Archive for the ‘Gratitude’ Category
Yesterday, as the sun went down, Mark and I sat in the back by the pool talking about his business, talking about my next project (at least one book about manifesting and the principles of creation), talking about marketing and what we see clients doing and also moving to a new house. The conversation was like many between long-time married couples who drift easily from subject to subject without transitions – a seeming long list of ‘to-dos’ that we will work together to create.
In the middle of the conversation, the subject of ‘we’ and ‘my’ came up. I tend to say ‘we’ for many things, and ‘my’ for ‘my projects.’ He always gives me a hrrrmph when I do that because he says it is ‘ours.’ This bone of contention ran through my business years, too, as he would say ‘our’ clients when ‘I’ was the one doing the work, ‘I’ was the one dealing with the personalities that came along with the work, ‘I’ was the one that was doing all of the administrivia and on and on. I didn’t feel that his occasional run to FedEx with me in tow at 9:45 PM to mail a client’s project ‘counted’ enough to be ‘partners’ and the business, as I saw it, certainly was not ‘ours’ though the money from it was shared willingly and freely for all those years I had it.
Yesterday, in the lap of our backyard with the blue pool at our feet, surrounded by the roses and holly berries with me maybe eight or so years wiser, I let my guard down around the subject and opened my mind to consider what he may be seeing or feeling.
I feel at ‘one’ in nearly every other area and expression in my life – Why not this one? Why is it that I feel the need to stake claim?
As we peeled back the layers, I finally said, “Well, I’m the author of this creation – that’s why it is mine.”
He replied, to what was already streaming through my mind, “Why is it that you are always fine with being about ‘oneness’ and it takes all of us to get to where we are going, and you TEACH this, but when it comes to your writing you act like it’s all yours?”
I have to admit…I didn’t know why. I just had this feeling in the pit of my stomach – a perceived truth to his words.
Then, he said, “You just don’t get it. Everything is all of ours.”
He began to give me a list of things he does to make my writing life possible. He listens. He responds to me when I ask, “Does this make sense to you?” He cooks my meals (and always has). He brings me coffee in the morning.
I can do all of those things for myself I reasoned. They are nice, but I don’t have to have them. But to write! There’s so much to do… listening and listening and gathering the drops as they come in, and the putting them on paper – actually getting them out of my consciousness and into this world! There’s work to do!
I jumped to something that came to me in my inner defense… “I have no need to claim anything you are working on. Your business is your business. I enjoy helping you and I don’t need to be considered a ‘part’ of it. I give freely.” There it was…separation. This time I couldn’t ignore it.
“Maybe that’s true, but you are. What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine.”
I bristled. “But you aren’t the one doing the work to write and to reflect and to collect all of these little messages that are coming in all day every day!” I exclaimed.
Then he said it. “Writing is easy for you. You write books like some people write articles. It just flows out of you like water.”
I swallowed hard because it was true – at least that part was true. And, somehow coming out of his mouth in actual words I felt like it discounted the process – the writing. That maybe it is too easy.
We drifted to another topic content to agree to somewhat disagree and somewhat to agree.
Later that night, I realized the writing IS easy for me…like breathing. I listen and follow. The structural part is more challenging. Putting myself out there even more so. The facing the business aspect from my true core as a creative soul has been the greatest challenge – even though I know what to do! I know how to run a business. I know how to grow businesses, but when I’m in my creative heart, I tend to be like other creative souls.
Our conversation simmered in the back of my mind. Something Mark said to me, “At the end of the day, Tina, you can’t be like everyone else. You can’t just forget that you have a business mind in there somewhere. That’s what makes you different, and what won’t allow you to just let things go.”
I wondered, Is that true? I remembered the feeling when he said it – solid as a rock. True.
This morning, as I ready myself to write. I see now what is at the core of all of this. Magically, it’s what is at the core of everything else around me right now, too. It’s about work. Who does the work?
Whomever does the work is the one that owns something. The belief that has been the fly in the ointment for far too long.
Wow, what an outdated notion. Puritanical for sure. A rush of thoughts comes to mind in this moment. I used to argue that an executive’s wife deserved as much out of a relationship because the person behind that person contributed as much to the creation as the one who actually goes out in the world and ‘does the work.’ So Mark is right…about me.
Funny how beliefs work. We can consciously think one thing and be running and living another.
