I live in Hawaii so from most people’s perspective it is summer all year round. Those of us that have lived here for a while do think it gets cold in the winter but everything including the temperature is relative.

Today it is warm and sunny and it reminds me of summer. I remember what the first day of summer break felt like when I was a kid. I certainly hated getting up early during the school year but during summer vacation it was a different story. I would get up long before any of the adults and wander around the neighborhood watching it slowly wake up. I can still remember how the first light of the sun looked as it hit the buildings and the coolness of the streets. Most mornings the streets would be wet because the street sweepers had just been by washing down the dirt of the city.

Summer seemed to last for ever. Each day was an adventure unto itself and lasted for years. Then evening would fall, the streets would be filled with families sitting outside, getting way from the heat of the day. Off in the distance I would hear my mother calling me to come in for the night. I grew up in New York City and what I remember most is the light, the sounds and the smells. The city of my childhood no longer exists. It has been replaced with air-conditioning, cell phones and cable TV.

My perspective of time has changed over the years as well. It is so easy to get so busy with life and forget to take time to notice the seasons. I just finished teaching my monthly teleclass about earth rhythms. I did a guided meditation for people to help them remember to embrace the gift of life, to notice the passing of the seasons, to feel the wind and to take time to smell the roses.

Most days I take some time to just feel the earth and give thanks. On Sundays I go out and simply enjoy the day. Maybe take sometime for yourself to notice the approach of summer or winter if you live down under. Today you have the gift of this day. It will never come again. Give yourself the gift of savoring each moment of it no matter what is happening in your life.

Take a deep breath and give thanks for your life just the way it is. May your life be full of balmy breezes and laughter and ease.

With love and aloha,
Susan

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Wow Epsiode 18 of Food for the Soul is ready for your listening pleasure!!!

In this podcast Susan talks about how we can see perfection in a world filled with violence and mad gunmen. Susan also talks about how we invite things into our life.

http://susangregg.com/podcasts.htm

With lots of love and aloha,
Susan

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I used to really want to make a difference in the world. I really felt I came here to make the world a better place. It took me quite a while to realize that desire was based on my judgment and was fear based.

When that awareness began knocking at the edge of my consciousness I resisted it and tried valiantly to ignore it. Once I finally acknowledge it and embraced it as my perspective my life changed dramatically.

Focusing on making a difference in my own life is what set me free. As I released my judgments I was able to connect with my limitless, expansive loving nature. Whenever I focus on externals I’ve given my power away. Out there only has as much power as I am willing to give it.

I love this quote by Peace Pilgrim:

The world is like a mirror. Smile at it and it smiles back at you.

Life is a huge biofeedback machine. We are such magical beings. We live in a world that clearly reveals our limiting thinking and gives us an opportunity to change our mind. Love or fear is always ultimately our choice.

The thought that I need to change out there instead of modifying my filter system is often driven by fear. Love allows me to embrace what is and change my perspective. This quote from Toltec Way sums it up nicely.

“You came here to remind people to love one another. You came here to touch them with your kindness. You did not come to judge them or to fix them. You came here to teach them to heal their hearts, but first you must heal your own”.

With lots of love and aloha,
Susan

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My Hawaiian Aunty, my spiritual teacher says, “Everything is pono (perfect) until we think otherwise.” I know that to be true but when events like the shooting at Virginia Tech happen it is often difficult to see the perfection. Once again I watched the news and was struck by the confusion, pain and fear I saw in people’s faces. My mother was killed in a car accident so I know well the shock of sudden loss. I feel the same way when I watch the news and see a woman crying over the body of her child that was just blown apart by a car bomb. How do we make sense of human cruelty? How do we see murder and mayhem as perfect?

Those were some of my thoughts when I sat down to meditate this morning. What came to me were some thoughts about great spiritual teachers like Buddha and Jesus and how we focus our attention as a species. For many years I believed my mission was to help create a world that would be safe for children and animals. I figured if they were safe the rest of us would be golden, but then I began to realize the world was perfect just the way it is. I still wonder how we can be so cruel at times but I have come to realize that seeing something as cruel is my judgment. I have now found greater peace and the capacity to be more loving.

Let me explain. When I look at people like Buddha and Jesus I see people who have had a direct spiritual experience. They connected with God or their spiritual essence at a profound level and lived their lives from that loving and expansive place. They did whatever was necessary, on a daily basis to deepen and maintain that connection. They lived from a place of love, free of judgment and a sense of separation. They knew the only thing that is real is God and that the external world was an illusion. They knew that, “You are me, I am you and we are one.”

