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PUPOSE, JOY AND POSITIVES

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INNER PEACE

“Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.” (St. Frances de Sales)

This week begins my favorite season: Advent. Yes, I love Christmas with the beauty of the decorations and lights, the traditions, the family……. oh, and also the special foods! But my favorite part of this season is the preparation time, lighting the four candles of Advent, waiting for, and knowing WHO it is we celebrate on Christmas…..the birth of Jesus. The four themes of Advent represented with the candles are: hope, peace, love and joy.

Each year I try to find new ways to use my preparation time. This year I came across a quote from Bishop Robert Barron: “your being increases in the measure that you give it away”. I decided this would be a nice way for me to travel on my journey this Advent. As much as I can, I look for opportunities to ‘give’ of myself to others, family, friends, acquaintances and even those I do not know. It will be my time, my listening ear, my intentional special prayer, my help, my attention, maybe even a small gift. I know I won’t find opportunities every day, but I will find them many times during this season I am sure. This will be my calming and quieting my spirit.

PJP

PURPOSE, JOY AND POSITIVES

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CHOOSING GRATITUDE:

Just as the sun sets in this simple serene last moment of the day, we can chose how we begin and end our day. As I have written about before in my blog, for a very long time, I have chosen to begin each day by vocally saying my ‘gratitudes’ and prayer. Recently, I read about being grateful in advance for those things/people who will cross our paths the next day. I had to stop and think about that and decide if this was something I wanted to incorporate at the end of my day. The answer was YES, and so I have as I wrap up my day, thinking about tomorrow.

Choosing to be grateful is a conscious decision and can be a way to turn a negative challenge for us into a life giving gratitude, an intentional quest to find the good in an otherwise difficult situation. This is not easy!!! I repeat, this is not easy. I think it requires adjusting our mindset on what is really important, given any situation. There will always be difficulties, tragedies, crisis, and you name it because that is life! Yep, it happens doesn’t it?? Sometimes, it even feels like a tsunami! I don’t want to trivialize switching the mindset; maybe it is more like baby steps on finding that path of gratitude when the tsunami hits. Baby steps are positive and move us in the right direction. Our first step is to make the choice, the choice to find some part of the pain/loss/challenge that we are so grateful for that we know if it had not been a part of our lives, we would have missed the gift.

May you each feel the tender warmth of a grateful heart today, tomorrow and always.

PJP

PURPOSE, JOY AND POSITIVES

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FUNDAMENTAL HAPPINESS:

We all long for happiness at our core, especially during these trying times of 2020, with its challenges and so much being out of our control. At times, true happiness can seem so elusive and just out of reach. In other life chapters, happiness feels like it exudes from our being. Happiness means different things to each person in their own unique understanding of it. I recently listened to a podcast given by Dominick Albano titled “Fundamental Theory of Happiness”. Here are the four fundamentals of happiness he discusses.

First, when we become dissatisfied with things, think about making some sort of small sacrifice each day. For example, pass on the second cup of coffee, skip dessert, read something positive instead of watching the movie, call an old friend, reach out to help someone.

Second, deepen your perception by having a daily time of silence…..no Alexa playing, TV going, podcast cuing up, phone ringing, washer going……complete silence. Several years ago, I began the new habit of the first 15-30 minutes of my day being devoted to just sitting in silence, either outside or in my resting space. It really does change your perception as you tune in to your inner most thoughts.

Albano’s third point is called the Permanent Principle. Think of something that has to do with your purpose and how permanent that is in your life. He states that the more permanent something is, the more it relates to your purpose.

Finally, the fourth point is to live with purpose and ON PURPOSE. Something he discusses here is having a daily affirmation. The action he speaks of connected to this point is to be generous with love, starting with Our Lord, others and ourselves.

Where are you on your personal happiness continuum in this chapter of your life? Do you want to move the mark to the right? How can you do that?

Wishing you each HAPPINESS!

PJP

PURPOSE, JOY AND POSITIVES

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WISDOM:

A few weeks ago at Mass one of the readings was about Solomon’s answer when the Lord asked him what he could give him. What did Solomon want from the Lord? Solomon asked Him for “a listening heart to judge your people and to distinguish between good and evil”(1 Kings 3: 9). Simply, Solomon did not ask for wealth, power, or a long life. No he asked for wisdom. This greatly pleased the Lord.

The homily that followed and my thoughts about applying it to my own life gave me pause for reflection. First, I had to understand that by asking for wisdom, all the other things Solomon needed would be provided for because he had the gift of wisdom and could discern well. He would want for nothing, absolutely nothing. Second, I began to think about how to revise my own prayer requests. It has been enlightening for me.

My prayers and meditations usually start with gratitudes, a daily reading from a scripture reflection, specific prayers for others in my life, and then prayer requests. For some time, I have been requesting resolution to a major issue in my life; for the Lord to ‘fix it’, along with other requests for healing and solutions to life’s general dilemmas. Same requests, done in pretty much the same verse daily. However, my light bulb moment while driving one day the following week after this Mass and homily, presented itself. MAYBE I AM REQUESTING THE WRONG THINGS! Yes, I should be asking for wisdom and wisdom alone.

Thus, I have changed the way I end my prayer time and I ask only for wisdom. I believe that with wisdom, I will be shown what action I personally need to take in finding solutions and healing. I also know that having wisdom will lead me to the right choices, positive actions for others put in my life, and a greater purpose.

May the gift of wisdom be your guide on this journey.

PJP

PURPOSE, JOY AND POSITIVES

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Capable of Becoming

“You are not what has happened to you. You are not what you have accomplished. You are not even who you are today or who you have become so far. You are who and what you are still capable of becoming.” (Matthew Kelly, I Heard God Laugh).

I read this in my morning meditations the other day and I found myself filled with inspiration. I know you have read other posts in which I have talked about the past………letting it be, not dwelling on it, learning from it, and keep moving forward. I have also talked about living in today and practicing intentional living in the moment. Albeit, even though our lives are filled with little and big accomplishments, it is exciting to know and believe there is more to come! However, I believe that may incorporate the past and the present: choosing what you want to use from your past, capitalizing on your current situation, and developing/becoming more.

The clematis above has a past of questionable growth…..I almost removed it because I did not think it was going to grow. Capitalizing on a little fertilizer, sun, rain, time and patience, the plant took off. Today, it has become ‘more’ as it has beautiful purple flowers on it and several buds of new growth.

Here are some questions to spur moments of ‘capable becoming’:

  1. Dream and brain storm……take money out of the picture and ask yourself ‘what would I like to do if I didn’t have to rely on X amount of dollars’? Think big, then adjust the money part.
  2. Make a list of the five most important things that you enjoy, then prioritize them.
  3. Walk and pick one of the things listed in # 2 to talk to your self about. Let the thoughts flow; non are eliminated during this exercise.
  4. From these thoughts, pick a doable idea and commit to writing it on a post it note; place it where you will see it every day.
  5. Mark the day on the calendar with a large green circle (for go for it) that you commit to the first step of implementing your idea.
  6. At the end of your week of implementing, celebrate and share your ‘capable becoming’ with someone, maybe also journal about it.

This practice can be enlightening when during your brainstorming a really new and great thought appears, action is taken and flowers start to bloom. Happy becoming!

PJP

PURPOSE, JOY AND POSITIVES

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SOME THINGS ARE FOREVER…SOME THINGS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE:

As you can note from one of my flower garden pictures, some are perennials and others are annuals. Perennials are forever (at least we plan that they will be), and annuals go away, but you can replace them next year. So be it, as it is in life.

Turning points in our lives are so salient and how we end and start new chapters is just as salient. Moments that we will never forget, like a ‘perennial’. Yet some, we work at forgetting and reach that level of hope that we will never have to experience them again, maybe replacing them with new ‘annuals’.  Then we glance over our shoulder, move on, and start writing the new chapter, scripting new paths and building our perennials, wanting to get it ‘right’ this time.

However, we learn from annuals…….how much sun and water, how deep to plant, or when in the season to let them go and put something more hardy in its place. So true also about things in life; we have to let go, accept, and build anew. It takes wisdom to know which things, their level of positive or negative, and when to accept ‘it is not something that was supposed to be’. Then purposefully move on, with the operative word being purposefully. That is our challenge whether it be regarding a job, a relationship, an illness, a past hurt, a personal behavior or a way of thinking.

Two of my favorite quotes:  John F. Kennedy: “Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.”

Helen Keller: “True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity  to a worthy purpose.”

PJP

PURPOSE, JOY AND POSITIVES

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A lighthouse near the banks of the shore or at sea is the guiding light to bring ships to safe harbor, amidst rushing waters, reefs, or other dangers that are in the path of safety. Before lighthouses, our ancestors built fires high up on the hills to guide the ships, warning of dangers, guiding those at sea.

So it is with fathers or the important people in our lives whose role it is to be our father figure. Sometimes, they don’t show up when we are born, but may present themselves later in our lives, biological fathers or maybe not.  Sometimes, the going may be rough until that father figure appears. Sometimes, they may disappoint us deeply, but they are still our father. We may have to grow to the age of being able to forgive.

