A Loving Reminder of What Matters to You

 

GUEST Blog Betty Lue Lieber .

Napkinwriter Note:  It is so easy to forget. To forget what we know. To forget where we are. To forget who we are. I am grateful for reminders when I am confused about any of these things. Betty Lue has been writing Loving Reminders, early each morning in silent stream of consciousness space. I am grateful to receive her reminders. They are such a great spiritual check-up for me. Thank you Betty Lue.

Loving Reminders 6/7/2020

Affirmations:
I choose the best I know.
I am grateful for having choice.
I choose what matters to me with joy.
I respect the thoughts, words and activities I choose.

June 7, 2020 Loving Reminders – What Matters?

What Matters to You?

“If you don’t mind, it won’t matter.”
Where you judge matters.
What you choose matters.
How you live matters.
When you speak matters.
Who you love matters.
What you give time and energy to matters.
How your life works matters.
What you do with money matters.
What you think about matters.

You are giving your life energy to what matters to you.
Whether you know it or not, your life is telling on you.
You have what matters to you.
What you care about matters to you.

To simplify your foci for attention, choose 5 qualities or experiences that matter most to you.
Begin to live as though these areas matter most and watch them thrive and expand with success.
Observe everyday how what you think and do and say support what matters most to you.
Focus positive proactive energy on what matters to you.

If money matters most, then give it conscious attention and consideration everyday.
When friends matter most to you, give them attention with positive thoughts, words and activities.
When your health matters most to you, make sure all that you ingest and do support your health.
When your home matters most to you, make sure it is clean, organized and harmonious daily.

Life is a canvas on which we are creating what matters to us.
When we don’t like what we see, it is because we have put it there unconsciously.
To change what we see and experience, we must erase and delete and choose again for what matters to us.
Life requires us to consciously choose what we want to see and experience because it matters to us.

When we find ourselves in trouble, we can focus on the trouble or be grateful for the peace.
When we find ourselves in sickness, we can worry about lack of health or we can enjoy being alive.
When we feel like victims of our situation, we can succumb to the pain or rise up in faith.
When we are lost in financial struggle, we can be angry and resentful or appreciate how much we have.

When we realize our focus creates our experience, we learn to focus solely on what we choose.
When we validate our thoughts and words create, we clear the unconscious thoughts with consciousness.
When we recognize we are here to learn to create our reality, we give up allowing others to create for us.
When we step away, forgive what is NOT and choose what IS, we can see we can stand up for ourselves.

Life is best played with full consciousness and conscience, responsibility and respect, for what it.
Be grateful it is so.
Forgive mistakes as opportunities to learn.
Choose again quickly and easily for what you really want to be.

You matter to me.
These Loving Reminders matter.
Your health and happiness matters.
All I give makes a difference, because we all matter.

Loving us all,
Betty Lue

The only mistake we ever make is when we forget to Love.
Betty Lue

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#We’re All in This Together

These images are Process Journey Images – 24 Days to Solstice with Cat Caracelo. The Name of My Journey is To Live in Grace. This is Day 6. This private journey inward takes place with the existing circumstances of Covid-19, changing our way of life and another killing in our black community by a law officer. No Justice – No Peace is where we live today.

My 24 Day Art Journey will also take place in the NOW — within and without. This is a very real time where we all have a chance for a break-through; there is enough compassion, there is enough desire, there is, above all, enough NEED for each of us to have the courage to change what needs to change.

There are many of us who are struggling for more ways to connect, to make meaningful a life lived from soul desire to make a difference — a big difference. And the light from those willing to do the things that hurt, do the things that help, employ the grace of the Holy Spirit for the fire-y guidance that shows forth upon all humans to live as they are created, children of God in all races and creeds. Pray that we do that. Pray that we learn. Pray that we are willing. Pray that we listen. Pray that we care and in that compassion add a little light to a world darkened by hate, violence, and bigotry.

Pray that we admit it HAS to change. We must find our way from chaos to community. We must find more and wonderful ways we can connect. There are enough people in the world that truly want this to happen. Pray that this happens so very soon.

