Category: Spirituality

The Gift of Transparency

SuzetteMind

Have you ever noticed how good it makes you feel when a friend allows you to see their imperfections? Suddenly you no longer feel the need to be perfect yourself, or to measure up to what your idea of their perfection is.

This is a concept I have long been aware of but have struggled with personally through much of my life, especially in my younger years. I often felt I had to hide my true self out of fear that others wouldn’t think I was good enough, or may even think I was goofy. This keeps others from really knowing you. It also keeps you from becoming who you were created to be, because you are so busy trying to be the person you think everyone wants you to be that you never get the opportunity to be you.

One of the elements of the wisdom that comes with age is the shedding of this idea that we must be perfect to be loveable. Just 13 months from turning 60, I am finally getting better at losing some of the burden of thinking I have to pretend I am someone I am not. How liberating!

I had the blessing of allowing myself to be seen this week, and the best part of that experience was that I think it blessed someone else in the process. During a conversation with an acquaintance who is a peer in my industry, I let my guard down. This is someone who is highly respected by our peers, someone who seems to have it all together. During our conversation, she allowed the slightest hint that she is feeling disheartened with some things right now, and I decided I’m going in. The door was ajar, and I pushed it wide open, sharing with her how I have been feeling about some things, and she immediately responded in kind.

What a blessing! We both learned we are not alone! Not only are we not alone, but someone we respect and admire is in a similar place. So maybe we’re not so crazy after all! (Or if we are, at least we’re in good company!)

When was the last time you allowed yourself to be truly seen? Is there someone you could bless today by allowing them to see the real, imperfect you? You will find it liberating, and in the process may find a piece of yourself you’ve been missing!

Shalom!

Sage

SuzetteHerbs

As a musician, I often (in fact more times than not) awake with a song playing in my head. This morning I awoke with a change of pace – and the herb sage dancing in my thoughts.

Not one to ignore such whisperings of the Spirit, I decided to see what I could learn about this gray-green colored herb. I love its color. I feels like peace to me. I have always cooked with it, but I have never investigated it the way I have today.

According to rxlist.com, sage is used to address many ailments, including many digestive problems that challenge me (hmm). It is also used to reduce overproduction of perspiration and saliva, as well as for depression, memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease. Additionally, sage is used by women for painful menstrual periods, to correct excessive milk flow during nursing, and to reduce hot flashes during menopause. It can be applied directly to the skin for cold sores, gum disease, sore throat, and swollen nasal passages, as well as inhaled for asthma. In short, sage could address many symptoms that ail me – and I always thought of this herb as just a spice to cook with! (Insert another hmmm here … could there be a reason Spirit is whispering this herb to me in my waking moments?)

According to the beautiful book Herbs – Gardens, Decorations, and Recipes I have on my bookshelf (by Emelie Tolley and Chris Mead), sage is a bushy plant that grows to about 2 feet in height and is evergreen in warm climates (I think my Central Florida locale will work here!). It should be grown in well-drained, neutral soil and exposed to full sun.

In cooking, I love to use sage in my stuffing. It is also good with fatty meats and fish, cheese, pasta, rice and vinegars. You can find it in Wildtree’s Italian Sausage Seasoning. I am sorry to say I have not tried this yet, but I will be adding it to my next order, along with looking for some sage plants from my local nursery. I hope Danny won’t mind tending to some sage bushes outside our lanai!

Shalom!

Journey of Healing

SuzetteSoul

This past Monday, January 20th, would have been Katie’s 28th birthday. We lost Katie in July of 1993, when she was 18 months old. At the time, my mother told me that now I would be able to help others, as you can’t truly minister to someone if you’ve never experienced what they’ve been through. It was the last thing I wanted to hear after losing the daughter I’d always dreamed of, but the message has stayed with me all these years.

When I lost Katie, I had two beautiful boys who needed their mommy, and that kept me going. I wasn’t the mother I was before; how could I be? I think more days than not, for many years I was just going through the motions, too afraid to allow myself to feel anything. See, if you allow your heart to feel one emotion, then it will feel all emotions. Everything you’ve kept locked away in a secret place so that you can survive every day will pour in, set free to break your heart. I couldn’t let that happen, for if it did, I might crumble to the floor, never to get up again. And my children needed me. Ryan and Jason deserved to have a mother who got up out of bed every day and saw to their needs and loved them.

