The Apple or the Chocolate Cake and an ' AH HA' moment!

During a healing circle on Saturday morning, a familiar message came through as part of a much longer message. 

God was talking about the need to raise our vibrations so that we could have a deeper connection to the Divine.  The higher our vibration, the more we would be able to connect to the Source of All That Is.  He said we have an opportunity to raise our vibration each time we make a choice.  When a choice presents itself, there is always a higher and a lower vibrational option.  By making choices that are of the higher vibration more often than the lower vibration, our vibrations will inevitably rise.

The example He used was the choice between an apple and a piece of chocolate cake.  He said that the apple was obviously the higher vibrational choice, as it was natural, filled with tons of nutrients and fiber, and would not only help to fill us up, but help us to release all the old 'crap' that was hanging around in our systems!  (God does have a sense of humor!)

The chocolate cake, on the other hand, might taste better and have a stronger pull for us emotionally, but if we chose the chocolate cake too often, we'd end up with more inches on our hips and have less chance of resolving the issues that were making us choose the chocolate cake to begin with.   He also said that sometimes our desire for the chocolate cake would be greater than our desire to make a higher vibrational choice, and when that happened, we should enjoy the cake and not engage in self-recrimination.  Rather, we should applaud ourselves for being aware that we did have a choice, and that we made an intentional choice when we chose the cake. Simply by recognizing that we had a choice, rather than eating by default, the eating of the cake would become a higher vibrational choice than it would have been without that insight.  He also said that the more frequently we chose the apple, the easier it would be to choose the apple again next time.

As I said at the beginning, this isn't the first time this message has been delivered during a healing circle.  But as I was playing a video game that I have on my phone called Crystal Caverns a day or so after the circle, I had an 'AH HA' moment that helped me understand, in a very visual way, just how important those higher vibrational, conscious choices are in the grand scheme of things.

In the video game, the object is to match three or more crystals of the same color. When the match is made, it causes those matched crystals to disappear, and the rest of the crystals then fall into the spaces that are emptied.  As you continue to make matches, you score points, and when the needed number of points is reached for that level, you move on to the next level.  Obviously, the object is to make it to each successively higher level.

Matching the crystals requires making choices.  Often times there are several possible moves that will allow me to make a match of three or more.  I have to choose which move to make.  As I was playing the game, and making choices, the message about the apple and the chocolate cake came into my head, and I was suddenly very aware of how the other crystals shifted as the matched crystals disappeared.  It's a timed game, so I have to make my choices quickly and can't give them a whole lot of thought, so most times I'm not even thinking about what else might happen when I choose to match the crystals that I do. 

Sometimes when I matched three crystals, the only crystals that disappeared were the ones that I purposely matched.  But their disappearance realigned the other crystals on the board and made another match possible.  Sometimes I made a choice, and as I was making that choice, realized that another match would also be made, and I'd watch as both sets of crystals disappeared, again causing a realignment of the other crystals.  Other times, I'd make a match without any awareness of the other crystals that would be affected, and entire blocks of crystals would disappear, as they fell into alignment in the cleared spaces.  And of course, as they disappeared, new choices and opportunities presented themselves.

As I watched this happen time after time, it occurred to me that this is exactly what happens each and every time I am presented with a choice in my life!  I make a choice, I take action, and then other things happen as a result of that choice.  And each choice that I make changes the configuration of the rest of the pieces of my life, allowing other opportunities (consequences) to present themselves. 

As thinking beings, when we make a choice, we most often attempt to ferret out what the consequences of that choice will be before we ever make it, wanting to make the choice that will serve us best.   Just like when I made a choice in the game. I wanted to make a choice that would match enough of the crystals to make them disappear.  Sometimes I was aware that my choice would affect more than one set of crystals, but sometimes, more often in fact, I was almost clueless as to how impactful my choice would be.  And I would be absolutely delighted when my choice to match three crystals caused an entire block of them to disappear.

So when in life I have to choose between the apple and the chocolate cake, each choice comes with its own set of consequences.  Some I'm completely aware of, and others are beyond my knowing, because the action of choosing has set other things in motion that I cannot see, or even begin to imagine. Just like an intention to match three crystals can cause a shift that enables an entire block to disappear.

