If I had the opportunity to go back and change the "negative" things that have happened in my life...oh, I admit I would be sorely tempted...but in the end, I would leave everything exactly as it was - not because those events made me who I am today, but because they made me aware of who I am.
At our core, we are love. Through our varying purposes, personalities and preferences, we express different aspects of love in our world. My primary work seems to be edification, compassion, connection and touch. My belief is that the experiences of being misused and torn down made me aware of the need to build up and to support others. The experiences of being neglected and abandoned made me aware of the need to connect and express God's love at every opportunity. Oh, and isn't there plenty of opportunity?
We need one another. We need to remind one another of the powerful, loving, infinite beings that we are and to encourage and support one another as we awaken. We need to let the light that is in us shine so that others will feel empowered to shine also.
What are we here for if not to experience the fullness of the life we have been gifted with and to support others in doing the same? Let's do it!
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
Feeling Loved
I recently had someone from one of the e groups ask me about a comment I made about love. I had said, "Feeling loved is an enjoyable story, but a story nonetheless"
They asked, “So are you saying that it is not that important to feel loved...even though there is a sort of need for it in everyone of us?”
All of life is emotionally neutral until we tell ourselves a story. We can tell ourselves a story that creates heaven or hell for us.
My favorite story is about two fish swimming in the ocean. A shark swims by and says, “Isn’t the water grand!” Then he swims off.
One fish looks at the other and says, “What’s water?” The other fish doesn’t know either so they swim off looking for water. They spend their entire life searching, swimming from ocean to ocean. Finally, one day a turtle swims by and in despair they call out to him.
“Grandfather turtle, what is water?” The turtle swims slowly by, smiles and says, “My little friend you are swimming in it.”
As I see it, the universe is a vast energy system. The best way I can describe that energy is limitless, expansive, infinite, eternal, and unconditionally loving. In order to use the word love I had to shift my definition so it was free of judgment, rules and limits. To me love is the essence of that unlimited energy of pure creation. Everything is made up of that energy, there is no way to move beyond it because it is infinite and we can’t be separate from it because of its limitless nature.
So, we swim in a sea of love yet we spend so much of our life searching for love. If we tell ourselves the story that we are separate, we feel alone and disconnected from the universe. Yet we can never be alone because no matter what story we tell ourselves we are all one.
I often suggest people play the game of ‘there is no out there.’ There is often a great deal of resistance to that perspective, but when we adopt it we get to ‘see’ how our story stops us from experiencing the ocean of love always surrounding us.
We can limit our experience of love by demanding that it show up in a certain form. We can limit love by adding parameters or we can expand our experience by realizing everything is energy and as such an expression of love. I enjoy some forms of love more than others, but that too is based on my story.
I can stand out in nature and experience the wonder of creation. I can feel the wind and watch the trees and feel wonderful or not. I can walk out into the middle of an inner city and see decay and suffering or feel the energy of creation and be awed by its various manifestations.
No one does anything to us – we can choose to feel loved or unloved – there are no victims in life. There are only limitless, eternal, infinite beings having an experience and at times they choose to experience feeling like a victim.
The more we take responsibility for our experience the more likely we are to experience our true nature. We are limitless, expansive, infinite, eternal, and beings made of star stuff – made of unconditional love. And we are such magical magicians we can conjure up infinite number of experiences to pretend other wise.
It is all our creation – my suggestion is if you want to be happy embrace your creation and enjoy it. If you are feeling alone and miserable embrace your creation and be as miserable as you want.
There is after all, no out there.
With love, aloha and gratitude,
Susan
Check out my latest classes
http://SusanGregg.com/teachings.htm
Susan makes a great point. Several of them, actually.
They asked, “So are you saying that it is not that important to feel loved...even though there is a sort of need for it in everyone of us?”
All of life is emotionally neutral until we tell ourselves a story. We can tell ourselves a story that creates heaven or hell for us.
My favorite story is about two fish swimming in the ocean. A shark swims by and says, “Isn’t the water grand!” Then he swims off.
One fish looks at the other and says, “What’s water?” The other fish doesn’t know either so they swim off looking for water. They spend their entire life searching, swimming from ocean to ocean. Finally, one day a turtle swims by and in despair they call out to him.
“Grandfather turtle, what is water?” The turtle swims slowly by, smiles and says, “My little friend you are swimming in it.”
