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To be sure of where you are, check with the map of your heart.
With the passage of the year and the approach of spring, this is a good time to look at our highest priorities in life. If we don't take the time to focus on this, the very highest part of our being gets crowded out and other lesser priorities take over.
First, as a family, what is your highest goal? Now, most of the time is probably spent just getting through the day: getting the kids off to school on time and not forgetting their lunches, parents getting off to work, bringing the children home from school, making sure homework is done, dinner is served, dishes cleaned, and on and on it goes throughout the week. Then there are the other goals that take up time and attention, trying to help your son pass calculus, struggling to pay for your daughter's college tuition, being a referee for the ongoing sibling disputes, keeping the house clean and laundry done and coaching the twin's baseball team. What about the higher family goals? Are they receiving enough time and attention?
As a couple, what is your highest goal? Is it buying that new house you've always wanted, finding the best-yielding mutual fund, planning your dream vacation, or starting your new exercise program together? These goals are good within themselves, but there are goals that are higher and deserve your time and attention.
What about your goals as an individual? Are you happy in your career, the way your body looks and feels? Are you happy with your place of residence? Are you in the right relationship, or do you even want a relationship? Again, these goals are worth looking at and are important. Yet there are higher priorities that need your time, attention and evaluation.
As a family, a couple and an individual, do you take time to remember why you came to earth? What are the highest aspirations of your heart and soul? Are you using this life to grow in love and in learning to open your heart? Are you giving the special gift that you came to earth to give? Do you take time to remember the source of your being?
These higher aspirations and feelings can so easily get crowded out in the daily business of life, and yet putting our attention upon them for even a little while can bring fulfillment to our lives. Asking ourselves the deeper questions of life can set us on the right track again.
At least once a year it is important for an individual, a couple and a family to look deeply at their lives and understand the path they are on. It doesn't need to take a long time to look more deeply at our life. Sometimes just a good focused hour can bring very rewarding results.
We wouldn't dream of taking a major road trip to an unknown place without consulting a map and having some kind of a plan. Even if the plan changed and we wanted to go someplace different, we would still consult the map. Life is a big unknown trip and our heart is the map. Consulting our heart, our own personal map, will make sure we are going in the right direction.
Treat yourself to the Vissell's newest book, Meant To Be: Miraculous True Stories to Inspire a Lifetime of Love, containing 38 of the most amazing and inspiring love stories you will ever read. Look for it at your favorite bookstore.
Spend SEVEN DAYS IN PARADISE this winter with Barry and Joyce, along with talented musician, Charley Thweatt, for a time of celebration, healing, and spiritual renewal for individuals and couples on the Big Island of Hawaii. This week can transform your whole life. February 4-11, 2001-Hawaii Living From the Heart Retreat. Call Jim Lipson at 520-721-1710 (Tucson, AZ) for more info.
Joyce and Barry Vissell, a nurse and medical doctor couple since 1964, are also the authors of The Shared Heart, Models of Love, Risk To Be Healed, and The Heart's Wisdom. They are the founders and directors of the Shared Heart Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the connection between relationship and the spiritual path. Call TOLL-FREE 1-800-766-0629 (locally 831-684-2299) or write to the Shared Heart Foundation, P.O. Box 2140, Aptos, CA 95001, for free newsletter from Barry and Joyce, further information on their books, tapes and training programs, or their schedule of talks and workshops. Or check out their web site: www.sharedheart.org.
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