Finding Love

A Very Brief Recipe

A friend recently asked me about finding love.

People say that, with romantic love, everything looks brighter. The sky, the sun, the pavement and the jokes that didn't even seem funny before all seem to have a bit more of a shimmer. Suddenly, people’s flaws are easier to dismiss, cats are easier to snuggle, dogs are easier to walk and kids are easier to laugh with since we suddenly we love everyone just a little bit more.

So, how do we get there? Here’s one recipe…

Please add yours to the mix in the Comment Section.

Finding Love

A Very Brief Recipe

Be Open

Settle into the concept of possibilities. Un-limit. Let yourself recognize that love can exist here in real life. Love can walk down the street, hold hands and open doors; love can sit in coffee shops and have conversations. Love can be an everyday part of life. Love can be tangible. Allow the potential to be there, as an option – a myriad of options. Try not to limit love to specific fantasies or parameters, but rather allow love to show up in unexpected ways. Be Open.

Care

Have the courage to stay on the quest. Allow it to be of value and interest that there is love in your life. Let it be important to you, keep the faith.

Accept

Accept gifts, respect, kindness, favors, money, friendship and love that come to you in any way. See gifts and favors that come to you as love. Accept adoration from pets, birdsong in a tree and an invitation to tea from a friend. Enjoy a favor from a colleague, love from your kids, your grandparents and the sunbeam through your window. Make the effort to accept love in all the forms that it comes to you. If it feels new to you to practice acceptance, accept boldly and note how many wonderful things you can feel gratitude for, love and accept. If you are used to feeling acceptance, practice accepting with more grace, more grandeur and more gratitude. Cherish love and see if there are even more things in your life that you can see as gifts.

Be Vulnerable

Talk about who you are, plainly and in your own way. Let your heart be available. Allow who you are to start being on the playing field.

Return

Return friendship, support, honesty, integrity, generosity, kindness, authenticity, long looks and phone calls.

Devote

Devote time, energy, money and patience to causes that feel good to you, to friends, to your family, to your pets, to your plants, to your garden, to your community. In love, there is devotion; let it flow into your life.

Remember

Take time to reflect. Remember who you are, what you want and all that is important to you. Sit and know. Sustain your heart.

Breathe

Breathe peace and let it flow to you.

Allow

Let everything you have done so far continue with ease, as if you are no longer the driver, but a happy, happy rider…

Benefit

Feel

Love

Embrace, accept, welcome and enjoy what comes…

Amen

Happy Valentine’s Day

Love,

Atala

What Is Healing?

We often pray for healing. We go to healers, to doctors, to mountaintops and to books looking for this mystery, but what is it? What is the inherent property that gives us the impetus to get well? What is healing?

In order to heal, we have to think that we are ill and that we dislike being ill. One of the funny and great things about us as people is that if we go to a doctor and we get a diagnosis, a typical reaction is, “no, this is not what I have, that is not me.” Some people would call that denial, but there is more to it. Under that reaction there is truth. The truth is that even if your body is experiencing sickness, illness is not who you are. This is part of healing. It is the first step to healing.

Anytime we accept that we are sick or a sick person, we stay sick. If we accept that we have the remotest capacity to heal, we begin to grow back into health. If we know we are the healer, this process speeds up.

It is idiosyncratic for most people in a western society to think of themselves as healers, but consider it this way. We have many fix-it shows on television that teach people how to mend their houses, re-do a dining room, make new curtains or retile a bathroom. We don’t have to be professionals to try these techniques and, if we do, we may feel the joy of a job well done as an amateur carpenter or upholsterer or designer.

Consider allowing yourself to be an amateur healer for your body, mind and spirit. Consider amateur in the sense of a person who does something for love and not money. Allow yourself to entertain the notion that you could be a healer to life for the love of it.

