My Spiritual Journey To Becoming Amazingly Well

 “To be ungrateful is to live without the covering of grace.  Grace is a present that we can only receive when we are present with it.  Being grateful sets the table for the abundance of grace.  Being ungrateful, sets the table for lack to dominate our lives.  

Being ungrateful overshadows the grace that is seeking us, and due to the shadow cast by being ungrateful, the light of grace we cannot see.  Being ungrateful creates closed fists where nothing is being given, whereas being grateful creates open hands that seek to give us everything that we can imagine. 

Being ungrateful curses life, so that we feel cursed as we struggle under  it. Being grateful blesses life, so that we feel blessed as we rise above it.   In a state of being ungrateful, grace is exiled from who we have become.  In a state of being grateful, grace is welcomed as it smooths the path for who we are becoming.  When we are ungrateful, grace feels so far away; it is only when we are grateful that we have the faith that grace is always near (no matter how far away it may appear in the moment). 

Grace is to us like the Sun is to the Earth.  It is always shining.  When we turn away from it in a state of being ungrateful, grace feels like it has fallen from the sky, leaving us feeling dark and cold inside.  But when we turn towards grace in a state of being grateful, grace rises again to light the sky with its brilliance, filling our world with its warmth and with its light. 

When we dwell in a state of being ungrateful, grace feels like a stranger that is always passing us by. As we dwell more and more in a state of being grateful, grace becomes our beloved-- always holding our hand as we walk our path in life. Grace to us is like a shelter from the rain.  When we abide in it, no matter what storms surround us we are protected from the rain and feel comfort in knowing that the storm will soon pass.  

Grace is our golden ticket into the greatest show on Earth.  It is our passport into the kingdom of heaven.  Yet when we are ungrateful, we stand outside in the rain of our miseries and cannot find our way in.  It is only when we discover the magic of being grateful can the miracles of grace find us.  It is only when we discover the power of being grateful can the shield of grace protect us from the arrows of life that never seem to cease.  When we are grateful despite it all, we are able to give grace which opens our arms to receive it.”

“Pain has the power to anoint us, and pain has the power to curse us.  When faced with it, we can either accept it or reject it.  When faced with it, we can either embrace it or fight it.  Either way, pain can only bless us when we bless it; pain can only curse us when we curse it.

Pain is a door to our anointing, but we must go through it in order to receive the anointing awaiting us on the other side of it.  If we stand at the door knocking, the door cannot open because there is no one on the other side to open it for us.  For the door to open, we must find the courage to open the door ourselves, and if the door is locked, we must find the strength to knock it down.  Either way, we must go through it for it to no longer confront us.  

Pain provides the door to our greatest opportunities.  Nothing is born without pain's anointing, and pain inspires all growth and transformation.  Without it, we would never reach for something better than where we are.  Without it, everything remains as a seed that never sprouts to realize its full potential.  

Whenever we see someone at pain’s door, we often focus on how lucky we are to not be confronted by it, but there is another side to the story.  When we see someone at pain’s door,  we can realize how lucky they are to have the opportunity; how lucky they are to be confronted with pain and have the opportunity to become better, wiser and stronger than they ever were before.  

Pain can anoint us or pain can punish us, and in every moment, we have the power to choose the role that pain will play in our story. The greatest among us always do.  As we discover the pathway to becoming our greatest versions of ourselves, we realize that pain does not have to be the villain in our story; we realize that pain can anoint us and become our most admired hero.  And when pain becomes our hero, overcoming it makes us even greater heroes as it sets the stage for our greatest performance yet.  

Pain provides the occasion, and without it, we would never rise to meet it.  So whenever we see pain, (instead of cursing it) we will do well to remember to bless it in order to receive its anointing.  Let us remember to tell pain “thank you” as we go through its door to become better, stronger and wiser than we could ever be without it.”

““More” is a fundamental mantra of life.  “More” is life's mission.  The secret to experiencing more of life and anything within it is to look more deeply into it.  Anything we see more deeply, we experience more abundantly as life reveals more of itself to us.

