I was excited to read Dayna Macy’s new book, “Ravenous: A Food Lover’s Journey from Obsession to Freedom”, because it is a memoir and not a “diet book.” After reading a few self-help books on weight loss, like Marianne Williamson’s, “A Course in Weight Loss” and Geneen Roth’s “Women, Food, and God,” (both of which I loved!), it intrigued me that someone would write a personal story of what she eats and why and what she did about it.
Dayna Macy titled her three sections with compelling names: Part 1 is “Seduction”, in which she writes about the foods that arouse her desires: “Sausage,” “Cheese,” “Chocolate,” “Olives,” and “Squash.” Squash? Yes, squash – this chapter seems to be more about the pleasure of food than the food itself. Or, perhaps, more about the man who is cooking the food than the food itself – charged with longing and eroticism, this chapter makes it is easy to see why we women confuse food with intimacy. Hunger is often not distinguished for us in terms of what we are hungry for. And so, we eat when we can’t or don’t love.
Part II is titled, “Communion,” with chapters called, “Farm,” “Forage,” “Feast,” “Patience,” “Slaughter,” and “Home” – the connections with food that create the insatiable – or almost insatiable — bond with those foods we love. The hardest chapter for me to read in this section (in fact, in the entire book) was the one on meat, entitled “Slaughter.” While I am not a vegetarian and I don’t have any desire to be one, Dayna’s telling of her visit to a humane “abattoir” – a slaughterhouse – took me up close and personal to what it is behind the scenes of being a meat-eater: an animal has to die for me to have my steak and eat it, too.
Indeed, this chapter is about the humane slaughter of cows, which, we all know (or, should know by now) is not the way most of the cattle that supplies our meat are killed. Although she does not take us on a visit to the farms that do not practice the humane slaughter of cattle, the background conversation is that method as a contrast to this visit to the more humane facility. She describes the process in detail: calves one at a time, hidden from the view of the animals behind it, stunned to brain-deadness and then killed. Behind her visceral description is what she doesn’t discuss — the even more disturbing vision of cows crowded together in a killing chute, fear racing through their bodies as they see the animal in front of them die. She doesn’t describe that directly, but the way she describes this killing is as a contrast to that killing. While the unspoken contrast is not on the page, it is left in your mind.
After that chapter, I had to take a break. Her descriptions are so detailed, I had to put the book down for awhile. It was time to think about my responsibility in how I choose my food. Can I live with even the humane description? I don’t know.
Part III is called, “Transformation.” The chapter titles are, “No Food,” “The Yoga of Food,” “The Practice of Food,” “The Offering of Food,” – all very spiritual chapters in the sense that eating and food require being honest with oneself and present to the actual act of eating — and the last chapter of the book is on “Oranges.” This is my favorite chapter, partly because of her luscious descriptions: “Oranges are among my favorite fruits. I love how the juice squirts out when you bite into a section and how they can be both sweet and sour and taste like the sun,” and partly because it is clear, in the end, that she has no answers for herself or for me – or for anyone, in fact.
There are no answers.
This is a book about the courage to be honest about one’s appetites – all of them – and the way we use those appetites to protect ourselves, to hide our pain – mostly from ourselves – and, finally, to find a way to use the very wounds that we seek to hide to take us on a journey that will lead to loving ourselves.
Deliciously yours in the Sweetness of it All, Linda
“Weight can be gained or lost. Our judgments about our bodies are much harder to lose. I see that my body is strong. It lets me do things both beautiful and practical. I am grateful to have found a practice that is helping me find balance and lose weight. But the scale is a witness to my journey, not the measure of my worth. It is with gratitude and humility that I am learning to take care of my body, because it is the embodiment of my spirit and the vehicle with which I make my way through this complicated, magnificent world.” Dayna Macy, “Ravenous: a food lover’s journey from obsession to freedom.”
Here is the link to Hay House Book Club Radio, a discussion of “Ravenous” which will air this Friday, August 19th:
http://www.hayhouseradio.com/show_details.php?show_id=235&episode_type=0
Here is the link to “Ravenous” at Barnes and Noble:
And, the link to Amazon.com:
Disclosure: I received Dayna Macy’s book, “Ravenous: a food lover’s journey from obsession to freedom” for free from Hay House Publishing.
© Linda Ruocco and “Spiritual Chocolate”, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Linda Ruocco and ”Spiritual Chocolate” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Thank you.
A REVIEW: “The Power of Your Spirit”
July 7, 2011
In my own life, when I am not connected to spirit – and ego holds the reins of anything I do – life is lonely, hard, and nothing seems to work. If I can just wrangle myself back to letting spirit be in charge, everything shifts – and life is effortless, full of grace, and filled with the synchronicity that always means to me that God is in charge.
“Wrangling myself back” to spirit – Aye, there’s the rub. Ego does not give up its hold easily.
So, when I received my copy of Sonia Choquette’s new book, “The Power of Your Spirit: A Guide to Joyful Living,” I thought, “I am open and willing to hear whatever you have to say, Sonia!” I was in one of my particularly strong ego, fear, loss periods – and anything that would help me to get back in spirit’s saddle and let the Divine take over the reins – well, that is always something I want to hear!
Ego really did not want to give up control. It took me until page 68, when I read the following: “We all eventually reach a moment in life when we must come face-to-face with a force greater than our ego, or intellect; and, at that point, we’re invited to recognize the holy force, the Spirit. People struggle against this because it feels as if we’re being asked to hand over our power. On the contrary, it’s actually an invitation to get to know and accept the most powerful, brilliant, authentic essence of ourselves.”
Yes, I know that moment.
There’s an expression, “My best thinking got me here” and I can tell you that “here,” for me, at that moment, was a place of sadness, loss, defeat, and what I saw as failure. I felt as if I had nothing more to lose and, Sonia’s book notwithstanding, I was feeling that the divine was nowhere near and certainly not listening – and I was even angry about that.
I came on that passage and it landed for me as just what I needed to read. That’s when I started to pay attention. I went back to the beginning and started over again.
“The Power of Your Spirit” takes the reader on a journey through the four stages of awakening to spirit and allowing the divine – our own spirit – to guide us daily to the greater good for all. The ego wants us to win – “Me, me, me!” is the ego’s cry. The spirit wants life to be great for us and for all. We cannot “win” if someone else has to lose in the process. There is no grace in that.
The four stages are: “Awakening to Your Spirit,” when we go from being spiritually unconscious to realizing that there is another dimension – a spiritual one; “Discovering Your Spirit,” when we read everything spiritual we can get our hands on, take spiritual courses, and listen to spiritual teachers (my particular balliwick); “Surrendering to Your Spirit,” which means “moving beyond the parameters and perceived safety of your ego and turning your well-being over to the mysterious, unlimited realm of intuition”; and “Flowing with Your Spirit.” In this last stage, “your ego steps aside and allows your Spirit to completely take over.”
Since I wasn’t doing such a good job of handling my life on my own, those last couple of stages really called to me. It was time to stop reading, taking courses, and just talking the talk. “Letting go”, whenever it happened for me, always worked – and perhaps this book, arriving when it did, was the proof that divine guidance was stepping in to remind me that it was time, once again, to “walk” the talk and let spirit take over.
I was especially intrigued with the last stage, about “being in the flow.” I’ve experienced that before and it has been magical. I’ve often wished that I could make that happen more often. Ah, ah…? “Make that happen?” There’s the catch. “Making it happen” is the ego’s game. Being in the flow is “life experienced with ease, grace, peace, healing, and connection.” When that’s not happening, you’re not in flow. When life occurs as peaceful, magical, graceful, and you find yourself in mystical situations that you cannot explain and they work effortlessly – that’s being in the flow. It’s not something to force. It’s something to fall into.
As Sonia Choquette says so eloquently, “Flow is faith in action: the synthesis of your true Divine nature merging with your faith in God, the Universe, and life.”
It gives new meaning to the expression, “Go with the flow….”
Deliciously yours in the Mystical Transformation of it All, Linda
From the Afterword of “The Power of Your Spirit”, a chapter subtitled, “The New Frontier”, a quote that I love from The Buddha:
“Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.”
This is Sonia Choquette, the author of “The Power of Your Spirit: A Guide to Joyful Living.” She is an internationally renowned author, storyteller, vibrational healer, and six-sensory spiritual teacher. She’s also the author of The New York Times bestseller The Answer is Simple. Her website is www.soniachoquette.com.
Here is the link to Hay House where you can buy “The Power of Your Spirit: A Guide to Joyful Living”
http://www.hayhouse.com/details.php?id=5565
Disclosure: I received Sonia Choquette’s book, “The Power of Your Spirit: A Guide to Joyful Living” for free from Hay House Publishing.
© Linda Ruocco and “Spiritual Chocolate”, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Linda Ruocco and ”Spiritual Chocolate” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Thank you.
“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…”
November 21, 2009
I was looking for my Christmas ornaments.
It was the Fall of 2007. I hadn’t had a Christmas tree in all the time I’d lived in my apartment, four years at that point. It occurred to me to celebrate my transition into a new life by creating one of my beautiful Christmas trees, loaded with lights and decorations and wrapped in pink tulle.
I took on cleaning out my closets to find my boxes of ornaments.
It’s funny about closets – New Yorkers always seem to want lots of closet space, AND what happens is that we bury things in there for years. Then we forget. We forget what we have and what we value and what has long ago lost any worth or use to us. We let it all lay in the background of our apartments and our lives, leaving no room for anything new to come in…
After moving every box and pile out of all the closets and into the middle of the living room floor, I made a disconcerting discovery:
My Christmas ornaments were nowhere to be found.
I sat on the couch, gathering my thoughts and dusting off my memory. Where could they be?
I remembered. It had been a horrible time. I had to leave my previous apartment to go and live with a friend for a while. I wasn’t working – a condition made worse by the 9/11 tragedy the prior September. The city was still in shock, a job I had been working on dried up, and New Yorkers – as resilient as we are – were waking up to a new world. The process was not easy.
In the midst of this, after 8 years of separation, my husband, Fred, brought me divorce papers. When I asked, “Why now?” he said, “It’s time,” and I had to agree. It didn’t seem that it would change anything – we had been friends for years, and there was no reason to think that we wouldn’t be as we had been. I signed the papers.
There were many things that I couldn’t bear to put in storage when I left that apartment. Fred helped me to move boxes of these treasures to his house: photographs, our wedding album, the blue snake paperweight he had given me when I became a Vice President at Bloomingdale’s, the Tiffany Battersea box of the Statue of Liberty from her birthday year, my amethyst ring that I had designed in a little goldsmith shop in Florence, some of my favorite articles of clothing, and all my Christmas decorations.
When Fred and I were first married, we made a promise that we would give each other an ornament that was a special gift to the other. Although Fred is Jewish, we always had a Christmas tree and decorations all over the apartment. That first year, I bought a white felt church ornament and, with a black Sharpee, I wrote, “United Nations Interfaith Chapel, May 16, 1976” around the front doors to celebrate our wedding day.
In the years following that, I would go to work at Bloomingdale’s early on the morning after Christmas day and buy some of the special ornaments that I had been coveting that season – now at 50% off. I bought angels and gilt boxes, and delicate crystal scene ornaments. One year, Bloomingdale’s had a Venetian Christmas theme, and I bought masks and gondolas and Venetian chandeliers, and a hand-painted porcelain jester to sit atop the tree.
When I realized that the ornaments had to have been at Fred’s, I called to ask him to drop them off for me. When I made my request, he said, “But… you gave them to me.” I was so surprised by his response that all I could do was to repeat it, “I gave them to you? For keeps?” He said that I did. I still couldn’t get it, “You’ve been using them? All these years?”
I stopped myself before I said what was there for me, “All these years? Without me?”
I listened as he recounted the day and the conversation when I had done so. I didn’t remember. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Losing my home was so traumatic that Christmas ornaments and divorce papers for a marriage long over paled by comparison. I could even imagine myself saying, “Sure, take them.”
I made a stab for sympathy , “Fred, you know what I was going through. Wouldn’t you want me to have them back now?”
He didn’t. He was annoyed as he said that he thought they were his and he’d see what he could do about pulling them together for me, but some of them weren’t there anymore.
I knew instantly what he meant. My special “love” mementos weren’t there. His girlfriend would never hang an ornament on the tree that was “engraved” with the date and place of our marriage. I didn’t want to hear that there were ornaments that had been thrown out, discarded in some trashcan someplace, sullied and forever lost.
I stopped talking. We were in two different conversations, and I realized that I didn’t want to be in THAT conversation anymore – the conversation of “mine” and “yours” that had run our marriage. Those ornaments weren’t my marriage, they weren’t my feelings, they weren’t my life. They were memories, and that’s what they would remain.
I hung up the phone and I knew I was done. We had tried hard to maintain a friendship, an enchantment about the way we loved each other, first passionately, now fondly. It was over, I knew – but, I always believed – and still do – that God can always start over again. It may not look the same, but He can make things as beautiful and as glorious as ever they were – and even greater… IF we let Him…
In the moment, that seemed like a stretch….
In the following weeks, I went through all the boxes from my closets. Most of them contained books that I had been lugging around from apartment to apartment, never opening them, hidden away and taking up space.
One box was full of Fred’s old books. I took them out of the box, remembering how he would talk about what he was reading – Fred is a brilliant, passionate man and it was never more evident than when he was reading something he loved.
He read mostly non-fiction. The books were “Kippur,” “Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number,” “The Abandonment of the Jews: America and The Holocaust,” ”Who Financed Hitler.” And, because he couldn’t stand not to have a wholly informed point of view, there was also “The Disinherited: Journal of a Palestinian Exile.”
At the bottom of the box were Solzhenitisyn’s books. I closed my eyes and was taken back to when we were dating and we would go to the Hamptons for the weekends. I remembered him lying on his side in the sand, under the hot sun, engrossed in “The Gulag Archipelago.” I remembered the curve of his arm as he leaned his head on his hand, how the muscles in his shoulder looked strong and protective…. how I was overwhelmed with love for him…. It was the most erotic posture I could imagine…. My heart used to melt just watching him read…
I put all those books back in the box and closed it up. For a brief moment, I considered calling Fred to ask if he wanted them, but I knew better. He never saved books — or anything else. When he was done with something, he threw it out or gave it away. He would have been surprised to know that I still had these.
I pulled the box through my front door and dragged it down the hall to the service elevator.
I rang the buzzer on the elevator and ran back to my apartment. As I opened the door, I looked back to see the porter pulling the box into the cage. In one swift movement, it was gone.
I stepped inside my apartment and closed the door behind me. I sighed as I leaned back against the door and closed my eyes.
My closets were clean and clear… It was time to work on my heart…
I thought, “I will buy a new Christmas ornament tomorrow. I don’t know what it will look like, but it will be special and it will be beautiful, and it will be the first of many magical things I will have in my life…”
Christmas is a time of birth, renewal, creation, and love…. a new year… a new life… for all of us…
Begin again.
Deliciously yours in the Enchantment of it All, Linda
“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished.
That will be the beginning.”
Louis L’Amour
*EPILOGUE: This story was orginally written in the Fall of 2007. Fred and I are good friends now and always will be…. God has created a new friendship between us — a different way of being with each other that is as beautiful as the time when we were in love…. It is a friendship full of kindness, caring, and grace that I am blessed to have in my life…..
© Linda Ruocco and “Spiritual Chocolate”, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Linda Ruocco and ”Spritiual Chocolate” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Thank you.
“When God closes one door…”
June 2, 2009
I have been speaking with lots of my friends lately about the miracles I always see in my life – real miracles – those things that just weren’t going to happen any other way. For me, they seem to happen all the time…
I remember one of the first times it happened for me — or perhaps the first time I noticed? — that what I said I wanted to happen – simply showed up. Let me share that with you now…
I used to own an apartment in a building designed by one of New York City’s premiere pre-war architects, Emory Roth. It was one of a group of six buildings he designed in 1926 – three on the North side of the street and three on the South side — all pretty much the same, with just a few minor facade details from building to building to make it interesting. The buildings were separate cooperatives, but they all got together and planted the same trees, the same plants, and – at Christmastime – they all decorated those trees with thousands of tiny white Christmas tree lights – it looked like a fairyland! The block is known to be one of the most beautiful in Manhattan.
I was renovating my apartment and was trying to do as much as I could myself. The apartment was old and had been painted so many times that a chip in the wall revealed myriad layers of paint colors – how many lives this apartment must have had!
I had fourteen doors in the apartment, all covered with the same rainbow layers of paint. I wanted to remove the paint down to the bare wood and start all over again – that way, I could remove all the bumps and “grapefruit” effect that paint-over-paint creates. I couldn’t use a heat gun – many of those old paint layers were most likely lead-based paint and that would have been too dangerous.
I discovered a product called “Peel-Away”, which is a paint remover that doesn’t smell and works great! This stuff is amazing – you spread it on like icing on a cake, leave it for a while, and it liquefies the paint. At that point, you could simply take a paint scraper and lift all the layers of paint off at one time to the clean wood beneath. It was like magic!
When I worked on the first door, I didn’t realize that you couldn’t leave the product to dry on the wood – you had to take it off as soon as the paint “melted.” I didn’t realize that, or I was lazy, or both – when the “Peel-away” dried on the wood, the entire door warped and was unusable.
I learned my lesson, and I was careful with all the other doors. I finally finished them all, and it was time to replace the door I had ruined. I figured, “I’ll just order one door. How much could it possibly be?”
I measured the door – it had to be a “right-opening” door and it had very odd measurements: 79-3/8” high, 29-5/16” wide, 1-5/8” thick.
I called every door store I could find. It turned out that my door had to be custom made because no one made doors that size anymore. In fact, when I checked all the other thirteen doors in my apartment, not one of the doors was the same size as any of the other doors! All the doors in the entire apartment had been made separately – no automatic pre-cut doors in 1926! I couldn’t believe it! The cheapest price quote was $865.00. That was more than it would have cost to have all my doors scraped by a professional!
I was discouraged. After all that work, I had saved myself nothing. I just couldn’t deal with how stupid and careless my mistake was – how it had cost me extra work and extra time — and I gained nothing…
I was so overwhelmed just thinking about what I had done. A “dark cloud” descended on me….
The only thing I could do right then was to meditate. I had been doing Transcendental Meditation every morning since I was 28 years old. Sometimes, when the world felt too “heavy”, I would do another session later in the day as well. I could always tell when I needed it – when my thoughts were confused or I was sad or I was agitated. I would get this dazed, tired feeling and that was it. Off to my room I would go and disappear for 20 minutes.
This was one of those times….
I plopped myself onto my bed and sat up against my pillow. I had a thought before I closed my eyes and took my first deep breath: “How am I going to get a door without it costing me so much money?” My mind turned off and I entered into a place of peace and calm.
I opened my eyes later and took a deep breath – I didn’t remember thinking about the door while I was in my peaceful state, but when I opened my eyes, I thought, “I need a door. I’ll just get a door. Big deal.”
I relaxed back onto my pillow and prepared to get back into my day.
I glanced out the window. My apartment was on the second floor and, from my vantage point sitting on my bed, I could clearly see across the street to one of our sister buildings. There was a dumpster there – “Someone across the street must be renovating,” I thought.
As I stared out the window, I saw two men coming out of the service entrance of the building across the street – CARRYING A DOOR!
I sat bolt upright in my bed – “That’s my door!” I jumped off the bed, ran out of my bedroom, grabbed my carpenter’s tape measure off the coffee table in my living room, dashed out the front door and down the stairs – I didn’t want to wait for the elevator – I had to get to those guys before they flung the door into the dumpster and maybe damaged it or even broke it!
I ran across the street, yelling, “Wait! I have to have that door!” They stopped, put the door down and set it up against the dumpster. They looked at me, puzzled. I ran to the door and pulled open the tape. I took the measurements: 79-3/8” high, 29-5/16” wide, 1-5/8” thick. It was a “right-handed” door.
Exactly the same as the door I had ruined…
I paid them to bring the door up to my apartment. They leaned it against the wall in the living room and they left.
I fell into a chair and just stared at it for a long time – how had that happened? It was just too perfect to be pure coincidence, but my mind boggled at the idea that it could be anything more…
That was a long time ago…
Since then, I’ve had so many miracles just like that in my life. I think of something, I pray, I let it go, and whatever that is – appears….
I’ve even tried to manipulate it a bit…. looking for the evidence, saying, “God, did you see that? I did something good……” That NEVER seems to work….. That’s just the ego, up to it’s old tricks…
There’s no surrender in that….
When I stop thinking about it “working” or what I have to do to “make it happen”, AND let go of the fear and worry about that it won’t happen, or what will happen if it doesn’t happen, or how can I do this so it WILL happen…. and… well… just do what is before me to do….
What there is to do is to have faith and trust that it will all work out the way it’s supposed to…. My prayer isn’t “Can I have this?” but “I know You know what is right for me…” I am always graced with some wonderful “gift” – sometimes, even greater than what I could ever have thought to ask for on my own….
I have come to believe that we are here to create, to have abundance, to have joy and love, and to be at peace…
God opens that door…. All we have to do is to step through….
Deliciously yours in the Mystery of it All, Linda
“There is no order of difficulty in miracles. One is not ‘harder’ or ‘bigger’ than another. They are all the same. All expressions of love are maximal.”
“A Course in Miracles,” Text, Chapter 1, Principles of Miracles.
© Linda Ruocco and “Spiritual Chocolate”, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Linda Ruocco and “Spritiual Chocolate” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Thank you.
“Behold, I make all things new… “
May 24, 2009
We are all born into a conversation – more than one, actually – not of our own making… and those conversations form how life seems to us… We are usually not aware of what those conversatons are — they lay beneath the surface….
We live out of those conversations…. they drive and shape our actions…
I used to be a worrier. For years I worried about my mother – whether she was OK or not, where she was, what she was doing…. I worried in such a way that it made me feel that my worry would be enough to preclude any harm to her. It seemed that — only if I worried — I could be properly vigilant about her well-being.
Then my son was born. Josh was an RH baby and the doctors delivered him early in order to save his life. He was 8 weeks premature and had to stay in the hospital for those same 8 weeks. During that time, my mother developed angina and went to a different hospital in New Jersey, near where I grew up.
I couldn’t be in two places at once…
Six weeks later, on the day she was to leave the hospital, she died of a heart attack two hours before she was scheduled to be released. My son was still in the neonatal intensive care unit at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City. My brother-in-law called me there to tell me about my mother — I leaned over my son’s incubator, put my head in my arms, and cried my heart out…
My already boundless grief was sliced with a deeper cut… Could I have taken my eye off the ball when my son was born? Did my mother die because I wasn’t paying attention?
What I didn’t realize at the time was… I took all my worry about my mother and transferred it over to my son…
Some of that “hovering” paid off – I caught a 5 inch air bubble in his IV when he was 8 weeks old – seconds before it was set to go into his tiny body. The nurse said it was nothing as her shaking hands disconnected the tube and tapped out the offending air; my doctor friend was appalled and told me it was lucky I had been there.
That just served as evidence that worry pays off…
Certainly, vigilance around a young child is appropriate – babies have a tendency to eat anything on the floor that looks interesting — and they poke their fingers into whatever little fingers can poke into – like electrical sockets, holes in the ground, bottles that are left open… Mothers and fathers are supposed to be on the look-out for these potentially dangerous curiosities…
There does come a time, however, when you cannot watch your child every moment anymore…. and you do have to trust that they can, actually, handle SOME things on their own….
I never got THAT memo….
The litany of worry: Where are you? What are you doing? Do you have enough money? Who are you going with? Where are his parents? Why are you going there? When will you be back? Did you eat enough? Are you warm enough? Are your clothes clean?
It was exhausting….
When he went away to college, instead of the worry easing up, it got worse…. He wasn’t around, so then, I had to worry ALL THE TIME!
Whew…!
Just about the time that I felt that I just couldn’t do it anymore, I signed up to take one of my first workshops on self-awareness, personal growth, and, in general, “how to be happy.” The leader was a friend of my group leader for “A Course in Miracles” – his name was Landon Carter and he used to be one of the early EST trainers.
I never heard of transformation education and I didn’t know what I was in for. I did, however, know that I was exhausted all the time, I was resigned about what I thought I couldn’t change about my life, I had been on anti-depressants for years, and I felt like my life was very limited and small.
Perfect. Time for a change…
In the course of the training, Landon asked us if there was an issue that any one of us had been dealing with for a long time that we wanted to “disappear.” Before I could think about it, my arm shot up in the air, “YES, ME!! I’ve got one!”
I told Landon and the group about my constant worry. I told them that I felt like I had to worry because there seemed to be a connection between my worry and keeping my son safe. More than safe… I behaved as if my worry is what kept my son alive….
Landon did a technology on me called “The Truth Process”.
To explain it simply, he had me close my eyes – and he took me on a journey back through time, through every emotion and bodily sensation having to do with worry… I discovered that every time I thought about Josh or my mother or – early on, myself – in danger, I would grab my throat. I felt as if my throat was closing up so that I couldn’t breathe. Each time I thought that I had completed some event, Landon would ask me to go back even further…. each time, my throat would tighten and I would be locked in fear…
I remembered so many things… how my mother worried all the time about her family that was so far away and none of whom she had seen in years, my father who worried about his mother, my own worry about being left alone in school and not knowing anyone…
It was always about people being far away and life being dangerous and how to make sure that everyone was safe…. and, of course, you can never completely be sure that everyone is safe all the time…. so there’s more worry….
It was all about survival….
That’s what I was born into – a background conversation in every area of life that to worry was to keep safe…. maybe…
Finally, Landon said to me, “Is it your worry that is keeping your son alive?” I had to admit that speaking it out loud that way revealed it as the silly premise that it was. “No,” I answered. Then he said, “Can you accept, right this minute, that your son is either alive or he is not?” I never thought about that before – I had never before been challenged to look at what was so in that moment.
Landon went on, “Your worry is stealing your life with him right now. You cannot enjoy him in the present. If you could get profoundly related to what is true right this moment and enjoy or mourn that – in the moment – you would have a completely different life. Can you do that? Can you face that?”
I could — and I did. I gave up worrying about him. I gave up worrying in general. I see now that it is a totally useless emotion. It doesn’t prevent anything and it doesn’t create anything.
In that free space, I took a stand that I would enjoy every moment with my son from that day forward….
A few months later, Landon wrote to me to ask me if I had noticed any shift in my life as a result of doing his workshop. I realized that EVERYTHING had shifted – and I suddenly saw that my life with my son had dramatically altered. I wrote back to Landon:
“I was on a high for days… I felt free for the first time in my life! I am happy and I am sleeping soundly. I feel truly in the NOW every moment! That alone is worth everything to me.”
“Then, an unusual – and totally unexpected – thing started to happen: my son started calling me often, our conversations were more intimate, non-threatening, and really loving. I mean, we had always been loving to each other before, but there was something else there. I’m still not sure I can put my finger on what it is…”
“It culminated in my son making a very favorable comparison of the two of us – something he had never done before. For years, he had been critical of the ‘outrageous’ way I dressed. About two weeks after the workshop, he compared our fashion styles and said, ‘I always thought the way you threw something odd into the mix was a little ‘off-the-wall’ – like those leopard heels with the elegant black suit. Now, I realize that I’m doing the same thing with these velvet slippers and no socks with MY suit. It’s a matter of style, and I got that from you.’ I almost fell over – my son had never aligned himself with me in any way previous to this – at least, not since he was a little boy.”
“It may sound like a small example, but what I started to see was that – now that I wasn’t worrying about him all the time – there was a different dynamic in our conversations…. a freedom for love to be expressed — for intelligent, equal conversation to occur, for respect and consideration to be expressed and felt – by both of us.”
“I realized that what my worry (about his dying) had served to do was to hold him at arm’s distance while smothering him with my attempted control of his activities so that he wouldn’t get hurt…”
“What I finally got was that I was trying to control his life so that I wouldn’t ‘get hurt.’ I was interpreting his imagined death as a threat to my own survival because – how could I live without him? I now feel that I could live with the fact that, in any given moment, my son is either alive or he is not, and there’s nothing I can do about that – except to love him no matter what. Frankly, death would not affect my love for him at all – Love, I know, is eternal.”
“Our relationship gets more rich every day…. And, because I am free of my worry, I also have a lot more time to spend thinking about things at which I can be productive and successful. I am opened up and expressed as I have never been before! I feel as if I have gotten my life back – a part of me that I never knew I had! – with the added bonus of a more special relationship with my son.”
“Every now and then, I still get a tightness in my throat – while watching a movie where a child dies, or something awful happens at work… and my hand goes to my throat. But, now I recognize that’s the trigger — I take a deep breath and say, ‘I’m OK, I am safe, my son is safe, and I am happy,’ and the feelings pass.”
That workshop with Landon was seven years ago. It was the beginning of my new life – a life I work at every day — in a moment by moment choice for Love, for freedom, for peace – for aliveness!
Here’s to Aliveness! Here’s to Life!
Deliciously yours in the Joy of it all, Linda
“‘God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’ And he who sat upon the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.'” Revelations 21:4-5
This is Landon Carter, who led my first workshop on transformation, described above.
Landon has written a book called, “Living Awake: The Practice of Transforming Everyday Life.” In that book, he describes the “Truth Process” as a process in general; and, specifically, the process he did with me, which he describes on pages 88-94. He calls me “Lucy” in that book. The letter that I wrote to him after the workshop, edited in the story above, also appears in the book, on pages 152-154. Landon’s book is a great handbook for living a transformed life — you can read more about it at www.landoncarter.com.
The quintessential transformation education “campus” — and one where I participate a lot — is Landmark Education, the successor to EST, where Landon was a trainer many years before. You can visit them at www.landmarkeducation.com. They have centers all over the world.
Transformation is a never-ending journey — and well worth the ride…. I promise you — the ride of your Life!
© Linda Ruocco and “Spiritual Chocolate”, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Linda Ruocco and “Spritiual Chocolate” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Thank you.
“Like a bridge over troubled waters…”
April 23, 2009
Everyone has so much they’re dealing with these days – if it isn’t money, it’s job and career or relationship or health or… Well, there’s a lot out there, isn’t there?
These are the times when good friends are so important. I find that if I keep it all in my head, it seems as if the world is coming to an end. But, if I reach out – when things seem so overwhelming — to one of my “committed listeners,” there is a comfort there that is simple and sweet in the “gathering together” of our shared humanity — within which we are healed…
A perfect illustration of this is my story this week… A story about two friends who merged in my life to create a lesson of love…
About five years ago, I went through a scary period, starting with suddenly losing my work in December and continuing through a time that certainly qualified as a “crucible of faith” over the following nine months – a roller-coaster ride of highs – when I’d have a great job interview – to the lowest of lows – when I would wonder, “What am I going to do now?”
This period was the most severe test of my faith and trust in everything I ever believed God was or is or ever would be in my life.
How that manifested for me is that — in the midst of all the worry about my own life — 13 people I knew died during a seven-week period from mid-May through mid-July – each from different periods of my life – each death a further test of my faith…
One, in particular, was the turning point in how I experienced God as always there for me…
I had a friend, Mari, with whom I had been very close many years before. I met her because our husbands were business friends and we wound up going to dinner – the four of us – one night. It was one of those kinds of meetings when you say, “Hi!” and you are instant friends. I felt I had known her all my life!
We became close – way beyond any friendship that our husbands had – we were like sisters, totally entwined in each other’s lives — and it worked out that Mari had a brother, Carmine, who was a hairdresser – Mari and I traveled to Nutley, New Jersey, every two weeks to have our hair colored and cut at his salon. Those drives were full of intimate, loving talks about relationships, our children, our careers, and our dreams…
It went on like this for years – our families spent time together, she and I met separately — when we couldn’t see each other, we were on the telephone, sharing what happened that day. I loved everything about her – her loving nature, her honesty, her unbelievable energy! Fred, my husband, always said, “That Mari is a ‘ball of fire!’”
And then – it wasn’t like that anymore. When my husband and I separated, I continued to talk to Mari and to see her for lunch on occasion, but – as so often happens when one couple parts – it changes things. It wasn’t so easy anymore to find time to get together. She had her life and I had mine – and so we drifted apart.
One day, I read in the paper that she had become a Vice President at Lacoste, and I decided to write to her. I soon received an email asking me to give her a call at home. She said that she was working from there for a while…
I did – and it was just as it had always been…. we talked on the phone for an hour, sharing what had happened over those intervening years….
What had happened for Mari was that she had breast cancer….
We talked about our spiritual journey – mine having been birthed by the separation from my husband and my son growing away from me, my career shifting and changing in ways unpredictable and frightening; hers having intensified with her illness, offering her a comfort that she hadn’t realized before was even possible. We spoke our fears out loud and talked about what it meant to have God in our lives through such challenging times.
We planned a visit. I would come out to Long Island to see her and we could be together the way we used to be…
It never happened. She got weaker and weaker – until she could no longer come to the phone. We communicated by emails and, occasionally, I would check in with her brother. I didn’t know it at the time, but I would never speak with her again….
My own life took more unexpected twists and turns…. I took a consulting project in the fashion industry and it meant that I was busy and traveling… Just before I left for India the following November, I called Carmine. Mari had just gone into the hospital once again. I gave him my cell phone number – “Just in case…”
While in India, I went to Sai Baba’s ashram and brought back some Vibhuti for Mari –Vibhuti is the holy ash that Baba creates out of the air – it is used for prayer and healing. When I returned, I learned that, without warning, my consulting gig would end, and so I was plunged into my own fear for my life and future….
The Vibhuti stayed in its box and Mari was never called…
During this time, the friend who was MY strength and comfort was Victoria Moran, the author and spiritual teacher. She and I had come together in our own accidental way – she called me because she found me online and wanted to join the Peace Circle I was holding after 9/11. By the time she called, I wasn’t doing them anymore, but I said to her, “I live on 55th and First. If that’s convenient for you, I’ll take your name and when I start doing them again, I’ll call you.”
As God would have it, Victoria lived across the street. Literally. Right across First Avenue – we could see each other’s windows if we looked out our own.
Victoria and I began a spiritual tag-team kind of friendship – we were each other’s spiritual listener. One time, we met for 15 minutes a day for a month to speak our dreams to each other – hers for that her book, “Younger By The Day” would become a best-seller (it did!) — and mine that I would have a brilliant new job (I did!).
Victoria was there for me when I learned that my consulting gig was over – I didn’t even go home first…. I went straight to Victoria’s apartment and she listened as I tried to move out of my “deer-in-the-headlights” fear state… her presence and her listening were the love I needed to get through that awful day…. and in the days and months afterwards…
I emailed Mari over the next few months, and although I didn’t receive any answers, I saw from the status report that they had been read. Soon there would be cause to wonder who was reading them…
On one of my better days in May, I woke up thinking of Mari. I hadn’t checked in on her with Carmine since I lost my job, and I suddenly realized how long it had been. I picked up the phone and called her house.
When her husband answered the phone, I knew immediately that something was wrong – he sounded awful. I reminded him who I was and he remembered. It took a few moments — but finally, he seemed to realize something. He said, “You don’t know…? Mari died in January – January 27th – you didn’t know?”
My grief was immediate and profound – made even more so by realizing that these months that I had not been working and trying to get a new job – and, therefore, so very self-focused – had made me lose sight of Mari and her illness.
I hung up and called Mari’s brother. Carmine was gentle and caring on the phone. He told me that Mari’s last months were very difficult. From the time I spoke to him before I went to India, she continued to decline…
My unspoken question hung in the air, “Why didn’t you call me?”
He shared with me that she had died with great dignity at home — and that, in the days and weeks before her death, she had called in her family and close friends, one by one, including her ex-husband, and had shared some private time with each one of them. He told me that three weeks before she died, she had asked him to call me so that she could speak to me. He couldn’t find my number. He was sorry, he said — he knew that she loved me and wanted to say “Good-bye.”
I thanked Carmine and got off the phone. I felt incomplete. I’ve never really understood funerals until that day. I needed to be with people, to talk to her family and tell them what she meant to me. I needed to hug someone and I needed to be hugged – to comfort and to be comforted. I didn’t know what to do with myself.
I prayed to God, “Please help me with this!” I waited for His answer.
I did the only thing I could think to do – I started cleaning and organizing. Two hours into this process, I came upon a notebook – the first page was dated “1991.” The book fell open to a page that said, “Mari Goldberg” at the top, with a notation that we had had lunch that day. There was a quote by her name:
“If you always want more than what you have, then nothing will ever be enough. But, if you are grateful for where you are now, then everything you have will be a gift.”
It struck me that this was a time when I was learning that lesson in my life in so many ways – not the least of which was this very situation! It struck me that she had come to me in that moment to tell me this once more – now that I was ready — and needed to hear it.
Later that evening, Victoria called me. She had just received my distraught message from earlier in the day when I had just spoken to Carmine. She listened to me cry and berate myself for ever allowing the friendship to lapse those many years – and even to beating myself up that I had not sent the Vibhuti immediately upon returning from India.
When I said that Mari had wanted to speak with me but no one could find my phone number, Victoria jumped in with just the reminder that I needed:
“Linda, you are lost right now in the physical part of this – but your spiritual Self knows better. Mari’s in her eternal creative expression right now as a “ball of fire” with God – and maybe you are the one who is supposed to remember her that way for her family and for the the world. If you were meant to speak with her before she died, if you were meant to go to the funeral, your phone number would have been right there for them to find.”
She went on, “January was an awful month for you – how would you have handled losing your job and Mari’s death, too? God doesn’t make mistakes. He doesn’t give you more than you can handle. You found a notebook — on the very day that you learned that she passed — that had her quote in it – a quote that has more meaning for you today than it did when she first uttered it. Your phone number would have been just as close at hand — if that was the way it was supposed to be.”
Lastly, Victoria reminded me, “Don’t forget that you got the opportunity – for those few months when you reconnected – to speak and to tell each other how much you loved each other. There’s the gift!”
Victoria went on to suggest that I get a recent picture of Mari from her family and make an altar with a candle and light it in memory of her every evening. She also offered that I could write letters to her family to tell them what Mari meant to me – with remembrances of her energy and spirit – a reminder of when she was a “ball of fire.”
God had come through once again — through Victoria – reminding me that there was absolute perfect-ness in my experience of Mari and how this had all transpired – that it was all in Divine Order just as it was – and that nothing was lost.
Mari’s altar sat in my window for a long time after that day… the same window from which I could see Victoria’s apartment — with Mari’s picture that her sister sent me, a candle, and Mari’s words beneath it, reminding me that I couldn’t have everything I wanted in this situation, but what I did get – Mari’s friendship for all those years, the months of reconnection with her – and now, Victoria’s comfort and wisdom…
…these are my gifts…
Deliciously yours in Gratitude always, Linda
“You do not walk alone. God’s angels hover near and all about. His Love surrounds you, and of this be sure; that I will never leave you comfortless.”
“A Course in Miracles,” Workbook for Students, Epilogue.
A special thank you to my dear friend, Victoria Moran — one of God’s angels, for sure. Victoria’s two new books are coming out now: “Living a Charmed Life: Your Guide to Finding Magic in Every Moment of Every Day,” and “The Love Powered Diet: Eating for Freedom, Health, and Joy.” Please visit her at www.VictoriaMoran.com.
If you are in NYC on Monday, May 4th, at 7:30PM, Victoria is having a book signing at the Barnes and Noble Lincoln Triangle at 1972 Broadway in Manhattan.
Victoria is truly a bridge over troubled waters in my life… I am forever blessed that she is my friend…
© Linda Ruocco and “Spiritual Chocolate”, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Linda Ruocco and “Spritiual Chocolate” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Thank you.
“There am I in the midst of them…”
March 26, 2009
I always think of myself as generous and giving AND — guess what? I have found that my generosity is often tempered by what I think I can “get away with” and still look good, while protecting myself every step of the way. Last week, I got to see what true generosity can — and does — provide… an experience of Grace and Love…
Early in the week, I received an email from a friend – let’s call her Maddy — not someone so close to me, but more than an acquaintance – someone who is in the spiritual and transformational conversation with me, but not someone I regularly call or email. She was reaching out to her transformation “community” in order to find support around creating an opportunity for a plane ticket to a course in San Francisco that we are both taking together – in fact, we were heading there for the weekend last week. She found herself without a plane ticket to go – and, unless she was able to generate that ticket one way or another, it was now too late to get an inexpensive ticket – and she would not be able to come.
I read the email and my first instinct was to delete the message. “Not my responsibility….,” I thought.
Something stopped me.
What hit me is that I have often been in that very same situation – waiting until the last minute or thinking that money that I expected to come through would actually come in on time – only to have everything fall through and there I am left with no resources, no recourse – and feeling bereft and alone. As I looked at the email, I was inspired by how courageous she was to step out into the unknown and ask for help.
Yet, here I was, in not much better circumstances myself. Oh, I was going for the weekend, but it hadn’t been easy to pull that together. I had a reservoir of frequent flyer miles from which I had pulled in order to create my own ticket – and had not much more in the “kitty” from which to draw. I was saving what remained for my own ticket to the last weekend of the course in May.
That was two months away.
I called Maddy and offered to “create” a miracle with her. I told her that I had miles that I could give her in return for her working with me to generate my own plane ticket for May. We talked about it for a while, and she reluctantly declined. She didn’t want to put me — or herself, for that matter — in an uncomfortable situation in which she would feel obligated to “pay me back” for the free miles given to her now. We agreed to “stand together” in the space that anything could happen and that a miracle would arrive for her. I hung up the phone.
I think of myself as someone who steps out on the power of the Word every day of my life – “God provides” is not simply an aphorism to me. I put my faith and trust in God and He treats me like a “lily of the field” – I have never known Him to fail me. So, you can imagine….. Miracles happen often in my life….
I couldn’t shake the feeling all day that I had something to give and if I really believed in my faith and trust in God, I could give what I had and really “put my money where my mouth is” and create my own miracle for the trip in May.
I called her back – and this time, I freely offered the miles. Believe me, my ego – that part of me that thinks there isn’t enough for everyone – was screaming inside me, “How could you do this? What will you do when you need to go in May?”
My ego was no match for what was there in the space for both of us: creating and loving and Being…
What was there was an amazing Presence – a sense that this was greater than either one of us. Maddy told me that a miracle had already happened – she had half the flight already and only needed the one-way ticket back… As we made plans for how we would work that out the next day, we both let our walls down to each other and allowed for that there would be a way to have this work. We surrendered to the love in the space and said, “This shall be.”
I went back and forth all night between ego – wanting to keep everything for myself – and Self, knowing that by being willing to surrender to whatever it was that was there for me to do would give me riches beyond what frequent flyer miles could provide.
“A Course in Miracles” speaks of giving this way: “To give and to receive are one in truth,” (Lesson 108). The fact is I would have felt that something was missing if Maddy could not be there – I was being generous for myself as well as for her — “All that I give is given to myself.” The next morning, Maddy called to say that she had both ways on the ticket and that she didn’t need my miles after all – but – and this is a big “but” – we both knew that those tickets showed up in the clearing that we were being for her to come.
We are all powerful beyond anything we can imagine AND we do not walk this way alone. There is One Who is with us always… and it is easier to experience that when we stand together in love…
And…. Love is the thought that God is…
Deliciously yours in the Miracle of it all, Linda
“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Matthew 18:20
© Linda Ruocco and “Spiritual Chocolate”, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Linda Ruocco and “Spritiual Chocolate” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Thank you.
“It’s a Dog’s Life…”
March 7, 2009
Last week, one of my seminar leaders, Kristi, wrote to me that her Corgi, Bella, had died… a lovely email tribute to what was so clearly a beautiful partnership between Kristi and her beloved dog…. her friend, really… I loved how Kristi wrote, “Bella had me wrapped around her finger (paw)…” Bella died on her own birthday after a long and happy life with Kristi — and Kristi was communicating in celebration of Bella’s life and the contribution that she was to Kristi and everyone that met her – how everyone who knew Bella “fell in love.”
It reminded me of the night my friend, Suzy, had called me, frantic, to come quickly to the animal hospital on 61st Street, near the East River. Her Corgi, Bart, was sick and the doctors thought he would die. I’m a Reiki Master and she wanted me to come and offer Reiki to Bart.
I ran over to the hospital and what a sight…! My friend on the table, arms wrapped around her little Corgi, talking to him and singing softly in his ear, and he was lying with his neck up around her neck and he was so quiet and still, listening to her voice. It was late at night and the hospital was quiet and still and all you could hear was Suzy singing to Bart…
For so many years, I had seen them together – everywhere Suzy went, Bart went, too… She loved him with all her heart and I could see that that was only surpassed by how much he loved her… He trotted along behind her on his short little legs…. yet, sometimes, Bart could have quite the mind of his own and be off down the hill if he spotted a squirrel or an interesting human with a toy or a treat!
Everyone loved Bart – children squealed when they saw him, and even adults could not resist his enthusiastic charm, not to mention how many men Suzy was able to immediately engage in intimate conversation because they, too, could not resist Bart – he was an instant icebreaker! When I stayed with her, he would come up on the bed and sleep with us — and, even I, who was not Bart’s “Mom”, found myself totally enamored with this little lump of love.
It strikes me that dogs are a particular kind of pet…. while cats will choose the times they want to be with you – and often they don’t! – Dogs are most happy when they are around people. I’ve heard many people say that dogs are “unconditional love” – and — if only we thought as highly of ourselves as our dogs do! Never judgmental, never aloof, always by our sides, no matter what….
My family had three dogs when I was growing up, and our German Shepard, Toro, was “my” dog. I could never sneak into the house late with Toro around – my father would come out of his room, awakened by Toro’s excited whimpering, lean over the upstairs banister and say, “I knew it was you. Toro only sounds like that when it’s you – that’s his ‘love pant’!” I could do no wrong in Toro’s eyes… what’s even more important is that I didn’t want to…. Toro would lope into the room and my heart would melt… I loved him with all my heart, just the way he loved me.
So, here’s the question… Why can’t we be like that with each other? Love is the same – it just gets blocked sometimes. We don’t block it with our animals, why do we let those walls go up with our fellow man? We don’t have to be right with our dogs, we don’t have to prove anything to them, we are always “enough” for them…
Hmmm… we are always enough for them…
When we are enough, we don’t have to be anything other than what we are – and that feels so good and we feel so lovable — we don’t feel a need for protection and we can love right back – with all our hearts…
What if we could love everyone that way? What would the world look like? Just thinking about that possibility makes me smile…
So, there was Suzy, singing softly into Bart’s ear, “How much is that doggie in the window? The one with the waggley tail…” – she said that was Bart’s favorite song… (what is so funny about that is that Bart didn’t even have a tail!). I started doing Reiki on him, pouring all my love into his little body and, after about 10 minutes, he heaved a big sigh and passed over – I had never seen life pass from a living being before – it was a sight so beautiful… so peaceful… I felt blessed to be there…
The nurse came in and took Bart out of Suzy’s arms. As I waited for her to pack her things, I walked to the window and looked out to the East River beyond, the moon shining down on the water. I knew Bart had died – I had my hands on his body when he breathed his final sigh – but I didn’t feel that he was dead… because he wasn’t… I felt him as strongly in that moment, looking out the window, as I did when I felt him breathe his last…
When love is present, anything is possible — even in the face of death, love is always there – and love never dies…
Suzy buried Bart’s ashes in her garden in the front of her house, under a big beautiful tree…. to this day, she calls it “Bart’s garden…” She says that Bart was actually an angel, sent to help her learn about life… She thinks he did his job well….
This is for you, Kristi, and for you, Suzy – and for all my friends who love their animals….
Happy Birthday, Bella… Sweet Dreams, Bart…
Deliciously yours in the grandeur of it all, Linda
© Linda Ruocco and “Spiritual Chocolate”, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Linda Ruocco and “Spritiual Chocolate” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Thank you.
Miracle on 51st Street…
February 24, 2009
These are really challenging times, and I know that lots of people are fearful and worried — AND we create our lives every day anew. How do we do that, you say?
We start with our words and how we language our lives. We can choose in every moment whether to be drawn into a conversation for despair and depression or we can initiate conversations of creation and possibility. It is simply a choice for empowerment or disempowerment – and we make that choice in THIS moment…. and in THIS moment…. and in THIS moment….
I already hear you saying, “What good will that do – in the real world?” Well, if it does nothing else, certainly, it empowers us all to be speaking from strength rather than weakness…. and the actions that come out of strength are always more powerful than those that come out of cynicism and resignation.
I want to take this one step further:
In my own life, I have found that when I keep myself focused on being in possibility – miracles happen! That’s right – bona fide, out-and-out-right miracles! Thinking, speaking and living in possibility is what “A Course in Miracles” calls “miracle-mindedness.”
This happens to me all the time….
I remember, one afternoon, I was walking up East 51st Street, between Lexington and Park Avenues here in Manhattan. I was frustrated because a real estate deal I was working on had just died, and I was ready to hold a “pity party” for myself, “Why does making money have to be so hard?”
I stopped myself. I knew that a “poor me” attitude would get me nowhere. I had a “sit-down” talk with myself – well, perhaps not a “sit down” talk, maybe more of a “walking down the street on my way to meet a friend” talk: “Stop it, Linda. You know better than that. You can create whatever you want — and so, just start NOW!” And, with that, I took a deep breath (still walking, mind you!), looked up towards the beautiful blue sky above, held my arms out to my sides, palms up, (to catch all the money….) and said, OUT LOUD, “Money is coming towards me RIGHT NOW!“
With that, I looked down, and a dollar bill was rolling down the street towards me! I couldn’t believe it!
I reached down and picked it up – I was so surprised that I just stood there, holding it up between my fingers and looked at it, as if to say, “OK, so where did YOU come from?”
I looked around to see for myself – maybe someone had dropped it. There was no one around me except for a group of three young people who passed me, looking and laughing at me – I must have been a sight, actually, standing there, all dressed up, holding a dollar bill up in front of my face and just looking around in amazement!
I decided that I had indeed called this forth. And, as I thought about that, I checked in with God…..”Well, thank you for this…. really!.. and perhaps I wasn’t clear about how MUCH money I was talking about? I meant to say ‘a LOT of money’.”
So, my thinking went to “What is a LOT of money?” $200 would be a lot of money in India. But, in New York City?
I continued this inner dialogue as I came to Park Avenue…. by this time, I had come to the conclusion that, yes, a million dollars would be a good starting point — and I was already thinking how I would spend it.
And then I saw him — a beggar on the corner, really grungy, really dirty, and really smelly. I started to widen the distance between us as I made my way to the corner. I had walked two steps past him when I stopped. I suddenly got it. The money wasn’t for me, the money was an expression of God through me into the world… and here was my opportunity.
I turned back and leaned over and handed him the dollar bill that I still held between my fingers. He grabbed it out of my hand and turned away. I found myself getting annoyed, “Wow, he just snatched that away without so much as a ‘thank you!’”
Then I got the even BIGGER lesson.
It wasn’t for me to say… he wasn’t there for me to judge – he was there for me to serve — and I had been given the means to do just that – it was right there at my fingertips.
The beggar was doing what the beggar was doing. His level of consciousness was his level of consciousness. And whatever way that was – created his life.
I had called forth a level of abundance for myself with my Word. What I chose to do with it was my level of consciousness – and that creates MY life.
It’s all supposed to come through us into expression. We get to choose – to be greedy or to serve…. to gossip or to empower… To complain or to create… Which will it be?
The possibility I am creating today is a day full of abundance, generosity, joy, and ease! All is well!
May abundance come rolling down the street towards each of you everyday!
Deliciously yours in the Possibility of it All, Linda
© Linda Ruocco and “Spiritual Chocolate”, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Linda Ruocco and “Spritiual Chocolate” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Thank you.
Hero ’til the Morning Light….
February 18, 2009
We all need a little yummy dollop of something these days – I’ve started turning my television off for the news – if it isn’t the stock market, it’s a plane crash — and Oh, so much sadness for everyone!
What WAS worth watching and listening to over and over again was that Magnificent Miracle on the Hudson and OH, MY HERO! “Sully” Sullenberger – ain’t he grand?
Speaking of heroes, I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to relationship… so here goes:
For a long time, I wouldn’t let myself think about finding a soul mate to love because I was holding it that I had already found my soul mate, married him, then divorced him — not that quickly, of course – there WAS a whole lot of spiritual chocolate in there, I tell you! He was my Hero then and he is my Hero now…. And we’re friends to this day, but not meant to be together anymore — not in this life anyway….
So, who was there for me?
No answer.
I wasn’t concerned. I thought… “It’s not a high priority for me”; “I’m great on my own”; “Whew, I don’t have to answer to anybody”; and – my favorite – “I’ve got too much to do to make time for a relationship!”
Little by little, it dawned on me that while I knew – or thought I knew – why I wasn’t interested in a relationship – I noticed that no one seemed to be interested in me, either! Hmmm……
Then, I got it. I was walking around like, “I met my soul mate already. You’re not him. So, how would you like to be ‘second-best?’”
Apparently, no one did.
So, I started looking at “soul mate” and what that means. Is there only one for each of us?
I’m a student of “A Course in Miracles” and the Course says that we’re all One. A lot of people give a lot of lip service to that, but what exactly does that mean? If we are “All One” in spirit, then there really is only One of us here, right? So, why does it seem like there are 6.8 Billion separate people on the planet?
Well, I don’t know if I can answer centuries’ old questions in my sweet little blog, but I do know one thing – for me, anyway…..
On the level of Self, there IS only one of us here…. and that’s where the love is…. All of this “stuff” walkin’ around here is Who we think we are…. and, Boy!! Aren’t we annoying sometimes?
….and beautiful sometimes, and sweet sometimes, and fearful sometimes, and just trying to stay alive sometimes……
Under it all, we are simply Love and there’s only One and One means not “me, alone,” but “we”. And, every time we get that, and don’t pay attention to the “stuff”, there is something special there, right?
I think that my ex-husband, Fred, and I managed to look past the “stuff” and get to the heart underneath it all – and that’s when we “recognized” our own Self and loved each other with all our hearts. And that love will never go away. It looks different now, sure – but it’s there forever.
What I did finally get for myself is that I can do that with anyone! And everyone! Well, for relationship purposes, let’s keep that to anyOne….. I just have to be willing to look past the “stuff”.
Everyone is my soul mate!
That doesn’t mean that “my stuff” will fit with everyone else’s “stuff” – and vice versa — we’re still here, after all…..
Being willing and being vulnerable and being loving and being interested….. Sounds pretty great – and pretty scary……
My possibility is being in relationship with all my heart! He’ll show up – when I show up!
Well, “Sully” is married, so he’s out…..
Here I go, dancing down the street, arms thrown out and scarf blowing in the wind, “I’m holding out for a hero.. A hero ‘til the morning light… He’s got to be strong and he’s got to be soon and he’s got to be larger than life…..”
You are all my heros!!
Deliciously yours in the Glory of it all, Linda
© Linda Ruocco and “Spiritual Chocolate”, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Linda Ruocco and “Spritiual Chocolate” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Thank you.
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