Monday 30 April 2012

Forgiving My Own Heart

Hello


What is forgiveness? I really would like to understand forgiveness, for example why is it that some things are so easy to forgive, and that others I just seem to hang on and on, as if waiting for some sort of divine intervention; The hand of God comes down from the sky, monty python style,  shakes it's finger at me and I hear the words "get on with it!"
No? Ok, that's not going to happen. So it's up to me! I have been pondering forgiveness a lot lately, some people are really very good at it, while others can hold a grudge for years and years. 


What I do know about forgiveness though is that it has everything to do with me and almost nothing to do with whoever I need to forgive, and what I mean by that is that I am the primary beneficiary of my act of forgiveness. Also I have definitely experienced a kind of energetic tie to people to whom I hold anger or bad feelings, it is almost as if there they are in my consciousness floating around like a little thunder cloud! Even this on its own seems like a very good reason to find forgiveness for them! 


Upon looking up forgiveness I found this phrase: "..... in order for the wronged person to believe himself able to forgive", I found this really interesting simply because it highlighted for me that it's not just me that doesn't really understand how forgiveness works! If we need to believe ourselves able to forgive no wonder it can be so hard to do it sometimes! 
Conversely if all that is needed is a belief in our ability to forgive, then perhaps forgiveness can be really easy? 


Is forgiveness just another choice to be made? Surely if I can choose what I think about on a momentary or daily basis, I can also in the same vein choose to believe that I can forgive. Again I am drawn to living in the soul, if I am new each moment, without memory and past experience forgiveness must be a given. 


Where I get stuck sometimes is on "If I forgive you, does that permit you to do it again, or mean that I condone your actions?" For me that is the biggest barrier to forgiveness. When I see it in writing it seems daft! It strikes me as being a very old story; I have noticed that people often think that children need to be taught how to behave, and as a part of that, showing that they regret doing things which have hurt or upset other people seems to be paramount. There has been a perception that guilt must be heaped onto our souls in order for us to understand repentance and apology. 


What a shame that is, I have learnt through parenting that children emulate their parents and they rarely if at all need to be taught anything. Also it is clear to me that people know when they have done things which have hurt other people and that it is human nature to regret hurting others, I believe when we hurt others we feel it too, and whether we show that or not is entirely personal. My eldest daughter has taught me that it is possible to be sorry without even a hint! 


So, I choose to learn forgiveness, I choose to let go of the 'wrongs' which have been done to me! I am no victim to life, 'who' has 'caused' all the trouble anyway? When I take on 100% responsibility for my own life the only person who needs forgiveness is myself! Perhaps that is the hardest person to forgive, little old me! 


I hereby declare that I forgive myself all that I have done or omitted to do which may have hurt others or myself. I love myself, I deserve forgiveness, I deserve to be happy. No amount of self hate or un-forgiveness can undo what has been done, so it serves no purpose other than to hold me back. Let go of the limiting nonsense and step into the freedom of love......


Today I am Thankful for forgiveness
I am Thankful for love
I am Thankful for second, third, fourth, fifth ad infinitum chances
I am Thankful for being responsible for my own life
I am Thankful for the Great Mystery
I am Thankful for Blue Bells in springtime
I am Thankful for adventures in the world and in the mind
I am Thankful for sweetly scented flowers
I am Thankful for sparkle
I am Thankful for Light!


love Klara.



Sunday 29 April 2012

Hooray for the Great Mystery!

Hello


It comes as no great surprise to me that in this modern western world it can be so hard to have and maintain faith and trust in things which we cannot see. 
I remember when I was a little girl always seeming to need to 'prove' myself, somehow the humans I grew up experiencing needed proof of everything. The great mystery of life seemed to constantly be being discarded in favour of that which we can touch, taste, smell, see or hear. Scientists want proof, teachers, lawyers, doctors and laymen all want proof!


I remember quite clearly as a little girl talking with beings which other people could not see; I used to play in my garden for hours with beings which might now be labelled as fairies, I don't remember them having a shape, or appearance to the eyes, just that they were there adding to the game, or showing me things which I might not have noticed otherwise, and they were good company, easy peaceful joyful beings which enhanced my play experiences. 



All the magical things which I, and I am pretty certain many other children, could perceive were gradually talked and 'proved' out of me by teachers and other doubting adults. There seemed to be some sort of perception that things which cannot be perceived by the ordinary senses, with an emphasis on sight, do not exist and are therefore a waste of time! 


The only magical thing that they could not take away from me was the very thing that we are made of, the magical spark which is life! I am so pleased that the mystery of life remains a mystery! Try as they might scientists are totally unable to define the spark which makes up life! 
Ok so they are pretty clear about how to kill things off, separating the magical spark of life from the body it belonged to, but they are no closer than they were hundreds of years ago to 'creating' life!
A good job too!!!


When I walk out in the nature, and experience the spirits which reside there, in the moment I am amazed, which seems odd to me now, seeing as when I was a little girl those same beings seemed so ordinary, obvious even! I am amazed that I share my world with the unseen! and later when I go home and think about it again I often pass it off as 'imaginary', it is almost as if some confidence which I had in myself is missing to the point where I doubt my own experiences. 


