Tanya M. Cooper’s Book Release – L.O.V.E. Live a Life Of Vibrant Energy

L.O.V.E. Live a Life Of Vibrant Energy:  Synopsis

In order to attract our inner most desires, we must learn to change the stories of our lives. These stories—which are often a result of messages that were planted within our subconscious minds when we were very young, have become ingrained within us—creating fear, worry and anxiety—which often act as obstacles in our lives.

L.O.V.E: Live a Life Of Vibrant Energy is a compilation of reflections, theories and practical applications that help people to understand their ingrained programming and ultimately equip them with the power to re-program their thoughts, words, actions and change the way in which they approach their world at large.

If you want to be free of your limiting beliefs and begin to live the life you’ve imagined, open this book and delve into the wisdom and secrets of your own subconscious mind and become no longer a slave to your thoughts, but their master! Thereby, attracting more love, prosperity and success to your everyday life.

What’s The Secret, The Power & The Magic All About?

For some people, reading self-help books and trying to decipher the messages and information from them may seem daunting, overwhelming or time-consuming and I understand that.  As a teacher and writer,  I am very blessed that I am able to read, digest and summarize a lot of what I read and then pass that on to others.

In fact, to save on time of re-reading many books that I find valuable; as I read them, I highlight the important points and write the key ideas and strategies I want to remember on note cards in order to have them on hand at a moment’s notice.

For this reason, I am attempting to summarize for many, what Rhonda Byrnes is exploring and postulating in her three books, The Secret, The Power and The Magic.  I am doing this not to suggest that one should not read these books  or to suggest that I can truly summarize all of the research, work and the writing process that went into completing and publishing these books; but I can simplify them for people who may not have had a chance to sit down and read them for themselves.

Here’s how I would summarize each one thematically in the most simplest of terms:

 

The Secret:  Faith – Desiring and asking for what it is you desire in life and believing you will receive it.

The Power:  Love – Harnessing the Power of Love which is to think, speak and demonstrate through your actions, the high vibrational level of love.  Love encompasses compassion, forgiveness and appreciation and is the highest vibrational word in our vocabulary.

The Magic:  Gratitude – thinking, speaking and being truly grateful for everything and everyone we have in our lives right now and for what it is we want to manifest in our life.

Essentially, Rhonda explains that how the Law of Attraction works in our lives is dependant upon the feelings of desire we have for things, the love we express towards the things we want and the gratitude we have.  All of these things – the level of desire, love and gratitude for who we are, people in our life and the things we have now, is what is attracting to us what we have  NOW.

If our desire is to attract better situations, people and things to our life, we must express desire, love and appreciation on a higher level through our feelings.  This, in turn, will lift us to a higher level of vibration which is the very thing that is essential in order to improve our “Law of Attraction” to bring to us the things we want.

One of the key elements to remember is that The Law of Attraction is always working in our lives – it doesn’t matter how our lives are now – we should not be fooled to think that it is not working.   Whatever and whomever we have been attracting to our life is based on the level of vibrational energy we have been expressing out into the world from our thoughts, words and actions.

What we must do – and this essentially is “The Secret” is lift our vibrational energy to radiate more love, more appreciation, and more compassion and then the things that we truly love, appreciate and have affection for, will begin manifesting and being magnetized (and multiplied) to us.

Over the past ten years, I have written, spoken and acted upon many affirmations.  What I have observed is that the ones in which I felt the most love and appreciation for, have generally always manifested and manifested fairly quickly in my life.  Situations and people for which I have felt frustration have generally manifested just that – more frustrating people and situations!  It is IMPERATIVE that when we think, say or act upon anything we are desiring in our life that we feel a feeling of love and appreciation for it.

I have, therefore began to revamp my thoughts and affirmations towards the things that I love.  How do I know I love them? When I think of them, I actually get either a rush, goose-bumps, excitement throughout my body or a squeezing around my heart.  I choose to focus on the things I really love because it is those things that I obviously am really desiring if I feel a stronger, positive vibration in association with them.

For example, while I am grateful (being appreciative is just as imperative to manifesting) for the car I have, I absolutely feel love (excitement) towards the BMW x3 and say so on a regular basis.  I also spend a great deal of time visualizing driving it!

Each day, I have been writing in my journal and  writing an email to myself of the 5 – 10 things I love or love to receive.  I am determined and faithful that these very things will manifest in some form or another in my life at some point, while I am doing this each day.

The wonderful thing about living our life in this manner is that each day we can awake with an excitement of what big and small things will manifest in our life and especially how they will manifest themselves.

It is always very cool and inspiring to affirm that I love fresh-cut flowers (you can be as specific as you want – even naming the type of flowers you love) and a few days later, being given flowers by a friend or stranger.

This not only demonstrates to us the power of our words, but it is a physical confirmation that we can attract and manifest the bigger things in which we desire in our lives.

The only disclaimer I can write about this is:  Whatever we do, if the flowers (or whatever it is we have stated that we love), do not turn up in the time-frame that we would like, we cannot lose faith!  As soon as we doubt or become frustrated because the things we desire, do not manifest in the time we want, and we say, “See, this Law of Attraction thing doesn’t work!” we repel those flowers or the very thing that might have been five minutes away from manifesting in our lives.

This sometimes can be the most difficult thing to remember and to live out in regards to the Law of Attraction.  The Universe, as soon as it hears our desire begins to conspire to make things fall into place in order for us to receive it; however, it also hears our doubts, fears and worries and these will serve to block the vibrational level of attraction.  We must remain single-focused on what we want and be adamant that we WILL receive it. We must not be adamant about the when or the how.

Next Post:  How do we relax and KNOW that the things we desire will manifest in our lives?

How to Attract Friends & Wealth: Kleem Meditation

What are the mantras Kleem and Shreem and how do they work to manifest and attract strong relationships and prosperity in our lives?

It is about manifesting what we want through vibrational sound.  If this seems strange to you – think of radio and television air waves. They work exactly the same way in that there is information that is transported via sound/air waves that produce sound and images through our radios and televisions.  In other words these sounds and images are manifested simply by using a sequence of vibrational energy.

We have the same ability through the vibration of our thoughts, words and actions to manifest things into the “physical realm” in our lives. Hence, when we use certain vibrational frequencies – that are so easy to learn and are so good for our well-being because they are part of a meditation – we have the same power to manifest and attract things in our lives.

The two most common meditations are: 

1.   Om Shreem Brzee = mantra for wealth and prosperity

2.  Om Kleem Brzee = mantra for attracting friendships or relationships that you desire

Om = the ultimate sound for all of Universal creation

Shreem = seed sound for the divine feminine associated with wealth

Brzee = sound associated with removing all scarcity from our consciousness

There are two ways in which to use these mantras:

#1:  Meditate on the chakras while you are doing these mantras – please see the video below for a very simple example of how to do this for either one of the mantras:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i1gyskFubw

#2:  Write the mantra out 108 times per day or have it done thousands of times per day via proxy (people in other countries can actually get paid to do this on your behalf and while it attracts these things to you exponentially, it also employs people – primarily women in third world countries that would normally have no other access to work or money).  Please view the video below for more information on this:

Video explaining Shreem and Kleem:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xGBxCOCAwQ

I’d love to hear from you when these things begin to manifest in your life!  Namaste!

Financial Freedom: Breathe Your Way to Success! Part 3 of 5

What does breathing have to do with our financial freedom?

Everything!
If you can, for one moment, imagine that money has the same characteristics as oxygen, the analogy I am about to discuss, will be much easier to understand.
We need oxygen to live. We do not have to create it, find it, discover it, work for it or pay for it. It is essential to life functioning and functioning well. It was here before we arrived via our birth and it will be here after we leave our physical bodies. The way in which we receive oxygen is also not our responsibility in that our subconscious minds are already programmed to cause our bodies – from the time we take our first breath until the time we take our last – to regulate when and how much oxygen we inhale and exhale without even having to give it a second thought.

What if we could get our minds around the idea that money – in its essence – which is simply energy, just like oxygen – is exactly the same way. Our conscious minds might have a difficult time accepting that like oxygen, we do not have to create money, find it, discover it, work for it or pay for it. It is also essential to life functioning and functioning well. It was here before we arrived via our birth and it will be here after we leave our physical bodies. The way in which we receive money is also not our responsibility in that our subconscious minds are already programmed to cause our bodies to regulate when and how much money we take in and give out without even having to give it a second thought.
Is this difficult for you to get your mind around?

Probably.
Why? Because we have been told, taught, programmed, lectured to regarding the fact that “money doesn’t grow on trees, it is not free, it needs to be created, earned, found, and worked really hard for!”
Our parents did not tell us this about oxygen or breathing because our parents knew from their experience that it was simply provided for us, no questions asked. We have an abundance of oxygen each and every day – never do we have to worry or fret about it – never have we been taught to worry or fret about it.
Imagine if this were true of money.
What if we had never been taught to worry or fret about it and we had known from the time we were born that it would be provided to us?

The only difference between those of us in abundance and those in lack is this belief. Whenever a person begins to choose to believe that money, like oxygen is their birth-right simply because they were born and given the exact same opportunities as any other human, they begin to allow and receive money easily, no questions asked.

