Beautiful Day xoxoxo

Today was such a wonderful day, all along the way I kept marveling at how beautifully it was unfolding.  First, there was the thunderstorm.  I went to work and sat in front of the sliding glass door while I typed, looking out beyond the glass at the hills covered in misty rain, and the dark, roiling clouds boiling above them, thick and white, then grey, then black - such a passionate sky.  I could feel the thunder in my bones.
At lunch time, the power went out, and I ate my lunch without a care in the world, reading my magical book, The Physics of Miracles, as the room grew darker and darker, so much so that I had to take a candle into the restroom - how romantic; it reminded me of the lanterns we used to sometimes use in Mexico when I was little.  After half an hour had passed, the power had yet to return, so I was free to go home as none of the computer's batteries would last very long without outlet power.  I used my cell phone to light the way down the building's winding staircase, since the elevator was out; it was just spooky enough to feel a little exciting : ) 
On the ride home, the heater kept me toasty as it rained, and I happily listened to Abraham-Hicks - so absorbed and inspired that the drive home seemed to be over too soon.  When I got home, I took the most delicious nap, cuddling with my little stuffed monkey and buried beneath lots of cozy blankets while it rained and rained.  For the past couple of days I had been longing for some extra sleep, so the two hours that I slept were deeply savored.
When I woke up, I was inspired to visit the local Korean market and see what I could cook up for dinner.  The market was so fun, so exotic for me, and I had absolute pleasure in looking at all the mysterious packages and jars, and generally just absorbing the flavors of another culture, right here in my backyard.  I was extra thrilled to find the baby bok choy and mushrooms I had come for, all for so much less than I was imagining I would pay!  I even found some mushrooms I had been wanting to try but hadn't bought before, and they were organic to boot - it felt like I had won the mushroom lottery!  I also picked up some rice noodles, fresh lemongrass, brown rice tea, shaved coconut, coconut milk and little red onions the size of shallots.  Everyone at the store was so friendly and helpful, I'm looking forward to going back!
At home, it felt like such a sensual pleasure to wash and prepare the ingredients for dinner.  I took my time and felt so appreciative that I could simply imagine what I would like to eat, then easily go out and find the ingredients to fulfill that desire.
And here's the icing on the cake: dinner was ridiculously delicious!  I had no idea that maitake mushrooms were so amazingly flavorful!  They had a very mellow, smoky/wine flavor that I'm sure I will be craving for the next week!  Now that it's been a little over a month that I've not eaten any chicken or fish (have not eaten red meat since I was 18), I'm finding mushrooms a very satisfying substitute!  I also added shiitake and oyster mushrooms, which are also mind-blowingly YUM, and kind of creamy and nutty at the same time!  I guess I may as well just give you the recipe here, so you can see for yourself.  Then I'm going to climb into bed and read some more of my magical book, before disappearing beneath my blankets to say a deeply warm/glowing "thank you" to the Universe for such a perfect day!

3 MUSHROOM & BABY BOK CHOY STIR FRY

Ingredients: 

- 5 or more cloves of garlic, minced

- 4 or 5 baby bok choy, rinsed and the leaves pulled apart -- keep the hearts intact if you wish. (you could also add any other veggies, or some fresh ginger as well, but I wanted to keep it simple and not have anything really compete with the mushrooms and bok choy)

- a handful of small to med sized, fresh shiitake mushrooms ( I left some caps whole, some just cut in half - I like them big and chunky.  I guess you could also use dried ones that have been soaked, but I like fresh better)

- 3 large king oyster mushrooms sliced thinly lengthwise instead of into coins

- a handful of maitake mushrooms

- dried Asian rice noodles

- sesame oil

- chickpea miso (I use this in place of regular miso, because I can't do soy.)

- Coconut Aminos (I use this in place of soy sauce & it tastes even better in my opinion. Got it at Whole Foods.)

- Olive Oil (or any oil you prefer)

- boiled water

-brown sugar (optional - I didn't use it)

*Photo notes: the king oyster mushrooms are next to the bok-choy photo, then come the maitake in a bunch, then loose shiitake mushrooms.  The king oyster get pretty huge, so I guess I must've bought the small to medium sized king oyster mushrooms*

Directions:

-Pour some boiled water over the rice noodles and let them soak, covered, for ten minutes, until they're soft.

-Coat a frying pan with olive oil and turn the heat on high or med high.

-Toss all the mushrooms into the frying pan, along with the minced garlic, and sautee them for a bit until the shiitake mushrooms begin to cook through.

-Add in the baby bok choy and stir together well.

-When the bok choy has almost begun to wilt, add in just a bit of the Coconut Aminos, probably a TBSP.  Turn off and cover to allow everything to finish cooking.

- In a little bowl, take a tsp of the chickpea miso and add a little bit of hot water to make a smooth paste, then a bit more water to make a thick sauce.  Add some Coconut Aminos to this, to your liking ( I probably added a TBSP) and stir until blended.  You may elect to add a touch of brown sugar at this point, but it's not really necessary.

