Question of the day

I had an interesting experience today. I was invited to a business networking meeting last night and directions the to the location were not easy to follow (they were confusing). As I drove to the place, I had to drive around the lot a couple of time before finding my destination, which made me a couple of minutes late. As I parked my car, I had some choices to make: 1) judge the person who gave me the directions, 2) judge myself for not leaving enough time to find the place, 3) ask a question. Today I chose option number 3. I asked the question. As I did, the situation lighten up and I went on to have a productive and fun meeting. How does it get any better? And I would like to offer this question to you as a question for the day:
What is right about this (situation) that I am not getting?
You can also modify it and ask “What is right about me that I am not getting?”
Play with it today and notice your own “Aha” moments and I would love to hear about them.


With ease, joy and glory,
Marina

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Thought for the day

 What are the 3 things you are grateful for today?

 

 

 

xoxo,

Marina

 

Just for today I will choose happiness

What will you choose today?

xoxo,
Marina

 

Conscious eating

Have you ever stopped for just a moment and asked yourself if you were hungry right before you ate?

For example, you are out with friends who are ordering food and you find yourself ordering a meal, even though you ate just before coming out? Or when you are at work and lunch time comes around, do you automatically go to eat lunch because everyone around you does?

What if in that moment, right before you are about to go on autopilot, you could ask yourself: Do I really require any food right now? Body, are you hungry? And if your body tells you that it is hungry, ask your body is it likes the feeling of hunger. What is the worst that could happen? You can always go eat.

This is something I have been playing with lately and I find that I am not eating nearly as much as I used to. I go into the kitchen thinking that I should eat something, ask my body and leave without consuming anything or just drink water. What if we could honor our body by not making it eat when it was not hungry? How would that change your life and living?

Till next time and thanks for playing.
What contribution can I be to you today?

Marina

A point of view

In both Course in Miracles and Access, I have been learning that nothing happens to me and that I create everything I see around me. Gary Douglas says it this way:”Your point of view creates your reality, your reality does not create your point of view.” In the Course we learn that there is no power outside of us.

So what exactly does that mean for you and me? Well, if your life has not been great up to this day, you are the one creating it. This is actually great news because now you have the power to change it. So ask yourself: What is not working in my life anymore? What would it take for _______ to change? It also mean that if you everything is working for and in your life, you have also been creating that. So how does it get event better?

Case and point: I was at the friend’s house recently and she has an older cat who is the boss of the house. Then I had other friends come in with 2 young puppies who were very energetic and a little nervous in the new environment (at least according to the owners). When the cat and the dogs met it was a little tense and the dogs started to run after the cat and the cat ran away. Cat’s mom became nervous and unhappy about the situation and asked that the dogs be kept outside in their crate. Well, as the day went on and she stepped away, the dogs seemed to relax and chill out and the cat came out and started hanging out with our group. We were running bars that day and the cat lay on top of the person on one table and the dogs were atop a person on the other table. All of the people and animals were totally blissed out.

So what is the point of the story, you ask. The point is that cat’s owner had a point of view about a cat being intimidated by the dogs and the cat was (in the beginning). The dog owner had a point of view about how the puppies will behave and they did exactly what was expected of them. I chose to have a point of view that the dogs and the cat would be just fine together and I got to experience what I chose. We always get to experience what we believe in.

So next time you are about to go into a conclusion or a judgment about something before it even happens, just remember: It is your point of view that creates your reality, not the other way around.

For instance: What is your point of view about traffic on the 405 at 5 pm? And how is that working out for you?
Would you like to make a different choice?

You are always at choice. Choose what works for you.

And if you forgot how to choose for you, call me and I’ll help you remember 🙂
Love, Marina

What else is possible?

In Access we learn how to live in the question. I know that for some it may seem really different and difficult to ask questions, or to not have all the answers. We learn from parents, teachers, employers and everyone else that we have to have answers all the time. I often hear parents tell their kids: “Answer you teacher” (or another adult that is asking the question). What if we could learn to ask questions? How many more possibilities would we have open to us? Are you willing to find out?

So the first question I’d like to share with you is: “What else is possible?” Whenever something “good” or “bad” happens, what if you were to ask “What else is possible here?”. What is the worst that can happen?

In the Course in Miracles we learn that the Holy Spirit asks for a “little willingness” to create miracles in our lives. What if we could demonstrate our little willingness to see things differently by asking “What else is possible here?”

So what else is possible here? Are you willing to join me on the playground of Consciousness on the Journey beyond words?
Love, Marina

A flick of the wrist…

Today was talking to a friend and he made a comment about watching magicians like David Copperfield or Chris Angel do magic.  At first our mind (the logical part or left brain) wants to figure everything out.  Then we finally give up trying and just receive the fun and awe of the trick with the right side of our brain.  We know that somehow what just happened was magic, a flick of the wrist, an optical illusion and yet it seems so real it freaks some people out.

What if our life was just like that?  What if everything we see with our eyes was just an optical illusion created by our thoughts?  And what if what we thought were our thoughts were not even ours, but every idea, point of view and belief we collected from everyone and everything around us?  Wow!!!!!  How weird and freaky is that?!

Yet, somehow this makes sense to me.  I heard an interesting statement recently and although it came from a very credible source, it felt really heavy and judgmental to me.   That was my moment of choice: will I choose to align with their point of view or resist it?   I chose neither.  I recognized that I simply had an awareness of the judgment and just let it be without making the statement mean anything.

Are you tired of living on someone else’s illusion of reality?  What stops you from being you and living from your own knowing?  Will you come play with me on the playground of Consciousness?

Love,  Marina

Live in the now

I love to watch kids play.  Have you ever seen kids being so swept up in the moment of life that nothing else existed for then, but what made them so happy.  What if we could learn to play from them, instead of teaching them how to “grow up and be serious”.

I cannot count how many times I have heard adults say “stop playing, be serious” when parents were trying to do something and kids were having fun while doing it.  Tonight we were getting ready for bed and I almost told my daughter to stop playing because it wa now time to go to bed.  So I stopped myself and simply asked her if she was ready.  My big “Aha” moment was the fact that I realized that it was not me who wanted her to “be serious” but a voice from the past.

What would it take for us as parents to function from the “NOW” moment, be fully present and to choose our own way of parenting our kids, the way that makes us and our children happy?  Would we be willing to stop listening to the voices of the past and be fully present here and now?

Till next time 🙂

I place the future in the hands of God-reflections on Lesson 194

I love this lesson. Often when I read it I say: I place my future in the hands of God.

Can you believe that we are actually in the year 2012? I remember the whole Y2K expectation that the world will end or something cataclysmic would happen. I also remember that nothing happened. It seemed like it was just yesterday. Now we are in the year 2012-the year when the Mayan calendar ends, and people are expecting something “big” to happen. I heard a lot of programs where experts, and psychics, and religious leaders made dire predictions for 2012. I have to admit, there is a part of my mind that really loves the thought of death and disaster. So I wonder, who does that belong to? As an infinite being, the Son of God, would I choose death? What if I was just tapping into the energy of the world of illusions?

Let me ask you: What are you expecting from this year? Have you bought into the idea that we are doomed? Or are you willing to make another choice?
In the lesson 194, it say: “Accept todays idea (the future is in the Hands of God/Source/Universe/Sprit), and you have passed all anxiety, all pits of hell, all blackness of depression, thoughts of sin, and devastation brought about by guilt. You are saved, and your salvation thus becomes the gift you give the world, because you have received”. What does that feel like to you when you read this? Does it feel light or heavy? Is there a place in your life you are not willing to receive salvation because you would have to let go of guilt? Everything that is times a godzillion, will you please destroy and uncreate? Right/wrong, good/bad, POD, POC, all 9, boys, shorts and beyonds.

“God (Source/Universe/Spirit) hold you future as he holds your past and present” says paragraph 4. “You are but asked to let the future go, and place it in God’s Hands. And you will see by your experience that you have laid the past and present in His Hands as well, because the past will punish you no more, and future dread will now be meaningless.” That sounds light and peaceful to me. I am willing to have that instead of pain and worry. The future and the past are not real and only this moment exists. Blink and it is gone. What if I choose what was light, peaceful and compelling every 10 seconds and did that again and again. Does the future matter if you live in the present? I often watch children at play and I realize that for them there is only now. I think that’s why when you tell a young child “No” they cry-they don’t have a concept of time or what it means to delay something. So what would it be like if we could be totally present? Does that go against everything we were taught being an adult and growing means? Whose realities would living in the now and our total choice and total trust in our Source invalidate?

Going back to the lesson, in paragraph 7 we read:” What worry can beset the one who gives his future to the loving Hands of God? What can he suffer? What can cause him pain, or bring experience of loss to him? What can he fear? What can he regard except with love? For he who has escaped all fear of future pain has found his way to present peace, and certainty of care the world can never threaten. He is free to choose again when he has been deceived; to change his mind when he has make mistakes.”

Then we read:” Place, then, your future in the Hands of God. Now are we saved indeed. For in God’s Hands we rest untroubled, sure that only good can come to us.” What a beautiful promise God gives us. I say Yes to that.

As we step into the year 2012, will you join me in choosing peace and placing the future as well as the past and present in the Hands of God? How different would this world be if more people made the choice of peace? What will your life look like if you place the future in the Hands of God? Thank you for joining me on this journey.

In love and gratitude,

I choose the joy of God instead of pain

This is the title of Lesson 190 in the Workbook for Students in A Course in Miracle.

I choose the joy of God instead of pain.  How many times have we suffered, were in pain, stuggled or were in a state of dis-ease?  What if the solution to that was a matter of choice?

In paragraph 5 it says: “It is your thoughts along that cause your pain.  Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way.  No one but yourself affects you.  There is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail.  But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are”.

What we are reminded here is that it is our choice that creates our reality.  We are an infinite spiritual being having a physical experience and when we forget that and try to fit into the limitation of the world around us it causes pain-both physical and emotional.  What if we re-member the light, glory and power that we are?  Would there be anything that could cause us pain or hurt us in any way?  Why not find out for yourself?

Would you be willing today to change your internal reality or your thoughts to give your external reality an opportunity to change?  All it is a choice.

What will you choose today? Joy or Pain?

Love and blessings, M.