Take Responsibility

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

It’s time we all took responsibility for our actions. It time to stop dodging behind the words and actions of others. Stop hiding behind the illusion that our lives are more important than anyone else’s. It’s not. 

The laws of nature apply to everyone equally. There aren’t special circumstances for someone because they seem to have everything fall into their laps or they’re better or worse off than you. Nature doesn’t have discretion, it can’t choose one thing over another, it is bound by scientific law. It doesn’t have volition. 

Nature is a producer, it gives to whatever it is asked to give. We can’t plant an oak tree and have a redwood sprout. That would be against all the laws of nature. We can’t plant a tomato plant and dictate to nature how many branches, leaves, or tomatoes it’s going to produce, that’s nature’s job. Our part was planting the tomato seed. 

When we plant a calla lily, the soil, water, and sun conspire with the laws of nature to help that calla lily grow to its full potential. The only thing it is subject to is its environment--other than that the calla lily is bound by its truth. 

Same for all living things, including human beings. We are bound by the laws of nature. We are subject to our environment, and we will produce exactly what the laws of nature dictate. And if our environment isn’t healthy, everything that is conspiring for our highest and best good will produce the best of what it can in our unhealthy environment. And when I speak of environment, it isn’t limited to the physical. Our environment also includes our minds. 

We are thinking, independent, viable, beings with the capacity to make decisions based beyond our intuition. We aren’t subject to instinct, (although there are times instinct will rule over volition). 

We were born to make manifest the magnificence of our lives. If we never choose to take responsibility for our actions, we will live our entire lives subject to our environment. This is where we can use the laws of nature to create our heaven or hell. 

When we make the decision to rise to the occasion instead of kneeling to the condition, we put into motion the law of cause and effect and the law of nature must obey. Nature can’t play favorites, it doesn’t look at a situation with a consciousness, that’s a human trait. Just think of nature as the, yes man, it can only produce what is asked of it. It can't decide to help one person and neglect another. Nature works for all in the same way.

Our actions dictate our experiences, and our thinking creates the perfect soil to plant our seeds of love or hate, compassion or contempt, prosperity or poverty, success or failure, and our happiness or sadness. Truthfully, the only thing we can control is our reaction to the outcome. Other than that, we can’t control how others react, we can’t stop the world from suffering, and we can’t continue blaming someone else for our life and expect it to change. We want our lives to change, we have to look within and see where we keep stumbling. What old belief or idea that keeps us bound to the same crappy experiences. 

We have to dive deep into the uncomfortable, find that old crappy belief and uproot it. Thrust our hands into the soil of our lives, let the dirt get under our fingernails while we discover if the soil in our consciousness is the right type. If it isn’t, we must go out and get the right soil. Nobody is going to bring it to us, we have to work for what we want. PERIOD. Everyone is subject to the same laws. 

Maybe you’ll find a book that leads you to you, catch a lecture that empowers you, surround yourself with positive people who lift you up. Let go of those ideas that don’t serve your highest and best good, anymore. 

Listen, nobody can save you, you have to be the one to decide to rise up. You must determine if you’re done or not. Nobody can fix you. They can show you, they can give you the tools, but it’s up to you to build a better life or not. It’s an inside job, a change of consciousness, a makeover of your thinking, and a lot of work. 

Life is never stagnant, you can’t learn something new then think that you’ll master it because you did it once. You have to keep working on it, honing your skills, practice it until it becomes automatic, and even then, you will have to keep doing it so you don’t get rusty. Same with your thinking, same with your life--you must keep changing your consciousness so you can create a better life for yourself. Even if your life appears perfect, you must continue to work at that appeared perfection. 

So how do we do it?

It’s individual for each of us, but one thing I know for sure is to start seeing the positive in the world, focus on the good, let the rest go. Stop embracing the negative in the world, stop feeding the beast of judgment, hate, anger, and indifference. Be honest, and embrace your grace. Take responsibility for your actions and life. 