No more! I love the Great Mystery of life, I love the experiences which I have that hold a spotlight for me on the 'unseen'! The world is stuffed full with people who 'believe' strongly and with total confidence in a God or Gods which they cannot perceive with the ordinary senses! It is written that miracles have happened in books in which people have complete trust in the credibility of! 
The word miracle is defined by the church as a marvellous event caused by God! 


  In that case the whole world is a miracle! 


I am a miracle, you are a miracle, life is a miracle, water, air, earth and fire are all miracles - marvellous events caused by God! If I or anyone else doubt my experiences with unseen beings or phenomenons, then we are doubting God and the whole World itself! 


It seems to me that modern humans find it incredibly difficult to live with uncertainty, so many people, in my experience so far, need to be absolutely certain that something is 'real' and 'true' before they will put their trust in it, even if they can see it working!!!


I am teaching myself to trust, I aspire to trusting in life, to trusting in God, Source, Divine Oneness, Spirit, or whatever I feel to call it at the time! What is life without Trust? Without trust in life there is only doubt and fear! 
I can trust that everything will turn out ok, I can trust that my dreams will come true, I can trust that life is supposed to be good and joyful, just think the alternative to trust and faith is worrying that everything will go wrong, allowing the mind to churn endlessly on all the terrible possibilities for calamity and disaster! How dull and utterly undesirable. 




                         FAITH VERSUS FEAR





                   That is what it comes down to in the end!


I know what I will choose now!!!! Here I am learning to be comfortable with uncertainty! No more fear please, such a destructive emotion! 


Hooray for faith, hooray for trust, hooray for love and light and joy! And of course even if my dreams never become manifest, if I have felt all the excitement for them as if they were already here, then I will have lived a life full of joyful, excited, happy, loving feelings, and that is what I am aiming for! 




Today I have Loving Gratitude for all the helpful beings I cannot see
I have Loving Gratitude for all the fun we had together when I was a little girl
I have Loving Gratitude for faith
I have Loving Gratitude for trust
I have Loving Gratitude for love
I have Loving Gratitude for God, Source, Divine Oneness
I have Loving Gratitude for the feelings which guide me
I have Loving Gratitude for the sweetness of the world
I have Loving Gratitude for the innocence we are born with
I have Loving Gratitude for all the unseen being which continue to help me


love Klara.











Saturday 28 April 2012

Filling Up My Own Cup!

Good Morning


When it is all quiet in my house, and everyone is out and I feel peaceful and calm and I sit down to write my blog, I wonder what to write? This has been happening more and more frequently to me lately (the quiet house bit, and thankfully not the what to write bit!), my baby who is now nine months old has reached the time where she is happy to be away from me for one to two hours so off she goes with her daddy and here I am at home in a quiet house!


The temptation to get up and do housework is almost overwhelming! When I have a small baby the thing which get left to slide first is always the housework. Today the house is not so bad, I have seen it much worse, it may be perhaps that I just rather like housework.....


So why don't I just get up and do it then if it's so enticing? Well really it is because I can actually do it with baby! The point of not holding the baby is that I get to take some time for myself, and so here I am writing, because I not only do I love to write but also the act of writing this blog, about CHOOSING GOOD FEELING THOUGHTS, serves to realign me with my purpose. 


I have found that sitting down everyday and writing about whatever is going on in my life, my inspirations, and my discoveries is extremely cathartic; not only that but it helps to bring to me better understandings about my thoughts and my life, and it also helps to bring my goal, TO THINK MYSELF INTO HAPPINESS EXACTLY THE WAY MY LIFE IS RIGHT NOW, right into focus.
By the time I have finished writing a post I am feeling at the very least jolly and optimistic, and at the very best  ecstatic, joyful and hugely thankful.


I do believe that taking time to be alone, doing the things which make me feel good is an integral part of feeling good. In the same way that children need their little cups to be filled with love and attention from their loved ones, I believe that adults also need to fill their own cups with self loving acts, which serve to make us feel love; the love of ourselves.


Care and attention to my own needs is vitally important to my own well being, this whole blog came about as a response to my souls cry for help (years of seasonal depression was beginning to affect my daily life all year round), the act of sitting down alone and writing is turning out to be a wonderful way of loving myself. My joie de vivre is back, maybe not everyday yet, but for a whole lot of the time I feel marvellous, and not only that, I feel more at peace with where I am in life than I could ever have hoped for and I know that there is still more to come! 


I feel at peace and enormously grateful that I have found a way to be happy in the world, exactly the way it is right now, and maybe I am helping other people at the same time by sharing my experience, what a beautiful thought......




Today I have Loving Gratitude for my life and my story so far
I have Loving Gratitude for the computer on which I write this blog
I have Loving Gratitude for the space and time in which I write it
I have Loving Gratitude for the housework which gives me great satisfaction when it is done
I have Loving Gratitude for all the loving thoughts I have for myself
I have Loving Gratitude for all the peaceful sounds when my house is empty
I have Loving Gratitude for the joy of the return of my family
I have Loving Gratitude for all the inspiration still to come
I have Loving Gratitude for redbush tea and oatmilk
I have Loving Gratitude for my mum


love Klara. 







