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Posts tagged ‘Religion and Spirituality’

May 24

Memorial Happiness

The link provided below came to me via  Sumita and I had just finished reading the book When God Wink’s by Squire Rushnell (http://www.whengodwinks.com/faqs/) which says that there is no such thing as coincidence.  Coincidences are God’s ways of moving us along to our paths.  The video talks about happiness, and that it’s not about material things or doing a journey for being happy. The journey can be happiness. We have to let go of what we want of others to be happy, and we have to stop thinking that we have to reach happiness when we can choose to be happy.  It’s not easy, but as soon as you can let go of what you expect from others, you can be happier. It struck me that lately my life has involved a lot of coincidences. I have actually used my legal knowledge more in the past 2 months than my entire life. I am being asked to do more, and I realize that is something I have been asking for years. I put it into the universe, and now it has been answered.I realize now as I open myself up more and more to the Universe that I am finding answers. I have been struggling to write for a while but just found out I am getting my certificate from UCLA Extension for Creative Non Fiction. Coincidence?

I began helping a dear friend of mine, and already I am getting more in return than he is. Helping others is helping yourself is what I am learning.   He has been struggling, and at first I thought he just needed financial help, but it was really more than that. We have reconnected in our old ways, and suddenly I see myself being an attorney. and it hits me maybe that was the plan all along. Maybe it was not a coincidence…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IM5JHURKBmQ#!

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May 3

Thoughts For Food

A penny for your thoughts...Dollars for your t...

A penny for your thoughts…Dollars for your thoughts – NARA – 513735 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

I have been doing the Daily Food For Thought for Ziba Beauty for almost 5 years, and I happened to read some of the old ones.  I realized that at first they started out as long one page inspirational stories that I scoured for on other sites. But now they are one liners mostly for quick digestion.  My world is slowly turning from one based on thought and reflection to easy consumption. We no longer seem to have the patience for learning through patience.  We seem to want our inspiration in 140 characters or less. As the messages get shorter and shorter, I wonder how much meaning is being retained?  Perhaps we are distilling it down to the essence of thought, yet truthfully for me, I miss the days of reading the whole story.

 

We are in the middle of a generation the prefers texting to talking. Leaving voice-mails seems old fashioned or just work related.  We no longer seem to feel the need to buy a CD or buy digital based entertainment.  The value of creativity based on words seems to be sinking.  I now have officially entered into the realm of the good old days.”  None of this change is bad. In fact, I love the ease and convenience of getting to music and ideas that I never could before. And there lies the lesson. It’s not really about the message or the shape or form of it. Its how you interact with it, what it does for you.  Someone who does not want to change will simply ignore a long or a short message.

 

That’s hard for me to swallow. I am a fixer. I want to fix everyone and everything. i know that is foolish and ultimately a waste of time. People will not change unless they are ready to. No matter how often I forward inspirational quotes, messages or texts, nothing will get through until they are ready to make a change in their lives. It’s hard to see people jumping over a cliff or harming themselves needlessly but as the quote goes, “until you get lost, you won’t find new ways.” Anonymous.

Touche.

 

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Apr 6

No Words

English: Man with a turban, Bhopal, India. Fra...

English: Man with a turban, Bhopal, India. Français : Homme avec un turban, Bhopal, Inde. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

.

The music fills the room and my soul. Silence is my best friend while I pray for the music to enter me. I wait for inspiration. Nothing. Silence. I keep waiting.

No words come to mind.  I am blank.  The heart is too full of hurt and regret to allow anything out to anyone.  Time passes. The coffee cools.  Outside, I see a few old couples power walking.  Usually one is ahead of the other.  What is it about doing things as a race?  But that’s not true either. I know that’s my perception. My need to compete with anything. Always me. The “I” never lets go.  Me. Me. Me.

