The Little Boy Still Knows

Normally I step into the shower with a question, expecting and then receiving a response in the form of words . . . sentences . . . ideas . . . messages that I essentially ‘hear’ and then transcribe for myself and anyone else who might be tuning in.

But sometimes there is no question that I can find the right words for. Sometimes I don’t know exactly what to ask, or how to articulate my concern or issue. Sometimes I stand there in the flow . . . waiting for the Flow . . . with only what I feel in that moment, knowing only that my heart is asking for . . . something . . . even if my mind has not yet provided the words for that desire.

And so it was today, as I stood there, wanting . . . asking without words . . . hoping to be understood . . . waiting. As I waited, what came were not words, initially, but pictures. They were pictures of a little boy walking along a beach, with his mother nearby but not in the picture. The little boy had the open horizon of the sea and sky beside him . . . and on his face was a calm curiosity that was familiar but that I seemed to have forgotten.

I looked at the little boy and I recognized him . . . not just his face and form, but his heart, and how it felt to be walking with that horizon beside him and with his mother close by, knowing that all was well . . . knowing that he was loved and cared for . . . protected. . . . knowing only that his world was calm and bright with possibility, knowing only that he was loved and had no reason to question whether he was worthy . . . knowing only safety and comfort . . . knowing no fear or rejection or worry of not being enough . . . knowing no fear about what would become of him or what he would become.

I saw this little boy walk over to me and take my hand, urging me to walk with him, to be with him in his world, seeing what he saw, feeling how he felt. I stood there in the shower, letting myself watch me with this little boy whom I recognized and remembered. I stood there letting him take me back to a place where I could see and hear more clearly things I had forgotten.

I let him lead me back to that place of peace and quiet and comfort and joy. Then and only then did I hear the familiar words . . . the familiar sounding message . . . coming in response to the question I didn’t even realize I was asking .

Yes, you are loved.
Yes, you are worthy of love.
Yes, that part of you—that child you were and still are—knew this then and knows it now, and will always be there to remind you, to take your hand and to walk beside you anytime your heart calls out to the You, you really are.

It was a brief message, but the words and the pictures told me everything I needed to know, to feel what I needed to feel. And for that moment, I remembered again how it felt to feel--then and now—for the moment, complete.

Shame On Shame

A good friend of mine was confiding to me not long ago about being in the process of filing bankruptcy. That fact alone was not especially noteworthy to me and knowing it had about as much of an impact on my opinion of my friend as a gnat someone would brush off their arm.

What was striking to me was her strong desire not to reveal the bankruptcy to certain members of her family, who she believed would not understand or approve but instead would judge her rather harshly.

What I heard and felt in her words as she talked about wanting to hide this information was not just embarrassment but shame. I heard and felt the shame because it somehow touched a place in me where shame had also resided. I recognized shame. And the recognition of it—hers and mine—made me feel, at first, sad . . . and then increasingly angry. But with whom?

So I asked The Shower Team to speak to me about shame: my friend’s . . . mine . . . maybe yours?

The sadness that you are feeling, initially, when you give your attention to this subject, is the sorrow anyone feels when they choose to leave the comfort of unconditional love and to run away to a strange, cold, barren place where they are judged worthy or unworthy by the extent to which they conform to others’ expectations or comply with others’ demands.

When you are connected to Source . . . when you are remembering who You really are--that you are blessed, adored, beings of light--when you remember the well being that abounds and the adoration that abounds for you from the Universe, you cannot feel anything remotely resembling shame. But when you take your eyes off your own connection . . . when you let yourself see yourself through the eyes of others rather than through the eyes of Source . . . then you begin to judge yourself . . . you begin to compare yourself to the standards that others have adopted and proclaimed as good or worthy . . . You measure your “progress” or “success” or “failure” based on where you stand in relation to others as opposed to where you stand in relation to your own connection to Source . . . and you begin to suffer by comparison. You lose your way. You lose your footing. You begin to actually believe that what anybody else thinks or says matters . . . and you decide to make others’ feelings or opinions more important than your own connection . . . more important than your own well being . . . more important than the unconditional love that is always available to you.

It is no wonder you feel sad, for what could be sadder than the sight of a blessed, adored, perfectly lovable child choosing to leave the comfort and joy of a home where unconditional love abounds and running away to a place where unhappy and unfulfilled and harshly critical and demanding others wait to remind you at every turn how poorly you are doing?