Friday 27 April 2012

Day One Hundred and Twenty!

Hello


                               Amazing, incredible, fantastic! 


It's day one hundred and twenty! Do you hear the overture of trumpets blowing? Yes, good, so do I!
I am super pleased to have made it to my original goal to CHOOSE GOOD FEELING THOUGHTS at all times! I have done my best, and sometimes my best was better than others! 


                                                    So what happens now? 


I have of course decided to carry on writing everyday for as long as the spirit moves me to, it turns out that writing this blog is one of the best, most healing things I have ever done for myself! 


Today is the 27th of April 2012, on the fifteenth of November 2011 I had the revelation, with a very lovely friend of mine, that 


                       I have the Power to Choose my thoughts!
                                        ALL THE TIME! 


I had been suffering from seasonal depression for as long as I can remember and was struggling with what I perceived to be a rather gloomy winter, suddenly it was revealed to me that happiness had nothing whatsoever to do with the weather! 
              
                                                    Happiness is a choice. 


If I sit and focus upon everything that I find unharmonious about my life, it comes as no great surprise that I will feel miserable, and if I sit and think of everything which I find harmonious about my life I will soon start to feel uplifted, joyous and happy. 
I like many other people I am sure, had mistakenly believed that happiness was dependent upon my circumstances, other people meeting up to my expectations and the weather (I do not doubt that people suffer from seasonal difficulties, without vitamin D sourced from the sun we are not able to function in many ways).


I now know that my happiness comes from deep inside me, it is dependent on my focus, when I focus on things which I find harmonious I feel marvellous. I would even go so far as to say that not only is happiness dependent on my focus, but that my circumstances are actually dependent on my happiness, not the other way around as I used to believe, how ironic! 


To begin with I felt as though there was little in my life that I could focus on to bring out the happiness which was locked inside me, so I started small, and before long using the Power of Gratitude I realised that I lead an incredibly blessed life and as long as I focus on all the things for which I am grateful then I can feel just how blessed I am.


              It really is a matter of putting on those rose tinted glasses and keeping them on! 


To unlock my happiness and feel the power of Gratitude I simply think of all the things which I love and imagine that they are gifts which have been given to me and with all my heart I say 
    
                              Thank you!




I consider myself a shepherd of my thoughts; I can do my best to choose good feeling thoughts, and when unharmonious thoughts arise, as they are wont to do from time to time, I can guide my mind back to happiness and gratitude.


The journey of writing this blog has brought so much inspiration and wisdom into my life, I am so grateful for the opportunity which arose for me to write it, and I am committed to continue writing it for as long as it benefits me. 


Hooray for day one hundred and twenty, hooray for many more days of blog writing! 


Today I Have Great Loving Gratitude for Loving Gratitude
 I Have Great Loving Gratitude for everything I have learnt while writing this blog
 I Have Great Loving Gratitude for my life
 I Have Great Loving Gratitude for my computer
 I Have Great Loving Gratitude for my vocabulary
 I Have Great Loving Gratitude for my blessings
 I Have Great Loving Gratitude for the choice of happiness
 I Have Great Loving Gratitude for the wonderful ever changing sky
 I Have Great Loving Gratitude for onions
 I Have Great Loving Gratitude for Love


love Klara.

Thursday 26 April 2012

You Have Got To Laugh!

Good Morning


Today I would like to find the joy in my lack of inspiration! I like to believe that it is possible to find joy in everything (ok there may be some exceptions out there for those of us who would like the option of remaining a sceptic!). 
So what can I do? Well for a start I can laugh, hooray today I am a blank canvas, anything could happen!


I remember when I was in my teens, my very best friend (who I am lucky enough to still be able to call that) and I used to laugh so hard and for so long that our faces would hurt, indeed we frequently had to leave the room in order to regain composure! I miss the intensity of that kind of laughter, and I seem to remember that it was entirely a momentary thing as any attempt to try to recreate the source of the laughter or explain it would pretty much always fail! 


Laughter is one of the greatest tools which we have been provided with as human beings for maintaining our own well being! Did you know that laughter reduces pain, strengthens the immune system and reduces stress? Well you do now! 






Occasionally when I need a lift I remember some of the things which have made me laugh hard in the past, I bring them to mind and I am happy to say that they are still funny now. 
Humour is an entirely personal thing, I still find my own jokes the funniest (!) and I also find that other people frequently don't get my sense of humour which sometimes makes things all the funnier!


So today I feel to share some things which have made me laugh, and to have A Rampage of Appreciation for Laughter.....


I love to laugh, I give great thanks for laughter, I am so thankful for the joy which laughter brings. 


I give great thanks for the healing which laughter brings me, I love how I feel when I have had a good laugh, I give thanks for the way my face aches when I have been laughing.


I have loving gratitude when I get the joke, I love it when laughter becomes infectious and people end up laughing at the laughing.....






I love the soothing nature of laughter, I am so grateful that I can laugh and I am so thankful that I have so much to laugh about. 


I give great Thanks for laughter, I give thanks also that I can always choose to laugh when things go wrong and I give great thanks whenever I am able to see the funny side of life.....


Thank you God, Source, Spirit, Divine Oneness for the Gift Of Laughter. 






love Klara.

Wednesday 25 April 2012

Finding Happiness Takes Practise!

Hello


Today it is pouring with rain! The ceiling above my window is leaking and I am sitting in the dark trying to see the keys so I can write while my baby sleeps in my lap. It's not exactly what I would call A Recipe For Joy!

In fact I woke up feeling pretty awful, perhaps I had too much sleep! I have just re-read my recipe for joy and was struck by how much good advice it contains, just reading it made me feel much better, and realise I have not been following my own advice, how funny! 


As I read it I thought about what I have been doing regularly to feel as good as I can,  and what I could try doing right now to improve my feelings. What I could do right now, with a sleeping baby on my lap, is sit up straight and adopt a winning position!


So I have just spent a good five minutes silently posturing in front of my mirror, so as not to wake the baby, and guess what? It worked! I feel much better! I never would have thought that something as simple as acting like I have just won a prize or a race, or dancing to silent music, which only I can hear, could significantly improve my mood, but it does!!! If the world could have seen me do that it would have laughed with me! 






I have heard the phrase, 'fake it to make it', many times, and I think I would have to say that it seems to me that it implies some sort of false behaviour, when actually if pretending to feel good brings about good feelings then there is no fakeness involved. In this case it's a bit more like practising feeling good. Perhaps feeling good does take practise? If I am used to feeling miserable or just a bit flat then I am well practised at that, so perhaps I need a lot more practise at feeling happy!


I have just searched google images for 'happy people', the majority of them have their hands in the air, so I also tried waving my hands in the air whilst smiling for a few minutes, this definitely works too! It would make perfect sense that if one wants to feel happy the simplest way to do it must be to find out what happy looks like and mimic it! 
Happy people also jump, laugh, skip, run about and hug each other, according to the pictures. 


Perhaps I sound a little cynical, but I don't feel it! I feel a little genuine enlightenment. I think life is fairly simple, here we are having a physical experience, happiness cannot be that complicated really, otherwise I don't think the world would have quite such a large population. There are no courses in happiness, that I know of, one does not need qualifications, and intelligence certainly does not seem to help in the quest for happiness. 


We choose happiness, acting as if I am happy makes me feel good. If I want to feel a certain way I must be it also. I am going to study happy people, the way they walk, the way they talk, and how often they wave their arms in the air!!!!


I am back now after a break for most of the day and what struck me the most about today was that my good mood, brought on by my winning postures, arm waving and forced smiles, lasted! It lasted all day! 


Happiness is a state of mind,it is here in my heart all the time, and no matter what my circumstances happiness is here for me to enjoy, sometimes I may need to find a key to unlock it and others it simply is my orientation. 




Today I am Thankful for my sense of humour
I am Thankful for funny pictures of happy people
I am Thankful for jumping and skipping
I am Thankful for the dark moments which help me to find the keys to the light
I am Thankful for that winning position
I am Thankful for the great outdoors
I am Thankful for my friends
I am Thankful for the stars
I am Thankful for my coverlet
I am Thankful for my cosy pillows


goodnight love Klara. 











Tuesday 24 April 2012

Ordinary Miracles.

Hello


There is the most spectacular rainbow that I have ever seen in my whole life outside my window right now! In the bottom bow which is the brightest by a long way there are two sets of colours, it is a very low bow and has been there for at least twenty minutes now. 


Seeing rainbows has always been a very magical occurrence for me, they often happen at times of great change in my life, or when things seem like they are meant to be. I wonder how life would be if there was always a rainbow in the sky? Perhaps they would become ordinary? I wonder if people who can regularly see the Northern lights are used to them and no longer find them magical?


Life is a magical occurrence. I wonder if part of the reason that it is so easy to take it for granted is that it can seem ordinary? I wake up each day, I do a whole lot of stuff, and then I go to sleep. 
What about the miracle of my physical body, or the magic of a thinking mind? What are thoughts? What are memories? Where are they stored? How can a baby grow inside its mother? The only way to get here is through another being. There is nothing ordinary about life, or put another way, life is a string of Ordinary Miracles. With my eyes wide open the world is miraculous. 


My baby and I looked at a field of cows today, she looked at me and looked at the cows and started to point and wave her arms in the air, she has seen cows before, but not enough times to not be amazed. Her whole little face shone with amazement and interest, she watched them for a while enthusiastically and then shouted to them a few times, she was rewarded by the whole field of cows mooing and then moving into another field. 
Cows I thought, and looked again, I watched them more closely, looked into their eyes. Yes, cows are amazing, my baby was right. I had become accustomed to cows, I had an idea of what I thought they were, I had filed my cow image somewhere in my mind, perhaps I thought I knew all about them, they seemed ordinary to me. 


Ringing in my ears are the words someone once said to me, that if we were to recognise and acknowledge all the sights and sensations of the world going on at any one time it would be a sensory overload and we would not be able to cope. But there must be a happy medium between sensory overload and the half alive half noticed mundanisation (I think I may have just made up a word!) of the astonishing nature of our physical world. 


