When Pain Runs Your Life

by Cheryl Maloney -

• How much more can you take? 
• Do you feel like the pain will never go away? 
• Are you devastated beyond your worst nightmare but know that life goes on even if you hate it right now? 

That pretty much describes any life where radical, unwanted and unimaginable, changes dominate the here and now. What can you do about it?

If you’ve followed me for any time you know that I am a firm believer that whatever we are going (as horrific as it may be) is something we are meant to experience.

That is not to suggest however that we wanted it or have to appreciate it at this very moment. In fact I’d go so far as to tell you that I hated my worst challenges.

However no matter how much you may struggle and rail against your current condition there will be some point, maybe years down the line, that you understand the value the experience brought to your life.

“Great” you may say, “but that doesn’t help me now.” But what if it did?

• What if instead of letting the pain run (and ruin) your life you just let it be? 
• What if you allowed yourself to experience the pain, nightmare, the challenge, without the judgment or the struggle? 

If in the midst of your overwhelming grief you said to yourself,

“I am going through this for a reason and I’m not going to fight it anymore?” 

By allowing yourself to feel the full weight of whatever is overwhelming your life you preserve what little energy you have for something better. (Like to start living the life you want.)

How much relief would you have by letting it happen and the realizing when you come up for air that you are still standing? Some fights you can’t win.

Your spouse walks out or dies, your home goes into foreclosure, your job ends. You may have fought a good battle all along but you also know when no matter what you do it’s not going to change the ultimate loss. Feel it, hate it if you must but stop fighting it and start healing.

It takes time. I used to say that I lost everything in my life except my husband and then he died.

There comes a point where you have to decide if you’re going to let the pain run your life or you’re going to just stop running. It’s when you decide to stop the struggle that you begin to heal.

When you’re ready… do this for you.

simplestepsrealchangemagazine.com

Expanding Our Lens of Perception

by DL Zeta

Our Lens of Perception determines the Nature and Quality of our Experience.

The nature and quality of our life experiences are directly related to our levels of seeing. Everything is here and has always been here. We are only limited by what we are willing and able to see through our lens of perception.

There has always been so much more than what we have seen. If we expand our current level of seeing a million times we would only see a speck of what there is to see. 

Our potentials and capabilities offer our best window into the infinite nature of the universe. This divine pattern flows around and through us. Every particle of existence is alive with codes and information. 

These codes have always been available to those who were ready to awaken inside the dream of their earth life. This awakening enables new levels of inner seeing.

Factors that Determine our Level of Seeing

Many factors enter into the mix to determine a person’s level of seeing. Most souls enter physical existence heavily veiled. This allows individuals to move through different phases of experience learning the nuances of the human condition and the basics of navigating life on planet earth. 

Once a soul enters their true soul age around age 40 the veils begin to dissolve. It is not so much that the veils are removed as that our level of seeing extends beyond them. 

Often lightworkers go through accelerated periods of awakening where they see through numerous veils at once. Ideally, emotional clearing and healing keep pace with these accelerations.

Once awake, we’re able to perceive aspects of our existence in need of healing. These are younger selves trapped in emotional traumas of the past. 

Depending on the soul’s understandings and the positioning of this current lifetime in the arc of lifetimes, the person may begin to perceive parallel lives in need of healing as well. Parallel lives can be past, adjacent or future lifetimes. Each lifetime has its own zip code on the map of our overall consciousness.

These other lifetimes occur simultaneously but our awareness is limited until such time as our present-moment consciousness expands to embrace them. 

The perception of other lifetimes does not happen in every lifetime but is a hallmark of a culmination lifetime that has the purpose of bringing the present lifetime into harmonic range with other lifetimes as one nears completion of earthly incarnations. 

This is a larger picture of seeing and perceiving. Now we will look at moment-by-moment experiences.

Every Moment is a Portal in Consciousness

Every moment, every breath we take is a portal that holds the potential to carry us into expanded levels of consciousness. 

As we gain awareness of portals, we may choose to enter them.

Old souls, especially those who are here to help anchor the new time, choose and access portals in a different manner from younger souls.

To understand the implications of this, think back to times when you realized you were experiencing the same set of physical coordinates in a vastly different way from those around you. 

We can stand side by side with others yet experience reality in a totally different way according to our spiritual awareness, soul age, spiritual understandings, level of awakening and other factors. To further understand how this works, consider how far you travel inside a moment. 

Do you stand on the surface of a moment or do you enter inside it and witness the patterns, symbols and energies pulsing inside it? If we stand inside a moment long enough we find the beauty inside it; we find deeper meanings embedded there. 

We witness the connections between seemingly unrelated events in our lives. We become aware of our past life connections with others as well as the flow and direction of future life experiences. We are able to hear the crystalline music of the life force current and witness threads of light that connect all living things. 

When we’re present inside a moment we are able to observe the web of life pulsing in its movement back to source.

