Kara Emily’s Hearth

 I have created the following list of “reminders” based upon my reading of Sarah Susanka’s book The Not So Big Life: making room for what really matters. My intention with this list is to have a resource to refer to that will allow me to continuously and repeatedly keep myself Awake.

Every line of this list could involve a lifetime of contemplation and learning; most of these concepts are so eternal and true that they represent an ancient and profound awareness in each of us.

I hope everyone, at least once in their lives, takes the time to sit with these ideas, one at a time, and expand the shivering awareness of beauty into their lives.

Kara Emily’s ‘Not So Big Life’:

v     Make a time and place for solitude.

v     Experience, but do not attach, judge, or identify with anything.

v     Focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want.

v     Be obedient to the situation.

v     Do one thing at a time.

v     Follow the synchronicities.

v     There is nothing wrong.

v     Everything has the potential to teach you. Look with the eyes of a student.

v     Who or what is deciding there isn’t time?

v     Reactivity is always the result of conditioned patterns and confused thinking, and it’s a flag indicating the presence of a filter over reality.

v     Being in your doing.

v     Surround yourself with objects of delight.

v     Be effective, not efficient.

v     Focus on the meaning, not the contents of your life.

v     Everything is sacred and profound; do not plod along without awareness.

v     The world is just reflecting you back to you. Everything is a reflection.

v     Step outside the experience and be the director of your life.

v     You are much more whole, capable, and profound than the caricature of your personality.

v     Do what is in front of you to do.

v     Do not fall for the container version of time. Do not limit your possibilities.

v     Remember that you do not need to engage or identify with “the” thoughts. They are not yours.

v     The premium you place on your own health and sanity should be nonnegotiable.

v     Repeatedly wake yourself up.

v     Identify what isn’t working.

v     The only problem is the way you are looking at things.

v     Make room for something new.

v     Follow your passions.

v     Do now waste your time reacting to things that are in the past.

v     Presence is now, and now is eternal, without boundary.

v     Time is not a linear progression, but one continuously unfolding moment.

v     The moment of experiencing is the only time there is.

v     Always have a light to walk toward.

v     Surround yourself with friends who help you to live into the realization of your true self.

v     Surround yourself with people who see your highest potential, and insist that you strive for it.

v     By experiencing completely, we are always and inevitably becoming more.

v     Always test your beliefs. Do not let them define your existence.

v     Do not create your own prison of unexamined limitations.

v     Activity is a veil over the vitality of the unfolding moment.

v     Widen the aperture of your understanding.

v     Your entire life, over time, becomes the meditation.

v     Do not allow yourself to go back to sleep and continue to think you are now awake.