My life is on a course of having prayers answered. I have prayed for humility, patience, and grace. I had people and events placed onto my path 
that have caused me to know more about these topics than what I could have ever imagined. The journey is not easy. However, it is one that I am feeling gratitude for being on.
In my morning meeting today with my ever precious, and very central to my operations here, Tara, we talked about the value of what happens when we open our heart authentically to possibility. Everything shifts upward. Everything.
We had this conversation like so many that we share, where there is an exchange of perceptions, a desire to express to one another and to hear one another. It is an inspired process of learning in a genuine and forever interesting way. We live in two different parts of the world. We Skype. We are of two different generations. There is a sharing and mutual respect that gives way to epiphanies for us both–routinely.
Blessings are present for us, each one of us, daily. And yet, so often we lament that they are nowhere to be found. We ask why our prayers are not answered, why the world is not fair, why life is tough, why love hurts. These are not the right questions because these are not healthy frameworks for us. I have an insight to share that has shifted my life and made it possible for me to let go of angst and worry–at least most of the time; I am still a human being however and so junk will continue to creep into my realm.
What I have discovered is that it is not our place to pray as though we are doing a performance review and there is a demand that our directives, thinly veiled as hopes, are granted as if we are rubbing Aladdin’s lamp with the compliant Genie. Fairness in life is based upon an artificial gauge where we each have our own barometer and forget that it has not been accepted as a standard tool nor has it been calibrated. The same holds true for life being tough. And love, when it is healthy does not hurt, it is an ego driven perspective that hurts.
I have suffered at my own hands, in my own mind, and in my own poetic heart from each one of these which I now find a clarity about. Funny and odd and fascinating how things happen so that an epiphany can take hold and change things.
When my prayers shifted to gratitude for what I have and for what is happening and for whatever is being delivered, goodness and understanding and tolerance entered my heart and my conscious mind in a way that allows me to see that all prayers are conversations of intent to connect with our Source. Of course they are answered but they are not commands, they are part of an ongoing dialogue that is important to tune in and aim to interpret. The outcomes are always a blessing. Always. Our task is to discover how.
Fairness in this world is only an interpretation we make that is based upon what we want, what we crave, and what we believe to be somehow entitle to. When I allow myself the indulgence of thinking that life is not fair, I am limited by not having my demands met in my way and in my time frame. When I pause and wait with an open compassion and faith that all is as is intended in goodness, the concept of fair changes dramatically. Fair is in my eyes and my eyes need help with my vision ability. I commit to seeing beyond just my own limited interpretations and things look different to me.
The same is true for life being tough. Tough is a concept relating to a comparison to what is interpreted as easy. What is easy today may not be tomorrow and what is tough for me might not be for you. It shifts with time and circumstance. If it is tough, I benefit from asking why and what else might I do to have a different experience. Do I need to use different muscles or rest or expend more energy? Tough is about the physical, the mental, the psychological, and the emotional muscles and the exercises can be taxing but when we do the exercises well, we become stronger and there is a grace and ease that replace the belief that it is too tough for us.
Love does not hurt, our ego steps into the picture and confuses the condition of the heart much the way it does everything else. Love is simple and straightforward. Love is what we feel genuinely and authentically. And when we are healthy, so is our love ability. Love is pure and we think it and we feel it, it flows from us. We get into trouble when we try to treat it as though it is a game of hide and seek or a juggling performance. Love is not a game, it is a state of being and believing and trusting.
Tara inspired me today as she spoke about her husband and how she felt a sweet appreciation for time they spent together, unplanned, today. He came home for lunch, they embraced and felt the quiet together, they closed their eyes and sat. They ate lunch. They felt the trueness of their connection. How beautiful.
Love is to be shared, not captured, not maneuvered. Love is to be joyful over, not terrified by. Love does not hurt, love heals. I love to love. I love opening my heart and allowing my faith to enrich every space I inhabit–every person and being and experience. Joy fills us when we do this.
Yes, it is epiphany time. Start with a promise to love yourself and do it honestly and cleanly, be pure in your intention and integrity. Love will radiate from you and attract every good thing you desire, need, and crave in a framework of well-being. This is the truest form of your inner strength, it is beautiful and it will bring forth peace and happiness.