“More” is a call to expansion.  “More” is the inspiration for all of existence, since without it nothing can come to be. Inspiration comes from the Greek word “Inspirare” which means “to breathe life into,” and “More” is the very essence of life’s breath—life’s inspiration.  Everything that is came from the desire for “More.”  Everything and everyone we see began as a tiny version of itself, so tiny that our eyes would tell us that there was nothing there.  Yet as everyone and everything reaches for more and becomes more, they grow until they come into our view as larger and larger versions of themselves.

When we look at a pine tree, we cannot see the acorn’s seed that made it so, but it is there.  When we look at an acorn, we cannot see the pine tree that is hidden within it, but it is there.  What came before in the form of an acorn gives birth to what comes after in the form of a pine tree.  What came after in the form of a pine tree is a continuation of what came before it in the form of an acorn.  What comes before is always in what comes after. What comes after is always inspired by what came before.

“More” is life's destiny.  It cannot be denied.  When we look deeper, we always find it.  There are those who celebrate New Year’s Day but do not celebrate each New Day of the new year.  They celebrate one year, when if they looked deeper they would find 365 days to celebrate hidden within it.  Who is experiencing life more abundantly?  The person celebrating 1 New Year or the person celebrating 365 New Days within that 1 year?   When we look deeper, we experience more.  When we experience more, we live life more abundantly.

The best of life and the worst of it is always seeking more from the seeds we have  planted.  Love is seeking more from its seed as fear is seeking more from its seed.  In the seed of love, there is so much that is there that we cannot see, like within the acorn.  In the seed of fear there is so much that is there that we cannot see, like within the acorn.  And within every seed there exists the potential for greatness when the conditions are right for it.  Seeds of love can grow into great trees upon which we build nations, and seeds of fear can grow from a spark into a great wildfire that destroys them.

When we realize that we are planters of life’s seeds and have the power to create the conditions in which our seeds grow, we can learn to become great farmers for whatever we prefer in life.  We come to understand the mantra of “More” that inspires all life, and we can begin to practice a foundational principal of life that farmers know better than anyone else— that is that we reap what we sow; and within every seed we plant, “More” is present, waiting to be inspired by us (for better or for worse).   So let us choose our seeds wisely, so that we can live our preferred abundance that only our wisdom can create as life calls for “More.””

“Our train of thought is on a track that is always leading us to our state of being.   If we are unhappy about the state of our lives, we can always change the direction of our train of thought that took us there.  When we realize the power inherent in who we really are, we realize that we can always change our train of thought to move out of one state of being and into another.   We can always change the tracks that we are on when realize our power as creators; this power empowers us to change the quality of our lives by changing the direction of our train of thought.  

We often lock ourselves onto trains of thought that are leading us to undesired destinations. However, if we learn how to slow the momentum of the train enough, we can begin changing the direction of our trains of thought by changing to tracks that lead us towards where we desire to go (instead of away from it).  When we change the direction of our trains of thought, we begin to enter a new state of being.  When we enter into a new state of being, we enter into a whole new world where nothing is the same as it was.  The amazing thing is that we created the new world just as we created the old one.  

We are always creating; we are indeed powerful beyond measure.  We are so powerful that we have the power to change our lives in any moment by changing our state of being because we know that our train of thought can take us wherever we want to go.”  

“Nothing can survive without food.  No disease can survive without food nor can wellbeing.  No emotion can survive without food nor can any thought or belief that gives birth to it.  Joy needs food to survive just as sorrow.  Depression needs food to survive just as celebration.  Everything requires food; without food, everything starves until it disappears to emerge as something new.  That something new will be born based on the food that is made available to it upon which it feeds.

Food is information.  Information is the breath of existence that creates the conditions for manifestations to become.  Whatever has manifested in us and around us came to be due to the conditions created around it as created by the food upon which it fed.  Whatever is manifesting in us and around us in the current moment came to be due to the conditions we are creating around it as created by the food upon which it is feeding.  Every manifestation can be dissected into the food upon which it fed before it manifested into the form that it has taken.

