Day 28 - December Meditations - Meaning

What shall our lives mean?

Today I am giving a talk on the meaning we give to our lives or more importantly the meaning we bring to our living.  This is not a singular one time answer, rather something we must listen for and practice on a daily basis.

Download this meditation and move into the stillness listening for the answers to the question...What shall our lives mean?

Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it. ~ Ernest Holmes

Affirmation:  I give my life meaning.  

I choose from the meaning I give my life.  

My life is a reflection of my powerful choice.

Day 23 - December Meditations - Listening

How often do we listen to actually learn something new or discover something about ourselves or another?  Challenge yourself today to listen for something new as opposed to listening for what you want to hear or what you think will or should be said.  There IS more to our daily living than what we already know.  Are you ready to listen for it?

"I remind myself every morning:  Nothing I say this day will teach me anything.  So if I'm going to learn, I must do it by listening." ~Larry King

Affirmation:  Today I listen to my life and make myself available to the wisdom it seeks to speak to me.

Download today's meditation and join me in a powerful listening session.

Day 16 - December Meditations - Living our Intentions

I was drawn to a quote this morning that really stopped me in my tracks and made me think.

"We either live with intention or exist by default." ~ Kristin Armstrong

Download this meditation to tap into your meditation today.  Live by it and return and remember it again, and again, and again, and again, and again...and, and, and.....

Affirmation:  Today I practice the power of returning to my intentions again and again.

And so it is!

Day 14 - December Meditations - The Light of Love

Love is the willingness to accept and embrace another or ourselves beyond a specific action or word even.  In the Christian tradition, today is the third Sunday of Advent, the holy time leading up to the celebration of Jesus' birth.  Every Sunday during Advent a candle is lit, remembering a specific quality of the spirit of Jesus and God, today's candle is love.

Let us be willing to embrace ourselves or another in meditation, regardless of what happened or didn't happen.  "Hate the sin an not the sinner:" Ghandi wrote in his auto-biography.  Lets put our attention on simply loving the sinner or the one who made a mistake.  Whether that person be yourself or another, simply move your attention to the light of love they  are and love that light.

Click here to download todays' brief guided meditation.

Affirmation: Today I love the light of love in all life, no strings attached.

Day 8 - December Meditations - Expecting our desires to manifest

"The one who can control his thinking is he to whom time and place makes no difference." 

~ Ernest Holmes

The outcome of our lives follow our expectancy.  We may not know all the details of how all things will come to pass, but in any given moment we can become aware of our attention.  In all moments let us commit to bringing our attention back to the expectancy and possibility of our lives regardless of the route.  Download today's meditation here and affirm today's affirmation with me.

Affirmation:  Today I affirm that the sum total of my thoughts land on my good.  I expect my desires shall tome to pass.

Possibility, Determination & Focus, Inspiration from Science

Today, a satellite launched 10 years ago landed on a comet 300 million miles away!  Full story below.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/11/12/the-rosetta-comet-landing-is-mere-minutes-away-from-making-history/

Can you imagine launching something 10 years ago that you really wouldn't see results from for a whole decade.  It just makes me think of the power of mind and intention, focus and determination.  I am sure there was a lot of doubt and uncertainty that could have stopped the work, but there was firm determination to see this day to light.

How many things in your life have you stopped because of doubt or uncertainty?  I can name a few personally, where would those projects be in my life if I had the same focus and determination as these scientists...who knows.  I have let them go, but now today I can cultivate my focus and determination and bring forth the latest desires and hopes on the horizon of my life.

A foundational practice that helps me reconnect on a daily basis is meditation.

Check out this meditation I led earlier today inspired by this story of the Rosetta comet and the lander Philane.  Click here to download an listen.

What else can you see? That is Freedom!

I have been contemplating freedom lately.  The idea of freedom, the feeling of freedom, the philosophy of freedom, the smell of freedom, the taste of freedom, any and all things I associate with freedom.  I wanted to know what I actually believe about freedom personally.  Regardless of what a book says, a class teaches or what a friend, family member or loved one shares, what ultimately matters for any of us is what we actually think, what we actually believe about something.

I was inspired by a quote I came across of Henry David Thoreau's, "It is easier to sail many thousands of miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men...to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one's being alone."  I wonder if this is why so many of us find it challenging to sit down and meditate, to simply be still with ourselves for 5 to 10 minutes a day.

In meditation is where we actually commune with what we think and believe.  Meditation is where we see, touch, taste and feel the ingredients of our consciousness.  Sometimes those ingredients, those thoughts and beliefs, are not what we want in the stew we are cooking called our life.  Other times there may be thoughts and beliefs, ingredients, we didn't even know we had but actually like.  Meditation avails us to awareness, awareness of all of who we are, those ingredients we like and those less tasty.  What does all this have to do with freedom you might ask?  Consider this definition of freedom...Freedom: 1. the ability to see/consider possibility beyond what you currently know. 2. the ability to not only see or consider but to actually choose beyond what you currently know.

If something in your life is currently not working the way you would like it to, work, love, family, health, God even.  If whatever it is, is not working for you at your current place of understanding then you are bound by it, our current understanding of the situation is not serving us to move on.  What would liberate us from this?  Seeing another possibility.  That is freedom, seeing other possibilities, practicing freedom is actually choosing from that new possibility.

This is what meditation, prayer, other spiritual practices and spiritual counseling can offer us.  When I work with clients in a counseling session I always set an intention of awakening our individual and collective inner wisdom.  This intention then pulls us into our session and work together, availing myself and the client to see something else, to see new possibility, to live in freedom!

I challenge myself daily to see something new, to consider something previously outside of my conscious field of vision.  This challenge on a regular basis gives way to freedom, of seeing and choosing something new.  I challenge you to ask yourself "What else can I see?".  What I know is you will see something new and move through life free to be all of who you are!

Don't do it alone!  If you are looking for support living a freer life give me a call or email me for prayer or a counseling session.
Darrell Jones
darrelljonesspirit@gmail.com
773-450-3865