Insights – Melannie Thomas

Archive for the ‘Intuitive Guidance’ Category

“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”

~Ben Okri

Blessings!

“The truth is that there are no techniques that will motivate people or make them autonomous.  Motivation must come from within, not from techniques.  It comes from their deciding they are ready to take responsibility for managing themselves.”

~Edward L. Deci, PhD. Why We Do What We Do

Blessings!

“Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”  ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

I invite you to sit quietly and invite happiness.

Blessings~!

…a day set aside to honor our nation’s heroes.  And this year feels extra important as we acknowledge the countless, selfless first responders and essential workers who paid the ultimate price defending against an invisible enemy.

I invite you to take a few moments,  perhaps a few moments of silence to honor all of our heroes.

Blessings!

I was reading an article by Carolyn Cole LCPC, LMFT, NCC in the Highly Sensitive Refuge May 3, 2021 newsletter, when this sentence lit up my whole attention.

The subconscious mind is “…the part of you responsible for holding onto emotions, core beliefs and your patterns.” And research “…shows that the subconscious mind guides 90% of daily life.”  

So, the smart, logical, analytical and reasonable part of me isn’t really in charge as I always imagined.   All of my decisions originate in my emotional brain…in my subconscious.

The article itself drew my attention as the topic inspired some great conversation the week before with a couple of family members. 

How Toxic Generational Patterns Affect HSPs (and What You Can Do to Break Them) is very well done. And in my estimation gives clear examples of how this happens, and also gives excellent guidelines for breaking these toxic patterns.

“Our thoughts are mainly controlled by our subconscious, which is largely formed by the age of 6, and you cannot change the subconscious mind by thinking about it.  That’s why the power of positive thinking will not work for most people.  The subconscious mind is like a tape player.  Until you change the tape, it will not change.”  ~Bruce Lipton

“Our subconscious minds have no sense of humor, play no jokes and cannot tell the difference between reality and an imagined thought or image.  What we continually think about eventually will manifest in our lives.”  ~Robert Collier

“Values cannot be changed through reason, only through experience.”  ~Mark Manson

This week I invite you to do an inventory.  Check out your Thinking Brain and your Emotional Brain.  Are they working together as a team?

Blessings!

Envy is a reflection of low self-esteem.  The desire to have what someone else has, or more often, to be what someone else is.

When the journey to the authentic self is achieving positive results, thoughts and behaviors, thinking and acting, reflect self-confidence.  Envy substantially disappears.

Gloating over a friend or co-workers errors and failures originates from feelings of inadequacy.  It is a close relative of envy.

“When men are full of envy they disparage everything, whether it be good or bad.”  ~Tacitus

Jealousy is a cousin of envy.  Envy wants what others have, jealously fears losing something you have.

Making the effort to listen to our envy can be very profitable for  personal growth, and inner peace.

It can be message informing us of a desire we have.  For example, we envy the creative ability of a good friend.  This envy may be strongly reflecting our own desire to be creative, thus encouraging us to explore creative abilities.

“Carrying envy makes life more difficult.”  ~Kym Whitney

Consuming envy is very destructive (as is consuming jealousy); robbing us of health, well-being, personal fulfillment and happiness.

“Envy is an insult to one self.”  ~ Yevgeny Yevtushenko

It is highly unlikely for envy to to fill our unmet needs.  Self-examination is invaluable in determining if what you envy is something you really desire.

Envy reinforces our feelings of being ‘less than’ and moves us far away from feelings of gratitude, success and appreciation of what we have and who we are.  Stealing joy and accomplishment from our daily life.

We can only be in one moment at a time.  You choose how you want to spend these precious moments.

Blessings!

A dear friend recently shared this poem by Mary Oliver with me.
It is a beautiful message about leaving darkness and negativity behind and making the journey to our authentic self.

The Journey
by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and
began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to
do,
though the wind pried
with all its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little
as you left their voice behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and
deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life that you could
save.

Blessings!