Every living thing is on a constant quest to be fed.  Our bodies seek food just as our minds do.  Our hearts require food just as our brains do.  Whoever controls the food controls the life that feeds upon it.  Change the food and change the very nature of what is being fed.  Manifestation is food’s testimony.  Our bodies are a testament to the food we are feeding them, and disease springs forth from the misalignment of our food with the nature of well being that is within us.  Our state of mind is a testament to the food we are feeding it, and mental illness springs forth from the misalignment of our food with the nature of well being that is within us.  

No matter what we say, the truth is always revealed in the form manifestation is taking.  We can say that we are religious, but the manifestations of our lives always reveal the dominant food upon which we are feeding.   Our true nature emerges from the nature of the information (or food) we are consuming.   We can say that we desire to lose weight, but the manifestations of our bodies reveal the dominant information (or food) we are consuming.   Our bodies can only become the food that we are allowing into it, so it can not lie.  This is why it is said that we are what we eat.  This is not just an anecdotal statement; it is law.  Therefore, when we look at our lives and are unhappy with what we see, changing our food is the only way to change who and what we are.   Because when the information we put into it changes, the form of the manifestation that was has no choice but to change also.  And so it is.”

”Pain is powerful because Pain is power. Pain is an experience that is designed to inspire our transformation; however, before we can be transformed by it, we must first learn the lessons it is trying to teach. Once we learn to accept and understand the lessons of our pain, we can begin the transformation process of pain into an energy that fuels our greatness from an energy that destroys it.

Pain is powerful because it is full of power. It is full of the power of all time; everything that is cannot escape its reach. Everything that is cannot avoid its impact.  Thus, pain is a universal power source that is harnessed by some to inspire their best while it is harnessed by others to inspire their worst. 

Pain is a powerful teacher to those wise enough to study and understand its curriculum.  Pain calls us to turn to it, so that we can go through it in order to be reborn on the other side of it.  Birth requires pain; there is no life without it. Nothing can be born but from the stretch of what was before. Nothing can grow but through the stretch of what was before. Thus, pain is not an enemy of life: pain is a creator of it.

Pain is so full of power for those who learn how to use it constructively just as it is full of power for those who learn how to use it destructively. Pain does not discriminate between the rich and the poor, the Christian and the Muslim, the man and the woman. Pain dwells among us all as a reminder that we are alive. Because when pain no longer becomes a possibility, pleasure does not also. In fact, pleasure and pain cannot be separated; there is no one without the other.  They are twins in the same womb of creation.

Pain is so powerful because it reveals our strength, a strength that would remain asleep in us without pain awakening it.  Pain is so powerful that it not only has the power to awaken our greatest strength, but it also has the power to reveal our greatest weakness.  Without pain, our strengths go untested and without a test they have no voice through which to testify.  Without pain, our weaknesses go unrevealed and without a reveal they have no voice through which to speak their revelation.

Pain directs life as a sign pointing the way towards where more abundant life is.  Without its direction, pleasure would never be found.  Without its signs, we would not know which way to go.  So when we receive pain’s call, we will do well to not ignore the call, but to answer it.  And when we do, we will do well to pay it the attention that it deserves.  Only then, can we learn from it and understand how to live life more abundantly when it is not present; only then, can we move through its presence into the pleasure and joy that awaits us on the other side of it.  

We can only find the answers discoverable through our pain by understanding it.  We can only understand it by seeking its lessons that can only be found by looking deeper into it, but when we learn its lessons, we become empowered to create thoughts, establish beliefs and to take actions that transform our pain into a powerful fuel that can propel us to wherever we want to go.”

“We can only draw power from what we experience.  However, experience is not the greatest divider between the “haves” and the “have nots.” The great divider is context.  The “have not” will experience abuse and feel weaker while the “have” will experience abuse and be empowered by it.  Context.  The “have not” will experience the loss of a game and become discouraged whereas the “have” will experience the same loss and become empowered to train harder and become better than ever before.  Context.  The “have not” will experience poverty with the belief that it is all that can ever be, whereas the “have” will experience the same poverty and be inspired to rise above it to change the world. Context. 