Unfortunately, most of us – especially those of us who had parents or grandparents who grew up during the depression – were taught that money was lacking and that if we wanted to have any, we better work hard, save it, sometimes hoard it, and certainly not waste it on frivolous or fun things. This very belief is the very thing that has caused most of us to be lacking money at some point in our lives.
If we had been taught from birth that oxygen was not free and we had to work for it, we would most certainly be focusing on our breath, making sure we were breathing all the time and working hard at keeping ourselves alive. However, the entire time, our Divine Intelligence is more than happy to provide it for us, but because we insist on doing it for ourselves, It lets us.

We wouldn’t be able to do much else of course, but that’s okay, because at least we’d be alive.
Fortunately for us, our parents were not born into a world where oxygen was scarce or hard to find – one day, if we keep up with the consumeristic rat-race of producing things and having pollution as the by-product, our children or grandchildren may very well end up in a society that teaches just that: “For heaven’s sake, don’t waste oxygen by running around or playing or having fun – there’s barely enough to go around!”
This is what we’ve been directly or indirectly taught about money.
Let me ask you something: Why on earth would our loving Universal Intelligence be utterly generous when it comes to oxygen and the life-creating substance and then turn around and be stingy in other areas of our lives? It doesn’t make sense.

The Universal Intelligence does not waver in its abundance of the things we need and desire on this earth – it simply responds to our belief systems as an individual and a society. If we believe that money is hard to find; it will be. If we believe that we have to work really, really hard to earn it; it will let us do just that.
So how do we return to what we knew as babies – that everything we needed would be provided for us?
When we took our first breath we knew instantly what it was to have the life-giving gift of breath and we often take it for granted. The first thing we need to do is become aware of our breathing and demonstrate our gratitude for it – for oxygen and the ability to receive it.
30 second Breathing Exercise that could change your life:
Step # 1:  Take a deep breath in and as you breath, say: “Thank you for oxygen!” and when you exhale say: “Thank you for my ability to breathe!”

Step # 2: On the next breath, say: “Thank you for money (you can insert the word of your choice – prosperity, financial freedom, success, love)!” and when you exhale say: “Thank you my ability to receive it!”

Do this as many times as you can or become aware of your breath during the day!
Even if you are sceptical; even if you do not believe a word you’ve read, practice this exercise for 30 seconds whenever you can today and in the next few days. What have you got to lose?
What you have to gain is a great exercise in breathing which always relaxes us, slows our heart rate and sends endorphins throughout our entire system and perhaps, just like oxygen is always provided and in abundance, your financial health may begin to increase as well!

Next Post:  Financial Freedom:  Counting Our Blessings from 1-100

Prosperity: How to Recognize It! Part 5 of 5 Series

# 1:   We need to recognize that there is NO Universal Genie!

First of all, unlike what the book, The Secret teaches – there is NO Universal Genie!  There is however, a loving Divine, Universal Creator or Lifeforce that at ALL times, wants the very highest good for us.  Therefore, we must recognize that while asking for and desiring a million dollars to be dropped into our laps is not necessarily wrong – it may be wrong for our highest good, at least in the moment.

How do we put ourselves in a position to receive what the Universe does desire to bestow upon us? 

When we begin planting seeds for prosperity by writing and saying affirmations, we need to first look at our core beliefs about money and success.  The Universe (or God) gives us what we can manage – and manage well.  If we have not been that exceptional with money – either by not saving it or getting ourselves in debt – it is unlikely that the universe will send us a great deal of money all at once because in its infinite wisdom, knows that this is not the best thing for our spirit.  We also know this.

However, what it will do is respond to our desire for prosperity and abundance by immediately sending us small signs that it intends and desires to lavish us with abundance.

What we must do, however, is keep our eyes and ears open to these signs.

For example, abundance may begin to show up in our lives in many forms:

1.  A gift certificate from a friend

2.  A favourite item of ours that just happens to be on sale

3.  Several friends call us in one day and invite us somewhere

4.  Opportunities to make money suddenly begin to come our way

5.  Creative ideas begin to pour into our minds regarding how to make money

6.  A friend offers to buy us our lunch or dinner

7.  Someone comes into our lives just at the right time in order to carry out a favour or job that we don’t have the money for and they offer to do it for free or at cost

8.  We begin to find pennies or loose change every where we go

9.  We get a break on a bill payment or credit card payment out of the blue

10.  We are given a gift from someone

All of these are signs that we are in the flow of abundance and prosperity.  The problem with books like The Secret or any number of books that promise us that if we just do enough affirmations, the Universal Genie will show up and plop a million dollars in our laps is this:

# 1:  Our belief system – our core thoughts about money or whether we deserve or feel we are good stewards of money may be blocking us from this type of abundant gift at the moment.

#2: Secondly, it may be that we haven’t been that great at saving our money and so we truly do not believe we deserve or would be able to manage that amount of money just yet.

#3:  Thirdly, it may be our spiritual journey to earn that type of money through a creative idea of our own instead of simply being given it.

For example, if you have always wanted to step out and begin a business of your own and your fear has been holding you back – it is unlikely that a million dollars is going to be simply given to you.  What kind of spiritual growth comes from that?  It may be that the creative idea or business plan is given to you so that you can overcome your fear of stepping out into your dreams – and that is what earns you your first million.

The most important thing we must realize about our Divine, Universal Creator is that it knows what is best for us at all times and that it is NOT a genie – it is love and will bring to us what we desire in the form that is for our highest emotional, mental and spiritual good.

In the meantime, we must begin to recognize the first signs of abundance and to rejoice in them.  The more grateful we are in the small things, the more we will be bestowed with greater things.  We will also begin to trust ourselves more in regard to money, prosperity and abundance and this will begin to shift our core beliefs that perhaps we are not trustworthy or deserving of large amounts of money. 

If you want abundance in your life and you are given a five dollar gift certificate or find a penny on the street, rejoice.  If you want love and you are asked out on a date, rejoice.  If you want a job and someone offers you a chance to make money – even if its something you may not like, rejoice.  If you want new friendships and a stranger speaks to you on the street, rejoice.  All of these are the tiny buds that are coming to the surface.  We do not cut off the bud just because it isn’t yet the flower – nor do we curse at it and tell it, it’s not enough!  Rejoice in the small things and greater things will be given unto you!

I challenge you to begin not only repeating a mantra or mantras for what you desire as if you have already received it in the present, but also to create a vision board with pictures and words and cheques for exactly what you want and put it in a place that you look at or see every single day to remind you and your subconscious of the things you are already grateful for receiving from the universe!

Here are some examples of prosperity affirmations to get you started:

Mantra # 1:

I have more than enough money to pay all of my bills NOW and lots left over for fun and travel!

Mantra # 2:

I am in abundance NOW and am wealthy and prosperous and financially free to _____________________!

Mantra # 3:

Money is attracted to me and comes to me easily and effortlessly!

Next Post Series:  How to love ourselves THROUGH our mistakes!

Prosperity: Obstacles to Success – How to Overcome Them! Part 2 of 5 Series

Money, does in fact, grow on trees!

What obstacles get in the way of us manifesting the things we desire most in life?

In reality, only ourselves and our limited thoughts and beliefs can get in the way of us manifesting the things we desire.

Some of the obstacles are:

1.  Undeserving Belief:  We do not always believe we deserve what it is we are asking.

The only solution is to convince our psyches or our subconscious that we DO deserve these things.

How do we do that?

We simply form an affirmation that suggests it and begin to repeat it to ourselves daily and as often as possible.  At first, we do not always believe the affirmation.  This is why we have to say it repeatedly.  The areas where we already believe positive things are usually areas where we are having success.

It is necessary to repeat affirmations regarding areas that we are not having success because we are literally re-programming our neuro-pathways – our brain – to think and ultimately feel differently about our finances, love and health.  This ultimately brings about different and more positive results.  If we wish to accelerate this process, we can do mirror work, which can be very difficult at first but is highly productive.

What is mirror work?

We repeat affirmations to ourselves in the mirror.

Why is this effective?

It’s effective because we are faced with our true selves – our inner child if you will – who is the part of us who has the limiting beliefs.  Often as children we were told by our parents limiting statements regarding prosperity and money, such as “money doesn’t grow on trees, you know!”.

In regards to mirror work, you may want to begin with saying, “I love you _______” to yourself as many times as possible. It is even more effective when you use your first name.   If this is too difficult for you as we often do not truly love ourselves at the core, you could back up to where you are comfortable and say, “I am willing and open to loving you ________”.

After we begin to love ourselves, we can then progress to affirmations in the mirror that say,

” _________, you deserve to have the love, job, prosperity, dream house, and body you desire.”  Over time this will re-program our consciousness to believe these things and in time will bring about these manifestations we have been desiring.

2.  Discomfort:  We feel the discomfort of the last 500 metres and give up and throw away the paper or tape recorder with our affirmations on it (yes, I’ve done this!). 

This goes back to #1 in that we often meet obstacles or blocks in areas for a reason.  We want to blame circumstances or say that we “have no luck” or “this is the story of my life”.  These are the things that we absolutely have to refuse to say to ourselves.  Instead, we have to look within.

Everything that is going on in our lives, good and bad (remember bad is only a perspective) is a reflection of our inner-selves and beliefs.

For example, most people who have money issues have inherited long-standing beliefs about money.  They have received messages in their childhood, usually from their parents but not always, regarding money such as the aforementioned, “money doesn’t grow on trees“, or “money is the root of all evil.”  If we believe this, how is money or the energy around it suppose to respond to us?  It will avoid us like the plague.  If we said to a friend or partner, “you are the root of all evil” how long do we think this person would be attracted to us or want to stick around in our lives?

