Focus on Fulfillment
Focus on Fulfillment
by Ruth Kellogg LCSW on 05/22/11
Check out www.focusonfulfillment.wordpress.com
Your Birthright - Happiness, Peace, Harmony, Joy
by Ruth Kellogg LCSW on 02/24/11
I am not sure when I woke up and realized that life was meant to be lived in peace and harmony and love. I think the seed for this thought began early in my life, in the small moments in my growing up years when I felt pure happiness. Because those moments were far and few between, when I did feel them, they stood out!
There was a moment before the age of 5. I was sitting on my front lawn gathering the clippings in my arms as my did mowed the lawn around me. Our family had just gone through a horrible ordeal, a care accident. We had finally settled into a home that would accommodate my Mom's need to walk a few steps as possible. She was learning to walk again, inspite of the doctors prognosis. My parents chose this home because everything she needed was on one floor. I have no memory of watching her learn to walk. I do clearly remember however, sitting on the lawn, on this beautifully sunny day with warm breezes gathering clippings to make a next and feeling full, feeling content and happy to be alive.
There was another moment when I was practicing with my 2nd grade class for our First Communion. A right of passage in the Catholic Church that at that time made me feel more grownup. Now, I would be able to walk to the alter with all of the adults and receive “Christ” into my heart. At the tender age of 7, I still felt the meaning of what I was being taught about ‘the body of Christ”. I allowed myself to feel my heart open to this experience of being loved and being a grown up with responsibility to keep my heart clear so that I could receive him every day in communion. (Going to a Catholic school, going to church was an every day occurrence.)
You get the picture. I am talking about a whole body experiences. Where I was engaged in an activity that allowed me to feel something and it was and is in these feelings that we come to learn about life. Unfortunately for me, and for most of us, our negative experiences, or lessons leave us with a point of view, a sense of the struggle life offers, instead of the goodness and ease. By the time I had reached high school, I had learned to fight for what I wanted. I had come to believe that good things came in small packages and not very often. I had decided that marriage for most people was just hard work, little or no fun and that the pleasures in life came through adventure and a willingness to buck the system and step out of the box! I was a negative thinker back then with a great deal of fear. Fear of doing “it” wrong. I was afraid of myself, and what other people thought. Fear that my life would go the way of those around me… miserable and always wanting. Back then, I knew what I didn’t want, but I had no thoughts, or even frames of reference for what I did!
When did this turn around? I can’t put my finger on any exact moment! I do remember realizing as I went through my divorce that I was not going to live in sadness and regret. I was going to move on, make sure that I did not repeat my mistakes. I had a mantra that I lived with back then. When ever I would find myself feeling upset, judgmental, fearful I would redirect my thoughts and feelings to “ I will only allow God’s energy to live in me, through me and around me!” This was a simple commitment to my well being. Looking back years later, I realized that while I lived this commitment to my well being my life was magical. Many wonderful things came to fruition, easily during that time. This look back to that time did not occur however until after another marriage when my 2nd child was born. I felt at a loss and without direction. This was 6 to 7 years later.
There is a book called, “What Color is Your Parachute?”. I was reading this book and going through the exercises. I was taking an inventory, doing this serious inventory of “what do I really like to do?” This in itself was eye opening. I realized I had no conscious idea of what I liked. I was forced to go back to satisfying moments in time and see what I could glean from these memories.
It was also during this time that I was introduced to Emotional Release work by Roger LaChance. After graduate school, I had come to accept, with humor, that I was anxiety prone. I woke up with it most days. I had tried many therapy modalities. It didn’t keep me from doing things I wanted, I had learned over the years to manage it with exercise and relaxation techniques. I had come to accept it as a way of life. I met Roger through our Accountant of all people. He invited into his home to have an experience of Roger’s work. After 2 or 3 sessions, my everyday anxiety was completely gone. All of my habitual tools for managing my self became obsolete. That experience for me was a turning point. It was that experience that allowed me to see myself differently and set the bar higher for what I wanted to experience in my life. The thinking goes something like this… “If I can rid myself of anxiety, not have to deal with it any more, what do I want instead?” Before I was thinking, I just want to be anxiety free… now I am thinking bigger. I want peace love, harmony and joy. I want what that small child aspired to as she was practicing for her First Communion. I want an open heart, a sense of my own goodness and the joys that come with that! Will you join me on my journey? It is your birthright!
Focus on Fulfillment
by Ruth Kellogg LCSW on 10/06/10
Focus on Fulfillment that is your birthright
Fulfillment is word that came to me recently when I was pondering what it was that had received from the gift of having children. This was my last summer with my children (yes, grown children) home. My son was going off to start his junior year in college; my daughter, her senior year. Neither would be home till they graduated, and if fortunate, they would find the job of their dreams and never come home in the same way again.
As this summer was drawing to a close and I began to think about what I wanted to experience when my home was once again empty, I realized that I wanted to feel fulfilled; to keep that experience going as that is what my children had given me those many years.
Fulfillment, I looked it up. It is defined as “The state of being fulfilled.” Or “The act of consummating a desire or promise.”
If you examine these definitions, one says “a state of being”. I believe the words for this would be “I am fulfilled.” That in fact could imply a permanent state of being. The other definition speaks of an action, consummating my desire or promise. This feels more fleeting to me… as it is done and over. This was the dilemma I was pondering as the days grew shorter and I would again be alone in my home, after so many years of activity. Was I going to allow my state of being to be fleeting? Or was I going to live the knowing of a job well done and be in that every day. I chose the later, and yes it required a commitment on my part to live there in my emotions, versus live somewhere else like sadness or loneliness; or what most of us do…live with whatever shows up!
Do we as humans ever experience anything as a permanent state of being? Don’t we often speak of our “fleeting” experiences of happiness or joy? Hang onto those good experiences, those memories while you can! I say NO these wonderful states of joy, or happiness or laughter are always there, we just think that they are not! Life is fleeting, yes. However, the foundation out of which all life comes has been around for eons of time. If we open to the possibility that the foundation out of which all life comes is founded not just in molecular particles as they say in Quantum Physics; but that underlying those particle and part and parcel with those particles is love. Then it only stands to reason that we are love. The very essence or life force out of which we originate is love!
That is your foundation as well. Why not live from within the knowing of that foundation, choose to live from that!
I want to give you an analogy! We all eat to survive? Would your agree? If you had the choice between day old bread on peanut butter, or leftovers from a meal that wasn’t so great in the first place; versus a fresh meal of all your favorite foods, which would you choose? Here is the catch… you have to go down stairs to get your favorite food? You have to go down not just one flight of stairs, but 10 or even 20. Would you do it? Would you do what it takes? Those of you that would are making a statement to yourself about what you are willing to do to get the good stuff in life. In order to get the good stuff, no matter what it is, you do have to commit and go after it!
Love resides with in, and yes with in you too! It is an innate building block in all that is. In order to know this, to experience this, to live in this you have to say yes! Yes, I want that! I am willing to declare that I want that! The declaration alone will be your guiding light, your guiding force. This is your birthright. It is called free will. You are free to choose to live in fulfillment everyday. When you choose it, life will show you how! I choose fulfillment, and my days since my children have left, have been filled with the most amazing things. That is left for another blog!