If you messed up, stand up admit it, and move beyond it. You don’t have to become yesterday’s mistakes by admitting them, and sure, you might be uncomfortable for some time, but in the long run, you will strengthen your consciousness and by strengthening your consciousness you’ll begin to see your life change for the better. You’ll have deeper more quality relationships, and you’ll experience your inner truth. You’ll be reminded every day that you are God’s greatest gift to this world. Because you are! You are the miracle the universe produced. A million to one miracle. 

Take today into your heart, sit silently for a couple of minutes and see what comes to the surface, that will be the first thing to look at and decide if this idea is serving your highest and best good or enslaving you to a life of discontent and pain. If it isn’t serving your highest and best good, come up with the opposite and start thinking upon that. You’ll be surprised how fast your mind can replace a negative condition with a positive way of life. 

Soon you'll discover that beneath what appears isn't what is. You are you, and you are enough, it's time to start believing in yourself again! 

With LOVE and COMPASSION, 
Gretchen de la O

STOP TALKING ... START LISTENING ... AND REPEAT AFTER ME!

We all face obstacles, moments where we wonder, "How am I going to survive this?"

We struggle to find out why, we fight for answers, and sometimes we just decide to give up. We come from the "flight or fight" mentality because it's all we know.

We all have those experiences where we either come out swinging or we bury our heads in the sands of denial. It's human nature, it's the way we've been conditioned.

It's hard to face criticism for things we wish would go away. It's hard to hear the truth when we want it to be false. And a lot of us become fatalists when we let our minds wonder into the future that hasn't even happened yet. That's right, we project an outcome before the event even takes place.

Why?

Why??

and

Why???

Because it's easier to kneel to the condition than to rise to the occasion. WE THINK, it's easier to expect pain instead of healing, chaos instead of peace, poverty instead of prosperity, failure instead of success.

We let the world's conditions dictate our outcome.

We are not the world's conditions, We are not our neighbor's story.

Our lives aren't written in permanent ink!

We are ALWAYS changing, events and experiences are never the same, and just because history has dictated certain outcomes in other people's experiences, doesn't mean that's the end-all-be-all story of our lives!!

People bend perceptions and expectations all the time. Things evolve and change because we do. Technology changes and we discover new and inventive ways to create, produce, and execute better more efficient ways of doing things.

There are so many moments in this life where we bend perceptions and make them a reality. Where facts that we thought were law become the stepping stones to pushing precedence and limited thinking.  That's right, just because a precedence has been set doesn't mean that's the be-all-end-all. It never is.

It's time we stop saying we've lost the race before it's even started. Stop looking at the hare and thinking because it has long strong legs it's going to win the race. <---we already="" how="" know="" out.="" span="" story="" that="" turned="">

We aren't limited by what has happened. We aren't the outcome of what appears to be. We are exactly what we decide we are going to be. It's time to let go of what the world thinks we are and start embracing the Truth of who we are!

First Person POV Statement....

(read aloud if you need to)

**************************

I am a mighty moving force. I deserve all the good, all the grace, and all the love waiting on my discovery. I am a gift living in the present. I am the miracle the universe produced and keeps producing with every breath I take.

I let go of my old ideas and embrace my new thinking today! I release the fear, guilt, pain, shame, and anger that doesn't serve who I am.

Today I let love, peace, health, abundance, compassion, happiness, gratitude, and grace fill my cup until it's running over. Today I recognize that I am a blessing not only in my life but in the lives of everyone I come in contact.

The goodness within me greets the goodness within everyone I interact with today.

I am worthy of living a positive life.

I am worthy.

*****************

You are worthy! You are the biggest gift to this world, no matter your past mistakes or accomplishments.

Today, the world is blessed to have you in it! Remember that.

With LOVE and COMPASSION,

Gretchen.

Take Your Life By the Horns

Your strength doesn't rest in an outcome, or a result, rather your strength resides in the power of your decision to do something.

You hold the key to your own happiness, nobody or nothing has the authority to take your power of decision away. We often find comfort in blaming others for the results in our lives. It's so much easier to look outside of ourselves for how f*cked up our lives are.

We walk around casting blame for what's so wrong in our lives and yet, when something goes right, we find it easy to look within. Take credit for the good and blame others for the bad. Isn't it time to discover that the outcome of our lives is measured by the responsibility we take for it?

