I have always loved this quote by Marianne Williamson, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure" because it speaks to the bravery we need to show up, be vulnerable and live life.

The truth is life is not for the faint of heart and although I had never given much thought to fear being a teacher, when I sit with the concept, it is actually true. Of course, the trick is to pay attention to our fear(s) and use them to propel us forward instead of allowing them to stop us in our tracks.

 

For me, I think I don't always recognize an emotion as fear until I've done something brave and then realize my fear was an opportunity for me to show up differently.

 

I tend to avoid large gatherings when I don't know any of the participants; like networking events. I remember finally having the courage to attend one; my mentor said just be curious, make the conversation about them and they'll remember you. Because truthfully, we all like to be listened to. It worked, I felt more relaxed and able to hold my own. Of course, this happened in February 2020 and I'm still planning my networking event.

 

When we listen to our fear and check in with what the fear is trying to tell us it can be easier to move through whatever is holding you back. When we are on the other side of our fear, we have shifted our consciousness and become clearer about what truly is happening.

 

I'll admit 2026 has not been my most favorite year. If I was asked to paint a picture of my emotional landscape, I'd use a lot of black and red. The black would be the fear, and the red would be the anger. Is it everyday? Good God no; just more than I am used to. And the lesson for me is knowing how to move through both with grace.

 

It is why I love the Science of Mind philosophy. It is not a promise that your life is going to be perfect or that you are never going to have days/weeks/months/years you wished never had happened. What I learned was even in the darkest moments there is a power and presence that is at the core of who you are. It never goes anywhere. Do I forget sometimes that we are connected to this Universal Presence? I absolutely do. And then I remember, sit and be silent. Allow yourself to truly feel what this inner presence is telling you. I find great comfort in knowing I am never alone.

 

Will it always be a bed of roses? Probably not — have you ever fallen on a rose bush? OUCH!

Blessings on your journey,
Rev. Gayle

When I first read The Four Agreements and got to “Always Do Your Best”, I wasn’t convinced that was possible. It sounds like a tall order to some and to others it sounds like a copout.

 

In the book, Don Miguel Ruiz describes doing your best this way: “Under any circumstances, always do your best, no more and no less. But keep in mind that your best is not going to be the same from one moment to the next. When you wake up refreshed and energized in the morning, your best will be better than when you are tired at night. Your best will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick or sober as opposed to drunk.”

 

We are a culture that has been groomed to believe we need to work 12 hours a day (or more), skip our vacations, and worry that that isn’t enough. And yet we aren’t doing our best if we are missing out on our families, our friends, our life. As Arnold Zack wrote to Paul Tsongas in a letter, “No one on his deathbed ever said, ‘I wish I had spent more time on my business.’”

 

When we overdo, we are expending too much energy and if we expend too much energy, we are certainly not doing our best. I remember interviewing for a management job with AT&T on the 70th Floor of the World Trade Center. I was a fish out of water. I’d been living on the East Coast for a year and although I had certainly visited Manhattan, the financial district is its own beast. The man interviewing me told me he expected me to work until 7pm every night. I knew that wasn’t going to work for me, so I mustered the courage to ask him why. I then proceeded to tell him that if and when it was necessary I would work late, however, I was good at managing my time and was quite sure I could complete everything required of me by 5pm. To my surprise and probably his, he hired me.

 

I think doing our best is about having Grace. Ernest Holmes describes Grace as, “Grace is the givingness of Spirit to Its Creation and is not a special law, but a specialized one. In other words, Grace is, but we need to recognize it. It is not something God imposed upon us but is the logical result of the correct acceptance of life and of a correct relationship to the Spirit. We are saved by Grace to the extent that we believe in, accept, and seek to embody, the Law of Good; for the Law of Good is ever a Law of Liberty and never one of limitation. Limitation is not a thing, not an entity, but a belief. Freedom is a Divine Reality.”

 

When we Always Do (Y)Our Best, we are allowing ourselves to experience Grace. Not everything needs to be done now. Not everything is your responsibility. Not everything gets tied up pretty with a bow. Life can be messy and when you do your best during the messiest parts; well, that is true Grace.

Blessings on your journey,
Rev. Gayle

I remember the first time someone asked me if I knew what the word assume

meant. I knew it was a trick question, so I responded no. They advised me that

assume has a tendency to make an ASS out of U and ME. It made me laugh and it

also rang true.

We see what we want to see, we hear what we want to hear, and then our brain

for whatever reason fills in the blanks based on our history and stories we have

chosen to make up.

Have you ever been in a relationship with someone and just assumed they should

do something for you because they love you and they should know what you

want? STOP IT! To the best of my knowledge none of us are truly mind readers, no

matter how much we love a person. The issue isn't that they don't love you, the

issue is you are afraid to ask for what you really want. Trust me on this. I spent

most of my life in relationships where most of the conversations were going on in

my head. And then one day, I'd be done and no one was more surprised than the

person I'd been living with.