I notice the old man.  I have been seeing him for years. He is an old turbaned Indian, clean shaven, riding a bicycle.  Slowly. Methodically. Sometimes he is a carrying a child but mostly he is alone, chugging along. I often wonder who he is,  but really the main question I have for him is: Why the turban?  I want to ask “Are you from a village” or “Are you a Sikh who does not believe in keeping the hair?”  Where are you going, my friend?  Do you realize you have become a staple in my life?  A quiet one.  Someone who seems to ride by me whenever I am struggling with who I am.  You are a sign, but I just don’t know about what.  I watch you slowly go by me, and I am tempted to run out and stop you and ask “who are you, my friend?”  Yet, I know how crazy that is. s

So I sit here, watching you go by while the coffee has gone cold, and the words still seem to be eluding me.  Silence. The music keeps playing…

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Jul 6

Number 1 Passion: A Blog Post

Image representing iPad as depicted in CrunchBase

Image via CrunchBase

Number 1 Passion by Eric Handler
What is your #1 passion in life?  Now, imagine what would happen if you incorporated that passion into your life daily.  Write down your passion and keep it close to you.  Remind yourself of it daily, just like brushing your teeth.

(Author: Eric Handler)

Reading has been my passion all my life and lately I have begun to incorporate it into my daily life by either going to bed reading or taking a day or two to make significant progress into a book.  I am still split on whether I prefer the Kindle or the Ipad by my ideal still is a real book.  Something quite satisfying about turning a page, feeling the heft of the book lighten as you make deep in-roads into its story and get stamped with new ideas and thoughts (can’t help remembering some of the passages from Freedom by Jonathan Frazen) and touched by the emotions and characteristics of novel protagonists.

Besides my literary passion, my other passion is trying new things and that has transformed very well at my work as I have managed to make mundane tasks more interesting or come at them differently.  However, I am constantly stalled by my own insecurity and need to please others and I swallow my ideas, ballooning up with regret, festering inside with an urgent need to vomit out all the negativity.  However, I am getting better and I see now that I do not have to react to every situation with emotion especially hurt and anger.  I have learned to quiet down my emotional turmoil and hear what the other person is saying and see it from their perspective.  Even if I do not agree, I see that people relax once they feel heard.  It is a great feeling to make things happen when there is calm in important parts of my life.

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Jan 6

Prayers, Friends and Family

Goodenough, PhD

Image via Wikipedia

 

by Jemal Yarbrough

 

In the fading light of the day, I say a small prayer for my friend’s father who passed away 2 nights ago.  The house is quiet as usual, and she rests uneasily but expectantly for the nausea to follow.  A friend had just visited, the  worry lines creased deep into her forehead due to the recent seizure experienced by her little brother. 2011 seems to be foreboding, and I wonder if more bad news is to come.

But that really is the easy way out.  What is it about a series of bad events that makes us believe that we are unlucky or somehow cursed?  I close my eyes and see my family, and nothing but joy gratitude and loves comes into my soul.  There is not a single relative that I don’t love with all my heart and soul.  It almost seems like heresy to believe that I have the perfect family.  I know my love for them is imperfect because I do not thank God or revel in my blessings of having a truly amazing family enough.  I would daresay that my family is worlds better than the ones I hear about in fictional novels.  I have the ULTIMATE FAMILY, and their wondrous love and prayers are the reason I can sit here clacking away while she struggles with her pain.

Their thoughts and prayers are the reason I know with all my heart and soul that this too shall pass.  That this stupid Cancer is merely a minor bump on the long road of life.  And I pray even harder.  Pray for my blessings, pray that I am at the unfortunate cross roads to hear about friends parents dying, sibling suffering uncalled for pain,  and it makes me ache for my mom and dad who are merely a block away from me physically but always reside in my heart.  I fall in love each time my sisters come over or her brothers do.  Her mom’s pain reverberates in my heart, and I wish I could inhale all their worry and fear.  So I thank God yet again for joining us with them.  For giving us real soldiers so we can mercilessly kill the killer.

And then I come to my friends.  I always thought I had a few good friends, but this recent adventure of ours has introduced me to an amazing soul:Biba, who has selflessly given her time and energy to heal the love of my life.  She made the chemo session seem as just a routine doctor’s visit and I do not think I can ever thank enough.  And then there are others who think they can achieve comfort by merely texting or leaving quick voice mails.  Don’t get me wrong the concern is real but it’s minuscule as if the disease she’s batting is minor or one that can fit in 140 characters or less.   The sad part is that healing her takes nothing more than their physical contact but it’s treated as if  she’s not worth that.  And it hurts.  But we move on because we have to, and we will remember.  They are the past, and the future we have looks brighter due to the shining souls in our life.  The rest of them can take their indifferent asses back to Facebook, Twitter and texts, and become as irrelevant as the social media horse they rode in on.

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