Tag Archives: Self-Love

NO-FAULT RESOLUTIONS: THE RE-MIX

I’m glad to be in 2017, meditating, dancing, creating, establishing, loving, laughing, eating, exercising, giving, and growing into 2018.
I feel blessed to have an opportunity to resolve yet again that I’m going to do something to make my life and the lives of others better.  I choose to use the energy of this season to recognize the infinite power in me to demonstrate the awesome presence, wisdom and grace of love.
This is my dance: one of absolute good, expressing itself as the most loving person I can be.  In this infinite light of love, I resolve to be worry-free, debt-free, guilt-free, shame-free, blame-free, doubt-free – living a life of moments rather than mere days, but moments that are mindful about breathing in nothing but the pure power of possibility.  Like Joseph in the ancient, sacred text (Genesis 50:20), I like that even what somebody else intends for evil, God simply blesses me with, without ceasing.  I, like Jesus Christ, can call it all good (John 7:24): the appearances bless me, bless us, restore us.
14Here and now, I am liberated to love the power of Spirit like nothing else: to love it morning, noon and night and in that well-spring of love to be the best that I am called to be.  I am liberated from any requirement as to what form or shape my “best” will take.  The blessing is in the divine idea of simply being.
How liberating it is to walk into the New Year unencumbered by mistakes or regret.  How great it is to know that the truth that sets us free is being one with now.  The truth is that we are one with absolute good right now – good that is always expressing in, as and through us.  The truth is that the pure consciousness of God radiates through every cell of our body, awareness of our mind and expansion of our soul.  The truth is that God really does do the work that we are appointed to do.  The truth is that Spirit opens new doors, creates new circumstances, and gives us what we need before we even ask.  In this consciousness of grace, we can release needing, wanting or desiring and instead accept the infinite blessings that the universe is breathing through each one of us.
I resolve to forgive myself for everything I started to do but didn’t, wanted to do but forgot, or did do but failed to appreciate.  If I can’t do it, I won’t.  If I must do it, I’ll try.  If I don’t do it – well, there’s always next time.  The good thing about forgiveness is that we can do it right now, and it’s done. I release all obligations, all debts and all concerns of myself and others.  Yes, I forgive seventy times seven, and in the energy of the seven of completion, I let go and move forward to do the greater things that I must do, can do, and will do.
I leap into the awareness that I am free in the fluid stream of absolute good and marvelous in the manifestation that my goals are accomplished the moment that I claim them: the rest of the time is merely the process that I must grow through to accept their completion.  Here is to perfect health, wholeness and mindful acceptance of beauty, movement, lifting, energy and grace.

I resolve to love, and this resolution to be the pure power of love everywhere present expresses itself right now.  This is a no-brainer: a simple truth that can be used to harmonize any situation.  I am love right now, and I love unconditionally.  The bible can be summed up in this one resolution: love.  As John said, God is love.  I allow the loving energy of God to express in, as and through me right now.
I resolve to laugh.  We can’t take ourselves too seriously.  Otherwise, we will stop the endless flow of God’s good due to our own rigidity.  When we take ourselves too seriously, we do not keep our consciousness open to receive the blessings that are always calling us.  We place boundaries before blessings.   But with laughter, we are blessed to not hold grudges, to wear the world as a lose garment, to refuse to worry about what others think of us.
I resolve to dream.  Dreaming of endless possibilities and inexhaustible supply is the gift of being alive.  This is another resolution that is not confined by 365 days; we can dream right now and be done with it.  Or we can continue to be anointed by the grace of God’s favor dreaming through us.  It’s our choice: to be given the gift of dreaming Spirit’s divine call whenever we desire.  I resolve to dream as often as I desire, stepping well beyond the conventionality of the box in which I thought I was limited.  Spirit gives shape to divine intention through our dreams.
I resolve to give.  This is the answer to the question that is always asked: what is my purpose in life?  The truth is that I am here to give.  When we are consciously aware that we are here to bless, we stop holding back our good and instead give.  Give smiles.  Give hellos.  Give thank yous and you’re welcomes.  Give encouragement, handwritten notes, high fives, subway fare, spare change.  Give secretly, for nothing in return – not even the right to say, “I gave.”  We don’t even have to keep track of when we have to give.  Giving feels so good that the universe will provide so many opportunities that we don’t even have to be aware of them.
I resolve to listen.  We are all one with the pure consciousness of God speaking everywhere present.  We just haven’t taken the time to listen.  Listening hears the whole being of God emanating as us. We listen every day to www.mindfulnessgroup.blog.  We listen to the eternal breath of Spirit move through us as the completion of all good.  This resolution can be accomplished right now, in a single breath.  Breathing in, I listen.  Breathing out, I hear.  Listening has no agenda: we just are.
I resolve to create.  The truth is the “I” that creates is the “I AM” of God energizing, igniting and enjoying life in endless shapes, forms and dimensions.  No need to worry about the old ideas; the universe is filled with new ones.  By resolving to create, we open our consciousness to allow Spirit to co-create through us.  No need to judge our creations.  Creativity is bigger than us.  Whether we witness it or not, God’s good is always using us to bless others.  In the power of this resolution, we allow ourselves – here and now – to be the conduit of change and transformation.
I resolve to heal.  This resolution only requires the acceptance of grace.  In grace, we are whole.  In grace, we are lifted from our mats of affliction and realize that there is no sickness, illness, frailty or infirmity in the kingdom of God.  Right here and now, we accomplish the wholeness of Spirit and know that we are well.  We can look in the mirror of Christ consciousness and see ourselves as we really are.
I resolve to grow.  The humility of not knowing is a constant blessing.   I study the truth that sets me free.  The teachers that I need reveal themselves to me.  The books that I must read fall from wisdom’s shelves and open without prodding.  My eyes fall on the perfect words.  The students who bless me with guidance appear.  The journeys that I must take provide new paths.  The questions that I must raise ask themselves.  The epiphany of realization always blesses us.
I resolve to harvest.  We take advantage of so much that we have not worked for.  This is the season – right where we are – to reap what we have not sown.  We are enjoying so much for little that we take it for granted.  This season, I will open my eyes and experience each blessing: the beautiful apples, the smell of butternut squash soup, the rising of the sun, the solitude of the darkness, the tapestry of autumn leaves, the sound of waves at the shore.   Every day of the year, we can celebrate the harvest of the kingdom in whatever form or shape it takes.
I resolve to praise.  In fact, I praise and give thanks right now.  I give praise and thanks for health of mind, body and soul.  I give praise and thanks for my family – my marital, biological, spiritual, and work family and friends.  I give praise and thanks for the daily manna that God gives me to take care of every need.  I give praise and thanks for this country and this world and for the ability to keep everyone in the universe raised in perfect success.
I resolve to enjoy.  This is not going to be a month where I look back with regret or criticism because I enjoyed life a little too much.  I saved a little less, spent a bit more or just chilled out.  I resolve here and now that I will enjoy life – every tree, every manger, every carol, every taste of pleasure created for our benefit.  This, too, will I resolve to do each month and at every opportunity.  I will visit, celebrate, cook, dance, sing, swim, hike, run, drive, write, draw, paint, participate, preach, lift, work, walk, shop, and play by enjoying life.
In 2015, I declared that no-fault resolutions can’t go wrong because we are relieved from the responsibility of doing any more than what we will.  This re-mix recognizes that nothing is required except to lift up the awareness of Spirit moving through our lives each and every moment except to be still, and know.  In this awareness: I resolve to be one with each moment, and I let go of everyone and everything.

In letting go, I welcome each moment as a new me.

Happy New You!!!

EMBRACING A MOTHER THAT IS UNLIMITED, UN-CONTAINED, AND UNCONVENTIONAL

An African proverb says, the “wise aim at boundaries beyond the present; [and] by their struggle they transcend the circle of their beginning.”
The Brown Girl dares to step out of the box of conventionality that has always excluded her – to envision a creation that is far more inclusive, one that sees beyond the European biblical tradition that “remade its past to suit its own interests”– and  recalls ancient Africa’s place as the Motherland of creation.
Moses says to the Israelites, “you forgot the God who gave you birth” (Deut. 32:18 NIV).  Isaiah said that God cried out like “a woman in childbirth,” reminding her children that she upheld since conception and “carried … since… birth” (Isaiah 42:14, 46:3).  It was this Mother God, Hosea recalls, who taught us to walk, who healed us, who lifted the yokes from our necks, who bent down to feed us (Hosea 11:3-4).

Even Pope John Paul I recognized that God is not just our Father; “even more God is our [M]other.”  Hence, we should not be limited to a male-dominated creation mythology that leaves out the Mother Creator.
God as Mother is not merely Creator but is creativity itself.
Creator as Mother is the epitome of Love:  love as grace, love as compassion, love as peace, love as strength, love as power, love as wisdom, love as community, love as justice, love as faith, love as hope.  Creator as Mother is not a gender – but is the energy of  creation constantly and continuously creating itself.
Few would dispute that due to European male dominance of Christianity as a tradition, God the Father governs the majority of our relationships with God.  But that solely paternal relationship is often limited to the over-literalized metaphor that it is.
The paternal image of God as Father has so monopolized “Christian speech about God that the equally legitimate and in some ways even more appropriate symbol of God as Mother [has been] eclipsed.”  However, this historical, political, cultural, and economic dominance of man over woman does not dispel the Truth that God is greater than any pre-conceived notion of human sexuality or gender.  God’s attributes as Creator can be better identified with the attributes of Mother as the major creative, life-giving force in the world.
“Since it is women whose bodies bear, nourish, and deliver new persons into life and, as society is traditionally structured, are most often charged with the responsibility to nurture them into maturity, language about [Creator] as mother carries a unique power to express human relationship to the mystery who generates and cares for everything.”
The Brown Girl, as a Columbian Indian, sings that God is “the mother of all races, the mother of all tribes.  She is the mother of the thunder, mother of the rain and rivers, the mother of trees and all living things.” Of course, many if not most theologians choose to stay deeply embedded in a tradition merely because it is traditional; they refuse to entertain Creator as Mother since “the Bible speaks of God as ‘Father’” – fully ignoring the fact that the biblical image of God was created by men wrote the Bible.
The Brown Girl – surrounded by the hatred and condemnation of a white male-dominated world, is a Creator who uplifts those who have been marginalized and demonized – putting them in their rightful place as equal heirs to the throne; a Creator who has “a mother’s love that makes the beloved beautiful”; a Creator whose love cannot be earned or merited but is “freely and abundantly given.”
Creator as Mother generates everything and ensures that it flourishes.  “Without origin, without source, without beginning,” Creator as Mother is not a gender but is creativity itself.  “Creation is not something God did . . . Creation is something God does and is still doing.”
 “There is a creative force constantly at work in man and all creation.”  Creator as Mother is “sympathetic, comforting, loving, forgiving, and instantly healing,” with all “compassion and healing power of the Father at ‘Her’ command.”
Those of us who are oppressed, marginalized, denigrated, and impoverished realize the presence of God when we understand that “every moment is the beginning of a new creation.” Creation did not begin and end in seven days; those days are just symbolic of the   Truth that “[w]herever there is the evidence of creative action, there God is.”
“God is closer to us than we are to ourselves.” We experience God through our expressions of the creative source.  We are a living expression of God.