As I see it, the universe is a vast energy system. The best way I can describe that energy is limitless, expansive, infinite, eternal, and unconditionally loving. In order to use the word love I had to shift my definition so it was free of judgment, rules and limits. To me love is the essence of that unlimited energy of pure creation. Everything is made up of that energy, there is no way to move beyond it because it is infinite and we can’t be separate from it because of its limitless nature.
So, we swim in a sea of love yet we spend so much of our life searching for love. If we tell ourselves the story that we are separate, we feel alone and disconnected from the universe. Yet we can never be alone because no matter what story we tell ourselves we are all one.
I often suggest people play the game of ‘there is no out there.’ There is often a great deal of resistance to that perspective, but when we adopt it we get to ‘see’ how our story stops us from experiencing the ocean of love always surrounding us.
We can limit our experience of love by demanding that it show up in a certain form. We can limit love by adding parameters or we can expand our experience by realizing everything is energy and as such an expression of love. I enjoy some forms of love more than others, but that too is based on my story.
I can stand out in nature and experience the wonder of creation. I can feel the wind and watch the trees and feel wonderful or not. I can walk out into the middle of an inner city and see decay and suffering or feel the energy of creation and be awed by its various manifestations.
No one does anything to us – we can choose to feel loved or unloved – there are no victims in life. There are only limitless, eternal, infinite beings having an experience and at times they choose to experience feeling like a victim.
The more we take responsibility for our experience the more likely we are to experience our true nature. We are limitless, expansive, infinite, eternal, and beings made of star stuff – made of unconditional love. And we are such magical magicians we can conjure up infinite number of experiences to pretend other wise.
It is all our creation – my suggestion is if you want to be happy embrace your creation and enjoy it. If you are feeling alone and miserable embrace your creation and be as miserable as you want.
There is after all, no out there.
With love, aloha and gratitude,
Susan
Check out my latest classes
http://SusanGregg.com/teachings.htm
Susan makes a great point. Several of them, actually.
Tears are Liquid Passion
Yesterday, and again today, the tears came. Oh, don't feel sorry for me. It's a good thing. It means I'm back, in all my heart-on-my-sleeve, true-to-myself glory.
They were cleansing tears, a needful step in clearing out the old to make way for the new.
I always say tears are liquid passion, and when I am deeply in touch with myself and my world, I cry easily.
I cry tears of compassion for those who are hurting and don't know how to heal. I cry for those who do harm to others, because only a deeply injured soul would seek to injure others. I cry tears of joy for the many wonderful people we share the planet with - those who reach out and practice random acts of kindness and compassion, some even going so far as to risk their lives for a stranger. I cry over sunsets, and oceans, and beauty of all sorts.
Whenever my heart fills to overflowing, the overflow expresses itself as tears.
And so I say, Tears are liquid passion.
And though our society shames the shedding of tears, I am not ashamed. My passion is my truth, and expressing it is my authenticity. If anyone is uncomfortable with tears, I invite them to look inside and discover the reason.
Perhaps it is because they are uncomfortable with passion in general. Maybe they have lost touch with their own passion, perhaps they have been shamed out of expressing it.
Being fully alive means being in touch with every aspect of yourself. That's definitely a journey and not a destination, and it's a worthwhile journey. Why should parts of you be suppressed, not allowed life and expression, locked in a prison cell and slowly starved to death?
Every bit of you is worthwhile, and deserving of love, acceptance and compassion. Yes, even your shadowy aspects, and we all have them.
And so I say, be you. Be all of you. Be okay with all of you.
The amazing thing is, when you are deeply in touch with who you really are, you will find that you have no desire to do harm to others, because who you really are is love.
And do not be ashamed of what you feel, of what you desire, and definitely not of who you are.
Give life and love and voice to all of you, especially your passion. Just do it!
They were cleansing tears, a needful step in clearing out the old to make way for the new.
I always say tears are liquid passion, and when I am deeply in touch with myself and my world, I cry easily.
I cry tears of compassion for those who are hurting and don't know how to heal. I cry for those who do harm to others, because only a deeply injured soul would seek to injure others. I cry tears of joy for the many wonderful people we share the planet with - those who reach out and practice random acts of kindness and compassion, some even going so far as to risk their lives for a stranger. I cry over sunsets, and oceans, and beauty of all sorts.
Whenever my heart fills to overflowing, the overflow expresses itself as tears.
And so I say, Tears are liquid passion.
