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“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. ~ Albert Einstein
“Become the Miracle You Seek” from Tonya Marie
January 26, 2012
I came across Einstein’s quote above in Mark Nepo’s January 24th entry in The Book of Awakenings.
Confession: I read it this morning (1/26) so … yes, I’m a little behind. 
But since I believe wherever I am that is where I’m supposed to be, I guess my morning meditation time was meant to include this passage and to inspire this lesson.
Mark’s entry titled “Miracle Thinking” got me thinking about … well … miracles. It also challenged me to reflect on our role in creating a life experience filled with the vast richness of wonderment in every moment.
Einstein’s quote is a remix of the age-old question: whether the glass is half full or half empty. The bottom line is that the “glass half full” concept, Einstein’s quote and Mark’s reflection, all make the point that the lens through which we see life has a direct impact on how we experience life.
Imagine seeing everything, and I mean everything as the pure miracle it is. From the dust on the TV to the birth of a baby. From the mundane chores of folding clothes or washing dishes to winning the lottery. From the painful loss of a relationship to the first bud break of an exotic flower in the Amazon that you never even lay eyes on. An outlook like that changes how we move in the world; how we greet each other, how we work, play, relate, commune, eat, rest … and love.
“And how many times, once trained in self-sacrifice, do we have the opposite conversation with ourselves; our passion for life saying yes, yes, yes, and our practical guardedness saying, don’t be foolish, be realistic, don’t leave yourself unprotected. But long enough on the journey, and we come to realize an even deeper aspect of all this: that those who truly love us will never ask us to be other than we are.” ~ Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
I was first introduced to Mark Nepo’s soul-inspiring book through an interview on Oprah’s Soul Series on XM Radio. I saw the interview recently on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday. And after hearing the interview replay on XM I decided to buy The Book of Awakening and buy copies for others as well (just like Oprah did!). She was right. This gem is not the type of light you hide under a bowl. It’s meant to shine for all. It’s the type of wisdom you receive and then share.
Mark reminds me that people who matter not only don’t care that I am not “perfect” by some external measure, they encourage me and stand with me in being perfectly ME. People who matter don’t spend a lifetime or any time trying to change me into something I am not. They encourage, support and love me toward the fulfillment of my divine calling; who it is I was placed on this earth to be. Not some projection of perfection or the dream or expectations of someone else fulfilled through me, but the “me” that shines when I am living, loving and being … unapologetically and on “purpose”.
So the bottom line is …
“people who mind don’t matter and people who matter don’t mind.”
Instead of always foregoing what’s in your best to meet the expectations of others for what you should have, do or be, decide for yourself. When people ask you to be something you are not, it means they don’t know you. Not really. Either they have not taken the time to know you or you haven’t allowed them in close enough to know the real you.
Rather than pleasing others for their sakes, please your self for your own sake. Your life is the only life you actually have control over so be a good steward. When you say yes, mean yes. When you say no, mean no. Align your thoughts, decisions, actions with the frequency and cadence of your own heart beat.
When your heart sings you become more of your self, the self God intends for you to be.
Credit: NASA Web site
On Super Soul Sunday (OWN) this morning Oprah Winfrey’s Soul Series interview of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor re-aired. During the interview she described her stroke experience and the profound awareness she learned in the process.The story is beautifully chronicled in her book A Stroke of Insight.
Essentially she had a massive hemorrhage in the left hemisphere of her brain, the side that controls thought, learning, rote functions and all of the egoic thoughts with which we ordinarily identify. What remained was the intuitive, emotional, sensory “big picture” functioning of the right hemisphere of her brain. [more info on how the brain works]
She was aware that she was alive and connected; both a part of and wholly made of a loving, cooperative system of organisms working together for her good, her peace, her existence.
In fact, she was reborn! She had to re-learn a “self” because the “37-year old doctor and daughter self” she was “pre-stroke” had passed away in a mere 4-hour time span and no longer existed. Why and how? As a result of the stroke she lost her emotional baggage, memories of hurts, slights, pains, history, education and her “story” of who she was seen through the lens of a lifetime of events and relationships. She got a fresh start; she was indeed reborn again. Read the rest of this entry »
