Today we ask that you give yourself “permission to fail.”

This may sound very wrong to you.

Giving yourself “permission to fail” at something may sound like a guarantee of failure.

What about “manifestation”?  What about setting goals, and focusing on success?

Giving yourself “permission to fail” will ruin all that, won’t it?

No, it will not.  In fact, it will do the opposite.

Most of you do not believe that it is okay to fail at anything.

This is insane.

If children were born thinking it wasn’t okay to fail, they would never learn to walk or talk or do anything.

The fear of failure breeds paralysis, blockage, and physical and mental illness.

Most people past early childhood have this fear, to some extent.  Often this fear increases with age.  Failure is associated with trauma and shame, and humans are conditioned to avoid it at any cost.  

In order for you to thrive, you must overcome your aversion to the experience of “failure.”

And that is why, for most of you, it is very healthy to grant yourself “permission to fail.”

Despite what the Critical Voice in your head may say about this, giving yourself “permission to fail” does not mean that you will fail.

It does not mean you will be a lazy slob who doesn’t accomplish anything.

Giving yourself “permission to fail” allows you to relax around what you are doing.

And it is this feeling of relaxation that creates space for true creative flow.

If you set out to achieve a goal in a state of terror of what will happen to you if you fail, in reality you are much more likely to experience the “failure” scenario.  That is because you are being motivated in part by the fear of a negative outcome.

Giving yourself “permission to fail” removes this fear.  It allows you to take action in a spirit of play, and enjoyment, knowing that you will be okay even if you “fail.”

Consider the moments of great “failure” in your life experience.

How would those experiences have been different if you had given yourself “permission to fail” ahead of time?

Can you see that “failure” experiences are much less traumatic, when you are not so terrified of them?  

Counterintuitive as it may seem, giving yourself “permission to fail” at things will actually make you far more productive.  You will be more relaxed around what you do, and that will increase flow.

Try it.  Try it with something you are very stressed about, where failure seems unthinkable.

See what shifts when you give yourself “permission to fail.”

It is also very good to give other people “permission to fail.”  In fact, it is often one of the greatest gifts you can give anyone.

The world would be a more compassionate place if people simply gave each other “permission to fail.”

When you set out to “manifest” something, it is good to affirm that you will be okay if you do not get what you want.  This expresses a trust in the universe.  Sometimes the things people desperately want really are not good for them.  Sometimes things must wait for the right timing.

Give the universe “permission to fail.”  Give God “permission to fail.”

This practice will, over time, redefine your beliefs about “failure” and “success.”  You will be freed from the tyranny of the fear of failure.  This will utterly transform your life.

Today we ask that you learn to be good parents to yourselves.

This is not easy to do, especially if the parents who raised you were fearful, reactive people.  There are very few “good parents” on this planet, although it is not for you to judge any parent as “bad.”  Everyone does his best.  You live in a crazy world.  It is only natural that most parents are crazy.  They don’t know any better.

Good parenting is all about creating a safe, nurturing environment conducive to growth, creativity, and exploration.

Good parenting does not just apply to children.

Are you someone who creates a safe, nurturing environment conducive to your own personal growth and exploration?

Good parenting is like good gardening.  It requires an understanding, cultivated partly through education but mostly through trial and error, of what works best for specific plants in specific environments.

You garden a rose bush differently than you do a cactus.

You make adjustments based on climate, and season.

Every plant is unique.  Most plants will thrive in one environment, but wilt in another.

For example: some people are naturally more sociable than others.  Some people thrive when they frequently interact and engage with other people out in the world.

Other people do better with solitude, and quiet.  While they can socialize, they do better with a lot of down time.  

The lively, sociable person would wilt with boredom in a secluded, solitary environment.  The quiet, reflective person would wilt with exhaustion in an environment of constant socializing and stimuli. 

This doesn’t mean there’s anything “wrong” with either of these people.

A rose bush won’t bloom in arid desert soil.  A cactus needs a lot of sunlight.

Good parenting is knowing if you are a cactus or a rose bush, and doing your best to create a conducive environment for your growth.

Sometimes a cactus is born into a family of rose bushes, or a rose bush is born into a family of cacti.  This can be challenging.  But a good parent is able to recognize and accept that a child is not wired in the same way he is, and do his best to help the child flourish.

Sometimes you must work with limitations.  Maybe you are a rose bush living in a desert, and you cannot move at this time.  What do you do?  You create a little private patch of space that is conducive for rose bush growth.  You create your “pot.”  You make sure that your pot is well-watered, has good soil, and gets the right amount of light and shade.

What you do not do is get angry at yourself for not being a cactus.

Does this make sense?

It requires honesty, and clear perception.

Really the best thing you can do is just give yourself permission to be you.

Maybe you are cactus, maybe you are a rose bush, maybe you are a geranium or a spider plant.  Whatever you are, you are perfect — and there is nothing else that you can or should be.

Good parenting is knowing and accepting who you are, as you are.  It is knowing what is good for you.

What is good for someone else is probably not good for you, unless that person is very much like you.

Maybe someone else can drink alcohol, and it is not a big deal for him.  But for you, it is bad — it makes you sick, or triggers addictive behavior.

Being a good parent to yourself means you do not drink alcohol.  It does not matter if other people can do it.  You won’t, because you are committed to taking good care of yourself.

Good parenting means accepting your limitations, while working to expand and grow.  It is a delicate balance.  Before you can grow, you must create a safe, nurturing environment for yourself.  This does not mean you need a lot of money and a big house or anything like that.  It is about taking good care of yourself — eating well, sleeping well, exercising, meditating, staying healthy and so on.

If you are not a social animal, then do not pressure yourself to socialize.  If you are a social butterfly, don’t shut yourself up in a cave with your nose to the grindstone.  To thine own self be true.

Once you create a good environment for yourself, then you can expand.  But if a rose bush is planted in desert sand in the summer, don’t expect flowers!  

Don’t force yourself to be like anyone else.  That is the essence of good parenting.  Know what is good for you.

Today we ask that you learn to observe — and if possible, reduce — your level of fear at any given moment.

This is an extremely useful, life-altering skill.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how much fear are you feeling in your body at this moment?

Usually a number will jump to mind.

If not, quiet your mind, and check in with your body.  Is there tension in your muscles, particularly in the neck and shoulders?  Does your belly feel tight?  Are you fidgety?  Do you have difficulty focusing?  How is your digestion?  How well did you sleep last night?

Check in with your body.  Observe on a scale of 1 to 10 how much fear, how much tension, how much stress you feel in your body at this moment.  Be honest with yourself.   You may be surprised to find that the number is higher than you would have expected.

Most people experience fear constantly.  They do not know what it is like even to have a low level of fear in the body.

If you dedicated your whole life to doing nothing but learning to reduce the level of fear in your body, and help others reduce fear in theirs, this would be a life extremely well-lived.

Fear has its place.  Sometimes truly dangerous situations arise, and you must respond accordingly.

For the most part, however, modern humans are experiencing fear in a very toxic way.

Fear impedes growth.  Fear blocks creativity.  Fear blocks the flow of fertility, and abundance.

Fear triggers aggression, violence, and warfare.  Fear is the root cause of the majority of human disease, especially in developed countries.

What’s more, humans are addicted to fear.  Humans like to watch violent or horrific movies and TV shows.  They like to watch “the news,” which focuses on fearful events in the world.  Watching these things actually increases the level of fear in the human body.

If you have any blockage or sickness in any area of your life, it would be extremely wise for you to start consciously monitoring your fear level, and for you to learn to reduce your fear level, at will.  Every human would benefit immensely from this practice.

All forms of human communication, interaction, and decision-making would be vastly improved if people simply learned how to reduce their fear levels.

How do you reduce your fear level?

Any form of meditation will promote a relaxed, focused awareness, and reduce fear in the body.

Practices like yoga, tai chi, and qigong reduce fear in the body.

Energy work and massage therapy reduce fear in the body.

A good therapist can help with fear reduction.  However, sometimes “talk therapy” can inadvertently increase fear.  It really depends on the therapist.  Notice if your fear level generally rises or drops in relation to the therapist.

Never make an important decision when your fear level is at a “5” or higher.  

Do not attempt creative work when your fear level is at a “5” or higher.

EFT, a form of tapping acupressure points, is a quick and effective fear reduction technique.

The Work of Byron Katie reduces fear in the body by questioning and dissipating fearful beliefs about reality.

If you did nothing else this holiday but focus on monitoring your fear level, and learning to reduce it at will, you would automatically create a much better life for yourself in the year to come.

Today we ask that you learn to master your fear response.

This is no small or easy task.  It requires you to retrain and reprogram yourself, to go against the impulses of your nervous system and the structure of your lower brain.

It is like “becoming a Jedi” in the “Star Wars” mythology, or “becoming a wizard” in “Harry Potter.”

Some of you are more “high-strung” than others.  That is, it takes a lesser stimulus to elicit an adrenal fear response in you, than it would for someone else.  There is nothing wrong or defective about you, if this is the case.

For some of you, this may be a result of traumatic experiences.  For others, it is merely a genetic predisposition.  Many have both.  If you look at dogs, some are more high-strung than others.  It is the same with all animals.  Genes and environment play a complex role in this.

If you are a high-strung, or nervous individual, do not attack yourself for being this way.  Do not compare yourself to your brothers who appear to be more steady and fearless.  Do not blame your parents for making you this way.

The best thing to do is to give yourself permission to be a nervous, jumpy person, if that is your situation.  Feeling ashamed of it, or trying to stuff it down or bury it, will only make it worse.  It must be addressed.

Being high-strung in the modern world is like being fair-skinned in a climate that gets a lot of sunshine.  It’s no one’s fault.  It just means you need to take extra precautions not to get sunburned.

Whether you are high-strung or not, the main thing to do is to start observing your fearful responses to situations, and to learn how to effectively self-soothe your nervous system.

Once an adrenal response is triggered, your options are limited.  You can fight.  You can flee.  Or you can move into numb paralysis, “checking out.”

In most cases, humans have a stock fear response.  That is, some people are prone to fighting, some people tend to run away and avoid, and some people tend to numb out.

In a real emergency, these responses can be genuinely useful.  However, in day-to-day life, they are extremely limited.

What you must learn is how to calm your nervous system, move out of the adrenal response, and thus gain access to a much wider and more nuanced range of responses to stimuli.

If you’re always fighting, fleeing, or numbing out whenever you feel threatened, you are most likely having a frustrating life experience, and replaying the same patterns over and over.

Diplomacy, communication, energy work, meditation, prayer… these are much subtler responses to stimuli.  They operate on a deeper level than the basic animal fear reactions.

Obviously, in most cases, diplomacy and communication are preferable to attack, avoidance, and paralysis.

But meditation, energy work, prayer… these operate on an even finer, subtler level, and are especially useful with problems that can seem quite intractable and impossible to solve with “normal” techniques.

None of these options can be accessed when you are stuck in the fear response.

That is why meditative practices are so useful.  It is a form of training that, over time, teaches you how to calm and settle your nervous system at will — among other benefits.

If you are a high-strung individual, then practices like breathing meditation, mantra meditation, visualization, yoga, qigong… these are not optional for you, any more than taking precautions against sunburn is optional for a fair-skinned person in a sunny place.

If a fair-skinned person in a sunny place doesn’t take precautions, he will experience sunburn.

If a high-strung person doesn’t engage in meditative practices, he will experience intense feelings of anxiety and panic around any stimuli he perceives as threatening, whether or not the threat is real.  He will respond by attacking, avoiding, or numbing out.  

The form of meditation does not matter.  Many options are available.  What matters is that you do it regularly, preferably daily.  It must become a practice.  

Once you begin to master your fear response, you will have a much wider range of choices available to you in terms of how you react to stimuli.  Your life experience will become much more enjoyable as a result.

Today we ask that you let go of the belief in limited resources.

This is very difficult for humans, for you are neurologically predisposed to believe and perceive that your resources are limited.

And yet this is an illusion.

It is true that for lower life forms in your world, the pattern of existence is dominated by fierce competition for limited resources.  Insects, fish, mammals — all compete, often violently, for limited resources.  They must hunt for food.  They establish territories, which they defend to the death.  This is the world that Darwin described: “the survival of the fittest.”

Humans are not so far removed from the animal kingdom, and most humans live life along this pattern.  Man competes with his brother for limited resources.  Only a few can “make it to the top,” while the rest must scratch out a living with sweat and misery.  “He who dies with the most toys, wins.”

And so the human animal is a very unhappy beast.  Scratching and clawing his way to the top of the heap — until the younger, newer model comes along to supplant him.  He wages war against his brother, and teaches his children to do the same.

For man to evolve, he can and must transcend this ancient pattern.

Your resources are not limited.  Not in the way you think.

Certain forms of matter are limited.  There is only so much gold and diamonds and fossil fuel buried beneath the surface of the earth, it is true.  As long as humans compete for these, and destroy the earth to do so, man remains stuck in the animal kingdom, where Darwin’s grim rules apply.

Energy itself, however, is unlimited.

Humans are beginning to discover this.  Solar energy is unlimited.  The energy of wind, of the movement of the tides, of geothermal forces — these are unlimited.  Other unlimited sources have yet to be discovered.

Even “money” itself, which is perceived as the ultimate limited resource, is really not.  It is a made-up thing.  Where does “money” exist?  It is not attached to matter — it is not gold, it is not oil.  It is an invention of the human mind, and it has no limitation.

You must begin now to think of yourself as possessing unlimited resources.

This does not mean, squander and waste what is precious.  You must be good stewards of your world, and make wise and caring decisions.

The ultimate unlimited resource is that which flows to you from the spiritual plane.  Like the light of the sun, this energy is a constant, and is always available to you.

To access this unlimited resource, you must stop putting energy into the competitive hunt against your brother for the limited resources of the planet, and building up your little castles and being little kings.

You must work with your brother to tap into sources of energy that are truly inexhaustible, and available to everyone.

This can begin now, in your daily life.  Instead of living in a state of misery and frustration because of limitation, instead of believing that you must compete with your brother in a dog-eat-dog world, begin to see reality in a new way.

Every one of you has access to an unlimited resource.

This is the spiritual dimension.  It is the voice of your higher self.  It can be accessed not by going out and struggling to consume and dominate in the matter-world, but rather by turning inward in meditation.  When you turn inward, you will discover a source of energy that is inexhaustible.

This is the great transition mankind currently finds itself in.  Man must move from the old animal way of fighting and killing for limited resources, to the new way of working in harmony to tap into that which is unlimited and inexhaustible.  This is how mankind will transcend the limits of the earthly realm, and travel to the stars.  

This is an exciting time.  The transition begins with you, now.  Let go of the old ways, even if they are instinctive.  Your resources are not limited.  It is only the belief that they are, that makes it so.  Go inward, and connect with the source of inexhaustible energy.

Dear Readers,

It was just over two years ago that, on the advice of a dear friend, I decided to share the channeled messages I was receiving with a larger audience.  I did it with no small amount of trepidation, as I’m a private, introverted sort of person, and “blogging” definitely was a stretch for me.  I had no idea how the blog would work, or if anyone would even be open to reading these messages!  So… as the guides so often advise, I did my best to let go of attachment to outcome and just… put it all out there.

Two years and over five hundred posts later, Word From The Well is going strong!  I am so incredibly grateful for all the love and support these messages have been met with.  No matter what’s going on my life, channeling these messages and sharing them on this website is a peaceful oasis.  The reason I keep channeling is because I need to hear these messages as much as anyone.  The fact that other people resonate to the messages never fails to amaze me.  It affirms that the kind, loving voice that miraculously continues to come through for me day after day, week after week really does speak from a place of truth.

Thanks to all of you for coming here to take part in this.  I’m so grateful for all of you!

In other news… at the behest of this same friend, I’ve decided (with some trepidation, of course) to try out a little bit of social networking for Word From The Well.

With that in mind, I invite you all to:

“Like” Word From The Well on Facebook…

… and/or “Follow” Word From The Well on Twitter. 

All posts here on the website will be posted simultaneously on Facebook and Twitter.

In addition to the new posts on the site, I plan to update the Facebook and Twitter pages daily with posts from the Word From The Well archive.

So Facebook and Twitter followers can (if they want to!) enjoy Word From The Well every day.

In other news…

The same wonderful friend of mine, the one who got the ball rolling on this website to begin with, has been urging me for quite a while to think about compiling/editing the Word From The Well messages into some sort of book — an ebook, or possibly even a printed book.

I’d love to get reader feedback on this.  Is “Word From The Well” in book form something people would be interested in?  I’m still in the earliest stages of the process, so it may not materialize for a while.  But I’d certainly be open to hearing any ideas readers may have, or even favorite posts that you’d like to see included in a compilation.  Please feel free to comment here on the site, or email me at thewordiswell@gmail.com.

Again, thanks to all of you for sharing this journey with me.  It’s hard to believe that it’s been two years!  Then again, as the guides would say… “Believe!”

Today we ask that you not lose your faith.

“Faith” is a very misunderstood word, with negative connotations for many.  So perhaps better than “faith” is simply “belief in goodness.”

Humans believe in all kinds of things, for better or worse.  But the belief we describe is the belief that there is an underlying goodness and wholeness to reality.

As children, most people naturally believe in this wholeness and goodness.  Children believe in fairy tales, and myths.  They believe in happy endings.  They believe that heroes prevail, and that noble hearts find true love.  

But children soon “grow up.”  They become cynical, bitter, jaded, nihilistic.  The more idealistic you are to begin with, the more painful it is to be confronted by all the injustice, misery, and suffering of the human condition.  

Most people experience traumatic events in life.  They experience pain, loss, grief, sickness, suffering, heartbreak, and despair.

How can any intelligent person continue to have a child-like belief in the goodness of reality, after living long enough on this planet?

How can you stay innocent?

Innocent people are ignorant fools.  Just wait until reality kicks them around — they’ll see how bad this world really is.

A wise parent needs to toughen up a child for the brutality that awaits him in life.  A wise parent is “cruel to be kind.”  Because the world is cruel, and it is best for a child to discover this sooner rather than later.

Oh, but this is not true.  It is not true.  It is not true, any of it.

This is so difficult to understand, especially for those of you who have experienced deep trauma, or abuse.

But reality is good.  It is good.  It is just that you cannot really perceive what is going on, most of the time.

Imagine a character in a book, or a movie.  The character is caught up in the drama.  He may experience a great deal of stress, misery and trauma.

But the reader or the viewer has a wider perspective.  You may have even seen this movie before, and you know how it ends.  Sometimes, a happy ending is on its way, and you know this even if the characters do not.

From the spiritual perspective, that is how it is for all of you.  You are characters in your movies, caught up in your daily dramas and traumas.  But every one of you will come to a happy end.  

All of you will leave your physical bodies.  And although most of you are taught to fear and dread physical death, to see it as an annihilation, a snuffing out, it is in truth the “happy ending” that awaits every life form.

This does not mean you are doomed to suffer and be miserable until you die.  Not at all.

Rather it is meant to place your trials and tribulations within a larger context.  To open up your perception, so that you can begin to identify more with the “audience” of your personal story, rather than the suffering lead character caught up in all the drama.

And if you could simply believe in this, with all the innocence of a child — if you could have faith that underlying all your daily sturm and drang is a deeper reality of peace, joy, and goodness that transcends your individual identity and lifetime — then you would experience much more joy while you are alive. 

It is true.  It really is true.  Believe in this “magic.”  Even if you have suffered loss and heartbreak, believe.  Believe.

No matter how lost and alone you may sometimes feel, you are not alone, and you are always loved.  If you believe in this, if you believe in what may be invisible to the eye, but felt in the heart… then magical things can happen in your life.  Truly, they can.  

And it is okay if you do not believe this.  You, too, will have a happy ending — whether you believe in it, or not.

Today we ask that you do not do things, if your heart isn’t in it.

This is a very basic idea.  And yet most people do not know how to take action from the heart.

People are trained in childhood to do things because they “should.”

Eat your vegetables.  Do your homework.

There is nothing wrong with eating vegetables, and doing homework.  In fact, these actions are beneficial.  Vegetables are nourishing, and it is good to learn new things.

However, the child does not feel this, when he is told that he “should.”  The child is told that he is bad, and will be punished if he does not do as he is told.  So humans are conditioned to force themselves to do things, out of fear.  They do things because they fear pain, shame, loss, disapproval.

Or else they do things to get a reward.  Eat your vegetables, and you get a cookie.  Do your homework, and you can play a video game.  Get an “A” on your test and everyone will tell you what a good, smart kid you are.

This the way rats are trained, in scientific experiments.  Undesired behaviors are punished with an electric shock.  Desired behaviors are rewarded with a sugar pellet.  Rats can be conditioned to perform complex tasks in this way.

But do you think the average lab rat is happy?

Perhaps he is happy for a moment, when he is rewarded with his sugar pellet.

But that does not last long.  The rest of the time, he is miserable.  He lives in fear of electric shocks.  He experiences strong addictive cravings for the sugar pellets.

There is more to life than being a lab rat.

Freedom is possible.

To be free, you must undo your conditioning.  This is challenging, but it is possible.

You must stop forcing yourself to do things.  You must stop taking action based on fear of punishment and desire for reward, and instead act from the heart.

You may believe that your life would fall apart if you didn’t force yourself to do things all the time.  If you didn’t beat yourself up for “bad behavior,” and reward yourself for “good behavior.”

But if you don’t want to be a human lab rat, you must free yourself from the system of reward and punishment.

What would happen if you didn’t force yourself to do things?

Do you think you would be a lazy, irresponsible, worthless person who didn’t do anything?  Do you think you would eat poorly and watch TV all day?  Do you think you would lose your job and be homeless?

Maybe so.

But maybe freedom wouldn’t destroy your life.

Maybe if you stopped forcing yourself to do things out of fear and shame, you would connect with a deeper, truer reason to do the things you do.

You would act from love.

And it is possible that you would keep doing all the same things that you do now.  Only from a place of love and true desire.  Not force, not fear, not “should.” 

It is also possible that you would cease certain behaviors and actions that are not serving you.

You won’t find out until you stop forcing yourself to do things.

Step out of the system of reward and punishment.  Stop being a lab rat.

Eat your vegetables because you love your body and want to nourish it.  Not because you are a “bad boy” or a “bad girl” if you don’t eat your vegetables.  Not because if you force down those nasty vegetables, you get a sweet cookie.

You will know you are liberated when you really want to eat those “vegetables”, and no longer need the “cookie” as a reward.

So look at the “vegetables” in your life.  Look at what nourishes you, what makes your body and mind and existence healthy and strong, even if there is some challenge associated with it.  

Look at the ways you rob yourself of the ability to experience these things with pleasure, because you beat yourself up when you don’t do these things and call yourself “bad.”  

Look at the ways you give yourself “cookies” — addictive treats — as a reward for forcing yourself through these things, thus reinforcing in your mind that nourishing activity is so painful that the only way to get through it is to promise yourself a reward.

If you really want to be an actualized human, you must escape from these conditioned patterns.  It is possible.  Many humans do.

Do not force yourself to do anything.  Take action with your heart fully in it.  

Today we ask that you love and honor what you create.

Love and honor your creation.

It may be a simple thing, like a meal you’ve prepared.  Maybe you hung a picture on the wall.  Maybe you put a plant in a pot.  Maybe you cleaned your office.

All of this is creation.  You are creating something.  You are taking action, and creating something.

Honor what you create.

Humans are not taught to honor creation.  They are taught to judge it.  And they can be extremely destructive in their judgments.

For every artist, there are at least a dozen critics to judge the art.  It is the critic who decides whether the art is worth something, or worthless.

Never mind that this is all arbitrary and subjective.  When Vincent Van Gogh was alive, the judges of art considered his work worthless.  Now it is worth a fortune.

Van Gogh’s art was always beautiful.  It is not the power of the critic to make something beautiful, or not.  And yet people believe critics.  They may even believe a critic’s judgment over their own appreciation.

A terrible thing happens to many humans.  

In childhood, it is natural to constantly create, and to love what you create — even if you are not particularly attached to it.

But then the process of judgment begins.

If an adult tells a child singing a song that his voice is ugly, the child may believe it, and never sing again.  From that point on, the child may believe that he has an ugly voice, and should not sing.

That is why you must learn to love and honor your creations.  You must love and honor what you create.  It does not matter what anyone else has to say about it.  It does not matter what the loud critic in your mind has to say about it.

You must love and honor your creation.

It is wise, also, to love and honor what other people create.

It is okay if it is not “your thing.”  You do not have to like it.  Just because you do not like something, does not mean it is worthless.  Other people might very well love this thing that you do not like.  Who are you to tell others what they should like, or not like?  

There are enough critics in the world.  Leave that job to other people.  Choose to do something else.

When you learn to love and honor other people’s creations, even if you do not personally like them, it will become easier for you to love and honor your own.

Judgment strangles creativity.  Parents, please look to the ways you judge and criticize your children.  You may truly believe that you are helping them, but the energy of criticism can be very harmful.

The parent who tells his child that some part of his body is ugly, or that something he creates is ugly, can be setting up a belief that the child may carry around for life, if it is not questioned and dismantled.

Love and honor your creation.  Love and honor your children’s creations.  Love and honor all creation — even if it is not “your thing.”

You do not have to create a magnum opus.  Your creation may be small and simple.  Whatever it is, no matter how small, honor your creation this day.

Today we ask that you believe that good things really are possible.

Most spiritually open people consider themselves open-minded, and expansive.

And yet deep down, many do not really believe in the fundamental goodness of reality.

That is because the collective human consciousness stands opposed to this story.

Earthly reality is not good, according to the collective.

It is a vale of sorrow and suffering.  Perhaps if you remain morally pure, you will go to Heaven when you die.  If not, you suffer in Hell for eternity.

It is the wheel of endless death and rebirth.  All beings suffer, until they are liberated from this cycle and are no longer reborn.

It is all meaningless.  But still each man must push his personal boulder up a mountain every day, like Sisyphus in the Greek myth, until he dies and returns to dust and nothingness.

All these points of view — Western religion, Eastern religion, existential atheism — none of these paint a pleasant portrait of earthly life.  

Listen to most people talk, and you will hear a litany of woe and frustration.

Why would any child want to grow up, when the life of the average “grown-up” is one of constant suffering and complaint?

Why would anyone want to work at a job, or get married, or have a family?  When you listen to what most people think of their jobs and marriages and parenthood, it’s shocking that people opt to do any of these things.  (Of course, most people do not believe that these choices are optional.)

And yet good things are possible.  They are possible.

It is entirely possible to be madly in love with life in this earthly realm.

It is possible to be madly in love with the world.

It is possible to be madly in love with your life.

What is required is a shift in consciousness.  You are asked to fall in love with your life right now, in this moment.

And that is not easy, because it opposes the heavy gravitational pull of collective human consciousness, and its belief that earthly life is no good.

Oh, but it is good!  It is good.

So many of you are like people walking around wearing blindfolds, and insisting that you are blind.  You bump into things and feel pain, and complain about your awful lot in life.

All that is required is that you remove your blindfold.

For we who observe you from the spiritual plane, it can be difficult.  It is really like watching someone wearing a blindfold, complaining that they cannot see anything.

Open your eyes.  Open your eyes, to the beauty that surrounds you even at this very moment.

Open your eyes to the love and kindness that is in your life at this very moment.

Stop forever chasing that which is always out of reach, over the horizon.  That thing that will make you happy if only you could grasp it.  If you want to know what the “blindfold” is, it is this.  

Good things are possible in this reality.  All that is needed is that you believe in this.  Believe in magic, with all the open-hearted simplicity of the child you once were, the child that lives within you still.