GRATITUDE AND SIMPLE PLEASURES
These are some of my favorite passages in “Recipes for a Sacred Life: True Stories and a Few Miracles” by Rivvy Neshama.
— So there I was practicing gratefulness, and on good days, no problem. “Oh thank you for this lovely sky. And my dear family. And thank you for my loving husband, John.”
Then, when the dark days came, I would struggle to feel gratitude but find it forced and phony. I’d be praying, “Thank you, God, I’m really grateful for this lesson . . . or challenge . . . or, um, chance to grow . . .”—but I wasn’t. What I wanted to say was “Help! Make things better! This is so not okay!”
Then I found a little book by Richard Carlson: Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff . . . and It’s All Small Stuff. He wrote that the happiest people he knew were hardly happy all the time. That’s encouraging. In fact, they could really get down. All right! The key seemed to be their awareness that bad times and bad moods will come. So rather than fight them, they just accept them and wait for them to pass—yeah, but bad times can get worse and drag on and—and they pass a lot quicker, Carlson added, if you accept them with grace.
Ah, now I got it. It was like finding the missing piece of a puzzle. Good day, be grateful. Bad day, be graceful. Be grateful, be graceful, and on it goes.
*******
— It wasn’t until I moved to Boulder that I discovered the joys of a clothesline. When John first asked me to leave Manhattan and join him out West, I pictured him fetching me in a covered wagon. Leaving the city that never sleeps for what was then a sleepy town made me feel like a pioneer woman (“Rivvy of the Prairies”), and so did using a clothesline. I guess I was finally learning the simple tasks of daily life. And after years of urban living, I relished each old-fashioned chore.
I loved standing barefoot in the grass, using wooden pegs to hang our sheets. I delighted in watching them blow in the wind as the sun and air naturally dried them. And later, when I made our bed, I savored their fresh, sweet scent and remembered how, as a child, I would walk between and smell the sheets my mother hung to dry.
Now, I admit it: The clothesline broke and I reunited with our electric dryer. No worries, I told John. We can still save energy. I’ll just wash less often . . . and vacuum less too!
But now and then, I still hang something out to dry, and that always feels right. And when we’d phone John’s ninetyseven-year-old mother in England, she’d often tell us she was just outside, hanging the wash to dry. She never did anything but. So this one’s a recipe from Dorothy Wilcockson (“Dorothy of Mole Valley”), who knew the joy of simple pleasures.
WORDS OF AWARENESS AND TRANSFORMATION
These are some of my favorite passages in “In the Awakening Season” by Matthew Mumber.
DESTINY
Breathe with me,
this ordinary day,
leaf-lined dirt path, downhill,
right next to home.
Take one step
then another, without direction,
who knows if we will ever
find our way back.
Just imagine if
each second had a reason
every created thing played its part
nothing was ever wasted.
Even those missteps
that twist our limbs,
roots of forgiveness.
Imagine each and every step
a great allowing.
THIS PRECIOUS LIFE
Some say
no one really lives his own life,
true face covered by a mask,
stuck tight and fashioned by a series
of random voices,
interactions,
childhood dreams of flying, long lost,
adult desires for comfort superficially gained,
mismatched pieces welded sequentially over time,
firmly, to the fragile, baby skin
of who we really are.
Some say
all paths lead
to these false lives discarded,
rain-soaked clothes
hanging against
a damp, shadowed stone wall.
Standing here, midlife,
children grown and mostly gone,
I let the cold, winter air in.
CONNECTED
—Day two of a five-day, silent retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh
Mid-morning, after dawn meditation,
They tells us,
Go for a mindful walk,
enjoy nature.
Most others walk
then sit near him—
our revered teacher.
I settle into a corner of an open field,
grass sleeping, mid-fall.
The mottled sunlight
highlights
a single autumn leaf
quaking and turning and
rising and falling with
an imperceptible wind,
somehow suspended, eye level,
mid-air, just to the side of me,
a maple tree branch above, leaf-strewn earth below.
My closer inspection reveals
an invisible spider thread
thinly attached to the stem.
Mesmerized,
I sit until the distant bell calls me back.
The next day
after morning meditation,
the whole group files out,
mindfully walking along
a different dirt path in the woods;
just above their heads
I see
a single leaf suspended.
YOUR JOURNEY TO A HEALTHIER LIFESTYLE
This is one of my favorite passages in “It’s Just Personal: A Personal Chef’s Essential Guide to Shopping, Cooking and Eating Smarter” by Ellen Postolowski.
The first thing I tell them is that they need the proper frame of mind. You have to want to change those former bad habits. Second, I cannot control how much food you put in your mouth. Portions are indicated in all the recipes, but it is up to you to know how much is enough.
Here are some thoughts to get you motivated:
— It is very easy to overeat, but think about how much harder it is to take the extra weight off?
— Know your limits, and allow your brain to catch up with your eyes and stomach.
— Willpower is a powerful tool you need to control at once. We all have our moments of weakness, but those moments need to be few and far between at this point. Choose those moments wisely, and you will soon dominate the weaknesses. My job is to aid in the process.
— Choose the road that will eventually lead to your personal success.
— You have started your journey to a healthier lifestyle by purchasing this book and giving me the opportunity to assist you in your lifestyle changes. Thank you. If quick, simple, and nutritious recipes are what you are looking for, flip ahead to the recipe section. If you need a little more help with sticking to and implementing changes in your lifestyle, read on. Wanting to change is what prompted you to buy this book; however, sticking to a new routine may require a bit more dedication. I assure you that when you start to look and feel better, you'll be passing up that second helping, making smarter choices, and loving the fact that you are more aware when it comes to your overall health.
This book offers a combination of smart shopping ideas, an introduction to energizing foods, and tips on cooking to save you time and calories without sacrificing taste. With a little revision of your own meals here and there, these strategies on when and what to eat for health success will soon be at your fingertips. You can visit these recipes often without guilt or fear of making the wrong choice.
I am a personal chef because I wanted to help a family put better food choices into practice while helping them to have a greater awareness of and a positive outlook on natural food options. Joumana feared that her family, always on the run, would get caught up in the fast-food downward spiral of bad eating habits.
My job was to turn those attitudes around and convince her three children that vegetables were not the enemy. Joumana and her family arc lucky. Most of us cannot afford a personal chef to come to our house every day. When I tell people what I do for a living, they are most eager to listen and often seek my advice. My job seems to be quite admired, but it is a lot of hard work. I happen to love what I do and am grateful for the opportunities presented to me in recent years.
For these reasons, I have decided to share my expertise and knowledge for those willing to listen. So, if your family is on the run and is sliding towards bad eating habits, you can use my advice to turn it around and head toward a healthier lifestyle.
— ALSO, ON CHEFELLEN.COM
RECOGNIZING AND HEALING THE INNER CRITIC THROUGH JOURNALING
This is one of my favorite passages in “Journaling Power: How to Create the Happy, Healthy Life You Want to Live” by Mari L. McCarthy.
Through my daily journaling, I learned to recognize my negative automatic thoughts – those well-worn and limiting “tapes” that play in your head, over and over, as they inhibit progress. We all have these negative thoughts from time to time. Journaling has helped me eliminate them.
My Inner Critic also shouted loudly when I decided to follow my dreams to become a singer: again I had to talk to him very firmly. My journal revealed how he had been empowered through the treatment I received as a child. The message I got from my parents and teachers was to keep quiet and be invisible; this did not help me to become a creative writer or singer. At school, I was once sent away from the chorus for allegedly being tone-deaf (though the problem was actually my shyness).
These rejections affected me deeply. As I grew up, I began to think of myself as “staccato,” a musical term that meant “with each sound or note sharply detached or separated from the others.” I didn’t feel that I expressed myself in a way that flowed naturally, so I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t speak out, let alone sing out. As I progressed through elementary school, high school, and college, I excelled at solitary tasks that did not require me to speak out loud. My Inner Critic told me to keep quiet and I obeyed his commands.
Journaling enabled me to break this pattern and cast aside the negative self-image I’d developed. Remarkably, I became a singer despite the many discouragements I’d suffered as a child. As you’ll see in Chapter 5, the daily practice of journaling led me to take the first step in this once-scary direction – and then the next step and the next. With the help of my journal, I committed to the daily practice that learning to sing well entailed.
Of course, that meant listening to my voice (oh, yuck!). I taped all of my voice lessons and forced myself to pay attention to. In time, I learned how to treat myself kindly and gently and discovered how relaxing, breathing and drinking water not only made me a better singer, but a far less wrinkled one!
Now if I’m honest, it’s taken years to tame my Inner Critic. It wasn’t an overnight victory. But it’s all happened through journaling. Through writing every day, I’ve learned to live in the present moment. I’ve cleared out the old messages that seemed to be stuck deep in the cells of my body. Managing my Inner Critic was a huge part of my journaling practice for many years and I continue to grapple with him on a regular basis.
As you start your journaling practice, don’t let your Inner Critic get the better of you. In the next section, I’ll explain how the Inner Critic develops and how you can keep him under control.
It’s good to be aware of the Inner Critic right from the beginning of your journaling journey. Some people have more trouble than others with this interfering entity, but pretty much everyone will experience his voice some of the time.
Right now you could be thinking: “The whole journaling idea is probably a waste of time because I’m not really a writer,” or “I doubt journaling will change my life: it seems a bit of a hippie thing to do.” These thoughts create resistance to the whole process, and that’s typical of the Inner Critic. As soon as you try something a little bit different, he goes off on a tirade.
So let’s unmask him and put him in his place!
Psychotherapist and writer Dennis Palumbo defines the Inner Critic as “the persistent, sometimes harsh and almost always shaming ‘voice’ that belittles or invalidates your work.”
It is, of course, part of you, a component of your psyche that manifests almost as a sub-personality of who you are. It’s linked to your ability to make judgments, discern your likes and dislikes, and form opinions so that you can make decisions.
The Inner Critic developed as soon as you had language skills and could understand your parents’ comments, particularly when they used the word “no” and rebuked you. You internalized these comments and began to hear their “no” even when they were not physically present. If your parents were often critical, then your Inner Critic became a powerful negative voice in your head, forbidding certain thoughts and behaviors. If your parents were very positive and encouraging then you may have experienced it far less. But the Inner Critic isn’t just a product of your family upbringing – teachers and other authority figures, and the wider society you grew up in, were all influential in its development.
HEALING MEDITATION FOR YOUR SOUL
This is one of my favorite passages in “Know Your Soul: Bring Joy To Your Life” by Diana Muenz Chen.
