August 27, 2016Verse of the DayYou will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.  ​Isaiah 26:3 NIV​Positive ThoughtsIt's Never Too Late to ChangePosted: 26 Aug 2016 04:46 PM PDTAt any time, you can decide to change the road you're on in life, take a new direction, follow a new trail.  You are the only one who really knows what you want from life and if you're on the right road for you.  You are the only one who can fulfill your dreams and receive the joys and happiness that come from reaching those aspirations and goals. Don't expect others to be responsible for your happiness and your success.  You must take control and be in charge of your destiny and day-to-day situations.  Take advice (most of the time it's free) and listen to what others have to say and what concerns they have; it's important to have different points of view.  But always validate those words of wisdom with your own set of standards and make sure that the advice has meaning to your sense of reality. You must understand yourself enough to know what you want in life and what desires you believe are worthwhile for your future.  You need to depend upon yourself and your talents.  Appreciate others for their personal skills and abilities, but always continue to focus on your own strengths and energies.  Life is much too short to spend it worrying about someone else's accomplishments or expecting someone else to be responsible for making your life better. If you have dreams, then you have a purpose.  You have something to believe in and work towards obtaining.  Dedicate yourself to yourself.  Promise yourself a life filled with love, and then whatever roads you travel will be the roads you want them to be. 

August 18, 2016Verse of the DayThe fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.  Proverbs 1:7 NIVPositive ThoughtsThe Gift of Changean excerpt Marianne WilliamsonPosted: 17 Aug 2016 11:48 AM PDTLife as we knew it is passing away, and something new is emerging to take its place. All of us are playing a part in a larger transformative process, as each of us is being forced to confront whatever it is we do, or even think, that keeps love at bay.  For as we block love's power to change our own lives, we block its power to change the world. Humanity is moving forward now, though in some ways we are doing so kicking and screaming.  Nature seems to be saying to all of us, "Okay, it's time.  No more playing around.  Become the person you were meant to be. "We would like to, but it's hard.  The problems of the world today seem larger than they have ever been before, making it easy to succumb to cynicism, fear, hopelessness, and despair.  Until, that is, we remember who we are. For who we really are is a power bigger than all our problems, both personal and collective.  And when we have remembered who we are, our problems -- which are literally nothing other than manifestations of our forgetfulness -- will disappear. Well that would be a miracle, you might say.  And that is precisely the point. This book is about learning who we are, that we might become agents of miraculous change.  As we release the fear-based thoughts we've been taught to think by a frightened and frightening world, we see God's truth revealed: that who we are at our core is love itself.  And miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. It is said in Alcoholics Anonymous that every problem comes bearing its own solution.  And the gift being borne by our current challenges is the opportunity to make a large leap forward in the actualization of our own potential.  The only way the world can make a quantum leap, from conflict and fear to peace and love, is if that same quantum leap occurs within us.  Then and only then will we become the men and women capable of solving the problems that plague us.  As we leap into the zone of our most authentic selves, we enter a realm of infinite possibility. Until we enter that zone, we are blocked, for God cannot do for us what He cannot do through us.  To say He has the solutions to our problems is to say He has a plan for the changes each of us needs to go through in order to become the people through whom He can bring forth those solutions.  The most important factor in determining what will happen in our world is what you decide to let happen within you.  Every circumstance -- no matter how painful -- is a gauntlet thrown down by the universe, challenging us to become who we are capable of being.  Our task, for our own sakes and for the sake of the entire world, is to do so. Yet for us to become who we most deeply want to be, we must look at who we are now -- even when what we see doesn't please us.  This moment is driving us to face every issue we've ever avoided facing, compelling us to get to some rock-bottom, essential truth about ourselves whether we like what we see there or not. And until we make that breakthrough in ourselves, there will be no fundamental breakthrough in the world.  The world we see reflects the people we've become, and if we do not like what we see in the world, we must face what we don't like within ourselves.  Having done so, we will move through our personal darkness to the light that lies beyond.  We will embrace the light and extend the light.  And as we change, the world will change with us. We spend so much time on unimportant things -- things with no ultimate meaning -- yet for reasons no one seems to fully understand, such nonessentials stand at the center of our worldly existence.  They have no connection to our souls whatsoever, yet they have attached themselves to our material functioning.  Like spiritual parasites, they eat away our life force and deny us our joy.  The only way to rid ourselves of their pernicious effects is to walk away ... not from things that need to get done, but from thoughts that need to die. Crossing the bridge to a better world begins with crossing a bridge inside our minds, from the addictive mental patterns of fear and separation, to enlightened perceptions of unity and love.  We're in the habit of thinking fearfully, and it takes spiritual discipline to turn that around in a world where love is more suspect than fear. To achieve a miraculous experience of life, we must embrace a more spiritual perspective.  Otherwise, we will die one day without ever having known the real joy of living.  That joy emerges from the experience of our true being -- when we detach from other people's projections onto us, when we allow ourselves permission to dream our greatest dreams, when we're willing to forgive ourselves and others, when we're willing to remember that we were born with one purpose: to love and be loved. Anyone who looks at the state of the world today is aware that something radically new is called for -- in who we are as a species and in our relationship to each other and our relationship to the earth itself.  Yet the psychological fundamentals that hold this dysfunctional world in place are like sacred cows: we are afraid to touch them, for fear something bad will happen to us if we do.  In fact, something bad will happen to us if we do not.  It is time to change.  It is time to do what we know in our hearts we were born to do. We are here to participate in a glorious subversion of the world's dominant, fear-based thought forms. There are only two core emotions: love and fear.  And love is to fear as light is to darkness: in the presence of one, the other disappears. . . . 

August 6, 2016Verse of the DaySince, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.​Colossians 3:1-2 NIVPositive ThoughtsBegin The Healing .Posted: 05 Aug 2016 03:10 PM PDTWhen life as we know it comes crashing down around us, our hearts ache, our minds go numb, a haze seems to surround us.  We are shocked, angry, and sad beyond anything we've ever felt before.  We are frightened and shaken.  We ask, "Why?  How could this happen?"  And often, we ask, "Why me?  Why us?  Why them?"  Our faith is tested…and also our resolve.  We might wonder if we will find the strength to go on…or if we even want to go on.  It's all so overwhelming.  Here are 10 steps to help you move forward.1.  Schedule quiet time.  Do what you have to do each day, but schedule at least 15 minutes of silence every day for a while.  Take a walk alone before work, stop at noon for a bit of reflection, or meditate each evening before bed.  Use the time to reflect, weep, pray, or just sit and be aware.2.  Accept your feelings.  Don't try to push them away.  Healing begins with identifying our emotions…whatever they are.  Fear, guilt, regret, anger, or sadness…accept them as they surface.3.  Express your feelings.  Write in a journal, pen a poem, sketch a drawing, or write a letter to a dear friend.4.  Connect with people.  Be with family, friends, or church groups.  Share your pain, and comfort each other.  Talk to a counselor, if you wish, or a spiritual leader, but be open to the love and comfort available to you.  Know that you are not alone.5.  Create remembrances of what has been lost.  Hold a memorial service and ask close friends to share memories in a book.  Assemble a photo scrapbook of someone lost, or a video collage of treasured moments.  Frame a special note or a shared favorite quote.  Perhaps you can find a small object (a ring, photo, or small piece of glass?)  that will help you to feel connected.  Keep it close to you and hold that love forever in your heart.6.  Pass along the love.  One way to honor a life lost is to give others what meant so much to you…a tender touch, an understanding smile, a shoulder to lean on, or the boost of positive energy.7.  Contribute what you can.  Donate to an appropriate cause, offer prayers of healing, volunteer your time, give blood, or support your local rescue workers.8.  Be an emotional support.  Hold someone who is grieving.  Listen generously.  Tell your own story of this and past recovery so others will not feel alone.9.  Commit acts of kindness.  In your workplace leave anonymous notes of appreciation, offer to help someone who's on a tight deadline, or simply bring in a breakfast treat.  In your community, you might adopt a homeless pet, volunteer to deliver meals on wheels, or rake leaves for an elderly neighbor.  Show more patience with everyone you meet.10.  Live each day in meaningful ways.  Revisit what's important to you, and then schedule it in.  Make time for birthday parties and coffee with friends.  Tell people what they mean to you.  Stop to give thanks for all that you have.  Use your gifts every day.  Hug your children more…teenage or not!And remember that we all heal in different ways and at differing speeds.  Follow your heart.  Take time to feel, take care of yourself, and take one step at a time. Suzanne Zoglio, Ph.D.

August 4, 2016Verse of the DayDear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.  1 John 4:11-12 NIV​Positive ThoughtsTransform Expectations into No Matter WhatsPosted: 03 Aug 2016 03:20 PM PDTThe most ungrateful person I know is an older woman who can't see the beauty of her life because she is so bitter that it didn't turn out the way she thought it should.  She has a lovely home and garden, healthy, bright, successful children, a fifty-year marriage, and the means and health to travel.  No one in her immediate family has died or been seriously ill, she's never known poverty or lack; she is, from all external measures, highly privileged, with much to be grateful for.  And yet all of what she has is completely invisible to her because somehow it doesn't match the picture of what she expected.  Her kids don't live close enough or visit often enough; she wishes there was even more money; her marriage isn't as loving as she desires.  Her ingratitude is a self-fulfilling prophecy, for the more she complains, the more lonely and isolated she finds herself as friends and family grow weary of her moaning. To me, this acquaintance is an important teacher in the practice of gratitude--a vivid example of how expectations can create blinders so that we can't even see the true blessings of our lives.  Expectations are the killers of gratitude and joy: If you expect to live in the Taj Mahal, your cozy little cottage will feel pretty awful; if you expect your son to become a doctor, you can't appreciate him for the fine bodyworker that he is; if you focus on how you are going to be miserable without a BMW, your trusty, rusty Toyota that reliably gets you around will only bring you misery. Having hopes, dreams, and visions for the future is one thing; it's important to have goals and schemes pulling us into the future.  But we need to be careful that such envisioning doesn't get in the way of appreciating the things we have in the here and now.  Let's not miss the beauty of our actual lives while we're lusting after a mythical perfect life. If we expect someone or something outside ourselves to make us happy, we lose our power.  The truth is we can't count on anything except our ability to choose how to respond to what happens to us.  One way to counteract the tendency to look outside ourselves for happiness is to practice No Matter What.  Before you go into a situation, ask yourself, "What is it that I can learn, accomplish, or experience here, no matter what happens?"  Let's say you have to give a speech and are nervous about how it will be received.  Your No Matter What might be, "No matter what, I want to experience a sense of peace while talking.  As I look out into the audience, I'll remember to breathe and notice that at my core there is peace."  Afterwards, no matter what else happened--that people appeared bored, or no one came up to thank you--you can still appreciate yourself for having kept your commitment to experience peacefulness. When we practice No Matter What, we are no longer hooked by expectations to externals--other people, other events--but are free to choose what we will focus on to make us happy. M.J. Ryan