Insights – Melannie Thomas

Archive for the ‘Health & Healing’ Category

Understanding is both intellectual comprehension and sympathetic awareness.

Our ability to learn, to understand computer basics, fundamental theoretical concepts, or basic body mechanics, for example, is essential to our overall well-being and success.

So too, the capacity for understanding the human condition is critical to our survival and prosperity.

“Tolerance, compromise, understanding, acceptance, patience – I want those all to be very sharp tools in my shed.”  ~Ceelo Green

Learning acceptance of social, cultural, religious and racial differences requires the cultivation of empathy and effective communication.  The maturation of both of these qualities cannot be achieved without expanding horizons of knowledge and development of refined communication skills, which then allow for an abundance of understanding.

“Those who improve with age embrace the power of personal growth and personal achievement and begin to replace youth with wisdom, innocence with understanding, and lack of purpose with self-actualization.”  ~Bo Bennett

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”  ~Carl Jung

Developing understanding takes patience, a tolerance for ambiguity and the willingness to put ourselves in the shoes of another.  This takes courage and a commitment to sit with our discomfort.

“Be patient and understanding.  Life is too short to be vengeful or malicious.”  ~Phillip Brooks

“Our uniqueness, our individuality, and our life experience molds us into fascinating beings – I hope we can embrace that.  I pray we may all challenge ourselves to delve into the deepest resources of our hearts to cultivate an atmosphere of understanding, acceptance, tolerance and compassion.  We are all in this together,”  ~Linda Thompson

“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.”  ~Albert Einstein

With so many planets in retrograde, it is an optimum time for  enhancing understanding.

Blessings!

To be steadfast is to be unwavering, solid, loyal, dependable, strong, faithful, and resolute.  These attributes apply across a broad spectrum of life; including the collective and communal activities of day to day living, as well as it’s personal and interpersonal processes.

“Remember that in every single case in history the process of adaptation has been one of exceeding slowness.  Do not look for the impossible, but do not let your path deviate from the quiet and steadfast insistence on full opportunities for your powers.”  ~Franz Boas

Without the capacity for steadfastness we stand on unstable ground.  Making decisions, making commitments, living an authentic life drifts into a fog of unattainability.

“When I had no place to live and I had no place go to sleep-and I did sleep in the Metro-I held steadfast to the fact that I had a dream, a reason why I’m doing this…that it was bigger than this moment.”  ~Jeremy Scott

Self-actualization demands us to be steadfast.  Achieving a harmonious and balanced life requires commitment, faith and resolute determination.

“I have a very steadfast tendency to parent myself, to monitor my development into the person I want to be. I’ve tried to keep the corruption minimal.”  ~Fiona Apple

“Wealth stays with us a little moment if at all: only our characters are steadfast, not our gold.”  ~Euripides

This week I invite you to to continue walking the steadfast path in the pursuit of golden character.

Blessings!

Tapestry is hand woven practical art created for centuries on every continent.  Placed on castle walls in winter for insulation and decoration.  In the Middle Ages tapestry emerged as coats of arms and symbolic weavings.  Persian and Navajo rugs are a form of utilitarian tapestry which are greatly prized.

Every day, every year, every decade we are weaving the tapestry of our lives.  Richly resplendent, deeply muted threads interwoven throughout depth and breadth of the human experience create unique individual and collective patterns.

“The mind is like a richly woven tapestry in which the colors are distilled from the experiences of the senses, and the design drawn from the convolutions of the intellect.”  ~Carson McCullers

“Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.”  Richard P. Feynman

The tapestry of life is like a personal metaphor.  It is both a conscious and unconscious weaving.

“My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue, an everlasting vision of the ever changing view.”  ~Carole King

“We don’t accomplish anything in this world alone…and whatever happens is the of the result of the whole tapestry of one’s life and all the weaving of individual form one to another that creates something.”  ~Sandra Day O’Conner

What kind of life tapestry are you weaving?

Blessings!

Everyone dreams; and we all have dreams.  There is a difference.

Freud called dreams, “….the royal road to the unconscious.”  Jung’s work on dreams and dream interpretation greatly expanded the realm of exploring and understanding the dream world.

“The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.”  ~Oprah Winfrey

Herein lies the difference.  Living your dreams, pursuing your dreams requires faith, courage, tenacity, self-confidence, and the strength to move beyond repeated failures and discouragements.

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer.  Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”  ~Harriet  Tubman

“I couldn’t find the sports car of my dreams, so I built it myself.”  ~Ferdinand Porsche

The dreams of childhood are so often swallowed by the demands of adulthood.  So often the regimentation and rigors of singular and societal survival drown the aspirations and fulfillment of dreams.

