Friday, March 22, 2013

Harmony Together

I am loved, cherished, and adored today because of my beautiful expression.

I move in a harmonious manner.

I have all I need at all times.

I am a benefit to everyone who comes in contact with me.

I see them as unlimited.

I know that whatever they need comes to them.

I know that they have infinite resources within.

I know that because it is what I am learning about myself.

We live in a harmonious world together.


© 2013 Kathryn Hardage
www.InspiredPractices.com

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Protect her, Earn Her Trust

Where is the calm?  I asked myself.

Where is the calm in my stomach?

I listened and felt a deep calm

Stretching back for 10,000 years.


Since the beginning of civilization

A mother holding and comforting

Her girl child, whispering

“You’re safe, here in my arms.”


A history back to our first ancestors

Keeping us safe, we little girls.

Teaching us gathering herbs and cooking

Ways to raise our families.


Protecting us with their hunting skills

Men who knew to care and nurture

Their families and to live as a tribe

To create a rich community,


Valuing those who provide for them

Courting and gifting and holding high

Their most precious of all relationships

The ones who give, supported by love.


Without the skills to create desire

A man lives lonely and weak.

Forcing what would have been his

Through love, he is lowly and despicable.


Learn to value what you most desire

Cultivate your skills and make yourself

One whom everyone admires.

Draw to you your heart’s love.


Teach your sons, your men friends, all

How to acquire the skills of nurturing.

Valuing that which you most desire

Will bring her, willing and generous.


Forcing what would have been yours through love

Breaks what could have been enduring.

Value her gender, make her pathway safe.

Let her give you her gifts when you have earned her trust.


© 2013 Kathryn Hardage
www.InspiredPractices.com

Monday, March 18, 2013

New and Lasting Good

What’s good is good, what’s bad is finished.

When you keep pouring in more and more good, the bad is diluted more and more until it really has no lasting effect.

I am amazed to be able to write this, but it is true.

Since May of 2000, when I discovered the incest that had been the hidden “driver” in my life, it has taken until now, the spring of 2013, to recognize the effect of all the good stuff that I have been pouring in since then.

I am to the point that I simply don’t care about all the long-term negative things that resulted from that long-term trauma of long ago.

What I am able to care about now is all the light and good and positive experiences I have been able to attract since then.

What I am able to care about is the effect of my discovery, of how to bring more good into my life, on the people around me who were also struggling with the long-term effects of early trauma in their lives.

I think that is a pretty good return on my efforts.

It is certainly worth the deep study and desperate craving for another direction.

I have heard of this happening to other people, but truly it is an amazing thing.

I can see where the old practices which were driving my life would have taken me.

And I got off that track.

I have a new practice and it is having very good results.


© 2013 Kathryn Hardage
www.InspiredPractices.com

Thursday, March 14, 2013

A Path and A Viewpoint

Apparently, I am going on a path that is completely different from any of my children, or either of my parents, or grandparents, or any relatives that I am aware of.

I know that everything I have received from any of them or learned from anyone else has guided me to where I am now.

I guess I just didn’t realize how individual “individual” really is.

I know that my path reflects my viewpoint from all the things that have happened to me.

I know that everyone else’s path reflects the viewpoint from all the things that have happened to them.

I remember watching a documentary about children who were left on the street to take care of themselves.

A man had started a home for them, but was very careful about the children he recruited.

As a former child of the street himself, he knew that there were as many different viewpoints there as there were children.

He was careful only to bring into his particular project, those children who were not angry or bitter.

Even though they had every right to be angry and bitter, some of them had managed not to follow that path.

Those were the children he felt he could help most effectively because they had managed to create a different viewpoint for themselves despite their experiences and surroundings.

I am learning to create a different viewpoint for myself despite my experiences and surroundings (which were certainly much less harsh than the children in this documentary experienced).

I also value the people and the experiences that lifted me up and helped me along my path.

I forgive myself and everyone in my past.

We all dealt with things the best we could at the time with the resources we had.

Who knows what put us where we were at those times in the past?

I am innocent.

So are they.


© 2013 Kathryn Hardage
www.InspiredPractices.com

Heaviness Sits on the Soul

Sometimes heaviness sits on the soul.

There is an unresolved, long-term problem.

Efforts are made, but no solution presents itself.

I work around the problem.

I cajole myself.

I endure.

I distract myself.

It is a heavy load.

I cannot move it.

Finally, I talk my problem out and I am given a suggestion.

The thought of it is already a relief.

I implement the suggestion.

And suddenly, everything is easy.

The problem, although still unresolved, is no longer a block.

There is a way to work with it.

The heaviness is relieved.

Everything else is easy.

I am grateful.


© 2013 Kathryn Hardage
www.InspirePractices.com

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Do One Thing Gently With Gratitude

That is the answer I received when I asked myself how I could keep up with everything that is going on, projects, cleaning house, cooking, developing products, etc.

I am grateful for this message and direction because I had already tried lists, panic, despair and pressure motivations, and they weren’t working.

I like this gentle answer.

It is easy to go from one thing to the next, gently and with gratitude.

Sometimes, I will put myself under a deadline, because that is the only way I can see to get something done.

But my only deadline is working with love for myself.

Without that love, what is the point in doing anything?

With each project originating from love, it is a pleasure to get it done.

With each cleaning step originating from love and being carried out in love, it is possible to get it done.

With every activity originating from love and being carried out in love, it is easy to do.

There is no friction, no anxiety, no pressure, no guilt, no shame.

There is just love.

Moving from one activity to the next gently, with gratitude and in love.


© 2013 Kathryn Hardage
www.InspiredPratices.com

Monday, March 4, 2013

Inward and Onward

Now, when I feel pressured by someone else’s well-meaning opinion, I know it is based on their experiences.

Before, I used to think I had to comply because of their “position” or forcefulness or their conviction that they were right about my life.

During a visit to an Al-Anon meeting, I found myself reflecting on the fact that I had not given my children as much freedom as I could have because, apparently, I was not ready to trust the fact that they were getting guidance from God the same as I was.

I find that same reflection validated in feeling/listening to someone else’s opinion of my life.

They are not trusting me to the path that is being given to me to follow.

But, I am learning to trust me to that path, even though it is different.

I am learning to feel refreshed and invigorated as the creative juices flow from many sources within me.

When my creativity was limited and redirected by whatever assignment, or institution, or opinion in the past, I would sigh inwardly, make the temporary adjustment to placate the outside observer, and restrain myself.

No more.

The ideas flowing from within have the validation that they exist.

For themselves.

For me.

For anyone who can truly see them.

Not for correction for drift away from...where?

The only standards that are valid are from the infinite creative source within.

I have yet to see it run dry.

It has its own innocence, its own simplicity or complexity, whatever the inward occasion demands.

It is fulfilled simply by being.

Those who need to see it, can, and those who don’t need to, simply cannot.

Those who love it, will find more and more and more of it.

Those who don’t, never were meant to.

I have yet to turn away from it.

I will not delay.


© 2013 Kathryn Hardage
www.InspiredPractices.com