bE-iNg hUmAn . . .

Dear FunFreePeeps;

I have been writing for the past few days about embracing our human-ness (our fate, according to Guru Singh) while keeping our hearts open to our soul-purpose (our destiny, according to Guru Singh). I have to admit, sometimes it's tough for me to be vulnerable, to feel my emotions and share them, and to embrace what it means to be human. I try to operate from a place of LOVE & CONNECTION rather than FEAR & PROTECTION, but often I find myself shrinking from connection and inhabiting my protective shell when I feel hurt or sad. It's only human to go into fight, fright, or flight mode. One of my personal human challenges is to try to remain open in my heart even when I feel like shrinking away and disappearing into a tiny insignificant dot.

Can you relate? 

For the next 10 days I'm going to re-feature The 10 Rules For Being Human by Cherie Carter-Scott--focusing on one each day. After all, we are first and foremost . . . HUMAN!

So, today, we'll look the BIG PICTURE, and then, I'll write about one rule each day (in the order that she has them, 'cuz I have to follow the rules, right?!)

Here is an overview: Pretty cool stuff . . .

***********************************************************************************

The Ten Rules For Being Human

by Cherie Carter-Scott

Rule One - You will receive a body.
You may love it or hate it, but it will be yours for the duration of your life on Earth.

Rule Two - You will be presented with lessons.
You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called "life". Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or hate them, but you have designed them as part of your curriculum.

Rule Three - There are no mistakes, only lessons.
Growth is a process of experimentation, a series of trials, errors and occasional victories. The failed experiments are as much as a part of the process as the experiments that work.

Rule Four - The lesson is repeated until learned.
Lessons will be repeated to you in various forms until you have learned them. When you have learned them, you can go on to the next lesson. 

Rule Five - Learning does not end.
There is no part of life that does not contain lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

Rule Six - "There" is no better than "here".
When your "there" has become "here" you will simply obtain another "there" that will look better to you than your present "here".

Rule Seven - Others are only mirrors of you.
You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.

Rule Eight - What you make of your life is up to you.
You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you.

Rule Nine - Your answers lie inside of you.
All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

Rule Ten - You will forget all this at birth.
You can remember it if you want by unraveling the double helix of inner-knowing.

**********************************************************

I am so excited to revisit these ten guidelines for life; we'll begin tomorrow with the first . . .
 

heartLOVE!

Dana

hApPy (re)bIrThDaY! . . . every (daNg) dAy!

HaPPy bIrThdAy!

09.23.65.

50 years ago, I wAs BorN!

deAr fun & frEE pEePles--

yAy! 2-day is my (re)biRtHdAy! . . . and, you know what? I am wondering why I don't think of every single day as my (re)birthday!

Do you remember when we were little, and we spent a lot of time thinking about the celebration of our birthday . . . who we would invite, what we would do, what would be in the treat bags, and we would make a list of presents we wanted and really, what I loved sOSosoSosOs much, was that I would be treated so special and I would look forward to having a day when I was OFF THE HOOK, and I could just BE? and people would leave me BE!

I wonder what it would BE like if I act like every DAY is my BIRTH-DAy? I get to start over every day?

Think about it, yo. The possibility is amazing!

I have to go eat a yummy pink cupcake!
Happy birthday to me!

Love, 
mE

we R frEE . . .

noTice the coNNection to my SymBol!

gReEtInGs fun & free people!

. . . a note about the whole name thing, specifically about the word free today. The word free has so many different meanings, doesn't it? . . .

• free to choose
• free to speak
• free to be YOU
• free to express yourself
• free to create
• free to choose your own path
• free from living from the OUT:side IN
• free from regret
• free from the past

Free basically means, unattached from expectations--like, what others think of us (but, like, not to mean you can just do whatever you want, like be cruel or do anything against the law...)

Sometimes, freedom means freely forGIVING people who have hurt us (whether they meant to or not, cuz we can never really know the TRUTH about that; sometimes it's stuff we make up in our head, in our STORIES).

It also means forgiving YOUrs(elf) (like, as in, your mean inner (s)Elf) . . .

When we carry resentment, it actually hurts US (not the person we are mad at . . .). I heard once that holding resentment is like holding a piece of really hot burning coal . . . and expecting the person we are mad at to get burned! Kind of crazy, but true! 

Here is an awesomely inspired video by 

SoulPancake

of OprahWinfreyNetwork

about ForGIVEness, letting go, and

Popping Your Problems:

Think about it like this: 

re-sent-ment is like getting 

                     crappy energy 

                               re-sent (back to) me(nt). 

So LET IT GO! 

You'll feel much lighter (money back, guaranteed!)

More later about some ways to do this . . .

Breathe in the light and love!

;) dana

mOOn-liSciOus!

Hey All! Got New Moon?!

(I know I've blogged this before, but . . .)--When I was a kid, one hot summer day, I was lying in the sun on a towel in my backyard and it was so, so hot! It was a bit before noon, and I had my iced tea, my journal, and my transistor radio (you can Google that--it's old school!). I looked up in the sky, and to my right, I saw the bright, beautiful, radiant sun! It was scorching hot, full of energy, and I could literally see the beams reaching down to our beautiful Earth. I glanced across the sky to my left, and I saw the faint outline of the moon. The mOOn! And I was like,

"OMG!

I can see the

sUn

and the

mOOn

at the same time!" 

I felt a deep connection with the cycles of nature, the sun, the moon, the Earth--ALL OF IT. It was like an epiphany (which means, according to dictionary.com): a sudden, intuitive perception of, or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.

Here's what I understood in a deep and timeless manner:

Everything

is

connected.

Absolutely

everything.

So, tonight marks the Scorpio new moon, and I do rituals and special prayers and intentions around the cycles of the moon. So, when the moon is new and it waxes (gradually gets larger . . .) we are supposed to call in new attitudes, ideas, relationships, behaviors (fill-in-the-blank) that will serve our highest good! 

For this moon cycle, I intentionally bring in: taking care of me (Dana). . . . Here's a site that I subscribe to each month called MoonCircles:

MoonCircles

Happy new moon! It's so amazing & magical & full of possibilities!

So MuCH LoVe!

;) dana

lOvE oTherS! tHey R whErE theY R!

Hey funfreeMe LoVe(ly) PpS!

So if we want others to accept us for all of our crap and hUmOn-ness (not a word, but oh well . . . ) that means that we should pay it forward and allow everyone to be free to be (the best version of) themselves, and not necessarily what WE want them to be. Which means, a couple of different things:

• we can't expect others to change for us
• we can (maybe) accept others for who they are (even if we don't care for them or them personally)

So, maybe--- we can trust that everyone and everything is exactly as it should be...(including ourselves, which is kind of hard to believe, especially when things get tough and we feel like we and others totally suck the big one!).

In m y blog from last month, I was writing that sunflowers and roses are meant to be sunflowers and roses---they aren't supposed to be anything else.

...which leads me to the question: Why do we sometimes think people should be anything different than who they are?

...which takes me back to TrUsT in something biGGer and GREATER than what we know... (and trust is hard,...cuz alot of times, we only believe in what we can see, touch, smell, taste, etc...).

HOW CAN WE choose to LOVE OTHERS WHEN THEY DO HORRIBLE, ROTTEN THINGS? I don't really have a good answer to that, actually... I will defer to my mentor to speak to that...

I remember the shootings surrounding the BatMan movie a couple of years back-- it left me with that question. How can I choose love in the face of hatred and brokenness, death and killing?

Here are what a couple of my mentors say:

It's hard for me to imagine the broken-ness that would cause such a tragedy. 

I love you! & trust, y'all!

:) dana