Author: Cynthia D. Griffin

Speak Your Truth: An Invitation to Speak Up

Posted on by Cynthia D. Griffin

A few months ago, I decided to embark on a new journey to speak regularly about truths I found important to me. I did not have a clear vision of where this journey would take me, but I knew it was important. So I blazed forward with a thundering heart of excitement and a thrill of the unknown. What exactly would I talk about each month? And could I eventually do two posts a month like I original thought about doing?

Well, the topics each month so far have found me. I write when a great truth inspires me to do so, and it’s usually something I am currently working through on my own personal journey. But I think that’s where the true gold can be found. If it’s not from the heart and felt deeply, then the truth rings hollow.

As for two posts a month, I have decided one is what I can do comfortably, especially now that I am starting up a brand new plan of (though it’s mostly just a revamp and extension of my old plan) to continue writing posts here, write on my current fiction and start some new fiction, and begin my own publishing company (that will for a time only be publishing my own works, but may extend to others down the road).

I, however, would love to still do two post some or most months–on this series specifically–and this is where perhaps you, and others, come in. My truth isn’t the only truth out there. This world is full of truths. The kind of truths that are spoken from the heart. The kind that ring so true it makes us want to stand up and shout. Those are the kind of truths this blog series is meant for, whether they are mine or someone elses.

So I extend an open invitation to all who read this blog (and I have even sent a few personal invitations to those I know) to post on this series.

What is your truth? What would you like to tell the world? What do you need to speak about just to speak it out loud to get it off your chest? Your truth matters.

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Speak Your Truth: Finding Heaven on Earth

Posted on by Cynthia D. Griffin

I sit watching the squirrels frolic in the lush green grass. They chase after each other across the lawn and up the trees. Their playfulness fills my heart. The melodic song of the birds fills my ears. The warm glow of the sun warms my body and mind. And as I sit here on the back porch of my home in Florida, I feel a deep appreciation for my new surroundings.

Happiness has settled in my heart like an ordinary thing, not a once in a while thing. There’s a playfulness in my spirit that wasn’t there before. There’s a deep calmness that has taken root in my very center, and I realize this must be what Heaven feels like.

I always liked the idea of Heaven—a perfect place to live, perfect for me. There are no worries. There is nothing that must be done, or else. There is just peaceful existence where all the needs are met, and where the urgency to do anything is gone. A place where I know that everything will happen in its perfect time, and until then I just need to be, and appreciate all that’s been given.

I have found that. I have found Heaven—my Heaven on Earth.

I didn’t always think having a Heaven on Earth was a real thing. I believed Heaven only existed in the afterlife. I also didn’t really think true happiness could be had for more than a few fleeting moments here and there.

But I was wrong.

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Speak Your Truth: The Healing Power of Forgiveness

Posted on by Cynthia D. Griffin

There are many things I could talk about this month, and maybe I might have time to do another post later before the month is over, but there is one subject that jumped out at me to share. This topic is a reoccurring thing for me, and I feel the need to share and talk about it with others because it really is an important thing to know and understand. I want to talk about forgiveness­—forgiveness to others, but most importantly, forgiveness to ourselves.

I used to shy away from that word—forgiveness. I never really understood why. Nowadays I understand all too clearly. I shied away because I couldn’t bring myself to forgive myself, or anyone else. This stemmed from a lack of compassion. My heart over time had become so full of all the wrongs in this world, I couldn’t conceive of trying to make anything right.

It’s easy to become overwhelmed if we were never taught how to combat overwhelming things. If we never learned the tools to move past the daily hurts and see the positive in every situation. If we never allowed ourselves to feel deep compassion for ourselves or for others, because that’s not how we are taught to interact in our society. When our hearts become closed and hardened, forgiveness becomes impossible.

I can’t speak for all people, but I can say that for me forgiveness has been the hardest lesson of all to learn. We typically learn from an early age that the blame always falls with someone else. And maybe at times this is the case. Maybe there are many people who have hurt us along the way, but I think in some ways we do invite this sort of hurt onto ourselves. Because deep down we are nursing something that needs to be brought to light, but are not able to do so for one reason or the other. We think we don’t deserve better, or we simply feel helpless to do anything about anything.

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Speak Your Truth: Letting Go

Posted on by Cynthia D. Griffin

How do you say goodbye to a place you love? You know you can’t stay because leaving is the only way to make significant and positive change that is badly needed in every part of your life. How do you let go of all that you are leaving behind?

