A prayer is a peaceful promise to yourself Dear One – a promise to allow that which you are needing, wanting, asking for, into your life.

A prayer is a preparation.  It is a ritual to help get you ready to receive, to help you shift into a mindset of receiving.

That is why prayers of gratitude are the most powerful.

Why struggle, when you can trust Dear One?

Why pretend when you can be yourself?

Why fight when you can accomplish so much more by allowing?

Why be hard on yourself, when you can choose to be loving, caring, nurturing, and supportive of yourself instead?

You can’t stop all hurts from ever reaching you Dear One, but you can stop making them worse for yourself when they do.

• Don’t try to paint a picture – just paint

• Don’t try to fall in love – just love

• Don’t try to be creative – just create

Don’t try so hard Dear One. It really is just not necessary. Yes, effort, even great effort may be required of you in certain circumstances and situations – But it need not be a struggle. Don’t mistake effort for struggle. They are two vastly different things.

Allow. Let go and let your intuition guide you. Trust yourself more than you do, because you hold within you the wisdom of the ages and all of the answers to all of the questions that you could ever possibly ask. But if believing that is too much of a leap for you to take on today, then simply start by respecting the wisdom of you.

Faith is faith, Dear One. Either you have it or you don’t.

You can’t have just a little bit of faith. It really is an all or nothing type of thing.

So, do you think you have it, or don’t you?

You have a significant and powerful gift Dear One – The ability to see both the best and the worst in the people around you.

Choose to focus your attention on their best, on their strengths, on their potential, on their possibilities, on their capacity for change, and you will be transforming your view, and therefore your experience of the world.

People tend to do their best to try and live up (or down) to the image of themselves they see reflected back to them through the eyes of those around them.

Choose to look for only the best Dear One, and you will be transforming their view of themselves, and therefore their experience of the world as well.

Don’t try so hard to do, be and have it all Dear One.

•  Just keep choosing the things that you want over the things that you don’t want.
• Just keep choosing the things that you like over the things that you don’t like.
• Just keep choosing the things that make you smile over the things that don’t.
• Just keep choosing the things that make you feel good over the things that make you feel badly.

Just keep choosing the things that make you happy over the things that don’t, and you’ll soon come to find Dear One, that one decision at a time, you can do, be and have it all.

You are making a contribution to the world around you Dear One, with every thought that you think, every intention that set, every word that you speak, every action that you take.

You can choose to contribute frustration, fear, anger, self-loathing, jealousy, pettiness, revenge, mediocrity or complacency to the world if you would like.

Or you can choose to contribute compassion, bravery, tolerance, laughter, confidence, generosity, optimism, hope, well, you get the idea.

The only thing that you can’t choose Dear One, is to make no contribution at all.

Forgive yourself Dear One, for whatever it is.

Why?

Because you can’t beat yourself up and heal, make amends, or move forward and create in any positive or useful way until you do.

Regret is an easy emotion to latch on to and embrace Dear One.  Costly, but easy.

It serves to keep you rooted, in the past, attached to a moment that has come and gone.
It maintains the familiar, regardless of how uncomfortable, painful or damaging it may be.

But Forgiveness is hard. Forgiveness takes courage because it moves you beyond where you are, beyond what is known to you, beyond what is familiar to you.

Forgiveness releases – allows – heals – requires you to trust, love, and let go.  It serves to bring you back into the present and frees you from emotions, thoughts, and connections that are keeping you tethered to the past, be it 5 years ago, 5 days ago or 5 minutes ago.

Regret holds on, binds you, and keeps you cemented in one place.

Forgiveness releases, frees you, and allows you to move ahead.

So now you know.

What thought could you think right now Dear One, that would bring you the greatest amount of joy, the greatest amount of pleasure, the greatest amount of happiness to think?

Are you thinking it?

Good!