No magic bullets for changing your life

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but there are no magic bullets. There's no one thing you can do to transform yourself or your life. After all, the way things are is the reason you're here.

That doesn't mean you can't form the intention to be or do more, and work to make it happen. You are allowed to set your direction and make the effort to get there. Just understand it's all about the effort, and what you experience along the way. Whether you make it or not.

This is the spiritual journey of your life. Enjoy it. Who knows? It may be the only one you'll get.

Feel the Pain

No pain, no gain. If you participated in organized sports, I'm sure you've heard that many times before.

Pain hurts. Yet rarely do we see the gain that it offers. Because it hurts, often we shrink from it, building walls to protect us from its sting rather than push through to the goal we seek.

For some reason, pain seems a little easier to bear when we have someone to share it with, if only to keep it from eating us away inside. Not to expect them to take it from us, but just to know they care and are there in our time of need.

Yet those walls we build lock it inside. Worse, they cause us to turn a deaf ear and not make the difference that we otherwise might. For them or us. Too often we wallow in it, and allow others do do the same. After all, it's their problem, not ours.

We all know how to alleviate pain. But do we? Or do we lock our pain in while trying to keep new pains out? And make others do the same. Not knowing that when we feel it together we can ease it and let it go.

When you're cruising down your life's highway, how do you respond to pain, whether in you or others? Do you shrink from it? Or do you use it to connect to life, and tear down the walls that keep you separate and apart?

Pain opens a window to your soul, and that of humanity. Will you keep the curtains drawn?

The Dark Side of Spiritual Development

What are the things in life that you are attached to? Your job? Your self-image? Your fears? Your desires?

As you progress in your own spiritual development, they will be used to beat you over the head. One after another will be tweaked and twisted, forcing you to cut those ties lest they pull you over the cliff of insanity.

Keep a look out. You'll know what to do when the time comes. And hopefully you'll have the strength to do it.

Take time to live

Let's not get so caught up in our spiritual journeys that we forget to appreciate life and the world around us.

Today the weather in Fort Lauderdale was absolutely spectaclar, starting around 60 degrees at dawn and getting into the upper 70's by mid-afternoon, with deep blue skies, whisps of clouds, and only a touch of a breeze. The birds were chirping and building their nests. Kids were outside playing. And the guy across the street was washing his car while I sat in the shade watching him. The best part was I didn't even have the urge to do mine.

Later I went out back by our pond and painted to the beat of the waterfall -- an unfamiliar experience in self-expression. Laura's a budding artist, and she graciously allowed me use of her easel and paints. Though the result was nothing special to look at, my first venture into acrylics was FUN. And that was enough.

It's the simple things in life that mean the most. Don't miss them. Look around and take notice. Give yourself permission to live.

Are you sabotaging your destiny?

Is the mantle of leadership awaiting you, but you are subconsciously doing things to sabotage having to wear it?

Our destiny may include wonderful possibilities. But many times those possibilities can only occur with the choice to look into our dark spaces and confront the demons we've locked away there.

The thought of a future where we reflect our mastery can be terrifying. Often it requires us to release the tendencies of personality and desire that keep us where we are. Not that these expressions of ego are somehow wrong, but just that they are more like old clothes that may no longer fit when we are in our bodies of light.

Look to the patterns that hold you back from what you can be, and the expressions of your ego throughout your life. Love them for what they are, and how they try to protect you from the responsibility your mastery will bring. And let them know there will be other ways for them to serve you in the days to come.

The future brings great promise, but only when we can transmute the fear that locks us where we are.

Carrying the weight of the world?

Do you feel like you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders? Or at least that the problems of your life are almost as big?

If so, then you have my thanks.

Better you than me. :-) Or all those people who figure things have a way of working out, and their job is just to deal with what's in front of them at the moment.

We're all challenged from time-to-time to put down our weight and stop our struggle. Sure, the situation may keep going. But the mental load we carry doesn't have to.

But if you want to keep on carrying yours, it's okay with me. I bless you for it.

A State of War

Do you recognize your conflicts with others? What about those going on within you?

