What Legacy Are You Creating Right Now?

It’s easy to see how some people create a legacy through how they live their lives, but are you aware of how you are doing this? Does a legacy have to be grand to count? Maybe what follows will answer that question.

Years back I watched a PBS series titled "Road Trip," where the narrator took his parents, who were in their eighties, around the United States in an RV. Sometimes when we observe others, we focus on the surface of what we see. So, what was under the surface in this instance?

The son revealed that his parents' first child was a daughter who did not live long. The four brothers grew up aware they'd had a sister and that their parents preferred not to speak about that loss. The son said he always wondered how their lives would have been different had their sister lived; that the factor of one, whether with us or gone from us, can have a profound effect.

In the final minutes of the last segment, the father sat peacefully at the end of a pier and looked out over a serene lake in a wooded area. In the voiceover for that scene, the son commented that his father was always ready to sing and laugh despite the fact he had buried a child, fought in a world war, lost his fortune and retirement twice, won over cancer, sustained a marriage for six decades, and with his wife raised four sons into good men. He said when his father left the earth no one would name a street after him or take special note of him in history. Yet, he left a quiet legacy that would affect several generations because of who he was and how he chose to live his life. The father’s factor of one touched and influenced every person he interacted with, most especially his family.

The father didn’t focus on creating a legacy; he focused on living in a way that made sense to him, especially when faced with life events and circumstances that had the potential to wear him down. He aimed to do and be the best he could, in light of whatever came his way. Some of us are aware of the legacy we create through how we live and what and how we contribute to others and life. Most of us never give our legacy a thought, which is fine. Such contemplation isn’t required in order for a legacy to be created; it’s created with or without that contemplation.

At this point, you may be thinking about moments from your past that you don’t feel good about. Anything from your past that you regret—let it go—it’s over. You can make better choices from this moment on. You know more and are more now than you were then. Yes, learn from those times, but let them go. Right now, in the moment you stand in, you can decide who you are and how you want to be and will be, from this time forward, aware that you leave an imprint. I recall something I was told by a music teacher way back when: even if you mess up in the middle of singing a song, as long as you end the song really well, that’s what people will mostly remember. Your life can be the same as a song. Your life is your song.

We all have occasion to feel overwhelmed by events. In such moments, we may temporarily forget our contribution to the bigger picture of our shared lives. We may forget that our own factor of one creates ripples at all times. On the positive side of this, we don’t always know when one seemingly simple gesture, word, or kindness on our part reaches into the heart of another and makes a significant difference. I venture to say this happens more often than we are aware of.

Legacy is about what we contribute while we’re here. It doesn’t have to be grand; it just has to come from our heart and authentic self. It may be as simple as the example we are to others, not that we are to overwhelm or burden ourselves with thoughts of this. Our example does not guarantee good or bad behavior from others. Each of us is, after all, responsible for who and how we are and what we choose. It’s ultimately about what we desire to see when we view ourselves in the mirror of our lives, not how others see us. However, in some respects, they will see us the way we see ourselves, as well as some of our aspects we are not necessarily conscious of.

Keep in mind that every moment of our time on this earth is a pebble dropped into a pond. We may be aware of how we affect those nearest to our center point and forget to be aware of how far the ripples may travel. Each of us creates a legacy, more often a fairly quiet one than not. But as with the quantum universe, the size of our legacy is irrelevant. Every ripple is significant in some measure, contributes to the whole. Every ripple is a relevant thread in the larger tapestry.

Perhaps from this moment on, we can remember that we are weavers and can seek to ensure that some of our threads are ones that endure the tests of time, integrity, and merit. It’s never too late to start now. It’s a good practice, one you’ll appreciate.    

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce L. Shafer

You are welcome to use this article in your newsletter or on your blog/website as long as you use my complete bio with it.

Joyce L. Shafer is a Life Empowerment Coach dedicated to helping people feel, be, and live their true inner power. She’s author of “I Don’t Want to be Your Guru, But I Have Something to Say” and other books/e-books, and publishes a free weekly online newsletter that offers empowering articles. See all that’s offered by Joyce and on her site at http://stateofappreciation.weebly.com

How Spiritual Practice Works Best

Spiritual practice is something we fine tune as we go along in life. We learn what works and what doesn’t. But there are a few aspects that we must always be consistent about in our practice.

