Go for Joy!

I recently received an amazing message from a higher plane. It was for a very good friend of mine and came to me after I did some healing energy work. I think it’s fairly universal message, so I wanted to share it with you:

Go for Joy!

Never turn away from joy…

Run to joy like you run down a hill.

If you had any doubts, have them no more! Go for JOY!

The Stain of Complaining

The other evening, a very good friend and I were sitting around the living room, listening to music and talking about our life experiences. We were connecting deeply, and as the night went on, we both fell asleep on the couch. I was so amazingly content — beautiful music playing, cozy living room, lovely company and wonderful conversation. I felt myself rising to a very high vibration — love and appreciation — and I stayed there for a long time, basking, feeling warm, and connecting to my intuition…

My friend was very comfortable on the couch, I could tell. I was too, but suddenly, I felt like my back was cold — it wasn’t covered by any blanket and there must have been a slight draft from somewhere. From my place of pure, clear appreciation, came the stain of complaining. It was positively palpable — I could taste it in the air. It was like those cheesy stain remover info-mercials where they add deep blue and red dye to a clear container of water — the dye churns. My complaining was colouring my mood and I could feel it as clearly as if I was standing outside in the rain. It churned.

I adjusted my position to get warmer and more comfortable, but the mood did not lift immediately. I laid there, thinking about the startling effect my complaining was having on my body. My happy, glowing feeling was gone. I was just back on the couch, mostly comfortable. I felt like I was in my body again — I had been flying so high, I had been somewhat unaware of my physicality for a while. I felt very concrete, but not grounded. It’s difficult to explain.

The effect on my mind was just as obvious. The lighthearted, clear feeling I had been basking in was gone. I was cloudy, confused, even anxious… all from one little complaint. I had a hard time shaking that feeling of complaining, and I even, very briefly, started judging my friend for being comfortable when I was not. Thankfully, since I am in the habit of being aware of my thoughts, I nipped that in the bud — what a ridiculous thing to be jealous of! But that is what complaining does to you — it makes you jealous, cloudy, confused and frustrated, and since I had been feeling so great before, the contrast of those icky feelings was striking.

Of my body, mind and spirit, my spirit was affected the least. Since I was so aware, I didn’t let the complaining go on too long. I let the feeling pass through me, and resettled into a happier state. I keep coming back to the analogy of a cork on water — you have to work quite hard to keep it down. We are the same — when we stop judging ourselves harshly, putting ourselves down or thinking thoughts of lack, we immediately rise up and start to float again. You and I have an invincible spirit, and the very simple, quick act of breathing and coming back to the moment, feeling the goodness of this moment, lets us rise again.

Don’t be Like a Fly

I was cleaning windows today when I came to the one in the porch. This one is out of the way, so it rarely gets looked at or tidied up. The window sill was littered with dead flies, and there was a live one bouncing incessantly, they way they always do, against the glass.

Why do flies do this? I tried to shoo this one away, because I was going to be spraying glass cleaner and it would die if it got sprayed. That fly just wouldn’t be shooed — it was intent on bouncing its head up against the glass over and over again, trying to break through the barrier — invisible but unbreakable (for a fly).

So, I sprayed around it, but the vapours made it woozy and it flew strangely. Eventually, it flew away, and maybe once it turned around, it even saw the open door and flew outside to freedom. This whole experience made me wonder — how are we like the fly, bouncing our heads against a barrier we can’t get through?

Do you have anything in your life that you’ve been struggling with for a long time? Like a fly trying to fly through a window, you think there should be a way through. You can see the light and just can’t figure out how to get to it. You try and try, over and over, but you’re just acting like a fly.

If this is striking a chord in you, don’t ignore it. What is coming to mind right now? Don’t shy away from it — it doesn’t make you a bad person. It just means you’re human. Sit for a minute and think about whatever is coming to you.

So what can you do? If you keep bouncing up against that glass, you might end up like all those other flies — dead on the window sill. I’m not just talking about being physically dead, but emotionally or spiritually dead. It could also be a death of your freedom, creativity, joy, happiness or health. What are you afraid might be dying?

If you don’t want this to happen, just turn around. Stop trying, stop bouncing against the problem and look the other way. Look for the open door. Look at what is lovely and beautiful about your life, about the world, about you. Stop focusing on problems, either in you or in the world around you, and trying to fix them. If you just fly away from them, you’ll find another way to the light, to the great outdoors, and never have to worry about another window again.

There’s a common expression that goes something like “when God closes a door, He opens a window.” I would say “when the window is closed, look for the open door!”

The Cure for Worry

If you’ve read my book, you already know the cure for self-pity — thankfulness! Like a flash of lightning, it came to me today:

The cure for worry is trust.

The concept of trust came to me strongly about two years ago. I had decided to go on a seven-day solo kayak trip on the Peace River. I am an experienced kayaker, so a kayak trip was not outside my range of abilities, but to go for seven days all alone in the wilderness, that stretched me out of my comfort zone a little. I was nervous about the river I was on (even though it had no significant rapids). I was nervous about having difficulties disembarking in a current on a muddy shore, all by myself. I was a little worried about bears and wolves. I was extra careful in everything I did, because I didn’t want to injure myself.

It took me about three days to relax a little and feel comfortable being on my own. On the fourth day, I started developing some pain in my right shoulder, so all that day and the next, I had to paddle very carefully — consciously — to make sure I wouldn’t injure it further. I averaged about 50 km per day, which made for pretty long days. It was late on the fifth day as I was paddling toward my goal for the day that a message came to me directly from my intuition.

It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Three words just appeared in my thoughts. I had been very meditatively paddling for about an hour, and the river was glistening, the breeze blowing and the sun setting. I chalk it up to five days in the sunshine, wilderness, solitude and serenity. Source (or God), was finally able to get through all the clutter in my mind, and the message It felt most important to deliver was:

Trust and Enjoy.

My heart sang as I realized I had finally connected with my intuition! And the message was so wonderful and simple! I did it joyfully — I trusted that I was going to be fine. I stopped worrying about drowning in the river and trusted the river to carry me. I enjoyed the sunshine and the beautiful peace of that moment.

Today, almost two years later, I was thinking about why worry is so destructive and unhelpful. Worrying about your problems seems to make them a hundred times worse, both in how they feel and in how they actually are. How can a person combat that tough bugger, worry? More easily this time, the word came to me: Trust.

I love simple solutions! Isn’t this great?!? If you want to stop worrying, just trust. I won’t tell you what to trust in, just trust. Trust in God, if you like. Trust that the Universe is on your side. Trust that Source wants to bless you, not curse you. Donald Cooper, a successful businessman, says “trust the process.” That works as well as anything — trust that if you are doing your best, there is nothing to worry about. Trust the process. You are improving. You are growing. You are already amazing, and you’re getting even better!!

I don’t think it really matters what you trust in. Trust in yourself, trust in your family, trust in the laws of physics or the laws of the Universe. You cannot trust and worry at the same time. Whenever worry rears its very ugly head, take a deep breath and remind yourself to trust.

Pink sunset on the Peace River

Pink sunset on the Peace River

I’ll have to tell you the story of the time I sat out a thunderstorm on the shore of the river with no shelter or protection. That was life-changing too!