{"id":711,"date":"2014-02-09T22:21:43","date_gmt":"2014-02-09T22:21:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/batesonline.org\/triciablog\/?p=711"},"modified":"2014-02-09T22:21:43","modified_gmt":"2014-02-09T22:21:43","slug":"feb-9-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triciabatessmith.com:443\/index.php\/2014\/02\/09\/feb-9-14\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday 2-9-14 My Precious"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>Our deepest longing is for peace, love, and harmony.\u00a0 Our life is a brief, precious journey, and our mandate is the expression of our unique gifts.\u00a0 To express our individuality is to reclaim our divinity. ~ Debbie Ford<\/i><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000; font-weight: bold;\">Happy Sunday!<\/span><br \/>\nI am just finishing up my reading of Debbie Ford&#8217;s book &#8220;the Dark Side of the Light Chasers&#8221; that I had written about last week.\u00a0 What struck a chord with me in what I read this week was what Debbie called our &#8216;light shadow&#8217;.\u00a0 This is all the good things about ourselves that we hide in the shadow because we have been taught that to acknowledge the good is bad.\u00a0 As children we were taught that the say something good about ourselves is bragging and arrogant.\u00a0 We were told that if we speak of good in our lives then it will bring on bad luck or the &#8216;powers of evil&#8217;!<br \/>\nTo be whole, and acknowledge that we are a perfect replica piece of the whole that is God, we must embrace what we judge as the good and bad aspects of ourselves and bring them into our own acceptance.<br \/>\nDebbie gave an exercise in the book which required stating &#8220;I am&#8221; before a long list of positive traits.\u00a0 As I worked through the declarations I was asked to write down the ones that seemed difficult to state.\u00a0 One of many words that I found myself having difficulty with was precious.\u00a0 I am precious.<br \/>\nI have been repeating this to myself throughout the week so that I could become comfortable with it and can accept this in myself.<br \/>\nAs I am now writing I think about what is precious to me?\u00a0 My cat napping in the window a couple of feet from me, close enough to be near me but far enough to remain aloof.\u00a0 I have in my room a geranium offering me a pink bloom in February while outside the world is cold and white. These things I can think of as precious.<br \/>\nI think of those people who are precious to me: my sons, husband, sister, brothers, my Mom.\u00a0 I like that Mom is precious to me as this makes me glad to think that I am precious to my sons.<br \/>\nI am realizing from this thought exercise that I am looking at how I am precious to others but what I must do is to go inside to find how I am precious to me!<br \/>\nBut who am I?<br \/>\nI see myself as so many parts now so which part is precious?<br \/>\nI have a body and I have learned to take much better care of it in recent years.\u00a0 It is ironic that now that I know that I am not my body that I do treat it more preciously.\u00a0 It is a wonderful gift that I have been given that allows me to Love and learn while here on earth.<br \/>\nIt is easy to see that the child-like part of my soul, my Pollyanna, is precious to me.\u00a0 My optimistic, idealist girl is precious and I am so happy that I recognize her and embrace her each day.\u00a0 She allows me to see the beauty of this life and look for the good in others.<br \/>\nThere is that part of my soul that wants to be the wise woman.\u00a0 She wants to help others through gifts of Love and empathy.\u00a0 She is precious to me in her ability to understand the suffering of others from the lessons life has brought to her.\u00a0 She brings to others a loving balm, the gift of compassion.<br \/>\nThere is the student and seeker part of me that is precious it its devotion to learning.\u00a0 It is such a good student ready to be quiet, ready to listen to guidance, and quick to ask for help.\u00a0 It so much wants to understand all the lessons that my guides send me so that it can one day teach and serve.<br \/>\nAnd there is my spirit, my connection to Love that wants so much to just be the conduit to bring Love to earth.<br \/>\nAm I precious?<br \/>\nYes I am precious!<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHappy Sunday!<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<i>\u201cEvery day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can.\u201d ~ Dalai Lama XIV<\/i><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our deepest longing is for peace, love, and harmony.\u00a0 Our life is a brief, precious journey, and our mandate is the expression of our unique gifts.\u00a0 To express our individuality is to reclaim our divinity. ~ Debbie Ford Happy Sunday! &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/triciabatessmith.com:443\/index.php\/2014\/02\/09\/feb-9-14\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[6],"tags":[22,33,36,77],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>My Precious<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"looking at the good traits of myself\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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