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The Zero-Point Field and Healing

At our most fundamental level, the human body and the human mind are not separate from the rest of our environment. Everything that is, is comprised of energy. So in actuality, we are this energy, which is vibrating in such a way that it differentiates us as human instead of a table or any number of other things we see in our every day lives. It was not until the mid-20th century that quantum physicists first identified this "energy field" which seemed to lie at the heart of existence. Science identified it as an omnipresent energetic substructure. And they called it the Zero-Point field.
Electromagnetic radiation can be visualized as waves flowing through space at the speed of light. These waves are not waves of anything substantive, but instead are ripples in a theoretically defined field. These waves, though not substantive, carry energy and momentum. Each wave has a specific direction, frequency and a polarization state. Each wave represents a ''propagating mode of the electromagnetic field.''
Quantum physics predicts that all of space must be filled with electromagnetic zero-point fluctuations. Zero-point energy is the vibrational energy retained by molecules even at a temperature of absolute zero. The origin of zero-point energy discovery is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. The Heisenberg uncertainly principle states that, with regards to a moving particle such as an electron, the more precisely a person measures the position of that particle, the less exact the best possible measurement of its momentum (mass times velocity), will be. This means that a kind of parallel uncertainty exists between measurements which involve time and energy. Since temperature is a measure of the intensity of molecular motion, molecules would be expected to come to a stop at absolute zero. And, if molecular motion were to cease altogether, the atoms would each have a precisely known location and velocity (zero).
The uncertainty principle states that this fore mentioned scenario cannot occur, since precise values of both position and velocity of an object cannot be known simultaneously. Thus, even molecules at absolute zero must have some zero-point energy. The exciting part about this discovery is this: The "uncertainty" inherent in this principle is not due to any flaws in measurement which are correctable, rather, it reflects an intrinsic quantum vagueness inherent in the fundamental nature of energy and matter.
Matter springs forth into physical reality from the wave nature of the quantum field. Everything in our universe, no matter what its size, is part of and is comprised of the zero- point field. Matter itself is made of waves. All matter in the universe is interconnected as and by quantum waves which have no boundary. They are infinite. To the spiritual community, this means "zero-point" is a state of perfect resonance that contains all of the frequencies of all that is and ever was, which equates to the simultaneous presence and absence of all possibilities. The zero-point field is the scientific basis of oneness.
As a scientific concept, the existence of zero-point energy is not controversial. However, whether or not we have the ability to physically harness it is still controversial. If the technology does exist, it can not yet be scientifically proven to exist, as is the case with many new technologies.
Zero-point field energy is limitless. Harnessing zero-point energy would mean incredible advancement for our world view, our technology, our cosmology and our knowledge of existence and reality. The exploration of the zero-point field even has the potential of eventually unifying science and spirituality.
Living things, (being part of the zero-point field) emit radiation (which has frequency). This radiation emitted by living things can be seen and measured as photons. Photons are the smallest particles of light. One of the most essential sources of these photon emissions in living things is DNA. DNA may in fact use the frequencies giving off this light to drive all processes within the living body. And what's more, the frequencies which are giving off this light may be responsible for the communicative cohesion between species, which science can not yet explain, such as the way a school of fish is able to achieve instantaneous, synchronized movement. These frequencies may also account for extra sensory perception. The zero-point field can account for such unexplained communicative capabilities because the zero-point field is the space of collective consciousness. This suggests that our "harnessing" of the zero-point field (though still physically in its infancy), can happen and does happen every day through our thoughts. The implications of this are vast. This means we create reality through our consciousness and therefore thoughts, which gives us the inherent yet not fully realized ability to make anything exactly as we wish it to be… including ourselves.
Because the zero-point field is the space of collective consciousness, the zero-point field is an informational field. Our bodies "read" this information and then interpret it for us into physical reality. In other words, it interprets from the information in the zero-point field what we then see, taste, touch, feel, hear and even ARE. This means consciousness and even memory are not functions of the body. Consciousness and thought supersede our bodies. And memory is simply retrieved from the zero-point field by our brains.
The brain is like a quantum computer. If thought and memory exist outside the confines of the body (as part of the totality of the zero-point field) and physical structure synchronizes with the information and frequencies it interprets from the zero-point field, this means that your consciousness and the thoughts you think can determine what your body becomes. This is in fact the reason for the placebo effect. The zero-point field effects living organisms by restoring equilibrium and helping the body to achieve homeostasis. It helps restore our vitality.
The zero-point field, when activated with intention, can actually create what some would call "miracles". For example, if a person has been diagnosed with "terminal" cancer, the condition is usually addressed from purely the Newtonian physics modality of treating the tangible, physical symptom. According to this modality, it is seen as an incurable disease. But, if the same problem is addressed from a modality which utilizes the zero-point field using intention, it can be as good as re-writing the blue print of that person's body. You can re-write the energetic blue print of that person's body by deactivating the frequencies within the body which are causing the cancer in the first place, and this can lead to complete remission of a condition which traditional medicine called "incurable".
It is time that the main stream scientific and medical community focused more of their attention on quantum technologies, especially ones which relate to healing. The zero-point field is the new frontier of medicine. Healing modalities which incorporate a zero pint field approach will prove to be wildly successful. And soon, zero-point field energy will be widely understood by society. It will be recognized as one of the greatest leaps in understanding of man kind as a whole.

Society... The Key to Recovery From Abuse

There is a conflict between the desire to deny trauma and the desire to proclaim it. This conflict is the central dialectic of trauma. Far too often, abuse is kept verbally secret, only to surface later as an undeniable symptom. The human response to trauma is a complex system of reactions involving both the body and the mind. Trauma occurs as the result of involvement in a situation in which action is of no use. In other words, trauma occurs when both resistance and escape are impossible.
Many people do not understand that exposure to trauma does not simply affect the intangible aspect of a person's mental processes. Trauma also affects biological systems within the body. It can even affect the body to the extent of causing long term alterations in the autonomic system, endocrine system and central nervous system. When the usual mechanisms of self preservation have lost all utility, the human system continues (long after the actual danger is no longer present) to alternate between states of hyper-arousal, intrusion and constriction. Though these states are in and of themselves much more comprehensive, it is of benefit to understand at least the concept of these classic states that come about in a victim as the result of abuse.
Hyper arousal is the constant and exaggerated expectation of danger. Intrusion is the enduring imprint of the traumatic moments which occurred. Constriction is the dissociative response to inevitable, forced surrender. No matter how hard a person who has experienced trauma may wish to hide and deny these extreme events… It is impossible. It is impossible because it runs counter to the way life is wired to heal. The natural state of the human mind and body is one of well being and so, as the body and mind attempts to heal itself, repressed ideas, feelings, thoughts and memories no matter how deeply buried will surface into consciousness.
Individuals who come out with the truth about the abusive atrocities they have suffered run the risk of being discredited by a waiting society, who does not want to admit such things go on. They also run the risk of inviting upon themselves the stigma that is associated with victims of abuse. The abuse itself devalues the victim and then as if to add insult to injury, the abuse often serves as a vehicle of condemnation to a life in which the victim is exiled from society because they can not fit into our socially validated reality.
Abuse calls human relationships into question. It often severs attachments between friends, lovers and communities. Abuse can shatter belief systems and faith. It can destroy the pillar of "the self" in relation to others. It can invade and corrode the personality. Abuse affects both the self concept and the attachment between an individual to the rest of society. This is a tragedy. The reason it is such a tragedy is because next to reaching a point of actual physical and mental safety as well as being able to openly reconstruct and proclaim the story of the trauma, integration back into society is the most important part of healing for a person who has experienced abuse.
When a victim suffers from a traumatic event at the hands of another person, the only real way for the victim to truly heal is through connection with other people. Survivors should never be placed in a situation in which they must choose between expression and connection with others.
Unfortunately, this is often the position in which society places victims of abuse. Support from society for a victim of abuse alleviates much of the impact of the abuse where as opposition in the form of discouragement, judgment, hostility or disbelief can compound the damage of the impact of the abuse catastrophically.
The fundamental experiences which are central to abuse are powerlessness and disconnection from others. Therefore recovery depends on the empowerment of the survivor in order to bring them out of the state of victimhood as well as the creation of new, supportive and lasting social connections. Trauma which occurred (as abuse always does) in the context of human relationships can only be healed within the context of human relationships. The victim must be welcomed into an environment where they are enabled and helped to re build the damaged faculties of trust, identity, intimacy, capability, faith, autonomy and love. Though it is true that a survivor of abuse must be the initiator of his or her own recovery, it is up to society to provide the support, love, affection, advice and care which enable that recovery.

Each Moment Is A New Beginning

To begin anew is to recognize the truth that in the present moment, the past does not exist, and neither does the future. The past and future are not here with you in the present, unless you bring them into this moment with you. Therefore, it is your choice what you bring with you into the present moment. Each moment is in fact a fresh, new beginning. Each moment is an opportunity to begin anew.
Time is a property created by the brain. It is an illusion that does not exist past this physical time-space reality. We disallow the present moment because of the illusion of time, and instead of seeing each moment as new, we live our lives nearly entirely from the standpoint of memory, or the standpoint of anticipation. Identity arises from the concept of past and the future present us with the uncertainty of either the promise of "more" or the possibility of "loss". Because of this, it is easy to see why we hold the illusion of past and future as our object of attention so powerfully and cling to it so desperately the way we do. If a person is to achieve the kind of happiness that is only possible from a standpoint of objective consciousness however, one must learn to see beyond this illusion.
When time is seen as the illusion that it is, it ceases to be precious to us and it ceases to be necessary. What becomes precious is the present moment we are in. Life is not in the past and it is not in the future… it is now. The now is the location of all the power you have ever had and will ever have. All that you are has culminated in the now, all that will be is becoming in the now. The now is all there is.
Each moment is cataloged within the brain, and when we draw a line of continuity through all of those moments, we call them "past", but all of those moments happened in the now… they happened in a past now.
When we imagine moments that might take place in the moments to follow the current moment, we draw a line of continuity from now to then and call those projections of moments to come "future". All of those projections of future moments will happen in the now…they will happen in a future now.
The objective reality of eternalness which exists far beyond the confines of the subjective truth of time contains a glimpse of an axiom. The axiom is this… Because time does not exist, it is our choice what we become in each moment. We do not have to bring our old selves with us into the now. We do not need to think our happiness exists in the future. All guilt, all sorrow, all fear, and all resentment can be left behind as we begin a new this very instant. All optimism, all freedom, all appreciation and all joy can be experienced in this very instant. The only thing holding us from this is our belief patterns that it can not be so. Each moment is a new beginning. It is always your choice to both see it and make it so.

Marriage, a Promise to Grow

Marriage is not just the act of two people who love each other making their relationship public and permanent. Marriage is the promise of two people to enter into a bond (with the intention that it will last until death) which will constantly require growth from both parties in order to stay intact.
For many reasons, marriage in this day and age is increasingly cut short by divorce. Couples often venture into marriage with the illusion that their relationship and feelings for each other will never change. But relationships are a dynamic, mutable force. Over the course of time, our personalities change, our desires change, and romantic love waxes and wanes. No marriage is free of conflict. What enables a couple to not only endure, but also to thrive is found in how they handle those conflicts… whether they use them as a cause to change course and grow together or as a cause to change course and grow apart. Marriage presents not just an opportunity for growth, but also the demand for it.
When we first fall in love with someone, the power of attraction makes it so that our focus is that of pure appreciation. Our focus is placed so solidly on what is positive about that other person that we overlook traits which they possess that we would not like if we noticed them. Falling in love makes a person a better person. It makes us better because it causes our focus to become positive. This positive focus then causes us to become more appreciative, caring, loving, compassionate, and allowing.
Experiencing those “qualities” within ourselves makes us feel worthy and lovable and it also gives us a sense of false confidence that the relationship will not take work to be successful and enjoyable, because being in love makes it so easy to do. The problem is that in the beginning of a relationship or marriage, we think it is because of our partner that we feel this way. This is not true. We actually feel good because the act of focusing on our partner in a positive way makes us feel good about ourselves and the world we live in.
It is the human condition that, as time progresses (and we become acclimated to the intense energy and chemistry of attraction), our attention strays from the obsessive focus on our partners to everything else that is going on in our lives. It is also the human condition that negative things are more capable of capturing our undivided attention than positive things are. So, as our focus strays away from all of the positive things about our partner, we begin to focus instead on aspects of our lovers which we do not like.
The pure, positive energetic vibration of love is disallowed by thoughts which hold a negative energetic vibration. And so this negative focus is the cause of love decreasing. It has nothing to do with the other partner. Even though both partners in the marriage may be experiencing this shift simultaneously, decrease in love is the emotional indication that the orientation of focus has shifted in a negative direction. When the orientation of our focus shifts from positive to negative, the emotional intensity of love wears off. And when the emotional intensity of love wears off, care, appreciation, allowance, and compassion tend to fade with it. As a result, we no longer feel like a good person. We don’t feel lovable and adequate as an intimate partner. And if these core insecurities of suddenly feeling inadequate and unlovable are blamed by each partner on the other, the marriage will fail.
The shift in focus which causes us to recognize negative traits in our partner has nothing to do with us not liking who they really are. What is really taking place is that the initial energy and chemistry of falling in love created an illusion of certainty, that they were the living embodiment of everything we really liked. So we often think that they are the answer to our permanent happiness.
This type of disillusionment is what causes couples to divorce in the early years of marriage. Many couples think they are fighting about things like money, sex, other people, or mortgages, etc., when the vast majority of the arguments that couples have in the first years of marriage are actually fights about the break down of this disillusionment. The argument below the surface argument is actually comprised of each partner asking of the other "Why can't you be exactly what I want?. You made me feel like I was what you wanted! Now, without your pure, positive attention, I feel bad about myself because my happiness was dependent on your focus on me”. And “I thought that the answer to my happiness was you, it felt that way in the beginning, so you have to be what I want now!". The truth is that our partners don’t ever make us better people. Instead, it is our appreciation, care, allowing, and compassion of our partner that makes us better, more loving people.
We all want to feel good about ourselves, and to see ourselves as lovable and adequate (which is the real anchor for an enduring marriage). To do this, you must return to the appreciative, caring, allowing, and compassionate person you were in the beginning of the relationship, which was at that point, the result of being newly in love. Marriage is the commitment to love and all the demand for growth that it entails. Falling in love is easy. The real growth that is the byproduct of the commitment to love begins when we take the individual responsibility of ensuring our own happiness. When you, yourself are happy and healthy, it spills over onto all the people around you and the first to receive the benefit of this “spill over” effect will be your spouse.

