I am struck today by my son’s generosity. Giving comes easily to him. I don’t have much experience with children. I was never the person who pined for them. I always believed them to be magical, but when it came to having one of my own I remained detached. That is until my son’s soul found me and I was gripped with a need to bring him into the world, not because my time was running short, but because it was him.

From the beginning he was open and generous with himself. He gave his attention where it was asked of him. When he was old enough he began sharing his food with anyone who fed him. Then and now he shares his food, books, and toys with people, pets, and the world at large. He gets genuine pleasure from sharing. He certainly has moments of being possessive with his toys but it seems very minimal to me for a young child. Because he is observant, he calls my husband and I to task when we are being selfish or possessive.

I am transforming my old beliefs about money and the hold those beliefs have had over me for most of my life. I’m not so interested in having a lot of it, but more letting go of the feeling that how much I have defines my worth as a person. As if I attach an unspecified dollar amount to myself and my life. That is not to say I don’t want to increase my ability to manifest more money in my life. The healthy part of me knows this need is based in going through the process of creating more because I need to know I can. I need to know there are no limitations in my life except the ones I place on myself. For too long I have struggled with blaming life and others for what I perceive is lacking in my life. As I take more responsibility for myself the more I want to stretch and see what I can do. I want to take myself out for a spin and see what this baby can do on the open road.

Like my son, I am generouswith myself in relation to others, but I am not with my money and things. I hoard. Yuck, not a great word, but there it is. I love buying presents for people, but I don’t just give it away, I still want something tangible to show for my money. I only give my things to charity when I am done with them. I know people who don’t have a lot and give so much away they are always in trouble financially, as if the giving cures them of their issues with money. Mother Mary is always reminding us to be clear. I don’t want to be clear with my money. I want to spend wildly and have the money elves replenish my supply without any attention on my part. If I don’t look too close I can continue to struggle with lack and pretend. Conscious living with money is a challenge. I tell myself it’s boring and tedious, that I’m an artist not a stock broker, all the time justifyingmy vague attitude.

Like most things it comes down to lack of trust in myself and Mother. I’m not good enough and She is a disembodied entity that can’t possibly grasp the subtleties of big finance. Wow that’s a set up. My mind is definitely not a place I should be alone. My son’s giving has a sweetness of spirit, without calculation or guile. It is part of who he is as a person. I was like that once and believe I will be again. I’ve come a long way with money but I now feel I don’t want to possess nor be possessed by anything or anyone, but Spirit.

I started the outreach program on my website as an action step toward freeing myself from lack. I found Casa De Milagros through a friend who is a friend and supporter of the woman who founded it. I love what she is offering the children and the surrounding community.  I meditated with Mother to come up with a percentage of giving from sales on the site that felt good. I hope to raise that percentage over time as I transform my old beliefs and free that generous child within from the confines of my mind. I am taking action daily to discover my needs and not exceed them so I don’t create a life too full of “stuff”. To give and receive freely is a flow that is coming more fully into being in my life. To feel enough is the need Mother is helping me to fulfill today. 

My son gave me the only ripe strawberry this morning from our garden with an open energy that left me feeling full before I even opened my mouth to eat it.

I want to start by saying thank you to Marcia. I appreciate the encouragement in your comment. I have been reading the Feingold group website and his books. Of course the better part of me knows what you say is true and I’m thankful it is from that place I am taking action. We are so lucky that we already eat along those lines so closely. Not to mention all the natural foods that are available in almost every grocery store. Support, support, support, can any of us get too much? I don’t think so. It always comes when it is needed.

I’ve been thinking about incentives or carrots lately. The two year process of learning to consistently show up for my dreams began with a trip to Ashland Oregon. Friends had recently moved to Ashland from Los Angeles. My husband and I had been talking about some day moving out West, but had not formulated any cohesive plan. My husband is shy by nature and feels uncomfortable around people. The night I told him about my friends, whom he had never met, moving to Ashland, he became like a dog with a bone. He got up from his chair like he was sitting on a tack, moved briskly to the closet and pulled out the road atlas. He found it on the map and announced, we should go and visit them. Let’s go for a vacation. OK, I said, wondering where my husband had gone and who this pod person was.

Our first visit took place a few months later. We loved it as soon as we saw it. For me it was a dream come true. It had everything I had always needed in a place to live. My husband was hooked. Our second visit found us meditating in Lithia Park, the crown jewel of Ashland. When our eyes opened we looked at each other and my husband said, I feel like I’m home.

Like most great small towns with culture, liberal intellect, and stunning scenery, housing prices were very high. Of course it is all relative. coming from a big expensive city, it would seem a bargain. But from what we were coming from it would not be realistic in the long term if something didn’t change. I knew right away that something was me.

Like an internal clarion call, I felt the time had come for me to end the repression of my passions and dreams. Everything I had done to this point had prepared me for this transition. I knew beyond a doubt that Ashland is what I needed for my sanity and serenity of everyday life. I felt done with spending 45 minutes on the freeway do get to the everyday errands of life. My husband was burned out on big city life as much as I. We longed for simplicity with cultural diversity. Ashland offered this plus a spiritual community where I would be considered more the norm. My carrot was money plain and simple. If it took more money to live in Ashland,then I was willing to do whatever it took to allow that into our life.

Mother helped me to see where I could make changes in our work together that held the highest possibility of generating more income. But here was the condition. I would have to step out of the closet and surrender the stranglehold I had been maintaining on the channeling and my writing. Oh but that carrot was so beautiful, hiking in the mountains out our backdoor, a premier Shakespeare company with new theatre, a college, and more spiritual diversity than you could shake a stick at, all in a town of 20,000. Damn. I admit it freely, i would not have been able to let without the size of that Ashland carrot. In the past I would have looked to my husband to be the one to make up the financial difference, but I knew this time it was up to us both.

The last two years have been a leap of faith. The carrot was enough to start. The miracle is that once I started letting go, showing up, and doing the footwork, I discovered I enjoyed it. what do you know. No wonder Spirit gave us a sense of humor. My husbands real estate investments got us out here in partnership with Mother’s grace, but my income hasn’t really changed yet. I get down about that and impatient as a child, yet inside I feel my soul whispering, I’ve got you, I’ll never let you fall, keep listening and loving. So everyday I show up for my life and trust that the home we have bought here will be paid for and anything else we need will be provided, and so far it is. Today I am resting in faith.

What is your carrot? I would love to hear from you.

We went camping this past weekend and I’m still dragging. This is our second camping trip with my son and it was almost as bad as the first. Without Mother’s teachings and presence in my life I literally don’t know what I would do. As my son’s behavior deteriorated on Friday and my lack of sleep contributed to the push/pull of Saturday, I began to gain insight into my son and myself. The naturopath we are working with has given my son a homeopathic remedy and recommended the Feingold Diet which contains no artificial anything. For the most part that is how we eat anyway, but as I began to look closely I saw room for improvement.

I read a review on the Internet of this diet and the only negative one I found was written by a young woman. She wrote of the living hell of being put through it as a child in the 80’s. Her mother shamed her and bullied her into trying to adhere to the diet which set up a series of lies she began to tell to protect her from her mother when she fell off the wagon. I believe the diet has merit, and want to give it a chance, yet I was unaware how much this article impacted me until this weekend. As an adult with a less than ideal childhood, I worry that somehow I will create a terrible one for my son. The first camping trip we did smores, which are so full of artificial everything, I don’t think they even qualify as food. The second, I let him have M&M’s.

It often takes what happened this weekend to awaken me to what my real motivations are. I am so afraid my son will hate me for depriving him of occasional junk food that defines a “normal” childhood, that I am willing to make him miserable by giving it to him. My own selfishness is so hard to face. I know I am a good mother, but I am also a recovering narcissist. It is only because of Mother’s love and constant grace that I am able to face myself and move through the shame and cringing to look for solution. She shows me I am normal in the things I feel and do. I can surrender blaming myself more quickly toady and remember to move forward no matter what.

I don’t shame my son. While I have compassion for the woman in the article, my family is not her family. With love, patience, and a lot of support, I can feed my son in a way that makes his life and ours easier. With Mother’s guidance, I can teach my son that there isn’t anything “wrong” with him, he just has bad reactions to certain foods and he might grow out of it or he might not. I can teach him to pay attention when he eats certain foods if he chooses to when we aren’t providing it so he can learn to make the choices that work best for him. I can’t be ridged about anything anymore, it’s too punishing, but I can let go of my worry about a future possibility of how my son might feel about me, and stay present to do the best I can. Food Is Not Love. But it can be used to punish or nurture. Today I will not confuse my fear of deprivation for what is best for my son. The diet may not be the solution or sticking to it might be more of a challenge than we think, but I’ll never give up finding solutions for my son and myself. Go Team!

As a new writer, I have discovered a big part of writing is the business of getting published. I think this is why the arts, as a career, are not for the faint of heart. You must be part artist, part sales person. I have learned to divide my time between writing and learning how to present my writing to those who may be interested in representing me. I have come to writing as a passion late in life. The last English class I took was English 101 in collage, 25 years ago. The only creative writing classes I have attended took place in the last six years and they have been inconsistent at best. I pick up Strunk and White, the grammar bible, and am lost in a sea of rules I vaguely remember. 

About a year ago I discovered a blog about publishing I have come to depend on. Nathan Bransford is a literary agent with Curtis Brown publishers in San Fransisco. He writes an informative blog with heart and humor. Within his blog he links to a vast array of blogs and articles throughout the publishing industry. His blog has helped me become serious about my writing and clearly sets out my footwork and what is out of my control. His blog is visited by about 5,ooo people daily. His guest bloggers are outstanding. If you are at all considering writing for a career or a lucrative hobby, explore his blog .

One of the biggest lessons I have learned from Mother Mary is that I am stronger when I ask for and accept help. Like most career additions, mine requires new education. I sometimes find it all overwhelming, but for the most part it has captured my attention and kept me engaged. I may never get published and if that is Mother’s plan for me I’m OK with that, but I also know if I don’t do the foot work as it is presented to me, my chances of moving forward as a writer lessen.

Practicing my dreams is a magical experience for me. All of a sudden I am surrounded with friends becoming best selling authors, publishing books, and writing them. It’s a little like buying a new car and seeing them everywhere. Mother is sending me all the support and education I need to blossom. I’m surrounded and loving it.

Over the years, Mother Mary has spoken often of resentments as one of the most destructive energies in a human life. As someone who’s default button was set on blame for so long, I have found Her teachings on this to apply directly to my life. I spent so much of my life terrified of my own and other people’s anger, that I turned it forever inward. I couldn’t stand up for myself, but I could blame. As I nurtured and fed that blame it lodged within my body and became resentment. I have no proof of this but it seems to me resentments have been the densest vibration in my life. They are heavy and sticky. They gum up my life and confuse my mind until I lose my way.

I resent those I love, political parties, institutions, groups, so many people I’ve never met. It’s been hard enough learning to own my feelings and actions, but to look around in the world and feel, yes this is exactly as it should be has been agony. Yet how many times has Mother taught us that accepting things as they are doesn’t necessarily mean we won’t change them. I’m coming to understand that resentment reflects my belief that I am helpless. It seems easier to seethe and vent about those in charge, rather than get up and take a positive action. Resentment was a way of life for me. It was a coping/defense mechanism. I thought it kept me safe. If I sat back and stayed bound up and frustrated in my smaller life, I would never have the space to have a bigger one. What is that bigger life I feared? Pain that comes with intimacy.  Leaving the surface of life behind and plunging into the depths has been the experience that has held my attention my whole life and the one I’ve feared the most. I always felt the risk was so high in opening myself to deep connection. What if rejection occurred? What of loss? Unknown to me for much of my life I believed it easier to hide behind my wall of resentments, never getting too close and risking too much. By believing I knew what was best for the world, I didn’t have to look too closely at what I was doing, what I was or wasn’t contributing to the collective.

If it was obvious to me that there was far too much hate in the world, what of mine? Was my hate of people who murdered abortion doctors any different than those same peoples hate of the doctors they were murdering? Even though the action separated us, the hate made us one. That was a hard truth for me to face about myself. Resentment is anger drawn out over days, months, years, lifetimes. If enough resentment collected, I began to hate. Hate is a corrosive and dangerous feeling. Having evolved past the desire to take someones life, I had to grapple with socially acceptable hate. But what I have discovered in myself is it’s all the same. I believe now my resentments, rage, frustrations all get swirled around in the collective consciousness, made available for anyone wishing to feed on it. Where does a change begin? Do each us us share the responsibility for the world as it is? I believe we do. Mother tells me the only way to help the world is to heal myself and I will be led to serve in a way that utilizes my gifts and strengths for the benefit of all. That is a big life to me. A life that feels full with connection and laughter. One that faces resentment, and despite the pain or discomfort let’s it go and finds peace. As I transform my resentments with Mother’s grace, I feel lighter. There is more room for all of life without excluding anyone or anything. It’s the best diet I’ve ever tried!

What or whom do you resent? What has it done in your life? How do you let it go? Leave me a comment and let’s get the conversation going.