Category: blog

All transitions are challenging, but those involving moving are even more so. While experts often disagree on which life events are the most difficult, almost all agree that moving is one of the top ones (usually number 1).

That being said, some moves are more stressful than others. I should know I have moved numerous times, and although none were easy, some were more of a challenge.

When Christopher and I moved to Savannah, we had a houseful of stuff, two cats, and one dog. When we got to our apartment at around 6 pm, the moving truck behind us, we discovered it was not ready, which the landlord failed to inform us of. We had to find storage for our stuff and a motel that would take not just us but our three companions as well.

As difficult as that was, having someone to share the experience with and three furry creatures to make me feel good made an otherwise stressful situation manageable. That move was minor compared to the move these past two days. 

What made it so difficult? It wasn’t the moving of my things to three different places (I had done that before), and it wasn’t the rain (although that did make it a wet challenge). What was it? It was doing it alone and older.  

I was blessed to have some people help me, and for that, I am incredibly grateful. However, at the end of the day, it was me, cold, wet, and exhausted, driving to my first temporary home in the pouring rain.

Fortunately, we are never alone if we have a Power Greater than Ourselves. My God was there, and It showed up in big and little ways. One was an angel named Greg, and the other was Tina.  

It showed up with covered parking at the motel I was staying at – so I did not have to move anymore in the rain and was there with a view of the ocean. It showed up in a beautifully warm room with a comfortable bed. It continues today with a massage spa next door so I can give my tired muscles some well-needed healing touch.

That is the way life is sometimes. It comes with challenges, but it also comes with moments filled with gratitude, especially for a Higher Power that always reveals itself to me in my dark moments.

Thank you, God, for Your Presence, Power, Love, and Grace. Most of all, for letting me remember I am never alone.

Quote of the Week

“Life is like riding a bicycle.  To keep [p your balance, you must keep moving.”

Albert Einstein

Ever since I had a life-changing event occur as a result of praying for the first time in many years to a “god” I did not believe in, I have been a firm believer in the power of prayer. Around the same time, I began meditating as a result of a therapist showing me how mediation could help with many of the emotional issues I was dealing with at the time

In the last 18 months, both prayer and meditation became something I struggled with. It wasn’t I didn’t believe in it, I was just confused about what to pray for, and I was so filled with grief and pain seeing the love of my life suffer and slowly fade away that the only prayer I had was one of pleading – pleading for help, pleading for strength, and mostly that his pain would end.

An affirmative prayer is a beautiful tool, and some people can use it even in a dark night of the soul, but for me, when I am in pain and darkness, I turn to a prayer of surrender. Maybe that’s because the prayer years ago convinced me of a Power Greater than Myself and the power of prayer to relieve my pain. 

Prayer works, but there is no one way to pray. I believe that prayers from the heart get us through the times in our life when we don’t know what to do or pray. There have also been times when the most effective prayer is not one of words but tears.  

I believe those tears are a call for help and some peace, and they are always answered – sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly – but they are responded to, and that answer is somehow what is best for us whether we can see that or not. For that, I am genuinely grateful.

Quote of the Week

“It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without heart.” 

Mahatma Gandhi

So often we blame things outside of ourselves for f our difficulties – lack of money, education, luck, parents, economic conditions, the weather, etc. – the list goes on and on.

We think our current circumstances are the result of stuff that happened or is happening to us.  As long as that is what we believe we are keeping ourselves from the wonderful gifts the Universe is always sending us. We are living our life from the outside in.  But the things that happen to us or at least our reaction to them are the result of living from the inside out

Once we realize that life is an inside job, our happiness, our peace, and our prosperity are the result not of what is going on “out there” but “in here” [our minds].

Understanding that and putting it to practical use in our lives is the key to life, not just joyous but free as well.  Free to have, do, and be all we were created to be. For that to happen we have to stop being victims of life, but cocreators with the Creator.  

The next time you are busy complaining about what is not right in your life, ask yourself what thoughts you are thinking. Negative thoughts bring negative results – positive thoughts bring th opposite.

Want to change your thoughts?  First, make a decision that you want to change your thinking and then begin speaking positive affirming things to yourself.  Lastly, take an action to bring yourself closer to what it is you want in your life.

Three simple steps but not easy.  Do not be dismayed.  Just do your best one day at a time.

You will be amazed at the results!

Quote of the Week

“Your life becomes what you think.”

Marcus Aurelius, 2^nd century stoic

Unity’s 2^nd principle is that within each person is the Divine. It is easy to see that in the ones we love, but what about “those people” – the ones that just seem to either “bug” us or maybe have done something to us we think is unforgivable?

As difficult as it is to see the Spirit in certain people, it is often even more challenging to see it in ourselves. Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-40 that the First Commandment is that we must “love our God with all your heart and soul, and with all your mind and strength….’ And the second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Maybe there is so much violence, hatred, division, anger, and plain meanness to others because most people do not love themselves.  

We are born into this world knowing the truth of our being – that we are children of God and therefore have the Divine within us. Soon after we are born, the world begins to tell us differently. It stays we are born of sin, that we are better than others, and that anyone different from us is terrible.  

If we truly knew that God was within us (in other words, loved ourselves) and everyone else, we would not see “them” differently but would know that within them was the same God. Sometimes though it is so hidden, they have forgotten who they were.

It is up to us to remember who they are and who we are. That is how we make a difference in this life.

Quote of the Week

“Love thy neighbor as thyself because you are your neighbor. It is an illusion that makes you think that your neighbor is someone other than yourself.”

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

The first time I heard the expression “the only constant is change,” I did not understand it. Then as I began to contemplate it, I realized how true it is.  

Everything changes -nature, the world, our lives, everything. The one constant I can hold onto is a Power Greater than Myself, which I may not always understand but that I know and is always present.

Some life changes are small, some are big, and some are genuinely transformational. Those changes are so significant that we are forever changed, such as the caterpillar and the butterfly. 

I have had some of those in my life, and as tricky as they may have been at the time, the result was always for my highest good. So I am one more time embarking on a journey into what is unfamiliar, yet what I feel in my heart is the next step for me. 

I know that change is part of the soul’s journey; when we are not changing or moving forward, we are stagnant. Water, when it does not move, is stagnant. Such water becomes dark, murky, and often stinky. It is not what I wish for myself. I do not want to be like murky water but like a mountain stream, clean and clear and moving to something more significant for my soul’s development.

Quote of the Week

“Change offers us the possibility of growing beyond our perceived limitations to the fullness of our divine potential.”

Joan Borysenko, Ph.D.