Questions of the day

Questions of the day?


Is anger a worthy master?

Why do we hold our politicians to a higher standard than we hold ourselves, are they not human?

Why are we so ready to criticize others before we are ready to criticize ourselves,can we not see our own faults before we see the faults of others?

Why is it that ones level of intelligence has very little if anything to do with ones level of common sense, they do not equate each other?

Why is it that most animals are socially smarter than most humans?

Why is it to most people that the word 'Understand' means to Accept when neither word is associated with each other? To Understand something is to know Why.

LT (c) 2011

How Gossip, Complaints & Swear Words are Good for Manifesting

How Gossip, Complaints & Swear Words are Good for Manifesting

Deliberate creators are often advised that in order to maintain a high vibration we should eliminate all gossip, complaints, swear words and anything else negative from our conversations.

Most of us would consider that good advice, and many of us have attempted to practice it for long stretches at a time.

But the thing is sometimes a little bitch session, trash talking or wisely chosen expletive is exactly what we need to improve our alignment.

Not convinced?

You’ve probably already experienced this. Have you ever laughed out loud when a friend swears inappropriately? Or when you have? Or felt relief when you suspended your “good behavior” to give someone a piece of your mind?

Or maybe you’ve hung up from a little girlfriend gossip session feeling better than you did before you conversed?

If not, you really must try it. It’s all the rage for leading edge manifestors. ;)

Gossip, complaints and swear words don’t always feel better - but sometimes, depending where we’re at on the vibrational scale, a little four letter word or an “inappropriate” comment is just the ticket to a better vibe.

Even Abraham says sometimes being negative is what you’ve got to do before you can feel better. It’s what they mean when they suggest going from “specific negative” to “general negative.” As in: “I am sick and tired of being underpaid for what I do” to “actually, my entire industry is under-appreciated. It’s not just me.”

After you make that transition, then you can get to “general positive” (“But we do do important work“) and on to “specific positive” (“I love the project I’m working on now.”)

Sometimes the ticket to movement in your feeling state is to let yourself do what savvy creators aren’t “supposed” to do - complain about the neighbor or swear at the traffic or gossip about the in-laws.

It’s not pretty, but sometimes it is just what the doctor ordered. So if you’re stuck in a bad vibe, try on a little gossip, complaining and/or swear word to see if you can find a bit of relief to kick start your upward spiral.

Jeannette Maw

Jeannette Maw is a Master Certified Coach and founder of Good Vibe University. Catch up with her latest LOA ideas at www.goodvibeblog.com.

Three Keys to Getting Unstuck

Three Keys to Getting Unstuck
Ken Christian

Ever gotten stuck? I’m talking about really stuck.

Maybe you were grooving along at a pretty nice pace pursuing some project or exciting new idea. Then kaboom! Without knowing exactly how it happened or what set it up, you came to a grinding and unceremonious halt. It’s perplexing when this happens and it doesn’t feel good. You can pretty quickly find yourself in a funk—puzzled, feeling powerless and a bit inadequate. It doesn’t matter whether you call it writer’s block, a flat spot or a creative lull. It’s easy to feel maybe even guilty, like being stuck is due to some personal flaw or inadequacy.

But here’s the deal. Getting stuck usually has its genesis in fear.

The fear could be one of the usual Big Three suspects: 1) fear of failure, 2) fear of the demands and future implications of success or 3) fear of making a big mistake. But sometimes the fear is subtler, more specific and originates in your particular personal history. As soon as the fear brain takes over, the rational thinking brain is switched off and the fear brain immediately engages a diverting or soothing strategy to get you to safety. So you end up derailed, thwarted, stuck or at minimum not making the progress you hoped for.

So what’s the way out? Here are 3 parts of an effective process for getting back on track from the stuck zone:

1) Resist the temptation to judge and criticize yourself.
The upshot of the fear and the crummy feelings that accompany being stuck is that it’s easy to attack yourself. And when you do, you immediately make matters worse. You infinitely expand something that might have had a very short life into a big-box-sized PROBLEM that now has a life of its own.

2) Understand how your brain is creating the current stuck pattern, so you can see through and past it.

A shorthand way of summarizing what goes on in the face of possible danger would be to say that, in those moments, the brain has a mind of its own. Instead of the frontal cortex being in charge, where planning and rational thinking goes on, the more ancient part of the brain takes over and prepares you to escape, do battle or freeze. This knowledge of how your brain works can give you a way to recognize what’s happening in the moment and interrupt the pattern before it takes you off course.

3) Use mindful awareness to catch your fear brain in the act and make a new choice.
Research and clinical evidence supports a different strategy from merely trying to force your way through being stuck by exerting more willpower. Instead of self-attack, mindfully examine what the brain’s resistance to further action might be about. By emptying yourself of judgment, and carefully tracking what’s happening inside, you can learn to identify what this primitive part of your brain is experiencing as a red flag. And once you change your perspective in this direction, self-attack melts away, you become grateful for your brain’s wise protection and entirely new possibilities arise for how to deal with the situation you face.

Sometimes, it only takes a moment.

I was working with a new mentoring client recently and for several years the way he understood his career had left him at a major impasse. He was self-accusatory and called himself unassertive. I suggested to him that he merely consider that there might be a positive reason for his hesitancy to move forward. Literally, within less than a minute he was in a completely different state, flooded with happiness and seeing his situation completely differently from how he had construed it.

What might your fear brain be protecting you from?

Guest blogger Ken Christian is is a licensed psychologist whose sole focus for the last twenty years has been helping individuals, parents, educators and organizations and their leaders remove limitations and maximize potential. He is the founder of the Maximum Potential Project and the author of Your Own Worst Enemy: Breaking the Habit of Adult Underachievement and the co-author of An Invitation to Personal Change

If you would like to learn more about how to transform your own stuck patterns, Ken Christian is hosting a free teleseminar July 26th, 2011 called Breaking Out of the Stuck Zone. It is open to everyone, for details on how to Break Out, visit Breaking Out of the Stuck Zone

This entry was posted in Guest Blogger and tagged fear, guest blogger, happiness, Obstacles to Happiness.

A Silent Epidemic of The Worst Kind by Caroline Myss

Caroline Myss's Notes

A Silent Epidemic of The Worst Kind
by Caroline Myss on Thursday, July 21, 2011 at 11:05am

Hello Everyone:

It's been a while since I've written. Summer has that effect, I guess, but so does writing a new book. I get consumed and time just flies by. A burning sun looms overhead today and it's horrendous outside - the type of day that hurts your head and makes your body feel twice the weight it is. As I was watering my garden this morning, I could not help but think of all the many people who have often said to me that they could never endure the Chicago winter. Only a few weeks ago I was in Arizona doing a workshop on Medical Intuition with my lifetime friend and colleague, Norm Shealy. It was 116 degrees one day and continues to be that hot. The myth that dry heat is tolerable because it's dry is nonsense. You cannot breathe as you climb the path to the workshop area, looking at the parched earth screaming for a break from the relentless sun - and any sign of water dripping from the sky. I'll take the coming of the cool autumn, the falling colored leaves, those lucious grey skies that indicate the coming of the winter months, the holiday season, sweater time, fire places, and yes, snowstorms. I am not someone who is built to burn. I adore days in the 80's and delicious warm evenings - that's a slice of heaven. But....enough of this. I actually have something on my mind...

I do a weekly radio show on the Hay House radio network every Tuesday afternoon at 3:00 CST. I've had this program for over six years now. The format is simple: I chat for ten or fifteen minutes on a particular subject and then I open the line to callers in order to do intuitive readings. The show is a pleasure to do. This past Tuesday, a woman phoned in asking for prayers, not because she was physically ill but because she was in a moral and ethical crisis due to her position as a teacher in a school district out west. The dilemma she described is this: The teachers in her school have been forced to purger themselves, that is, to sign documents stating that the school has been providing physical education classes and social studies, for the past five years, in order to continue getting state funding. The facts, however, is that the school has NOT been providing these classes at all. The school simply wants the funds and the teachers want to keep their jobs. Once they sign these documents, they are committing, in effect, lying on a federal document, and thus, they are participants in an act of embezzling funds from the state.

This teacher has tried to gather the support of other teachers in order to challenge this practice, to bring this crime to light, but they feel personally and professionally threatened. Cleverly, it is now a federal offense to remove federal documents from the building so she herself would be breaking the law should she attempt to copy any paperwork in order to get proof of the crimes to an outside source. She went to a lawyer with this case who, oddly enough, gave her the rather peculiar advice to stand down and not fight this.

After my broadcast, I received several emails from listeners who apparently also had or still have careers in education, all of whom have had similar experiences, one even leading to a state Grand Jury case. It seems that the corruption in the educational field is epidemic is proportion. But worse than that, the epidemic is a silent one that no one is talking about, much less exposing. Actually, we have a multiple epidemic in progress: Not only has the educational system been corrupted but fear has paralyzed those who know about it, those who are witness to the corruption, and thus the evil will spread until the Ronald Reagan plan to "dumb down" the children of America becomes one of the greatest Republic success stories in American history.

Why in the world would a society want to "dumb down" its children, its future resources? Why would the government ever introduce a "mind control" program, namely, "No Child Left Behind", in the guise of a supportive educational effort? Why would a government turn against its own population with a strategy to take away its knowledge of Civics - a class in which children are taught their rights as American citizens - and cut away endless funding from the arts and humanities? Why would a government make higher education the most expensive investment for a young person, second only to the purchase of a home, almost assuring that young adult a life of indentured servitude to that college debt for years to come? What has become of the values of this nation?????

Some fundamentalists have succeeded in influencing education in only the worst and most abusive ways. They created a "Christian paranoia" against any mention of God in schools or God-language, as if just the mention of the Pledge of Allegiance and the phrase, "...under God", was a Liberal conspiracy. Children need classes on morality and ethics, on confronting moral crises in life. They need to know that beyond the values of money and business, there is a higher plane of reasoning such as situation ethics that demands one have an elastic mind capable of grasping models of universal ethics brought to bear upon individual problems. Where are the advocates of wisdom applied to business and law? Is it any wonder that we live in a society devoid of conscience? That we live in a society that continues to bomb its way through its problems while others invest their resources in alternative energy? We, on the other hand, have no shortage of politicians funded by greedy, self-serving lobbyists who pay these Washington imperialists to stay on their corporate funded IV's, hooked to financial funding connected to the oil and pharmaceutical industries while keeping blinders on to climate change, alternative energy development projects, and the fact that the American economy is toast, not to mention the American educational system.

But if they can keep Americans silent and stupid, all the better - oh, make that silent, stupid, and frightened - oh, and now let's add poor. If that's not the perfect combination for control, then you do not know history and how the disintegration of a democracy works. Mind you, they make sure their own children are superbly educated...let their children inherent the power, as it were.

Silence and passivity are lethal. Sitting back and saying, "Oh, I'm just not the sort to get involved," is the same as saying, "Someone else has to be responsible for my freedom. I'm just too lazy and too comfortable. Besides, I am choosing not to believe things are as bad as they are. I prefer La-La Land."

Well, they are bad and getting worse by the day, by the drought, by the dollar....by the second.

It will take every alert, concerned, devoted American to rise up and act before it's too late. If you know your educational system is crumbling, become part of making a difference. I don't care whether you have children or not. I don't have kids but I am passionate - PASSIONATE - about education. No, about KNOWLEDGE and my calling to pass knowledge on to others. And I am passionate about TRUTH and FREEDOM. Look what that evil man, Murdock, has been able to get away with for years because people have sat silently around him, allowing his dark and nasty agenda to weave its controlling threads through every segment of British society. And who knows how deep his evil control runs here - he owns FOX network, after all, and they are in the business of manufacturing one lie after another. There was a time when journalists had the courage to do serious investigative reporting - the days of Watergate, for example. Now they are puppets reporting celebrity hype and nonsense and why? Because feeding America hype was also part of the plan to dumb down America, to block out international news, to keep Americans "in America", believing American perspectives about American activities...like going to war.

A great nation like America doesn't end up in the shape it is in today because it is being led by wise and great people. It ends up bankrupt and spinning out of control because it has been led by liars, inept fools, narcissists, and greedy corporate agendas. And Americans fell asleep at the wheel, believing their great nation would never change. Well, it has changed, faster than any one could have imagined. It is collapsing, as Thomas Jefferson once predicted, from the inside, not from an outside invasion. And unless Americans remember how to BE AMERICANS once again, we had better review how to return to the feudal system.

Love,

Caroline

PS - If the teacher who phoned in my radio show reads this FB entry, please contact me through my business partner, David: smithevents@gmail.com. People have sent me emails naming resources for you to contact, should you be interested.

[This article is copy of the original (in its entirety) posted as Caroline Myss's notes on Facebook]

Creating Our Own Reality: An Evolutionary Responsibility

Creating Our Own Reality: An Evolutionary Responsibility

"Do you know what hurts the most about a broken heart? Not being able to remember how you felt before."
-- Cassie, from Skins

It was probably fifteen years ago when I first heard the phrase, "We each create our own reality." I'm fairly certain a follower of Jane Robert's "Seth" first spoke it to me, then it was quickly reinforced by a compelling Richard Bach publication. I'm also fairly certain my initial reaction was, "Screw that." Whose wouldn't be? If life is going great, then it's a different story. In that case, of course, I would want to claim some level of responsibility for my success. But what if it isn't? I mean, what if it really isn't going well due to a chronic mental/physical health condition, PTSD, or being victim of some event that was beyond control? At most points in life there falls a darkness so devastating that not only do we not want to feel any connection to its cause, we don't want to connect with it at all. Where do those events fit into creating one's own reality?

It boggled the mind. Having found peace on a shamanic path, a fairly self-governed and ongoing spiritual quest, I just couldn't hear that any harm-filled facet of my past was due to my own creation. To me that's right up there with the concept of original sin, or victim-blaming, both of which subversively imply that it's our fault that we're all damned and if we don't figure out how to get un-damned, that's our fault too. I found no salvation in those age old projections, and I found none in the New Age evangelist gurus who more or less implied the same thing. Better yet, not one of these sages supplied further information on how this self-mastered creation process worked. Indeed, it was a well-kept secret.

Some point down the line the message clarified, stating that our thoughts create our realities. The new edict was backed by references to theories on causality and synchronicity posited by Carl Jung, and even facets of quantum physics relating thought with energy, thus manifestation. I decided to think about being happy. Driving down the road, eating my lunch, doing my job, sitting in staff meetings, and chatting at dinner parties, I thought about being happy. I let the thought of being happy consume me, which by current translation was expressly what the latest APB from the gods said I was supposed to do. But I didn't feel happy. In fact, I started to feel guilty that with all this positive thought I couldn't think myself happy, a fact that left me feeling ...sad. I couldn't figure out why I felt more isolated and down when I was doing the higher consciousness-sanctioned "right thing."

All of that changed when Abraham-Hicks leapt into modern awareness with the Law of Attraction in the early 90s. Essentially the Law of Attraction is, "Like attracts like." Subtly more informed than "We create our own reality," Abraham-Hicks put forward that the internal focus is the outcome. In short, what you feel is what you get.

Finally I understood why I couldn't think myself happy. Trying to talk myself into a state of being that I didn't feel made as much sense as convincing my empty stomach that it wasn't hungry. Talking the mind into a state of being requires more than just commanding it to be so. It requires an inventory of feelings that include already having a sense of the desired state of being. I was telling myself to be something I had no frame of reference to feel. How do you create an outcome for which you have no repertoire of feelings? If someone has always been hungry, how does that person manifest a sensation of fullness and nutritional satisfaction? If a person has always been in poverty, how does that person manifest the secure assuredness of having enough? How was I supposed to manifest happiness when I didn't know what it felt like?

Admittedly, having puzzled that out I didn't immediately jump for joy. No, in fact, I went on to feel terribly guilty about the fact that I couldn't solidly identify swaths of joy and delight in my past. That was the point that I realized I had to start smaller. If I couldn't find eras of pure contentment with my life, then I had to find moments, split second snapshots capturing finer details, splashes of rapture -- being a child sitting in my mother's lap and listening to her sing, roving the county fair and spending all Summer riding bikes all over the county with my cousins, frolicking with my roommates and sister in college, traveling with my lover. Those were the fragile, sheltered moments of happiness that I found. Like my 'thought' experiment, I began taking time throughout the day to remember those moments, specifically to feel the way I felt in those moments. Right away I began to notice that my mood improved, and inside a week I found similar beautiful moments unfolding in my present. By feeling those past joys I was creating happiness in my present.

A hallmark of the shamanic path, whether ancient, indigenous, or modern, is self responsibility. Its center is the ability to deconstruct what is usual, regardless of what "usual" is and observe, experience, and become something Other. In that truth I realize now how harmful those incomplete early messages about creating reality were. Because they couldn't tell me where to focus they taught me to create more of what I didn't want. Even now in this New Age, many such gurus still teach that we are all at fault for the harms that befalls us. In the phrase, "We create our own reality," what most people really hear is, "It's your fault your life is shit, and anything that happened to you to cause you to feel like shit is your fault too." The responsibility of self-creation doesn't lie in analyzing who is at fault for our past, but who is responsible for our present. Only we are. Creating reality is about looking at ourselves differently and being willing to shake it up in favor of something better by reaching into the places we have most hidden from ourselves to do so.

We have one shot at being who we are in this life. Because of that fact, it's not an option to make it the best life we can, but our responsibility.

Kelley Harrell
Neoshaman; author, 'Gift of the Dreamtime'; columnist, 'Intentional Insights'

Mother's Day: Honoring Our Many Mothers

Mother's Day: Honoring Our Many Mothers

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

We are aware that to some people, Mother's Day seems to be a holiday concocted by the greeting card and floral companies, a cultural holiday dominated by consumer pressures. For those whose mothers have died or are distant, and for those who have never been mothers, the day touches other sensitivities. But we think any "problem" with Mother's Day is just because typically it is defined too narrowly. There are many mothers in all our lives and many kinds of mothering experiences.

Here, then, for that very special day, Mother's Day, are spiritual practices to honor our many mothers.

1. GOD'S GIFT (FOR SONS AND DAUGHTERS)

In a song titled "Mother's Eyes," Willie Nelson sings: "God's gift sent from above / A real unselfish love, / I find in my mother's eyes." Create a gift for your mother to express your gratitude for her unconditional love. Remember to also thank God for this unsurpassable gift to you.

2. MOTHER'S HEART (FOR MOTHERS)

"The mother's heart," Henry Ward Beecher once noted, "is the child's schoolroom." Share with someone near and dear to you a few of the important spiritual lessons from your heart that you have passed on to your children — or that you want to pass on to your children.

3. MOTHER MOVIES

Rent a video about the challenges and rewards of motherhood. Here are a few suggestions: The Dollmaker, Places in the Heart, Terms of Endearment, Little Women, Postcards from the Edge, Stepmom, Anywhere But Here.

4. HOLY MOTHER

In India, women who are profoundly compassionate, nurturing, and wise are publicly acknowledged by the title "Holy Mother." Recall a woman you know or have known who qualifies to be addressed as "Holy Mother." Write a description of what you admire about her in your journal. Tristine Rainer in The New Diary notes: "By writing diary portraits of people who intrigue you, you enter their qualities in your book, in your space, and begin the process of recognizing and taking posesssion of those qualities."

5. ADDRESS THE DEITY AS MOTHER

Sri Ramakrishna, the great Hindu spiritual sage, wrote: "Why does the God-lover find such ecstatic delight in addressing the Deity as Mother? Because the child is more free with the mother than with anybody else, and consequently she is dearer to it than anybody else." Try using one or more of the following honorific titles for God: Mother of the World, Mother-God, Goddess, Sophia, Shekinah, Queen of Heaven, Tender Nursing Mother, Gentle One, Wise Old Crone. Gather other names and images of the Divine Feminine that speak to you. Incorporate some of them into your devotions over he next few weeks or months as an ongoing Mother's Day practice.

6. CONTEMPLATE IMAGES OF GOD THE MOTHER

Meinrad Craighead has painted images of motherhood in its many forms. She explains: "The creative spirit I know within me has the face and the force of a woman. She is my Mother, my Mothergod, my Generatrix, the divine immanence I experience signified in all of creation." Forty paintings, including Garden, are reproduced in The Mother's Songs: Images of God the Mother along with brief meditations by the artist on each of them. You can also see her work and purchase prints at the artist's website: www.meinradcraighead.com. Sit with these paintings and experience the creative spirit and force of the Mother.

7. HOLY MOTHER EARTH

Many Native Americans have hallowed the Good Earth as the mother who gave us birth and still takes care of us. A Winnebago wise saying goes: "Holy Mother Earth, the trees, and all nature are witnesses to your thoughts and deeds." Find a ritual way to honor Mother Earth and the bounties she supplies. Follow up with a concrete act to support the Earth, such as helping to clean up or protect an area of your environment.

8. MOTHERS OF GOD

In Wrestling with the Prophets Matthew Fox writes: "What does God do all day long? Eckhart asks. God gives birth. 'From all eternity God lies on a maternity bed giving birth. The essence of God is birthing. We are all meant to be mothers of God.' " Meditate upon this understanding that we are all meant to give birth to the Divine One. How and when do you do this in your daily life?

9. HONOR ALL YOUR MOTHERS

"If you consider as kind the mother who carried you in her womb, how can you dislike any being? For in countless past lifetimes all have been your mother," wrote the Seventh Dalai Lama in Meditations to Transform the Mind. As you walk around on Mother's Day, try to imagine that all of the people you meet have at some point been your mother. Send them love and peace and happiness.
10. MOTHERING

The most common word association with mothering is nurturing — and this practice is not limited by gender or any other characteristic. All of us, male and female, single or married, old or young, have the potential to give birth and raise something in the world. In a prayer written for Mother's Day, Pamela Spence Bakker used the following images. Choose those you most identify with and reflect in your journal or in conversation about which you identify with.

Some of us give birth to:
• children
• ideas
• art
• music

Some of us raise:
• animals
• flowers or vegetables
• our friends
• our parents
• our brothers and sisters
• interest in a cause
• money for charity
• concerns
• our voices against injustice
• our eyebrows
• Cain

To respond or to react, that's the question.

To respond or to react, that's the question.
By Pam Thomas
Phoenix Life Coach Examiner

Think about the last time you were involved in a discussion or argument where you reacted. How did you show up in that exchange? Prickly? Angry? Defensive? Powerless? Personally, when I am being reactive I become susceptible to all sorts of negativity.

As a matter of fact, I have to raise my hand and admit that I have fallen prey to the guiles of victimhood/reactive-ness most recently. I allowed someone else’s poor behavior and negativity to throw me into a bit of tizzy. (What a tizzy it was too with f-bombs included.) Fortunately, during my little visit to the dungeons of victimhood/reactive-ness I remembered something very important; I have a choice as to whether or not I want to allow someone else’s crap behavior (which I have no control over) to impact me. I also came to the realization that the negativity that was making my heart heavy and zapping my power was also leaving me susceptible to getting sucked into further drama, chaos, and unhealthiness of the situation.

The bottom line; when we don't react, we detach from the negative charge. We hold on to our own personal power, a.k.a we don't allow something or someone else to make us feel small or insignificant or worse yet a victim to the circumstances.
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So here are few things to try when you find yourself reacting rather than responding:

During "heated" times try taking a deep breath, sit quietly for a moment, and give yourself that time to settle your emotions. Doing something as simple as breathing deeply will help you to come from that place of responsiveness where words are chosen with care and thoughts are clearer.

If you have to, excuse yourself from the conversation by letting the other person know that you would like to table the discussion and give it some thought.

Allow your emotions or the signals of your body (i.e. tension) to serve as your trigger and then ask yourself the following question, “What do I choose right now?” When you remember that you have a choice, you take back your own personal power to respond.

Whatever you choose it can be truly liberating and rather powerful to come from a place of responsiveness rather than reactive-ness. In addition, you avoid the drama and chaos and experience much more peace and positive well-being so here's to the power of responding.

ATOMIC CONTRAST

ATOMIC CONTRAST

I was invited recently to present a seminar in Hiroshima, Japan, the city devastated by the atomic bomb in 1945. As I approached the Hiroshima train station via the bullet train, I felt uneasy, wondering if the psychic shadow of the holocaust would linger unto this day. To my surprise, Hiroshima Station felt light and airy, passersby friendly and upbeat. As my host drove me through Hiroshima’s streets, I was impressed by the comeliness of the area. Clean rivers wended beneath many bridges, banks highlighted by cherry blossom trees in full bloom. Families picnicked by the riverside as children laughed and played. Was this the same city instantly burned to a crisp by the world’s most dire single act of man-made destruction?

At the center of Hiroshima resides a lovely park dedicated to the intention that peace prevail on Earth. Manicured lawns form a soft backdrop to fountains and a waterfall. At one end burns an eternal flame set atop a simple altar where people from all over the world pray and leave flowers as a symbol of their wish for peace.

There my host told me that seers had explained that in the wake of such massive destruction through warfare, the desire for peace has grown to an extraordinary degree. Recently the Dalai Lama was joined by Bishop Desmond Tutu and Nobel peace laureate Betty Williams for a conference, ceremony, and declaration to further world peace.

Contrast teaches and ignites the desire for better. Negative events generate intense motivation for their opposite. When you get what you don’t want, you are more highly motivated to create what you do want. A bad marriage moves you to have a better one. Physical illness amplifies your intention for wellness. A business failure induces you to create more success. When you experience what clearly disturbs your soul, the next question is, “How can I create what I prefer instead?”

Life rushes to replace death and healing seeks to erase wounds. Human beings can do an act as heinous as dropping an atomic bomb on their brethren, and horrific as that act is, life will return with greater fervor for well-being. With the exception of one skeleton of a building now used as a tourist attraction, Hiroshima has been resurrected. Not just as a city, but as a city of determined peace.

You and I, too, have had our moments of pain, destruction, and perhaps even decimation. Yet those experiences always give way to life, and sometimes greater life. May we all learn from the contrast in our lives, individually and collectively, so that we may build parks of beauty over the ashes of war.


The holiest spot on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love.
- A Course in Miracles

Alan Cohen
web:alancohen.com

Riding Out Life's Tsunamis

Riding Out Life's Tsunamis

It has been over a month now since a powerful magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan. The confirmed death toll is over 13,000 and continues to rise. In the midst of all the horror stories are occasional heroic tales of survival and rescue. One of the most fascinating is that of Susumu Sugawara.


The 64-year-old Sugawara is the owner-operator of a small boat named "Sunflower." After the massive earthquake and in view of the tsunami warnings being broadcast, he had to make a quick decision. Should he head for high ground on his island of Oshima? Should he put his boat to sea and try to ride out the fury? His chose to launch his boat and head for deep water offshore.


"I knew if I didn't save my boat," he told a CNN reporter, "my island would be isolated and in trouble." So he ran to his 42-year-old craft that can hold about 20 people at a time and went full-throttle toward the deadly waves that would kill people whose names and faces he knew. Then he saw the wall of water.


Accustomed to waves ten to twelve feet high, this one was fully 50 to 60 feet high. Sugawara knew that he and his boat could easily wind up at the bottom of the sea. He drove straight for it - "climbing the wave like a mountain," as he put it. And the mountain seemed only to grow bigger and bigger. There was a huge crash of water over him. Only then could he see the horizon. He had survived!


Sugawara made his way back to his now-devastated Oshima. For the month since, he has been a lifeline by making hourly trips to the mainland to ferry people and supplies. If people can help pay for gasoline, he accepts money. If they have lost everything and can pay nothing, he still welcomes them aboard.


I'm no sailor or boat captain. I don't know if the Japanese captain made the reasonable and right decision on that fateful day. I can only report and rejoice at the outcome.

He lived through the ordeal and is helping others with a sense of sensitivity to their suffering the rest of us can only admire from a distance.


Here is the lesson from this story for me: Against my hesitation and fear, it makes more sense to ride into the teeth of life's challenges than to run away.


There is a cash-flow crisis. There is an unexpected problem with a product. A major supplier has failed, or a major customer has bailed. Some executives kick into denial mode or ball up in a fetal position. Their companies fail. Leaders steer right into the problem and act with integrity to name and face the problem.


Or maybe the problem is far more serious. A spouse says the marriage is over. The police or hospital calls with a parent's worst nightmare about an arrest or accident. Maybe you get a diagnosis that sounds like a death sentence. Do you run and hide? Self-medicate with drugs or alcohol? Or do you steer into the teeth of the storm and pray for courage you have never had to display before?


"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face," said Eleanor Roosevelt. "You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next one that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do."

Rubel Shelly

Rubel Shelly is a Preacher and Professor of Religion and Philosophy located in Rochester Hills, Michigan. In addition to church and academic responsibilities, he has worked actively with such community projects as Habitat for Humanity, American Red Cross, From Nashville With Love, Metro (Nashville) Public Schools, Faith Family Medical Clinic, and Operation Andrew Ministries.

The Power of Gratitude

The Power of Gratitude

Realize the Power of Gratitude is very tied to the Power of intention in that both of these actions help to activate the Law of Attraction and energize your thoughts to stay grounded in the positive light. This Power of Gratitude as but one important aspect of creating the happiness and Abundance you deserve.

Through quantum physics we now know that everything there is, is vibrational matter. All matter is energy made up of sub-atomic particles and atoms. Through this unified energy field, our thoughts resonate and project. Based on our feelings, emotions and thoughts, this determines our vibration frequency that is broadcast from us out into the universe. This is our own unique, vibrational signal. It is the personal signature that we resonate that is answered and returned to us. This is how the Law of Attraction works, plain and simple.

Imagine we are magnets that are attracting to us Gratitude, sadness, happiness, grief, confusion, clarity, wealth and scarcity. We attract to us what we feel, think about, dwell upon, focus on and get emotional about. When we are not centered, we are scattered. When we are scattered, we send out a lot of mixed signals that become confused. If your life right now is confusing, look to see if you are centered in positive thought and actions.

What we send out, broadcast, is a frequency pattern that is matched, then returned to us by this Law that we all have. This is why it is so important for us to raise our vibrational frequencies and stay there, to bring more happiness, wealth and prosperity into our lives.

When we are using the Power of Gratitude , we are engaging the Universal Law s to work more for our well being. By becoming truly grateful, we begin to uplift our energy so it will resonate higher into a level of true peace and happiness; so then, this is what we begin attracting to us.

When you are expressing Gratitude , you are reinforcing the higher frequencies and keeping them up there. When you are not expressing, you are resisting. By not being grateful, you are creating resistance. Resistance will lower your vibrational frequency. Then you are experiencing life in disharmony again. Resistance places the focus on what you do not wish to experience rather than letting things go.

Real Gratitude is based on accepting the way things are then moving on. Grief is a real thing, yet when we do not begin excepting the way things are, we can't move on passed this until we except this loss in our lives, then we are able to move on. Moving past the resistance is to begin being grateful for what you have.
The Power of Gratitude is a blessing for us. It can be cultivated and nurtured until it becomes who we are. Gratefulness is more than just a state of mind, it is a state of being we are all capable of reaching and becoming.

The state of resistance has us living in the past and afraid of the future. The Power of Gratitude allows us to live in the now, the present. This is a state of grace. The past is gone and the future, some of us live in fear from has not arrived. Isn't life a lot easier, realizing that right now you can be grateful about letting go if this resistance you created and being at peace right now?

It is our perceptions that can either make, or break our life. Would you rather experience heaven, or hell? This should not be a choice, yet it is one that many people make every moment of the day.

Realize that you are the author of your life and you create you very own reality. Everything unfolds around you, the way you perceive it to be. If you are living in darkness, fear and scarcity; then you are dragging the past into this moment with you.

Develop Gratitude by practicing it. Letting go of behavior patterns and ways you respond to life can seem like an insurmountable obstacle to do, but it isn't. When you begin to fall into old resistant patterns, it helps to stop yourself and begin thinking of anything you are truly grateful for, then giving thanks to that. Think of something else to be grateful for and give thanks to that. Make a list of things you are grateful for and keep it with you to pull out when resistant seems to pull you down.

Developing a Power of Gratitude within you will allow you to maintain a higher vibrational frequency and attract a well meaning life. It is not enough to want this; you have to make it happen. This is the only way to use the Law of Attraction with intent as a regular part of your life to expand it.

Joseph Rettig

The Law of Attraction - It's About Frequency

The Law of Attraction - It's About Frequency

Many of us have heard of the Law of Attraction – that like attracts like. However, many are confused about what this really means.

In my experience, like attracts like means that like frequency attracts like frequency. My high frequency attracts the things I want and my low frequency attracts the things I don’t want.

The question then becomes, what raises or lowers frequency?

What Lowers Frequency?

Anything that makes you feel down lowers your frequency. Here is a list of what I have found lowers frequency:

• Intent to control - When your desire is to control your feelings, as well as others and outcomes, you are operating out of your wounded self, which lowers your frequency. Even positive thoughts can lower your frequency when your intent is to control rather than be loving to yourself and others.

• Negative thinking, Resentment, Judgment and Self-Judgment - The lies you tell yourself from your ego wounded self lower your frequency. Feelings of fear, anxiety, depression, anger, guilt, shame, jealousy, and envy all have a low frequency, so any thought that comes from false beliefs and that creates these feelings lowers your frequency.

• Resistance - The fear of being controlled by others, by God, or even by yourself, creates resistance, which lowers the frequency

• Alcohol – While people might convince themselves that they raise their frequency when drinking, this is not true. Just because it may lower your stress, doesn’t mean it raises your frequency.

• Prescription drugs – Since prescription drugs are alien to the body, the body has to work to deal with them, which causes a lowering of frequency.

• Recreational drugs – A few recreational drugs – the kinds of drugs that indigenous people used infrequently to connect with Spirit – can raise your frequency for a short period of time. But frequent use has the opposite effect.

• Food – Fresh, whole organic food has a high frequency, but processed foods have a low frequency and lower the frequency of your body.

• Lack of exercise – Our bodies are meant to move; not moving lowers your frequency.

• Lack of sleep – It is hard to have a high frequency when you don’t get enough sleep.

• Lack of water – Dehydration creates huge stress on the body, which lowers the frequency.

• Negative environment – It is often hard to maintain a positive attitude when in a negative environment. We are affected both positively and negatively by others’ frequency.

What Raises Frequency?

• Intent to learn – Our free will to choose our intent in any given moment is the most powerful choice we have. Choosing to learn about loving ourselves and others, rather than choosing to protect/avoid/control is the major way we have of raising our frequency. This is why, when we think positively from an intent to control, in an attempt to manifest what we want, we are often not successful, as anything done from the intent to control – even positive thinking – lowers the frequency.

• Positive thinking – This might seem like a contradiction to the statement above, but it is about intent. When your intent in thinking positively is to be loving to yourself and support your highest good, this raises your frequency. When your intent in positive thinking is to control others and outcomes, then it lowers your frequency.

• Food – Fresh whole foods that are in alignment with your metabolism and that support your health, raise your frequency.

• Exercise – Exercise that you love and that makes you feel alive raises your frequency. Forcing yourself to do exercise that you don’t like lowers your frequency.

• Getting enough sleep – Sleep is vital for feeling good enough to be open to and connected with yourself, others and your spiritual Guidance. Being disconnected from ourselves lowers our frequency.

• Drinking enough water – Being fully hydrated is vital to keeping your frequency high.

• Being in a peaceful environment – Being in nature, listening to music, and being around loving and accepting people raises your frequency.

• Love – Love and peace are the highest frequency feelings, so being loving to yourself and others, which creates inner peace, raises your frequency.

Like does attract like, so focus on keeping your frequency high and you will manifest your dreams!

Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

Learned helplessness

Learned helplessness

The American psychologist Martin Seligman’s foundational experiments and theory of learned helplessness began at University of Pennsylvania in 1967, as an extension of his interest in depression.

A person should be able to walk away from an abusive relationship, for example, or voluntarily quit a stressful job.
A psychological condition known as learned helplessness, however, can cause a person to feel completely powerless to change his or her circumstances for the better.
The result of learned helplessness is often severe depression and extremely low self-esteem.

Learned helplessness can be seen as a mechanism some people employ in order to survive difficult or abusive circumstances.
An abused child or spouse may eventually learn to remain passive and compliant at the hands of his or her abuser, since efforts to fight back or escape appear futile.

Learned helplessness results from being trained to be locked into a system. The system may be a family, a community, a culture, a tradition, a profession or an institution.

Initially, a system develops for a specific purpose. But as a system evolves, it increasingly tends to organize around beliefs, perspectives, activities and taboos that serve the continuation of the system. Awareness of the original purpose fades and the system starts to function automatically. It calcifies.

Some experts suggest learned helplessness can be passed on through observation, as in the case of a daughter watching her abused mother passively obey her husband’s commands.
The daughter may begin to associate passivity and low self-esteem with the “normal” demands of married life, leading to a perpetuation of the learned helplessness cycle.

Child abuse by neglect can be a manifestation of learned helplessness: when parents believe they are incapable of stopping an infant’s crying, they may simply give up trying to do anything for the child.

Another example of learned helplessness in social settings involves loneliness and shyness. Those who are extremely shy, passive, anxious and depressed may learn helplessness to offer stable explanations for unpleasant social experiences.

A third example is aging, with the elderly learning to be helpless and concluding that they have no control over losing their friends and family members, losing their jobs and incomes, getting old, weak and so on.

Paulo Coelho

http://paulocoelhoblog.com/

Mary Manin Morrrissey ["We create our life in two ways..."]

We create our life in two ways; one is out of design, and the other is out of default.

If we don't design a dream for our life, then our mind will default to old patterns and shape our reality based on existing seeds of thought. You might wish for a different crop, but if you don't plant different seeds, you will get the same result as before.

A seed will always produce the fruit of its kind. The Universe delights in giving you whatever dream you want. All you have to do is choose, focus and follow through.

Let The Universe Be Delighted,
Mary

http://dreambuilderblog.com/mary-morrissey/delight-the-universe/

Life works like a GPS Device

Life works like a GPS Device
Posted in Analogies, Top Secrets for Success by Gustav S on the October 19th, 2007

Sometimes I like to write analogies to make my points clear to people and I am sure that if you pay attention to what happen during your life you would be able to understand them either.

A couple of weeks ago I was reading an article from one of my best friend’s blog called How to manifest a House on the coast

And after reading the article I emailed him my thoughts and this generated a nice exchange which I decided to convert it in a post:
I really enjoyed your post about your house at the beach… I think you did great but I would like to tell you that the reason you have to go so down under with yourself is because of all the things you are dragging from your past, but at the moment we are AWARE things can only go up up up up … so do not worry…

Just to let you know that LONG TIME AGO I GOT TOTALLY CONVINCED that there is not BAD or GOOD ,,, even though we feel terrible when something doesn’t go the way we want it THAT IS JUST OUR EGO, but the truth is that GOD or the Universe is working things out for us the BEST WAY possible… it is our fault if we are not listening and for that reason things have to be harder
GS

Aaron’s Reply:
Gustav,
Thanks for the words of wisdom!
And I am totally with you on there being no such thing as “bad” or “good”. It is all about the perspective of the viewer, and the viewer’s beliefs.
We are our own worst enemies, and that is definitely true when it comes to manifesting something that we want, but possibly feel that we can’t actually get.
I’m glad that you liked the beach house story, Gustav! Now it is on to the next stage!
Aaron

I replied:
I am happy for you, do you know what I also believe? that the universe works like the GPS of your car,,, I don’t know if you have seen how a GPS works, for example you give the GPS (the Universe) the FINAL destination (your wish) the GPS will calculate the SHORTEST ROUTE to reach your destination, then the GPS starts talking (God’s signals), ok lets go right, Turn left, so many meters here and there. It could happen (and happens a lot) that you MISS some of GPS signals and the GPS HAVE TO RECALCULATE THE ROUTE and this new route could take longer than the original route, but in the end you are being taken to your final destination…. get my point? Sometimes when we feel things are taking too long is because we are missing some SIGNALS! … but at the same time it is important that it is so because it gives us FREE WILL you see, I contribute to our discussion and I am automatically given ideas, isn’t life great?
GS

Aaron’s reply:
Gustav,
You’re right - that IS a great analogy! It sums up the process very nicely. Thank you so much for sharing it with me!
Aaron

My reply:
You are more than welcome, I do enjoy to share with people that understands me
GS

Drawing Meaning from Natural Disasters

Drawing Meaning from Natural Disasters

“ Nature does nothing uselessly. ”
~ Aristotle ~


The devastation of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan last week, the earthquake in New Zealand and the mudslides in Brazil have heightened our awareness of the incredible power of nature and of our vulnerability. In the wake of such destruction, we usually ask, "Why did this happen?"

We want to share with you today excerpts from a 'Soul Perspective' by Andrew Schneider because it helps to answer this question. Andrew explains:

"We always look for meaning in what occurs that is out of the ordinary because we intuitively sense that everything must have a purpose ... individually as well as collectively. …

"Giving a meaning to something is interpreting it in a way that touches the soul and reveals something of the intelligence, love or power of life that motivates a person to live more in alignment with reality or truth. …

"We use the term 'natural disasters.' What does this mean? First of all, the events we refer to are natural, which means that they follow the laws of nature, the laws of cause and effect. If we do not follow universal laws we create chaos or destruction. The word ‘disaster’ means ‘away from, or without, the stars.’ The suggestion is that something occurs which is not aligned with the highest. When we act without reference to the highest - universal laws and principles, the wisdom of soul - we are not aligned, which then causes unwanted consequences.

"It is very obvious that there is a great need on this planet for much better relationships, and all of us are part of the solution to fulfill that need. And we cannot do that without soul-based thinking and opening our hearts. We can let nature show us what can happen when we do not care about the consequences of our thoughts and actions. The resulting suffering is a wake-up call to all of us.

"What happens in nature happens within humanity. What happens in part of the world happens in the entire world, for it is one body and we are part of it. What happens in your life happens within humanity. Everyone suffers when some of us suffer. Everyone benefits when some of us open our hearts. We are one."

Andrew and Bonnie Schneider offer guidance on raising soul consciousness on their website, The Soul Journey.

This post via Growth Tools by John & Patrice Robson of HigherAwareness.com.

Why 7-year-old Chloe didn’t want to be a “tough cookie”

Why 7-year-old Chloe didn’t want to be a “tough cookie”

« Part 9 of The Amen Solution: Tools to end emotional overeating

Recently my wife Tana and our daughter took a long hike near our home. It was a bit more strenuous than we had planned, but Chloe, our 7-year-old, was a trooper and kept up and she held on to the dog, Tinkerbell’s leash.

Near the end of the hike Tana told Chloe that she was a “tough cookie.” Immediately, Chloe took exception.


“I don’t want to be a tough cookie,” she said. “I want to be a tough red bell pepper.”

Not wanting to miss the metaphor to health, we all agreed that day that Chloe was indeed a “tough red bell pepper.” Kids say the strangest things. Red bell peppers happen to be one of her favorite snacks, especially with mashed avocados or almond butter.

Think about the words you use with your loved ones. Do you call them “sweetie pie,” “honey,” or “sugar?” These nicknames insidiously reinforce our habit of associating things that are sweet with being “good” even though research shows us that sweets are actually bad for the brain and harmful to our health and well-being.

The next time you want to show someone how much you care about them, call them “red bell pepper,” “hummus,” or even “avocado.” It might seem silly at first, but it will get you both thinking about things that are good for your brain and body.

Dr. Amen's Blog

This entry was written by Dr. Amen, posted on March 8, 2011 at 9:00 am, filed under Nutrition and tagged nicknames.

You are NOT your Ego! (From Righteousness to Compassion)

You are NOT your Ego! (From Righteousness to Compassion)

Hello Friends!

Has anyone noticed an intensification of emotion these days?

Like judgment, anger, joy, passion?

As the spiritual energies continue to increase upon our planet, the aspect of our humanness, our ego personality, is the part of ‘us’ that is taking the heat….

And for some of us, its gotten pretty hot lately!

Amidst the highs and exuberance, I’ve also found myself getting more pissed than usual; its taking a concerted effort at times to stop, breath, and come back to center.

It happened again this morning… I was reading a comment that someone posted on one of my Facebook threads last night, asking a question of why hasn’t the work I have done ended the dolphin hunt? I wasn’t sure if it was a sincere question or a bit sarcastic, but I took some a lot of time to give a thoughtful reply…

After I posted my reply, I found the same person had posted similar comments on other FB conversations… As I read them, the sarcasm was obvious… WTF? As I’m reading this and reacting in angry (I felt the sweat pouring from my armpits), a little window pops up and says this person just commented on my reply…

I clicked on the icon and sure enough, another sarcastic comment…on a thread of conversation with over 80 comments.. so his comments have gone into the emails of everyone…

By now my blood is in a boil and my mind is formulating a reply… (I can say it pretty straight!)

Enter another deep breath… enter compassion…

A lot of us are feeling triggered lately, and twice in the past month I’ve been too quick to give someone feedback about the inappropriateness of their actions. Let me get this straight, their actions were totally inappropriate, but my righteous reply only added fuel to the fire…

Knowing this, and remembering the regret of speaking while in reaction, I let the anger pass, I stop taking his attacks personal, and can then see that this man is obviously upset…

And from this place of compassion, I look up his email address and send him an email telling him I understand he’s upset and that a conversation with 80 comments is the wrong place to use sarcasm…

And then I see my righteousness in pointing out his sarcasm…

Let me be clear – I was totally entitled to call him on his sarcasm. Its just that it would probably have closed the door on any productive communication. So… did I want to be right, or did I want healing?

So I delete the comment about sarcasm… and just acknowledge that he is upset, and extend an invitation to talk…

It doesn’t matter his reply…. What matters is how I feel, and I feel filled with peace and compassion…

As the heat in the kitchen increases, it serves us to respond to our brothers and sisters with compassion.. I invite you to take the five breaths or ten minutes it takes to release your reactions to the triggers around you…

Every time we do, we bring more light into our bodies and our world…

Every single time we do, we strengthen the morphic field of Oneness that is growing in our collective awareness in leaps and bounds…

Namaste!

Joe

PS PS PS!!!

I have found that APPRECIATION is a valuable ally in shifting energy!


Everyday Ecstasy
email: joe@planetarypartners.com

Radiant Heart Energy

Radiant Heart Energy
by Owen Waters

The gateway to spiritual consciousness is through the heart.

The Creator designed the human experience to consist of twelve stages of evolving consciousness. As I detailed from the original research in my first book, The Shift: The Revolution in Human Consciousness, these range all the way from basic survival to the ultimate state of spiritual consciousness.

Much of the 20th century was devoted to the fifth stage of human consciousness, which is intellectual development. Today, people are migrating in droves to the next stage of human growth, which is heart-centered consciousness.

When a person focuses their intellect through the lens of heart-centered consciousness, they see how much the world needs help and healing rather than the old ways of competition and destruction. The initial stage of heart-centered consciousness produces a constructive, global outlook. It also places a person just one short step from the later stage of heart-centered consciousness and the dawning of spiritual awareness.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is a guideline that has been with us since the early days of human development. Today, it’s no longer a distant ideal to be sought. The mass shift to heart-centered consciousness means that unconditional love now comes to people naturally.

The complete love and acceptance of yourself and others is the heartbeat of the New Reality.

Feeling unconditional love towards others is the key to successful, meaningful interactions with everyone with whom you meet in any situation. Feeling unconditional love towards yourself fosters a healthy sense of self-esteem which builds a positive reality based upon mutual support.

Even if there are outer behaviors that need improvement in yourself or others, it is unconditional love that is the key that will find the solutions that will bring positive transformation to those behaviors.

Once you begin to think with an open heart, you are stepping from basic human consciousness into the spiritual stages of human development. This is exactly what we came to earth to accomplish because finding spirituality is fundamental to the human experience. It may take courage to move into heart-centered consciousness, but once you acquire the expanded view of a life filled with love, you will never want to step back to the way things were.

You will soon find that any worries or fears that arise in your life can be transformed by the greatest power in the universe – that of unconditional love. It is the power of love that holds the universe together. It is a force of attraction that permeates every cell of your body and constantly reminds you of the love of the Creator for all of life.


*If you enjoyed today's article, forward it to a friend! They will appreciate your thoughtfulness.

Owen Waters is the author of Spirituality Made Simple, which is available both as a paperback and a downloadable e-book, at:

http://www.infinitebeing.com/ebooks/simple.htm

The Pages Long Forgotten

The Pages Long Forgotten

Mike stepped into the used bookstore, smelled the age of old pages and smiled.

Here was a wealth of old stories, history waiting to be read, and a host of other joys. On a back shelf, he found what he was looking for, two tiers crammed with the forgotten. They'd served their use to those who once held them dear, but now gathered dust in the darkest corner of the store.

There were Italian, American, French and Greek. They contained secrets from around the world. There were collections of chicken, beef, pastries, bread, and desserts. They waited, hidden in a little explored part of the store, and hoped someone discovered their treasures.

Mike knew what to do. He picked one up, held the spine in his hand and let the book fall open. They always opened to the most used pages, the recipes loved by lost generations. The page in front of him was for a recipe called, "Beef-filled cornbread". The picture showed a delicious layer of meat and cheese, layered with cornbread and covered with a hot sauce. The pages were stained with splatters of tomato sauce. It was obviously a favorite of the previous owners. He'd try this one.

Those used the most are the best.

He found several other books, each with its own marked pages, carried them to the counter and made his purchase.

"I hope you found something you like." The cashier said.

"Oh yes. Very much! I'm sure these are exactly to my taste."

He paid for his purchase, left the store and carried them in a bag on his way to work.

In the locker room, he placed his books on the top shelf and changed into his scrubs. The recipes would wait. He had a duty.

Freshly dressed, he walked his floor. "Hello, Mrs. Smith!" He smiled at the elderly lady sitting in the sun-room reading a book. In her day, she must have been a beautiful woman. She still was, for a woman in her eighties. "How was your day?"

"Horrible!" she growled. He sat beside her, held her hand and looked into her eyes. "My grandson didn't visit me," she continued. "He promised me he'd be here today." She adjusted her shawl and tried to hide the tears about to spill from her wizened eyes.

"Maybe tomorrow." he replied. "You know how busy these young people are." He noted the tear in the corner of her eye and changed subject. "Mrs. Smith, didn't you tell me you lived during the great depression?"

A smile came to her face. "Oh, yes. What a time that was. There was no work, ya know. But we survived."

"How did you get by?"

"Well, we all worked together. Everyone worked together. We helped each other." She frowned. "It's not like today, where people are too busy to worry about anyone but themselves. In those days, we worked together. If you didn't, you starved."

"It must have been a hard time, Mrs. Smith. I don't know how you did it."

"I didn't." she grinned. "We did. We did it together, the neighbors and my family."

He left her smiling and hoped her grandson paid a visit the next day.

He moved down the hall and stepped into Mr. Walker's room. "Hey, Walk! How's things?" He used the name Walk, as all the others in the center called him. It made Walk feel comfortable.

Mr. Walker looked up from a puzzle he leaned over. "Could be better, Mike. This damn puzzle has me stumped. These eyes aren't what they used to be."

"I know, Walk. Just take your time. There's no rush."

"There is too." Walk chuckled. "I need to finish it before I die."

"Not too soon I hope." Mike said.

"Soon enough. Be glad not to have to work on this darn thing anymore anyway. Say! Have I told you about the guy who walks into a bar with a giraffe under his arm?"

Mike chuckled. Walk loved a good joke. "I don't believe you have."

Walk's face broke out in a smile. "You see, this guy walks into a bar with a giraffe under his arm. He has a few beers. The giraffe falls asleep on the floor. The bartender looks down, sees the giraffe and asks, 'What's that lying on the floor?'

"The guy says, 'That's not a lion! That's a giraffe.'"

Walk broke into a laugh that turned into a coughing spell. Mike slapped him on the back. "Come on, Walk. Cough it up."

Walk got himself under control. "Thought I wasn't going to finish this damn puzzle after all."

"You're OK now. I got your back."

I know about covering someone's back." Walk sat straight his seat. "I was in WWII ya know."

"I heard that. Did you have a hard time?" Mike asked.

"Mike, you have no idea. It was the winter of '41, or was it '42. I can't remember now. Snow was up to here." Walk pointed to his thigh. "We were on the front. The enemy was close ."

Thirty minutes later, Mike said, "WOW! That's a story, Walk." He paused. "Walk, I knew you were in the war, but I don't think I ever thanked you. I want to say, 'Thank you.' You made us safe."

"Ah, stop it. It was nothing." Walk turned to his puzzle, too embarrassed to continue their talk. He and others knew what they did, but don't want to take credit. It's an unspoken rule between the veterans. They did what they had to.

Mike continued on his rounds, held hands, shared hugs and listened.

Here they were, like the cookbooks, sitting in dark corners, ignored. Mike knew what to do. He held them, let their hearts fall open, and found the pages stained with use.

They are the most valued. They are the pages long forgotten.


Michael T. Smith


Michael lives with his lovely wife, Ginny, in Caldwell, Idaho. He works as a project manager in Telecommunications and in his spare time writes inspiration stories. He has recently been published in two Chicken Soup for the Soul Books (All in the Family and Things I Learned from My Cat), in "Thin Threads - Life Changing Moments" and in Catholic Digest.

To sign up for Michael's stories go to: http://visitor.constantcontact.com/d.jsp?m=1101828445578&p=oi

To read more of his stories, go to: http://ourecho.com/biography-353-Michael-Timothy-Smith.shtml#stories

drop 40: perception… the intellectual changeling

I should have done it this way! You are doing it wrong! My way really works, do it now! You can’t be an expert without a degree. They really aren’t working very hard. That was a stupid answer.

One of our 6 intellectual gifts – perception – is the one that is always changing based on new information. The six are perception, intuition, imagination, memory, reason and will. Perception, or our point of view, changes constantly! When we judge another by our standards and ideas (perception/point of view) we are saying ‘our way of doing things is the best way.’ But it’s not forever and in many cases it is only momentary.

Perception like the other gifts must be exercised – exercised like a muscle. When it is weak, we don’t even see it is changing and rely on our old point of view in judging situations. When strong, we can track the changes in our perception and take action based on the change in real-time.

We each have our own distinct perception of everything and anything. No two points of view are precisely alike. And I believe my way works for me and you believe your way works for you. So should you judge another by your perception, just know that they are not using your point of view, but their own.