Ernest Holmes said in The Science of Mind that “Perfect belief is the beginning and the end of all good mental work.” Makes sense to me, but that can be tricky to achieve. Perfect belief, of course, means the absence of doubt. Perfect belief and doubt cannot exist in the same space or they’ll cancel each other out. Perfect belief results in perfect practice. Perfect belief and practice are what most of us aspire to build up to. How can we do that?

Holmes offered something about that as well, and these are the aspects that must be consistently practiced. “We should work, not with anxiety but with expectancy; not by coercion but with conviction; not through compulsion but in a state of conscious recognition and receptivity….obstruction is the result of a ‘hang-over’ of belief from past years…”

We should work our spiritual practice not with anxiety but with expectancy. Well, we get the part about anxiety. Anxiety never attracts more of what we desire, but only what matches our feeling-based thoughts swirling around in that emotion. Anxiety may happen before our spiritual practice, but when it happens during and after our practice, it’s a clear indication that doubt is stronger than faith, at least temporarily. But what about the expectancy aspect? What are we supposed to expect? We are, first, to expect the Law to work as it’s designed to, which means to align with and match what we feel, rather than solely what we say we want. It’s up to us to remove any knots in that thread. And, we are to understand that what we want cannot contradict the highest good, or it won’t be fulfilled. So even though we can and are meant to make a specific request, the safest thing to ask for and expect is for our highest good and the highest good of all involved to be fulfilled. Then we need to trust that.

We should work our spiritual practice not with coercion but with conviction. Well, you can’t actually coerce the Law of Attraction (Manifestation). That’s not how it works, but we sure do give it a go fairly often. We end up roiling our own energy when we do that. Conviction isn’t that easy either, because again we’re back at facing the fact that any doubt we have is stronger than our trust in Source’s ability to provide the highest good for all involved. But a belief in the Truth of how the Law is set up to work with us and for us, that level of conviction, puts us in harmony with the Universe and in flow.

We should work our spiritual practice not through compulsion but in a state of conscious recognition and receptivity. How often, especially when stressed, do we then get “serious” about our practice? We then become like the wolf in the childhood story of the three little pig—we huff and we puff and we try to blow the undesired whatever from our life through affirmations and so on. A calmer way is to practice conscious recognition about cause and effect. There’s a great deal of discussion about this, but for the purpose of this conversation, let’s say that sometimes the effect we experience is directly caused by us through our feelings, thoughts, words, or actions. Then there are times when “shift” happens and we cannot find a way to point the finger in our direction. At those times, we need to realize it is now up to us to get directly involved with cause and effect from that moment on and find something we can align our thoughts and feelings with that leads us out of darkness and into light. And at that point in time, we must become receptive to what’s presented to us, for us, and through us and go from there.

Obstruction is the result of a “hang-over” of belief from past years. What an effective mental image those words create of something we all experience. Beliefs and practices of the past that never served us well but are still carried by us certainly feel like a hangover. We don’t perform at or feel our best. We struggle to be clear and articulate in our moments and overall life. If you’ve never had a hangover, you won’t understand how the person doesn’t function at full capacity or how long it takes for the person to feel like himself again. The more we let go of beliefs from the past that never served us or no long do the healthier and stronger we feel. Plus, the more we then open up to what we’re truly capable of feeling and accomplishing.

How we practice life and our spirituality do more than overlap, they are one and the same. This time, instead of focusing solely on the spiritual practice when you now reread the key part of Holmes’ quote, focus on these words as a practice for life as well: “We should work, not with anxiety but with expectancy; not by coercion but with conviction; not through compulsion but in a state of conscious recognition and receptivity.” It’s a good practice, one you’ll appreciate.   

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce L. Shafer

You are welcome to use this article in your newsletter or on your blog/website as long as you use my complete bio with it.

Joyce L. Shafer is a Life Empowerment Coach dedicated to helping people feel, be, and live their true inner power. She’s author of “I Don’t Want to be Your Guru, But I Have Something to Say” and other books/e-books, and publishes a free weekly online newsletter that offers empowering articles. See all that’s offered by Joyce and on her site at http://stateofappreciation.weebly.com