When your doctor reviews your latest EKG graph with you, you’ll notice that



the lines of the graph go up and own. This is evidence of a healthy heart,

with life force and vitality. If the graph were flat, devoid of ups and downs,

you simply would not be alive.

This is a microcosm of life. Yet we resist the downs, and feel anxious about the

ups because of the responsibility that may come attached to them. In essence, we

seek a flat line. But life has no room for the “flat line" dynamic. So we choose

to embrace that which is – both the ups and the downs. Miraculously, this tends

to strengthen our heart – meaning our essential self.

Let’s talk about when the lines of life’s EKG verge down. At these times, we must:

strengthen our ability and recall our willingness to see divine order within the

external challenges;

be resolved to face our challenges in good faith; resist feeling overwhelmed by them;

look into them, exploring their mysteries not merely to solve them, but also to observe

any lessons that we are meant to learn;

resist becoming depressed by what we see and feel;

reject the wrong-headed notion that we deserve to feel troubled; learn the lesson,

then go on to implement that which we have learned;

pray for strength and wisdom to effectively flow with these challenges, instead of

praying for them to be taken away because we don’t think we can handle them;

and have gratitude at all times.

Then, as they always do, circumstances will eventually change. Soon you will enter

the upward trend of your life’s EKG. When in that phase: fearlessly embrace whatever

new responsibilities come with the package; take no ego credit for the improvement;

realize we have co-created, and therefore be more humble than proud; be ready and

willing to assist others with our accomplishments and blessings;

remain grounded, knowing good results are becoming the norm for us,

not a rare instance that calls for elation; remain unattached to our accomplishment;

and hold firmly to our attitude of gratitude.

Observing these precepts, we will never again lose our sense of center,

our contact with our essential self, whenever life’s EKG changes direction.

We will know it means that we are alive and, as always, blessed.