Inlightened Enterprises - Midlife Women Blog

Joy and happiness are not the same thing. I had some challenges this week, and that distinction became really clear to me. Happiness, to most people, is defined as the elation that accompanies good fortune. When things are going well, when the sun is shining, when we get a raise or a new job, when we think we are in love, when we get to hop like a bunny, we FEEL HAPPY, and we confuse that with the Quality of Joy that I am writing about. It’s getting in touch with the stuff that’s already inside us. JOY is
the evidence of God’s presence in the human experience. And God can never NOT be present! We have to learn to look for the evidence. It’s there, sometimes in spite of what is happening in the outer world.

Have you ever cried and felt joy at the same time? I sure know I have. Then you know what I mean. JOY is the awareness that ALL IS GOOD. Even in the midst of this – God is here. This too is God. This too is Good. We can never escape the presence of God. When we begin to see all of life as a perfect reflection of our thoughts and we come to see that life always brings us what we send out, then we cannot help but rejoice in the perfection because we notice that that is exactly what is happening all the time. There’s
a great sense of relief and release. You are really in charge. What you send out comes back.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Catholic Priest and theologian, gives us the second quote: “Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.” I’ve heard it translated - joy is the ECHO of God’s life in us. I like that. I’d like to tell you a story.

A man and his son were taking a walk in the forest. Suddenly his son trips and, feeling a sharp pain, screams, “Ahhhh!” Surprised, he hears a voice coming from the mountain, “Ahhhhh!” Filled with curiosity, he screams, “Who are you? But the only answer he receives is “Who are you?” This makes him angry, so he screams, “You are a coward!” and the voice answers, “You are a coward!” He looks at his father, asking, “Dad, what is going on?” “Son”, the man replies,

“Pay attention!” Then the father screams, “I admire you! The voice answers, “I admire you!” The father shouts, “You are wonderful!” And the voice answers, “You are wonderful! The boy is surprised, but still can’t understand what is going on. Then the father explains, “People call this an ‘echo’ but truly it is ‘life’!”

Life always gives you back what you give out. Life is a mirror of your actions and beliefs. If you want more love, give more love. If you want more kindness, give more kindness. If you want understanding and respect, give understanding and respect. This rule of nature applies to every aspect of our lives. Life always gives us back what we give out. Your life is not a coincidence, but a mirror of your own doings.

A number of months ago, I read a book that had a profound impact both on me and on everyone I shared it with – it’s called, The Four Agreements by a man named don Miguel Ruiz’s. Don Miguel is a nagual, or master, in the Toltec tradition. The Toltecs were a group of artists and scientists who formed a society to explore and conserve ancient spiritual knowledge. They came together at the ancient city of pyramids outside of Mexico City known as the place where “Man becomes God.” Don Miguel Ruiz offers us principles from the Toltec tradition that resonate with essential New Thought principles, - or as many people are now saying _- New Thought ANCIENT WISDOM because they are universal principles embraced in many traditions of many cultures and times.

Understanding our thoughts and what runs us from within is the focus of Ruiz’s book The Four Agreements. Ruiz offers a long and very interesting explanation about the beliefs in our life being formed not out of a process of choosing them, but through a process of agreeing with information given us by our parents, our tribe and our culture. Society’s information is passed to us from the “dream of the planet” which contains various interpretations of life, like seeing life as if through smoke or fog. These interpretations do not allow us to see who we are, which is pure love and pure light. Instead these interpretations tell us that it is normal for humans to suffer, to live in fear, to create emotional dramas and so to dream hell into our own life. In the process of agreeing with the interpretations, we store the information; we believe it, and we surrender to the beliefs given us by our agreement with them. We live in a fog, or personal dream of life, which is what we believe of all the concepts, the human race consciousness has about what we are — all the agreements, which have been made with others, with the self, and with God.

Ruiz writes that the whole mind is a fog which the Toltecs called a mitote: a dream where 1000 people talk at the same time and nobody understands each other. With this dream (in India called “maya”) you cannot see what you really are, who you truly are, and cannot see that not free to be, but live trying to satisfy others’ demands, living by other’s points of view because of the fear of not being accepted, not being good enough for someone else.

Out of the thousands of agreements we have made with self, others, with the dream of life, with God, society, parents, mate and children, the most  important agreements are ones made with self. These are agreements by which you tell yourself who your self is, what your self feels, what your self  believes and how the self should behave. These agreements define who and what your self is, what is believed, what can be done what cannot be done, what is possible, what is impossible, what is fantasy and what is reality. One single agreement is not a problem, but we have many agreements that make us suffer, such as agreeing to what is not enough, what is not deserving. Each agreement is a commitment of energy. It is up to us if we commit it to the truth of our being and to the thoughts that give power, or to what  weakens and keeps us trapped in illusion.

