My dear friends, we love you so very much,

When you walk past a rose bush, do you admire the rose or complain about the thorns? Typically you'd only notice the thorns if you ran right into them. Most of you would simply be drawn to the beauty of the rose. If you were a gardener pruning the branches, you'd be aware of the thorns, but you wouldn't curse them for being there. You would instead, cut away the dead wood, trim off the expired flowers, and simply be careful not to catch yourself on a thorn. The beauty of the blossoms would make this extra effort worth your time and energy.

If however, you were pruning weeds in your yard, you might not feel so inclined to dance around a thorny plant. You might instead pull the weed out of your garden and toss it in the compost pile. In the case of the weed that has a purpose in nature, but not so much in your garden, you'd give it a new purpose as fertilizer for the plants you prefer.

So too, people are going to offer you behaviors that – filtered through your conditioning and perspectives – feel like thorns, branches, blossoms, or weeds. Some words and behaviors feel prickly and hurt when you find them jabbing at you because there is something needing attention in you. Some words and behaviors feel supportive, like sturdy branches, because they validate or encourage you. Some words and behaviors are like the dead wood that has no more usefulness in your life and some are like the blossoms that inspire and uplift you. Still others, like the weeds that have their place in the world, may have no place in the garden of your life except to catalyze your growth.

When someone offers you thorns, you have many choices that can help you feel better than the choice to obsess over the experience of being "pricked by the thorn."

You can look for the blossom. Perhaps these souls are just trying to love themselves. Perhaps they have better qualities that you can admire and focus upon. Perhaps they were just having a bad day. Perhaps you can imagine who they could blossom into. In any case, focusing on the bloom will make you feel oh-so-much better than focusing on the thorns. In fact, some thorny people have so much beauty in them that you choose to dance around the thorns because you feel so inspired by their blossoms. Many of you are in challenging relationships with people you dearly love and would never want to leave, because you chose to learn the power of focusing on the beauty in them and in you, rather than being tugged into focusing on their thorns.

Others have so many thorns and so little bloom that you don't feel inclined to wait around for the blossom. You can decide simply to leave them to their own growth. Some souls, like the weeds in your garden, don't have a place in your life at all except to feed the fuel of your future growth. In any case, all have value to you because they are helping you learn more about who you are and what you want in your life.

You are not only allowed but encouraged by the heavens to be honest about who and/or what behaviors you include in your vibrational mix. You can't always leave a situation or a person but you can remove your focus from that which is unwanted and focus more on that which you desire to see.

You already know that it isn't your job to make anyone else change so you can feel more comfortable. It is only your task, like the rose, to grow your own blossoms, and like the gardener to decide what belongs in your life.

Would you criticize any part of a rose bush? If not, why criticize another human being, or yourself for that matter? If you were pricked by a rose you wouldn't go around campaigning and complaining – "Can you imagine that bush! It pricked me! How dare it! It has no right! What a $#!$. I'm going to tell it just how I feel!" You wouldn't cry and say to yourself, "What did I do to deserve that?" You wouldn't waste more than a few seconds reacting. You'd more likely say, "Oooh, Ow," and pull your finger away. You'd focus on the rose, trim the thorns, or walk away."

Next time someone offers you a thorn – a criticism, judgment, unkindness, etc – say to yourself, "Ooh! Ow!" and pull your focus away. Try instead to put your focus on all the beauty that blossoms inside of them, or shift your focus on something else entirely more pleasing. Don't waste your time in the analysis of why they acted the way they did. As Jesus said, "Turn the other cheek." Turn your focus away from thorny behaviors and towards the good in them or in some other aspect of your life. You are in charge of what you tune into, no matter what life offers. And, as we've said many times, you will always get more of what you tune into, so choose your tuning wisely.

Right now upon your earth, there are a lot of thorny people with a lot of thorny behaviors. Before judging or labeling them bad and wrong, think about them as little rose bushes. They're attempting to grow. They're attempting to protect themselves. They're attempting to find and express their own truth. Perhaps they're afraid. Perhaps they're upset and feel like nobody listens. Perhaps they feel abandoned and don't realize they're abandoning their own loving nature by offering their thorns to you and life around them. Perhaps these are just boundaries that don't yet feel comfortable to them. Perhaps you're the thorny one?

Everyone on your earth is growing – hopefully past the thorns, towards the light, and into the blossom. Everyone is growing into the fullest, most beautiful expression of themselves, whether fast or slow and whether you can see that blossom yet or not.

So like the gardener who navigates the thorns, trims away the dead wood, composts the weeds, and nurtures the blossoming of his or plants, realize you get to decide what grows in the garden of your life, and you get to decide if you are willing to focus more upon the roses or the thorns that life offers.Your freedom and your happiness reside in knowing you alone have this choice.

God Bless You! We love you so very much.
-- The Angels

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