Amateur Healing

Step One: Look inward for what is already whole. Look inside for that part of you that feels one hundred percent complete, worthy, happy, healthy, spiritual, fulfilled, beautiful, perfect and incapable of lack. Allow yourself to nourish that part simply by acknowledging that it is there. Many times in life we notice the parts of us that do not feel whole. We tend to give attention to what feels lacking, incomplete or doesn’t feel well.

Try spending half your healing time turning inward to note that there is a person that is whole here, loving here, true, devoted, loyal and beloved here. See that person. Acknowledge him or her through conversation, meditation, mantras, writing, dancing, prayer, a long walk, a hot shower, a deep breath, anything that feels right for you. Trust that it is healing to be with and live as who you are.

Step Two: Healing is mental, physical, emotional and spiritual. Typically, it takes a long time for us to get sick. Lifestyle changes and choices bring about sickness, even coming down with a cold. There are reasons we get sick or choose to get sick. Have you ever become sick when you didn’t want to do something or really wanted some time off to rest, think, recover or redirect your life?

It is important to consciously make choices to get well and not just when you are feeling physically ill. A gentle way to start is to move to what might feel better. Start to note where you are feeling a psychological crunch, a physical burden or an emotional challenge.

Note the little things, is your back uncomfortable while you are sitting in a chair? Can you get a back support, a foot rest or another chair? Can you change positions or do more stretching? Do you always feel sick after you eat potato chips? Could you try another snack? Give yourself permission to make changes. See if they work. If the first solution doesn’t work, try another one. Experiment with feeling well.

Step Three: Healing is everywhere. Give yourself permission to adopt the philosophy that healing is everywhere and in everything you do. Let yourself agree that healing is there for everyone and can be a collective process, particularly when you engage in it consciously. In this way, healing is a step from feeling out of balance physically, mentally or emotionally back into a place where you can function more like who you really are. If you adopt this philosophy, healing not only makes you well, but makes you whole.

If you see that healing is part of health and health as a mind, body, spirit process, you can see that every interaction with everyone can be a part of healing. How you talk about yourself affects how you feel. How you talk to others affects how you feel. How you act when you are around others affects how you feel. What you are thinking affects how you feel. Fortunately, you have the power to change each of these things at any moment.

Consider how you think about yourself. What messages do you send to your body and your mind? Are there messages you would like to change? If there are things you say, do or even think about yourself that do not feel healthy, particularly when you are with other people, allow yourself the freedom to feel what it is like to try something new. See if you can allow yourself to see these as moments to heal and gently change what you are thinking, saying, doing or projecting with your body language.

Step Four: Get your spirit on board. Ask your Self, your Heart, the Love you are, the greatest part of you, your higher consciousness, your Soul, God, Truth, Inner Wisdom, your Guides, Mentor or Angels to help direct your process. Ask for guidance and ask more for patience as you start this new process. Ask for everything you do to be part of your healing path and allow yourself to know that your healing path is undivided from your spiritual path or simply your path to be a more loving, kind or compassionate person.

Step Five: Let yourself be guided. Once you open up to truth and trust on any subject, answers are everywhere; they abound. They will fly out of the mouths of your co-workers and children. Information and solutions for healing will be there on the bookshelves and on the internet. Take them to heart. By that I mean, honor each suggestion and see Step One. Go to a quiet place with your inner self and ask which ideas feel right for you.

Part of healing is trusting yourself and learning to interact kindly with other people. This is part of emotional and spiritual healing. From this viewpoint, you can trust that there is a reason you are hearing everything everyone says to you about healing or recovery, even if you don’t decide to follow their advice. What you may be healing is a tendency to dismiss other’s advice too quickly. Part of healing is being open to changing anything in ourselves that does not feel healthy.

What we are often healing is ego and its resistance to change. Moving from a place of sickness to health is a big change. There are fears and frustrations around all kinds of change. When we heal or even accept that we can heal, what we are healing is anything about us that feels stuck, immobile, out of balance or in contradiction to health. Accepting that part of the reason you got sick was to heal, emotionally, physically, psychologically, spiritually or all of the above, helps you to be your own healer.

