So, here we are. THIS MOMENT.
Are you paying attention?
This is all there is. You are here as a communication channel for the Love of God, to extend that love here in the world. This is your true purpose. To inspire joy in people.
It’s gets really simple when you start thinking in this way. It’s not complicated. There is nothing to figure out. Suddenly all your former goals become meaningless.
Being in the present moment takes practice. Training your mind to be focused in the NOW is like training to be an Olympic athlete. Believe me. I know. I am the Queen of Distraction and if I can train myself to be more fully present, well then, so can you.
The past two days I’ve been staying away from the computer except for a couple of hours for work. It’s been marvelous. I’m not clicking all over the internet looking to be amused or entertained. It’s whole new thing for me.
I was thinking about how vastly different this world is from the one I grew up in, and how every child born today will grow up with televisions, iPods, cellphones and internet.
Yesterday, Greta loaned me the most amazing magazine: “Shift: At the Frontiers of Consciousness” (you can click the image to go their website) and there is an article in here that says the internet has become “the global brain” and that “the electronic media amplify, distort, and attenuate our senses, change our awareness, and mediate our experience.”
(sounds like a drug to me…)
This article says they have done studies that when you turn off all the distractions and get quiet, your mind releases chemicals that make you more alert and aware. Which obviously, you don’t need scientists to tell you that.
I already know that when I walk away from the computer after hours of internet, I’m drowsy and drugged. I feel tired. All I want to do is indulge in some other mind-altering distraction like watching a movie, or eating loads of carbohydrates when I’m not even hungry.
I don’t have a cell phone so I don’t have that distraction. Thankfully. I haven’t watched tv since 1986 (with the exception of Friends episodes for 10 years every Thursday night with my friend Rick) so I don’t have that distraction.
But I do have the internet, and I waste whole days just sitting in front of a computer screen. I want to begin using it only as a tool, and only for work, and only for a couple hours a day.
I think calling the internet the GLOBAL BRAIN is scarily accurate. But who wants to be connected to a global brain in that way?? Who needs to expose themselves to the sheer level of violence and meanness in movies, television and the internet.
I am starting to sound like someone’s grandmother, but it feels great.
I want to think for myself. I want a clear head. I don’t want it cluttered with junk.
Last night I turned off all the distractions, and I found a whole new energy.
It’s a great experiment, and I like it.
In my book, Christmas starts on December 1st, which is tomorrow.
I do NOT go by The 12 Days of Christmas. Who wants a partridge in a pear tree??? Who wants 12 days of gifts when you can have 25? I rather find a surprise a day, like in an Advent Calendar. So that’s what we’ll do here. We will open a door a day, and find a surprise a day here at Gorgeous for God – one for every day leading up to Christmas.
Even I don’t know what is behind each door. We’ll be surprised together.
I thought it would be a fun thing to do – to get excited like little kids again, in anticipation of Jesus arriving and Santa leaving toys … and to let every day leading up to Christmas be a gift in of itself.
They’ll be Christmas songs, Christmas stories, recipes, great links for great gifts, and who knows what else.
I found something really exciting yesterday: THE ADVENT CALENDAR OF MY CHILDHOOD.
I almost fell out of my chair. It’s the same calendar we had hanging on the kitchen wall in 1975. It’s $5.95 and imported from Germany.
This site has have tons of other advent calendars here – religious and non-religious – and if you want to feel a kid again, the advent calendar is for you.
How cute is this bag????
They also have nylon bags (with polka dots!) which would make awesome little lunch bags. Click here.
What if you had six months to live?
If I had answered this question yesterday, I would have written a whole list of things I wanted to do, places I wanted to travel, and people I wanted to see.
But last night around midnight I read a sentence in the book “The Starter Wife” (see below) that changed all my ideas about everything.
STRENGTHEN THE CORE, AND THE REST FOLLOWS.
“Gracie sipped her margarita and leaned back, sucking in her lower stomach and she always did when she heard her Pilates instructor’s voice egging her on in her mind – “strengthen the core, and the rest follows.”
I was like, Oh my God. That’s it.
Strengthen the core, and the rest follows.
Everything I want is mine as I strengthen my core, which is my relationship with God.
You build a solid rock foundation.
I was in Starbucks the other day with Max when a 3-year old girl walked in. Max said: Look at her.
I looked and saw a perfectly happy little girl, smiling and laughing.
Max said, “Look how perfect her posture is. She knows who she is. Uncertainty has not yet started to set in.”
Now look around. See how almost everyone is slumped over. Shoulders slouched. Tired. Worn. Beat Down. Overweight.
If I had six months to live, I’d stand up straight. I’d let myself shine bright. I’d remember how much I have to give. I’d extend love in every direction. I’d remember my gratitude. I’d let every day (every moment!) be a perfect adventure. I’d be consciously aware of the small details. I’d do what I love.