People have expressed a range of experiences when contacting their Soul. They commonly report that their Soul feels expansive and is full of light. You might feel larger than usual. With this expansion, you can also feel spacy—your brain is temporarily not functioning in a logical manner.
You may have a clairvoyant inner experience where you see strong gold or white light on your mind screen. After a Soul meditation, sometimes people think a lamp was turned on during the meditation. It was actually their Soul’s light that they clairvoyantly saw. If you’ve already had conscious contact with your Soul, it is good to strive for clarity in the connection so that you can receive clearer guidance.
In a focused meditation, imagine your mind in the background simply watching what your Soul is doing, without your mind interfering. Have your ego be an observer. Allow the flow of wisdom from your Soul and try not to interfere with that flow. This will open you to clear communication from your Soul. To deepen your spiritual growth, ask your Soul important questions to stimulate the response of Soul wisdom.
You can develop a conscious relationship with your Soul, which usually takes practice. Focused meditation helps to expand your energy and contact your Soul and consists of focal points that keep your mind and energy on task. For example, a focused meditation can enable you to open each chakra, expand your PEF and hold the intention of contacting your Soul. A meditation that is not focused can be one where you might space out without any direction or intention. It is imperative to have a strong, clear intention to connect with your Soul.
Your intention will direct your energy to contact the Soul level. A daily focused meditation to connect to your Soul builds your spiritual strength and clarity of purpose. In addition, it calms your mind, relaxes your body, and steadies your emotions. This state prepares you to interact more clearly with your Soul. When you are calm, it is easier to sense the connection with your Soul and to enable meaningful interactions.
Consider your actual physical space first. Find a quiet, uncluttered area in your home, the woods or a sanctuary where you can sit comfortably. You could set aside a room in your home reserved for meditation or create a special section in a room. If you reserve an area specifically for your meditation practice, you accrue beautiful energy there, which strengthens each time you practice.
— Let’s begin the focused meditation. Bring your awareness to the midpoint in your body and imagine a central passageway that goes straight through the center of your physical form—your Line of Purpose (LOP). This passageway allows light and energy to move through it, easily and effortlessly. Take slow, deep breaths and notice that inner passageway inside of you. This is your LOP—how your soul interacts with you.
Now Archangel Michael is going to come directly to you. Here are his directions:
As I work with this passageway, you will experience a deepening connection to your Soul’s energy. Again, stay relaxed and peaceful, and receive what I am about to give you as you notice. Stay relaxed and calm.
I will speak with you as I do this energy work. Your Soul is the activating factor in this lifetime for you. It has chosen this incarnation; it has chosen what issues you will work through; it has chosen people that you will meet and respond to in your life. It has given you the breath of life, bringing spirit into physical form, and has helped you to manifest yourself on the earth now. Your reasons for incarnating can be accessed through this passageway deep inside of you.
Take time to sense your Soul’s energy. Notice if there is anything you receive as guidance from your Soul…
BUILDING TRUST FOR A HAPPY BRAIN!
This is one of my favorite passages in “Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain Your Brain to Boost Your Serotonin, Dopamine, Oxytocin, & Endorphin Levels” by Loretta Graziano Breuning.
— Direct human trust always comes with the risk of disappointed expectations and feelings of betrayal. Those bad feelings built circuits that fire when you think about trusting again. Your neurochemical alarm bells ring and your brain presumes there’s a good reason. But if you give up on direct interpersonal trust, your brain feels that something is missing. And it is: Oxytocin is missing.
Start with small steps that don’t trip your alarm. Every time you feel good about an animal, a crowd, or a digital relationship, tell yourself “I am creating this good feeling.” It may sound silly or self-centered, but knowing that you are creating it gives it a chance to grow. There will always be reasons for distrust to grow, so a source of balance is precious.
Notice your trusting feelings from any source for forty-five days, and you will build a foundation that can ignite more.
Maybe there’s someone you want to trust, but you can’t bridge the divide. It’s good to know you can build trust with a long series of very small interactions. Individuals or groups with an unfortunate history cannot always wipe the slate clean all at once. Intermediate steps build trust gradually. The stepping stones can be placed so close together that neither party risks a big betrayal. Each step need only create positive expectations about the next step rather than resolve the whole problem. Each small experience of trust stimulates the good feeling of oxytocin, which connects neurons that help trigger more.
Divorce lawyers use this strategy to help a couple reach agreement. You might try it with that person who is “ruining your life.” Initiate a very small interaction, and if that proceeds without disaster, do it again. The goal is not to trust blindly and get disappointed. The goal is to build positive expectations.
Coexisting without trust is bad, but getting burned again is worse. So instead of taking a leap of faith with that crazy neighbor or the coworker who stabbed you in the back, you can find steps that are comfortable. For forty-five days, craft reciprocal exchanges that build stepping stones toward trust with difficult people. You can’t predict the results since you can’t control others. But you will expand your sense of control over the trust bonds in your life. This is hard work, and it may not feel good in the short run. But in the long run, it builds confidence that you can do something about those thorns in your side.
You might start by just making eye contact with that person who’s making your life difficult. The next day, you could comment on the weather, and add a smile the day after that. It could take a week to build up to a shared chuckle about traffic, and even that may stir up bad feelings that are curiously strong. But you will continue making neutral contact—neither venting anger nor rushing to please. In forty-five days, you will have built a new shared foundation. You may always need to limit your trust in this person, but you will be able to relax in his presence the way gazelles relax in a world full of lions.
Oxytocin works both ways. When other people trust you, it feels good whether or not you trust them. You can enjoy more oxytocin by creating opportunities for people to trust you.
— Natural selection rewarded those who fanned out from familiar turf. In the animal world, young males are often ousted from their natal groups, or they leave on their own initiative because they’re excluded from mating opportunities. They experience huge cortisol stress when they leave their trust networks for parts unknown, according to excretory samples taken in the wild. This stress intensifies when a new troop rejects them. But the seekers don’t give up. They keep trying to build trust bonds, because it feels great when they succeed.
GUIDED BY LOVE
Here is one of my favorite passages in “Transformations of The Sun” by BethAnne Kapansky Wright.
Soul callings can be messy, let me be clear. Answering a calling of the soul is likely to pluck you out of one life to place you in another. It is likely you will be forced to make a break from who you once were in order to become who you need to be. Not everybody is going to go with you on this journey—in fact, there will be many you leave behind, and that will be painful. But many only see things through a one-dimensional lens, and so they don’t understand your deeper journey or your deeper path; in fact, they may reject the journey and mock the path.
Soul callings will leave you wandering in the wilderness. Going through many dark nights of the soul. Things will not be neat or square and certainly not linear. Mistakes will be made, failures will happen, messes frequent; illumination and resolution and direction can be a long time coming. But despite all of this, despite all the doubts and confusions and “where is this going” and questions of your own sanity—you will feel compelled by something inside of you.
You will feel drawn to the light and drawn to the mysteries. Drawn into a deeper relationship with the universe itself. Drawn into a deeper relationship with Love. You will seek more and crave more and find you are not satisfied with one-dimensional reality; that in fact you are seeking a multidimensional life of creativity, connection, and relationship. Seeking deeper truth and knowledge and wisdom that can only be gained through living it. Seeking to serve and heal and shine and be a transcendent light. And that is why you have to pass through so much darkness. Those who shine the brightest didn’t get that way from living life “right” and being “good,” or being perfect and having everything add up on paper.
Those that shine the brightest have usually walked through fires so strong they burned away all that wasn’t real. They have descended into internal hells so dark, they didn’t believe they’d find their way out. They have fallen into abysses and grand canyons of soul pain so deep they scarce knew how to traverse and ascend the terrain. They have made hard choices. They have made leaps of faith. They have been asked to trust when they couldn’t see the way. They have been asked to
bring love and healing into spaces that didn’t look very lovable or healable. They have been purified. Sanctified. Set aside. They have been stretched, broken, grown, shifted, transmuted, transformed, and transfigured throughout the course of their experiences. And they are the ones—from all backgrounds, all creeds, all colors, all beliefs—who have been called to be the healers and light-workers and game-changers and compassion-makers and consciousness-awakeners and way-showers of this world.
They are the ones who have been called to the cause of LOVE. And so as difficult as it may be—they know they can trust their path, and they know they have to trust their path. Because what has been touched by LOVE and blessed by LOVE and claimed by LOVE and guided by LOVE—can never be lost and never be ripped asunder.
BEING OF SERVICE TO HUMANITY
Here is one of my favorite passages in “Ancient Wisdom for Reality Creators” by Tony Samara.
The miracle of life and enjoying all its abundance leads humanity to a creative reflection that deepens our experience of this wondrous miracle. This miracle is so often forgotten because of the thoughts and feelings that well up and color the simplicity of each moment and its unique gifts. To savor these gifts it is essential to remember that our desires for more, or something different, or something special, is often camouflaging the very essence of what feeds our heart, what enriches our experience, what deepens our feelings and what centers our thinking back to a sense of gratitude and love. Live simply and appreciate this simplicity by appreciating what is, what you have and who you are, thus allowing this moment to be savored in its completeness. Let's live life rather than chase the idea of life!
How to touch and expand the joy that is our essence but that is often veiled by the mundane and its demands on our time?
Joy is not static, or a place, or even a goal but rather, like art and music, multi-faceted, uncontainable and expansive. The way to experience joy is unique to each individual, yet the core of joy is a shared experience that makes us human and part of an alive participating adventure. Simply put, joy is only understood through the expansion of consciousness. This is when we glimpse what it means to be expansive. Most of us, due to a thousand and one reasons, focus on the lacks, limitations and problems.
These lacks, limitations and problems are so real that they demand all of our attention and from this space we struggle to find the real joy of each moment. Many feel that by resolving what seems to be a block or hindrance for their expansion then expansion will happen miraculously. I see it differently.
What we want is what we need to be!
An oak tree starts as an acorn but it has no doubt that it will fulfil its destiny as a tree. Most of us don't even believe that possibilities and potential are real as our experience sabotages our expansion and holds us in the mud of daily living. The sky, the light, the beautiful stars seem to come from a different world and seem totally out of reach. This leads to depression as we no longer believe in our destiny or even see the light. One of the most important steps to reawaken who we really are is to be of service to humanity.
By being of service to humanity rather than to our perceived needs, we remember in our actions the true meaning of love. Love is expansive. As we expand with this service so does our focus expand, freeing our attachment to the mud, so that we are harmoniously in touch with the Universe. It is not a difficult journey if put into action, but it does seem impossible when one uses the present contracting situation as a limitation to what is possible, and hence why many of us are not able to expand.
