Last night honey and I were sharing and I asked him what was the book he was reading. His response was “The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson.” He went on to read some of the passages that are having an impact on his life. One of the passages that he shared really hit home for me. Olson speaks about the fact that the things that impact our lives the most are the small choices in our lives. The things that are easy to do and yet also easy not to do.
I begin to think about the things I am choosing to do that are having the greatest impact on my life. Reading the book the “5 love languages by Chapman”, creating a workshop based on that work, and sharing it with my community at large. There is also meditation, asking my friends to become my prayer treatment (affirmative prayer) partners, becoming a vegetarian, and choosing to be in a loving relationship with my beloved every day.
I love that Olson states that these are things we do every day, and that if we chose not to it would not be the end of the world.. today, yet put them together and it very well would be the end of the world as we know it. Honey and I get asked all the time how do you have such a loving relationship with each other. I state clearly we both get up each day and choose if we want to be in this relationship or not. Each day I ask myself “Am I all in or do I need to go?” Making that choice each day for me means I am willing to take the extra steps needed to make this work; that it matters to me, and that I want the very best for us as whole. Can I choose to be half in for a day; you bet, and it makes it easier to do the next day and the next, and soon I find myself looking across the room and saying to my beloved “I don’t know you.”
Meditation is one of the things that is very easy to say I just don’t have the time for today, and the next day, and the next, you get the idea. What I am finding in my personal experience and why is it so very important to me is I notice the difference in myself when I mediate. I find the answers flow, and it reminds me that I am part of a bigger whole which holds all the intelligence there is. Yet if I don’t do it, my life won’t end today. However, the compound interest of not meditating over a period of time will have an impact in the opposite direction than continuing the practice I have established of daily meditation.
Treatment partners, this is one of the things that I have been doing the longest and wow what a change in my life. Like Olson states in his book, it was one of those things that I didn’t see any instant changes for a while as stated by Olsen. Yet, I committed to my treatment partner to be all in and that is what I did. I begin to realize after a year that my life was different. I was holding myself differently as well as my treatment partner. In holding them at their highest and best, I started doing the same for myself. Funny how that works. Today I have several treatment partners as I really believe in the way it changes lives and is one of those things I encourage the most at The Amor Spiritual Center.
Becoming a vegetarian was a personal choice about loving and honoring “myself.” I did it after checking in with my body and asking what it needed. I believe when we do that for ourselves we then can choose what is best for us each day. I find that honoring myself this way has shifted how I feel in as well as about my body temple. It really makes a difference for me.
Choosing to love myself each day is the beginning of this work, today I am “all in,” how about you?
I love you
Rev. Allen
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