If one person ... ONE person can prove to rise above the disharmony and discontent in their lives, then it shows that any one of us can. It's in the decision to do something. People that over come horrific events in their lives do so by changing their way of thinking. They don't blame past pain for where they are in their lives. They move beyond the pain, suffering and anger into a state of consciousness soaked in forgiveness, peace and love.

Everyone has been a victimized in this life. I'm not trivializing the event that has caused you so much pain. TRUST ME, I know what it feels like to suffer at the hands of someone else. But if we don't find our inner strength through forgiveness, through empowering ourselves, through taking responsibility for how we act NOW, we will live out the rest of our lives tortured by events that can never be changed. If we keep residing in our painful past, how can we embrace a greater future?

Events of your past shape who you are, I'm not one to argue that. I'm also aware that in order to overcome the tragedies in your life you have to work through your anger, fear, guilt, shame and doubt. Some people have more work than others, that I will not discount, nobody can tell you how to grieve or heal. All I'm saying is once you decide to move beyond the pain, you find there is an entire life waiting for your discovery of it. A life filled with love, peace, harmony and compassion.

Sure, you'll have days where you're mentally stronger than other days. You'll have setbacks and spring-forwards, we are human. However, as you learn to look within for your answers, look within for your strength and power, you'll see that blaming others, or looking to others to make you happy is a dead-end road.

YOU are MAGNIFICENT, you are the result of a miracle made manifest! You were created out of the goodness and grace of a Infinite Power seeking to know life. In seeking to experience life, this Infinite Power, (call it what you feel comfortable calling it), gave you volition, emotions and consciousness. You're equipped with everything you need to be empowered in your own life. It starts by recognizing that you are a mighty moving force that is worthy of love, peace, forgiveness and a limitless abundance of goodness.

I'll be the first to tell you, it isn't the easiest thing breaking the bricks which have created the walls that imprison you. It isn't fun working through your past, it's uncomfortable, tiring, icky, painful and downright debilitating at times, BUT when you decide to take back your life, eventually there will be more good days than bad, more moments of triumph instead of defeat. Take the time you need, a little each day is better than trying too much at once and giving up.

I'll leave you with this, "You can't fix a problem using the same consciousness that created it." Albert Einstein.

Keep changing the way you've been thinking about or approaching a problem, and eventually you will find a solution.

May LOVE and PEACE by yours today.

Love,

Gretchen

Do We Really Need Will Power?

Where there's a will there's a way. Well, if there's a way, where will it take me? 

Too often we think we have to believe in this elusive power that some how bubbles up within us when we finally reach the end of our rope. A power that magically show's up because we've FINALLY gained the "will" to make it happen. We dig deep to find this infamous "will power" that's lost or gone, or nonexistent until we're desperate enough to find it. We don't have to search outside of ourselves or plunge into the depth of despair to find that thing called will power. We've always had it, and it never runs out!

Within you, at all times, whether you recognize it or not, you have access to an infinite power that's always residing in your soul. At the center of who you are, at the level of your understanding, there is greatness, an energy, a power that is willing to work for you 24/7. You don't have to coerce it, bargain for it, or manipulate your place in this world to get it. You don't have to do anything of the sort, because this power is with you constantly and never runs out! 

See, we're so busy believing in our limitation, that we miss the truth about who we truly are! We're limitless, we're plenty-filled, we're the light that dissipates the dark. We're the manifestation of the greatest gift of all ... LIFE! Never forget, we give to the world, exactly what we believe we're worth. Too often we're caught up in the belief that we don't have the will power, or we can't find a way to make it work, so we start believing we are too old to start, too set in our ways, too unlucky, too poor, too sick, too unhappy, too fat. blah, blah, blah.

STOP.DOING.THIS.TO.YOURSELF! 

You're so important to your world. You're the expression of love, you have a vital role in this thing called life! You don't have to search for this power, because it is right where you are. It isn't misplaced or lost, nobody stole it from you, or hid it away. It's that still small voice that rings truth into your head, it's the pride you feel when you did something amazing, it's that energy swirling in your belly when you look back at what you've done and see progress, it's the bigger than life thinking, the unconditional love you've shared, it's you, my friend. You don't need Will, or Tom, or Harry, or even Dick!