Do I like sitting behind a computer?
No, not really.
I love writing and blogging – and I have a few websites that I love to visit – but that only takes me an hour or two in the morning. Three hours tops. The whole rest of the time in front of the computer is spent just fooling around … searching searching searching … for something interesting.
What am I searching for? I don’t even know.
Occasionally I find a little snippet of information that amuses me or makes me sit up and think, but mostly I just click click click and find a whole lot of BLAH.
If I had six months to live, I’d spend less time in front of the computer. I would start strengthening my core by remembering God, my gratitude, and my joy.
I would only do work that I absolutely love to do.
Reading. Writing. Sending letters. Cooking. Inspiring people. Going to Starbucks. Traveling.
If I had six months to live I’d be Gorgeous for God.
So in effect, I’d be doing what I’m already doing with less time in front of the computer.
I am reading the Starter Wife by Gigi Levangie Grazer, which is hilarious. I almost never read “beach novels” which I’ve always thought to be frilly and fluffy and below my level of intelligence (let’s be honest here) but I saw the book in the library and the cover looked interesting so I checked it out on a whim … hoping/praying I wouldn’t run into any of my friends as I believe that beach novels are the equivalent of pornography.
But it’s soooo good! (I’d probably say the same thing about pornography, if I gave it a chance) What a surprise. I love it. It’s like looking through a window of a 5-million dollar mansion in L.A. and getting an insider glimpse of lunches at The Ivy. I was up till past midnight last night reading the book. And then up at 5am this morning, like a 6-year old on Christmas morning, all excited to get back to the story.
Gigi Levangie Grazer is so funny! Her sentences are so well crafted. I am thrilled. I want to read everything she’s written now.
Secretly, I want to be her best friend. I am completely mesmerized. I love a mind on fire.
I am totally in love with E.B. White. I’m reading “Elements of Style” by William Strunk and E.B. White. I’m also reading “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser. These were college books of mine, that I totally forgot about. They are classics, not only about writing … but life in general.
This is E.B. White.
William Zinsser is amazing.
He writes:
On Simplicity:
“Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous thrills and meaningless jargon. The answer to clear writing is a clear head. The answer is to clear our heads of clutter. Clear thinking becomes clear writing: one can’t exist without the other. It is impossible for a muddy thinker to write good English.”
On Style:
“First, then, learn to hammer in the nails, and if what you build is sturdy and serviceable, take satisfaction in its plain strength.”
“But you will be impatient to find a “style” – to embellish the plain words so that readers will recognize you as someone special. You will reach for gaudy similes and tinseled adjectives, as if “style” were something you could buy at a style store and drape onto your words in bright decorator colors. Resist this shopping expedition: there is no style store.
“Style is organic to the person doing the writing, as much a part of him as his hair, or, if he is bald, his lack of it. Trying to add style is like adding a toupee. At first glance the formerly bald man looks young and even handsome. But at second glance – and with a toupee there is always a second glance – he doesn’t look quite right. The problem is not that he doesn’t look well groomed; he does, and we can only admire the wigmaker’s almost perfect skill. The point is that he doesn’t look like himself.
“This is the problem of the writer who sets out deliberately to garnish his prose. You lose whatever it is that makes you unique. The reader will usually notice if you are putting on airs. He wants the person who is talking to him to sound genuine. Therefore a fundamental rule is: be yourself.”
“No rule, however, is harder to follow. It requires the writer to do two things which by his metabolism are impossible. He must relax and he must have confidence.
“Telling a writer to relax is like telling a man to relax while being prodded for possible hernia, and, as for confidence, he is a bundle of anxieties.
“What can be done to put the writer out of these miseries? Unfortunately, no cure has yet been found. I can only offer the consoling thought that you are not alone. Some days will go better than others; some will go so badly that you will despair of ever writing again. We have all had many of these days and will have many more.”
Isn’t this great? I love this book. So simple: just be yourself.
There is another nice section in this book that says you actually need to HEAR the sentences, because they are not words on a page but sounds. You hear a sentence, and that’s how you write. I do this constantly. I hear myself talking to myself, and my fingers simply transcribe the conversation. It’s not channeling, but it’s me listening to myself talking to myself and writing down what’s being said.
On The Audience:
“Soon after you confront this matter of preserving your identity (in recognizing your style), another question will occur to you: “Who am I writing for?”
“It’s a fundamental question and it has a fundamental answer: you are writing for yourself. Don’t try to visualize the great mass audience. There is no such audience – every reader is a different person. Don’t try to guess what sort of things editors want to publish or what you think the country is in a mood to read. Editors and readers don’t know what they want to read until they read it. Besides, they’re always looking for something new.”