Traumatic Events are Packets of Concentrated Experience

So what of traumatic moments? These are concentrated packets of experience created by the clash of conflicting energies.

These are locations in consciousness where energies intersect in a powerful way. 

Some of these experiences are predestined or stamped into our consciousness and bookmarked with our life force energy so we can return here again and again to distill the understandings they hold over time. These understandings are essential to our growth and purpose. 

When our consciousness undergoes a major shift we are able to distill a new level of a traumatic event. It is this process of transforming a traumatic event to a spiritual understanding that releases the energy being held around it. 

This transformation heals us at all levels and spirits us along on our inner journey. The understandings that come through challenging life experiences can help us strip away veils and enter new levels of seeing.

Choosing the Experiences we Manifest

There comes a time when our seeing extends in all directions allowing us to perceive the patterns and energies setting up inside future moments. 

We may perceive potentials which we can sidestep or choose not to activate. Consciously we are able to hold awareness of these potentials and distill understandings from them. 

When our perception expands to this level, we can choose to accept an understanding in consciousness without manifesting it at the physical level.

Busyness Enslaves Consciousness

One of the greatest obstacles to clear seeing is a state of chronic busyness. Chronic busyness undermines awareness and keeps people from being present in their lives. 

When a person is not present within the moment they are susceptible to parasitic thought viruses and opportunistic entities. Lack of presence is the mechanism through which human consciousness is enslaved. 

When we are not firmly anchored inside the present moment we are slaves living on the outskirts of our own existence. There is no other way to say this. Either you are present and awake inside the present moment or you are living life as a slave.

Busyness is a form of avoidance rooted in fear. People often avoid facing their fears by maintaining a high level of busyness. They rationalize they simply haven’t the time to be present and still within themselves. Deep down, they are fearful of what might filter to the surface if they become still and listen. 

Chronically busy people don’t have a relationship with their deeper selves. It is this relationship with our innermost self that gives meaning and purpose to life. 

The person who doesn’t have this deeper meaning and purpose is easy prey to parasitic energies of all kinds – whether it is in the form of thought viruses, enslaving entities or other energy drains.

Present Versus Enslaved Consciousness

The person who is chronically busy is far more likely to become energetically enslaved by factors beyond their conscious control. 

These controlling influences operate at a subconscious level so they can be difficult to detect. When you’re not present your focus goes to default status. In this state of default you do not have the presence to see through thought viruses or predatory individuals. 

This default is directed to the place in consciousness most consistent with your feeling states and thoughts. This is not always your conscious thoughts. 

You might be saying positive affirmations but if the subtext of your statements is fear and anxiety, this will create a different experience from what you intend. Then you might be tempted to say “Nothing ever works for me.” 

To be certain, if something is not working it is time to look deeper to see if subconscious templates are undermining your efforts at the conscious level.

When your consciousness is enslaved your level of seeing becomes very clouded and limited. You feel you’re existing in a fog. 

Inside this haze of perception you are helpless to act impeccably within the moment. Even if you know you are being directly harmed by an individual or circumstance, you are unable to summon the presence of mind to step free of it. 

When you become aware of this circumstance, you are able to “see through” it by slowing down, becoming still within yourself and returning to your natural state of clear presence.

Maintaining a Clear, Awake and Conscious Presence

Living life consciously takes a great deal of presence, intention, focus and energy.

The rewards of such a life are worth the effort. 

Without this presence you’re just going through the motions as a slave of third-dimensional reality seeing yourself a perpetual victim, trapped in default feeling states and helpless to change your circumstances.

When you are present inside a moment all things are possible. You are able to travel to other locations in consciousness, heal yourself at all levels and receive telepathic guidance about all matters in your life. 

You’re able to transform any situation, receive a vision for future creations, enter into a soul mate relationship, or receive the abundance you need to carry out your life purpose. 

You are able to connect with other aspects in consciousness whether it is a younger self from this lifetime or a past, parallel or future self. 

You are able to practice remote viewing and cultivate other spiritual tools and technologies. It is through cultivating a clear and present consciousness that all things become possible.

©2010-2015 DL Zeta, Celestial Vision, All Rights Reserved These messages are intended to be shared. You are welcome to share and distribute this message with others as you feel guided to do so. Please be sure to include the author & source website link.  

celestialvision.org

How Successful People Stay Calm

 by Dr. Travis Bradberry -

The ability to manage your emotions and remain calm under pressure has a direct link to your performance. TalentSmart has conducted research with more than a million people, and we’ve found that 90% of top performers are skilled at managing their emotions in times of stress in order to remain calm and in control.

If you follow our newsletter, you’ve read some startling research summaries that explore the havoc stress can wreak on one’s physical and mental health (such as the Yale study, which found that prolonged stress causes degeneration in the area of the brain responsible for self-control).

The tricky thing about stress (and the anxiety that comes with it) is that it’s an absolutely necessary emotion.

Our brains are wired such that it’s difficult to take action until we feel at least some level of this emotional state. In fact, performance peaks under the heightened activation that comes with moderate levels of stress. As long as the stress isn’t prolonged, it’s harmless.

New research from the University of California, Berkeley, reveals an upside to experiencing moderate levels of stress. But it also reinforces how important it is to keep stress under control.

The study, led by post-doctoral fellow Elizabeth Kirby, found that the onset of stress entices the brain into growing new cells responsible for improved memory.

However, this effect is only seen when stress is intermittent. As soon as the stress continues beyond a few moments into a prolonged state, it suppresses the brain’s ability to develop new cells.

“I think intermittent stressful events are probably what keeps the brain more alert, and you perform better when you are alert,” Kirby says.

For animals, intermittent stress is the bulk of what they experience, in the form of physical threats in their immediate environment.

Long ago, this was also the case for humans. As the human brain evolved and increased in complexity, we’ve developed the ability to worry and perseverate on events, which creates frequent experiences of prolonged stress.

Besides increasing your risk of heart disease, depression, and obesity, stress decreases your cognitive performance. Fortunately, though, unless a lion is chasing you, the bulk of your stress is subjective and under your control.

Top performers have well-honed coping strategies that they employ under stressful circumstances. This lowers their stress levels regardless of what’s happening in their environment, ensuring that the stress they experience is intermittent and not prolonged.

While I’ve run across numerous effective strategies that successful people employ when faced with stress, what follows are ten of the best. 

Some of these strategies may seem obvious, but the real challenge lies in recognizing when you need to use them and having the wherewithal to actually do so in spite of your stress.

STRATEGIES FOR FACING STRESS

1. Appreciate What You Have

Taking time to contemplate what you’re grateful for isn’t merely the “right” thing to do. It also improves your mood, because it reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%.

Research conducted at the University of California, Davis found that people who worked daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude experienced improved mood, energy, and physical well-being. It’s likely that lower levels of cortisol played a major role in this.

2. Avoid Asking “What If?”

“What if?” statements throw fuel on the fire of stress and worry.

Things can go in a million different directions, and the more time you spend worrying about the possibilities, the less time you’ll spend focusing on taking action that will calm you down and keep your stress under control.

Calm people know that asking “what if? will only take them to a place they don’t want—or need—to go.

3. Stay Positive

Positive thoughts help make stress intermittent by focusing your brain’s attention onto something that is completely stress-free. You have to give your wandering brain a little help by consciously selecting something positive to think about.

Any positive thought will do to refocus your attention. When things are going well, and your mood is good, this is relatively easy. When things are going poorly, and your mind is flooded with negative thoughts, this can be a challenge.

In these moments, think about your day and identify one positive thing that happened, no matter how small.

If you can't think of something from the current day, reflect on the previous day or even the previous week. Or perhaps you’re looking forward to an exciting event that you can focus your attention on.

The point here is that you must have something positive that you're ready to shift your attention to when your thoughts turn negative.

4. Disconnect

Given the importance of keeping stress intermittent, it’s easy to see how taking regular time off the grid can help keep your stress under control.

When you make yourself available to your work 24/7, you expose yourself to a constant barrage of stressors. Forcing yourself offline and even—gulp!—turning off your phone gives your body a break from a constant source of stress.

Studies have shown that something as simple as an email break can lower stress levels.

Technology enables constant communication and the expectation that you should be available 24/7. It is extremely difficult to enjoy a stress-free moment outside of work when an email that will change your train of thought and get you thinking (read: stressing) about work can drop onto your phone at any moment.

If detaching yourself from work-related communication on weekday evenings is too big a challenge, then how about the weekend? Choose blocks of time where you cut the cord and go offline. You’ll be amazed at how refreshing these breaks are and how they reduce stress by putting a mental recharge into your weekly schedule.

If you’re worried about the negative repercussions of taking this step, first try doing it at times when you’re unlikely to be contacted—maybe Sunday morning.

As you grow more comfortable with it, and as your coworkers begin to accept the time you spend offline, gradually expand the amount of time you spend away from technology.

5. Limit Caffeine Intake

Drinking caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline. Adrenaline is the source of the “fight-or-flight” response, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat.

The fight-or-flight mechanism sidesteps rational thinking in favor of a faster response. This is great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great when you’re responding to a curt email.

When caffeine puts your brain and body into this hyperaroused state of stress, your emotions overrun your behavior. The stress that caffeine creates is far from intermittent, as its long half-life ensures that it takes its sweet time working its way out of your body.

6. Sleep

I’ve beaten this one to death over the years and can’t say enough about the importance of sleep to increasing your emotional intelligence and managing your stress levels.

When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, shuffling through the day’s memories and storing or discarding them (which causes dreams), so that you wake up alert and clear-headed.

Your self-control, attention, and memory are all reduced when you don’t get enough—or the right kind—of sleep. Sleep deprivation raises stress hormone levels on its own, even without a stressor present.

Stressful projects often make you feel as if you have no time to sleep, but taking the time to get a decent night’s sleep is often the one thing keeping you from getting things under control.

7. Squash Negative Self-Talk

A big step in managing stress involves stopping negative self-talk in its tracks. The more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them. Most of our negative thoughts are just that—thoughts, not facts.

When you find yourself believing the negative and pessimistic things your inner voice says, it’s time to stop and write them down. Literally stop what you’re doing and write down what you’re thinking.

Once you’ve taken a moment to slow down the negative momentum of your thoughts, you will be more rational and clear-headed in evaluating their veracity.

You can bet that your statements aren’t true any time you use words like “never,” “worst,” “ever,” etc. If your statements still look like facts once they’re on paper, take them to a friend or colleague you trust and see if he or she agrees with you. Then the truth will surely come out.

When it feels like something always or never happens, this is just your brain’s natural threat tendency inflating the perceived frequency or severity of an event.

Identifying and labeling your thoughts as thoughts by separating them from the facts will help you escape the cycle of negativity and move toward a positive new outlook.

8. Reframe Your Perspective

Stress and worry are fueled by our own skewed perception of events. It’s easy to think that unrealistic deadlines, unforgiving bosses, and out-of-control traffic are the reasons we’re so stressed all the time.

You can’t control your circumstances, but you can control how you respond to them. So before you spend too much time dwelling on something, take a minute to put the situation in perspective. If you aren’t sure when you need to do this, try looking for clues that your anxiety may not be proportional to the stressor.

If you’re thinking in broad, sweeping statements such as “Everything is going wrong” or “Nothing will work out,” then you need to reframe the situation.

A great way to correct this unproductive thought pattern is to list the specific things that actually are going wrong or not working out. Most likely you will come up with just some things—not everything—and the scope of these stressors will look much more limited than it initially appeared.

9. Breathe

The easiest way to make stress intermittent lies in something that you have to do everyday anyway: breathing. The practice of being in the moment with your breathing will begin to train your brain to focus solely on the task at hand and get the stress monkey off your back.

When you’re feeling stressed, take a couple of minutes to focus on your breathing. Close the door, put away all other distractions, and just sit in a chair and breathe. The goal is to spend the entire time focused only on your breathing, which will prevent your mind from wandering.

Think about how it feels to breathe in and out. This sounds simple, but it’s hard to do for more than a minute or two. It’s all right if you get sidetracked by another thought; this is sure to happen at the beginning, and you just need to bring your focus back to your breathing.

If staying focused on your breathing proves to be a real struggle, try counting each breath in and out until you get to 20, and then start again from 1. Don’t worry if you lose count; you can always just start over.

This task may seem too easy or even a little silly, but you’ll be surprised by how calm you feel afterward and how much easier it is to let go of distracting thoughts that otherwise seem to have lodged permanently inside your brain.

10. Use Your Support System

It’s tempting, yet entirely ineffective, to attempt tackling everything by yourself. To be calm and productive, you need to recognize your weaknesses and ask for help when you need it.

This means tapping into your support system when a situation is challenging enough for you to feel overwhelmed. Everyone has someone at work and/or outside work who is on their team, rooting for them, and ready to help them get the best from a difficult situation.

Identify these individuals in your life and make an effort to seek their insight and assistance when you need it. Something as simple as talking about your worries will provide an outlet for your anxiety and stress and supply you with a new perspective on the situation.

Most of the time, other people can see a solution that you can’t because they are not as emotionally invested in the situation. Asking for help will mitigate your stress and strengthen your relationships with those you rely upon.

talentsmart.com

The Art of Understanding Energy

by Hieu Doan -

THE BREATH OF THE UNIVERSE:

The breath of universe is a consciousness that links the physical breath to the breath and pulse of the Divine.

It can be experienced in its totality when projecting the astral body into it and merging as one but for those who are not versed in astral projection it can also be used in simple meditation and is a powerful tool for unifying the mind, body and spirit with the universe.

The experience of the breath is all about perception and the senses, so it is through these senses that you observe your breath. 

Feel it, see it, hear it, taste it and smell it. 

Allow your mind to touch all these senses, yet do not become involved, simply observe objectively and watch.

Look for the subtle areas of these senses. Find the outer limits of your senses, where perception almost disappears. Hold your mind here. By holding your mind here, you stretch and expand your mind.

Observe the nature of your breath. 

Observe where it feels strong, observe where it feels subtle and released. Notice how far it travels as it leaves your body.

Notice how far it travels as it enters your body. Follow it completely to the end of its journey – then send your mind out in this direction. 

Continue to walk the journey that your breath has begun. 

How far can you go? 