When I listen to the ramblings of the Virginia Tech gunman, the news and people in the grocery store, I hear a common theme – OUT THERE. We want to blame someone or seomthing. They treated me badly, the government needs to do something, they are the problem, and something out there is the problem. I do the same thing at times. I can make statements like, “That really upset me.”

Life is, then we tell ourselves a story, and then we have an experience based on the story. My hunch is Buddha and Jesus looked within, to their connection with spirit more often than they blamed out there for their experience.

Moment by moment we are either deepening our connection with our spirit or our beliefs agreements and assumptions. We are either deepening our connectedness or our sense of separation. We are either focusing within or allowing our attention to be hooked by out there.

In a society that focuses the majority of its attention on externals events, like the shooting at Virginia Tech unfortunately make sense. They are part of the paradigm that embraces blame and judgment rather than encouraging self-exploration and personal responsibility. Even most of our religions teach us to focus externally. God is out there. We get our message from God from someone or something outside of ourselves – the minister, rabbi, the Bible or Koran tell us what to believe and how to find God.

What do you suppose would happen if more people began focusing within? What would happen if each of us did as Jesus, Buddha, and Mohamed? What if each of us did whatever was necessary on a daily basis to have a direct and profound inner connection to God?

Would we be able to judge one another? Would we choose to physically assault one another? Or blame someone else for our internally generated emotions?

I think not. If each of us learned to love, really love and live as Buddha, Mohamed and Jesus, violence would be a rare occurrence rather than an everyday event. Perhaps Cho Seung-Hui would have been able to reach out for help rather than think violence was the solution.

As long as we persist in judging anything or anyone we can’t experience our oneness. It is our belief in separation that engenders violence. When I make myself see the perfection in everything my heart expands and I can love. By loving I can live life in a more loving fashion and my sense of oneness grows.

Love or fear are our only two options. We know what kind of a world fear has built isn’t it time to see what kind of a world love can build?

With lots of love and aloha,
Susan

http://Shortmeditations.com

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The quality of our life is directly related to the kind of questions we ask ourselves. If we ask ourselves, “why did this happen to my” or “why do bad things happen to good people?” we will have the opportunity to feel like a victim and recreate the same old results.

If we really want to make a difference in our lives than we ask ourselves questions like:

What belief, agreement or assumption is operating in my life?
How can I see this differently so I can feel happy, joyous and free right now?
What questions would assist me in connecting with my ability to consciously create my experience of reality?
What do I really want to experience?
What actions can I take to create that?

It isn’t a race to get from one question to the next. Take time to fully explore one question in depth. Butterflies are pretty as they dance from flower to flower but I am not sure how in touch with the nature of reality they are.

When I explore a question I find each exploration leads logically to the next and to deeper and deeper awareness of how my filter system works. If I really want to get different results in my life I focus my attention on seeing my filter system. As I do that I will see how one thought leads to another and how my thinking colors my choices. Once I see my filter system it is easier for me to modify my thinking.

Questions are meant to assist you in seeing the magnificence of your filter system – how perfectly it fits together and how it consistently creates the same results. It is seamless and invisible to the naked eye yet it automatically and with no effort on your part drives all of your choices and hence the results you get in your life.

See its magnificence – see how your beliefs, agreements and assumptions fit together to create your experience of reality – once you really see the system, the entire system for what it is and what it creates change isn’t very far away.

My emphasis on coming from the perspective that there is ‘no out there’ came from a near death experience. Many years ago I had tried to kill myself by taking cyanide. I died and found myself swimming in eternity with all the emotions, thoughts and feelings I had run away from – talk about hell!! In that moment I realized there was no where, including death to get away from my filter system. At that moment I decided to do whatever it took to see my filter system and release myself from its bondage.

If you view life from a perspective that there is NO OUT THERE you will be able to see your filter system more clearly. As we clean out our filter system the ‘out there’ that we play in will change and life will become even more magical. Frame your questions so they will help you will see YOUR beliefs, YOUR assumptions and YOUR agreements. You can change them. If you focus on changing out there without taking responsibility for your creation you will doom yourself to creating more of the same old same old.

With love and aloha,
Susan
http://SusanGregg.com

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