Not allowing myself to fully feel the pain of Katie’s loss allowed me to keep moving, but it robbed me of the ability to feel much emotion beyond loving my sons. Even going to church became unbearable. The familiar hymns that had always been a comfort throughout my life were now a key that could unlock the cell where my pain was buried. I couldn’t bear it, so I stopped going. While I avoided church in order to escape the emotion it would make me feel, I robbed my sons of continuing to grow up in the church. This is one of my greatest regrets.

Recently I was asked by a dear friend who also lost a daughter if it ever gets better. I assured her it does. It is true that time heals wounds, or at least makes them less raw and painful. Anniversaries can still be hard. After all these years, the day Katie was born and the day she left are still painful. I allow myself to feel sad on those days, but some years I am able to celebrate her birth. There is no rhyme or reason to it – some years that day is just harder than others. But life on a daily basis is not painful. I can speak of Katie with a smile instead of a tear.

Allowing my heart to soften, to break down those walls and fully feel, is still a work in progress. It is part of my life’s journey. As is the fact that I can minister to others who have shared the loss of a child. I am amazed by how many women God has brought through my path who have shared this loss. Today I am able to be thankful that, when I meet someone who has lost a child, I can share with them that we have this club in common. It is a club no one wants to be in, but I find it a blessing today to be able to encourage other moms and let them know that it does get better. The pain will not always be so raw. Someday they will be able to remember their child with more joy than sadness. And I am always here for them, because I truly know what they are going through.

A Mom’s Enduring Patience

SuzetteSoul

As I colored my hair this morning, I reflected back, counting how many years I had stood in front of a mirror every month, separating and filling the roots with color to take my naturally dishwater blonde hair to something I found more palatable. I realized it has been more than 40 years since that first time I put “Sun In” in my hair, my then pretty color turning to an awful orange. Thankfully, my Mom was there for me as she always was, this time taking me to an expensive stylist in Syracuse, 45 minutes away from our small town, and paying their fancy salon prices to have it corrected. Every few weeks she would take me back until they finally had my long strands worked back to their natural color.

It wasn’t too many months later that I stood before my mother with orange hair again, I think 17 at the time, sheepishly saying, “Can you believe I made the same mistake again?”

All of those Saturdays she’d spent taking me to Syracuse and patiently waiting while they worked on the hair I’d ruined. All that money. And I’d gone and done it again. I was so ashamed, after all she had done to help me the first time, and I stood waiting for a well deserved, angry reaction from her. But she didn’t get angry. I think we were more alike than I realized, and she understood my desire to be blonde and feel beautiful. She was always understanding with me.

She had watched how they colored my roots all those months in the fancy salon. Now, she helped me to find a pretty shade of blonde in a box, and she patiently stood over me as I sat in a kitchen chair, separating the roots and filling them with a pretty blonde color. She did that for me every month until I went off to college and had to do it myself.

I can still feel myself in that small kitchen, the sweet wood smell of the table and chairs she had bought second hand and labored over to refinish. I can hear the familiar squeak of the chair as I shift while she works her magic. Mom was always there for me. All the seemingly little things that to a Mom are just “what we do” add up to loving memories that can feed your soul throughout your life. Even at nearly 60 years old, those memories warm my heart, filling it with my Mother’s love. I love you Mom.

Wayne Dyer’s 10 Secrets for Success & Inner Peace: Secret 1

SuzettePersonal Growth

94857135873008921_cZoVDmYi_cHow do you define success?  In Wayne Dyer’s book, 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace, he talks about “The peace of God that truly defines success.”  Oh, but doesn’t that sound blissful?

Secret 1

Have a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing.

There are so many ways that we learn to attach the idea of success to different expectations.  Expectations of our parents, our teachers, our religion, society and our culture.  How is it that some people have the ability at a young age to ignore those expectations and go forth in the world with the freedom to be who they were created to be, while the rest of us struggle with the need to please in such a way that it exceeds our ability to be true to ourselves?

Having a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing seems to me to be one of the most basic principles that you can adopt to contribute to individual and world peace.

Individual and world peace.  Isn’t that what we all dream of?  Can it really be as simple as Wayne Dyer makes it sound?  So where do we begin?  Wayne instructs us to first release our attachments by changing how we view ourselves.  To be attached to nothing means no longer identifying yourself through your body’s appearance and your possessions.  Being attached to these things allows the ego to be the dominating force in your life.  By letting go of these attachments and taming the ego, your spirit can become the guiding force in your life instead.

