Becoming a Happy Camper

Step powerfully into the shift and changes this Fall season by becoming a happy camper. If you’ve ever gone camping you know it’s not all sunshine and roses. In fact camping can be very difficult. It can challenge the ego because we are so used to our creature comforts and abilities. Camping challenges our minds to step outside of the ordinary way we see things and challenges us to step into seeing with other senses that aren’t connected to the physical and to find the joy in doing so. 

When I went camping for the first time about 5 years ago it was an immersion trip. I went in hardcore. I tented and bathed in the cold stream. My only creature comfort was the air mattress that I bought with me. Literally that was like my landing pad. If you’ve ever slept on an air mattress then you know it’s no bed and so even that became my opportunity to heal and reveal a greater truth; Happiness doesn't depend on the circumstances. 

During the night the temperatures dropped to below 40 and I was only partially prepared for it. In the night sometimes it rained and the water puddled up in the corners of my tent, while the sides were wet with dew and dripped if I touched it. We woke early in the morning to the beating of the drum in preparation to enter the sweat lodge. Four thirty the drummer made her rounds led by the moon light and a small lantern. This camping trip was no regular camping trip it was a Spiritual adventure. 

We are Souls, Spiritual Beings having a human experience and this human experience is our spiritual adventure.  Just like my camping trip sometimes getting up early in the middle of what feels like the night in the freezing cold is a part of the program. Maybe your freezing cold is the office, maybe your middle of the night is the relatives arriving for Thanksgiving dinner and you are the host. Perhaps your cold splash in the stream is the daily activities that you must preform in order to make things work in your life. Whatever it is, when we stop complaining and start expressing gratitude we can experience a shift in consciousness, a shift in the way we experience our life. 

If Earth is our campground and the Spirit is our natural home, how many ways do we expect the creature comforts of home in this three dimensional world? While camping on the earth we can become happy regardless of whether we are camping in a tent or a trailer. Our happiness doesn’t depend on circumstances. We carry this happiness within us. We cultivate it like I did in the sweat lodge. We develop a daily spiritual practice starting with an attitude of gratitude, we connect with community and we do our part to advance the whole. 

What we think of things becomes internal to how we experience them and what we focus on plants the seeds of what will grow. Learning to become a happy camper is about setting up your tent in the garden of gratitude and bathing in the stream of love. Every day make it your duty, your honor and your privilege to find and focus on the GoOD. Train your mind to do what you want and not the habits that it hold. Happy camping!

Love,

www.womenhealingzone.com

Our Light is packed away in the recess of the shadow.

It’s almost 3 am. I’ve been up since midnight. I awoke after having fallen asleep early. As I lay in bed contemplating what to do, trying “not” to wake myself up, I heard the howling of an animal. I thought it might be a squirrel. It sounded like it was having a fight. If you’ve ever heard squirrels fighting the noise is quite shrill. This went on for quite a while. It went on so long that I got up and looked out the window to see what I could see but no animals were in sight. I watched as two people strolled side by side. The looked in the direction of the noise but did not stop. I listened, suspended between a desire to run out and save the poor creature and scared of what I might find. I listened as the howling turned to a whimper and then to silence. It was a fight after all, a fight to the death. In the silence I tried to feel something. I knew, or at least I thought I knew, that I was supposed to feel something. But I felt nothing. So I lay there for the next three hours, reading posts on Facebook, checking emails and making pictures on my phone. Then I remembered that it was Solstice, the celebration of the cycles of life. I remembered that this is the time that we are preparing to go within. The lesson that is a gift was almost lost to me. But in the wee hours of the darkness I saw the light. 

The gift was the knowing that like the animal, fighting for its life by God knows what that was attacking it, we to must go through the fight between our ego and our Soul Self. The struggle is an old paradigm. The old paradigm of the way we were to the new becoming that we will see when the first frost begins to thaw and spring nears. The fight is the ego trying to keep us in the light. Trying to keep us from facing the shadows that come up when we go within. It is a fruitless fight. For as surely as the animal gasped its last breath, we too shall gasp and finally succumb to dealing with our shadow self. It can be a gentle process when there is no fight when we go willingly into the dark. And just as suspended between the desire to help the poor creature and afraid of what I might find, we sit suspended at Solstice between the lessening of the day into the night afraid of what we might find. Like the quote from Marianne Williamson says:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

We wield the power to break every chain that has kept us playing small and frightened of our Magnificence when we go into the dark. We realize that we are the light we’ve been waiting for. 

So as I find myself being drawn to the night, enjoying the beauty that the darkness brings and enjoying the stillness and silence that can only be found in the darkness, My Soul lights up. I AM illuminated. I go into my prayer closet. I go into the shadows that I have with a flashlight filled with Faith, a Candle of Hope and an abundance of Courage to light the way. I Go in Peace to piece together all of who I AM so that I remember I AM WHOLE.  

This Solstice I invite you to go willingly into your quiet place. Take full advantage of the shorter days and begin to get in rhythm with the season. Wind down early. Sit quietly in the dark and contemplate your life. Bring illumination to your behaviors by being willing to see yourself. Really see yourself. See what motivates you. What brings you joy and what breaks your heart. What behaviors are default behaviors cultivated in childhood? Are you passive because you’re afraid of conflict or have a need to be liked? Are you aggressive because you’re afraid of intimacy? Are you bitter because you created a defense against having a good time because it was always followed by something bad? Get to know who you are this winter, then the need to want to be someone else will be released. A sweet opening in your heart emerges and you will find the love you’ve been looking for in all the wrong places. You will find the approval you’ve been seeking outside yourself. You will find the permission you’ve been waiting for to Live the Life of Your Dreams! 

Illuminating the Darkness

This morning I realized that I have been searching in the dark without a light.

We all will at some point on our journey take an account of our being, the dark side and the light. Debbie Ford explores the dark side in her book “The dark side of the light chasers”. In this book she invites you to look at all the parts of yourself you have disowned. What I realized today was that I did this without bringing my light. I would do things that I considered enlightening like prayer, fasting and reading spiritually uplifting books and magazines and then I would put that aside and drink and smoke and engage in other “self” destructive behaviors. What I did not do was to bring the light of being “prayed up” into the other behaviors to be able to witness them from a higher perspective. How could I accurately see my “self” in the dark, as the dark without the light? I realize now that when I did this I thought I was the dark not in the dark. We all have dark side and it is only in exploring these dark sides can we see the fullness of our being and our connection to our brothers and sisters of all walks of life. When we bring our light into our darkness we can release the shame attached to our dark behaviors and learn to accept ourselves exactly as we are. With our light we can see clearly into the darkness without being scared and allow the light of our inner being to bring clarity to our behavior, acceptance to the judgments and the freedom to be limitless in our expression of our being.

Thought for Today:
Darkness is not who I am it is a part of me when I cannot see my light. The light is who I am and illuminates all parts of me in the dark.

Today’s Affirmation:
I am of the light therefore I bring the light.