Feb 2, 2016 | Inspiration For Your Life Path
Oh, what a tangled web of neural synapses we have formed over a life of impressions, events, people, places, things and happenings that are both joyous and sad. Every–and I mean
every–event and encounter has been judged as a joy or a sorrow, as an OK thing to happen again or as something to be avoided at all costs by our ever protective subconscious. Then, in each present moment our busy and diligent mind is forming its own research project to determine if this new sight, sound, smell or feeling has happened before. The neural pathways go looking for the prior event to see if “we” are OK with this current happening. If there is any indicator that a similar occurrence
might happen, our neural pathways light up to warn us of the impending joy or danger. The sad, the lonely, the scary, the inadequate, the inferior, the rejected and the painful feelings in our life create deep ruts. Therefore, more often than not, danger is discovered. The danger, the dread, and the worst case scenario plays a game with us to show us what might be happening, to show us how we felt before, and to create a
re-action plan to protect us.
It is almost as if we are living only a linear life of experiences that replay for us. In the moment between the current experience and that neural research going on in our subconscious, those automatic reactions – there is an opening for a creative thought to intercede. Oh, to capture that instantaneous flash and redirect the “reaction” into a new neural pathway. That is the moment to connect with the magical infinite creativity of the God mind that we are immersed within.
Oh, to STOP those opportunities and to redirect that monkey mind that runs away with our joy, dashing it into the rotting old images of the past. Those lost times of reaction putrefy our loving relationships and stagnate our soul’s journey to love.
Ah, but we are the masters of that neural pathway. We alone are the rulers of the heart and soul over the subconscious mind. We are the players of the game and we are the pawns of the game. Move after move, synapse after synapse we are either caught in the rushing energy of the past pushing its way into our present OR we marshal our God-given creativity and become the director of the game. Owning the past as it was and as the past. Opening up to the now, we are able to create through our continual connection to the Divine. The creative divine mind is there all the time – ready, willing and able to carry us into moments of the bliss and joy, of acceptance and love.
Jan 25, 2016 | Inspiration For Your Life Path
When you truly listen to conversations, you often hear people’s frustrations. At a recent meeting, I heard one woman express her frustration about her house not selling. Then, she continued about how bad the housing market was and that she and her husband failed to get the house on the market in the best time last summer. On and on it went.
Over worked. Underpaid. Children are frustrating. Work is frustrating.
Life can be frustrating if you let it.
How can you move your thinking from frustration to fulfillment? First, you have to be aware of what you are saying and thinking. Too often we are on autopilot. Thoughts come in and we express them. Retraining our thinking takes a bit of focus. Speak only of what you want, not of what you don’t want.
Next, identify specifically what you want; what your intent is. Fuzzy dreams and fuzzy goals bring fuzzy results. The lady trying to sell the house is an example. I asked her did she really WANT to sell the house. She replied that she loved the house and hated to move. But, she and her husband were both too far from their work. That is a fuzzy intent so no wonder the house has not sold.
Clear intent is a desire with passion behind it.
Passion is the fuel, the positive feeling that moves you from frustration to fulfillment. When you have true passion, you will move over, under, around and through any obstacles to get to your goal. When you have doubt or reluctance, then the intent is murky and that creates frustration. The frustration then leads to conversation about the frustration.
Passion brings out your creativity and serendipity to fuel your intent and action ideas. That leads to results or the fulfillment of your desire. Focus your mind, your mental images and your conversation on what you do want, what you truly intend and leave frustration thoughts and conversation behind.
Jan 1, 2016 | Inspiration For Your Life Path
What if you followed your own inner heart/soul desire?
Data on Star Trek is an android, a computer-generated being. Periodically one of Data’s computer chips would malfunction and its behavior changed. The chip had to be repaired or replaced so that Data could function at its highest level.
We, too, have soft tissue chips that often malfunction and need a repair or replacement. One of the damaged chips many of us carry around is the “THEY” chip. This chip as it malfunctions can ruin and run our lives.
“THEY” are the tapes, voices, and good opinions of others in our lives that we carry in our mind and in our heart. THEY can often keep us from fulfilling our own life path. We can proceed through life unaware of the “THEY” influence on our behavior, our feelings, and our thoughts about ourselves and even about others.
The “THEY” voice in our thoughts is programmed into our subconscious chip early in life. Some say it begins at conception, certainly at birth. The scripts, expectations, and programming that “THEY” gave and give us becomes a visceral integration into our being, often without our conscious knowledge. Much like a copy machine places no value on the items copied. You can copy great poetry or you can copy smut. Our subconscious mind takes in impressions, feelings, stories, emotional reactions, expectations, and programs from the “THEYS” in our world. “THEY” tell you:
You…
- are clumsy
- will never amount to much
- are beautiful
- can’t run your own business
- are sickly
- can’t be a musician (artist) and earn a living
- must clean your plate
- are not good at math, a good speller, writer, etc.
- are very smart
- are a slow reader
- are so far ahead of your class
- have no rhythm
- can’t trust “those” people
- need to be married, to have children
- can’t hit a ball
What are “THEY” telling you right now? Write you own list. It is good to become aware of the “THEY” influence in your life.
Oct 10, 2015 | Inspiration For Your Life Path
Three witches chant in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Since Halloween is nigh, let’s ponder these words. Our mind cooks up its own cauldron. An event, a conversation, a situation occurs in our life. We “interpret” the intentions, the actions or the words of another within our thought cauldron. Our mind has a witches brew there ready for our reactions and impressions to feed the bubbling cauldron. Our witches brew is an odd, secret recipe we have gathered through time. Each impression, every hurtful word we took in and every action of another that did not meet our precise recipe of how things should go adds to the brew. We then see the world not as it is but through our witches brew.
We see and sense through the filters of our mind. Those filters are painted from life events that have been particularly injurious to our tender psyche. We hold the feeling dear to use and we can bubble for a life time. When another event comes into our experience, we use our witches’ brew to decide what is OK and what is not OK with this person. We can lash out with a spray of our own poison brew or we can retreat to our witches cave to stir the cauldron in our mind.
Our witches brew and our protective cave become a part of our special self-image. We are each unique in these impressions in our mind’s cauldron. No two are ever alike. Our Life Path journey into our best self asks that we view our witches’ brew for what it is – a mind game. Since it is a game we can chose to quit playing. We can expose our dirty little witches’ for giving us false reports of what is going on here. We can ask ourselves: “what is real here and what am I making up through my witches’ brew caldron?” Is the other person really doing something or am I projecting their intentions? If someone is really being hurtful, then get out of the caldron and change this situation. Make your own new brew of with:
“Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf;
Witches’ mummy; maw and gulf
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark;…” (Macbeth)
That ought to give us the courage to change the situation and move to a better place in our life path. Remember: you grew these witches and you can take them out!
Sep 1, 2015 | Inspiration For Your Life Path
We stood in the kitchen with 12 mini bread pans, a mixer, flour, sugar, eggs, baking powder and a pile of very ripe bananas. The plan was to make 60 loaves of banana bread for 60 caregivers at the assisted living facility where my mother lived. Each person would receive their own loaf from my mother.
Banana bread is in my sinews. Banana bread was the gift for my brother and me to give to our teachers, our scout leaders, our Sunday school teachers, our neighbors, our family and anyone who happened to visit us during the holidays – any holiday. I watched my mother bake banana bread from my childhood. I grew up by her side mashing the bananas until I graduated to making the golden loaves on my own. Banana bread was a part of our family culture. I took it into my home when I married and made it for my children’s teachers and scout leaders and for my bosses. I sent loaves in Care packages to my son and my two step children while they were in college and to my Marine during his enlistment.
My mom knew the recipe by heart, no need for paper or a cookbook. In fact, when my sister and I set out to create a family cookbook, we had a hard time finding a copy of the original recipe. I watched my mom set up, pour, sift, mash and dump ingredients into the bowl and mix. Pouring the mixture into pans to bake, she would turn to make another batch ready to pour into the line of pans. The whole house, sometimes for several days, would hold the aroma of banana bread. The golden loaves would come out and be basted with honey, (or on the rare occasion, when I was older, with honey and rum.) The beauties were set on the counter to cool, and then lovingly wrapped, sealed and stored to be given with love. That was my mom’s ritual.
Now, here we were in the kitchen facing our task to make 60 loaves—five batches. I asked my mother how she wanted to help. She stood and stared at me, lost in her inner world of a deteriorated Alzheimer’s self. I took the lead. I took her over to our breakfast table, sat her down with a plate, some bananas and a fork and asked her to mash the bananas. You see, bananas were not put into a food processor or a Ninja. The bananas were all mashed with a fork, by hand. She mashed the bananas I had put on the plate for a few minutes. Then, she lost herself in thought, she got up and she wandered off to her room. I brought her back to the bananas hoping there would be a buried memory to take hold and she would enjoy this process she so loved before the disease took her mind. But, alas, she was gone.
That poignant day, I knew she was physically present yet lost to us in her own dream world of a deteriorating mind. With tears, memories and sadness I mashed, I sifted, I greased pans, and I wrapped and I packed 60 loaves to take with her to express the love she felt for those in her world.
My gift to you is her recipe. Enjoy during your holidays.
Helen Weaver’s Banana Bread
In memory of my mother’s giving soul
1 ¾ c. all-purpose flour, sifted
1 ¼ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. soda
¾ tsp. salt
1 tsp. black walnut (almond flavoring is a substitute)
½ tsp. vanilla
½ tsp almond flavoring
1/3 c. shortening
2/3 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 cup mashed very ripe bananas, mashed with a fork, by hand (2 – 3 bananas)
¾ c. chopped pecans
Preheat oven 350º
Cream shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Add flavorings. Add eggs, one at a time at low speed. Add dry ingredients alternately with bananas at low speed. Fold in nuts. Do not over beat. Prepare pans: grease and flour or spay with baker’s spray. Makes 4 small loaves or one large loaf. Bake for 60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Place on cooling racks with wax paper under the racks. While still warm and cooling, brush with honey. When cool wrap with love and give to someone who has served you or someone you love.