Sounds so easy, doesn’t it?  However, like any lifelong habit, this can be a hard one to break.  It doesn’t happen overnight, and some days are better than others.  Meditation and prayer can help get us there and keep us on the right path.  The ego will always try to regain control, so a daily ritual of being still and letting God’s guiding light into your day is an important practice in making and maintaining this transition.

The Scriptures say, “With God all things are possible.”

A mind that’s open to everything means being peaceful, radiating love, practicing forgiveness, being generous, respecting all life, and most important, visualizing yourself as capable of doing anything that you can conceive of in your mind and heart.

If all things are truly possible, then we have nothing to worry about, right?  And yet worry we do.  We worry about everything.  If we can learn to let go of that worry and be patient in knowing that everything will happen at exactly the right time, would that not make it so much easier to be open to everything and attached to nothing?  In the knowing that whatever God has planned for us will happen in exactly His perfect timing, we have no reason to worry about potential lack or loss.  This knowing will truly result in inner peace.

A Course in Miracles states, “Infinite patience produces immediate results.”  It implies that in your patience you know with certainty that what you would like to manifest will show up in perfect order, right on time.

Wayne’s first secret has two parts: (1) a mind that is open to everything, and (2) a mind that is attached to nothing.  Again, he says that our attachments are the source of all of our problems.  “The need to be right, to possess someone or something, to win at all costs, to be viewed by others as superior – these are all attachments.”  Imagine what the world would be like if we could all learn to let go of these attachments!

In all of your relationships, if you can love someone enough to allow them to be exactly what they choose to be – without any expectations or attachments from you – you’ll know true peace in your lifetime.

Now that’s a life I want to be a part of!  Shalom!

 

Marrow: A Love Story by Elizabeth Lesser

SuzetteMind

marrowAs so often happens with me, a recent interview I saw on Oprah’s SuperSoul Sunday led me to my next soul-journey book.  This wasn’t the first time I had seen Oprah’s interview with Elizabeth Lesser, but it was the first time that the interview led me to buy and read this book.

Oftentimes I am inspired by a spiritual teacher I see with Oprah, I purchase their book, and about a third of the way through I discover another teacher/book, and I am like a squirrel, not sure which delectable nut to chase first.  The end result is that I start a lot of wonderful books, but finish few.

Not so with Marrow.  This book met me right where I live.  When Elizabeth shared with Oprah that her sister Maggie told her the last year of her illness, the year before her death when she was in emotional and physical pain beyond our understanding, was the best year of her life, I knew I had to know more.  What could have led Maggie to feel this way?  What can we learn from Maggie so that we can live the best year of our life every year without having to endure a life-ending illness to get there?

Continue reading “Marrow: A Love Story by Elizabeth Lesser” →

Let the Universe Rise Up to Meet You

SuzettePersonal Growth

india arie

Oprah’s interview with India Arie is a beautiful lesson in having the confidence to follow your own God-given instincts.  Of the many lessons in this interview well worth watching, one valuable take away that India shares is this:  When you follow your instincts for God’s plan on your life, the Universe will rise up to meet you where you are.

My reading this morning from Marianne Williamson’s book A Return to Love:  Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles, continued this theme for me.  Marianne’s book carries the blessings of a daily devotional.  I relate to her teachings because she is preaching what I believe: God Is Love.  Jesus Is Love.  If we all conducted ourselves from this foundation, I believe the travesties of today’s society would cease.

This morning’s reading resonated with me not because of its impact on a global level but because it hits me where I am today.  A creative with an entrepreneurial spirit and a strong desire to help others, I am as far removed from a “salesperson” as you could be.  My “anti-sales” attitude causes me to stand in my own way in my desire to help others, however.  I am so strongly opposed to “selling” someone that I sometimes prevent myself from doing what I really want to do:  help them.

“When we are motivated by the desire to sell, we are only looking out for ourselves.  When we are motivated by the desire to serve, we are looking out for others.”  Marianne Williamson

The Universe is truly meeting me where I am this morning, leading me to read this chapter at a time when I needed it most.  Mary Ann talks about the concept of refusing to do what you feel called to do because you “can’t make a living doing it.”  In the interview I watched last night between Oprah and India, they talked about the “walking dead,” people who are just existing in the world, not doing what they were sent here to do because they don’t see how they could support themselves doing it, or they lack the confidence to follow their instincts and just do it. They end up just going through the motions of life, not truly living.  Even worse, the failure to do what you were created to do causes depression, irritability, and physical disease.