We are exaggerating here slightly in order to make a point. The issue is not the malice of those close to you or any pleasure that they take in kicking you when you are down. The point is that when you feel shame, YOU are turning away from what the part of you that is Source knows is true . . . You are separating yourself from the You that you really are, and as a result, you are feeling that separation acutely because Source cannot accompany you on any journey that takes you away from your connection.

No wonder you get angry. Some part of you is recognizing what you are doing to yourself and wanting you to stop it—wanting
you to turn around and see how well it all is going . . . see how beautifully you are getting along, regardless of the specific conditions that you have focused upon that feel embarrassing or shameful to you. No one else’s judgment of you can affect you unless you are judging yourself. Release the judgment you are making of yourself, and the problem of shame or embarrassment or letting others down will have no power over you.

Repeatedly tell yourself this truth-- that love is unconditional . . . that love requires only that you be you . . . and that as you are able to offer that kind of love to you, there will be no cause, no justification, no need, no concern, no tolerance of shame. The only remotely shameful thing in your experience is the shame that you allow into your experience and even that is never held against you by anyone who matters—except you.

It’s a shame I didn’t ask the question sooner. I’ve heard people say that guilt and worry are two of the biggest wastes of time and energy that we engage in. Neither one ever really changes what we’re feeling guilty or worried about. Shame seems to be an appropriate addition to that list of colossal and unnecessary time wasters.

I may not be the very sharpest knife in the drawer sometimes, but I understand the value of using my time and energy well. So while I look around for a dumpster to put shame where it belongs . . . I’ll also let myself feel appropriately glad to know that no matter how far off I may wander sometimes from the knowledge of how loved and lovable and generally cool I really am . . . in this case, I can always go home again. Knowing that makes me feel, for the moment, unashamedly complete.

Suspended Sentences

I’ve made it something of a mission recently to be a happier person. Not that I’m an unhappy or miserable person, but I have noticed how often and how easily I seem to drift into states of irritation or discouragement or loneliness—and stay there longer than I really want to. Sometimes the irritation or discouragement isn’t even about anything specific that I can easily identify. I would blame something like PMS but last time I checked that was not a viable explanation in my case.

So I started talking to the Team about being happy—or happier in general. And as I started looking more closely at this desire of mine, I also found myself wondering to Them, why does it seem so much easier so much of the time, to stay unhappy?

What you are really observing here is classic law of attraction. You think irritating or discouraging thoughts or give your attention to irritating or discouraging things in your experience—either consciously or not—and you get irritation or discouragement in return. Then as you give your attention to the irritation or discouragement that are you now feeling, you become or continue to be a match to other irritating or discouraging thoughts and it just snowballs from there. You get more of what you are giving your attention to.

The compounding problem with that is that in addition to this already uncomfortable state of affairs, you then also observe that you are helping to create this irritation or discouragement—or whatever it is in your experience that you don’t like—and then on top of the unpleasant feelings that you are creating and perpetuating . . . you begin judging yourself for the fact that you are creating and perpetuating it. It really is a pretty airtight rock and a hard place that you place yourselves in. It’s sort of the equivalent of spilling ink or coffee all over your homework because you weren’t being very careful about what you were doing—and then giving yourself a really good thrashing on top of already feeling pretty bad about the whole mishap.

In effect—and in general—you are not so careful about the direction of your thoughts. You get a bit sloppy about what you focus on. . . and so particularly when you are not being more thoughtful or deliberate about your thinking, you thoughts often go to what is most apparent or most active in your experience . . . If irritation or discouragement or some other negative emotion has been or is still pretty active part of your vibration or your general mood . . . then it’s all too easy to drift back in that direction. . . to fall back into what are more familiar or practiced patterns of perceiving your experience. More than likely you’ve been practicing irritation or discouragement in one way or another for quite some time so it comes rather easily to you . . . and then as you return your attention to it . . . you get more of same.

But rather than staying stuck in that unsatisfying loop and then punishing yourself on top of it . . . try a new routine. When you feel the irritation or discouragement moving back in . . . as you notice yourself heading back in that direction . . . make the effort to gently stop where you are . . . acknowledge what you are doing . . . and then find any way that you can to softly turn your attention in a different direction. Don’t make a federal case out of it. Don’t stomp and scream or weep and wail or give yourself 50 lashes . . . Instead, see if there is anything else in your vicinity that feels a little better to think about . . . See if there is a way to be amused with yourself rather than disappointed or frustrated. See this sort of moment as an opportunity to practice something else rather than another excuse to beat yourself up.

It is much better if you can say, “Alright, I’m irritated” or “I’m depressed or discouraged” . . . now what do I want to do about it? Do I want to keep at it and see how much more irritated or depressed I can get . . . . or do I want to see where else I can take myself from here without making into such a big hairy deal?

Relax your need to be perfect . . . and give yourself more room and more freedom to practice and to play with improving the way you feel under whatever conditions you find yourself in. Spend more time in rehab than in jail over your perceived offenses . . . Ideally, learn to laugh about these times when you are really just forgetting who You really are . . . and if you can’t laugh where you stand . . . at least give yourself permission to be where you are and to gently, gradually move from there to a place that is closer to where you would like to be.

Suspend the harsh sentence that you normally impose upon yourself for not quite measuring up . . . Teach yourself the ways of freedom patiently and compassionately . . . and you will find yourself with more and more reasons to be proud of the happier and happier citizen you are becoming.

I wish I’d talked to them about the speeding ticket I got not too long ago . . .

Sometimes I feel like one of the luckiest mystics in this great big Universe. How cool is it to start off a blog feeling like I want to just kick my mystical ass and end up feeling like I’ve just been pardoned and I’m free to go?

I know my work is cut out for me. I’ve got quite a stash of accumulated irritations and discouragements gathered over the years. So maybe I won’t lose them all at once or overnight . . . but it’s nice to know I can decide to lighten that load anytime I really want to . . . if only a little.

Becoming a happier, freer me seems worth the practice it will likely take. It’s certainly a happier prospect than any of the alternatives that come to mind . . . and that leaves me feeling not only less irritated, less discouraged, but also less inclined, for the moment, to give myself an even harder time for not feeling altogether complete.

Weeding The Garden/Doing The Math

I was browsing in one of my favorite metaphysical bookstores not long ago and came across a section of tools and supplies for banishing unwanted experiences, relationships, etc.. There were spell books and crystals and herbs and instructions for ridding oneself of everything from big bad debt to big bad loser boyfriends to big bad habits.

They were fun to look through but for some reason they weren’t really calling out to me and as I was leaving the store I started wondering about the whole idea of trying to remove or erase things that I don’t want from my life. Does it work? How does it work? So I asked The Shower Team to talk to me about subtraction.

This is one of the ways that you are often at cross purposes with yourself. Your efforts to banish what you do not want, to extract or subtract from your experience the things that do not please you, most of your attempts to eliminate or to remove what troubles or worries or discourages or frustrates you . . . generally do not succeed because you are essentially trying to go against the natural order of things. In other words, in your determined or desperate or diligent or frantic actions to be rid of something that displeases you or that feels bad, all you are really doing is giving it the attention it needs to grow.

It is as if you were setting out to clear your garden of the pesky weeds choking the beautiful flowers or fruits that you’re trying to grow, and then unintentionally spraying weed food all over the place . . . growing the very thing you want to stamp out.

Rarely do your efforts to subtract something from your experience succeed, because the very act of focusing on what you wish to eliminate in order to banish it, typically only serves to activate it further. The more you work and struggle to subtract the undesirables, the more of them you usually get.

So what to do? The answer is to add value rather than to try to subtract liabilities. Most professional helpers will tell you that it is virtually impossible to remove destructive behavior or a bad habit by “just saying no” or trying not to do it. Rather it is critical to add something to one’s experience that offers an alternative way of receiving what is desired, of feeling the way that one wants to feel.

The very best approach—the only truly effective approach—to ridding yourself of something you do not want, is to shift your focus in the direction of more of the things that you do want. As you begin to fill your attention with ideas and objects and thoughts that delight you or encourage you or comfort you or inspire you or soothe you . . . there will be less and less attention placed on the things that worry or frustrate or discourage you.