My discovery is that the more I do notice the natural beauty and incredible uniqueness of just about everything I encounter, the more happy I am, the more I enjoy life. The more present I am the less time there is for overactive brain work. When I really see, when my eyes are really open and watching the world I feel glorious, engaged, enraptured, and absorbed by the magnificence of life. 


We live in a physical world, we are supposed to notice it, study it and enjoy it. 


The rainbow is gone now and my eyes are drawn to my partners kilt, a kind of man made textile rainbow, I never noticed before just how vibrant it is. Ok so it is not made of sunlight and rain, but it is still an ordinary magical miracle. How beautiful. 


Today I have Loving Gratitude for all the Ordinary Miracles by which I am surrounded
I have Loving Gratitude for my funny cup shaped like a crocodile
I have Loving Gratitude for rainbows
I have Loving Gratitude for my children
I have Loving Gratitude for fabric
I have Loving Gratitude for velvet
I have Loving Gratitude for silk
I have Loving Gratitude for big burly bark 
I have Loving Gratitude for smooth silky bark
I have Loving Gratitude for all the natural grown materials which have been used to make things in my house



                                                            This really made me smile! 


love Klara. 

Monday 23 April 2012

The Spark

Good Morning


Even on the darkest of days and in the blackest of moods there still resides in me a spark. 


                                 The Spark of life! 


The spark is my guiding light. I believe that we are not supposed to suffer the torment of depression and other such mind traumas, I believe that our feelings are there to guide us, and when something feels really awful it is an indication that we are doing or feeling something which is against our best interests, the unpleasant feelings arise as a way of letting us know that we need to move on to something else in order to thrive. 


The spark is there when I have ignored all the warning signals, when I have followed a train of thought all the way along the track, and I am sitting in the dark pit of gloom, there is the spark! My job when I am ready to leave the depressive bubble is to focus in on the Spark. Inside the spark resides my joy and my happiness story; to move from spark to flame I need to begin to kindle my spark, I must start to focus on that which I love, even if it seems completely unattainable, impossible and ridiculous!


Once I have begun to focus on my spark and it has grown into a flame then I can focus even harder on the goal; I will light the forest fire of my hopes, joys and dreams inside my mind. Moving from a really dark space into the light can take time, it is often hard work and may take a very real act of Will, but it is essential to know that it CAN BE DONE! 


I am very pleased to say that I have not visited the darkest places for quite some time, but what I am experiencing is a kind of plateaux of ordinariness. What do I mean? I mean that currently my usual mode is frequently one of boredom! I have often said that boredom is a refusal to be creative! There is so much in life one could be occupied with, and with a small baby I am rarely idle, so perhaps boredom is the wrong word, but it is the closest I can get to describing the feeling which I am experiencing! 


It is more like a kind of emotional of spiritual boredom, perhaps even a refusal to get excited about anything! I can remain ambivalent, underwhelmed, uninterested, flat for long periods of time.


So I am now considering that it is the same story as that which I experience with depression, boredom is just a mode, a frame of mind. I have moved on from my former mode being one of depression, I have moved up the emotional scale and now I have to do exactly the same operation that I had to do when I was depressed; which is to look for the spark, kindle a flame, fuel the fire and move into a better feeling place! It seems that I have made a stop off on the train to joy at Complacency Station! Here everything is OK, but it could be better, so much better! 


I am not excited, I am not Joyful, I am not glowing with the love of the world! But I can be with a little effort of will and some imaginative thinking! Joy, excitement and enthusiasm for life are not far away at any point in life! 
I just took this theory for a test run, and spent half an hour lighting a fire of enthusiasm for things I would love to experience, and sure enough there it was! I took the spark, I fed the flame and joy grew in my heart. 


I don't know why I have not been residing in a place of joy naturally at the moment, as my orientation, maybe it is as simple as making a habit of feeling joyful, or perhaps the stars are drawing me into a different place at the moment? I don't think it is important. Sometimes joy finds me, sometimes I find joy!


Today I am Thankful for the Spark!
I am Thankful for Joy 
I am Thankful for the times my children do the washing up
I am Thankful for rainbows around the moon
I am Thankful for my thoughts
I am Thankful for poetry
I am Thankful for the mystic thinkers
I am Thankful for astrologers
I am Thankful for crows
I am Thankful for the great mystery






love Klara. 

Sunday 22 April 2012

Patience, Kindness and Sleep!

Hello


LIfe appears to me through a lens, I often think of the rose tinted spectacles I wore as a teenager, and occasionally now I put on a pair of sunglasses just to see the world through different colours than the ones my eyes show.


I have decided that it would be a good plan to grow my own rose tinted lenses for my own eyes, ones which will eventually become permanent, I will not be removing them once they have grown! Rose tinted glasses are no good on their own, they can be removed and then lost, broken or forgotten and then have to be found, remade and remembered in order to be of use! 


