Soulshine

There are many endings in life. We all experience the end of days, the end of relationships, the end of careers, the end of years. And of course there’s the really big one that each of us will eventually face: The end of this life as we know it. Today we will all experience the end of the last day of 2011; the end of an entire year. In doing so, I think it’s important that we ask ourselves this question: “Did I love well?” I take this question from Jack Kornfield’s book A Path With Heart . And I think it is probably the most essential question we can ever ask ourselves; because when this life is over, our Higher Power isn’t going to ask us if we ate well, or if we shopped well, or if we made lots of money, or if we accomplished great tasks. God will ask us only one question: “Did you love well?” You see, those who love well live well. People who love well appreciate every aspect of life. They value themselves and thus all people, they value the earth and all creation, they value the...

“Frame your own life events in a way that helps people  understand what to make of you.” Anonymous It’s Christmas Eve and the greatest gift we can give and receive is love. Forget the other stuff. Love last forever. In order for people to love us, however, they have to understand us. To understand us they need to know us. We have to be vulnerable enough to open up our hearts, look inside and come to understand ourselves. We can then paint an authentic portrait of who we are and frame ourselves in such a way that our lives make sense to us and others. Those who like the authentic portrait we paint of ourselves and those who understand the way in which we have framed our lives, will grow to love us just as we are. These are the people we want to add to the portrait that we savor as family and friends. These are the people who matter. These are the people we want to spend our days with, especially our Holidays.  Spend some good time with yourself on this Chri...

Rainy day—no problem. Snowy day—no problem. Simply a grey day—no problem. Your sunshine is inside of you. Many people are totally unaware that the weather cannot make them happy. They live for sunny days and choose to be gloomy when the sky fills with clouds. If you’re living for a sunny day, you’re giving your power away. And if you give your power away to the weather, you most likely give your power away to everything and everyone. As long as you are happy inside yourself, as long as you turn inside yourself for spiritual and emotional nourishment, you will provide internal-eternal sunshine to your life. Of course, sometimes we have to allow it to rain inside our souls. We have to throw open the shutters and allow healing tears to wash over us and renew us as a means of regenerating sunshine from within. But this is OK. It’s all in our hands and the hands of our Higher Power, who will always help us find inner-balance and joy. What’s really important here, is that we are hol...

Everyone has a need to belong. We all have a need for others, for a sense of kinship and for the comfort of being acceptable just as we are. This is very different from having a need for approval. The need for approval from others is a cancer of the heart and mind. It destroys your soul. The need for approval places you at the mercy of others. It gives other people total power over your happiness, well-being and, essentially, every aspect of your life. If you have a deep need for the approval of others, if you believe you need others to decide for you whether or not you are OK, then you need to rewire your thinking. You already have the approval of your Maker. The only other approval you need is your own. Take back your power by approving of yourself. It's nobody else's responsibility to decide if you are OK or not. And no one has the right to criticize you, or belittle you as "not good enough" unless you give them that power. Seek your own approval, claim y...

“Don’t fight it. Life is a rollercoaster, just gotta ride it… Stop hidin.’ Love is a mystery. Let’s get excited.” Ronan Keating Rollercoasters evoke a great deal of fear in many people, but then, so does life itself. Fear is humanity’s second greatest enemy and it often works hand-in-hand with humanity’s Public Enemy No. 1: Shame. Fear and shame are the great cripplers of human life. They paralyze people in their tracks and rob them of their lives. If you’ve spent much of your life being too fearful to stick your neck out into the real world and say “Life’s a fact, so face it” then you know what I’m talking about. Fear can keep us from climbing aboard a rollercoaster and having the thrill of our day. It can also keep us from stepping out into the real world and having the thrill of our lives. We all know that shit happens. We’ve been hit in the face with it time and again. Some of us wipe the residue of life from our faces and move forward, while others of us flee an...

All I want for Christmas is self-respect, and it’s a gift that seems to be coming to me more and more each day. Truth is, when you have enough self-love to respect yourself you see the whole world awash in new, brighter colors. You feel like you finally fit-in. You find your space and you walk your path with new vigor. Inside there’s a new feeling and it sings to you and the world around you: “Nothing can stop me now!” Everyone is your equal and you are everyone’s equal. No one can put you down without embarrassing themselves. You own and retain your power regardless of what anyone else says, does, believes or wants. Suddenly you realize that you have become your own best friend. Your body feels comfortable to you no matter what size you are, what color you are or how old or young you are. Your personality bubbles up and spills all over everything and everyone around you—and you love it—even in the face of detractors. You need no one to complete you or make you OK. You’ve disc...