spiritual-growth

Wellbeing is all about balance. Unfortunately, the normal modern lifestyle (which actually isn__ normal at all) often pushes us away from what__ healthy and manageable, and prompts us to make decisions that overload our bodies and minds. As a society, we are just too busy, too stressed, too consumed with so-called success, too worried about our looks and our image, and not plugged in at all to our spiritual and emotional roots.

Negative feelings weigh you down and can keep you from experiencing healing, as surely as stones might weigh you down if you were trying to swim.

Your life is shaped by the thoughts and experiences you choose__nd make no mistake, the decision is always yours. I promise, when you learn to be conscious and in control of what you are focusing on, you can begin to create high vibrational experiences, which will transform and heal your life.

Healing is anything that restores your inner sense that all is well, and that returns you to a healthy state of empowerment.

Many people make their way through life acting as though they are __lone._ They never progress beyond the lower realms of vibrational energy__nd thus experience more discord, fear, stress, and ill health__ecause they don__ allow intuition, higher wisdom, and unconditional (Divine) love to enter into their lives and guide their decisions.

Because you are an energetic being and your thoughts and feelings are energy, your journey may be compared to an intricately woven fabric. As the weaver of the fabric of your life, you alone decide whether your life will be beautifully intertwined with threads of gold and silver and blended with the colors of the rainbow, or made with strands of straw and cotton in shades of grays, browns, and other dark, heavy colors.

It__ important to cultivate friendships. Whether you are an extrovert or an introvert, as a human you are a social being. For the sake of your mental and emotional health, it__ important to be honest about and honor your need for meaningful connections.

You raise the level of universal well-being by choosing to focus with gratitude on your blessings.

Every moment of this experience we call a physical life is determined by the choices you make in your thoughts, intentions, and actions. Thus, when you choose to experience a thought, image, or activity from a place of loving, joyful, and compassionate intentions for yourself and others, you have the power to weave a lovely fabric that heals your mind, body, and soul. When you choose differently, the fabric you weave may contribute to an experience of suffering and pain in the form of mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual anguish. The choice is always yours.

In order to create a balanced life that excites you and that allows enough time for healthy habits to flourish, you must love yourself. Even then, it probably won__ be realistic to make one big, drastic sweeping change__specially since overcoming cancer will necessarily be occupying much of your energy. That__ fine; baby steps are a lot better than nothing. As long as you__e working toward a better life you__e on the right path.

The problems presented by difficult individuals contribute to your growth and evolution__nother reason for _ling yourself with gratitude, appreciation, and love!

Life should not be an endurance event. No prestigious job, well-appointed house, or luxury vacation is worth your emotional, mental and, yes, physical health. In fact, the abrupt loss of all of these things through a cancer diagnosis can be the wake-up call that forces you to identify and begin correcting the things that aren__ working in your life.

My main purpose in life is to do everything on purpose.

How many ills, how many infirmities, does man owe to his excesses, his ambition _ in a word, to the indulgence of his various passions! He who should live soberly in all respects, who should never run into excesses of any kind, who should be always simple in his tastes, modest in his desires, would escape a large proportion of the tribulations of human life. It is the same with regard to spirit-life, the sufferings of which are always the consequence of the manner in which a spirit has lived upon the earth. In that life undoubtedly he will no longer suffer from gout or rheumatism; but his wrong-doing down here will cause him to experience other sufferings no less painful. We have seen that those sufferings are the result of the links which exist between a spirit and matter; that the more completely he is freed from the influence of matter _ in other words, the more dematerialized he is _ the fewer are the painful sensations experienced by him. It depends, therefore, on each of us to free ourselves from the influence of matter by our action in this present life. Man possesses free-will, and, consequently, the power of electing to do or not to do. Let him conquer his animal passions; let him rid himself of hatred, envy, jealousy, pride; let him throw off the yoke of selfishness; let him purify his soul by cultivating noble sentiments; let him do good; let him attach to the things of this world only the degree of importance which they deserve _ and he will, even under his present corporeal envelope, have effected his purification, and achieved his deliverance from the influence of matter, which will cease for him on his quitting that envelope. For such a one the remembrance of physical sufferings endured by him in the life he has quitted has nothing painful, and produces no disagreeable impression, because they affected his body only, and left no trace in his soul. He is happy to be relieved from them; and the calmness of a good conscience exempts him from all moral suffering.

The benefit of personal growth and self-discovery is that we become better human beings with the strength to endure and carry on, and then we may experience something magical when we begin to reach out to others. We discover a feeling that is so rewarding and fulfilling: that fact that we can make a difference. Here is to your willingness to begin with making a difference with yourself!Michael James

Love sticks around even when it has a lot to put up with.

Hopeless situations are never hopeless to God.

[The Rule:] Just do the next thing you're reasonably certain Jesus wants you to do.