Thoughts for the Month

July 2008

Focus on what's right in the world, as opposed to what's wrong in the world.

Focus on who you are, instead of who you are not.

Be kind to yourself and to others – live in a field of gratitude.


Past Thoughts

Read Michael's past Thoughts for the Month: just click the month next to the plus sign ("") to expand the thought, and click the month next to the minus sign ("") to collapse the thought.

  • June 2008
    • What do you believe that the world is withholding from you?
      Whatever your answer, it is actually you who is withholding that from the world.
      Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world.
    • Be as warm to other people as you would like for them to be with you.  Be giving.  Be as generous to others as you would like for them to be with you.  Listen, listen, listen.  Listen to others.  Listen to others as you would like to be heard.  Love as strongly as you would like to be loved.
    • As you develop your giving muscle, be in a state of watchful gratitude.  Serendipitous miracles are on the way.
  • May 2008
    • Life is a gift.  Live everyday as a thank you note.
    • Thank you Lord for all of the love and for the vast feeling of abundance that lives within my being.
  • April 2008
    • I believe that Creation takes place on its own timetable, and that you and your life are unfolding in divine order.  All that you require will be provided in an unhurried fashion.  Allow your dreams to come to you in perfect order with unquestioned timing.  Be in a state of watchful gratitude.
    • Visualize, visualize, visualize.
    • Feel, feel, feel.
    • I believe that there's a silent destiny always at work and that everything is on time under heaven's net.  Let go and let God...and let life come to you.  This takes a great amount of trust and faith, which is already incubating inside of you – right now – your levels, your depth of trust and faith are expanding immensely every day.  God bless you.  This takes a great amount of vulnerability, courage, and awareness.  Get quiet.  Get still.  Listen to the silence.  It will guide you to what best takes care of you; what brings you the most peace; what brings you the most joy; where you can be of the most service.  It will guide you to what's next; it will show you where to go.
    • Keep breathing.  Keep shining.  Keep trusting.  Keep believing.  Keep being.  Have faith.
    • You're a star.
    • All my heart,
    • Michael
  • March 2008
    • Give yourself permission to be perfect, even with all of your seeming imperfections.
    • Recognize yourself first and foremost as a creation of God, which is your perfection.
    • Surround all of your seeming imperfections that you dislike or judge about yourself with love.  Tranquility will arise organically.
    • Your seeming imperfections are absolutely your perfection.
  • February 2008
    • I allow freedom to be my guide.
    • All I have to do is show up – God takes care of the rest.
    • I let go and let God.
  • January 2008
    • Greatness is every person's heritage.
    • Laugh.  Have fun.  Dance with joy.
    • Trust in your own greatness.
  • December 2007
    • Love.  When in doubt, give love.
    • Love as much as you possibly can – especially yourself.
    • Equally nourishing – allow yourself to receive love from others.
    • Stay as close to love as you can.
  • November 2007
    • One of the things that I've learned and that I continue to learn in my life is that "life keeps life-ing."  It always has, it always will.  It's my reaction (or non-reaction) to whatever is happening that I'm constantly observing.
    • I have a grandmother who's been greatly ill for some time.  We had to put her into a convalescent home last year.  It breaks my heart.  She is one of my top five favorite people on this planet, and it just breaks my heart.  I can't imagine not having her here with me on this earth.  She has been my rock for over 43 years.  Again, "life keeps life-ing."  I could go on and on with many examples of this in my life.
    • Usually my reaction brings me deep upset, anger, resentment, and a host of other feelings.  All of these are important vital teachers for me to notice myself and what triggers the buttons that are inside of me that I'm not totally conscious of yet.  I call this "God shining light on my blind spots," and he's always doing that for me.  I'm grateful that he keeps shining light on my blind spots so that I can live having even higher levels of consciousness and more and more peace within myself.
    • It's about me being able to be with as many different feelings as I can from a non-judgmental, accepting, observational, neutral place within myself.  The more that I can be with these feelings, the less power they will have over me.  The less power they have over me, the less of a trigger or button they will be.  The less of a trigger or button they are, the less of a reaction I will have.  The less of a reaction I have, the more present I will be in each and every moment to create and have as much joy as possible in each and every moment.  The more joy that I can live in and create in each and every moment, the more acceptance I can be and have for myself and the rest of the world – plain and simple – the more my vision of world peace comes to fruition.  It all starts with me. It always has, and it always will.  It is the same for each of you – it all starts with you.
    • Now, what are you going to learn from your reactions?  You can keep running, doing, and moving a million miles a minute to stay one step ahead of these feelings.  When you do that, I promise you – they'll just keep coming back, knocking on your door louder and louder and louder to be heard.  Or you can begin to trust and be with these feelings more so that they can begin to dissipate and dissolve and not wreak as much havoc.  You will be freer to create the life of your dreams, your vision.
    • Always know that whatever is happening within us is just great information for us to learn more about ourselves, to live with a higher level of consciousness, and to eventually and gradually have more and more peace within ourselves, within our being.  God bless us all.  We're all doing the best that we can with the tools that we have.
    • Also, there is no right way and wrong way in my book.  There's only the perfect way, and whatever way you choose is perfect for this time and place in your journey.  Please be as kind, gentle, loving, and compassionate with yourself as you can be – at all times.
  • October 2007
