Don’t Take on Other’s Stuff

Posted on September 19, 2016 by marcia

5 Common Ways Of Transmuting Emotional Energies

bodymindsoulspirit | September 19, 2016

Relationships are a gift whether you are on the giving end or the receiving end. Being able to share consciousness with another human being is a balancing act. There are 5 common ways of transmuting emotional energies that may cause conflicts within a relationship.

What do you do if you are suddenly the recipient of unwarranted anger or negative emotions? Our innate programming usually leads us to defend ourselves which is a natural deflection and return of these negative energies. One of the ego’s roles is that of protection and this action creates a behavioral pattern that can be broken with awareness and intention.

Emotions are energy-in-motion and are the unique tool of the human body that allows it to feel and create. Those that carry a high vibration have less negative energy and therefore exhibit less negative emotions. These people were either born a “saint” and never held anything against anyone else or they had a lot of work to do to get them to where they are now.

There aren’t many saints on the planet at this time, although the numbers are rapidly growing because people are recognizing these 5 ways of transmuting emotional energies and are learning to deal with them in a whole new way:

Anger– This is the most common way to expel negative energies. This is usually triggered when someone gets their feelings hurt or when a deep seeded emotion of abuse from childhood or even from a past life is triggered.

Crying– Some people may cry to release painful memories. This seems to be more of the female population that allows themselves to do this, as men have been programmed to think that they need to be macho. When a man falls in love through a relationship or with the birth of a child for example, the heart chakra opens and allows for crying to be a valuable tool in transforming energies. Again, it is not as important to know where these energies came from as it is to allow them to pass through and be expelled.

Sarcasm– This is a quick witted way to move through negative energy using a little humor and laughter. It is a paradoxical way to let an energy out while at the same time transmuting it with laughter which is of a high vibration. Eventually someone who has removed their lower vibrational energy will not use this tool.

Passive aggressive behavior– People who act submissive and indecisive to draw in conflict are using this as a tool to move energy without creating the conflict themselves. The ego likes to do this because it then says, “see, I didn’t start this argument. This is not my fault”. Those that are being passive aggressive are usually not aware of their actions and always think of themselves as the victim.

Depression– The state of depression is the mind’s way of making the person’s world stop at a particular vibration so that it can be examined. This may involve long periods of isolation and deep unhappiness. Chronic depression is an extreme way to trigger a person to see that something has to change. The holistic way to deal with depression is to move that energy that is perpetually stuck. Many times the cause of the energy has to be uncovered and depression serves as the clue that this energy must be looked at on a deeper level in order to heal the underlying cause. Psychology, energy healing, and hypnosis or past life regression are better ways to heal depression rather than pharmaceuticals which only relieve symptoms of depression. In severe cases of depression, a mix of both pharmaceuticals and therapy may be necessary for a period of time, especially in those who have suicidal thoughts.

The thing to focus on if you are the recipient of someone expelling negative energy toward you is to learn how to not take it on as your own. This involves recognizing that you can serve them by being the witness of the anger or sarcasm tool used to say “pay attention to me, I am hurting and I have energy I need to transmute”.

Sometimes our jobs as loving soul mates means that we agreed to provide situation that trigger these emotions to come to the surface. Realizing this puts us in the right frame of mind to observe rather than react. If this becomes a repeated pattern with the person then it is showing that they are not completely letting go of the energy and you may need to assist them a little further by talking about it or perhaps with some energy work with them.

Another service you can provide is to create a shield of protection that not only keeps the energy out of your aura but also transmutes it as well. Here is a way to create a shield that you can put up daily.

Take several deep breaths, breathing in through your nose and exhaling through your mouth. Now imagine that you are a tree and that your feet and toes are roots that go deep within the Earth. Connect with the core of the Earth (the Earth’s heart) and imagine her energies coming back up through your roots, into your root chakra, sexual chakra, sacral charka, and finally settling into your heart. Imagine that you have a column of golden white light coming in through the top of your head that comes form Source (All That Is, God, or whatever name you choose). Imagine this light comes also comes through your oversoul and higher self into your crown chakra, then into your third eye, throat chakra, and meets the Earth’s energy in your heart. Turn the mixture of this energy into a ball of golden light that you then expand as a force field around you that keeps you protected. Intend that all negative energies that come your way are absorbed on the exterior of that force field and sent down into the planet to be transmuted. (There are loving elementals that do this as their service to the planet that can handle these types of energies.) Take a few deep breaths and thank the Universe and all beings that are working with you in your highest good for helping to transmute energies for all beings that need it who come around your energy field. You are now a walking transmutation golden bubble of Source energy, grounded into the planet!

Don Miguel Ruiz says it best with one of the Four Agreements from his book of the same name:

Don’t take anything personally- Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that we attract what is most like ourselves on a vibrational standpoint. If someone is angry with you, perhaps it may be a reflection of your own anger and they are giving you a clue by matching your vibration. This is a great gift because it can trigger the need to look deeper within yourself to see what still needs to be healed.

It is imperative that we learn how to be responsible with our own energies, thoughts, and actions. Intention and action to recognize and react differently to situations will break down the programming that has ./.kept us in a cycle of dissonance and unhappiness.

Our external world is a reflection of our inner world. As we shift the energy within, our external world has to change. The place of transformation is the heart center, which is made up of the highest vibration of love. Find your heart center and exist within it, and watch the world around you along with all of those that are in it either change to match it or leave your reality.

from: http://www.bodymindsoulspirit.com/5-common-ways-of-transmuting-emotional-energies/

Transformative Nature of Forgiveness

Posted on August 27, 2016 by marcia

The Power of Forgiveness: The Transformational Effect of Letting Go of Resentment

26th August 2016

By Steve Taylor, PhD

Guest Writer for Wake Up World

Recently I met a woman called Sena, whose brother was killed 13 years ago. Tony, her brother, was working as a chef in the British army, when he was shot by one of the soldiers in his own unit. The soldier claimed it was an accident, that the gun had just gone off as he put it over his knees. He was eventually sentenced to two years in prison for manslaughter. The death was made even more tragic by the fact that Tony’s wife was pregnant with their first child.

Sena’s life was thrown into disarray. She had a psychological breakdown, couldn’t work or sleep, and was put on strong psychiatric drugs. She became timid, felt that she couldn’t face the outside world, and didn’t leave her house for months. It was made worse by the media attention which the incident caused. The investigation and trial lasted for more than two years, and as Sena told me. “We lived in a small town where nothing ever happened, so it was big news, and always featured in the local newspaper and on local television.”

Sena’s difficulties continued until six years ago, when she began to go through a process of healing, the main feature of which was forgiving the man who killed her brother. As she describes it:

“I realised that it wasn’t serving any purpose for me to be so full of hatred and bitterness. All it was doing was causing intense pain inside me. It definitely wasn’t serving my purpose. So I decided to let go. I realised that he [the man who killed her brother] was no different to me. He said it was an accident, and I was sure he felt remorse about it. I knew that it was the right thing to do, to forgive him. And it had an immediate effect. I felt lighter and freer, as if I’d suddenly let go of about 40 years of ageing. It felt like my life could begin again.”

Since then Sena’s life has turned around. She feels that the experience has deepened and expanded her, and enabled to live a richer and more meaningful life.

Letting Go

It’s certainly not easy to forgive. If someone has wronged you – inflicted pain, humiliated you, abused or exploited you – it’s entirely natural to feel bitterness and resentment. That’s surely what they deserve. Surely what they don’t deserve is our empathy and understanding, and certainly not our charity. Surely to forgive them just “lets them off the hook” and gives them licence to mistreat others.

But there are good reasons why forgiveness is worthwhile. A prolonged, constant sense of resentment doesn’t punish the person who wronged you, but only yourself. Carrying resentment – or a grudge against someone – drains of us our energy and well-being. It creates tension inside us, makes us rigid, and creates a general sense of negativity which seeps through the whole of our lives. In a sense therefore, by carrying resentment, we allow the person to continue hurting us. An act of forgiveness, therefore, means releasing this resentment, freeing ourselves from the tension and rigidity which comes with carrying a grudge.

Research has shown how beneficial forgiveness can be. In a study at Stanford University, 259 people were assigned to either a nine hour “forgiveness workshop” or to a control group. At the end of the workshop, the workshop participants reported significantly lower levels of stress and anger, and more optimism and better health. ⁽¹⁾

You might assume that, if you had the opportunity to take revenge on someone who has wronged you, this would give you a tremendous sense of well-being, a sense of catharsis which would purge you of your resentment and make you feel liberated. But research has shown that this is generally not the case. Whereas people who don’t seek revenge tend to “move on,” people who take revenge continue to ruminate about the situation, which prolongs the negativity. Situations which may have been seen as trivial are inflated and inflamed. The “catharsis” of revenge only leads to more bitterness and resentment. ⁽²⁾

And in any case, acts of revenge are counterproductive in the long run. They only set up a cycle of violence which leads to more hatred, hurt and destruction on both sides.

Empathy and Understanding

I’m aware that this is very idealistic, of course. The idea of offering complete forgiveness to someone who has wronged you may be a step which you’re unwilling to take. It may depend on the severity of the incident, and how strongly it has affected you.

However, there are some intermediate points between vengefulness and complete forgiveness. It may help simply to try to understand the person’s perspective, and look at the reasons for their actions. Did they really intend to hurt you? And even if they did, were they really responsible for their actions? If they really are “evil” in some way, perhaps this is due to factors beyond their own control – for example, psychological or personality problems, or environmental factors. Perhaps they suffer from low self-esteem, insecurity, or a psychiatric disorder. Perhaps they had a terrible upbringing which has scarred or traumatized them. It’s also worth remembering that people who hurt and humiliate others are usually full of psychological discord themselves, and most likely extremely unhappy.

It doesn’t really matter conclusions you come to – the simple act of empathising with the person may release some of your resentment.

And once you’ve reached that point you may feel that you can further, to the point of forgiveness. In Sena’s experience, forgiveness was sudden and immediate, but according to the psychologists Enright, Freedman and Rique, the process normally has four stages. First, there is the “Uncovering Phase,” where you become aware of the negative effect your resentment is having on your life. Second, there is the “Decision Phase,” when you decide to let go of your resentment. Next is the “Work Phase,” where you cultivate your forgiveness, by accepting what has happened and trying to empathize with the offender. Finally, there is the “deepening phase,” in which your forgiveness leads to a deeper understanding of yourself and of life in general; you might, for example,develop a sense of empathy and compassion for others who have suffered in a similar way. ⁽³⁾

We shouldn’t, therefore, think that forgiveness means letting the wrongdoer “off the hook.” We should forgive for ourselves, not for them. If anything, forgiveness means letting ourselves “off the hook” – that is, freeing ourselves from unnecessary anger and bitterness, which – as Sena put it – serves no purpose and blights ourselves our lives with negativity. As the saying goes, “The best revenge is living well.”

Perhaps we also have a collective responsibility to forgive, as a way of avoiding (or at least mitigating) the conflicts and wars which still rage throughout the world – all of which began and are continually inflamed by resentment, and which will keep raging until empathy and understanding overcome resentment. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu has written, “Forgiveness is an absolute necessity for continued human existence.”

Notes/References

http://learningtoforgive.com/research/effects-of-group-forgiveness-intervention-on-perceived-stress-state-and-trait-anger-symptoms-of-stress-self-reported-health-and-forgiveness-stanford-forgiveness-project/
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/95/6/1316/
Enright, R.D. (1998). Comprehensive bibliography on interpersonal forgiveness. In R.D. Enright & J. North (Eds.), Exploring forgiveness (pp. 165-186). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press

from: http://wakeup-world.com/2016/08/26/the-power-of-forgiveness-the-transformational-effect-of-letting-go-of-resentment/

Owning Your Power Now

Posted on May 16, 2016 by marcia

How To Heal Past Life Programming

In5D May 16, 2016

by Michelle Walling, CHLC
Staff writer, In5D.com

Have you ever been told that you were part of the cause for the fall in Atlantis? Do you feel that you may have played the role of the dark in a past life? If you are are one if these people, you may have negative past-life experiences that need to be healed. Coupled with today’s mind control programming and deep encoded past life experiences, the result is fear of falling into traps that will cause the same pattern of repeating mistakes.

Programming is carried in DNA

We are in the final stages of clearing and hidden guilt is one of the most prevalent energies that we have left to overcome. It keeps you from being able to forgive and love yourself wholly. Programming in today’s society is designed to make you feel like you are never good enough and that you cannot make decisions on your own. Programming in past lives is also encoded in your DNA and is coming forth at this time to be cleared. Gifted psychics can actually tune into your field to tap into these pictures and energies. Recognition and letting go through transmutation are the keys of clearing past life encoding.

Mind control and free will

The first thing to review is whether actions in a past life were a result of your own free will or out of out of power, control, or greed. Many were mind controlled at the time of Atlantis to do things that were not in the best interest of humanity. Mind control actually began back at the beginning of the Adam Kadmon version of the human body. At the time, the creators of man were using genetically modified as slaves to mine precious metals from the Earth. Many of the things that humans did in past lives were not of their own free will. When the laws of the Universe are broken, how can a person hold themselves accountable for their actions?

Others were mind controlled to believe that they were responsible for the demise of a civilization when they actually had nothing to do with it. They were given programming with sound and visualization including pictures of things that would make their soul carry this illusion with it from lifetime to lifetime. This would insure that they would be able to keep the human from processing the guilt involved, which allowed for control, especially in this lifetime. To complicate matters, some empaths are simply picking up on the collective guilt consciousness of humanity and were not even present on the planet at the time these atrocities were committed.

For the people who actually did contribute to the fall of civilizations, most of them were doing so by mind control. Since we are all connected humanity carries the guilt of “sin” within human consciousness. The ankh was extraterrestrial technology that could be used in mind control by amplifying sound and geometric codes into the body. It was like a microphone that amplified sound and energy. The ankh could be used in healing but it also was used in domination and control. Televisions carry this same mind control vibration through extremely low frequency waves amplified through the speakers.

How to transmute fear energies

Some people carry guilt and remorse for actions in past lives and don’t even realize what is causing the emotion in this lifetime. It is not necessary to remember everything about a past life in order to heal it. Our bodies serve as clues to problems buried deep inside by reacting to things which bring up emotions of fear. Every time a fear emotion arises it brings an opportunity to clear it. No matter what the reason may appear to be, it is most likely from a deep seated fear from another time. It may not even be yours, as many people came here to help heal others. Fear emotions include anger, jealousy, hatred, sadness, and guilt.

Simply acknowledge these emotions and allow them to run their course. Blocking them will cause problems in the physical body, which is another way the body serves us with an alert system. Crying is the most prevalent way these emotions can be transmuted. Women have an easier time with crying than men do, as programming has intended than men do not show their emotions. Thus some men resort to yelling within anger or on the opposite end of the spectrum praying in solitude with heartfelt intention. However, there is another way from a higher perspective that is available.

By vibrating your body to a higher frequency, anything that is not truth will fall away. None of these illusions are carried in your heart center. You can always find respite and solace inside of yourself. Everyone carries the pureness of the light of our Creator, and expanding this light within your body is like having a cool flame purify thoughts and negative programming.

Atonement

It is imperative to let go of all preconceived notions of who you were in a past life because in our limited scope of vision we tend to place judgment on these lives. Someone who played a dark role for humanity is no less important that someone who carried the light. From a higher perspective, all had a part to play in the grand drama. All are derived from the one Creator and will return to the one Creator.

Now is the time for atonement (at-one-ment). This involves hearing the call that we are all ready to move on to the next level of experience; out of the denseness. As we bring in more of our soul particles into our bodies in order to raise our vibration, those particles must be cleared of any negative programming as well. This negative programming is from past lives that are actually all occurring within your monad’s experience at the same time outside of time and space in the now.

Coming into your power

Your emotional body is the clearing house and is part of an elaborate plan that was forgotten with incarnation. The clever use of the body and mind rather than falling victim to the emotion is what is termed “coming into your power”. It is important to give gratitude to your body for allowing it to be the vehicle through which you clear energies from your monad and propel your consciousness to a higher level in this incarnation.

The absolute truth of past lives requires viewing things from a heart perspective rather that a mind perspective. The bigger picture is in the heart and in this space you have a knowing of who you truly are and why things happened. Forgiving yourself whether you have good reason or not will open the door to your heart. Forgiving another also helps in forgiving yourself as we are all connected.

Loving yourself for the divine being that you are will open space within your heart for more of you light to shine through. This is the basis for unconditional love, which will transform the world.

Why do others ignore the truth?

Many times we tend to judge those around us for not waking up to what is happening in the world. We fear that they will not be moving with us into a new reality. One mistake we can make is to think that all other people think like we do and need to be at a certain level. This causes unnecessary frustration that is self imposed.

The body was designed to work through emotions whether we are conscious of it or not. We have no idea what other people carry from another lifetime to be cleared. We also have no idea if another person is simply here to clear energies for other people. Furthermore we also have no idea of whether they are doing exactly what their higher selves planned to do by not waking up at this time.

Everyone will get to where they need to be when they need to be there, even if they missed a few chances here and there. They will catch up if they chose to move forward in this lifetime. The outside world is the biggest tool of distraction.

Lead by example

It is time to stop the focus on those around us in order to finalize the work on ourselves. The energy vibration of the planet now supports change. Heal yourself and make yourself whole within this physical body. When others see the change in us they will be curious as to what we are doing. We will have broken the spell and we can show them how.

Lead by example within the power of knowledge of what has happened to humanity by de-programming yourself first. You cannot put the oxygen mask on another person if you are unconscious. When you have rated your love for yourself as an eleven on a scale from one to ten, you will certainly serve as an example and will in turn help all of humanity do the same.

from: http://in5d.com/how-to-heal-past-life-programming/

On Forgiveness

Posted on May 15, 2016 by marcia

Forgiveness As The Ultimate Act Of Self-Love!

In5D May 15, 2016

by Ellyn Dye
Guest writer for In5D.com

Forgiveness can be a really sticky issue. Everyone knows it is “blessed” to forgive, yet most of us secretly—or not-so-secretly— harbor grudges, carry resentments, relive betrayals, and plot revenge, if only in our fantasies. After all, we “earned” those stripes through our own pain and anguish. If we let all that go, we lose part of ourselves, don’t we?? If we let it go, it means it doesn’t matter that we were hurt, doesn’t it?? Often people resist forgiving because they believe that in doing so they are condoning the bad behavior, invalidating their own experience and pain, pretending it never happened, and letting the person off “scot free.” That is simply not the case.

Forgiveness means acknowledging and accepting that something very painful happened or, yes, was done to you… and then letting it go and leaving it in the past where it belongs, so you can heal and move on in your own life. The other person probably moved on a long time ago!

And remember, it is totally up to you what, if any, future relationship you have with that person, and that will likely depend on whether he/she apologized, expressed true remorse, made amends, and worked to earn your trust again. Remember the adage: “Hurt me once, shame on YOU. Hurt me twice, shame on ME.” It’s true! “Turning the other cheek” may mean turning and walking away! We definitely don’t have to go back for a “second dose,” and it behooves us to learn from our experiences. We can only learn who people really are by observing, and sometimes experiencing, their actions. Every action is information about who a person is and whether we want him/her in our lives. And, as Maya Angelou said, “When a person shows you who they are, believe them!”

Holding on to past grievances is like permanently holding ourselves in the moment of the pain so we can relive it over and over again.When we are still stuck emotionally in a painful event, we are stuck firmly in the past, not moving forward with our lives, and we are giving our lives over to that single event. It becomes a defining moment for us. Many people actually define their entire existence in terms of what someone else did to them years, or even decades ago! Is it possible they want their entire life to become a shrine to one painful event? Why? What is the emotional payoff for that?

Think of it this way: Someone walks up and hits you in the head with a baseball bat and walks away. Instead of going home to get first aid and heal your wound, you pick up the baseball bat and, over the next few years, periodically pick up the bat and hit yourself in the head again. By the end of five years, you’ve hit yourself in the head a few thousand times, with your built-up anger and resentment adding force to each blow. The person who originally hit you with the bat only did it once. So, at the end of the five years, who caused you the most pain and the most harm? That person or you?

Emotional pain, anger, resentment, and bitterness build up in our systems if we don’t vent them and let them go. Emotions are intended to be Energy in Motion, and emotional energies can cause all kinds of problems if they don’t move out of our systems. They are like toxic fumes that continually swirl around us. They make us sick and, worse, attract more toxic fumes… that will attract more painful events… that will emit more toxic fumes…

We create a continuing loop, and each time we relive the event in our minds, the neural networks that were created become deeper and stronger, so it is easier to “fall back” into that thought and feeling. It poisons our minds, our hearts, our bodies, and our lives, and often the lives of those around us. Before long, we view everything through that filter and our vision, our thoughts, and our emotional processes are so poisoned that the only thing we can see, think, or feel is pain, anger, resentment, and bitterness. We begin to believe that Life is defined by that, and we no longer allow anything else in, because our outer reality always proves that our beliefs are true!

It also traps us in victim mode. By holding on to past grievances and marinating ourselves in those toxic emotions, we give every ounce of our power away to the other person.We give up responsibility for ourselves and our emotional state of being, we wallow in our self-pity, and we give others power over our lives.

The truth is, no one can truly hurt us unless we let them.(OUCH!) Knowingly or unknowingly, we contribute to our own pain. We may not have control over what others do but, contrary to popular belief, we DO have control over how we respond. We can cling to the pain and relive it, or we can heal and walk away. In fact, it is never the experiences that create our lives and who we are, it is how we respond to them. Do we learn and grow and rise above, or do we fall and wallow and give up? It really is our choice.

As is so often the case, we can learn so much from the children. Kids know how to “shake it off,” unless the adults teach them to cling to their pain. A happy child falls, skins a knee, has mom “fix it,” and then runs out to play again. Kids accept that pain is just something that happens in life. They know all too well that sometimes people are mean and do things that hurt them, and they don’t let it stop them. We could use a lot more of that!

We owe it to ourselves to forgive. It is all for US, not for them. Forgiveness is truly a “selfish act,” and it really does set us free.

So how do we do that? When someone betrays us; abuses us; takes advantage of us; causes physical, mental, or emotional harm, how do we work our way to the point where we can forgive them and let it go? How do we, as Jiminy Cricket used to say, “Pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and start all over again”?

It isn’t always easy, and we generally have to go one step at a time, but it may be the most important part of our healing process. If we can reframe our understanding of the event, we can often change our perspective enough to forgive and make lemonade from those lemons. Here are some ways to reframe:

Recognize that everyone is doing the best they can with the resources they have at the time. This includes ALL resources, such as emotional understanding and capacity, self-esteem, knowledge, wisdom, experience, energy, ability to empathize with others, and level of overwhelm. Most people are running on empty, especially in the last few years: they are stretched so thin, they don’t have enough time, energy, money, strength, or mental or emotional capacity to cope. People are running on auto-pilot, and when a complex situation presents itself that requires discernment, integrity, generosity, kindness, and love, often they only have the ability to react out of fear. They cannot think about the impact of their actions on other people, because they are struggling just to manage a situation and get through it.

Even when people do try to consider others, they still don’t really know the full impact of their actions; none of us can ever really know, because a person’s reaction to what we do is based not only on what we do, but also on their entire emotional history.

What other people do to us is not really about US. How we react to what other people do to us is not really about THEM.

What people do comes from their state of mind, emotional state, and emotional baggage. How we react to anything that happens to us comes from our state of mind, emotional state, and emotional baggage.

This is an important distinction: our reactions and sensitivities to what others do is our own, based on everything that has ever happened to us and how we have reacted. People can push our buttons without even knowing we have those buttons, and we can push theirs. Heck, I can push people’s buttons just by walking into a room!! What is perfectly fine for one person can be highly offensive, threatening, or pain-invoking for someone else. And we have absolutely no way of knowing that until we find out the hard way, when they react in a totally unexpected way. It’s the same for others and our reactions. The key for all of us is to identify the buttons we have and heal the underlying pain, so there is no longer a button to push!

Forgive them, for they know not what they do. To me, this request, attributed to Jesus on the cross, is one of the most important, and most difficult, lessons in the Bible. When we can recognize that every action, by anyone, is either an act of love or a cry for love,and respond accordingly, we have truly released our attachment to control and pain and moved into love and compassion. When we can learn to be in that space of love and forgiveness, we have taken a giant step in our own healing and evolution.

Even when someone does something intentionally to be mean, inflicting damage or pain on purpose, they still do not know what they are doing or why. They are still only acting from the depths of their own fear, pain, and insecurity, doing the best they can. If bullies were not so terrified and self-loathing, themselves, they would not feel the need to inflict pain on others. Because of the abuse they have endured in their own lives, they can only feel powerful or good about themselves when they are putting others down or abusing them. They are getting through life the only way they know how, by treating others as they have been treated. Instead of healing their own pain, they inflict pain on others. Sadly, it appears that our culture has created a society of bullies. “The sins of the father,” passed down from generation to generation, are the dysfunctional, self-loathing ways of being in the world, based on the accumulated unhealed wounds and pain.

People who feel good about themselves, who are self-aware, and who have worked on their own healing, generally have no need to intentionally cause pain or create conflict; and if they do so by mistake, they usually can recognize it quickly and rectify it or make amends. People who indulge in desperate acts feel desperate inside. People who inflict pain are filled with pain, themselves. People who act badly simply are unable, in that moment, to act any better, for whatever reason. They cannot be focused on you and your pain, because they can only focus on their own. Forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Recognizing how we often participate in causing ourselves pain is a humbling experience, and an important step toward forgiveness of ourselves and others, as well as toward our own self-awareness.

We must understand that no one can hurt us emotionally unless we “let” them. Nothing anyone else does is deeply painful unless there is something inside us that resonates with it. That unhealed emotional pain inside us—or our attachment to control of external events and others—sets up a resonance and attracts more pain into our lives. It’s those “buttons” again, that keep getting pushed. Used consciously, an emotional response can alert us to our deep, unhealed pain so we can heal it and eliminate the buttons. Unfortunately, we usually just cling more to each painful incident, thus increasing the resonance in an escalating cycle.

When we blame others for how we feel, regardless of what they have done; when we give others the power to hurt us and “ruin” our lives, we keep ourselves trapped in that resonance-pain-resonance-pain feedback loop. And if we feel, deep inside, that we deserve pain—or if we have been betraying ourselves by allowing abuse—then pain and betrayal will become the pattern of our lives until we break the cycle. And it is up to us, not someone else, to do the work to heal and break the cycle. If we allow ourselves to be doormats, we cannot really hold it against someone who wipes his feet on us, because we invited the action, consciously or unconsciously.

As Doctor Phil says, it’s up to us to teach people how to treat us, and we do that every day in every interaction, consciously or unconsciously. We do it by what we allow and what we don’t allow. Our relationships show us what we are teaching people about how we believe we deserve to be treated—and sometimes, that’s not pretty! We often stay in abusive situations, hoping the other person will change, because we are too afraid to empower ourselves to leave and create our own change. Or, deep down, we believe that we deserve it. (We don’t—EVER! And sometimes that’s our biggest lesson!)

We can also sometimes unconsciously “invite” or set ourselves up for disappointment and pain by harboring unrealistic expectations of others and/or by not clearly conveying our expectations to others. That is a trap, and no one wins. Often, we feel that others should somehow “know” what we need, want, or expect (possibly because we are afraid to express our needs clearly, or don’t believe we deserve to have them met). When others do not fulfill those needs or expectations, we take it personally, feel hurt, and hold it against them. But our needs are our responsibility.

We also may expect others to act in the same ways that we would in a given situation; we expect someone to act fairly because we would, or we expect someone to consider our needs and feelings because we would do that for them. We expect others to share our values and integrity and, perhaps to even act in our interests instead of their own. But again, these are unrealistic expectations, and unrealistic expectations only set us

from: http://in5d.com/forgiveness-as-the-ultimate-act-of-self-love/

Desmond Tutu On Healing After Ferguson

Posted on May 28, 2015 by marcia

Can America Heal After Ferguson? We Asked Desmond Tutu and His Daughter

South Africans surprised everyone by transitioning to a relatively peaceful post-apartheid society. Here’s what Americans can learn.

The Rev. Mpho Tutu and the Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Photo by Andrew Zuckerman.

Sarah van Gelder Fania Davis Miles Schneiderman posted May 27, 2015

Archbishop Desmond Tutu is perhaps the closest thing the world has to an expert on forgiveness. A Nobel Peace Prize laureate, he led the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was charged with healing the wounds inflicted by generations of institutionalized racism.

“What you do to me lives in you.”

His work helped South Africa transition from an apartheid state to a multiracial democracy. In the process, Tutu and the Commission considered more than 7,000 applications for amnesty, acting on the idea that everyone deserves the chance to walk the road of redemption.

Tutu remains widely sought after for his wisdom, particularly as countries around the world attempt to use the process of truth and reconciliation to heal from their own legacies of conflict and hurt. He and his daughter the Rev. Mpho Tutu recently released their Book of Forgiving, a guide for both perpetrators and victims of violence to embrace their mutual humanity and learn how to forgive, and how to be forgiven.

For the Summer 2015 issue of YES! Magazine, titled “Make It Right,” Desmond and Mpho Tutu were interviewed by YES! Editor in Chief Sarah van Gelder and contributor Fania Davis, a civil rights attorney and executive director of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth.

We wanted to know how the United States could recover from a legacy of slavery, lynchings, disenfranchisement, and mass incarceration. What is the process of forgiving on such a scale, and could a truth and reconciliation process work in an America currently boiling over with racial tensions?

The Tutus responded in an audio recording. An edited version of the interview appears in the Summer 2015 issue, but the full interview, featuring the voices of both father and daughter, is presented here.

On Ubuntu

Ubuntu is an ancient southern African belief that suggests individuals exist only in relationship with other living beings. As all living things are relatives, it is our responsibility to take care of one another. Desmond and Mpho Tutu begin by speaking about Ubuntu, and how its basic precept of interdependence informs the cycle of forgiveness by emphasizing that, as Mpho says, “what you do to me lives in you.”

On reconciliation

“Truth and reconciliation” has become part of the lexicon since the end of apartheid, but what do those words actually mean? The Tutus explain how the act of truth-telling plays a vital role in facilitating the process of reconciliation, and why the ability to reconcile and forgive is a sign of courage rather than weakness.

On history and human nature

One major obstacle to reconciliation is the lack of a shared perspective between perpetrator and victim, and in the case of healing racial trauma, the divergent experiences of whites and blacks. Desmond and Mpho Tutu argue that while there can be no truly common narrative, reconciliation relies on each side telling their version of truth while maintaining respect for the other’s story. And Archbishop Tutu talks about his realization that all human beings carry within them the best and worst of human nature

On truth and reconciliation in the United States

In the wake of the storm of police violence against black people raging across the United States, the Tutus consider the question of whether a truth and reconciliation process is needed in America, and if it could help heal the still-bleeding wounds of racism.

On forgiveness, family, and inner peace

In the final part of the interview, Desmond and Mpho Tutu reflect on the power of apologies, the need for material reparations, and the importance of forgiveness in dictating the world’s future. They also speak about truth and reconciliation within their own family, and how they are able to maintain their own inner peace.

Remembering What is Really Important

Posted on March 26, 2015 by marcia

The more I ponder about life, the more I come to one solid realisation: The biggest curse and predicament of modern Man is forgetfulness. Like a creeping malaise, forgetfulness has seeped through all of Man’s being and doing. Individually, collectively, historically or culturally, we are spellbound to forget.

We haven’t only forgot our past but also our place in the present and our responsibility of the future. On a personal level, our ego-based state of consciousness is on a mission to keep us in this state of forgetfulness – to break the link to our being as a whole and to the interconnected web of life and universal consciousness. On a collective level, this forgetfulness is perpetuated and reinforced by social and cultural means – mainly by being tranced into a reality of unconscious consumerism, inauthentic lifestyles and a materialistic mindset.

The brighter side of it is that we all have the chance to re-member and re-connect to ourselves and the universe at large. The power of remembering is at the centre of the spiritual path to self-discovery and realisation.

Here is a list of what I believe we have forgotten, or more importantly, a list of things to remember:

1. We forgot our place in the natural world:

In the last couple of hundred years we have detached ourselves from nature. We have exploited, ravaged, consumed and attempted to control nature to appease our greed driven by self-absorbed madness. We tried to distance ourselves from the natural circle of life. We forgot how to listen to and understand the natural rhythms and cycles of the earth – its signs and languages. We forgot to follow nature’s path and live in balance with it.

2. We forgot our connection to life and the cosmos:

By detaching ourselves from nature, we forgot that we are deeply connected to it and to the cycles of the universe. Some tribes on the outskirts of ‘civilisation’, and who still follow ancestral ways, have preserved this connection with respect and reverence. We, on the other hand have instilled a sense of separateness which drove us out of balance and in dis-ease. We forgot how all consciousness is interconnected and weaved into a delicate and beautiful dance.

3. We forgot our ancient wisdom:

We forgot our ancestral wisdom. In the quest to gain scientific knowledge through the rationalisation of our mind, we forgot the wisdom through the opening of our heart. We forgot the ancient stories and folk wisdom that was handed down from from seers and wise men of antiquity who lived in harmony with the universe.

4. We forgot our path and our dreams:

By stirring away from our inner path we forgot to dream the dream of life. More importantly we forgot how to awake in that dream and see our true nature as co-creators of life – as the dreamers. We forgot that we have the power to weave dreams and use our power of intention to direct those dreams into manifestation.

5. We forgot our purpose:

With too much chatter, noise and distraction in this dense reality we forgot what we came here to do. We forgot our purpose. We are caught in the mass trance of fabricated consensual reality. We lost sight of our authenticity, that inner spark that drives us towards our happiness and self-realisation. We forgot that we are here to be realised as spiritual beings embodied in a physical form and embedded in a congenial universe.

6. We forgot that everything is Love:

This is perhaps the deepest mystery of all that only some seers came to understand it as an all-embracing truth. That truth however is hidden somewhere deep inside of us. We knew it at some point but have lost touch with it. We forgot that everything is ultimately energy and consciousness and that love is the fundamental fabric of existence that runs through all energy and consciousness.

7. We forgot to Forgive:

By being made to believe that we are separate and disconnected from the others and from everything else, we forgot to forgive. In its deepest sense forgiveness is the act of reminding ourselves that we are one with everyone and everything and that there is no victim or perpetrator. It’s just all of us together moving together in a dynamic web we call life.

8. We forgot to be Free:

Remind yourself one thing everyday: You were made to be free.

We were born and raised in a ‘reality’ where freedom is only a concept. We were bound to the shackles of fear, misconceptions, false ideologies, material reward and held ransom to rules and laws laid down to safeguard the interest of the few. We were made to forget that we are free agents of change. We are free to be who we are without fear or guilt.

9. We forgot our real power:

Living in fear has made us forget how powerful we are. We forgot the massive power of our will and intention to change our reality. We have been tranced into sleepwalking and following the ready made signs like automatons.

10. We forgot our lessons from history:

If there is something that history has taught us is how fast we are at forgetting our lessons. Time and time again we keep on repeating the same mistakes, stuck in the same patterns of greed and self-destruction. We cannot be blamed individually for the mistakes done by humanity in the past but we are responsible as individuals to to remind ourselves of the past mistakes and pass it on to the collective psyche.

11. We forgot to be simple:

Human life got more complex and complicated. We are seduced by the glitter of more and not by the power of less. We forgot to be simple and the meaning of simplicity. Life is simple really. Simplicity means discarding all the inessential stuff and ideas that clutter the view to our life purpose and the other truths we have forgotten.

12. We forgot to trust, believe and wonder:

We lost our enchantment with the world. We forgot to be wondered by the miracle of life. We do not stand in awe at the majesty of it all anymore. Our skepticism and cynical view of the world has made us lose trust in ourselves and the magic of the universe. We forgot how to believe. This is perhaps the biggest tragedy of all. It weakened our spirit and impoverished our soul.

Credits: “The 12 Biggest Life Secrets Forgotten By Mankind,” from myscienceacademy.org, by The Mind Unleashed Contributing Author Gilbert Ross

from: http://themindunleashed.org/2015/03/the-12-biggest-life-secrets-forgotten-by-mankind.html

Some Thoughts fr/Gandhi

Posted on November 18, 2014 by marcia

Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problem.”

“If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.”

Mahatma Gandhi needs no long introduction. Everyone knows about the man who lead the Indian people to independence from British rule in 1947.

So let’s just move on to some of my favourite tips from Mahatma Gandhi.

Change yourself.

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.”

If you change yourself you will change your world. If you change how you think then you will change how you feel and what actions you take. And so the world around you will change. Not only because you are now viewing your environment through new lenses of thoughts and emotions but also because the change within can allow you to take action in ways you wouldn’t have – or maybe even have thought about – while stuck in your old thought patterns.

And the problem with changing your outer world without changing yourself is that you will still be you when you reach that change you have strived for. You will still have your flaws, anger, negativity, self-sabotaging tendencies etc. intact.

And so in this new situation you will still not find what you hoped for since your mind is still seeping with that negative stuff. And if you get more without having some insight into and distance from your ego it may grow more powerful. Since your ego loves to divide things, to find enemies and to create separation it may start to try to create even more problems and conflicts in your life and world.

You are in control.

“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”

What you feel and how you react to something is always up to you. There may be a “normal” or a common way to react to different things. But that’s mostly just all it is.

You can choose your own thoughts, reactions and emotions to pretty much everything. You don’t have to freak out, overreact of even react in a negative way. Perhaps not every time or instantly. Sometimes a knee-jerk reaction just goes off. Or an old thought habit kicks in.

And as you realize that no-one outside of yourself can actually control how you feel you can start to incorporate this thinking into your daily life and develop it as a thought habit. A habit that you can grow stronger and stronger over time. Doing this makes life a whole lot easier and more pleasurable.

Forgive and let it go.

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

Fighting evil with evil won’t help anyone. And as said in the previous tip, you always choose how to react to something. When you can incorporate such a thought habit more and more into your life then you can react in a way that is more useful to you and others.

You realize that forgiving and letting go of the past will do you and the people in your world a great service. And spending your time in some negative memory won’t help you after you have learned the lessons you can learn from that experience. You’ll probably just cause yourself more suffering and paralyze yourself from taking action in this present moment.

If you don’t forgive then you let the past and another person to control how you feel. By forgiving you release yourself from those bonds. And then you can focus totally on, for instance, the next point.

Without action you aren’t going anywhere.

“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”

Without taking action very little will be done. However, taking action can be hard and difficult. There can be much inner resistance.

And so you may resort to preaching, as Gandhi says. Or reading and studying endlessly. And feeling like you are moving forward. But getting little or no practical results in real life.

So, to really get where you want to go and to really understand yourself and your world you need to practice. Books can mostly just bring you knowledge. You have to take action and translate that knowledge into results and understanding.

Take care of this moment.

“I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.”

The best way that I have found to overcome the inner resistance that often stops us from taking action is to stay in the present as much as possible and to be accepting.

Why? Well, when you are in the present moment you don’t worry about the next moment that you can’t control anyway. And the resistance to action that comes from you imagining negative future consequences – or reflecting on past failures – of your actions loses its power. And so it becomes easier to both take action and to keep your focus on this moment and perform better.

Everyone is human.

“I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.”

“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”

When you start to make myths out of people – even though they may have produced extraordinary results – you run the risk of becoming disconnected from them. You can start to feel like you could never achieve similar things that they did because they are so very different. So it’s important to keep in mind that everyone is just a human being no matter who they are.

And I think it’s important to remember that we are all human and prone to make mistakes. Holding people to unreasonable standards will only create more unnecessary conflicts in your world and negativity within you.

It’s also important to remember this to avoid falling into the pretty useless habit of beating yourself up over mistakes that you have made. And instead be able to see with clarity where you went wrong and what you can learn from your mistake. And then try again.

