Be Sure to Pick Up the Pearls: Reflections on Life - Softcover

Harris, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1452590230 ISBN 13: 9781452590233

Verlag: BalboaPress, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

Be Sure to Pick Up the Pearls: Reflections on Life strings together fifty brief and polished observations-call them pearls or reflections-that encapsulate the wisdom that David Harris, a pharmacist, practicing psychotherapist, and energy healer, has garnered from eight and one-half decades of life. He writes that he has gained "some wisdom," but expects that life always has more to teach. In its reflective essays, Be Sure to Pick Up the Pearls rests its shared wisdom on a basic insight that one gains wisdom from experience and that every experience contains a lesson worth learning. Some of the chapters' titles, such as "The Fitted Sheet" and "The Hot Stove and Red Flags," hint at bits of wisdom arising from life's mundane elements. Other titles, like "Listening" and "To Be There for Another," point to the lessons that emerge from relationships. In other chapters, including "Ten Choices You Can Make to Reduce Stress" and "Manifesting One's Dream," self-reflection becomes the classroom in which one gains wisdom. Recognizing that everyone who is still living retains the opportunity to gain wisdom, Be Sure to Pick Up the Pearls: Reflections on Life stands ready to pass on to the reader knowledge the author has gained and now offers to others. If you have discovered that life reminds you that the learning never ends, then Pick Up the Pearls will offer you insights to add to the string of pearls you are fashioning from the lessons life teaches you with each passing day.

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I was born with travellers and bought up in care. Drug use and dealing. Working with the drug squad to remove heroin for my friends. Serving in two armies and then getting abused by my partner. Jail and hospitals.

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Be Sure to Pick Up the Pearls

Reflections on Life

By David Harris

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2014 David Harris
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4525-9023-3

Contents

Foreword, vii, 
Preface, ix, 
1 Be Sure to Pick Up the Pearls, 1, 
2 Where Did the Child Go?, 3, 
3 Ego, the Big Cover, 5, 
4 Don't Ask How, 9, 
5 Live Your Life with Passion, 11, 
6 Be Careful, It's Contagious, 13, 
7 DNR, 15, 
8 Listening, 17, 
9 The Talking Stick, 19, 
10 Choices, 23, 
11 Don't Be Afraid, 25, 
12 Self-Esteem, 27, 
13 Accepting and Treasuring, 31, 
14 The Time Machine, 33, 
15 The Connection, 35, 
16 Dealing with Mood Swings, 37, 
17 The Heartbeat, 39, 
18 Listen to Your Heart, 41, 
19 Feelings Are, 43, 
20 Go Fly a Kite, 47, 
21 Drowning in a Glass of Water, 49, 
22 The Fitted Sheet, 51, 
23 The Big T in Marriage, 53, 
24 A Prayer Is Answered, 55, 
25 Expectations: Lessons to Be Learned, 57, 
26 Stuffing It, 59, 
27 Stress: The Silent Killer, 61, 
28 Ten Choices You Can Make to Reduce Stress, 63, 
29 The Hot Stove and Red Flags, 65, 
30 How Does Energy Healing Work?, 67, 
31 Fire and Wisdom, 71, 
32 Wish I Hadda ..., 73, 
33 Emotions and Pain, 75, 
34 Brief Karma, 77, 
35 How I Came to Be, 79, 
36 The Power of Intention, 81, 
37 Manifesting One's Dream, 85, 
38 I Thought I Was Invincible, 87, 
39 Look for the Good Stuff, 89, 
40 Miracles: A Dialogue with the Universe, 91, 
41 Perhaps a Glimpse?, 95, 
42 Three Remarkable Events, 97, 
43 Wait Until the Sun Comes Up, 101, 
44 What Really Matters, 103, 
45 Laughter, 105, 
46 Forgiveness, 107, 
47 Put on the Armor, 109, 
48 Change the Channel, 111, 
49 The Gift of Appreciation, 113, 
50 To Be There for Another, 117, 

CHAPTER 1

Be Sure to Pick Up the Pearls

Have you ever wondered if we are guided in our lives by a force that helps direct our journey? Sometimes in my own life I've been struck by circumstances and phenomena that seem to speak to me with hidden messages, reminders that there is a deeper connection between the universe and myself.

