in a home that doesn’t get much sunshine, so I have selected plants that require low light. While they never receive any direct sunlight, they are thriving like champs and are healthy and happy.
Plants are much like people in that sense. Some of us require a lot of people around us to be happy, the same way some plants need lots of sunshine. But some of us require lots of quiet, alone time, like some plants prefer the shade. We all recharge and thrive in different ways. Continue reading
Finding Serenity
What is spiritual serenity, and how does one get to such an enlightened place? I’ve put forth this question many times throughout my life, and I’ve also had it asked of me. People hear what I do for a living and they immediately assume I walk around chanting Buddhist chants, or waving sage throughout my sacred space 24 hours a day. If only!
I don’t have the answers any more than the next person does. There are some things I have learned and seen, as I am sure I have yet more to learn and see. It is an endless cycle of not knowing and then knowing, the same cycle we all go through. The same lessons. It is only in how we apply them that we become different. We grow differently and start to use parts of ourselves that perhaps someone else, who is growing ‘at their own pace’ may not be using yet. And that is okay. Continue reading
Our Time Of Passing
A very good friend passed away recently. She left behind five children, and each of them was questioning why they didn’t do more to help their mom prolong her life, despite the fact that this very loving soul was in pain most of the time and had an extremely lonely existence.
She no longer had what one might call a ‘good quality of life.’ But they have taken it upon themselves to hold one another responsible to keep her on this plane, when it was becoming increasingly clear she was so very prepared to leave.
We discussed the situation at length and some of the siblings were finally convinced their mother’s time of passing had very little to do with them. If they had no bearing as to when she entered the planet, why on earth would they have a say as to when she could leave? Continue reading