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Empower your child through modeling authenticity, strength, and security.

Practicing mindful meditation on a daily basis changes the interchange between your inner tripartite mind.

sigmund freudYour tripartite mind was identified by Freud where he observed that decisions were made through an inner interaction between your inner id: primitive wants and desires, your inner rule holder, your superego and your inner mediator, your ego who looks for ways to make both the id and the superego happy.  Too much emphasis on the id ruling your decision-making and you end up being a person who is self-centered, not very good at negotiating with your peers and in general a taker in society.  Too much emphasis on the superego ruling your decision-making and you end up being a bit bossy, rigid, and not very good at navigating in relationship.  While the balance is found in emphasizing the ego’s role of balancing inner needs and society’s rules.  Mindfulness is a fantastic way to empower the balancing aspect of your tripartite mind, the ego.  ( In general, those who are encouraging mindful meditation reference the selfish and rigid aspects of the mind, (id and superego) by calling them the ego – so it can be confusing.)

Mindful meditation It increases your ability to respond in real-time and allow your instinctive sensory connected cues to guide you rather than your habit reaction patterns reactivity. This allows you to increase your internal sense of empowerment, inner sense of strength and your inner security.

This is a powerful lesson in parenting.  To teach your child to develop his or her authentic sense of self you free up an inordinate amount of defensive energy so that he or she can simply allow the flow of life to create and innovate and be happy. But it has to start through your action.  What you model is the first lesson taught to your child about health and inner strength, security.

strength comes from will - M. GandhiWhen you model mindful action and respond to tragedy and difficulty with joy, patience, mindfulness, and a sense of inner security, you offer a specific model to help your child develop his or her own sense of inner strength and security.

Forgiveness, mindfulness, and focus on what matters are important keys to this process.

Here is an example of this process of modeling in action.  This happened as a result of my authentic modeling of powerful inner security and acting in a way that moves a situation forward.

Several years ago, when my daughter was five years old, I was writing an important lecture for my continuing education class at a community college.  I was close to completing the project.  I had a time-crunch and was working quickly, at my kitchen table while my daughter was drawing next to me. I thought I was saving the project.  I had just completed some important slides wherein I had created some complicated graphs about the power of mindful meditation and it’s effects on the brain.  So I had added statistics, information and graphics of the brain.  I was completing slide 65. When I went back to send it to my colleague at the university I only had 30 slides.  35 slides had been lost.  This was a disaster, as the information was due in two hours so that it could be printed for the participants.  I had lost two days of work. When I realized my situation, I had a shortness of breath.  I looked on my desktop and in other areas to see if the slides were available on the computer elsewhere.  I was unsuccessful in finding them anywhere.  So I emailed my colleague to let her know the situation and sent the slides I still had saved.  My daughter observed my behavior and my demeanor.  What she heard me say was, I don’t want to waste my time getting upset, as it wouldn’t help me with my problem.  I sat back down and restarted writing the slides. I was able to finish the project in 90 minutes, because I focused on the process with faith and inner security that I could do it. It was logical as I was only redoing what I had already done, so it was not going to take the same amount of time as it did when I was creating the original slides. Maintaining a sense of mindfulness and letting go of my negative emotional response I had more energy to get it done. The slides went to the printer in plenty of time and the conference was a hit.

But here’s the important part of this story.

Two days later my daughter was working on her computer to draw a picture for her friend for her birthday.  She worked on it for an hour.  She was bringing it to her friend’s house for her birthday that day.  Just as we were getting organized to leave she went to print the picture and there was nothing to print.  She had forgotten to save the final product. My five-year old daughter looked at the blank page and rather than crying or throwing a tantrum or making a big deal she said, I don’t want to waste my time on getting angry, I’m just going to go back to the computer and redo it, just like mommy did with her seminar.  She returned to the computer and did another picture, she didn’t have as much time, but she was happy with her gift.

