Just for Today

Just for Today: Consider if your habits fit

I love Brian Johnson and his A Philosopher’s Notes.

So grateful that I was once awarded a scholarship from his company to purchase a digital copy of his original 100 Philosopher’s Notes audios and pdfs. I always have some with me to listen to in the car.

They are a wonderful time and energy-saving way to absorb the “meat” from the teachings of many wise ancient and current authors, business gurus, philosophers, and spiritual leaders. Some I didn’t know. Some were old favorites that have been a delight to rediscover.

Brian published another volume of 100 brilliant food-for-thought notes. Love them, too! You can check out those, plus Brian’s growing offerings from his En*theos website. (That’s a non-affiliate link. Enjoy the free samples there.)

Habits that we have and wear

In one of my favorite blog posts of Brian’s, and now a mini-chapter in his book, he talks about our habits.

Guess I was reminded of that note because I’ve been busy cleaning out my physical closets, as well as cobwebs and ill-fitting, useless habits from my emotional and spiritual closets. Brian’s note discusses the parallels between what we wear and think and do.

Do you know the origin of the word “habit”?

Interesting! Look it up yourself. Or just check Brian’s Do Your Habits Fit note in the short-short video below.

What About You?

Are your closets stuffed with old clothes, ones that don’t fit the personality or image you want to project? Even new clothes that were poor purchase choices?

Are your emotional and spiritual closets overflowing with worries, confusion, and mixed message?

Are your current habits a good or bad reflection of you these days?

What habits are you in the process of changing now?

Please consider sharing a current struggle or success. By sharing, you’ll be helping someone who may also be struggling feel less alone and more hopeful.

Just for Today: Accept a challenge

By Kat Sturtz Leave a Comment

Could there be a better way to say this? Possibly. But I'm not about to tinker with such a powerful and succinct message.

by The U.S. National Archives

"Now, I realize that there will be difficulties.

Whenever you have a transition, whenever you are moving from one system to another there will be definite difficulties, but I think there is enough brainpower, and I think there is enough determination, enough courage and faith to meet the difficulties as they develop.

I often feel like saying, when I hear the question "People aren't ready," that it's like telling a person who is trying to swim, "Don't jump in that water until you learn how to swim." When actually you will never learn how to swim until you get in the water.

….And I think people have to have an opportunity to develop themselves and govern themselves"

Dr. Martin Luther King

My prayer for you is that you faced a challenge today and win.

Just for Today: 5 Spiritual Principles of Reiki

By Kat Sturtz 1 Comment

Anyone even remotely familiar with the concepts of energy healing using Reiki methods is also most likely aware of the 5 Spiritual Principles of Reiki.

These are meant to be lived, not just noted or recited or remembered. But lived daily in our thoughts, words and deeds.

Since beginning this blog I've wrestled with various ideas for offering something on a regular basis that would help remind us of ways we can move through each day more positively focused. Completing my Master Reiki Level last week was exhilerating, and seemed also to take away the fog of hesitation heavy with too many ideas and no commitment to action. Now it seems so simple, so doable.

So, here today, I offer the first of what will be many weekly offerings guided by Spirit. What better offering can I make that to share the 5 Spiritual Principles of Reiki. Please note that there are versions available, each worded slightly differently, but all with the same wonderfully inspiring message and reminders:

5 Spiritual Laws of Reiki

Just For Today – I shall trust.

Just For Today – I shall do my work honestly.

Just For Today – I shall accept my many blessings.

Just For Today – I shall be at peace.

Just For Today – I will respect the rights of all life forms.

Namaste.

Just for Today: Share a Laugh

By Kat Sturtz 10 Comments

One of the things I’ve most admired about my Grandma Aline is her sense of humor. With never an unkind word said to or about anyone, she is still able to be mischievously funny and witty.

I remember riding with her to a Wednesday church meeting in early fall when I was about 27. She’d had her ears pierced for the first time earlier in the year. So I’d finally gotten my nerve up and had mine pierced, too, at a booth at the Michigan State Fair just a few weeks prior to our get-together.

Now Grandma has a wide variety of simple but beautiful sets of matching jewelry. They were gifts from Grandpa Cleo, who usually picked out a different gemstone each year. Rings, necklaces, bracelets, brooches and earrings. Since Grandma and I have the same ring size it was a frequent joke between us when I’d blatantly “hint” that she lend me her rings.

This time our talk turned to earrings. Would she still be able to wear her many clip-back earrings? Would Grandpa remember to buy her pierced ones now? How many sets of pierced earrings did she think she would need to accumulate before I could start teasing her about “borrowing” them.

After a few minutes of this silly banter, Grandma grew silent. Then keeping her eyes straight on the road before us and in a voice tender with emotion she said quietly, “Kathy, dear, I’d like to give you the pair I have on today.”

Wow! I hardly knew what to say! My grandparents came from hard-working Kentucky stock, who had struggled through many desperate times growing up, as well as after moving to Detroit. They were generous people, but to own a pair of Grandma’s earrings now. Well, that was a gift I hadn’t expected.

I waited a moment for traffic to clear in front of me, then turned to look at Grandma, eager to see what beautiful gems gleamed in her ears and ready to utter my humble “Thank You” and other inadequate words of gratitude.

What I saw made me burst out laughing! There she was, nonchalantly looking out the other window, casually twisting and turning what dangled from her ears — a short twisted span of plain old black quilting thread!

She turned back to face me, mischievous smile wide across her face. “Gotcha!”

Grandma Aline hasn’t lost a bit of her humor and wit. She turned 100 this year, February 2nd, 2009, Groundhog’s Day. At her birthday party held in a small banquet room at a local restaurant that same day, surrounded by friends, family, good food and fond memories, her eyes danced with delight, her smile wide as ever even though she’d taken out her dentures and stuffed them into her purse because they weren’t fitting quite right that night and were annoying her.

After dessert, always a favorite course of hers, I sat with Grandma a while and presented the updated number of living descendants she and Grandpa had begun with their own two sons: one son (my father), 13 grands, 31 great-grands, and 13 great-great grandchildren, including one gg-grandson born earlier that very day. Plus, one more due in July. Grandpa Cleo, another son, my Uncle Marvin, and two of his sons, Gary and Larry, had passed on years before.

Grandma’s reply: “I feel busy just thinking about it!”

But she out did herself later that evening, setting my husband up as her straight man. Sitting quietly together he asked Grandma, normally an early riser, if she thought she’d like to take a break and sleep in the next morning.

“Well, yes, I just might do that,” she replied. “Then again maybe I just won’t wake up at all.”

“But Grandma,” my husband said, “That wouldn’t be good.”

Grandma leaned over, eyes sparkling and the familiar mischievous grin beginning to pull at the corners of her mouth. “No,” she whispered, “that wouldn’t be good. But it would sure freak them out.”

JUST FOR TODAY, let’s find ways to find and enjoy humor within our lives, especially with those we love.

It’s a trait that has served my Grandma Aline Davidson well for over 100 years. I wonder just how many hearts, minds and souls her warm, witty, gracious and mischievous smile has warmed all these years.

UPDATE 1: Grandma celebrated 101 years Feb 2, 2010. Go Grandma! Please consider sharing your own stories of good humor and laughter.

UPDATE 2: September 16, 2010 – Grandma passed away peacefully this evening. She was sitting on the couch in my dad’s living room. Dad explained, “One minute I looked over and she was reading her Bible. A few minutes later I looked back and she was gone.” Her body will rest in eternal peace near Grandpa’s. But her soul and her laughter remain as vibrant as ever.

Just for Today: Face One Fear

By Kat Sturtz Leave a Comment

One of my favorite books on facing one’s fears is by Susan Jeffers, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. She’s also the author of Feel the Fear…and Beyond.

I got my copy, of all places, at an office supply store. Actually, it was the ideal place for me to find it because one of the greatest fears I battle is my fear of success.

Even realizing I feared professional success was a long, hard battle. I’ve discovered that many folks fear success much more readily than failure. It crops up countless times in the intuitive readings I give.

We’ve failed. We know what failure feels like. We know how to cope with failure. We pick ourselves up, allow ourselves to gripe and groaned a bit, then set off again. We learn from our failures. And many progressing well along the spiritual path even come to think of those times not as failures at all but as challenges that we’ve met and overcome.

But SUCCESS…now’s there’s a new batch of willies.

Even when we’ve experienced success, even what some might consider grand and numerous successes, to stay focused and keep going forward often sets off debilitating signals in our brains and bodies. Fears tremble down our spines rendering us immobile. We stall. We become masters of procrastination. Or even worse, busy bees of searching, collecting, sorting, storing, and doing the unimportant and unnecessary. All as a guise to look like we are building up our resources to deliver our next success.

In other words, we sabotage our own best efforts. We suddenly, and often unconsciously, fear what comes next — the unknown changes success will bring to our lives and our relationships.

Success far more than failure forces us to change! And while we may want, enjoy and ultimately thrive meeting those changes, it upsets the relationship balance we currently have with friends and family. They, in turn, become fearful of new unknowns. What will you do now? Who will you attract and invite into your life? How will your relationship with them change? Will there still be room for them? Will you even want them in your life anymore? What if success ultimately hurts you? Will they be around to help pick you up and dust you off? Will they want to be there then?

Ah, so many fears to face when challenged by success.

Like a recovering alcoholic, who knows that to successfully manage his addiction takes a day-by-day, moment-to-moment commitment, I now face my fear of success each day and moment. Some days I am more successful than others. But I am committed to the journey, ready to face both the challenges and triumphs success brings.

What fears hold you back?

What do you choose to cling steadfastly to because you fear what change might bring?

JUST FOR TODAY, I encourage you to consider what fears you have that are keeping you from your achieving your greatest potential.

Choose one fear to face today. Feel it fully. Allow yourself to experience all the spine-tingling tremors that race down your back, that spin in circles in your mind, that cause your heart to alternatively pound and flutter.

Face one fear –commit to tackling it head on.

Do not try, for in trying you will feel the comfort and familiarity of failure.

BE the success that facing your fear creates.

Please consider sharing your thoughts, experiences and journeys by clicking the comment link below.

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