Eight Essential Ingredients for a Successful Marriage

Marriage is not just the act of two people making their relationship public and permanent. It is the promise which two people make to each other to enter into a bond which will constantly require growth from both parties in order to stay intact. For many reasons, marriage in this day and age is increasingly cut short by divorce. Couples often venture into marriage with the illusion that their relationship and feelings for each other will never change. But relationships are a dynamic, mutable force. And loving someone is something we learn to do. It is something we must practice. Here are eight ways to help ensure that you and your partner will experience not just an enduring relationship, but a thriving relationship as well.
1\. Practice Positive Focus through Appreciation and Gratitude
Remembering to recognize things which you like about your partner as well as things which cause you to feel grateful for them may seem trivial, but appreciation and gratitude acts like super glue for a marriage. Gratitude and appreciation is a deliberate focus of our attention towards the good qualities in our partners, which in turn allows the emotions associated with love to flow in abundance. Over and over again in studies of co-habitating couples, it has been shown that on days that one partner expressed more gratitude, the other felt more satisfied with the relationship. The routine of taking each other for granted is really just the loss of focus on positives about our partner. The good news is that focus is completely in our own control.
2\. Make Room for Fun
Fun is one of the first casualties of married life. Often, when a couple gets married, their life quickly becomes overwhelmed with working, paying bills, keeping up the house, and trying to make room for time to sleep. This problem is confounded if the couple has children. Often, the result of this increase in stress is that playfulness completely disappears from the relationship. So, married couples should look for ways to have fun, joke and be playful together.
3\. Learn to Speak Your Spouse’s Love Language
After centuries of studying human behavior and relationships, experts have determined that couples do not necessarily express love in the same way. No expert has perhaps studied this more in-depth than Dr. Gary Chapman. Over years and years of counseling couples as well as studying human relationships around the globe, he noticed the pattern that everyone he had ever met had a “love language”. In other words, they had a primary way of expressing and receiving love.
He also discovered that, for whatever reason, people are usually drawn to those who speak a different love language than their own. He discovered that of the countless ways we can show love to one another, there are five key categories, (which he calls the five love languages), that prove to be universal and comprehensive among humans.
Every person has a love language, and we all identify primarily with one of the following five love languages: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch. Ideally, we would be able to both give and receive love in all of these ways. But the rule remains the same that if you learn to speak your spouse’s primary love language, and she or he learns to speak yours, the relationship will truly thrive and both partners will feel the demonstrations of each others love.
4\. Be a Partner in Good as Well as in Bad
Our partners provide us with support when we are struggling. This support is in fact one of the biggest benefits of marriage. But often this is all marriage becomes. Partners share bad times but not good times. Partners who respond enthusiastically to each others successes by asking questions, paying compliments, and offering encouragement, experience greater relationship satisfaction over time. A relationship can truly thrive if a couple finds the ability to capitalize on and benefit from focus on positive events in each others lives. When something good happens to your partner, seize the opportunity to make the most of it. Revel in it and be a partner in that moment as much as you would be a partner to them if something bad had happened in their life.
5\. Allow Your Partner to Change
Letting your partner as well as yourself change is vital to sustaining your relationship. Most of us get so familiar with our partners that we stop really noticing them. But the fact that you have stopped noticing them does not mean they've stopped changing. Thinking that it is possible to ever truly know anyone, including your spouse, is an illusion. Change is an inevitability of life. The illusion of thinking we know our partners leads us to conclude that our partners are fixed, static entities. We also often expect ourselves to be static and fixed as well. So, we get upset when we get blindsided by change. You can not control changes within your partner. And so a key component of maintaining a happy, enduring marriage is to allow your partner to change and allow yourself to change. Allowing change will help you grow immensely as a person as well as grow as a couple.
6\. Practice Random Acts of Kindness
One of the most effective ways to show love and support to your partner is to perform random acts of kindness. Random acts of kindness are externally focused demonstrations of love. These acts can be both spontaneous and planned. They can come in many forms, such as the form of a gift, service, physical affection, positive words, or undivided time and attention. These random acts of kindness do not need to be elaborate. They can be as subtle and simple as helping to wash the dishes or surprising them with their favorite treat.
One subtle act of kindness is to express physical affection. Physical affection increases oxytocin, a hormone that facilitates bonding, and it reduces partners' blood pressures and physiological stress levels. Just a quick hug or back rub can boost your mood and increase your connection with your mate. A simple touch can go a long way. You will find that not only will it make your partner happy, but you will also be initiating your own happiness by initiating happiness for them. You will feel good about yourself when you are cultivating kindness in yourself and that allows love to flow freely and abundantly.
7\. Practice the Art of Healthy Communication
Healthy communication in a marriage takes intention and a great deal of practice. Without communication, it is nearly impossible to resolve conflicts between each other or maintain a true, understanding partnership. The heart of every argument between couples arises because of failure to recognize the root of argument itself. The root of all argument is fear. The root of all argument is fear because the emotion behind all anger is fear. It is useful to remember in every relationship, especially marriage, that fear is always at the heart of every argument. It is a good idea then (before ever entering into a discussion about a conflict) for both partners to ask themselves… “What am I afraid of?” Focusing the conversation on the root of the problem (the fear) will ensure that the conversation does not start out as a struggle for power. Each partners' goal will instead be to abate each others fear. It will not lead to partners becoming defensive and it will ensure that both partners will be highly motivated towards a solution.
Emotions are energy and energy moves. Emotional energy has to go somewhere once it arises. Because of this, it has been shown that whatever one partner suppresses and denies, the other feels and expresses. This is what often gives rise to the outward appearance of one person being the “bad guy” and one person being the “good guy”. Healthy communication in marriage is dependent on the partner who tends to bottle emotion up learning to express themselves, and the partner who is prone to volatile expression learning ways to express them self in a non volatile way.
Compromise is not settling or forcing oneself to like things that in reality one doesn’t like. It is about finding a solution that suits the needs and desires of both partners. Therefore before bringing up a problem, make sure you have thought of ways that you can help solve a conflict by mutual compromise.
Speak in honest and direct “I feel” statements. Statements that begin with “you” undermine communication because they put your partner in a defense mode. When a partner is able to express the way they feel without making it the other partner’s fault, the couple can get to the real heart of the issue without making it a struggle for self preservation.
It is a good idea to make sure that your body language, facial expressions and tone of voice are all in line with the message you are trying to convey. Almost all of the emotional meaning behind what you say is expressed by your facial expressions and body language, which means that the emotional meaning behind a message is not expressed verbally during a conversation.
Be a "reflective" listener by making sure you completely understand what your partner has to say. Be honest, direct, and focus on the real issue. If you enter a conversation insecure about conveying the real issue to your partner, you most likely will not make your point, but instead create an argument in which both partners feel powerless. The feeling of powerlessness leads to defensive behavior, which leads to arguments instead of resolution.
Communicate deeply, not just about conflict, but about other things as well. True partnership must come with understanding. The greatest gift you can give your partner is to reveal yourself. Reveal things to your partner such as your dreams, your joys, your fears, and your experiences. The security and closeness that comes as a result of this type of intimate sharing is unparalleled by any form of connection in a marriage. It is a connection which sex can not substitute for. It will help a partnership feel like a partnership and prevent the common occurrence of couples “growing apart” while still living under the same roof.
8\. Take Care of Yourself
It may seem counter intuitive, but the key to making a marriage work is to achieve a happiness which is independent of any other person, including your partner. Most people think that the best way to improve their marriage is to focus more on their partner, but that's not necessarily true. Focusing on your own happiness may actually serve your marriage more. By making your own life more satisfying, you take pressure off your relationship to be your sole source of happiness. Feeling good about yourself and learning to focus positively on your partner is what will allow love to thrive and endure in a marriage. By taking care of what you need to in your own life, you will replenish yourself, so you will bring a more positive attitude back into the relationship. You will also then have the energy to put into a relationship. When you yourself are happy and healthy, it spills over onto all the people around you, and the first to receive the benefit of this “spill over” effect will be your spouse.
Marriage is the commitment to love. Falling in love is easy. The real growth that is the byproduct of commitment to love begins when we take personal responsibility for our own health and happiness, learn how to love our partner and practice that love in little ways every day.

What Should I Do With My Life?

The decision of what to do with your life is a decision which all of us must make. We will after all, end up “doing” something regardless of whether it is a conscious decision we make or an unconscious decision we make to do that thing. If you don’t decide how you want to live as well as what you want to be and do, then someone or something else will decide for you. If this happens, instead of living according to your own inner values and enjoyment, you will yield control of your life to a combination of subconscious influences such as genetic predispositions, upbringing, social conditioning, environment, or the opinions of other people in your life. This surrender of control of your life is the direct result of not listening to intuition. Inner values are expressed through intuition. Intuition is the voice of the true self. It is for this very reason that it is so important to get in touch with your intuition and who you really are so that your true self can be allowed to operate in your life. This process can be a scary one because your inner values may run counter to everything you’ve been led to believe. Your inner values my even run counter to the inner values of everyone else around you. But if you are brave enough to live according to your own inner values, the result will be a level of freedom, joy and fulfillment which you have never before experienced.
Your true, essential self (often called your soul) does not need to go searching for who you are. It knows exactly who you are and what you love and what your deepest desires are. We are not born upon this planet searching for our souls as if we have lost them. In fact, young children for the most part live entirely according to their own souls. It is only when we become self conscious enough to adopt external values, opinions and advice that our own souls become suppressed and obscured to us. It is only due to this suppression that we forget who and what we are. Most of our lives we strive to do what is “right”. But the question to ask yourself is… right according to whom? People adopt external values, opinions and advice for one primary reason; they hold the illusion that happiness and worth and security and love and care and direction comes from others. We must accept that lovability, security, worth, care, direction and happiness do not come from others. They come from ourselves.
The risk of placing value on what you want, what you love and who you really are often feels like the risk of not being loved for what is real about yourself. It can also feel like the risk of being seen as a failure by others (which is a threat to most people’s sense of self worth) so it is easy to see how placing value on what you truly want and who you truly are can be a very frightening proposition. But until you reveal your true desires and true self, it is not possible to be truly loved. True love is love which exists for the truth of someone, not a facade put on for the perceived benefit of being accepted or the perceived benefit of affirming another person’s inner values by adopting them. There is nothing in this world which compares to being loved for what is real about yourself. Until you reveal your true desires and true self, it is also not possible to be truly happy.
When you are trying to decide what to do with your life, it is important to first find out where you are. It can be a frightening idea to admit to ourselves that we are not where we want to be. But the way to get to where you want to be is to first realize and admit that you are not currently in a place where you are living according to your true self. Ask yourself in this very moment, are you happy? This is not a question which refers to mere contentment. Asking yourself if you are happy, really means are you passionate about your life? Do you get more excited about going on vacation than you do about doing your day to day work? Are you in love with your existence? Are you delighted to be here on earth at this particular point in time? Do you like where you live? Do you enjoy your relationships? Once you have your answers, without calling them “good” or “bad” you can begin to move forward to the place where you want to be. You can begin on this path towards living the life you want to be living by understanding that underneath every erroneous decision and mistake a person makes in their life is illusion and fear. But if you look even deeper, you will see that beneath every erroneous decision and mistake a person makes, is a soul striving for relief as well as an invaluable lesson to be learned. Finding your own values and priorities may take some risk. It takes being brave enough to trust your own talents and internal knowing for security instead of trusting anything outside of yourself for security. It takes being brave enough to remember who you really are again.
A major reason people often do not live the lives they wish to live is because of negative beliefs. Beliefs are just thoughts repeated so often, they become reality. They are thoughts which are on a repetitive loop which have made themselves so much a part of our physical lives, we regard them as truth—or even worse, become completely unaware of what they are. The term that has been used for this over the years is a negative, self-limiting core belief. These beliefs — are only as true as you believe them to be. We develop beliefs because of conditioning. They are beliefs which limit you such as “no one can make a living doing this or that” or “fun is irresponsible” or “I am worthless if I do not go to college”.
Many of us turned away from our natural desires by being taught to adopt the beliefs and values of others (especially authority figures) at such a young age that we lose touch with our desires completely. So, one of the best ways to get back in touch with the real you, is to think back to your natural inclinations as a child. Make a long list of things you knew you loved when you were a child. Make a list of your natural talents as a child and try to remember what you wanted to be when you grew up. Now, after you make that list, make sure to ask yourself why. Why did you love those things? Why did you possess those natural talents? Why did you want to grow up to be those things? Then ask yourself do I still enjoy and practice these things? If not…why? Can I remember what caused me to stop?. Was it because of someone else? Do I remember how it felt to stop doing those things?
From here, fast forward. Ask yourself what your favorite part of your entire life was so far and why that particular point was your favorite part of your life. Get as detailed as you can in order to discover the true reason you enjoyed it so much. And after that, ask yourself what you enjoy about the life you are living in now? What am I passionate about in my life currently? Have I devoted those things to the back burner, or are they the primary focus of my life? This process will help you to understand what it is that you truly enjoy separate of your conditioned and logical brain which (being mechanical in nature) has often been taught to minimize feeling states such as joy and passion.
If you’re a person who says that passion just isn’t your personality, or isn’t necessary to life then you should know that you have sacrificed too much. If you’re living on purpose instead of by default, passion will be the normal state of your life. Passion will not suddenly transform you into an unbalanced, emotional wreck. Passion is the most powerful of positive emotional states next to love. It will push you to live your full potential. Intellect can only get you so far. There’s a difference between deciding to achieve a goal and actually achieving it. Your intellect can manage the former, but it’s incapable of achieving the latter. You will feel passion directly as the emotional result of heading in the right direction. If you find that passion is gone from parts of your life, see the message behind that lack which is that it is time to make a new decision. It is time to change directions.
Many decisions made with intellect in the moment, seem like good rational ideas, but when you imagine how these decisions will play out over the next ten, twenty, or even fifty years, their weaknesses become immediately apparent. Take your job, for example. Where will it lead you in the long run? Think about where it will take you between now and the end of your life. Imagine looking back upon your career and life. How do you feel about it? Are you living the life you want to live or would your life seem like a life not really lived? If you’ve made the correct decisions for yourself, then you should feel no regret, you will feel like you have lived a life full of passion and purpose.
It may be helpful when deciding what to do with your life, to try and discover your life’s purpose. To do this, you will have to practice emotional intelligence. One way to find your life’s purpose is to take out a sheet of paper and write down a list of all the different things you can think of which might be your life’s purpose. Any answer that pops into your head should be written down. Repeat this as many times as you possibly can until you reach the answer that evokes a strong emotional reaction from you. In other words, the one that makes you want to cry. This usually takes some time to clear all of the thoughts out of your mind until the answer that goes down on the sheet is the one voiced by your true self. You may discover a few answers along the way that seem to give you a mini-surge of emotion, but they don’t quite hit you in that epic way that the real answer does. They’re just a bit off. Make sure to highlight those answers as you go along, so you can come back to them to generate new permutations. Each reflects a piece of your purpose, but individually they aren’t complete. When you start getting these kinds of answers, it means you’re getting warm, so keep going.
When you write the one which truly reflects your real self, you will know it. Once you find the answer, ask yourself if you are living your life according to that purpose. If the answer is no, ask yourself, what steps could I take right now in order to live according to that purpose? Is there a way that I could foresee creating my life by incorporating the things that I enjoy and feel passionate about into the very life’s purpose which I’ve just discovered? If you can, take the risk of doing so. If not, put forth the intention for the opportunity to do so to come to you. It may come completely out of the blue. You do not need to know the HOW of things. The how will be presented to you. You simply need to know what you want and why you want it and then be brave enough to jump at opportunities as they come along.
You do not need to fear making the wrong choice, if you take the risk to try something which you feel is in line with your true self it will bring you joy. And even in the unlikely event that it doesn’t, you can always change your mind and try something new. This world is a mutable world. There is no such thing as permanence. We are meant to come into life and find our calling here through exploration according to our own joy. We are not meant to come into life in order to begrudgingly fulfill a duty to destiny whether we like it or not. Be brave enough to take the risk of following your internal guidance regardless of what any one outside of you says. Many people avoid risks habitually. It is because they have been told that to play it safe is the intelligent thing to do. But the question you must ask yourself is …Why? We will all die one day. Our lives are not permanent. And all too often people do not take risks only to arrive at death… safely. But anyone who lives this kind of life regrets it in the end.
Everything which is ever done is done for one reason and one reason only, because the doer thinks they will feel better in the doing of it. If a person lives for fun, it is because they think they will feel better in the having of fun. If a person lives to help others it is because they think they will feel better by helping people. If a person lives for purpose, it is because they think they will feel better if they have purpose. So you see, everything ever done is therefore done in the quest for happiness. So, it is best to cut to the chase and make happiness the true goal of your life. If you begin to do this, you will find yourself on the path of your ultimate desires, even if it is a path you never in a million years thought you would find yourself on. Treat each day as if it could quite possibly be your last. If you do this, you will search for enjoyment above all else and therefore you will be living all your days according to your true nature. Your life is yours to live. Your life has no more limitations than the limitations you, yourself impose on it. You are truly free. Your life can change at any moment. You can make your life whatever you want it to be.