There are many limiting beliefs regarding finances.  Again, if you want to identify what is blocking you from prosperity or abundance in your life, simply look in the mirror and say, “My biggest fear about money is __________________” and notice what comes up.  Write it down and as much as you might resist it or not want to deal with it or face it, you must.  If we do not deal with our fears or limiting beliefs in areas of our lives, we will never be free to accept and receive the very things we desire.

3.  Indecisiveness:  We change our minds as to what we want, thinking that this will bring about “something” close to what we want.

An example of this, is vacillating between what we truly want and what we are willing to settle for.  For example, in a time when I was renting my house I had tenants that did not pay their rent for six months.  In awaiting their eviction, I vacillated between re-renting or selling my home many times.  Once they were finally evicted and I had my house back, I worked very diligently to clean it, paint it and put it back into the condition in which I had it before my renters took it over.  I was still undecided about whether I wanted to rent it again or sell it.  I had it on the market to sell for almost three months at that point, with no interest.  Well, no wonder.

I was sending mixed messages to the Universe as to what I truly wanted.  Single focus is very important in allowing ourselves to receive the things we want.  Once I saw my house restored to its original beauty I knew that I could not bear to rent it again only to have to restore it again.  I decided to sell.  I made up my mind.  Interestingly, during the first few days after I made my decision to sell, I had people come to view it during Open Houses and some mentioned that if I did not sell it they would be interested in renting it.  Curiously, I was open to that for a brief moment in time; mostly because meeting these people, I realized that there were responsible people out there that wanted to rent and would pay their bills.  However, these people were simply symbolic of that part of me that doubted I would sell it and thought, “Maybe I should rent it just in case I don’t sell it”.

What did I truly want at my core?  To sell it, to move on and bless someone else with it, while I re-focused my money somewhere else rather than continuing to pay its mortgage and utilities.  At that point, I firmly made up my mind to sell it.  I was determined.  I was single focused on one goal:  To sell my house and bless someone else with it in the meantime.

4.  Settling for Second Best:  We settle for less than what we want, not having enough faith to believe we can and will get exactly what we ask for. 

Which leads me to a very important point: If there are people in your life who negate what you think, believe or aspire to – these people do not share your positive energy and will most definitely create if not in your life, then in your own consciousness a seed of doubt which inevitably, despite our best efforts can lead to a full-fledged weed within our minds.  Avoid people like this.  Obviously people mean well and want to give you advice.  However, while humans cannot open certain doors that the Universe can; humans too can keep doors shut with their own minds that the Universe cannot open. Be wary of the company you keep and the thoughts that you entertain!

5.  Being the Victim:  We are stuck in negative patterns.

Even though we might say three affirmations a day for prosperity, we continue the rest of day thinking or speaking negative thoughts that negate the very positive ones we have worked on.  For example, we might affirm in the mirror that “we are in abundance and prosperity is coming to us from many different sources.”  Later that same day, however, we repeat negative phrases such as, “I can’t afford to go out for lunch” or “I have so much debt” or “I’ll never be able to afford that new car”.  Even insisting on shopping all of the time at discount or used stores sends a message to the Universe that we are in poverty and need to accept second-hand things.  There is nothing wrong with shopping at these places (I do it all of the time) as we may find a great treasure.

The problem exists when we only shop at such places and refuse to buy ourselves anything new or expensive.  Another obstacle lies not in our words but our actions.  For example, if we steal anything there is a strong message to the Universe that we cannot afford to buy things.  If we borrow or use the copier at work for personal items, it sends the same message.  We must live a life of the utmost integrity to send the utmost positive messages to the Universe that we can afford and believe we deserve the very best.  In the next blog I write about manifesting love and the obstacles in which we create for ourselves in that area.

Related Articles & Videos:

How to Attract Money:  http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Oliver2.html

Subliminal Conscious training to Attract Money: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dlw97AQyswc

Next Post:  Prosperity:  How to be Single Focused on What you Want! Part 3 of 5

10 Things Your Authentic Self Wants to Tell You: Speak Your Truth – Part 8 of 10 Series

Yoda would definitely encourage us to speak our truth….gently!

How many of us are afraid to speak our truth? Do we even know what our truth is?

Speaking our truth essentially means to express freely what we feel to be the best, healthiest and truest decision for ourselves regarding any and every situation with which we are faced.

For example, if someone asks us to do something and we really don’t want to do it, how often do we oblige this person, do what it is they are asking and then either mentally ruminate about how much we resent it or we express our displeasure verbally or through our body language to others and perhaps to the person who has asked us for help?

How many times, when someone is late or cancels on us or disappoints us in some way, we don’t bother to say anything, but all the while, hold onto anger or resentment towards this person?

How many times, when someone does something habitually to annoy us, pressures us to do something we don’t want to do, guilts us into doing something (the list goes on and on) do we keep quiet, but secretly become angry at this person or talk about them to others?

This is what happens when we are not speaking our truth; when we are not being true to our own needs, desires and preferences and care more about what people think of us than caring for ourselves.

Are there times when we need to sacrifice ourselves – our time, money, energy for the good of others?  Absolutely.  However, the problem is when we do it all of the time – we become chronic people pleasers and swallow our feelings of resentment and this almost always manifests itself in illness or gaining weight, eventually.

What are the signs we are not being true to ourselves and have failed to speak our truth?

1.  We feel angry, resentful or dread when we are about to do something.

2.  We are in a state of mental monkey mind – this is when we are going over and over what we would LIKE to say to this person, but we never actually verbalize it.

3.  When we find ourselves talking either about the person who has disappointed us in the form of gossip or complaining – or we are continually talking about how we have to do such and such for so and so and how unfair or what a pain it is.

4.  We develop colds, sore throats, toothaches – any illness to do with the throat or mouth is usually a red flag that we do not feel free to express ourselves and we are holding “infectious words” within us, instead of verbalizing them to others.

5.  We become gossips or are forever talking ABOUT someone rather than TO them.

6.  Our relationships begin to lack honesty or depth.

7.  We disempower ourselves and therefore feel weak or angry with ourselves.

8.  Eating disorders can develop – this is especially true of bulimia.  We literally “swallow” all of the unhealthy words or thoughts from others or ourselves and then regurgitate them back out in anger.

9.  Others sense our anger or resentment and avoid having social interactions with us.

10.  We actually create more separation from our Authentic Self and soon become almost deaf to our own needs and desires.

What does it mean to speak our truth?

It is when what we think, speak and act is in alignment with each other.  If we say yes to something, we make peace about it mentally and we do it.  If we say no to something, we mentally let ourselves off the hook – we do not allow guilt to develop and we stick to our “no” in our actions.  An example of this is when we begin dating and we tell our partner that we are not comfortable becoming intimate with them until three months have passed.  Then we speak and act according to what we have told the person.  If we sleep with them the next week (which of course all of us have gone back on what we’ve told someone at some point in our lives) we disempower ourselves and we never feel completely trustworthy in our own word – and neither will that other person.  My belief is, if you don’t think you can do it, then don’t say it!

Related Links:

Speak Your Truth http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Speak-Your-Truth_2

10 Things Your Authentic Self Wants to Tell You: You Don’t Have to Like Your Family! Part 7 of 10

Does your family make you want to pull your hair out?

Well, you’re in good company.  I have rarely talked to anyone who hasn’t, at one time or another, been frustrated with their family members.

Wayne Dyer says this about family: 

“Friends are God‘s way of making up for our families.”

How many of us have spent a lifetime trying to understand, get along with, make peace with, be understood by or simply communicate with our families to no avail?  How many us have been disappointed, hurt, frustrated, or completely exasperated with one family member or another?

Take it from me – I do understand. I am the youngest of seven siblings – and almost ten years younger than the ones next to me in age.  Essentially, I had the experience of growing up in a large family; and also as an only child.  With numerous personalities within one family, there will always be issues, disputes, and fights; sometimes knock-down, drag-out fights!

However, we need to look at our families differently; this has helped me a great deal.  It wasn’t until I realized that my family was less about people with whom I had to get along, have understand me or be extremely close to and much more about the spiritual and emotional work I have to do on this earth – in this physical journey.

In essence, we need to stop looking at our family members as people who should (there’s that word again – see my post on “Forget your Shoulds!”) be a certain way or understand us or be there for us.  Our family members are this:  Spiritual Bumper Cars.

Essentially, we are stuck in a perpetual game with them for this lifetime. 

Have you ever noticed the big poles to which bumper cars are attached?  There is a steering wheel within these small, colourful cars, but who are we kidding – we aren’t in control of those damn cars – not even our own!   We go along steering, trying in vain to either hit into the others or avoid them, and all the while, we really have no control at all – nor can we remove our car from the game.

Hence, this is how we need to think of our family members – especially if there is dissonance between us and them.  When we arrive on this earth, we have no control in which family we are born or what personalities the rest of them will have.  We spend almost our entire lives in this Bumper Car game with them – sometimes managing to move around them; sometimes bumping into them and having a good laugh and sometimes, we get hurt when we bump into them too hard or vice versa.

What’s the good news about looking at our family members this way?

It takes the pressure off of us to have some deep, meaningful relationship (if you do, that’s wonderful – but many do not) and we can see them more objectively as the people with whom we are meant to do our spiritual and emotional work during our journey here on earth.