I am growing a permanent new lens through which to see the world and my life. Good. Today has been hard work, I have been waring an old worn out pair of lenses, perhaps they slipped over my eyes because I am tired, I have had quite a few nights in a row now of insufficient sleep and today it has been taking its toll. Moments of clarity have been drifting in and out of my consciousness, and some of the time I have been gladly resting in the now playing with my baby and talking with friends and family.


However some of my day was spent briefly indulging in the morbid imagination, for a while I tried to swat it away like some sort of annoying fly, and just like that fly it kept coming back! So I allowed it for some time, I let my imagination think up some really miserable morbid scenarios and sure enough I found them addictive and hard to leave before the grand finale! 


What did I learn from that exercise? What indeed did I learn from today? That tiredness can hamper good feeling. Tiredness lowers my defences, physically and emotionally and that being kind to myself is a daily practice, being kind to myself need never go away! I will never have got it done! 


Perhaps we never do get life done, there is always more to learn, improvements which can be made, the lens can grow rosier and rosier forever! 


One thing which I did glean from the morbid imagination today is that it can highlight problem areas, I used to think it was pure fantasy, and perhaps because I indulged in it so often I could not see any real relation to my own life amongst the craziness, but today I noticed that all the ridiculous imagined scenarios has elements of my deeper fears and perceived inadequacies. I found that very interesting. Maybe in the future if I am ever feeling complacent or like I have it all sorted I can give the morbid imagination a test run and see what it kicks up! 


So, my words for today are patience, kindness and sleep! My rose tinted lens will grow eventually, healing can take time. Loving myself is key to feeling good, when I remember to tell myself all the things which I love about being me I do feel really well and blessed, when I am kind to myself I am much better able to be kind to others. 
When I have had a few really good sleeps I am sure some of the rose tint will grow back all by itself!


So here I am, no huge great revelations today, just simple reminders that healing takes time, gentleness is key to self love and growth and of course my world looks dark when I allow my focus to slip away from that which I love.......


Today I am Thankful for kindness
I am Thankful for the regenerative powers of sleep
I am Thankful for my songs and stories
I am Thankful for my voice
I am Thankful for my guitar
I am Thankful for all my talents
I am Thankful for my body
I am Thankful for my smile
I am Thankful for my sense of humour
I am Thankful for my ability to choose my focus


love Klara.  







Saturday 21 April 2012

From Seed To Sunflower.

Good Morning


I have just noticed how dusty my room is! Well it is spring here in the Northern hemisphere, so it must be about time for a good old clear out. I have always enjoyed shaking things up, cleaning off the dust, throwing out the old junk that no longer serves me and making a fresh start with everything that remains.......


Springtime is a time of fresh growth, the time of rebirth and fertility, flowers bloom, fledgelings take flight, new dreams and plans begin to bud. 


Sometimes I imagine how it would be if we were all suddenly to stop gardening the natural world, what would happen if tomorrow we let nature run wild again? I like to think of the park outside my house, the grass growing taller and taller until it finally flowers.....
How would it be after a week, a month a year, ten years? I love to see the controlled, trained coiffured places and imagine succession until eventually there is nothing but woods. 


To me ideas can grow in the same kind of way, if I allowed my ideas and creations to grow unchecked how would they develop in a week, in a month, a year, ten years?


What do I mean exactly? I believe my ideas and inspirations come from the Divine, "Here" says the Divine with a loving smile "take this delicate seed and see what you can grow with it." So I take the seed and I plant it and water it and watch it germinate, and I do believe that it would grow into a magnificent forest if only I could learn how to allow it to. 


You see I think that ideas are very much like the grass in the park, just when it begins to get long and luscious along comes the attendant with his mower and cuts it short (which of course is good for all the people who want to use the park, but that is not my point right now). To me the mowing is akin to the impatience which I feel when my ideas and creations have not yet come to fruition. I find waiting difficult, I would love to say I find it easy, I have mastered patience! Well I have in some ways, I have learnt to not open the oven door to check the cake before the point when it will sink in the middle! 


So how long should I wait for my plans to come to fruition before I become impatient? Should I even become impatient? How long is a piece of string? How long does it take for a forest to grow from a field of grass?


I have had a tendency in the past to give up just before the idea may have come to fruition, I remember listening to Clarissa Pinkola Estes (Women Who Run With The Wolves) talking about this very idea, and surprise surprise it is all about maintaining focus! 
Focus is one of the most important manoeuvres our minds can make! Estes used the story of the little match girl as an analogy for how people frequently dream up the life that they want but are unable to maintain the focus to move beyond the germination stages of their plans. 


I don't have the answers, but I know it is a bit like mowing the grass just before it flowers or opening the oven door too soon, you loose all the heat which built up and the cake flops. Impatience is a bit like an antidote for creation. 


I don't know how long it takes for a forest to grow, several lifetimes probably! so in this life I'd like my plans to blossom sooner rather than later, I just need to keep the oven door shut. I have in mind right now an image of the Earth with a sunken top! 


Back here I find myself, in the spring time my creative seeds germinating with the flowers, there is so much to learn on my mission, Focus, Focus, Focus......