Each time I make a choice, I set the Universe in motion to make other things happen that are similar in vibration.  A lower vibrational choice attracts other experiences of a like vibration, and higher vibrational choices do the same!  The more choices I make of a like vibration, the more likely I am to attract an entire block of similar vibrational experiences.  How many times have I heard people say, myself included,  "Geez, I'm really on a losing streak here. It's one bad thing after another!  What did I do to deserve this?"  Or "Wow! I'm really lucky! One good thing after another!"  (And then, of course, we often hear people say, "I better not say that too loud. I   might jinx it!")

This isn't a new concept for me by any means.  But seeing those crystals falling away the way they did, was a very powerful image to help me see just how important it is for me to make the best possible choice each and every time.  Because when I do, I empower the Universe to put things in place for me that I can't even begin to imagine.

I'm going to work on choosing the apple more often, and I'm also going to allow myself to more fully enjoy the chocolate cake when I intentionally choose it.  So I'm hoping the next time you see me, my hips will be smaller and my vibration even higher!

 

Running Away

I wanted to run away this morning.  As I sat eating breakfast, suddenly I wanted to get in my car and drive.  "Drive where?"  I asked myself.  "Home," I thought, "I want to go home.  Home?  Yes.  Home.  Back to Pittsburgh.  I want to go home."  And I began to figure out how to make it work.

"If I leave now, it's only ten hours. I can be there by 6.  I can stay tomorrow and Sunday, and drive back Monday.  I can do this.  No big deal. My car almost knows the way itself.  I'm going home."

And then I heard, "But you are home. This is your home.  Where are you running to? Why are you running?  What are you running from?"  And as the questions formed in my mind, I felt my eyes tearing up, and then the tears were slipping down my cheeks.  "Homesick, I'm homesick.  I want to go home." 

Before I knew it, I was cleaning up the breakfast dishes and heading for the closet, pulling out my suitcase, opening drawers, picking out clothes...and then I stopped, and sat on the edge of the bed, and asked myself, "What the hell are you doing?"

As I thought about it, I realized it wasn't really Pittsburgh and my home there that I was missing. It was the way things were before I knew Hayden was coming, before I decided to move to Nashville, before I closed my office and took the trip to Alaska.  I wanted things back the way they used to be, back when I knew what each day held, how each day was going to play out.  I wanted my old schedule back. I wanted my full calendar of clients and classes.  I wanted Wednesday night groups and Saturday workshops, and Sunday and Monday off.  I wanted my old routine, my old friends, my old way of being.   I wanted safety, security, stability.   I didn't want to be in this new place trying to figure out what to do with all the stuff in the boxes that were still unpacked and waiting for me in my office.  I didn't want to think about what's next with my work or where this new relationship is heading.  I wanted to run away and leave it all behind.

But the thing about running away, about resisting what I was feeling, is that when I came back, it would all be here waiting for me.  And pushing it away wasn't going to make it any easier to deal with.  As I thought that, I remembered that God had said something similar in a message that came through during one of the workshops I did when I was in Pittsburgh in October.  I dug it out and read it.  This is what God said, 

"So oftentimes, you resist the pain, and what you really need to do is embrace it.  “What you resist, persists.”  How many times have you heard that? So every time you resist the pain, it persists.  Embrace it!  Whatever the pain is - physical, mental, emotional, spiritual - embrace the pain!  Pull it towards you!  Wrap your arms around it!  Love it! Hold it close!  Offer your gratitude!  Tell it how grateful you are that it has come to serve you, and to teach you.

 

You might be amazed at what happens when you do that.  Suddenly the flood gates will open, and you will be sobbing tears.  But not tears of pain, simply tears of healing.  Sometimes even tears of joy, and you think to yourself, “This is so strange!  I was in so much pain!  And now I’m joyfully crying??  This makes no sense!”

 

Ah, but your pain was a symptom.  And when you pulled it in, when you held it close, when you hugged it and embraced it and owned it?  You broke it open and freed yourself!  And so you cry tears of joy because you realize that you are free.  That no longer do you have to carry that which you were carrying.

 

Pain is a very uncomfortable teacher.  But a very powerful one.  And whether that pain is spiritual or physical or emotional or mental, it doesn’t matter.  It’s come to teach you something.  It’s come to teach you what you asked it to teach you."