In fact, I believe that we are meant to bump up, crash into and even get hurt by these people we call parents, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers and yes, even our own children.  They are our reflections and our work.  So, now you have permission to stop longing for them to change or understand them at every moment or even having a relationship with them at all.  Of course, it is never good to hold on to grudges or resentment – this poison only hurts us – not them.  If we need to forgive them, then we must do this for us – not them.

However, the next time you visit or spend time with your family members and you can view them as if in a game with a bunch of bumper cars around you, it may take a little pressure off and even be a little more fun during the experience.

If only when they bump into us and shake us to our core, could we laugh like we do in a game of good old bumpers cars!

Next Post:  10 Things Your Authentic Self Wants to Tell You – Speak Your Truth! Part 8 of 10

10 Things Your Authentic Self Has to Tell You: Go Have Fun! – Part 4 of 10

What do these children have to teach you?             Everything! 

One of my favourite exercises that allows us to not only get in touch with our inner child and understand who they are; but also allows us to reconnect with ourselves as adults and understand who we REALLy are, is taking the time to do two things:

1.  Find a picture of yourself (that you really like) when you were a child; enlarge it, frame it and put it somewhere you can see it every day!

2.  Communicate with this child on an on-going basis – everyday, if possible.

Finding the photo should be the easy part.

How do we go about communicating with our inner child and why should we even bother? 

The child that we once were, in its innocence and youth was the true core of who we were meant to be as adults.  Along the way, with school, peers, parents, teachers, authority figures telling us who we were and who we ought to be – we began to lose our connection with our inner child.  However, that child hasn’t gone anywhere!

He/She is within us, waiting for us to come out and play, if you will.    Similar to the Holiday Song, Frosty the Snowman, when he says, “Now don’t you cry, I’ll be back again some day!” we have said to our inner child.  However, how many of us have ever bothered to return to our inner child and went out and played with full abandonment?

We are like Frosty – no one believes that as adults we should dance and sing and play and be silly like children, but I’m here to tell you that we love this story because it is just that –  unbelievable and silly!

Have a look at the photos above of these young children.  What do you imagine would be their message to us as adults?  I encourage you to sit down as soon as possible and write a letter (or just a question or two) to your inner child and ask it what it would tell you about yourself:

1.  What qualities did you possess as a child?

2.  What did you love to do?

3.  What did you dream of becoming?

4.  What advice does he/she have for you about some situation in your life that you are at a loss about?

5.  What recommendation does he/she have for you in order to have more fun, joy and laughter in your life?

I have done this exercise and it works.  Just like John Lennon says, “There will be an Answer” if you take the time to talk and listen to your inner – Authentic Self, today! To get you into a more playful, open state, watch the video below!  It’s fun!

Frosty the Snowman (video and lyrics)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGDi8TqqeX8

Next Post:  The 5th Thing Your Authentic Self Has to Tell You!

F.E.A.R: Fighting Everyone And Regretting it – How to Respond – Not React! Part 3 of Top 5 Series

F.E.A.R.    Fighting Everyone and Regretting it!  (Reactionary Response)

Many of us make decisions or react out of fear in regards to a present situation because we are triggered by a memory – either consciously or subconsciously – of a past experience where we were hurt or offended in some way.

It is similar to when we have a wound or a cut that is in the process of healing; and someone comes along and bumps into us or pokes us in that exact spot.  We react involuntarily in order to protect ourselves.  Have you ever had someone say or do something to you and you react before you even realize what you are doing and you think to yourself, ‘why did that upset me so much?’  Sometimes we are aware of why we had such a reaction; and sometimes we just know that we are really hurt or really angry.

Many times, we have emotional wounds that were never addressed – usually from our childhood as we were not in a place to speak up for ourselves; nor was it safe to cry or get angry and so we either buried these hurts or these wounds scabbed over and left an indelible mark, but we do not think we carry this pain anymore because the scab has made that area numb to any more pain.

However, when it comes to emotional pain, it will continue to be triggered over and over again until we are able to face it and overcome it.  This is why we often attract similar people or situations to our lives; our subconscious is aware of the underlying hurt and it wants to be free of it and therefore sends out vibrational messages to the universe about the pain and inevitably attracts to us the very instances we need in order to finally heal.

An example:  If we had a parent who was emotionally neglectful and we are carrying pain from this – of feeling rejected – we will continue to attract the same kind of relationships to ourselves.  This is why there is so much advice to always look within in and not without.  In essence, it is not the other person we need to change – it is ourselves.  I mention this phenomenon in greater detail in my other posts under the topic, forgiveness. 

My experience is that I attracted this kind of relationship last spring – I was frustrated and angry because I had been hurt and deceived by a good friend and refusing to deal with that pain, lo and behold, I later attracted an another individual to my life who was also frustrated and angry towards people and towards me.

