Remaining Grateful Through The Pain

 

Back in December, I suffered a pretty bad fall from the top of a ten foot ladder. I was fortunate. Nothing serious resulted except for some extremely sore muscles and possibly a bruised or broken rib. It took about six weeks to recover from the pain. Of course, due to the holiday season, I pushed my way through the pain and tried to maintain a jolly spirit, nonetheless. Family was in town, I was in the finishing stages of editing the book, writing a book proposal for a major publishing company, and having two younger children, it's just what you do around Christmas when you don't have time to slow down. At least this is what I thought.

An injury recently came about as a sort of aftershock from the fall. This one took me down with the pain the way I needed. Driving caused pain and sitting caused pain, sleeping was frequent, short spurts, and so I was left with pacing.

A girlfriend of mine came by to check on me during this time to drink coffee and keep me company. Thank goodness she did, because she told me about a Matt Kahn video she had shared on her Facebook page, "Healing Space." Matt Kahn is a Spiritual Teacher out on the West Coast. I took a look at his videos when she left. Although it wasn't the video she posted, he gave me this little reminder of why I was experiencing my pain and what to do with it. I have to share this because it was so profound in my healing.

I have learned so much spiritual guidance in regards to pain, but a lot of it had me chasing my tail. Even in my own book I talk about all situations being viewed as gifts and opportunities, and I had forgotten. I had forgotten that even the physical pain is a gift.

I wasn't seeing the pain as a gift! I was judging myself for what I was missing in my own healing work. I was judging my ability to understand the lesson or the meaning of the experience. I was frustrated with how the pain pulled me into my physical body and detached me from my emotional and spiritual self. Anger and frustration would build up when the pain would peak, only to remind me of my to-do list and the many tasks I should've been taking care of. Instead I was lying around, dozing off because of the lack of sleep at night, and forcing myself into creativity through the only necessary avenue that couldn't be avoided, cooking!

Thank goodness for Spirit to bring the message and assistance I was begging my guides for through people around me. I was having such trouble hearing my guides from this cave carved from pain and suffering, and so they delivered my answers through other resources.

I had to stop using spiritual beliefs as my current abuser. I had to remember that all is love and purposeful. I had to start being grateful- even for the pain.

When I found gratitude for the pain, and started loving myself again instead of abusing myself through my thoughts, old teachings, beliefs, and inner dialogue, I began healing. I didn't just heal my physical self by doing this. I healed emotionally and spiritually as well. When I welcomed the actual pain to be the gift, instead of the pain being the negative result of me missing or not understanding something in regards to the gift, only then could the pain heal me. Only then, could I allow myself to heal.

 

I am grateful today to know there is guidance all around me, in the physical dimensions and beyond the dimensions I can easily see. I am grateful to have the trust, that even when my ears can't hear and my eyes are blinded with tears, I know the Universe is listening and wants nothing more than to help each one of us. Keep praying, and talking to your angels, guides, guardians, God(s), Higher Power, Spirit, Great Mystery, etc. They are all listening and ready to remind you (yes, remind you) of the information you need as you walk your journey.

 

 

It's such a beautiful Universe to be connected to! Take the time today to embrace it, if only for a minute. Thank it for all it provides for us. It deserves our immense love and gratitude for the opportunity to experience this thing called living.

 

Much love to you all,

jodi

 

Changing Directions

Well, I got some news last week that could've been pretty disappointing. I put a lot of work into a project that didn’t result in the outcome a person who went through all the work should want.

It’s as if I were running a marathon and just as I got to the finish line, I stopped to tie my shoe and decide if I really even wanted to cross the finish line. After watching several people pass by me, I finish the race, but really only to congratulate the winners because while I was tying my shoe, I realized it wasn’t what I even wanted when I began running. Somewhere over the miles, the direction changed. As I watched the crowd surround the winners, feelings of relief and freedom were what surrounded me.

I realize have been writing a lot more lately. Everything around me seems to inspire me. The topics are finding me. All I have been doing is acting on the inspirations.

It is easy to complicate the heck out of life and overlook the subtle turns the journey takes you. Once we have made a decision about a goal or direction, it’s easy to keep working toward outdated ideals and desires. We can travel far beyond the turn we were being guided to take if we become too fixated on an outcome versus the journey.

About a week before the news came in, a new direction for my journey appeared. Over the next several days I wondered if the two directions could really work together, or if I would in fact find the fork in the road and a decision to make. Well, a clue to the answer lies in the last sentence. Two directions can’t in fact be the same direction. We can bring aspects of the one direction into the new direction, but we can’t walk in two directions, scattering and separating our energy.