The Psychic And The Skeptic

Psychics have been the target of skeptics for many, many years. This is understandable for many reasons, the first reason being that there have been many fake psychic scammers throughout history. Fake psychics use other people’s vulnerabilities to make money, even at times using elaborate magic tricks to deceive others into dependency. The psychic industry is brimming with con artists and fakes. These psychics are responsible for creating the overwhelming stigma attached with the very word psychic.
The second reason psychics have become the target of skeptics is that people naturally fear what they do not understand. When a person claims to be able to know information that transcends the 5 senses as well as time, it often creates fear in others. Many people who grow up investing so much belief in the physical world have a very stable view of the world for the most part. This is a left-brain scientific materialistic way to view reality. And when that reality is challenged, it can be very frightening for some people. It creates a feeling of betrayal and surprise, based on being confronted with the possibility that everything they've been told about the world to date may actually be very wrong. When a psychic is seen as “in the know” about a side of reality which others are blind to, it can make the psychic seem non human, which can then make them seem frightening. And so often by default, psychics cause others to feel completely lost and afraid without bearings in reality and vulnerable to the unknown.
This perceived loss of reality, control and bearings often challenges self concept as well. It is natural that people want to feel valid as individuals. When one person demonstrates extrasensory abilities that another person does not yet possess, the non possessing party has the tendency of feeling invalidated and “less than”, which leads to an instant defensive reaction of trying to undermine the other parties’ credibility. It is a subconscious act of self preservation for a person to try to undermine anything that makes them feel vulnerable or deficient.
The third reason psychics are the target of skeptics is that society today is a society of skepticism. We belong to a society which for the most part has forgotten the role that both the mind and spirit play in reality and so, many of us see the world as a static reality that exists separate of the mind. If we approach the world this way, believing is then thought to be the result of “seeing”. This is unfortunate because the underling forgotten truth of life is that seeing is the direct result of first believing.
We live in a universe which is at its base made of energy, energy which is vibrating. Thoughts are one of the most dominant energetic vibrations within this universe. All matter began as a thought. All matter that you see in this physical dimension is simply energy vibrating in such a way that it takes on static properties. When it does this, you perceive things with your five senses as being solid. Your expectation (thought) manifests that vibrating energy into its form. This is the way that thoughts become things. You are, literally, creating your reality. You are doing it every day with the thoughts that you are thinking. This presents a problem for skeptics because this means that if a skeptic is expecting a psychic to be wrong, they will literally manifest proof to that effect. To manifest or attract anything into your life which is the opposite of what thoughts you are offering, defies universal law.
The definition of a skeptic is one who maintains a doubting attitude, as toward truths, values, plans, statements, or the character of others innately or habitually. Skepticism is therefore a direct opposing energetic vibration to believing. It is impossible for someone to be offering thoughts of doubt and thoughts of disbelief and receive proof which will make them believe. And so, there is literally no way to convince someone who has already taken the stance of skepticism of the validity of a claim.
Although there have been many well respected scientists, universities and institutions which have tested extra sensory perception with amazingly conclusive and proof positive results, a problem which continues to give skeptics reason to undermine psychics in society is that psychic ability does not often respond well to testing. The main reason for this is that intuitive information is completely undermined by stress, fear and pressure.
There is a misguided and common expectation for psychics to be all knowing, all feeling and all seeing. It is not an expectation people hold of experts and professionals in other fields. But the expectation for psychics to be omniscient is pervasive in society. This expectation leads to the immediate reaction of wanting to test a psychic in order to believe that they are real. Most psychics will inevitable run into a scenario in which a person will say something like…. How many fingers am I holding behind my back? Or what did I have for dinner last night? Or I’ve just asked my dead grandfather a question in my mind for which only he will have the answer, if you can really talk to spirits, then what’s the answer? This kind of testing is completely counter productive for two reasons. The first reason, being that the stress which is the result of performance anxiety within the psychic completely obscures intuitive information. The second being that seeing a psychic means getting only the information which you need from non physical, as you need it. Information that is needed is information which helps you or someone else on their path; in other words information which is relevant and helpful.
Most psychics alive today are up against a very strong opposition made up of skeptics and disbelievers who expect a kind of god-like performance from them as well as people who think that those who exhibit psychic gifts have given their souls over to the evil and occult. As you can imagine, this pressure creates serious internal conflict for a psychic because psychics are human just like any one else. Psychics, like all people, are not immune to insecurity, self doubt, fear and weaknesses.
Strong emotions cloud intuition, which is why it is so important to become adept at both clearing the mind as well as being able to selectively focus in order to improve psychic accuracy and clarity. Whenever a person is challenged and put on the spot to perform, their stress levels rise, especially if there is a lot of risk in the potential of failing to perform. Stress reduces the ability to pay close attention to anything and fear impairs focus. Focus is the act of concentrating fully and intently, without distractions. This loss of focus which comes along with stress and fear greatly influences the ability to use mental powers to the fullest of their ability. Stress obscures psychic information from the mind making it literally impossible to receive it in its pure, unjudged form. Even the very best psychics can fall prey to this performance anxiety and get terrible results because of it.
Psychics are not omniscient and immune to human experience, they can have blind spots just like everyone else (most especially for themselves) and they can occasionally project their own life on to others just like everyone else can. They have fears and insecurities, and short comings just like everyone else. Most genuine psychics are simply empathetic, insightful, and deeply caring people who possess the innate talent of accessing and interpreting intuitive information (which exists outside of the five senses) at will. It is a talent much like a talent for athletics, or a talent for mathematics. Psychic talents do not make someone akin to a god any more than the talent for mathematics does. It is as irrational to expect perfect performance from them as it is to expect perfect performance from a mathematician.
And regardless of how much innate talent an individual has, all great gifts benefit from being honed, cultivated and improved.
The pressure and stress of tests aside, it is also very difficult to come up with tests which cover all of the forms of psychic ability. When people hear about psychics, there is a tendency to think that there is only one type of psychic. When in fact there are many forms which psychic ability takes such as clairvoyance, clairaudience, acting as a medium, channeling, empathy, clairsentience, precognition, retro cognition, remote viewing, psychokinesis, animal telepathy, plant telepathy, mineral telepathy, bio-alteration healing, astral projection, aura reading, Psychometry, divining, dowsing, telepathy, and telekinesis. Although there is definite overlap between abilities which any psychic may possess, most psychics specialize in just one or a few of these abilities. The vast majority of psychic tests measure clairvoyance, a common type of ESP. But there are many types of psychic talents, and clairvoyance is only one of them. If a psychic possesses a talent which has nothing to do with clairvoyance, they will most likely not do well on such tests.
True psychics are also often put in a very tight spot when they receive information which is not meant to be shared. In fact, being psychic can come along with a heavy dose of moral dilemma. There is often a thin line between what information is helpful for a person to hear and what information is harmful for a person to hear. Many times, a psychic will receive information which is for their knowing alone. Information of that nature helps the psychic better understand (and form a more complete picture of) the person seeking help. If for example a psychic receives images of repressed memories from the client, they may come with a strong message that the client is not ready to re-experience these memories. Sharing these impressions with the client would be a detriment to healing but the psychic or healer is given these impressions so that they are aware that they are dealing with a client with trauma encoded in their energetic blue print.
Another example of this is that a psychic may perceive that a person is currently a match to illness or death very soon. If the psychic was to tell the person this, it would most likely result in fear instead of the client shifting directions. And so, it is often detrimental for a psychic to expose everything they receive to the person asking. No matter how badly a psychic wants to be taken seriously, telling a client information which is detrimental to their path towards wellness is a complete contradiction to morality and good intention. It is therefore very important for people seeking out psychic guidance to know that when it comes to psychic information, you get the information you’re meant to get. And what you think you need to know is not necessarily what you do in fact need to know.
Skepticism does not (as is popularly thought) denote intelligence; it denotes that a person has resigned themselves to being closed off to anything which exists beyond the physical world. This kind of thinking (in which one closes them self off to possibility) leads to unhappiness and it leads to illness. Because of this, the life of a skeptic, though understandable, is no life at all. Regardless of whether one believes or does not believe in psychics, a life worth living, is one in which a person is brave enough to open themselves up to possibility. A life worth living is one in which a person is brave enough to open themselves to information which has the potential to help them live according to their highest self, happiness, health, path and purpose regardless of where that information happens to come from.

How to Differentiate Fear From Intuition

Intuition is defined as immediate insight or understanding without conscious reasoning. When we as people begin the process of learning to listen to and heed our own intuition, we often hit several road blocks along the way. We often receive negative messages from our parents, teachers, or peers, at which point we begin to doubt our own intuition. Our intuition gets obscured by the fears and beliefs that we have erected in front of it. When we lose trust in our intuitive knowledge, we begin to close down that channel of information by ignoring it. The good news is, though we may shut out the messages we receive from the higher self, the higher self continues to give them, so it is impossible to completely lose the ability to be intuitive.
Some of the road blocks we hit during the process of re-awakening to our intuition are individual, some are unanimous. But perhaps the largest unanimous barrier we face in this process is how to separate our intuition, which comes from our true self, from our fear, which comes from our ego self.
There is a big difference between intuition and fear, but understanding that difference in the moment can be difficult. Our higher selves (the origin of intuition) will not interfere with the free will of our separate physical bodies. It is a choice to heed intuition; it is a choice to even pay attention to it. You must invite intuition. Therefore, fear (which is an emotion that belongs to the physical dimension) easily overrides and obscures intuition.
The process of separating fear from intuition can also be difficult because it requires that we become intimately acquainted with our own fears. We must discover them, be honest to ourselves about them, learn to recognize them, address them and learn to dissolve them. Only then can we address what our intuition is truly telling us.
There are many techniques that can be employed in order to address and dissipate our fears, by doing this; their influences no longer control our life. But in order to separate fear from intuition, you must first become acquainted with what your separate fears feel like so that you can identify them when they come up as if they were emotional “flags”.
You can begin to do this by writing a list of your fears. List every one of your fears that you can think of and keep the list in an easy to access place. When you come across a situation in which you are feeling intense negative emotion, instead of acting on anything, pull out the list and scan it and ask yourself if any of the fears on the list could possibly be creating the sensation. It is inevitable that you will continue to uncover hidden fears as you advance along your spiritual journey, at which point you can add those new ones to the list.
If you find one that you think could be causing the sensation, sit in that sensation for a while, becoming intimately aware of its intricacies. Make a study of it. Learn the sensation of that specific fear. This way, you will begin to recognize those individual fears so that when they come up, you can know that they are fear instead of intuition. Intuition comes with a feeling of correctness and affirmation. Intuition will come as a sudden knowing, a gut feeling, thought, image, emotion, or bodily sensation. It will be a quiet, clear and often quick impression. Even if the message of intuition is about something negative, it will come across as being delivered in a “neutral” tone.
We will only experience intense emotion with regards to an intuition when we begin to feed the intuition with negative thoughts and feed it with fear. Fear is a highly emotionally charged sensation. It conveys no feeling of correctness and no affirmation until you logically talk your way into it’s accuracy. Fear reflects the past (past issues and past psychological pain). Perspective, which is essential to intuition, is not possible from a state of fear, it will feel so strong that it is almost blinding and delusional, and there will be no compassionate or transcendental element to it.
False guidance is always rooted in fear. I say it is false guidance because it comes from the inaccurate assumption that the world is unsafe and that you are not secure, so the guidance you will receive will not be aimed at creating and maintaining freedom, abundance, joy and true self expression. Instead it will be aimed at increasing your degree of control.
Genuine intuitive guidance comes from a place of love and the knowledge that you are safe and secure as you are now. If strong negative emotion is involved, you should always be suspicious that you are either dealing solely with fear, or that you have clouded an intuition with fear. If, for example, you have a sudden persistent and strong emotional feeling that something bad is going to happen to someone you love... a fear such as the fear of loss is most likely what you are dealing with instead of an actual intuitive insight, which is informing you of something that is actually impending.
The problem with fear is that it is very persuasive. When we do not uncover it for what it is early on, it catches us in a creation trap. The trap is that once a person gets themselves into a state where they convince themselves based on the feeling of fear that something bad will happen, they often activate a strong enough vibration that they begin to actually create (by virtue of attraction) the negative event. At which point, when it happens, they often say… “See... I knew my intuition was right when it said this was going to happen”, when it was actually an event which was created based on a fear (which they mistook for intuition) that made them begin to think negative thoughts with enough frequency that it created the very event they feared.
If you find yourself in a place where you have uncovered a fear that is clouding intuition, the best way to get back into the state of receptivity to your intuition is to meditate or center the mind. Quieting the mind when it is alive with fear can be difficult, but it is necessary in order to clear away the mental clutter so that you can access your own inner knowing.
Begin by using deep diaphragmatic breathing. This will trigger a relaxation response within the body. Close your eyes, and begin to focus on your breathing. If your mind drifts, (without getting frustrated that it has wandered); simply bring it back to your breathing. Do this for as long as it takes for the fear and negative thoughts to fall away, leaving behind a quiet, peaceful, centered feeling.
Sometimes it helps for people to listen to music which educes this peaceful, centered state within them. If you are finding that it is especially hard to concentrate, it can also be beneficial to listen to a guided meditation. Once you are centered for a while in that neutral, peaceful state, you have opened yourself to the flow of intuitive information enough to pose your question or ask for intuitive guidance. Once you have posed your question, put forth the intention that you will receive your answer and simply listen.
To truly listen for intuition means to listen with all of your senses. Intuitive messages come in many ways and they come differently to different people. You may hear the answer, or see the answer. You may just “know” the answer. You may get a physical sensation such as a chill or hot flash or feel the answer emotionally. As you practice listening and honoring your intuition you will get better at recognizing the ways by which you receive intuitive information, no matter what form it may appear in.
There may be times when you are looking for intuitive guidance that you will not receive a clear answer right away. However, the information may come to you later through other synchronized events or possibly through dreams or in future meditations. If you become frustrated and try to force an answer to come, you will block the flow of intuition. Simply trust that if it is a message your higher self wants you to know, it will be made known to you, and if you are on the lookout for it, just at the right time, you will see it. You will recognize it right away. You do not need to fear missing the message because intuitive messages which are ignored simply get louder and louder in their manifestations until they can no longer be ignored.
If it is truly your goal to become intuitive, you will eventually learn to distinguish the voice of ego from the voice of the true self. Your ego, which is driven by fear, rationalizes as well as creates reasons why you should not follow the instruction of intuition. Truth however, does not need the rational justification that fear needs to be valid. Truth will simply be conveyed over and over again in the same loving unconditional way until it is received. We must simply remember that true intuitive messages are always in the service of our best interests, it is impossible to cut one’s self off from the capability of being intuitive, and it is possible to differentiate our fears from the intuitive messages we are receiving every day. All we need is a little practice.

Ten Ways to Eliminate Stress

Sometimes it can seem as if there's nothing you can do about your stress level. When you are operating from your logical brain, the brain says things like… "The bills aren't going to stop coming, there will never be more hours in the day for all of the errands I need to run, and my career and family responsibilities must be done or calamity will strike".
Most of us become so acclimated to stress in our daily lives that stress becomes our second nature and we lose touch with what it is that causes stress. The answer is, what causes stress are the thoughts that we are thinking. When we experience stress, it is because our thoughts are aligned with a potential consequence (in other words the absence of what we want to have happen) instead of the outcome which we desire. We are operating out of fear.
It is easier to understand this difference when thinking about the example of two athletes. One athlete enjoys their sport and is confident in their own self worth. Therefore, when this athlete steps up to the starting line, their thoughts are aligned with winning and the fun of the race. The emotions flooding this athlete's system are ones of anticipation and excitement and enjoyment of their sport. But when the other athlete who may be struggling with self worth and lacking confidence steps up to the starting line, their thoughts are not aligned with "winning", instead their thoughts are aligned with "not loosing". The possibility of loosing and the consequences of such an outcome cause the emotions flooding this athlete's system to be those of stress and anxiety, and because of this they do not enjoy their sport like they normally would without the presence of stress.
The stress response floods your body with chemicals that prepare you for "fight or flight." In other words, it prepares you for consequences. The problem with stress is that we live in a physical reality where we all create our own reality based on the thoughts that we are chronically thinking. The emotions we feel (such as stress) are the indication of what types of experiences we are creating for ourselves in our lives. If you are mentally aligned with undesired results (trying to avoid them through effort and action) you will feel stress, and if the stress becomes chronic, you will inevitably end up creating the very undesired results you are aligned with (pushing against).
This is an attraction based universe. Meaning whatever you say "no" to, you are attracting into your experience and whatever you say "yes" to, you are attracting into your experience. You can not say "no" to a thing and not be holding that very thing you are saying "no" to as your primary focus. And whatever you focus on will come to be in the physical dimension.
The truth of the matter is that you have a lot more control than you might think. In fact, the simple realization that you're in control of your life and that you control your life with your thoughts is the foundation of stress management.
Managing stress is all about taking charge. Reducing stress is about taking charge of your thoughts (and subsequently your emotions), your schedule, your environment, and the way you deal with problems. You don't need to fear stress. You can instead learn how to recognize it within yourself, label it for what it is and see it as a beneficial red flag that has been raised in order to tell you that you are not living your life the way you want to live your life or deserve to live your life. Eliminating stress is about making the way you feel the priority of your life.
Here are 10 ways to help you eliminate stress in your life.
Identify your true sources of stress as well as the unhealthy coping strategies you may be using to avoid stress. Look closely at your habits, attitude, and excuses.

Do you define stress as an integral part of your work or home life by identifying with beliefs like "Things are always crazy around here", or as a part of your personality by aligning with beliefs like "I am just a naturally anxious person", or "I am just a worrier… that's all"? Do you have the habit of explaining away stress as temporary when it is not? Do you say things like "I just have a million things going on right now" (despite the fact that you can't remember the last time you took a breather)? Do you blame your stress on other people or outside events instead of recognizing the damaging beliefs or thought patterns which attract the people and events which increase your stress levels into your life? Do you view your stress as entirely normal and therefore unexceptional? Until you accept responsibility for the role you play in creating or maintaining stress, your stress level will remain outside your control.

Do you practice coping strategies which temporarily reduce stress but cause more damage in the long run? Such as:

*Smoking
*Drinking
*Overeating or under eating
*Trying to avoid stressors by spending hours in front of the TV or computer
*Withdrawing from friends, family, and activities
*Using pills or drugs to relax
*Escaping by sleeping too much
*Procrastinating
*Filling up every minute of the day with things to do so as to avoid facing problems Or
*Taking out your stress on others (lashing out, angry outbursts, physical violence)

It is very important when you are plotting your course to where you want to be in life, to first be honest with yourself about where you are currently. Realize that where you are is just where you are. There is nothing keeping you there but you. And recognize that you not only want your life to feel better but you are also committed to finding a way to feel better.
  Change the way you are thinking.

How you think has a profound effect on your emotional and physical well-being. Each time you think a negative thought about yourself or your life, your body reacts as if it were in the throes of a tension-filled situation. If you think positive thoughts about yourself and your life, your body will react by releasing chemicals that make you feel good. Work to eliminate words such as "always," "never," "should," and "must" from your vocabulary. These definitive statements are very conducive to thoughts which are self-defeating and create stress.

