Living Energy Blog

I have heard many times that emotional imbalances are the root of all illness. It follows that when we dissolve or heal the emotional trigger, we heal ourselves. It sounds easy. In my opinion, however, it is a life-long process. Learning to heal our emotional wounds is what our lives are all about. Every event, interaction and relationship provides ample opportunity for practice.

One of the dilemmas is that the root causes of the triggers are often held in our subconscious, out of our awareness. So how can we deal with something that we aren’t even aware of? This is the Catch 22, the ago-old dilemma. After all, if we were aware of what needed to change, we could choose to change it. Correct? We could also save ourselves a lot of anguish, money, time and energy along the way.

Perhaps one of the problems is that we are using the wrong approach and incorrect tools. Rather than try to continually “do” something or “fix” yourself, maybe the solution is really to simply “be” who you really are. Being who you really are begins with accepting wherever you’re at right now. Accept and acknowledge how you are truly feeling. Once you accept things as they are, resistance falls away and a shift toward wholeness begins.

Accepting things as they are requires accepting personal responsibility for your role in it. This includes your perception of what is happening as well as your reaction to the world around you, particularly judgment of others. Play with the concept that others around you mirror what is happening and provide clues about what you need to accept, acknowledge, shift or change. Play with the concept that no one does anything to you. Those around you are merely a catalyst for things you are doing to yourself or aspects of yourself that you have hidden away. Acceptance and forgiveness provide the way out.

Play with the concept of softening your heart; practice being aware of your experiences and your feelings. Your feelings provide the clues. Any negative, low, tense or dense feelings indicate opportunities for change. Lighter, higher, and happier feelings move you up the scale towards unconditional love.

Healing our hearts in not about always being happy though. We are human. We will have ups and downs throughout our lives. If you can genuinely experience three times as many ups as downs, though, you will be well on your way to healing your heart.

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I have been watching the Occupy Wall St. protests with much interest. Although I empathize with the participants and understand their plight, approaching change from a position of disempowerment is simply not effective. It may strengthen the very cause they rally against. Blaming others is low energy that moves in the opposite direction of where the group wants to be. In addition, it is likely to bring a higher level of discontent rather than the change they seek.

Personal empowerment is an inside job. It is something that each one of us must create for ourselves. That said, a group of empowered people moving in unison with common goals can be an amazing catalyst for positive change. Wall St. is about money and profits. Large groups of people have “the power of the purse.” One effective approach would be to identify exactly what they want changed and then begin to make it happen.

If the Occupy Wall St. participants don’t like big banks, then perhaps consciously using debit and credit cards less often will make an impact. Bringing business to small, local banks or local credit unions could be an acceptable alternative. Cash or alternative systems such as bartering could be another answer.

If supporting big business is unsavory, then buy local. Buying local returns money to the community many times over. Buying local could help revitalize Main St. in many communities and help friends and neighbors return to work. Buying local could also help support the growth of healthy and sustainable food supplies that use no pesticides and consume less petroleum.

If overseas jobs are the problem, consciously buy American made goods. ABC News is doing a fabulous job highlighting products made in the USA with their series “Made in the USA.” As a result, many American companies have emerged and put their products on the map, often at very competitive prices to imports. More business enables them to hire more employees and purchase more supplies from American suppliers, expanding the circle of giving and receiving.

Self empowerment can bring prosperity, along with inner peace, health and wellness, life balance, job satisfaction, meaningful relationships, and more. Everything that happens in your life is in relationship to the subtle energy of your heart, the energy that you hold subconsciously, below the surface. As you heal the wounds in your heart (including feelings of shame, blame, humiliation, despair, regret, guilt, anxiety, apathy, grief, fear, anger, hate, scorn, jealously, etc.) your frequency strengthens and things begin to fall into place more easily.  All of this is an inside job and no one can do it for us. It is also a life-long process.

It doesn’t matter where you begin. What’s important is that you DO begin. Different methods work for different people. Some people like to work alone and others prefer to work in groups (such as those participating in Occupy Wall St.). Practice taking positive action and making each day better or a little lighter for yourself than the previous one. What one thing can you do today to lighten up? How about simply breathing, slowly … in and out … for one to two minutes minimum? You can do this anywhere. This practice will slow your heart rate and help ground your energy. It will help bring inner peace, clarity and focus.

Change comes from the inside, from our hearts. One of the benefits of positive change is personal empowerment.

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It is time to lighten up. The unprecedented changes that are affecting every level of society are also being felt by each one of us at the individual level. One way this is manifesting is through a deep need to let go of what we may have once loved in order to make room for new opportunities, possibilities and circumstances.

In recent months, many people, myself included, have experienced accelerated shifts. Some have done this proactively and consciously, others taken action in response to feeling too much pressure, and some were forced to change due to unanticipated or unexpected have events.

One of the keys to shifting for the better or attracting new opportunities to you is to lighten up. There are many ways to do this. Recently a friend of mine mentioned how much lighter she feels since closing her business.  In addition to her spirit being lighter and brighter, she is feeling healthier, more motivated and excited about her future. Her family relationships are much stronger and happier. Although her business was a life dream, within a year it became a huge drain on her finances as well as her physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health. She knew something had to shift. She took a huge leap and shut it down entirely. Rather than just walking away she took tremendous care to honor her creditors and maintain trust in all of her relationships. As a result, amazing things are happening for her. Now that her burden is lifted, new opportunities are coming her way. What a life lesson!

Change is inevitable. What can you lighten up or release in your life to help align your energy with the times we are in?

Cover via Amazon

“My message is always the same: to cultivate and practice love, kindness, compassion and tolerance.” Dalai Lama

This timely quote from the Dalai Lama came to me this morning through HeartMath.

Have you heard the phrase “thoughts create things?” I am a firm believer that words create things too. Tune into the words all around you … your words, others’ words, the words you see and hear.  Notice the messages being conveyed. More importantly, observe how the words both reflect and amplify what is happening. Do the words give power to what we want or are they strengthening the circumstances we wish to change?

Expressing oneself authentically can be a tricky process. How do we consciously choose words that reflect good feelings when our experience is so different?  This is where the cultivation and practice of love, kindness, compassion and tolerance can make a difference. And it begins deep within oneself. One way to begin is to omit the “no’s.” One friend recently lamented: “No job, no prospects, no income.” Well this will probably continue to be the case until this person consciously shifts her energy. A way to express this with more self compassion might be: I’m ready for a job, job prospects and income! Instead of saying “I’m not …,” began to say “I AM …”

Like anything new, there’s a learning curve. Observe everyone and imitate people who communicate effectively in a loving and compassionate manner. Each day provides ample opportunities to learn from others … your family and friends, your workplace, the supermarket and retail centers, public events, community gatherings, the media. Listen with open ears and an open heart. What feels genuine? How can you empathize with others without joining them in a spiral-down conversation? What new ways can you communicate without complaining? There are lots of ways to go about this and there are some wonderful role models. Look for them and I guarantee you will find them. Learn some new approaches and become a role model for others. Two people I admire are Oprah Winfrey and Diane Sawyer. Both have a way of being truly present with people, feeling their pain and conveying their experience with kindness, love and compassion.

Like everything, words carry energy and are quite powerful. Choose your words consciously to cultivate and practice love, kindness, compassion and tolerance. Each day brings an opportunity to develop your skill and get a little better at it. Before long it will be a habit. As your habit strengthens it will become a belief. Once it is a belief, it will become imprinted in your cells and be automatically reflected in your words and actions.

Language is an amazing tool that can change the world and we can all participate. BE the change you wish to see in the world and eventually it will be reflected in your life.

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Everything that I have been studying and reading lately reinforces how change must come from the heart. Inner peace, health and wellness, life balance, job satisfaction, meaningful relationships, prosperity and much more … everything really … is in relationship to the subtle energy of your heart, the energy that you hold subconsciously, below the surface. As you heal your heart, your frequency shifts and things begin to fall into place more easily.  All of this is an inside job and no one can do it for us. It is a life-long process. The Healing Code by Alex Loyd and Ben Johnson brought much of this together for me. It’s another method to release our blocks and improve our lives. Check it out, along with some of our Living Energy programs. It doesn’t matter where you begin. Different methods work for different people. What is important is that you make each day better or a little lighter for yourself than the previous one, regardless of what is transpiring on the outside. What can you do today to lighten up? One step forward is enough.

Chinese characters for Feng Shui (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the same way that we use a principle of Feng Shui to de-clutter our homes, it is also important to de-clutter our minds! As the previous post stated, we sabotage ourselves daily. We do not mean to pull the rug out from under our selves, but it can happen even with our best conscious intentions. What trips us up on the road to our dreams is not what is in conscious awareness. What blocks our way is the ‘stuff’ of our mind that is like junk in the basement that has been packed away in boxes for so long that we have forgotten it was there. And then there is the ‘stuff’ that we told others they could store there or the ‘stuff’ that came from the ancestors that accumulated quietly in the corners! No one intends for this to occur, it is just part of the experience of being human.

 By becoming aware of what is rocking around in the basement of our mind (subconscious) and eliminating it we can free up energy to direct toward what we truly desire in our lives.

We all have developed some ‘mistaken beliefs’ about ourselves, others or the world. The best and easiest place to start cleaning house is to look at these with an eye to eliminating what we can and making the rest more functional.

What follows is a list of some of the most common troubling beliefs that people carry deep within. Take your time to read through the list and notice which ones cause you to react. You may experience strong emotions or perhaps only a slight discomfort. OR, you may have an adverse reaction such as: “Well that’s foolish, who would ever think that!” Sometimes strong denial is our biggest clue that there is something going on in the deeper realms! So read the list slowly, giving yourself the gift of an honest appraisal.

 Faulty Beliefs

I’m not good enough

I’m not acceptable

I’m not loveable

 I don’t deserve to be loved

I’m not wanted

I don’t belong/ can’t find my place in this world

Nothing ever works for me

 Life is a struggle

 I can’t express myself well/at all

 Nobody understands me

It’s not safe to trust

I am betrayed by life

 I am insignificant

I am not capable

There’s no hope for me

I don’t deserve to love/ be loved

I am stupid

 I cannot be myself/have no real sense of who I am

 I am weak and have no defenses

I am always/will be/deserve to be deprived and abandoned

Becoming aware of these beliefs may even be painful at the start. However if you commit to rooting them out, the rewards you gain will far outweigh any discomfort you experienced. Identifying them is the first step. Taking steps to erase them from your inner programming is the second. There are many tools for doing this and many are included in our recorded programs. Some people prefer to work individually with a practitioner to ferret out and release these beliefs. The important thing is that you DO something, they will not simply melt away because you want them to!

Here are some tips to help you along the way–

1)  De-clutter your space.  You can begin with a small area such as your kitchen table or even a counter-top.  Remove all trash.

2)  Write 1-3 intentions about what you wish to happen in your life.  Write these very clearly.  Be specific.  Write them in the present tense, just as if they are happening today.

3)  Get ready to receive what you wish to happen.  Get out of your own way and believe it can really happen.  It you doubt it, it won’t happen. It’s that simple.

4)  De-clutter your mind through examining and eliminating unconscious beliefs

5)   Use the power of your mind via imagery, visualization and relaxation to help you  release problem beliefs as well as to install new programs for success.

6)    Notice the small successes.  The best growth is through the ‘feel good’ not the ‘feel bad’.

Contemplation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Are you feeling the results of the harsh, cold and unyielding temperatures on your patience? The already difficult season of winter becomes even more unbearable when we are besieged by extremes of temperature, as well as continuous ice or snow storms!

 Is there a way to make peace with this season?  Is there a means to find not just respite, but maybe even an appreciation of this quieter, less active, time of the year?

Of course there are many approaches that help us tolerate and get through this time: winter sports, vacations, new hobbies and interests. These are all worthwhile and useful alternatives to enable us to withstand the long, cold, and dark season.

There are also choices in how we view this time of year that can help reduce some of the stress and frustration. We can look at winter as a teacher. We can open ourselves to learn something from this season that we are used to just enduring. Years ago we would have laughed at such an approach! Finally it occurred to us that our attitude was not working. So we thought a trial run of a different point of view couldn’t hurt.  We found that it not only didn’t hurt, it in fact helped…a lot!

The natural world has much to teach us about flowing with cycles and changes…how to be patient and go with the flow rather than fight what is.  If you allow it, winter’s journey can be a kind of spinning inward, a letting go of resistance to all that you find harsh, cold and unyielding. Within the short and cold days of winter, there is a lot of magic and beauty.  It can be a time of quiet reflection, a time to learn how to turn your attention inward. When you do this, the possibility opens to learning how to become friends with a slower, quieter, less active pace. You can welcome the respite from the over-activity of the holidays, and warmer seasons. By slowing down and going inward, you may discover that solutions come to you more easily.  You may also discover that you can get more done in less time.  You may discover that you like the new pace and improved balance.

However, there are challenges to implementing these ideas! We seem to resist slowing down. We are used to such a high level of activity, and have such high expectations for every area of our lives, that it is hard to slow down. We have all cooperated in the creation of lives so full of action that is hard to change. In spite of warnings regarding health, our own unrest and feelings of distress with the pace, we continue onward as if it is impossible to change.

You are, whether you choose to believe it or not, the change agent and meaning maker of your life. So if you are to have something new enter your existence, you will have to make room for it and put it there. You will have to align your energy with your intentions and get ready to receive everything you are asking for.  Whatever you ask for, will come.  How about beginning with the willingness to entertain some new ideas?

Nature’s wisdom follows predictable, repeatable cycles of change and growth. Winter’s time of ‘darkness’ is a resting time, a space where there is a deep process of renewal and rejuvenation happening before the grand explosion of life in spring.

Winter provides us with a similar experience. With a somewhat slower pace of life you can take the opportunity to give yourself a gift of time each day for quiet reflection. You can learn to enter into this state that nature models so gracefully. How do you do this? One way is to practice some form of meditation, deep relaxation, and contemplation or prayer as a daily routine. This may be difficult at first for many reasons. It may feel as though nothing is happening or that you are not being productive, responsible or worthwhile. As you become more familiar with spending time in this type of activity, you will gradually become aware, however, of how profoundly it can impact your life in ways that support the values you cherish.

Deep within each of us, is the need for quiet; for the kind of rest that replenishes and nourishes our bodies, minds and spirits. There is a place inside that understands and knows how to BE. However, you need to access it, it will not force its way into your life. You access it by slowing down, tuning in and listening to everything within your body and soul.  When you provide the means to travel there, your life is greatly enriched for the brief investment of time that you make.

What are the benefits of learning to spend this kind of time?

• You may find a kind of rest you did not think was possible.
• You can discover that silence will teach you things you didn’t know.
• You can develop new perspectives, new views that help you in practical ways.
• You may realize the difference between knowledge and understanding.
• You may find you are more than a constant process of doing.
• You may find that by slowing down you actually accomplish more with less effort.
• You may rediscover your creativity and simple solutions to everyday problems.
• You may find that you really enjoy and cherish this time.
• You can develop a reliable source of renewal, guidance, support and problem solving.

All relationships need attention, time and space to grow. Winter provides the possibility for a new kind of relationship—with yourself. This relationship is grown and nurtured internally. It is deceptively quiet and subtle, but like winter, it can be powerful in the gifts it brings: expansion, growth, warmth, beauty …your own personal Spring!  Go inward this winter and nurture the seeds of change and growth within you.  Contemplate what you really want in your life and make room in your heart and soul for its arrival.  Align your thoughts and your energy with your intentions on a daily basis.

Make a commitment to nurture yourself this winter.  Align your spirit with Nature’s cycles.  When spring arrives, the seeds of winter will burst forth will new life and vigor.

1) Resolve to do something positive for yourself regularly. 

 Think about what makes you the happiest and most joyful.  What are you doing during these times?  What can you do to create this feeling on a regular basis?   Think about the situations that make you the happiest, make a list, keep it handy, refer to it often and consciously choose to create more of these situations next year.  Commit to do something nice for yourself every day!

 2) Give thanks often. Gratitude nourishes your soul. 

 Giving thanks sets energetic patterns in motion that help create more of the same.  When you express gratitude, you move into a feeling of love and away from fear.  When you are in a state of love, you are open to receiving more of the same.  You can even give thanks in advance … for things that you know (or trust) are already on their way to you!

 3) Create the energetic space for what you want by consciously choosing it or choosing the essence of what it brings you.

 Let go of what you don’t want.  For instance, suppose you wan to lose weight.  Think about why you want to do so and what the new you will be like.  How will you feel as you make progress towards your goal?  How will you feel when you reach it?  Rather than losing weight, perhaps you really want to be lean and strong.  Think about how lean and strong really feel.  Think about the essence of your goals.  The sense of  lean and strong is positive and evokes healthy feelings.  Let go of feelings of struggle.  Look beyond the physical and examine the essence or the feeling of what you are really after.  Tune into those feelings often.

4) Let somebody do something nice for you. 

Often we find it easier to give than to receive.  Resolve to receive more often.  Be willing to accept help and assistance along the way.  If someone offers to help you out, consider accepting the help or letting them know what would be beneficial to you.  Take charge and look at various options for meeting your goals.  Make things happen for yourself.  Getting away from your situation, even for a brief period, allows new ideas and options to come to you.  Think creatively. 

 5) Count your blessings. 

Notice the small things that happen all around you every day.  Take delight in them and realize that everything happens for a reason: notice who calls you, when a convenient parking space opens up, when money arrives at just the right time.  There are no coincidences.  Small things turn into big things.  

 6) Leave the past behind.

When looking at the attitudes, behaviors or situations that you want to leave behind use a ritual to enlist the help of the subconscious mind. Our subconscious understands imagery and symbolic communication. Design a ritual such as writing out all that you wish to release on slips of paper, put them in a box or coffee can and burn them. The importance lies in the meaning and feeling that the method has for you so make it personal!

 7) Create rituals for what you would like to see in your life.

The same holds true for the positive that we wish to attract to our lives. We can use symbols, rituals and imagery to gain the cooperation of our powerful unconscious mind to achieve our goals. This is one of the reasons hypnosis can be so effective in helping people change.

 8) Choose well

Make sure your goal and timeline are really manageable and that you truly have the desire to create it!

 Remember: Change and creating new situations, attitudes and behaviors is a process not an event. When we keep this in my we can be kinder to ourselves as well as take both small steps and slips in stride. In addition, we are most effective when we use a positive approach that builds on strength. To focus on what we do not want, are trying to eliminate or on how far we have to go weakens us.

It’s that time of year again … when we reflect on the events of the past twelve months, think about where we are and where we want to be, and set new goals. 

Exploring answers to these questions may help you to make more effective resolutions:  

What were some of your high points during the last year? 

Did you do anything in particular to make them happen or did they simply come together easily and effortlessly for you? Explore the qualities of each type of situation specifically and the circumstances involved to get a clearer picture of what works well for you.

 How can you create more of these situations or feelings in the coming year? 

What are the things that you would like to leave behind as you enter the New Year? Take some time and make a detailed list of these. Keep adding to the list over several days. Done in this way your list will help to inform and clarify not only what you wish to release but also what you hope to bring to yourself.

Next time: 8 Ways to Set Resolutions That Stick!