What Appears To Be The End Is Merely The Beginning...

I find myself in an usual place in life right now and have been doing my best to process it. My husband of ten years--the person who helped me finish raising my children and has been a partner in my own personal growth--was recently diagnosed as being in the early stages of dementia. He is 58. I am 51. This is not something a person anticipates or plans for, especially at these relatively young ages.

Lately, most of my days are struggles as I flounder wildly about just trying to keep my head above water. Fear and sadness close in on me when I focus too closely on what my life could become in the future. I worry about the potential expenses involved in taking care of someone in the latter stages of this condition--especially considering I still need to work fulltime. I worry about taking care of myself as I realize I have become dependent on him in so many ways. The only thing that saves me is focusing on the moment at hand, trying to make things as pleasant for myself and those around me as I am able. What actions can I take in the present that will bring me joy? Love? Peace?

My daily meditation time has become my refuge in the storm. Because of my high stress levels, I am much more focused and able to hear the whispers of my guardians/angels as they speak to me, reassuring me they are here to help. They encourage me to ask for what I want. They tell me to trust and that when I can do this I will be amazed at how quickly things begin to fall into place.

The irony of this situation is that I have been praying this past year for BIG changes to come into my life. I spent years hiding in the safety of my cocoon and have only recently made the conscious decision to stop playing small and use my gifts for the benefit of myself and others. Never in my wildest dreams did I anticipate something like this.

I have no real clue what my path looks like. I can see a destination--helping others heal from their life traumas while restoring balance and reducing separation, but the road is not nicely laid out in front of me. I have enough experience in life to know that what my mind sees is not the best or easiest way to get there. Life works by listening to God/Source and taking things one step at a time. At present, that is all I have the strength to do.

My life is currently in destruction mode. Ironically, the whole world is in destruction mode. We fight against the chaos and confusion because it seems as though everything we know and rely on is going to be lost. It's true. It IS going to be lost. What most of us fail to recognize is that sometimes our worlds need to fall apart in order to create something infinitely better.

Life is not at an end. We are being prepared for a new creation. Hold tight to that vision of your ideal future. It is coming.

~CSE

   

When Life Doesn't Go According To Plan

Expectations. We all have them. They come from how the world tells us things should be. The problems come in when life doesn't go according to plan (which is pretty much all the time). Why does this happen? It's because we have a tendency to make plans with our minds rather than with our hearts!

Key here is that we usually make plans based on what society and our own experience tells us is correct. We have used our five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell) to gain information about how the world works. Then, using this experience, we rationalize the various options we see and choose what direction we will go in.

When I was young, I had all these expectations about how my life was going to be. I was going to get married, raise a family, have a successful counseling career and grow old with that same husband. The first thing to go was the career. I started out on the path, becoming a residence counselor working with emotionally disturbed children. Spending time with children who had severe behavioral problems because of abuse helped me understand I wanted to be the one actually raising my children instead of having a daycare raise them. Grad school was no longer all that desirable.

The second thing to go was the marriage. While I now understand there was so much wrong with my first marriage, losing it was still devastating. I felt like such a failure. I was broken and alone, and it took me many years to recover.

Even though my life did not stick to my mental script, I believe it did go according to plan. What I didn't understand was that it was going to follow the plan of my heart. My heart understood that I needed to learn self-worth and self-reliance. My heart understood I needed to be made stronger through adversity. My heart understood I was not meant to live inside a box that other people fit comfortably in.

I am okay with that. I can now appreciate that I've always had what I needed exactly when I needed it, even when I didn't understand what was going on at the time. My life has been full of fumbling and missteps, but it has been richer and more complete because of those problems. My life has not gone according to the plans in my head, but because my heart had other ideas my life has been everything I have needed.

Scrap the plan and follow the guidance of your heart! You may just find yourself in a place that far outweighs your former expectations.

~CSE

The Problem With Plans

I have a problem. I never realized what a big problem it was until just this minute. I am a planner. I decide on a destination and look down the road as far as I can see. From that point, I plot my moves as strategically as possible with the information available to me. Then I try and take what actions I deem necessary to move me in the desired direction. Why is this a problem, you ask? Because I am planning with my mind instead of my heart!

My mind has very limited information. It is based on what society has taught me is "appropriate" and what my experience tells me works. No matter how much I plan or how many contingencies I plan for, what my head understands will always be vulnerable to variables I know nothing about.

To add insult to injury, I judge myself in this moment of now when my plans don't work out. Quite often my plans involve goals and little things I should be accomplishing along the way. I have a tendency to be very hard on myself when things don't work out as I believe they should.

The Universe often has a good laugh over our plans. There are many occasions where I have been told things are going to happen in advance (aka destination). At that point, I will make my plans on how I am going to get there. Consequently, none of my plans ever seem to work, but somehow I find myself at the destination anyway!!!

The thing about plans is this: there is ultimately a BIG plan. It's something we have helped co-create with our fellow beings to help us learn and grow and live together as One. Subconsciously we work on it all the time because our subconscious is tuned into our connection to Source through our hearts. It is only when we bring this heart connection into our awareness that we begin to understand our heart plans--the BIG plan.

Plans themselves really aren't the problem. The problem is what you use to make your plans: your head or your heart. Once we begin to go with the plans in our hearts, we discover how much more easily the circumstances of our lives work out. We begin to live in the flow we are ultimately destined to live in.

~CSE