Moments of Clarity – Guided Meditation Poetry

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image from pinterest

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You can feel the sensual texture

Of the cold grass under your feet

Its wetness between your toes

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The healing warmth of sunlight

Streaming its goodness

Onto your neck and shoulders

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And down your arms

Ahead in the distance you see

The most perfect house you can

Imagine with every detail exactly

The way it would have been

If you had built it in a dream

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You create, conduct and orchestrate

Each tiny sound that you hear

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The sounds occur at once with

Your inner hearing and desires

Each birdsong and the whisper

Of the wind through the

Rustling trees that stand strong

Yet sway with a dance-like magic

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As if they are at once set upon

Their wisdom and beliefs yet

Able to adapt and flow with the

Unexpected and the unpredictable

As if they innately realize that

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Resilience has the characteristics

Of water as well as of rock…

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You venture forward towards

That beautiful dwelling and at once

You recognize it is yours because

It has every tiny detail

In just the perfect way you would

Want it to be and have dared not

Even think to dream of having but

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This is the moment to dream

In perfect clarity and minute detail

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Yes surely this is the moment

For dreams to become clear

Because we exist in both realms

At once the waking world reality

And the dream state of illusion

Where we dare or where we don’t

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Where we can accept what we see

Or create something new

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Create

With the paint brush of your imagination

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Because the more you believe

Is possible in your dreams

The more you will manifest here

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 The physical world that seems unalterable

Compared to your dream reality but

But is actually less solid and set

Than you have been conditioned

to believe and to perceive

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By others since the day you were born

But this very moment is not the

Time for thinking nor regret

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It is not the time for blidly following

Anyone or anything

Because this moment

Is the only moment there is

The moment that can influence future

but not by worrying about future

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This present moment 

That you have been conditioned to discard

For past and for future moments

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And interpretations of those

Invisible realities which they will

Tell you are more important

Than the only moment which

Really exists which is now

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So revel in its power asleep

Create in its power awake

And open your inner eyes to see

What is hidden but in plain sight

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do We Live in Simultaneous Realities?

Everyone searches for a purpose to their lives. Some people are more focused on just surviving, but in the end humans are wired for more than simply existing.

Different people see their purpose differently. Time and age can change where you focus your energy.

Some people focus more on others than themselves and feel more fullfilled if they are serving others. Some people look to invent something that will improve the lives of others.

We need all different kinds people, with different skills and interests in order to tap into multiple kinds of brains and different kinds of intelligence.

I believe that each of us is happier when we feel like we are able to use and develop our best gifts, and what we feel drawn to do.

It is easy to get off track because others think they know what we should be doing. And some people only want to guide us in a certain direction because it serves their agenda.

We are all unique and have an inner guide that wants to lead us. When we really listen to our feelings, we can tap into that guidance. We should be careful not to get so busy that we ignore our feelings and intution.

Ctitical thinking has its purpose and can serve us in many situations. It can also talk us out of doing what we love because it can rationalize our behaviors.

If you feel miserable in a situation, there is something wrong and your emotions have their own intelligence.

We exist in multiple realities. There is the thought reality that we tend to rely on. There is our emotional reality, which is just as important. Our spiritual and intuitive reality can guide us to a higher vibration of consciousness.

There is our physical reality, which is made of pleasure and pain. The reptilian brain drives us by primal urges, and warns us about danger.

The thoughtful mind is the conscious mind. It is the critical factor that tends to make us ignore our other realities. The primal drives react and override our critical thinking.

We need to live in harmony with all the aspects of ourselves. We need to be physically comfortable and safe. But we cannot ignore our emotional reality. It lets us know when something is wrong with the direction we are going, or how we are going about it.

Make time, also, for your spiritual self and explore the meaning of that to you. Let your realities all have a voice.

Balance in everything is important for health and to move closer to enlightenment and peace of mind.

 

Blessings and peace,

Annie

Value Each Moment With People You Choose

Focus on the person right in front of you

Pay attention to the things that they say

Discover who they are and how they feel

Decide if your time is worth spending with them

Be decisive and clear with yourself

If you decide to be with them

Then give them this moment of your time

Value the moment to the full extent that you can

Learn more about them and see what they see

Find something in common to connect on

Learn how they are similar and struggle the same

Validate them so they are not alone

Learn what is different about their life than yours

Add this learning into your scope of understanding

Every person you choose to connect with

Can open yours eyes to new ways

To view the world as they see it

Each person you spend a moment with

Can give you a great gift of a new perspective

That may enlighten your soul and invigorate your mind

It is like reading a book and seeing what the characters see

Experiencing the world from the character’s point of view

Everyone has a different story and a view that’s unique

You can add little pieces of them to yourself

The more you really listen and are open to learn…

the more you will gain for yourself

New knowledge and new ways of seeing things

Every moment has potential for new possibilities

If you hold the moments dear to your heart

Follow up to Doing Nothing

The very first article I posted to wordpress was entitled Doing Nothing. It is in the archives somewhere. One person put a comment that made me rethink the post a bit. I want to put my thoughts about that here.

The post Doing Nothing began with a premise that we all need some time to ourselves, to step out of our roles and our obligations. I believe I suggested one hour a day for a week. This was to be your time. Your time to do absolutely nothing.

This is a type of meditation which clears your mind and relaxes everything. Step out of your roles. For one hour you are not an employee. You are not married. You do not own a business. You do not have schoolwork to get done. You do not have to worry about what to cook the family for dinner.

Our lives are spent living up to these roles that we play. Our time is spent worrying about our to-do list, our future, our past, our failures, our desires.

For one hour, take a vacation. While you are on this vacation, you are not expected to cook or do laundry, No family members are allowed. So pretend they are no relations of yours. (sometimes I do that anyway, with certain family members – LOL)

So, what I proposed in the first post was so sit and meditate in stillness. But the comment I got from a reader was that she has bipolar disorder and although it sounded good in theory, she could not clear her mind like that.

It had not occurred to me that to some people , silence is not calming and peaceful. Some people cannot quiet their thoughts. Your brain does what it does.

It also did not occur to me that some people fear silence. The silence is a trigger to them.

So I want to propose a more open-ended “quiet time” . It is supposed to be your vacation from stress and obligation. So let’s not make anyone feel obligated to the quiet type of meditation.

Take your half hour off. Take your vacation. You have earned it. Do what is relaxing to you. Schedule it into your day as a “something” to do in your appointment book. That way you can tell people you have something on your schedule for that time frame.

Do what is the most relaxing to you and the least like being in the roles of your everyday life.
Just be you. The you that you are inside. No judgement. No rules. No chores. No roles to play. No obligations.

Just take a short time period off from your normal routine.

Namaste,
Annie

Accepting Ourselves for Who We Are

There is a great healing that can come from accepting ourselves just as we are. To accept ourselves as a special person with strengths and weaknesses.

No one is perfect although so many would like you to think so. People act as though they are better than you but they are not.

This does not mean that we cannot strive for improvement. Accepting ourselves with all of our shortcomings and disabilities is ok.

This does not imply complacency. It does not limit us in any way. In fact it opens us up to new possibilities.

It allows us to believe that perhaps we can accomplish great things.

If we see ourselves as others do , we cannot explore new versions of ourselves that we could experience.

If we only see our mistakes, our limitations, then how can we open our own wings and fly?

What accepting ourselves does is allow us to forgive our own shortcomings and have some compassion towards ourselves. Perhaps some sense of humor about our “current” limitations and idiosyncrasies.

We are so compassionate and forgiving of others. We understand and let go so many mistakes and flaws in other people. We put up with mistakes and inabilities of other people every day.

Why can’t we accept ourselves for who we are?

Each one of us is made up of talent, skill, beauty, love, mistakes, flaws, disabilities and strengths. We are, each of us, a unique being in the universe.

In our uniqueness we are special and significant.

We are no less worthy of forgiveness and acceptance than the others. No less worthy than the ones we give the gift of grace and mercy to every day.

Let us open the box that other people have put us into. The little box that we feel we belong in.

We can go beyond the “us” that other people see, perceive and tell us we are.

Dare to do something that people who “know” us would say we can’t do.

Who are They to say we are…
too fat
too dumb
too afraid
too uneducated
too quiet
too shy
too loud
too impulsive
too set in our ways
too sloppy
too independent
too compliant

Who are They to say that we are only…
a nurse
a teacher
a stay at home mom
a working Mom
a playboy
a rebel
a womanizer
an addict
a mental case

Who are They to say that we can’t…
change jobs
change cities
change our minds!
get married
get divorced
learn yoga
dance
go to college
learn something new

Who are They to say that we have no right to…
talk to them
stand up to them
defy them
leave them

Who are They to say that we can’t become…
a poet
a businessman
an entrepreneur
a parent
a friend
a traveller
a lesbian
a mother
a spiritual advisor
a leader of men
a thinker of new ideas
a creator
a visionary
Ourselves

Accepting Yourself Thich Nhat Hanh Quote

There is a great healing that comes along with accepting ourselves just as we are.

Others say things about us. They label us, describe us, talk about us. They tell us what we can do, what we can’t do, what we should do.

They advise us on our careers, families, religious beliefs. They limit us…
They limit our potential.
They limit our possibilities.

If we allow them to keep us in the little box they have assigned to us then they will destroy what we could have become.

We are each of us on our own path. We are on a path of discovery. Discovery of knowledge, beauty and spirituality. Discovery of our own potential and possibilities.

Doing Nothing

We all feel that we have to be doing something every second of the day. This is one of the main causes of anxiety, frustration, depression, high blood pressure, digestive disorders, relationship stress and the list goes on.

By “something” I mean something measurable, something tangible, something that produces something, something that others acknowledge as “something”.

But who has the right to be the judge of what is a productive use of our time? Why do we constantly allow others to be the judge and jury for us? Do any of these people actually understand who we are inside?

How many people actually understand who you are, how you feel and what you really think? After so many years of listening to other people tell you what you should and shouldn’t be doing with your time, do you really know yourself anymore? Do you really know what you feel anymore?

It seems like the pace of life has gotten so fast that we don’t feel like there is time to just stop and do nothing. Sometimes doing “nothing” by other people’s definition is actually a productive use of our time.

Could it be that just stopping for a half an hour and doing nothing could make us more productive during the rest of our day?

Could it be that doing “nothing” is doing “something?”

I propose that each of us take one half hour each day for a week to do absolutely nothing. No internet, no cell phone, no people, no thoughts about work.

No planning for or worrying about the future. No thinking about problems with family or friends. No thoughts about money or health issues. No thoughts about world problems, community issues or neighbors.

Just let go of the past and the future. Sit very still and very quietly with only the sound of your own breath to focus on.

The past will not be injured if we leave it alone for 30 minutes. The future will not be doomed if we stop worrying about it for 30 minutes.

Just let yourself be in the present moment. Not even the whole day, just the very tiny moment that you are in.

For a half an hour let the thoughts come into your mind and just ignore them, do not attach to them, just let them float away because we are not doing “something” right now. We are just doing “nothing”.

Set a timer if you need to to alert you at the end of 30 minutes. And for a glorious, precious half an hour just take a vacation from everything. Imagine there is absolutely nothing to do.
You are on vacation so there are no dishes to do, no bills to pay, no people to please or apologize to. There are no health problems, no finances.

No relationships whatsoever. For 30 minutes, you are not married, you are not single. You are not obligated to anyone but yourself and to the present moment.

Just you and you alone being in touch with the spiritual side of yourself. Focus on life and the gentle flow of your breath.

I challenge each one of us, including myself to give this experiment a try. I have written this out of a feeling and a vision that this half hour will save all of us. It will open New Ideas, New Pathways, New Opportunities and New Solutions for all of us.

As we do this, we will have a connection with each other in a spiritual way and our connectedness will create extra positive energy for all of us and for each of us.

I believe in each and every one of you.

Take a step outside the box.
Take a walk outside the lines.

You and I did not write the lines or make the boxes that society expects us to stay in. Why do we have to stay within them for 24 hours a day? Even when no one is watching?

I challenge us to erase the lines for a half an hour and allow ourselves to let everything go for a time.

Decide that it is okay to take a break. Decide that it is okay to take a half hour vacation. Give yourself permission.

You do not need anyone else’s approval to take a half an hour to stop worrying about what others expect. You do not need anyone else’s approval to think your own thoughts, unaffected by the rules, for a half an hour.

My prayers are with you.

Save yourselves.

Save yourselves from the stress that society tells you is part of being a responsible adult. It is a lie. Being under anxiety and attempting to please those that do not understand you is not the way to be a responsible adult.

I challenge you to be responsible to yourself for a change. Be accountable to yourself.

In the end we are all alone in a way. We were all born alone and will all die alone. No one could share the feelings and thoughts of those life experiences with us. So to take time alone, is natural and more normal than what society tells you “normal” is.

In the end all we have is ourselves. Should we not have a relationship with that person who was with us in birth and will be with us in death?

I have said we are each of us alone, but it is also true that we are all connected with each other. We are all connected through life energy.

When any one of us is injured. it effects all of the rest of us. When any one of us are uplifted, it uplifts all of us even if we are on the other side of the world and consciously unaware of that person.

So as we are alone in many ways , we are intrinsically connected in life.

So as you all take your half an hour vacation each day, I will take mine. We will each have 30 minutes to connect with ourselves and find peace. And at the same time, we will all be connected as we agree together to take care of ourselves and find the truth that is inside of each of us.

Namaste
Annie