It is amazing what I find when I straighten things out, or perhaps I just wasn’t supposed to find them until now. The reality is that I think I always knew they were there, but for some reason did not feel called to look at them or open the box. Today, however, I felt drawn to open them and there was that card staring at me. It said, “Our emotions tell us how we are doing in life.” On the back it said, “If we don’t like our emotional reaction, we need to clean up the lies we belief. By following our emotions, we change our beliefs, and our circumstances change.”

As I read this card, I found myself laughing inside. Hmm, isn’t that what I had just talked about with my client this afternoon.

So how am I doing today? Well if my emotions tell me how I am doing, then I am rocking. I have been in this state of peace and joy and enjoying being there. There are moments I feel compassion when I learn of someone struggling or when I think about what so many people I know are going through right now. It is funny because sometimes I wonder why others think I should be miserable and depressed right now. I mean yes Zoë has cancer and yes I have my battle with Liftline, but in the grand scheme of things that has nothing to do with the inner joy and peace I have through my relationship with the Infinite and with myself.

I know that I could not always say that. There were days I felt so sad, pained, hurting, and depressed and that was what my life felt like as well. When I stop and think about what got me out of this funk, it was that I stopped agreeing with other people’s stuff. I stopped eating other people’s poison when they fed it to me and I started feeding myself nothing about healthy, toxin free spiritual and emotional foods. I had done what don Miguel Ruiz had said, “I had cleaned up the lies” that I had come to believe.

By changing what I was feeding myself spiritually and emotionally, I began to feel healthier inside and out. I noticed that day-by-day my health, emotionally, mentally, financially, and spiritually have changed. Everything in my life is falling into place and into a divine order.

I am finding myself thinking about a story OSHO told in his book Emotional Wellness. He told this story about a Buddhist monk and his apprentice were traveling. They had crossed a river and walked a way, when the monk stopped and said he was thirsty. He instructed his apprentice to go back to the river and get them some water. When he got to the river, it was all stirred up and was not drinkable. Upon returning to the monk and telling the story, he was instructed to return to the river a second time. While the river had started to settle down a bit, the water was still not drinkable. Upon his return, he asked the monk if he could not go ahead and get some water from an upcoming stream, but the monk said no. Instead, he sent the apprentice back to the river a third time, this time the river was settled, and the water was clear and drinkable.

Every time I think of this story, I am reminded of how sometimes I need to let other people’s stuff settle down and be washed away so that I can continue to drink the pure and refreshing water. I have needed to learn to remember that God will restore the balance in my life, if only I am patient and wait for the settling and cleansing to happen in God’s time.

So today, I own my joy, my peace, and the love that flows through my heart and my life. It is like a river, which is fertilizing all that I live in and on. And that is a good thing.