I was SO inspired by a video I saw the other day. I apologize if someone who reads this is the person who sent it to me!! I can’t remember where it came from. But…it is about a 20 year old girl with only 4 fingers and is a famous, AMAZING pianist. Her name is Hee Ah Lee. I was, like others in the video, was brought to tears by her BEAUTIFUL piano playing and her ability to be so focused and LOVE what she is doing. You know, how many times in our lives do we feel like failures or even feel we just can’t do things? We are a society of people who feel OVERWHELMED by the smallest task. Part of the reason I believe it is that way is because we are SO busy all the time and anything else we add into our everyday lives makes things seem SO crazy.

Watching the video of Hee Ah Lee really helped me to put my own life into perspective. I recognize my ability to let myself get too busy and not really enjoy and be grateful for all my gifts and talents. Along with the gifts and talents of all my earthly brothers and sisters. How grateful I was just to have 10 fingers and 10 toes after watching the video. We forget, to every second of every day, find gratitude for all our many blessings. We do need to be counting them. Some times when I feel down and I am having a hard time finding things to be grateful for, in my given situation, I will start with just being grateful for my toilet or warm water for a shower or my rocking chair or my bed or whatever. We really ALL our SO blessed!!!

I am sure Hee Ah Lee is also grateful for what she has been given. I believe this is why she IS so talented. She doesn’t see herself as any different than the rest of us but strives to be thankful for each and everyday and what it offers her. From my perception, this could and would help all humanity be just a bit happier and more at peace with each of our lives. I have seen a few videos recently of some VERY talented, unique people who have taken their ability to grow and learn to a new level. Some were inspired spiritually and some knew that success came at a price but one that was worth the fight and effort. When I say success, I am not speaking of the word in any worldly sense but one in just each person being able to find JOY in whatever life has to offer them and just finding that place of gratitude deep within their hearts of just BEING ALIVE and being able to share with earthly experience with all our brothers and sister. I know I say this ALL the time and you will probably hear me say it a lot more but WHAT A GIFT we all have been given. We sure are LOVED by a dear Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother.

We each get the opportunity to learn and grow from our own experiences and we can choose to let them make us or break us. When I see others fight for growth and understanding, it becomes MUCH easier for me to gain the desire to more fully tackle my own problems (that might seemed SO big before I saw others) because mine seem, all of a sudden, so much easier to work through. I am not sure who said it but I do LOVE the quote that states something like this: “I became saddened because I did not have shoes and then I meet a man with no feet.” By understanding this statement, in my mind it is not saying we do not face our own demons and fears inside of us by only seeing others. I feel it is saying that to more fully create balance within each of our lives, we might want to try seeing the world through different eyes. The way I see it is most of us, especially the ones reading my blog, have got it pretty DAMN good. We don’t even know how good we got it!! When we recognize this and find LOVE and GRATITUDE in our hearts for it, whatever else we might need to work on becomes just a little easier merely for the fact that we are looking at it a bit more honestly and with a new perspective.

One of my VERY best friends has been going through some “stuff” within her marriage. She LOVES her husband SO much and is working at really LOVING him and ACCEPTING him for whatever choices he makes. Her hopes in doing this is that their relationship can become closer and this can bring about more understanding but also that she can be ACCEPTED and LOVED in the choices she is making. I do believe in KARMA and that what we send out into the universe whether through thought or deed, does return to us. Some times even stronger and/or more powerfully. (By the way, I must add that karma is SO COOL to me. I LOVE that as I learn how to turn and keep my thoughts positive and full of LOVE for myself and everything around me, I find I get this in return. Again, another AWESOME gift from our Creator.)

Anyway, my purpose for telling you about my friend is because I find that as I help her, I see things in my relationship that I had seem to miss before. I find that I am MUCH more appreciative for my husband and what he does for me. Any problems of issues I might have been looking at don’t just go away but I am able to forgive MUCH more quickly. This is all because I took myself out of my own “issues” and decided to try and be love and supportive for a good friend and found my situation wasn’t what I previously thought it was. I had let myself create another false belief about my husband or about our relationship. When I decided that what I chose to see about him really wasn’t truth, I asked forgiveness of my husband and my Savior and all was well. It is and can really be that simple.

Another great story is my son got car sick the other day. It actually happened to be his birthday. We were riding up to a friends house and he wasn’t sitting in the front seat like he normally does. SO…after a while he started feeling REALLY sick. He acted like he was going to make it without vomiting so I kept driving. Wouldn’t you know it to be Murphy’s Law that right as we pull up to the curb of my friends house, my son can no longer hold it in and vomits all over the car. I was SO ANNOYED!!! And of course, I showed my SEVERE annoyance to my son. I was even rude to him, to a certain extent, and kept asking him why he couldn’t hold it in. DUH!!! What a STUPID question to ask someone.
Well, he was feeling TONS better so he came and helped me clean up the mess. After we were done, I felt really bad that I had been so childish in the way I had treated him. I went and asked him to forgive me. His response is one I feel we should all have when one asks our forgiveness. He said, “Mom, of course I forgive you. It’s ok. Just forgive and forget, right?” I was SO grateful that he was so willing and effortlessly forgiving me but what a LEARNING experience for me. What my 11 year old son taught me that day was nothing new. It was nothing I hadn’t heard before but it all of a sudden become clear to me, yet again, that when we chose to stay in a place of constant gratitude and forgiveness, life becomes a life where we can love more easily, move through our own “issues” with peace and gratitude, and really see the world in truth and light. We see the world as it really is. A place full of LOVE, GRATITUDE and FORGIVENESS!! I believe all of our lives find JOY when we choose to live in that space.

So….my sister and I decided to do a fruit diet for the next little while. I started on Monday. She decided to come up and see me this week/weekend so we decided to do it together. We decided to go to up to SLC last night for a concert she wanted to go to so we HAD to go to Omar’s to eat. I got the Falafal Bowl, which is my favorite, along with the Sushi!! My sister got the Lebanese Wrap and the Raw Pasta. I liked the pasta A LOT this time. I had forgotten how much I liked it. Oh, we are jumping back on our fruit diet now which means we are eating only fruit and greens. I would like to do it for a couple more weeks but we will see if that happens or not.

Here is what I have been eating for the past couple of days.

Wednesday, August 1st:
1 1/2 quarts of green smoothie
6 mangoes
3 bananas
And my new favorite dish is my salad which is romaine lettuce with tomatoes, mangoes, cucumbers, and dulse soaked in orange juice. YUMMY!!

I ate almost the exact same thing the days before and then yesterday I had:
watermelon
4 mango’s
Omar’s DELICIOUS food!! YEAH FOR OMAR!!!

I think I am now done with this post. I am excited to start reading a book called “Mutant Message” by Marie Morgan. It is supposed to be another very INSPIRING book. I will tell you all more about it as I go.

Abundant peace to all,
Rachel