It is our job to break those agreements that are fear-based and drain off our energy and claim our personal power, and instead make agreements that come from love.

I’d like to highlight today my own personal beliefs — using Don Miguel Ruiz’s book –  THE FOUR AGREEMENTS as my framework and  I hereby re-commit myself to these agreements PUBLICALLY and invite anyone who hears or sees me breaking them to call me to them…. I’d, of course, like to invite YOU to make these same agreements… Are you game??

I have discovered that the quickest way to experience more abundance in my life is by practicing Gratitude.  I once kept a journal where I wrote 100 things I was grateful for every day.  It was amazing what happened.  As the days went on, I found that I was looking for things that I could be writing about that night. And, of course, since I was focusing on it, more things to be grateful for kept showing up.

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough, and more.  It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.  It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” — Melody Beattie

“The more you recognize and express gratitude for the things you have, the more things you will have to express gratitude for.” — Zig Ziglar

“Develop an ‘attitude of gratitude.’  Say thank you to everyone you meet for everything they do for you.” — Brian Tracy

“There is no better opportunity to receive more than to be thankful for what you already have. Thanksgiving opens the windows of opportunity for ideas to flow your way.”

–Zig Ziglar

WANT TO HEAR THESE MESSAGES?

For those of you who are more auditory than visual - I’ve just created some MP3’s of the qualities of God.

You can order the one on Abundance by clicking here NOW or cutting and pasting the entire URL in your browser:

http://www.kickstartcart.com/app/javanof.asp?MerchantID=88788&ProductID=3275484

There is a wonderful passage from Marianne Williamson –– and I want to share it with you here since it speaks to my heart:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.It is our Light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?Actually, who are you NOT to be?You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the World. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel unsure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.As we let our own Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

I invite you to ponder those ideas –and ask yourself where in your life you are FEARING FREEDOM and therefore blocking this quality  that wants to come into our experience in a greater way in our lives?

Choose today to accept the fact that we were born free and are meant to be free. Free from the influence, of others. Free of the thoughts and opinions of others.  Free of our past.  We are not living in the past and can be totally free from that. We are free to be the full expression of who we are - individually.  Because we are individual expressions of the One Mind, One Power, One Life, this means we have self choice, volition, a conscious mind, complete freedom and a “POWER TO BACK UP THAT FREEDOM.”

In the Science of Mind, by Ernest Holmes on p.108 we read: “We cannot imagine a mechanical or unspontaneous individuality; to be real and free, individuality must be created in the image of Perfection and let alone to make the great discovery for itself.” That is the discovery of our Freedom.

We are created with the possibility of limitless freedom and left alone to discover it ourselves. This discovery is called the awakening process.

Ultimate freedom is the freedom to be the divine self that you are, which includes living as a fully balanced and conscious being.  When you remember that you are liberated, you are spontaneous in your expression of life and you express in ways that are in harmony with the greatest good for everyone concerned. How many of us live inhibited, for whatever reason.

I watched a video last night of people laughing, just people laughing and they looked so silly and most of us don’t want to look like that.  We’re worried that people might think there is something strange about us.  So, we hold ourselves back from laughing.  How many things do you hold yourself back from? When you accept your Freedom, you are at ease wherever you find yourself.  You have the freedom, to just be you.  When you are free, you don’t have to worry about what the other person is thinking, feeling, being, doing. When you are really free, you can totally allow another person to be free, because you don’t depend on their being anything. And that’s even your partner or anyone else in your life.  Your freedom doesn’t depend on what they do or say.  Nothing binds you, you are a true individual, unique and expressive.  Life takes on more joy when freedom is realized.
No matter what quality of God you focus on, you get the rest of them.  If you were a person who was totally free and allowed everyone else to be free, don’t you think there would be more love in your life?  There would be more joy in your life.  There would be so many more qualities in your life, simply by focusing on Freedom.

We have total freedom to choose at every moment and we constantly experience the results of our thoughts and the results of our actions.  What Freedom that is!  We think it’s a burden, but, in truth, its amazing freedom to know that no one else has the power over your life but you.  If you don’t like what’s happening in your life, you have the power to change it.  You don’t have to wait until mom or dad do something.  You don’t have to wait until your partner gets better; you don’t have to wait until the children grow up; you don’t have to wait for anything. You’re the one that has the ultimate power and the ultimate freedom.  When we do that, being free allows us to experience so much more of life.

The difference between freedom and bondage is simply the word, Choice.  We have choice in every single moment, in every single experience.  Let’s choose to be conscious of our choice. But, even that choice is yours.