I realize that affirmations are very personal and everyone needs to create  and use them for the specific situation in their lives; however, this one has been bouncing around in my head all week and I thought it may benefit somebody out there as well.

"The Divine universal power always works in and through me for my highest good."

Today is the best day of your life. Actually, this moment is the best moment of your life. Why? Because it is the only moment you truly have. Celebrate every moment because none is more precious than the other, and once you experience this moment, it is gone forever. Perhaps your outer experience is not what you want it to be at this moment, but your inner landscape is determined by you, and that is what truly counts.

Life is for living and whether we choose to jump in and participate or to simply sit on the sidelines and observe, it will pass just the same; however, the moments that we experience, if we are actively participating, will be very different than if we were to take a passive role and float through life as a cork on the ocean.

This is in no way advocating ‘busyness” or suggesting that we need to be physically busy all the time, nor is it advocating physical activity over until activity; rather, the suggestion is that sitting passively and pining to be involved in an activity, when we could actually be a participant in that activity, is a missed opportunity to be more purposely engaged in creating our life.

I can recall several people from my past who were always invited along to an event and they consistently declined, yet when they heard how much enjoyment the attendees experienced their usual reply was, “I wish I had participated/attended.”

With today’s social media being such a prevalent part of people’s daily lives the temptation seems to be to spend more time involved in living someone else’s life rather than one’s own. If this is an activity that you truly enjoy, and if these activities are not diminishing your enjoyment in other areas of your life, then perhaps being an observer, rather than a participant, is what you will continue to do. On the other hand, if these activities are merely “filling a void”, or if they are preventing you from truly enjoying your life, then perhaps a different course of action is warranted.

The key point here is that if we are using our moments in an attempt to live someone else’s life, there is the risk that when our life on this planet is coming to a close, there may be more, “I wish I would have…” statements then we realized.

IN OTHER WORDS:

“Stop talking about the weather altogether. Don’t comment on conditions, just experience them.” -Stuart Wilde

“Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.” -Soren Kierkegaard

“For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms, and did my duty faithfully,..” -Henry David Thoreau

Perhaps this is not an uplifting thought, but I believe that somebody reading this post needs to hear this particular message today an, even if that person isn’t you, perhaps this message will mean something to you too someday.

Realize that someday the words you speak to someone will be the last thing they hear from you and the last time that they hear your voice. Will those words uplift and inspire or will they be words that hurt? Will those words reflect your love for that person or will they be words spoken in anger, jealousy or fear?

While this future reality is certain, we don’t need to dwell on it; we just need to be aware that we have a choice in every word we share and we can use that word as a powerful tool to convey compassion, love, or gratitude. We don’t need to be disingenuous or falsely flattering, there is always a genuine and positive word that can be spoken.

No matter what the transition, no matter whether we believe in an afterlife or not, we are the ones that have to live with the last words we spoke.

There were people who disapproved of Gandhi, Jesus, Mother Teresa, Buddha, Martin Luther King and every great person in history. What if they gave in to their naysayers? What would the world be like if everyone who had a dream of making the world a better place gave in to the people who wanted it to stay the same?

No matter what you want to do, no matter how many people are on your side, there will be people who don't want you to_________________ - are you going to limit your life to their vision? The universe made you 100% unique and special for a reason: to contribute in YOUR own way. Do that.

The essence of what this aphorism is trying to convey is that everything in existence: from the smallest sub-atomic particles, all the way up to galaxies; from single droplets of water to the vast oceans and from amoebas to elephants, all perfectly unique and uniquely perfect. The fact that these things even exist is a miracle in, and of, itself.

Likewise, the motions of the planets, the spinning of a spider web, the movement of light, the forces of gravity and even the process of digesting our food - simply amazing.

Perhaps some would argue that these items and processes aren’t miraculous, they are just ‘things in nature’, they are just ‘the way things work’ and nothing to be considered special and especially not something miraculous.

Well, to that I would simply say, “Can you please create something so simple for me?” In all our wisdom, with all our machines and innovations, we can’t even create a simple, single celled organism. From a single seed, Mother Nature can create an entire forest. We can harness electricity, we can see gravity at work, but have we ever created such forces? You drop something and it falls down, that sounds pretty simple doesn’t it?

Science currently tells us that everything, EVERYTHING, is made up of subatomic particles, particles that are so small that we can’t see them and we can only theorize that they actually exist, yet we can’t even create such simple structures.

