dailydatewithgod

So much of our lives we measure by right or wrong, good or bad.  This requires judgment of a situation on our part.  This works as long as I am able to fully judge a situation and as long as I keep it about myself.  The challenge here is that can I ever fully judge a situation?  Do I ever really have all the facts and insights at the time of judgment.  More importantly, while I am judging it, am I able to love it?  That is where I struggle, especially when it comes to emotions.  I spent most of my life judging a situation, experience, or feeling before I fully knew or understood what was going on. The moment there was a hint of something “good” or “bad”, “right” or “wrong” I had a judgment about it.  It stifled my ability to actually experience what was happening. This meant stuffing down emotions instead of just accepting them, it kept me from feeling and moving on.  An “E-motion” is a call to “motion”  a movement of energy.  I didn’t allow it because I judged it first, and usually made it wrong.  Again, no room for love and acceptance as part of the human experience and condition.  Somehow I don’t think this is why God gifted me or anyone with emotions.  I have learned that emotions are indicators. Indicators of how I am thinking about something.  They connect my mind and my body and can connect my heart, if I let them.  If I judge them as “right” or “wrong” then I have missed the point.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing look at emotions as a movement of energy and ask instead, is this working for me or against me to allow this energy to continue?  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

We are meant to live our lives fully.  To be seen and heard and make a difference.  Somewhere along the way a number of us got the message (or created a story) that we didn’t matter.  For many years I thought it doesn’t matter what I say, it isn’t going to make a difference.  I took on the story based on circumstances that no one wanted to hear what I had to say, especially if it meant standing up for myself.  It didn’t matter if I screamed and threw tantrums (which I did as a kid), nothing was going to come of it.  Somehow I twisted that into “keep quiet, be good, and don’t make any waves.”  So I learned to mumble, be sarcastic, and practice the voice of omission.  My path to reverse this started by me being willing to hear what I had to say.  By not cutting myself off, not rushing through what I was saying, by valuing my thoughts and opinions, and getting that God always wants to hear what I have to say.  He also placed in my life people who were good listeners and paid attention.  My point is no matter what stories we adopted or experiences we have had, we can change.  We can become visible.  We can shine the light of God to the world in our own special way through our words and our actions. We have no idea how important and special we are.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to hearing God remind us how we are seen and heard in the most magnificent of ways.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

For a long time there were a lot of black and whites in my life.  Things were either one extreme or another, in my thinking of course.  This came from a childhood perception of safety.  It was easier to deem something good or bad, right or wrong, hurt me or not hurt me.  It requires a risk to look at things closer and see the varied colors or shades of grey and step closer or further moment by moment instead of writing something off all together.  It requires involvement and continually checking in with God to determine what to do in this moment. I thought that I was saving myself and keeping myself safe when I made things black and white.  I have discovered that this is yet another illusion I fell prey to.  The good news is that I can now step into the reality that the only thing black and white is God. God is either everything or nothing. My prayer for us today is that we be willing to trust that God is everything so we can explore all the colors and shades of grey of life and not fear going somewhere that God is not. Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Our bodies and all of nature mirror for us how things work. For example, our bodies have a skeleton structure that allows us to stand up and move.  Our tissues and muscles wrap around that bone structure, when any part of that bone structure breaks down we are not able to move freely.  I remember learning about how the first thing that gets created in utero is the brain and then the spinal structure.  Through our spines our brain sends messages to our nerves in all the parts of our bodies.  If any part of our spine is out of alignment then the messages cannot get through.  This breaks down the bodies capacity for healing.  If centering ourselves in a time of quiet each day was the same as maintaining the healthy structure of our spines to get messages to the rest of our body to function wholly, we would probably make it a priority right?  Anyone who has ever had any back problems knows how painful and distressing having a spine out of alignment can be.  What if staying spiritually aligned is the essence of health and healing in every area of our lives, not just our physical lives?  What if being spiritually lined up is how we are able to walk through life being who we are meant to be?  When we are out of alignment with our true selves, things begin to break down.  For me that means I need to reconnect and align myself with who my God is–not the world, not my mind, not something outside of me–the God that dwells in my heart and spirit.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to aligning ourselves so that we can walk freely and easily in this world. Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Given that we as human beings are meaning-making machines we create stories about all the things that happen through the course of our days and our lives.  Who knew that you were so creative, right?  Yes, life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it and how we are reacting is directly correlated to the story we have created about it.  On some level it is brilliant the way that we create connections and draw meaning out of something that just is, but it can also be detrimental to us.  Our lack of brilliance in this area stems from the fact that the story is usually the same one or a version of the same one that is rooted somewhere in a past experience.  We also have similar stories and the stories are not usually rooted in our greatness.  God sees us as more than our story of not being good enough or at fault or that we dont’ belong.  The stories are our ego’s way of justifying its separateness.  The amazing thing is that we can choose not to buy into the story.  We can stop the tape at any time, pause and ask God–is this your story of me?  My prayer for us today when we find ourselves feeling (an indication) a similar way in a given situation that we pause and ask God to show us how we can see this differently.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

It is amazing to me how buildings are made.  I love those videos that show in fast motion the creation of a building from the foundation up.  I have never worked on a construction crew but I can imagine the sense of satisfaction of literally rising a creation from the ground up. It is obviously a process with many different elements and people involved.  It begins with an idea that gets shared and formulated into a plan which is drawn out.  Then materials are gathered and people with different skills contribute so that you don’t just have a building but one that has electricity and plumbing, windows and doors, and within a few months or a year an area of barren land has something there that was not present before.  Our lives are the same way.  The question is, whose idea were we in the first place?  What is our foundation?  Who has contributed to allow us to bring in light and be open?  What allows us to keep energy and love flowing and be a place that others want to come to?  Many elements in the construction of our lives were not things that we had control of.  But like any building, maintenance is required and reconstruction and remodeling occurs all the time.  We can do the same.  We have a say in who or what ideas are involved in the maintenance of our lives so that we can continue to stand strong and be a beacon of welcome.  My prayer for us today is that we be grateful for that which has contributed to the construction of our lives so far and ask for the courage to choose those elements that will most support the maintenance of our hearts.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

In the book of Proverbs its says: “Where there is no vision, the people will perish.”  Given how much we get from our sense of sight it makes sense that vision is important.  But I never thought about how vision–meaning our ability to see things happening impacts our everyday thoughts and decisions.  There was a time in my life when I just hoped I would make it through the day.   I honestly didn’t see much possibility in the future.  I had lost hope.  My loss of hope extended from the fact that life was not turning out the way I had hoped.  I was out of integrity with my true self and had no idea how to be restored.  I know that it is God who led me to a place where I could be restored.  It was in this experience that I found hope, it was in a group of people who practiced a way of living in integrity that welcomed me in and gave me hope.  Their vision encouraged me to believe again that things were possible.  It was their courage and their willingness to face the parts of their lives that they had previously run from without destroying themselves that enabled me to do the same.  Sometimes if we cannot see we need to align ourselves with others who can and borrow their vision.  Ultimately I learned how to connect with God in a new way, a way that restored hope. vision, acceptance, and love.  By letting go of old ideas and ways of being, I was able to connect to God’s vision for my life.  This is part of what my daily dates with God are all about.  Lord, show me how you see my life and my day, grant me the courage to let go of my ideas and live in the greatest purpose that you have designed for me that will bring peace, love, and joy into my life and the lives of all that I encounter today.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to restoring our vision and step into the action to allow that to happen.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

One of the benefits of being a human being instead of a human doing is the ability to have a mental step before a physical step.  You could see it as a preparation.  This is where willingness comes in. When we stop and consider a course of action before jumping into it.  When we connect with our true Source that wants the best for us, we can be willing to take contrary action. If I simply do and do and never pause to check in or breathe in between actions then I am unconscious in my actions.  Having willingness means matching thought with action instead of acting on automatic pilot.  It also allows me to consider being willing to do things that I may not want to do.  Being willing to be as God would have me be in a situation, not how my immediate reaction dictates.  It all comes back to the pause, to step into who I am being before I do.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to what a true willingness of our spirit is.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

When the day is hectic and it seems like there is no end to the demands on my time or tasks that need to be done.  I need to seek some refuge.  It is the days where I feel like a human doing instead of a human being, that I most need to remember who I am.  The quickest way for me to do that is to stop and take a breath.  The other thing I do is find a way to see God.  That could be by remembering something that made me smile recently, listening to a favorite song, smelling a flower, seeing a sunrise or sunset–anything that puts me in touch with the sense that God is near.  I don’t know why it works, but it does.  I am grateful when I am able to feel nearer to the One who created me into being because that nearness allows me to transition in a small way from a human doing to a human being.  My prayer for us today is that we connect for ourselves one more way that we can be nearer to the One who loves all the itty bitty pieces of who we are.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

I wish I could tell you that my mind defaults to what is working or what is going right in a situation, but that would be a lie.  Yes, there are times that I look at things from that perspective, but it has come after years of retraining my brain. The fact of the matter is that the human experience has set us up to look for what is wrong so we can ward off potential danger.  Neuroscientists and those who study the cognitive brain tell us that because of the dangers in cave man days when so many things could potentially hinder our very life survival, our brains were equipped with this mechanism to look for the wrong.  As in all things, this is fundamentally a good thing, but we don’t live in a time anymore where there are so many threats to our very survival.  However, our brains still need to catch up.  This is where connecting with the Great Brain, (though I have never quite thought of God this way), is most necessary.  I need to connect with the Spirit of the Universe that reminds me that all is well and I am taken care of.  That no matter what happens, even if it looks or feels like a threat to my survival, it is most likely not.  The “bears” I encounter in the “forest” of life will not eat me alive even if my head interprets that as a possibility.  Searching out what is wrong in any given situation does not serve me as much as it used to.  I am called to trust that God is with me and I am connected to that power of Rightness each moment that I pause and take a breath.  My prayer for us today is that we remember who we are and where we come from so that we can see what is right about today.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen