Centering Tools

How to Get Through An Extraordinary Life Challenge

What If The Bottom Falls Out

 
What do you do when life is truly, hugely overwhelming and you really know, in your heart of hearts, you can't do anything that will make any kind of difference to well handle things?  What do you do when you experience several major crises at once and it looks pretty clear that unless some major miracles occur, there will not be "light at the end of the tunnel" for awhile?  What do you do when you feel even if there is some support, that you really have to deal with everything yourself, and that you are terribly worn down, scared and hurting; and it seems others take advantage of your precarious state, and compromise and damage you even more . . .  and that what perhaps has been precarious in your world for a long time is crashing down in slow motion all around you?  
 

Top Ten Tips to Deal with Extraordinary Life Challenges

 
1.  Face everything and anything you can in an objectively manageable time frame - talk about it with a caring and equally objective person, who has good common sense and even helpful information and sound advice to offer you; and write about it as factually as you can, answering who, what, where, when, why and how questions.
2.  Pray to your sense of the divine for strength, clarity of vision, higher guidance and HELP anywhere it can come, affirming you're open to receive it.
3.  Take the time necessary to determine what are the necessary priorities to focus on and list as simply as possible, and include a time requirement that is realistic.
4.  Stop during the duration doing anything that isn't necessary, and don't accept any new offers to do anything more!
5.  Take basic care of yourself re: moderate regular exercise, decent nutrition - especially fluids (we become subtly and not-so subtly dehydrated in times of extreme crises) - and basically adequate rest.
6.  Recognize you are in a precarious position and don't any more "push the envelope".
7.  Set realistic daily, weekly and monthly goals for yourself; and write them down in a separate notebook.    Ask your sense of the divine to strongly support your achieving these goals, affirming, as in #3, you'll accept help from anywhere it appears.
8.  Consider on the spiritual front that you are in the center of major healing challenges.  As soon as you can, schedule uninterrupted time for yourself to reflect and meditate on what these healing challenges might be. Journal about it, and refer back to your insights, viewing them as inner supports through this extraordinary time.
9.  Think with as much clarity as you can about your need for protection, and provide it for yourself on an ongoing basis.
10. Affirm, whether it seems to happen in big or little ways, what is positive or good in the day-to-day; and every day, spend at least a few minutes asking yourself how you feel and unconditionally listening to your inner answers, at least some of the time briefly noting what happens inside you. 
 

Profound change means you will be profoundly changed.  Ask your sense of the divine to change you in an inviolate center of healing and development, affirming, like your endless, easy breath, simply letting be (acknowledging what is present and real) and letting go (asking what does not work to fall away, accepting this fully). 

Blessings . . . Marjorie

Being Present – No Matter What

We continue to live in intense, complicated, high-pressure times.  These current challenging dimensions thrust and move us to a different set of requirements to be able to live and best respond to what life offers, fully present.

It is one thing to be fully present when “life is a breeze” – something else when it seems life is more like a hurricane.  Here are my top six guidelines to being fully present when you feel like you seem to be in one of those tornadoes:

Six Directions to Stay Balanced

1.  Be the observer of your own life

It is a paradox to be fully present and understand that this requires you to be able to, on an ongoing basis, watch all that you literally see going on in your life.  This requires objectively noting the real facts, which can most easily be done by asking yourself “who, what, where, when, why and how is this going on?”  It is necessary to not only pay close attention to be able to well answer these questions, but step back, or let go enough to “see the larger picture”.  Then your intuition, larger vision, and key insights can appear to guide you to your best possible choices.

2.  Release expectations

Expectations are only reflections of old agendas that are coping constructs, which are the ego’s band aids to cover past unhealed traumas.  They get in the way of being fully present and able to respond, a “reverse twist” of the word “responsible”, interestingly enough. 

3.  Dare to vision – but keep it clean

Visioning engages your creative imagination to offer you a picture of what, in your heart of hearts, you really want, and you’re entitled to that – it is how we manifest, or co-create, our experience.  Examples of what would be illegitimate additions to visioning would be putting all your heart and soul – and corresponding actions – into making someone do something or be something whether they want to or not.  That is a violation, and also sets the stage to twist you into becoming codependent.

4.  Look to put the serenity prayer into daily practice

A foundation of all twelve-step recovery programs to break addictions, the serenity prayer says, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”  I highly recommend including meditating on, or deeply reflecting and considering, the meaning of this prayer and how it applies to living and best surviving what I’m calling “the tornado”.

5.  Put yourself every day in the “eye of the storm”

Strangely enough the eye of the storm is the place of serenity and inner stillness, or all I understand being centered offers.  Find your inner center, and make sure that several times a day, you spend thirty uninterrupted seconds or more there.  It will miraculously balance, even alleviate or transform, the challenges you face.  

6.  Accept the challenge of trusting yourself by fully being yourself no matter what

Be Courageous to Transform

When life’s tornadoes force us to let go of all external sources of security to which we are, whatever the reasons, attached, we have only ourselves left.  That is all we ever have anyway, because that is all we can ever be – no one else, no thing else. 

Then we are in our full potential power, which allows us to be fully present in these challenging, complicated, fast-moving, intense times.  May your corresponding life journeys be uplifting and fruitful ones that even more greatly support the greater You. 

Courage provides the lift-off – well worth the seeming risk to move you toward a transformational, better outcome.  Bon voyage!

Technorati Tags: imagination,reflect,ego,counseling,self-help

The Power of Letting Go Times 10

Let Go

I call it the most essential recovery piece, given our cultural woundedness, for integrative healing.  Here are, in no particular order, my top 10 results of being willing to let go:

1.   You disentangle

2.   You transcend power struggles

3.   You evolve

4.   You have proof that you can - and do - survive

5.   You separate from your wounded ego

6.   You free your intuition and tremendous authentic spirit to well advise you

7.   You take a breather

8.   You experience a different universe

9.   You experience reality beyond agenda

10.  You are fully present in mindfulness

The How-to

B-R-E-A-T-H-E.  Settle back now, open your body's position so your body is free from tension, relaxed and supported, and begin counting ten (today's magic number) full, deep, easy breaths.

Now say . . . each and every time you inhale . . . this phrase . . . let be . . . each and every time you exhale . . . let go.

Experience . . . detachment.  Float, in the endless, opening space of your free consciousness, en-joy . . .

To Shift

Slowly, easily return to full, waking consciousness, and open your eyes.  Now, continuing to enjoy this space you've created of being detached, write in your own journal the above "top ten" list, changing all the "you's" to "I's" - and then go back and complete each sentence through your present experience of letting go.

Then choose, as you are moved, in any and all aspects of your present life with whatever corresponding challenges are occurring.  See what happens, and resolve to once a day - or more! - let go.    

Ten Truths About Life

Here is my “cut to the chase” list that my life has brought me to know and access, as the foundation by which I understand and respond in my life as I move ever-so-rapidly toward my 60th birthday.  I am moved in these intense, accelerated times to offer it as my summer gift to you at this halfway time through this pivotal year.  May it bring its own bright, unfolding light.

1.   There is no control – it is a delusional word that is a poor, infantile substitute for what is really worth devoting your life to attaining:

• personal power
• freedom to choose
• heightened awareness
• the ability to be freely, wholly present, and spiritually partner with your unfolding experience

2.   There are never, ever any guarantees – however, there is always available the opportunity to envision.

3.   Love is a given that can only enter a free, unencumbered space in which it can be present.

4.   We can only successfully partner with those with whom we are on a like-minded vibrational wavelength.

5.   Life requires that we live it on its terms, for it is greater than we are.

6.   The central requirement for mind-body healing is to stay fully, unconditionally present with your feelings.

7.  If you’re not equally letting go with whatever you’re keeping – holding on to – you cannot be in any core state of balance.

8.   We are all equal, with equal power.

9.   Throughout our life we are challenged to experience successive, progressive levels of expanding maturity.

10. When we feel stuck, it is a signal of incomplete grieving.

Technorati Tags: spirituality,Centering,Marjorie Baker Price,hypnosis,healing,mind-body

Assert and Accept in the Great Circle of Being – Finding An Authentic and Inalienable Space of True Belonging

Overcoming the Hard Core Foundation of Identity Crisis

I attended a planning committee for a local group of natural health practitioners over the weekend and once again reflected, after the off-agenda, extended discussion that ensued about what to name it, on how little-supported we are in our culture to be fully present and accepted in our own space of belonging.  We really don’t know who we are and what we are in our world, so it’s no wonder we don’t easily allow another the right we can’t give ourselves.

This can lay a pretty hard core foundation of identity crisis, which profoundly sets the stage for everything from violence to racism.  In my work I hear again and again clients’ complaints that they are hopelessly stuck with being unable to accept or even know who they are, blaming and feeling victimized,  experiencing unsolved challenges to forgive, and engaging in ongoing power struggles. 

How to Experience and Express Your Real Identity

Like the end of The Ugly Duckling  fairy tale, we do have our authentic and right identity, it is real and meant to reflect and shine to ourselves and the world who we are and what we are, and we perfectly “fit” in our great circle of belonging.  In that wonderful story by Hans Christian Anderson, the hero as the labeled “ugly duckling” struggles against a wrong label thrust upon him by the society he found himself in as an unrecognized swan.

Fortunately for the character, he is ultimately outcast from that blaming circle, which gives him the critical opportunity to surprisingly see who he really is and where he really belongs.  He and his newfound “mate” live happily ever after, supported, affirmed, asserting and accepting who they are and what they are in a fully reflecting and affirming universe.

You Have a Sacred Place of Being

There is a place for everyone.  Everyone is meant to be accepted and invited to share who they are and what they are in a greater circle of mutual respect and belonging.  What would the world be like if we could finally fit over our respective I’s/eyes clear, strong lenses that made sure we saw each other and affirmed each other in this way? 

We could not violate anyone in such a great circle of belonging, nor would we allow anyone to violate us, or tell us we were something we weren’t.  If such an attempt were made, we would easily and definitively assert ourselves, coming from a center of profound identity and self-acceptance.

Honor All Diversity as Expanding Perceptions

Prejudice, racism and denying in any way another’s innate, equal and common humanity would disappear like the dinosaurs.  Instead we would welcome and appreciate each other’s core beauty, equal power and unique and sharing gifts. 

Power struggles would disappear, and the world would bear its great fruit of welcoming the diverse and great gifts we all yearn and are meant to share for everyone’s betterment and well-being.  I imagine the phrase, “All for one”  as the new language of an endlessly loving, abundant universe – coming from a spiritual understanding that we are all unique and common expressions of the divine, that we are all part of the Source and can well and rightly express infinite power – and freely, wholly create with it from a center of loving to give to the common good.

Meet the Challenge to Trust Yourself and Act Accordingly

We can only assert ourselves when we know and affirm ourselves as spiritual beings of multidimensional, aware consciousness, who are well capable of expressing divine power because we identify ourselves as being able to take full responsibility for it, particularly its outcomes.   All that you yearn for regarding love represents your real challenge to assert and accept yourself, trusting (always the great recovery challenge) that your unknown vision will lead you into your great circle of inner belonging.

That is the magic, transformational portal that will offer enough power and courage to lead you to your corresponding outer circle of fulfillment, right relations, creative appreciation, abundance and true joy.  Higher, extended balance results and real miracles occur.  

Technorati Tags: empowerment,empowerment counseling,identity,identity counseling,self-identity

Top Ten Survival Tips to Sail Through a Crisis

Crises Leave Multiple Energetic Imprints

The Chinese translation means both “danger” and “opportunity”.  We live in a time of multiple global crises which can even more intensify individual crises. 

In the course of a well-lived lifetime one will experience serious, multiple crises.  The all leave their significant traumatic imprints in our psyches and, I believe, in our energetic fields. 

Top Ten Tips to Sail Through a Crisis

The clinical diagnoses for this is literally called post-traumatic stress syndrome, currently of pandemic proportions in returning military from combat zones.  Here are my top ten survival tips to sail through a crises:

1. Know how much sleep you need as a baseline foundation and prioritize getting it as an average – don’t shortchange yourself, because you are already at risk for illness, accidents and general decompensation.
2. Ditto eating nutritiously.  Try to keep the emotional eating of empty calories at a minimum. 
3. Make a “top ten list to nourish myself” with simple directives that are pleasing and soothing to you and that don’t require a whole lot from you if at all possible, meaning costing a lot of money, requiring complicated planning and time, or depend on multiple other elements, including people to carry out.  Two examples would be taking a bubble bath or calling up a friend who will listen lovingly and attentively to you without offering advice unless you specifically ask for it.
4. Drink a lot of water – being stressed out in a crisis creates subtle levels of dehydration.
5. If at all possible get outside every day, or as much as you can, and try to move while you’re out there – like walk, bike, swim, etc.  You will both energetically recharge and rebalance your body, mind and spirit, and discharge anxiety.
6. Journal if you’re at all willing to do so.  Simply write down your feelings for five minutes or less without analyzing yourself or trying to force any conclusions.
7. Get in a maximally objective and reflective space and consider what, if anything, about the crisis you’re experiencing that fundamentally threatens your survival.  Because experiencing crises throws us into a full-blown stress response, we go into “fight or flight” mode, which pushes us into assuming that our life is being threatened when that may not at all be the case. 
8. See if you can hear from a source who has experienced a good resolution from a similar or thematically similar crisis, whether this source is someone you know, or a famous person who has been interviewed or written a book to tell their story.  This can be practically helpful as well as offer you a central source of support and guidance.
9. Take some uninterrupted time – twenty minutes or more – and consider whether you have ever experienced a similar crisis or situation that seems to offer a similar thematic challenge to your current perceived crisis, and review the resolution that occurred.  This remembering typically stimulates more expansive brainstorming, and can inspire your intuition to offer excellent guidelines that frequently lead to real resolution.  It also  reminds you that  “this too shall pass”, and you will survive.
10. However you understand what 12-step programs call your “higher power”, once a day for a minute or longer settle back into a comfortable position, take three full, even, deep, cleansing breaths, and imagine you can contact this divine source – whereupon you turn your crisis over to it, asking your higher power to help move you to wherever real resolution exists.  Additionally imagine affirming you are open to any way this can occur through the direction of your higher guidance.  When you’ve finished this meditative exercise, imagine letting it all go to your higher power, and tell yourself this is all being most effectively, and on an ongoing basis, worked on.  Then focus on something mundane and completely unrelated to the crisis.

These top ten tips will highlight the “opportunity” part of the Chinese translation of the word “crisis”, and derail the “danger” part. 

Technorati Tags: meditation,relaxation,imagery,hypnosis,survival tips,crisis,crisis management,crises

Courage is the Key to Assertiveness

Courage and Cowardice

The key that unlocks the door to becoming assertive is courage.  Have you ever stopped to think about what that word really means?  How about it’s opposite – to be cowardly?

I always think of the Wizard of Oz, just finished playing in my hometown of Rochester, New York as part of a national touring company, to rave reviews.  Without courage we are reduced to cowardly behaviors which strips us of our rightful heritage and claim to be who we are and what we are.

We Can Recover Our Central Essence of Function

We might understandably think, before reading the story of  how Dorothy and her surprising companions managed to accomplish their seemingly impossible vision, that there can be no such thing as a cowardly lion.  Then he centrally appears, making us laugh at his completely out-of-character behavior. 

Then the lion seemingly transforms before our eyes, organically and in key increments, to become the “king of the forest”.   We are now able to realize this can only be possible from a central place of activated courage.

How can this transformation from being so traumatized that one loses one’s essential, central essence of function, to being fully actualized?  Every time we acknowledge our fear and successfully shift to being the visionary observer of our life, we regain, in mysterious and surprising ways, our innate courage.

The Truth About Fear and Functioning

Courage doesn’t exist without fear – in fact, fear catalyzes courage.  So does the desperation that comes from crisis.  As I’ve said a number of times in  earlier articles, the Chinese translation of crisis means both danger and opportunity.

Fear never stopped anyone from doing anything.  Only turning away from courageous choice-making stops us from being fully actualized.  Courage snaps us out of our “box” of ego-driven woundedness and correspondingly restricted, compromised problem-solving that always fundamentally interferes with real resolution.

Key Steps to Courageous Choice-Making

Becoming assertive create, builds and extends courage.  Here are my key recommendations to recover your essence courage and be assertive in any situation:

1.   When struggling about how to respond, begin by closing your eyes, taking several full, deep, cleansing breaths, and then imagine how you can ask your heart what it wants and needs to be set free.  Record your experience.

2.  Write down what in your heart of hearts you believe to be true about the concerning situation.  Then take a few moments to read over all that you have written, sit with it a bit, and then record whatever insights occur.

3.  In a deeper reflective state, ask yourself the following question:  What am I most afraid of here?  Stay as fully present as you can with whatever comes up inside you in response, and then record your experience, as well as whatever insights occur.

4.  Imagine you can view the whole experience from a detached, focused place.  As this occurs, ask yourself the following questions:  Who, What, Where, When, Why and How is this happening?  Record all your answers, and then read through everything and record any insights that occur.

5.  Read through all that you have recorded and use all of it to correspondingly list all possible courses of action in a brainstorming journaling exercise.

6.  Ask yourself, in reviewing the above possible choices of response, which one feels like the most courageous choice anyone facing this situation could make, and put an asterisk (*) next to it.

7.  As an experiment in assertiveness emerging from courageous choice-making, commit to carrying out that choice within a reasonable time frame, do it, and see what happens.  Keep notes on all that occurs.

8.  Congratulate yourself for having the courage to extend, in ways beyond your current level of functioning, your capacity to be present, empowered and fully assertive.

Keep me posted!

Key Assertiveness Tips to Empower Yourself

Before You Speak . . .

1.  Know how you  feel – which means, take the time to sit uninterrupted with yourself and ask yourself how you feel – then, spend at least five minutes journaling about it.

2. Be informed and objective:  write down the answers to the following questions as you consider the situation that challenges you to be assertive:  who, what, where, when, why and how is this going on?

3.  Then ask yourself the following question:  What choice could I make in responding that would feel like a courageous choice to me? – and record the response that comes up inside you.

4.  If you’re ready to blow up or in any way “lose it” you need to resolve your feelings before you attempt to speak – otherwise, it will be impossible to fairly assert yourself.

5.  Expect nothing when you formulate assertiveness goals – the true goal in being assertive is just that – nothing more.

Guidelines to Speaking Up

1.  Speak clearly in a normal tone of voice, maintaining good eye contact throughout the conversation.

2.  Focus on your present concerns and goals for yourself and nothing else – in other words, don’t complain about the past or predict the future, and don’t insult the other person.

3.  Be polite – remember, you are dealing with a fellow human being, like you – and we are all equally powerful no matter what anyone thinks or says.

4.  Continue to use the word I as in I think, I feel, I want, I need, versus You.

5.  Stay with the facts and your focus, which includes the facts during your conversation – refuse to allow yourself to be interrupted, derailed, treated rudely or abusively, and label these attempts if they occur.

The Wrap-Up

1.  “Win-lose” interpersonal power struggle games have nothing to do with assertiveness and everything to do with passive-aggressive behavior that only compounds the problem and makes it unsolvable – the stage is set for only more “rounds”.

2.  When you have politely, directly, and completely stated your concerns, your goals, and your assessment of the problem you have completed being assertive.

3.  A fully assertive conversation does well set the stage for real problem-solving and resolution, which can smoothly extend your discussion or be scheduled for a mutually agreed-upon time in the future as follow-up to occur after a reasonable interlude, with a mutually agreed-upon agenda for the upcoming discussion.

4.  It is okay to experience many feelings during the course of being assertive, including fear, sadness and anger – by the end of the discussion, you may also feel both more peaceful and energized.

5.  Being assertive changes you for the better inside, which makes it an empowerment and development exercise – sometimes it takes a while to become fully aware of this and other times you may feel strikingly transformed – that is the gift to congratulate yourself for – you earned it!        

Technorati Tags: assertiveness,assertive tips,being assertive,how to be assertive

Assertiveness – Three Times the Charm

If At First You Don’t Succeed . . .

Try again – but not forever – just three times, total, to really be able to be assertive.  What do I mean by that?

Assertiveness is a developing skill that flies in the face of your resistive ego that only wants to keep running the same avoidant, victim-justifying inner tape inside you to be able to keep you from breaking loose and  becoming your own freer, greater, empowered self.

What Are the Three Essential Steps to Becoming Assertive

1.  Do something that will make you trust yourself.

2.  Choose a response in a situation that you find challenging that will cause you to feel proud of yourself.

3.  Ask yourself what is the most courageous choice I can make here – and do it.

Three Things That “Gum Up The Works”

1.  Anything that moves you to avoid and justify.

2.  Choosing from a sense of what you are afraid might happen rather than choosing from a sense of what in your heart of hearts feels like the right thing to do, or what you feel is best meant to happen in a challenging situation.

3.  Looking to please someone else – or get them to shut up.

So What Are the Three Successive Choices You Can Make to Develop Your Assertiveness?

1.  Be true to yourself.

2.  Be courageous.

3.  Release any agenda, expectation, desired or fear-based outcome – by that I mean, predetermined sense that “I must have this or I’ll die”, even if there is an implication, or flavor of that, without it being fully stated or something you’re even clearly aware of.

Here Are the Three Progressive Steps for You to Try to Become More Assertive

1.  Say briefly and simply how you feel.

2.  Say briefly and simply what you want.

3.  Say briefly and simply what you need.

STOP THERE.

LET GO.

SEE WHAT HAPPENS.

READY . . . SET . . . GO . . .

And please, keep me posted.  Happy experimenting – and remember, you’ve truly got nothing to lose – and a whole lot to gain – your greater, more empowered self!     

Technorati Tags: assertiveness,self-help,Rochester hypnosis

The Challenge Against Assertiveness

Failing to Be Assertive is What Fails and Loses Ourselves

We’re taught not to be assertive in our world.  This is the way it’s been for a very long time, certainly since we decided as humans creating societies to disempower women . . . say, beginning about 5,000 years ago.

We’ve all failed and lost our greater selves as a result.  Assertiveness is about both affirming and equalizing individual power.  No one is innately more powerful than anyone else.  Once we can fully understand and accept that within our own selves, we can revolutionize the world in which we live to become a world truly occupied by accepting, activated equals.

We Can Only Be Fully Responsible for Our Own Lives

What do I mean by that?  I mean when we really get that no one has power over us and that we don’t have power over anyone else, it frees us to become just responsible wholly for our lives and being able, then, to choose how we will live our lives, knowing we have to answer to ourselves for the choices we make and that the world will correspondingly hold us accountable for our related behaviors.

That is fair and, energetically, I would add, all that supports ongoing development and betterment for the whole human race.  It also sets the stage for corresponding mind-body healing to occur.

The Definition, and What It is Not

What is assertiveness?  It is one’s ability and willingness to present one’s whole, authentic self from a place of inherent integrity and understanding that, whatever the outcome, one stays true to oneself and, correspondingly respects and affirms that right for all others.

What isn’t it? 

1.  Assertiveness has no other agenda.

2.  It expects nothing.

3.  It does not look for any particular outcome.

4.  It understands there are no guarantees.

5.  It understands that nothing about the process involves any questions about survival.

6.  It affirms equality to all others.

7.  It always comes from a center of transcendent trust – by that I mean, trust that remains inviolate and never changes no matter what does, or what doesn’t happen afterward.

The Power of Seven to Express Spiritual Completion

Seven is a powerful number, a mystical number and, in numerology, which is a metaphysical explanation that all numbers have particular meaning, it is understood to be the number which expresses the vibration of spiritual completion.  Now let’s see what assertiveness is:

1.  It comes from unconditionally loving, and being willing to stand by, yourself as your greater self.

2.  It comes from your heart, which always exists in a place of courage, truth and integrity.

3.  It is how you can set yourself free, and transcend faulty belief systems and unhealed woundedness.

4.  It produces transcendence.

5.  It is an initiative act of intent to be free.

6.  It inspires others to be more correspondingly assertive – however, that can never be predetermined, dictated, or managed.

7.  It reflects and expresses your level of consciousness.

Assertiveness How-to’s

What are key how-to’s to expressing yourself assertively?

1.  Stick, as simply as possible, to review the present facts.

2.  Own what you say by using the word, “I” rather than “You” or They”.

3.  Come from a place of understanding and defining yourself at the core of your being as not being a victim.

4.  Express your true feelings without looking for the other person to have to do anything.

5.  Let go of any impulse to manage, fix or demand anyone having to do anything.

6.  Come from an inner center of knowing your survival is not at stake here.

7.  Speak about what you want and need, and what you correspondingly wish for.

How Will You Know When You Are Really Being Assertive Versus Passive-Aggressive?

1.  You will feel an out-of-context sense of rightness within yourself no matter what else is happening.

2.  You will feel an intuitive sense of comfort, release, and energy – uplifted.

3.  You will care less about what happens next.

4.  You will feel a greater sense of self.

5.  You will feel more detached.

6.  You may experience a sense of compassion that can extend to you and anyone else involved, and more removed from power struggles.

7.  You will feel more unconditionally in touch with your feelings.  

Some Additional Truths

1.  Assertiveness builds and recovers self-esteem.

2.  It legitimizes anger.

3.  It accesses hope.

4.   It requires responding to another as a whole, mature, integratively health human being, and thus is a very complementary and affirming, as well as healthy way to relate to anyone.

5.  It inspires personal development to everyone involved.

6.  It exponentially returns to you personal power and creativity.

7.  It always produces personal and spiritual transformation.

Check-points to Stay on the Assertiveness Track for All These Wonderful Results

1.  Ask yourself if whatever you’re inclined to do comes from a place of loving yourself or fearing a possible outcome to the situation that you think might destroy you, and listen and note all that correspondingly comes up inside you by way of response.

2.  Ask yourself what’s the worst thing that could happen if you risk responding assertively, and then ask yourself if, in your heart of hearts, that is real.

3.  Ask yourself if you didn’t care what happened, what you would do, and then challenge yourself to, from a place of equally considering yourself and whoever else is involved, correspondingly respond. 

4.  Imagine five years from now that you are completely moved past this situation, and, from that space of being, to evaluate how assertively or unassertively you responded – and carry out the most assertive response you see.

5.  Consider what you can do to best allow your greater self to emerge through this experience, and carry out that choice.

6.  Settle back, go into a deeper meditative space by deepening your breath, and then count to yourself five, full, deep, easy breath.  Then for your next several breaths, every time you breathe in say this phrase to yourself, Now my heart chooses, and every time you breathe out say this phrase to yourself,  I accept all outcomes from this.

7.  Continuing to stay in this deeper meditative space of greater breathing, greater spiritual space, say to yourself, I trust myself now, unconditionally. 

Recovering Trust Recovers Our Whole, Empowered Self.

Let the healing begin!

Move yourself to your center of personal power, and then, receive.

Valentine's Day Magic

How to Return to Love and Being Loved

We are only capable of truly loving when we unconditionally love ourselves and all others as being part of the same divine union.  On this Valentine’s Day 2009, when the world is full of peaking global crises, can we dare return to an inviolate space to love and be loved?

Love has to be balanced, which means giving and receiving.  Love can only be of itself as itself, which presents as a circle without end in which all things are equally held.

A Short List to Bring Love

Here are my top 10 keys to endlessly, magically returning yourself and your experience to a circle of love:

1.  Go to (in this weather, perhaps!) an indoor playground that appeals to you, and play there.

2.  (of course) Eat chocolate – anything.

3.  Write yourself a love letter.

4.  Write whoever you’ve loved in your life – pick one person, or see who comes to mind! – a love letter.

5.  Commune with your body for a few focused moments to communicate to any and all parts how much you love and appreciate it – remember, love is unconditional or it’s not love.

6.  Spend fifteen minutes fantasizing how it would be for you to exist without your ego, and record what happens.

7.  Spend fifteen minutes fantasizing picking three wishes that completely come true – then journal about how you more greatly come to love through experiencing each of these three wishes.

8.  Make a list of twenty things you have wanted to do for a long time but haven’t, and then pick one thing and make a plan to do that – AND DO IT.

9.  Go stuffed animal shopping and buy yourself your top pick – then sleep with it.

10. Spend a full twenty minutes listing everything you’ve ever had and experienced in your life that you’re grateful for, and another ten minutes slowly reading through and savoring the list – then say, “I received all of this, and much more”, to allow the universe to give you even more in the days ahead.

It Lasts Forever

Happy – lifelong – experimenting!  Remember, this list lasts forever, and can be endlessly worked and reworked, for more and greater results.