“Don’t worry about whether the reader will “get it” if you indulge a sudden impulse for humor or nonsense. If it amuses you in the act of writing, put it in. You are writing primarily to entertain yourself, and if you go about it with confidence you will also entertain the readers who are worth writing for.”
That’s William Zinsser. On Writing Well.
It’s exactly why I find this blog to be such a joy – i write to amuse myself.
It’s all for me.
I find that most people do not do well with “This is the first and last day” kind of teaching. It gives them the liberty to be careless. It makes them eat whatever they want, do whatever they want, say whatever they want … but without commitment or dedication. It doesn’t really give them time to think about what they really want.
It produces a kind of “fuck it” mentality.
The fact is TODAY IS ALL YOU HAVE.
The fact is THIS MOMENT IS ALL THERE IS.
But, no matter.
Let’s get practical and have some fun.
Let’s go deep into the core of your thought system.
What if you had six months to live?
Try to have fun with this exercise. Don’t think about lack of money or your job, and don’t make excuses like you’ve used up all your vacation time. Just go for it. Have fun.
If you had six months to live, what would you do?
Come back tomorrow and I’ll tell you what I’d do.
The last two blog posts I wrote I said that when I have the choice between A and B, I choose B. But along comes lesson 138 of A Course in Miracles that says there is only ONE CHOICE TO MAKE … a choice for Heaven.
Then, you turn the page, you get to Lesson 139 which says “I will accept the Atonement for myself” and the first sentence in the lesson says “Here is the end of choice.”
!!
I love it. Once you choose Heaven, there are no more choices.
If someone is calling you an idiot, or ignoring you, or cutting in front of you in the supermarket, or sleeping with your best friend … there is only one decision to make: Heaven or hell.
It’s so amazing. Accepting the Atonement means to accept yourself (along with everyone else) as God created you, perfect. Once you remember your own perfection, you remember all the smaller lessons instantly. You remember that your brother is yourself. You remember that we all come from a Single Source which is God. You remember there is only this moment. You remember that you are what Love is. You remember that you are the Second Coming.
It’s not something else or someone else. It’s you!
When you accept one lesson totally and without compromise, you remember all the other lessons perfectly and automatically.
When I remember “I’m the light of the world” … I literally have no problems and I remember that everything else is light along with me.
When I remember “Gorgeous for God” as my true function, I remember every lesson immediately. I remember there is no need for conflict. I remember I want the peace of God. I remember that everything has been accomplished. I remember that I can relax. I remember that “I need do nothing.” I remember that there is no result, no process, no journey. There is only now.
I remember ALL OF THIS as I choose Heaven, which ends all choice. When I choose Heaven, I remember I am whole and perfect as God created me.
I remember that you are whole and perfect as God created you.
I remember there is no distance between us.
I remember that I’m here only for today.
I remember my function is to be happy.
It’s so amazing.
The final goal is to recognize your own perfection. This may seem like a long way off. But what is your definition of perfect? It has something to do with a body, doesn’t it? You’ll be perfect when you fit into size 6 jeans, or when you have no problems, or when you get married, or when you have harmonious relationships or when all your debts are paid.
All these things have to do with a body identification. Perfect in terms of how the world judges perfect. What is perfect?
Perfect is what you are, as God created you. It has never altered. It has never changed. Your innocence, grace and beauty is flawless. You are perfect. Now. Here. Today. This minute.
But you instantly think: no, you’re wrong. I’m not perfect. I’m overweight and old. I’ll never be perfect. Or maybe you think “my husband will be home from Iraq soon, and then life will be perfect, or maybe not perfect, but at least better.”
and we are keep chasing after dreams that will come sometime later in the future. What about today?
You are perfect today.
This is the only thing you need ever accept. You cannot learn truth. It can only be recognized and accepted. Only acceptance is necessary. Your perfection has always been there, all the time. You’ve always been perfect, but you’ve slapped on a hundred and one false ideas about yourself. But the light shines just as brightly in you, despite your doubts.
You are the light of the world.
Does your life start today … or some other time?
What are you waiting for?
Today is all there is.
Are you waiting for inspiration to strike? Are you waiting for someone to give you permission to shine? Are you waiting because you are afraid of making a mistake? Are you waiting for someone to call you on the phone? Are you waiting for opportunity to come knocking?
Today is all there is.
Today, I accept Atonement for myself.
Today, I accept my Identity in God and all living things.
Today, I accept my perfection.
I am immensely pleased with myself to finally have a new website.blog.
Why?
Well, because it means I am doing something new.
What a miracle.
It might not seem like a big deal to most people but I cherished my other website and blog – I HELD ON FOR DEAR LIFE – even though it looked crappy, you had to go to 2 URL’s, and there wasn’t a lot of features.