 

I'm not sure what this experience is teaching me.  Maybe it's just a reminder that change can be uncomfortable, but it's part of the process, and it's okay to be uncomfortable as long as I don't let it stop me from moving forward.  So I didn't run away today.  I stayed at home and forced myself to unpack the rest of the boxes.  I went to Staples and priced a desk and chair for my office, and I went to Kohl's and bought the towels and rugs for the bathroom that I've been putting off buying.  

 

That uncomfortable feeling is still there, but the desire to run away has abated.  And I noticed that once I recognized what the feeling of homesickness was all about, it was easier to understand why I was feeling the way that I was.  Everything is different.  It makes sense that I'd want to have it all back the way it was, because I know how to be that person, to do that job. I knew how to live my life as that Bonnie.  I'm still trying to figure out how to live my life as this Bonnie. 

An Amazing Gift!

I love the water!  As a child, I spent most of each summer in the community swimming pool, and as a teenager, old enough to work, my first job was as a lifeguard at that same pool, a job I kept each summer until my sophomore year in college.

As an adult, I'm not so much about being in the water as I am being near the water.  For some reason, just being close to a body of water, calms me and lifts my spirit.  When I lived in Pittsburgh, Erie was my go to place when I needed a water fix.  I could walk the beach for hours, sit at a picnic table overlooking the lake and journal, or just sit and listen to the waves hitting the shore.  Lake Erie was the place I went after I saw the Blessed Mother and she told me I needed to leave Holy Family because she had work for me to do.  The day after I drove to the lake, I turned in my resignation.
Somehow, whatever I got from being there was enough to confirm that I needed to take that step.  I knew when I decided to move to Nashville that I was going to miss my trips to the lake.

When I came to Nashville in January, 2012, for Hayden's birth, I had some time on my hands when I wasn't with my family, and decided to explore one of the New Age shops in the area,.  When I got there, I decided to get a reading done.  One of the things the reader said to me as she read the tarot cards I had chosen, was that when I moved to Nashville, I needed to live near water.  She said it was important for my spirit.  After she said that, I told her about my trips to Erie.  She smiled knowingly and nodded her head as I spoke.

When I began looking for a place to live in Nashville, I never gave a second thought to what that reader had said.  I wanted a place relatively close to my son's home, with no stairs, and something that I could afford.  When I looked at the condo that is now my home, and the realtor said it was on a lake, I never thought much about it, because I couldn't see the lake from my condo.  There is an Army Corp of Engineers' easement between the lake and the back of my condo, which is all woods, and unless you know there's a lake back there, you'd never know there's a lake there at all.  So I just never think about it.

But this morning, instead of taking my usual walk through the condo plan, I decided to head out of the plan and walk down a road just a short distance away that is blocked off with a gate.



Before the leaves started falling, I couldn't see anything past the stop sign but more of the road.  With the leaves falling and branches baring, I could now see a glimpse of the lake.  I decided to explore.

As I walked up to the gate, I was able to read the sign that was posted to its side.  It said this boat ramp was closed and listed several others that boaters could use instead.  "A boat ramp?" I thought.  "How close is the lake?"



                                                               The road past the gate.

The further I walked, the more excited I became!  The lake was so close...barely five minutes from my front door!  I've lived here over three months now.  How could I not have known it was this close?

 





But isn't that what happens sometimes?  We get so caught up in what is right in front of us that we don't bother to look any further, to dig any deeper.  We let the obvious stop our exploration, or we convince ourselves that it's a waste of time and effort.  I wonder how many other opportunities I've missed because I stopped at the obvious? 

I did my spiritual practice this morning sitting on a rock at the edge of the water, eyes closed, the breeze rustling the dry leaves on the tree branches above my head while the water slapped the shore at my feet.  I turned my face upward and felt the sun warming my cheeks, and even though my eyes were closed, I could see the sun's light through my lids.  I breathed in the chill fall air, aware of the smells of the water, the pine trees behind me, and the wet earth under my feet, and then I pulled back my shoulders, expanded my chest, and breathed in even deeper.  "Thank you, God." I whispered. "Thank you."

I don't have to drive ninety miles to Erie anymore.  I don't have to wait until I have the time to make the trip.  It doesn't have to be something I can only do when I have a full day free of other obligations and responsibilities.  Now, anytime I want to, I can take a five minute walk out my front door, and regain my calm and renew my spirit by being near the water.  What an amazing gift!  And to think I might never have known it, if I hadn't looked beyond the obvious!