The following is a response to a recent request by email - How do I begin to bring my new, perfect companion into my life?

1. Make a list of everything you appreciate about each one of the people you've been close to in your life. 
2. Combine those qualities into one list.
3. Look at your own self to see how those qualities manifest and
   
4. if they aren't, ask if you're expecting someone else to fill them in for you
5. Look at your own self to see how the things you haven't appreciated about those people are also in you - and do the work to release them (see Ruth's Method for Releasing the Past on the home page of this site)
6. If you're not depending on someone else to fill in missing parts, your companion will be there shortly
7. If you think all those qualities are outside of you, do the work to get where you can accept those qualities as part of you - and therefore of anyone you would build a life with.

It's a truism that the moment we're fine without anyone in our lives, the perfect companion shows up. And, we'll know they're perfect because everything we appreciate about ourselves and the people around us are present in them. So appreciate and enjoy!  

A student asked this the other day, and I thought I'd share my response with you...
For me, it's been a gradual process. I started by - and still need to be - observing all the times that what I thought about  (pleasant or unpleasant) came into my experience, recording in some way each incident, and practicing observing it as it happens.  We often refer to such incidents as synchronicities.

Then I started managing my thoughts, so what I focus on is what I want more of, canceling or erasing any other kind of thought (and yes, I'm still practicing at that one too :)  I focus on the qualities, the characteristics, not the form, as in mutually supportive relationships, comfortable home, easy transportation.

AND I sing songs and read texts that support my understanding that the universe is, in fact, as Wallace Wattles says, supporting and supplying my needs and desires, which helps me remember that truth while living in a culture that's designed to operate in contradiction with it. 

I trust that my having worked through it makes it easier (and faster) for others to do so.

Blessings on the journey!

I recently had an opportunity to go back into a book I had created some years ago - a book with a title I've never liked, but whose message is a powerful one for all of us.
 
The original text was by a man with the unfortunate name of Wallace Wattles. His book launched a whole body of material that has been called "the masculine arm of New Thought": books and lectures on how to create a prosperous life. It was also the book referred to in the film The Secret, as having turned Rhonda Byrne's life around at a particularly dark time.

I've understood and applied the principles he teaches for many years now, but it wasn't until I read (and rewrote) his first few paragraphs that I really got the fundamental basis he was working from
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Here's what Wattles has to say:

• No one is kept in poverty by limits in the supply of riches; there’s more than enough for all. …In truth, the visible supply is practically inexhaustible, and the invisible supply really is inexhaustible…
• Nature is an unlimited storehouse of riches; the supply will never run short… 
• The formless substance responds to the needs of mankind; it will not let humanity be without any good thing… 
• Nature exists for the advancement of life, and its primary impulse is the increase of life. Because of this, everything that can possibly enhance life is bountifully provided.

The book he wrote is called The Science of Getting Rich. The book I created (at the request of and with the wonderful folk at Beyond Words Publishing) includes his text along with an updated version, with simpler language and exercises. 

Someone sent me an email recently, asking why I talk about divine power.
​I thought I'd share my response...
Having grown up in a world that seemed anything but divine, I became agnostic. My studies of anthropology, however, said all human cultures honor something beyond the brain-body experience, so it seemed a reasonable working hypothesis.

​My continued studies of culture, psychology, and philosophy showed me lots of different models and ways, but no clear evidence. My journeys inward, however, led me through distress to a different kind of experience - wordless, nameless, very real.

My journey through a major health crisis (described in my book Finding the Path) introduced me to a Presence within that guided me through great distress into healing. Part of that journey included Reiki training, which introduced me to something that flows through us which anyone, anywhere, can experience and share and that, through simple intention, changes peoples' physical and emotional experience. Teaching others how to access this something has shown me that, truly, we all can tap it and use it.

My study of systems demonstrated that all systems, of every size and type, are part of one great whole and are sustained by a flow of matter-energy-information through them. My learning to trust in that flow and the Presence within has led me to do and say things I was not capable otherwise of doing or saying, including experiencing islands of peace in the violent neighborhood I lived in.

My communication with folks who are elsewhere on this planet and those who are no longer incarnate has given me experiences of a loving sharing of wisdom/energy among resonant beings, regardless of form - and helped me feel the process by which resonant fields overlap and reinforce each other. 

When I say divine power, I'm including all these experiences and understandings. It's not some cliche I learned in church (never heard it there, actually :) ) In scientific terms, it is called the intelligent energy of the quantum field. In psychological terms it's the highest resonant aspects of the collective consciousness. In philosophical terms it is the metaphysical noumen. In religious terms it is the divine power and presence - by whatever name a given cultural group uses to call it.

It's everywhere, in everything, flowing through the All-That-Is, supporting and sustaining every being. All forms of matter are temporary condensations of that divine power in alignment with individual intention. All personal experience is the result of the projections of our perceptual framework on that flow. 

Everywhere. Always. In and throughout this space-time continuum we call reality. 

And so it truly is - which is why I talk about it. Thanks!

Once again, we enter the dark days of the year, when lit candles and firelight warm our hearts and feed our souls.
Last year I posted a description of the different traditions, which you can find by clicking here.

(this was posted on an older version of this site several years ago and seems relevant today...)
​
​Have you noticed that when you look at your “To Do” list you sometimes feel suddenly de-energized, maybe even resentful?  Even if some of the things on the list are things you normally really enjoy doing, do they suddenly seem like an imposition?
Well, as a friend of mine used to say, that’s because you’ve been “shoulding” on yourself!
It’s fascinating: the moment we make something that we want to do something we “should” do, our small self (often called our “ego”) begins to complain about “having to” do it.. It doesn’t matter how much we wanted to do it before; all that matters now is that it’s on that list and so has become a “should.” The body now responds to it as a stressor rather than a pleasure: our belly tightens, there’s tension in our arms and shoulders, and for some, a small rush of adrenaline “fight or flight” whenever we think about doing it.
This physical response, without an actual opportunity for “fight or flight” builds up toxins in the system that cause other symptoms in the body, ranging from arthritis to diabetes, and can, for some of us, lead to adrenaline depletion.
Now, the word should is not at all the only such word that works that way—it’s just the one currently in style. Other equally devastating words are: ought (as in, I ought to be…), must (as in, you must do this or…), have-to (as in, but I have to!), and  got-to (as in, “I gotta get this done before….”)/ Each and every one of these is as toxic to the human body as cigarette smoke or nuclear radiation. They all build up toxins in the system that can only be released by running away or fighting—which may explain why kick-boxing is so popular these days!
Okay, you’re wondering, but how am I going to get anything done if I don’t make up a list—and how am I going to get anyone else to do what they’re supposed to (oh, yes! That’s one of the toxic ones too!) without using these words?
It’s not all that hard, really, it’s about discovering what we really would like to do right now.
What? You’re wondering, how would I possibly get the dishes done, the toilet bowl washed, or my bookkeeping handled if I only did what I really want to do?
Isn’t that interesting…. We’ve convinced ourselves that some of the things that make our life easy and harmonious are onerous tasks that we would never do without coercion!  If I didn’t “have-to” clean the bathroom it would be filthy—well, to quote Byron Katie, is that really true?
Really, what’s the likelihood that you wouldn’t wipe out the sink or brush out the toilet bowl when it was uncomfortably dirty and ugly? Would you really just let the dishes pile up in the sink forever? How likely is that? At some point you’d look at them and simply start loading them into the dishwasher, or fill up the sink with soapy water and swish a few through every once in a while as you were cooking—or something! Right?
In fact, at the time you’re inclined to do things like that, it’s no big deal; almost on automatic while you’re remembering or contemplating something wonderful, like a guest coming over or the lovely evening you had last night, or the beauty of the sunrise or sunset. In some Buddhist monasteries, the young novices who clean up the kitchens after a meal are encouraged to think of the pots and pans as “Buddha’s body”—to realize that  what they’re doing is a sacred act and part of their contemplation. And Brother Lawrence, the monastery kitchen helper who “practiced the Presence” became a powerful healer that way.
And that is how life is meant to be lived.
We do the small things that make life easier and more comfortable in and around the wonderful things that make life worthwhile.—not because we “should” but, because, in this moment, it feels perfectly right and fitting to be doing that.
So giver yourself—body, mind, and soul—a break. Throw away the lists and set the intention that everything that needs to be done today for the wellbeing of everyone you care about gets done without your “shoiulding” on yourself. Join the movement for freedom from “shoiulds, oughts, musts, gottas and haftas” and be your wonderful, healthy, effective Self! 

We're approaching Memorial Day and as I prepare my talk for Sunday, I thought I'd share some musings here.

Years ago my mother shared with me a series of science fiction books in which the main character is an orphan, raised by a group of elderly scholars. One was a philosopher, another an historian, another a retired world-traveling doctor, etc. You get the picture.