This is a life of conflict. We are fighting a war nearly every moment of our lives, whether we like it or not.

Can you see yourself as being more than the conflict? Can you see yourself as whole, and that both sides are you? Not swinging back and forth like a leaf in the wind, but as an explorer who chooses to experience one side or another, just because it's there.

Go into your conflicts. Just be aware that they are there. And bless them because they are part of your journey.

How to go your own way, when everyone wants you to go somewhere else

This is a challenge for all of us, regardless of whether we live aware of our journey along the spiritual path. Too often their efforts to steer us result in friction and backlash, or worse, we succumb and give up our own dreams and inspiration.

I have found that it helps to go inside and listen to my heart. Do you listen to yours? What is your intention? Which way will best serve it? Then you will know how to choose.

Even when you must go against the grain of their efforts, try to do so in a loving way. Acknowledging the value of their suggestion, yet politely saying your inner guidance points you in another direction. At least for now.

Do You Love Your Life?

Well, do you? Do you love it enough to live it just the way it is? Or are you always looking to change some part of it?

There's a reason your life is the way it is. At WhisperZone we try to show you how to find it, and get more out of your experiences along the way.

Will you look? After all, isn't that why you're here?

A comprehensive view of life

Consider the possibility that life is part of a compehensive system of creation consisting of all in both the seen and unseen worlds. Interacting. Flowing. Each supporting and contributing to the purpose of the other.

Now also consider that we interact with this system through a soul as it gathers experiences along its journey through many lifetimes. Each contributing not only to its evolution, but that of humanity as a whole.

From this perspective, can you now see some greater possibility for your life than the thoughts and activities that engage you so? If so, then you are beginning to become aware of your spiritual journey.

Perhaps you will join us at WhisperZone to explore it further.

Can you hear the whispers of your soul?

There's an inner voice calling you to act, to serve a higher will. Can you hear it? What does it want? What will you do?

How do you use your love?

Every day brings many opportunities to make a loving difference in our world.

To love ourselves through rest, recreation, and self-expression. To love others through listening, caring, and extending a helping hand. To love life by honoring all around us.

Changing the world starts with us. Right here, right now. One moment and one heart at a time.

What are we waiting for?

How will your light shine?

This world's a mess, yet at the same time holds such hope. On which will we focus our attention? The things that are wrong, or those that give promise for a better tomorrow?

Ia it enough to wring our hands at all the bad that goes on, feeling impotent to stop it? Or must we do what we can to implement whatever vision we each hold high?

You are the light of the world. Will you keep it to yourself, or unleash it for all to see by?

God Speaks Through Many Voices

Do you hear God around you? When I have the presence of mind to step aside, I never cease to be humbled by the lessons He brings through others. Those are perhaps His most direct and in depth communications, revealing things I have been too blind to see.

Next time someone says something that makes you squirm, move past both your egos and ask yourself, "Is this the voice of God?" And give thanks He cares enough to tell you.

Is that REALLY what Jesus wanted?

In this time of Lent, Christians are reflecting on their own relationship with God. This is a period of sacrifice, of giving up something one holds dear to get closer to the Light.

Really, though, haven't you been sacrificing all your life? Sacrificing who you are for what you thought you should be or do? What has it brought you, besides continual struggle to prove you're something you're not?

Jesus was sacrificed to prove our addiction to this struggle. Because death is all that awaits those who deny what they truly are and the peace they already have -- a death that ultimately comes only after a slow, insidious wasting away that saps all the joy out of life.

Our connection to spirit is not dependent upon the outer world around us, or the things we do or surround ourselves with. Yet we deny it to chase the fleeting offerings that world promises.

When will you give up your struggle? Or do you like it so much that you don't care it's consuming you?

Jesus gave his life so you wouldn't have to. Sure, he died for our sins -- the sins we live each moment denying that we are the spirit that dwells inside.

Isn't it time you got the message?

Look at your Pain

We all carry such pain inside. What's yours?

It's there for a reason, to show you aspects of you that you may not want to see. Yet they are important for your spiritual journey.

Look at your pain, and let it teach you. When you learn, it will dissipate and fade into the night.