Copyright Tam Black 2014 Designed for susanwithpearls.com
Guiding Thought
My Self wills only to extend itself. Extending, sharing, and creating as Divine Love, through Divine Mind, is my sole purpose. My Self knows its fullness in Divine Love and wills only to liberate me to fulfill my purpose and my joy.
Sharing
My Self is the True Reality of “me”. My Self is my Divine Self–always One with God.
God is the Great Creator. Love is both God and the energy of God’s creations, the force or vehicle by which God extends.
Everything is One with God. There is nothing God/Love did not create.
My Soul Purpose is to Know myself as this Self–One with God, One with Love, an extension of Love, created in, by, and through Love.
When this becomes my sole purpose (here’s that 100%), I will Know both Fullness and my Self as that Fullness.
If I do not know myself as full, if I am not aware of myself as One with God, One with Love, then I have limited and separated a part of myself, which then sees itself as less than 100%.
Love wants only to liberate me and bring me to 100% of understanding and knowing myself as Itself (Love).
Copyright Tam Black 2018 Designed for susanwithpearls.com
Welcome to round 4! It’s the last leg of the Journey–we’ve come so far, and only 10 days to go! If you’ve been doing your own Journey, you will have noticed that with each round, the pronouns change. In round one, the pronouns are “I”, “me”. In round two, the pronoun is “you”. For round three, the pronouns change to “we”, “our”. Now, for round four, we go back to the pronouns “I”, “me”…but you will notice that after the previous two rounds, which focus on others, and on the collective, you (probably) will not feel the same way about “I” anymore. Fun, fun!
I’m proud of you. I’m happy for you–OH what healing we have done! Keep on for just another 10 days. You’ve come too far to stop now!
Guiding Thought
I clear my mind of all past notions of what I think healing is. I erase all memories and stories from my thoughts, leaving only a clean slate. I turn my attention to my Inner Divine Mind and I ask, “What is healing”? I wait and listen in silence; I take my attention deeper into the vastness of Divine Mind and ask again, “What is healing?”, “What is wholeness?”, and “What is holy?” I wait and I listen. Feeling stillness, I simply pause in the quiet and await my answer.
Reflection
First, I’d like to take a step back, and review the past few days…which have been a bit tumultuous for me. Not “bad”, mind you, but stuff has just been coming up.
I read an astrology summary for July a few minutes ago. On July 4th, Chiron went retrograde. Do I really understand what that means…no, but here is the summary of that phenomenon:
When Chiron goes retrograde, healing goes inward. Right now it’s less about seeking help from the outside. It’s more about how you can connect the dots and heal yourself from the inside. Chiron retrograde will help you weave back together the broken parts of the Self and become whole again. The first and foremost step in healing is embracing those parts of you that you despise, those parts of you that you are ashamed of. You cannot heal yourself unless you embrace your broken parts. (astrobutterfly.com)
From ancestral healing, to karma, to just yesterday writing about brokenness…I would say that I am right on target for the universal energetic influences going on “out there”. I love it when something “out there” reflects back to me (validates) how I am experiencing the Journey. You won’t see the same reflections, as you move through your Journey, but you will come across information, situations, or people who speak to you on your Journey.
Onward!
We are back at questioning with an empty slate. I have a new insight about this, and more generally the theme of seeking and finding, which has recurred several times so far on this Journey.
Here is my insight:
Ultimately, healing is of God, and only of God. Archangel Rafael is the Angel of Healing. Rafael means It is only God which Heals or God is the Healer.
One way to think of God as the only healer, is to understand that living according to Divine Will is what keeps us Whole-Holy-Healthy. Yes, God (omnipotent) can heal us from any malady, but more to the point, He doesn’t need to, when we willingly align ourselves with Divine Will.
Too often, however, we want our own will to be done. This is why the prayer “Not my will but Thine” is so prevalent and necessary. We think we know better than God! Silly humans.
Submitting or Surrendering to God’s Will is more about giving up our own will. It’s not that we need to actually do anything to surrender to God. His Will is. Divine Will is the Truth. It is here, now, forever. All we need to do is stop trying to unmake His Will with our own.
The obstacles in our path have to do with our own insistence on trying to change the Truth, trying to make our own small wills big enough to overpower God. Silly Humans.
This is why we get sick. This is the meaning of “disobeying God”. It’s not that He orders us to do anything; it’s that He lives in the Truth, where He wants us to be also, because Truth is Love, and Harmony, and all that Heaven-stuff.