Learning to say ‘no’ without feeling guilty, selfish or fearing I won’t be liked, has been a great challenge for me.   I met the challenge and my life is richer, fuller, more grounded and peaceful than I ever could have imagined.

My success does not mean that I never encounter feelings of guilt, of deeply feeling like I can’t speak my truth because I don’t want to hurt someone else’s feelings.   This dilemma is before me now.

To help support myself as I wrestle with expressing my truth I found some quotes to remind me not to compromise my authentic self; to help me stay on course; to help me find the time and the words that are  loving and kind for us both.  I am sharing them with you.

“A healthy self-love means we have no compulsion to justify to ourselves or others why we take vacations, why we sleep late, why we buy new shoes, why we spoil ourselves from time to time.  We feel comfortable doing things which add quality and beauty to life.”  ~Andrew Matthews

“Love yourself enough to set boundaries.  Your time and energy are precious.  You get to choose how you use it.  You teach people how to treat you by deciding what you will and won’t accept.”  ~Anna Taylor

These help me to stay centered and focused on what is best for me.  And ultimately, what is best for the other person as well.

Blessings!

Being positive, staying positive is really challenging.  Yet, if we allow ourselves to entertain negativity we become depressed and not able to function at our highest potential.  Living can become unbearably stressful.  Negativity denies the ability to enjoy pleasurable experiences, to feel gratitude and happiness.

Learning to achieve and maintain a positive demeanor requires more than meditation, prayer and positive affirmations.  It demands action.  We must act to make changes, take action to stop doing whatever it is that is causing the stress.

“To act wisely when the time for action comes, to wait patiently when it is time for repose, put man in accord with the tides.  Ignorance of this law results in periods of unreasoning enthusiasm on the one hand, and depression on the other.”  ~Helena Blavatsky

I like the following quote from Gore Vidal, for, in my mind, I perceive ‘decadent’ as ‘negative’.

“As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too.  Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it.  Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.”

In her book, The Journey with the Master, Eva Bell Werber writes in the section ‘BE POSITIVE’,  “Man often thinks that it is he, himself, that is good and generous, not knowing or caring that it is the Great Spirit of all good which is back of his acts.  Then he fluctuates from day to day, and it is easy for him to change from good to evil if it suits his purpose best.  He feels that the power is his, and his alone, to determine his actions.”

Maintaining a positive attitude, a positive outlook, has so many benefits; contributing significantly to good health,  general contentment, peace of mind, and joyful living.

The primary action required is aligning the indwelling spirit of man with the Great Spirit of pure Love and Positivity.  It is indeed hard work.  Work which holds mighty rewards beyond our imagining.

I invite you this week to keep the positive energy flowing!

“…the solid rock underlying unconsolidated surface materials.” (Merriam-Webster).

The word bedrock has been coming up frequently in the past few weeks.  Choosing a solid foundation upon which to build an authentic life is a lot of hard work.   Yet, if we don’t consider this fundamental element of the process we are not likely to achieve lasting success.

“It is not the beauty of the building you should look at, its the construction of the foundation that will stand the test of time.”  ~David Allen Coe

Many times the foundation upon which our lives are built has flaws that we didn’t choose, attitudes and beliefs about ourselves and others that came from our family of origin, how we were raised, the experiences we had growing up and our enculturation; flaws that need correcting.

“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.”  ~David Brinkley

Picking the right materials and finding the support that is appropriate for you is essential to the success of building a strong foundation.

“Trust is to human relationships what faith is to gospel living.  It is the beginning place, the foundation upon which more can be built.  Where trust is, love can flourish”  ~Barbara Smith

Trusting the process as we make the journey to the authentic self teaches us how to love ourselves and each other…then we all flourish.

“Love is patient; love is kind and envies no one.  Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude; never selfish, not quick to take offence.  Love keeps no score of wrongs; does not gloat over other men’s sins, but delights in the truth.  There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, its hope, and its endurance.”   ~1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Blessings!