Finding your good-feeling focus

If my recent unveiling of the kale plant doesn’t indicate the power of love, I don’t know what is! As many of you read last week, I removed the winter “frost cloth” (a protective covering) to find a 2 1/2 ft tall kale plant with leaves growing from the leaves. Needless to say, I was cooking kale all week! I made a version of Indian Kitchari with many veggies, kale included. I made pesto out of the kale leaves, blanched the stems to soften them, and threw them into the pesto along with my parsley stems. After adding some garlic, lemon juice, parmesan, walnuts, and olive oil, I had crazy green pesto, which turned out to be delicious! I even tried “pickled kale stems,” which are currently marinating in the brine! We shall see how that experiment works.

The kale abundance stemmed (pun intended!) from a lot of love I gave a scrawny little plant that barely survived our hot summer when I tucked him under his protective tent in late Autumn.

Likewise, I love my lemon tree, and she loves me right back. I‘ve got people all over the country who love these lemons, and I’m still eating them. I’m going to experiment with making some lemon salad dressing tonight, then maybe some microwave lemon curd… then God knows what. Lemon soda? Today, I discovered what looked like weeds is actually an abundance of baby broccoli plants that came from a plant that got too hot to fruit, so it went to seed last year. I forgot to take it out, and it made babies, much to my delight. Nothing in my garden is orderly, yet the plants all get along and do their own thing. I love it.

Vegetables and fruit hardly seem important compared to what is happening in our world or my own country right now. I know the world is stirred up, to say the least. But I also know that the positive focus on what gives me joy also puts a loving ripple in the pond.

As the angels constantly remind me, fighting ignorance and focusing on ignorance attracts the very thing I do not want in my life! So better to focus on the abundance of vegetables, the kind people in the world, the folks doing good, and my creative work. As I work in the tiny garden, basking in veggie bliss, my mind wanders to a world where we live more in harmony with nature and one another in a peaceful flow. As I tune into this reality, I empower it. I receive guidance on how to become a part of it here and now.

I may not change the world, but I do light up my own community in the simplest of ways, from sharing love with postal folks who got all happy when I made them lemon meringue pie to inspiring a YouTuber who has inspired me by sending her a fun box of supplies from the US, to sharing my crops with neighbors who lovingly help me when I’m in need. These are small “things” in the physical world, but the joy of pure love can ripple outward and affect lives in ways we cannot see on this earth.

I have had the privilege of connecting with many of you on this list over the years. I hope that the love I put into this ripples into your heart and helps your life, which in turn ripples outward. This is a labor of love. It does take hours a week, but I feel good doing it, and I know that good comes to me from these good feelings. Good connections. A better world. I do what I can.

So, never tell yourself that what you do is too small to impact your own life or the lives around you. The action itself may not be such a big deal, but if done with love, you will never know the ripples you put in the human pond. You can change or even save a life with a single act of kindness. Your random act of kindness might give one person faith in humanity. Your small donation might feed a person who otherwise would not eat or buy a bandage for someone who would otherwise die of infection. You never know the good you do, even in sharing seemingly small acts of love.

And as you do things with love and focus on the good, your feelings tell you exactly where your life is aiming. When I get upset, I have a temporary “venting session,” then get over it and move back to love to avoid creating a negative mess. When I get said, I have a good cry, hug myself, and move on so as not to find other things to depress myself. When I get frustrated, I let it out in private, then sit quietly and think about how loved we all are, and the solution comes.

We have the capacity to feel where we’re heading and, thank God, the time to orrect our course if we do not like the way it feels 🙂

Here are a few pointers to help discern where you’re heading and to course-correct when necessary.

1.  When you think about what you want, notice how you feel

If you think about something you want and feel joyous anticipation, you are dialed right into what you want. By virtue of vibrational law, it will come. You’ll be inspired when the time comes to act. You’ll enjoy the journey right up to receiving what you want. Your good feelings tell you that you’re headed for a good-feeling reality.

When you think of what you want and feel bad, that means you don’t believe you can have it, and of course, that means you are connected with a reality where you won’t have it unless you can shift your focus. This is why people who cry about loneliness never seem to find the perfect partner and people who say they always get sick do, and why if you mistrust people rather than trusting yourself, you’ll attract people to mistrust. When your focus is based on an unpleasant feeling past or present, you feel the same as you do now and get more of the same.

The way to course-correct if you’re doing this is to start looking for things, even unrelated to your goal, to feel good about. Make it a game. I call it “Flip my Focus.” The minute I start feeling bad, I look for something to appreciate and get silly appreciating it till I feel better. I do this constantly, and it has become a habit to look for things to appreciate and feel good about.

2. Make a list of your favorite things

Many of you have heard the song “My Favorite Things” in the classic movie “The Sound of Music.” The young lady singing talks about how she thinks of her favorite things when life is frightening or unpleasant, and then she feels better. Whether the songwriter knew it or not, they were tapped into vibrational law! It is a good practice to have a running list, even if only mental, of your favorite things that you can read when you are down to help pick yourself up once again.

The things on your list don’t have to be big. They just have to be thoughts that feel good. Here are a few on my list:

friends and family and all of you
the taste and warmth of chai or rooibos or green or ginger or mint tea
the scent of morning coffee
the smell of fresh air after the rain
watching the plants grow
feeling the morning sun on my face
the moist grass beneath my feet
doing anything creative
juicing lemons
petting dogs
listening to birds sing
stretching
doing yoga
listening to beautiful music
running cool water over my hands
eating my homemade salsa… by the bucket!
smelling pine trees
feeling the breeze
etc.

3. Don’t try to like the things you don’t like

The angels have said this many times, “Bad food will not taste good. Bad behaviors will never feel good.” Don’t try to falsely like the things you don’t. Don’t focus on them trying to justify them. Don’t spend hours trying to figure out the lessons if they are not obvious.

Focus on something that feels better. It’s not cheating 🙂

This was a revelation to me! I used to think the angels wanted me to love everything in the human sense, but they just wanted me to love the light that lives within all and, for the sake of my own soul, to focus on things, people, and situations where the light is closer to the surface and easier to see.

We can ultimately love the light within anyone or anything, no matter how deeply buried it is. I can see that beneath a person who is hateful to me, there is a child who didn’t get their way with me—a child wounded in childhood and in need of compassion. I can offer compassion, but I choose not to focus on the unloving behavior. I can see the politicians hollering and fighting and witness the little kids within that are so passionate about whatever they believe, and so desperately wanting attention and

acknowledgment. I can have compassion for the passion, pain, and angst of many in the world and yet remove my focus from their fight so as to empower the positive human values that we all want to see in our world. I’ll leave the details about how those values come about to the Creator. I trust that I’ll be guided to live and share these basic human values in ways that make a difference right here and now. I don’t want to focus on the fight and attract a fight. I want to focus on the values and contribute to the embodiment of those values in our world.

As I focus on what is better feeling, I create a better feeling now and a better future later, not only for myself but for all those who can benefit from my life as well. As we grant ourselves a softer focus on what is more easily lovable, we become naturally more loving and tolerant of all in this big world of contrast.

It is an interesting thing to live straddling two paradigms of reality. I love the physical world with all its sensory delights. I also love knowing that when I accidentally create something unwanted, I can correct my focus and bring myself back to a better reality… one with a (literal) garden of earthy and spiritual delights!