Driftwood by Luke McGuff

The inner speech, your thoughts, can cause you to be rich or poor, loved or unloved, happy or unhappy, attractive or unattractive, powerful or weak.

Ralph Charell

Every day, all day long, there is a story unfolding in your mind. It's the story you're telling yourself about who you are, and what your world is all about.

What kind of person are you in this story of yours? If you were reading about this character in a book, what would you think about them? Would you like and respect them?

I used to know a woman who was one of the sweetest, most gentle people I'd ever met. She was very accommodating, gracious, and easy-going — except when it came to herself. Whenever I heard her talk about herself, she always used words like "stupid", "forgetful", and "all over the place".

I never once heard her talk about herself in a positive way. Whenever I gave her a compliment or told her something I appreciated about her, I could almost see my words bouncing off of her — she'd immediately counter them with a combination of thanks and disagreement.

This sometimes led me to wonder whether her compassionate way with folks came from a place of authentic love, or merely from a sense of duty. The words she spoke about herself didn't reflect a very loving inner world.

I think we do ourselves (and ultimately, the world) a devastating disservice when we aren't conscious of our own inner story. This story is what shapes our self-image over time. It creates our worldview. And yet, we tend to be very careless in the telling of this story.

Today, I ask you: what kind of story are you telling yourself? Is it a story of resilience, beauty, and adventure? Or is it a story of loneliness and pity? Is it a story of you against the world?

If your story isn't serving you — if it's not continually boosting you into a higher space of being — then I encourage you to begin paying attention to the words and phrases you find yourself thinking on a regular basis. Take note of them, and begin to trade the destructive ones for productive ones.

Instead of tearing yourself down and reinforcing a negative self-image, try encouraging yourself. What would you say to a close friend in need of encouragement? What adjectives, nouns and advice would you speak to them?

Why not speak those same words to yourself?

Today, I invite you to take responsibility for your self-image. You, and you alone, generate the story that tells you who you are. So why not make it a beautiful one? Why not build a habit of encouraging yourself, being playful with yourself, having a sense of humor with yourself?

Why not tell a story that inspires you to be your best You?

If you celebrate your differentness, the world will, too. It believes exactly what you tell it—through the words you use to describe yourself, the actions you take to care for yourself, and the choices you make to express yourself. Tell the world you are a one-of-a-kind creation who came here to experience wonder and spread joy. Expect to be accommodated.

Victoria Moran
{ Lit from Within: Tending Your Soul for Lifelong Beauty }

Have you already begun the journey of changing your story to better serve you? What steps have you taken that have worked for you? I'd love for you to share in the comments.

Cliffs of Panther by Sathish J

The moon does not fight. It attacks no one. It does not worry. It does not try to crush others. It keeps to its course, but by its very nature, it gently influences. What other body could pull an entire ocean from shore to shore? The moon is faithful to its nature and its power is never diminished.

Deng Ming-Dao
{ Everyday Tao: Living with Balance and Harmony }

I think one of our biggest challenges in day-to-day life can be communicating with people whose perspectives are very different from our own. It's natural for feelings of agitation and even hurt feelings to arise when our wants/needs aren't met in the space of an interaction, or when we get an unexpected response that doesn't match our view of a situation.

Sunrise at the Mittens by Laura Gooch

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice.

Meister Eckhart

I've recently begun a practice of being thankful for little things throughout the day, and ending each day with gratitude for at least 5 people or events that happened that day. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that it is changing my life.

Something very special happens when you focus your awareness on gratitude. Your mind illuminates. The tension in your body eases up a little bit. The Now becomes free-flowing and a sense of joy unfolds.

This is because gratitude is an acknowledgment of Oneness. It's a way of connecting to Oneness in a very intimate way. Think about something right now that you are thankful for, and notice how present you become. The feeling of lightness radiating from your center. The feeling of love and connection.

Silent Valley by Jule_Berlin

To transform the emptiness of loneliness, to the fullness of aloneness. Ah, that is the secret of life.

Sunita Khosla

I have known loneliness for most of my life.

For so many years, it consumed me like a wild fire. The more I reached out to others to quench my loneliness, the more intensely it burned. I didn't fit in. My words never came out quite right. My gestures went misunderstood. And love, for me, was always a confusing and unfulfilling thing.

Throughout my 20's I explored spirituality, subculture and relationships in an attempt to find that magic connection — the kind of connection that would make me complete. And yet my loneliness persisted in the midst of all of it.

It wasn't until I stopped pushing my loneliness away and sat with it that I began to understand its purpose, and began a different kind of journey.

main building peeling paint by Matt Johnson

We only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that which others have made of us.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Lately I've been exploring this idea of transformation as letting go. Letting go of what I no longer resonate with, and nurturing the deeper "me" underneath all that, instead of trying to patch myself up in an attempt to become something new and improved.

Scraping the layers of paint and dirt off of the mirror, so to speak.

I think we lose sight of who we are when we find ourselves identifying with the paint and the dirt. We think all those layers of "stuff" define us, and then we feel defective. So we try to become less of this, and more of that.

In this way, we continually create a distorted, unsatisfying sense of Self.

Grenadier Pond by Wanda Gould

The world I see all around me

Is the world that is inside me

And as I am slowly becoming

So the world is slowly becoming around me.


I cannot look outside for a way, a teaching,

Because I only see reflections of myself.

Only when I am silent and still

Do I glimpse the truth of Being.


As I Am

So this world is

And so I understand —


There is no outside in this Universe.

Everything is inside.

Reflections by Danny Plas

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you.

Buddha

Who is your enemy?

The one who talks down to you and criticizes your work? The one who treats you carelessly? The one who puts obstacles in your path and makes your life more difficult?

Perhaps you sometimes see an enemy in your friend, or your lover, or your co-worker. The distinction can be blurred, at times. We can all be many things to many people.

We can even be an enemy to ourselves.

Sunrise by Tones Photos

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.

Andre Gide

As I sit here at my laptop with a steaming cup of peppermint tea steeping beside me, only a few days remain in the year 2011. It has been a beautiful year.

I started this blog on January 1st of this year. I had no idea how much it would change my life – the lessons I would share and explore here, the amazing people I would connect with, the dreams that would take root in my heart and mind.

I didn't go into 2011 with any particular themes in mind, but as I look back and reflect upon the year, I can see that self-love was a major theme. Healing, too. Release. Life purpose discovery & alignment. Gratitude. All of these.

For me, 2012 will be a year of mental, emotional, physical & spiritual development, stepping out of comfort zones, and taking my message beyond the pages of this blog.

I'd like to share my goals with you today.

Photo by Danikapierce

A gentle answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger.

Biblical Proverb

Thoughtful, soothing presence.

Take a moment to let that imagery develop in your mind.

How does it feel? What does it look like? What does it sound like?

I've been thinking about that a lot lately.

So often, we speak to each other with haste and self-interest. We react to negativity with negativity. We speak abruptly. We let our own mental and emotional storylines command our way of thinking and speaking.

There is freedom – although it is challenging to walk in, at first – in taking total responsibility for how we speak to others. To let our words and demeanor be proactive, rather than reactive, in the presence of negativity or intensity. To be a calm presence in the face of someone else's drama.

Waters Still by SusanG2

Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.

Hermann Hesse

When the storms of life come, it’s easy to feel beaten down and defeated. Failed expectations, broken hearts, financial troubles. Perhaps you're dealing with something now, as you read this, that you're having a hard time with.

I know how disheartening the storms of life can be. The feelings of insecurity and worry, the fear. I was once like a boat on the ocean – happy and content with sunny skies and still waters. But whenever the storms came, my peace and joy would go overboard. My sense of self was completely tied to the stories my circumstances, and I didn’t know how to weather serious storms.

So when they did come, I'd just retreat into despair, depression and loneliness.

Now, when the storms are at my door, I go to that place called center. Like the eye of the storm, center is that place of stillness around which everything revolves. Perfect stillness is central to all that is.

So how do you get there?