Soulshine

If you are going to say anything to yourself today, say “I Am loveable.” There are no truer words. Repeat them to yourself over and over until you believe them-- because what you believe you become. The truth is you are lovable whether you know it or not. You are the stardust of Universal Love itself. Each and every one of us is created from God particles. We are all formed by the hands of a Higher Power who fills us with the eternal energy that is Love. So remember, when you finally believe you are lovable, you will be lovable not only to yourself, but to everyone who has the eyes to see the beauty that you radiate. You project onto others what you believe about yourself. Once you choose to love who you are and to project your lovability to the world around you, people (the right people, that is) will respond to you in loving, accepting ways and life-giving ways. “I Am lovable,” “I Am lovable.” “I Am lovable”—say it until you believe it!

Remember, a rose never has a bad hair day. It can’t see itself in a mirror and has no idea of what it looks like physically. A rose thrives on its inner-beauty and thus wisely grows into its outer-beauty effortlessly. Thus the outer elegance of a rose develops from its inner chemistry. The same can be true for us. Make the choice today to thrive from within-side yourself

It’s only when we shed concern for our outer-beauty that we can discover our true inner-beauty. In American culture, outer-beauty Is everything. We are encouraged to live and breathe our outer-appearance. Billions of dollars are spent each year on make-up, clothing, hair styles, skin care and weight loss because so many people are so unhappy with their physical appearance. In the chaos of this physical jungle, we lose touch with our souls. Our inner-beauty lies trapped and dormant under our fears concerning our outer-beauty, or lack thereof. And we forget that anyone can look like a well maintained mannequin. A mannequin has a one-dimensional beauty. It has physical appearance, including the nice clothes we place on it, but it has no personality, no soul. The day we stop being so concerned about looking like Barbie or Ken is the day that we make peace with our outer-appearance. It’s the day we come to love and accept our looks just as they are. It’s also the same day that

“In the end what matters most is how well did you love, how well did you live, how well did you learn to let go.” Anonymous I found the statement above on a wall-banner in a small shop in Flagstaff , Arizona , earlier in the year. And I love its simple wisdom. Codependents, and all addictive personalities, spend most of their lives trying to control every aspect of every moment of every day—from whether or not the sun shines and just how much it shines, to what others choose to wear and how they choose to wear it, to what the checker at the grocery thinks about them and they’re eating habits. The problem with trying to control life is that it’s impossible to control life and live life at the same time. When we are always busy about controlling every moment of our day, we are in a defensive mode, a survival mode. No one enjoys being on the defensive. People enjoy life when they actually allow their day to unfold before them and they choose to walk through their day

“I used to love hotels,” says Anna. “Now I’m always in a new apartment or in a hotel somewhere... It makes it easy to leave people.” Oliver looks her in the eyes and says “You can stay in the same place and still find ways to leave people,”   “You are like that?” asks Anna, “It’s what you do?” Oliver nods his head in the affirmative. “So we are the same” says Anna. To which Oliver replies “I guess so.” From the film Beginners , 2010 Running away from people is the great American Pastime for many of us. We’ve built our lives on running away from ourselves, and we’ve been doing that since we were about five years old. A major problem with running away from one’s self is that it requires us to then run away from everyone. Subconsciously we know that if we can’t face ourselves, we can’t face anyone. I mean, if we’re not willing to face ourselves, what self do we have to show to someone? We have no sense of self. We’re just a name with a face and a body but not much more. H

There is photo that has recently gone viral on the internet. The photo shows two Middle Eastern men. The two men are holding individual small signs in their hands. The man on the left has a sign that says “I’m Jewish and I’m from Israel ,” and the man on the right has a sign that says “I’m Muslim and I’m from Palestine .” Together both men are holding a larger sign that says “Why can’t we all just get along.” And there’s a peace symbol at the top of the large sign. After studying the photo, I thought about how easy it would be to substitute so many other words onto their small signs. Instead of saying “I’m Muslim” and “I’m Jewish,” the small signs could also say "I'm White” and “I'm Black”-- Why can't we all just get along." Or they could say "I'm Gay,” “I'm Straight." Or "I'm American,” “I'm Iranian." Or "I'm Democrat,” “I'm R epublican."—“Why can’t we all just get along.” The list could go on an

I feel like I’m shedding my skin—the old, false me skin. I’m shedding the false skin of “I’m shit and no one could love me.” I’m shedding the skin of false devotionalism and false Catholicism. I’m shedding the skin of I’m too old, or I’m too fat or I’m too whatever (fill in the blank). And most importantly I’m shedding the skin that is scarred by years and years of fears. It’s not easy. Fear is so powerful. But as soon as I put my head in its mouth, I find I have all of the power that fear pretends to have. Are you shedding your skin today? How? What are you doing to shed your false self? Hopefully you’re using powerful, positive I AM statements. I found a neat little shop in Long Beach called Fern’s Garden. There I came across some great pewter I AM bracelets. Mine says “I am awesome I am.” It has a puzzle piece on it to symbolize that I am part of the Universe; a part of the mystery; an essential part that is awesome. When I feel like I’m slipping into old thought patterns,

As I’ve said before, life is about choices. Every second of every day we have choices to make. Most of these choices revolve around retaining our personal power or giving it away. When we choose to fight realities that we cannot change, we are actually choosing to give our personal power away. We are choosing to be life’s big fat victim. In doing so, we sit and whine like four year olds, spouting out deeply ingrained mantras like “But it’s not supposed to be this way!” Whine, whine… whine, whine, whine… and whine some more. Poor me. Poor me. Life is soooooo unfair to me! Reality Slap! No life is not unfair to me. I am unfair to me. I am the one who is refusing to accept the reality that I cannot change. I am the one who is freely GIVING AWAY MY OWN POWER, my own key to happiness, by insisting that life be the way that I WANT, instead of being the way that it IS. I am the one who has created my own problem and I am the only one who can choose to solve that problem and thus ma