Love Is What We Are

I remember as a young child feeling such a strong sense of love for those around me. It's natural to feel that way about one's parents but I felt it for everyone, still feel a slight tinge of what it felt like at times. It was so strong, so yielding, trusting. Little by little aspects of it ebbed away as I was taught and learned to protect myself…..to be safe.

Certainly I'm still capable of love. I feel enormous love for my children. This probably comes closest to the feeling I hazily remember. I love my friends, humanity in general. But now there's something held back, some caution tints its' clarity.

Yet sometimes I find myself in the midst of a sensation so similar to that childlike innocence of love. It comes up unexpectedly, feels like pure delight for those few moments before I'm fully aware of the experience. Once I realize I'm in the experience of it, it seems to alter, morph into something slightly less exuberant. Then as I examine it further, it loses much of it's shimmer, it's magic. I'm left with a memory of that childlike love from the past that has flown away as I tried to capture it.

I'm grateful though for these times, these instants of remembrance. It acknowledges that the distant memories are real, not simply figments of my imagination.

I realize that love now comes tainted with protection. I see a friend shining as though their soul's light is fully revealed in all its' glory. A moment later I'm cautioning myself to find some flaw, some fault I shouldn't overlook so that I'm safe from vulnerability. No one's perfect I remind myself, then a list of their imperfections starts to run through my head. If it's someone new, I begin to brace myself for the inevitable something that is probably there that I don't yet see.

Of course, most of this is an unconscious process; I've only recently become aware of what I'm relating now. As I bring it up out of the shadows I'm beginning to understand how deeply our early life experience impacts our belief in who we are as love. We come here as beings from and of the Light, as an essence of love still remembered, untainted. Regardless of the life plan we may have designed or how it will unfold dependent upon future choices, we all begin as love. Pure untainted, without caution, we come here and to varying degrees, we forget who we were, who we really are.

We re -capture aspects of this with those closest to us but certainly not with most or with strangers. We've been taught by people, experiences, life…. that love given too freely can cause pain.

Do we ever challenge ourselves to acknowledge the loss this entails, this protective stance aimed at making ourselves invulnerable? Do we shut out much of what is potentially good with our caution? Do we dim the light of love with our need to escape pain?

I've been challenging myself in my interactions, even if only for a few minutes to look more deeply at others. I want to experience that feeling of beauty more often to a greater degree. Not just as a memory tinged by time, but as an experience I can choose consciously to embrace now.

When I look at you I want to see you, if only for an instant as you truly are. A shining light, another face of God. I want to love the soul beneath the outer covering. I hope that when you look at me, you look deeper and really see me. I promise to try. Will you?

Thanks for listening.......Christie


Christie Pennington is an intuitive coach, channel, author, speaker and workshop facilitatior. Sign up for her free newsletter" Reflections" at www.thelightspeakers.com
Her new ebook "Transform Your Negativity;Ten Short Vizualizations" is available for $7.00 here http://stores.lulu.com/lightspeakers

Receive Your Good

We talk a lot at this time of year about giving. We're told it is better to give than to receive. What if they are really one and the same? Many attempt to give so much on so many levels that they deplete themselves and become disenchanted, disappointed, disgruntled and disconnected. As a result they begin to measure how much they are getting back. They give off an energy of being owed something by life and so effectively cut themselves off from their good. There's a difference between positive expectancy, knowing you are worthy, being receptive or coming from a lack based perception of being owed something cause you haven't got much of anything.




What if instead of giving of ourselves so much that one eye becomes riveted on what's coming back to us, we focused on receiving. What if we opened to all the good trying to fight it's way through to us. As we open to recognize, embrace and receive, the natural flow from inhale to exhale occurs. In the act of appreciative reception, do we give more geniunely?



I believe we do. As we embrace and accept that there is so much goodness available to us, we demonstrate and model this to others. A true act of giving, a strong hand extended to a fellow traveler on the path. A hand whose sureness of grip says "I know the way, I'll help you to find it?



Opening to receive with positive expectancy give to others. It's the difference between buying a material gift for someone and wondering what you'll get back, or taking them on an outing somewhere you've been and pointing out all the beauty you've found there. First you had to receive the gift of going yourself and appreciating your surroundings, your reception of the gift enabled you to share what you had already received. Which is the true act of giving, and what do you prefer to receive?



So in this season of giving, remember to receive so that you can spread your blessings to others more fluently.


Many Blessings received and given......Christie


www.thelightspeakers.com
christie@thelightspeakers.com


Christie is a visionary teacher, intuitive coach, author and channel for The Lightspeakers.

