Express Yourself!
Most of the time we take a quick glance at each other and simply only choose to see a worldly appearance rather than take the time to understand what it is that person is expressing and why. For example some may want to express themselves with a tattoo that they consider art or poetry. Some express themselves through music and write, sing or play an instrument. Some express themselves through dance, but for some they only need to express themselves through the love of mankind.
I watched a video that my cousin sent me. You can watch it at the following link if you’d like. Dad had sent it to me before and I was blown away by it. I think I wrote a post about it titled, "how do I have to be in order for you to be free?" This video still penetrates the core of my soul.
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Everything we do and say affects someone else here on earth!! I want to always remember that as I go along through my day. When I am expressing myself I need to remember that so many people on the face of the earth may only be able to express themselves through love. For example this makes me think of Shawn (my other husband). 
He was born with cerebral palsy and he is mentally mildly handicapp. He expressess himself through love. He doesn’t care what he wears or what music he listens to. He is so simple. He affects my life soo much. He makes me want to be a better person. He inspires me to do more. He brings my spirit to new heights. He makes me want to love more.
I don’t want to complicate or create too much chaos in my life. I want simplicity and innocence. I want to recognize the love that each of us are connected to and express that with each other. I do not want to fear difference. I want to embrace it and try to understand it so I can respect it rather than try to change it.
I believe that this oneness is happening. I can see it in my daughter (the next generation). I hope that our children will stop building walls that seperate. I hope we can start teaching our children to BE rather than to just DO. This world would be just as exciting if we changed our thought process a little. We could start cleaning up after ourselves (I know that could last a life time considering what we have done to mother earth). We are amazing when we think for ourselves!
Great stuff, Mindy; Inspiring and thought-provoking, Thanks for your contributions to this site.
Beautiful thoughts, Mindy!
” don’t want to complicate or create too much chaos in my life. I want simplicity and innocence. I want to recognize the love that each of us are connected to and express that with each other. I do not want to fear difference. I want to embrace it and try to understand it so I can respect it rather than try to change it.”
This is wonderful! My feelings expressed exactly. But, easy to say, hard to do. So, let’s just BE it. Thank you, Mindy.
Thank you Don R. Thanks to all of you for allowing me to contribute to this site. Other than my family it is the biggest connection I have to my Father who I miss so badly. So many wonderful people here
You are amazing Mindy! When the heart and the mind work in unison, the wonder of it all, and preciousness, becomes easier to see.
“We could start cleaning up after ourselves (I know that could last a life time considering what we have done to mother earth). We are amazing when we think for ourselves!”
How about what we have done right, they say 85% of all have Christians have left the church or changed there church they attend. They say they have done this because the church or denomination they attend dont meet there spiritual consciousness.
They say there are three types of Christians. The ones that believe that the scripture is literal and must be lived by that way, the ones that hold the hand of the literal teachings, but know that there heart cant live there, and the ones who have chosen to be part of Gods mysterious and mystical design.
We are all searching for the truth, most of us will never find it, but only the ones who are looking have a chance to see it.
I will leave you with one truth that i know for sure. I have the smartest grandson on earth. Andy is barely two years old, and can already speak two languages. He speaks fluent english,and also kickapoo indian.
When i say, “I LOVE YOU ANDY” he says “ohtaypawpaw” in what i awesome is kickapoo indian for “ok grandpa”
All is not lost, the spirit of a world( an earth so loved by God) is part of our lives and our children’s- children’s lives.
ohtay my friends, love alawys
Tayinnawin Uncle Doug
Love the vignette about your remarkable grandson, Doug!
“I don’t want to complicate or create too much chaos in my life. I want simplicity and innocence. I want to recognize the love that each of us are connected to and express that with each other.” (Mindy)
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Mindy here is expressing some very commendable ideals of hers that on reflection most of us would agree are our desires as well. All seems fine when living in a conducive environment, surrounded and protected by those who love us, but what if these were removed? At some point outside influences rub up against us, and try as we might to continue with our ideals of loving kindness we find that within us is the potential to do the opposite, and often we do FIRST exactly the opposite from what we intend. This is also expressing our self! We are a duality, and when pushed find we are unable to bridle those drives passions and emotions that rear up when circumstances oppose us. What then?