I do believe in oneness… this is how I write – in response to what others are asking for. Yes, I’m the messenger, but the message is not mine. Like a baker who bakes a cake with flour and eggs and milk…the farmer, the land and many sun-filled days brought the flour, the chicken sent the eggs and cows lent the milk. Even those who ensured the chickens ate everyday contributed, the delivery people who took these to market… and every step in between… who sent water to the field? Who ensured the water pipes were laid? On and on and on in an infinite circle of creation… and, with me? If there were no questions for others, no desires for what I am writing… well, I would be a messenger without a message to deliver. 
I remembered how when I first started writing – back in elementary – I used to think, Is this writing? I’m just listening and writing down what comes to me. Is this cheating?
This has affected me my entire life, but until today I didn’t know why. It doesn’t ‘seem’ like work, and true to this belief that has been driving this part of me (the one who does the work owns it), how could I lay ‘claim’ to something if it wasn’t ‘work’ if ‘work’ is the only thing valued? I would, based on this belief, create more ‘work’ – ouch!
Time to let this one go.
Wow. I feel free.
How People Find Us.
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- santas reel housse and work chop
- graffiti angels
- live and work in lap of nature
- reel graffiti
- ornament crown findings
- letting go of someone whos not coming
- graffiti words tina
- graffiti saying friendship
- graffiti journal
A month or so ago, I chatted on the phone with a friend, and mentioned an idea for a blog post – the five books that changed my life! Immediately he was curious, “Which ones?” I rattled them off and why, and we finished out conversation, but I never did the post!
The primary reason I wanted to share this is because I call these ‘game changers’ – these books literally changed how I viewed the world and how it works. Once you have come in contact with a game changer – book, person, or otherwise – you are literally never the same again! There are many other books that have changed my life in other ways…today’s post is about changing the game.
Here they are…Five books that can rock your perspective.
This book rocked my world in my twenties. Back then, I had not yet had the experience of ‘abundance’ financially, but it helped me see my life as valuable. I had eagerly worked 80 hour weeks in the pursuit of nickels and dimes so I could buy my first house, buy my first car, go back to school and buy the ‘good’ things in life.
Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin outlined just how much an hour of my time was really worth. They were talking about life force and then challenging me, as the reader, to ask myself, “Do you really want to spend 6 hours of your life to buy this?” This completely changed how I looked at money, how I looked at my own value (though there was so much more to learn and expand into), how to play the money game to win, and truly…for me to challenge myself about why I wanted to buy things.
My very first spiritual mentor, Hefina Glenys, gave this book to me to borrow. Florence Scovel Shinn was part of the spiritualist movement in America back in the 1920s. This book is written in a similar style to many other spiritualists I’ve discovered since then, such as Catherine Ponder, but Florence was my first. I’ll always be grateful for her energy she poured into that book. I remember immediately feeling a surge of energy unlike anything I have every felt while reading a book. I believed her. I trusted her. I could literally feel her heart and desire to help others to enjoy life and to succeed.
On every page, she introduced spiritual basics – watch your words, focus on what you want and, most importantly (for me), many varied stories about how so many other people had used these techniques to improve their lives. Since then, I feel I have earned a degree in Spirit University, but Florence’s book helped me trust the principles because they truly came alive in this book. Her other books moved me in similar ways.
For nearly five years, I helped people as they came one-by-one for help with various crises going on in their life. I didn’t advertise – these people found me through other people. Each one had major healing crises to experience (as did I at the time), and I would simply listen and follow guidance that took me (and them) into breakthroughs in healing.
I had no idea why the healings worked or how they worked, I just knew that they did. But, the nagging I felt in my mind because I couldn’t say how they worked seemed to never go away. During my post-graduate work, I encountered Vibrational Medicine by Richard Gerber, M.D., which documents and describes in glorious detail the interrelated workings of energy giving my mind – at last – the answer I so wanted. This book contains Stanford Researchers (among others) who have spent their lives documenting the why and many other insights into how energy healing works. It is amazing!
I discovered Dorothea Brande one day on a trip to the local Half Price Books. I followed an invisible stream of energy to a group of books that I had not ever noticed before. These were in the writing section, and I, though I am a writer, have not ever purchased books like these. On that shelf, I found Dorothea Brande’s, Becoming a Writer. I flipped it open amazed to find that Dorothea was writing about things I’ve discovered about the mind nearly a century before! I was intrigued, and so I bought it. As I read it, I could feel how connected this woman was to her inner workings. Of course, I wanted to know more, so I went looking for anything else she might have written. In that search, I found her classic, Wake Up and Live! This is truly not written in conversational language, but had such a profound effect on me I recommend it to others. This book was the beginning of her ‘surrender’ to become the author she always dreamt of being, and in 1934 she ‘gave herself’ to that energy and this very book sold more than 2 MILLION copies! In it is advice that would be helpful to anyone with a dream, and perhaps, more importantly, the energy of YES YOU CAN!
