Category: connection

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What Are You Looking For

Do you suppose that everyone is looking for something? Some extra portion of life? Some new spice, experience, dimension, or transition?

Are you?

If you are, do you know where to look?

This seems like a simple question, but it’s more than that. It’s the essential question. We have so many places and directions we can move, but how do we know for sure which will lead us toward what we want?

As you’ve observed by now if you’ve been with me for a while, asking questions is one of the main ways that helps me plot my course through life. Without questions, I wander, moving about aimlessly. I need focus and questions create pathways for me.

So, if you are willing, I’m going to take you on one of my journeys. In this case, it’s a somewhat poetic journey which starts with an important question. Because none of us is more important than another, sometimes it seems we don’t feel we can share what feels true to us.

I am taking a step. A step beyond my comfort level and placing words on a page, with the idea in mind that they may offer you something of value.

Who am I to speak to you?

And yet, who do I have to be?

Who do any of us have to be?

We all know a part of the whole.

I am wondering…

What do we look for in each other?

To be someone to help fill us up,

Someone to hear us,

To know why our heart beats?

Someone to touch our soul,

Someone to stand next to,

Or lean up against,

To help weather life’s storms?

Someone to remind us about love,

About why we’re here,

To ask us about our dreams,

To lead us forward,

And to catch us when we fall?

Someone to remind us that we are family,

That we’ve chosen each other,

To support, to suggest,

To increase our range and

Help us see beyond ourselves?

And someone to help us know love

Through both human and divine touch.

To me, what each of us may be looking for is found both inside of us and inside of others. When we connect, we’re bigger, brighter, bolder than we are alone. We need each other. We want each other.

Solely looking outside doesn’t work for me. Neither does looking only on my inside. I need both. I need insight and reflection.

How about you?

What do you need and where are you looking?

After years of searching, I settled back, relaxed my mind and heart, and waited for an answer. A divine connection appeared, and a voice spoke.

“You can look wherever you like, but there is one sure, true path.”

“Tell me please,” I asked, “what is this path?”

“Always choose love. Open your heart and offer love, to yourself and to all others. From here you will find all that you seek.”

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Would A Smile Help

I pulled a card from my Four Word Question deck at random and ended up with this card…Would A Smile Help?

My first reaction was, yes, of course a smile would help no matter what was happening. Smiles are awesome.

I wondered why. What is it about them that is so appealing?

My answer is…because they change how I feel inside me. They brighten my day and connect me, to the world, to others and perhaps most importantly, to the divine.

It feels like a smile is an extension of the love that is offered to the world. Smiles feel like they are filled with good intentions.

I don’t think I ever smile and still have negative feeling toward the world. I suppose it’s possible, but not very likely.

Smiles are definite mood shifters. They may be difficult to put on your face during challenging times. When this happens, they prompt a question for me. Given the choice, where would I rather be, in a happy or unhappy state of mind?

The trick might be whether I can answer this simple question while in a bad mood, a sad mood, after a fight with someone, a depressing day or during a sickness.

Sure, when I’m feeling fine, smiling is easy and fun and I think anyone can do it, but what about during the tough times in my life? I wonder, what would it take to remind myself to smile? What trigger would shift me from frowning to smiling? Could I set some kind of internal alarm that would go off, sparking me to remember to smile?

I want that to be the case.

I’m not talking about a Pollyanna approach where I tell myself that all is right with the world even though it’s not. I don’t find lying to myself to ever be the answer.

Recognizing that at any time in my life I have a choice of how I want to live and experience the world opens me and offers me the opportunity to choose. I find I choose much better when there’s a smile on my face. How about you?

I’m not denying that things can feel out of control and sometimes miserable. They can be and at times, they are.

What a smile does is it sends a message to me and to the world that I am exercising my ability to choose how to see and experience the world. It’s an opportunity to shift my consciousness.

This is an incredibly easy solution for me. Afterall, how many simple, easily controllable things can any one of us do? One answer is that every one of us can smile.

I also think to myself, I am not alone in this world. I ask what sort of message do I want to send out? If given the choice, what do I want to offer others?

My answer is often the same. I want to channel the love I feel running through me from my divine source.

It is such a simple thing to do. All I have to do is…smile.

It feels good and connects me to others. And it’s also great when you receive a smile in return. It’s actually life giving and life affirming and one of my most treasured things.

I invite you to test this out for yourself if it intrigues you. See what happens when you smile, even during your most difficult experiences. I bet you’ll find it lifts you up and brightens your day. I ask you, who couldn’t use that in their life?

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Garage Sale Insights

It is my personal belief that every single thing I encounter in my life has meaning. The fact is I miss most of the learnings I could be experiencing because I don’t grasp them at the time. Occasionally, something will connect after the fact, but I sense the majority passes me by.

How is it for you? Do you feel that you’re missing some of the valuable things happening in your life? Would you like to find ways to change this and live a richer life?

I’m trying to change some of my ways I experience my life, to deepen my awareness and to connect the dots, so that my life expands, grows, becomes more joy filled.

Now, you might not expect to find anything valuable in hosting a garage sale, but for me, many gifts presented themselves. Perhaps it was because I intended to find them. I chose to open myself up and look closely, believing gifts would appear and enrich my heart.

I wondered, if it is as simple as that, why don’t I do this all of the time? Maybe it’s an issue of practice, as well as attention.

My daughter and I share many traits, one of which is a giving heart. We agreed that we would let every customer pay whatever they felt items were worth. We both recognized this was an unusual choice, since most of those who organize and hold garage sales are trying to maximize their earnings. For us, we wanted to release the things we were selling and have happy customers.

Although we did price some items, if someone asked for a reduced price, we granted it immediately. For the rest of the items we sold, we accepted whatever the customer decided to pay.

This was one of my first learnings.

It seems everyone loves a bargain and there were in fact many who were quite happy to be able to purchase things at minimal costs, but there were also many who would not buy at the deflated prices we suggested. It was simply too good a deal for them, so they paid more than we asked.

Curious…why do you suppose that is?

One conclusion I drew was that they wanted a fairer trade and did not want to take advantage of our generosity. Maybe there are several explanations for this, but it was always fascinating to watch their faces and try to read their thoughts.

Another learning was about the value of human connection.

My daughter, Jenny, and I greeted everyone who came to our garage sale, young, old, and in between. This seemed to surprise many who stopped by. They stood for a moment, looked at us, smiled and said ‘hello’ back. Seeing their returned smiles lit me up and made my day. No one passed by without acknowledging us. It was a beautiful thing, and I am still energized by the recall of it.

It shows me that all of us here on earth can get along, we can make valuable contact with each other, we can extend ourselves, even if just a little bit. This fills me with hope and wonder.

It was also fun to meet neighbors and catch up with friends who stopped to check things out. There is something magical and mysterious about our human connections and I constantly find that I am overwhelmed (in a good way) with how much we want and need each other. Despite enjoying my alone time, I love feeling deeply connected to others, even if it’s during a garage sale.

Jenny and I both felt very satisfied to have released our grip on the things we own, to share them with others and to make a little money for ourselves.

An idea surfaced for each of us, to only buy something new if we were prepared to give up something old. I’m not sure if it will stick, but I’m sure we’ll learn something valuable no matter what happens.