“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.”  ~Les Brown

“Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams.  Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential.  Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible to do.”  ~Pope John XXIII

The Declaration of Independence enacted as law that all people have an equal and unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of their own happiness.  It does NOT define lifestyle or happiness.

The American Dream arose from these principles.  By working hard, one can become successful, have a nice home, two kids, and plenty of money.  Obviously much has changed.  Yet, the realization of dreams is still possible.

“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”  ~Walt Disney

“Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.”  ~Khalil Gibran

What dreams are you pursuing?

Blessings.

…is distress, ‘an event causing great harm or loss and affliction’, misfortune, disaster.

“Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.”  ~Joseph Addison

Calamity is on my mind, embedding itself in my experience as devastating wildfires voraciously rage throughout the west, flash flooding is driving people from their homes in the east.  Hundreds of innocent children remain separated from their parents and held in the equivalent of internment camps.

It is an odd juxtaposition for me.  Returning  home Saturday from a beautiful wedding, sharing and celebrating it’s joyous promise and then seeing the ghastly specter of billowing smoke from the Lake County fires to the north, and the vastness of the burnt ridge tops and hillsides of last October’s calamitous Tubbs fire directly before me, was difficult.

“Calamity is the perfect glass wherein we truly see and know ourselves.”  ~William Davenaut

As so many of you know, my ‘go to’ is faith.  To reduce my cognitive dissonance, I pray.

“Necessity may well be called the mother of invention but calamity is the test of integrity.”  ~Samuel Richardson

I am clearly an optimist.  But my optimism rises and is supported by faith.  As Winston Churchill is widely quoted, a “great purpose and design is being worked out here below of which we have the honor to be the faithful servants.”

“He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood.  He who faces no calamity will need no courage.  Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in a soil with a strong mixture of troubles.”   ~Harry Emerson Fosdick

These are surely trying times.  The world is experiencing great upheavals; the earth itself is crying calamity. Yet, there are those brilliant moments of hope, joy, love, compassion, understanding and faith.  Hold fast to them!

Blessings!

Thought is cognition, thinking, idea, opinion, belief, to name a few synonyms.

In the early 1800’s French physician, Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said, “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.”

Buddha said, “We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think….”

“A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes.”  ~Mahatma Gandhi

Thoughts, emotions and feelings come and go as they please.  We do not have control of this dynamic.  However there is an essential key to managing the stressful aspects of this process, don’t entertain the negative energies.

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.”  ~Marcus Aurelius

Fear is a powerful part of human experience.  It can save life or destroy life.  Lurking beneath worry, frustration, depression and anger, fear is usually found.  We can choose to entertain fear, worry, anger and other negative energetic emotions or we can choose faith; we can choose to entertain positive energies.

Bills are due and money is short, fear and worry move right in and begin stealing confidence, trust and peace of mind.  Catch them, and throw them out!

“A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events and outcomes.  It is a catalyst and it sparks extraordinary results.”  ~Wade Boggs

Taking charge of thought dynamics demands commitment.  It is hard work, especially as it seems so much easier to surrender to the negative.   However, this work pays great dividends.   Good health, contentment, happiness, peace of mind, enhanced quality of life, personal fulfillment, joy and laughter to name a few.

This week I invite you to entertain positive thinking.  Do it regally; treat it with abiding love and respect…treat it as your most prized possession.

Blessings!

The unexpected happens to everyone, and it happens often.  It can be experienced individually or collectively.  A brief power outage or a debilitating prolonged one, like Puerto Rico is still experiencing almost a year after Hurricane Maria.

Traumatic events, personal and collective leave us struggling to find balance, to cope with loss, grief and often disbelief.  Every day as I drive through the savagely scarred landscape of the unprecedented North Bay wildfires, I still experience disbelief.  As with Puerto Rico, and countless other places throughout history and around the world, so much of the familiar is gone…and it will never be the same.

“No one is so brave that he is not disturbed by something unexpected.”  ~Julius Caesar

“There are uses to adversity, and they don’t reveal themselves until tested.  Whether it’s serious illness, financial hardship, or the simple constraint of parents who speak limited English, difficulty can tap unexpected strengths.”  ~Sonia Sotomayor

The will to survive, to overcome, to move forward is compelling.  The ‘Sonoma Strong’ movement in my community remains active; driven by a shared experience, and a fervent desire to forge ahead.

“You have to take risks.  We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.”  ~Paulo Coelho

The unexpected seldom appears as major events, such as those referenced above.  The mundane every day routine is sprinkled generously with unexpected moments.  The traffic jam that makes you late for work; the carrots essential to a dish you are making are mysteriously gone; the air conditioner stops working on a really hot day; the garbage disposal is suddenly leaking water everywhere; the dryer stops working, leaving a load of wet clothes to deal with; the party you were so excited about attending is cancelled at the last minute…the list is never ending.

