Vulnerable

Vulnerable - Capable of Being Physically or Emotionally Wounded.

This is the definition that I found in looking up the word vulnerable. Yet I have over the last few days felt the gentle nudge which I know to be the Divine wanting me to blog about it. 

I love the Five Love Languages by Chapman. I speak on them all the time. I ask all of my friends and community members to take the test and communicate the answer to me. Someone from the outside looking in might see that as being open to vulnerability. If I tell someone how I want to be loved that makes me open to being wounded emotionally. In words I use often “I can hear that.”

My personal love language is quality time, it doesn’t mean I want you to spend endless amounts of time with me, it means I want our time together to matter. I want you to be open, honest, sharing, and vulnerable. Not that I may use it against you at some future time; but, so that I might love you in a way that truly matters to you. 

Love is one of those places I find we are so guarded and closed off like we are ready for battle or in fear for our lives. It is no wonder we don’t feel loved and appreciated. I spend a great deal of my time looking for ways to be as open, and revealing as I can. I have had people say in the past you are too revealing and too vulnerable. Here are some other words I use a great deal “Not my truth.”

Most of my life I spent hiding. Who I was, what I liked, what I wanted, how I felt, letting you know what I thought about the matter, and most of all from loving myself. Today I wish to live my life open; transparent is a word I love to use. I look at it like this, when I have shared openly and honestly my secrets and thoughts, I don’t see that as being vulnerable I see it as freedom. I do not have to remember what I have told you, or fear what you may know. It frees me up to do the thing I do best in life. LOVE: 

I find in loving myself and others that the people who surround me really are there only to love me. After all that is the law of attraction at work. With that thought in mind what do you think we surround ourselves with when we are guarded, closed off and our defenses at maximum? 

Today, I may be opening myself to hurt, yet I know that in doing so I also open myself up to being loved. It’s worth the risk.

I love you 
Rev. Allen 

What if for today I choose Love?

What would happen in my world today if every decision I made was based on love?  Can I imagine a world where every decision is made with love?  Can I imagine a world where choosing to love and knowing that my every thought and feeling is based on loving thoughts and sending loving energy out to the world?  Can I imagine not having fear about anything, not worrying about the outcome, or having no attachment to what anyone thinks about anything; just love?   

Will you try this with me today?  Let’s not care about how long it last or if we only get in two minutes before we think of something other than love.  Those two minutes will have shifted the world forever.  What if we add just one more minute to our loving thoughts each day? In 60 days, we would have an hour out of our day that all we thought about was love.  How cool will that be?

Each day I wake up and say thank you to Universal Love.  Some call it God, Buddha, Jesus, Allah... you get the picture.   After my thank you I repeat I love you over and over again.  I spend more of my day sending love to everyone and anyone in my life that I might rather send something else too.  Why?  Because I know that love changes everything, which really means love changes me.  How I look at it and how I see it.  When I really want something in my life to shift, I have found that love is the perfect place to start.  When I love, I am flexible and easy going like water.  Water sees each opportunity as a new adventure and a chance to see the world in a different way.  Who cares who is sending out hate in the world? As my mother always said; “If so and so jumped off the cliff, would you jump with them?”  

What matters to me today is finding my way to loving more each day. The rest of the stuff will take care of itself.  

Let’s see how many minutes we can make it today!  All is Well.

I love you, 

Rev. Allen 

"Numbing out"

In the last few weeks I have been present with Spirit around those places in my life where I like to “not feel” or as I like to refer to them as “numbing out”. I realized while writing Finding the Joy in Cancer the many times I have used this to avoid feeling what is coming up in my life, or feeling, period. 

For years I would say that I wanted to feel better and the truth of the matter is I was not feeling. So, what would feeling better look like, let alone feel like? From childhood when I didn’t want to feel the feelings of being hurt I would fill the void with food, sleep, or other things little boys like to do. 

This pattern is something I took with me throughout my life. As I got older and discovered alcohol and drugs, that was my primary way of not feeling anything at all. Most of the time I was in a blacked out state or so well lubricated that I didn’t feel anything at all. As memories and dreams from the past begin to rise from those secret hiding places within my body that I had kept hidden, I would drink and drug more. And if that didn’t work I would give myself away to sexual pleasure and fantasy. 

After I stopped drinking and drugging I would find new ways to numb. Spending, shopping, food, pornography, sex, work, causes - anything to keep myself so busy as not to feel what I was feeling. What I know today is when I shut the door to “bad” feelings I was shutting the door to “good” ones as well. It took years for me to begin to see a pattern of behavior. 

I would work 16 or 18 hours a day, or go out shopping. When I would find a way to get those in-check I would find myself 20 pounds heavier and ask “how in the world did this happen?” I would spend every day in the gym to get back in shape only to spend 8 to 10 hours in the clubs looking for companionship for the evening. 

I wanted to experience this thing called balance. I realized that balance is a constant state of awareness, and adjustment. When I have this behavior, in order to return to balance I need to self-adjust, like an internal guidance system. Balance required that I be in an awakened state of being, so that I can make the adjustments to my course of travel at any point needed. 

Today my life runs from a place of expression, of feelings, a state of consciousness. One that allows me to flow and adjust as needed. It allows me to look at each situation as an opportunity for expansion, growth, joy, love and excitement. Today I find words like good, bad, right, wrong, less, and more as a sign of adjustment needed. Once fully present in the here and now I find it is best to breathe and enjoy the feelings. All is well. 

I love you 
Rev. Allen 

Let There Be Peace On Earth and Let It Begin With Me!

As a Spiritual Leader a great many people have been talking with me about the Trayvon Martin case and asking how I feel about it.  Many of you know that I monitor what I take in where the news is concerned as it is my goal to live a conscious life.  With so many folks talking about the case and the call to arms I have thought these thoughts.  I see a great deal of conflict arising over this case and it reminds me a great deal of the Rodney King case in Los Angeles a few years back.  It reminds me that when conflict, contrast, and hatred, are concerned it is of the utmost importance that I am most conscious of what I am adding to the mix.  When I get up in arms and add more contrast, hatred, conflict am I adding to the resolution or am I adding more of the same making it larger and larger to the point of explosion?

I am reminded of the saying "You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew." - Albert Einstein. 

One thing that has been at the top of my consciousness is to send love to all parties in the Trayvon Martin case.  I know that in order to bring about resolution, there must be a change in the consciousness that brought it about.  It reminds me of the talk last week at Amor Spiritual Center when I spoke of having a clogged sink.  If I were to keep adding the same things down the drain that caused to it to be clogged expecting different results, that would only prove to be a true definition of insanity.  Yet if I pour love into the situation and keep adding it, I know from experience that it will indeed go into the cracks and crevasses and begin to do its mighty work.  There may be times when it looks as if it is not working yet I know the truth about love and how it works.  Keep pouring love on it, and watch how it dissolved the very substance that was causing the blockage to begin with.  

I also ask myself what am I doing in my own city and community to shift crimes of any kind.  Am I involved in my neighborhood doing safety walks? Am I making a difference where I live?  Am I walking with the communities in Rainer Beach after the shootings that have happened in our communities here in Seattle?  Am I pouring love on violence and gang activity here in my own community?  I know that fear is the key in any type of violence, fear of not enough, fear of difference, fear of losing what I have, fear of my neighbor, and I only add to that when I look on it as something outside of myself.  I have to look at the areas in my life and ask: where do I look on my neighbors in fear and create separation; yet stating in my beliefs that I believe there to be only one life, one community, one love.  Am I living what I teach and am I walking the walk?

I will never be able to know or understand what the Martin family is going through, yet I know that the one thing I can do for them is send them love, peace, and resolution.  I know that grieving is a difficult emotion, and I know that when I look outside myself and blame others, I am forever tied to that space and time for the remainder of my existence .  I do not wish that for the Martin family.  I hold for them a place of peace; the peace that passes all understanding.  I hold for them love where they feel surrounded with love and goodness and they know they will make it through this period in their lives and they remember Trayvon for the wonderful man he was and all the joy he brought into the world.  That will never be erased no matter what.  

This calls me to make a difference in the young men and women's lives in my community and teach love, forgiveness, compassion, and understanding.  I want to be remembered as someone who made a difference in the world like Dr. Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, and Gandhi.  They understood and taught that in order to change I must be willing to stand somewhere differently from where I am currently standing.  I must be willing to give something other than I have been currently giving in order for the situation in my current life to shift.  Am I willing to be that change, live that change?  The resolution is not out there somewhere; it is right here within me!  What do I choose to send out in the world today: faith, hope, love, or more of the same?

And the greatest of these is love. 

I bless you Trayvon Martin who you are made a Difference in the world. 

Namaste 

Rev. Allen Mosley

Spiritual Leader 

Amor Spiritual Center.

"Does How I Love Myself On The Inside Show On The Outside?"

This morning as I sit here thinking about life and its many wonderful elements one raises to the top.  

"Does how I love myself on the inside show on the outside?"

I love this quiet time I have been afforded with Spirit as I my body temple recovers from hernia surgery.  I am continually amazed at how our bodies are our divine guidance system.  I realized in the process of having the procedure 8 days ago that spreading love is my favorite gift.  I do it in many ways, sometimes with great humor about what life is revealing to me at the time. On the day of the procedure, as always, I awoke to be greeted with love by my beloved who is one of the greatest gifts I have allowed into my life yet to date.  I arrived at the hospital to be greeted by staff who were happy, pleasant, kind, and in great spirits. I was then greeting by some of the AMOR community to treat with me (Affirmative Prayer) and hold consciousness around the procedure and the resolution in my life. Then into having the most wonderful exchange with the nurses and attendants (who remember me from a procedure a few weeks before, and the times I have been there to support others in theirs) who stopped by to say hello and wish me well.  To then go in to the operating room to be greeted by the most wonderful faces of the Divine and to be treated with kindness.  And then before I drifted to sleep I reminded them to have fun and play well each other.  They all responded with a joyous we will, rest well and we will see you soon.  Today I realize that the last few years have been an opportunity to look at life from a different point of view.  Let's just say I have had a few procedures over the last 24 months, yet my life is filled with joy, love, kindness, and I am happy to be living my life.  That being said... I sit here this morning thinking about the times I have, and still do look at myself from the outside in judging myself for the "way I look."  Over the last 9 months I have allowed myself to be protected by some extra pounds, and I stand judging who I am based on this outside version of myself.  It was this morning as I sat here and allowed the question to rise that I begin to realize something very magical.  

I LOVE who I am, I love the way I love myself and I recognize that to be the greatest gift I have ever allowed into my life.  I love the way I love others, I love the way I live a transparent life, I love the way I stand with others in their highest and best.  I love the way I am there for others, and reminding them of the truth I know for them, that they are amazing and they are living a great lives.  I love the way I allow Spirit to speak through me when I give talks, and the way I am willing to ask the questions that Spirit gives me.  I love who I am today and that I know I am expanding love each and every day. I love that I know today there is not there, there and that I will never get it all done.  I love that every day I wake up with a desire to love myself, and my honey in new and exciting ways.  I love that I want to make a difference in the world, and that I want to leave my love mark on the world.  I love that I want to be remember as a person of LOVE.  

Today is a wonderful happy day.  I realize today that the way I love myself on the inside is very much showing on the outside.  I also realize that loving myself is a full time job and just like with my honey I get to find new ways to love myself more deeply every day.  Today I celebrate the many ways I love myself, for I know it allows me the pleasure to love others from a source of love.  

I love you 

Rev. Allen Mosley

"The small choices"

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 

The Slight Edge

Jeff Olson

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Space the Final Frontier, What Is It?

What is space? Last night my honey and I watched a PBS special on space and the 
question was raised that if you took every atom out of it what would it be?  I 
loved the fact that many thought it to be nothingness.  I liked even more that 
the scientist that were looking into it stated they were still discovering what 
space is. They went on to say that they were unable to at this moment say what 
it is; but that is was indeed something.  "SOMETHING" I love that word.  I have 
so often used it to describe that very thing that I couldn't understand.  
Something told me to take that path, something didn't' feel right about the 
process so I chose not to do it.  What is the something of life?

In the PBS program last night space was the thing that holds all things, yet 
gives them freedom to move and expand.  Space moves, ripples, expands, bends, 
and takes on the shape of that which is put into it.  Let's think about this for 
a moment; space is the substance that holds all things, and moves, and bends 
with us as we expand and grow.  Sounds like The Divine to me. Space is another 
word for Spirit, God, Allah, Ganesha, Buddha, Jesus, mother nature..etc.  We all 
have our own understanding and word we use to describe that space we can't 
describe.

I love the fact that space is the holder of all things.  I would even push the 
envelope one step further to ask if our knowingness of the planets out there was 
not the very thing that created and call them into manifestation.  When I think 
about the fact that "Space" holds the universe together each and everyday and 
allows it to move and have its very being with ease and grace, then how simple 
must it be for "space" to hold what I am asking for and make it manifest as 
well.  Some may ask why I would replace God with space?  I would say I did not I 
just expanded my understanding of what I know the Divine to be.  With out end, 
and that is indeed my life now.

I love you
Rev. Allen

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