Prayer

Dear Lord of Love That I Am,

Let me look inward for what is already whole and complete

And know it as who I Am and Who You Are.

Dear Mind, Body and Soul,

Let me know that healing

Is mental, physical, emotional and spiritual

And be patient, observant and clear in this process

As I open to Love and greater Health.

Dear Source, everyone and all That I Am

Let me bow and truly accept that Healing is everywhere

Help me behold in everyone I meet, know and witness

That we all have the capacity to heal

And recognize each other as Love

And to bring forth healing to everyone here.

Dear Heart, Dear Name That I Am

Let me know that my heart, body and love are in your hands

And help me to trust my spirit as the guide of my mind,

In this moment to moment, breath to breath

Experience on Earth.

Dear Love,

Let me be guided by all that you are

As my mind and body open to change

Let it be a simple flow back to you.

In gratitude,

Atala

"I'll Eat You Up, I Love You So" - Where The Wild Thing Are by: Maurice Sendak

For a long time, in the spiritual process, I had a misconception that part of it was about fixing myself. I spent long hours trying to send my mind back to God, to put my mind into God, forgive it and get rid of it and what was wrong with me, so I could be Good. That hurt.

Tonight, after a hard week, I again tried to put my mind into God, something I hadn't done in a long time and what I heard back was, "I'll only have you because I love you so." In that message was the visceral tone of, "you are not flawed," and I felt myself swallowed, engulfed by the holy heart of Love, myself embracing me as Love, again.

I heard and felt to share this with everyone.

Our minds are not flawed. It is safe to love who you are - mind, body and soul. That spiritual process is not about disintegrating your mind, but rather about being the one who is loving you enough to love who you are.

It's not about seeing through the flawed outer spectacle to see the beautiful inner self. It is about loving the clown and the sacred, the bumbling fool we can be and the beautiful trapeze artist. The mind is quite a creator and we can actually enjoy the play. Enjoy the creation that we are, as well as be That I Am.

May you be blessed to experience your self as Love,
inner Light and Holy Truth.

May you be the forebearer, follower and giver of this Truth
to all you touch, including your dear, sacred self.

Please remember God is Love, Lover and Beloved and God is You.

Amen.

God To A Child

This morning, my mother told me that she met a friend she hadn’t seen in years. She smiled to say that he had a six year old daughter. She knew his older children well and they were both boys. He remarked to her that girls were different from his boys, that his daughter was so sensitive. His little girl had asked him, “Dad, why did God make us if we are going to die?”

He didn’t know what to say. He tried to say something comforting. When my mother told this story, I said there were many answers. She asked, “What would you want to hear if you were six years old?” Hmm… good question for all of us…

What is your answer, friends, teachers, scholars, parents or grandparents? What would you tell your little girl or boy, niece or nephew, grandchild or student if he or she asked a similar question? What would you say to this father or a friend if he told you a similar story about his daughter?

Please add your answers in the comment section. I believe all of our perspectives could support each of us in answering why we are here for this little girl and make the world an easier place for her to grow up in and for her father to help her in her journey. For I am sure she will have many, many more questions.

Amen

Dear Child,

You are here because I love you. I love you like every flower that is there to welcome spring and every snowflake that dances in the light as it falls to the ground - each one beautiful and none more beautiful than the last. I love you because you came dancing in the light without worries and now you are here and have one. You saw how hard it is to leave this beautiful world and I am blessed because you are here.

My sweet one, whenever a little child is born, there is a new beginning and each day that child grows she grows up big and strong, fun and beautiful, sweet and powerful. She learns new things and unfortunately one of them is fear. Darling, I never meant for you to fear, only to know that at the end of your journey there is light, just as there was at the beginning. My sweet one, you came from light and to light you will return.

Right now, these words may just sound like poetry, but one day, they will soften your heart. Right now, go play. Go run and be with love. I am watching over you and dancing with you. I am happy that you came to play, to make sand cakes on the Earth and sparkle with diamonds in your eyes. You are beautiful.

Now, that you are here on the Earth, focus on the light, the light shining within you around you in your heart and out from your eyes, the light your Daddy sees in you. The light that is God and you know is God, because you are a twinkle in the eye of God and the beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I love you little one. I brought you here to play and you will know that when you are one and nine and ninety. I hope you know that every day.

Amen.

From love to Love

Living on Purpose

Living On Purpose
*Madison Workshop Coming in May*

"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are." -e. e. cummings

Starting Monday, May 3rd, Atala Mitchell and Reverend Gene Ferrara will facilitate Living On Purpose, an experience of the self through discussion, meditation and interaction. Living on Purpose is a new group to accelerate your spiritual awareness and put you in touch with your inner sacred being.

Begin with a four-week session from May 3rd - May 24th, 5:30pm - 7pm, at Madison's Center for Conscious Living 849 E. Washington Ave. $38./4 weeks.

If you are looking for a comfortable place to talk about the experience of spiritual awakening and living a life of illumination, this is the group for you. The class will focus on creating sacred support and understanding, bringing forth your spiritual self, trust and addressing life with conscious spiritual intention.

Please check your inbox, more information is on the way in the next few weeks!

******

Polishing the temple

When writing, when working, when inscribing what I am, I am always fascinated by the way I look up and over my shoulder to see who is watching. It is as if I am looking for an angel or a family or a friend to be there. It is as if I am looking for a teacher or a student or a scribe or someone else to come into the room and talk with me. It is as if I am looking for someone else to join me and continue the conversation. I am constantly looking for communication, even if the communication is with me.

I have been asked, and have been asking myself for a long time, what is the purpose of my writing. I have been asking myself what is the purpose of my communication with you, including leading a workshop. I feel I need to get this right or even straight, navigated before I do it or say another word to you. My best way to communicate with you is to start. Not to think, not to act, but to write, to go to the destination and start dancing. Dancing with who you are in the temple and singing your heart back to who you are.

Once there was a person who I let scare me by asking me boldly, outright and in an accusatory tone if I was there to help her connect with her soul. I told her no, simply because she made is sound like a harmful thing to do and like I was out of line. Man, was I wrong - dead wrong. Since that time, I have come to realize that my answer should have been, “Yes, certainly, if you are ready, for your soul is the same as mine. We, all of us, every person, in fact, every flower and wind that blows is here constantly to connect everyone back to their own soul."

Living on Purpose will be about connecting to our own souls and listening to their guidance. Souls are the gateway to unity, forgiveness, the energy we call Love, Christ, Buddhahood, Source and God. If you are ready to dive deep and go up and in fact arrive right here in face of all you are, in its majesty and in fact in its boots - because what is enlightenment, but arriving back on Earth in the work boots of the living light of Heaven? Then, give yourself the gift of a workshop like Living on Purpose.

The instant we stop being afraid, we embrace all. Love dismantles fear and resistance. If you are ready to step into Love, Love is here and ready to take down all doors with you. During Living on Purpose, we will do it slow and we will do it fast. We will do it at the pace that is right for you - your heart, your body, mind and emotions - your soul is your guide. That is the purpose of this work, the entrance to the dance, the first step into Love.

Welcome to the dance of Living on Purpose.

Love,
Atala

The Spiritual Path

When we are ready to start walking a spiritual path,

a very quick way to begin or start over is to assume that we are already on it.

All of our lives, we have been breathing.

We may not be conscious of our inhalations and exhalations,

but they have been happening, constantly.

Likewise, all of our lives, we've been on a spiritual journey.

When we pay more attention to anything we consider spiritual:

soul, inner guidance, compassion, kindness,

meditation, patience, presence,

devotion, sacred time, rest,

wholeness

unity

we step more

presently

onto the spiritual path.