Her ebook "Transform Your Negativity; Ten Short Visualizations" is available through lulu.com

Happiness Or Joy

How are you currently feeling about your life? Is it really really good, just tolerable or terrible? Do you feel you're using some, all, or none of your abilities in most aspects of your life? Do you move through life with the routine regimen of an automaton droning out just another day? Are you happy or are you joy?

Our lives are meant to be lived in joy. That doesn't mean the feeling many call elation or happiness. The way you feel when you've just bought a new wardrobe or a new home. It's not the jump up and down feeling you had when you were ten and came down Christmas morning and found a bebe gun under the tree. If you recognize that reference then you know that I'm guilty of being sentimental , I watch "A Christmas Story" every Christmas....in fact I watch it several times.....it makes me happy, for the moment, but that's not true joy. Yet if I connect that happiness to the deeper feeling I have inside that there is actual truth revealed within that story, I transition into my foundation of joy.

Elation isn't sustainable, it's not meant to be, if it were we wouldn't come to joy. Joy is an underlying sense of trust in goodness. It's a foundational principle that abides within us. Joy is the knowing that despite outer circumstances, we are always safe beneath the whims of personality's cravings. There lies within something greater. Call it God or any name you choose, it's our connection to a greater love. It's beyond words, deeper than our normal experience. It transcends daily life yet infuses it with meaning. Joy motivates us to challenge ourselves, appear to fail and try again. To realize that what we may call failure is really an opportunity to grow.

We've all heard happiness is a choice, it is. That's why so many of us are in debt, because we make the choice consistently to feed ourselves the fleeting experience of happiness of the new and improved, and then we wonder why we feel so empty. We think the elation of happiness will fill us up, we eat, drink and purchase our way to happiness and it's still not enough, so we do it some more. Instead let's choose to delve deeper to uncover the joy that already lies within us.

If we look more deeply into ourselves and ask "What is the feeling I want to achieve here, why am I trying to fill myself up? What is it I really want to feel? Worthiness, purpose, appreciation, love? We discover the feeling we're trying so desperately to achieve is one we can give ourselves. We can feel the essence of these, we can grant this to ourselves.

We must come to the realization that we're not empty vessels. We don't need to add anything. It's already there. I'm not saying we shouldn't strive to improve aspects of our personality but that's a natural byproduct of aligning with our soul, this is where we find our joy.

When our personality is urging us on like a horse running wild, we need to rein it in and remember who we really are. We are unlimited radiant courageous divine souls. Joy is our natural state of being.

I'm not discouraging those occasional flights of fancy called happiness, neither am I minimizing the unhappiness and suffering we sometimes endure. Yet if we can remember how amazing we truly are, remember where we come from, we can return to the arms of joy.

In Light.....Christie
Christie Pennington
http://www.thelightspeakers.com/
christie@thelightspeakers.com

Reality Constructs & Manifestation

A reality construct is a belief system which serves as a kind of filter for us in life. We block or filter out certain things, we include others. This then forms our perception of our limitations and abilities. The more we examine different constructs the more we understand the role we play within a construct. We expand or contract within different constructs/belief systems.



Within some it's unlikely we would explore some of the goals that we would if we were operating from a different system. Taking on a new construct can open us up to previously unexplored potential within.



Reality seems very different when viewed from the perspective of a different context. If you've ever switched belief systems you know what I mean. For instance if you were to change your belief from that of a fundamentalist to say a Buddhist or Taoist, you would then include many options formerly unavailable to you.



Some of us realize we've assumed a construct that is disempowering for us because we realize that our ability to tackle certain challenges is severely hampered or we find we have no motivation to even pursue them. Our reality systems are the framework upon which we build our lives, our basic spiritual and philosophical beliefs are the foundation upon which our values are based. Our goals are then erected upon our values.



What is valuable to us is what we will choose to pursue as a goal. In essence then, one reality construct would lead us to pursue one set of goals while another construct might have us pursue some quite different.



If we want to manifest a particular goal or desire and have been unable to do so, it's likely that our reality construct hasn't shifted completely enough. It may filter out certain information necessary for us to access those desires. Despite positive thinking and the repetition of affirmations, if our basic construct isn't in sync with our desires, they will remain unfulfilled.



For example, if unknowingly you carry vestiges of a construct which includes a belief that most of what happens to you is beyond your control, that God/the Universe is a puppet master, you will have difficulty realizing results. If you view yourself within your reality as basically flawed, defective in some way, whether because of original sin or childhood experiences you must let go of those aspects of your former paradigm to live fully within a new one. Living within the new one fully allows your desires to manifest.



So it's essential we investigate our construct deeply. We have the choice to remain within a former one and so perhaps reorient our desires. Or we can choose another construct and move into it so completely that we allow our desires to manifest.

Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace has always been one of my favorite hymns. Hmmm, wonder why they call them "hymns", and not "hers". Anyway, I wasn't exposed to this hymn as a child but when I heard it for the first time I was mesmerized, I still can't listen to it without tears welling up.

I was recently thinking about grace in my life and realized that many people have come into my life as instruments of grace. Some of them have stayed, some have not, yet they all in their own unique way have taught me something about love. Sometimes not in the way I would have preferred.

Still it has been grace, it has caused me to grow and to expand. I wanted to honor all of them, so thought about listing their names on my site. But that could create issues, some might feel slighted if their name didn't appear listed. I thought about offering to add the names of any I may have overlooked, but I might run out of space.

Originally, I thought I would have two catagories, those currently active in my life and a generalized notation of those that I appreciated though they were not currently active. I've since decided that could potentially open up a Pandora's Box, so I left that box unopened.

I'm still not sure if I'll put up some form of Amazing Grace List on my site, maybe someday I'll come up with an improved version. For now, I'll leave it for this blog to honor the Amazing Grace in my life.

I say that in present tense because whether or not you are here in my life now or you were just passing through, please know that I honor you now. For me you remain present as Amazing Grace in my life. No lists....you know who you are.

Thanks and Gratitude,
Christie Pennington


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Conscious Creation

I've always been interested in conscious creation, even before it had a name. I noticed that it seemed some people managed to create more of what they wanted then others, they made it seem easy. Though I can't tell you that I manage to do it as well as some, I've come to a point where the process isn't so mystifying and I've actually created a lot of what I wanted. I've also created some of what I didn't want. I came to realize that I was always creating, consciously on purpose, or not.

To create consciously we first must learn to focus our attention, much of the time our attention isn't focused on what we want, truth be told, most of the time our attention isn't focused at all. It wanders randomly so instead of creating what we want, we create by default.

Without the ability to focus our attention on what we want, we can't utilize tools such as visualization or affirmation effectively. If we don't direct our focus how can we direct our beliefs and the feelings we need to generate to enact a positive outcome?

If our attention isn't focused on what we want we're susceptible to absorbing the energetic desires and beliefs of those around us, even strangers. For this reason first, it's helpful to be mindful of where we allow our attention to be directed. Where are we unconsciously putting our attention and leaking energy focus? Do you spend lots of time wandering through shopping malls among crowds of people, read most of the billboards on the highway, incessantly check your email watch a lot of t.v. especially the news? My weakness is the email thing!

We can hone our focusing skills by deliberately directing our attention in a specific way. Although at first it may seem as though we're off course when we focus on something simple, it's a valuable disciplinary practice. In Taoism, monks used similar mundane exercises to empower themselves to achieve some amazing feats. For instance, when entering a room force yourself to observe the number of chairs, tables, light fixtures, windows, count them. How many pictures are on the wall? How many people in the room? You can make up your own variations, but do it for ten minutes a day for thirty days and you'll be surprised at the results.

Although you may feel silly, it forces you to deliberately direct your attention, once proficient you can then focus your attention on those things you truly want to create.

Let me know if you have any techniques that have worked for you that you might want to share.

Blessings.....Christie

Surrender

I've never enjoyed the sound of the word surrender. It always felt to me like giving up - well tha's what it means in war. When I studied Eastern religions and yoga I discovered that there was more to it, that there were layers of meaning to surrender. I still didn't care for it too much. It still seemed distasteful, a bitter medicine I wanted to avoid.



I'm finally at the point where I can see surender from a different perspective. I came to apoint this week when I couldn't continue to try to push my life into the neat arrangement I had laid out in my head. I was ready to surrender.



Not give up, or accept with resignation, but surrender. A feeling of relief welled up in me and I wrote this to myself..... I thought it might be helpful to you or someone, if only one so I put it here:



Surrender into something deeper, A vaster version of yourself beyond the box of your delination. Dream a different, bigger dream. Live in trust. Everything that seems to be falling away is leading you back to yourself.



Realize you are being led, stop trying to hold on to what was, it wasn't what you wanted anyway. Live more and more from the unseen. Be gentle with everything.



Stay open . Are you willing to let go of what was to allow more and different to come? Release the tight grasp on how you think it should be to allow what can be. All that's needed is willingness. Don't demand to see, just say yes!



Be gentle, here lies your strength.



Stop trying to force, it's unfolding, look at the beauty of not knowing, at the possibilities inherent in not knowing, how beautiful it is becoming.



The artist enjoys even more what can be then the finished product. This is what leads him to create again and again. The writer repeats what many have said before, yet continues to write. There is always in potential another way to phrase, another creation of beauty to come.



What we hunger for is the participation in the act of creation. As we surrender our limited ideas of what makes our happiness, we make the space for creation to begin.