I am

In a group I am in, a very wise person shared about who they are. This is a real bit of enlightenment for me. I was always searching for who I am. Now, its easy to say I am a woman, a mother, a lover, a pagan, an artist, a priestess of the wild magick and a student of the Great Mysteries. These are things that are my essential self. To change them or to quit being any of these things would require a change in my core being.

What I am not is my job, my home, my material possessions or any particular spiritual path. If I had to quit any of these things, my core being would be unchanged. Certainly I'd feel the loss but I would still be who I am.

It's a choice

I know this is one of those silly little inspirations stories passed about in email but I really thought it had a good message that NEEDS to be passed around. So many people don't realize they DO have a choice. So, read it and then, just as it says below, let it really sink in and then choose.

Dreamweaver

LET IT REALLY SINK IN - THEN CHOOSE.

John is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood andalways has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he wasdoing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!"
He was a natural motivator.
If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employeehow to look on the positive side of the situation.
Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and askedhim, "I don't get it!
You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?"
He replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choicestoday. You can choose to be in a good mood or ... you can choose to be in abad mood.
I choose to be in a good mood."
Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or...I canchoose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it.
Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept theircomplaining or... I can point out the positive side of life. I choose thepositive side of life.
"Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested.
"Yes, it is," he said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away allthe junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react tosituations. You choose how people affect your mood.
You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's yourchoice how you live your life."
I reflected on what he said. Soon hereafter, I left the Tower Industry tostart my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when Imade a choice about life instead of reacting to it.
Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident,falling some 60 feet from a communications tower.
After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released fromthe hospital with rods placed in his back.
I saw him about six months after the accident.
When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd betwins...Wanna see my scars?"
I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through hismind as the accident took place.
"The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of mysoon-to-be born daughter," he replied. "Then, as I lay on the ground, Iremembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or...I couldchoose to die. I chose to live."
"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked.
He continued, "..the paramedics were great.
They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me intothe ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, Igot really scared. In their eyes, I read 'he's a dead man'. I knew I neededto take action."
"What did you do?" I asked.
"Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me," said John."She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes, I replied.' The doctors andnurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breathand yelled, 'Gravity'."
Over their laughter, I told them, "I am choosing to live. Operate on me asif I am alive, not dead."
He lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of hisamazing attitude... I learned from him that every day we have the choice tolive fully.
Attitude, after all, is everything.
After all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

Fly from the inside

I made a post on yahoo 360 some time back about turning inside out. It can be so hard to be on the outside who we truly are on the inside. Sometimes we hide who we really are so deep that we don't even know who we are. We actually hide from ourselves! Well, I decided I'd had enough of that nonsense. I was going to be me, through and through! On that day, I started doing the things I wanted to do. Sure, I still have responsibilities and I take care of them. But like with the things I want to do, my reasons for doing those things for which I am responsible changed as well. Suddenly I was seeing everything in a different light and a huge chunk of my cynicism fell away. Its hard being me on the outside that I am on the inside but it is SO worth it!

Why is it so hard? Well, being on the outside who we are on the inside leaves us standing before the world naked and alone. We put our barest soul out there for others to accept or reject. When we are in hiding, if someone rejects us, we still have that part of us protected that is the most important part. But when we turn inside out, we are exposing the most vulnerable part of ourselves for acceptance or rejection. Rejection is so much more painful when its the real person being rejected and there are those who have rejected me as I am. Thankfully there are many more who are accepting the real me and still love me despite my imperfections. That is a hard concept for a Virgo to grasp. We can accept other's imperfections but it is near to impossible to accept our own. Anyway, though I am grateful for those who choose to accept me, the important thing is that I accept myself now.

By choosing this path, a great many new doors have opened to me. I have more faith in myself now and because of that, my gifts are expanding. Suddenly people's thoughts and reasons are ever more clear to me and not nearly so threatening. As an empath, I've always been able to feel people's emotions and it was frequently overwhelming but now I know more clearly what they are feeling, why they are feeling it and even in group situations, who the feelings are coming from. LOL I feel like Deanna Troi from Star Trek The Next Generation.

Another experience recently is that my spiritual side has opened and expanded even more. Its hard to explain but I didn't stop at turning inside out. I learned to fly from the inside. All throughout my astrology and numerology it says how I'm good with words and a writer and yet, all my words fail me when I try to explain what I mean by this. Perhaps it is like the Great Mysteries. Unless you learn it for yourself, you'll never understand any explaination given so there is no reason for me to try. But, I want to tell everyone out there to learn to fly from the inside.

I still have my days of despair and cynicism. The days where I think everything is hopeless and humanity is lost. The days where I want to give up and not fight anymore. To not be a light shining in the darkness and to have someone carry me. But to not fight....I can't do that. Just like in the Garth Brooks song, "I do this so this world will know that it will not change me." My friend Beast said much the same thing in his blog at Yahoo 360. ( http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-T3YiyCQ2dKKohWwqE5oEhFpJ )

Dreamweaver