Free Your Mind

FREE YOUR MIND. Such was the message emblazoned in big bold, gold letters across the t-shirt worn by a young runner I encountered while out for my daily walk. It was as if the universe wanted to make sure I got the message! I got it.

Actually it was my second walk of the day, which I took for the precise purpose of freeing my mind. It was feeling a bit muddled and overtaxed as I have spent the past few days trying to sort through some personal issues that have been troubling me as well as figure out next steps.

Hoping to clear my head, I set out for a walk with no idea where I wanted to go, I only knew that I wanted to, needed to, take a different route than the one I usually do and to simply choose in each moment which way to go.

It was kind of fun to set out with no pre-defined direction or route. Although I was still in a neighborhood that is familiar to me, located near my parents' home, the same one in which I grew up, I saw things I hadn't seen or noticed before.

Guess that's what happens when you free your mind. You allow yourself to notice something new, something different. You free yourself from what you think you know and allow yourself to be open to possibilities or experiences that you've never before considered.

15 Life Lessons from Dr. Seuss

Flowerhorn fish I saw at a local aquarium."Hey there, gorgeous!"

I'm a Dr. Seuss fan and have been since, well... before I could read. Among the first Seuss books I remember being exposed to are Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat in the Hat.

I don't know that I fully grasped the life lessons he was sharing in his books, but they were so much to fun listen to, and eventually read, when I was a child. "I do not like green eggs and ham! I do not like them, Sam-I-am."

Now, whenever I have the chance to share Dr. Seuss' books with the little ones in my life, I do. And I feel as much joy now reading them to children as I did hearing them as a child with the added advantage of being able to appreciate the life lessons they contain.

For a bit of fun and encouragement, here are 15 more of my favorite sayings from the master of storytelling and poetic meter.

My 15 Favorite Seuss-isms

1. You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. (From "Oh, the Places You'll Go")


2. You do not like them. So you say. Try them! Try them! And you may!! (From "Green Eggs and Ham")


3. Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It is not. And will you succeed? Yes indeed, yes indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed! (From "The Lorax")  


4. You're off to great places. Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So get on your way. (From "Oh, the Places You'll Go!")


5. I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful, one hundred percent. (From "Horton Hatches the Egg")


6. Today is gone. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one. Every day, from here to there, funny things are everywhere. (From "One fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish")


7. If you never did you should. These things are fun and fun is good! (From "One fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish")


8. Why fit in when you were born to stand out?


9. It's not about what it is. It's about what it can become. (From "The Lorax")


10. I learned there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me! (From "I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew")


11. He puzzled and puzzled till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. Maybe, Christmas, he thought doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more. (From "How the Grinch Stole Christmas")


12. In the places I go there are things that I see That I never could spell if I stopped with the Z. I'm telling you this 'cause you're one of my friends. My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends! (From "On Beyond Zebra!")


13. You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.  


14. Think and wonder. Wonder and think.


15. You find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax. All you need is a book. (From "The Cat in the Hat") 

For added fun, maybe I'll have some green eggs and ham for breakfast tomorrow. (Such is the magic you can make with food coloring!)

Thank you, Dr. Seuss.

Finding Peace in the Midst of a "Storm"

Yesterday evening proved to be a challenging one with my mom who was not in one of her better moods. After attempting a few things to calm her and me, I threw up my hands and retired to (at least attempted to) the guest room. As I lie across the bed I tried again to meditate, and then pray for some peace. Still feeling exasperated, the best I could come up with was "Lord, help!", which I've heard through some spiritual and religious teachings is as effective a prayer as any.

Moments later I remembered a prayer I'd found on the Internet that had helped me through a similar situation a couple of years ago. So I decided to look for it again and found it!!!

It's attributed to the late Raymond Charles Barker, a Religious Science minister and contemporary of New Thought teachers Joseph Murphy, Ernest Holmes, and Neville Goddard,* whose teachings have inspired me.

It's such a beautiful prayer, I want to share it.

Glory Lives In My Heart

Warm is the love of the Eternal, and it glows within me, satisfying my soul. I am fed in all my depths of emotional need by this inner well of Compassion. The universe glows with kindliness. Everyone offers me the warmth of love and the joy of friendship. The Glory of God is upon me, and I rest in Its perfect action. This deep inner sense of well-being is now forever established within me.

The expanding Power of God is the joy of my soul. Every good increases, and every good feeling is accentuated. The Holy Spirit of Peace is upon me and resident in me. Glorious is my day, and my heart rejoices. This inner deep feeling of greatness now directs my thought. I not only know the Mind of God, but I feel the Presence of the Spirit. I arise and shine, for the Glory of God is within me, and Peace does fill my world.

I can accomplish my aims. The Holy Spirit is in my mind now. Divine Love floods my emotions. Glorious is my thinking and my experience. God is my all; no more can I seek.