Where does your mind stop? Allow this expansion to continue. Notice the walls and barriers of your perception and be at one with them.

Do not struggle – if there is resistance, be that resistance, if there is non-resistance, be that non-resistance.

Look for the spaces in between the resistance and allow your mind to melt through these spaces. 

Melt and expand. Allow the breath to dissolve you. 

Feel the pulse of the breath expanding ever outward, melting into the universe, becoming one with the universe.

Be embraced, supported and empowered by this breath. Understand the power that comes from allowing the breath of the universe to nourish you. Breath as one.

lifemasteryguild.com

selfgrowth.com

Story of Illumination

by Julie A. Hoyle -

THE DESCENT OF GRACE:

Grace finds us always, even if we don’t realize we are seeking. The practices of diverse spiritual paths, faiths and traditions came to me unbidden, entering my life dramatically in February 1989, through an unexpected awakening of spirit.

The source of that awakening was an extraordinary Indian Saint, Bhagawan Nityananda of Ganeshpuri. For a young, western, Catholic woman, this event was so firmly rooted outside the spectrum of my life experiences, it had the imprint of a miracle, yet it also felt completely natural.

At the time, my husband and I were living in Nassau the capital island-city of the Bahamas.

Having both been raised in the temperate weather of England, we were loving the warmth and beauty of our new tropical home, yet despite living in what many perceive as paradise, under the surface, I was unhappy. I was plagued with a chronic back problem that was not responding to orthodox medical treatment.

Desperate to try anything to alleviate physical pain, I said, “Yes” when invited to a nearby meditation centre. What I did not realize at the time was though I was seeking physical relief; there was an inner pain deeper than tissue and bone.

After just three visits to the centre, I went home one night and had a conscious dream. 

In the dream, I entered a hall, to find a dark -skinned Indian man sitting on a wooden platform.

He looked like a Buddha, with a big round belly, wearing only a white loincloth. On seeing him, I absolutely knew I was in the company of a great Saint; a Being who was merged with the Infinite. And I immediately knew, I had been seeking Him always.

I was instructed to, “Lie in corpse pose- relax- breath slowly and deeply and repeat the mantra, Om Namah Shivaya- I bow to the Lord within me.” 

Doing as I was told, I suddenly felt a light tap on the top of my head. With that touch, a very powerful energy began pulsating from the point that had been tapped, through the crown and down into my body. Then every cell began vibrating and producing intense heat.

My body began floating upwards. Repeating the mantra, I focused on the ingoing and outgoing breath until I could bear the heat no more. A distinct feeling of nausea began to rise up and with that, I crashed to the floor continuing downward falling through time and space.

With a jerking thud, I entered my sleeping body through the chest. Like a waking corpse, I sat up violently exhaling “Huuuhhhhhh”, so loudly my husband woke. Alarmed, he jumped up asking, “What happened?” Not completely awake or adjusted to my surroundings, I responded, “I don’t know, but my life will never be the same again.”

That response proved to be true. Nityananda’s touch initiated a desire for meditation and spiritual practices that has served to shape the entire course of my life.

Grace immediately began to enter like a flood, breaking down doors and windows, turning my world upside down and inside out. 

Over time, everything not aligned with spirit fell away leaving me wide-eyed with wonder as new perceptions and levels of awareness established themselves within my being.

From the beginning, remembrance of  “Om Namah Shivaya.” potently rose up in dreams, bringing me to lucid awareness. Traveling through light-filled worlds, I found myself in the ecstatic company of Saints, Shamans and Enlightened Teachers from diverse traditions.

Although I had never studied Buddhism, many times the Dalai Lama walked into dreams in order to give teachings, once happily telling me, “They have made it so that you can do anything you want to do in this life.” And Swami Ram Tirth, a Saint I had never studied anything of, entered a dream, lifted his thumb and stated, “I can give initiation. Would you like?”

The lucid dream state has also carried me to worlds inhabited by South American Shamans.

In one, I found myself in a jungle like setting, swimming with joy as a Teacher approached. Lighting a fire, he told me I was to undertake an ‘Initiation of Fire.’ 

Holding on to the mantra like a lifeline, I entered the flames. As the body was consumed, a powerful inner energy was released, beginning at the base of the spine and thrusting its way up through the centre of the body, exiting at the crown.

Watching, the energy formed into a huge black crow, hovered above my head and then flew away in a cascade of fiery light. With that, two female shamans appeared telling me, “You have passed the test and have been graced with the energy of the Crow.”

My expanded inner world has also become dramatically reflected in the outer. 

I have found my natural environment offering messages whenever I need inner guidance or inspiration. Once in meditation, a beautiful dark eyed deer appeared telling me, “I am coming to see you soon.”

Initially, I pondered how this could be possible on a semi-tropical island.

However, two weeks later, while taking part in a work-study programme at a Benedictine University in Minnesota I took a walk through a park and was astonished to see the same beautiful deer standing before me, close enough to see and feel her breath.

She stood right across my path looking deep into my eyes. With her two fawns, we gazed at one another with reverence and love, and I instinctively knew the message she was bringing was one of gentleness and compassion.

In her, I was able to vividly see the embodiment of the qualities I most wish to express in my writing and my teaching.

As the journey into my interior has continued, I have had to face the deepest, darkest places within myself. I have been forced to embrace what has most terrified me. And, I have bathed in the most exquisite outpouring of love and blessings.

The grace of Nityananda has included all faiths, all paths, all belief systems and all conditions of the heart. He has held a mirror up and said,

“You see. Here is your own Higher Self and here, and here. All are One. There is nothing more that needs to be known. There is only God in all forms and all faces. This is the Truth. Own it!”

This is your truth too. 

In whatever way grace has appeared in your life in order to reveal the magnificence of your own light, it is your perfect reflection. Sooner or later, we are compelled to follow the light, until we are completely transformed.

Our purpose at this time of transition and ascension is to become the perfect offering, until all that’s left is light, blazing the way for those who may not know they are seeking.

Julie is a natural intuitive, writer, artist and transpersonal hypnotherapist who lives on Grand Bahama Island. Her profound spiritual awakening and the unfolding of unity consciousness is detailed in her book, ‘An Awakened Life- A Journey of Transformation’ at: anawakenedlife.org  Julie also works internationally offering a transformational ‘Living in Alignment’ online course and Soul Purpose and Past Life Readings. For information go to: livinginalignment.org and truealignment.org

anawakenedlife.org

oneworldspirit.org

Seeing Beyond the Horizon

by Shirley Knapp - 

I am writing this from a remote rustic town in Alaska, tucked in and surrounded by the high Chugach Mountains.

I live in the valley where the beautiful emerald green Kenai Lake and river flow many miles on their journey to eventually join the Pacific Ocean.

In the winter months here in Cooper Landing there are only five hours of daylight as the sun dips behind the mountains from November through January. 

We celebrated the winter solstice with light from bonfires and warm hearty foods while singing and drumming under the full moon.

It is for this reason that it is important to be able to see beyond the horizon. While we can’t see over the top of the mountains and see the sun, we do know that it is there and will eventually reappear. 

The natives here revere the ravens, as they believe that the raven stole the sunlight from one who would keep the world in darkness. To them, raven was the creator of life and order. As the ravens sit outside my window each day in the old Cottonwood tree, I am reminded of this belief and honor their presence.

How do we create the freedom to see beyond the horizon when we can’t physically see it?

Meditation and visualization allow us to journey into our spiritual limitlessness. 

I know this personally, as I have spent many hours on a warm tropical beach using the healing techniques of the ocean waves while being here in my cozy arctic nest. When I work with my phone clients, I encourage them to do the same as we visualize their fear patterns being given to the sea for release. 

In your meditation, feel yourself stretch beyond the horizon and into the divine consciousness of the Universe. 

True freedom isn’t a physical condition or situation.

It is the ability to open our hearts with a quiet mind and experience the vastness of pure unconditional love and joy. Dare to be free to love, dance and shine the light for others to follow.

Self-love is where true freedom begins.

About Author: Shirley Knapp is an internationally recognized spiritual teacher and author of "Sustaining Joy" who leads groups in personal growth. She has been in a holistic private practice, teaching and embracing individuals and groups since 1986. Shirley’s mission is to heal, love and serve the world by transforming ourselves and helping others transform in joy. 

shirleyknapp.com

When the Shift Hits the Fan

by Tina Olivero -

Ever feel like everything is crumbling down around you?  Nothing seems to be working as you’d like?  There’s a lot money issues, relationship problems, people at work are bugging you, things seem overwhelming and there’s an endless list of obstacles in your way?

You’re not the only one!

In fact just about every day someone has a money issue concern, a relationship concern, a co-worker concern, a family problem or an overwhelming challenge to contend with. To be a human being is to have issues that require solutions.

So, if we have issues every day,  then how come we get snarly, act insulted or rejected, and often feel powerless in the face of our issues?  Why do we respond like this issue is the first time it’s ever happened to us?  Why are we so damned surprised – like this should never be happening to “us”?

The answer is CONTEXT!  

Yes, context.  Context in the way that we hold that issue or problem.  The context that that issue has in our lives and it’s relativity to other things causes all the heart ache, drama and suffering.

The reality is we have issues every day and we get through them.  

How do we know that?  Well you’re here aren’t you?  You’ve solved a zillion issues and challenges so far right?  And….you’re about to do it again.  In fact, every time there is an issue in your life…who’s always the person there….yes….you!  And every time your issues get solved, who’s always the person there?  Yes, you!

Issues and challenges cause us to suffer because we look at them like issues and daunting problems.  We believe in that moment that they have more power over us, than we have over them.  But it’s not true!