 

Our DNA brings us to this point and in this chaos, we must find the peaceful and just way of moving forward. #We’re in this TOGETHER. There are not many paths, there is ONE path – TOGETHER….but how many WAYS can we find TOGETHER? We all must try.

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Good Grief, Charlie Brown

“Good grief, Charlie Brown,” says Lucy many times over in frustration of their childhood antics.” And now in our world, both adults and children are suddenly shot into a world very unfamiliar to us. The coming of the Corona virus is the only thing that is “sudden” about it. Every day, restrictions, losses, and new rules “of being” flood into our day. If we have not lost any family member or friend by now in the fourth week of its rapid spread, we are the lucky ones. Many have and are losing loved ones that  leave many stranded with isolated good-by’s and inexplicable grief.

As much a many are helping the rest of us with upbeat messages, music, innovative ways of “being together, and the promise, that we will go through this together, and we will win over it together, the population of the grieving is building daily.

This poem posted today I think takes this population under her wings of prayer. This truth that now lives amongst us, when contemplated is both complicated and simple. Amid the living, there is much death. Therefore, also much grief.

I do not believe this poem to be a downer. Contemplative Christine Valters Paintner has crafted a very real part of the remnants left in the wake of Covid-19. Last night, I lay awake deep in the night, praying rosaries for #1 those “at the hour of my death. Amen”, as repeated over and over in the Hail Mary prayer who are in that hour as I prayed. Between the Hail Mary’s, as I slipped the beads through my fingers, I asked Mary and the Mantle of Mary to be so present to give peace to the person dying and to the health care worker closest to the patient, so that a “bond” could exist rather than “aloneness” between them.

And so I also prayed for all health care workers providing the last sense of touch and caring to the dying. What a sacred mission, and with whatever feelings I had during prayer, I just sunk into that reality alone—and left all the outer world (our world) changes and hopes, and losses alone for the moment. It was the dying and their families, and the endless effort of the professional caregivers I put into the sanctuary of my prayers. No, grief, and perhaps even rage, is not to be ignored; it is all around us and through us.

This is an invitation to rest in the space of grieving for all that is being lost right now, before we try to “make meaning” from it all.  Yes we must claim grace and gratitude, but let’s not bypass sorrow.

*In a Dark Time*
Christine Valters Paintner

Do not rush to make meaning.
When you smile and say what purpose
this all serves, you deny grief
a room inside you,
you turn from thousands who cross
into the Great Night alone,
from mourners aching to press
one last time against the warm
flesh of their beloved,
from the wailing that echoes
in the empty room.

When you proclaim who caused this,
I say pause, rest in the dark silence
first before you contort your words
to fill the hollowed out cave,
remember the soil will one day
receive you back too.

Sit where sense has vanished,
control has slipped away,
with futures unravelled,
where every drink tastes bitter
despite our thirst.

When you wish to give a name
to that which haunts us,
you refuse to sit
with the woman who walks
the hospital hallway, hears
the beeping stop again and again,
with the man perched on a bridge
over the rushing river.

Do not let your handful of light
sting the eyes of those
who have bathed in darkness.
—Christine Valters Paintner

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Angels in the Doorway Again

Hark! The herald angels sing….Glory be…. The Christmas hymns sing of them, the Christmas stories have many mentions of them. I believe in my guardian angel and so many others who attend to us, help us and guide us. I have an angel story that happened in our home during one of Tom’s many surgery recoveries. I reprint it here for angels know no season. They are present when needed.

Reprint of Napkinwriter blog:

I Have Something to Tell You

This happened in the early morning hours of Friday, Feb. 22, 2013

“I have something to tell you, stay there a minute.” This is what Tom said to me this morning when he got up. I was sitting in my “quiet chair” with early morning prayer and meditation. I stayed where I was.

He returned and sat down in his lounger chair and told me the following:

“Last night I got up around 2:00 o’clock AM. As I turned to come around the bed to head into the bathroom, I noticed a bright light near the door of the bedroom. I turned to look at it and I saw a white form just leaving the room. I only saw the back of her. My first thought was, angel.
I walked to the doorway and looked down the hallway that opens to the kitchen area. I saw two of these white forms standing and conversing with one another. They had white/tannish flowing garments. I could not see where they ended at the floor. I watched them. I could not hear them. I felt very peaceful.