“Whatever it is you want to do, give it away to your community.”  Marianne Williamson

This is so in keeping with where I am today.  In a conference call with my Wildtree director last week, I told her I just don’t want to be a salesperson.  I cannot approach my business that way.  It is the total antithesis of who I am.  I have to work in service to others, and if God wants me to make a living doing it, that’s great, but that cannot be my reason for doing it.  I am doing it for the shear pleasure of helping others, and I am letting God decide what that will look like.

Thank you, Universe, for rising up to meet me where I am with these messages from my Sisters in Christ.

Shalom!

Elizabeth Gilbert on Super Soul Sunday

SuzetteSpirituality

Elizabeth Gilbert on Super Soul Sunday

Elizabeth Gilbert on Super Soul Sunday

“What have I come here to do with my life?  You can choose to ignore that question, or you can pursue it.  The pursuit is the beginning of the journey.”  Elizabeth Gilbert

Most women know Elizabeth Gilbert as the author of Eat, Pray, Love, the woman who took a year to travel the world in pursuit of her purpose.  While most of us don’t have the luxury of running away for a year the way she did, we do have the power to change our lives in significant ways.  We just have to put one foot in front of the other and begin the pursuit, even if the only steps we can currently take are to start making a plan.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”  Anais Nin

Everyone has a calling on their life, a reason they are here.  Many of us choose to ignore the call out of fear, or give up on the call at some point along the path because the road becomes too difficult.  Elizabeth shares how extraordinary life can become if you hang on tight through the rocky terrain  and see it through to the pinnacle of your calling.  Give it a listen.  You’ll be glad you did.

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”  Anais Nin

Wildtree Freezer Meals

SuzetteNutrition / Recipes

Freezer meals are great for busy families – you can spend 90 minutes preparing 10 meals, pop them in the freezer, and pull one out as needed with the prep already done.  Since there are only two of us, I don’t make large batches of freezer meals for Danny and myself very often, but I do love them as an option for helping others.  Recently my Mom had surgery, and I was able to put together several meals that can go in her freezer so that she has them at the ready as she needs them.  My Dad likes to grill, so meals from the Get Your Grill On set from Wildtree was a great choice for them.

Although the freezer meal workshops from Wildtree come with 10 different meal recipes, you don’t have to make them all if some don’t look like something your family would like.  You will use the leftover seasonings for other meals regardless!  There were 7 meals in this set that I thought my parents would like, and they make enough that I was able to split some off to keep for Danny and me!

 

I can’t tell you what a good feeling it was to fill my parents’ freezer with prepared meals so that they have one less thing to think about for a while.  Giving is such a blessing!  Shalom!

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Love Is Strength

SuzetteSpirituality

As so often happens in life, the idea of forgiveness that I was being led to follow and share yesterday was “coincidentally” continued this morning through the book I am currently reading.  If you have not read Marianne Williamson’s “A Return to Love:  Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles,” it is worth your effort.  If more people in this world followed these principles, we would share a peaceful existence that would bless every one of us.

“To the ego, love is weakness.  To the Holy Spirit, love is strength.”

Marianne shares a story in which she had been hurt by someone.  To any one of us, she would have been justified to be very angry and react accordingly to the other individual in the situation.  Because she was practicing the principles taught by Helen Schucman and William Thetford in “A Course in Miracles,” she knew she would not get the results she wanted if she reacted the same way she had in similar past situations.  We all know that definition of insanity, right?

“I gave the situation to God and remembered that I need do nothing.”

Marianne doesn’t claim that this new found practice was easy.  But she does share that by working to release the situation to God and let Him handle it rather than react toward a brother in anger, she achieved the results that she desired.  What were those results?  They were not to allow that individual to continue in her life in the same context that he had been involved with her before – that would indeed be weakness.  But it was the ability to deal with the individual from a place of peace and love while at the same time disallowing him to be in her life in the way he had been previously.  She was able to hold her head high as she dealt with the situation from a place of love, which in the end demonstrated great strength that would never have been achieved had she lashed out in anger.  She was able to walk away from the situation in peace and contentment, which is all she really wanted in the first place.  Don’t we all?

“As long as I was not at peace, my behavior would carry the energy of my conflict.  Conflicted behavior cannot bring peace.  It can only produce more conflict.”

Marianne’s story is nothing compared to the conflicts that we are experiencing today, but the principles are the same.  We cannot eradicate evil with evil.  We cannot heal hurt by inflicting hurt, and we cannot heal anger with anger.  If this song did not make sense yesterday, I hope Marianne’s story will help shed light on it today.