Sunset Over Manila Bay

Hello, everyone

I hope your week is off to a great start. Sunday April and I got to do two pretty cool things. Sunday morning we journeyed to Manila’s China Town district to visit the Seng Guan Buddhist Temple. It was beautiful and I am going to create a video sharing some of the images we captured there.

Sunday afternoon we finally got to go to the SM Mall of Asia, the world’s third largest mall. The mall sits about a mile down the road from the U.S. Embassy and right across the street from Manila Bay. After an afternoon of shopping (video slideshow also coming), we ended the day with dinner on the restaurant terrace overlooking Manila Bay. We had visited the the boardwalk area, that you will see in this video, about a month ago. We waited on the sea wall, along with thousands of people for sunset, but clouds denied us on that night.

Sunday was a beautiful sunset and we captured photos of it. I have condensed them into this video slideshow. I hope you enjoy!

Believe it or not, I come home three weeks from yesterday. April will follow three and a half weeks after that for her first visit to the States since leaving in March.

Be well and have a great week! Click the image to launch the video.

Ray

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11 Affirmations for Letting Go and Moving Forward

stepping stonesWe all get stuck sometimes. We fall into habits, even those that don’t benefit us. When it happens we often just need a gentle reminder to push forward, let go, and make new choices. Change is constant. You must be too.

Daphne Rose Kingma said, “Holding on is believing there’s only a past; letting go is knowing there’s a future.”

Release your past and claim your future today.

These affirmations are written to help.

  1. Beginning today, what serves me stays and what fails me goes!
  2. The past is the past, my direction is forward not back!
  3. Today I break old habits and I break new ground!
  4. I embrace change as a constant and powerful ally in my life!
  5. Today I let go of what is to embrace what can be!
  6. Today I am breaking old barriers and setting new trends!
  7. Whenever I break old mindsets, I always break new ground!
  8. I created my status quo and only I can change it!
  9. Today I dare the future, by releasing the past!
  10. Together we leave the past and we create the future!
  11. I choose to change because I choose to get better!

Follow your bliss. Experience your bliss. Become your bliss.

Ray

Ray Davis is the Founder of The Affirmation Spot and focuses on empowering minds to think positively, achieve goals, and live dreams.

He is the author of the Anunnaki Awakening series (2015). Book 1 – Revelation – is now available in paperback and on Kindle. This trilogy takes Ancient Aliens out of the past and into the present. An interstellar, interdimensional journey ensues with humanity’s future hanging in the balance.

Sun Beams in the Oregon Forest

Today’s Affirmation

 I am one with the forest. Being among the trees, I am completely grounded. Being with the trees, I am reminded to reach for the sky.

Few things are as affirming and restoring as a little time in nature. I have always had an affinity for the great forests of the Pacific Northwest…at least from afar. They have always been a place of mystical magic to me. Where I’m from in Kansas, a forest is three trees clumped together. But in Oregon, they have real forests and real magic.

My wife and I visited Oregon last fall with some friends. We were fortunate enough to capture some magic moments of sunbeams filtering through the trees in the morning. I’ve put these photographs together in a video collage.

May it affirm and restore you today.

Follow your bliss! Experience your bliss. Become your bliss.

Ray

http://www.theaffirmationspot.com

The “I” Problem

Today’s Thought:
The tribe says, “Pick a side.” The wise say, “Been there. Done that.”

We awaken each day with a default setting that we are the center of the universe. That mindset is represented by the word “I”. “I want this” and “I want that”. “I think this” and “I think that”. “I believe this” and “I believe that”.

Generally, the thought “I” (or we) immediately creates a thought “they”. We differentiate “them” from me/we based on a myriad of superficial appearances and differences of opinion – religious classifications, political classifications, ethnic classifications, status classifications, physical characteristics, and gender differences.

We create whole mental frameworks around these differences, always with the base assumption that me/we are correct and “they” are incorrect. Why do you support a certain sports team? More than likely, it’s because you were born in a certain city or your family has ties to that city. There is nothing inherently better about the Yankees or the Red Sox. What creates that distinction is “I”. You, your mindsets, your filters are the only difference between the two.

From this mental framework, we create a moral code that says me/we is good and “they” are bad. Our belief system is not only correct, it is the only correct belief system. That makes your belief system wrong. Show me one Muslim who thinks Christians are have it right and Muslims have it wrong. Show me one Republican who thinks Democrats have it right and Republicans have it wrong. Show me one Chinese citizen who thinks the disputed islands with Japan really belong to Japan or vice versa.

What makes the Yankees better than the Red Sox, Islam better than Christianity, Republicans better than Democrats, China more entitled to some islands than Japan? With rare exception, it has to do with who you are, who your family is, where you were born. Your “I” became indoctrinated by Hinduism, Red Sox fan, Japanese, or Democrat by the people around you.

Your tribe passed those mindsets on to you and you consciously or unconsciously adopted them. They all became part of your “I”. And where did the tribe get them? Well, they received them through the same process. Generation after generation believing something “because we always have”.

This all kicks in automatically each morning with our first thought….”I”. This unconscious acceptance of “my/our way” over “your way” has been the human norm for thousands of years. Teachers have periodically come along and taught bigger, broader ideas about who we are in the world, but the tribe generally persecutes and eventually does away with such heretics.

The only way to improve ourselves in this regard is to become conscious of the process. We must carefully and consciously choose our “I” and allow others the freedom to choose theirs too. It’s inevitable that we will not all agree. ” But, you know what? It’s amazing how much evil disappears from our world when we stop counting those who simply disagree with us as evil.

Follow your bliss. Experience your bliss. Become your bliss.
Ray

Ray Davis is the Founder of The Affirmation Spot and focuses on empowering minds to think positively, achieve goals, and live dreams.

He is the author of the Anunnaki Awakening series (2015). Book 1 – Revelation – is now available in paperback and on Kindle. This trilogy takes Ancient Aliens out of the past and into the present. An interstellar, interdimensional journey ensues with humanity’s future hanging in the balance.