http://www.yourgiftmovie.com/

With lotsa love -)

Thank you, very nice and truthful words!

Sad thing is that most people never understand how an
unpleasent situation could possibly be a gift.

But without those gifts you would never be able to grow.

i know other one, it really touch me.

http://www.theinterviewwithgod.com/

click on the presentation

Enjoyed thankyou.

Enjoyed both sites, thank you for sharing.

Enjoyed too,
real thanks.

Beautiful Words and Pictures! Thank you.

Thanks for the nice words!

Nice gift and I like it!

Very very beautiful.
Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the 'long' movie

It's very nice, thank you for the movie.

I like the second one.
Make me think about what is the priorty in our life.

oowww thanks!!!! very nice

Glad to know some followed thru eventually..

From: "Mary O'Malley"
To: "'uniq me'"
Subject: RE: thank-you
Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 17:51:13 -0800

Food for thought

Thank you

This is so calming...

Thank you so much

Thanks!

Enjoyed both immensely.

Love the music. Soothing and peaceful.

A good place for posting such things
I like it

Inspiration: That which is difficult in our lives is here to heal us, and our job is to learn how to pay attention.

Invitation: The next time you find yourself reacting to a difficult situation, I invite you to stop and pay attention to what is going on in that moment - the sensations in your body, the thoughts in your mind, the story behind the thoughts

A Message from Mary

There is a wonderful quote by Joseph Campbell that touches on the core of what I want to explore together. He said, "People say what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our innermost being and reality so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive."

We all long to feel truly alive. We all long to know the peace and wellbeing that is our birthright. But in our search for peace, we try to get rid of what we don't like about ourselves and about our lives, not understanding that this very resistance to the unpleasant parts of life creates deep suffering. In our fear and our pain, we have become addicted to the endless struggle of trying to get rid of what we don't like in our lives and of going toward what we do.

We want one side of life (the pleasant) without the other (the unpleasant) and wonder why we are lost in what I call the bubble of struggle, always trying to hold onto what we do like and fighting with what we don't. And yet the pleasant and unpleasant experiences of life are two sides of the same coin. You can't have one without the other. You can't have winter without spring; you can't have day without night and you can't know the peace that you long for without experiencing the challenges of life.

Instead of learning how to flow with the tides of the easy and the difficult it is as if we decided that the tide coming in is good and the tide going out is bad, completely ignoring the fact that it wouldn't work if the tide always came in. The land would flood, crops would die, and we'd have wet feet all the time! We fail to see that when the tide goes out, it then gathers up wonderful gifts from the sea--beautiful shells, water carved logs, rich communities of sea weed--and on its return, it deposits them on the shore.

The same is true for our challenges. Every challenge we have is tailor made to bring us the gifts of truly being alive. In order to gather these gifts, we need to understand that true peace is not the absence of conflict. It is the ability to be with what is. We need to learn how to work with our pain in new ways, understanding that it is an integral part of life. We need to learn how to include it rather than exclude it. To awaken our hearts so that we can heal, we need to recognize that each of us is destined to take on challenges in our lives, get lost in them and then finally bring them to the light of compassionate awareness so that we can gather the gifts.

Freedom comes when we learn to respond rather than react to the difficult in our lives. Whether it is a deeply challenged body, a broken heart, an abusive boss, deep rage, freezing cold, an overdue deadline or a dying friend, we can learn the power of relating to the overwhelming parts of our lives rather than being caught in their web. Pain then becomes an awakener, an ally and even a friend. As Stephen Levine has said, "Pain sucks, but it grabs our attention." That which is difficult in our lives is here to heal us, and our job is to learn how to pay attention.

I am inspired
thank you

I remember you. You are the `gold' we know from the 4daily forum.

Your siggy's familiar, buddy

A Message from Mary

Everything I am sharing with you in these newsletters comes from my own journey. At one time in my life, I descended so deeply into struggle that I felt the only way out was to kill myself. All of the attempts to "fix" me had only made it worse. It was when I was taught how to be curious about what was showing up that I began the journey back to wholeness.

One of the most profound things I have learned on this journey is that our core compulsion in life is to struggle. We struggle with everything from the length of a stoplight to life-and-death issues. This brings forth a pervasive sense of unease that is always in the background of our lives and sometime moves to the foreground, a sense that things should be different than what they are. In our unease, we go back and forth between two extremes: The Victor (powering over) and The Victim (overpowered).

The Victor tries to control life - people, circumstances, emotions, our bodies, or our minds. It comes from the belief that I have to do it all and do it right. The Victim believes that challenges are here because we have done something wrong and it doesn't know how to make it right. Both are reactions against rather than responses to the experiences of life. Both roles are based on fear and the belief that the entire responsibility for the unfolding of our lives is ours alone.

The compulsion to struggle with life runs so deep that we never step back and examine it, becoming fascinated with how this pendulum shows up in our own lives. The truth is that making control the primary way we lead our lives cuts us off from the very thing we are longing for - the peace, the joy, and the clarity of being present for life. Part of us thinks that loosening our grip on control and opening to life again amounts to just sitting down on the side of the road and letting things happen, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Instead, it frees us to passionately and compassionately engage with our lives as they are happening right here, right now. It is not about trying to create a perfect reality. It is about learning the art of showing up for reality as it is unfolding perfectly!

As we learn, baby step by baby step, how to show up for life we discover two very important things. The first is that life is for us. Our challenges are not accidents. They are tailor-made to reawaken us to the fullness of life. The second is that there is a center of strength and wisdom within us that knows how to live the life we have been given.

It is possible to move from controlling life to connecting with it. It is possible to show up on the dance floor of life, and rather than pushing your life around, you learn how to truly dance with it. And it is possible to see the struggling mind clearly enough so that you can open again to the ease and joy that is your birthright. The first step is to cultivate curiosity about what is showing up in our lives.


Quote: Our challenges are not accidents. They are tailor-made to reawaken us to the fullness of life.
-- Mary O'Malley