2012 Affirmations - faith builders for our reluctant minds - # 1 finding solutions by staying open

I just re-started A Course in Miracles - some of you may be familiar with it. I took this course a few years ago, but like so much else in my life, it went unfinished, so I decided to start again from the beginning.

We also have some family drama which I have not really talked about on here. Some of you may have seen the video or heard the story about a homeless man being beaten up and the kids filming it and proudly putting his beating on youtube. It was all over the internet and television just before Christmas.

We even woke up one morning to see Anderson Cooper talking about it.

The man in the video is my husband's brother. He has been mentally ill, unmedicated, alcoholic, in and out of jail and homeless for decades. We had not seen him in many years.

My husband and I brought him to a rehab center in Pennsylvania on Christmas Eve for a 21 day program - he is being released on Saturday and at this point we have no idea what we will be doing when we pick him up. It is a stressful, crazy time.

Probably part of the reason that little blue book showed up in my life again.

So, I am starting my 2012 affirmations by affirming that I create wonderful solutions by being open to new ideas.

I focus on solutions instead of problems - I choose to see every problem as an opportunity.

Affirmations are a wonderful way to speak abundance into our lives. They are the faith builders (and I am not talking religion here) that encourage our hearts and coax our reluctant minds of the truths that are larger than the life we have experienced in the past.

So rather than focus on the "problem" which keeps us tangled in the energy of "problem"

(which might work if the problem is small and easy to fix, but this focus just seems to make big problems even bigger)

we focus our attention on opening our hearts and minds to the possibility that something or someone can bring about solutions that are greater than anything we can imagine when we are mired in the problem. We are not here to force solutions - but to trust enough to let them unfold naturally.

Trust ... letting things unfold unforced - these are not things that come naturally to me - but I am trying them on for now - the side effects are a little scary at the moment.

(and I don't usually take any medication with side effects - unless they include rapid weight-loss)

* 99 problem print by sweet perversion

... well ... cowboys are pretty cool though ...

Vines grow towards light by elongating their stems and attaching themselves to whatever support is available.

I once got a stubborn patch of ivy in our backyard to grow exactly where I wanted it to grow by trimming branches of an overhanging tree to allow sunlight into just the right area and adding an old fence post.

For a short period of time I blew my own mind with my sense of power over this wayward patch

(kind of like the first time you trick your kids into doing something you want them to do by convincing them you do not want them to do it)

- but soon began to look closer at the un-naturalness (and yes, this is totally a word - if you need to use it in your next game of bananagrams, go ahead - just be sure to offer up this post and not an actual dictionary as proof of its wordiness) of what I had created and think ... hmmm ... maybe there is something to be said for the beauty of things that grow organically.

I am thinking the same way about our businesses lately.

Last year I set out to get a certain specific percentage of my business income from wholesale selling and increase sales by X dollars.

Well ... I did increase sales by X dollars (although maybe I should say x dollars - ha!) and this increase did come through wholesale selling -

although not in the traditional wholesale structure of "store places large order which makes deep discounts to store possible", but more of a "store places one order at a time which I make and ship to buyer one at a time and store still gets deep discount kind of wholesale selling" ... sigh

Of course, the bottom line is that I got what I set out to get but just not in the way I set out to get it. So the movement, which I tried to force into a particular direction, grew in a different direction which although unintended was maybe a more natural direction ... for me ... for now.

More proof that our inner state of being and our outer success is irrevocably connected - the reason we set goals at all is because of who we become as we’re reaching them ... whether we do or not. If we do, it is just the beginning of another journey; if we don't, it is just the start of another journey ... there is no end zone in crafty, maker land - it is all process so we had better be loving it.

(which I am ... most ... of the time)

My metaphyscal friend, who is all about setting intentions containing the word "effortless" as in "good things flow to me effortlessly", said that maybe I have some inner work to do to truly believe that things should be easier - that I likely have deep-seated beliefs in the fact that money comes through hard work ...

Of course I really do believe that money comes from hard work and from setting the right intentions and from walking through those open doors and from elbowing our way into those doors that are only slightly ajar and from bulldozing our way through the closed doors ... but only sometimes ... because sometimes the bulldozing gets us in, but like my wayward ivy, doesn't really get us where we need to be.

* mama don't let your babies ... print by KZukowski

the gift of no-gifts or my eyes have been opened to the need for a little romantic something with a bow on it this time of year

(whisper typing while hubby sleeps)

If I want a romantic gift from hubs I have to

1. find it
2. buy it
3. give him the receipt
4. be reimbursed by him from our joint checking account

(this reimbursement often takes the form of a check signed by me and written to our credit card company)

this usually doesn't bother me, but lately I am wondering if I should be requiring a little more from him ...

I am not talking diamond earrings here, but something maybe a little bit efforty.

To be fair, he did make us pancakes on Christmas morning

of course his family called within exactly the 3.7 minutes it took for him to do this and I heard him saying that he was "making breakfast" .. which of course he was .. but he said it very matter-of-factly as if to imply that he does this making breakfast thing frequently ... which he does if you consider frequently something done along the same time frame as replacing your muffler - has anyone ever replaced one of those things anyway - other than a run over your neighbor's mailbox type of situation - not that this has ever happened to me, well at least not more than once ...

and this year we had agreed to the no-gift Christmas due to our bathroom/kitchen renovation costs but I still kind of expected a little something and thought this no-gift agreement was going to be a wee bit flexible and there would still be something with my name on it under the tree.

(there wasn't, well except for all the packages to hubs where my name followed the word FROM)

I know I do not have the right to be pissed about this since I signed the no-gift agreement, although by signed I mean nodded when hubs suggested this while I was semi-conscious after a day spent inhaling flux and E6000.

It kind of seemed like a good idea at the time.

I thought because I am not a romantic, mushy kind of girl that this would be ok with me. It wasn't. When I brought up to hubby that I was bothered he said to just go out and buy myself something like I usually do, but now this entire find it, buy it, reimburse it thing is just not going to cut it anymore.

So, I have discovered the real gift of the no-gift agreement is to find out that I really do need gifts and I will be cancelling the no-gift agreement before my birthday which is in 4 weeks and 4 days (not that I am counting or anything) or paramedics may need to be called to identify hub's body.

(he is now awake - despite my whisper typing - reading this over my shoulder and says "just don't let them do anything weird with my body" which of course, I won't ... unless it's funny)

UPDATE - since I wrote this post on Sunday night, hubs has fixed my bicycle tire, bought me a box of mallomars, my favorite blueberry poptarts (very hard to find the unfrosted kind I like) and a Sephora gift card so it looks like the paramedics will not be needed - but check back in 4 weeks and 2 days just to be sure ...

* rock me adadeus print by lisa barbero

your mama ....

you don't really think I'd talk about your mama do you .....