-Pile the rice noodles onto a deep plate or large bowl, add the mushrooms and bok choy on top, then sprinkle with the sauce and top with some drops of sesame oil (which is never to be cooked).  Mix it well or eat it just like it is, and try not to keep saying mmm... as you eat. heehee. -Then, finally, have some brown rice tea and cookies for dessert if you're especially naughty.  Well, gluten free cookies from Pamela's; we're not that naughty ; )

xoxoxoxox Night night 

What Would It Feel Like If...?

This was written last year but I thought it might be nice to share it here.  Hope you like it!

May 30, 2009

I think I have finally understood the significance of Abraham's "What If" game, but from a very slightly different perspective.  I call this particular process "Abraham meets Einstein."

 : )

 In a journal entry from April 20th (last year), I asked my guides to tell me something that I could remember the next day and feel good about.  They responded:

            "All is well and unfolding perfectly and joyously, and sooner than you think, you will feel moments of profound happiness that seem to fill you entirely.  Take time to stretch the limits of your imagination in that direction.  Ask of yourself -- what would make me outrageously happy?  What would be the most romantic night ever?  What would make me feel more loved than anything?  What is the most romantic gesture Danny could make me?  What would I look like if I were really owning my own power?  What would I be doing if I were wildly successful?"

What I remember from this entry that stayed with me, was that I could expand the scope of my imagination and really ask the outermost questions of myself; I could explore not just what made me happy, but what would make me wildly happy...what would be the happiest, hugest thing I could think of?

I remember telling Frank (a dear friend of mine) that I felt the boundaries of what was possible for me to experience kind of stretch out further beyond what I had previously imagined.  I was excited about "thinking bigger."

Also around this time, I had started reading The Einstein Factor.  Many things in the book struck me, intrigued me, but for some reason, of all the fascinating things in the book, something that was mentioned about asking the right questions in life seemed to capture my attention more than the rest.

Einstein had said that if he had 60 minutes to solve a life or death problem, he would spend 55 minutes trying to come up with the right question to ask.  When he had found the right question, he felt that in the remaining 5 minutes, he would easily be able to find the right solution.  The importance was in determining the right question, from which the answer would organically be born.  This idea really intrigued me, but I let it play in the back of my mind, along with the thought (that I also read somewhere)..."When you ask the right questions, your life becomes the answer to those questions."  I understood the concepts intellectually, but they were still sort of brewing in the background, constant -- yes, but not really asserting themselves into any process or complete conscious understanding of mine.

Then, a few of days ago, on my way home from the gym, I was hit with a sharp pang of sadness over missing Danny (my ex) - a very familiar feeling, as we had broken up on May 7th and it was only now May 27th.  Suddenly, I heard a very simple question in my mind.  So simple that it caught me off guard.  It asked:

            "What if I didn't miss Danny any more?  What would that feel like?"

It was so simple, almost stupidly so, but it was as if a child had entered a room full of intellectuals and had quietly posed a question that stunned the room into silence, and everyone turned their full attention to the child.  Everything in me did go silent, and that simple question had my full attention.  I asked myself again, slowly, gently, "what if I didn't miss Danny anymore?  What if right now, I didn't miss Danny anymore, what would that feel like?"

I let myself really consider the question, in all innocence, not trying to find pathways to the answer, not trying to conjure anything, just listening with my being; simply.  "What if I didn't miss Danny anymore....what would that actually feel like?"  I was open, neutral, sincere.  And then after about ten minutes, I just let it go.  Very shortly thereafter, maybe not more than five minutes later, I began to feel something inside of me lifting...opening.  I felt a sense of relief, then a lightness.  Oh.  This is what it felt like not to miss Danny anymore.  The pain was gone. 

The process felt so pure, so clean.  It required nothing of me, no trying to do anything really, no coping, no application of intellect...just a childlike sincerity of asking and being attentive to the asking.  It was as if I could feel the question causing a wave of energy to quietly spread out from me, creating a kind of space, pushing away everything extraneous; and this energy gracefully rippled out, reached out, and in this new space that was cleared, a new reality, a new vibration was born.  It felt very natural, effortless, organic. 

I realized that I was, in essence, sending my soul out on a mission to retrieve the answer for me in an experiential way.  In posing questions to ourselves, we are programming ourselves (our subconscious, our souls, our spirits, etc) to keep working on the answer until we are satisfied.  We all know this, it is in this way that a name we have been trying to recall will suddenly pop into our minds when we have stopped consciously trying to remember it; our subconscious was still working on the answer it was "programmed" to find.  Thus the importance of asking ourselves the right questions.  And we are asking ourselves questions all the time without realizing it.