At the beginning of this year, my husband and I decided that our lives were not going in the direction we wanted. We were stuck. Stuck in our situation, and in our minds. We couldn’t move forward no matter what we tried. So after long soul-searching talks with one another, we decided our lives needed to go through a massive change if we ever wanted to have the kind of lives we really wanted. But we knew even then it would take massive work from both of us to make this a reality. We also had no idea how long it would take, which made for another daunting uncertainty.

One of the major changes we decided to make was to move, and not just a small move. An almost 1,000 mile move from one end of the country to the other. This also meant making a lot of other changes too. A lot of those changes had to happen inside of us. What was the point of making such a drastic relocation if all our problems followed us there?

Both my husband and I dedicated a lot of time to healing ourselves as well as our relationship. In fact, we became much stronger as a team after he relocated to Florida at the end of March. We had to communicate much more and rely on each other almost everyday to make sure everything didn’t fall apart.

It took major effort from both of us as we inched along to solve each problem that came our way… him getting and starting a new job, somewhere for him to stay while we looked for permanent housing for our family, deciding to buy or rent, then once we decided to buy we had to go through the whole house buying process, and then trying to get our son to be okay with letting go of the only home he ever knew to accept the new one.

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Speak Your Truth: Trust and Believe

Posted on by Cynthia D. Griffin

It took a few false starts for me to finally get this blog post to say what I wanted it to say. This being the first official post of the series, I wanted to make sure it was truly the right words. The fact is there is a whole lot to say, but which are the right words? And there in lies my problem. When I get like this, not much get done.

Second-guessing myself has been something I’ve done a whole lot in my life. Sometimes it got so bad, I stayed stuck in one place for a very long time. It was too hard to make a decision and stick with it, because I never could be confident enough to step out and keep stepping outward. It seemed easier to stay in one place.

It’s not, however. Stuck is stuck and that means nothing new or anything truly meaningful will happen. Only the same stuff over and over. Dreams fly by, and they are just that–dreams. They never become real. And discontent grows to the point where there’s no hope for the future. Day after day goes by, and it feels like a prison. You don’t need to die to go to hell–you are already there.

Yes, we can and do create our own hells. It happens everyday. The worst part is you never know when it starts. One day you are okay and then you realize nothing is okay. Or maybe nothing ever was okay.

But one thing I’ve learned is that life is what you make of it. You want a happy life, then imagine yourself in that happy life. And not just every once in awhile–imagine it all the time. Be specific about what you want. Know what you even want. Don’t think about all the obstacles standing in the way. Those don’t really matter. It’s a way of stuck thinking. If you truly want something bad enough, you are going to get it, and nothing will stop you.

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New Blog Series: Speak Your Truth

Posted on by Cynthia D. Griffin

My life has gone through some major changes over the last few months and this will probably continue for awhile. These changes have been good ones, but they have drastically changed how I think and approach life. I now have a deeper understanding of myself, and the world around me. One of the things I understand is how much this world needs healing. There is not a single one of us who can heal the world, but if we each do a small part then major change can occur.

I have decided that I can do a few things to help the healing process, and part of that is by creating a new blog series that I will be posting on once a month. I hope to do twice a month at some point, but I have a lot going on in my life right now and only feel comfortable committing to one a month for now.

This series is geared at giving myself a place to speak up and share some of the things I have learned as I have grown and expanded over the last few months. But it will also be a place others can come to speak their truths as well.

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A Writer’s Wings Cover Reveal!

Posted on by Cynthia D. Griffin

I’ve been keeping mostly to myself this summer because it’s been an especially busy one this year. I’ve been packing to get ready for our move, which should happen in a few weeks. We are in closing stages now on our home in Florida. I’ve also been doing a lot of self-reflection work to help clear myself to be more beneficial as a Reiki healer and to be a more balanced person over all. The other major project I’ve been working on is a book that is near and dear to my heart, mostly because it is a large part of my heart–it is one of my very special journals that I’ve been writing in for quite some time.

A Writer’s Wings took years to write, but it was done little bits at a time as any journal is written. I spent a large part of April, May, and June of this year transferring my journal entries into a digital file. Then I spent July working on formatting, layout, and illustrations to place in the book to make it a little more eye-catching. I’ve been working on the cover off and on since April, but it’s only been the last week I’ve buckled down to get it finished.

I have a 11×17 image of the butterfly you see across the front of the cover hanging over my desk in my office. I created the graphic years ago, because I decided I needed something very personal and meaningful to inspire me as I wrote. In fact, as I was brainstorming cover ideas for Writer’s Wings I kept looking up at that image over my desk. After a while a light came on in my befuddled brain and I realized the image was exactly what I needed for the cover, since Writer’s Wings is all about inspiration.

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