I ask you strongly during these intense times not to focus on yourselves or your needs, or the problems, or the lack of joy, or what could be better. No matter how present they seem, please focus on what it means to serve others and as you begin to see the light in every being there is no doubt in my mind that the light within will help the acorn that is in each of us to reach up and open to this new and beautiful expansive experience and hence open up to the joy of life. This is what is asked of us during this special time. It is up to each of you to put this into practice rather than to just meditate upon the beauty of my words. The world needs more trees.
CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE THIS BOOK ON TONY’S WEBSITE.
WHAT IS THE ROOT CAUSE OF OVERWHELM?
Here is one of my favorite passages in “Fully Whelmed: Shifting from Overwhelm to Overflow” by Lisa Dettinger.
What is the root cause of overwhelm? We like to blame our circumstances. We feel overwhelmed by too much coming at us. The deluge keeps pouring over us and filling us up with more than what we can hold, more than what we can control. For example:
• I am too busy.
• This person is too overbearing.
• I am in too much physical pain.
• This is too difficult for me.
• There is too much injustice here.
• I am too confused.
• I have too many bills/my expenses are too high.
• There is too much clutter in my house.
• I weigh too much.
• I have too many problems.
• I have too many responsibilities.
• My (boss) expects too much of me.
• I am too tired.
• My kids are too unruly/disrespectful/messy.
• My (friend’s) emotions are too strong for me to handle.
• This temptation is too great.
• There is too much sadness in my world/ the world.
• This process is going too slowly/too quickly.
• I have too many decisions to make.
• My sorrow is too deep.
• I feel too lonely.
• I am too weak.
There is a dramatic irony with overwhelm. Overwhelm makes us feel as though there is too much of something. In reality, we are experiencing a scarcity mindset. Check out the scarcity that is reflected in the following statements. (Note: all the statements reflect a possible negative thought pattern. That doesn’t mean they are true!)
• Too busy = not enough relaxation time
• Someone is too overbearing = not assertive enough
• Too much pain = not enough comfort
• Too difficult = not easy enough
• Too much injustice = not enough fairness
• Too much confusion = not enough understanding
• Too many bills = not enough money
• Too much clutter = not enough organization
• Weigh too much = not healthy enough
• Too many problems = not enough solutions
• Too many responsibilities = not enough capacity
• Someone expects too much of me = not able to do enough for them
• Too tired = not enough sleep/rest
• Kids too disrespectful = not enough respect
• Emotions too strong for me = not enough stability
• Temptation too great = not enough self-discipline
• Too much sadness in world = not enough happiness in the world
• Process too slow/too fast = not enough patience/not enough acceptance
• Too many decisions = not enough wisdom
• Sorrow too deep = not enough joy
• Too lonely = not enough companionship
• Too weak = not strong enough
— We all have different levels of overwhelm. Some of us know our canoe can hold a great deal of water before it becomes overwhelmed. Others of us begin anticipating overwhelm with just a few splashes of water. Or before we’ve even gotten into the canoe.
Regardless of our capacity, we see the water rising and feel as though there’s nothing we can do about it. Our canoe is being overwhelmed. This is where we get to choose to be defeated or surrendered in our overwhelm.
If we start to feel the canoe sinking from the onslaught of rushing water (we feel the stress, strain, sorrow, or anxiety becoming more than we think we can handle), we can hopelessly sink with it (allow it to bring us down completely) or we can intentionally get into the water, find the intimately whispering peace that God offers, and whelm (experience a surge rising up from us).
Staying in defeated overwhelm is just as hopeless and helpless as believing we’re sinners at our core. We are not hopeless and helpless sinners. We’re saints with the power of the Living God at our core. We have the Life Jacket within us!
Rather than white-knuckling our experiences looking for an escape or a rescue while the water rushes in, we can actually get into the water with our Life Jacket, set our feet upon the Solid Ground beneath us, and whelm from what (Who) is inside us rather than be defeated by what’s outside us.
CREATING INNER FREEDOM IN YOUR LIFE
Here is one of my favorite passages in “Better Than You Think: Developing Awareness for a More Fulfilling Life” by Robert Commodari.
What is inner freedom and what does it feel like? It’s a feeling of knowing things are going to be okay no matter what happens in your life. It’s a place of calm in your heart, a place of peace and contentment. When you are aware of these moments, and you no longer have moments of anxiety no matter the circumstances in your life, you can experience inner freedom.
What would it be like to live a life of freedom? Freedom to be not only what you want to be, but who you are supposed to be. Bigger yet is the awareness that this possibility exists. That is one of the toughest goals to which anyone can strive. If you could be free of all the junk that clutters your mind, imagine the life you would live.
People tend to believe inner freedom is this place of bliss and glee that looks beautiful and easy, and although it can be that, it’s a grind to get there. You don’t just wake up one morning and say, I have inner freedom now! It takes hard work. And it starts with surrendering.
You might think I’m crazy right now, but think about it. In general, when people think about the word “surrender,” they think about throwing up the proverbial white flag. They think it’s giving up or giving in. Most of us think of it as surrendering from something. You have to think counterintuitively. By surrendering, you aren’t giving up, you are going with the flow. You are not fighting the current. And when we go with the flow things seems to come with a little more ease. However, it takes discipline to get there.
I think of setting and accomplishing goals. You can’t set a goal and haphazardly get there. You have to have discipline to do what’s required to get there. The word discipline sounds restrictive and on the surface maybe it is. But when you have discipline and you achieve the goals you set out to achieve, you will feel a sense of freedom. I talked earlier in the book about losing weight and when people would ask me how I did, I would tell them I was on the discipline diet. It takes discipline to be good at something or to achieve something.
When thinking of finances, the word budget comes to mind. People see a budget as restrictive also, but if you have the discipline to stick to a budget (if you restrict yourself now) you will have financial freedom later. It’s counterintuitive. People budget their money and their time more than anything else, and they do this to gain a sense of freedom.
So I take you back to surrender. It takes discipline to stay on the road of surrender long enough to find that sense of inner freedom we’re all after. And when you’re on that road, you don’t feel like you have any control, but you do. You live life with an open hand and an open heart. You’re not holding on to things tightly and this, again, gives you a sense of freedom.
You can develop the skill of surrendering over time by practicing, and the life you lead right now is already the perfect practicing ground. Things come at us all day long. We have fires to put out and issues to resolve all the while trying to make a living, raise a family, and pay the bills. Surrendering to this reality is a way to create inner freedom in your life.
When a situation comes at you, see it for what it is and practice surrendering—in other words, just go with it. As you become more aware in general, you can discipline yourself to be especially aware of the moments that you could surrender to. You might not want to surrender, but after contemplating the situation and the outcomes (surrendering versus fighting it), surrendering is usually the better option. Begin today to learn the art of surrendering and soon you will experience inner freedom at a deeper level.
THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY: LOVE AND HARMONY
Here is one of my favorite passages in “Merlin and the New Camelot: The Birth of Collective Christ Consciousness” by Alison L. James
What has been so misunderstood is that Jesus came to teach man to embrace his own Divine presence, to realize that he is Spirit in form. He taught that to know his God was to know our God. He did not come to place himself above man, nor to start a “religion,” but rather to establish the way of the heart in man on the path to higher consciousness through Love and Compassion.
Jesus said: He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. ~ 1 John 4:8 Among the quotations of Jesus, the Bible records many parables that he spoke describing the “Kingdom of Heaven,” i.e., the spiritual realms.
The parables were illustrations to facilitate an understanding of ideas and concepts in common language and allegory. The stories surrounding Camelot performed a similar function in that they helped people to grasp higher ideals. For example, Jesus said: The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. ~ Matthew 13:31-32
We can understand from this parable that a man’s thoughts, like a seed, may grow from small beginnings. Eventually the birds of the air, namely the “messengers of Divine Mind,” may rest in a fully grown tree. We can interpret the “messengers” to be the higher thoughts or standards of the spiritual realms, or the Ascended Masters and Christed Beings who embody these Truths.
In other words, man may find intrinsically within himself the consciousness that resonates with the Higher Truths of Divine Mind. This higher level of consciousness can be achieved not only within man as he reaches for it, but also established all about him. When man aligns his thoughts with the Higher Truths of Source, then his outer manifestations will be in harmony with the Universal Order. This is the foundation we seek in the New Golden Age, The New Camelot on Earth. When our collective consciousness embraces this awareness, what a magnificent world we can create here together!
In December of 2009, I was blessed to be able to speak directly to the consciousness of Jeshua (Hebrew for Jesus) himself in a channeling session. His gentleness and openness evoked a tremendous rush of love, awe, and wonder within me. His loving presence and energy were palpable. He spoke in a very natural, unaffected manner, as if he were any man you would meet on the street. His relaxed and direct way of speaking allows for easy assimilation of his words. His humility is powerful.
That evening he seemed to me to be “transparent” and so very present, not living in the past. He spoke openly and clearly about his life then and said that the length of time of his suffering was a gift compared to the prolonged death suffered by so many souls on Earth. It was apparent how aware he is of all things of an earthly nature and the human perspective. Of course, his consciousness has evolved beyond that which he demonstrated during that particular physical lifetime and still, two thousand years later man has yet to walk in the Truth of his teachings given at that time. Avoidance is futile; now it is time for man to evolve at the emergence of this New Age, The New Camelot. How blessed are we that the Masters are demystifying so much for us as the dimensional veils are thinning.
Traditionally, we have sought and followed the leadership and presence of teachers and Avatars on Earth to show us how to follow the spiritual path. We may have known in former lifetimes what we know in our hearts to be true now. We may have encountered all manner of persecution and resistance to expressing our Inner Truth, but that time is past. We may each step out and embrace the energies of Love that will transform us now. It is not all about one man, but rather “all men” and it begins with you. You may transcend your past and be the Love and Light that lies on the inside of you.
ENERGY FLOWS WHEN WE LAUGH!
Here is one of my favorite passages in “The Transformation Promise: A Book About Love, Healing And The Flow Of Life” by Johanna Derbolowsky.
Energy must flow, it cannot be stagnant and stay alive. When we try to control our world or our lives, we are going against the nature of being. Only our structures are rigid and beg for control. But life is a mystery. We do not know what will happen tomorrow or the next moment and we don’t even know if we will be here to enjoy it. We often get caught up in trying to predict the future and acting according to the most possible control we can get. Big industries have been created around control. The insurance industry tells us that we will be fine and taken care of if we subscribe. Wall Street analysts try to predict the future and so do psychics. The information obtained may be right or wrong but the important thing is that no matter how much security and control we seek or pretend to hold, that kind of security is nothing but illusion.