I had to go to the bathroom so I did and when I returned, they were not there. I still felt the peace and returned to bed and went back to sleep.”

Tom is healing from the first of three scheduled skin cancer surgeries. I had given him Reiki healing/love energies as he fell asleep last night. The heat coming from his body was quite intense as I held my hands softly above his head and drew the Reiki healing symbols onto him. He fell asleep quite easily and was not in pain.

My guidance tells me Tom saw his healers. He said he knew them to be feminine, but doesn’t know how he knew. He has Archangel Raphael, the healing angel Icon above his workspace since his back surgery a couple years ago, when the green Raphael Energy flooded him with an instant turn-around from a crisis situation in the hospital.

So I have been conversing with my angel guides on a regular basis now for a couple of years. I write what I hear as my guidance in my journals. I sense their loving and guiding presence around and within me. And when I say “they” and “their” I mean only ONE — for that is all there is, ONE. In fact, the name I’ve been given to converse with is…..WHO — Whole and Holy One.
This year, I have opened to not only hearing and writing and sensing my guide, but I have told my guide I Am ready to see it.

And WHO sees his guide(s)? Tom, of course. He has that type of accepting spirit. I read, and meditate and think, and “do”, all of which has some merit. But I know that I need more of a “Mary” consciousness than a busy “Martha” (but bless her abundantly for I love her biblical activity and understand where she’s coming from). At least my hallway was neat for the angels to converse in!

Then I remember an angel correspondence I wrote down and posted in Napkinwriter and went back to look for it. This was posted one and one-half years before last night’s experience.
I am glad with joy! In the year of 2013- My Intention Mandala Year of Joy and Fun!

Angels in a Doorway

August 25, 2011 by Napkinwriter

A Message from the Angels
By Susan H. Hajec
Dedicated to Margo & Janet

In an open doorway, there is a space.
It is the space between
where you are
and where
you are going.

Pay attention to what comes to you
when you open this door
with the space between
you
and your future.

We are in that space
as your guides
and as your direction.
We are your angels.

So there is no need to fear
when you make your choices
from the love and light
that are in this doorway.

We are willing to pull you
or push you through the appearance
of obstacles or a harsh wind.

In this doorway you can create
a new now
filled with what is attracting you.
It takes only your decision.

There is no need
to hurry, dear one,
no need to rush.

Just be in the quiet
in the space
in the open door

between you
and your future.
We are here!
And in a millisecond
of the time it takes you to decide,
we will make it happen!

Again, do not be afraid.
It feels like you are lost
but you are not.
You are just in the space

in the open door
immersed in possibility and potential.

When what you have enjoyed
has come to an end,
it is your turn

to choose once again
what comes next
in the open door
where you can create
and just be.

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Today, I Fretted…

 

Today, I fretted…
I had been tipped off
to an MRI finding
that needed addressing.
So I fretted about…
possible outcomes of
stents and bypasses.

Not what I wanted.

Today high school students
looked forward
to weekend plans of fun and
dates
and companionship

All they wanted.

Today, I sprung free
with a healthy heart
and a cheer from my doctor
to carry on.

Today, I heard once again
the depth and width and
the untold sorrow of the
directive to…

Carry on.

Peace Be and the heartbeat of
One
carries you all, Texas.

 

 

 

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Something New at susanheffronhajec.com

 

I am adding pages to my Souljourner at-Large website and looking for new ways to draw people’s attention to it.

http://www.susanheffronhajec.com

In particular, my intention for 2018, besides the writing and publishing of my memoir, is to develop and maintain small group gatherings that will continue to share the practice of SoulCollage and spread the knowledge of the natural healing method of Reiki.

I will also be adding an Author Page,  Write!Now  and an Island of Silence contemplative practice page for the enrichment of the quiet, inner life….one person at a time….for peace in our world.

 

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Gentle Woman Reiki

 

I am a Reiki Master and Practitioner. In December, I will attune my first practitioner in Kentucky to Second Degree Reiki. We are both blessed by this event.

In Gentle Woman Reiki I give and teach a natural healing method you can do for yourself anytime, anywhere.

Reiki is about relaxation and kindness. When I am out of balance and not able to relax or respond to others in kindness, I suffer. I don’t like to suffer.

 

Reiki helps me keep the intention of kindness in my day. It makes the day better for me and all others. A Reiki treatment is an experience of deep relaxation. When I give it to another (am a channel for Universal Life Force), the person may be standing, seated or laying down. I may place my hands lightly on them or above them and open to the Divine Energy that knows where it needs to go and what it needs to do to balance that person.

Balancing may occur on a physical, emotional or chemical basis. I am only a “channel of peace” that allows the all-knowing to bring grace to this person. After a Reiki treatment, the person always feels a deep sense of peace, and many times I must await for the person to awake, they relax so deeply.

Reiki is a tradition founded by Mikayo Usui in Japan in the 1940s. He was a spiritual seeker of both Christian and Buddhist tradition and his quest started with wanting to know how Jesus healed. He aspired to have the same ability. He sought and had an awakening spiritual experience, receiving special symbols that are used in Reiki healing today. On the way down the mountain, he manifested several healings.

He began to teach and heal in the town square. Many came and a medical doctor joined him in this healing and teaching. Eventually, a woman, Mrs. Takata, who came for healing, stayed and trained with him and brought the practice to the United States after the 2nd World War. The lines of Reiki Masters come down through her, who taught and practiced in San Francisco.

May the blessings of the Almighty Father rain down upon you seeding you with all good from above.

 

In his early healings, he found that the beggars and homeless and helpless people did not stay healed unless they put certain qualities at work in their life. Thus he founded the Five Reiki Principles by which I am guided and accountable to remain in the grace of Reiki Master.  These were already in place from my practice of the 12 Step Program by which one stays sober and accountable and responsible for their life.

Just for today…I am grateful.

 

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Island of Silence — Centering Prayer

I create these islands of silence in all kinds of places in my life. They are a respite. They are places where I can listen. They are havens where I can stop talking — to myself or others. They are places where I can see clearly, where I can feel safely.

I’ve done this all my life. I have been “Faithful to the Quiet, Finding the Silence that Soothes my Soul.”

One of these places is sitting quietly in Centering Prayer. I had the great blessing to be called to this contemplative “non-talking” practice of prayer. And greater yet, I had the honor of knowing and working with Father Basil Pennington OCSO who taught and wrote many volumes on Centering Prayer.

This is how you go about taking up this prayer and what it is, a simple, humble being to God.

“Silence is God’s first language. Everything else is poor translation.”
Thomas Keating

Silence may be God’s language but most of us have difficulty in fluently speaking silence. We live in a hyped-up, super fast and crazy noisy world and we tend to bounce around in the noise. Words often equal noise for us. Spoken words, silent words present as thoughts, and noises of the environment and living spaces in which we live all conspire to equate to noises that block the passageway of Spirit. Words more often block communication than facilitate it. Words get in the way of our ability to listen, when listening is what is truly called for.

There is a simple prayer. A prayer of only one word. A prayer which only uses that one word when other words and thoughts are trying to interfere with the prayer. This prayer is Centering Prayer, brought to Western Christianity from the ancient practices of the Fathers in the Desert contemplative practice. You may practice this prayer by yourself or you may find a group that meets in silent prayer time.

It is a simple prayer of attentive love, encouraged to be practiced twice a day for twenty minutes. It is a silent way of possessing inner peace so that we can bring it to others. It is a contemplative prayer of the heart – a prayer of “being to God.”

While this is a simple prayer, it is to many not an easy prayer practice to enter into. Sometimes first reactions are an extreme uneasiness to being quiet and doing nothing for twenty minutes, which seems like much more than that. Do not worry if your first attempts are much shorter than twenty minutes. Give over the amount of time you can do comfortably and return to it later. Your effort will add up. This is not really a technique to master, but a willingness to give yourself over and be in a mindful presence to the divine.

 

However, there are a few general guidelines to take into this practice, if you should decide to try this way of silent grace in your day.

1. Choose a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to consent to God’s Presence and action within.

2. Sitting comfortably and with eyes closed, settle briefly and silently introduce your sacred word as the symbol of your consent to God’s Presence and action within you.