Don't try to control the uncontrollable. Many things in life are beyond our control (things like the behavior of other people for example). Rather than stressing out about the things you can't control, focus on the things that you can control. The only things we have real control over in our lives are our own thoughts. The more control we learn to have over our own thoughts, the more power we will have in our lives. Our thoughts are the one thing no one else can choose for us. The more power we feel that we have in life, the less stress we will feel. You can not feel free and relaxed when you continue to focus on things that make you feel powerless and that you can not control. So, learn to let go of them.

Reframe problems. Learn to think positively by practicing thinking thoughts about yourself and your life that feel better to you when you think them. Try to view stressful situations from a more positive perspective. For example, rather than panicking about a traffic jam, look at it as an opportunity to pause and regroup, listen to your favorite radio station, or enjoy some alone time. When stress is getting you down, take a moment to reflect on all the things you appreciate in your life, including your own positive qualities and gifts. This simple strategy can help you keep things in perspective.

Look at the big picture. Learn to view your stressful situation from a different perspective. Ask yourself how important it will be in the long run. Will it matter in a month? Will it matter in a year? Is it really worth getting upset over? If the answer is no, focus your time and energy elsewhere. Perfectionism is a major source of avoidable stress. Stop setting yourself up for failure by demanding perfection. Perfection is a completely subjective concept. Perfection is in the eye of the beholder. Set reasonable standards for yourself and others. And learn to love yourself the way you are instead of basing your worthiness on what you present or produce in life.

Many of us are goal oriented. We see happiness as an end result, a destination we get to and then the journey stops. The truth is it never stops. You will never "get it all done". The process of living is one of continual evolution, when we achieve something we desire, we do not stop desiring. Instead, we desire something else. This is the way life was intended to be. So, the point of life is enjoying the process (every aspect of the process). Sometimes if you just accept that you will never get it all done and there will always be more you are reaching for, you can let yourself off the hook of trying to get everything finished right here and now as soon as you possibly can.
  Figure out what makes you happy.

By the time many of us are dealing with stress, we are standing in adulthood surrounded by a life that has not been deliberately created. Instead, it has been created by default.

This means that we have based our beliefs, goals and desires not off of what is true for us and what makes us happy, but instead off of what satisfies the beliefs and priorities of others (especially authority figures in our early life and society as a whole). Many of us have lost touch with what makes us happy. The risk of placing value on what makes you happy and who you really are often feels like the risk of not being loved for what is real about yourself. It can also feel like the risk of being seen as a failure by others (which is a threat to most people's sense of self worth) so it is easy to see how placing value on what makes you truly happy can be a very frightening proposition. But until you reveal your true desires and what truly makes you happy, it is not possible to be truly happy.

If you have lost touch with what makes you happy, one of the best ways to get back in touch with it is to think back to your natural inclinations as a child. Make a long list of things you knew you loved when you were a child. Make a list of your natural talents as a child and try to remember what you wanted to be when you grew up. Now after you make that list, make sure to ask yourself why. Why did you love those things? Why did you possess those natural talents? Why did you want to grow up to be those things? Then ask yourself "do I still enjoy and practice these things?" If not…why? Can I remember what caused me to stop? Was it because of someone else? Do I remember how it felt to stop doing those things? And then, take a step forward by trying some of these things you once loved to do… again.

From here, fast forward. Ask yourself what your favorite part of your entire life was so far and why that particular point was your favorite part of your life. Get as detailed as you can in order to discover the true reason you enjoyed it so much. And after that, ask yourself what you enjoy about the life you are living in now? What am I passionate about in my life currently? Have I devoted those things to the back burner, or are they the primary focus of my life? This process will help you to understand what it is that you truly enjoy separate of your conditioned and logical brain, which (being mechanical in nature) has often been taught to minimize feeling states such as joy and passion.

Finding your own personal idea of happiness (which is very individual) is an incredibly important component to stress reduction, because vibrationally speaking, happiness is a state which is totally absent of stress.
  Seek out tools which work for YOU to reduce stress.

There are many sources and products which exist worldwide whose sole purpose is to help you to reduce stress. So, seek them out! Begin by making a list of things which you can already identify that help you to reduce stress. When stress comes up, get in the habit of going to the list and picking something off of the list to do. Set out to learn and practice relaxation techniques. The relaxation response brings your system back into balance. It deepens your breathing, reducing stress hormones, slows down your heart rate and blood pressure, and relaxes your muscles.

In addition to its calming physical effects, research shows that the relaxation response also increases energy and focus, combats illness, relieves aches and pains, heightens problem-solving abilities, and boosts motivation and productivity. Relaxation techniques may include things such as Emotional Freedom Technique, deep breathing, visualization, progressive muscle relaxation, meditation, yoga, tai chi, massage, stretching or aromatherapy.
  Make your physical health a priority.

The body is an incredibly reflective instrument. When the mind is thinking negative, stressful thoughts, those thoughts are reflected in the body. But it is also true that when the body is kept in a state of negativity and stress, that stress and negativity is reflected in the mind. So, it is very helpful to take control of your physical health.

Exercise Regularly. Exercise does not have to be a source of more stress. In fact it can be a great stress reducer if you can find an exercise that you enjoy doing (instead of simply exercising for the sake of exercise). Physical activity helps to increase the production of your brain's feel-good neurotransmitters, called endorphins. Endorphins are natural pain killers and they make you feel "happy". They are responsible for the well known "runner's high". Exercise forces tense muscles (through use), to release their state of tension.

Exercise can also be like a meditation in motion. You'll often find that you've forgotten the day's irritations and concentrated purely on your body's movements when you are exercising. And it helps you release pent up stressful energy. As you begin to regularly shed your daily tensions through movement and physical activity, you may find that this focus on a single task, and the resulting energy and optimism, can help you remain calm and clear in everything that you do. Exercise also can improve your quality of sleep.

Eat healthy, well-balanced meals. You are what you eat. A nutritious diet can counteract the impact of stress by reinforcing the immune system and lowering blood pressure. Comfort foods (like mashed potatoes) have been shown to boost levels of serotonin, a calming brain chemical. Other foods can reduce levels of cortisol and adrenaline (stress hormones that take a toll on the body). Stressed people tend to gain weight, and make food choices that are not conducive to health. There is a lot of information available from experts on diets that specifically reduce stress, as well as many herbal supplements that have been shown to diminish stress. Go looking for them and try to implement the suggestions. You will be surprised by the results! It is important that you don't rely on sugar, caffeine, alcohol or other drugs to reduce stress. Relying on such things not only creates physical or mental dependency, it harms your body in the long run.

Get enough rest and sleep. Sleep deprivation is chronic in our culture. Sleep deprivation is one of the chief aggravators of stress. Lack of sleep increases levels of cortisol, a stress hormone. Sleep deprivation also affects the immune system (depleting certain cells needed to destroy viruses and cancerous cells), it promotes the growth of fat instead of muscle, and speeds up the aging process. Your body needs time to recover from stressful events. Adequate sleep fuels your mind, as well as your body. Feeling tired will increase your stress because it may cause you to think irrationally. When you are tired, you are less patient and easily agitated, which can increase stress. And then, to make matters worse, you will not have the energy to deal with the stress. Most adults need 7-8 hours of sleep per night. Start to make sleep a priority. Start to see it as a necessity not a luxury.
  Learn to manage your time more effectively.

In this physical dimension, we lead linear lives. No matter how skilled any of us may think we are at multi-tasking, when it comes to action, we can only be in one place at one time. What's more, we can only really do one task well in each moment. For the average man or woman, day to day life is a whirlwind of frantic activity. Life is composed of rushing from one task to another while still not really accomplishing anything of value at the end of the day. It is therefore very useful to learn to manage our time more effectively. Using time more effectively helps to eliminate stress by making order of chaos. It is very helpful to reduce stress by getting organized. No one can think clearly when they are surrounded in a physical environment which is chaotic. So begin by cleaning and organizing your environment.

A mental environment which is cluttered is conducive to stress and ineffective time management as well. One way to combat this kind of chaos is to learn how to write lists and then prioritize. Set clear goals and break your goals down into discreet steps. To be effective, you need to decide what tasks are urgent and important and to focus on those. Devote the majority of your time to the most important tasks. Trying to remember everything in your head is a recipe for stress. When you do not have to worry about remembering everything (because it is written down), you will be more able to accomplish the things and also your stress levels will diminish. Writing lists helps you identify important objectives, helps you order your thoughts, helps you prioritize, helps you see the big picture, saves time, helps you feel in control, helps you track your progression, and makes you much less likely to forget to do things.

Identify areas of your life where you are wasting time and come up with a plan to reduce them. It may help to even enlist the help of others to help you stick to it. It may help some people to also develop a routine so they can know what to focus on when. One useful way to develop a routine and thereby eliminate wasted time is to use a time log. To do this, make up a chart for the next seven days divided into half hour intervals, starting the log at the time you get up and finish it at the time you go to bed. Write down what you do during each half hour of the day for the next seven days. Choose a typical week. At the end of the week examine your time log and ask yourself the following questions. Are there any periods that I could use more productively? At what time of day do I do my most effective work? (Some people are most alert in the morning, whilst others concentrate best during the afternoon or evening). Schedule your most important tasks for these times of day. Eliminate wasted time by replacing it with activities that are conducive to a more fulfilling, enjoyable and productive lifestyle.
  Express your emotions

We currently live in a society that does not understand the value and role of emotions. We live in a society that also tends to promote repression instead of expression. But unexpressed emotions affect your life. Start to label your emotions. This will help you to identify them when they come up. Emotions are transient. They will dissipate as they are expressed. The only type of emotion that lingers is repressed emotion. If something or someone is bothering you, voice your concerns in an open and respectful way. If you don't voice your feelings, not only will resentment build but the situation will likely remain the same.

You may want to use physical expression as a route to releasing emotions. Make sure you chose a physical activity that will not harm another person or yourself. Some good ways to express anger and stress include punching pillows, screaming into pillows, taking out a pen and paper and writing what you feel, painting or drawing what you feel, hitting the ground with a stick, popping balloons, taking a kickboxing class, going for a run or trying to get yourself to cry. It will feel good to get the tears flowing. It will surprise you how much better this will make you feel. The emotions will no longer be like a wall preventing you from moving forward if you express them in a healthy way.
  Keep your life simple and learn how to say no.

Keeping life simple isn't always easy. Simplicity is especially hard to attain in this fast paced century that we are currently living in. We often lose track of why we are doing what we are doing. We go so fast and create such busy, complicated lives that we forget that we have control of our lives. Instead it feels like our lives are running us.

The human ego loves complexity because it measures worth in quantity instead of quality. It also bases itself off of comparison with others. Our ego relies on fear to protect itself, and complexity is a great place to hide. Simplicity therefore, requires dedication. Begin the quest towards simplicity by taking these steps.

*Ask yourself honestly what areas of your life you feel need to be simplified.
*Identify what is holding you back from simplifying them.
*Eliminate the clutter and unnecessary aspects of your life.
*Get rid of stuff you don't use.
*Stop trying to please everyone. Instead, simply do what you intuitively feel that you know is right.
*Finish one project before you start another.
*Dedicate more time to what is really important in your life.
*Don't buy stuff you don't need.
*Aim at living below your means. This does not mean you should live in an attitude of denying yourself what you desire. It simply means making decisions that ensure you will end up with excess and therefore be focusing on the feeling of abundance instead of lack. While it is perfectly fine to desire a life of wealth, as well as work on creating it in your life, there is almost nothing worse for adding to stress levels than living beyond your means. This will set up a dynamic of focusing on the amount of money you don't have.
*Consolidate everything you can find to consolidate.
*Permit yourself to enjoy the present moments of your life (the now).
*Know your limits and stick to them. In both your personal or professional life, refuse to accept added responsibilities, especially when you're close to reaching goals. Taking on more than you can handle instantly gives rise to stress.

Many of us fear saying no. We think that to say no is selfish. And we often feel as if saying yes is the only way to earn the love of others. But, love which must be earned is not real love. And it is not selfish to ensure our own happiness, because when we are happy and feeling stress free, we have the energy and resources to devote to others. When we are unhappy and feeling stressed, we often become ill and have no energy to devote to others anyway. When you say no to a new commitment that would add stress to your life, you're honoring your existing obligations and ensuring that you'll be able to devote quality time to them. Burying yourself in commitments ensures that you will begin to feel just that…buried. Saying no may not be the easiest thing to do. But sometimes it is the necessary ingredient for practicing self care as well as eliminating stress from your life.
  Make time for fun and relaxation by finding healthy ways to relax and recharge, and give yourself permission to do so.

The sad fact about stress is that most people who experience stress have their priorities backwards. For example, someone may think that perfection is the most important thing in life or that responsibility is the most important thing in life. What they fail to recognize is the very reason for which they seek out perfection or responsibility. And the reason is this… they think they will feel better when they produce something which is perfect or when they are responsible than they would in the absence of perfection or responsibility. It is therefore important for those suffering from stress to realize that the sole reason for doing those things they "have to do" comes from the motivation of feeling better… in other words… happiness. This means that all people, most especially those who suffer from stress, would do very well to cut to the chase and make the priority of their lives (their true motivation) how they feel. It is important for the highest priority in a person's life to be none other than… happiness. The things that each specific person finds enjoyable and relaxing varies but some ideas for healthy ways to relax and recharge include:

*Call a good friend
*Spend time outside
*Take a bath
*Sweat out tension with a good workout
*Write in a journal
*Savor a warm cup of tea
*Make yourself one of your comfort foods
*Spend time with a pet (pets have been shown to dramatically reduce stress)
*Get a massage
*Play a game
*Read a book
*Drive to a place with an amazing view
*Listen to music
*Watch a comedy movie
*Connect with others. Spend time with positive people who enhance your life. A strong support system will buffer you from the negative effects of stress.

One of the greatest ways to reduce stress in your life is to make sure that you do something you enjoy and that recharges your engine every day. It does not have to be done alone. In fact, these kinds of activities can be used to re charge the entire family.
  Never underestimate the power of laughing. Seek out and create opportunities which will make you laugh.

It turns out that laughter may just be the best medicine of all. You have probably noticed that laughter is infectious. Laughter binds people together and increases happiness and intimacy. Humor lightens your burdens and inspires your hopes. Humor helps you to shift perspective and paints things in a less threatening light. It enhances resiliency and it also triggers healthy physical responses in the body. Laughter has been shown to strengthen the immune system. Laughter decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thereby improving your resistance to disease.

Like exercise, laughter triggers the release of endorphins, the body's natural feel-good chemicals. Endorphins promote an overall sense of well-being and can even relieve pain. Laughter has been shown to improve the function of blood vessels and increase blood flow which leads to improved heart health. In recent studies, it has also been shown that a good, hearty laugh leaves your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes. Laughter protects you from a plethora of damaging effects that stress can cause to the body and the mind. It is fun and it also does not cost anything. So, when you are trying to eliminate stress from your life, try to indulge your laughter as much as you possibly can. Allow and seek out avenues for it to surface. You can even begin with a smile. Smiling is the beginning of laughter. It too is contagious. It too releases endorphins. Seek out ways to develop your own sense of humor. Seek out that which is funny to you, whether it is renting a funny movie, calling up the friend who always makes you laugh or developing an arsenal of jokes to tell. As laughter becomes an integrated part of your life you will be taken to a mental space where you can view the world from a more relaxed, positive, and balanced perspective.
Many of us have the self defeating belief that everything that is worth having is hard won. But this belief ensures that we are going about life in the wrong way. We should approach things with much more ease. Doing things the hard way causes stress, and stress in actuality, keeps the desired results from you. If you are brave enough to make feeling good the primary priority of your life and then take the steps necessary to enable your own joy as well as reduce stress levels, you can find yourselves living the life that you want to live. A Life that feels good to be living and a life full of health and freedom and joy.

