Let's Talk About Words

A few months ago, my friend, Joao, told me about a great experience he and his husband had, and he felt like I too would enjoy it. I am very spiritual, and love to meditate and feel close to God and the universe, but I have never attended this type of retreat before. I have been on a day retreat and even chaperoned my daughter’s confirmation retreat overnight, but this one was a whole weekend. It was called “Manifesting your Desires” and was lead by  Elias Patras . It was an amazing, transformational and unexplainable experience.  These are the 3 things I learned on the retreat: 1.     I have a lot of beliefs that are limiting my ability to achieve my dreams. As we conducted a variety of exercises to uncover what was blocking us from reaching our desires, a pattern of unconscious beliefs emerged. Before this retreat, I never would have thought that I felt this way. One of our tasks was to create a nature vision board to help understand our dreams and to be...

 Every evening before bed, I reflect on my day, and pick one thing I am grateful for that specific day. It is simple and takes only a few minutes. My items of gratitude are not big sweeping things that happened usually. My goal this March is to look at life with a lens of gratitude so that my life is framed in positivity and good. I write a weekly blog for ChicagoNow called  Looking For The Good  if you want to read more.

A year ago, I was working two jobs in order to pay my bills and was just barely able to make my ends meet. I don’t live an extravagant life, but it was difficult to provide a home for my three college age daughters once the child support ended. That could be another article on the challenges of being a single mother though since after my divorce, the four of us lived in two-bedroom apartment for the next eleven years. Today though I want to explore the decision to put everything you own into a storage space and ask another person for help. Eight months ago, I put all of my belonging in a storage unit and moved in with my mother. Before I was able to get a second job, I got into debt simply by charging groceries and miscellaneous other necessities. I was so grateful when I found a part time job to supplement my fulltime job; however it didn’t take much time before I began to spiral into despair, seeing no end in sight to this new life that gave me little time for writing, hiking, pa...

I love the written word for many reasons, and cannot imagine a life without the feel of a book in my hands or deprived of the character's words replaying in my head. as difficult as it was to do, I chose three of my favorite books in order to understand why I like to read and how I can get lost in a book... http://www.chicagonow.com/look-good/2016/12/wish-i-had-a-list-of-books-that-i-have-read/

Nelson Mandela said, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”  Words can be powerful, but so can our thoughts.  Most of the spiritual books that I have read discuss how powerful one's thoughts and intentions are. We create our experience of the world based on how we think about it. What are you thinking? How are you responding? What are you creating? Is your intention positive or negative? We all know that hitting someone and calling names can hurt, but intentions and thoughts can hurt others as well as we damage ourselves. When you hate others, you bring that onto yourself. When you are negative, you draw more negativity in your life. There are countless songs like the one by Sister Hazel that sing, "If you want to be somebody else, change y...

Many people are shocked by the characters that “turn bad” or go over to the dark side. Even I find myself wondering what could happen in a person’s life that would make them turn on their family, but then I look at what we place value on in society. We praise people who make lots of money. We value power, possessions, control and money. That ultimately is what the people are enticed by when they begin to make the choices of evil over good. We can all be enticed by the dark side. https://itunes.apple.com/…/susan-marie-schulhof/id613849093…http://www.amazon.com/Susan-Marie-Schulhof/e/B00IBPFHV8http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Susan+Marie+Schulhof…

I don't think that faith is as simple as some people want it to be. It is difficult to understand why people die; why people suffer, and why people hurt others. I question how mean people can have abundance in their life, but I do believe. Life is messy; life is complicated; life can be painful; life can be beautiful. It can be sad and it can be joyful, but it is in that space that I live. http://www.amazon.com/Susan-Marie-Schulhof/e/B00IBPFHV8

   I read a motivational quote recently that stated that we should all strive for continuous improvement, instead of looking to be perfect . I felt uplifted by that, yet as I reflected on it, I could not understand how to apply it to life. Who decides what can be labeled "improvement"? What degree of improvement is enough? How do we aim for improvement if we aren't striving to be perfect? I don't want to make mistakes. I want to be the best person that I can be. I want others as well as myself to succeed, but I have more understanding when others mess up than I am on myself.    I know that rationally no one nor anything can be perfect yet that is what I want for myself.   https://twitter.com/SchulhofSusan https://www.facebook.com/susanmarie.schulhof.7