I didn’t need to make the decision alone. It kinda took care of itself it seems. I now know without doubt the direction I am being guided to take. What was really amazing, is I got to feel the difference between the two paths as they presented themselves. I was given the opportunity to feel the excitement and inspiration behind the right path versus the path that wasn’t really for me to travel at this time. This new opportunity that presented itself felt meaningful beyond any selfish desires. The original direction wasn’t bad, but it would have removed me from being a part of the process and would have forced me to focus more on the destination.

As I’ve said before, the destination is not a fun place for the artist. As a creator, I want to be the paint not the purchase. I want to sweep across the canvas, dance like music notes on the lines that lead me, spin on the wheel in the hands of creation, and feel the warmth and peace of the sunset in the photograph. This is what living creatively feels like to me!

I am so grateful I don’t have to do the decision making on my own.  I am also grateful to have had the opportunity to feel the difference between the two options for use in future decision making! It’s supposed to feel good― really good, and bigger than I am capable of imagining. Then all I have to do is trust and go with it. Let it lead me where I need to go, even though it may never be what it started out to be or where I thought I was going. I've realized I'm not taking the longer route by changing direction right before the finish line. I'm taking the creative route, that's always changing, dreaming, exploring, discovering and always building.

Namasté.

 

 

The Step Ahead of The Struggle

Some of you may have seen my post recently about forcing my kids into creative mode through boredom. It works! My daughter has started to catch on without the unnecessary discomfort. If I ask her if she is bored while she gazes aimlessly around the house, she often replies “no, I just haven’t figured out what I want to do yet.”

Yes! I love this. I know she gets it by her response. Every day will be what she decides it will be. It can be a gift, or it can be a drag. Before she gets to a breaking point, she will often ask me for ideas or as I talk about in my book, “call for back-up.”

Asking for help isn’t weakness. It's creative. It’s creative when we act on the solutions found between minds working together on ideas. Both are constructive actions that weave colorful threads into the reality of the world around us.

My son on the other hand is a little more difficult in these situations. His typical solution to boredom is shopping. Does that sound familiar to anyone? He usually thinks the answer to all his problem is something else. This is when I get to step in and say “no.” I have six more years to get this point across before he doesn’t need to ask me and can get to the store himself, so wish me luck!

Spirit has had his best interest at heart of course and some of this lesson came in for him over the holiday season. Nearly every gift or “thing” he received for his birthday and Christmas this year either was lost, broke, missing pieces, or hasn’t even shown up yet! I must admit he has handled it with grace and understanding because to a ten year old, this could have been cause for a complete meltdown and pity party. It hasn’t been. He became more grateful for what he does have and has been more creative with activities like origami, building forts, and playing outside with friends.

The point is we don’t have to get hit with a lesson this extreme, into an uncomfortable situation, or bored before we make the decision to get creative because it’s the only remaining option. We have the ability to head off many of these scenarios by staying in habits that are creative.

One might ask what my son could have done to head off his lesson. Well, let me share with you what happened around this time. Originally, he asked for snow for Christmas. My kids have yet to experience this natural wonder first-hand living in Florida. Obviously, I explained if I could pull off this opportunity to go discover and experience snow, I wouldn’t be able to afford to put things under the tree as well. At first he was totally okay with this, but then something shifted as we got closer to the holiday. He changed his mind. He wanted stuff he thought would bring him more happiness. But did it? One was creative, the other not so much. Can you recognize why this is?

Soon, Embracing The Spark: A Simple Guide For Using Creativity To Live Brilliantly will be available for purchase. It will provide all the tools one needs to use this holistic approach to creativity as a way of living and transforming daily life into a personal masterpiece. These tools will not only help each reader move more in alignment with a vibration that benefits one’s authentic self but also benefit the world touched by the creative actions of the reader. I am so very excited to get the message out in a language that can be understood outside of my own brain this time! Let’s all thank my editor, Karen, for this one! I am so very grateful for her hard work and powerful questions.

Take the time to explore creativity in your life. Any idle time we find in our busy schedules is our heart's way of pulling us back to this natural state. Head off the hard lessons and wasted time. Use the time to do what would most benefit not only your vibration, but to the collective vibration. Explore, dance, walk, sing, write, discover, play, reconnect with friends, share, cook something new, learn something new, etc. The possibilities are really endless!

 

                            Embrace the Spark!

                                        love, jodi