I’m very open about the fact that I am an adult survivor of child abuse. I think back over the past forty-two years of my life and see my journey from victim to survivor  to where I am today. Today I do not define myself by my history, but by my present. The path I chose to where I am today is the path of forgiveness.

Even though I had a HUGE breakthrough many years ago where I forgave my abusers, I find that I build up resentments over time still—about other things. There are times I have anger at little things, like traffic snarls and unskilled people, than I do about the vicious abuses I’ve endured at the hands of family. Continuing a practice of forgiveness has been a crucial part of my spiritual practice.

At this time of renewal, Yom Kippur, I release all the little resentments: I stand in awe of the universe within me; I stand in awe of the universe around me; I stand in awe before my own destiny as I do before the vastness of time.

Today I start my journey from forgiveness, knowing I can’t get to my dreams unless I come from them.

“It is done unto us as we believe.”

When my life doesn’t look like what I want it to look like, I ask myself this question: What must I really believe if this is what is showing up as my life? For example ,I was laid off three times in as many years.  Unemployment was hard on me-- I’ve been working since I was 11 years old. I’ve never had a problem finding work. In fact, I’ve frequently worked more than one job at a time. My time of unemployment gave me an opportunity to explore what I believe.

What came up for me was not issues around employment, but issues around abundance in general. It was part of the impetus for the spiritual experiment that I’m doing right now. I’ve done a great deal of spiritual work around abundance. Not only has it yielded my dream job, but also a new home and an expanded sense of my own worth.

There are things we just know. We know them to be true whether we are employed or unemployed, whether we are in a relationship or not, whether there we are in wartime or peace. These are the things we never even think about because we just *know* them. It is sometimes called the mental equivalent, this knowing, because what we know mentally shows up in our life in form.

How did I expand my mental equivalent so that I could know that I am abundant? Through practice. Through the practice of prayer. Through the practice of staying in spiritual Truth. Through the practice of the Wisdom of Knowing.

After the sad but necessary breakup of my marriage, I felt completely empty. I didn’t know who I was outside of my marriage. I had only one friendship, no real community and no true sense of self. I began attending Center for Spiritual Living in Seattle, and took the foundational coursework. A whole new world opened for me as I drank in the joy of community, friendship, and spiritual study.

My lifestyle has been go-go-go for the past seven years. And though it began as the rather stereotypical middle-aged woman’s journey to “find myself,” it has evolved tremendously.  I’m still a very busy person. I work full time, hold four volunteer positions, have two kids at home still, several hobbies and a rich social life. Rev. Frances said today that busy-ness is the greatest threat to simply being. I know from experience that this is true.

It has taken several years to simplify my activities to the point that I am doing only those things that make my heart sing. But for many years I used ‘doing’ to fill up from the outside; today my activity is an outward expression of the joy in my heart. But it was not through ‘doing’ that I arrived at this point. It was through being-- through prayer, meditation and mindful contemplation.

As Eric Hoffer said, “We are warned not to waste time, and we’re brought up to waste our lives.” Take time to be still. Relax into the bigness of God. For a little while each day let go of doing and partake of the wisdom of being.

I never want to move again! Moving has got to be one of the most stressful things we ever do. I don’t like anything about moving. It brings out my most negative self. Having just moved yesterday, I am fresh off of some very intimate conversations with my doppelganger. But, I am a firm believer of positive thinking, so regardless of the negative thoughts that may (erm... do) arise I always hang on to the high vibration that comes with a good attitude.

I am blessed with friends that not only know my highest good for me, but know it with me. Even when I’m struggling, they know I know my highest good, and they love me through my human emotions. It’s also helpful to have tools that remind us to “reverse our thinking” as Rev. Frances said, or “Fl!p Your Thinking” as Rebecca Cooper says. I’ve used Rebecca’s cards to raise my consciousness, and have often made gifts of her cards to others for the same purpose.

There was plenty that went wrong with my move, and I can’t say I was completely graceful about it, but I know (I mean REALLY KNOW) that God is good, and life is good, and my highest good is always being supported by Life. I had just the right people show up at just the right time to make this a smooth move and a beautiful experience.

Be bold! Claim your Good! Take a vacation from negativity.

I took a test online to evaluate the stress level in my life. I scored a whopping 305, which put me over the top into the “High” category. Well that explains a lot. Although, to be truthful, I didn’t need to take a test to know my stress is off the charts right now. My body is an excellent barometer of my stress, and it’s been clear to me for weeks that my atmospheric pressure has been rising: tight muscles, attacks of vertigo, and good old fashioned crankiness.

“I’m teetering on the brink of a spiritual crisis,” I admitted to a friend yesterday. He grinned at me and reminded me this sometimes happens to us humans. I suppose I should have expected an experience like this. It has been my prayer for about two months that I have a deeper experience of Spirit and be a more and more expansive expression of Spirit. I’m being given the opportunity to stretch into that expanded experience, and I am really feeling the burn of that stretch these days.

If you work out, you may know that you will lose your flexibility if you don’t stretch. To maintain your flexibility, you must stretch until you feel resistance then release; but to increase your flexibility, you have to stretch until you feel resistance and hold it there for a while. Boy am I feeling the resistance this week!

Rev. Frances taught us the mantra, “I have my emotions; my emotions don’t have me!” My inner speech could be (and regrettably has been) about how HARD this stretch is, or it could be about what a joy it is to be consciously expanding. How fabulous to be fully aware of being on this journey to a deeper experience of Spirit in my life! I am so blessed, and I choose now to invest my thoughts in remembrance of this. Even in the midst of multiple stressors, I’m going to take a vacation from stress.

Right after my divorce seven years ago I tried dating. I met many wonderful men, but none of them asked me out for a second date. The last guy I went out with before taking a break from dating did me a great favor when at the conclusion of our walk around Greenlake in Seattle, he very compassionately told me he didn’t think I was ready to date. “You are still too angry at your ex,” he told me. “Maybe you should date yourself for a while,” he suggested.

It was some of the best advice I’ve ever received. I dated myself for five years. I took myself to the movies, spent quiet evenings with myself, watched sunsets, walked on beaches, went for mountain drives, and even took a waltz class. I also took a lot of CSL classes, built many, many platonic friendships, and deepened my spiritual practice.

Part of that spiritual practice was releasing my anger toward my ex-husband. It was a conscious practice, and I’m pleased to say that not only am I not angry anymore, but I have a tremendous amount of love and respect for him. We still disagree about some very fundamental things, but it no longer frustrates and angers me.

Rev. Frances said, “Anger is a response to our not feeling loved.” I know that is true for me. It took five years of learning to love myself to be able to overcome the anger of not feeling loved in my marriage. So next time you’re feeling angry, take some time to love yourself. Take yourself on a vacation from anger.

I call it The Great Layoff of 2009. It was not merely nine months of unemployment, it was giving up my house and my kids. I couldn’t afford the rent on my sweet little rental house, so I moved in with my sister and her family. Unfortunately, she did not have room for my kids as well, so I sent them to live with their dad.

In 2010 I was employed again and had my amazing kids back with me, but I was living hand to mouth, just as I was prior to the Great Layoff. I had a scarcity mindset that led me to accept and stay in a job for which I was vastly underpaid. But for the first time in my life, “just enough” was not enough for me. I spent much of my prayer time considering what I really needed to be to live the life I was called to live.

I decided to do a spiritual experiment for 2011. I felt my growing edges were in these three areas: romance, finance and radiance, and I knew that in order to make any real shift in those areas I had to make a shift in my beliefs around the God qualities of Love, Abundance and Beauty. I joke that it’s a “lab experiment” because my anchors for this experiment—Love, Abundance and Beauty—form the acronym LAB.

Through prayer, meditation, and other spiritual practices, I have experienced profound shifts in all three areas, especially around abundance. I have gone from the Great Layoff of 2009 to my Dream Job; from living in my sister’s bonus room to buying my first house; from living hand to mouth to having a robust savings plan.

Ernest Holmes said, “Change your thinking, change your life.” Relying on that wisdom, I’ve made intentional changes in my thinking, the results are self-evident. I love what’s happening in my life, and I’m looking forward to seeing what more Spirit will do in, through and as me now that I put no limits on it, now that I’ve taken a permanent vacation from scarcity.

The greatest of these is Love.
- 1 Cor 13:13

I was a very weird child. I never had a great circle of friends. In fact I counted myself fortunate if I had only one person who considered herself my friend. It was a painful time in my life, and truth be told it lasted until I was into my thirties, no longer a child.

My mom used to tell me, “If you want friends you have to be a friend.” She had an arsenal of such sayings, each more perplexing than the next. Each further proof of my suspicion that mom was off her rocker. I wasn’t ready for this wisdom until more than a decade after I was out of my family home and on my own. But it is so true: If you want Love, you have to be Love.

It wasn’t until I started attending Center for Spiritual Living that Mom’s words began to make sense to me. I learned that I AM the Love that God is, just like in The God Song. My friend Kari says she experiences Holy Love like a black hole: a curvature of spacetime geometry due to an intense gravitational field where nothing else exists but that pure Holy Love.

Kari, incidentally, was my one and only friend through junior high and high school. She has been the greatest example of Holy Love in my life, persevering in her friendship with me through two failed marriages, three (yes THREE!) religious conversions, and all my ups and downs. She has loved me through my celebrations and heartaches.  When I count my blessings, I count her first.

She has been my friend and teacher. She is the Love that God is, and through my friendship with her I have expanded my own capacity to love and be loved. She has been that safe place for me to experience the Freedom to Love.

I remember a time I was very angry at someone. I sat down and began an email explaining why I was angry and why I needed him to change. I spent about an hour writing, editing and re-writing. It was beautiful—a literary masterpiece of flawless argument. There’s no way he couldn’t get my point and see how very right I was and how very wrong he was.

But I still didn’t feel satisfied.

So I prayed. It was a very short prayer: “Sweet Spirit, how do I fix this???” The answer was immediate. I hit delete on my email and picked up my phone. I called my friend and explained in gentle terms how his recent behavior had impacted me and asked him if he had any ideas about how we could move forward. He did. And I loved him for his grace and kindness with me. That friendship thrives still today.

In Science of Mind we talk about God Qualities: All, Clarity, Creativity, Ease, Grace, Intelligence, Joy, Light, Life, Love, Omnipotence, Omniscience, Omnipresence, Oneness, Poise, and Wisdom. Wisdom has often been talked about as the marriage of Love and Intelligence. As someone who relies very strongly on her intellect, I often forget to access the Love that performs that spiritual alchemy.

This is what was happening when I set out to send that very angry email. However, with my short prayer, I invited Wisdom to express in the situation, and Wisdom answered. That is really all there is to it. We already ARE wise; we just have to allow it to flow.