How do you perceive your True Essence? Does it feel like a “heaven” or a “hell” or somewhere “in between?”

Most of us have a pretty negative and dark internal voice going on inside our heads all the time. We need to create a new, more positive internal voice or phrase (some call it an affirmation or mantra) that we repeat in our heads as we walk or cook or work or wait throughout our entire day and even as we are going to sleep.

Here is one for you to try out: ” I accept, love and believe in myself exactly as I am.” Or you could try shortening yours to “I accept, love and believe in myself.” …yes…”warts and all” as they say!!!

If you get stuck and you find yourself going into or already in emotional overdrive or working yourself into an emotional froth over anything, OBSERVE. Now try some new questions:

I have always admired the work of Byron Katie. Here are the four questions from what she calls “The Work:”

Ask yourself,

“Is it true?” 
“Can you absolutely know that it’s true?” 
“How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
“Who would you be without that thought?”

We all came to this planet as a human being to learn. Whatever was unresolved in a former experience, we will find that issue, emotion, experience repeating itself over and over in our lives to get our attention so we can finally resolve it and let it go. You will know when you have mastered your issue when you start observing yourself less “hooked” or reacting less emotionally to what bothered you before. Once you do that and resolve it within yourself through observation, compassion acceptance and understanding why you created it to resolve in the first place you will observe new and different experiences, feelings and people coming into your life and you will be on to your next lesson.

Here’s a test to see if you have mastered why you came here: if you are still alive you have more to learn, resolve and finally LET GO OF. It’s all about understanding and releasing and learning to be compassionate towards yourself….not beating yourself up all the time. For example, Be suspicious when you start noticing yourself working yourself up into an adrenaline fueled state. You could be bored or anxious or worried about something else and using the adrenaline worry state, ie things not right with whatever or whomever, to distract yourself from something going on within yourself you do not wish to face or feel or deal with.

It’s all about you and your perceptions internally. These perceptions can be of “the light” or of “the dark” but neither is really the “total truth” of who you are.

Other people simply give us opportunities to see ourselves in the what you might call “Cosmic Mirror” of our true nature or soul or what we came to earth to learn. While the mirrors we see in the world, like within ourselves or in the bathroom mirror, can often be a distorted picture projected from our human limited minds which often sees and focuses on fault, blame, ugliness, lack, separation, less than, stupidity, unlovableness, failure….all of these things are illusions.

Your soul is perfect and you are perfect and connected to the Whole of the universe just as you are right now. You/we just can’t see this because our egos and the media keep feeding us lies about what is “true” and all the things we need before we can be at peace and joyful and feel lovable. All this distraction is designed in a very powerful way to keep us from seeing and experiencing true Peace, Joy and the Love all around us, at all times, right NOW.

Anything or anyone who brings you closer to the feelings of peace, love, deep compassion for yourself and others and joy brings you closer to the true essence of who you are. That is where we are all headed, not this internal torture chamber we create for ourselves which is an illusion and a distraction from what is really true.  The truth of who we really are at the core of our souls is: love, peace, joy, acceptance, compassion, freedom, and incredible power to create whatever we wish on this planet in our human form.

We each have the power to create our own heaven or hell right where we are at any given moment. It is always our choice. We are the creators of our own reality. Always. So just begin by observing what you are creating in your life and whether that is what you really want. If not, time to start asking yourself some new questions so you can begin to see yourself in a new light.

As we strip away your negative illusions you will be able to see the glorious you that has always been there from the moment you were born here on this planet.

What illusions have you discovered about yourself and how have you dealt with them? What do you believe to be your True Essence?

I wanted to share this wonderful article from The Huffington Post.

How do you sum up what this year 2011 meant for women? It’s easy to think only of what needs to change and hasn’t, or of the really awful things that are being done to women around the world — this minute, in fact.

But plenty of things happened for women this year that are worth celebrating, too. Here are the 50 moments in 2011 that struck us as particularly important or astonishing or lovely. They include wins, memes, athletics, an inauguration, a birth, songs, dances, books, movies, speeches, and feats of precociousness. You probably won’t agree with all of our choices — so tell us in comments what we left out.

And whenever you need to be reminded what good company women are in, we hope you’ll return to this list. While 2011 wasn’t perfect, it certainly had its moments.

PHOTOS/VIDEOS: The 50 Best Moments For Women In 2011

The 50 Best Moments For Women In 2011

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/29/the-50-best-moments-for-w_n_1175695.html?ref=mostpopular

This photo is one I took in Key West, Florida. What is your first thought when you look at this man on a motorcycle, with a big paunch and the parrot on his head,  the American Flag fluttering behind him? Laughter? Judgement? Compassion? Pity? Admiration? Disgust? Joy?

I read Rigpa Glimpse of The Day (glimpse@rigpa.org) every day and it always gives me food for thought. I thought today’s glimpse of the day was particularly poignant and ever so relevant to The Holidays:

        “Compassion is a far greater and nobler thing than pity. Pity has its roots in        fear and carries a sense of arrogance and condescension, sometimes even a smug feeling of “I’m glad it’s not me.”

As Stephen Levine says: “When your fear touches someone’s pain it becomes pity; when your love touches someone’s pain, it becomes compassion.”

To train in compassion is to know that all beings are the same and suffer in similar ways, to honor all those who suffer, and to know that you are neither separate from nor superior to anyone.”

As Rigpa always says at the end of every post: “Remember The View.”

How have you observed Compassion and Pity showing up for you this Holiday Season?

“Around us, life bursts forth with miracles – a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, raindrops.

If you live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere. Each human being is a multiplicity of miracles. Eyes that see thousands of colors, shapes and forms: ears that hear a bee flying or a thunderclap; a brain that ponders a speck of dust as easy as the entire cosmos; a heart that beats in rhythm with the heartbeat of all beings.

When we are tired and discouraged by life’s daily struggles, we may not notice these miracles, but they are always there.”

Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh