Aaah! The Power and Wisdom of Intention

I first watched The Secret a little over a year ago. After my first viewing I watched it every day for over a month. I tried creating a vision board but ended up with a collage of a magical garden with a hummingbird and my teacher and Lakshmi hanging out with me and my best friend Pam. It's quite beautiful and everyone loved it so much that I made one for my mom for her birthday. I actually didn't really feel that I had accomplished what I had set out to do but I loved the collage and that was great.

At the same time I went through some magazines and picked out a few pages with photos of things that I wanted to change in my life. I only remember two of the pages one was a woman doing yoga and one was a photo of some healthy looking organic food. Lastly I wrote in a gratitude journal every day for a few months and then off and on for the past year or so. In my gratitude journal I write about the love that I feel radiating from inside and out. I express gratitude for my healthy, strong, lithe and beautiful body mind and spirit. I say thank you for the ease with which I walk through this life. There are other things but those are the constants.

Here I am about a year from the first time I watched The Secret. Let's see... I am doing yoga every day because I feel like doing it not because I feel I should be doing it. I feel stronger and more present in my postures than I ever have and I actually taught yoga many years ago! I eat almost entirely organic and my overall diet is much more healthy, again because I crave these foods now. I do my yoga practice in a garden where there are, I'm not kidding, two or three hummingbirds buzzing around and occasionally alighting on a branch near me. There is a baby bunny who pops out once in awhile and has actually fallen asleep near me. Majestic eagles soar above me almost every day. One day two baby deer were laying down in the field next to me quietly watching. Could this garden be any more magical? I find heart shapes everywhere. If you want to see a couple more of them go to this posting. You will likely be surprised. I still get these hearts all the time.

I am more relaxed and calm than I have ever been. My family and friends have all noted and praised the change in me. More importantly I have noted the change in me. After many years of being told that I must first love myself... I DO! I really do feel incredible love for myself. I still get the old crap rearing it's head occasionally but it has so much less power than ever before. I might listen for an hour or so now and then I just go outside and reconnect with myself and get back to creating my beautiful life. I am happy and grateful to be manifesting love, joy and magical gardens. Oh yes and, of course, a healthy, strong, lithe and beautiful body, mind and spirit!

Emotional Rescue

Tragedy struck my happy little universe a few weeks ago. My precious itty bitty kitty, Buddy-Licious, injured his back and two days later his beautiful soul was released from his tiny body, by way of injection, at a hospital in New Jersey. It was a very trying ordeal and the week following was no picnic either. Just so you know, Buddy was an amazing little kitty who stole the heart of anyone who dared cross his path. He was the most wonderfully affectionate little creature I have ever met and as you can see from his photo he was one of the cutest as well. So anyway, needless to say, I have been grieving pretty intensely. As I walk around my house I can see my precious B running around after me, sleeping, eating and playing. The memories tear my heart. In the beginning I simply could not stop crying, well sobbing actually. I am reasonably certain that my B has moved on to do his good work elsewhere and he is fine, I just miss him like crazy.

At first I felt that all joy had evacuated from my life, never to return. The anguish engulfed, or rather I allowed the anguish to engulf me. I did not have control over the feelings of loss and sadness. However, I absolutely did had control over the degree of control that I allowed them to have over me. I witnessed my grieving and began to feel the need to reign it in before it turned into a bout of depression. So, I began writing in my gratitude journal again. I started by writing a thank you letter to Little Buddy for the incredible gift of his love and joyful presence. I cried but I also felt intense gratitude which has begun to heal my aching heart.

Several days later I was having a conversation with a friend about gratitude among other things. In the middle of the conversation I suddenly understood one of the lessons that I could choose to take from my Little Buddy's passing. For some time I had been making a conscious choice to live a joy-filled life. I had decided to choose happiness and joy and gratitude as a way of life. When everything was reasonably good it was an easy choice. I had truly started to become a more tolerant, relaxed and happy person. Everything really seemed to go my way. When my precious B died it felt as though the rug had been pulled from under my feet. I felt that I was being punished for something that I had done. My mind tried to go there but, thank goodness, I did not allow it to take up residence. I cycled through the different stages of grieving. (I still am actually.) I felt the pain that felt like it was killing me... and then I came out the other side. I won that battle.

I feel sadness when I remember having my Little Buddy constantly around me. Sometimes a lot and sometimes not as much. I will probably miss him forever. My dear old Dad still misses his childhood pup Skippy and he's in his seventies. But, even so, I choose to live a life of joy and gratitude and it's not dependant on everything always going my way. It's dependant on absolutely nothing. It's a choice that I must recommit to on a daily basis. It's a choice that I must honor. It's a choice that I must work for and allow. Now that choice is coming to my emotional rescue when I most need it. Yay for me! I have not lost my way in the forest of my grief and anguish. I am spending the time that I need to there and then I am coming back out into the light again. Kinda like a healthy person... amazing!

Thank you B, you made my life a better place. I miss you like crazy and I will always be grateful for the short time that I had with you my Angel Buddy.

I have found that some people do not understand the grief that I feel. "Psychologists have long recognized that the grief suffered by pet owners after their pet dies is the same as that experienced after the death of a person. The death of a pet means the loss of a non-judgmental love source." ~ Margaret Muns DVM

There are books about it and support websites to help with the grief and feelings of guilt. If any of you have lost a pet, and are finding that you feel tremendous grief and/or guilt, there are some links below that may help you. I find "The Rainbow Bridge" to be particularly comforting to read. It may sound silly but it does bring hope to my heart.

May you abide in joy one and all.

http://rainbowsbridge.com/Poem.htm

http://www.petloss.com/muns.htm

http://www.petloss.com/dealing.htm

Gratitude Revisited

You might think this topic would be more appropriate at Thanksgiving time... I beg to differ. This is a year round topic, it is a New Years Resolution topic. I don't generally do New Years Resolutions but this year will be my first really genuine one.

Many years ago I was living in an ashram in India. One sunny day I was sitting in a beautiful marble courtyard listening to my teacher who was giving a talk on the subject of gratitude. I became increasingly intrigued as she spoke about the joy that true gratitude offers. She told us that this was a spiritual experience that could be cultivated over time. I really wanted the experience that she described. So, I decided to attempt to cultivate the experience of gratitude. Every day I would approach my teacher and as I placed my head on the floor in front of her I said silently to myself, "Thank you!". It was no stretch to feel grateful to my teacher, I already felt that, but that feeling was not exactly what she had described in her talk. Still it made my chosen task pretty easy. About two weeks after I'd begun my silent gratitude I went and placed my head at the feet of my teacher and I said my silent "thank you" as always. This time, however, I received a burst of joy that would melt any heart, perhaps every heart on the planet!

After I got up and moved myself along I went to a chant that I attended every day at that time. I was giddy with joy as I looked around the room. Every person I saw glowed with golden light, I am not joking, golden light! I swear to God that for the next few weeks I was completely filled with love and joy. It was such a wonderful and powerful experience that when I contemplate it, even all these years later, I start to feel the joy again. It really gave me insight into the whole count your blessings thing. And yet oddly enough I somehow forgot about it again for quite a few years.

Then I bought the dvd "The Secret" and it re-opened the subject. I watched it every day for over a month. It completely changed my outlook which at the time was not fantastic. It was exactly the spiritual boost I had been looking for. Phew! Out of that experience came my gratitude journal. I decided that the only way that I would be able to maintain the practice of counting my blessings every day would be to write them down. I took direction from my past experience and of course from "The Secret" teachers and I started writing "Thank You for..." in a journal. I have been doing it every day since. Not because I feel obligated but because I feel freakin' amazing! On days when I do not feel 'juiced' I read what I have written on previous days and boy does that juice start flowing! Then I write a few pages and you cannot believe what a powerful and fantastic practice this is.

If you don't know what I am talking about then try it. Get a journal and just start writing about the things that you are grateful for every day. See what happens! You will be truly amazed. Also check out "The Secret" if by some remarkable chance you haven't already. I was so inspired that I started a new business designing t-shirts.(TempleGreen.Com) I have never been more joyful and at ease, for this extended a period of time, in my entire life. I take "Follow Your Bliss" very seriously these days. Well... seriously may not be the best word, I try not to take anything too seriously. I'll just say that I definitely follow my bliss now and it feels pretty darn fantastic!

http://www.thesecret.tv/

http://www.jcf.org/bliss.php

http://www.todoinstitute.org/gratitude.htm

http://www.templegreen.com