What if we changed the context of our issues and saw them as a part of life that gave us the opportunity to solve things, grow, be creative, find answers, discover, invent, and find outrageous out of the ordinary solutions!  That …could even be fun, right?

So problems have a CONTEXT.  When the context is bad, wrong or we don’t want it…it causes suffering.  When the context is turned around into another view…we gain insight, growth, momentum and solutions.

Let’s face it, this is the LEARNING PLANET.  

Nobody takes the ride of life without issues, challenges and great problems to solve. In the interest of being powerful with our problems, lets call them growth opportunities and when it’s all going to shit, lets turn it into SHIFT!  Ok how do we do that?

Let’s take money issues as an example.  

If you keep having the same money issues over and over, then likely the “SHIFT” is knocking to come in!  Repeating patterns are a sign….IT”S TIME TO ANSWER THE DOOR!

When you answer the door of new opportunity, look at it from many views.  

• Is this door a new avenue?  

• Is it a new opportunity?  

• Is there a partnership opportunity here?  

• How about an alliance?  

• How about a new coach or mentor needed?  

• How about a finance solution from a banker?  

• How about a meditation trip that takes you to a whole other view point?  

• How about a good chat with a mentor?  

• How about a mind map?  

• How about a focus group?  

• How about a team solution meeting? 

• How about a great BRAINSTORMING SESSION to sift through all the possibilities.

Your issues and problems show up for a reason.  

They call you to be bigger, to think bigger and to act bigger than you ever have before.  They request a sense of intuition, creativity and vision, to come into play.  They often force you to face your fears and get off the comfy chair.  They push you into greatness and they often require blind faith.

Did you ever notice that when you are taking definitive action and you’re getting new results it’s really fun!  Did you notice that when you play a big game, you may make a few mistakes along the way but it’s super exciting?  Did you ever notice that people in general are blaze and boring doing the same old stuff and super passionate when they are out there on the edge of their game?  

Why is that?

It’s because life is about solving problems, playing bigger games and creating a whole new set of results.  When that’s the context for your issues, that’s when SHIFT HAPPENS.  In the process of creative problem solving, you get wildly excited, you get moved by passion and you get momentum in your results.

Issues are your portal to greatness.  

So all I can say is….LET THE SHIFT HIT THE FAN!

transformwithtina.com

Getting Past Painful and Difficult Experiences

by Evette Gardner -

There are moments in our lives when we've all asked it of ourselves, why does this keep happening to me?

I know I've had my fair share of breaking point moments.

It took a good while, along with a string of difficult and painful experiences, for me to realize that a better question to ask myself in the midst of those instances when I feel like I'm at the end of my rope is, okay, so what am I supposed to be learning here that I just haven't been getting? because as unconvincing as it may initially seem, pain is never a punishment.

We don't experience trials in life because we're bad people. Nor do we suffer hardships because life is unfair.

I'm going to let you in on something which will probably electrify the skeptic in many of you. 

Life (actually) is always fair - ALWAYS. Your experiences in life are meant to educate you. And this education can sometimes feel extremely demanding. 

You have never and will never be guaranteed that your experience in life will be easy but you may rest assured that it will always be in the best interest of your greatest good.

Pain has a useful purpose. Stress has a constructive function. It is a universal truism that you can never really know what you're made of until you finally resign to face those things which scare you most.

If you truly knew the extent of the difficult situations life could throw at you, and that you could not only handle but actually excel well beyond, you would be amazed at your own brilliance. 

Too often however, we elect to avoid what seems too difficult.

We allow our fears to govern our choices and our doubts to determine our actions.

These are the blocks we encounter over and over again in life.

Every now and then, as we're trucking along, we collide into these obstructions to our spiritual growth (sometimes not even realizing what has hit us).

Other times we simply allow ourselves to be turned around when confronted by whatever ominous thing lies before us.

We, too regularly, opt to go in circles rather than deal with life's uncertainties. But life's lessons cannot be dodged. One way or another you are going to learn the inexhaustible scope of your strength and power.

You will face whatever insights life is trying to show you or you will find yourself stalled on the same redundant track of recurring experiences until you do. 

Everything moves in cycles. 

However you have a choice as to whether you go around on a flat plane or whether you rise through the ascent of spirals into the reality of your fullest potential.

When you elect to do the former you confine yourself to a two dimensional playing field where you will discover (oftentimes to your great horror) that all that comes up in your life experience is everything you have been trying to avoid.

Stop trying to run from pain. 

Stop trying to maneuver your way out of taking what appears to be the more forbidding paths in life, those paths where you can just sense that a whole host of your inner bogeymen are waiting to jump out at you. 

Truthfully you would be better off if you simply adopted a life philosophy of immediately tackling any and everything which makes you doubt yourself and the awesome wonders you are capable of because the fact of the matter is, is that it is impossible to get around confronting these misgivings anyway. 