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Good question, Audrey. As you said, when faced with opposing circumstances or abrasive people “often we do first exactly the opposite from what we intend.” And when this happens, I see a part of myself I don’t like very much. What then? One thing I learned from going to Al-Anon meetings years ago is the importance of continuing to take my own inventory and when I find I am wrong to promptly admit it (Step 10, I believe?). So, I try to do that – to make amends by whatever means is necessary. Usually an apology is in order and then doing whatever I can to set things straight. It is a very humbling experience.
I was reading the accounts of one man who survived the Nazi concentration camps , i think he was there for like 3 years. He said that many that were healthy and fit withered and died quickly, but others that were of bad health found the strength within to survive. He said the faith in god, that many just had in there mind, was not enough to withstand torture and unimaginable conditions they lived in. He said he was able to find peace and comfort that other couldn’t by going deep within himself.
I’m not sure i could do that, but i do believe that it can be done. It is my belief that God dont protect us, but God will give us comfort if we allow him to.
love always
I believe Love always shines through even if it is not being shown by the one next to me. When I am put in a surrounding that “shows no mercy” I tend to want to judge, but if you give me a minute I will eventually find the love and innocence of human life. People can act hard and cruel, but deep within the layers they have put on you will find love for them…eventually anyway. They, we us, them… may fail love, but love never fails us.
The story of the man in the concentration camps is amazing. Those who continued to love and forgive what was being done to them are the ones that yes…survived physically, but most importantly, spiritually. They saw past the illusion of what the world they were in was doing to them. They continued to fight for the connection of love. Love is like oxygen and it is needed to keep our spirits alive.
I love this site, it offers the opportunity for all to express opinions, but also to ask questions. I am one of many, as I watch this site, that see that many are interested in the afterlife.
I to am interested in the afterlife, but i am becoming less interested, because i think the life we live is so much more important.
My thoughts are not so much about were we will go but were did we begin. We all seem to believe and agree that we posses a spirit, a soul, something that transcends our fleshly life, but were did it come from?
Did it begin at conception of our fleshly body, or months later? Did we inherit another soul that’s not worthy of heaven? Is it better to wonder were u will be, then were u began?
If you say that your spirit, soul or whatever will live forever, as a grasshopper or another earthly human then what happened to the spirit of the fleshly creature that you became.
I told you i would have a lot of questions. Its hard to be agnostic in Gods kingdom, but as i told you, my journey will be a happy one. It began without fear, and it will end that way.
Love always
Doug, You’ll get a lot of different answers to your questions, and I don’t present my thoughts as being any better (or worse) than any one else’s ideas. But for what it’s worth, I believe that God is somehow involved in the process of the beginning of each life. In human life, from the Genesis account, we are told that God breathed into Adam and he became a living soul. As I remember, this is not said of animals, but only of the human that was created. Based on that, I think that at some point each of us receives a part of us that is soul, or spirit, that makes us different from the animals. Whether that happens at conception, or when the baby takes its first breath, I am not sure. In the Psalms, we are told that we are known by God when we are still in the womb (Psalm 139, I believe), so maybe the soul or spirit is present from from conception.
Even though these kinds of questions can’t be answered definitively, I think it is good to ponder them. Humans are the only part of God’s creation that can do that – we can reflect on where we came from or where we’re going.
Doug,
I believe that where we come from is the same as where we will go back to and I have no proof of that. I just feel it and simply believe it and noone has ever been able to change that feeling inside me. I believe we are made up of an energy and I believe that is an energy of love.
I have noticed more recently that I am no longer driven to find out where we come from, when it happens or why. I am in the now. My purpose has now become this: I want to leave this world and the ones I love with a memory of me that will make me and THEM smile, grow, laugh and love more. I don’t care to become some leader or celebrity. I don’t care if I gave all of my life to charity or raised injuried horses. I don’t care if I wrote the greatest love songs or greatest novels. What I do care about is how I loved others and myself. At the end of the day that is all I end up worrying about. I don’t purposely lay and wonder. That is just what happens. Every night I think to myself: I need to call my Grandma and hear her voice. I need to call my baby sister and see how the painting is going. I loved my conversation today with my best friend. I think my cousin and I have telepathy. I can’t wait to see my Mom this weekend. I can’t wait to camp with my family. I can’t wait to go to dinner with our new friends we met. I hope my brother won his softball game. I can’t wait to lay down in bed with my husband and kiss him goodnight. I can’t wait to take Abby school shopping and see the the way she wants to express herself through her clothes! All of that comes from me and my Love and that is what I live for. In the end all we are left with are memories and feelings. I want to die knowing that I have loved as much as I could in my lifetime and left others with the feelings that they were loved greatly and leave them with some incredible memories. I think that is all I can really do, but in order for me to Love greatly I have to love myself and see EVERYONE the same. While I do this I find I become spiritually blessed. I find that I become patient, peaceful, strong, happy and most importantly less defensive about who I am and why. This is what you get when you get me. LOL…sometimes anyway
Doug,
When I lay down at night sometimes I cry from the pain of love. I get mad that my Father is gone. I get mad that I my arthritis gets the best of me most everyday. I sometimes question my behavior and my attitude. All of this comes from love in my opinion because it always leads me to a better understanding of myself and of others. I take the good and the bad, the dark and the light. I need it all in order to keep my love alive. When my energy is done and my light goes dim it will be time for me to say goodbye, but I know through personal experience and the witnessing of my Father that our energy is still around…just maybe not in physical form anymore. I believe some of us get it and are done in the physical form and some of us move to the next life in order to understand it better. Ultimately in the end whatever it was that my Father was looking at as he took his last breaths was incredible. I saw it in his eyes.
Wow Mindy, I’m speechless. You say everything that I feel inside but have such a hard time expressing. I read your comments and tears run down my cheeks while I’m at work. I feel like screaming in this building and sometimes I feel like I just want to run out the front door and keep running, just run. I don’t feel like I am free to be me, and it’s been so long, I’m not sure I know who that really is anymore. I’m trying to find that person again but I think 13 years ago she disappeared. Tomorrow night I’m supposed to bring something that represents me or who I want to be in 10 years. I don’t have a clue. When I started going to church 13 years ago and became a “born again believer” I was told that I had to change who I was, that I shouldn’t want to be the same person I was. I should be different, “better”. I kind of liked the person I was, but I became someone with unhappiness inside. I still don’t know where I’m going or what will be, but I know that it’s not the destination, it’s the journey! Thanks Mindy =)
Hey Doug, you are getting soooo spiritual! Seriously though, your questions are very good, and they are questions we all need to ask because we have FORGOTTEN the identity of who we are. Nobody outside of yourself can teach you or give you a satisfactory answer – as Connie said, you’ll get a thousand different answers. It is the TRUTH that you desire, and quite simply that is already written in your heart. The trick is to go there, but our heads (our way of thinking that we’ve believed is authentic), constantly puts us crook! Like the allegory of Genesis shows us in picture form, every thought from our human mind is TWISTED.That’s the snake!
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The only way to get the TRUTH is to go to something genuine and eternal. You won’t find that anywhere in the physical because the physical is NOT THE R-E-A-L. As Paul says it is all passing away – under the DEATH sentence. But, the WAY TO THE REAL has been made open – (the picture of the temple veil ripped open), and JC made it very clear, – it’s through metanoio. This action put simply is to turn from thinking with your head and think from your heart. Mindy puts it very well when she says she turns to that “energy of love within”. That simple action was wrongly translated as ‘repent’ but it has nothing at all to do with being sorry – religion has hi-jacked that word and because of the twisted meaning assigned to it has kept us loaded down with guilt and separated us from the R-E-A-L within us.
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As you go to THAT PLACE WITHIN, all those questions can be answered, because this is the realm of the spirit, the eternal world where there is EVERLASTING LIFE and NO DEATH. This is our garden where the spirit dwells. Everything is new and whole and perfect. Paul calls it the ‘mind of Christ’. Being in THAT place lifts our understanding out of the natural mind and transforms us because in THAT place we SEE HIM. It’s like being born into a new world, and this is just what JC told Nicodemus, it’s necessary to be ‘born from above’. There in THAT place, everything becomes a revelation, seen with spiritual eyes, heard with spiritual ears. It takes a bit of determination to get there, you have to want it, to desire it. That desire can only begin when we let the physical world go – in fact I have found it takes a bit of rebellion to get there.
Mandy, that REAL you has not disappeared, it’s just got covered over with believing from your head what others have told you. The real you is still within you and you will find her as you go within. The real Mandy is so beautiful, you’ll love her.
Mandy,
You will find the orginal Mandy because she never went away. She can’t leave you and you will find her because you have begun to search and once you start searching you only go forward. I don’t believe we can ever go back. As a child did you ever get lost or confused for a little while in a store? Once you figured out how to get back to where you needed to be were you relieved at first but then got confident that you made it back all by yourself? That is kind of what this is like. 13 years is a long time to hide who you really are, but Many you want to scream because the real you has almost found her way back.