My hope for the coming year is for everyone to have peace. Real peace...in themselves, in each other and in their lives. For you all to be able to do what makes you happy and successfully change what needs to be changed in your lives to become happy. To live satisfied, joyful, prosperous lives and to be a beacon of hope to yourselves and to others. I would like to see us all try for kindness and find success in all of our endeavors. I wish everyone Love and Happiness in the New Year.
Nanette Stein
12/31/2011
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Friday, December 30, 2011
@Nanettestein13, 12/30/11 11:44 PM
 Nanette Stein (@Nanettestein13)12/30/11 11:44 PM "There are so many beautiful things out there...why not be one of them?" --nanette stein |
Sent from my iPhone
How to find Enlightenment in the most unlikely of places
I just watched American History X. If you've never seen it, it's rough, but worth a watch. It's about extreme racism that is unfortunately not so extreme any longer. It's a movie about mainstream problems with race and twisted ideas born from anger, frustration and ignorance. The story is rough, but it has a definite message, you have to be objective and wait it out. It shows one side more than the other at times, but both are represented, I think. Both sides of the sickness of everyone insisting that they are right and the other is wrong. Both sides of the hatred. In each other. In themselves. While I watch this movie, I see the sickness. It makes me sad. But by the end you find a bit of that ray of hope. That people can change. That something can awaken in everyone. That bonds can be forged in the most unlikely of places. Knowledge of this kind of hatred out there makes my soul ache for mankind. But the healing that happens throughout, the enlightening moments, give a ray of hope. Even with the bitter ending that leaves you feeling saddened and wronged and like the cycle continues, you can start the change by asking yourself
"has anything you've done made your life better?" and begin there. With you.
"has anything you've done made your life better?" and begin there. With you.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
My Daily Realization
It really is important and beneficial to be in the now. To stay in the present moment and not anticipate what is to come or give power to the past. You really do eliminate your pain when you just remain in the now and not harm yourself with worries of what's to come or regrets of what already has been done.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Wishing upon stars is not just for children...
I haven't written anything in my blog in a while because I've been dealing with some personal internal struggles lately. Months go by and you don't realize how much time has passed. You get so caught up in your problems, your situations. It's on my mind constantly that I need to sort it out, write about it. Maybe someone else out there will read it and be touched by it, that it will help them or help myself by getting it all out. I don't want to lose hope. I don't want to lose faith...in myself, or the Powers That Be. It's just a struggle, sometimes, to be able to sort your thoughts and feelings when there are so many of them to sort through. Then, the other night, on the way to work (I drive in a pretty dark area, and at a certain point I have a large open sky ahead of me) I Saw a "falling star." Now, I realize that it was not actually a star that I was seeing, but a meteorite, a bit of space debris, burning up in the atmosphere as it plummeted to Earth. It was still a beautiful and magical thing to behold. I had just happened to be cresting a hill and there was a lot of sky in front of me, and there it fell. I was very big, very bright. It fell for so long that I actually started to think it might just touch the ground. It was a moment that made me realize that I need to take the time to go over all the things I should be grateful and thankful for, all the things I could still hope for.
When you are a child and see a shooting star, you make a wish. So, I pondered over all my many wishes I would like to see into fruition, but it also reminded me, in that moment, to be grateful for all that I already have. I try to do that as often as I can remember, but my memory has failed me recently. And in that very moment I saw another falling star. It wasn't as bright, and it didn't fall as long as the first, but it was in the same spot. That almost never happens. And, of course, in the back of my mind I thought that if I saw more, that this is either a meteor shower I didn't know about, or that something else was happening...
I saw no more shooting stars that night, though I kept watch as best as I could while driving. The sky was very clear. It was quite cold out. I saw a planet, Venus probably, twinkling brightly in the sky. Whatever the atmosphere was doing that night, it was making this planet twinkle with such clarity. Blue, red, yellow.
It was a pretty enjoyable drive to work, as I was able to focus on my hopes and dreams, thanks to these celestial events.
What I give thanks for now, in retrospect, is the opportunity that I was given to become more centered, more grounded. To realize that we need to remember to be grateful every day, even in the midst of our hard times. We get too wrapped up in our own heads. I try to remember that I need to not get too wrapped up in myself so that I don't lose sight of what I should be doing each day. I try to always live by the tenet that 'things' don't matter. Belongings don't matter. I try to remember the words that I have read that have really resonated with me, that have helped me so much along my journey. The things that have helped me to figure out what my life is supposed to be. One of those tenets that I had learned is that...even if everything disappeared, all of my belongings, all of that 'stuff' we accumulate, even if it all went away, I could still be at peace. I may not be entirely happy about it, but I could be at peace, because I would still be the Being that I always have been. That can't go away.
I read in a book once, and this has become a popular saying now as I've seen it pop up more frequently, that "we are not human beings having a Spiritual experience, we are Spiritual beings having a human experience." As much as I hate overstated, cliche-type sayings, I feel that this one is appropriate enough to mention.
That's what I try to remember. That we need to separate ourselves from our human experiences once in a while and remember what we actually are. That our 'things', our 'titles', even our families, do not define who we are. And in the middle of my turmoil that I had been trying to sort through, a piece of that turmoil has been worry over the fact that I have not been blogging and writing down thoughts and feelings, and that I might lose that which I have been trying to obtain and retain: Creativity and Thoughtfulness.
I had wanted to start this blog so that I could have something every day that I could tap into that would help me to remember what's important. Gratitude, Thankfulness, Love, Thoughtfulness, Spirituality, Kindness, Compassion, the ability to take blinders off to the world around me. To be Present.
So, I'm glad that I saw the two 'falling stars' as they were ending their journey. I thank the Universe for throwing those right into my atmosphere, right in front of my eyes--to help me to remember to continue beginning mine.
When you are a child and see a shooting star, you make a wish. So, I pondered over all my many wishes I would like to see into fruition, but it also reminded me, in that moment, to be grateful for all that I already have. I try to do that as often as I can remember, but my memory has failed me recently. And in that very moment I saw another falling star. It wasn't as bright, and it didn't fall as long as the first, but it was in the same spot. That almost never happens. And, of course, in the back of my mind I thought that if I saw more, that this is either a meteor shower I didn't know about, or that something else was happening...
I saw no more shooting stars that night, though I kept watch as best as I could while driving. The sky was very clear. It was quite cold out. I saw a planet, Venus probably, twinkling brightly in the sky. Whatever the atmosphere was doing that night, it was making this planet twinkle with such clarity. Blue, red, yellow.
It was a pretty enjoyable drive to work, as I was able to focus on my hopes and dreams, thanks to these celestial events.
What I give thanks for now, in retrospect, is the opportunity that I was given to become more centered, more grounded. To realize that we need to remember to be grateful every day, even in the midst of our hard times. We get too wrapped up in our own heads. I try to remember that I need to not get too wrapped up in myself so that I don't lose sight of what I should be doing each day. I try to always live by the tenet that 'things' don't matter. Belongings don't matter. I try to remember the words that I have read that have really resonated with me, that have helped me so much along my journey. The things that have helped me to figure out what my life is supposed to be. One of those tenets that I had learned is that...even if everything disappeared, all of my belongings, all of that 'stuff' we accumulate, even if it all went away, I could still be at peace. I may not be entirely happy about it, but I could be at peace, because I would still be the Being that I always have been. That can't go away.
I read in a book once, and this has become a popular saying now as I've seen it pop up more frequently, that "we are not human beings having a Spiritual experience, we are Spiritual beings having a human experience." As much as I hate overstated, cliche-type sayings, I feel that this one is appropriate enough to mention.
That's what I try to remember. That we need to separate ourselves from our human experiences once in a while and remember what we actually are. That our 'things', our 'titles', even our families, do not define who we are. And in the middle of my turmoil that I had been trying to sort through, a piece of that turmoil has been worry over the fact that I have not been blogging and writing down thoughts and feelings, and that I might lose that which I have been trying to obtain and retain: Creativity and Thoughtfulness.
I had wanted to start this blog so that I could have something every day that I could tap into that would help me to remember what's important. Gratitude, Thankfulness, Love, Thoughtfulness, Spirituality, Kindness, Compassion, the ability to take blinders off to the world around me. To be Present.
So, I'm glad that I saw the two 'falling stars' as they were ending their journey. I thank the Universe for throwing those right into my atmosphere, right in front of my eyes--to help me to remember to continue beginning mine.
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