The best possible ingredient to add to this process is, as we have said many times, appreciation. It is the perfect plant food. It is life-giving sunlight and sweet nurturing moisture and tender, loving, skillful care all rolled up in one powerful garden tool. It is the magic you are always seeking. It is the rain dance and the rich soil that yields the very best that you want. It is always the correct means to your desired end.

Begin to make appreciation your process, your technique, your tool. Make appreciation your priority. Add appreciation to the top of your To Do list . . . Introduce it into your weedy garden, and what you will notice is that the weeds will slowly begin to wither and fade from sheer neglect . . . that as you tend more and more to the flowers or fruits or vegetables that please you . . . as you give them what they need to grow . . . as you take pleasure in their blooming and ripening . . . as you enjoy the perfect timing of nature’s cycles in yielding to you what you have planted and tended to . . . the weeds that once worried you so will be barely a memory . . . You will understand how the process works and with practice you will become the patient and confident and competent gardener that it is your wish to be.

I’m about as much of a gardener as I am a cook—although I did once keep an African violet alive in my apartment for three years. I may not know nothin’ ‘bout no weeding, Miss Scarlett, but I do know about the frustrations of trying to banish thoughts or feelings, much less experiences that I know I don’t want. It’s been one of my best recipes for failure.

It also doesn’t help that math was always one of my worst subjects. At least we’re not talking long division. Still, the idea of adding to rather than taking away carries a certain logic that even my relatively unmathematical mind can grasp. The more good stuff I add to the mix, the less room for the bad stuff there will be . . . or the better I feel, the better I’ll feel . . . It’s almost enough to make me want to get out my garden mitts. . . and definitely enough to leave me feeling, for the moment, and in addition, complete.

Please Pass The Paradox

I’m sitting at my favorite coffee house once again marveling at the power of a car wash to make rain a day later, and considering the subject of paradoxes. Merriam-Webster defines paradox as “a situation, person, or action having seemingly contradictory qualities.”

Some have said my picture belongs next to that definition, but aside from the extent to which I may personify the term to some, it has been a topic of considerable interest to me lately.

Specifically, I keep coming back to the subject with regard to the relationship between happiness and manifestation. I keep hearing that in order to create the life that I want, I need to feel good about the life I’ve got.

One of my favorite psychologists, Carl Rogers, once said, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself as I am, then I can change.” So I stopped scratching my head long enough to ask The Shower Team to please ‘splain this apparent paradox . . . to help me understand about happiness as the means for getting what I think will make me happy.

We regularly say to you, “Be as happy as you can possibly be . . . feel as good as you can possibly feel where you are, and the Universe cannot help but yield to you what you are asking for. You hear this as a contradiction because you continue to believe that happiness is an outcome of having what you want and not a choice you can make at any time or any place. You continue to regard happiness as the byproduct and manifestation as the goal or objective . . . And we continue to say to you, that’s ass backwards.

We continue to dance this seemingly paradoxical dance with you because we want so much for you to get it through your thick head—or rather, to come to a fuller understanding of—the fact that happiness or feeling good is always, without exception, the reason for wanting anything that you want.

However you persist in believing that happiness is just a label attached to some object or experience and that if you can only acquire that object or experience, then you will go ahead and wear the happiness label, at least for a little while.

You miss the point over and ove--and that point would be that you can have the happiness where you stand. It is always only a choice or two away. You miss the point that as you make that choice to be as happy as you can or to feel as good as you can feel where you are, that happiness cannot help but magnetize more happiness. The happier you get, the happier you get—and the more you will draw to you those dreams and desires that will add more happiness to that happy heap.

It doesn’t take a psychologist to figure this out, but at least the one you admire managed to do so, for his words are absolute truth: The more you are able to feel good about you where you stand, the more you are able to see and appreciate the you that You really are, the more easily and effortlessly you will allow the changes you desire, because you are no longer spending most of your time and energy and attention pushing against the you that you want to change.

Rather than using the unfulfillment of some desire as an excuse to feel bad, find whatever reasons you can to feel good right there where you are. We promise that nothing can or will prevent the desires that are a match to that happiness from being drawn to you.

Practice choosing happiness. Practice feeling as good as you can possibly feel. Make that practice more important than the producing of the desired object you have associated with your happiness. See happiness as the cause and the effect . . . and get ready for the happiest ride you can imagine, to the happiest times of your life.

Sometimes I wonder if they're really allowed to talk to me the way they do--but then who would I ask?