We choose the context of every experience whether we realize it or not.  Context filters our world and determines our relationship with it as a “have” or “have not.”  The “have” feels whole regardless of the division of the world around her; the “have not” feels divided regardless of the wholeness of the world around him.  Context.  The secret is in knowing that what makes a “have” or “have not” is not based upon any material possession, but in how we feel about what we have.  A person with $100 in his account can experience more love, gratitude and peace every day in his life than the one with $100,000,000 in his.  Context. 

The secret is in knowing that what makes us a “have” or “have not” is not based on any title or achievement but in how we feel about ourselves.  A person who is the janitor of a school can experience more fulfillment and love in his job than the Principal experiences in his. Context.

We live in a world of lies and illusions that seek to hide the truth from us in efforts to profit from our ignorance.  There are forces that seek to control the context of our life experience through the stories they tell us about ourselves.  When we realize that context is everything we are empowered to overcome anything.  Then we can rest in knowing that being a “have” instead of a “have not” is not in the things or circumstances, but it is in the context that we give them.  And that changes everything.”

“We do not look in the mirror, expecting for the reflection to change before we do.   Yet we look into the world, expecting it to change before we change our perception of it. The world outside of ourselves is a reflection of the world within, just like the reflection looking back at us when we look into a mirror.  We change what we see in the mirror by changing ourselves.   We change what we experience in the world outside of ourselves by changing the world inside of ourselves.

We are the witness of what we see in the mirror, as we are the witness of what we see in the world outside of us.  To understand whatever we are witnessing, we must first become aware of our perception of it.  When we become aware of our perception of it, we can discover that we are the creators of it as we look into the mirror of our mind that is reflecting it.  To create, we must first become the witness. As we become the witness, we begin to more clearly see creation and discover our power over it.

To become creators, our awareness is first required since without awareness there is no paint for the canvass of our minds from which to draw.  Our intentions hold the paint brush.  Without the paint of our awareness, our minds remain blank because without the paint nothing can be created within its canvass.  The canvass is just a mirror for the artist, and her painting is just her reflection, a reflection of her inner world as her intentions have painted it.  God creates the mirrors, but we create the reflections that appear within them.  This is how we realize our partnership as co-Creators with the divine and see through the illusion of our separation from it.

We can only see ourselves when we look into a mirror and can identify who we see.  We can only see our worlds when we look into the mirrors of our minds and can identify what we see.  Whatever we see is a reflection; it is all it can ever be.  Whatever we see is a reflection of our beliefs. Whatever we see is a reflection of our expectations.  Whatever we see is a reflection of our memories.  Whatever we see is a reflection of our educations.  Whatever we see is a reflection of our state of mind and how our bodies feel….on and on it goes.   Thus, whatever we see is a reflection of our perspective—a perception (or awareness) of what we witness within our minds as we create them. 

All there is we experience as a reflection of ourselves.  There is no other way for us to experience anything we experience in our worlds.  Reflections can only exist in the mind of their beholders, and as their beholders change, the reflections in the mirrors of our minds change with them.    When we understand our natures as the beholders of the world, we can begin changing the world by changing the thoughts that appear within our minds.  By changing our thoughts, we change the reflections in the mirrors of our minds that are reflecting them.   By changing our reflections, we change our reality as creators of it.   Therefore, reflections cannot be true, only representations of our truth. Reflections can not be real, only projections of our reality.  The truth is a projection of the beholder of it; reality is a reflection of the beholder of it.  They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but our truths and our realities are also, since they are only reflections of what we can see as only we can see them. And so it is.”    

“Every moment is a rehearsal for the one that follows. Every moment is a link in a chain of moments that interconnects with the moment that preceded it and the moment that succeeded it.  Whatever we desire to be, we rehearse.  Whatever we do not desire to be, we rehearse also. In any event, every moment is preparing us for what is to come and who we will become; in every moment, we are rehearsing.

Every succeeding moment is a successful moment because it always wins.  There is no stopping it.  Either we befriend it or get beaten up by it.  Either way, the moment is to be.  Every succeeding moment springs from the moment that preceded it which rehearsed it into being.  Whatever is came from a rehearsal of what was.  Whatever was is a rehearsal of what is.  Thus, the chain of succession that created the foundation upon which the current moment stands was laid by what was rehearsed into being before it became.

