Conversations With God

I'm immersed. Deeply invested and completely enamoured with this book. Books, movies, conversations and everything else that happens, happens because deep inside, we called it forth. Thus was the case with me and this tome.

I heard of the book some years ago, ruffled through a friends copy for a sec but never did I dive into it (ironically, considering I'm such an impulsive bookey.) I knew the power of this book after reading just one page. It's written by Neale Donald Walsch and it's basically A Conversation With God. There are so many nuggets to behold but what I appreciate most is that he (he being God or Neale depending how you view it) allows the reader to forgive themselves for the past pain and judgements, therefore forgiving others. He speaks about the unfortunate act of judging others for their life choices, he speaks of the unrelenting worthlessness that surfaces after a relationship has ended. In this, he reminds us that each relationship is an opportunity to demonstrate what we already know. 

"Relationships are constantly challenging; constantly calling you to create, express, and experience higher and higher aspects of yourself, grander and grander visions of yourself, ever more magnificent versions of yourself." 

I was gifted this book a few weeks ago and I cannot put it down. It's like a little antidote that answers all of the puzzling, life-questions we tackle. Ultimately the book encourages us to Be Who We Really Are. Underneath the veil of who we think we should be lies our true nature. We call it forth when we break down the self-installed barriers.

The previously mentioned relationship chapter was good but one of my favorite chapters is the chapter on money. In this chapter he (God) explains that our money issues are initially our thought issues -it always goes back to old ways of thinking. Whatever the thought process we grew up with, "Money doesn't grow on trees" or "Money is the root of all evil" or "There's not enough money to go around." I'm sure you can recall the money-woes you've grown up with. After reading this, I am learning to accept that it really does start with the way you think. In regards to money, he states...

"Your mind is right now filled with old thoughts, but mostly someone else's old thoughts. It's important now, it's time now, to change your mind about some things. This is what evolution is all about."

Amen to that!

My statement from The Alchemist reigns...

When you're ready for something, all the Universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

I was certainly ready for this book and timing is everything (and nothing at the same time).

Pick it up!

Taschen Warehouse Sale

Taschen, publisher of some of the most amazing coffee table books is having a warehouse sale today through Sunday.

I love art books and have no space for any but ya better believe I'll be there to snag a few of these goodies.

For example...

 

I've seen the inside of this one and it's a conversation starter for sure.

Bring on the guest!

Loving What Is - Byron Katie

If you've been following me for awhile you understand that I get things a little late. I don't know why...actually I totally know why. Because I was that child in church every Sunday, eating Now-A-Laters with my bestie, yapping and trying to be cute. In other words, "I don't always pay attention until i'm forced to pay attention." Thus was the case with, yet another magical book that I finally decided to embrace.

I heard about Byron Katie earlier this year but wasn't ready to accept her process. Lately, I've become more clear and open and in the past week, that darn whisper grazed my mind twice- carrying with it the name Byron Katie and those four-questions. I get it. I get it!

In her book, Loving What Is, Katie challenges the reader to ask themselves a question, four questions actually:

1. Is it true?

2. Can you absolutely know it's true?

3. How do you react to that thought?

4. Who would you be without that thought?

She calls this process, The Work. It encourages the reader to accept what is, thereby releasing ourselves from struggle. 

And so, ladies and gentleman, I have become a Byron Katie fanatic. She speaks from her own personal experience. At 43- years old and depressed, she voluntarily checked herself into a half-way house. It was there that she had a melt-down and only survived by producing "The Work" and living these four questions. 

The Work, is just that. Beginning with the first question: Is it true, Katie dares us to shatter the walls we build around ourselves. There's a quote in the book, "The deeper you go into the work, the more powerful you realize it is." She's moving people and changing lives by begging us to lose that darn veil and Love What Is. 

Damn You E-Reader!

The NY Times recently published a wonderful article entitled "The Books We Read Outdoors". I was excited to see that most of the random people they approached were actually reading books in their true form.


I walked up to a woman in Port Authority the other day to comment on her book. She was reading The Help, a book I thoroughly enjoyed. I then turned to my Mom and boastfully said,  "That's the problem with your Kindle!" You see, dear reader, my mother and brother and damn- near everyone I know has turned their backs on books in their original form. Which is a holy sin if you ask me.  


I'm all for technology, but the Nooks, Kindles and iPads of the world are interfering with the dialogue surrounding books. Books (like the kind you can hold in your hand-the kind with paper pages) represent a community, books start the discussion and books create debate. Imagine if this young lady had been holding a Kindle? I would've been that creepy girl looking over her shoulder trying to figure out what she was reading. I have been known to do this. The truth is, everytime I see someone with a book in their hand, I become Inspector Gadget, cranking my neck in weird formations, trying to see the title. The vast differences in literary selection fascinates me. 


Im sure you're thinking that I need to get with the times. But my meditative-trying-to-live-in-the-present-self can't breathe deeply enough on this one. We are slowly losing one of our last opportunities to interact. These e-readers are isolating people the same way cars in Los Angeles do. I reserve the right to defend the original form of the book-even if the only way to purchase one is through Amazon (R.I.P. Borders and B-Dalton and Waldenbooks).


So I encourage you to join with me on my quest to reconnect people through the ancestry of 'The Book.' The world will be a better place if you do...  

This Is Not The Story You Think It Is... A Season Of Unlikely Happiness

After celebrating a bff's 40th and getting back to Jersey in the wee hours of the morning, I just had to wake up early today and finish this book. Why sleep in when you have a wonderful tome waiting to be devoured? 

Remember how I mentioned those whispers? Well this book was another example. I've been into memoirs as of late and someone mentioned this book. I knew from the first sentence that I was allowed an entrance into someones personal crisis. 

She begins the book with this:

"At this moment in my life, I am strangely serene. In fact, I may have never felt more calm. Or more freed. Or more certain that these things owe themselves to a simple choice: to accept life as it is."

Now, dear reader, if you've been following this here blog for awhile, you should know that I am of the new-age metaphysical type. Sidebar: I don't consider myself new-agey, but I know that's how people relate these days. I simply consider myself on a search to accepting God's love.

K, let's continue. The book takes off from that point with Laura going onto explain how she reacted after her husband announced that he wasn't sure he loved her anymore. It's an honest and humbling account of how living in the presence releases one from suffering. It's a freakin good book! And there's no preachy-ness involved.

She tells her story from a perspective of trying something new. Instead of choosing suffering Laura describes her process of self-renewal and restraint. She speaks about the pain -body (without out right calling it the pain- body) that we all encounter. And mostly she speaks of living your life and taking responsibility for your happiness.

This book could not have come to me at a more perfect moment. But isn't that how life happens anyway? There are no coincidences, dear friends.

Whatever your personal journey or path, I recommend this book for your summer reading list, you're sure to devour it, as I did.

What is your Italy?

In her well written memoir, This Is Not The Story You Think it is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness, author Laura Munson speaks about her yearning to return to Italy, where twenty years ago, she spent a wonderfully, transformative year. She speaks of the desire and fear that's limited her since and wonders aloud to herself (and to us), what her life would be if she would have honored herself and took another trip to the land that holds her heart:


"What if I had given myself Italy many years ago? What if I had given myself Italy every year for the month of June? No matter what my financial situation was. No matter what my language ability was. Or my children's ages. No matter how my Italian family took care of me or didn't take care of me. What if I'd saved my pennies and found a little villa to rent just south of Firenze and went there? Yearly. For twenty years. Who would I be? What would I want? What would I have created? 


The answer may be moot. But the asking is worth it. Because I can tell you who I've been without Italy. And when I say Italy, you know I don't necessarily mean Italy. It could be anywhere, anything, that we've longed for, desperately, and not felt worthy of,  for too long.


To really get to the bottom of this, let's stretch even further here and ask ourselves this: If we deprive ourselves of our greatest dreams, how are we setting up to be treated by our husbands? Our loved ones? Everyone around us? If we neglect our own souls, how are others to react to us? What are we creating? More neglect?"


Wow! I know that's a mouthful, but I can see where, in my life, I've been the catalyst for such struggle. For me it isn't Italy, but it is Brazil & Paris and a cozy apartment on Beachwood with a writing nook and sitting down and writing daily and summers in NYC and...(you get the picture).


In retail (likely in all business) we have this saying, "The fish stinks from the head." It's meant to suggest that employees are simply an example of their leaders, so if the leader is bad, so goes the employee.


In my life, I see where this can apply to my relationships, intimate and remote. If I'm not living the life I've always imagined, I'm simply inviting people into that sense of loss, chaos, regret, self-deprecation, defeat. And that, my friends, explains alot when I view significant relationships in my life. The idea here, is to not beat up on oneself. Now that we have this information, use it as your armour and as I say "Live the life you've always imagined."


Another Aha! moment.