3. When you become aware of thoughts, return ever so gently to the sacred word.

4. At the end of the prayer period, remain in silence with eyes closed for a couple of minutes.

Very often in a group setting of Centering Prayer, a facilitator will end the session with the group saying the Our Father aloud softly and slowly together to bring you back and ground you to time and place in the real world.

You can do this in your private practice as well. The Spirit, as God’s Presence, is working within you during the time you give yourself over to Centering Prayer, and this gives your psyche time to readjust to the external senses and to enable you to bring the atmosphere of silence into your daily life.

Centering Prayer is a very powerful prayer when you choose to make it a practice. It is not just during the twenty minute period of time of silence that it works. The graces of Centering Prayer become evident to you in the rest of your life as well. Contemplative prayer is the opening of the mind and heart – your whole being to God, the ultimate Mystery. It is divine union.

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How To Fight

 

I saw this title on Amazon and what amazed me was the name of the author — Thich Nhat Hanh, one of the best known Zen teachers in the world today and a pacifist who encourages  Peace is Every Step.

In very brief meditations, he offers insights on how to turn our disagreements and conflicts into opportunities for growth and compassion.

If we see killing something or someone as a violent thing, this author has a comment on the violence of killing.

He says the Buddha was asked if there were anything he would kill.. “Yes”, said the Buddha. “Killing anger removes suffering and brings peace and happiness. “We ‘kill’ our anger by smiling to it, holding it gently, looking deeply to understand its roots and transforming it with understanding and compassion.”

And I wonder how long does that take and just like the 70 x 70 times we must forgive our fellow human beings and self, how often must it be repeated.

 

I think of Yoda as the Thich Nhat Hanh of Star Wars!

 

There is another practice of repetition. If smiling at our anger is too difficult for the moment, we can turn to an easier, softer way as long as we are willing to release our anger. We can employ, short and sweet phrases that are called mantras, saying them aloud or softly to ourselves.

He lists six mantras.

1. I am here for you.
2. I know you are there and I am happy.
3. I feel your pain and I am here for you.
4. I am suffering, please help.
5. This is a happy moment.
6. You are partly right.

I see the power in the sixth statement in particular.

I like this way of fighting.

 

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Resurrecting Book ’em Danno!

Tom and I are fans of Hawaii 5 O. Me, more for the scenery than some of the stories, but we watch the show fairly often. It is where the “Book ’em Danno” line came from. We  visited the beautiful islands of Hawaii on our 40th wedding anniversary in 2007, and now I have met beautiful Emma Thompson, who creates wondrous healing herbs and essential oils from nature there.

Several years ago, I started this website blog with the intention of highlighting books that interest me, or that I have read, or that I know the author that wrote them or also the authors I am having wonderful conversations with who are writing wonderful books.

This fell to the wayside for many reasons and many moves since I started it.

However, it is back now!

I intend to learn how to build audience for this site and also to take submissions for guest blogs and information on the writing life.

Feel free to contribute to me at   sue.hajec@gmail.com

https://bookmdanno.wordpress.com/

 

Here is my entry for today on http://www.bookmdanno.wordpress.com

 

 

REIKI, LOVE, JOY and PEACE
October 11, 2017 by napkinwriter | Edit

New Reiki Book
Great Holiday Gift Idea!
Reiki Love, Joy and Peace
A Reiki Healing Anthology
by William Lee Rand
$29.95
Full Color Trade Paperback
336 pages – 8 1/2″ x 10 7/8″
The 67 articles in this anthology were written by William Lee Rand, one of the world’s foremost practitioners and teachers of Reiki. They first appeared in the Reiki News Magazine and will provide you with unique insight into every aspect of Reiki practice. Also included are the adventures William experienced as he traveled to the ends of the earth to promote world peace. This is a great book to thumb through and read the articles you feel guided to read. This book will provide inspiration and instruction on how to get the best out of your Reiki practice.
Purchase in web store and save 10%
U.S. Residents Special Shipping Rate!
We’ll ship this book for $7.20 to anywhere in the contiguous U.S.
The International Center for Reiki Training

center@reiki.org
http://www.reiki.org/

 

 

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