“Rehearsal” is defined as “a practice or trial performance of a play or other work for later public performance.”  Every thought and every emotion is a rehearsal for what we do. Everything that comes out of us is a public performance that began as a private play within our mind and our thoughts are the characters within it.

We know that excellence in any endeavor can only be achieved through an internal rehearsal of it through our thoughts before it can come to be.  We know that excellence is something that must be fertilized within us before we can ever give birth to it.  And so it is with athletes, who rehearse their positions to become champions.  

Athletes do not become champions by winning championships; athletes win championships because they are champions in how they rehearsed and practiced before they ever played the game.  Life happens in our being before we can ever do anything because we can only do what our being has rehearsed in advance.  If we have not rehearsed it, we cannot do it because we can not become it.

We are taught to believe that we are what we do.  However, our endeavors are not the ends, but they are the means to an emotional destination.  We are all searching for ways to feel better than we feel in the current moment, and we never arrive at our emotional destinations by accident.  We arrive through numerous rehearsals that we practiced along the roads we traveled to get there. 

Whatever we are in life in the moment that we are standing reveals what we have been rehearsing.  Whoever we are in life in the moment that we are standing reveals who we have been rehearsing.  So, whatever we desire to do and whoever we desire to be we can choose in any moment by rehearsing it in preparation for the next one.  And when we do, where we are standing will not be feared as a bully, but where we are standing will be welcomed as a friend; consequently, as each succeeding moment succeeds, so do we. “

“To become nobody, is to become limitless, without boundaries.  When we can become nobody, we no longer seek distractions to provide our fulfillment, but we are able to rest in the silence that fills us like nothing or no one ever could.  In the silence, we find ourselves.  In the silence, we discover the God we have been seeking but that has always been there.

To become nobody is to transcend the body, so that we see ourselves in everybody and in everything. The body is an instrument, the most complex and amazing instrument that we know, but it also separates us from all that appears outside of it and separates what appears outside of it from everything that appears inside of it.  The body is an instrument that is always playing the complex and exquisite melodies of life, and through these melodies, trillions of cells dance. Through this dance, we feel alive. It is in the tapestry of these melodies where life is born, and in the absence of these melodies, life appears to disappear.  It is in the tapestry of these melodies that we experience joy and sorrow along with the complex melodies of pleasure and pain.  However, it is only in the silence of becoming nobody can we experience who we truly are.  This is the paradox we face on our quest to finding ourselves.

When a room is cluttered with bags of garbage, the garbage is all that we see.  Our focus is on all the bags of garbage piled high within the room. When we remove the garbage, the room becomes empty.  When the room becomes empty, all that is left is the room itself.  In the emptiness of the room, we discover it.  When our minds are filled with thoughts, the thoughts are all we see.  It is only when the thoughts are allowed to disappear that we recognize our true selves through the emptiness; we hear God within ourselves in the silence.  In the emptiness, we have become free, free to see ourselves, free to be nobody.

As amazing as our bodies are in the melodies they play, they must rest in the peace of the silence. Through meditation and sleep we tune our bodies, as only in the silence can the spirit of truth be heard. Only in the silence can we find ourselves because the God within whispers like breezes flowing through the trees; it can only be heard in the silence within—when we become nobody.  When we are distracted by things and people who make us believe that we are somebody, we miss it.  Our thoughts change as they come and go; they change colors and fall away just like the leaves in Fall.  

“Our lifestyles are born from our dominant appetites.  Whatever we are living, our dominant appetites open the door to what we are consuming because our appetites direct where we feed. Our dominant appetites indicate more about us than any words that we say.  We can say we are vegetarians,  but if the appetite dominant within craves fried chicken and hamburgers then we are not who we say we are.  We can say we are Christians, but if the dominant appetite within craves hatred and violence against our neighbor then we are not who we say we are.