A sense of Power is derived from inner security, and inner strength.  It requires confidence and clarity.  When you feel insecure, or confused you feel powerless.

  • Pay attention to your feelings to assist you in releasing that which no longer serves you.
  • You may need to forgive before you can let go.

Anger is an important part of survival.  It links with fear and energy to survive.

The limbic system is the part of the brain that reacts to the physical world reflexively and instantaneously, in real-time, and without thought. This is based on previous experience and a number of pathways set up through habit reaction patterning.  This causes individuals to automatically act in specific ways that over time are against their best interest.  Freud called this repetition compulsion.

Freud identified that humans had a compulsion to repeat specific negative experiences in an effort to change the outcome.

Buddhist thought identifies that mindfulness allows a person to delay that compulsion to react and offers an opportunity to respond to the specific instance in play.  When one does mindful meditation consistently the meditator increases his or her ability to mindfully respond.

There are studies that show that mindful meditation changes the shape and lighting up of the amygdala and hippocampus such that there is an increase in the attitude of altruism. This increases the chance for collaborative, mutually positive mindful response to situations and reduces that automatic firing of reactivity that causes defensive reactions.  The Amygdala integrates emotional meaning with perception and experience. The hippocampus integrates short-term memory storage and retrieval.  All of these physical activities within your brain are shifted to the positive through mindful meditation.  This allows for a shift from reactivity to proactivity.

When you model the practice of mindful action, meditation, thoughtful compassionate action you are changing the world around you through your positive effect on those closest to you.  Your children will reap the benefits of this behavior and you will promote the development of inner power, security, authentic action and social change on a core level.

lao tzuThis social change will be away from propaganda and an external locus of control through popularity and following the outside push of reactivity to an internal locus of control, a sense of empowerment, security, inner strength, resilience and overall spirit-mind-body health.

Children learn through modeling.

As they grow and develop, they say what they heard and do what they saw in childhood.

Sometimes that means they develop the same inconsistent words and actions they observed in they youth.

Make your best efforts to be congruent, or to discuss the conflicting beliefs you hold. Help them understand the multi-layer aspects of decision-making so that they can find their own personal, congruent beliefs.

Practice compassionate understanding and compassionate discipline, lovingkindness, forgiveness, courage, inner strength, and bravery.   Modeling these shows them a way to stand up to the propaganda and simple answers they are bombarded with through marketing, and divisive political activities so they can create authentic multilevel personal solutions to the difficult problems in their communities.

Parenting is more than providing the physical support needed for children to grow. It is important to offer protection and support to develop their spirit and mind as well.  A healthy spirit in a child will lead to mindful action and physical health.  A healthy spirit is one where children have flexibility, resilience, inner strength, courage, bravery, compassionate understanding, inner drive, and a sense of connection to the fabric of life. in love and light, bg

Being in the environment, modeling care of plants, animals, forests, oceans, and that the earth and its inhabitants are all connected as one is the most powerful way to bring us all together as one community and create a sense of unity.

Gather support from the natural environment.

internal guidance systemMeditate, create art, work in the garden, exercise, walk through nature, in reconnecting with the tapestry of life you can see the support there as you offer shift in consciousness to your human community.

Shed your skin, Trust your heart-centered, inner guidance IV system.  Live your life fully and allow your full, big self to be present in the tapestry of life.  You may experience a new Alignment within you, around you and between you and source. in love and light, bg

Find out more in my new book,Instinctive Health Medicine, Finding Your  Path to Grace, due out in July 2016.

Check out these videos on Krqe.com in April 2014 and November 2014

You can find out more at http://www.bethgineris.com. Beth’s upcoming book, 6 steps to transcending conflict and elevating consciousness, due out in 2015 offers special techniques for releasing unresolved injuries…and the elevation of consciousness.

front cover.me2weYou may participate in seminars to learn these techniques through the bethgineris.com. Beth’s groundbreaking book Turning Me to WE: The Art of Partnering with Mindfulness(2013), has some great tools about Temperament style and your personal style of partnering, as well as the insecurity Drivers MAAPS. Discover how your worldview works to your benefit or detriment, and whether you have an attachment that is creating problems in your relationships. MAAPS will help you to discern your insecurities and understand how and what underlies how you developed your insecurity driver (Money, Achievement, Attachment, Power, Structure).