You don't need to believe or rely upon any power outside of yourself. Stop listening to the naysayers of the world or the ones in your head. YOU have the most influential thing in your life, your thoughts! You have within you everything you need to navigate this world. Stop listening to those who want to see you suffer, those who want you to be as miserable as they are! See those people and experiences for what they are, time suckers, energy zappers! If you took a couple of minutes a day, just the time it takes to brush your teeth, and closed your eyes, and said (out loud) one great thing about who you are, and where your power lies, you will see the truth of this thing called will power. It isn't something you fight for or believe doesn't exist; your "will power" is nothing more than your recognition of your inner power you've had all along.
You're the expression of your life. Every morning your feet hit the floor is another day, you have the privilege to find your purpose, dig deep into your soul, and start believing that you're the "will" that makes the way.

I know my posts are lengthy, I know what I'm writing here is a broad stroke with a utopian brush. I totally get that everything isn't so peachy all the time and that my idealistic beliefs are too much for some. But sometimes in order to get the pendulum to move we must pull it to it's highest point possible and let go. Never believe you don't have the ability to pull back on that pendulum and let it go. You have as much right as anyone else to live a dynamic, healthy, loving, prosperous, harmonious, peaceful life. Take a moment today to find a quiet place and just tell yourself, I AM BEAUTIFUL, I AM SUCCESSFUL, I AM THE LIGHT DISSIPATING THE DARK. You say it enough, eventually the naysayers have to believe it ... even the ones in your head!

Thanks for hanging out and reading my ramblings! 

Don't be Limited by Conditional Thinking!

First off let me apologize for being pretty much nonexistent on the blog for the last month. I’ve been taking a class about Ralph Waldo Emerson, Judge Thomas Troward, Dr. Ernest Holmes and Emma Curtis Hopkins that really has stretched and pulled at my spirituality as well as my intellect. It made me really grow in ways that I never knew I could! Yeah, I’ve learned so much more that I get to pour in this blog and some really great ideas I can’t wait to talk about! But let’s get onto the topic I thought was important today…getting caught up in the nets of conditional thinking.

How often do we get caught up in the drag-nets of race consciousness? How many times a day are we affected by other people’s moods? We all have days where we are going along; having a great day until… someone’s bad attitude decides to show up. We could be singing along with the greatest songs that move us to shiver inside, but the minute someone enters our mental space—all the power goes out and we are left sitting in the pitch dark waiting for someone else to turn on the lights of flip on the power breaker. Why is that? Why do we allow other’s follies, moods, shortcomings, or otherwise affect us? It’s because we haven’t learned how to be of the world but not part of it. Now wait a minute…what the heck does that mean? Simply put, it means as we grow in our spiritual consciousness, we begin to learn that conditional thinking of people around us is nothing more than chatter for the fishes. When we learn to let go of other’s negative energy and replace it with love, we inherent the ability to let what others say, just roll off our backs.

You all are familiar with the statement, “It is done unto you as you believe.” If you don’t know that statement, stick around, I tend to state it…a lot.

See, if we are going to live with a conditioned consciousness, our lives we be conditional. We will be affected by the going-ons around us. When it rains we will find fault with nature, when we get in the car, we’ll be pissed at other drivers, when we interact with people, we will experience them in limiting ways. When we decide to be in the world, we will find that every interaction we have with anything can be affected by our negative or limiting ideas. Let’s remember the quote from Einstein, “You can’t fix a problem with the same consciousness that created it.” See we can’t become at peace if we are running around pissed off at people. We can’t be happy if we allow other people to define who we are. We can’t really have prosperity if we keep telling everyone we don’t have any money! 

Thoughts are things. We know this—we know it because we experience the outcome our thoughts all the time. We even claim it, when we say, “I knew that was going to happen.” How many times do we keep chanting a future event we are afraid is going to occur…only to see it happen? “God, I hope I don’t lose my job.” Oh, man, I have a bad feeling about this.” We are ALWAYS claiming our experience. ALWAYS! What we think about today becomes our experiences tomorrow. So why are we mucking it up with limited beliefs or conditional thinking.

Remember, I’ve stated this before…don’t be bound by precedence! Don’t think that just because it’s never happened that it can’t. We have hundreds upon thousands of examples where society wasn’t bound by what was conceivable. If that were the case, women would still be dragged around by their hair and men would still be chasing around mammoths with spears. Just look around and you will see where we have effortlessly leapt over the idea of being bound by precedence; where conditional thinking has crumbed to our evolutionary thoughts. From the discovery of electricity to the invention of the personal computer we haven’t let race consciousness, or the collected thoughts of people, limit us to what has always been.

We as a species have volition, freedom of ideas, thought, and intuition; that’s what keeps us in a forward motion, in a movement towards greater understanding of the power within us. We have a power within us that gives us the capability to move mountains and the only thing stopping us is our idea that we are limited in our abilities to do so. We become conditioned to what has happed as the only truth, whereas, if we truly looked at it, it is nothing more a link to our past. We must live on the highest point of discovery, willing and ready to take a faith-filled leap out into the vastness of our future. Be ready to accept the multitude of greatness coming your way, be willing and open to the harmony and peace permeating your every experience, and be able to see the overflowing abundance of Love in your life, right now! Spend your day in gratitude and forgiveness. See the Love within everyone…and I mean everyone around you.

When we let go of other people’s ideas and form our own thoughts filled with Peace, Love, Harmony, Abundance, and Joy…the world around us changes to what we expect it to be!

Thanks for hanging out and reading my ramblings~

Right Now...Matters.

Do you ever look back at your life and break out in the sweats? You look back at choices you’ve made with your kids, and know you’ve F’d up somewhere? How many times have you woke up at 3am and evaluated your life; letting it replay over and over in your mind like a really bad song you can’t get out of your head?

For some reason, I have this cycle in my life where every couple of weeks I wake up at 3am in a total panic and I keep running over and over in my head scenarios of where I’ve totally screwed up as a parent; thoughts of “If I only” or “Why didn’t I?” Then, I start to worry about the future. Oh, man, don’t get me started about the future.

See, we all believe that we want to do a better job than our parents, and yet, in the back of our minds we keep questioning our outcomes. Should I have done it differently? I should have done this or I should have done that. We should ourselves right out of living in the moment. We keep looking back at what we did, and stress out on something we have no power to change.

Let’s face it, right here and right now…We will never be able to change the past. So why do we try? The only thing we have any control over is this exact moment right now. We keep basing our future on what we experienced in the past, and you know what? It never works because life is subjective. Nobody looks at any given situation the same way. I don’t care what anyone says, we could have a room full of people and something occurs—nobody will tell the same exact story. That’s because we all have our own history stamped and embedded in our minds. It’s the past experiences we cling to so we can draw some form of conclusion for our current state of affairs. We feel the only way to validate our current situation is by comparing it to what has already happened. The problem with that is then we are letting our past dictate our future.

There is absolutely nothing we can do to change the past, so it’s time to stop living in it. What if I said, who cares what we did yesterday, today is a new day? Because guess what? Today, right now, is the first moment of the rest of our lives…What we do right now, is the only thing that truly matters. The past is over, the future isn’t here; it is right now, the present, which we need to see as our gift.

We must stop beating ourselves up for choices we made with our old consciousness and start cheering for the choices we are making with our new consciousness! Right now, we have the choice to live from this moment forward, or keep, hitting the ball and dragging George. It doesn’t do us any good to drag along our past mistakes or doubts. It won’t create the future we want. We want a better future? We must start with living in the NOW, today. Learn from our past but stop inviting it to come along for the ride. Stop letting what we did years ago define who we are today. We are completely different people now.

Thoughts we think today, create the patterns of tomorrow. Think about it, what we focus on today creates our tomorrow. So what are we focusing on; more dread, anger, frustration, and our mistakes? Do we really want that to be who we are and what we bring to the table of our future? Take today each moment at a time. Feel what it’s like to breathe in the only breath of Right Now. Feel what it’s like to be completely present, in the moment. It is the most empowering thing we can do.

