Humility

There's a certain niceness about doing chores, a kind of satisfaction in cleaning up after making a mess.

My angel helper who has been assisting me with my housework for the last 18 years, is in hospital and I have been afforded the opportunity to acquaint myself with the finer details of the washing,  ironing, mopping and scrubbing.

I can't say that I have found any of it unpleasant. I have to the contrary, found it rather therapeutic, kind of like an awakened meditation. Whilst your body mechanically vacuums and mops, your mind is free to wander deliciously at its will.

It's almost as though as I feverishly scrub and iron I am working away credits for my next playtime, my well earned state of relaxation. I feel satisfied and humble. I have a sense of connectedness with earth. I feel grounded and I have also discovered a fresh appreciation for my helper who does these repetitive chores, week after week, thereby freeing me up to do what I choose.

I know that some people feel led to travel afar to ashrams to clean other people's toilets, but there is a deep contentment in cleaning one's own toilet as I have found over the last two weeks and I didn't need to travel anywhere.

So, as I reflect in the afterglow of content, I realise I have found meaning in doing the simple things today.

May you too find pleasure in the simple things

lots of love
Nicolette

Don't Pray for Me

Don't pray for me! Please don't pray for me.

You cannot know my circumstances or my needs. You have no idea what my highest purpose is. That is between God and myself.

When you pray for me, you assume to know exactly what it is that I should have and what I should be doing, according to your own prejudices and perceptions.
If you pray for me, you are in judgement. You assume that you are right and that I am out of line or in need of changing. You assume that I have a lack. You do not know if my wanting is a test of my faith from my higher self.

Take a look below the surface of your well intentioned prayers and ask yourself: "Does this prayer come from my highest self or is my prayer a request to try and manipulate my world to my way?"

O.k. I'll give you an example. Let's just say that you pray to God that He will make your partner more loving and supportive, that He will heal the greed and corruption of the people in government, make your boss more generous and approachable and your children more obedient and less self centred. You ask God to change all these people so you can live in a perfect world.

Would you consider this prayer to be for the highest good of all those for whom you prayed? Or is it rather a cleverly disguised request for self? The perception that your partner, your children, your boss and the government need to change, assumes that you don't. It reinforces the 'I am right and they are wrong' perception?

Why do you assume that they need to change? Why does it make you uncomfortable that they are what they are?

I'll tell you why. It is because you are in judgement. You are looking without and not within. What do you see reflected in their eyes? You see you. You see your own flaws. You are looking without for others to meet your needs. You pray for them to be perfect because you're not. By praying for anyone else you are turning the spotlight from yourself and avoiding confronting your own issues. Don't be fooled by your ego's cunning manoeuvres. Don't assume when you pray for someone else that you are being pious. You may well find if you look a little deeper that your prayers are inadvertently seeking to fulfil your own needs.

Would it not be better to rather pray: "Dear God, help me to not judge others. Give me patience and understanding and acceptance of their needs. Help me to become a better listener, to really see and hear from my heart. Help me to dispense with my ego and my judgements towards others. Make me supportive and kind. Let me die to my past every second and not hold anything against anyone who I perceive has wronged me. Let me not assume through my own prejudices to know anyone else's needs.  Help me to focus solely on other's good traits and not on their bad. Help me every day to walk your path of love and find every opportunity to humble myself and keep my nose in my own business. Give me the strength and courage, Lord, to change me. And forgive me for judging others. Change me, Lord. Change me."

You see, I firmly believe that all our prayers should be focused on ourselves. If we each just pray for one person every day, this world would be a wonderful place.

If we could all become the person we want our partners to be, we'd be living our dream.

So please, please don't pray for me, pray for yourself.

have a wonderful and blessed week

love
Nicolette

A Prayer

Lord, help me to remember I am human,
to dust myself off when I miss my mark
Remind me to not be so hard on myself
and to forgive myself everything

May I never forget that you are my source
and that you have all the answers
All I need do is ask for your guidance
and have faith that my needs are met

May I remember that through you I can do anything
I am much more than a physical body
When I am quiet and still my mind
I can feel your strength within me

May I never lose my humility to ask for your help
May compassion be my prime motive in everything I do
Help me to remain open to your teaching which
I experience through my interactions with others

Thank you for your gentle guidance
for using others to mirror my lack
Thank you that your teaching is so gentle and noninvasive
as you patiently await my growth

Remind me often that what I do to others
I do to you and to myself
We are not separate, which is what I so often forget
Please help me to walk my walk in love

Give me the wisdom to see that all my desires
come from you, via your Spirit
and to know that by accepting my desires
I walk in the knowledge of who I am

Amen

Have a beautiful week, dear soul
love
Nicolette

Always Be You

           "Always be who you are

            unless you can be a unicorn

                   then always be a unicorn."

                                                                                                               Anonymous

I absolutely crack myself up every time I think of this quote which my son's girlfriend sent to him.

How fickle we are as the human race. How discontented we are with who and what we are. Why is it that we argue with ourselves about the physical traits we don't have, the possessions that would make us happy, the health that we lost, other people's lives that seem so much more together than ours?

Why are we so seldom contented with who we are?

Why is it that everyone else seems to have the life we want?

Just suppose everyone out there is in the same self perceived rut. If everyone is coveting what others have got and not appreciating what they have got, then all those people that you're wishing you were like are probably wishing they were like someone else.

Life is so simple and yet our human minds are so complex.

This clever little saying really says it all. You have to be who you are. You can only be who you are. And if you think like most of humankind that you can be something else, like a unicorn, that is a fantasy. Actually most of humanity is masquerading as something they're not. Most of us live in an illusion of who we are, at least some of the time. Are you trying to be a unicorn?

Why have we allowed our minds to fantasise a different life for ourselves? Why are we constantly trying to skip our assignments and take short cuts to achieve our perceived fantasies.

I believe we have allowed our minds too much time in front of the television. We have too many mirrors in our homes. We don't dig and toil in the earth enough, if at all. Actually most of us don't interact with nature at all.We spend far too much time in buildings, shopping centres, sitting in air conditioned cars, offices or homes. 

We have lost our true nature. We have become buried in our man-made perceptions and entrapments, obligations, guilt and greed. We might be the most financially endowed of all the generations in history thus far, but we are so spiritually deprived. We are so cut off from the rhythm of the earth as we sit in our glass houses like poor little rich children with tragedy written all over our faces. We sit and work and stress, but we don't play.

We are disconnected from nature and from spirit/God. We are disconnected from our soul.

It's simple. To be who we are, we need to spend less time in front of the TV and more time observing nature. We need to walk more than we drive. We need to spend more time outdoors than indoors. We need to walk barefoot as often as possible. We need to breathe and sunbathe.

So, if you've got a laptop, take your office outdoors and don't forget to stand up and walk around and move frequently, to get the blood circulating. Kick off your shoes and walk on the grass.

Find perfection in the simple things. Start by being you.

Have an awesome week

love

Nicolette