emotions

Contentment

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Dear reader, this post is from the archives of AskGCW.

Can you allow yourself an hour or two of contentment each day? If that seems like a tall order, how about 15 minutes?

A few minutes, an hour or two of simply feeling at peace with your life, letting go of wanting something you don’t have, letting go of striving for the next goal, letting go of pushing ahead, letting go of forcing things to happen, will bring a refreshing new serenity to your life.

Grandmother Cottonwood

The energy frequency of contentment ripples through the web of life bringing more peace to all living beings on this earth.

Contentment is living in the moment. It is bringing your awareness to the here and now and knowing that life is good, that you have everything you need for this hour, that in this moment and the next and next, all is well.

For this hour of contentment, there is nowhere you have to go, no one you have to meet, nothing you have to do unless it contributes to your happiness.

When you know contentment, your body mind and spirit feel calm, relaxed, and satisfied. Can you give yourself this precious gift?

Emotional healing I

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Note from Betty: Dear friends, GCW has a lot to say about emotional healing this month. This and the next two posts are variations on that theme.

Dear ones, do not carry the past forward, for it will accumulate and pile up like thunderheads on a windy spring day. It will weigh you down more and more as you grow older.

Let each moment of your life be new. Let the moments of yesterday, last year, decades ago be healed and released. Do not carry the old stale feelings forward for they will taint your present moments.

To let them go, feel them, experience them for that is to live fully in the moment. Listen to your body, do a scan and notice where you feel the emotion. It could be your throat, heart, gut… anywhere.

There is no need to blast a person you are angry with. Anger and other strong emotions need not be harmful to you or others. Use it as fuel for a passionate life!

Love yourself and feel what you feel. You can use your voice to express the emotion, to safely and privately release.

If you let yourself experience your emotions in your body then you will not carry it forward into your future as a dark storm cloud waiting to burst when you least expect it.

Let each moment of your life be sacred as you pay attention to what you are feeling with compassion and self love.

Pay attention!

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When you pay attention, you invest in your health and well-being.

Attention is being fully present and observing the sensations of your body, the feelings and emotions that flow through you, the thoughts that move through like clouds on a breezy spring day. It is observing what is – without opinion, perceiving the deep knowings within your heart that lie beneath the noisy surface chatter of daily life.

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GCW and sycamore

Attention is gentle focus without wavering, a disengaging of the brain, for the brain will talk you out of anything!

Attention is engaging a clear eyed focus on what is – without the running commentary, judgment, minimizing, fooling yourself, criticism, denial, delusion, propaganda, image management, or any of the tricks your brain can devise to pull you away from your true power.

When you attend without judgment to what is, you give yourself an amazing gift of clarity, of peace. You can release worry and fear and discover lightness of being.

Pay attention and taste the sweetness of this moment!

Your shiny electronic thing

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Your shiny little electronic thing may be connected to a universe of information – but it is limited. It has no heart, no soul, no emotion, no discernment for what really counts, what matters, what meaning lies beneath the incessant cranking out of “content”- more words and images each day.

What are you missing?

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Butterfly on elderberry bush

Do not allow your shiny hand held smart – but not wise devices – to take over your lives, to substitute for real connection, true feeling, heart to heart conversation.

Do not let them babysit your children or substitute teach in place of a real human being with a heart, wisdom, emotions, kindness and compassion.

These sleek little objects take you from knowledge of the feelings in your body and tells you what to think, what to pay attention to, who is trending, who is on top, who matters, who you should like.

All those shiny images and catchy words take precious moments from your life. Are they worth it?

These are moments you could cuddle your beloved child, play with your pet, climb a tree, lie in a hammock in the shade, have a heart to heart talk with your best friend.

I know you will say it is useful, important, helpful. Yes it is a tool and perhaps a toy, yet you make a mistake when you allow it to rule your lives.

No matter how sophisticated your shiny little expensive electronic thing, it will never replace your heart, soul, and feeling which make you human!

What is real?

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Stop awhile under my cool umbrella of shimmering leaves. Let the buzzing cicada lull you to rest. Feel my strong loving energy envelop you with welcome. To feel this you must release your grip on the shiny thing in your hand. The thing you hunch over and stare at hour after hour.

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Walnut tree bark and leaves

What is real? The world contained in your mesmerizing little object, or the root and bark, leaf soil and seeds that make up my existence? Is it the shade shifting on the summer grass?

What is real?  Is it the breeze puffing its cooling breath across your body, the solid earth beneath your feel, supporting you and all you’ve done since before your birth; the moon and stars in the night sky? Is it the breath that rises and falls through your body like waves at the seashore?

What is real? The world inside your head or the world of your senses? What is real? The feelings and emotions that roll through you or the stuff of your imagination?

My dear ones, release your hold on the glowing screen from time to time and tune your senses to other frequencies of what you call reality. They will strike a deep chord within you, for you will remember once again the wonder of being a child. You will feel real again!

Rededication

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Jack in the pulpit

We (GCW and Betty) rededicate ourselves to bringing forth messages of nature’s wisdom and loving words of spiritual healing to those who are ready for them. Grandmother Cottonwood authors and transmits the feelings, impressions, images, and information. Betty receives the information and puts it into a form others of her kind can understand.

GCW speaks: My dears, this is first and foremost about love, the framework, the foundation of all that is. I wish to communicate to you the vast incalculable web of love that is woven around and throughout all existence. You are each and every one an integral part of this web. There is no separation, no complete severing of any particle in the universe.

The only separation, if you experience it, exists in your mind and heart. If you think you are separate, if you feel that you have been cast into infinite darkness, you are living in illusion – in your head.

My desire is for you to know the oneness of all things for then you will begin to care for each other with love, not obligation. You will care for the earth with appreciation and partnership, not dominance and destruction. You will care for yourselves with heart expanding joy, and in the joy and appreciation and love you will be made whole and all that surrounds you healed.

When you are love, the reflection you see in the mirror is love. If your reflection is less than love, seek to release the illusions you have taken as beliefs. These beliefs may seem true, but they harm you and do not serve you.

Wake up to the love at your center! Live it!

Do the right thing

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Early spring vine

My dears, I want you to know that no matter what mistakes you think you’ve made, no matter what you have left undone, or unsaid, no matter the ugly words that have come from your lips, you can choose differently from now on.

Do not limit yourself to “the way I’ve always been” or “my personality” or “that’s how I was raised.” Why would you choose powerlessness?

I tell you here and now that you have a choice in the kind of person you are. There is the inner part of you that only you know and outer part that you present to the world. Allow those two to become one- the two halves to become a whole.

Do what you know to be the right thing. Say the kind thing. Cease all excuses!

Step up to the shining example of your true inner self that is aligned with the source of all creation.

Grief

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GCW speaks of injury, loss, and grief

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Have you seen? I have lost many branches in my long life, The dead sumps and scars are here to be seen, the bark still protruding where it once protected a dear limb, now white and rotting on the earth at my roots.

Have you lost something precious, someone dear? Does your heart grieve? All living things know loss. Sickness and health. Injury and healing. Having and losing. Grasping and letting go. Falling and rising again, perhaps to a new reality you didn’t ask for and don’t want.

Can you sit and breathe through the tears? That is enough for now, simply sit and feel and breathe, even though your tears may fall. Can you love yourself, the part of you that feels what all others who have walked this earth have felt? Can you simply love yourself as you sit and breathe and feel?

For love heals. The breath heals. Feeling heals. Tears heal.

Expect nothing. Simply sit and feel and breathe. Like waves on the shore – in and out in and out, the rhythm of life.

Aging

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GCW speaks of getting older

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Grandmother Cottonwood

Surrender, my dears to life. Life moves you downstream on the river finally to merge with all that is.

Perhaps you’ve awakened from sleep and seen a gray haired man or woman looking out of the mirror at you, or lines on your face that you can no longer pretend away. Perhaps the dreams you’ve held dear since childhood no longer feed your soul. Can you find the gold in this mud?

Can you let go of those dreams, desires, beliefs that once seemed so vital and precious but are now hollow and stale, outdated and obsolete?

Can you conjure a new dream for this time of your life? What desires still hold your heart’s attention?

What new dreams will carry you to the end of this life and beyond – with eager anticipation, passion and delight – so that as your body ages your life’s true work comes into focus, your spirit feels joy, your heart sings? For your heart can sing now in older years, without embarrassment, with true wisdom and beauty, the song of your soul.

Embrace yourself as you are with a whole heart. Live from the inside (soulside) out for the outside of you is just a temporary wrapper for the spirit.

You and your gifts

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GCW speaks of celebrating you and the gifts you bring

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A cardinal in winter

Celebrate your existence here on this planet at this time in this place! You are here in this body against all odds – a billion to one, perhaps!

What is your soul’s purpose here? Why the sweat, blood and tears of this life? Why were you born? Why did your spirit choose this life?

You are first and foremost meant to be here. You need do nothing to prove yourself worthy of existence, of the fruits of this life. Your very presence here is all the proof needed. Your job is to be exactly who you are, sharing your gifts without apology, without embarrassment, without a second thought!

Allow yourself to shine forth in all your glory, for the earth has been waiting for you and your gifts, and is richly blessed by your participation in this life. Know this deep within the core of your being. If others tell you a different story, they lie!

Claim your birthright, the power and light that you are! You have the capability to expand and grow. Develop and practice your gifts and skills and talents. No one else can replicate you, or the amazing gifts you bring to the earth and the web of all existence.

Dear ones, beloved ones, you are magnificent and your gifts are needed now!