    • God lives within you.  Our relationship with God is our relationship with ourselves, and each relationship is unique because each of us is unique.  Faith is, therefore, intensely personal.  How you relate to God or the Universal Creative Force or to the big bearded guy that lives in the sky is truly up to you, and that relationship is the foundation of your authentic self and the chief variable that determines the quality of your life.  Faith is a big deal.
  • September 2007
    • Almost every time you learn something valuable, that learning is preceded by a time when you were stuck.  Celebrate “stuckness.”  It means something extraordinary is coming.
    • However, it might not be what you think.  Sometimes a trial or a period of adversity results in becoming stronger.  Sometimes it doesn’t – but who’s to say that stronger is always better?  In a powerful wind, the oak tree will break.  The bamboo, weaker than the oak, will surrender to the wind, be blown about, and survive.  We live in a culture of yang, of strength, of action, of progress; but there is value in yin, weakness, stillness, and silence.
    • Stuckness is the feeling of not learning a lesson.  In reality, you are learning, just not at the conscious level.  Stuckness is a state of preparation.  Once we’re ready to pursue a new path, the path reveals itself.
    • If we can agree that feeling stuck is an inevitable part of life, the question becomes how to be with it.  I call this process “percolating.”
    • That’s what I do when I’m stuck, or rather I should say, when I feel stuck.  I sit with the problem or issue and allow it to drench me over and over until the information and the experience absorb and re-absorb into different levels of my being, until I’ve got it deeply enough that I learn something.  Sometimes, I have an insight.  Sometimes, my perspective on a relationship or an issue changes completely.  This is the gift of stuckness – the opportunity to learn something new.
    • In times of tribulation, I ask myself two questions:
    •     · What is the lesson for me to learn in this opportunity that I’ve created for myself?
    •     · What would love do here?
  • August 2007
    • Everything I need comes to me.  All opportunities present themselves at the perfect and appropriate time, and they are always perfect and in alignment with the ease and flow in my life.  I attract just what I need in the moment.
    • Opportunities are everywhere and I graciously accept the ones that are appropriate for me.
  • July 2007
    • Dream bigger.  Dream larger.  Dream grander.
    • Appreciation accelerates manifestation.
  • June 2007
    • Acknowledgment for humans is like sunshine for a plant.
    • We can always give ourselves more self-acknowledgment!
  • May 2007
    • I empower others by allowing them to take care of themselves.
    • By taking care of myself, I take care of others.
    • By serving myself, I serve the world.
  • April 2007
    • Celebrate you, for you are the gift.
    • What best takes care of you?  What brings you the most peace?  What celebrates you most in this moment?
    • Listen to your heart, it always knows.
  • March 2007
    • Comparing you to yourself in days gone by is mental masturbation that puts limits on who you can be now.
    • We compare ourselves to other people, because our eyes face out. So that's where we look. We look outside of who we are in the moment, we compare ourselves to this or that, we get jealous, we measure and re-measure, and it doesn't work because our true identity lies inside, not outside. We can only love, accept, and stand in our own uniqueness. There's no comparison to make.
  • February 2007
    • Our lives are truly full of opportunities for pleasure. Treat yourself.
    • I discovered that by celebrating myself first, others around me felt permission to celebrate themselves as well. And by celebrating myself, I get to celebrate others with so much more unconditional love.
    • Can you find a job or create work for yourself that is a celebration of who you are? Can you be in a relationship where you each celebrate the truth of the other? What nurtures you? What fills your heart? What makes you sing?
  • January 2007
    • Leap and the net will appear.
    • (Zen saying)
  • December 2006
    • I believe that feeling loved is so important. Loving and being loved is euphoric and satisfying. It's like eating a great meal when you're hungry or falling asleep after a hard day's work or being held when you're crying and afraid. Feeling loved is more important than being with people who are supposed to love you. For that reason my family includes close friends and certain clients and mentors as well as many of my biological relatives.
    • The people I keep close to me – my family – see me, love me, and appreciate me for who I am. Who have you chosen to be a part of your family?
  • November 2006
    • I see everything as an opportunity — an opportunity to deepen our capacity of love, faith, compassion, understanding, acceptance and gratitude.
    • Everything that happens is happening for you, not to you.  Trust.
  • October 2006
    • In noticing ourselves, we must allow for the possibility that we will notice something new. We discover nuggets of valuable information, energy, and personal resources hidden deep within. As we practice observing ourselves without judgment, accepting any feeling or thought we have without reservation, we begin to know ourselves better. This is why making neutral, non-judgmental observations is so important — because novelty disappears in a context of judgment.
  • September 2006
    • You are not normal. You are special. Your opportunities to contribute to this world are unlike any other. When you can learn to see yourself as the magnificent being you are, all the changes you desire will not only be possible, they will already be manifesting. Have faith to create the world behind your eyes; that is where the true gold lies.
  • August 2006
    • An automatic life is about "doing." When we compare ourselves to others in order to evaluate our own worth, when we value external achievement more than internal well-being, we are living from an automatic place. We are seeking what we have been taught to seek: love, approval, money, power, and beauty. Like so many other human doings, we are racing to get the right clothes and the right products and striving to think the right thoughts and feel the right feelings. In general, we are occupied with fulfilling the conscious and unconscious demands of the world.
    • An authentic life is about "being." It's about each of us giving ourselves permission to be the totality of who we are with no apologies, reservations, or limits. You see, our opportunities to contribute to this world are unlike any other. When we can learn to see ourselves as the magnificent beings we are, all the changes we desire will not only be possible, they will already be manifesting.