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Coming Together to Love, Heal & Empower

'Our Deepest Fear' Poem, Positive Approach Stories

Inspirations

April 2005
Issue Number 27

Welcome to Inspirations! Global Community For All sends out this e-zine filled with short, inspiring stories of love, healing, and empowerment once every three months. We share these wonderfully inspiring stories including the "Our Deepest Fear" Poem by Marianne Williamson, "The Positive Approach," and more to encourage and inspire each other to be the best we can be each day of our lives. Thanks for joining us, and may these words inspire us to ever deepen our commitment to love, heal, and empower; to open to divine guidance; and to choose what's best for all.

The four inspiring stories for this issue are:

Our Deepest Fear Poem – Marianne Williamson (mistakenly attributed to Nelson Mandela) Embracing All – Fred Burks & Friends
A Little Boy Makes a Big Sacrifice
– Relayed by Dan Millman
The Positive Approach – Peace Pilgrim


Our Deepest Fear Poem
By Marianne Williamson

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us.

We ask ourselves
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small
Does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine,
As children do.
We were born to make manifest
The glory of God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us;
It's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we're liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.


Note:
This inspiring quote is taken from Marianne Williamson's book A Return to Love. Though often quoted as part of Nelson Mandela's moving inaugural speech, "Our Deepest Fear" does not appear in the speech.


Embracing All – Fred Burks & Friends

The first two stanzas of the following poem were read to me in a most inspiring, empowering dream by a woman of incredible depth and wisdom over 20 years ago. For many years, the poem captured some of the deepest wisdom available for me in moving through my life.

Then, one day just last year, I realized that this insightful poem was yet incomplete. It spoke powerfully of the two sides of polarization, but not of the coming together of these two into a beautiful synthesis. Seemingly simultaneous to this realization, the third stanza came to me from a place deep within my heart. May this inspiring poem help guide all of us to find the deep wisdom of these qualities ever more within ourselves.

Embracing All

Light that lies deep within me
Come forth in all they majesty
Show me thy gaze
Teach me thy ways
That I a better person may be

Darkness that lies deep within me
Come forth in all thy mystery
Show me thy gaze
Teach me thy ways
That I a better person may be

Love that lies deep within me
Come forth in all thy unity
Let me be thy gaze
Let me teach thy ways
That I a better person may be


A Little Boy Makes a Big Sacrifice–Relayed by Dan Millman
From Chicken Soup for the Soul - Written & Compiled by Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen

"So you think I'm courageous?" she asked.

"Yes, I do."

"Perhaps I am. But that's because I've had some inspiring teachers. I'll tell you about one of them.

"Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at Stanford Hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liza who was suffering from a rare and serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her five-year-old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness.

"The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, 'Yes, I'll do it if it will save Liza.'

"As the transfusion progressed, he lay in bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color returning to her cheeks.

"Then his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, 'Will I start to die right away?'

"Being young, the boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give her all his blood.

"Yes, I've learned to have courage," she added, "because I've had inspiring teachers."


The Positive Approach – Peace Pilgrim
http://www.peacepilgrim.net/

I have chosen the positive approach—instead of stressing the bad things I am against, I stress the good things which I am for. Those who choose the negative approach dwell on what is wrong, resorting to judgment and criticism, and sometimes even to name-calling. Naturally, the negative approach has a detrimental effect on the person who uses it, while the positive approach has a good effect.

When evil is attacked, it mobilizes, although it may have been weak and unorganized before, and therefore attack gives it validity and strength. When there is not attack, but instead good influences are brought to bear upon the situation, not only does the evil tend to fade away, but the evil-doer tends to be transformed.

The positive approach inspires—the negative approach makes angry. When you make people angry, they act in accordance with their baser instincts, often violently and irrationally. When you inspire people, they act in accordance with their higher instincts, sensibly and rationally. Anger is transient, whereas inspiration sometimes has a lifelong effect.


All the darkness of the world cannot put out the light of a single candle.


Thanks for sharing in these inspiring stories with us. We wish you lots of love, inspiration, and all the very best in the months ahead.


Explore the mind and heart expanding websites managed by the nonprofit PEERS network:

www.peerservice.org - PEERS websites: Spreading inspiration, education, & empowerment
www.momentoflove.org - Every person in the world has a heart
www.personalgrowthcourses.net - Dynamic online courses powerfully expand your horizons
www.WantToKnow.info - Reliable, verifiable information on major cover-ups
www.weboflove.org - Strengthening the Web of Love that interconnects us all

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