The Purpose Of Your Life And How To Find It

The purpose of life is to live it - to be immersed in that which we call "experience" to such a degree that we may know what it is that we truly want. And because we are the furthest most ripple of that which we call Source or God, when we reach out eagerly and without fear for that newer and richer experience, we carry Source with us into that new place. And thus… the inevitable byproduct of life in the physical dimension is the evolution of all that is. The answer could end there. But like all things that become true knowing, this larger, more free and unanimous purpose must be accessed through the process of yielding to one's own, personal life purpose. And it is this purpose that I will talk about today.
The first step to finding meaningful purpose in every aspect of your life is to open the door to the aspect of you which chose into this life in the first place; your eternal, essential, non physical self. To many of you who are reading this today, who are unintentionally cut off from your awareness of this side of yourself, this sounds like a tall order. But it is really as easy as this… Be brave enough to acknowledge and accept what it is that you feel truly passionate about. What it is that makes you feel happy. The reason your emotions exist in the first place is to show you whether you are aligned with your non physical (soul) self or not. Your soul self vibrates energetically at the same level as the attainment of your every desire. It vibrates at the level of your joy. So when you are feeling joy, it is because you have found resonance with that aspect of your self. This is important for one very profound reason, and that reason is that when you are resonating with your higher self (and therefore your own joy), you are an energetic match to every condition that matches your happiness to unfold before you. Every opportunity, person, event, circumstance and thing which supports happiness in your life will show up for you when you have the courage to follow how you feel as your only compass directing you through your life.
Your purpose with respect to what you are meant to be "doing" here in this life will literally fall in your lap when you commit to living life at the mercy of your own joy. You will follow your feelings of passion and joy, doing nothing more than taking the next logical step until one day you will find that you are doing something which is so integral to who you are that you will say "aha, this is my purpose here". You will feel a sense of destiny in this activity because while you are doing this thing which is allowing all that is you to be present in this life, it will take no effort for you to do. We have been taught that there is virtue in effort. This is not the case. The vibrational definition of effort is struggle. It is this sense of struggle that is your indication that you are currently going cross current to the direction that your soul self is trying to lead you. If you are doing this thing that you call your purpose, while it may take some form of exertion and dedication, you will feel joy in that exertion and dedication that will thereby disqualify the action from being called a struggle. The hours you spend doing it will instead feel like minutes. You will not want to be anywhere other than where you are.
It is understandable that by the time you are hearing this message many of you have reached a point where you are not currently living a life that makes you feel a deep sense of purpose. This is because it is so common that when we are born it is such a fight in modern society to maintain our own direction, instead we choose to adopt external values, opinions and advice from other people around us. We do this for one primary reason… we hold the illusion that happiness, worth, security, love, care and direction comes from others... when in fact it can only ever come from our true selves. By the time we are adults, most of us have become so accustomed to the effort it takes to live according to someone else's values and directions, it feels normal. In other words, though it does not feel good, it feels normal to have lost touch with our very selves.
When you have lost touch with your true self, your purpose is lost to you as well. And so we must be willing to take a risk. We must be willing to take the risk of change and the risk of placing value on our joy. If we take this risk, we are committing to the willingness for our entire life and our entire direction to change. We are committing to our direction changing perhaps several times over the course of our lives. Only with this commitment is it possible to be truly happy and express your purpose.
You see, we make a mistake when we are searching for our life purpose… We look for what we are supposed to do or have in this world when our purpose comes in the form of what we are supposed to give to this world. It is only through the giving of this gift that we can ever receive. It is only through the giving of this gift what we can allow our true self to come through us and express itself into this world. This expression was the purpose of life in the first place. To disallow this is to suffer and to feel as if we are lost and not living up to our own potential. Giving this gift should not feel as if you are loosing anything. It should instead feel as if you are gaining more from life than ever before. And so, the question we should be asking ourselves every day is "what am I meant to give in this life?" and "what is trying to come through me and express itself today?".

Self Love: The Lesson Through Which All Other Lessons Are Realized

There is a wholeness that calls to all people, we are born with its song ringing in our ears, and yet we come to know it first by its absence. For most people, the time comes in adulthood when the emptiness within us grows so large it can not be filled externally. And running from fears becomes a fight that we can’t keep fighting.
This is the awakening. The point at which we stop dead in our tracks and decide that the fight is over. A kind of serenity is born of this acceptance. We see that “happily ever after” is never a place that can be found in the world that surrounds us. It is only a state that becomes from within. We chase it as if it’s a drug. We chase it out of need because the absence of it within us is so deep and vacuous it becomes a kind of living torture. We become addicts to a drug we can never find when the answer is with us all along. What is this wholeness you ask? This wholeness is love. This wholeness is love of the self.
Self love is the trump card. It is the root around which everything grows. It is the apex of our journey here. And in truth, it is the only practice. Love transforms everything unlike itself. What this means is, when a person takes on the practice of self love, they are committing to the re-surfacing and peeling back of everything that is unhealed and unloving about them. You cannot complete this journey to self love without moving through the processes of awareness, truth, equanimity, forgiveness, self-reliance, trust, responsibility, gratitude, realization, compassion, unity, freedom, letting go, joy and boundless love. It is the spiritual journey through which all other journeys are realized.
Most of us were taught indirectly growing up that self love was selfish and conceited. We were taught that self deprecation was virtuous, we were taught this by adults who confused humility with prostration. It is for this reason that we must learn for ourselves what self love is and what self love isn’t.
People whom are traditionally seen as “selfish and conceited” do not love themselves, instead, they are people who do not recognize oneness and who feel such profound lack in their own lives that they feel the need to take from others and to hoard. They cover over their insecurities with self defeating pride.
On the contrary, people who show themselves love are filling in their own internal need to such a degree that there is overflow. And in that abundance, they do not feel lack. They do not need anything from others. Instead, their love spills over to others. They are honest about their weaknesses and strengths, knowing that they have no bearing on over all worth... and in that honesty, they find the stable platform of humility.
Self love is the desire for the highest good of the self. Expressing self love means to recognize one's own unwavering worth and deserving which cannot be added to or taken away from, merely obscured or highlighted and then to subsequently choose actions and thoughts which align with the highest good for the self.
Self love is the state of wholeness or self unity. It is the state and focus of pure appreciation of the self. This focus leads to confidence, self- approval, self- regard, self-admiration and a deep level of inner peace and pleasure.
Perhaps it is most important to note that on a Vibrational level, self love is the state of total non resistance to the self. And so in order to begin loving yourself, you may have to first look for the ways that you are resisting yourself and resisting where you are. Look for ways that you can identify that you are not showing love to yourself, and from that understanding, begin to form a picture of what new decisions you could make.
People who love themselves pick the path of least resistance. Picking the hard way is not virtuous… it is self punishment. Look for what there is to appreciate about yourself. What do you really admire about yourself in this very moment (which is the honest truth of where you are)? Look in the mirror and come to terms with the fact that you will never be what you think is “perfect”. The only way to be free is to stop trying to compete with the image of perfection inside your head. Love what is now about you. Find a way to decide it is not only exactly where you should be, but it is enough. You are enough.
In the beginning of this process, most of us are standing so fully in the mindset of self hatred that we can not even get a taste of love. And so instead of fighting to find that vantage point, we can ask ourselves continuously throughout the day - and most especially when there is a decision to be made... “What would someone else who loved themselves do right now if they were standing in my shoes?”.
The journey to self love begins with honoring yourself and who you really are. This means you must be brave enough to tell the highest truth, which is that we are powerful beings capable of creating joy and success or pain and suffering in our lives. We are not destined to be victims. We have the power to choose, and this power is both the greatest responsibility we have and the greatest opportunity.
Telling the honest truth, especially to ourselves, can be a daunting task because it means that we have to admit that we have not been living according to our own joy, desires and values. Honoring ourselves and who we really are means that we must be willing to withdraw our investment in other people’s opinions of us because no one knows what makes us happy but us. And if we commit to living according to our own truth, we must be willing at times to take risks to change course and go in an entirely different direction. We can not hope to ever be happy if we are unwilling to take this risk.
Self love means honoring our feelings and responding to those feelings. Feelings, (like a compass) are in place to tell us whether we are at any moment faced in the direction of our true selves (and that which we desire) or in the opposite direction of it. This is why the most important thing to recognize in life is how you feel. If you are brave enough to make feeling good your number one priority, all other conditions in your life will simply fall into line.
Self-love involves recognizing that you are constantly evolving into a more powerful and more loving being and that where you are, is just where you are. Where you are is perfect in relation to where you have been. From a space of self love, the desire for self betterment comes from the desire for the highest good for yourself, not because you are thinking you not good enough or need fixing because you’re somehow unlovable if you don’t.
People who truly love themselves, do not think about beliefs in terms of what is true. Instead, they keep only beliefs which are useful and beneficial to them. They let go of what no longer serves them. Reach for an understanding of yourself. Reach to understand why you choose limitations in your life and admit to what scares you.
We are often taught by life experiences that being helpless is the way to get attention and love. Look at your own (as well as other peoples) attempts to get acceptance, attention and love. Ask yourself, "what was I taught about being lovable? What was I taught about being responsible for my life?" It is not our fault that we learn these patterns, but we can change them. We do not need to let these fears keep us from what we want. They do not need to have power over us. Loving yourself means no longer letting fear operate your life for you.
Loving yourself also means forgiving yourself. Forgiveness is much like setting a prisoner free, only to discover that you were the prisoner all along.
Quite often in life, when we do not make immediate harmony of things that cause us to suffer, they become wounds of the mind — wounds we carry with us in our consciousness and sub consciousness every day. The pain becomes like shackles we are so used to living with that we do not even realize we have the power to take them off. In truth, forgiveness has nothing to do with anyone other than us. Though it can feel very good to a receiving party, forgiveness is only ever about ourselves. Whether it is someone else we are forgiving or ourselves we are forgiving, forgiveness is only ever unilateral. We do not need the other person present in order to forgive them — or ourselves. The healing takes place within oneself alone. Forgive yourself for having made mistakes, mistakes have no effect on worth and contrary to popular belief, forgiveness is strong not weak.
Many of us have an untrue, self limiting core belief that if we forgive ourselves, we are allowing or pardoning weakness and thus are out of control of our own actions. This is scary to most of us, because we believe that if we are out of control of our own actions, we will hurt other people. This is something we believe because somewhere in our early lives, we adopted the untrue belief that something is inherently wrong with us and that we are inherently “bad”. So withholding forgiveness from one's self can become a form of control over one's self that becomes like punishment, which we are taught is virtuous and “good”. In this way, withholding forgiveness from one’s self becomes like self abuse. It is because of this that to forgive one’s self, one must look for proof of and cultivate trust in one’s own inherent goodness.
All of us upon this earth know what love is. We may not know it as a cerebral concept, but we all know it inherently. The reason we know it is because at our most basic level, we are it. We, in our physical bodies, are not separate from source energy. We are instead extensions of source energy and source energy is the exact vibrational equivalent of love.
Therefore, love is not something we can ever escape. It is a constant, and it is our choice whether we resist it or whether we allow it in this life. The universe is literally made of love. And as such, love is your birthright. If we will just open ourselves to receiving it, like flowers opening to the sun, anything and everything becomes possible. You will create your life the way you want it to be. And you will be able to say “I love myself” and really mean it.

End of life Care… Facing the Great Transition

The Tibetan teacher Sogyal Rinpoche once said. "To die is extremely simple. You breathe out, and you don't breathe in." This is perhaps the best way to explain the transition into death. Or we should say... how the transition into death is supposed to be. But this is not the experience most people in the modern world have with death. Instead, for most the transition into death is a difficult one, filled with fear and filled with pain. Most people do not like to think about death.
Death has become a subject that we avoid looking at while it chases us down. It is the great inevitability of life, an inevitability that we spend billions of dollars trying to avoid every year. Some of us even make the very purpose of our lives a quest for physical immortality that places us in a quandary, a quandary where we resist death to such a degree that we inhibit ourselves from really living.
Many of us do not actually sit with death and try to understand it until it has caught up with us and there is no way to turn. Most of us never ask who it is that lives and dies. As a result, we have forgotten how to die well without suffering. We have also forgotten how to aid people with the transition into death.
On average, Medicare pays $50 billion per year just for doctor and hospital bills during the last two months of patients' lives, which is more than the entire budget of the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Education. And it has been estimated that 20 to 30 percent of these medical expenditures may have had no meaningful impact. It costs up to $10,000 a day to maintain someone in an average intensive care unit, which is where many people end up for the days or months leading up to death.
Modern medicine has become so good at keeping people alive by treating the complications of underlying disease that the inevitable process of dying has become much harder and is often prolonged unnecessarily. The process of dying naturally is not only something we resist out of fear, it is also something we resist because it is very profitable business. A business that, though profitable for some, could end up bankrupting the nation.
Currently, 75 percent of all people die in a hospital or a nursing home. This is a problem when the current societal protocol for keeping people alive at all costs leads hospitals and nursing homes to enact highly invasive preventative measures that leave most people sedated and in pain, in an environment that is unfamiliar and in isolation for most of the day. This is in fact how the majority of people end up spending the remainder of their days.
The overwhelming issue staring us in the face is that there is a very fine line between preserving people’s chances at a happy life by using advanced medical technology and being prevented (often agonizingly) from dying a natural death. Our current health care system is in the business of resisting death as if it is an unnatural process. Even in the best of circumstances, its laws and practices leave people suffering unreasonably and unnecessarily at the end of life. Because of the fear of death, most people and their families want to cling to life, and hope for a medical miracle rather than to discuss how they want to die.
End of life care is one of the most important issues of our time. With the baby boom population approaching old age, the medical care market is about to be flooded. It is time for us to really ask ourselves the question… How do we want ourselves and our loved ones to make the transition out of this life? The time has come within our society to approach death differently. The time has come to question the ethics and efficacy of the extraordinary and often hazardous medical interventions that plague the dying process.
It is time to radically re-design the environments in which we spend our old age and most especially, our final days. The time has come for a new kind of end of life care to be provided to the general public that is not just a luxury of the rich, a kind of end of life care approach that recognizes that death is a natural process that we can walk into pain free and fear free, surrounded by the people we love, in environments that reflect wellness and comfort, and supported by professionals who are highly passionate and trained at facilitating the process of death for individuals and their loved ones so that it is a step taken with dignity, and with ease.
And perhaps most especially, it is time to become acquainted with death as a teacher and not as an enemy so that we can stop living our lives in the space of resistance and instead allow ourselves to really live while we are here.