In many ways, he said things to me that I was feeling towards my friend and towards myself for having been foolish enough to trust this friend. It wasn’t until I was willing to revisit the original hurt that I not only was able to forgive my friend but also had the strength to extricate myself from this new unhealthy relationship.  Thank goodness, because I am more open now to attracting and meeting someone who is healthy and loving.

What happened in the meantime however, is that hanging on to that original pain and anger since last January, I inevitably continued to attract more and more frustrating situations and people to my life.  I was bombarded in 2012 with situations that led me to be hurt, frustrated and taken advantage of.  I became reactionary to these events, instead of being able to respond in a healthy manner.  These people with whom I was angry went on with their lives; I however, found myself stuck in this perpetual well of frustration.

However, the good news is that one day in the early fall, I awoke – my subconscious I suppose shook me awake – and I was able to become free of this pattern.  How did I do it?  I have discussed in many of my posts that there is a process to getting past painful experiences and finally being free of them.  Here is a simplistic outline of this process that I have found works for me:

1.  Sit down and ask yourself when this issue began:  You may get an answer that it was in your childhood, or like me, I knew it was about a year ago.

2.  Face your true feelings:  I had to admit that I was hurt and angry with my friend.

3.  Express these feelings honestly:  I wrote an email to this person (always DRAFT your email – which is not reacting, but responding) outlining what I perceived happened and how really hurt and disappointed I was.  I would normally simply draft it, read it a few times and then delete it.  This time, however, I sent it to the person.  I would highly recommend that you write the email or letter and then wait for a few days before sending it.  You may find that simply writing it and expressing your true feelings is enough.  Sometimes, simply reading it and re-reading it and validating your own feelings can be sufficient.  If however, you feel that you need the other person to know of your hurt; or you genuinely feel this person could benefit from hearing the truth, then it will be up to you whether you choose to send it or not.  If it is a boss or employer where it could put your job or career in jeopardy, I would highly recommend you don’t send it – especially from a reactionary standpoint.  Get a second opinion – have a friend or a colleague (that you REALLY know you can trust)  read it over and ask them what they would recommend.

4.  Forgiveness:  Like most of us, I don’t always feel like forgiving; but we do this for OURSELVES, not for the other person.  The adage, “bitterness is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die” is so true.  We cannot hang onto bitterness as it only poisons ourselves; meanwhile the other person goes merrily on their way.

5.  Visualization Technique:  One way that I achieve forgiveness is through visualizaton.  I imagine a lake with a dock and a boat – the size of the boat varies depending on how angry I am at the person.  I imagine that this person (or situation) is sitting in the boat.  Now, sometimes, if I am really angry, I get in the boat and I pummel this person until there is nothing left of him/her except a little pebble.  Sound awful?  Well, I encourage you to do this if you have that much anger – remember, this is only a visualization technique and cannot hurt the other person; but it a safe way for you to express all of the frustration, anger or disappointment you are carrying.  You can also punch pillows on your bed if that seems less aggressive.

However, lying to ourselves, trying to pretend we aren’t that angry, does not do us any good.  Let’s get good and honest with ourselves.  Sometimes, I am able to simply untie the boat and send it on its merry way with that person in it (I don’t always give them paddles!).  The last time I used this technique, I simply got in the boat, picked up the pebble (what was left of this person) and threw it into the lake and I kept the boat!   There have even been times, that no matter how much I expressed my anger or beat them into a little pebble, I was still not able to push off the boat and let them “go”.

Hence, I have asked Jesus (insert Buddha or whomever you associate with a stronger ability to love) to push the boat off for me.  This may seem silly to you; but I know it has worked for me.  You have to find what works for you – you may visualize something entirely different.  However, I do believe there is something very powerful about actually visualizing the “letting go” or “sending off” or “freeing of” this particular person or situation.  In essence, we are letting off the hook for hurting us.  Another wonderful way to get to the heart of the matter and be truly free from triggers is to use E.F.T. Emotional Freedom Technique.  I have discussed this technique in my other posts and I highly recommend that you read more about it or watch a video on it on the internet to learn more about it!

Step # 6:  Rejoice – be thankful for the lessons or the revelation that this person taught you and then rejoice that you are free to move on with your life – free of the trigger and now free to attract more healthy situations to your life.  We can learn just as much from a healthy, wonderful person or relationship as we can from a negative one!

How can you be sure you have really let it go?

The next time someone similar comes into your life, you will find yourself much less attracted or  not wanting to spend time with this person; or you may simply respond to what they say or do in a more healthy manner.  Sometimes, you may have to go back again and revisit the hurt – I have had to go back to the boat and go a few more rounds with some people!   In any case, you will notice when you begin to respond and not react to similar situations.  You can pat yourself on the back and know that this particular trigger is no longer causing you the same internal F.E.A.R.

Remember:  “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” ~Pema Chodron

Next Post:  F.E.A.R:   False Expectations Appearing Real – How to Not Worry So Much!