I’ve blogged about my life-changing experience of giving up sugar, and learning that I am a ‘sugar-sensitive’ person – an addict to the substance is an appropriate description. This book changed my life in ways that I could never thank Dr. DesMaisons enough for (she’ll be on Queen of Dreams Radio on October 13, 2011), but the physical healing pales in comparison to the letting go of the shame and guilt I’ve carried around for the way I’ve felt about the way I have ‘acted’ under the influence over the years. In addition, realizing that I am not the person I am ‘under the influence’ has freed me – heart and soul – in a way I can’t even begin to describe other than I now have a huge void where once before a cloud of energy lived. I constantly supervised my every thought, my impulses, my irrational thoughts… I’ve even created tons of tools working with helpers to work ‘around’ my so-called deficiencies. Yes, I still use those tools, but not in the same way. Today, I have more energy to give to others because I am not using so much of it to manage my inner states. This is truly the one book that has changed my life the most. How can I describe what it is like to think you are one way and to discover you aren’t?! And, perhaps this is why this was the FIRST thing I was guided to do more than 5 years ago! Listen, listen, listen and the ACT! 
How People Find Us.
- kathleen desmaisons
- five books that changed my life
- IMAGES OF VARIOUS VIBRATIONAL MEDICINES
- this book literally changed my life
Last night Ellany Cevan joined me for Queen of Dreams Radio. We laughed so hard, and had a great time talking about stepping into dreams.
This morning I woke up thinking about last weekend when Ellany and Brandon, her husband, were over. We had been laughing SO HARD thinking about how we all used to dress. We walked back in time to high school and talked about wearing Guess Jeans, M&B, whatever was ‘hot’ at the time. Ellany and I had shared a stint of “Madonna” and had hit the bangle bracelets and bows in our hair. Oh, and before that, remember Olivia Newton John, “Let’s Get Physical”? Oh my, I had just become an athlete and was totally strutting around school with a headband (matching my sweats and shirt, of course!) Then, later I was off to be a preppy, sporty tennis player honor roll girl – ala Square Pegs, if you will.
Mark said I looked like a Go-Go girl, and Brandon, who is much younger than the rest of us, said, “What’s that?” We all cracked up laughing – I mean, seriously laughing so hard that my sides ached. Okay, yes, I did get pulled into the Belinda Carlisle look for a bit, but that’s kind of what I already looked like anyway! 
After about an hour of telling story after story of the fashion faux pas, the fashions we would rather not remember and how ‘cool for school’ we all thought we were, we had tears rolling down our faces because of laughing so hard.
I am so grateful for friends and to be able to laugh so easily.
Today, I’m wearing black ‘walking shorts’ – I haven’t worn walking shorts since high school when I was all ‘matchy-matchy’ and had every color of the rainbow walking shorts with matching penny loafers (red anyone?) and corduroy or hounds tooth jackets to boot. And guess what kind of shoes I caught myself wearing today? You guessed it… black penny loafer slide-ons!
No wonder I feel 16 again! Laughter, friends, fashion, life… that’s what is important at 16!
You have to admit
these are CUTE!
How People Find Us.
- fine penny loafers
- penny loafer slides
- penny loafers
Yesterday, I entered the post office where a woman was asking a postal worker about how to get her mail from a place where she no longer lived. I could feel the tension in the air. The postal worker, summoning all of his patience, continued to say over and over again the same thing, but for some reason – which I have no idea what it was – she could not ‘get’ what he was saying.
It was lunch time. Time for him to go to lunch. I’m sure he wanted to leave. The woman was concerned about getting her mail. The other postal workers were rolling their eyes and looking at each other. A supervisor came out to all of us in line – only three of us, which in itself was a miracle for this busy station. He was of little help as he joined the rest of us in watching the scene at hand.
