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The long weekend is over and today is a BEAUTIFUL day! The sun is SHINING, the birds are SINGING, I was able to get out and do my run early before it is 80 degrees today … I’m feeling blessed. I do have a husband who hurt his knee and a kid who was sick in the middle of the night who has stayed home from school and the remote has been lost and my flower beds STILL haven’t weeded themselves … but other than those things (they are WAY in background of my day to be honest … I care about the sick people, but it’s not getting me down!), I’m SO grateful for this day.

Do you know what I love? I love learning new things. I love having those moments of truth fall upon me and it makes the world take on a NEW luster of brilliance and shininess. It’s like ONE more piece of “the master puzzle” falling into place and it makes the world brand new again, and everything makes MORE sense than it did before.

Learning and growing … having those NEW perspectives is everything.

Can you imagine living life NEVER moving forward? Never having greater understanding than you did before? Not growing, not progressing, not continually expanding?

Life would be far less than it is meant to be if we didn’t learn and grow.

What is growth? I look at the world around, and the patterns that exist, and see that all of nature is there to help us understand what growth IS.

Growth = evolving : progressive development : increase, expansion : a stage or condition in increasing, developing, or maturing

Growth is always accompanied by movement which is always accompanied by change – if you move there IS change associated with the movement. If something is growing it is evolving and changing into something greater, something larger, something that has increased.

If we are here to learn through experience and grow, we must be continually moving, changing, evolving, expanding, and developing into a NEW thing with greater understanding than before. Greater understanding necessarily means that we have NEW knowledge, NEW thoughts, NEW dreams, NEW views.

Growth is not staying in one place and never moving. Growth MUST include movement or it is not growth.

Just as a flower starts from a seed and bursts forth from its tiny enclosed being into a sprout through the ground, and grows and moves and continues up into the world to become what it was meant to become, so too must WE grow. Continually moving forward … and not so much physically, because yes, that does happen, but in knowledge, understanding, and “spiritual” truth.

When I turn within for truth, I am always met with guidance and wisdom and light. I have learned SO much from that space, and it is not knowledge as the world gives knowledge. It can’t be learned from a book, it cannot be given by a lecture series or a teacher, it cannot be taught through an instruction manual … the knowledge that fills me with so much peace is given ONLY through divine guidance. And it is individually learned. And it is given to me in the stillness and the moments I seek within me for answers.

You too can learn in that way, and you probably are already. THAT is the knowledge that distills upon your soul as pure intelligence and it GROWS you. It EXPANDS your being. It ENLARGES your mind and your heart and gives you practical ways to live in the world that bear GOOD fruit.

There are MANY people who have opinions about where the “right” place is to find truth. They believe their source is the only source, or their way is THE way, or their guidance is the right guidance for all.

What I have learned is that truth is truth regardless of where it comes from. When I receive truth it gives peace, it promotes love, and it embraces unity. I don’t need another person to tell me that what I’ve received isn’t “right” because it doesn’t come from a source they recognize … “rightness” is only found in the fruit any truth bears, and if what I’ve received bears goodness, light, love, unity, and peace? Then it’s good fruit. And the “source” of it is the right source for ME.

Your way of learning and growing will not necessarily look like anyone else’s way. And don’t you think that’s as it should be?

Can you imagine pigeon holing ALL the people in the entire world into ONE way of learning? One standardized test for all regardless of their experiences, their level of understanding, the way their brain uniquely functions, etc. (oh wait … we sort of do that … that’s another blog post). It is certainly a disservice to the whole of society to try to force all to fit into a box and to not make way for the simple truth that we are all unique and learn in different ways and have different strengths and weaknesses and needs.

What then, could be a more PERFECT design than for each individual to have a guide, a teacher that is finely tuned to their own unique way of learning, WITHIN them! It is a perfect system and because it is it always works when you’re connected to that teacher within.

The key is for each of us to understand this and to not judge another on what we see outwardly but to understand that what is happening WITHIN is more of an indication of where a person is, and we cannot see that, so letting go of judgment wholly is truly the ONLY way.

That soul space within you IS guiding you. It knows exactly where you need to go and exactly what you need to get there. It is a PERFECT guide for YOU. Not for anyone else, they have their own guide within them. Do not think for one moment that YOUR journey needs to look like anyone else’s … it is for you. If you are paying attention to YOUR divine guide … and seeing the fruit that comes from it (expansion, love, unity, peace, joy, GROWTH) then you are exactly where you need to be and you can have faith that you are progressing perfectly. There is no stress involved. There is no worry. There is not a burden in this way. It is easy, it is light, and it is joyful.

If you are worried about what others are doing and trying to gauge whether or not they’re “right” – stop it. Who cares?! What is important is what YOU are doing and judging is never the way to peace, love, or unity. It actually dams the flow of the energy of your guide within and so you should focus solely on YOUR journey and how to get closer to God, to love, and to the source of existence of which we are all a part.

Focus inward and you will see that peace envelops you. Focus inward and you will find that you are continually given NEW and greater understanding and you will KNOW growth. Focus inward and allow all others to do the same and the burden melts away into this peace and unity that invites you to see the world in a more beautiful way. It is freedom in this way. It is as it was meant to be.

Focus on coming closer to that soul space within you and you will not need to worry about what anyone else is doing because you will be so very focused on your own connection that everything else becomes background noise … you find that the only thing that matters is connecting and the more you love and feel joy the more connection you have, and the more connection you experience, the more you grow until you realize the truth of it all and you smile and think, “This IS perfection. What was I doing thinking that other way was better? This is love. This is unity, THIS is peace … continually expanding peace … huh, I get it now.”

I have a little plant in my windowsill in the kitchen and I look at that little green plant everyday and think “keep growing! you can do it!” I never get tired of the joy that comes in a new thought, a new perspective, or a new flower outside my window … growth is LIFE and life is amazing.