Still not convinced? Ok, here is the heavy one, “Can you please show me, or even just tell me, how to create something from nothing?” The universe created something from nothing, or at least so we think, and if that isn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is. How is it that there were no animals, no plants, no organisms of any kind, then things went boom and suddenly there are living things? From nothingness, to ‘stuff’ to ‘living stuff’ seems like a heck of a miracle to me.

Statisticians might be able to tell you the odds of an eyeball being created through the process of evolution - from the basic building blocks of the planet - but nobody has yet to provide me with a suitable explanation of how to get something for nothing. The ancient Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius supports me in this idea when he said, "Nil posse creari de nilo (nothing can be created from nothing)." OK, both Lucretius and I do need to make an exception here and say that nobody, other than the government, has figured out how to get something from nothing.

Anyway, if we just pause and contemplate our surroundings we realize that EVERYTHING we see, hear, smell etc., is nothing more than energy vibrating at different speeds. The flower you smell, the colours on an artist's palette, the stone you stub your toe on, and, for that matter, (pun intended) even your toe: just energy vibrating.

Now, please understand that this has nothing to do with me saying that I consciously have THE answers to life’s mysteries, I am not saying that we haven’t come a long way in ‘figuring things out’, what I am saying is that everything around us came to be through a process that defies explanation and, to this point in time, is not reproducible. And, even if we were able to create a simple plant seed from ‘scratch’ we aren’t really creating it from scratch, we are using materials that have already been provided to us; therefore, I believe that in the final analysis we come to see, or at least accept, the idea that nature, everything that is both seen and unseen, is indeed a miracle.

If we can accept the idea that there are no small miracles, that indeed everything is a miracle, then perhaps we will finally appreciate how unique and special ALL of it is. If everything is a miracle, then we see that there is no ‘greater’ or ‘lesser’, it is all equally WOW!

IN OTHER WORDS:
“If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.” -Jack Kornfield
“Creation is a miracle. Life is a miracle.”-Bernie Siegel
“There are only two ways to live your life: one is as though nothing is a miracle, and the other is as though everything is a miracle.” -Albert Einstein
“As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles...” -Walt Whitman

It seems that people often go looking for love in the external world when they have yet to love the most important person in their life, themselves.

To love yourself is not selfish, it is essential because until you love yourself, until you value yourself, until you understand what love is, how can you love another? As the saying goes, "How can you give what you do not have?"

Also, if you are looking for someone to love in the external world, do you want to be with somebody that doesn't care about themselves? Probably not, and those very same people won't likely want to be with a person that doesn't love themselves either.

Loving yourself does not make you selfish, nor does it automatically mean that you are a narcissist, it simply gives you the tools AND power to know what love means (to you) and then to be able to share that with another living being. I say “living being” because I don’t think it matters if it is another human, and animal or even a plant, if we can’t understand our concept of love, it is not possible to share it.

Furthermore, if I haven’t convinced you yet that it’s good to love yourself, then perhaps if I paraphrase Wayne Dyer from one of his talks that will convince you. Wayne explained it really astutely when he stated that if we have self-love then we aren’t a burden to anyone, which is the exact opposite of being selfish.

Poems, books, songs and perhaps even cave drawings have been created to discuss love, yet I would guess a lot less has been written about self-love, which in my mind is the starting point. This doesn’t mean that there is no longer room for improvement; it just means that you come from a place of love as you grow through life. Start where you are, then go forth.

IN OTHER WORDS:

“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love & affection.” -Buddha
“Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives.”-Louise L. Hay
“Find the love you seek, by first finding the love within yourself.” -Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Whether it’s a lion, a turtle, a problem at work, a problem with a spouse etc., the fact is that when we try not to think about something, that process itself will cause us to think about what we didn’t want to think about. And, the more we think about something the more energy we give it. Did you know that when you have a thought you are physically creating chemical and electrical changes in your body (Dr. Joe Dispenza has written several great books on this subject, as has Dr. Bruce Lipton, and I can’t do the topic justice, so I would strongly recommend their books to anyone wanting to know more about the topic)?

Suffice it to say, from what I gathered from the work of the aforementioned authors, as we continue to resist something, the more energy we devote to it, the more that ‘something’ becomes part of our physical make up. Take a moment for this to sink in (or is that ‘think in’?)….Let me repeat, the more we try not to think about something, the more we resist that ‘something’, the more physical connections to that ‘something’ we create within our body!

I know that there is debate as to whether our thoughts have the power to change our external reality, but to realize that our thoughts can ‘hardwire’ that which we are so desperately trying to resist, into our physical bodies, is a powerful tool. By becoming aware of this truth we come to see that we can also re-wire ourselves to exclude that which we do not want, that which we are resisting. To focus on the status quo, when status quo is not what you want, is counterproductive.

Perhaps it would help to think of situations this way - even if we are faced with a situation over and over again, no situation is exactly the same as it was, and thus, the outcome does not have to be exactly the same as it was.

By focusing on what we want, regardless of what is before us, we are creating the physical changes that will benefit us rather than continue to hinder us. From the research thus far these changes can happen exceptionally fast and they do not have to take years or even months.

Investigations into epigenetics, neuroplasticity, and psychoneuroimmunology are providing proof positive that we can transform our lives, that we don’t need to stay stuck in old patterns, yet all of these fields reinforce one fact: when we cease to resist what we do not wish, our minds and bodies are empowered to change.

IN OTHER WORDS:
“What you resist, persists.” -Carl Jung
"But I say unto you; That ye resist not evil.” -Bible (Matt 5:39)
“Remember, where your attention goes your energy flows.” –Jack Canfield & D.D. Watkins

When we come into this world we have nothing, other than a body that doesn’t listen to us, and yet, as babies, we’re happy in our natural state. We don’t own anything, we can’t do anything, we can’t even say anything and somehow we are happy. And, in those moments when we were unhappy, we made our point and went back to being happy. We did not sit and ponder the events leading to our unhappiness, we did not ponder why we were unhappy, we simply went back to our natural state of happiness.

As life progresses we take our mind off of the simple things, like eating and pooping, and we start to own “stuff”: we learn the word “mine”. All of a sudden “the toy” becomes “my toy” and we start to identify with the idea that we “own” stuff. When we own stuff we start to believe that this stuff is part of us. My car, my house, my wife, my kids, my, my… All of these things are mine, they belong to me, they are now part of my life and who I am, they are now part of my identity. By extension, we then start using the phrase, “My ____________ brings me happiness” or in the contrary, “My________________ makes me sad.”

If we were to take a step back and look at this more objectively perhaps we would realize that no-thing can bring us happiness, nor can any-thing bring us sadness. Happiness and sadness are not some add-on that you can buy when you purchase, or acquire, your things. You can’t ask the car dealer to throw in a little extra happiness when you buy that new car, yet when we say that our car brings us happiness, or makes us happy, isn’t this exactly the same thing?

When somebody you know is emotionally devastated would it make sense to try and alleviate that suffering by giving them a new television or kitchen appliance? Most likely we would say that this is ridiculous; however, if we truly believed that these things could bring happiness wouldn’t it make sense that when you’re in laws died you gave your wife a new toaster?

It’s ironic really that, although we can see the ridiculousness of the idea that “things” bring us happiness in these extreme cases, we don’t see the reality that no-thing can bring us happiness because it is external to us and happiness is an internal state of being.

Certainly, having things can make life easier and having different things can bring us different experiences in life, it’s just that things, in and of themselves, do not contain little packets of happiness. Thinking that our possessions can give us happiness is merely an illusion that disempowers us.

IN OTHER WORDS:
“We’re subject to and the servant of anything that we obey emotional, and unfortunately our possessions often possess us.”-Ernest Holmes
“Ridiculous yachts and private planes and big limousines won't make people enjoy life more…” -Richard Branson
“Command your Wealth, else that will command you.” -Thomas Fuller
“It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.” –Charles Spurgeon

Certainly most of you know that the physical possessions we “own” are left behind when we die, but how many have considered that we also leave behind all of the non-physical gifts and experiences we have been bestowed with?

Having been fortunate enough to spend time as a volunteer in a hospice it really hit home one day how everyone has talents, gifts and experiences and, unless these are shared with others, they will disappear from this physical plain when we do. By sharing our uniqueness, whether it is art, music, the lessons we’ve learned, our personal experiences or even a kind word, when we pass our gifts on to others what we share will remain once we are gone.

I want to be clear here on one last point: this aphorism is not about ego and creating a legacy to honour yourself. The idea I am trying to convey is that by sharing our unique piece of the puzzle others will be able to build on it and propel themselves forward on their journey.