intention

I remember hearing the song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin and feeling instantly elated. The lyrics and melody were simple but made a lot of sense to me.

Dear Arielle & Brian,

I keep visualizing my soulmate and feel really open to him, and nothing is happening. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks for your help,
Isabel

Dear Isabel,

Why would you assume you are doing something wrong? Opening your heart and life to manifesting a soulmate requires patience because when your will and God’s will align, that is what we call Divine Timing.

If you want to increase the amount of joy in your life, it has to begin with the way you love, treat and honor yourself. If you are reaching outside of yourself for people, things, food, drugs, alcohol or jobs to be your source of joy, you will be at the mercy of circumstance. Real power comes when you realize you can feel joy for no reason at all.

The fall season is generally a time for harvesting crops. It is the time of year for seeing what has grown from the seeds that have been planted and then moving the harvest into storage for the winter. I was thinking about what I am harvesting at this time in my life, and what came is that I am harvesting a myriad of blessings.

Yes, you can have it all, really!

How you eat, think and exercise dramatically affects your mood. You can break the cycle of unhealthy habits and learn to have it all.

When my children were small, I would give them “time outs” to contemplate their behavior after a challenging experience. The intention was to support them in having time to gain clarity on the consequences of their actions. It didn’t always work, but it did support all of us in stopping for a short time to gain composure.

Most often we learn through challenge or even crisis. I would not call it fun, but I would call it a way to experience the “fire of the divine” as it burns away anything that does not support our greatness. In fact, I believe that ALL challenge is an answer to some prayer or internal request. Whether we are looking for deeper relationships, financial freedom, right employment or peace in our times, each experience is the call for us to look into our own consciousness and discover any place that is out of alignment with our divinity.

There is a lot of talk about oneness. We love the philosophers, teachers and healers that espouse wholeness and unity. There are blogs, newsletters and organizations dedicated to a world that is united, and it makes my heart smile to think that this aspect of the spiritual conversation is unfolding in such a grand way.

In the past few weeks, many people have come to me requesting information on accessing their joy. They have spoken about the challenges in their lives including divorce, lay offs, financial challenges and abuse from the past. As I have contemplated their questions, I kept coming back to one thing: Joy and happiness are states of consciousness. To experience joy, we must choose to activate that state. That is not always easy, especially when it appears that we are bombarded by so much information or in the midst of a life challenge.

In Wayne Muller’s book Sabbath, he speaks about the fact that dormancy is an important part of nature. The time of dormancy is a time of renewal and rejuvenation. Without this time, many species cannot bear fruit, or they simply die. He also points out that human beings seem to be the only species that does not honor stillness and downtime as an essential part of living. He describes this time as Sabbath, a time of taking refuge and opening to the stillness that lives within us.