How does one ‘exercise’ the mental muscle of perception? For it is via exercise that we begin to see that there is never a reason to judge someone by our own point of view. Often telling another they should do it a certain way, has them feel that you are ‘making them wrong.’ Why they feel this way is about their limiting beliefs, which I have written about in the archives of this newsletter.

If you accept the law of polarity (one of the universal laws) you know that for every yes, there is a no. For every up there is a down. No outside, unless you have an inside, and so forth. Whether you embrace this law or not, it does work each and every time without fail, like gravity. If someone is doing something you consider ‘wrong,’ remember it is ‘right’ for them.

If you can ‘catch’ yourself judging another by your perception, that is a start. Just realizing you are doing it is step one. Even if you would bet a week’s salary you are RIGHT about this topic, STOP and say nothing. Remind yourself that your being right only works for you… no one else. With tens of thousands of bits of information coming to us via our five senses every day, catching yourself once a day is perfect.

Because repetition is the first law of learning, haphazard practice or exercise of this mental muscle does not work. You must actively make an effort each day, or every other day, or 3 times a week in spaced intervals to take this action. Now and then is a waste of your time, it doesn’t ‘stick,’ or become a habit for you – the habit of grace – letting others have their own way of doing things!

If you commit to doing this consistently over 90 days, you will find you no longer push your point of view or perspective on others because 1) you know they have their own unique perspective, 2) you see your own point of view changing as you get new information, and 3) you can then open the door to a discussion about both your points of view for a synergistic effect.

No one likes to feel they did are doing something wrong. It feels bad. And to be in harmony with the abundance of the universe is to feel good – our natural state. Before you speak to judge another – smile, stop yourself, (bite your tongue if you must) and just listen to the other person. Then you can pat yourself on the back because you have just taken your first step in developing that mental muscle – perception – which distinguishes you from more than 90% of people who are simply unaware of this gift and how it can be developed.

Leslie Flowers

Drops of Awareness and the Leslie Flowers Logo are registered trademarks of Leslie Flowers Enterprises Inc.

Leslie Flowers Enterprises - 232 Hanover Place, Cary, NC 27511 ph 919-271-4948

Reader’s story: The perfect heart

Paulo Coelho's Blog
Sent by Priya Sher

A young man was standing in the middle of the town proclaiming that he had the most beautiful heart in the whole valley. A large crowd gathered and they all admired his heart for it was perfect. There was not a mark or a flaw in it.

But an old man appeared at the front of the crowd and said,
“Your heart is not nearly as beautiful as mine.”

The crowd and the young man looked at the old man’s heart. It was beating strongly but full of scars. It had places where pieces had been removed and other pieces put in … but they didn’t fit quite right and there were several jagged edges. The young man looked at the old man’s heart and laughed.

“You must be joking,” he said. “Compare your heart with mine … mine is perfect and yours is a mess of scars and tears.”

” “Yes,” said the old man, “Yours is perfect looking … but I would never trade with you. You see, every scar represents a person to whom I have given my love….. I tear out a piece of my heart and give it to them … and often they give me a piece of their heart which fits into the empty place in my heart but because the pieces aren’t exact, I have some rough edges.

“ Sometimes I have given pieces of my heart away … and the other person hasn’t returned a piece of his heart to me. These are the empty gouges … giving love is taking a chance. Although these gouges are painful, they stay open, reminding me of the love I have for these people too … and I hope someday they may return and fill the space I have waiting. So now do you see what true beauty is?”

The young man stood silently with tears running down his cheeks. He walked up to the old man, reached into his perfect young and beautiful heart, and ripped a piece out. He offered it to the old man.

The old man took his offering, placed it in his heart and then took a piece from his old scarred heart and placed it in the wound in the young man’s heart.
It fit …. but not perfectly, as there were some jagged edges.

The young man looked at his heart, not perfect anymore but more beautiful than ever, since love from the old man’s heart flowed into his.

Paulo Coelho's Blog: http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2010/10/04/readers-story-the-perfect-heart/

How Flexible Are YOU?

How Flexible Are You? - By Cari Murphy

Stretching Our Spiritual Flexibility Muscles

Life is absolutely filled with unexpected twists and turns that present us with challenges at each bend in the road. Our ability and our commitment to moving WITH the current while opening our hearts and minds to new ideas and options is the key to harmonious living. It is only when we resist the flow that we encounter stress, drama, and problems. When we shift our focus into the limitless realm of possibility, previously unseen doorways magically open before us and reveal the treasures that are linked together with growth and positive change.

As long as we are focused on narrow, limited views on life and living, we cannot and will not see solutions. Solutions are discovered when the mind is open, the heart is available, and the spirit is leading the way. When we approach all people and situations with eyes of love and positive expectation, we allow for the beauty of every challenge to present itself with ease. When we choose to remain flexible, we will engage a renewed sense of vitality, understanding, and compassion that allows us (previously denied) access to the necessary resources and wisdom within us to guide us through and beyond change.

The more flexible and balanced we are from a spiritual perspective, the less prone we will be to spiritual problems. Flexibility is the characteristic of being able to bend. Spiritual flexibility is the characteristic of being able to bend, to be open-minded, and teachable. Those who are not spiritually flexible are often described as being stiff necked and obstinate. The cure for this dis-ease is to listen. The person who listens is spiritually flexible. He/she is open-minded and teachable. He/she allows for growth. When we embrace the importance of being spiritually flexible and balanced, we recognize that the alternative is to be stubborn and unbalanced. An individual who is stubborn and unbalanced will not experience joy, inner peace, and spiritual victory and will find constant conflict in their relationships with others.

To integrate spiritual stretching into your daily routine, here is a quick checklist to empower you to redirect your focus and create new, more fulfilling experiences by adopting a more flexible attitude and outlook:

* Is my body tense or rigid? If so, breathe deeply and consciously relax whatever is rigid.

* Do I believe there is a steadfast rule-that something must be a certain way to work well? If so, challenge yourself to break that rule just to see that there are other possibilities.

* Am I open to making adjustments in the behaviors I am choosing so that I can learn and grow? If not, go inside and contemplate the cost of remaining resistant and inflexible.

* Am I overly invested in a certain mood or state of being to the degree that I am defined by those moods or states? If so, consciously choose to respond in a different way. Instead of being angry, choose an alternative emotional state such as compassion.

* Am I agenda driven? An example of this would be trying to persuade someone of our view points or beliefs with such rigidity that we create stress for those who are on the receiving end of our persuasive attempts.

* Do I allow myself the opportunity to expand beyond traditions to embrace new experiences and ideas outside of my psychological and cultural comfort zones? If not, challenge yourself to expand.

* Do I get easily fixated and become a creature of habit to the extent that I find it hard to shift out of certain behaviors or expectations? If so, choose new and different ways of doing things.

Often times, we develop an internal rigidity and do not realize that we have lost our flexibility until challenges in life occur. Every person and every situation is a teacher for us, offering the opportunity for growth, understanding, compassion, and healing, When we approach life in this manner, without resisting these circumstances and individuals, life takes on a broader, more expansive meaning. When we can view our challenges as beautiful covered jewels offering growth and healing, our experiences transform in phenomenal new ways.
Go out and stretch those spiritual muscles today and then notice how laughter, joy, and love flow into our experiences with ease. You deserve this.

** To comment on this article or to read comments about this article,
go here.



About the Author:

CARI MURPHY, YOUR SOUL SUCCESS COACH
Client Care Phone: 1-800-704-SOUL (Toll-Free)
Email: Cari@CariMurphy.com
Web: http://www.CariMurphy.com

Working with me as your coach is unique. I say this because I've been in this industry for over 17 years. I combine my educational and professional background in counseling psychology, my energy medicine and wellness/fitness background with my life and business coaching certification and skills, my broadcasting skills as the host of the "Create Change Now" Radio Show, and blend that with my history as a best-selling personal development author and my spiritual awareness and deep intuitive skills (heightened after my near death experience 15 years ago) to help you shift from limitation to expansion in every area of your life. I love watching my clients as they thrive and flourish in ways they never even imagined. My approach as a life and business coach is a HOLISTIC (BODY, MIND, SPIRIT) one. This provides the balance and awareness I feel is essential to creating lasting fulfillment and success that flows from the inside-out. Your expansion awaits!
Email me to set up a complimentary coaching strategy session so we can illuminate your soul's path and purpose and get you on the path to pure and authentic soul -driven success! Cari@CariMurphy.com

Believers in Small Graces

Believers in Small Graces

There are those who search God in the quiet places -- no churches, no public displays of piety, no dramatic or flamboyant rituals.

They may be found standing in humble awe before a sunset, or weeping quietly at the beauty of a Bach concerto, or filled with an overflowing of pure love at the sight of an infant in the arms of its mother.

You may meet them visiting the elderly, comforting the lonely, feeding the hungry, and caring for the sick.

The greatest among them may give away what they own in the name of compassion and goodness, while never once uttering the word “God” out loud. Or they may do no more than offer a smile or a hand to someone in need, or quietly bow their heads at a moment of beauty that passes through their lives, and say a simple prayer of gratitude to the spirit that has created us all.

They are the lovers of the quiet God, the believers in the small graces of ordinary life.

Theirs is not the grand way, the way of the mystic or the preacher or the zealot or the saint. Some would say that theirs is not a way at all. All they know for certain is that life has beauty and a joy that transcends all the darkness that surrounds us, that something ineffable lives beyond the ordinary affairs of the day, and that without this mystery our lives would not be worth living.

I honor those who search for the quiet God, who seek the spirit in the small moments of our everyday life. It is a celebration of the ordinary, a reminder that when all else is stripped away, a life lived with love is enough.

--Kent Nerbern

best definition of love, part 2

best definition of love, part 2
Abraham-Hicks

So we would say the best definition of love is awareness of self and its determined decision to be in complete alignment with that which is Source, that which is who I truly am. And appreciating every rascal who challenges it, and makes it more and more important for me to do that.

Love is not looking at despicable and unlovable, and loving it. Love is the discipline to know that if there is a question, there is an answer. And if there is the unwanted, there is the wanted. And having the self-discipline to focus into the vortex where the solutions are.

Denver 9/11/10

Being Careful

Being Careful
Tammy Saltzman

“Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success. Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dreams." - Lao Tzu

Tip 56 is on Being Careful. Are you someone who tends to be careful and cautious or are you someone that jumps in with both feet and throws caution to the wind? There is a good argument for both perspectives. Webster's New World College Dictionary defines the word careful as follows, "acting or working in a thoughtful, painstaking way; cautious, wary, or guarded." And the word carefree as, "free from troubles or worry." I do believe that there is a time to be careful and a time to be carefree. Feeling carefree is a gift that we should all enjoy whenever we can and it is usually a reward that we get from being careful. Ben Franklin once said, "Distrust and caution are the parents of security." It is only when we feels most secure that we can throw caution to the wind and enjoy a carefree moment.

As a lawyer it is really my job to look for all the things that can go wrong. It is our job as attorneys to let our clients know what is their worst case scenario. We are trained to look at the upside and weight it against the downside. It is our job to make sure that the client knows the worst possible outcome of each decision they make so that they can make an educated decision. I try hard not to be this pessimistic in my real world, but when a client pays you to play the devils advocate it is our ethical responsibility to perform. Ralph Waldo Emerson will remind us, "A man is usually more careful of his money that he is of his principles."

In business we are always cautious. Buying businesses, taking in partners, hiring employees, and securing vendors. It's a risky business out there and checking out the reputation of the people we do business with makes perfect sense. With today's technology everyone's information is just a click away on Google. The Better Business Bureau and Daily Business Review have all their records available on line. Court records and deeds are all public documents that are now available on line at most court houses throughout the United States. When is comes to financial matters we need to be as careful as possible. Not only do we consult our lawyers, but we now consult our CPA's, financial planners, and our estate planners. Unfortunately, no matter how careful we are are many of life's lessons end up costing us money. Do your best to try and learn the expensive lessons from the mistakes of others. Remember this by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Every step of life shows much caution is required." I think that is another way of saying the older we get the more jaded we become.

As a parent I am always cautioning my children to be careful. We start when they are very young. Don't touch the stove, look both ways when you cross. Be careful!! We are worried for our children and don't want them to get hurt. Even as adults our parents are worried and still tell us to be careful. Adam's mom Joan just told him to be careful when he told her all about me this past week. I have heard the same advice as well from my well meaning friends and family. Joan doesn't know me and my friends don't know Adam, but everyone says the same thing, "We are so happy for you. Go slow, be careful." When it comes to matters of the heart it is so much harder to be careful. The excitement and the hope take over and just sweep you off your feet. Aren't we all looking for ever lasting love?? Bertrand Russell once said, "Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness." Yet e.e.Cummings reminds us, "Be of love a little more careful than of anything." I would like to think that what he meant was that once you find love be careful with it, preserve it and cherish it so that you don't lose it. Sorry Joan, it's too late - if it doesn't work out it will probably hurt, but if it does work out - G-d bless and thank you Lisa.

“It is better to err on the side of daring than the side of caution." - Alvin Toffler

Love for No Reason

Love for No Reason


Through the train window, she watched the villages and vineyards of the Italian countryside go by. It was 1942 and Sussi Penzias, a young Jewish woman who’d fled Nazi Germany, was traveling alone, hoping to remain unnoticed. Since she’d arrived in Italy three years earlier, she’d been moving from place to place, staying with friends and friends of friends, hiding from the authorities. Now she was on her way to yet another safe house in a new town.


Suddenly, the door at the end of the train car swung open and two police officers came in. Sussi’s heart beat wildly. They were wearing the black uniform of the Fascisti, the government police. To Sussi’s horror, the policemen began making their way down the aisle, stopping at every row to examine the papers of each passenger.


Sussi knew that as soon as the policemen discovered she had no papers, she would be arrested. She was terrified she’d end up in a concentration camp, and would face unimaginable suffering and almost certain death.


The officers were getting closer, just a few rows away. There was no escape. It was only a matter of minutes before they would reach her seat. Sussi began to tremble uncontrollably, and tears slid down her cheeks.


The man sitting next to her noticed her distress and politely asked her why she was crying.


“I’m Jewish and I have no papers,” she whispered, hardly able to speak.


To her surprise, a few seconds later the man began shouting at her, “You idiot! I can’t believe how stupid you are! What an imbecile!”


The police officers, hearing the commotion, stopped what they were doing and came over. “What’s going on here?” one of them asked. Sussi began crying even harder.


The man turned a disgusted face to the policemen and said, “Officers, take this woman away! I have my papers, but my wife has forgotten hers! She always forgets everything. I’m so sick of her. I don’t ever want to see her again!”


The officers laughed, shaking their heads at the couple’s marital spat, and moved on.


With a selfless act of caring, the stranger on the train had saved Sussi’s life. Sussi never saw the man again. She never even knew his name.

* * * * *


When Sussi’s great-niece, Shifra, told me this story, I was in awe. I wondered, What is it that inspires someone to extend himself, even risk his life, for someone he doesn’t know? The man on the train didn’t help Sussi because she’d made him a great breakfast that morning or had picked up his dry cleaning. He helped her because in that moment of heroism he was moved by an impulse of compassion and unconditional love.


I’m not talking about Hollywood or Hallmark-card kind of love, but love as a state of being—the kind of love that is limitless and doesn’t ask to be returned.


Is it possible to live in that state of unconditional love all the time?


That was the question I set out to answer when I started writing my most recent book, Love for No Reason. And what I learned through my research is that each of us can grow in unconditional love, the kind of love that doesn’t depend on any person or situation. Imagine loving people, not because they fill your needs or because their opinions match your own, but because you’re connected to a state of pure love within yourself.


This simple but profound shift creates remarkable changes in every area of life. Instead of feeling a little hungry all the time—for love, security, more stuff, more recognition, more everything—people who are unconditionally loving feel full and complete. It affects how they show up in every moment. In fact, though a person’s life might not depend on making this shift, the quality of his or her life does. When people live in unconditional love their world turns from black-and-white to dazzling Technicolor.


By Marci Shimoff. Adapted from Love for No Reason: 7 Steps to Creating a Life of Unconditional Love (Free Press, December 2010), which offers a breakthrough approach to experiencing a lasting state of unconditional love. www.TheLoveBook.com

"Paid in Full"

One day, a poor boy who was selling goods from door to door to pay his way through school, found he had only one thin dime left, and he was hungry. He decided he would ask for a meal at the next house. However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door.

Instead of a meal, he asked for a drink of water. She thought he looked hungry and so she brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, and then asked, "How much do I owe you?"

"You don't owe me anything," she replied. "Mother has taught us never to accept pay for a kindness." He said, "Then I thank you from my heart." As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but his faith in God and man was strengthened also. He had been ready to give up and quit.

Years later, that young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the big city, where they called in specialists to study her rare disease.

Dr. Howard Kelly* was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, he went down the hall of the hospital to her room. Dressed in his doctor's gown, he went in to see her. He recognized her at once. He went back to the consultation room determined to do his best to save her life. From that day, he gave special attention to the case.

After a long struggle, the battle was won. Dr. Kelly requested from the business office to pass the final billing to him for approval. He looked at it, then wrote something on the edge, and the bill was sent to her room. She feared to open it, for she was sure it would take the rest of her life to pay for it all. Finally, she looked, and something caught her attention on the side of the bill. She read these words:

"PAID IN FULL WITH ONE GLASS OF MILK..."
(Signed)
Dr. Howard Kelly

*Dr. Howard Kelly was a distinguished physician who, in 1895, founded the Johns Hopkins Division of Gynecologic Oncology at Johns Hopkins University. According to Dr. Kelly's biographer, Audrey Davis, the doctor was on a walking trip through Northern Pennsylvania one spring day when he stopped by a farm house for a drink of water.

The Awesome Power of Kindness...
From: Motivation in a Minute

The Philosophy Professor

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he picked up a very large and empty jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. The sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "yes."

The professor then produced two glasses of wine from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things; your family, your children, your health, your friends, and your favorite passions; things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full."

"The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your important possessions. And the sand is everything else; the small stuff."

"If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "There is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life." "If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Take care of the golf balls first; the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the wine represented. The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem; there's always room for a couple of glasses of wine with a friend."


http://www.humanext.com/ideas.html