Today I have Loving Gratitude for seeds
I have Loving Gratitude for Sunflowers
I have Loving Gratitude for the morning dew
I have Loving Gratitude for my fiddle
I have Loving Gratitude for the first daisies of Springtime
I have Loving Gratitude for caves
I have Loving Gratitude for stalactites and stalagmites
I have Loving Gratitude for new horizons
I have Loving Gratitude for adventures
I have Loving Gratitude for analogies


love Klara. 



Friday 20 April 2012

Nearly Over Or Just Begun?

Hello


Today is day one hundred and thirteen of my self-challenge to write for one hundred and twenty days, only one week to go! One week until what exactly? What happens on day one hundred and twenty? Will trumpets sound? Perhaps I will ascend? Or maybe a perfect understanding of Life the Universe and Everything will suddenly bloom about my being? 


More likely not a lot will happen, perhaps if I allow it there may be a sense of anti-climax! Thinking of why I set myself the challenge to write for one hundred and twenty days, I think my main reasons were firstly that I hoped (although I thought it unlikely) that I could do it, secondly I once read that if one did something for ninety days it would become a habit and I fancied a blog writing habit, and thirdly I hoped that my writing every day and sharing my experience with those who care to read it would bring about something special, unusual, profound or helpful.


What has come about is that I now know that I will be writing this everyday for a very long time, day one hundred and twenty or no! I plan to live for a nice long time! Since I started writing this, and more and more as time goes by, I have firstly few reasons, and secondly no excuse to allow myself to wallow in any apparently negative occurrences or moods which come my way. 


This is a new chapter of self responsibility for me, occasionally it irks me to have to find my way to better feeling thoughts, there is still a small part of me which enjoys (if one can call it that) wallowing in self pity, the heightened energy of anger or the complacency of boredom, to name but a few of my old destructive habits!


But now that I have made and fully understood my discovery that mood and thoughts are a choice, a resource even, so that I can refine my life preferences and experience a myriad of feelings and sensations, I realise completely that I am no victim to life or my thoughts and my choice to be happy is always there making it very hard for me to allow myself the destructive indulgence of misery gloom and doom!


I also feel that it is very important for my children that I lead by example, it would be a bit useless if I was to ask them to reach for better feeling thoughts when they feel one of the low emotions if I was not prepared to and actively doing the same! Children emulate their parents (I do believe, I find that I am being drawn more and more to tiny floral print clothing just like my mum wears!!!) so the best way to help my children to be happy is to embody happiness itself, no pressure or anything!!!


So there we have it, I have made my bed and I have to lie in it! And what a deliciously comfortable, cosy, warm, inviting bed it is too!


Hooray for the challenges we set ourselves, for something wonderful has truly come out of my blog, I can't hide from my understanding that Happiness, Joy and Passion are all a choice and an act of self -love, self-will and self-responsibility! 




Today I am Thankful for the lessons of every moment
I am Thankful for all my seedlings growing in my garden
I am Thankful for ll the seedlings of happiness growing  in my heart and mind
I am Thankful for the rain which nourishes the seedlings
I am Thankful for oats
I am Thankful for beans
I am Thankful for barley
I am Thankful for my family
I am Thankful for the people who make motorways beautiful with wildflower seed bombs
I am Thankful for the men who mow the park


love Klara.



Thursday 19 April 2012

The Beauty of Disappointment!

Good Morning


Today I have an opportunity to practice dealing with disappointment in a positive way, and I don't mean by shouting hooray an anticlimax, yippeee I have been let down, although that might be an interesting experience! I wonder how it would be to celebrate the things which are seemingly disappointing? After all in the grand sceme of things maybe something not working out the way I had planned or hoped for is actually for the best and is therefore a     

                         Beautiful thing?


When things don't happen the way I planned I am well practised at feeling let down, I have had plenty of opportunity in my life to experiment with low, negative, miserable feelings when things didn't turn out the way I wanted them to! Suddenly it strikes me now as being a simple mistake to make! 


Imagine if I believed that every time something doesn't go according to plan or I apparently miss out on something I thought I wanted, that it was a good thing, a sort of divine intervention in my life? In that case it would be something to celebrate, the mantra would be simple; 'Oh really? there is something better and more suitable coming my way? How exciting!'.




It seems to me now that disappointment could be a learnt habit, a product of growing up watching people, who were not aware that the divine had something more appropriate planned for them, reacting to so called 'disappointments'; it would only be natural in that case to think that not getting what one had envisaged was undesirable, a bad thing! 


I am really starting to enjoy the fact that my plans have been altered for me by the Universe, perhaps the stars are not in the right place for it to happen today, maybe there is another more appropriate day for them to happen, maybe even something truly undesirable has been averted? Who knows? God.


I wrote a post recently about Faith, more specifically about using faith to hold onto future visions of things that I would like to experience. I can see now that developing a sense of faith and trust is something which will serve me in many more ways than I first imagined. The understanding that not getting that which I thought was the right and the best thing for me as being a great thing, an advantage even,  is an act of faith, faith and trust that the Divine, God, Source, Spirit, or whatever I feel to call it has a plan for me, or even knows better than I do what is the right thing for me. 


This is a puzzling area for me, I do not so much believe that God is some white bearded, rosy cheeked chap who sits around all day on a cloud making notes for later about what would be good for so and so......
In fact I believe that the Divine does not judge.....


I have heard however that there are other beings out there, Angels perhaps, working for my best interests, I believe in the Great Mystery of life, there is so much that we do not know.......


Why err on the negative? After all beliefs are choices, I can choose whether to believe in the Divine or not - nobody can give me conclusive proof either way - therefor that belief is entirely my choice! 
In my experience it is entirely up to me to choose whether I think that everything will work out for the best or for the worst, and for sure I know which one feels the best. 


Why waste time choosing to believe things which don't feel good? There is absolutely no point! Just like choosing to think good feeling thoughts, I choose to think that not getting what I thought was good for me is something to celebrate; indeed I now say 'Hooray something better is coming my way!'


Our brains are so powerful, within them lies our freedom to do, be, and think exactly what we like, and nothing can ever take away my freedom of thought.....


Today I am thankful for my freedom to choose my thoughts
I am thankful for my plans being changed by the Universe
I am thankful for the angels and other beings who help to keep me safe
I am thankful for the joy of faith
I am thankful for all the rainbows of the last few rainy days
I am thankful for all the lights at the ends of all the tunnels
I am thankful for sunshine
I am thankful for laughter
I am thankful for the joy of a good book
I am thankful for the fun of watching a really uplifting film


love Klara.

Wednesday 18 April 2012

I'm Singing and Dancing In The Rain!

Hello


I love rainy days and I mean the kind of days when it rains properly all day long, great big drops of drenching rain - the kind where an umbrella just won't do, somehow the air is so moist that it finds it's way into clothes and shoes and after I have been out in it my hair dries all wavy just like when I have been swimming in a river. 


This morning somebody actually said to me 'good weather for ducks!' which was something my mum used to say on rainy days when I was a child, I wonder if it really is good weather for ducks? It certainly is good weather for the land, all the plants must be heaving a great sigh of relief and contentment! 


I really love the rain, which is a good thing living in a country where it rains so much! They say there is no such thing as bad weather, only inadequate clothing and I would have to agree with that! 


Yesterday my baby and I were watching a big group of children in the park, they were playing football and it suddenly began to rain really heavily and then to hail stone! The children all shrieked and laughed and ran under the cover of the play equipment, every so often one of them would run out and dance about in the storm while all the rest shouted and laughed. It was such an uplifting experience watching them all having a really good time out in the rain. 


Those children brought to mind just how good it feels to be in the moment and to be free enough to play there, unhindered by thoughts of shoulds and ought tos. When we are children there is no need to think much beyond the moment (or at least there shouldn't be) rain is something to play in, I remember how much joy jumping in puddles brought me when I was small, and then as I got older I used to love riding through them on my bike the water spraying up either side of my wheels. My dad used to drive through great big puddles to entertain us with the water arcing up high and slamming down on the car windows. 


I had a lot of fun with my dad when I was small, we used to go out for long walks and somehow we would always end up soaking wet and covered in mud even if it wasn't raining! I miss that kind of play, I think I may have to designate some clothes for getting wet and muddy in, and in fact next time there is an opportunity for getting wet and muddy I think I will go with it and perhaps that childhood pleasure will come right back into my life. 


I believe we are supposed to play, I believe that as we grow up if we pay too much attention to what our 'superiors' and the government are saying we ought to do, it is possible to forget that a big part of having a physical experience is about playing. If we spend too much time working so that all the eventualities are covered, making sure we have enough money so we can pay taxes and have the shiniest car, we may just miss the main event; the pleasure of the simple things in life! 


Here right in front of us for more than half the year mother nature is offering us opportunities to play, in our gardens in the streets and in the fields.


I Give Great Thanks for the rain, I love the rain, I love the way the pavement smells just as the rain begins to fall, it's an earthy smell. I love the way the rain sounds, I find it soothing, I love to wake in the middle of the night to hear the rain falling heavily outside. I also love the excitement of thunder and lightning, where I lived as a child it seemed to happen a lot, I used to love being in the conservatory listening to the thunder and then counting the time until the lightening (or was it the other way around) to find out how far away the storm is. 


I remember when my eldest child (who is now fourteen) was a baby we lived in a caravan on the top of a hill and one night there was a storm and the thunder was so close and so loud that with a huge crash and bang it actually shook things off the shelves! It was very exciting! 


My life at the moment is about seeking out the pleasure in everything and learning to love, I feel very lucky to have the privilege of giving myself time to really open my eyes and see the wonderful beauty of the world right now, right here in my own back garden! 










So, Today I Have Loving Gratitude for the simple things in life
I Have Loving Gratitude for rain of all kinds; heavy, light, torrential however it comes!
I Have Loving Gratitude for all the clouds in the sky
I Have Loving Gratitude for puddles big and small
I Have Loving Gratitude for water in all its forms
I Have Loving Gratitude for ice and snow
I Have Loving Gratitude for swimming pools and rivers 
I Have Loving Gratitude for the oceans
I Have Loving Gratitude for play
I Have Loving Gratitude for waking up to the simple beauty of the world


love Klara.