twistedcatmeow

[twistedcatmeow]

Fear exists for any number of reasons. It exists to give you something to struggle against. It exists to enhance the illusion that you are not a part of the Unity of the Divine. It exists to spur you into action. But it also exists to prompt you to turn to the Divine, internal and external, for assistance. Think about it – when are you the most likely to look for greater-than-mortal assistance? When you’re scared.

Fear is the illusion of the absence of the Divine.

Either God is everything or God is nothing, because what is bigger than God?

If God is everything, you are a part of that. You are a part of the Divine.

So what is there to be scared of?

Mind you, if you are in fear, this logic won’t help you, because your negative ego will be screaming a mile a minute and you won’t even be able to process it most of the time.

So try repeating this to yourself when you’re in fear instead:

The love of God surrounds me

The light of God empowers me

The arms of God enfold me

The strength of God protects me

Wherever I am, God is.

Based on a Unity prayer by James Dillet Freeman

(Or, you may like the version in the graphic better)

Many people find this very soothing.

 

#Fear #Courage #Illusion #Divine #Practice #AdaptedFromJamesDilletFreeman #Love #UnconditionalLove #SelfImprovement #PersonalGrowth #PracticalSpirituality #DailyMessage #365DaysToEnlightenment #Ayamanatara

[twistedcatmeow]

It’s good to know where you have been; it gives you perspective. Knowing where you have been helps you understand how far you have come. It helps you have a greater understanding of who you are.

 

It’s good to know where you are going; it gives you a goal to focus on. Knowing where you are going brings shape and intent to your actions, it helps you make decisions, and it helps you tell the Universe what to bring you.

Neither of these, however, are what it’s all about. Being in the moment, present, in your journey, will teach you more than looking forward or backward ever will. It is in the moment that your true lessons happen. Do your best, every day, in every moment, to pay attention to where you are and what is going on around you.

 

#PayAttention #ForwardProgress #BeHereNow #BeingPresent #SelfImprovement #PersonalGrowth #PracticalSpirituality #DailyMessage #365DaysToEnlightenment #Ayamanatara #Rainforest #Maui

[twistedcatmeow]

Everything in the Universe is a creation of the Divine and has magical potential. You have magical potential. Everything around you has magical potential. But some of those things are actually magical, all the time, inherently. You just haven’t noticed yet.

 

Today, as you go through your day, keep a running list of all of the things that could be considered magical. The fact that you narrowly missed an accident on the freeway because you couldn’t find your keys. The flight of a bumblebee. Electricity. The feeling you get when you sniff a baby’s head. And anything else that you find wants to be on the list.

It’s time for you to start noticing these things more.

 

#PayAttention #Magick #Potential #Awareness #Practice #SelfImprovement #PersonalGrowth #PracticalSpirituality #DailyMessage #365DaysToEnlightenment #Ayamanatara #FullMoon #Torch #PalmTree

[twistedcatmeow]

There is a strange human habit of taking for granted that which has not yet happened. Maintain your focus all the way through, and you will accomplish your goals. 

Where do you allow yourself to get distracted when manifesting something? How is your follow through?

  Pick something small and allow yourself to be focused on it from beginning to end. In this way, do you start to exercise the mental and emotional muscles that will allow you to bring into being that which you seek.

#FollowThrough #Completion #PayingAttention #Practice #SelfImprovement #PersonalGrowth #PracticalSpirituality #DailyMessage #365DaysToEnlightenment #Ayamanatara #Driftwood #Rainforest #Maui

[twistedcatmeow]

What are you feeling today? What did you wake up feeling? Has that changed? Why? What outside forces do you allow to affect your mood? Could you see yourself choosing differently?

 

When you choose to allow something outside of yourself to change your mood, you frequently set up a pattern for yourself that will affect your entire day. What are your hot buttons? Things like, "People don't understand me," or "bureaucracy is tedious," or "women make my life difficult," or "traffic is frustrating." If one thing triggers a statement like that for you, it sets up a pattern that you will see repeated over and over until you defuse it.

If something like that happens to you today, make a different choice. Allow it to be a solitary event that doesn't have to darken your mood. Choose joy and happiness and love today.

 

#Choices #Emotions #Empowerment #TakingYourPowerBack #HowTo #Practice #SelfImprovement #PersonalGrowth #PracticalSpirituality #DailyMessage #365DaysToEnlightenment #Ayamanatara #DoubleRainbow #Maui

[twistedcatmeow]

As you walk this journey, you will come up against challenges, difficulties, and times when you want to turn back. Each of these is an opportunity to heal an old wound.

 

Do not let your negative ego talk you out of moving forward. Every time you come up against something uncomfortable, you learn more about yourself and what you are capable of; you get to heal, if you’ll let yourself.

Do not be fooled into thinking that this journey is an easy one. Do it anyway.

 

#Challenges #SelfImprovement #PersonalGrowth #PracticalSpirituality #DailyMessage #365DaysToEnlightenment #Ayamanatara #SeaTurtle #Maui #HardWork

[twistedcatmeow]

I might have overdone it on caffeine tonight.  Maybe.  Just a smidge.

[twistedcatmeow]

It is right and proper to have agreements, contracts, and covenants with the Divine. For example, the agreement of “Please make it clear what it is I am to do, and I will do it,” can help clarify your path. Dedicating yourself to your path naturally brings you closer to enlightenment. It also results in the events of your life flowing much more smoothly.

How do you arrive at those agreements? What mindset do you bring to the table? Do you cleanse and purify yourself before entering into such a contract?

The passionate or crisis-motivated vow or covenant is much more common in this day and age. “Dear God, please get me out of this and I promise I will quit smoking.” How often do we break those promises?

If you think you are ready to make a contract with the Divine, make it a solemn and sacred thing.

Purify your body with a ritual shower or bath, full of intent, and allow yourself to be purified by the water; visualize the water clearing away all negativity and attachments.

Purify your mind through meditation, using your Free Will to detach from the thoughts and emotions generated by the negative ego.

Purify the space in which you will make this covenant. Tidy up, clean, and then clear the energy as well. If your personal practice includes a form of setting space, such as drawing a circle or at least burning incense, do that as well.

Think through the contract, reading the fine print, as it were. Make sure you know what you are really asking for, and what your commitment is in return. You might take it into meditation and allow yourself to see all aspects of the agreement.

Make the commitment clearly and cleanly, with as much purity as possible. Understand that what you are seeking to create is a holy covenant and treat it as such.

Blessings to you on your path.

#Covenant #Agreement #Contract #Divine #God #Vows #Dedication #Practice #HowTo #Sacred #Exchange #SelfImprovement #PersonalGrowth #PracticalSpirituality #DailyMessage #365DaysToEnlightenment #Ayamanatara #SeaTurtle #HookipaBeach #Maui

[twistedcatmeow]

Are you empowered in your life? Do you look at things that didn’t work and figure out what your contribution was, what you could have done differently? Do you learn from your “failures?” Or do you blame things or persons outside of yourself? While there are certainly an infinite number of things that are out of your control, you might be best served by focusing on those things that you personally are responsible for. Anything else is a waste of your time and energy.

By accepting responsibility for yourself, you take back your power. If you can see where you contribute to the direction of your life, for better or for worse, you can make changes. You are in control of those things which you can realistically be in control of, and you are no longer a victim of circumstances. You become the co-creator you were meant to be.

If someone does something that seems spiteful or mean or underhanded, take a look at your past behavior with that person and see if there was something you might have done, even in the distant past, that contributed to their animosity.

If someone walks all over your boundaries, see where you might have given them the idea that that was okay.

Your actions have consequences, good and bad. In that sense, you certainly influence the world you live in; how it feels, how others respond to you. Why not use that power to your advantage?

#Responsibility #Empowerment #Blame #Ownership #Agency #Boundaries #Practice #ImportantQuestions #Consequences #SelfImprovement #PersonalGrowth #PracticalSpirituality #DailyMessage #365DaysToEnlightenment #Ayamanatara #TempleCeiling #LookUp #TTiTD

[twistedcatmeow]

On a purely artistic level, if you are a creative sort, you can be poorly trained in your field and still create magical, awe-inspiring works. You just have to listen to your creativity rather than the training. Listening to your creativity means trusting, both the Divine and yourself, to be able to create what needs to be created. If you’re listening to your training more than your creativity, you’re using it as a crutch anyway.

This applies to life as well as to art. You could come from a background that is lacking in those things we think of as being important to children. You could even come from a background filled with abuse. But you have made it this far. You survived. That implies a certain amount of creativity, doesn’t it? You found your way through, you found your way out. That makes you pretty smart. Not everyone makes it, you know.

You might still be relying on your “training,” as it were; that is to say, maybe you have found yourself back in a situation reminiscent of your childhood. Stop leaning on your past as a crutch and trust! Trust the Divine, trust yourself! Create something new for yourself. Just because “it has always been this way” doesn’t mean it always has to be this way. Change something. Change anything!

#TranscendTheModel #Greatness #Creativity #BecomeSomethingMore #SelfImprovement #PersonalGrowth #PracticalSpirituality #DailyMessage #365DaysToEnlightenment #Ayamanatara #Rose

[twistedcatmeow]

The disease of perfectionism can enter even into one’s spirituality. It comes from the negative ego, and serves to keep us from growing. Growth and progress, even the idea of those, put the negative ego into survival-level fear. It is convinced that, should you grow, especially on a spiritual level, it (and therefore you) will cease to exist.

 

The way around this it has come up with, in a lot of people, is perfectionism. Don’t release something out into the world until it’s perfect. Don’t do something unless you know it is the absolutely best choice. What does this accomplish? Absolutely nothing, literally.

Human beings are going to make mistakes. We just are. We’re wired for it. This is one of the ways we learn. This is one of the things that is hinted at in the Garden of Eden mythology in the Bible, but it helps if you know Greek. In the earlier Greek translations of Bible, “to sin” is actually “to miss the mark,” i,e.: to make a mistake. So, from the dawn of this portion of recorded history, humans have been making mistakes. If we didn’t make mistakes anymore, we wouldn’t be here.

Here’s the tricky part with that, because your negative ego is likely to use that as a justification for even more perfectionism. You cannot improve without making mistakes and then learning from them. Free will is what makes humans sacred. We exercise our will appropriately to bring us closer, hopefully, to the Divine.  In exercising our free will, mistakes will be made. We learn from those and choose better next time. This is how wisdom develops. If you were perfect and always made perfect decisions, you wouldn’t really be exercising your free will. 

Let it go, give yourself permission to make mistakes. You’re supposed to make mistakes.

 

#SelfImprovement #PersonalGrowth #PracticalSpirituality #DailyMessage #365DaysToEnlightenment #Ayamanatara #WaterFeature #Seagulls #SoFiStadium #InglewoodCA

[twistedcatmeow]

[twistedcatmeow]

You learn more from those people and situations that irritate, confound, annoy, and anger you than from those situations and people that bring you contentment. The next time you are presented with a challenging person or situation, ask yourself what you can learn from this.

Is something being mirrored back at you, some quality or habit or belief that you have that is time to let go of? Are you being reminded of another person or another time, and therefore being given the opportunity to heal old wounds? Is the Universe asking you to stretch and grow, to practice acceptance, compassion, or tolerance for someone who is either very different from yourself or very much the same?

Every interaction with another human being offers you the opportunity to learn, grow, and evolve. Will you take up that challenge, or leave it for another time? The opportunity will surely come up again, but each succession may become even more uncomfortable. You always have a choice, though.

#Learning #Experience #SelfImprovement #PersonalGrowth #PracticalSpirituality #DailyMessage #365DaysToEnlightenment #Ayamanatara #Labyrinth

[twistedcatmeow]

When we think of courage as not being afraid, we miss the mark. Courage is doing things in spite of fear. Fear is a fact of being human. Not letting it affect us, not letting it deter us from action, that is the spiritual act. Courage is listening to our hearts, listening to Guidance, listening to our calling, and moving forward. Courage is deciding that the fear messages your negative ego sends you are irrelevant.

 Pick something today that scares you but could help you move forward. A phone call you need to make, a letter you have been putting off writing or sending, a person you’ve been too shy to approach. Take a deep breath, know that the fear is merely your negative ego trying to keep you from taking chances and growing, and take the action. Allow yourself the room to grow. Each time you do it, it gets a little easier, because you start to realize that the fears are telling you lies.

 #Fear #Courage #DoThis #MovingThroughFear #SelfImprovement #PersonalGrowth #PracticalSpirituality #PersonalGrowth #SelfImprovement #DailyMessage #365DaysToEnlightenment #Ayamanatara #Desert #Clouds #Sky

[twistedcatmeow]

Mugshot of a teenage girl arrested for protesting segregation, Mississippi, 1961.

[twistedcatmeow]

Problem solving frequently requires looking at a situation from a different perspective. The solutions that work the best are sometimes viewed as insane (until they work), because they aren’t something that had been thought of already.  Allowing your mind to wander and play with challenges, to view them from different angles, to find the innovative approach, is one of the best uses of your time I can think of.

It is in allowing your mind and spirit to fly free, to remove the fetters of societal construct, that you open yourself up to inspiration and guidance.

Unless you are convinced that you have all the answers, why not try it?

#Solutions #ProblemSolving #Creativity #GetOutOfTheBox #Perspective #SelfImprovement #PersonalGrowth #PracticalSpirituality #PersonalGrowth #SelfImprovement #DailyMessage #365DaysToEnlightenment #Ayamanatara #Oahu #NorthShore