As we enter in to this new year filled with intentions and resolutions, the one question I start each new day with is:  “God, what do you have in store for me today?” My intention is to truly begin living my life in the flow of the grace of God instead of the rigid constraints of my own thoroughly constructed To Do list.

My life thus far has been judged (by myself) and categorized by how much I could overcome, how fiercely independent I could be and how I could accomplish things all on my own.  Be strong!  If you ask for help or show that you are in need you are exposing your weakness.  Seems a bit twisted I know, but this was how I rolled and I congratulated myself every time I could get thru something difficult without having to rely on anyone else.  In a world of connection and community I was the bricklayer building my brick walls to show how resilient I was, how strong and capable and how I could do it on my own without anyone else.  It was my protection, it was my own self constructed prison.

Thank God for waking up!  The truth is that I need people.  We ALL need people…we all need each other not just to survive but to thrive and truly experience what life is trying to show us and teach us and shower upon us in each moment of each day.  Our lessons are learned in the classroom of life and the classroom of life is not a classroom of ONE.  As I wrote the word ‘constraints’ in the paragraph above it really hit home to me and so I looked up the definition and it is this:  Constraint is the element factor or a subsystem that works as a bottleneck. It restricts an entity, project, or system (such as a manufacturing or decision making process) from achieving its potential (or higher level of output) with reference to its goal.

Well…no wonder.  The constraints that I perceived were keeping me focused, in line, on task and achieving were in fact creating the bottleneck to my own potential. It was the brick wall between me and my own higher self.   How can we possibly become all we are meant to be in this world if we close off from the source?  The answer is we can’t.  I certainly can’t.  So this is the quest, to open to Grace and recognize my own potential in each lesson of each day.

So as I asked the question yesterday morning:  “God, what do you have in store for me today?”  I got a wonderful reminder, a lesson of what it means to ask for help and receive fully the kindness of strangers.  I got in my car to leave for work and as I turned the key, instead of the engine turning over I got a buzzing and a series of clicks and…absolutely NOTHING.  My battery was dead.  Really dead.  So in my strong, resilient way I went back up to my apartment to find a place that I could take the car to replace the battery and call for a tow.  I found a shop not too terribly far away (but not super close either) and got some quotes on towing.  All in all it was going to cost me close to $200 which I was not planning on and was not too happy about.  In a moment of clarity I decided to first ask the staff in the apartment office if they could be of help before I called a tow truck.  I walked in to the office and asked if there was anyone who was able to jump-start a car and wouldn’t you know it there just happened to be two maintenance men in the office at that very moment who said they would be glad to help out.

As they were getting the car running again these kind gentlemen asked where I was taking my car for a battery and I told them what I had found.  They immediately told me of a much closer place, just down the street (that I had never seen before) and it would be 1/2 the price.  I thanked them both for their kindness and their help and  I drove to the shop they recommended.  The man who assisted me at the shop was equally helpful and friendly and offered me a wonderful discount.  All in all I only had to spend $78.00.

The most important thing I took away from this experience were the looks and smiles I received from those kind strangers.  I realized that by allowing them to help me and by receiving their help with open-ness and gratitude I gave them the opportunity to feel like they were being the knights in shining armor, they were being of service. I was letting them feel that what they had to offer was of value and I let them feel my gratitude.  I could see it in their faces.  In the past, my stubborn attitude of resilience not only blocked my connection to others but I also can see how I was robbing them of the wonderful feeling of giving back, of helping others and being of service.  The lesson I am once again reminded of is that it is just as important to receive the kindness of strangers as it is to give kindness to strangers.

Live in Grace.  Receive the Love.

Amy

The incredible journey of life….and life IS a journey no doubt.

When I look at the peoples lives I see around me every day, I see in full technicolor just how incredibly different each of our journeys has been and continue to be. The choices we have made or haven’t made have woven paths filled with experiences that have brought us from infancy to childhood to adulthood and beyond. Any variance, a different choice and the journey would look completely different. Taking a good long look at my own journey and accepting it for what it is and has been while embracing it in all it’s inconsistent craziness has been my greatest learning experience thus far.

I cannot speak for the feelings of the younger generation (specifically those just about to graduate high school and venture off into “the real world”) but it seems as if there is a more open attitude these days towards choosing your own path instead of going down the society standard chosen path of success. Perhaps with all of our amazing technology there is simply more exposure to the vast options out there….or perhaps this may just simply be my own perception.

When I was a young adult looking to venture out into the world, the choices I was given felt [to me] more like a choice between scripted plays rather than a blank page that I could choose to fill however I wanted. If I was to have the life that “everyone wanted” I should follow the appropriate steps in the appropriate order, not deviating for one moment. This to me is like going on a vacation and having that AAA planner that gives you up to the moment info on where you are on the journey, where you will be tomorrow, where you will stay [and how long] and exactly where you will end up. Now..this is not a bad thing at all and I admit I have taken that route a time or two. It’s been proven. It can and does work. The trouble was, as a kid (and even now quite honestly) I didn’t really have the desire to follow those steps. As organized a person as I was and am I didn’t want the ‘life GPS’ and the pre-planned guide, that path didn’t feel right to me. I wanted the journey filled with adventure, the VW bus with the windows rolled down and the music cranked up, heading for the coast with nothing but the road ahead of me and the memories behind me, taking in new experiences along the way. That is precisely what I chose.

As I grew up (and I admit I am still growing up!) I judged pretty harshly my own choices and decisions, wondering from time to time if everyone had been right all along and I had blown it. I looked at the lives of my friends and peers and often times thought that where they were was where I should be, not where I was. I heard the voices in my head from parents, pastors and peers saying “what are you doing?” and put pressure on myself to change, to fit in, to try and fix what I had “broken”. Let me tell you that becomes exhausting!