It's occurred to me that perhaps we may actually prefer the bumpier rides, but that’s a paradox for another day. Today, as the sun makes its inevitable return to brighten the Colorado afternoon, I keep hearing the song, “Don’t worry . . . be happy” in my head, and wondering about the me who simultaneously gets the simple truth of that lyric and the me who usually finds it annoying.

I’m sure there’s more mulling over to do about all that, but in the meantime I will look for any happiness I can spot in my immediate vicinity . . . and allow myself to feel, if only for the moment, paradoxically complete.

What Is My Net Worth?

Recently a very special friend of mine sent me a gift that by my standards at least, was unusually generous. It was not something I had asked for and not something I would have expected him or anyone else to offer. It was so unexpected and so generous, in fact, that my first response was to say it was too much and that I couldn’t accept. I was in the process of turning it down when he cut me off and basically said, “Please don’t make this something to feel guilty or obligated about. This is a way for me to give back to you.”

He began to list for me some of the ways that he felt our friendship had benefited him. And as he did, I started wondering about my own sense of worth and the way I was comparing his gifts to those he was saying he had received from me—and feeling that whatever I had given him was somehow less than what he was suddenly offering to me.

It reminded me of a stream of gifts that have been flowing into my life over a period of many months now, and from many sources. People have just been giving me things—unsolicited, unexpected, wonderful expressions of affection or gratitude or friendship. It’s not the first time I’ve wondered why or what it was that prompted these generosities, but it was the first time I really confronted my own sense of worth in the process . . . the first time I had really wondered specifically if I was somehow unworthy or undeserving of all this. It made me wonder—and ask—what am I really worth? And what criteria am I using to determine that worth?

It is a very curious system that you have all devised and accepted as the norm, this measuring of your value in dollars and cents. Monetary or financial gain—what you sometimes call “net worth”—has become the way that you define success. It affects your lives in more ways than you even realize and perhaps the most profound effect that it has is to consistently separate you from Source, from the You who remembers who you really are. You judge each other based on this criteria but even worse is your judgment of yourselves for what you think you lack compared to anyone who you perceive as having more.

These gifts that have come to you have been gifts in more ways than what is obvious to you. Beyond any physical value that they may have had or any comfort or pleasure they may have afforded you, they have been opportunities, each and every one, for you to recognize the value that you add to these connections—value that, instead of seeing and appreciating and accepting, you often minimize or dismiss altogether because it is not in the form that you feel is considered real or valid or truly worth something.

Your friends can say to you repeatedly how much you are appreciated on any number of levels for any number of reasons but when that appreciation is expressed to you in a physical or material way that you feel you cannot match, you hold yourself back from the fullness of joy available to you, and you focus instead upon your own judgment of the ways that you have not effectively equaled their success or attained their level of this specific form of prosperity.

In other words, as one of your sayings goes, you look a gift horse in the mouth, when instead there is a wealth of appreciation and mutual joy available on both sides of the giving if you will only allow yourself to understand that your worth has nothing to do with what you have accumulated.

Your sages and philosophers and prophets and teachers have been saying this for as long as any of you have been on the planet but it only seems to get harder and harder for you to hear and believe. There is most definitely joy in abundance. There is great happiness in prosperity and that joy is available to any of you . . . but the joy that comes to you through abundance has nothing to do with any measurement of your success that puts you in competition with another. The joy that comes through abundance is the joy of recognition, the joy of understanding that there is no lack, that there is no grading or judging or winning or losing in the honest exchange of appreciation.

Your friends give to you out of appreciation for you in the ways that they are able to give. You can choose to make those gifts your opportunity to feel the abundance that is flowing to you and through you—or to pinch off that abundance by giving your attention to some standard of self worth that you believe you have failed to meet. It is the difference between greed and gratitude, between envy and appreciation, between enjoyment and discouragement, between connection with Source and disconnection . . . and in this as in all matters pertaining to your experience of well being . . . it is entirely up to you.

At some point along the way to this message I remembered a song I sang in church when I was a child: “Count your blessings, name them one by one . . . “ When it’s blessings I’m counting, the blessings just seem to get bigger and bigger, but when I start counting bills and coins, for some reason, there seems to be an opposite effect.

I have an abundance of generous and caring people in my life. A reminder not only to value them, but to value the me that they’re appreciating, feels like a path to prosperity that is worth every step I can take. It is both humbling and exalting and most important, it leaves me, for the moment, feeling richly and gratefully complete.

The Trouble With Conditions

Do you ever feel like no matter how much you try . . . no matter how faithfully you strive to believe in whatever it is you’re trying to believe in . . . no matter how diligently you follow whatever rules you hold to be true about the way to shape your life into something that you love . . . that you still come up short?

Do you ever feel like no matter what you do, no matter how much you practice what you’ve learned, no matter how thoughtfully or hopefully or earnestly you go about trying to create a reality that pleases you. . .. that sometimes things just don’t work out the way you want. . . that sometimes . . . some aspect of where you are or what’s going on just sucks—and nothing you do really seems to do much to change it?

I’d like to say I never hit those kinds of lows, that my positive approach is as bulletproof as Superman’s chest, that no pothole in the road no matter how deep or wide can cause me to veer off course, that no stretch of stormy weather can wash out my sunny disposition . . . but that would be your basic load of crap.

Sometimes I don’t get it. Sometimes all I can feel is doubt or discouragement or frustration. Sometimes no matter what I’ve heard from “Them” or what I believe at my core or what I’ve seen or experienced as evidence in the past . . . .I feel like I don’t have a clue. Sometimes I don’t feel like I could deliberately create my way out of a paper bag. Sometimes, I stand in the shower and I pound the walls. Sometimes I just stand there and cry. And so I asked . . . why?

When you stand in that place, feeling those feelings of despair or discouragement or frustration, what so often happens is that you misinterpret what those feelings mean. Instead of recognizing the guidance that they are offering to you—powerful signals to you of the way that you have removed yourself, intentionally or not, from well being—you interpret them as indicators of failure on the part of the Universe to deliver to you what you want . . . or failure on your part to receive from the Universe what you have asked for. You judge yourself for feeling what you feel rather than letting those feelings show you the way back to what you always know on some level—that well being abounds no matter what conditions you are observing or participating in.

Many times what leaves you feeling so bad in the first place is the way that your desires often become the conditions that you try to impose upon well being. You decide that you want something or don’t want something, which is a good thing because that desire is what summons life force energy through you and moves you forward in the direction of your own becoming, your own expansion. But then your tendency is also to decide that well being must be contingent upon the receiving of that desire. You essentially say to yourself, “My joy depends upon getting what I want or changing what I want to change. . . “ You essentially make well being contingent upon your timeline for the fuifillment of
that desire for yourself.

What we keep wanting you to understand is how backwards that approach is. We keep wanting you to understand that well being abounds apart from all conditions, that joy is moving in a continuous flow all around you all the time and that when you make your joy contingent upon any circumstance or any situation or any change you are seeking then you are actually moving yourself out of that flow, out of that stream of well being.

When you make your joy conditional, when you say to yourself, I will only be happy if or I will only be happy when . . . then you are beginning to separate yourself from who you really are and what you really know . . . And Source cannot join you in that thought or that belief. Source knows---and the part of you that is connected to Source knows—that well being flows no matter what . . . that nothing you want or don’t want can disrupt or disturb that flow no matter how convinced you may be that your happiness depends upon it . . . that the only way you can feel desperation or discouragement or frustration or fear is for you to decide that without this condition or that condition changing, well being is not available to you.

No matter how upset you are. No matter how distressed or lonely or discouraged or abandoned you feel . . . Source is always waiting for you to remember the joy that never stops flowing . . . the joy that is never contingent upon any circumstance or situation. Source is always waiting for you to remember that nothing you want or don’t want, nothing that has come to you or not come to you, nothing going on or not going on . . . can ever separate you from that joy unless you choose to believe that it can only flow to the extent that those conditions are met.

So no matter how bad you are feeling, it is okay to feel it. Source never blames or judges or condemns or punishes you for your rage or your despair or your worry—only you do that. Source always waits for you to remember that all is well no matter what you are observing, no matter how long you have been waiting for something to improve, and no matter how much you persist in your focus upon what is lacking.

Source waits for you to turn around and see who You really are . . . see the perfection you are part of . . . see that nothing you feel you lack changes the abundance that is available, even if where you’re standing, all you can feel is the frustration of not yet receiving it.