Crystal Healing: New Age “Hooey” or Surprising Truth

To most of us who have spent our lives grounded in the physical plane that we like to call "reality", the idea of crystal healing has made its way into the category of irrational superstition and "new age hooey". It's as if most of us are asking, how in the world can a rock be anything more than a rock, much less store energy or help us heal? How can rocks, minerals and metals do anything but just sit there? To answer this question, we must venture beyond the physical existence that we currently think is "all there is" to this reality we are living in.
Physical matter has long been seen as the stable basis of reality. In other words, physicality is the test most of us use to determine what is “real” from what is “not real”. But physical matter is not the center of reality as we know it. Instead, it is only a tiny aspect of infinite energy within the universe. You could think of physical reality like the thin, outermost membrane of this universe, much like skin - a layer of epidermis, covering an unseen substructure of other vast dimensions where energy is expressed differently because it vibrates at different frequencies depending on the dimension it exists in. Every single physical object, whether it is living or not living, exists not only in this physical level, but also in the multitude of energetic dimensions outside physicality.
Everything you see in this world is multi dimensional in nature. Your entire bodily system is nothing more than energy that shows up in various patterns and densities. The same goes for what we consider to be “inanimate structures” like rocks.
When patterns of energy work together in a non resistant and cohesive way, then we experience what we call health. These patterns of energy can be disrupted by a multitude of things. When this happens, we experience a state of dis-ease. This leads to poor health. This resistant, discordant energy patterning is responsible for every negative symptom we experience in our physical from, everything from a headache to cancer.
Everything we believe is solid and “real” is simply appearing real to us because of our physical senses, but our physical senses are doing nothing more than interpreting energy as a scent or as a sight or a taste of a feel. It is our senses that convert what is, for lack of a better word, an energetic, holographic reality into the static reality we call physical. It is our senses that tell us that we are “separate” from our surroundings.
At our most fundamental level, we are not only participating in this vast energetic field, we are also made of this energetic field. We are one with every animate and inanimate thing we see. Our physical lives are only different expressions of the very same energy that makes up “all that is” across every universe and in every dimension. The amplitude and frequency (what we often call vibration) at which this energy expresses itself, is what determines whether energy becomes a person or a rock in the physical dimension.
Crystals and what we call gemstones, have a vibration that is free of resistant patterns. They are among some of the structures in the physical dimension that have the very most balanced, cohesive, strong and intentional frequencies. Their un-changing physical structure is a reflection of the fact that their innate energetic patterns of balance and strength and cohesiveness are incorruptible. In the physical dimension when you pick up a crystal, it may look like you are not really doing more than touching and looking at a separate, physical object. But in the other dimensions in which both you and the rock exist, you are “entraining” energetically with that rock. This entrainment then causes changes to your structure and psychology on the physical dimension.
The governing law of every dimension within the universe is that of “oneness”. In physical life, we have come to call this the “Law of Attraction”. Simply put, only frequencies that are a vibrational match can co-exist. Therefore, in order to share the same space with another “form”, you must be vibrating at the same level as it is vibrating. Health is the natural state of any form within the universe. Therefore, the natural inclination and tendency of anything within the universe is that of balance, cohesiveness and ease. This means that the natural progression of vibration is to entrain and resonate in the direction of health. Because of this, when you share the space a crystal (or gemstone) that has a resistance free vibration, instead of the vibration of the crystal adopting a non cohesive pattern, your energy will entrain with the energy of the crystal and adopt it’s cohesive pattern.
This entrainment causes you to no longer create the pattern of dis-ease within your energetic substructures and therefore, the physical manifestation of that dis-eased energy is no longer being maintained and the physical symptom disappears. Because of this entrainment effect, crystals and gemstones are incredibly adept at bringing us back into a vibrational state of health and harmony. Anything with an inherent energetic pattern of non resistance can act like a tuning fork, by offering a vibration that we can use to retune ourselves to a healthy vibration. This is what is really happening on the energetic levels of substructure when you listen to a song that makes you feel good, or spend time near a person that makes you feel good, or take a homeopathic remedy.
Each crystal or gemstone resonates with a slightly different pattern energetically and therefore, just like our specific physical structures, appears different in the physical in terms of things like chemical composition, structure, geometry, color and texture. Because of this, each one lends itself to patterns that reside in our specific physical systems. For example, to share the space with rose quartz is to expose the energetic patterns active in our physical and metaphoric heart to align themselves with health and adopt a more resistance free pattern. Therefore, when we entrain with rose quarts, unresolved heart issues will dissipate, allowing us to let go of whatever is distorting our energies that identify with the heart.
Crystals and gemstones grow deep within in the earth’s crust over millions of years at extremely high pressures and heat. This gives them a place among the objects on earth with the very most inherent energy. They are capable of receiving, containing, projecting, emanating, refracting, and reflecting energy. Crystals have a very consistent arrangement of atoms. In the gem stone called “quartz”, these atoms vibrate at a stable and measurable frequency. Because of this, quartz is an excellent receiver and emitter of electro-magnetic energy. For this reason, quartz is used in radios, watches, and numerous electronic technologies.
Nobel prize-winning scientist, Marcel Vogel, discovered that not only can crystals be programmed as silicon chips in a computer, they can also be programmed with the energy of consciousness. He discovered that when a person uses a computer, thoughts are directed to the computer by pressing on the keyboard, that information is stored in the computer's silicon chips via the medium of electricity. Vogel then reasoned correctly that, like electricity, thought is a form of energy that can be given direction by what we call “intention”. He concluded due to this discovery that crystals could also be programmed without the need for electricity, by using just thoughts as the informational energy.
Quartz is what is called a piezoelectric material. A piezoelectric substance is something that produces an electric charge when a mechanical stress is applied. When piezoelectric material is placed under mechanical stress, a shifting of the positive and negative charge centers in the material takes place, which then results in an external electrical field. This stress can be caused by hitting or twisting the material just enough to deform its crystal lattice without fracturing it. The effect also works in the opposite way, with the material deforming slightly when a small electric current is applied.
While the argument rages back and forth as to whether the piezoelectric effect plays a role in the human-crystal healing relationship or not, the fact that crystals are so responsive to electro magnetic fields has serious implications. It has serious implications because our bodies are composed of and constantly emanating electro magnetic fields, and crystals and gemstones respond to this electricity that is creating and coursing through our bodies.
Another interesting finding is that quartz is composed of silicon and oxygen (SiO2), a combination known to geologists as the building block of all minerals. Our planet is made up of minerals containing silicon and oxygen. Silicon is an important constituent of our human bodies. Some of the more science oriented people have theorized that the transfer of energy from the natural crystal to the silicon within our own bodies could have something to do with the physical healing effect caused by exposure to crystals.
Crystals and Gemstones are one of the most powerful tools available to us in the physical dimension of existence. They are tools all of us have used subconsciously at one time or another. Often it’s an interaction that takes place by our attention being drawn to a specific rock. On the physical level, we think it is “pretty” and though we do not know why we like it so much, we feel compelled to pick it up and keep it in our pocket. We have no idea why we felt this urge and we have no conscious awareness of what is behind our impulse to pick it up. We have no idea that our energetic substructure is calling us towards the specific vibration of that rock in order to entrain with it and move towards a more cohesive healthy pattern than the one we are currently maintaining within ourselves.
Like all tools, the key to maximum utilization is to learn how to consciously implement the tool. If this aforementioned scenario could cross over from a subconscious compulsion to a conscious process of seeking out a specific crystal or gemstone based on knowledge of the benefit of using it, the person’s receptivity would be such that the effects of the entrainment would be a hundred fold. If we consciously recognized that our own electro magnetic fields are impacted by the energetic quality of each crystal and gemstone, we would see that they create an electro chemical response within our body and psychology that would allow us to use them as the powerful tools that they are. We could use them on a daily basis to promote health, awareness, growth and evolution within ourselves and the multi dimensional lives we lead.

What Are Dreams and Why do we Have Dreams?

At this particular point in time, there is not an accepted, unanimous, biological answer to the question "what are dreams?”. The reason we don’t have an accepted answer to that question is due to the fact that at this point, modern, Newtonian based science does not recognize the element of “spirit” as it relates to physical life. Because of this, though we can see what portions of the brain are active or dormant during sleep, the search for the answer to why we dream is a quest left to the realm of psychological and philosophical theory.
Without beating around the bush, it must be said clearly and simply that it is impossible to understand why we dream if we are unwilling to look at that which we call “spirit”. And it is impossible to understand why we dream if we are unable to open our minds to view consciousness as being more than just a byproduct of the brain. Rather we must look at the brain as a sort of receiver of information that it then translates and broadcasts to the body.
Scientists now know that when we sleep, slow-wave activity appears in our brains as the neurons in the cortex switch themselves off and essentially go electrically silent. But when we reach the REM phase of sleep, the brain is essentially re-awakened. Blood flow rises sharply in several brain areas linked to processing memories and emotional experiences and the portion of the hindbrain that connects the cerebral cortex with the medulla oblongata (called the Pons) sends signals to the thalamus and to the cerebral cortex. The word Pons is Latin for bridge. This translation is extremely important because it does not merely refer to the bridge between parts of the brain, but also the bridge between spirit and the brain.
When we sleep, we withdraw a large portion of our consciousness and perspective back from the physical dimension (often called the third dimension). We re-join “source perspective” in much the same way as we do when we die. This perspective is a non physical point of consciousness. It is a perspective that transcends dimensionality and is completely unified. When our consciousness withdraws to this degree, we are in a state of complete allowing. There is no resistance present in our consciousness. Because of this, source energy is able to flow unrestricted to our bodies and learning is consolidated.
It is very important to understand thought in and of itself when one is trying to understand dreaming. Whatever consciousness is giving its attention and energy to creates a thought out of that specified focus. We, in our human form that we have grown so accustomed to, are physical expressions of thought. And thought…thinks. Thought is one of the most powerful, energetic vibrations within this universe. Thoughts that are thought repetitively become more and more manifested as their signal becomes stronger. In other words, they become “thought form”. When those thoughts that have become thought form continue to be thought frequently and with enough focus, they then become physical form.
When we decide to come back from source perspective to our physical perspective and thus direct our consciousness back to the third dimension (where our bodies exist in physical reality), we pass through these dimensions of thought and thought form back to where we left off. This is why we wake up in the same “energetic vibration” so to speak as we went to bed with. It is during this re-entry that we pass through the thoughts that we ourselves have created that form the substructure of our physical reality. We essentially come into contact with the pre- physically manifested reality. This re entry happens in split seconds. And the Pons area of the brain is the first area of the brain to be re-activated by that large stream of consciousness that is re-entering the physical body. The brain registers these thoughts according to how it understands things.
Because of this, the primary visual cortex is dormant while the secondary visual cortex is reactive and decoding those thought signals. So it is the brain that posits the sensation that a dream is taking place all night long, when it is really only taking place in split seconds and is being deciphered upon re-entry. The process of remembering a dream occurs when your physical brain translates non physical thought into its physical equivalent.
The higher frequency dimensions beyond our physical dimension are not subject to the physical brain’s ability to interpret or judge what is possible vs. impossible or what is real vs. unreal. Instead the energy within those dimensions instantaneously responds to individual thought.
Because of this, they consist of intensely individual and often surrealistic manifestations of thought. This is why interpretations of dreams and symbology within dreams are so highly subjective. Though it can be said that in general, certain events and symbols translate as certain things to the whole of humanity, an event or symbol may be a representation of one thing to one person and a totally different thing to someone else. What you dream about is always an individual representation of the thoughts you have been thinking (some of which you do not consciously take note of). And your emotions are your indication of the energetic vibration of those thoughts you’ve been thinking. For this reason, the most important thing to take note of when re-examining a dream is how you feel during the dream relative to each subject you encounter in the dream. For example, if you pay attention to how you feel relative to “waves” if you were to have a dream about waves that were overpowering you, you could find that the particular manifestation of waves is the visual representation of the thought that you keep having about something or someone in your waking life that causes you to feel powerless.
Your dreams are your creations and your manifestations just like your physical reality is. It is not possible for you to dream about anything that you have not created through your own individual thoughts. It is important to note that once a thought manifests in your dreamscape reality, it means that you have given that particular thought a significant amount of focus. Your dreams are a manifestation of what you have been thinking often and with significant focus during your waking, physical life. It takes less focus to manifest thought into the dreamscape reality than it does physical reality. Dreams represent the current vibrational condition of the dreamer.
Because of this, your dreams are essentially a preview of the essence of what is to come in your physical life. This is especially true when it comes to very emotionally charged and repetitive dreams. For this reason, understanding your dreams and most importantly how you feel in your dreams can help you to understand what you are creating for yourself before you create it. We all know, it is much easier to change the direction of our focus and attention before it manifests as opposed to after it manifests, at which point we end up staring at physical proof to back up and intensify the original thought.
The most important question to ask about a dream is “how is the way I am feeling in this dream echoing in my waking life?”. In other words, “when have I felt similar emotions to this in my waking life”? By asking this question, you can start to decipher your mind’s own unique dream symbology. Dreams are one of the most powerful indicators of where you have been putting your focus. Because of this, they can serve as a priceless evolutionary tool by helping you to recognize and solve internal conflicts in your life before they manifest into your physical reality. If you can delve deeply with awareness into what thought based condition the dream offers awareness of, a healing process can begin and intentional, positive focus can be restored, leading to intentional, positive manifestation in your physical waking life.

Liver Congestion, a Growing Epidemic

As a medical intuitive, it is my duty to expose a health crisis plaguing human society today, which is congestion of the liver. This condition is at the heart of nearly all recurrent illness. This problem is confounded by the fact that the main culprit…liver stones (which are gall stones in the liver) are undetectable by blood tests and liver enzyme tests. Liver stones are very rarely detectable by X-rays and ultrasound technology because these stones are mostly non-calcified, hard bile deposits. Meaning, they do not “stick out” as an abnormality within the liver as they are made from the same material surrounding them. Most people, even many trained medical professionals, assume that gallstones occur only in the gallbladder. This assumption is wrong. The large majority of gallstones are actually formed in the liver. The formation of these stones leads to serious liver congestion. This means that large portions of the human population are inflicted with a disease that is undetectable and therefore un-diagnosable by conventional medicine.
The liver plays a large hand in the growth, functioning or disorder of every single cell in the human body. Anything that interferes with the liver therefore, has a serious, detrimental impact on the health of the entirety of the body, which is why it is so easy to trace nearly every symptom of disease back to impaired function of the liver. The liver is unlike many other organ systems in that the organ itself will not usually develop a noticeable symptom directly when it is in a state of disorder. Instead, it causes symptoms to manifest seemingly indirectly in other organ systems which depend on its functioning. When the liver becomes congested with deposits, the processes of digestion, detoxification and elimination of bodily waste products are all impeded, which causes disease symptoms to begin to show up in other bodily systems. For example, someone who suffers from liver congestion may have no idea the main culprit is the liver, because the symptom they are experiencing is chronic skin irritation, chronic fatigue, chronic urinary tract infections, joint pain, obesity, menstrual disorder, headaches, a digestive problem, heart disease or cancer.
The liver is one of the most complex and vital organs in the human body. It is responsible for processing, converting, distributing and maintaining the body’s energy and nutrient supply. It manufactures cholesterol, which is an essential building material of organ cells, hormones and bile. It makes new amino acids and converts existing ones into proteins. These proteins are the main building blocks of the cells, hormones, neurotransmitters and genes. It plays a major role in breaking down old cells, recycling iron and storing vitamins and nutrients. The liver breaks down alcohol in the blood and detoxifies noxious substances, bacteria, parasites, and chemical drugs. It uses enzymes to convert waste or poisons into substances that can then be safely carried out of the body. The liver filters more than a quart of blood each minute. Most of the filtered waste products leave the liver via the bile stream (which is blocked when the liver is congested with stones). The liver also produces proteins and hormones that affect the way the body functions, grows and heals. So it is easy to see how restricting the function of the liver affects the health of every single cell within the body. I have never in my life come across a person who exhibited chronic illness who was not plagued by liver congestion.
The question arises, why is liver congestion such an epidemic problem? There are many theories. And the answer is most likely multifaceted. We are living unbalanced lifestyles in environments of ever increasing toxicity. More than any time in human history, the environments we are living in are rich with chemicals, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, herbicides and hormones. And the most toxic factor is perhaps the modern day diet. For the most part, the modern day diet is wrong for the human body. It is devoid of nutrients, highly processed and laden with chemicals. Overeating (which alters the body’s ph level and creates a rich environment for unhealthy microbial activity) is a big source of the problem. It causes toxic substances to accumulate in the digestive system, which then causes a blood and lymph imbalance, which decreases blood flow in the liver, leading to build up and eventually liver stones.
The over consumption of flesh and milk proteins is also a contributing factor. Excessive protein intake thickens and congests basal membranes of blood vessels, including those in the liver. This constriction prohibits cholesterol from circulating in the body, which leads to the body perceiving that its cholesterol level is low so it raises cholesterol production to dangerous levels.
Our modern lives are also abundant with stress. It is well known that stress has a negative impact not only on the mind, but also on the body. Stress plays a key role in causing liver congestion. The highly toxic stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline alters blood chemistry, thereby altering the natural bacteria level in the body as well as decreasing blood flow within the liver dramatically. Stress also causes dehydration ,which affects the viscosity of the bile within the liver, which leads to liver stones.
The liver (which is often called the filter organ), like any filter, needs to be cleaned. Flushing the liver expels the poisonous substances that create the gall stones which block the bile ducts within the liver and thereby cause liver congestion. I would dare say that cleansing the liver may indeed be one of the most important and life changing actions a person can take. It can restore balance, harmony and healing in every facet of physical life. There are several liver detoxification programs, diets, herbs and products available. Individuals should research what is available, and try the approach that feels right or “resonates” with them the most. Some of these approaches are gentle and some are more extreme. In my professional opinion, the best liver cleanse is called “The Amazing Liver and Gall Bladder Flush” developed by Andreas Moritz. I have personally used this program myself and seen this program transform people’s health in ways that would be described by most as miraculous.
As most of you know, I do not usually overtly advocate action steps with regards to health because all disease is the physical byproduct of discordant energetic vibration that is caused by resistant thought patterns. Thought is the root from which everything grows. But it is my opinion after a lifetime of observing illness within the body that along with confronting the thought patterns that lend themselves to liver congestion, deliberate liver cleansing is a cornerstone of reaching and maintaining homeostasis and health in today’s world. The body is an integral part of this universe and world. It therefore doesn’t need to fight nature. The natural state of any living organism, even in the toxic environments of today, is that of health. A liver flush is a very powerful way to assist the body in aligning with that natural state of health. It is my opinion that once a person has released the underlying mental and emotional patterns behind a disease, completed a series of liver cleanses and consequently established a healthy diet and lifestyle, the liver of even people with the most severe liver disorders will return to its optimal, healthy and efficient state. I would strongly suggest it to anyone living in the world today.

Life After Suicide

Suicide is a topic that has been shrouded in stigma for hundreds of years. Because of this, the suffering many go through when they lose a loved one to suicide is amplified. But it is possible to heal from the grief of loosing a loved one to suicide. It is possible to live again.
Why? This is a question that anyone whose life is touched by suicide will find themselves asking. Why would anyone willingly cause his or her own death? The answer to this question is simple but the grief experienced by anyone who is dealing with suicide is anything but simple.
Suicide is a topic that has been shrouded in stigma for hundreds of years. This stigma ensures that the shock that is normally experienced in the wake of any death is experienced multifold when someone commits suicide. Often, the pain of coping with suicide is so acute that it feels like we have lost our own lives right along with them when they chose to take theirs. Those of us left behind in the wake of a suicide often find ourselves drowning in a sea of unfathomable grief and misunderstanding. A large part of that misunderstanding comes from the stigma that there is something inherently wrong with suicide. In our society today, suicide has become taboo because it is so tightly interwoven with the concept of sin. It is for this reason that when trying to heal from the grief of a suicide, the first understanding to come to is that there are no consequences awaiting those who commit suicide after death.
The idea that there is a consequence waiting after death for those who chose suicide is an idea fabricated by the minds of men. Men who sought to create conformity and obedience. Men who sought to control other people's lives to put themselves into power. The idea that suicide meant punishment after death is not even an idea that shows up in religion until men began to use religion to control the masses. They demanded conformity, which pulled people sideways, away from their own joy. When that occurred, men began to suffer and so a religious idea was invented by man to justify why a person should continue to conform and put up with suffering.
The idea that was given to the people by those who sought to control them was that life is supposed to be hard. The idea that was given to the people is that life is supposed to be one of suffering and penance so that man may make himself worthy of a God that stands in judgment of him. They used this belief to justify their control of others, most especially to justify things like taxation, which at times in early civilization became so extreme that taxation made living a good life… impossible.
God was made out to be a being that was external from mankind, more like a parent figure who both rewarded and punished you based on your conformity or failure to conform. The idea presented to man kind was that life wasn't meant to be joyous. Instead, it was meant to be hard and full of tests and that the reward for passing those tests and bearing your hard life well came after you died. So with that understanding, people began to rush the process and hasten their transition into the rewards of death. In other words, a large percentage of them began to commit suicide.
When those intent on creating conformity saw that they had lost control again because those people who didn't want to conform were killing themselves, they had to invent a new idea… The idea that the only time that death does not mean reward is if you kill yourself. They made suicide a sin a kin to murder. Not because it is. But because it was the only way to keep control and get people to conform.
This belief and stigma still exists in our society surrounding the idea of suicide. It is an idea that has been added to and justified and perpetuated for hundreds of years. It is no part of universal, objective truth. Though we all gain more from joy than from suffering, though we all wish joy for those we love and though it is unimaginably painful to lose someone to suicide, suicide is not "bad". Suicide is not a sin. Suicide is not "wrong".
Suicide is the by product of the feeling of total powerlessness. It occurs when someone has focused negatively for so long or with such intensity, that they become cut off from the natural stream of well being that created their life in the first place (their higher self). When this occurs, they become cut off from their own desires and from who they really are. They hold themselves vibrationally apart from their higher self to such a degree that life force energy is prevented from flowing through them. This life force is often referred to as an inner light. In the absence of that inner light, they feel as if they are in a chasm so deep and dark that there is no way out. They feel as if there is no light at the end of the tunnel. And as such, their pain exceeds their resources for coping with the pain of that "disconnection". And suicide seems like the only way out of that space. No one commits suicide out of selfishness. In fact, they often feel as if other people around them are also better off without their misery and darkness. From their perspective, it seems more like mercy towards themselves and others to check out of their life.
We all intuitively (if not mentally) know that what is waiting for us after death is the pure positive vibration of source energy or that which has been called God perspective. This is why suicide happens. We intuitively sense the presence of relief in death.
Suicide could be accurately seen as pushing a re-set button. It is not a decision that is good or bad in and of itself. Source (that which is often called God) does not condemn nor condone the decision. And nor should we. We can not say that suicide is wrong without also saying that death is wrong. And death is not wrong. It is the natural conclusion of everyone's life just like birth is the natural beginning of everyone's life.
Everyone chooses their death. This is the case regardless of whether someone dies from an accident or from illness or from suicide. For death to occur, an individual's singular perspective must align with (agree with) the perspective of their higher self in the decision to withdraw the focus of their consciousness into physical, three dimensional reality. Both perspectives must concur that death is a step in the right direction for death to occur, so having said that, suicide is about one thing and one thing only, those who it leaves behind.
How does a person go about coping and healing from the grief experienced when someone they love commits suicide?
1. **Be prepared*
*for VERY powerful emotions and changes. Your life will never be the same again. The reason you want to prepare for this is that the emotions and beliefs flushed up by suicide are so intense that at some point in the process, you are bound to feel as if you are going crazy. But you are not going crazy. The emotions that are going to come up are normal as extreme as they may be. They will be all consuming and the worst thing to do is to resist them. "I am where I am" should be the motto of anyone dealing with this kind of grief. There is nothing wrong with you any more than there is something wrong with a woman going through the process of birth. Your world is falling apart at the seams. The process will be all consuming. You may experience nightmares and symptoms of post traumatic stress. The idea that you should "just be ok" or "deal with it gracefully" is one you should let go of upfront. Try to trust that if you surrender to the process, you will eventually come out on the other side with a brand new life. Well being is natural to life. If you allow yourself to surrender, the process will carry you like a current to the other side. If you fight against these emotions and the changes, if you fight for composure, you will be fighting against a current that you can't win against. It will feel like you are drowning. 2. **Find support*
*from people who know about grief and whom will allow you to be wherever you are in the process and not expect you to keep it together. Find people to support you who you feel good being around. If it feels good to be alone, find people to support you who will allow you to do that. Realize that they too will be going through their own process of grief. These people can also help you to take care of the day to day part of living while you are grieving. They can help you with meals, with errands, with funeral arrangements and with informing other people that a loved one has passed away as the result of suicide. People actually enjoy helping, in fact one of the hardest parts of watching someone cope with a death of a loved one is feeling helpless with nothing to do. In this day and age, even if you don't have close friends and family, there are organizations and people whose sole purpose is to step in and fill this role for you. Go looking for them. Grief is a time to learn that we live in an interdependent universe and that we can ask for help. 3. **Understand the feelings associated with grief.**
***Shock*
*is the first reaction to any death. When you first discover that someone has committed suicide, you may be so shocked that you will feel totally numb. This numbness can last for a long time. It is the natural result of your brain trying to process something that is too much for it to process. Similar to the shock the body experiences as a result of an injury, this kind of emotional shock is the result of the brain protecting itself from the initial pain of the loss. This numbness can make it so that you are unable to go on with your day to day life. Your routine will be completely interrupted. Let it. This is a time for being where you are. This shock may last a few hours or a few days or go on for several weeks. Denial may also be a part of this initial shock.
***Anger and Blame*
*is usually the second reaction to death. Most people who lose a loved one experience this emotion at some point. It is completely normal. You might be angry with your loved one for abandoning you or leaving you buried in grief to deal with alone. Or you may be angry with yourself or others for missing clues about your loved one's suicidal intentions. You may be angry that something could've been done differently but wasn't. Don't deny your anger. Talk about it, think about it, and deal with it constructively. Find out what you are really angry about. Own up to that anger. There's nothing wrong with anger. And it does not mean you are a bad person or that you don't love the person who is gone.
***Guilt*
*is the third emotion associated with death. Often, when you are dealing with suicide, the anger you have towards the whole situation turns inward on yourself. When you have hit the guilt stage of grief, you will play out endless scenarios of "what if" and "if only" and "I should have" in your own mind. To stay in a place of guilt is to punish yourself for something you can not change. There is nothing natural about that. Your loved one, who has exited this life, does not want you to feel guilty. There is no healing that can take place when you continue to hold yourself accountable for someone else's life, even if that life is the life of your spouse or what's more… your child. Relief from guilt will come only when you accept that nothing can be done. It was their choice (not your choice) to do what they wanted with their own life. Your loved one is no longer here in the physical and nothing can be changed. Your loved one can't be helped any more. They have done what they felt was the best thing to do and now, they are in a place of total relief. They are free. And so all there is to do is to decide whether to commit to life again. And once you've decided to commit to life again, all there is to do is to start a new life piece by piece and minute by minute, one that is built from the experience of loss.
***Despair and Sadness*
*are the next feelings associated with suicide. Once you really let go of what could have been done differently and come into a place of acceptance about the fact that your loved one is no longer here in the physical, and that nothing can be changed, you will most likely find yourself in the full experience of loss. You may find that you are completely overtaken by loneliness, sadness, or helplessness. It is even common for you to consider suicide yourself. The key to healing from this stage is about living moment to moment trying to be in the now. Be very honest with yourself and prioritize doing things that feel good in the exact moment you are in. Don't make any long term plans. Find joy in very tiny things, like watching an uplifting movie or spending time with a favorite pet. If you run away from this pain by making big changes, you will find out that your despair will follow you wherever you run to. Take time to look for things that you have true gratitude for. Even if those things are as small as the feeling of hot water running over you in the shower. Any kind of positive focus will move you into a better feeling place. And bit by bit, you will find yourself at a point where you can begin to establish a new routine. And you may begin to even look forward to the future sometimes.
***Relief*
*is a feeling that is also a part of the emotional experience, but it is one that is not often talked about in association with suicide. This is because when it comes to death, relief is in and of itself treated as a taboo emotion. We have been indoctrinated to believe that if we love someone, we must feel really, really, really bad that they have transitioned into death forever. But death is a release of pain. That is why people commit suicide in the first place. If we pay close attention to how we feel when a loved one commits suicide, we will notice we often experience a brief feeling of relief. Usually, by the time a person has committed suicide, their life has been consumed by pain and suffering for a long time. Those of us who were surrounded by that suffering may have felt the intense burden or exhaustion from being involved with them and being unable to do anything to change their suffering. And so the relief we may feel is a reflection of knowing we do not have to worry about them anymore and it is all over. We know they are not suffering and that the difficulty has ended. It is not "selfish" to feel this way. It is also very natural. Feeling this way does not mean that you don't love the person who has left this physical existence. So let go of the tendency to feel guilt for this feeling of relief. It is natural to feel relief when someone's suffering has come to an end. 4. **Grieve in your own way.*
*There is no right or wrong way to grieve. Don't rush the process. Just like birth, each person's grieving process will be unique unto themselves. Do what's right for you, not anyone else. Wait to do things you don't feel ready to do until you are ready. Don't let anyone tell you to be anywhere other than where you are. When you feel ready to move into a space of joy again, then you can initiate your own healing by finding help or by working through it on your own. The honest truth is that for many of us, the grief process is something we feel we really need. And so we should not try to rush it. People who want you to be better…now, feel that way because it hurts them to see you grieve. Not because feeling grief in and of itself is wrong. We want happiness for each other. It is easier for us to be happy when those around us are happy themselves. But you are only responsible for one thing: How YOU feel. 5. **Allow yourself to experience set backs.*
*Healing is not a linear process, it is a process that happens in cycles. Some days will be better than other days. Anniversaries, birthdays and reminders of your loved one are likely to flush up grief all over again. These patterns of healing by re experiencing the pain will get fewer and farther in between and they will not be as intense and all consuming as they were the first time. Do not criticize yourself for these "set backs" because they are not really set backs at all. It is impossible to move backwards in this life. What is happening is that you are reaching new levels of healing. New healing begins with discovering new levels of pain. 6. **Allow yourself alone time but remain connected to others.*
*For most of us, it takes being alone with our thoughts in order to fully process and cope with grief. These periods of time where we really sit with ourselves and the truth of our feelings as they are… are a crucial part of healing. And we should allow ourselves to make time for them. Simultaneously, it is a wise decision to stay connected with people whom support us. For you, that may mean family and friends, or it may mean clergy or professionals or support groups. Keep in touch with people who can comfort and understand you and participate in your healing process. Keep that door open. If your alone time turns into isolation, you may find that you have dug your way into your own space of deep suffering and you will have trouble integrating yourself back into the world. You can take time to be alone, but do not expect yourself to go through the process of grief alone. 7. **Replace the beliefs that keep you in a place of suffering.*
*What keeps people grieving are the thoughts that they are holding on to that don't feel good to think. It may sound too simplistic, but it is really as simple as that. In order to build a new life and heal from the loss of someone to death, especially to suicide, we need to let go of the idea that if we love someone, we need to remain loyal to their memory and stay miserable because of the loss of them for the rest of our lives. This is not what loyalty is. Laughing and enjoying your life does not mean you've forgotten your loved one. If you really love someone, the best thing you can do for them is to become an example of alignment with joy. This is especially true when suicide is involved. Those who commit suicide, do so because however capable they may be, they are unable to align with joy. But they wanted joy. They wanted joy for themselves and for those around them. They made the decision that they had to die in order to align with that joy. But you do not have to die in order to align with joy. All you have to do is find a new way to think. Find a way to think about the situation that feels good.
When the time comes that you are ready... Let go of your thoughts that don't feel good to think, such as:

*What could I have done differently?
*They are gone forever.
*I am totally alone.
*I can't do this.
*I'll never get over this.
*What did I do to deserve this?
*Life is over.
*It was so selfish of them to do that.
*I can't go on.
*I must have done something horrible in my last life to deserve this.
*I'm a terrible person.
*They've ripped this family apart.
Replace thoughts that feel bad to think with thoughts that feel good to think, such as:

*They are at peace.
*They didn't do this to hurt me.
*I have become a more compassionate and whole person because of this experience.
*In honor of their memory I allow myself to find joy like they couldn't.
*I choose to seek out that which makes me happy.
*I will see them again.
*They are not gone. They have just "exited the movie theatre of life".
Thoughts that feel better to think are going to vary based on whoever is thinking them. One thought may feel really good for one person to think, but wont feel so good for another person to think. The key is finding the thoughts that feel really good for you, yourself to think. Spend time focused on those thoughts.
Sometimes we prevent ourselves from choosing thoughts that feel good because we are unsure if they are true or not. Don't preoccupy yourself with seeking out truth over what feels good in your life. Truth, as an external consensus, does not exist. Instead, your life will become the byproduct of what thoughts you chose to think. And you will call that byproduct…Truth. And so, the gift of grief and loss is that when your life falls apart, you have the opportunity to build the truth of your life intentionally out of thoughts and beliefs that feel good to think. Because of this, you have the opportunity to build an even better life for yourself than the one you were living before. This is part of the universal intention for the existence of things as life shattering as coping with suicide in the first place.
You are meant to choose your life, not live a life that is the default byproduct of beliefs you adopted from your childhood experience. The gift of any kind of suffering is that it calls everything into question. Let your life fall apart. Then when you are ready, decide how you want to put it together again. Decide what thoughts and beliefs you want to lay as the foundation for your new life. Your grief and sadness will gradually subside, when you surrender to the process and then decide that you are ready to intentionally create new joy.

Honesty

Honesty is one of man kind’s most cherished virtues. But what is honesty?
Honesty is the process of recognizing, accepting and expressing our authentic, true self. And this process starts with you. Nothing is more important than being honest with your self. All too often, we fall into the trap of deceiving ourselves with rationalization.
The culprit that hides behind the skirts of dishonesty is fear. Until we face those fears, our motivations for being dishonest remain. We lose our integrity. We begin to lie, we begin to rationalize, we begin to deceive others, and we begin to act on the impulses of envy, greed and manipulation. We may think we are getting away with it because we are not getting caught in the act by others, but we are getting caught every single time by ourselves. And we experience the internal consequences every time. Our own minds know when we are not acting with integrity. And the turmoil of not living in alignment with our true authentic self ensures that we can not have inner peace.
All dishonesty is a form of self sabotage in the long run. By not building our lives around a skeleton of integrity, we cut our self off from who we really are and the result is that our spirit fades. We lose our self. And consequently, because we lose our self, we begin to lose others. We drown in the consequences of abandoning our true self. We lose our self respect and our world falls at our feet.
If we desire to live a life that we enjoy, if we desire to live the life that we intended to live by coming here in the first place, we need to learn how to express who it is that we truly are in every evolving moment. We must first lie to our selves before we can lie to others, because of this we need to be brave enough to ask ourselves what we are so afraid will happen if we are 100% honest with ourselves and others. The answer may be that we are afraid that if we are completely honest, we will not be good enough or that other people will stop loving us.
Discovering what fear is behind the dishonesty in our lives is a priceless opportunity. It is a priceless opportunity because once we are able to focus on diminishing those fears and begin to choose new beliefs, we will be walking hand in hand with our own joy. We will be living with integrity, which is a platform of self solidity which allows our life to flourish on top of it.
Honesty never feels bad. What feels bad are the conclusions we draw about (and judgments we cast on) our honesty. For example, it is honest to say, “I have not always acted honestly in the past”. The reason we may feel negative about saying that isn’t because of that truth in and of itself. It is because of the conclusion we may be drawing about that truth such as “bad people are dishonest so I must be a bad person”. Our true, authentic selves never judge us negatively. So if we ever find ourselves telling the truth about something and feeling bad about doing so, it is because of our own judgments and fears that we feel bad and not because of honesty. Honesty is not an enemy; instead, it is a tool which will set you free.
Those of us who are aware that our minds create our reality, often find ourselves at an impasse when it comes to honesty. On one hand it is true that whatever you focus on… you get more of, and that if you want to live a different life, you have to tell a different story relative to your life.
On the other hand, it is true that dishonesty feels terrible and that those of us who utilize the power of thought sometimes run away from truth and gloss over it (which is resistance) because we are struggling so hard to think positively. It is because of this that we must learn first that none of us upon this planet came here with the intention of lying to ourselves. We came here to express our authentic selves.
Because of this, we need to first release the resistance to where we are by saying “I am where I am”. Where we are is just where we are. It is a temporary place that can always change and will change the minute we choose something new. From there, we need to let the awareness of where we are and our true selves show us where we would rather be. We need to let ourselves own up to what is authentic to ourselves and our desires and then we need to line up with those desires.
An example of how to stay in line with integrity and honesty while simultaneously remaining in a positive vibration (which creates positive manifestation in your life) is… “I have not always acted honestly in the past, this causes me to know that I desire to act honestly now and in the future because integrity feels good and I’m often making choices in my life with integrity such as_________”.
Used properly, honesty should not be something that we use to invoke guilt in ourselves. It is not something that is meant to showcase how far we aren’t and what we lack. Honesty is meant to be a compass that keeps us in line with the North Star with such accuracy that we are never lost. The North Star that it keeps us in line with is ourselves. Are you being honest with yourself?

