As I write this it’s a rainy, windy, stormy night with an abundance of thunder and lightning.  Flash flooding is happening all around the area.  They say it’s from hurricane Beryl.  It’s very stormy, and still, by looking at the radar maps, I can see that where I am, the worst parts of the storm are going around this valley and we’re being spared.  Phew.

I love thunder and lightning.  I enjoy the electricity in the air and after 22 years of living in Los Angeles and hardly ever having thunder and lightning storms I really enjoy them now.

I have a dog and a cat, Bodhi and Sattva – and when I was growing up we had a dog and a cat, Ebony and Cleo.  They didn’t like the thunder storms at all.  Ebony would tremble and hide.  Bodhi, has never even seemed to notice the storms much at all.  Even when the thunder is really loud, and the lightning is really bright she’ll sleep right through it.  Sometimes when the wind rattles the windows very hard, she might look at me as if to say, “what’s all that about, Mom?”

I’ve been amazed that Bodhi doesn’t seem to mind the storms because I’d always heard that dogs were terrified by thunder.  One time I was away and she was with a pet sitter, the sitter texted me and asked me how Bodhi was in storms and I said she didn’t mind them at all.  The sitter said they were having a storm and Bodhi was trembling and seemed to be very scared.  I think it was really just because she was with the sitter, at her house, with her dogs, and maybe they were scared and she was experiencing the collective anxiety.

Isn’t that what we do sometimes?  We pick up on other people’s fears and worries.  We’re empathetic beings.  We can easily get a sense of what others are feeling and that can impact us.  Sometimes we’re afraid and upset and worried about things only because other people are.

If we wish to, we can cultivate spiritual sovereignty and dominion over our mind so that we don’t go wherever the wind blows.

It’s really so valuable.  We can be peaceful no matter what.  There’s no substitute for Peace.  We hold in our mind that it’s possible, that it’s what we’d like and then we manifest it.

We sometimes get used to being fearful and to feeling threatened and small.

When we put our faith and trust in Spirit then we begin to feel mighty.

We can recognize how others feel, but we don’t have to take it on.  We can step back from that.

There’s so much that’s possible for us when we’re willing!

If you feel like you might be playing small because of your beliefs about yourself, if you think maybe those beliefs are false and could be eliminated, and if you have a willingness to do some inner work to make a real and lasting change then please consider joining me and some other folks just like you who are SO DONE WITH PLAYING SMALL and ready to let those patterns go.