The truth is that all the voices and all the pressure and all the feeling I needed to fit in were coming from just one source and that was me. Yup, just me. Thinking that my journey had to look or feel like anyone else’s journey was in fact my biggest mistake. I mean…Whose journey is it anyway? It’s mine. It’s mine alone to take. If it is a success or failure [or a little of both] it is only because I have thought it so and I have made it so in my own mind. The truth is I am my own blank page and I always have been.

The acceptance of my crazy, adventurous, creative, unique journey has given me the clarity and motivation to keep moving forward, to jump back on that bus, roll the windows down and turn the music up a little higher. The ride may be bumpy, I may backtrack a time or two and there may even be a few flat tires along the way. But I can handle it. I know that.

Why?

Because It’s my ride!    It’s my journey….and it’s Fabulous!

What does yours look like?

In the recent days and weeks the news has been filled with stories of massive snow storms pummeling the east coast and the midwest with not inches, but feet of snow.  Living now in the Arizona desert I am fortunate that I do not have to contend with the long and brutal winters of “up north”,  but I do have many memories of my childhood growing up in Minnesota where the winters are unusually long, cold and snow-filled.  Most of the memories are great ones, I mean…when you’re a kid you get to play in the snow:  snow forts, snowmen, snow angels and snowball fights.  You don’t have to worry about de-icing the car or shoveling the sidewalk or getting everyone to work and school on time when there is a 4 foot berm blocking the driveway.  Gotta love the snow plows!

But honestly…thank goodness for the snow plows because without them no one would be able to move, the roads would be blocked, cars would be stuck and the flow of life on the road would stop.  In Lake Tahoe, CA where I lived for a short period of time they have the plowing down to a science.  I guess when you get 80 feet of snow in a season, you better have a good plan!  The giant plows would plow everything to the center of the roadway and then another giant snowblower type truck would come thru and pick it up and deposit all the snow into a dump truck that would carry it away somewhere and dump it leaving the roadway completely free and clear.  It was like a dance.  The flow on the roads never stopped, their path was clear.  Everything moved freely.

As I was watching and reading about all the snow I received a message from a friend that ended with “…I hope you are continuing to let peace in your life.”  and I thought about that.  “Letting peace into our lives”.  I think for the most part people assume they will either HAVE peace or NOT HAVE peace but it is entirely up to circumstance.  If we are lucky we will have Joy, Love, Peace.  If we are unlucky these things will elude us.  The truth is that all the things we truly want in our lives we can have if we make space for them.  So often we have filled ourselves up with resentment, sadness, anger, bitterness, shame and remorse from things, events and people in our past that there is no room for peace, joy, love, clarity or harmony to show up.  In order to let those things flow into our life we have to plow the road.  We have to clear out and remove all the feelings and hurts and disappointments of those past experiences and let them go so that the road is clear.  Once the road is clear the vehicles of grace, love, truth, joy, harmony and peace can travel freely and show up in abundance.

Plowing the road is not easy.  Shoveling out that 4 foot berm takes a lot of time and effort.  But it clears the path.  It keeps you from getting stuck.  It allows you to see the road ahead and keeps you moving forward.  So in answer to my friends message:  Yes!  The more I plow the road of the past, the more peace, love and joy can flow in to the present and the future.  It is a continuous process.  In each day that I let go of [remove] something painful, something joyful arrives.

We will always have pain, hurt and disappointment.  These things are a part of life.  But there is no point in holding on to them, they only create a roadblock.  Peace wants to come in to all of our lives if we would only let it.  As John Lennon said; “Give Peace a chance”.         Let go.  Move it out.  Plow the road.

But what if that job showed up in a field you were not expecting or in another city?  or what if that person showed up for you and they were unconventional or had different viewpoints than you were used to?  It would feel uncomfortable.  It would feel foreign.  It is not what we are used to.  We say:  “Is this what I asked for?”  Of course something new and different is going to feel a bit uncomfortable.  A new pair of shoes are not as comfortable as your well-worn sneakers with the hole in the side.   But you didn’t ask for another pair of well-worn sneakers.  You have outgrown those and are longing for and needing something different in your life.  You asked for what you wanted and as uncomfortable as it feels when you receive it, you must trust and have faith that the universe has sent you exactly what you need to grow and move forward.

Unfortunately what often happens is that we see this gift, this new opportunity in our life and it is so different that it scares us, so we try to change it so that it looks familiar to us…less scary.  We try to make it more comfortable, what we’re used to. We try to control it.  But control is just an illusion.  It would be like receiving a beautiful bouquet of yellow roses after always getting red ones and being so uncomfortable with the change that you spray paint the roses red to make them look like what you are used to seeing.  Of course it kills the roses.  Likewise, if you reject a gift, an opportunity or try to change it into something that it is not, you are essentially killing the opportunity that is before you, the opportunity that you asked for.  The gift that you have been graced with.

When you ask for something different in your life, don’t expect it to arrive in the same packaging that you are used to.  Don’t expect it to look, feel or move the same way as you are used to.  Don’t expect it to be comfortable.  Prepare yourself.  Make yourself open to whatever appears for you.  You asked for something different, something not familiar.  It will take some adjustment. It will take an open mind. But accepting that discomfort provides you the opportunity for growth and change.  The opportunity to move into a different space within yourself and within the world as you know it.

Prepare and you will be open to receiving amazing gifts that you could not have even conceived of.  Close yourself off and you may end up losing in the end that which you prayed for in the beginning.  I have seen it, and I have lived it.