    Suppression is a futuristic novel set in 2135, during a period of time when humankind is making major advances in communicating with one another and even traveling through thoughts alone. Twenty-four year old, Peyton Milner, lives with her parents and her brother in one of the few civilizations remaining and thriving in what is left of America after everything and everyone was almost obliterated by war. Peyton has been raised to place vast significance  on one’s intelligence and the power of reasoning and logic in all decisions. She has a plan and purpose for her life until she and her best friend, Reese, wander into a local Art Gallery where she meets Dallas. She is drawn to him and to the sunsets he paints in ways that she can’t describe, ways that contradict all common sense and rationale.  https://twitter.com/SchulhofSusan https://www.facebook.com/susanmarie.schulhof.7

    I have been struggling for years to understand the purpose and meaning of my life? Why am I here? What am I suppose to be doing? I love being a mom, but my daughters are all grown. I enjoyed being an infant teacher for thirteen years, but I was ready for a promotion. I get satisfaction and pleasure from being an Education Coordinator, but is this my purpose ? Is this what I am suppose to be doing with my days? As I was walking out of a meeting today, it occurred to me that possibly, I am putting too much pressure on my family, as well as my career to be more than it is intended to be. Although there are many people whose purpose and career are aligned, does it need to be? Maybe my career just provides the means for me to pay the bills, so that perhaps I can discover and do my true purpose. I am taking the pressure off, and relaxing into the moment of now. https://twitter.com/SchulhofSusan https://www.facebook.com/susanmarie.schulhof.7

    Recently, I was reading a letter from my pen pal who is in prison. We had been writing about our summertime past times, and he said that he is used to being in prison now, but that he misses just going out on his father's boat, fishing with him. Often people talk about that on our death bed. They say that we will never wish that we worked more or spent more time away from our families, yet it is more than that. Life is lived in the little things. My hope is that I can remember that in my life and enjoy those simple moments with my family and even in my work. https://www.facebook.com/susanmarie.schulhof https://twitter.com/SchulhofSusan

   At Willow Creek Community Church tonight Steve Carter spoke about temptations. He asked us to think about what our bait is? What in life pulls your focus off of God? Many people have behaviors and habits that keep them from God and even prevent them from being happy. As I thought about my life, I realized that it is good times and success that lures me away from church, prayer and ultimately God. Like some people are fair-weather friends, I am a bad weather friend to God. When my life is going well, and I am happy, then I forget to pray; I am too busy for church, and I ignore God and his promptings. Then when life is heading in the wrong direction, or I am confronted with sorrow and challenges, I wonder where God is and why he has deserted me. Are you like me or are there other things that lure you away from your faith?

"When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced; live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice." -White Elk   How will you be remembered? What will you leave the world? https://twitter.com/SchulhofSusan https://www.facebook.com/susanmarie.schulhof.7

Although we can't change the things that we did in the past, we have the power to change the future. Too many people get stuck on the past, feeling like they are defined by it. I have come to understand that one true fact about life is that everything changes.  https://twitter.com/SchulhofSusan https://www.facebook.com/susanmarie.schulhof.7

When life takes a change in direction, can you find the positive or do you feel defeated? Even if I initially feel defeated, I can usually go with the flow and find some good in even bad detours. The truth is that detours still lead you where you want to go. https://www.facebook.com/susanmarie.schulhof.7

  Can I learn from the negative situations of my life and move on? Can I stop the negative self talk and punishment that I feel for things that I have done and things I had no control over? Can I choose to live in today, learning but then moving on? https://www.facebook.com/susanmarie.schulhof.7

If I knew that the world would end or go to pieces tomorrow, what would I still do today? I would make sure that everyone knew that I loved them and that they are all special to me. I would want to spend a few moments in quiet reflection on my life and the choices that I have made. I wish that I could be working towards achieving my goals and making a difference in other people's lives more often. Instead of wishing, I will strive to make that come true. https://www.facebook.com/susanmarie.schulhof.7

    "Time flies" is usually a negative phrase. It means that we are getting older; our kids are growing up, or our loved ones are dying. As I get older, I think more about what time really means, and what is the purpose of my life. The reality of it is that the passage of time is a miracle. We get each and every day to define what our lives stand for. Author of Riding Waves and Fun4Babies http://www.amazon.com/Susan-Marie-Schulhof/e/B00IBPFHV8 https://twitter.com/SchulhofSusan https://www.facebook.com/susanmarie.schulhof.7

Maybe God has a better plan for your life than you can imagine for yourself.