Welcome to Spirit Expressing with Rev. Ed Townley

Dear Friends,
You know that wonderful feeling - a combination of love, pride and excitement - that comes when you know you've found just the absolutely perfect present for someone at Christmas? Take a minute to remember a time - you were probably a kid, since excitement comes more easily to children - when you could hardly wait for someone you loved to open the present you'd found for them. What was the gift? Was the reaction everything you'd hoped for? Or did that even matter? Was the choosing of the gift its own reward?

I have found the perfect gift for each and every one of you - for everyone who has become a part of our Spirit Expressing community in the months since we began gathering and sharing last August. Whether you are a part of our Monday evening spiritual community here in Dallas, or a part of our worldwide web community, your support and participation are essential. I want to express my love and appreciation to everyone - and I'm thrilled to have found the perfect way to do that.

It's a gift that comes through me - it's not one that I can take credit for myself. It was gifted to me from my friends and colleagues at the Institute of HeartMath; it comes from the mind and heart of the founder of HeartMath, Doc Childre.

The gift is a short, powerful booklet called The De-Stress Kit for the Changing Times. It is Doc's loving and helpful response to the energies of uncertainty and fear that are reaching epidemic proportions in the world today - particularly in terms of the sudden instability of our economic system.

Things are changing dramatically - indeed, they sometimes seem to be on the verge of collapsing totally. There's a shared awareness that there's no going back - things are not ever again going to be the way they were. It's all good; a new sense of abundance and creative possibility is eager to be born this Christmas. But getting through this interim experience of confusion and concern isn't easy - no matter how confident of the eventual outcome we may be.

The De-Stress Kit offers a series of clear and simple steps that are really essential if we're to stay spiritually centered as we deal with practical challenges. I think Doc's most important point - which he emphasizes several times - is that we must resist the temptation to judge ourselves for the fears we're feeling. It's so easy to decide that 'I should be handling this better.' No, you shouldn't. You're doing just fine! The new good we affirm and intend won't be realized by resisting or denying the pain of the process. It's by acknowledging the pain and taking steps to move peacefully through it that we can cooperate with the new energies beginning to express.

I think it's clear that this is now the central spiritual issue of our time. We are in the midst of the very process that we've come into human form to experience and work through. We do that, not by 'toughing it out' alone, but by coming together in loving and supportive spiritual community. (That's Practice #1 on Doc's list.) We're going to be working through the De-Stress Kit each Monday evening in the early weeks of the new year. If you can join us in person, please do that. Your unique energy will be an important contribution - and you will feel the support of the group as you focus on appreciation instead of fear in your own challenges. If you are part of our more far-flung ministry, those Monday discussions will be available on the website as well, and your input and ideas will be welcome.

I think most of you already know how much I consistently value and draw from the work of Doc Childre and the entire HeartMath community. They've been a supportive and loving energy on my own path for some fifteen years. It's a great joy to be able to offer their continuing work to each of you, in the form of this simple but powerful booklet. A part of our Spirit Expressing tithing energy will be committed to supporting the distribution of the De-Stress Kit to people everywhere who need the clarity and help it offers. Let me know what you think of its message, and join us as we come together to transform the challenges of change into the creation of new possibilities.

To download the booklet, click here.

And Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, a Joyful Solstice! May this year's holiday season allow you to find, feel and fully embrace the wonderful, powerful, creative and heart-centered bein g you truly are!