Notice your feelings. Pay attention to what they are telling you. Allow yourself to feel what you feel but with the understanding that those bad feelings are always your guidance to turn around . . . to see yourself the way You really are . . . to see All That Is in all the perfection that it is . . . to see that nothing you think you need to be happy is more important than being as happy as you can possibly be wherever you are.

I hear it. I even kinda sorta comprehend it. I know there’s something deeply true in it. I really really want to swallow it . . . but for now all I can promise to do is chew on it . . . and get back to you.

Sometimes that’s just the best any of us can do. And for now, that’s as close to complete as it’s going to get.

Feeling Your Way: Connection Before Content

On my ever-expanding list of things to ask The Shower Team, at or near the top lately has been a question about why it seems so much easier to feel bad or to pick the worst feeling thoughts out of the available lineup. Of all the thoughts that are available to me at any time, in any situation, why is it that the scarier or more frustrating or depressing ones always seem to be the ones jumping up and down and screaming, “Pick me, pick me!”

The difficulty or challenge you are experiencing in your efforts to direct your thoughts is partly a result of your approaching the creating of your reality by trying to think your way through it. We would much rather see you ‘feeling’ your way because it is so much easier and so much simpler to attend to your feelings that it is to try to monitor or control your thinking.

And although it is true that we encourage you to practice directing your thoughts, the sole purpose of that is to move you in the direction of something that feels better, for it is in that shift to a better feeling thought that you find relief—and it is in that relief that you relax back into a receiving mode where your desires can flow more freely into your experience.

Notice what you are feeling more than you notice what you are thinking. When you stop in the middle of something that feels bad, ask yourself, “What would ‘feel’ better than this? And let that be the thought that leads you in a more a soothing or softer or sweet direction.

In reality, it is the feeling that accompanies your thoughts that determines the extent to which you are a match to your desires, not the substance or specifics of your thoughts. Another way to look at this would be to go for connection before content. When you are feeling good, when you are relaxed, when you are joyful, when you are playful, when you are eager or exhilarated, when you are content or when you are excited about the possibilities, when you are feeling appreciation or love . . . in those moments you are connected to Source. And it really does not matter what specific thoughts are creating that connection.

By the same token, when you are worried, when you afraid, when you are angry or frustrated, when you are depressed or desperate or doubtful, you are disconnected from Source, and the specific thoughts taking and holding you in that place of disconnection do not matter except as you continue to practice them, you continue to hold yourself in that disconnected place.

So in that moment of awareness that your emotional guidance gives you where you can tell you are disconnected from Source by your feelings of fear or doubt or frustration, ask yourself, “What could I be thinking about where I stand that would feel better than this?” Or “What can I do that would feel better than this?” Or “What can I remember that would feel better than this?”

It is not the means but the end that matters, and the end that you want is the end that feels like connection, that feels like relief, that feels like you relaxing back into remembering who You really are and the well being that is always flowing.

You can—and we strongly encourage you to—make this process as simple as possible. Make the way you feel the most important thing to you, rather than trying to track and monitor and police the thousands and thousands of thoughts that you think every day. You never stay in a place of disconnection when you give your focus to something that feels better to you. Your feelings will always—always—lead you in the direction of your connection to Source, and always show you which way that is.

Lose the struggle to think your way to where you want to be, and instead, feel your way to the flow that will always carry you there.

I was starting to worry that They were going to burst into singing “Feelings . . . nothing more than feelings . . . “

Even though I like to think of myself as a “feeler” I confess I still have trouble wrapping my head around these ideas sometimes—which I guess, pretty sums up the problem. I seem to think with my heart and feel with my head, so I guess it’s no wonder I don’t always pick the best thoughts off the bush.

But as with fine art: I know what I like when I see it . . . I know a good piece of fruit when I bite into it . . . and I know a better thought when I feel it. Maybe that’s really the point—to keep reaching for the riper fruit . . . . to look past the attention-grabbing bad thoughts jumping up and down at the front of the line, and to see the quieter, clearer, better looking, better feeling thought in the back.

It’s a process I am still learning . . . but even that feels better to think about than many of the alternatives. I can’t think of a time when feeling better would not be the best idea, and since it’s the best idea I’ve come up with for the moment, I will keep it close by, and let myself feel, for the moment, complete.