“Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think.

Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draws it.

Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think.

Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.”
~ Buddha

Some thoughts on the Light

We are all born part and whole of the Light
In our individual identity we are part of the Light.
In our connection to one another we are the Light.

It is in our interaction with one another that we come to see the truth of the Light.
We see the reflection of our own Light in the life form of the other.
We see the truth of the Light when we open our souls and see there is only One.
There is no separation. We are One.

Humanity is the prism through which light splinters into all the colours of the spectrum.
We are the individual expression of all that makes up the Light.
When we join together, we are one brilliant shining Light.

We are the Divine.

Let your Light shine.

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It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.

My Christmas

Christmas is not a universal feast, but the underlying spirit is common to all of us, regardless of religious belief.It is the celebration of light in the darkness, the warmth of hope spreading in the cold winter of life.Christmas is about gratitude and appreciation of all we have been given and are still to receive.

This is my sense of the meaning of Christmas.

Christmas is the distilled essence of love.It is a time of angel's wings on earthly bodies, a time when the soothing touch of a nurse lets a dying man know he is not alone.

Christmas is the distilled essence of all that is good on this earth.It is a time for softly spoken words of love that reach into the hardest heart, for it is only in giving our love unconditionally that we release the heart song in others.

Christmas is the distilled essence of a quiet joy.It rings out crystal clear in the singing of the soul. It is the music of heaven played out on earth in each carefully composed note of giving.

Christmas is the distilled essence of the innocence of childhood.
It is their laughter, their astonished delight, their belief in magic,wrapped up in the overwhelming warmth of the love we feel for them that sets free the child in us.

Christmas is the distilled essence of peace.It is the profoundest stillness of the soul when it quietens the rampant chatter of the mind and hears the single heart beat of the universe.
We are never alone.In that stillness, we are one heart, one mind, one soul.

Hold the distilled essence of Christmas in your daily lives all year around.

Reach out in love to those around you.

I will always believe in magic.Open your mind and let magic believe in you.
Christmas is here and now and every day of your lives.

Live it !

The most precious gift in my life

Today is our son's 17th birthday. In 30 minutes we are off to celebrate in a local restaurant chosen by him.

He is our only child. He is our greatest creation. Nothing we have achieved or will achieve will ever match this blessing to ourselves and the world.

I look at him with such love and pride. Where once I saw a beloved child, now I see the good man he has become, a man who makes the world a better place by his presence in it.

His generosity of spirit, his passionate sense of justice, his infinite patience with small children - these are just a few of the characteristics that imbue our son.

Today I am grateful for his presence in my life. As he prepares to take his place in our world, I know that he has the resilience, the values, the courage and the strength to do so.

Magic at work

I am one of those rare creatures who has the gift of doing the work she loves almost every day of her life. I know beyond doubt that even if I were to have no financial necessity to work, I would still continue to do what I now do. My work is an integral part of my life; it is the expression of who I am.

I cannot begin to describe how fulfilled I feel after every therapeutic session with a client. Sometimes I listen to terrible secrets told to no other human being but I know that in that revelation is the beginning of healing. Yes I am a deeply saddened by the misery we humans chose to inflict on one another, but to participate even in a small way in the liberation of a soul from the weight of such suffering is to live a life that is truly blessed.

It is not always the deep dark secret wounds that I see; often it is the life disabling phobias. A spider phobia might seem laughable to those of us who cherish the creatures and have no fear of them, but for someone who is truly phobic, they are creatures from hell to be avoided even if in their panic, they endanger themselves and others. I have had mothers leave children in the middle of a busy shopping mall as they ran from a wasp; a teenager nearly killed running into traffic to escape a dog who was some distance away. Lives are severely curtailed by such phobias and they are often passed on from parent to child. It is so unnecessary.

In NLP (neuro linguistic programming) we have a wonderful technique called the fast phobia cure. Within a two hour session, a woman who had had life long panic attacks at the sight of a spider, who could not talk about them or even look at a photograph, without hyperventilating, walked out of my office finally free. She gave me a great hug as she left and told me that she just knew something had changed.

She laughed when she phoned me a few days later to report that she had even found herself feeling sorry for spiders, instead of hating them. Her family still cannot believe that she can walk into the bathroom without sending someone in ahead of her to check first. She may never learn to love spiders but the important thing is that her life is no longer straitjacketed by an overwhelming terror. Care to guess, how that makes me feel? You got it - that's me up ahead walking on air!

Move over Harry Potter - magic doesn't just happen in books.

It must be that time of year again, the nostalgic looking back and remembering. I opened up a file of my daily writing from 2003 and found this. In moments I was transported back to the sight, sound and soft, gentle touch of our wonderful dog, Buster. I have been owned by many dogs over the years and they were each special in their own way, but Buster had a way of capturing the hearts of everyone he met.

So let me introduce him. He lives on for us in some of the happiest memories of our lives.

Buster was soft gold manifested in physical form, a glowing warm incarnation of love and gentle grace. He was and for all eternity remains our dog.
He was quite extraordinarily beautiful. His gleaming red gold coat was fringed with long feathery white hair. His nose was like black leather. His eyes were the mirrors of his magnificent soul, full of love and quiet acceptance for all the universe. People stopped to admire him, to embrace him, to ask what kind of dog he was. He accepted it all with regal dignity.
He had the grace and elegance of the Irish Setter with the deep calm steadiness of the Labrador. Both parents were Show Champions from long lines of Show Champions and had they been the same breed, Buster would have been beyond our reach financially. Buster was an aristocrat, born on the wrong side of the pedigree blanket. Thanks to his Irish Setter mother’s indiscretion with the Golden Labrador next door, he came into our lives for the sum of £40, the best bargain we will ever have.
We had been discussing a new dog for months but I loved the looks and the temperament of the Irish Setter while my husband favoured the Labrador. When we saw the small ad, we took it as a sign that this was destined to be, a unique blending of both breeds specially for us. Then I saw the beauty of the puppies and I thought it would be impossible to chose. I should have known that such a coincidence meant that Fate was playing its hand and when one tiny dog snuggled into my neck and sighed ecstatically, we knew that he had found heaven and home all at once. He made it quite clear that we belonged to him and the only question was “what had taken us so long to find him?”.