We take the next step,
we decide how rapidly and how often Love is present on Earth

by how rapidly and how often we answer
Love's constant call for our presence.

When we live this way,

the spiritual path doesn’t happen only in the moments

when we go on a spiritual retreat,

to a church meeting

or a meditation or a peaceful gathering of like-minded,

like-hearted people,

it happens every moment,

whenever we take a breath.

Once we learn to take a breath of divine Love,

we give Love the opportunity to be present,

to influence us,

all of us,

and guide us to greater spiritual Truth and Unity.

It may sound distant,

it may sound ephemeral,

but really it is solid and sound.

It is the foundation that puts the heart back into our walk on Earth,

for the air smells sweeter,

like you stepped into fields of lilacs

when you are in Love.

Love is the inspiration that

keeps us stepping on the path

we are already on.

And, that, in a breath,

is the spiritual path.

Love,

Atala

Say Thank You How To Love One Another Holy Part II

Ellen

Say Thank You.

Ellen taught me a powerful lesson. It is hard to put into words because it lives in each of my cells. I wish I could breathe it to you… that lesson is to say, “Thank You.”

Ellen is my dear friend and a spiritual teacher who teaches both with and without saying a word. She teaches with an inquisitive play of light gaze, a glorious silence, with a painting or with a spill of words that are like moonlight on your skin. She is a raiser, razer, razor – an array of light lifting you up, a tool to split the wheat from chaff and a delicate blade that cuts away debris that had been covering an orchid, and more than that a ray’s oar – a tool to steer us back into the sea of light. A voice and a visionary, but also a person who is willing to live here and be real, Ellen is invested in being a part of life, grateful for each day and every step with all of us.

One way she taught me to say “thank you” was showing me to look for and express the things I am grateful for in another person. Ellen didn’t tell me to do this or even suggest it, she told me how valuable it was for her to do it. Ellen writes letters telling people how grateful she is for what they’ve done and how important they are to her. She gives great thanks, not just for what people do, but genuinely for who they are. She looks deeply, way past the surface, into the details to make sure she sees how valuable each person is. She is vigilant about this; she wants to make sure that she sees the Good in each of us and, by her seeing it, she gives us the opportunity to see it as well.

Ellen’s gift of gratitude is one I love sharing with everyone, for it is an every day, every moment, spiritually, practical way to Love everyone. When I look at you deeply, with appreciation, I see the gifts of Heaven you are and the earthly talents you possess. I see how you incorporate those talents and Truth into your lives and I am immediately grateful and blessed, blessed to be with each and every one of you.

When I am grateful for and to you, I am immediately a better person. I work with you more fruitfully, Love more fully with you, laugh louder with you and do everything more exquisitely with you, because I see how Great you are. When I say, “thank you,” I’m grateful to be here with you, right now, because I know I am with Heaven when I am with you.

Ellen taught me that gratitude is not something we give when we have received something we like, but is a state we exist in, are free to give and are freed by giving. She taught me that gratitude is a way of life and that from gratitude it is an easy step up into happiness, peace and being in Love with everyone. Ellen has a happiness to her, a spring in her step, a spring like a fountain and a spring like roses coming up and like a four-year old smiling in the daisies. Ellen has a way of saying, “I’m grateful to you, I’m grateful for you, now let’s go play, I want to play with You.”

Here is an excerpt from one of Ellen’s books on God’s Love:

May I Say “Thank You”

All the heavens and earth bend toward you, giving you life and a shared experience. With this I bend toward you too, caressing the parameters of your life, breathing in a sense of gratitude for all you bring to this creation.

Without you I would not be complete, for you are my completion. Without you I would be without my beloved. And without you I would be but a thought, not a song.

Take this then, as a token of my gratitude. In all creation you are the harbinger of my salvation. Through you I express my presence. Because of you I become the notes of the song, the harmonized chord, the melody and the refrain.

Thank you, Ellen.

I Am grateful for you Every Day.