 

CHANGE YOUR MIND BY BEING GREATER THAN TIME, SPACE AND BODY – Part 4 – Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself

TO LISTEN TO PART 4 OF THE STUDY GROUP, CLICK HERE

This audio tape is an excerpt from the studied chapter “OVERCOMING YOUR ENVIRONMENTbreaking-the-habit-of-being-yourself,” from the book Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself,  by Joe Dispenza, at pp. 33-43, which you can purchase on Amazon.  We are also excerpting the music of Peter Kater and R. Carlos Nakai: “If Men Were at Peace” and “Call to Enchantment,” which can be purchased on i-Tunes.

“Most people focus on three things in life: their environment, their bodies, and time. They don’t just focus on those three elements, they think equal to them. But to break the habit of being yourself, you have to think greater than the circumstances of your life, be greater than the feelings that you have memorized in your body, and live in a new line of time. If you want to change, you must have in your thoughts an idealized self—a model that you can emulate, which is different from, and better than, the ‘you’ that exists today in your particular environment, body, and time.” Dispenza, Joe. Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself.

We will continue next Monday calls at 8 PM, by calling 218-936-4986, pass code 48201, at page 43, “Our Routines: Plugging Into Our Past Selves.”

Enjoy our other websites uplifting a consciousness of grace at http://www.spiritmuvmeditation.com (we are on over 1000 days of a meditation challenge); http://www.spiritmuvvideo.com (we post videos for our Miracle Minute Meditation, as well as our Metaphysical Bible Journey); http://www.spiritmuvblog.com (where we continue to uplift our community of growth in consciousness); http://www.myrtletreepress.webs.com (our publishing website); and http://www.spiritmuv.com (our main website).

THE QUANTUM YOU – Part 1 – Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself

TO LISTEN TO PART 1 OF THE STUDY GROUP, CLICK HERE
 
This audio tape is an excerpt from the studied chapter “THE QUANTUM breaking-the-habit-of-being-yourselfYOU,” from the book Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself,  by Joe Dispenza, which you can also purchased on Amazon.

Enjoy our other websites uplifting a consciousness of grace at http://www.mindfulnessgroup.blog (we are on over 2000 days of meditations); http://www.spiritmuvblog.com (where we continue to uplift our community of growth in consciousness); and www.amazon.com (Rev. Loving’s Author Page).

GIVING THANKS FOR THE DIVINE WITHIN: GOD AS INDIVIDUAL BEING


img_5609-2This is from a previous class on the teachings of Joel Goldsmith.
Joel GoldsmithThis was taken from the 7th Section of Joel’s book
Living by Grace and from
“Evaluating Your Spiritual Progress”  which is in
the end of the 6th Section.
Joel Goldsmith 2

Join us as we listen to the divine within.

The music is several different versions of Amazing Grace by Ladysmith Black Mambazo,
Walela and a piano solo called Amazing Grace.
Please help us support these artists by purchasing
this powerful meditation music on i-Tunes.

CHRIST IN US, OUR HOPE OF GLORY

Carnival Glory

This past week, we went to Halifax, Nova Scotia on the Carnival Glory cruise ship to uplift Christ in us, our hope of Glory for our God is a Brown Girl Too retreat. 

God is a Brown Girl Too is a testament that we are more than the physical; we are also the shipSpirit.  Paul realized this when he said to the people of Colossae ” Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27 NIV).  Jesus Christ says this differently in John 10:34 when he says “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are gods’?'” 

God is a Brown Girl Too, a book where God speaks to black women as themselves, says “when you know that I am you and you are me, you will begin to realize who God is.”

Oneness betterChrist in me is glory; Christ in me is power; Christ in me is commitment; Christ in me is love; Gathering for Morning Prayer Aboard the Ship Christ in me is energy that defies the appearances of limitations.

Last week, while we were embraced by the bosom of the ocean and lifted by the infinity of the sky, we remembered to breathe the sacred breath of oneness.  We celebrated God expressing as us.  We reinforced the truth that Spirit lives in us. 

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As our Master Teacher Jesus Christ taught us in John 14:20, one day “you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”I AM

Christ in me is transformation.  Christ in me is illumination.  Christ in me is demonstration.  Christ in me is co-creation.  Christ in me is determination.  Christ in me is celebration.  Christ in me is restoration of all my good returning swiftly to reward me.

On the Carnival Glory, we visited the Kingdom of God, united in the consciousness that God is everywhereSabrina and Kia present. 

We stop closing the doors to the divine and re-opened the absolute good that is everywhere present. 

We stopped worrying about we shall eat and what we shall where and we sought God first, fullyIn the womb of discourse internalizing what Jesus taught in Luke 17:21, when he says “nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.” 

The kingdom of God is within us.Walking in the Spirit Lia and Pam

Christ in me is unlimited supply. 

Christ in me is divine ideas. 

Christ in me is amazing peace, and harmony, and commitment, and discipline, and accomplishment.

I AM beauty

We were not wary or apprehensive of Carnival’s recent press because we blessed every crack and crevice aboard the ship. 

We blessed the crew and the captain and every passenger who ever boardedRev Loving leading the session and will board the ship. 

We blessed the entire ocean and realized that our sacred circle was comprised of universes greater than we who we are in the flesh. 

We releasedNot only did we get a great price for our journey but we had a wonderful time and terrific service.  The Glory The ship and the city greatwas a floating paradise, another dimension, a divine vibration illuminating in the arms of God.

PatienceWe meditated in the Christ in us.  We prayed in the Christ in us.  We blessed the sacred waters as they restored our strength, our light, our love, and our vision. 

We were baptized in the holy communion of fellowship in Christ Consciousness.

I have no theology, I dance Pam and PamWe left our sins at the altar of deliverance. 

As Paul said in Romans 7:4-6, we “died to the law through the body of Christ, that [w]e might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.  For when we were in the realm of the flesh, I am a Woman of High Faiththe sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death.  But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit.” 

We pray as oneWe released the sin of fear, the sin of remorse, the sin of lust, the sin of doubt, the sin of despair, the sin of hopelessness, the sin of ignorance – and we put on our Christ selves. 

We re-connected with who we are and remembered why we are here in the first place. 

As Paul teaches in Romans 8:9, we are not controlled by theWe gather Sabrina et al sin but by the Spirit because the Spirit of God lives in us.

We danced in the Spirit. 

Tai Chi Nan Clear

We sang in the Spirit. 

Holy Laughter Pam JonesWe walked in the Spirit. 

We meditated in the Spirit. 

We healed in the Spirit. 

We released in the Spirit.

 

We sharedWe washed in the Spirit. 

We spoke in the Spirit. 

We rested in the Spirit. 

We prayed in the Spirit.

We taught in the Spirit. 

We testified in the Spirit. 

I am shalomeWe spoke tongues in the Spirit. 

We prophesied in the Spirit. Nan and Bianca better

We remembered in the Spirit. 

We were born again in the Spirit.

I can do all things

We lived as 1 Corinthians 3:16 proclaims, when Paul says “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?” 

There are no excuses big enough, wide enough or powerful enough Lia and Shelia dancingto stand in the way of God blessing us. 

As Acts 17:28 says‘For in [God] we live and move and have our being.'”mother and daughter

Even though you may not have journeyed with us in the flesh, every time you prayed, every time you meditated, every time you affirmed the truth, you are there. 

The Psalmist says “be still and know that I AM God” (Psalm 46:10).

We loved

Jack Boland used to say “You are where you meet God.”

God is a Brown Girl Too says:

“Your power to create pushes you beyond the edge of what you as a human can do to the greatness of what I can do through you.  I am the co-creative force of every breath that you breathe and every bit of energy that youGod is love Move From the Love You Know expel. . . .[W]hen you trust fully and completely in me without all of your second-guessing, you stop limiting what you can do in the flesh and start creating through the energy that has summoned you to this existence. 

You become the “Joshua” in consciousness – the I AM that I AM, the full anointing of Spirit.  Only then will you cross over into the Promised Land.  Wings will take shape from your soul and deliver you beyond your imaginings – across the threshold of your fears.  Magic and miracles and divine openings in the universal fabric of Spirit will manifest.”

Christ in us is the Promised Land. 

Christ in us is the answer that we have been looking for. 

Pam, Marlon and Cecilia

Christ in us is the unlimited power that we desire. 

Christ in us is the love that we so desperately long for. 

Pam and Lia Beautiful movement

Yvonne and PaulChrist in us is the stream of unlimited good. 

Christ in us is the source of endless supply. 

Christ in us is our Hope of Glory.

So we continue to meet every Sunday as Spiritmuv, at the Unity Center of New York City, at 2:30 P.M., at 213 West 58th Street in Manhattan, in the upper room. nan, marlon and cecilia

Come gather where there are two or more reconnecting to the divine mind that we call Spirit. 

We continue to meditate daily, along with www.spiritmuvmeditation.com

We continue to pray daily and study the word. 

Marlon walkin on water

We will also continue to uplift the word as part of our Spiritual Fitness Radio Show on blogtalk radio, starting this month. 

We will continue to spread the word of God in every conceivable voice, medium, adventure, cruise and retreat –

freshly anointed with the realization that this is the work that God has called us to do.

Rev Loving listening to Spirit

Namaste, Reverend Loving

SHAKE THE DUST OFF YOUR FEET

spring 15Last Sunday at SPIRITMUV, we had a great time shaking the dust off our feet.
We shook off fear.
We shook off resentment.
We shook off distractions.
We shook off worries.
We followed the teachings of Jesus Christ and shook off anyone and anything not in alignment with our greatest good.