Persist.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Be persistent. In time the opposition around you will fade and fall away. And your inner resistance and self-sabotaging tendencies that want to hold you back and keep you like you have always been will grow weaker.

Find what you really like to do. Then you’ll find the inner motivation to keep going, going and going.

One reason Gandhi was so successful with his method of non-violence was because he and his followers were so persistent. They just didn’t give up.

Success or victory will seldom come as quickly as you would have liked it to. I think one of the reasons people don’t get what they want is simply because they give up too soon. The time they think an achievement will require isn’t the same amount of time it usually takes to achieve that goal. This faulty belief partly comes from the world we live in. A world full of magic pill solutions where advertising continually promises us that we can lose a lot of weight or earn a ton of money in just 30 days.

Finally, one useful tip to keep your persistence going is to listen to Gandhi’s third quote in this article and keep a sense of humor. It can lighten things up at the toughest of times.

See the good in people and help them.

“I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.”

“Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.”

“I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.”

There is pretty much always something good in people. And things that may not be so good. But you can choose what things to focus on. And if you want improvement then focusing on the good in people is a useful choice. It also makes life easier for you as your world and relationships become more pleasant and positive.

And when you see the good in people it becomes easier to motivate yourself to be of service to them. By being of service to other people, by giving them value you not only make their lives better. Over time you tend to get what you give. And the people you help may feel more inclined to help other people. And so you, together, create an upward spiral of positive change that grows and becomes stronger.

By strengthening your social skills you can become a more influential person and make this upward spiral even stronger.

Be congruent, be authentic, be your true self.

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”

“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”

I think that one of the best tips for improving your social skills is to behave in a congruent manner and communicate in an authentic way. People seem to really like authentic communication. And there is much inner enjoyment to be found when your thoughts, words and actions are aligned. You feel powerfuland good about yourself.

When words and thoughts are aligned then that shows through in your communication. Because now you have your voice tonality and body language – some say they are over 90 percent of communication – in alignment with your words.

With these channels in alignment people tend to really listen to what you’re saying. You are communicating without incongruency, mixed messages or perhaps a sort of phoniness.

Also, if your actions aren’t in alignment with what you’re communicating then you start to hurt your own belief in what you can do. And other people’s belief in you too.

Continue to grow and evolve.

“Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.”

You can pretty much always improve your skills, habits or re-evaluate your evaluations. You can gain deeper understanding of yourself and the world.

Sure, you may look inconsistent or like you don’t know what you are doing from time to time. You may have trouble to act congruently or to communicate authentically. But if you don’t then you will, as Gandhi says, drive yourself into a false position. A place where you try to uphold or cling to your old views to appear consistent while you realise within that something is wrong. It’s not a fun place to be. To choose to grow and evolve is a happier and more useful path to take.

from: http://theunboundedspirit.com/gandhis-top-10-fundamentals-for-changing-the-world/

Source: “Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World,” from positivityblog.com, by Henrik Edberh

– See more at: http://theunboundedspirit.com/gandhis-top-10-fundamentals-for-changing-the-world/#sthash.ApR35prV.dpuf

Deepak CHopra on Forgiving Yourself

Posted on February 11, 2014 by marcia

Deepak Chopra: The One True Key To Forgiving Yourself

Posted: 02/10/2014

By Deepak Chopra

The spiritual leader and author of What Are You Hungry For? The Chopra Solution to Permanent Weight Loss, Well-Being, and Lightness of Soul examines how we can find self-acceptance.

Somehow, even in a culture that values forgiveness, guilt isn’t so easy to erase. If you have done something you are deeply ashamed of or guilty about, your feelings lie somewhere on the following scale: I did a terrible thing; I have a terrible secret; Someone made me feel that I am a terrible person; or, I am a terrible person.

These statements are mixed together in our psyche, and getting them straight is the key to forgiving yourself. Doing a bad thing is not the same as being a bad person. Imagine a small child who is caught taking cookies from the cookie jar, and her mother scolds her. If the child is young enough, she can’t separate “I did a bad thing” from “I am bad.” And since the one who is making her feel guilty is her mother, the guilt that results comes with absolute authority. (This is one reason some psychologists claim that the gods and goddesses are actually stand-ins for our parents — they make us feel small, weak and vulnerable by comparison.)

As an adult, let’s say you do something that by your standards is a guilty action. You cheated on your income tax or on your spouse; you faked a job resume or got a good friend into trouble. You can’t forgive yourself by simply putting the bad action in proportion and moving on.

So what to do? The most effective ways to rid yourself of guilt are the following:

1. Confess to an authority figure and ask for their forgiveness.
2. Perform an act of atonement.
3. Pray for divine forgiveness.
4. Perform a ritual of contrition and appeasement.

It’s often pointed out how psychologically effective the Catholic confessional proves to be (all four approaches to erasing guilt are included). But the effectiveness of these steps diminishes if you don’t have deep faith. Even if you have no religious faith at all, the key to forgiving yourself remains the same: You must believe that you have been forgiven.

In most cases, living with guilt is far worse than going to the person you have wronged, confessing your misdeed and asking to be forgiven. Even if they say no, you have brought your guilty secret to light, and that’s a major step.

Some people are so ashamed that they can’t bring themselves to tell anyone their secret. The result is the worst kind of guilt, that festers inside with no chance for relief. If you feel that you have this kind of deep guilt, you must still find a way to believe that you are forgiven. You may have to take baby steps to get there. For example:

1. Write a letter confessing your secret. Include every detail. Take your time to make sure that you have left nothing out. When you are certain that the letter is complete, perform a ritual where you burn the letter or consign it to the sea — anything that will totally obliterate it. As you do this, say, “I put my guilt behind me. Now it belongs to God (or the universe).” Repeat this ritual several times, as needed. You may not completely absolve yourself, but you will be bringing your guilt to the light, which is the only place where healing psychological scars can occur.

2. Put your misdeed on someone else’s shoulders, imagining that the guilt isn’t yours. Now sit in judgment. Write out in detail what punishment this person deserves, and at the same time include reasons for mercy. Consider the balance between punishment and forgiveness. Most guilty people will be much more lenient on someone else than on themselves. This exercise gives you a perspective on your guilty feelings.

3. Adopt a mantra that you say to yourself the moment that a guilty memory or feeling arises. The following phrases are particularly effective: “I’m not that person anymore;” or “My attention belongs in the present;” or “I am not here to suffer anymore.” Choose the appropriate phrase and repeat it, without fail, every time you feel guilty. In this way, you are not only telling yourself the truth, for you aren’t the person anymore who committed a past misdeed, but you are also giving your brain a new, more positive input. This will help to wean it off the old wiring that keeps messaging guilt long after guilt is deserved.

