Awake | Bonnie Barnard - Part 2

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Breaking a Habit through Awareness and Choice

I bought some products from Aveda yesterday. I had tried to order my foundation throughout the pandemic and they were sold out. The supply had been replenished and I received an email offering me 25% off my purchase and routing me to the website. I ordered. I paid. I checked out. Then I took a survey. The survey asked for my feedback. My feedback was I am disappointed that I had to wait for the inventory. Then the follow up question was … get this … it is BIG … Was your feedback positive, negative, or both. That question woke up a trained habit within myself that said, “feedback equals improvement.” So I did look up the word feedback which does mean pointing out what needs improvement, so in essence I was giving feedback. Yet this follow up question woke me up to a habit. I stopped to think of ALL of the wonderful things the store did right and I liked. 1. They let me know when the...

What Is Your Contract with You?

I knew my intention was more God/Bonnie as me and less fear-based living. At the end of February the conversation of the pandemic began to overtake the television news channels. I received many phone calls from Seattle friends warning me of the sweep to come in Arizona’s direction and what I would need to have and do in order to be prepared for this health concern. “No good crisis should be wasted,” and I made the decision that I would be a different person coming out of the stay-at-home-order than the woman entering it. More God/Me, less scaredy-cat. A pandemic is a perfect container for this intention. Decisions sculpt who we are becoming. Where we live, the job(s) we work, the friends we choose and those we invite into our inner circle for love, support, and the energy we align with. Awakening to our Energy/God Self, we know it matters to where and who we give our life energy. My first decision was to take all of my power...

Insight and Prayer for Well Being

The following excerpt is taken from Dr. Holmes’ book This Thing Called You: You have discovered the spiritual universe. Many others have discovered the same world, but each must make the discovery for himself. You are going to have a lot of joy sailing around this world of yours. Don’t fight the opinions of others, or waste your time arguing over these things. Follow the inward gleam of your consciousness and you will arrive. Whatever you identify yourself with you will become like. Whatever you resist until you make it a reality, you will also become like. Therefore, “…resist not evil and it will flee from you.” Don’t fight your fears, see through them. There is nothing in God’s world to be afraid of. Say: I know there is a spiritual center within me which is perfect. I am now telling my own consciousness automatically to ward off any thoughts of doubt or uncertainty. I sense that every state of doubt, every consciousness of negation is leaving me....

Don’t Hate and Pray

A few days ago, Nancy Pelosi was asked by a journalist if she was undertaking the impeachment process because she hated the President. Her response (paraphrased) was she has learned to not hate through the practice of her Catholic Faith. Impeachment, she said, was about holding the president accountable to keeping his oath of office (behavior). She went on to say that she prays for the president often. This comment brought me back to when I first learned that someone’s behavior and our affection for them, can be different. My career has focused around training adults in different environments, public, corporate and spiritual. In my first corporate job I took a course and later taught a training program where I learned to separate my perception of someone (personal opinion) with the facts of their behavior. This has served me well as a supervisor, parent, friend, and definitely a clergy person. For example, if an employee was chronically late, I didn’t tell them they were worthless, (opinion) instead, I...

Practicing Joy in the Midst of It All

Joy is a medicine. Any quality of God is a medicine as it activates the Soul to flood our body with Energy Eternal. So, how in the midst of day of duality do I leave the realm of conflict and attention grabbing to experience Joy? First I begin looking for it. This can be done in the Present Now Moment as I feel it in my body. I acknowledge it to myself or those around me which then becomes a shared and more potent energy. Everyone can benefit from a hit of, “can you feel the Joy between us right now? Can you feel it in you?” It makes for a shared awareness that satisfies. However, if I’m not in the Present Moment, I can do this at the end of the day when I sit down to pray and meditate. I look back through the day for energy surges. A teacher once called this the feeling of a highligher on a page of sentences. I look for THAT...

P-E-A-C-E Be with You

I am having the BEST time!! I have been teaching meditation practices for decades (and more importantly practicing them) and I have been invited to speak on Mindfulness at a workshop for employees. My two big loves — God and work. However, I am to present what I know from a secular and scientific perspective so I am diving into the new brain and heart research and I am swimming in Pure Heaven. Yep, a Tuesday in Pure Heaven. I want to share with you a practice I just ran across in a book on Mindfulness for athletes entitled, A Still Quiet Place for Athletes by Amy Salztman, MD. It is a P-E-A-C-E practice for when you and I are facing challenges. P = Pause. When things get rough, pause. E = Exhale. Sigh, groan, cry, exhale. Then inhale and be aware of your breath. A = Accept what is. C = Choose. Whenever you are ready, immediately or weeks from now, make a choice on how you will...