Our appetites tell us who we are and who we are becoming when our words only tell who we are pretending to be.  Our appetites drive everything that we are driven to consume as our appetites drive everything that is consuming us.  Our appetites are the drivers, and our bodies are their vehicles.  Our appetites tell us the truth behind our words.  When we have an appetite for life, we crave the foods that are alive and in agreement with it.   When we have an appetite for death, we crave foods that are dead and in agreement with it. To be true to ourselves, we must become aware of our appetites because our truths are being written by them.

Many say that we are what we eat, but we are never told that we are actually our appetites.  The food is not the cause of what we eat; it is the effect of our appetites.  Many say that we are what we think about, but we are never told that we are the mind in which the thoughts appear. The thoughts are not the cause of what we think, they are the effect of our state of mind.

We believe that our appetites come from what we see, when in fact our appetites arise from within the one doing the seeing.  We believe that our appetites come from the food that we smell, when in fact it arises from within the one doing the smelling.  Our appetites yearn for what they desire, like a woman yearns for her long, lost lover, and they can drive us to places we never thought we would go.  Our appetites yearn for what they desire, like a mother yearns for her long, lost child, and they can drive us to do things we never thought we would do.  We can rarely trust a man's words, but we can always trust his appetite; his appetite can not lie even when his words do.”

“Life is always being born again within us as it seeks a continuation of itself.  Life is not restricted to something or someone being born, but there is life in something and everything that dies.  In death, there is life because without dying we cannot be born again.  Our bodies are manifesting the dance between life and death in every moment.  In every moment, our cells are dying.  In every moment cells are being born.  We lose millions of cells in every minute of every day.  Yet our bodies live because as our cells die they are being born again. 

When a cell reproduces in our physical bodies, its environment will determine the quality of the cell that takes its place.  Healthy blood facilitates the rebirth of healthy cells, as toxic blood facilitates the rebirth of sick ones.  To change our cells, we must change their environment. This is the science that we know, and so it is with our larger worlds. 

Days die into night to only become born again, and if the environment within us remains the same as the day dies into night, then the rebirth of the day will deliver more of the same as the day before.  This is the loop that many of us are trapped within our whole lives through, because we never take control of the inner environment of our thoughts and emotions.  Without taking control of our inner worlds, our outer worlds change into the same things over and over again in the death and rebirth of our days. Healthy thoughts and emotions facilitate the reproduction of happy and healthy days, and toxic thoughts and emotions facilitate the reproduction of sick and sad days.  And so it goes.

In funerals we lose sight of the rebirth through our mourning, while the transformation that takes place in death is always a celebration of a new morning.  In funerals, we only see the death because we are focused on what was when we could be focused on what has become.  It is like mourning the death of a caterpillar, while ignoring the beautiful butterfly that arises from it.  As long as we are trapped in a state of mourning death, we are not able to see the new life always being born again. 

New life must follow every death every time; this is how our universe was designed.  From our understanding of the fundamentals of Physics, we know that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only transformed.  If this is so, we cannot kill anything because everything is an embodiment of energy in various forms.  All we can do is be a catalyst for transformation from one form into another.  We cannot kill a thought that enters our minds; however, we can transform it into something new.  By killing the body, we cannot kill the spirit that dwells through it; we can only transform our spirit from our bodily forms into the formless beyond it—transforming it into something new. 

A thought is a form of energy just as a spirit.  We cannot kill energy; it is not possible in this realm.  Yet we foolishly try, not understanding the rules of creation.  But creation is all there is even when it is wearing death as a disguise.  Only when we take the journey from mourning to morning can we see Creation under its disguise, and when we do, the truest essence of Creation reveals itself because Creation is present just as much in death as it is present in life.

When we realize our power to create the environment of our minds through the thoughts we think, we begin to become enlightened.  When we realize our power to create the environment of our cells through what we allow to enter into our bodies, we become enlightened a little more.  And as the light begins to shine brighter and brighter in our enlightened state, we begin to see life and death as 2 sides of the same coin.  Consequently, death loses its sting because our light will not allow us to rest in mourning its kiss goodnight; as we become enlightened, our light will also activate a celebration of death’s kiss good morning as we are born again.”