I followed it up with meditating on the 23rd Psalm until I drifted off to sleep and had an amazingly restful night's sleep. As for my mother, I suspect she did too as I don't remember hearing another peep out of her until this morning.


* Unlike his many of his New Thought contemporaries, Goddard didn't maintain an affiliation with any particular church. I mention it only because it was something that seemed important to him, based on his teachings, that his ideas not be affiliated with promoting the dogma of any particular church.

A Magical Moment and A Promise Worth Keeping

"Know that anytime we exercise our imagination lovingly on behalf of another, we're actually and literally mediating God to man. So we can sit quietly in the darkness and listen as though we heard the good report we want to hear." - Neville Goddard


Every day I set about looking for at least one magical moment and one of today's moments is truly special.

I was browsing the Freeneville website to see if the site's creator, Mr. Twenty Twenty, or Neville Goddard offered any insight on channeled teachings, many of which I’m beginning to suspect are loads of BS and not to be fully believed or relied upon. The only article he has posted on the subject is in response to a woman named Theresa who’s mother was suffering from dementia in a way that is/was similar to the experience of my parents. She had asked his insight on whether it was okay to imagine her mother being healed or if she should accept her sickness as some new age teachings suggest because it may be the path by which her mother has chosen to exit this life. Mr. Twenty responded by offering the Neville Goddard quote noted at the beginning of this post, adding that by taking the time to imagine her mother at peace she was giving both of them a gift.

I actually posted a response to the article in September 2013, sharing my own story as follows:

Thank you so much Theresa for sharing your situation with your mom. I had been going through something very similar with my mom (and dad) where she went from being the most pleasant, jovial, sweetest, generous, peaceful and strong woman I know to someone I hardly recognized. Similar to your experience, the words that would come out of her mouth sometimes were hateful and foul. She's complaining and paranoid and the doctors, friends, my siblings kept saying this is something we just have to accept and deal with.

I chose from the beginning, like you, not to accept this, but there were days when I thought I might cave. But, I can see in my mother’s eyes who she desires to be—peaceful, loving, calm, gentle, content, trusting—and I can see her looking for someone to help set her free. And there have been more moments recently where she is the person she wants to be.

Hearing your story and your belief “that it doesn’t have to be this way” and then reading Mr. Twenty Twenty’s response only strengthens my resolve that things don’t have to be the way the doctors say for “all things are possible.” I love the statement of Jesus you mentioned from the Greatest Story Ever Told movie. I think that pretty much sums up the attitude I want to have when I see sickness and lack around me.

Thank you Mr. Twenty Twenty for your teachings on Neville and your response to Theresa. You are helping so many people like us become the people we want to be by holding fast to our dreams for ourselves and those we love until they are fully realized.

My dad had only recently been "diagnosed" as having dementia when I posted the above. I may no longer be able to help him, although I gave it everything I could up until the very end. I clung to hope like a woman adrift in an ocean clings to a life preserver until the rescue ship comes. Even after I received initial word of his death, my inner being still chose to believe the words Jesus spoke at Lazarus’ tomb: “I am the resurrection and the life...” I will continue to believe for my mom: "He sent His word and healed them….”

I needed this magical moment today. So did my mom.

As for the movie quote referenced in my reply, according to Theresa there's a scene in which Jesus heals a blind man and then rebukes an observer for asking what if the man he just healed of blindness wanted to be blind: “the man lives in darkness and while I am on this earth he will see!”

My belief is that Jesus being fully aware of the power within him lived in such a state of perfect faith that sickness simply couldn't exist around him, nor could lack, in the same way that darkness can't exist in the place light is shone.

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"He sent His word and healed them, And delivered them from their destructions." - Psalm 107:20

"We possess the same Spirit, the same power, the same authority; we don't use it, but we possess it." - My dad, Leon Don King, said in remarks given during a Christmas service held in 2006

"God give unto me the grace to accept the things I cannot change. And grant unto me the power to change the things I cannot accept!" - Richard Bartlett, author of "Matrix Energetics"

Even Self-Proclaimed Pollyannas Have Bad Days

There was a time not too long ago when it was rare that I would experience a really pissy, foul mood. You know the kind where you just want to ... scream, throw something, throw someone? You know?

During the past two years, I feel I've experienced such moments/days far more often than I would like. I could blame menopause, but I'm at least 6 or 7 years from that. Anyway, today is one of those days. I woke up in a foul mood and it went down hill from there. What do you know, this LOA stuff works! (She said sarcastically.)

As the day progressed, I decided to just give into the mood and indulge in something I haven't done in quite a while. After going through all the trouble to eat a healthy lunch—I tend to skip breakfast as I don't believe it's the most important of the day—for dinner, I binged on foods that I typically avoid like the plague: sodas and a cinnamon bun. I suppose I "cheated" myself a little on the muffin since I only had half. To add a little more danger to the mix, I threw in a few fries. Who needs salad?!

Just wanted to share to let you know that even Pollyanna's have bad days where we just want to pull the cover over our heads, or pig out on Haagen Dazs (I actually had Friendly's ice cream; no Haagen Dazs in the house), or curse the gods.

On an up note, I made certain to bless and thank all of my food for the comfort it provided.

Tomorrow's another day! Until then, enjoy this lovely video I found on YouTube. It was one of my favorite songs when I was a kid. Listening tonight made me cry into my ice cream.

You Have Greatness Within

I’ve been in a mood for four days now, and not a good one, or maybe the better choice of words would be "not an ideal one.”

I decided to spend the evening reading as that helps me relax and came across an article about people's seeming obsession with transformation. According to the writer, the vast majority of people on this earth are in constant search for ways to improve or evolve ourselves, particularly those of us in Western countries. Judging by the number of self-help books on Amazon, I believe it. I own more than my share of them. How about you?

We desire to be bigger, stronger, smarter, prettier, better, more evolved, more enlightened and remain ever on the look out for the more enlightened and greater person, thing, entity “out there” that is going to save us from our "pathetic" selves. Teach us, show us how we can finally be good enough, great enough, worthy of breath. This is our constant cry.

The writer also suggests that our obsession with becoming something better than what we already are is possible only because we’ve been trained NOT to recognize the greatness already within us.

Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember? Mark 8:18

After reading this article, it became clear to me that my current state—one of feeling powerless, anxious, and worried—is a direct result of forgetting the greatness within, of forgetting who I am.

When I was a junior in college, I learned that my oldest brother had been diagnosed with brain cancer and was in the hospital on the campus of the college I was attending. I made a point of visiting with him every day during his stay to keep him encouraged and because I wanted to be with him. I very much enjoyed those visits with my brother as did he, although sometimes he and the nurses would have to throw me out as I would hang out well past visiting hours.

My junior year in college was not my best year. I recall experiencing much stress on a lot of levels, especially academically. I was struggling in four of the five classes I had taken the first semester of that year and in danger of failing two of them. I had always considered myself to be an excellent student and quick learner—heck, I made Dean's list my first four semesters of college—so when I found myself in danger of failing two classes, my self-esteem plummeted. Back then and occasionally now, I had this limiting belief as many others do that our value as humans lies in what we do and what we accomplish. It does not.

There was one day during this time I felt so despondent that I decided to drop out of college. I had concluded, based on my classroom challenges, that I simply wasn’t good enough or smart enough for college. My classmates seemed to be having a much easier time than me.

And that evening when I went to visit with my brother, he immediately sensed something was wrong because he asked mere moments after I sat down, "What's wrong?" Not wanting him to worry, I determined to pretend that all was well and gave him my fake “everything’s lovely” smile and assured him I was fine. He was not convinced and insisted I spill it. “I can see it in your eyes,” I remember him saying. So I spilled it—every fear and anxiety about not being good enough, or smart enough, or worthy enough to graduate. About not deserving to have even been accepted to college in the first place.

Great Oak from Wallpaper-Gallery.net

My brother listened patiently until I got it all out, and then asked me to sit closer to him, which I did. He leaned over, gave me a big hug, and then looked me straight in the eyes and told me something that has remained in my heart ever since: “There is greatness inside you; don’t ever forget it. You may not see it now, but one day you will.”

It was nearly 30 years ago that my brother spoke those words to me. There was more to that conversation such as him telling me how much he loved and admired me and me telling him the same, and him assuring me that I deserved to be any place I chose to be.

After taking a brief respite from classes with my dean's blessings, I graduated from college—the first of my siblings to do so. Most of my immediate family was at the ceremony, including my oldest brother who had called the night before to say he couldn’t make it because of a speaking engagement he’d previously committed to. He was the first member of my family that I spotted after the ceremony had ended. In fact, he pulled me out of the recessional to give me another big hug. He wasn’t even slightly impressed with the princess wave I gave him trying to look cool in front of my equally as ecstatic classmates as we were walking back to the registrar's building. One year and nearly three months after my graduation, my oldest brother passed away. I have missed his calming presence in my life ever since.

“There is greatness inside you; don’t ever forget it.” 

Thirty years ago, my brother saw in me something I couldn't even imagine. And he was right, I couldn't see it then as I was much too busy being pitiful. Even now I feel challenged to see it, but I am beginning to see it. More and more each day, I am realizing who I am.

In life we face many challenges, many of them because of our own actions, our own choices, not knowing who we really are. Yet no matter how painful, frightening, or insurmountable are challenges may seem—they are not intended to break us or prove how pitiful and helpless we are. They are intended to prove to us the greatness we are. No need to evolve; no need to become better. I am already enough. All that is required is for me to allow myself to BE.

Thanks for the reminder big brother!

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"What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet…" - Psalm 8:4-6 

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." - Marianne Williamson, author of "Return to Love"

“Know Thyself” written on the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi