{"id":7351,"date":"2015-01-24T21:26:51","date_gmt":"2015-01-25T02:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/?p=7351"},"modified":"2015-01-24T21:26:51","modified_gmt":"2015-01-25T02:26:51","slug":"on-the-elevator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/2015\/01\/on-the-elevator.html","title":{"rendered":"On the Elevator"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/files\/2015\/01\/backtojoybook.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-7353\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/107\/2015\/01\/backtojoybook-168x300.jpg\" alt=\"backtojoybook\" width=\"168\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday I received a surprise in the mail. It was a tiny pocket sized book called <a title=\"Back To Joy\" href=\"http:\/\/www.junecotner.com\" target=\"_blank\">Back To Joy <\/a>that was compiled by author June Cotner. It contains tidbits of wisdom from the likes of Anne Lamott, John Welwood, Winston Churchill, Helen Keller, Rachel Carson, Og Mandino and someone else who is grateful to be in such fine company.\u00a0 I had forgotten that I had sent in a contribution to the book until I opened to page 81 and saw these words.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;I had gotten on the elevator, intending to go to the 4th floor. Instead, it headed for the basement. There were two others with me. One said. &#8220;Sometimes you need to go down to go up,&#8221; and the other said &#8220;At least you&#8217;re on the elevator.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Pretty wise commentary.\u00a0 At the time, if memory serves, I was facing many &#8216;elevator rides,&#8217; during which my life felt like someone had pushed all of the buttons at once and I needed to stop at each floor and see what was there when the doors slid open. Sometimes they all looked the same and other times, I wondered what planet I was on.\u00a0 These days, I feel like I have a bit more control over who pushes my buttons. I decide whether to walk through the portal when the bell rings. I choose who rides the conveyance with me. Sometimes it seems like I am riding on the <a title=\"Wonkavator\" href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/cMkmGb1W-9s\" target=\"_blank\">Wonkavator<\/a>,; the glass elevator manned by Willy Wonka, that can go backward and forward, slantways and sideways and even through the roof of any confining space I may find myself in. It is only as limited as my &#8216;pure imagination&#8217; allows it to be.<\/p>\n<p>There is the temptation to keep pushing the button to call the elevator, in impatience. Once we press it, it has already been called to fetch us. What if I choose not to climb on board and remain on the ground floor?\u00a0 I have experienced fear of symbolically entering what could seemed like a confined space, imagining what could happen if I couldn&#8217;t exit when I wanted to. Taking the stairs seems safer, since I get to decide whether I ascend or descend on my schedule. Maybe that&#8217;s where the &#8216;God thing&#8217; comes into play. Trusting that this is really about spiritual &#8216;upliftment&#8217;.\u00a0 Guess I&#8217;d better get on the elevator.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>www.junecotner.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Yesterday I received a surprise in the mail. It was a tiny pocket sized book called Back To Joy that was compiled by author June Cotner. It contains tidbits of wisdom from the likes of Anne Lamott, John Welwood, Winston Churchill, Helen Keller, Rachel Carson, Og Mandino and someone else who is grateful to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":233,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2,12,13,33,3532,19,50,3,14,4,15,16,7,10,38,37],"tags":[4224,4897,1440,4225,4222,4227,4226,2641,4188,4223],"class_list":["post-7351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-attracting-what-you-desire","category-bliss","category-bliss-kiss-for-your-weekend","category-blissfull-thinking","category-creativity","category-edie-weinstein","category-empowerment","category-god","category-gratitude","category-how-to-invite-bliss","category-inspiration","category-living-their-bliss","category-my-personal-bliss","category-re-creating-your-life","category-spirituality","category-transformation","category-writing","tag-anne-lamott","tag-edie-weinstein","tag-helen-keller","tag-john-welwood","tag-june-cotner","tag-og-mandino","tag-rachel-carson","tag-willy-wonka","tag-winston-churchill","tag-wonkavator"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>On the Elevator - The Bliss Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/2015\/01\/on-the-elevator.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On the Elevator - The Bliss Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; Yesterday I received a surprise in the mail. It was a tiny pocket sized book called Back To Joy that was compiled by author June Cotner. It contains tidbits of wisdom from the likes of Anne Lamott, John Welwood, Winston Churchill, Helen Keller, Rachel Carson, Og Mandino and someone else who is grateful to&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/2015\/01\/on-the-elevator.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Bliss Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/snuggleyoga\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-01-25T02:26:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/files\/2015\/01\/backtojoybook-168x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Edie Weinstein, MSW, LSW\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@EdieWeinstein1\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"On the Elevator - The Bliss Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/2015\/01\/on-the-elevator.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"On the Elevator - The Bliss Blog","og_description":"&nbsp; Yesterday I received a surprise in the mail. 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She has also contributed to several anthologies and personal growth books. Edie has interviewed such notables as Ram Dass, Wayne Dyer, Debbie Ford, don Miguel Ruiz, don Miguel Ruiz, Jr. Marianne Williamson, Grover Washington, Jr. Noah Levine, Shirley MacLaine, Dennis Weaver, Ben and Jerry and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. She calls herself an Opti-mystic who sees the world through the eyes of possibility. Edie is the founder of Hug Mobsters Armed With Love, which offers FREE HUGS events on a planned and spontaneous basis. www.opti-mystical.com.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.opti-mystical.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/snuggleyoga","https:\/\/x.com\/EdieWeinstein1"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/author\/eweinstein"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/233"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7351"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7359,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7351\/revisions\/7359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}