Now I am not recommending you cancel your retirement fund and insurance, they are helpful structures just like homes are good shelters, but they are not dependable, they are temporary. What I am asking you to do is to see it for what it is: a good tool. When people come to me and say they want security, I recommend they move into the highest security prison they can find. It is the most predictable environment to live in. But even there, they would be unprotected from natural disasters, illness or death. Plus I doubt that any of you want to spend the rest of your lives in that kind of environment. What is constant, what is predictable is the flow of motion. How it will flow and where it will flow, we don’t know. But that it will flow is guaranteed.
Imagine you are watching water, tar and light flow over a distance towards you. Immediately you know which will reach you first according to how fast each one moves. Light is by far faster than the others and water is still much faster than heavy tar. Life-force-energy is also affected by its consistency.
The lighter we keep things, the easier it is to flow. I always recommend a good sense of humor and not to take yourself too seriously. I am sure you have heard the saying that laughter is the best medicine. That is because energy flows fast when we laugh. There is so much more to the universe than we know and understand, it is always expanding and challenging us with new riddles to solve and things to discover. Because of life’s unknowns it has been my experience that the universe always has the upper hand.
When I am dead set on an answer or have an unwavering opinion, something often happens to challenge that answer, that viewpoint, or outlook. And in the end, it is not the answer or point of view but the ever-expanding movement forward that makes life worth living. Challenges present themselves to propel us forward and keep us alive.
If you were on a beautiful tropical island, enjoying everything you could possibly want and a voice inside you told you to get up and do something that would cause you discomfort and challenge your core, you would ignore it, or at best say I will do it later. But what if moments later a hurricane approaches and shakes you out of your comfort and you are faced with challenges? Instantly you become much more open and listen to that voice for possible solutions. This is the universe’s way of nudging us forward, giving us the opportunity to shift. And the truth is, there is no way to control the nature of flow. The only control you have is how well you navigate it.
UNDERSTANDING AND IMPROVING FOOD CHOICES
Here is one of my favorite passages in “Whole Person Integrative Eating: A Breakthrough Dietary Lifestyle to Treat the Root Causes of Overeating, Overweight, and Obesity” by Deborah Kesten and Larry Scherwitz.
Our research revealed that being overweight and obese may be the visible manifestation of years of overeating, but for many, overeating often first begins in the mind — meaning, with the thoughts you think that lead to emotions you feel; soul — whether you live with a consciousness of heartfelt gratitude, mindfulness, and loving regard...or not; and whether you eat while surrounded by satisfying, supportive social connections...or not. In other words, overeating and ensuing weight gain are about more than calories in, calories out. They are influenced by the state of your psyche and spiritual and social dimensions.
Most of us are familiar with the phrase “emotional eating,” turning to comfort food to soothe negative feelings such as depression, anxiety, or anger, but also sometimes to enhance joyous, celebratory feelings in response, let’s say, to a birthday or promotion. If you often experience out-of-control eating to manage your feelings and to self-soothe—in other words, for reasons other than having a healthy appetite—it’s likely you’re an emotional eater.
If you are, this matters a lot to you and your weight, because out of the seven overeating styles Larry and I identified, Emotional Eating surfaced as the strongest predictor of overeating—and the number-one contributor of weight gain. Indeed, although all seven overeating styles are significantly linked to overeating and becoming overweight and obese, Emotional Eating was leaps and bounds ahead of the others as a predictor for overeating and weight gain.
Another powerful insight is this: Emotional Eating is just a nose length ahead of the Fast Foodism overeating style in predicting obesity. Put another way, the two overeating styles of Emotional Eating and Fast Foodism are the strongest drivers of overeating and becoming overweight and obese.
Shedding still more light on this overeating style is the family of negative emotions we identified that are strongly linked with the likelihood of an emotional-eating episode. Here they are, ranked from highest to lowest: anxiety, frustration, depression, anger, and sadness. And though it’s not exactly an emotion, we define “food cravings” as the sixth negative emotion in the Emotional Eating overeating style. Think of these negative emotions like genes shared by close siblings. If you experience one emotion, such as depression, you are also more likely to experience other emotions such as frustration, anxiety, or anger.
With yet another twist of our statistical kaleidoscope, we gleaned insights into improvements emotional eaters made—in both overeating and weight loss—after they completed my six-week, eighteen-lesson e-course on Whole Person Integrative Eating.
Our key finding: the combination of reducing negative feelings and improving food choices were the strongest predictors of how much weight people lost. In other words, feelings and food choices are key factors in controlling weight.
CREATING NEW BELIEFS — ASKING BETTER QUESTIONS
Here is one of my favorite passages in “Your Unique Style of Fit” by Audrey Pullman:
Beliefs are the blueprint – the software – of the unconscious mind. Focus aligns the energy field of the brain, and repeated focus rewires the brain. In this way, belief becomes an anatomical reality. Beliefs determine what we will or won’t do. What we believe – the meaning we feel certain will come from situations – determines how we behave and what we will do. You are not ready for a thing until you believe you can acquire it.
Belief can be inscribed by affirmation or repeated instructions to the unconscious or subconscious mind. Repetition of affirmations to your unconscious mind is a powerful method of voluntary development of belief. Any thought that is repeatedly passed on to the unconscious mind is finally accepted. This is as true for wealth accumulation as it is for other consistent repetitions such as crime.
There are basically two types of beliefs:
1— Global Beliefs. “Life is…” “People are…” “I am…” Each affects the way we look at and interpret things and their meaning.
2 — Rules. Cause and Effect Beliefs “If, then” “If this, then that.
We have brain algorithms of behavior, emotional, and attachment.
Your state of mind – the particular software program you use – determines the meaning you attach to a stimulus. The meaning you attach then determines your behavior.
There are two primary ways to regulate your state of mind: Physiology and Focus.
— Physiology: How you use your body to change your body and your biochemistry-to change your state of mind. There are three primary tools: relaxation, deep breathing, and meditation.
— Focus: What and how you direct conscious attention. From quantum physics and the brain: you get what you focus on, not what you want. Focus aligns your energy field. What you focus on, or what you pay attention to, determines your state of mind. Our minds work by consciously selecting the one focus that we want to register at any moment. By holding this one thing in conscious awareness, we give relative inattention to everything else.
This means that we have an immediacy bias: we assign undue weight to whatever we pay attention to at the moment.
The questions we ask determine what we focus on. Questions direct the focus, and therefore, determine the state we are in. If you have a habitual feeling you don’t like, it can come from a repeated focus and questions: Why does this always happen to me? The presupposition is that you are in a passive position and ineffective. Why am I overweight? The focus is on overweight.
The quality of your life can be influenced by the quality of the question you ask daily.
Change the questions. Ask a better question.
You are asking questions from the moment you wake up, although you may not be aware of them. If you immediately began asking, “What can go wrong today?” You have already begun a scenario that establishes a negative state of mind. Another bad question: “Can I really do this?”
Your brain follows your focus, whether that is positive or negative. Ask questions habitually that empower you. Ask a better question. Instead of “What might go wrong today?” ask “What will I create today that will be more powerful than I ever dreamed of?” “And have fun doing it?” Instead of “Why am I overweight?” Ask “What can I do today for better nutrition and physical shape?”
THE FREEDOM TO CHOOSE
Here is one of my favorite passages in “My Dog is More Enlightened Than I Am” by Maureen Scanlon:
A common thread among humans: to fight for what is right! The only problem is that what is right for me is not necessarily right for you. Herein lies the rub, trying to convince each other that our view is the right one. What we believe is right comes directly from our values—the deepest level of our subconscious programming.
This is how we spend our thoughts and how we evaluate our thoughts. It is also from our perception and experience up to the minute. Perception is the interpretation of our experiences, which are always subjective and never objective.
Our experiences are processed three ways: through deletion (leaving out details that are irrelevant), distortion (seeing through our belief system), and generalization (categorizing).
In the teachings of Abraham Hicks, Esther Hicks states that our connection to our higher (spiritual) self is strongest when we arrive in our physical bodies. That means we haven’t “forgotten” who we really are.
The difficulty is holding on to that throughout our lifetime. Through all of the difficulties, situations, and conflict, we are told, shown, and we witness that it’s easiest to comply since that makes those around us most happy. Then eventually we come to realize that we are not happy making others happy.
The need to separate yourself in a competitive way will keep you out of your own happiness. People will always try to get you to see things from their vantage point. This is an impossible task. We will never be able to see things from other’s views; we can only evaluate based on our separate, individual journeys.
When you are in alignment, there will be many around you who do not understand, who will feel that you represent who they are failing and how they are not in touch with who they really are. The beauty of this is if you are staying in your place of joy, those who are not will slowly fade or separate from you. The energy and vibration you are sending will be uncomfortable.
“You will not rendezvous with negative thinkers unless you are one.” —Abraham Hicks
From this, there will be two different types of people: those who seek to remember who they really are and set out to find their happiness and pursue what feels good. And the others reprocess negative outcomes and feelings and stay stuck in a cycle of not knowing their true potential.
ALLOWING LIFE TO UNFOLD WITH EASE AND GRACE
Here is one of my favorite passages in “Go In Joy! An Alphabetical Adventure” by Joy Resor:
Admittedly, the concept of allowing is newer for me. I come from a dear line of perfectionists and controlling souls who aren’t big fans; they want things a particular way. Truth be told, they create lots of drama which gives me emotional pain, the part of my journey calling me into the peace and joy I radiate.
My parents aren’t healed into whole, serene beings, coming from parents who aren’t healed into whole, serene beings and on through our ancestral lineage. Can you relate? Are you an adult who grew up in a home of mood swings and unpredictability?
Allowing each person to be who he or she is in any moment is a gift to everyone present. In a sense, we’re witnessing the other or holding space for the other to be who they are. Allowing invites freedom into moments, which brings us to acceptance. The more I accept and love myself, the more I’m able to accept and love you, allowing you to be who you are.
How often do we allow life to be what it is, without needing it to be otherwise, without resisting what it is, by simply accepting the moment before us? When we’re driving along and we encounter a traffic jam, how do we react or respond? Do we get all tense and angry? Do we breathe and stretch? Do we pray the jam swiftly clears? Do we make a call? Have we left extra time to arrive where we’re heading? Are we running late again?
I’ve evolved from reacting as my family did to leaving extra time, allowing me to respond with a smile, knowing that the jam will clear, because I’m usually not trying to cram too many stops into my days. For the most part, I no longer run on adrenalin. I breathe into moments, activity and appointments, allowing life to unfold with ease and grace, as it does so well. Live into more allowing with others and moments.
How to Purchase it:
Please send an email to joy@joyonyourshoulders.com to purchase this wonderful book for a reduced price!