Have you ever had a disagreement with a friend, spending days ruminating the

conversation in your head, losing sleep, feeling upset and angry? STOP IT! Yes,

you had a disagreement. It takes courage to reach out and ask an open-ended

question — without using the word you. It's safer to have conversations in your

head. The problem with conversations in our head is that your friend doesn't get to

be an active participant. Many friendships have been lost because we make

assumptions about what the other person is thinking and feeling. I don't know

about you; me, my psychic skills are really lacking in this department.

You may have noticed that The Four Agreements aren't really separate; they

intertwine with each other. When our word is impeccable, we don't leave room for

assumptions to fill the silence. We recognize the world isn't revolving around us,

so, we stop taking things personally. And instead of guessing, we ask.

Life becomes easier. Our relationships become deeper. And we stop making an ASS

out of U and ME.

Blessings on your journey,

Rev. Gayle

"Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering." — Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

I used to think I had a personal relationship with everyone's bad mood. Someone snapped at me in the grocery line, and I carried it home like it was mine to fix. A friend went quiet for a few days, and I ran through a mental list of everything I might have done wrong. I was exhausted before I even got to the real problems of my day, because I'd spent all my energy absorbing everyone else's weather.

Here's what took me embarrassingly long to learn: most of what lands on us was never actually about us.

That coworker who's short with you in the meeting? She might be up half the night with a sick kid. The friend who didn't call back? He might be drowning in something he hasn't told anyone yet. Even the person who says something cruel and pointed, aimed right at your chest — that arrow was forged somewhere else, in some old wound of theirs, long before it ever reached you. You just happened to be standing there.

This doesn't mean people's words don't matter, or that we should shrug off real harm. It means we stop making ourselves the main character in everyone else's story. Each of us is walking around inside our own reality— our own fears, our own history, our own tired, half-healed places — and most of what we say and do comes straight out of those experiences, not out of some careful assessment of who you are.

I think about this every time I catch myself in the act of projecting, too. When I'm irritable, it's rarely about the person in front of me. It's about the meeting that ran long, the bill I'm worried about, the thing I said to someone I love and can't take back. If I'm honest, my stuff leaks out onto other people all the time. So why would I assume theirs doesn't leak out onto me?

There's a strange kind of freedom in this. Not indifference — freedom. When you stop scanning every interaction for evidence of your own worth, you get your energy back. You stop rehearsing conversations at 2 a.m. You stop editing yourself into a smaller, safer version just to avoid someone else's bad day.

So here's what I want you to sit with this week: the next time someone's words sting, pause before you let them in all the way. Ask yourself — is this actually about me, or am I just standing in the path of someone else's storm? You don't have to solve their storm. You don't even have to understand it. You just have to remember it isn't proof of anything about you.

You are not required to carry what belongs to someone else. Set it down. Walk on light. That lightness isn't callousness — it's clarity. And clarity, friends, is a kind of grace.

And here is the video to go with the BLOG: https://youtu.be/-TXpnZC29vE; if closed captions come on please un-click the CC button on the YouTube screen-bottom right.

Blessings on your journey,
Rev. Gayle

 

In Love and Law, Ernest Holmes writes, "Since our word creates always, it stands to reason that we have got to be very careful in sowing the seed. You cannot contradict nature and get an affirmative result. You cannot mix up thought, negative and positive and get a steady stream of affirmative consciousness and results. Your consciousness, your creative power, is limited to the amount of belief you have, the word you accept. If you believe you are living in an imperfect universe, it is imperfect to you. God has not erred. God has not made a mistake. There is nothing wrong."

In Don Miguel Ruiz's book, The Four Agreements, he writes, "The first agreement is the most important one and also the most difficult to honor: Be impeccable with your word. It sounds very simple, but it is very, very powerful."

Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Impeccable means "without sin," and a sin is something you do or believe that goes against yourself. It means not speaking against yourself, to yourself or to others. It means not rejecting yourself. To be impeccable means to take responsibility for yourself, to not participate in "the blame game." Regarding the word, the rules of "action-reaction" apply. What you put out energetically will return to you. Proper use of the word creates proper use of energy — putting out love and gratitude perpetuates the same in the universe. The converse is also true. Impeccability starts at home. Be impeccable with yourself, and that will reflect in your life and your relationships with others. This agreement can help change thousands of other agreements, especially ones that create fear instead of love.

It is interesting reflecting on gossip. It is so easy to share someone else's story, or to gather support by sharing something out of context. I look back at times when I was having a disagreement with someone, and how I would share "my side" of the situation with my friends to gather support for me and against them. Sometimes we gossip simply by sharing someone else's story — when someone asks, "How is Billy doing?" instead of saying, "You should call Billy, I know he'd love to hear from you," we share what we know.

Remember the old TV show — some of you won't, you're not old enough — where the host would whisper something in one person's ear, and they'd turn and whisper what they heard to the person beside them? By the end of the row, the last person was asked to repeat what they'd heard, and it was never even close to what was originally said. Speaking with integrity is about speaking from your experience, not someone else's.

Before you speak, ask: is this my word to give? Your word is yours to keep impeccable — what will you do with it today?

Blessings on your journey,
Rev. Gayle