Celebrate Yourself Today

All too often we shrink away from acknowledging what is worthy of celebration about ourselves. It is so much easier to give praise to others than to look inside and see what is praise-worthy about our own lives. One of the ways I help myself to stay positive is to keep a "booster file" which contains all the good things people have written or said about me. When I feel the need, I open the folder on my computer and read a few. Whatever grey cloud has been hovering is very quickly chased away.

Another way is to simply take a few minutes when you are able to be quiet. Sit with a blank sheet of paper in front of you. Take three good deep breaths and breath out slowly. This helps to clear the thought clutter from the mind. Then write as a stream of consciousness, the answer to this question: What reason do I have to celebrate myself today? Just let whatever comes, come.

Here is one I completed a few weeks ago.

I need to celebrate just how great a job I do of walking high wire while keeping all the multiple balls of my life in the air, while performing the occasional back-flip - and all without a safety net!

Welcome to a day in the life of Super Mum! She cooks, she cleans, she cares for her elderly parents, turns lives around in her therapy practice while keeping her 16 year old son sane through his demanding schooling and gently steering her husband through mid-life crisis.

I need to celebrate the nutritious and delicious meals which mysteriously appear on the table every day without fail.

I need to celebrate the superb organisational skills which go into timetabling everything from the school run, client appointments, orthodontists and a various assortment of tutorials.

I need to celebrate the complete and loving attention I give to my clients.

I need to celebrate keeping the earth in motion, causing the stars to shine, stoking the fires of the sun to keep the planet light and warm.

Just another day in the life of a mother.

Yes, I really need to celebrate being me.

So how about you celebrate being you.

Thanksgiving - shifting perspective through gratitude.

As our friends in the USA, adjust their waist belts and finish digesting the Thanksgiving Feast, it is a good time for the world to remember how much they have to be grateful for.
I wish that there was a world-wide Thanksgiving Day when every one of us could take a moment to recall the good things in our lives. In fact, we should make every day a Thanksgiving Day. What kind of world do you think this would be if every morning, we woke with thoughts of gratitude in our minds, warm feelings of gratitude in our hearts and words of loving gratitude on our lips?
Instead of stumbling out of bed, half awake and resenting the new day before we even start it, we could breathe deeply for a moment and consciously bring to mind what we have to be grateful for.
Ah, but I can hear you grumbling under your breath, "It's 3 degrees below outside; I'll have to clear the snow from the roof and dig the car out of the garage ; then I'll have to get the kids out of their beds, fight every inch of the way with them to get them out for the bus on time; my husband/wife is on yet another business trip and I'll be risking my life driving through the traffic with a bunch of homicidal psychopaths out to get me before I get to work, where the sociopath boss of mine will get paid more than I do for doing a whole lot less.I would pack it in but the debts are piled high and we need a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs. Gratitude, bah, humbug!"
I know all of that. My son glares at me when I wake him on a school morning and we have psychopath drivers here in Scotland too. However, when I am mindfully grateful before I even set foot outside of bed, I can laugh at my son's baleful glance and even send a prayer out for the mental health of those dangerous drivers which is my toughest challenge. When I am grateful, I am Teflon coated. Nothing burns me.
So tomorrow morning, as you awaken, make a little adjustment to your perspective on life and it might sound like this:
I am grateful for the roof over my head when so many slept in the open last night.
I am grateful for the warm comfort of my bed and knowing that I have a loving partner who would rather be here with me but cares so much about this family they work away from home.
I am grateful for the kids who are the greatest creations of my life. I am grateful for loving and being loved.
I am grateful that I have a strong roof which bears the weight of the snow. I am grateful for a garage to keep my car in. Oh and that's another one to be grateful for, the car!
I'm grateful for being strong and healthy enough to dig the snow from the driveway. Great exercise and it costs me nothing.
I am grateful for the noise and squabbling of my kids as they get ready for school. This is a sign that they feel free to be themselves and that they trust me not to harm them. It's not like that in every home.
I am grateful for the food I can afford to give them when so many starve around the world.
I am grateful for the school where they will receive an education which will take them out into a world of infinite opportunity. Many children are never given this wonderful chance.
I am grateful for the bus which takes them to school and I am grateful for the driver who will ensure they get there safely, In so many places, children must walk for hours in the blazing sun to reach a school.
I am grateful that I am not a psychopath driver. It must be terrible to live in that mind, with all that rage and pain. I am grateful for my ability to be calm.
I am grateful to have a job when so many are unemployed.
I am grateful that my boss is just a sociopath; he could have been a psychopath. In any case, I am grateful that I have a job because it makes it easier to find another one where the boss is not deranged.
I am grateful for the knowlege that by carefully balancing my expenditure I can gradually reduce my debts and be forever free of them. Some people simply don't know how to do this.
Wake up and smell the roses, or if not the roses, the toast. Wake up to gratitude and whatever the world throws your way, you will greet it with resilience and courage. You might get a little singed around the edges but you won't get burned up.
Yes, Gratitude is Teflon coating for the soul.