Expand the spaciousness of your awareness...

Give attention to the neutral things. Expand the spaciousness of your awareness, giving you room to avoid "fight or flight" reactions...

When you place your focus on the intense things in life, your body revs up. It dumps chemicals into your bloodstream to prepare you for battle. If there is no battle to use them up, those chemicals act as toxins... In addition, a tremendous amount of mental energy is expended.

Most people think concentrating on intensely positive events/experiences is the antidote for all the negative ones. Not true. Actually this keeps you swinging wildly from one extreme to the other, both of which cause the same physiological reaction/chemical dump. Both require energy and cause a "closed in" sense of BEing.

When one focuses instead on the neutral things, a quiet spaciousness appears; your body is at rest, your mind idles back. In that moment of non-anticipation your reaction to things is easy, patient, introspective...mindful.

Take a moment today and focus on something neutral and notice how relaxing it is, how wide your sense of awareness becomes...

Duffy

Compassion does not equal Kindness...

Compassion is the wish that others not suffer. Kindness is the wish that they be happy...

Is it possilble for one to be compassionate and not kind? Or the reverse? What is the difference? The difference is that while Compassion is the wish that others not suffer, Kindness is the wish that they be happy

Bringing compassion to a person reinforces the lesson that we are all one in our suffering. Bringing compassion to a difficult person gives this lesson life.

Showing kindness takes things a step further. It is an attempt to give others what we wish for ourselves. It goes beyond mere commiseration, and enters the realm of egalitarian spirituality, that we are all ONE and deserving equally what we seek individually... This is THE spiritual goal...

In your day today notice your feelings of compassion when they arise and then try to show kindness... Go the extra mile...

Duffy

Unless you allow abundance to flow out, you don't even know that you have it...

You cannot receive what you don't give. This includes abundance. Unless you allow it to flow out, you won't even know that you have it.

Abundance does not flow too you, it flows THROUGH you. Think about that. Once the flow is stopped by you it is no longer abundance. It becomes something else. You begin to think of it as something different; a hoard (to fear losing), property (to be protected/defended)...no one else allowed!

People tend to think that THEY made their abundance, but the abundance was already there. When you experience love didn't love already exist? How about a smile (oh that was your original idea?) How about Oxygen, or Nutrition...WATER!

If you don't currently acknowledge these things as abundance, it's time... As for the other things you may temporarily control, power/finances/assets, if you view them as things that can be taken from you, you cannot BE seeing them as abundance. Abundance flows freely in the Universe. If you don't allow it to flow through you, then you obviously don't believe/trust/anticipate it will keep flowing. Unless you allow it to flow out, you don't even know that you have it!

See the abundance around you today. Take a leap of faith and give it freely. When you give it you will then realize you obviously HAD it! More will flood in to take its place. That's how it flows...

Duffy

You can't force flowers to submit to your will...

You can easily destroy flowers, but you can't force them to submit to your will...

Flowers are one of the most beautiful AND fragile elements in Nature. However frail, they do not worry, and stand purposefully making their elogent statement about life and its possibilities without fear. They lead by example...

No amount of contrivance or construction by man can put out their shining light. They can be crushed, poisoned, or dug up, however they never waver. Flowers don't buy into lies, scare tactics or collusion. And no individual flower ever asks, "Why me?"

Man however...envisions himself to be separate; from nature, from each other and from God, all wrong-headed thoughts no matter how strongly he believes them to be so. Man believes, through his Ego, that he is special and not here as a contributor to the evolution of the Universe.

In comparison to planet/stars/galaxies man is equally as fragile as are flowers. But he could learn much about expressing his true nature from them; their courage and single-minded purpose. A great man once said, "Behold the lilies of the field..."

Notice today when you strive to vary from your path. Whenever possible return to BEing a contributor to the "ONE"...

Duffy

In a very dark place, YOU may be the only shining light...

In a very dark place, YOU may be the only shining light...SHINE BRIGHTLY!!!

There have been times in Human history where nobody, not one individual in a given place has existed at a positive spiritual level. According to Dr David R. Hawkins in his enlightening book, "Power vs Force," during the Dark Ages in Europe there was no positive spiritual energy for 200 years! Nothing but fear, grief, anger, guilt, pride and shame...

Although the Dark Ages were an anomaly of sorts, YOU may live in a place where you are surrounded by similar low energies. It may be your family, your neighborhood, your town or region. It may be in your church, or your circle of friends. Tremendous courage is required to step outside of what is expected of you, for you are risking acceptance from the group.

Your Soul however has its own agenda. Its purpose is to move the evolution of Consciousness forward even if incrementally. Most people deny their Soul out of fear or selfishness, and then rationalize why, or bury their self-loathing in the bottle or through some other addiction. If nothing else, they are condoning negative behaviors and attitudes through their silence.

If YOU stand up and BE the light, you can guarantee at least that your Soul will not remain in darkness. And it just may be that many others around you were waiting for someone to have the courage to go first.

Have a splendid weekend!
Duffy

What seeds are you planting today?

Your heart is a garden; you can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love...What seeds are you planting today?

The garden is a wonderful metaphor for so many things, and it is perfect for your thoughts. You are a creative BEing. Your thoughts are the seeds to your existence.

If you plant seeds of fear you will shrink your circle of US and thus will have created more of THEM. Your perceived safety will be less, which will lead to planting more seeds of fear... When will you be thrown out of that circle of US?

If you plant seeds of resentment you will lessen the quality of YOUR circle. Less and less will taste and smell, look or feel as sweet and nice. We all crave love. When we plant seeds of love we heighten the quality of our circle and all that it includes...

Use love and compassion today to increase both the size and wonder of YOUR circle. Do this daily and you will have a garden of abundance.

Duffy 

When you first meet someone, what do you say about yourself?

When you first meet someone, what are the things you need to say about yourself? Those are your ego identies...

We all have identities. They are our STORY. Why do we need a story? To explain who we are, where we have been and where we intend to go...

Since our story has built up incrementally over the course of our lives it can be difficult to boil it down to the basics. Some of it is simply reference material, but the parts we treasure most are the ones that stroke our Ego and make us special! You might have gotten 13 out of 15 spelling words correct on a test during the first week of October in fifth grade, but your Ego probably doesn't get enough juice revealing that...

Your Ego gets the most boost when first meeting people, so that is when your Ego indentities are revealed. Think about what you say about yourself; "I have been diagnosed with ADHD" "I had an abusive childhood" "I'm a born again Christian" "I'm a recovering drug/alcoholic".... These "stories" are telling people how you want them to relate to you. Your Ego needs to be special and would prefer to make you seem special for positive reasons, but negative ones work just as well. SPECIAL is what counts!

Observe what you begin to tell people to make yourself special today and try to find a substitute that makes them special, that connects you...

Duffy