These messages might appear large or small. Perhaps I'll think of someone I hadn't spoken to in years, and within an hour he or she will call. Or suddenly circumstances in my life unexpectedly change, creating the perfect opportunity to answer my urgent prayer. At other times a simple smile from a stranger or a sudden revelation about one's life can feel like part of a conspiracy to wake me up to a web of seemingly invisible connectivity. I can't help but sense at times that the universe itself seems to be having a conversation with us, asking us to take more notice and enticing us to pay attention to the everyday wonders.

It's easy to miss these miracles, to believe them to be meaningless fabrications of our own imagination. Picture yourself walking down a beach, watching the waves and the birds flying by but failing to notice the many beautiful and valuable pearls lying in the sand by your feet. These seemingly meaningless coincidences, answers to our prayers, and daily miracles are those pearls that we step over without noticing, without stopping to pick them up.

Earlier in my life it was rare that I would bend down to pick up one of these pearls, and even then I usually would discard it as a coincidence. I found that these pearls were scarce and hardly ever presented themselves to me.

And then, for no reason that I could think of, I noticed that I was finding more and more pearls. What was the change? How was it that the more pearls I found and picked up, the more pearls presented themselves to me to be found? The difference was that I began to see the deeper meaning and significance of each of these pearls. I began to literally polish them and put them on the shelf instead of discarding them. I could no longer ignore them as I came to see the significance of them in my life.

I believe that these pearls are placed in our paths when we need them most, as if sent as lessons from a higher power meant to aid us and guide us on our paths.

Watch for these pearls. They are there. They were there for me. Experiencing just one of them could be a life-changing event.

CHAPTER 2

Where Did the Child Go?

We don't stop playing because we grow old, We grow old because we stop playing

(George Bernard Shaw, Biography)

And what are things that children do that make them children? Most importantly they play. They can act childish and goofy, they do not wear costumes of who they are not, they can ooh and ah at the zoo, they will feed the ducks at the park, and much more.

What are some of the things that grown-ups do? Sadly, they often feel that they must act grown-up. They often wear costumes of who they feel they are supposed to be. They are often not in the present, but may be engrossed in past regrets or future worries.

Play is vital to all adults. And play is whatever play is to you. It can be hollering at a football game or feeding the ducks. The key is to be totally in the present moment in some joyful fashion. Yes, we grown-ups do have to worry about paying rent, buying food and car insurance, and much more. But if this need consumes us and we do not make time to play in some fashion, the stress imposed on us by our culture can be costly in terms of health and longevity.

With the pressures of everyday life, I believe that it is most important to make space in our lives for the child that once was. It is about choosing to take off that grown-up costume and be the child who plays once again.

CHAPTER 3

Ego, the Big Cover

Are You Wearing a Costume?

Ego, as defined by Webster's Collegiate Dictionary Ninth Version, is the following: the self as contrasted with another self or the world. In our everyday lives, we might see it as individuals more involved with themselves than others. And we all have aspects of this in our personalities or we could not be who we are.

Who we believe ourselves to be, and the value that we attribute to me, has a huge impact on the way we relate to everything and everyone else. A positive sense of oneself or high self-esteem allows us to interact with others in this world without the need to wear a costume or project some concocted image of who we want others to believe we are.

When negative self-images lead to a feeling of separation and fear, we are more and more likely to live in our costumes, pretending to be who we are not. There are many ways that this process becomes apparent. At one end of the spectrum is being a pleaser, where one may neglect his or her own needs in order to gain acceptance.

At the other end of the spectrum is the kind of person who needs to swagger around with what appears to be an overly inflated ego, appearing to have an out-of-proportion sense of self-importance. We have all encountered people like this in our lives.

This person who seems to have a need to show power can often make us feel less than in his or her need to control. This personality may appear confident and strong, but if we look beneath the surface we might notice that this person does not actually like him or herself as much as it appears. This costume may be just a cover to hide a deeper sense of fear and uncertainty. Studies in present-day psychology confirm the fact that low self-esteem is a major factor in an out-of-proportion sense...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: BalboaPress
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1452590230
• ISBN 13: 9781452590233
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 130
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland