Jesus came to spread a message of peace, forgiveness and love to everyone and whether or not you celebrate Christmas, this can be a time for you to reflect on your life and look for how you can be more peaceful, forgiving and loving towards yourself and others.
When will you remember that what you do to another, you do to yourself and that what you think about another you think about yourself and when you judge another you judge yourself?
Until you are able to love yourself completely, you will not be able to fully love another no matter how hard you may try.
Many of you seek love from outside of yourself and yet true love comes from within and extends outwards towards others. Until you are able to give yourself love, you will not be able to receive it from others and you will continue to experience a sense of lack and unworthiness.
Marisa’s Musings
Have you ever wondered why so many of us have such difficulty loving ourselves unconditionally? As much as I’ve come a long way over the years towards loving myself, I still have a ways to go. I’m still hard on myself at times and will beat myself up when I’m feeling upset about not living up to my expectations and then I beat myself up more for beating myself up because I think I should know better. I forgive myself for the times I’ve fallen into this trap.
I’m still working on celebrating how far I’ve come instead of looking at how far I think I have yet to go to reach all my goals. For example, I used to hate myself and felt completely unworthy of love and had very low levels of self-confidence and self esteem. I’ve come a long way from that dark place and I’m so grateful for this.
Yes, there are still times when I lack confidence and when my self-esteem takes a nose dive and yet, for the most part, I feel very good about myself and what I’ve created in my life and I am filled with gratitude.
I believe the reason we sometimes have difficulty loving ourselves is because we’ve forgotten who we are and we’re living out our lives with the wounds from our past. During this festive and Holy time, let’s be more conscious of how we’re treating ourselves and do our best to heal our wounds and forgive ourselves for the times we’ve been unloving towards others and towards ourselves. As we heal our wounds and remember more and more about who we REALLY are, we will fall more and more in love with ourselves and this will extend to loving everyone around us more deeply and authentically.
I wish you much peace, love and joy not only during this festive time, but always and until we meet again, I send you love & blessings.
What does it mean to have faith? This word is often associated with some type of religious belief and those of you who have chosen not to follow a particular religion may have also let go of connecting to any form of faith.
Faith is not about believing in the teachings of a particular religion.
Faith is about believing in the Truth, the real Truth; not what you have come to believe about Truth. You see, the real truth is found within you; in the depths of your heart and soul. It is not found outside of yourself where most of you look for it.
Perhaps you do not have faith that you will ever be fully happy or fulfilled. Perhaps you’ve lost faith in your ability to create the wealth you desire. Maybe you’ve lost faith in the possibility of being in love and finding your soul mate. If your health is failing, you may have lost faith in your body’s ability to heal itself. No matter what it is that you no longer feel is possible, we are here to tell you that ANYTHING is possible if you have faith and you believe this to be true.
Have faith in your Self; your Higher Self. Have faith that everything you seek is available to you. It is much easier to have faith when you have personal experiences that connect you to your true essence. If you have not yet had such an experience, we invite you to take time to look within you and ask your spiritual guides to help you increase your faith in whatever area of your life this is lacking.
Ask for assistance from your Higher Power, God, the Universe, Source energy; it does not matter what you call it. What is important is for you to call upon it. For this energy of love is all around you at all times, waiting to be of service to you but you must ask. This is the law of free Will. This support cannot interfere with your free Will and unless you ask, you will not receive. Have faith that if you ask for help, you will receive it.
As you open up to the power of Faith, it will increase. The more you draw upon your faith, the stronger it will be.
Marisa’s Musings
I grew up within the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Having faith in God was something I was taught at a very early age and even though I didn’t always believe or accept all the teachings of the church, I always had a connection to who I called, “God.” Also, as a result of my upbringing, I felt a deep connection with Jesus. I often called upon God and Jesus to help me through difficult and challenging times and I did receive this help.
Of course, there were times in my life, as I struggled to make sense of what was going on around me, when I questioned the existence of God. I lost faith from time to time when things didn’t seem to be working out for me as I had hoped and yet, I always came back to my inner knowing that there really is a Higher Power that isn’t outside of me, but within me.
Even though I left the Catholic Church many years ago and I’m not part of any organized religion, my faith is stronger today than it ever has been, for I KNOW without doubt that God, Source, Universal Energy or Power, does exist and I also know that it doesn’t matter what we call it because it’s the same energy of Love. I also believe that we all have many angels, guides and other Spiritual Beings eager to assist us at any time and for any reason. I’ve had some profound experiences throughout my life that have shown me this Truth and for this, I am eternally grateful.
Much has been written about the power of gratitude and yet it is so misunderstood. Giving thanks is not just about making a long list of things you would not wish to be without. It is about truly appreciating all the blessings in your life including what you may consider as not so great.
How many of you give thanks when you lose a job or when something doesn’t turn out as you had planned or expected. When these situations arise, many of you go into despair wondering what you did wrong or you worry about how you are going to handle it all.
No matter what happens in your life, it is all in Divine Order.
There is never a need for you to beat yourself up or tell yourself, “If only I did this or that, things would have turned out differently.” You are on a journey of remembering who you are and EVERYTHING you experience in your life is an opportunity to remember more and more.
When things are not working out the way you had hoped or if a situation happens that you would call unfortunate or sad or unpleasant, we invite you to give thanks for ALL of it, trusting that it is serving a purpose in bringing you closer and closer to your truth.
Rather than say, “Why me?” or “Why is this happening to me” with a feeling of despair, give thanks and then ask from your heart and soul, “Show me what this situation is here to teach me. How can this situation lead me closer to my heart’s desires and to my True Self?”
You can only give thanks for what may at first appear to be unfortunate circumstances when you KNOW and TRUST deep within your heart and soul that things are not how they appear and no matter what happens in your life, it can all lead you to more peace, joy, love and abundance but only if you are willing to see the Truth and focus on giving thanks and looking for the good in everything.
Marisa’s Musings
I’ve certainly done my share of beating myself up when things in my life didn’t go as I had planned or hoped for. I’ve often made myself wrong in these situations because I really believed things would have turned out differently if I had done things differently. Even though this may be true, I now understand that it doesn’t mean I did anything wrong.
The truth is that I always did the best that I could with the knowledge and tools that I had at the time and telling myself that I “should” or “shouldn’t” have done this or that only made me spiral into deeper and deeper feelings of despair.
As much as I still find it challenging at times to give thanks for things that show up in my life that are not what I really want, I’m getting better and better at looking for the blessing in ALL things and giving thanks with a deeper knowing that everything can be transformed into something good.