These figures are the guiding light to help us on our life path, to warn us of dangers, to show us a safer road, to help us avoid the pitfalls that could crush us, to hold us up when we fall. They can be our superhero’s one day and the next week the strictest person of discipline we have ever encountered. One day we may admire them as our role model and the next week we might wish we had our best friend’s father. Through it all, the one we call ‘father’ in our life is human and will make mistakes; yet, he means only the best for us and will go above and beyond to bring PURPOSE, JOY and POSITIVES into our lives. He is only a man, with his own limitations and skills. And sometimes, it takes us a long long time before we can acknowledge his  role in our lives……maybe not until one day when we become a father.

To each of you who are fathers, father figures, step fathers, grandfathers, foster fathers: May you have a wonderful day of celebrating you, counting your blessings and knowing that you are appreciated and loved. As a father, you may never know how many children you influence, just by your actions and your commitments. You may never know how many lives you touch.

This quote reflects my father. “My father didn’t tell me how to live: he lived, and let me watch him do it”  (Clarence B. Kelland).

 

PURPOSE, JOY AND POSITIVES

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TODAY FIND JOY…….

In these days of uncertainty, sheltering at home, and the unusual ways we are spending our days, I often find myself searching.
My heart and mind are searching for understanding, for real truth, for comfort, and for something deep inside I can’t put a name to. I don’t know what it is, but I can sense it and feel it.

This morning in one of my prayer group meditations, this attachment was waiting for me. As listened, it brought tears to my eyes but some sense of joy to my heart. I share it with you and hope that you will also feel a sense of calm and joy.

PURPOSE, JOY AND POSITIVES

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TODAY IS TODAY:

It is one rainy, sunless, damp unsettling day with little motivation in my heart! That was my sentiment at eight o’clock, noon, and I find it still lurking around the corner of my day at four o’clock. So, I decided to write and share.

First, looking at the picture of a plaque my sister gave me years ago, I see that this day was supposed to be just like this. It could be no other way.  Last week, I was quite productive in organizing, accomplishing and re-settling in my home, a contented feeling most of the week. Maybe then I  needed to experience this type of day to more fully appreciate the better days/weeks. So, today is today and that does not mean it will be more of the same tomorrow. I can chose and orchestrate tomorrow!

Second, this is just plain a very weird time in life with experiences that are new to most of us, unless you are in your nineties and survived WW II.  If you are in that group and are reading my blog, I congratulate and thank you for your contributions during that unbelievable period of history. My father, no longer here on earth, was a WW II survivor, but he never talked about most of his experiences. As I have become more interested in that time period by reading about it and watching films, I am sure my father held much closely in his heart.

Those things being said, I want to share with you a quote that was in one of my emails the other day from a company I have used. The quote is from Jean Paul Sartre who lived during the WW II period in Paris, a French philosopher. He said: “Look back, look forth, look close, there may be more prosperous times, more intelligent times, more spiritual times, more magical times, and more happy times, but this one, this small moment in the history of the universe, this is ours. And let’s do everything with it. Everything.”

This pandemic is in our time; we are living it; we are constrained by it; some days we are consumed by the news of it; we are learning from it; we are praying for an end to it; we are pinning our faith on better times. This too will become part of history, part of the fabric of our lives; we do not have a choice in that matter. But we can do ‘everything’ with it today and tomorrow. What is your ‘everything’ you will do?

PJP

PURPOSE, JOY AND POSITIVES

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LONELY OR ALONE: YOU CAN CHOSE

In the last few months due to the pandemic,  I am sure we have all experienced a little bit of both the above. We are alone much of the time as we social distance and at times this may induce the feeling of being lonely. During this time, it is so important to take good care of not only our physical, but also our emotional and spiritual health.

When things in life change so rapidly and so counter to the life we knew and understood how to navigate, it can be overwhelming. Yes, overwhelming to the point that we really have to work at lifting our spirits, even if we are by nature a positive, joy filled  person. It is important to take those feelings, bless them for what they are (they are real),  let  them simmer in our minds, and then give way to a different place in our thinking/feeling. As with most feelings brought about by unwelcome changes, they will be temporary. Temporary can be defined on a time line differently by everyone. But we do make our own ‘temporary’. We get to chose.

As I have walked this journey in my own life, I know that I can still thank the Lord every morning and night for the gifts and the graces I have been given, have not lost, and wish to pass on to others. Maybe it is just a phone call, a long overdue handwritten note, a ‘hello’ text, the sending of a small gift or dropping something at a friend’s front door that I can do today. I have always found that when I do things for others, my own emotional being  feels better.

May you chose to use your alone or lonely to lift someone else up, especially now during this unprecedented journey we all are living.

PJP