Life is in constant flow. Like the river outside my window, life doesn’t stop. When it meets an obstacle, it flows around it, under it, over it.

This morning, as I contemplate the beauty of green leaves spread out against a sapphire blue sky, I sit in the quiet of being present to the divine nature of the world around me and am reminded, once again, of the divine nature of my human essence.

We are all born magnificent. We are all miraculous beings of light and Love.

And then, life happens. In its happenings, we forget our divine nature and fall into the flow of believing we are flawed, broken, lost.

It isn’t until we wake up one day to the essential essence of our being human, in all our perfectly imperfect human imperfections that we realize we have spent so much of our life pushing against the river’s flow.

In that awareness, we have a choice. Keep struggling, or, Stop It.

In my life, there are places where I pushed against the flow, spaces where I let go and those where I simply let myself be carried within the divine grace of being alive, in this moment, right now.

We are all perfectly imperfect humans. We are all on this journey called ‘Life on Earth’ together.

We can push against one another, or, we can flow together.

Which do you choose today?

It is an interesting question.

“What is my accountability for not living my life on purpose?”

Mary Davis, one of the facilitators of Choices Seminars asked it at a Choices Renewal session I attended yesterday afternoon.

“What is your accountability?”

Once you take away the excuses, your ‘buts’, your reasons why not, and are left with only the bare fact that whatever you just did or said did not take you closer to the more of what you want in your life, are you willing to get accountable?

Even answering that question takes a willingness to be 100% accountable. And for many of us, that’s a challenge.

It is so easy to blame others. To put the circumstances of our life today on another by laying blame at the feet of someone else like a supplicant laying a sacrificial lamb on the altar, praying for good fortune.

We don’t have to get accountable if we keep blaming another for our ill-fortune. We don’t have to take accountability for our mistakes if it’s never our fault.

And we definitely don’t have to be accountable with our words if we don’t hold our own voice as the perpetrator of the words that caused someone else pain.

Well it’s not my fault, you say. If they hadn’t said or done whatever they said or did, I wouldn’t be so angry.

One nice thing about not being accountable, you don’t have to change or do anything other than what you’ve always done to get to where you are today.

Yesterday, I got accountable.

One of the ‘Aha’ moments I had yesterday is that I am a ‘secret keeper’. No matter what is going on in my day, when I am distressed or chewing on an event and trying to think my way through it, I do not share what’s bothering me with my husband. I keep it secret.

Inevitably, the pressure inside will become so great it needs to be relieved.

And that’s when it will come out, misdirected.

He’ll do something I deem ‘fight-worthy’ and I’ll blow it up out of proportion.

This is my accountability factor.

I struggle to trust others. It has been a life-long journey for me to learn to trust, knowing I’ll be okay no matter what truth-telling I engage in.

Secrets for me are like lies. I’ll say, “I’m great,” when really, the secret is, I’m struggling.

I’ll smile, to keep secret the fact, tears are drowning my heart or that whatever you just did or said was not okay with me.

And I’ll laugh, when the secret is, I want to tell the truth about how I’m feeling but don’t trust enough to get real.

Over the course of my adulthood I have come a long way in ‘getting real’, but I still struggle to tell the truth about how I’m feeling inside about what is going on outside in my world.

My struggle does not serve me well.

Sure, keeping things tight inside means I don’t have to stretch beyond my comfort zone and ‘get real’. And that can feel like a relief when stretching causes the muscles of my heart to ache with fear at telling the truth of what’s going on for me!

But the relief is usually only momentary. And then the pressure builds again. Which means, I will inevitably want to find a way to blow things up when under pressure.

As I told my beloved last night after apologizing for my habit of keeping things secret, I commit to sharing instead of scaring you because I’m too scared to talk about what’s really going on.

In that way, I create more of what works in my life, more of what creates the kind of relationship/marriage that feeds my soul and holds me safe, loved, cherished.

What’s your accountability factor? Are you willing to live your life without blaming others for what’s going on?

Are you willing to get 100% accountable for, and in, your life?

Do you remember a time when life flowed with grace and ease? A time when every breath you took seemed to fill you up not just with oxygen but with life itself? A time when you were in such harmony with the universe, there was no end to possibilities?

Those times exist. For all of us.

Those times are possible, within each of us.

Yet, like a dam blocking a river from flowing freely, we let life’s happenings block us from flowing effortlessly in the river that is our life.

This morning, as I meditated, I felt the presence of life’s flow pulling me effortlessly towards the ocean of love that is all around me.

I felt at One with life and all that is around me.

For those brief moments of meditation, there was no separation, no me versus them, no here not there. There was just life.

It’s easy to forget the effortlessness of breathing freely when life feels like it is crashing up against the shores of your sensibilities and possibilities.

It can be easy to forget that Love is always present, always calling us home to our hearts when we are swimming upstream, pushing against life and everyone in it.

In those moments, it is vital to stop. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. Breathe.

Close your eyes and just for a moment imagine, there is no other. No force pushing you away from life and love and grace and ease.

There is just life. Flowing like a river. Gently carrying you always in a sea of Love that is unending.

Love has no beginning. No end. No in between or anywhere else to be other than where you are. Right now. In this moment.

Love is.

You are.

In the flow.

In Love.

Namaste.

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The delightfully conscious and inspiring Leigh shared a meditation for Journey 2 Peace this morning on her blog, Not Just Sassy on the Inside.  Her words and the meditation she included inspired my writing this morning. Thank you Leigh!

There is no better time than now to give yourself the gift of time to sink into the peace that comes with being present to Love, with Love, in Love.

Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress. Alfred A. Montapert

When I was a little girl I had one of those heavy plastic rocking horses that was attached by coils to a metal base that kept the horse grounded. I could sit on my horse, bounce up and down, sideways and front and back. I loved that horse. The motion. The joy of sitting and bouncing and riding.

My rocking horse never made any progress in the physical sense of getting from Point A to B, but I sure could make it ride across plains and continents, oceans and skies. Every time I rode I experienced some new and exciting adventure. I was Annie Oakley, the Lone Ranger and Tonto all dressed up in one. I moved around the world, saving children and dogs and civilisations from sure destruction.

I was powerful.

My rocking horse was my escape from the world in which I lived. The world around me which I didn’t understand, or didn’t make sense, or simply was too complicated to grasp.

As I grew, I had to let go of my rocking horse. Without it, I had to find some other way to escape the world around me — escape being the operative word. I never wanted to get off my horse, so I created a mighty steed within my mind who could transport me away from the world in which I lived into a world that made sense to me. A world that ideally suited me. A world in which I had control. I had power. A world where I was all powerful because, well, I was writing the script. I controlled every scene, every word, every action. I determined who was there, what they did and said and what happened. Cool!

I loved my imaginary worlds when I was a child. They were fun! Problem is, as an adult, escaping into scripted scenes within my head is not an effective way to live my best life yet. Scripted scenes where I control the people, places, actions, scenes and words are not a reflection of the world around me. They are a reflection of what I want to have happen, what I believe could happen — if everyone and everything in my world did what I thought was best, or right, or simply acceptable to me!

And that just ain’t the way the world rocks. Often, the world in my mind becomes a wild ride upon my high horse of self-deception. Armed with my quiver of judgement filled with arrows of complaint, criticism, and condemnation I take aim at gentle hearts and opening minds and pierce balloons of possibility with my conviction that I know what is best for the world around me.

I must admit, I have clung to many a high horse in my adulthood and run roughshod through many a delicate blossom of life unfolding. I have sat upon my mighty stead trampling other people’s feelings and perceptions with the heavy footed destruction of King Kong stomping through New York.

And always, when the ride was over, I have fallen off my high horse in a fit of embarrassed consternation that so much destruction could be created in such a short, wild ride, by me.

High horses, like rocking horses do not get me anywhere other than where I don’t want to be — Eating sawdust in the not so OK Corral of my mind, grovelling in the mud of guilt and disappointment.

The good news is… dismounting from my high horse comes easier now. I am progressing.

I have learned how to keep my quiver of judgements empty. My arrows of criticism, complaints and condemnation sheathed.

Filled with the joy of fearlessly embracing who I am when I let go of clinging to the neck of my high horse, I am free to dance in the lightness of my being human. That fragile condition where peace of heart reigns as long as I let go of my need to control the world around me.

It ain’t always easy. Somedays I want to grab an arrow and shoot right to the heart of what I judge to be someone else’s problem.

That’s when I must remember to breathe. Deeply. And ask, what’s really happening here? What is this world of wonder and beauty asking me to see and know?

In that place of breathing deeply, I open up to all that is possible when I let go of judgement and step fearlessly into Love.