kinsiekins photo flickr

We all make mistakes and make choices or decisions that take us away from our center occasionally. We ruminate over our mistakes and we beat ourselves up for them much too much, when we are far better served to use our energy toward creating healing in our life  and improved choices in our future. At times we do the very best we can and we still make mistakes, that’s natural, we are human. We sometimes make mistakes out of fear, out of impulsiveness and sometimes just an error in judgement when we couldn’t read a situation clearly.

Mistakes are moments, we can’t always change the direct impact of our mistake but we can certainly take another positive route from that place. We can create good from mistakes, what we learn from we use in future situations and at times our own mistakes allow us to understand another better. There are moments of forgiveness of self and of others for each of us. When we hurt another or another hurts us it isn’t always easy to reach a place of forgiveness, though it’s best for our own healing when we reach out for that place of peace and release ourselves from that pain. Forgiveness allows us to move forward with an open and healed heart.

On most occasions people hurt us without really realizing how deeply their behavior or their actions impact us. They are seeing situations through their own eyes, not ours. Many times it’s in hind sight that they begin to realize the real impact their actions had on us. I work hard to forgive the actions of others, that have impacted and damaged my spirit and heart. At times it’s not easy, at times I”ve wanted to lash out like anyone in my moments of deepest pain and grief. At times I have been physically sick from the pain of loss and the hurt caused by another. There is a time of healing, of mending of the spirit, a time when only the love of God can work within us to help us to move through the pain and reach the other side to understand the fear or the pain or the frustration or inconsideration that drove their actions in the first place.

It doesn’t make their action right. Healing simply brings is a sense of understanding that they were  in pain or uncertainty and their choices were self defeating and that we must simply step back and allow them to live through their choices and find their own way. We can request God watch over them, we can ask that they be surrounded and supported in their lives. From there we step away and release them, forgiving them and beginning  to find our own sense of calm, knowing we did all we could do within the situation.

I find many times that things come full circle. We are given opportunities and moments to bring peace to relationships, families, and friendships when we keep our hearts open and we allow the space for others to step forward in their own way and make peace. Forgiving and making peace, doesn’t mean forgetting or allowing ourselves to be stepped on again. It means allowing the love of God to work through us, in it’s own way and beginning anew, remembering what we experienced, learning from it, and creating a new bond one day at a time, one word at a time, one message at a time. It’s allowing God to heal us, to heal a situation, to heal a heart. It’s remaining open even when we don’t understand fully what God’s plan is. It’s trusting God to lead us, to guide our life and to guide our heart peacefully so that something broken can be rebuilt.

Beach Photo Credit: Lisa Overman

Passion comes from the depth of our being. Passion moves us, makes our soul dance and sing. We live our lives passionately: wanting to do good with our life and our love. We believe passionately and sometimes our challenges fill us with the conviction of peace and the reality of compromise. No relationship will be easy or painless, but the depth of our love and passion will make it worthwhile and make us willing to walk the walk with hope, love and joy. These after all are the gifts of life and love.

Money By: Tracy O Flickr

Minutes later, as I stood in Arby’s getting a sandwich I noticed the man with the sign walk in. I hadn’t been able to reach him on the street, as I was in the middle lane. Now he entered the restaurant asking for a cup of water and I felt compelled to reach out to him in some small way. I spoke to him and said I saw you on the street and wasn’t able to reach you, but I wanted to help. I handed him the few dollars in cash I had in my wallet. He seemed deeply touched that I had reached out. I told him I hoped he would have a good day, and I sent a silent prayer of blessing to him. I think the most important aspect of this experience for me was the realization of how important it is to reach out to others in this economic downturn. It wasn’t about the few dollars I gave him, it was about acknowledging him and his struggle. So as I go through my day and my week I hold that recognition in my heart to acknowledge others in their moments of need and reach out in some form. It touches my life as it touches theirs.

Peter Walsh was AMAZING. He is focused and has a plan. He gave some excellent tips and ideas for those who are living in that kind of clutter. Actually his ideas are excellent for EVERYONE, even those of us with a single closet or drawer that needs attention. To view Peter Walsh’s website take a look at this link.

His first plan of action with homeowners was to look around the room and have the owner assess how they feel about the clutter and their home. Then Peter started with two bags, black for trash, blue for recycle and with a stop watch set for ten minutes they attacked one cupboard. Peter basically stated to the homeowners before they began, “if you haven’t touched it in 12 months you need to think about letting it go.” So with Peter and the stop watch I watched as they cleared out an entire kitchen cabinet filled to the brim with cups, glasses and a multitude of children’s drink cups and amusement park drink cups. Many were recyclable and within six minutes Peter and the home owner had restored organization and neatness to the cupboard and they were left with a bag of trash and a bag for recycling.