What Does it Mean To Be In Alignment?

We have all heard it again and again from spiritual guides and channels and self help professionals alike… the key to everything you want in this life is alignment. But what does it really mean to be "in alignment"?
The definition of alignment is to bring components or parts into proper or desirable coordination correlation. In plain English, to align something means to place it in a line with something else or to arrange it so as to be parallel or straight with something else. But the question is with what? What are you supposed to be parallel with? The answer is… your higher self. Your higher self is the eternal, incorporeal, omnipotent, consciousness, which is your real self. It is the being that you go forth from and withdraw back to from life to life. It is the summation of all that you have ever been and all that you are. It is a consciousness which is inseparable from that which we call Source Energy (or God). So we could interchange the term Higher Self with the word Source.
In the beginning of this one life you are living, your higher self (Source) projected a portion of its self forward into third dimensional (physical) expression. This projection became…YOU, a temporary perspective…A thought which now thinks. But your higher self did not fully become you. Instead, you became two points of perspective…Your physical self and your higher self.
Why did you do this? Because the physical dimension is a contrasting environment which becomes the very real, tangible manifestation of exactly what thoughts we hold. And experiencing our thoughts tangibly has a way of helping us to birth new ideas and preferences in a way that nothing else can. And why is this important? Because as we experience this physical environment, and as desire causes us to give birth to new ideas, Source (God) aligns with those new ideas (desires) and becomes the exact vibration of them. It is this process which we call expansion.
We, with our desires, are causing the expansion of Source. We are causing the expansion of the universe or that which we call God. And because we are an inseparable part of the oneness that is Source, we are causing our own expansion as well. But how does all of this apply to your own alignment? Because once Source assumes the vibration of your desire, it begins to pull you towards convalescence with all of the conditions, opportunities and components necessary for the physical manifestation of your desire. And your emotions relative to that desire are born. You have a choice at this point which is to resist the pull of your higher self by remaining out of alignment with the desire, or to find alignment with the desire thereby allowing your higher self to pull you towards the manifestation.
As you are aligning with your true desires, you are aligning with your higher self. When we are talking about alignment with the higher self, we are talking about creating (with the thoughts that we are thinking) an energetic vibrational parallel between ourselves and our higher selves. You could think of this in terms of tuning an instrument. To find alignment means to pick the thought which vibrates at the same frequency (musical note) as the frequency of the desire which your higher self (the orchestra) has now assumed. This is the key to manifestation. If we hold a thought which is out of alignment with our own desires and therefore Source, we will suffer and we prevent the manifestation of the very desire we have given birth to in the first place. If we hold a thought which is in alignment with our desires and therefore Source, we will feel positive emotion and allow the manifestation of the very desire we have previously given birth to, into existence.
So why does a person suffer if they are out of alignment? Because our emotional systems are a biochemical, evolutionary component within our physical bodies which have one purpose and one purpose only, to give us accurate, moment by moment feedback about what frequency (musical note) the thought we're currently holding is vibrating at. Again in plain English, this means that your emotions are the indication of whether the thought you're thinking at this moment is in alignment with the frequency of your desires and Source or out of alignment with your desires and Source. If you think thoughts which are out of alignment with Source, you feel negative emotion. If you think thoughts which are in alignment with source, you feel positive emotion. You are biochemically hard wired to go in the direction of alignment. All you have to do to stay in alignment therefore is to care first and foremost how you feel, choose to think thoughts that feel emotionally good to you and stop focusing on thoughts which feel emotionally bad to think.
Being in alignment first and foremost means feeling good…Feeling good means you are in alignment. Feeling bad means you are out of alignment. An example of not being in alignment would be holding on to a limiting, negative belief such as thinking that what you want is impossible, or thinking that you do not deserve something. Another example would be thinking that you need something. To need something means you are focused on the lack of that thing. And if you focus on lack, you simply manifest more lack.
An example of being in alignment would be holding on to a positive, self affirming belief such as "anything is possible", or "I deserve to experience everything I desire". To be in alignment to the degree that you experience positive manifestation, the trinity of your desire, your belief and your focus all have to be resonating at the same frequency (tuned to the same note).
So how do you know if you're out of alignment with your desires and therefore Source? You will feel negative emotion. You will feel attached to the outcome. You will feel as if you desperately need (fill in the blank) in order to feel good. You will notice that you are giving most of your attention to the absence of (fill in the blank). When you imagine (fill in the blank), it will make you more aware of what you don't yet have which will make you feel bad. You will be wondering what you're doing wrong and because of that, you will be snowballing into more and more negative emotions as you're wondering why (fill in the blank) has not manifested yet. And you will be constantly looking for (fill in the blank), as if you do not have trust for it to simply manifest without effort. If you begin to hold yourself chronically "out of alignment", the result will be that you will create a life of unhappiness for yourself. Your physical and mental health will begin to fail. Your life will lack passion and you will begin to feel powerless.
How do you know if you're in alignment with your desires and therefore Source? You will feel positive emotion. You will be looking forward to the manifestation of (fill in the blank) with enthusiasm and without attachment or need. You will trust that it will manifest with ease instead of effort. You will feel positive emotions when you imagine (fill in the blank) as if it is just around the corner and is inevitable. You will expect the manifestation of (fill in the blank). You will not be paying attention to (fill in the blank) having not manifested yet so you will feel like you are right on track. And you will be focused on any thought that makes you feel as if (fill in the blank) is already manifested. This will cause you to feel abundant instead of lacking. If you begin to make it a habit to remain "in alignment" the result will be that you will create a life of joy for yourself. Your physical and mental health will improve. Your life will be full of passion and you will begin to feel the true freedom which is inherently yours.
To be in alignment means to hold a thought (and/or belief) which feels emotionally positive and therefore resonates at the same frequency as your desire. This is your indication that you are in line with your higher self and subsequently, that the manifestation of your desire (into the physical dimension) will occur. You came into this physical dimension with the full intention of remaining in alignment with your desires and your higher self, knowing that this would be the key to not only your own expansion but the eternal expansion of all that is.

The Secret To Being A Good Mother

Before a child is born, a woman may have existed, but a mother is born the moment a child is born. It is true that some of us are more adept at mothering than others. For some of us, the dream of raising and nurturing a child has been one we have had since we were children. For others, it comes upon us by surprise after years of wanting nothing to do with kids. Either way, the day our children are born, we are born. And now we are faced with a kind of love for something that is literally unparalleled by any kind of love that we have experienced or ever will experience towards anything. What do we do from there?
There are no classes in school that we can take that teach us how to be good mothers. Instead, we are left to our own devices. Sure, the hospital staff shows us how to diaper our baby and give them a bath if we ask them to. But after that, we're on our own. Given the loss of community within western society, most of us did not grow up in communities where we have seen the full process of menarche to menopause. Because of this, most of us have not seen all that goes into mothering first hand. And for some of us who have, we can consider ourselves lucky if we have seen it done well instead of poorly. The bottom line is, most of us don't know what to do so we find ourselves falling into the all too common pattern of trying to cram ourselves into a box of what we think a mother is "supposed" to be like. Often this means emulating what our own mother did.
There are two main problems with falling into this trap of emulating what we think a mother is "supposed" to be like…
The traditional idea of what a mother should be like is unrealistic and calls for a mother to sacrifice themselves for their children.
  Our own mothers who also fell prey to this idealistic role taught us terrible habits.

Trying to fill the role of what we think a mother "should" be like does not work. And it is also the reason that we have such a negative connotation with motherhood in today's society. In our society today, there is a collective belief that motherhood is when a woman's life ends and her children's' lives begin. This could not be further from the truth. But many of us who are mothers feel like it is true because we allow our whole selves to be lost to the role of mother instead of letting the role of mother be one part of our lives as a whole. Guilt is another unnecessary part of mothering that has become an integral part of motherhood. As mothers, we feel guilty for what we do and for what we don't do. We feel guilty for what we think and we feel guilty for what we don't think. We feel guilty as if the guilt is what is separating us from the women who we have been taught are "selfish" and therefore "bad". This guilt is the warden that keeps us locked up inside the prison of how we are supposed to be. And so if we are to set ourselves free and really be the mothers we want to be, we have to let go of guilt and change our ideas about mothering.
To start with, there is no such thing as an ideal mother. Every single woman on this planet is different. So every single woman on this planet should allow themselves to be a different mother. The idea that there is such a thing as a perfect mother or a perfect way to parent where no one gets their hands dirty and everything goes smoothly is complete fallacy. Behind closed doors, every mother feels as if they're doing something wrong. Behind closed doors every mother will admit to you that mothering is hard. It is time to let go of the need to keep up the façade. It is time to stop focusing on where we think we are falling short. We need to abandon the comparison we are all convinced we're falling short of and instead we need to focus on being the mothers we really want to be. And we become the mothers we want to be by making the decision to never be out of alignment with ourselves.
Most of us have been spoon fed the idea that the time to stop thinking about ourselves is the day our children are born. We are taught that the good mother is the one who sacrifices their own joy for their children's joy. We are taught that anything less than this, is selfish. The result is that we do what so many of our own mothers did before us… We become unhappy people. We are not taught the difference between selfish and self -full. Selfish people feel so much lack in their lives that they feel they have to take and take from others. If we are to look at people as if their lives could be compared to cups, the selfish person's cup is never full so they must remain self focused, trying to fill up their own cup. People, who take the time to find their own alignment and happiness, are self-full. Their cup is full, so they are able to then spill their focus towards other people.
Many of us had mothers who confused self-fullness with selfishness. They sacrificed themselves for their children in the name of "proper mothering" and in doing so, they started to feel empty. Without even realizing it, many mothers (who thought of themselves as the least selfish) became the most selfish people in their respective house holds because they kept trying to extract appreciation and good behavior from their children to fill the void of happiness in their own lives that had been created by sacrificing their own joy to the role of motherhood. We will only ever be good mothers if we let go of sacrifice and begin to be self-full. Becoming self full and staying in alignment with our own joy does not (contrary to our worry) mean that we are going to become absentee mothers. The nature of loving our children means that being near them is a big part of our happiness. Instead, we are simply ensuring that when we are self full and in alignment with our own joy, the times we are around them will be mutually beneficial and even mutually wonderful.
At the end of the day there is really only one way to teach, and that is by example. All we are doing when we sacrifice our true selves and our happiness for our ideas of what a mother "should" be like is teaching our children to do the same. We are teaching them to be out of alignment with themselves. We are perpetuating a damaging pattern within society. And we are committing emotional suicide.
There is not only one way to be a good mother. Our children want the real us, not the version of us that tries to be someone we aren't for their sakes. It is not an act that we can keep up for long anyway. And the real key to parenting well is to remain in alignment with who we really are. When we demonstrate what it looks like to stay in alignment with our own joy and be honest about what that is, we are giving our children a real gift. We are showing them how to stay in alignment with themselves. There is no more valuable lesson in the entire world for a child to learn. It is the only thing that will sustain them when we are no longer there to guide them through their lives.
Children want to spend time with us. But they do not want to spend time with unhappy versions of us. We need to do whatever it takes to stay in alignment with our own joy even if that means spending more time each day on ourselves. We need to stay in alignment because when it comes to our children, three hours a day with a parent who is in alignment with themselves is more beneficial than twelve hours with a parent who is not in alignment with themselves. We need to be brave enough to ask ourselves what it means to us to be in alignment with ourselves and our own happiness.
Instead of trying to emulate what we have been taught a mother "should be like", we need to really look for what kind of mother we are deep inside. We need to uncover what our true beliefs about parenting are and seek out the techniques, philosophies and methods of parenting that are in line with those true beliefs. The benefit of the information age is that we aren't just restricted to a small sphere of learning when it comes to mothering. We don't just have to do what our mothers did. We can look for what suits us and our children as individuals. We can parent in a way that maintains our joy instead of diminishes from it.
Our children are a reflection of ourselves as children. They are a mirror of the child within, that is still alive within us. Our children are meant to trigger our painful emotional imprints (the suppressed feelings from our childhood that we never let ourselves fully feel) so that we can integrate them into our lives and become whole. By becoming whole in this way, we will stop the transference of emotionally painful experiences from one generation to the next. This process is not easy. In fact it is one of the most difficult processes to commit to. How does our internal child want to be parented? That is how we should be parenting our own child.
Motherhood can be one of the most fulfilling and rewarding experiences of our lifetime, if we can learn to allow ourselves to be our own, unique kind of mother. And we will all be the mothers we want to be so badly, if we can allow ourselves to prioritize staying in alignment with our own joy before anything else… including our children. Because the secret of truly exceptional mothering is: To prioritize our own joy, is to prioritize theirs.

Religion Vs. Spirituality

Religion is defined as a set of beliefs centered around spirituality that concern the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
Spirituality is defined as practice and principles pertaining to the incorporeal or immaterial aspect of nature, the principle of conscious life, which acknowledges that a supernatural, incorporeal being is animating the body.
In short what these definitions point out is that religion, at its best, may be able to make a practice out of spirituality. But spirituality, which is the heart of religion, does not need religion to exist. What's more, religion may even get in the way of spirituality. We must acknowledge that for some, religion has been a much enjoyed system of security, faith and hope. But for many others, the inherent flaws of religion have caused them to turn their backs on spirituality entirely. You could say that their negative experiences with religion have caused them to "throw the baby out with the bathwater".
Though religion does not have to get in the way of spirituality, it often does. Spirituality, which is present within every religion, gets lost in the human imposed details. It is an essence, which is obscured by human rules, doctrine, penance and righteousness. The denominational nature of religion often serves to divide people when the very principal that is supposed to be at the heart of most religions is love.
In our world today it is easy to see that religion has often become more of a culture war between people than a means to find personal meaning, happiness and morality. Religion has also been used throughout history to justify all manner of atrocities, violence and oppression. Religion can be what brings us into contact with the spiritual nature of our universe. It can also be what causes many of us to look for that spiritual essence beyond the material in the first place. But it can also be what prevents us from finding it. Like a blind fold, the details involved with religious observance can prevent a person from asking questions and what's worse, prevent a person from the understanding that all spiritual answers come from within.
Sadly, when people commit to one religion, they tend to become devoted to the institution and lose the essence of what attracted them in the first place. When you look at each major religion in the world today, you find peace, love and compassion at the core of its doctrines. It is common logic therefore to say that to see as much fighting in the name of God as we do, something within religious practice has gone drastically wrong.
Spirituality and religion are the two fundamentals that one is required to follow simultaneously. However, spirituality can exist without religion but religion can not exist without spirituality. Spiritual practice focuses on the acknowledgement of spirit and higher knowing in every living thing. It is then easy to see how a person who is closed and confined to the righteousness of only one religion (adhering to the idea that there is only one true God and one true religion) cannot be truly spiritual. Spirituality is individual. It is beyond human imposed worldview.
Religion however is an institutional practice of spirituality. It is composed of human beings, invented by human beings. It is influenced by cultural views, and at the mercy of the limited and even flawed perception of the human mind. It is at the mercy of human fear, human error and human prejudice. When permeated by human worldview, religion often becomes a tool to protect one's own self interest and way of life against others. It becomes a tool of exclusion instead of inclusion.
It has been said that spirituality can be compared to a succulent fruit. And religion can be compared to the peel of that fruit. While both spirituality and religion are parts of the fruit, many people get stuck in the peel of the fruit (religion) and never move on to the deeper truths and experiences inherent in the fruit (spirituality).
If we are conscious enough, religion does not have to restrict or get in the way of spirituality, because a truly spiritual person will seek out the spiritual nectar inherent in all religious philosophies. He or she can be seen as a collector of the nectar present in every religion. Like a bee who flies from one flower to the next in search of the nectar within, a truly spiritual person can entertain all religions long enough to extract the "divine" from the "less than divine" that is present therein.
The Quran states that all humans are born with the knowledge of God within themselves. The Bible states that the kingdom of heaven lies within you. The Bhagwat states that we can find salvation within, and the Buddha taught that enlightenment was found within. What these divine truths clearly demonstrate is that the spirituality that is at the heart of nearly every religion need not be found through the venue of religion. Instead, it is an inseparable part of us that is available to us however and whenever we choose to seek it.
Religion can be a map that sets us on course towards an inner quest to find the answers we seek. But it is important to acknowledge that if misinterpreted or incorrectly written, that map can lead us in the opposite direction from where we want to go. Conversely, if we are aware that the answers to our questions have resided deep inside us all along, (whether we begin our journey hand in hand with a specific religion or not) we can delve deep into our own individual faith, and spirituality. We can let our individual spirituality (rather than anything external of us) guide us like a north star towards all that we seek.
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