Finding Your Way
Life Compass for 2023/2024
Don’t you love the view from above the clouds?
I’m in the airspace above Pennsylvania filled with awe.
The sun is rising on the horizon and the sky is a brilliant yellow orange, and I’m filled with wonder looking out this tiny smudged oval window at creation.
We still seem to prefer to say the sun rises because it seems that way, but thanks to Copernicus (and possibly a few others before him) we know the earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun. I can’t help but think that he’d be a very interesting character at an ugly sweater Christmas party as a mathematician, astronomer, economist AND a Catholic clergyman from Poland?!!
However we choose to see it, from any perspective it really IS a miracle.
The other miracle is that I was just handed a hot cloth with tongs, I am sitting just behind “first class sleep pods” but I somehow have a premium seat and the smiley warm woman that is working this shift high in the sky just brought me a steaming hot coffee. It tastes delicious. Even better than usual.
I feel at peace.
I’m also filled with anticipation to be getting closer and closer to 3 of my dearest girlfriends. We’re getting together to spend 4 nights celebrating our friend Amy’s 50th birthday together in Mexico.
But only two short hours ago things appeared quite a bit different to my perception.
I don’t usually set an alarm, but today my alarm was set for 3am for a 3:30am planned departure. I don’t think I heard it or set it properly because I woke up late but somehow managed to get out of the door by 3:40am after trying to coax the dog outside to do her business but was unsuccessful. “Too early, sorry” she seemed to communicate back to me with her soft confused expression.
By 4 am I was inching along a dark two lane highway in a snowstorm towards a flight at Toronto Pearson that had been rescheduled 2 hours earlier than originally planned. I thought longingly about the travel mug of steaming hot coffee still sitting on the counter near the coffee machine at home that I forgot in my sleepy haze.
Would I make it on time?
I had no idea.
I can recall my mind doing what a mind does- scanning all possible worst case scenarios - I caught it in time with the realization that I had no control over the weather or the time and decided that I’d just keep plugging along, doing my best and I’d see how things turned out.
I was fine. I was safe. I suddenly didn’t feel stress or anxiety.
I had a deep knowing that I’d be fine whether I caught my flight or missed it.
I just didn’t mind.
The thing is, none of us knows what will happen next. It’s a colossal waste of thought and energy for us to spin out all the possibilities. A mind does that, but no amount of believing those thoughts, or worrying will change anything except maybe make things even worse by attracting more frantic feelings and possible chaos with a side of more suffering and anxiety.
THIS is how life happens.
When we rise above the clouds in our own lives and take a bird’s eye view we can see that regardless of our belief system or what perspective we choose, or what is clouding our vision we all seem to live in 2 primary dimensions:
DOING - ego, personality, emotions & physical body- temporary - (thinking)
BEING - conscious awareness (soul) - eternal - (knowing)
Before I turned 50 I lived primarily from my “doing” dimension. My masculine always led the dance and I followed as best I could often feeling a tad bit overwhelmed. The snowstorm scenario would have made me feel a bit uneasy or anxious. Worried. Stressed.
Today I tend to prefer leaning a bit more towards my feminine or being dimension as what is ultimate in my experience, and when I do, there is much less thinking all around and I felt a deep sense of peace.
I magically feel less afraid or like I need to make things happen and control everything around me and every minute of my day.
Same me, but I’m having a totally different human experience.
I feel guided or led. This morning it felt like I was being gently nudged from behind and the universe or my true nature was whispering to me: “You’re okay Nona. Trust. Relax. You’ll be fine whether you make it on time, or not.”
I just didn’t mind.
My eyes may be bloodshot and my body may need more sleep tonight, but my essence has been untouched by all of it. It felt like I was experiencing life moment to moment with an unclear outcome, but fear just didn’t have it’s meat hooks in me.
I felt a deep sense of lasting calm.
I made it in perfect time.
There were no line ups. There was a Starbuck’s right beside my gate. I had time to drink my coffee, board and it’s been a perfect trip. (Just seeing the Starbucks sign made my brain light up like a Christmas tree :)
When we’re calm and aligned with love or our “being dimension”, everything seems to appear differently to us. It’s like a TOTALLY different perspective than from the ground up or from our small or “doing” self.
The effects can seem otherworldly and uncommon, but I can see now what is possible for us all from this place.
I once heard an amazing story about Byron Katie. As I can recall, a strange man held her at gunpoint and was trying to rob her in her own home.
She described not being afraid or worried, as I heard the story told, she simply said in her loving grandmotherly way she has about her: “Oh honey, you really don’t want to do this to yourself. How can I help you? What do you need?” . He crumbled and cried. As it turned out, he recently lost his job and he was desperate to feed and care for his family. He didn’t want to rob or harm her, he felt he had no other choice.
She saw past his fearful behaviour and she never made it about herself or her own security and from that calm place she helped HIM. She was never “in control” or in her ego, but she compassionately recognized his suffering and humanity. She was aligned with love. With her divinity.
On some deep level she knew that if he shot her, it would be him that would be feeling the judgement and mental suffering for the rest of his life and it would hurt his family, not help them.
The law of love is not naive, but it is simple. What we do to others, we do to ourselves. This morning’s A Course In Miracles Workbook lesson says it perfectly…
“Today I learn the law of love. What I give my brother, is my gift to me.”
ACIM Workbook lesson #344
Granted, this kind of calm loving behaviour might seem like a stretch for most of us before we really understand our true nature, I can’t say I’d be quite as calm in that scenario, but we COULD be.
It’s potential in all of us.
It is possible for all of us from this higher more loving place when we are not operating from our ego or lower limbic fear-riddled small self"?
Yes. First we need to become aware that we have an ego and how it operates - we’re NOT our ego. It’s self-made fear. Once we become fully aware, its days are numbered. Our true nature or LOVE that has been in us all along, which is our inheritance can surface and take the reins.
This seems hard for us to grasp intellectually. But we can grasp this at a deeper level with our knowing.
When we allow nature to take its course and we stop resisting what is.
When I am abiding in this place, it feels like I’m having a higher experience of myself.
I feel like I AM love. Divine. Living, moving and having my being in the greatest dimension and power inside of me. I’m the same me, but not controlled by my thinking mind and I’m living from a more abundant, giving nature.
It feels good. It feels like God.
I’m not immune to pain, but I am free from anxiety.
What are we REALLY capable of from this more loving place?
Shall we find out for ourselves in 2024 and experience this inner shift together?
Finding your way…
It’s so easy for us to get lost in the clouds of our day to day lives. To get caught up entirely in doing. Especially at this time of year when we take on the holiday season.
I’ve spent some time reflecting on this year and the lessons I’ve learned, I’ll spare you the details, but I’d love for you to have a chance to reflect on your own and then look ahead to 2024 to create what your heart desires.
Have you heard of “YearCOMPASS” before?
When you have some time over the holidays, click on the link above and check it out. It’s free and my favourite online tool to help us do just that. It can help you reflect on the past year and loosely plan the next.
You can download and print it or simply do it online.
It also can even be printed in a small booklet size to carry with you to fill in over the next few weeks as you contemplate the bigger questions and become more aware of yourself.
I recommend carving out a few uninterrupted hours.
If you’re open to trying something a bit different this year, before you dive in mind first to make some goals or resolutions for yourself or your businesses from your ego or “doing self”, take some time to connect to your “being” dimension first.
Same questions… and you will get entirely different answers.
Whatever feels right for you. Maybe a warm drink, a fire or a candle, your favourite music or quiet or read the questions and take a walk in nature to spend time in deep contemplation.
If you have a favourite spiritual practice to help you get you out of your mind and grounded in your depth dimension.
Your heart.
It seems that when we braid our higher mind or soul’s desires to serve the greater good and to give from our True nature and the depth or essence of our being with our individual doing selves, watch out! It’s no longer just your small self trying to make things happen, you’ll have the power of the Universe behind you setting up coincidences left and right to give you all you need to serve.
Every major spiritual tradition shares this universal spiritual law…
Giving and receiving are one.
Next week I will write a bit more on that topic but for today, let’s just take a quick looksie at the Compass and make some of our own notes from the field of our lives.
I recommend sharing it with a loved one or a friend and you can take turns listening to each other. If you don’t have someone let me know and I’ll either connect you with a partner or I’ll make time to listen myself.
Of course we have free will and we can choose to stick with hustle culture and dive in mind first, but there is a much better way to work aligned with our true nature. To listen for what’s beneath our desires.
Love. Acceptance. Peace. Compassion. Abundance.
