Live: Beginning Today

Beginning Today

I will no longer worry about yesterday.
It is in the past and the past will never change.
Only I can change by choosing to do so.

Beginning Today

I will no longer worry about tomorrow.
Tomorrow will always be there,
waiting for me to make the most of it.
But I cannot make the most of tomorrow
without first making the most of today.

Beginning Today

I will look in the mirror and I will see a person
worthy of my respect and admiration.
This capable person looking back at me is someone
I enjoy spending time with and someone I would like
to get to know better.

Beginning Today

I will cherish each moment of my life.
I value the gift bestowed upon me in this world
and I will unselfishly share this gift with others.

Beginning Today

I will take a moment to step off the beaten path
and to revel in the mysteries I encounter.
I will face challenges with courage and determination.
I will overcome what barriers there may be which hinder
my quest for growth and self-improvement.
Beginning Today

I will take life one day at a time, one step at a time.
Discouragement will not be allowed to taint
my positive self-image, my desire to succeed
or my capacity to love.

Beginning Today

I walk with renewed faith in human kindness.
Regardless of what has gone before.
I believe there is hope for a brighter
and better future.

Beginning Today

I will open my mind and my heart.
I will welcome new experiences.
I will meet new people.
I will not expect perfection from myself nor anyone else:
perfection does not exist in an imperfect world.
But I will applaud the attempt to overcome human foibles.

Beginning Today

I am responsible for my own happiness
and I will do things that make me happy…
admire the beautiful wonders of nature,
listen to my favorite music, pet a kitten or a puppy,
soak in a bubble bath…
Pleasure can be found in the most simple of gestures.

Beginning Today

I will learn something new;
I will try something different;
I will savor all the various flavors life has to offer.
I will change what I can and the rest I will let go.
I will strive to become the best me I can possibly be.

Beginning Today

And Every Day

Yes! Today and Every Day.

— Author Unknown

Love: Surrender

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.   It will not lead you astray.” ~ Rumi

Surrender is really hard for me. To me, it conjures up images of the loser in a battle. And I don’t like to lose.

Why then do I get all breathy when I think of surrendering to love? Have I watched too much Gone With The Wind?

I believe we battle this paradox in ourselves constantly. We want to give in to the wondrous pleasures of life – be it a lover, a delicious piece of chocolate, a moment to ourselves – but we fight it. We have in our heads sometimes that to surrender to a situation, person or thing we are drawn to that it signifies we are weak in some way…that we lose.

Why?

Oh, there are probably a million reasons why. I think if you think hard enough you find why the beliefs you hold are what they are. But try to welcome a new way of thinking, a new way of looking at surrender…in a good way!

The poet Mary Oliver completely reframed surrender for me in “Wild Geese”. She writes:

“You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your body            love what it loves….” 

Surrendering is not suffering. Surrendering does not mean you’ve lost your will. Surrendering is all about loving with complete abandon. And we’re not used to that. It exposes us too much.

Yes, surrendering is hard. Very hard. But you can learn how to surrender if you understand how it works. Author Bill Plotkin, in Nature and the Human Soul, said it best. “What’s involved is actually both a surrender of and a surrender to: first a surrender of your beliefs about how you were supposed to be and how the world was supposed to work, and then a surrender to your deepest and wildest passions.”

Did you get that?

You can’t truly feel the depths of passion until you’ve let go of everything you thought it would be. Then, what comes next is the best part: when you let go of all of yourself, you realize that the real stuff was better than you ever dreamed it could be all along. When you learn to love with quiet surrendering fire in your soul there can be no losing in that. It’s powerful.

If I could whisper in your ear right now, I would say to you something I hope you will learn to do, something worth devoting time and effort in mastering: I’d simply whisper, “Surrender.”

Copyright © by Kelley Taylor