Well, as the series unfolds our hero travels all over the galaxy applying his unorthodox, but highly effective techniques to all kinds of problems. He’s gone for years. And finally gets back home, only to find that those elderly gentlemen have passed away. And, though they have willed to him all of their collective belongings — from books to houses to bank accounts — he is bereft. They have betrayed him by not sticking around to be his support system now, when he needs it. He mopes around the old home for a while, feeling totally lost and unsupported. 

Then, out of his angst, he starts talking to them — you know how it is, “How could you? What am I going to do without you?” – all the usual stuff that we go through when we’re missing someone who we don't think we'll ever see again.

Well, to his surprise — and the reader’s — his old mentors start answering him! After a while, his room is as full as it ever was, and each of them has something to contribute to his conundrum.

I have to say I wrestled with that a bit. 
For about 15 years, in fact.
Then I began applying the principles of New Thought - from Unity and the Science of Mind.

I needed to heal some old hurts if I was going to be able to function as a working mother. And in the writings of Ernest Holmes and Louise Hay and Emmet Fox, a book called Emanuel's Book, some therapy manuals, and others, I found a series of steps that worked (check out the link to "Ruth's Method for Healing the Past").

And I also found a way of looking at our experience that I’d never seen in all the reading and searching I’d done all my life. I learned that, no matter who or what or when it appears to be, every experience we have is actually happening inside us!

Even now, everything you are perceiving as outside of you is in fact a combination of ideas and feelings that are inside of you — and so am I. So when I look at the people around me, I’m actually CREATING them in my mind - my own personal world.  And when I remember them... Well, I’m sure you can see how that’s even more the case.

So I was healing some old hurts with my mother and some other folks from my past one day, using a process of visualization and internal conversation, and I realized that I was doing the same thing as the guy in that science fiction book! And, just like the guy in the book, I was getting answers to my questions that seemed to come from outside my own thinking!

What’s even more amazing is, even though I never told any of those people that I was doing this work, they all changed their behaviors toward me! They said and did things differently around me because of the work I did with the images of them that I hold inside me.

So what does all this have to do with ongoing life of those who seem to have died?

Some of you have figured it out…

You see, the people we know and love — and even those we don’t — all live in our own hearts, minds, and souls. And, as far as we’re concerned, that’s the ONLY place they’ve ever lived. Whether they’re in their body in the next room, on the other side of the country, or on the other side of the veil we call death — everything we know, love, and hate about them IS INSIDE US.

So as long as we live, they live. They are alive, now and always, in our hearts and minds and souls. They are just as accessible inside us as if they were in their bodies — because the only place they’ve ever really been is inside us!

And there’s more ...
Because there is only One Mind, and my mind thinks the thoughts of the One Mind, then not only does everyone I’ve ever known and loved (or don’t think I love) exist as a thought in my mind...
They all exist as a thought in the One Mind — and that is eternal!

So here’s the gift of all this — got some unfinished business with someone who’s no longer on the planet? No Problem!  Sit down and imagine them sitting in front of you, and tell them everything you have to say — good and not so good — then feast your inner eyes on them while they tell you what they have to say. You’ll be amazed! Then — and here’s the best part — tell them you forgive them, and ask them to forgive you, even if you think they hurt you...

(I know, I know that doesn’t seem to make sense, but think about it, you’re the one who’s been carrying that hurt around and blaming them for it, so you need to be forgiven to release it. You can read about my discovery of - and wrestling with - this in the book that describes my own healing journey: Finding the Path) 

As you do so, allow both of you to feel the Light of Forgiveness surround you and lift you into the State of Grace. FEEL the love and light and peace and joy of it!

Same thing for someone you really, really miss. Sit down and see them with you, allow them to let you know how much they care for you, and, again, tell them everything—good and bad—you’ve been thinking. Get to the place where all you know is the love between you. Then FEEL the wonderful state of love and light and peace that is your birthright!

THIS is what it means to be a spiritual being having a human experience!
This love and light and delight that comes of being freed of all burdens of fear, loss, and guilt in our relationships…
This knowing that, in Truth, all is consciousness, and all hurts and breaks are healed in consciousness — we are made whole...
THIS is the salvation we’ve been promised, the fulfillment of our true nature.

We are eternal ideas in the One Mind, and we have the creative power to transform our experiences by tapping into that Mind through the power of imagination. 

As we allow ourselves to KNOW that everyone we love is alive in us, and that the way to connect with them is through that “wormhole” into other dimensions that we call our hearts, then we begin to live the life we that is our birthright — the life of love eternal.

Bless you on your journey!