We don’t need to force things or work harder, but instead simply align to the power of love and creation.
“Manifestation can only be satisfying and effective when it rises out of the Being state of consciousness”.
Eckhart Tolle
No surprise, my coffee has started to jiggle in my cup, the turbulence has arrived. Just like life to shake things up a bit.
At this time of year, I like to remind myself of the biblical story of Martha and Mary in the Gospel of Luke. Remember how Martha is caught up in her doing self? Cleaning, cooking dinner for Jesus, and resenting her sister Mary who is sitting at his feel listening to his teachings. And surprisingly, Jesus shares that Mary is doing what is most important. The parable is to show us that we all have both sisters braided into us. Martha represents our masculine G.S.D (get sh*t done) energy or “doing” self and Mary is our Divine feminine or “being” self giving her gift of attention and presence.
For a bit of levity, I wanted to give you this link that my girlfriend Robin shared this weekend - it’s an old Saturday Night Live skit and makes me laugh… “CHRISTMAS MORNING”.
As we learned last week, if we want our bird to stay up and fly in a straight line we need to extend both our masculine and feminine wings.
Let’s all take some down time to get quiet, listen, connect to this deeper essence.
To the love and wholeness that exists beneath our fears and desires.
To include our “being” intentions front and centre in our minds. To learn HOW to think like God, to BE love.
To align with our true nature, rather than fearful thinking of the world.
Let’s slow down and practice our depth dimension in a way that feels right for us.
Please keep in mind as you fill out your Life Compass field booklets that ALL the things your mind or ego will want you to manifest (desires) will be chosen with the DEEP seeded belief that your ambitious goals and dreams will free you from the underlying sense of insufficiency you feel from your ego.
That’s a lie you’ve been told.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a present and it does feel good to be in “acquisition mode” (as my mother-in-law likes to call it), but only for short time . It will soon be replaced by a void, that we will attempt to fill with a new desire for more and it’s never-ending.
We are told that is what being human is, striving to reach some imagined “potential” with new desires and goals - but the rat race will continue on until we consciously choose to hop off the wheel of suffering and attachment.
There is also no sacrifices needed, your needs will be met in incredible ways when you choose to focus instead on aligning to your true nature. As Jesus taught…FIRST seek the Kingdom, then ALL will be added onto you.
Of course, you will have some worldly success either way, it’s how billions of us have operated in the world up until now, but until we’ve braided our will with the source of our being, or “God”, our power and sense of peace and freedom will be extremely limited while we separate ourselves and live in denial of the Divine.
“The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think.”
Gregory Bateson
We can choose to keep reaching outside ourselves to find answers and fulfillment in external achievements, in situations, travel, in other people…always reaching, never arriving at the place we really yearn for.
The deep peace that passeth all intellectual understanding in THIS present moment in the depth of our BEING.
So why not try something new this year for 2024 and have some INTRINSIC BEING GOALS??? To uncover your true self. To see what is beneath your fear?
Doing goals will not get that done. To experience this inner shift from fear to love for ourselves we need to dig beneath the surface.
To ask for help to see things differently. To shift our perceptions and experience this miracle for ourselves.
There is nothing to change or fix or become…it’s who you are, you just need to awaken to it.
This is the Truth that Jesus describes that will set us free.
He is encouraging us to die before we die. To die to the ego. To our doing self. Not to have an intellectual belief IN something or a worshiping OF something (including him), but an experience of “Christ Consciousness”. This is what is meant by the “second coming” or this realization that is potential in not just some of us based on a belief system or a religious denomination, but ALL of us.
“The Jesus teaching was in all ways exemplary of realization. But it has been misconstrued and taught in fundamentally wrong ways throughout the Millenia. It is time to turn the page on the idea that realization is an opportunity that has come to one, and only one.”
The Guides (Realization - channeled book by Paul Selig)
The irony is that when we realize or recognize our true nature, miracles occur naturally as expressions of love.
This holiday lets allow our presence to win over presents.
It is Sunday now, we’ve been here for 4 glorious days of great conversations, guacamole and tacos, salt water smells, sandy white beaches, belly laughs and I am just packing up to head back up above the fluffy clouds to head home later this morning.
It’s raining today for the first time since we arrived.
How perfect.
With love,
Rev Nona
No robes for Christmas this year!
Haha nope!! The stocking part made me laugh!