Doing things that are “pleasing to God”, similarly, is not about God actually being pleased: He is Loves His children always with all our foibles. Pleasing God is simply about doing the things that will make us happy (which makes Him happy), so that we can live Whole-Holy-Healthy lives. Pleasing God is easy, because what is pleasing to God is living in the Truth. We cannot not live in the Truth, but we try to; we try to live in a truth that we construct for ourselves…and that is why we struggle. That is why life “is hard”. That is why there is so much misery. We fight the Truth. If we only surrendered to the Truth, surrendered to Love, surrendered to Divine Will, we would Know ourselves as the Whole-Holy-Healthy beings we were created to be.
You see?
So, all of the seeking is really about surrender. It’s about looking hither and yon and over hill and dale and up rivers and down…until we tire ourselves out, and in complete exhaustion we fall at the feet of our Father and say, “I have no answers. You have the answers. I want your answers, because I have searched everywhere for my own, and found nothing”.
I do this over and over and over. Is this insanity? Maybe. But, each time I arrive at the feet of my Father, I give up more of my lower-self. The seeking “breaks” me, so that He may rebuild me.
How many times do I need to break, to be rebuilt? How many times do I return to the insanity of my lower-self and think I can find my own answers?
For me at least, I feel assured in seeking only for Him…to the best of my ability. I still have lower-human attachments, conflicts, desires, needs. But…I’m human. With every surrender, more of my lower-self is destroyed, to be re-built in a way that will live in accordance with His Will.
These are my steps. Allowing myself to be broken is part of my Journey. Knowing He will rebuild me better than I was before is part of my Journey. This is why I seek. This is why I seek Him. Maybe there will come a final day, when I have exhausted myself so completely, I no longer choose to return to trying to find my own answers. When I do, I will simply step into the Truth that is already there, waiting for me to find It.
Copyright Tam Black 2018 Designed for susanwithpearls.com
Guiding Thought
There is only one Will. That Will is Love: your Love, my Love, our Love, together. Only when I will in Love is the outcome assured in Love. Only when I will in Love do I know the results are truly beneficial to all, including myself. Only when I will with Love am I Free, and I affirm with certainty “All is as it should be”.
Reflection
Can I affirm with certainty “All is as it should be”?
If the answer to that question is “no”, then I have not Willed with Love.
If the answer to that question is “yes”, then I have Willed with Love.
How often do I feel the peace of knowing all is as it should be?
Sometimes, but not that often. I have felt it; I know I have. But most of the time, I am caught up in something else that is probably best described as “just getting through life”–going here and there, doing this and that. It’s like constant preoccupation.
How do I go from constant preoccupation and not knowing all is as it should be to the constant preoccupation and knowing all is as it should be? In other words, how does it happen that I live life, going here and there, doing this and that, and know constant peace, in the constant union with Divine Will?
The obvious answer is, “will in Love”, all the time. Yeah. I’m working on it. Not there yet, but working.
Greetings, and welcome to the first day of Journey of Worth! Whether you are here for the long-haul, or just stopping by, I am glad you are here. Perhaps something within you is beckoning to you to seek/find your greatest worth and its expression?
For those of you who are new here, this is a Consciousness Journey: a way to communicate with your Inner Divine Self, to gain deeper connection with your Highest Self, your Divine Self, and thereby enrich your relationship with God. This is done through a series of contemplation exercises (40 days!).
The Journeys are not rooted in any religious tradition; the idea is to connect with God through you, through yourself–your mind, heart, and will, however, whatever, God is to you. I have kept the Guiding Thoughts non-specific (non-religious) in this regard, but feel free to substitute words that you like better (for example, if you don’t like when I use “Inner Divine Self”, you might use “best self”, or “highest self”)–what matters is that the words pull you toward your “best self”.
Today we begin with a little reflection about why we want to contemplate worth for 40 days. 40 days is a long time…might as well start with some clarity, don’t you think?
What follows is my own reflection. Pull out your journal to write, or get some crayons to draw, and spend some time reflecting on worth. What is self worth? What defines it? How does a person express it? Do you have it? How can you get more of it? Etc.
Ready? Here we go!
Reflection
Yesterday I wrote a bit about finding purpose (from the previous Journey) in strengthening my relationship with the Holy Spirit. Now, this purpose is a foundation stone to this Journey: my relationship with the Holy Spirit is key to understanding my worth, and increasing my awareness of it.
Here is how this realization happened for me: I am constantly working on uniting my will with God’s will–I’ve gone through lots of phases/stages/levels, including issues of trust, submission, letting go, faith, courage, etc.
As I was better-acquainting myself with the Holy Spirit during the last Journey, I more-or-less had a feeling/understanding that working with the Holy Spirit was another level of cooperating with Divine Will. It was as though I had passed through all of the tension-fear-uncertainty of “submitting” and “letting go” and I had entered the phase beyond those–where trust is the fact, not an issue to be worked through.
I’ve been praying to and thinking about the Holy Spirit fairly regularly on a daily basis, increasingly for about 6 months (so, yes, Journey of Purpose began with some momentum in this regard).
Just a few days ago, I was musing about my life, what I wanted from it, where I want to go, while also connecting my mind/heart with the Holy Spirit. All of the sudden, out of the blue, I thought, “I want a life worthy of You (meaning the Holy Spirit)”. Immediately, of course, the word “worthy” caught my attention because I knew I would be starting this Journey.
So, I thought about that. What does it mean to have a life that is worthy of the Holy Spirit? What does that look like? How do I do that? I realized that having a life that is worthy of the Holy Spirit is the only kind of life worth having. And that kind of life is the only life worthy of me.
So there it is: Why a Journey of Worth? To expand my consciousness that I might live a life worthy of the Holy Spirit and my Self, through myself.
Thank you for being here. I look forward to the Journey with you. Love to you…
When I lift my vibration into Peace and Harmony, all are lifted with me. With this awareness comes great responsibility: I am a Peace steward of all humanity, of all Life. Eternal Peace is my natural state. I joyfully and easily share it with all, and fulfill my Divine Purpose in the world.
Reflection
I felt alternating desire for accomplishment, and fear of failure while reading the Guiding Thought.
On the one hand, I feel the gravity of being a Peace steward, and the enormity of the responsibility. And a part of me wants that; I want the responsibility.
A part of me seems to understand that the first two sentences are merely stating facts: this is how it is, don’t fight it; it’s just who you are.
Yet a different part feels so much fear about the implications of that, the weight of responsibility, the fear of failure. How can I do what needs to be done, in the job of being a Peace steward? This amount of responsibility must be “difficult”…
…but then, in the very next sentences, the Guiding Thought is assuring me of how naturally, easily, and joyfully I can accomplish it.
Further, not only does it declare how naturally, easily, and joyfully I am able to accomplish it, but that this is in fact my Divine Purpose.
It’s as though this Guiding thought is designed to raise a bunch of fear, then wipe it away by declaring that success is inevitable, fulfilling not just my will, but Divine Will, too.
Copyright Tam Black 2015 Designed for susanwithpearls.com
Guiding Thought
Trusting life allows the flow of Divine energy to come in and through me to bless All. I step gracefully into expansive, unlimited, harmonious, Divine being. I praise and thank Life for supporting me, and I relax in its process.
Reflection
What’s really great about today is that I feel as though I have been in the state of mind of the Guiding Thought all day, without having read the Guiding Thought until now.
I woke up feeling relaxed, peaceful, and generally happy (contrasted to the past few days of stress-response!). All morning, I felt simply peaceful and happy, for “no good reason”.
On my way to work, all I wanted to do was look around, at the trees, at the cars, at the birds, and give thanks for everything.
I even thought, “I should do one of my practices (chant, mantra, etc.)”, but then I thought, “but isn’t the point of the practices to get into the very state that I am in? …And if I am in it, then the state itself is the expression of everything the practices strive for.”
Being in a state of Peace, Joy, and thankfulness is exactly why to do the practices, which take you there.
You’ve heard that the goal of any good teacher is to become obsolete, right? Today I really felt this, regarding practices: the goal of the practice is to no longer need them, to just be in the state that the practices cultivate within you.
Another thing that I thought earlier today, was that I am given everything I need to do the work that God wants me to do. At any given moment, I have exactly what I need to do what S/He needs done.
This was the feeling (and I really felt it) of Trusting life allows the flow of Divine energy to come in and through me to bless All. I could feel the flow of energy in and out, and could feel that wherever I am is exactly where I need to be, and I have everything that I need, to be the conduit for Divine energy.
I felt very re-assured, a lot was lifted. The assurance was for both physical needs as well as emotional or spiritual needs. God provides. God provides everything. When I am in that flow of cooperating with God, everything really is exactly is as it should be.
No thinking! Just being!
I am not so cocky to think that this is a lasting thing. I am not so cocky to think that I can reduce my practicing. Even though the Peaceful, Joyful state of mind has remained for most of the day, I have to remember that it is the practices that maintain and increase my awareness and understanding.