No matter how big or small your guilty secret, no matter if your guilt is nagging or crushing, the goal is always the same. Do whatever it takes until you truly believe that you have been forgiven.

from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/10/how-to-forgive-yourself-deepak-chopra_n_4697921.html?utm_hp_ref=gps-for-the-soul&ir=GPS+for+the+Soul

Spiritual Lessons for WHoleness

Posted on October 16, 2013 by marcia

Ten Spiritual Lessons for a New World

Amidst intensely turbulent times, so many of us today are feeling the urgent call to make changes that will create a brighter future for us all. Yet, however much we may want to save the world or fix what’s wrong, the truth remains that we can only change the world by changing ourselves. Inner transformation is the key to outer change.

Essentially, the ten lessons are about taking responsibility for our own evolutionary growth because only an awakened being can bring light to the world and be an effective agent of change. As we stand on the brink of a monumentally pregnant moment in the history of humanity, my invitation is that you join the inner revolution that can give birth to a radically new you and a radically new world.

A brief outline of the ten spiritual lessons:

Lesson 1 – Responsibility

To recognize that we are solely responsible for both our happiness and our unhappiness transforms our internal paradigm from victim-consciousness to becoming a master of our inner world. The power to make a conscious choice in how we respond to life is the foundation for the flowering of a new consciousness.

Lesson 2 – Clarity

To recognize that the world we experience is a reflection of our inner world gives birth to awareness. Awareness has the power to dissolve all story-lines of blame, shame and pain and allows us to rest in the truth of what is really here. This clarity erases inner and outer conflict and sows the seeds for true peace in the world.

Lesson 3 – Relaxation

The more deeply we relax and allow life to unfold in its depth and breadth, the more we are nourished. Taking action from a place of deep relaxation is far more powerful than acting from inner resistance. The former leads to aliveness, the joy of being and a world of creative possibilities, the latter leads to stress, disharmony and disease.

Lesson 4 – Presence

The capacity to penetrate this moment with the depth of our presence cuts through ghosts of past-fear and fantasies of future-hope. In the discovery of what remains, we are granted the power of knowing ourselves as the eternal, infinite space within which everything else comes and goes. This knowing-ness is the key to our true power.

Lesson 5 – Totality

By opening wide to welcome every experience, however painful or challenging, we say YES and become a lover of life. To meet everything with totality offers the potential for deep intimacy that lifts us out of survival-based fear into the arms of unbounded love. This is the birth of compassion, both for ourselves and for the world.

Lesson 6 – Gratitude

Digging deep to find gratitude for even those things we would rather cast out from our lives sends an arrow of love right into the heart of darkness. It’s far more powerful than denial or hate. Gratitude shines a light on the true riches of our inner nature. What we’ve been looking for outside of ourselves has been right here in our hearts all along.

Lesson 7 – Forgiveness

Forgiveness isn’t about turning the other cheek and allowing abuse to continue. It’s about choosing to see through unconscious actions to the purity of essence at the core of every human being. Inherently, there is no evil: the darkness we perceive is only a reflection of where we have failed to illuminate the world with our love. Our capacity to forgive heals the wound of separation and returns us and the world to wholeness and holiness.

Lesson 8 – Nakedness

The courage to be seen, warts and all, allows authentic relationship to happen. In the willingness to be hurt, to face the fear and to experience honestly what lies beneath, we see that love is always here, whatever form it takes. A world built on authenticity is a convergence of hearts in which we herald in a radically new way of life.

Lesson 9 – Service

The new evolutionary impulse coming through humanity today demands that we make the transition from taking to giving. It’s not about doing good but it is about serving God. It’s the call to step beyond our comfort zone into our greatness so that we play our rightful role within Divine Plan. It’s about awakening to our essential love-nature and then serving the world with the fragrance of this love.

Lesson 10 – Resoluteness

The unwavering resolve to take one step at a time, whether we walk over mountain peaks or through valley lows, guarantees that our inner radiance is never extinguished. Action fuelled by the motivation to be a beacon of light unto ourselves and unto the world is the mark of a true agent of change.

Source: “10 Spiritual Lessons for a New World,” by Amoda Maa Jeevan, from watkinsbooks.com

from: http://theunboundedspirit.com/ten-spiritual-lessons-for-a-new-world/

The Power of FOrgiveness

Posted on July 30, 2013 by marcia

Forgiveness: The Ultimate Cleanse

26th July 2013

By Carmen Allgood

Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

Most people in the Western world are constantly on the lookout for pills and potions that will prove to be the “fountain of youth” and help us live longer, healthier lives.

First, why is it that we want the body to live longer? For it is certain if our focus is on our body, we are banking on the impossible and already know that nothing in this physical world is capable of lasting an eternity. There will never be any security or safety found in a physical entity, and this includes the body.

The search for Truth cannot be a partial commitment. Wishful thinking will never turn the truth into something we want it to be, mainly because we are not the author of reality.

In order to experience what is capable of lasting forever, and promises us a perfect release from the thought of death and all the ills that seem to go along with it, we’re going to need to accept that the body is not our reality. The body is merely a part of our experience in this temporary world; its function and purpose are highly overrated because, in and of itself, it has no real function or value, aside from being a vehicle for sharing thoughts in this realm.

True communication is invisible and pure thought. Can we see it? No, but we can experience the decisions we make and see the outcome quite clearly.

Be willing to at least entertain the idea that the body is not who and what we are, and focus entirely on what is going on in the mind. This is where our life takes place because how we feel is always going to revolve around what we are thinking, and how we feel as a result.

Recently, one of the new young leaders of this world, Malala Yousafzai, addressed the United Nations Youth Assembly and world on her 16th birthday. By all rights she should have left this world behind, because how many bodies can withstand a bullet to the brain and still function? This miracle has obvious repercussions because it has become the “shot heard round the world.” Malala is now a spokesperson for millions of young people who deserve an education, and her crime, according to the Taliban, is that she wanted to go to school. For this, she deserved to die.

But live she did, and with the media behind her, Malala is teaching all of us the most powerful lesson in the world with her amazing statement:

“… this is the forgiveness that I have learned from my father and from my mother. This is what my soul is telling me: be peaceful and love everyone.”

Is there any doubt that she is still in this incarnation precisely to deliver this timely message? Forgiveness is the ultimate cleanse that removes all pain, heals all wounds, repairs the heart, and renews the mind. A forgiving mind reveals the Light that each of us stands in when we have decided to side with peace. If Malala can find it in her heart to forgive those who would kill her, what’s keeping us from forgiving this world so we can live in peace?

Forgiveness is not a new message. Countless spiritual teachers and healers tell us that this is a free and freeing practice that can only heal our split perception so that everything fuses gently into One Thought, One Love, One Life, and reveals the Oneness of the Universe that binds us all together. There is no other way if what we want is eternal peace and happiness. Forgive and free the world from all we thought was unloving, and we free ourselves right along with it. Love is the Answer.

from: http://wakeup-world.com/2013/07/26/forgiveness-the-ultimate-cleanse/