Here we go, today, take a moment to talk to someone you’ve never met. Smile at a stranger, hug your children a couple seconds longer, take a moment to stop and really listen to what your loved ones are saying. Be proud of who you are, and what you’ve become. Take this moment, right now, to live the life you’ve dreamed of having. Dare to make right now, the most important moment of your life.

Thanks for hanging out and reading my ramblings.

Picture taken when my son hiked the back country of Yosemite-Aug. 2012

Maybe Someone's Listening...

Waking up at 3 in the morning in a cold sweat on a freezing morning because suddenly the thought of inadequacy, lack, and fear has grabbed hold of my mind really sucks. The idea that every moment is an opportunity to change my thinking while clutching a jagged rock that seems to be crumbling under the subconscious rhetoric filling my head that my faith isn’t enough. Yeah, it’s January.

Why is it, that around this same time every year, I look at the accomplishments of the 12 calendar months prior to this moment and question if what I have now is any better than what I had then? It’s always this point in time that I question if my needs and wants were fulfilled in 2012. And every time I look back at what was I can say is…Absolutely. If I’m expecting the same experience, without changing roller coasters, guess what? I’m going to go on the same ride each time. Sure I can sit in different seats, but the rails my car is riding on is still doing the same dead man’s drop, loop de loop and corkscrew.

So why is it that regret, fear, and self-judgment seem to overcome me at 3 in the morning? Could it be that when I lay myself down to sleep, and slumber in peace, that those unsound, ominous, beastly fears I’ve stuffed way down deep within the dark corners of my undisturbed mind claw their way into the forefront of my thoughts to test me on just how much of a handle I truly have on my life?

When those sleepless minutes hijack the hours of relaxation is there any way to push past the mirage of bullshit my mind decided to create without my permission?

Yeah, well, at least I’m not alone…There are millions of people who raise their heads from the month of December, take a deep breath, and just hope the fan doesn’t stop spinning because of all the shit that’s hit its blades. Why do I live this way? Why do I fall into the impersonal(ness) of resolutions and plant wishes, only to forget to water them? 

How can I better myself when I’m not ready to do the work? How do I decide to stand in line for a new ride?

Life doesn’t have to be so bleak. I don’t have to lose myself in what I thought I wanted to be. There is no shame in looking back and sliding my forearm across my dampened brow because I made it through another year.

Every morning I wake up to another day with a chance. I am given a new opportunity with the rise of the sun and the setting of the moon. My true freedom comes when I don’t squander my life living in guilt, fear, lack, or pain.

I was created in Peace, born in Love, conceived in Joy, reared in Happiness, and given the Abundance of the Universe. It is my birthright to embody these qualities. However, throughout the years of growing up I’ve let the world dictate how I was supposed to live. Now I must weed the garden of my mind, pluck the weeds of inadequacy, lack, pain, and fear and plant the seeds of Love. Dig holes in the rich soil of my thoughts and plant the bulbs of Prosperity, Happiness, and Peace. It is time I taste each moment given to me without preconceived ideas that it’s gonna be carnival food instead of a gourmet meal.

You know what I find helps me work through the hiccups of negative moments? I read (non-fiction). I take my books that encourage me, enlighten me, and envelope my soul with positive thinking and I read them. I highlight lessons; I scribble words in the margins, and paste post-its or dog-ear the pages I need to go back and re-read. I do what it takes to eradicate the negative thought from my mind.

There is NOTHING more powerful than a made up mind. There is nothing more powerful than the thoughts I put out into the Universe. NOTHING is more powerful than the moment I create an idea in my mind. I can tell you, before my feet even hit the floor I can feel what kind of day I am going to have. If I listen close enough, there is this immutable power within me that does exactly what I think into it. It is time to unbuckle from the roller coaster I’ve been on and choose another ride; one where I don’t know about the corkscrew ahead or the huge loop de loop.

It’s time I give up all the fears of inadequacy, lack, and disharmony. It is time to plant what I want to grow in my garden of life, take a ride on a roller coaster I’ve never been on, and surrender to the idea that the Universe will always supply everything I’ll ever need. I just need to listen and remember to buckle up for the ride, because it’s truly is wonderful when I can live my life immersed in Love, Joy, Peace, Abundance, and Harmony.

Thanks for hanging out and reading my ramblings.