Valentine’s Day is the only real day we are meant to experience in reality, whether we call that perpetual day by that title or not, in which we can be fully present to love and be loved, as is our right and divine directive.  As spiritual beings of multidimensional consciousness, we open in that inviolate universe, spread our light wings and soar, free and whole again.

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You Can Extend Lifestyle Balance and Empowerment in the New Year

Magical Lists to Empower and Develop You

Years ago I developed a simple but transformational lifestyle-balancing and empowerment self-help journaling tool that centers around creating four categorized lists of ten daily accomplishments.  I still use it to acknowledge and honor my commitment and freedom to choose what uplifts and reminds me of what we’re here to do in this world, from a whole place of being and caring about ourselves and others.  I feel it offers its own magic to further signal the universe to extend opportunities for manifesting your dreams through right spiritual directives.

Want to try it?  Then ready, set, go . . . list . . .

Ten Times Four Equals Personal Transformation

Your Ten Successes

It could be getting out of bed in the morning, not to mention brushing your teeth, eating breakfast – anything that you really have the power to choose to do or not that betters you; or related to bettering, achieves/accomplishes.  Its very important to note that the subconscious does not place “lesser-greater” value on each item on your list.  NO comparisons here, which is a major breath of fresh air, given our conditioning, to find ourselves lacking by comparison at every turn.  Instead your subconscious accepts and affirms every item on your list as being equally great!

Ten Things You’ve Received

Could be a smile from a stranger, a pat on the back from you (hopefully!), or being named in your relative’s will - “big” and “little”, they equally and powerfully belong on this list.

Ten Things You’ve Given

To others, including your pet, the mailman . . . and your well wishes, whether it’s a thought, which is always telepathically transmitted, so pay attention to them and feel free to restructure them – it makes a huge difference.

Ten Things You’re Grateful for 

This might require some thought, which might lead you to realize how much you take for granted.  You can include what you’re grateful for in yourself, and what you’re grateful for having received in the past – that leads to the present.

You Can Lay Your Core Foundation to Create Your Dreams from Spiritual Balance

Four times ten equals forty – a powerful number.  That was the number of days Noah floated on an endless sea in his ark, trusting through God’s will, he, his family and all the representative wildlife afloat would survive.  That was how many years the children of Israel stayed in the desert, dying off to birth a new generation who only knew freedom with responsibility, not hopeless slavery.  Four in numerology is the vibrational frequency of laying a firm foundation through your own sustained, hard-working efforts from which all else follows; and the exponential increase times ten extensively and significantly completes that multidimensional spiritual foundation for you to launch your dreams. 

Success balances with receiving, which balances with giving, which acknowledges thanks.  Try my magic formula to get yourself and this transformational year off to a glowing, sustainable start!  Keep me posted on your results – I love hearing from you!

Let the Universe In . . . And Be Grateful

My Top 10 Reasons to Be Grateful That I Belong in A Multidimensional Spiritual Universe

A most propitious Thanksgiving, now almost upon us.  Here is what most moves me as we enter this holiday season heralded by our national holiday for which we are to give thanks . . .

1 . . . That we exist.

2 . . . That we’re free to love.

3 . . . That we have the innate capacity to love.

4 . . . That we’re free to choose.

5 . . . That we have full capacity to create.

6 . . . That we carry within us as our indestructible essence the divine.

7 . . . That we are a uniquely exquisite expression of the divine consciousness, ever-developing, ever-expanding.

8 . . . That we are meant to share and honor with ourselves and each other in an endlessly abundant universe.

9 . . .  That we have the capacity to let go, and open greater space to be.

10 . .  That we have the capacity and responsibility to transcend, and are endlessly and divinely supported.

So . . . What Do You Think About All This?

I both invite and challenge you – which is what the universe continues to offer us adventuring souls incarnating on the earth plane looking for a hard, fast ride to healing and development – to settle back, enter into your own deep, reflective, intuitive space by taking several correspondingly deep, full, cleansing breaths – and once more read over the above list.  Notice which one “jumps out at you”. 

This is how your intuition well guides you to pick the one you are meant to activate in your life right now.  As this occurs, imagine it draws you into its energy. 

Accept the Spiritual Challenge to Accept the Gift as a Call to Action

Let it then speak to you as it will, and when you have a sense of completion with this focus, slowly and easily return to full, waking consciousness and open your eyes.  Record your experience.

Gifts are meant to be acknowledged through being accepted and correspondingly utilized,  I invite you, then, to equally consider, using your present intuition as your guide, how you can utilize presently in your life the above “gift” that chose You. 

Write the particular title, and then list your corresponding intent.  This is how you let the universe in . . . and Be . . . Grateful . . . in the spirit of Thanksgiving.

More Rules to Live By - A Guided Meditation and Journaling Empowerment Exercise

Rules from Your Center Guide and Uplift You

Yesterday in my monthly memoir writing group I was moved to offer the following journaling exercise that I wanted to share with you on considering how your unfolding life has gifted you with its own unique "Rules to Live By", and how to expand these rules to further support your ongoing healing,  empowerment and development.  We all have them, and they are intrinsic to who we are and what we are at our essence.  When we believe in our heart of hearts that the rules we live by must occur primarily through a sense of obligation, these are not really spiritual rules - they are fear-based conclusions coming from earlier woundedness and the energetic imprints they leave at our core, as well as faulty conditioning, wherever it comes from.

On that note I invite you to settle back, close your eyes, and take 10 full, deep, regular breaths.  Observe how your sense of inner space opens rhythmically inside you and spreads everywhere throughout your being.  This is your soul's quiet, clear reflective space rising to speak to you and enfold you.

The Meditation and Its Gifts

Ask your soul to communicate to you its rules to live by, and when you feel complete with this communication, easily and natrually return to full waking consciousness, open your eyes, and record all the rules your soul revealed.  Then record your impressions of all you experienced through this guided meditation.

Now review your list and write the following questions, noting the answers which emerge:

1.  What rule(s) came from innate knowing?

2.  What ruls(s) came through being supremely challenged in your life?

3.  What rule(s) seemed to come as a surprising gift?

Make a Commtiment

Feel free to journal additionally all that comes up inside you in further exploring your thoughts and feelings regarding these questions, and in relationship, to further add to and/or edit your list.  Then consider how your rules inspire and ground you to commit to complete your soul's choice for healing and development in your lifetime, and extend your journaling to express all that presents as additional insights and spiritual direction.

Which means . . . you do what, going forward?  Write down your plans, keep to your divine experiment, and continue to create light miracles in your multidimensionally cohesive, unfolding life.  Happy travels!

Transcending Impulses for Insight and Empowerment

Its a Bad Combination

I am impulsive.  I used to have hair-trigger responses that have not completely gone away despite my ever-advancing age, including a temper.  It is an odd combination with being extremely shy as a child, which also has its residuals, as well as quite sensitive; and carrying lots of old imprints of being pretty significantly traumatized, even terrorized, as well, on not one, but several key fronts that go back a long ways. 

Of course, all of these factors could well fuel impulsivity, as would playing what at times can feel like an endless waiting game, with the haunting accompanying image of standing patiently at the back of a line, expecting at some point to make my way to the front regarding whatever my individual needs are that do deserve to be met, only to discover that somehow I don't ever change my position.   And then there's the quality of passion in this mix - creative passion, physical passion, and really loving the adventure and excitement of a well-lived life.

All that being said, I do get reminded on a fairly regular basis by the universe that impulsivity does not have its uses, other than leading to addiction, entanglement and, speaking of the original translation of the word "sin" from the Hebrew, "missing the mark".  Impulsivity is an acting-out behavior reflecting anger, fear and hopelessness regarding trusting and effecting complete outcomes.

Setting the Stage for Further Complications

As I've not written a journaling entry for quite some time, I wanted to explore this common quality that does get us in a whole lot of trouble and sets the stage for even more complications than those that may already understandably exist, thus making life challenges worse.   Who among us is not impulsive?  To be completely devoid of this quality is to deny the creative passion and presence of life, but the key differences lie in impulsivity also including the elements of immaturity, impatience, entitlement and separating oneself from reflective mindfulness.

So here is my related journaling exercise for you to try to reveal and resolve impulsiveness.  Believe me, I'm trying right along with you!

A Healing Journaling Exercise to Recover Your Greater Self in 5 Key Steps

Settle back, take several deep cleansing breaths, close your eyes, and imagine that your guide, higher power, or sense of the divine joins you to answer the following questions and move you to write down all the responses which emerge:

1. List 3 memories you have of behaving impulsively.  Describe the situations involved and the outcomes.
2. Now for each situation list what you learned from it.  Consider if the learning you believe occurred stopped the particular kind of impulsive behavior going forward, and record these assessments.
3. Go back to each memory, once more settle back and take several deep, cleansing breaths, and close your eyes.  Experience each memory again, only this time, let the circumstances play out with you not behaving impulsively - instead, see yourself behaving reflectively and mindfully, while being fully, passionately present.   What happens?
4. Once more record these experiences.  Then, taking your time, read through all that you've written and record any additional insights that occur.
5. Ask yourself what you've learned through these different responses and outcomes that extend and improve your capacity to trust yourself, and become more empowered and successful in the world.  Consider three choices you can make now to express this trust in whatever aspects of your life you choose.

A New Directive to Experience a Better Partnering with Reality

Happy experimenting!  You've made a new commitment to yourself from a place of greater understanding, acknowledgment and insight, to break out of the trap of impulsivity, and change outcomes to best support your heart's desires. 

Keep me posted, and trust in your power to well enjoy your unfolding life.   You deserve it!   

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