And though our society shames the shedding of tears, I am not ashamed. My passion is my truth, and expressing it is my authenticity. If anyone is uncomfortable with tears, I invite them to look inside and discover the reason.
Perhaps it is because they are uncomfortable with passion in general. Maybe they have lost touch with their own passion, perhaps they have been shamed out of expressing it.
Being fully alive means being in touch with every aspect of yourself. That's definitely a journey and not a destination, and it's a worthwhile journey. Why should parts of you be suppressed, not allowed life and expression, locked in a prison cell and slowly starved to death?
Every bit of you is worthwhile, and deserving of love, acceptance and compassion. Yes, even your shadowy aspects, and we all have them.
And so I say, be you. Be all of you. Be okay with all of you.
The amazing thing is, when you are deeply in touch with who you really are, you will find that you have no desire to do harm to others, because who you really are is love.
And do not be ashamed of what you feel, of what you desire, and definitely not of who you are.
Give life and love and voice to all of you, especially your passion. Just do it!
Friday, June 08, 2007
It's Like This
If you discover something you are eating is poisoning you, and you have no intention of dying, the first logical thing to do is to stop eating the poison.
Then you've got to do whatever it takes to get the poison out of your system or take some antidote to neutralize it.
You can hardly expect to clear out the poison while you're still eating it, and yet that's what we try to do when we remain in an unhealthy situation while trying to heal.
Wow! When I put it that way, what was I waiting for?
Then you've got to do whatever it takes to get the poison out of your system or take some antidote to neutralize it.
You can hardly expect to clear out the poison while you're still eating it, and yet that's what we try to do when we remain in an unhealthy situation while trying to heal.
Wow! When I put it that way, what was I waiting for?
Get Up and Go
I'm finally ready to extract myself from an unhealthy situation I've been living with for far too long. After years of waiting on God to rectify the situation, I've come to the conclusion that God has been waiting on me.
I've been looking for a miraculous solution. But the situation I'm in doesn't call for a miracle - just a little common sense, a fair degree of gumption, and some old-fashioned get up and go - literally.
There are a whole lot of aspects to this thing that I can't figure out, and I've allowed that to keep me in inertia and suffering needlessly. But the parts I can't figure out - that's God's business. I need to take care of the parts I can figure out.
I've been looking for a miraculous solution. But the situation I'm in doesn't call for a miracle - just a little common sense, a fair degree of gumption, and some old-fashioned get up and go - literally.
There are a whole lot of aspects to this thing that I can't figure out, and I've allowed that to keep me in inertia and suffering needlessly. But the parts I can't figure out - that's God's business. I need to take care of the parts I can figure out.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
A Leap of Faith
“If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a
friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs and build your wings on the way down.” Ray Bradbury
Here's to leaping before we find our wings!
friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs and build your wings on the way down.” Ray Bradbury
Here's to leaping before we find our wings!
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Resistance is Futile
I was thinking this morning about the collective unconscious, about all the things that we have agreed to believe together. Conditions are what they are because we have collectively agreed on them. So, the world conditions we accept are mostly the creation of beings who have gone before us.
Why should we settle for other people's creations? Why should we let other people's beliefs create our life experience?
I was thinking of how difficult it is to break out of the collective unconscious and create your own belief system, especially when you live among people who are still firmly gripped by the collective "realities".
It feels like trying to get out of the Borg. I can hear it now, "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated".
The hell I will!
Why should we settle for other people's creations? Why should we let other people's beliefs create our life experience?
I was thinking of how difficult it is to break out of the collective unconscious and create your own belief system, especially when you live among people who are still firmly gripped by the collective "realities".
It feels like trying to get out of the Borg. I can hear it now, "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated".
The hell I will!
Metamorphosis is Hell
I mean, you're just ambling along happily, minding your own business, contentedly munching on whatever lies along your path, when all of a sudden, you get this overwhelming urge to wrap yourself in a tight, dark space and shut out the world while you work on your transformation.
Try explaining to your friends and family why you need to be alone so much.
I still wouldn't trade it for the status quo. Growth is change. That's why life offers so many lessons in letting go.
At least that's the way I see it. But, what do I know?
Try explaining to your friends and family why you need to be alone so much.
I still wouldn't trade it for the status quo. Growth is change. That's why life offers so many lessons in letting go.
At least that's the way I see it. But, what do I know?
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