Tag Archives: self-realization

Today

Leave a reply

Start of a new day.
Have you given your thoughts space
to bring good to you?

This morning I woke up thinking about sunrises and sunsets – not how many I have enjoyed in life, mind you, but how many I have missed – followed by the “requisite regret”. There was quite a bit of negativity built into that first thought of the day. I quickly self-observed and adjusted accordingly, but in the stress of our modern day life, how often are we waking up with anything but thoughts of what to do, how little time we have to do it (time to watch the sun rise? Hah!), and all the problems associated with getting our ducks in a row and making ends meet.

I dipped into my Hart Haiku collection to write today’s post, and decided that “Today” was the perfect one. Have you – did you – give your mind time to formulate the correct thoughts to bring good to you today? Those first thoughts may be the most important work we do each and every day. They set the tone and our intention for our lives. Once we have developed the habit, it is no longer work to think positively. It simply becomes who we are. I don’t know about you, but I obviously still have some work to do in this area…

I’m wishing for you a wonderful day full of good thoughts, and hence, good things.  🙂

Today is from Hart Haiku Vol. 1.

Finding Flow

6 Replies

When we get in touch with our authentic selves and our purpose, we begin to flow more smoothly. Frustration is rooted in resistance, from listening to others who want to mold us into their idea of being.

When we flow, our angst and need for material things and all the incidental clutter begins to fall away. We discover that we are elegant just as we are. Then as the river does, we move around and through, in a state of grace, avoiding or smoothing the rough patches on our path.

When we embrace change (that which is unsettled and unstable), we also move towards new vistas. Growth does not occur within static stability. Be fluid and in flow with it, like the river.

“Come, submerge yourself within us, we who are the flowing stream.”   (Rumi)

© Susan L Hart 2023 | HartInspirations.com

Self Discovery

5 Replies

230509

If we didn’t have to spend so much time focusing on survival, would we spend more time on creative pursuits, and developing our own natural talents? Or is the question moot? Is technology slowly but surely reducing the human being to simply an observer of life?

The question is an important one, because the path we’re on may not be in the best interests of the growth of the human soul, and the real potential of the collective we call humanity.

What do you think?

“The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”
~ Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

Susan L Hart 2023 | HartInspirations.com

Scatter Some Sunshine

9 Replies

There is a song out there that epitomizes a life philosophy, which if we all embraced it, would make the world a phenomenally better place. Somewhere along the way, society’s mandate for winning at life became about beating the other guy to “the goods”. Success started to mean a bigger house and more TVs.

But this song, when it wafted from the radio when I was a kid, spoke to me even then of how life should be. Make Someone Happy was written by Jule Styne, Adolph Green and Betty Comden, and first performed December 26, 1960. This song has never gone out of style – read the list of 100+ performers who sang it over 31 years – because although admittedly romantic in nature, it also expresses a fundamental truth about life.

When we are of service to others, when we are busy making someone else happy, we become happy too. Service to others is a core philosophy that humanity is working on understanding and adopting as a collective, in order that we may shift to a higher level of vibration.

Look around you. What something can you do today for someone you know (or a stranger) that would contribute to that person’s happiness, your own happiness in the doing of it, and the bigger picture of the growth of humanity?

Let’s bring some old-fashioned values back into style.

“Make someone happy.
Make just one someone happy
And you will be happy too…”

A quote by Norman Vincent Peale, from his book The Power of Positive Thinking:

The way to happiness:
Keep your heart free from hate,
your mind from worry.
Live simply, expect little, give much.
Scatter sunshine, forget self, think of others.
Try this for a week, and you will be surprised.

Have a wonderful day. Please feel free to save my sunflower painting ecard and send it to whoever may need the message.  🙂

Susan L Hart 2023 | HartInspirations.com

eCard_BornToShine_Hart

Pieces of Me

Leave a reply

Who am I? Genetics, environment, and experience, they have all helped to shape me. I was born into this life with a touch of auburn in my hair from Dad, and long piano playing fingers from Mom.

But father, why did you not give me the flaming locks that run in your Scottish family? Why just a whisper of red for me? I have a fire inside that rages, and a call to blaze a path in this world. My Maori friend calls me “Fire”. Perhaps it is so my flame is evident only to those with eyes that see deeper?

And mother, why was I born with your hands and no musical talent? It felt cruel. It was a source of frustration to me that I failed at piano lessons. Perhaps it was so I could learn to see in myself what is, rather than what is not?

One summer afternoon, the girl I was lay on her bed daydreaming. I left my body and up I rose until I floated among the stars, tethered to Earth by a slender silver thread. I felt infinity for the first time, and I realized that I was so much more than they were telling me.

I am the artist in France, learning to express my soul on canvas. In this present life, I recall those lessons easily. Painting is like breathing to me. That other self walks in Monet’s garden, and I yearn to again. A photo of the Seine in the fog makes my heart ache with longing. It is a happy life.

I am the Japanese geisha in love with a powerful man. He loves me, but we cannot be together. Even now, pink cherry blossoms in spring make my heart both sing and weep, all at the same time. The lesson? I love and I am loved. In the end, the love is all that is important.

Sometimes when I walk along the sidewalk, I recognize a piece of myself in a stranger’s eyes. How can I say what it is exactly? It is fleeting, but I see it, and I feel it.

When I pass a beggar on the street, I attach a blessing to the coin I give. In my mind I say, “I know you, and I feel your pain. I have been where you are. It is a lesson you are learning, and it will all be okay.”

There is so much of me flooding in from the world, sometimes I feel overwhelmed by it. So I wash the dishes or sweep the floor, ordinary tasks that ground me in the here and now.

But I can never deny to myself, or to the world, that which I know to be true: I am stardust. I am Infinite. I am part of it All.

Susan L Hart 2023 | HartInspirations.com