 

For example, I had been asking "Why do I miss Danny so much?"  So the answers I was getting were all the reasons why I missed him so much.  I was just reactivating the missing every time I asked the question; my soul was going out and bringing back to me all the things I missed about Danny as answer to my question.  And there were other questions along those lines:

            "Why do I keep picking relationships where the man doesn't want to be committed to me?"  "Where does this tendency come from?" "Why, why, why?" 

And I would get more intellectual and bad-feeling answers, but I wasn't finding any release or relief.  I had held the "problem" up to the light and examined everything I could about it, trying to find the root so that I could set myself free from it by virtue of understanding it...but all I seemed to do was get more stuck in its energy.  My intellect, my soul, my subconscious was still preoccupied with answering the "whys" of the issue, but the issue never went away.  I just became more intimately familiar with it.

I guess this is why Abraham says that what you focus on, grows.

When I let go of everything I "knew" and just let the question come innocently, as a reaction to the pain I was feeling, I was instantly relieved.  Everything I had been trying so hard (so intellectually) to accomplish through reason and rational, was suddenly very effortlessly accomplished through some grace with the Universe.  I asked my soul a different question, a different kind of question, and it brought me back a different kind of answer; it had to.

I realized I could do this with anything. 

            "What would it feel like If I really loved myself right now?" " What would it feel like if I was in love with my life right now?" (when I played with this one, what was brought to me was a very awakened awareness of the NOW,  Everything felt so alive, so immediate.  The freeway lights sparkled almost magically, sounds felt sensual...everything felt very turned on, inside and outside of me!)  "What if I had a super clear connection with my guides, what would that feel like?  What would that really feel like?"

I am asking for a feeling.  Then the feeling comes.  It bubbles up, starts around the edges, then flows into me.  And it continues to unfold, to ripple within me for days, maybe from now on, we'll see.  Now, when I think of Danny, I still love him (I didn't ask what it would feel like not to love him anymore), but there is no pain attached, no missing him attached.  I think of him very fondly.  I am full of affection for our memories.  And when the habit of thinking I'm supposed to be missing someone pops up (it's not a feeling), without even trying, the awareness comes so simply "Oh, we don't miss him anymore, remember?"  And it is true.  That's all there is.  I didn't realize I could love someone and not miss them.  Magic.

We don't realize that we are always asking ourselves questions, always sending out our souls out to retrieve experiential understanding for us.  If we make statements, there is also a presupposed question behind it, I believe.  If i say "I shouldn't judge him," for example, the statement presupposes the statement "I do judge him," and that presupposes (because we never want to be what we think we shouldn't be) the question "Why do I judge him?"  So our souls go out and bring us back all the feelings and reasons why we judge the person, and we are then filled with more judgment of that person and now an additional judgment of ourselves for having judged.

Maybe we are too smart for our own good.  Maybe we could be more childlike in our approach.  What if we just asked: "What would it feel like not to have any judgment about him?"  or "What would it feel like to feel good about my relationship with (fill in the blank)--how would that feel?"

For me, the key to this process is simplicity; lightness, gentleness.  A specific lack of analyzation.  Be a child.  Be simple.  Just ask with an open heart, with a child's wonder.  Turn over the question, open ended, in your being, taking time to feel the question, not even trying to come up with an answer.  It's maybe like savoring a piece of caramel (or whatever feels yummy and velvety in your mouth), and just saying "what does it feel like to be savoring this caramel?" 

Strange concept maybe, to ask a question without using analysis, but it's possible.

It is like this: I ask the question.  It ripples out energetically, vibrationally.  And everything that is in answer to that ripple of vibration, everything that matches it, comes back to me through feeling and experience.  We are paving our experience by virtue of the questions we send out before us.  It is easier to cast out questions that will retrieve joyful experiences for us.  So choose your questions consciously.  Acknowledge whatever feelings you're having, and let them guide you to how you'd rather feel.  Feel sad?  "What would it feel like if I weren't sad about this (fill in the blank) situation anymore?  What would that feel like?  What would it actually feel like not to be sad about this anymore?"

Feel hurt by an experience?  "What would it feel like to let go of (the experience)?  What would it feel like to let it go and be free of it?  What if right now, I let go of this experience and it didn't bother me anymore...what would that feel like?"

Hate your job?  "What would it feel like if I had a job right now that I loved?  What would it feel like to have a job that I loved?  What would that feel like?"

The feeling answers will come.  And when they do, your vibration will have shifted.  And when your vibration has shifted, everything you experience from that new place of vibrating will change; it will carry that new vibration and pave the road for more happy vibrating. 

We are simply removing the obstacles between ourselves and the natural joy and lightness that is always potentially flowing.  Abraham says we all try too hard and make too much of everything.  Maybe in being more childlike in our simplicity, we will stop trying so hard and magically find that not only can it be easy & effortless, it can be so much fun.  Children are naturally good at having fun.  So, let's play.  "What would it feel like...?"

xoxoxoxoxox