Put on your thinking caps! This one takes you through a little bit of a mental exercise. But, if you’re interested in surrender, or you’ve done any work on it for yourself, you may find some insight here–I know I did!
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Copyright Tam Black 2015 Designed for susanwithpearls.com
Guiding Thought
We lift our minds and hearts to the Truth of Being, to all that Is, to All We Are. We accept our Self in Truth and offer our Self to All in gratitude for Its Being.
Reflection
I’ve done a lot of work here about surrender, or “Thy Will be done” (see this, this, or this). I feel like today’s Guiding Thought presumes surrender, or “Thy Will be done”. It’s step beyond needing to think about surrender.
Let me go into that a little bit more: If I feel like I need to surrender, then a part of me recognizes that I am not fully embracing Divine Will. Or, a part of me is resisting. Or, a part of me wants to do my own thing…my will be done. In order for me to have the idea that surrender is necessary, there must be an acknowledgment of the part that is not surrendered. It’s when I have this type of resistance or barrier that I “need to work on” surrender.
If I were fully and completely surrendered, there would be nothing else. If I were fully aligned and embracing Divine Will, there would not be the little tapping at my shoulder, whispering, “Hey, you’re not fully in it…” I would not need to work on anything because there would be nothing except my cooperation with Divine Will.
With that, what do I mean when writing above “…today’s Guiding Thought presumes surrender”?
Surrender, in this context, means cooperating 100% with Divine Will. Every thought, every action is working with Divine Will. Because of this cooperation, every situation or encounter is perceived as what it is: an extension of Divine Will, through you. Then, every person, every interaction, becomes an opportunity to experience Divine Will in a different way, to experience the Divine through you in a different way. There is no need “to surrender” because you are fully surrendered.
When you get to that point, there’s an opening. It’s like your whole being unfolds, and says, “Oh, yeah, baby, give me more”. And it’s at that point that you naturally and easily offer your Self to All, because you see yourself as All, and All as yourself, in a beautiful dance of integration through Divine Will.
And at that point, that opening becomes a request to receive more, while simultaneously being an offering, a gift to All… in gratitude for Its Being.
Copyright Tam Black 2014 Designed for susanwithpearls.com
Guiding Thought
In Divine Mind, I am filled full! All are equally filled full. All are equal in Love. I fill my mind with thoughts of fulfillment and remember what I already know. I am determined to fulfill my purpose, to know my Self as Divine Love, and to share the fullness I am.
Sharing
In Divine Mind…I exist in Divine Mind. Like a grain of sand in the desert, like a ray of the sun, I am a thought-drop in the ocean of pure consciousness, the Source of all existence. Existence surrounds me, is me.
I am filled full! …How can it be any other way? Pure consciousness thinks me, and surrounds me with Itself, as existence. What is there that could cause me deprivation? I am within Source, surrounded by ALL.
All are equally filled full… All exists in ALL. Despite the perception that “you” and “I” are separate, we are simply as blood cells coursing through our vessels: We are the bloodstream and we are in the bloodstream. There is no stream without us. We are the stream of consciousness, and we are in the stream of consciousness. As the stream, we are the same, equal. Consciousness is (and provides) ALL.
All are equal in Love… When I am aware of your role in and as the stream, I see there is no stream without us. You are as I am, yet not me, yet united with me. How can I not know us as equal? How can I not love you?
I fill my mind with thoughts of fulfillment…We are in ALL! We exist! Life is made up of us, for us, as us!
And remember what I already know…I am in Life. Life is in me. Life Loves me. I love Life. All I could ever want, anything I could desire is already fulfilled in the Life I am.
I am determined to fulfill my purpose… Life wills to Live, to expand, to grow, to evolve, to be. United with Life, my purpose is to allow Life to be, and to fulfill Its purpose through me.
to know my Self as Divine Love, and to share the fullness I am… Naturally and easily, I know my Self as Life, as Love, which naturally and easily shares Itself as fullness through me.
Copyright Tam Black 2014 Designed for susanwithpearls.com
Guiding Thought
My Self wills only to extend itself. Extending, sharing, and creating as Divine Love, through Divine Mind, is my sole purpose. My Self knows its fullness in Divine Love and wills only to liberate me to fulfill my purpose and my joy.
Sharing
If you remember from Journey of Abundance, I was working with the thoughts
ALL in All
All is Love
ALL in All is Love is ALL in All.
Another way to think about this is simply, “God is All; God is Love”. Sometimes it’s easier (more accessible), for me to think of “God”, sometimes I am more comfortable with “All”. Recently, I’ve learned a new, deeper meaning of another option, the word “Ishwara”, which I may also use: “In the Yoga Sutras, the word for God is Ishwara: the Lord, Ruler, Master, or Controller, possessing the powers of omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience.” (Om Yoga Meditation, Its Theory and Practice, Abbott George Burke, location 93, Kindle edition).
This concept (God-ALL-Love), however you want to formulate it for yourself, has become somewhat of a foundation, for me on this Journey.
If God is ALL, then I am part of God. If God is ALL, then my Self is a Self of God. Everything I do is God; everything I think is God; every interaction is God…Everything is God.
>>brief aside< You know by now that I’ve been working on surrender/trust/letting go/living God’s Will. There is a phrase from A Course in Miracles that I have used in this regard, “I need do nothing”, which has helped me to relax into allowing the activity of God. In today’s context, I have changed this thought to “God does everything”. This removes the emphasis on “I” and places it on God. If God is ALL, then God does do everything. It’s become another way for me to release, let go, surrender my mind to the activity of God. <
Everything is God. Now, look again at the Guiding Thought with this in mind:
My Self which is One with God
wills only to extend itself . God wills to extend; God is extending through me!
Extending, sharing, and creating as Divine Love, because God is within me, this is the activity of God, through me….
through Divine Mind, which is already God’s mind, within me….
is my sole purpose. Because this is the ONLY purpose God has, which is also my purpose, because of my Oneness with God.
My Self knows its fullness in Divine Love of course it does! My Self Knows itself as God, and God’s Divine Love.
and wills only to liberate me …this is all God Wants for all of us, to Know our Selves as Divine Expression, in which we are One with God, fulfilled and free.
to fulfill my purpose and my joy. Because the purpose of Life is to remember our Life in God, which is the only life of Joy.
Do you see how, when you begin to think of Godas or in everything, the perspective shifts just that little bit, to actually see the activity of God in All, including within yourself?
Copyright Tam Black 2016 Designed for susanwithpearls.com
Guiding Thought
My mind and heart focus entirely on the Divine Presence I Am. I think, I speak, and I act in accordance with Divine Will, releasing Divine Substance into all my activity and all my financial affairs.
Sharing
Much like yesterday, my mind felt convoluted by the Guiding Thought; however, today, I was able to recognize that the Guiding Thought makes good sense: it is not convoluted, I am.
It’s a good thing. My brain is scrambling to re-order itself in a new way. That’s it.
I went through several minutes while listening to the Guiding Thought, wondering if I was supposed to embrace the scrambling being done, or insert my logical brain, and enlist it to focus.
I chose the first and embraced the scrambling. Maybe it’s closer to say I just went with it; my brain already felt convoluted, so I allowed my mind to check out—not to become passive, but I gave it permission not to think. I gave it permission to not try to figure out how my mind and heart focus on Divine Presence, not try to understand how thinking or speaking in accordance with Divine Will releases Divine Substance, not try to figure out how Divine Substance shows up in activity and financial affairs.
Yup. I let it go.
I listened and colored, while giving my heart and my abstract mind permission to be. They were a little surprised. No, they were a lot surprised.
In fact, they were so surprised they did not know what to do. They get so little practice at having free reign. Even when I am coloring on most days, I still keep my rational, logical brain in charge (this represents >this<, that represents >that<, etc.), but not today.
And nothing made any sense in my drawing. Even the words that came out in the drawing made no sense. (I’ve debated whether or not to share it >smh< because my rational brain has been telling me how terrible and stupid it is, but I will continue with today’s trend of keeping my mind out of it: the picture is at the very end).
And, you know what? I’m going to choose to allow myself to not make sense. I am going to let my abstract mind and my heart do some figuring out for me. Because, you know why? My rational mind needs all the help it can get. It apparently doesn’t know it, but it does. Up ‘til now, my rational mind has been all shoulders-back, chest puffed up, walking around like it’s the boss, and it really needs to just be put in its place, and allow the mind and heart to do what they do best, give the rational mind some help, and work on scrambling and re-ordering.
I hope, soon, I will be able to elaborate on “just be put in its place, and allow the mind and heart to do what they do best”… What is the rational mind’s place? What do the heart and the abstract mind do best? Even with the rational mind on the bench, it wants the answers to these questions. It wants to know what it does best (you see, even with it on the sidelines, the rational mind made the connection that if there’s something that the heart and abstract mind do best, then there is something the rational mind does best, what is it???); I can sense it wants to help, there’s an excitement in it about that, about doing what it does best.
These answers will need to wait. In order to answer, I would need to enlist that rational mind, and it’s
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