He said it is key to keep like things together, that goes for glasses as well as clothing or office supplies. He stated that as consumers if we don’t keep things together we continue to buy the same things over and over because we simply forget about having a previous one. So when the cupboard was complete all tall glasses were together, juice glasses together, wine glasses together, etc… I was both impressed and interested to share what I saw with those in my life who live in this extreme clutter. As Peter mentioned when you are living with such clutter it doesn’t allow other things into your home or life and that homes really reflect the state of our lives. What does your home say about you and your life? If you would like to see the video and photo clips and read more about Peter’s Clutter Control check out the following link on Oprah’s site.

Even I, simply a viewer was ASTONISHED at this quick and effective transformation. Six minutes! We all have six minutes for goodness sake!

Photo By Fiancailles Flickr

It doesn’t mean we wont lose our job or suffer loss, we very well may, just as I did. My belief and trust in God didn’t keep my parents from dying of cancer. What it did do is give me the strength to survive, to move through the worst pain I’d ever experienced in my life. There were hours and days when my life seemed too painful to go on. The pain of my mother’s loss was debilitating, devestating and I couldn’t even pick up the pieces. Death felt in those moments preferable to the intense pain of grief and loss I was feeling.

Losing our sense of security in the world, a job for many, my mother for me, often feels like the end of the world; and it is the end of the world we’ve been living. Our sense of protection and security is stripped away. We are left vulnerable, exposed and wondering how we can possibly go on, how we will support ourselves. Who will be there for us in our darkest hours?

At first it seems as if no one is there. It feels as if we’ve been abandoned, at least it did for me. The spirit of God is always with us, sometimes our pain is simply so deep we can’t even comprehend that we have support. I certainly couldn’t. My perception has deepened and today I realize in my darkest pain I was supported and you will be too. It may not be evident at all times but in small moments, in calm silence it will show its self and I pray you will realize you are supported.

Her time at home has been packed with events and activities and must do’s. Doctor and dentist visits, speaking at visiting churches who may like to become one of her mission supporters, time for family, time for old friends, a bit of time to travel, mission conferences and suddenly seven months is gone in the flash of an eye. It’s startling and sad. I know she has enjoyed this time back at home with family and friends and her church. It’s been good to see her, to know a bit more about her life in Kenya.

She talks fondly of the people and the events her church in Kenya has sponsored and the children and families that are helped with her mission work. I understand her desire to be in Kenya probably more than anyone else in my family. I too feel a calling, to my writing and my healing work. I too have spent years living overseas. I understand and even with understanding I am sad that she will soon leave again. We will miss her.





Sunrise with Giraffes

Art Print

Wells, Leon


Buy at AllPosters.com

A family that subscribed to our magazine conducted an interesting experiment. They put the rice in two glass jars and every day for a month said “Thank you” to one jar and “You fool” to the other, and then they tracked how the rice changed over the period. After a month the rice that was told Thank you started to ferment, with a mellow smell like that of malt, while the rice that was exposed to You fool, rotted and turned black. Pg 97

To give your attention to something is a way of giving energy. By receiving attention , life can get the energy to move in a better direction. Pg 98

With our economy in such flux and with the emotional upheaval so many people have experienced I was reminded by The True Power of Water just what we as people can do to focus our energy and our intentions to begin bringing love and calm to the distress and upheaval we see and feel. This morning as I read pages 90 to 104, I was reminded that we can create with our focus and our intention. We can begin to create a calm, healing around us by focusing our gratitude on everything good around us. Energy goes where we put our attention. We want to give energy and focus to the good in our world and in our lives. Focus on gratitude, Be grateful, be filled with love for everything in your life. Being grateful creates an energy that eventually opens the door to more good in our life.

For example, my house needs to sell, so rather than focus my energy on feeling a desperate need for a sale, I focus my energy on gratitude for what I have, for having a beautiful place to live, for having the abundance of owning a home and I release it to spirit. Another example, with the economic situation many families are feeling strapped financially and are not able to meet all their financial obligations, rather than focusing energy on all the things that are not paid, and getting more distressed focus on what you have paid. If you paid your rent, or your phone bill, think of the money you used or are using to pay this bill and say a prayer of gratitude for the fact that this money is in your hand and that you are using it to pay something that needs to be paid. A grateful attitude for the abundance in our life helps create more abundance.

There will naturally be moments of distress and stress. I can attest to this…laughter with a house for sale and still for sale long beyond what I can afford. But what I am seeing in my own life, with my own intention and gratitude is a subtle positive shift in my abundance with keeping my focus in GRATITUDE and using my thoughts in an uplifting way to say THANK YOU for everything I can pay and for EVERYTHING I have. I can assure you with two houses of bills this is a real test of my focus and intention.

There are more days than not that I could just spin out in the anxiety and stress of paying for two houses. Instead I’m learning and seeing positive results by saying THANK YOU to God and the universe for everything in my life. When I awake in the morning I say a prayer of gratitude for my house, the man in my life, the money I have, for my family and friends. I refocus through the day, for a minute or so and I say another prayer of GRATITUDE and THANKS for all these things and for any abundance that I find coming into my life on that day. I know there will be readers rolling their eyes, some in my own family I’m sure, but it’s working.

GRATITUDE is THE RIGHT ATTITUDE to change our experience, to change our lives. We know that greed and corruption are not working, we can see that every day on the nightly news. We see the direct result of the economy in our investments and our bank accounts. We know what doesn’t work, so lets focus what can work. AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE AND LOVE.

Mom worked for the stock market all of her adult life and knew the business backwards and forwards. She loved her work and didn’t want to retire when she turned 65. However, she was forced to retire at 70. She hated retirement. Mom needed to be busy. She started volunteering at church and at Boyd Hill Nature Park. She took care of her grandchildren, she took care of her daughters.

She loved animals and always had one dog and 1-2 cats around. After Mom retired she went for a long walk every morning and evening. One morning she was out in Lakewood Estates walking her beloved bassett hound, Beauregard and found a buff colored chicken in some bushes. She rushed home, got out the cat carrier and drove her car back to where she had found the chicken. She managed to catch the it, put it in the carrier and took it home. Clucky lived in Mom’s back yard for many years and rewarded Mom with an egg almost every day.

As Mom aged she became more frail but remained undaunted by the tasks at hand. She had her first fracture when she was up on a kitchen chair dusting the top of her refrigerator. The chair tipped over and she fell breaking her hip. “Nobody dusts the top of their refrigerator”, exclaimed the paramedic who came to take her to the hospital. “I do”, she announced firmly.

The anesthesia from that surgery took its toll on her memory. Her next fall came when she and Beauregard were running, yes I said running, home from my house. She tripped over something on the sidewalk and broke her pelvis. Another trip to the hospital but fortunately no surgery this time because the break was non displaced. Unfortunately, she took another fall before the break healed and it had displaced. Due to her age, surgery was declined. This fall took more of her and she was in pain a lot of the time.

When she got home from the hospital, Mom was not eating well, could not take care of her house and was quite forgetful. The family decided it was time for assisted living. September 2000 she and Beauregard moved to a villa at Westminster Shores, mostly against her will. She still felt she could take care of herself, drive her car and stay independent. I will never forget the look on her face when we left her there that first night. I felt I had betrayed her.

Almost every Tuesday and Thursday Mom and I went to the thrift stores. She could buy a bushel basket full of nice stuff and spend less than $20. Then we would head to McDonalds for a hamburger and strawberry milk shake. Saturdays were yard sale days in the neighborhood. After tromping through neighbors yards looking for treasures, I sometimes had lunch with her at Westminster.

After she had adjusted to the move, she started creating a garden of flowers outside her villa. Every few weeks I took her to the Willow Tree Nursery to pick up more flowers. The garden grew from a little plot of posies to a large area of riotous color all along the side of her villa. How she loved that garden. Other residents walked down the alley just so they could admire her work.

In March 2006, due to finances, Mom went to live with Linda who had moved to Georgia shortly after Mom went to Westminster. At first we talked on the phone frequently. After her short term memory was gone, and conversation on Mom’s part became sparse, Melissa would call me every Thursday morning on her speaker phone so I could talk to Mom. I read her children’s books by Stephen Cosgrove. They were delightful and each story had a moral and a happy ending. Mom seemed to loved them.

Melissa had called the Methodist minister and asked him to come for a visit. Tuesday November 18, he came by and talked with Mom, read her Bible verses and prayed with her. From that visit on she stopped crying all the time and became very peaceful.

Thursday, the day before she died, Missy called to tell me that Granny was unresponsive and could not talk on the phone. She said the doctor told them it would be only a matter of days. That night I asked God to give her peace but to please let her come tell me goodbye when she left this world.

Early Friday morning, I was sound asleep when suddenly, from outside my bedroom door, my vacuum cleaner turned on and then off. I sat up in bed looking out to see who had turned it on. There was no one. I looked at the clock and it was 650 AM. Too early to get up so I went back to sleep.

At 730 Melissa called to tell me that Granny had passed on peacefully. I talked to Linda and asked her what time Mom had died. Ten to 7 Linda told me. I held my breathe for a moment and realized that Mom had come to say goodbye.

I will always miss her terribly but I know she is in a better place, whole and happy and walking Beauregard through the gardens of Heaven. I love you Mom. See you at the house.

Born 5-16-14 – Died 11-21-08 – Memorial 12-13-08

The greatest degree of inner tranquility comes from the development of love and compassion. The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being.
Dalai Lama

Photo Credit: Lisa Overman Indian Shores Beach, St Petersburg, FL