This is the human condition. We hang on, even when it’s outdated and not working. We do this with relationships and work and everything in between. We accept mediocrity. I stayed with that that blog not because I liked it so much but because I didn’t have to ask for help. I knew in getting a new blog, I would need to ask for help. I hate asking for help. But I knew I couldn’t do it on my own.
So I dragged my feet.
When the choices are:
1. Ask for help
2. Let things stay the same
I usually choose Door #2. My choice is to keep things the same, even when it’s not working. I’m stubborn in that way. I like comfort. I do not like my home environment to be disrupted. Taurus the Bull.
So, it feels great to actually ask some people for help. To express my vision and not be ashamed. To let things be new. Bastiaan built the banner. Francisco moved everything over to a new server. These guys amaze me.
In the transition, the whole website came down, along with every post. I freaked for a minute … but look! It’s almost entirely restored.
Those guys didn’t freak. They knew what they were doing. I freaked. But this is where TRUST IN YOUR BROTHER is an amazing practice.
There will be more changes.
This is good reminder for me to let things be new. I always think that change will result in things getting worse, not better.
A Course in Miracles says the reason you are afraid of change is because the first change introduced into the mind is separation from God, and ever since then you are terrified of change. You think all change will result in descent, making things worse not better. It’s not something you may be aware of consciously, but it’s there in your mind. The memory that your first change led to you being separate from everything, lonely and fearful. A total screw up, that seemingly could not be undone.
But change is good. The mistake has been corrected. We are not separate from God. We are not separate from each other. We are safe to take chances. To be courageous. To try a new route.
I’m taking baby steps, but I’m learning. I’m trying. I’m stepping into the unknown, even though I’m afraid and resisting change. Susan Jeffers says “Feel the fear and do it anyway!”
What changes are you allowing into your life today?
What is Gorgeous for God?
It is a constant reminder of everything you keep forgetting about yourself.
You keep forgetting that today is all there is. You keep forgetting that you are pure light. You keep forgetting that your function is forgiveness. You keep forgetting that God loves you.
You keep thinking other people are doing things to you. You keep thinking that sometime “later” your life will be better. You keep thinking there are things you can do IN THE FUTURE, instead of remembering there is only now.
What I think is interesting is that we have been conditioned as humans to think in terms of ordinary moments and extraordinary moments.
What are the extraordinary moments?
When you get a raise? Or a new job? When you travel to Europe? Or you meet someone new? Have a baby? Or something exciting happens?
We think in terms of “special” events that only come once in a blue moon.
For me, it’s when my mind is active and I feel totally free. Which is every single day of my life. Free from worry, free from pain, free from thinking about the past or future. The extraordinary moment is when I force myself to be entirely focused in the present, in the NOW.
You have to force yourself to be in the present. That’s why it’s called MIND TRAINING. You have to train your mind to do this. It takes practice. It takes willingness. It takes dedication.
Stop waiting for a “miracle.” Stop praying for things to change. That implies a future. There is no future. There is only now.
What are you waiting for?
You are missing a million sensations in this very moment.
A million things are happening right now and you are missing them.
A Course in Miracles is the simple reminder to wake up. Open your eyes. Stop sleeping.
It includes a workbook that has 365 lessons all designed to train your mind, in a systematic way, to use your eyes in a different way. To begin training your mind to think differently. To become aware of your Identity in God.
You are pure light.
There are no ordinary moments.
Think of people who live extraordinary lives. Who do you think of? Oprah? People with money? People who travel? People who make things happen? People who are doing what they love?
Think about it.
Are you living an extraordinary life? Does your name come to mind?
It should be first on the list – before Oprah. Your name should be #1 on the list of people living extraordinary lives.
This does mean you have to run out and start doing things. Your life becomes extraordinary the minute (this minute!) you choose to open your eyes, and became aware of everything that is going on around you.
Think about it.
You are what everything is.
In you is every mind, every person, every event, every circumstance. Past. Present. And future. You have the power to change all things by changing your mind.
You are literally holding the whole world in your hands.
In you is every war, the U.S. Government, every country, every leaf and flower, every person … born and unborn, past, present and future.
You have the power to change the world because you are what the world is.
Think like this and the ordinary moments translates into the extraordinary immediately. Like right now, while you are reading this blog post on your computer.
You become brand new in this moment, right here, right now.
This is what is being offered here.
To stop thinking that your life begins on Friday at 5pm when the weekend comes. To stop thinking your life begins when you lose 30 pounds. To stop thinking your life begins after the holiday after all the craziness ends and things are “back to normal”.
There is only today.
There is no other time to start living.
Today is the day you have been waiting for.
What will you do?