Bible 6In Mark 6:8-13, the scripture teaches us that Jesus instructed his twelve disciples as they went around teaching from village to village that if “any place will not welcome [them] or listen to [them], leave that place and shake the dust off [their] feet as a testimony against them.”

shaking off the dustShaking off the dust gives us the freedom to rid ourselves  of relationships that are toxic; mistakes that we believe we made; illnesses that seem to persist; habits that are bad for us; lousy memories of the past; jobs that don’t allow us to grow; bitterness, arrogance, resentment, frustration, misery, pain – anything that blocks us from experiencing the best.

Jesus tells us to release these things because if we don’t they will suck the life out of us.  Even our adversaries should be agreed with quickly because otherwise, we give them dominion and power over us.  If we are giving our energy to our so-called issues – as opposed focusing on our divine ideas, we are not open and receptive to the Good that God iswalking three trying to bless us with.

snow11We pile up so much in our lives as we move through the day-to-day moments of expression.  We take so much for granted.  We don’t even see the full expansion of life that we have been blessed with because we are so busy going through the motions of existence — that it is not until we slow down to clean the debris that has collected that we remember we are here.

We are here — we are actually part of an incredible magnificent creative process that is remarkably filled with divine ideas and endless energy and abundant beauty and magical grace.  We are here — notbeauty eleven just to collect issues and problems and challenges but to be part of the powerful unfolding of something greater.

time 3That’s what the New Year acknowledges.  It reminds us to clean up, to take stock, to make lists, to chart goals, to re-commit, to promise ourselves to remember that we are here — not to just go through the motions but to get up off our individual and collective butts and do something with our lives — to be that better person, to raise our grades, to finish what we started, to begin something new, to chart our course, to reach for the stars, to have the courage to do what we have always wanted to do.

We teach Genesis as the beginning of all beginnings — falling to realize that God didn’t just create a world in seven days and stop.  God is constantly creating through us.  The New Year reminds us of this awesome responsibility — that God unfolds as we create through the infinite power of all that God is.  The New Year gives us new canvas, new colors, new brushes, new sounds, new music, new movements, new drums, new keys, new beats.

dream

The truth is  — as Jesus says, it is written in our laws — that we are gods — more Spirit than flesh, endowed with the unlimited capacity to create — blessed with the creative vision to imagine our good and watch it take shape — given the ability to speak into existence whatever we want to see take shape in our lives.

We are the God that we pray to — Think about that.  Think about what you would do for you if you really believed that you were praying to yourself.

move 17What if you really believed that you were here to give unlimited expression to our Oneness with the divine power of creation?  You would shake the dust off your feet and move forward with your life – strong, radiant and rich with the unlimited good that God has blessed you with.

untitledJesus is teaching us to do just that – to realize that the God in us frees us from everything in our humanness that is blocking the flow of Spirit, or our good, of our divine energy; to stop second-guessing our divine potential; to realize that whatever needs to take shape is already manifesting; to trust that the Universe will give us the guidance that we need whenever we ask for it; to know that God is always sending us the ideas and the people and the situations that we need to do what we are called to do — and that we should never limit ourselves to a particular channel.

uggs walkingWe can shake the dust off our feet and know with absolute faith that whatever we need will find itself along the way of our path.

Namaste.

Cecilia

JOIN THE SPIRITMUV MEDITATION CHALLENGE

JOIN THE SPIRITMUV 40-DAY MEDITATION CHALLENGE.

Click above to join the meditation challenge.

fall 15

Since 2012’s 40-day Challenge, we have continued and have now challenged ourselves to over 700 days of meditation.

Why?  Because it changes our lives and centers us so that we listen to the divine within.

FIFTY WAYS TO LOVE YOURSELF

Carl Sandburg said “Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent.”  He adds, “Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.”  Jesus said it differently, he said “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:60)(NIV).   How do we proclaim the Kingdom of God?  How do we enter it, realize it, become one with it, be uplifted by it, be glorified by it?  We don’t have to wait until the afterlife.  In Luke (17:20-21), Jesus says the kingdom of God is in us.

Jesus is saying that we have to love ourselves.  But we don’t.  Instead, we distract ourselves with other people, places, things – even opportunities so that we don’t have to stare deeply into the face of our own love – a love that is powerful, a love that is infinite, a love that is true, a love that never fails nor forsake us because it is the omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God expressing and loving as us.

We cannot live our lives righteously without loving ourselves.  We cannot do what we were called to do – without loving ourselves.  We cannot be the best that we can be without loving ourselves.  When we learn to love who we are, we begin to understand that we live, move and have our being in love, which is what John called “God” (1 John 4:8).  There are infinite ways to love ourselves, so 50 ways is by all means the tip of the iceberg – but these 50 ways to love ourselves were prepared in honor of our 50th birthdays.