“The shortest period of time lies between the minute you put money away for a rainy day and the unexpected arrival of rain.”  ~Jane Bryant Quinn

The will to overcome the unexpected is a strong characteristic of human beings.

“Spirituality can release blocks, lead you to ideas, and make your life artful.  Sometimes when we pray for guidance, we’re guided in unexpected directions.  We may want a lofty answer and we get the intuition to clean our bedroom.  It can seem so humble and picky that you don’t necessarily think of it as spiritual guidance.”  ~Julia Cameron

The profound and the mundane are intimate companions on our journey through the world of the unexpected.

Blessings!

To be flexible is the ability to bend in a multitude of ways, physically, emotionally, financially, politically, romantically, spiritually and more.

“The ability to course correct without losing sight of the goal.  Let go of narrow-mindedness, stay open to the flow, and keep current with new information.”  ~Angel Card, Tyler & Drake

A culture, society, organization or community cannot survive or thrive without flexibility, nor can the individuals that comprise them.

“You have tremendous flexibility in defining both the greater good and the greater community.  If you don’t succeed in this, then you will continue to pull that heavy wagon up the mountain, and despite the fact that you are pulling it, it will somehow run over your own foot.”  ~Srikumar Roa

Many structures that appear to be rigid have a degree of flexibility built into them: cars, buildings, banking systems, tennis rackets for example.   So too, our thinking and decision-making processes.

“Despite my firm convictions. I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds.  I have always kept an open mind, a flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of the intelligent search for truth.”  ~Malcolm X

It is our willingness to be flexible, to not only listen, but to ‘hear’ the discourse of those with whom we differ.  This quality makes a substantial and essential contribution to our physical, emotional and spiritual healthy maturation.

“If you think the aficionados of a living Constitution want to bring you flexibility, think again.  You think the death penalty is a good idea?  Persuade your fellow citizens to adopt it.  You want a right to abortion?  Persuade your fellow citizens and enact it.  That’s flexibility.”  ~Antonin Scalia

“Freedom always deals with ‘the possible’; this gives freedom its great flexibility, its fascination, and its dangers.”  ~Rollo May

I invite you this week to examine the depth and breadth of your flexibility.

Blessings!

“…shelter or protection from danger or stress; a place that provides shelter or protection.”  ~Merriam Webster

There are basic forms of refuge.  Being physically free of persecution and bodily harm, being free of emotional abuse in its myriad forms, these are refuges we most often seek.  Yet the least sought after and most powerful  is spiritual refuge.

“The wise man in the storm prays God, not for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear.  It is the storm within which endangers him, not the storm without.”  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Spiritual refuge is the ultimate refuge.  Seeking safety, protection, comfort and shelter in the Divine Spirit of Love is compelling and effective.  To achieve this serenity demands discipline and faith.

“In a world full of fear, be courageous.  In a world full of lies, be honest.  In a world where few care, be compassionate.  In a world full of phonies, be yourself.  Because the world sees you.  The world hopes for you.  The world is inspired by you.  The world can be better because of you.”  ~Doe Zantamata

“Be your own lamp, seek no other refuge but yourself, Let truth be your light.”  ~Buddha

The world as we know it is changing rapidly and dramatically.  The dark forces are rising.  The light of fairness, justice, compassion, truth and morality grows dimmer each day.  But it will never be extinguished, because there are those who cherish it, secure it and nurture it, in all good faith, knowing that ultimately the Divine Light of Truth and Love will prevail.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” ~Ps 46:1

As a nation we just celebrated our Independence Day.  I invite you to continue to carry the torch of spiritual refuge.  Be the shining light, the glimmer of hope that refuses to go out.

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty…my refuge and my fortress…in whom I trust.”  ~Ps 91: 1-2

Hot days, cool, lovely evenings; Wednesday we celebrate Independence Day, summer is in full swing.

“There is nothing I like better at the end of a hot summer’s day than taking a short walk around the garden.  You can smell the heat coming up from the earth to meet the cooler night air.”  ~Peter Mayle

The smell of crisp mornings and warm evenings, active bird life and buzzing bees, seasonal fruit, corn on the cob, BBQ’s are among the many pleasures that summer brings.  I love the warmth, although as I have aged, the heat is more challenging.

“Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.”  ~Russell Baker

Each season is unique. Gardens are rich and vibrant as Spring matures into Summer and the cadence is slower.

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”  ~John Lubbock

Enjoy your summer!!