When I arrived at the counter, I had just one question – which paper do I fill out to ensure I know this was delivered? I didn’t think I needed certified mail, but there seemed to be four choices that would work. The postal worker was still listening to the other guy. The irritation rippling through the air was palpable. I had figured out my postage prior to going to the post office and put the stamps on myself, but to be able to even get a signature, I would need to bump up to the higher rate. The postal worker was rude and abrupt, no doubt due to the energy fog in there. I’ve blogged about the same guy before…this was not him, but there I was with him snapping at me and telling me he knows how to do his job – he’s been doing it 38 years, thank you.
I paid my fee and left. As I drove home, I thought, What was that all about? The word that came to mind was compassion.
NONE of us, including me, was compassionate toward that woman. I wanted to help her understand. I wanted to help, but I didn’t send compassion or love to her – or anyone else in that place.
As I thought more about it… I realized the energy of the entire post office in that moment was JUDGMENT. Everyone was judging her…the people in line, the postal workers. After she left the counter, BUT not before she LEFT (which means she was within EARSHOT of this), the postal worker I was with said to his friend, “You couldn’t have said it any plainer than that and you said it 10 times, I heard you and counted!”
I sent some love… said a prayer for her to get her mail and to get assistance in whatever way she needed it. Perhaps I didn’t do it right then, but I could do it as soon as I became aware of it. We all can.
What I realize, though, is energy is energy. It ripples through our experience. We are 90 percent water… whatever we are around, we take in. I realize I could have helped elevate the energy by being more conscious…by offering compassion instead of judgment (Instead of focusing on the ‘problem’ – How can we help her understand??? I could have asked…how can I serve to shift the experience?)… instead of just joining the audience at the ‘show.’ But I didn’t. Next time, I hope this lesson will remind to do something different.
How People Find Us.
- acting clipart
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- love will set you free
- images relating to compassion for others
Before we left for vacation, I found myself sitting at a stop sign by our house looking at the house next to us and wishing the people would move.
Now, before you think Tina’s lost her mind and that is SO mean to think, hear me out.
Here in Plano, we have had many ‘upscale’ houses busted for marijuana dealing. If you have heard of the Showtime series, WEEDS, then you have a pretty good idea of what I’m talking about.
I am not sure why we keep attracting these sorts of characters – our last house had a drug dealer next door, and on various nights the cops would drive down the alley just to receive a bolt of light from the drug dealer’s flood lights. When that guy moved out in the middle of the night, a few days later, we went with the realtor to look at what was left of his house. Sure enough, he had had security cameras installed throughout the whole house and when he left, he literally pulled them out of the walls and vacated the premises.
Okay, back to our current neighborhood. Our neighbors prior to these neighbors acted similarly suspicious, and our crime watch neighborhood group sent many cops over to that house. Then, one day, they vacated in the middle of the night, and the house on the corner stood empty for many, many months until one day a new suspicious neighbor moved in.
This last neighbor, for me, was the worst. I did not like driving by the house. I didn’t like how I felt. I felt bad for being judgmental, but literally, energetically, I didn’t feel well. Everything about the energy said, “GET OUT!” The tell-tell sign on the door read, “NO SOLICITING!” in big block letters. Day in and day out cars would drive up, and leave. And, yes, the cops would come by and check on them very often.
About a week before we left, our power went out unexpectedly, but next door we could hear a very loud generator running. It sounded like a LARGE generator. Hmmm, what does one need a large generator for, anyway?
So, there I was the day before leaving for vacation, and though I had been changing my driving pattern to avoid driving by that house, that day, I was in a hurry. Habit took over. I sat at that stop sign and I looked over at that house and felt that energy, and I thought, “I just wish those people would MOVE OUT!”
I didn’t give the wish more than a couple of minutes thought as I had many errands to run to get ready to leave. I just felt tired of feeling that energy. Of looking at the yard that seemingly didn’t belong to anyone because no one ‘lived’ there.
When we came home from vacation, Mark’s mom met us at the door. She said, “Well, they moved out. They moved everything out and are gone.”
Thank goodness, I thought. And, I remembered that wish on a Thursday like any other…from the bottom of my heart, but only if it was for the best for everyone involved.
Now, I don’t know if they were doing anything illegal or not. That’s not for me to say, but I did know what I felt every day since they moved in. And, thankfully, I don’t feel that anymore!
I have always manifested through ‘wishing’… my wishes often come from the deepest part of who I am. Do you wish and receive, too? Then your wishes have power, too!
How People Find Us.
- wish list
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- VIP PASS NEW IMAGES
- wishes dont come true
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- wishes dont always come true
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