So you might as well just go ahead and face them up front because the situations you encounter which reflect your insecurities are only going to re-present themselves in more dramatic and more intimidating forms the longer you put off challenging them.

Being an in recovery procrastinator myself I can completely understand the appeal of kicking those little pebbles of fear down the road to be dealt with another day.

The problem with this however is, is that those little pebbles are like debts, they're constantly accruing interest.

So the next time you come across that pebble, it won't just be a pebble, it will appear in the form of a rock which you may very well choose to throw down the road once more only to happen upon it later as a boulder. 

You can go ahead and simply go around this stumbling block in its new form but know that the next time you see your once little pebble, it will then be a little wall. And on and on until you decide to suck it up and own your trepidation.

One of life's many truths is that any erroneous belief you have about yourself or the world around you will eventually take form and "grow legs."

It is nothing more than the wrong ideas that you cling to that come to pass as your life's painful experiences. This pain is intended to wake you up from whatever delusion has you rapt. 

Don't try to walk away from what scares you, don't try to avoid it because it will only end up haunting you.

Instead make the conscious decision to consistently do the most courageous thing even in the face of crippling anxiety and self doubt.

There is no other way to reach your greatest promise. You have to walk through the fire, so to speak, in order to realize the truth of your inherent power. But if you cop out, if you yield to the panic of uncertainty you will only invite escalating degrees of suffering into your experience. 

The only way to recognize the absurdity of your fears is to delve in and explore them. 

You have to be willing to be present with them if you ever want to expose your fears to be the senseless things that they truly are. And until you do, you will remain confined by the very phobias which you have been trying to escape from.

It's an expression I first heard while watching a Wayne Dyer PBS special (whether or not Dr. Dyer is the original author of this expression, I'm not certain, but it really is a good line).

He says,

"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." 

Fear is the source of all of life's pains and trials. Yet fear is nothing more than a false perception.

The only way to move beyond life's difficulties is to move through your fears. So the million dollar question then becomes, well how do you do this? 

The answer is so simple it might actually seem too easy to be legitimate. 

But Wayne Dyer is absolutely right. You have the power to change the way you're looking at whatever may have you afraid.

You have the power to imagine something different as your reality and in so doing reveal the true nature of your fears to be a complete farce.

Because once you truly realize that you are the author of your life's script, what is there really to be afraid of? You and only you have the power to determine your life's experience. 

You are the one who brought your fear to life and you are the only one who has the power to take it out.

One of the biggest mistakes people often make however is to try to reason their fears away. 

This is always a losing battle because you cannot use logic to affect something which is itself illogical.

In other words, you cannot reason with fear because you cannot apply reason to an emotion based on a false perception which is, at its core, founded on irrationality.

Using this strategy, fear always has the upper hand. Why? Because you can know, logically, what's right and truthful and still not be accepting of the truth. And acceptance is what ultimately shapes your experience. 

You have to know in your gut what the truth is in order to truly recognize the lie of a false perception.

Fear, being an emotion, doesn't turn on reason, it turns on emotions which conflict with it. And the way you excite these conflicting emotions is to stay present with the experience of your fears until you can feel that something is wrong with the perceptions that fuel them.

It is this feeling (that something isn't quite right here) that will turn you off to the lies you've been telling yourself.

It is this feeling (that something isn't quite right here) that will spur you to reject the delusions which have enthralled you.

So how do you get past life's painful and difficult experiences? 

The answer is by facing the fearful perceptions which prompt them. 

By being present with the experience of a fearful perception you will eventually begin to sense its inherent absurdity.

It is this sense which works to shake your faith in your fearful beliefs. Once this faith is shaken, the fear it pertains to will quickly vanish along with all the painful and trying symptomatic incidents in your life which its viral presence was causing.

So let's break this down point by point.

POINT #1 

Both pain and difficulty are products of fear.

POINT #2 

The only way to move passed life's painful and difficult experiences is to move through your fears.

POINT #3 

You move through your fears by facing them. And you face your fears, not by trying to deny them or distract yourself from them, but by being present with them

POINT #4 

When you stay present in the mindset of any negative perception which spurs a fear sooner or later the feeling will arise that something about the thoughts you are engaging, is "off." 

Reason won't be able to adequately explain what exactly is "off," yet the feeling will grow more pronounced the longer you stay present with these thoughts.

POINT #5 

In your being present with your fearful thoughts you will eventually come to a place where you will find it impossible to take these thoughts (and the overall perception built from them) seriously.

POINT #6 

Once you have lost confidence in the reality you imagine it can no longer be your reality because your life experience will adapt to reflect your new beliefs. 

Therefore the fear you once felt and believed in, along with all of the other side effects that that fear created, will disappear. Thus pain is overcome and difficulties are surmounted.

yourdivineinheritance.com