1.  RE-DISCOVER YOUR TRUE SELF.  The first way to love yourself is by re-connecting with the energy of God’s love through your breath.  You have to breathe mindfully.  Close your eyes and breathe, realizing that in each breath that you take, you awaken to your power.  In each breath that you take, you know that you have nothing to fear. Breathe in and re-discover your divine connection with God.  Remember that God is breathing you as the greatest gift of love that there is.  Breathe in and “do not be anxious about anything, just give your requests to [God]”  (Philippians 3:6).2.  LISTEN TO LOVE.  God is always talking to you; you just need to listen.  Take a second right now, and listen.  Isaiah said “When you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it’” (Isaiah 30:21).  When you really listen, you can hear the Universe saying “I love you – with an everlasting love.”3.  SEE LOVE.   See with a single eye the love that surrounds you with an aura of compassion, and fills your body temple with wholeness, and goes before you as all-powerful love — to do the work that you were appointed to do.  Jesus said “the light of the body is  the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light” (Matthew 6:22).  See nothing but love, and its energy with allow you to witness the fullness of its presence and power.4.  AFFIRM LOVE.    In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God (John 1:1) – and that word, the most powerful expression of God as you is “I AM.”  Affirm I AM, which acknowledges the Spirit in you.  The “I AM” allows you to raise your vibrations higher instantly in the realization that you are pure God presence expressing as you.5.  PRAY INTO YOUR GREATNESS.   In the book, God is a Brown Girl Too,you are reminded that “When you stand on the edge of pure possibility, you can use prayer as the impetus to fly.”  Nothing is impossible with God.  God is always praying you, and when you take the time to pray, it is only so that you remember that the Universe has already aligned with your intention to give you what you want, to manifest the answers that you need, to bless you with the gifts that await you.  God knows what you need before you even ask (Matthew 6:32).                                                                                                             6. STRETCH BEYOND DISBELIEF INTO BELIEF.  Jesus said “Stretch out your hand” (Matthew 12:13).  Stretch beyond hate into love; stretch beyond fear into love; stretch beyond jealously into love – every day when you feel some resistance, some tightness, some anxiety – just allow yourselves to stretch beyond the box that you’re in – with love.

7.  MOVE WITH A NEW COURAGE.  When you move, you are telling your body that you love it and you allow it to say “I love you” because it becomes fitter and stronger.  When you don’t have a regime of moving your body, you believe that you don’t need it anymore and it begins to age and stop working.  But when you move, you remain more youthful.  Stand up and say “feet I love you, heart I love you, muscles I love you.”  As Paul said, “in God I live and move and have my being” (Acts 17:28).

8.  DRINK LIVING WATER.  As much as 70% of your body can be made up of water, so you have to be diligent about loving yourself with what you need.  You can take a sip of water and say “water I love you.”  But you can also drink the unseen water, the substance of love – living water – and say “love I feel you,” and really feel love filling our bodies, minds and souls. Jesus said “[w]hoever believes in me . . . rivers of living water will flow from within them” (John 7:38).

9.  EAT THE BREAD OF LIFE.  Jesus said “I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never go hungry.” The bread of life is manna, the unseen nourishment, the unseen goodness that you are always surrounded by – just waiting for you tap it.  So there is no need to overeat. There is enough to feed us and sustain you.  You need only eat the foods that love you – not the foods that harm you.

10.  EMBRACE A NEW ORDER.  When you love yourself, you allow yourself to be open to the divine order of the universe.  You realize that God is present in every step that you take, that God is working out every detail for your greatest good; God is penetrating every aspect of your being to work out every single detail for your greatest good.

11.  TAKE UP YOUR BED AND WALK.  Take up your bed and walk – first, by leaving your past behind (remember, Lot’s wife kept looking back and she turned into a pillar of salt); second, by being fully responsible for your life (no, you cannot wait for some other person or for some other time); third, by refusing to limit yourself (there is no limit on your happiness or success).   Rise up and say “I’m gonna get up and take charge.”

12.  ALLOW YOUR DREAMS TO GUIDE YOU. – Loving yourself deeply makes you open and receptive to the power of your dreams.  Say “I will allow my dreams to guide me.”

13.  TRUST THE KINGDOM.
Desires, intuition, visions, divine mind are always directing you to what you are here to do.  Take a moment and acknowledge that you love the Kingdom within enough to trust it, be guided by it, and be obedient to its guidance.

14.  LIFT THE WEIGHT.   Ernestine “Ernie” Shepherd, at age 75, is a personal trainer, a professional model, a competitive bodybuilder and happier and more fulfilled than she’s ever been in her life. She started working out for the first time in her life at age 56.  She has no aches or pains; has 9 to 10%  bodyfat —  single-digit percentages usually reserved for elite-professional male athletes in their prime! She takes no medications.  And she loves her new life’s work and has never been more successful.  Say “I will lift and love lifting the weight that makes me healthy.”

15.  RELEASE.   When you love yourself, you realize that you have no need to hold onto anything or anyone; you can let go of the past – including past acquaintances, situations, obstacles, fears because the Kingdom of God loves you so much, it will help you surrender what you don’t need.  Think of one person or one situation you need to release and see yourself sending it love, and letting it go.

16.   FORGIVE SEVENTY-TIMES SEVEN.  When you love yourself, you realize that you cannot reap the inexhaustible source of the universe if you are blocking the flow of your good with anger, resentment, lack, or unforgiveness.  And sometimes you forgive everything and everyone except yourself.  So let’s love yourself in this moment by forgiving yourself – 70×77 – for whatever you did – whatever you carried into this room, whatever you are ashamed of.  Close your eyes and say “I forgive you.”

17.  LAUGH.  Laughter is the greatest gift that you can give yourself.  Laughter massages your soul with good loving and frees your spirit to experience true joy.  Say “I will laugh when it’s time to laugh, and enjoy every moment of it – and most of all I will laugh at myself.”

18.  CRY.  When you hurt, crying is the best way to release your pain.  Tears are a way of telling yourself that whatever emotion you are experiencing, it’s okay.  Tears are also a way of expressing joy.  Say “I’m gonna cry when I need to.”

19.   CELEBRATE.  Celebrate who you are – your unique talents and skills, and the love that God has in creating no one else like you.  What other people think of you is none of your business.  When you’re really loving you, you don’t care.  Think of one thing right now – or one reason to celebrate you. 

20.  CHANGE.  Loving yourself allows us to operate, use, turn on, tap into the unique power that we have to improve ourselves.  Change for the better.

21.   REST.  Love your life by finding the time that you need to enjoy other places, other people, other things, and to go within for more quality time with the love of your life – you.  Take a ME day.  (On the 7th day, even God rested.)

22.   CREATE.  Create with a new power. Second Timothy says in Chapter 1, Verse 7 that “God did not give us a spirit of timidity or fear; but a spirit of power….”  God loves us by allowing us to use the creative energy of the universe to heal, bless and uplift through our creative abilities.  Honor your creative abilities as your greatest gift.

23.   WRITE.  Loving ourselves improves when we write to reconnect with the love within.  Make a commitment to keep a journal or just notes to remember who you are.  If you write on Facebook, you can use that – just cut and paste into a separate document.  Write and be led by your writings.

24.   HEAL WITH  A NEW WHOLENESS.  Stop choosing struggle and pain, and you won’t experience it.  If it shows up unexpectedly, deny its presence and affirm the power of the “I AM”: I am perfect, whole and complete!

25.   START ANEW.  Each day and every moment, you have the power to begin anew.  Just affirm that you are at a new beginning.  Paul said, “I die daily” (1 Corinthians 15:31).  Be reborn in the resurrection of God’s power expressing as you.

26.   STUDY TO SHOW YOURSELF APPROVED.  Studying is love.  We study because we love ourselves enough to want to grow in wisdom.  Say “I will always be a student of love.”

27.  DANCE WITH A NEW FREEDOM.  When you dance in the Spirit, you know that if patterns of negativity keep showing up in your life — such as disharmony, loneliness, pain, physical discomfort,  financial insecurity, lack, worry, doubt — you can change them.  You can wake up from your self-limiting thought and you can experience the ceaseless flow of good — and turn your life around.  You can dance!  When  you dance in the Spirit, you shake the dust off your feet.  You bless the people who are not in accord with your greatest good, who do not support you and do Spirit calls you to do.  Dancing allows us to love ourselves, without worry, without fear, and without missing a beat. When we dance, we let go and go with the flow.

28.  SPEAK.   When we love, we speak words of good, words of empowerment, words of encouragement, words always contain the power that manifest the change that we need.  Speak only words of love.

29.  LEAP AND THE NET WILL APPEAR.  Take a risk.  Do what you only dreamed of but never dared to do.  Leap!  Say “I will leap because the net will appear.”  Love is the net that will catch you.  Either the universe will catch you or teach you how to fly.

30.   EMBRACE.  Embrace people worldwide with your love, including on Facebook, via telephone, letters, email, and in person.  The best way to receive love is to give it.  Hug somebody right now.

31.   COMPETE ONLY WITH YOURSELF.  You are your most fierce competitor and your most formidable adversary.  But here’s something you might not know, when you really love you – nothing can defeat you, so you have already won the race.  Surrender to the victory that you are. Call forth your extraordinary power.  Say “I win the race by loving me.”

32.   FIND TIME TO LOVE YOUR BODY.  – Find time to love your body.  Find time the time that need for your manicure, pedicure, hairdresser and massage.  Loving yourself means never ever looking shabby.

33.  CLAIM YOUR GOOD.  All you have to do is ask, and receive.  You can have the car, the spouse, the house, the trip, the joy that you desire – all you to do is claim it.  Right now, decide on 1-3 things that you want.  And say to yourself – I love me, so I will have [ insert your desire ]. If you want it, claim it.  This is simple: you are changing your consciousness so that what you want, claims you.

34.   BECOME NO. ONE ON YOUR LIST OF PRIORITIES.

35.   SAY NO TO WHATEVER WILL DRAIN YOU, USE YOU, MARGINALIZE YOU, LIMIT YOU.

36.   GET HELP WHEN YOU NEED IT.

37.   SMELL THE ROSES AND THE LAVENDER AND THE ROSEMARY AND WHATEVER ELSE SMELLS DELICIOUS AND SURROUND YOURSELF WITH IT WHENEVER YOU CAN.

38.   FIRE YOUR INNER CRITIC.  It’s past time to be unconditional in your love.  End all conversations that lie about how you do not have it going on: you do – wherever you are and whatever you are doing, you do.  You are the bomb.  You got the right stuff baby.  You got it going on.  No one can lose with the stuff you use.  Say I fire my inner critic.

39.   BE STILL.  Being still allows you to be at peace in the love that you are and to re-connect to the power that God is, and to feel the Kingdom expressing as you.  Just take a second and be still.  As the Psalmist says, “be still and know that I AM God” (Psalm 46:10).

40.   BE PATIENT.  We cannot love ourselves without patience.  Say I will love being in the moment.  I am patient.

41.   MOVE FORWARD.  Move forward into untouched spaces and realize YOU ARE more remarkable than YOU could ever imagine.

42.   BE GRATEFUL.   Oh, this is truly an energy of love.  Gratitude opens you to the realization of unlimited source and supply.  Say “I am grateful because I am always blessed,” and watch your blessings multiply.

43.   LOOK INSIDE AND SAY I LOVE YOU.  We fail to do that; we tell everyone else that we love them, but we don’t love ourselves – no one can love us unless we open the door to their love by loving ourselves.  Sometimes I think why are you not there to love me, but I wasn’t there to love myself.

44.   SHINE YOUR LIGHT.   In Matthew 5:14, Jesus said: “You are the light of the world.  A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.  Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.  Let your light shine so before men that they may see your good works…”  You cannot pick and choose who will benefit from your light.  You must be generous enough to share it with everyone.  How? By simply doing what I have called you to do.  Somewhere, someone told you that you weren’t good enough, but you need to tap into the higher power of your love and shine your light.  Say I’m shining my light today!

45.   NEVER GIVE UP.  The moso is a bamboo plant that grows in China and the far east. After the moso is planted, no visible growth occurs for up to five years – under ideal conditions! But if it gave up, it would never see its full growth and potential.  Your struggles are there for a reason; those are the things that ultimately matter; it has nothing to do with the prize at the end. As Og Mandino says, “Never will I allow any day to end with a failure.  I WILL NEVER GIVE UP. When others cease their struggle, then mine will begin.  I WILL NEVER GIVE UP. I will greet the new sun with confidence that this will be the best day of my life.  As long as there is breath in me, that long will I persist.  For I know, if I persist long enough — I will succeed.”

46.   MOVE OUT OF GOD’S WAY.   All you really have to do is lay the groundwork and move out of God’s way.  In the Book of Matthew, the 6th Chapter, the 8th Verse, it says that God knows what you have need of before you even ask.  The good that you seek is already part of the endless energy of God.  The only person standing in the way of that good is you — when you give your power away to people and events and the appearances of stuff.  Say “I’m going to move out of God’s way!”

47.   PUT YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER.   In the 2nd chapter of John, we learn that Jesus found  those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business there — and he made a whip of cords.  He drove all of them out of the temple,  overturned the tables, and screamed “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!” Then, His disciples remembered what the Psalmist said, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.”   God’s cleansing power goes deep into the veins and the inner parts of you for true confession.  Zeal — the pure presence of God — holds you accountable for your stuff — for anything that you do that is inconsistent with Spirit.  If your right eye offends you, pluck it out; if your right hand offends you, cut it off.  You need to do your own self-inventory and make sure that you are acting with commitment, leadership and integrity.  You need to clean out the contradictions that undermine your faith; and you need to remain vigilant to destroy any ousted enemy that tries to sneak back through your thoughts, words or deeds.

48.   STOP WORRYING ABOUT SOMEBODY ELSE’S BUSINESS.  You can’t worry about what somebody -sposed to be doin.’  That’s too toxic.  You have to realize that who you are in the flesh is a compliment to who you are in the Spirit.  You have to recognize that you are the good in everything that you experience.  As soon as you ask, you begin the process of receiving.  The only way that you shut the door — is by not believing.  When you give praise and thanks for the manifestation of your good, then you allow it to take shape.

49.   REAP WHAT YOU HAVE NOT SOWN.  In John 4:38, Jesus told his disciples “the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”  You are really above creation’s cause and effect subjugation.  If you are centered in God – in love, you will reap without measure the infinite reward of Spirit.  God’s desire to express through you is so great that you will even reap more good than you sow.  Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 9:37 that “the harvest is plenty but the workers are few.” At some point in your lives, you have stopped short of your true potential, but the love of God will give you favor, so that in all things, at all times, you will have what you need.  Accept God’s favor.

50.    MOVE TO THE END OF YOUR RAINBOW.  What people rarely focus on in For Colored Girls is that at the end of the play, where Ntozake Shange says “& for this is for colored girls who have considered suicide/ BUT are moving to the ends of their own rainbows.”   In other words, they are not tragically ending life but have come to the realization that they reach the end of their rainbows when they love themselves.  Shange says, “i found god in myself, and i loved her fiercely.”  The love that you need, you have within.   Shange says “my love is too beautiful to have thrown back in my face; my love is too sanctified to have thrown back in my face; my love is too magic to have thrown back in my face; my love is too music to have thrown back in my face.”  We relate to love on a human level — based on what we give and receive.  But on a spiritual level, love is not giving or receiving — love  simply is.  We evolve in it.  We create out of it.  We are reborn in it.  We are sanctified by it.  We are saved as it.  Love is the only  salvation that there is.  It doesn’t worry about receiving because it is constantly giving.  It doesn’t worry about giving because it is always being blessed.  There is nothing that it needs or lacks because Love is divine source.  See good radiating from you like endless streams of light bouncing off the edge of all possibility.  Don’t let your stuff walk off.  Claim it. Witness your own love as the ultimate salvation.  See prayers swinging from every space in creation.  Hear blessings beings harvested in answers declaring this is a new season.  Nothing is impossible.  Move to the end of your rainbow, and find God again and again.


Rev. Loving is the pastor and founder of SPIRITMUV, a new community of faith.