You can find ways to simply connect to yourself in a loving forgiving way through theTurning No to ON: The Art of Parenting with Mindfulness Book (2011). beth's book No to ONIf you want to change your life, see how you can bring mindfulness to your parenting and relationships.

Aligning with your true path, your true self in your multidimensional self allows for healing. 


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Inner and Outer Reflection, Paradigm shifting

Outer Reflection is how you see.  You make determinations about your self, others, what you have created and what you can create via a mirror–>through what you perceive reflected back to you.  The work in development is to establish an inner picture that can take in new information as it is reflected but can also deflect distorted information. choose Outer Reflection is how you decipher how others see you. What you like in another is often about what you are striving for in yourselves.  Sometimes it works against you, via a thing called projection:

What we dislike in another may also be about something we dislike within ourselves that we don’t want to accept. (this was first identified as a psychological ego defense mechanism by Freud).

reflection Defensiveness is a notable component of projection.  It is also an inner clue to let you know that you are being triggered and reacting from a habit reaction pattern, or in past-tense, rather than in present time.  You can use the feeling of defensiveness to gently nudge you to use Inner reflection to mindfully determine how to respond to a situation.   We are all one unit.  The universe, the plant, animal and human species are one dynamic, interactive organism. The universe is constantly responding to you and you are constantly responding to the universe.  This is the nature of things; it is a kind of ebb and flow. When you get stuck in a habit of reacting, or an attachment to how things should be or look,  then you get caught in a feedback loop wherein you perceive specific things being mirrored back to you that are more about your history than the present moment.  You lose the benefit of the dynamic reflection of the universe, and relationships. Turning No to ON works with this element of reflection…using the mirror reflection of ON from no, to get you to use your inner reflective tools. Inner reflection is mindfulness.  It is an active process of recognizing, perceiving the mirror reflection and then using paradigm shifting to determine the voracity of the outer reflection.  It gives you space, slows time, so that you can actually create broader and deeper connections to your environment, and your community.  It increases understanding, clarifies your place in the world and transcends fear-based reactivity. Turning Me to We in relationships uses inner reflection to include a vision of the world as interdependent rather than narcissistic or defensive.  Narcissistic reactions are all about me, me, me.  They are fear-based and one-dimensional.  Defensive reactions are both me and I, I, I, they are fear-based and two-dimensional.  YOU can Use this reflective aspect of the universe to reset your self and get to neutral, so you can create interdependent, non-fear-based, multi-dimensional relationships that encourage connection and collaboration.

I chose these reflective, mirroring titles to telegraph the importance of transcending reactive, defensive, fear-based interaction. I wanted to encourage at the start this focus on the reflections, not just the meaning of these words, to get you to understand and engage in the internal shift required for health.  You only have power over yourself.  The world within which you live is your creation.  When you own that, you free yourself to make the necessary changes within yourself to create the world you truly desire from your integrated, non-fear reactive, multi-dimensional spirit, mind, body self.

Turning No to ON is moving from No to Yes and Off to On.  It is dynamically and mindfully working with the entire situation within which the No is happening to understand what is being reflected by the child, so that you can shift him or her to an On position ready to participate, interact and learn. When no is turning into ON it has to shift focus, see from a different perspective: see the reflection of the NO so that you can understand the Yes and be ON. When me is turning to we it uses an inversion, a shift in perspective, so that the needs of me shift into the needs and receptivity of we.  You can think of using an inversion to shift the M into a W.

In order to get from Me to WE you have to develop empathy, boundaries and inner security. Me is dependent, needy and insecure. An individual who is relating in a Me style of relationship has loose boundaries, difficulty saying no, and often feels s/he must give up self needs to meet the needs of the other.

I is defensive, competitive and fearful of being engulfed. An individual who is relating in an I style of relationship has rigid boundaries, difficulty saying yes, and fear of being subsumed into the other and lose internal strength. In order to move out of Me and I styles of relating you need to use both the power of reflection from others and a sense of inner security to establish a path through Me and I styles of relating into a We style of relating with mutuality and flexible boundaries. Finally, remember that paradigms are a part of how we interpret these reflections.  Practice inversions and this will assist you in developing a way through the Me and I to the WE or through the No to ON. Paradigm shifting is visual and language.  An example of a visual paradigm shift is the traditional duck/ bunny.imagesB An example of a language paradigm shift is that the name for the Tibetan word for sun is the Hopi word for moon and the Hopi word for Sun is the Tibetan word for Moon.  If you make a straight line from the Hopi land through the earth you come out on the other side in Tibet. http://www.ahastories.com/hopiprophecy.html. Truth is held at the center of all paradigms. When you allow yourself to release your attachment to something being a certain way then you are free to shift your paradigm and connect. Take the time now to understand what matters to you.  Look for ways to be congruent in your beliefs, your thinkings, and your actions.  Allow your words and actions to align with each other.

  • Discern what creates defensiveness, fear, insecurity, and lack of faith in you.
  • Find ways to Create:
  • Connection out of defensiveness,
  • Love and Knowing out of fear,
  • Confidence out of insecurity,
  • and Faith out of lack of faith.
  • Do this and everything you desire will be at your heart center and your fingertips.

Use these uncomfortable feelings to teach you about yourself through Inner and Outer Reflection.  You will become the strongest person in your world, empowered to create what you desire. Namaste, in love and light, bg

You can find out more at http://www.bethgineris.com.  Even More outlined in Beth’s upcoming book, 6 steps to transcending conflict and elevating consciousness, due out in 2014.  You may participate in seminars to learn these techniques through her website.  This book is the HOW TO companion book to Turning Me to WE: The Art of Partnering with Mindfulness(2013).front cover.me2we Discover where you are in the Temperament and  the MAAPS section.  You can see how you see the world, and whether you have an attachment that is creating problems in your relationships.  MAAPS will help you to discern your insecurities and understand how and what underlies how you developed your insecurity driver (Money,  Achievement,  Attachment, Power,  Structure). You can find ways to simply connect to yourself in a loving forgiving way through the Turning No to ON: The Art of Parenting with Mindfulness Book (2011). beth's book No to ONIf you want to change your life, see how you can bring mindfulness to your parenting and relationships.  One being at a time you can elevate the way in which you treat one another and elevate the consciousness on the planet so that equality, balance, and freedom BEcome the norm for all.  in love and light, bg


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mindfulness and parenting revisited

Hello and Welcome

Negotiating the treacherous waters of parenting can be anxiety provoking and discouraging.

This results from both internal insecurity and external unpredictability.

Three steps will keep you in the flow and having fun as you reclaim the role of mama/papa/leader.

Step 1.  Strengthen your connection to your personal sensory guidance system.  This is the connection to the information freeway  from your five senses and your intuition.  This is information about your environment, your child, and others that assists you in making thoughtful decisions. Step 2. Trust your knowing of your child. Listen to him or her – listen with your ears, your heart, and your sensory guidance system. Step 3. Guide with strength and lovingkindness. Be self-confident and go with the flow. Be patient, kind, and firm.  Say I am sorry, and make efforts to shift your responses to best meet you child’s needs.  Model respect and trust by being respectful and trustworthy.  In all your disciplinary responses focus on learning and loving; be loving and sensitive to the multi-level issues involved, respond quickly and clearly, and use the opportunity to teach joy and strength in being a responsible person; an individual connected to a community.

To help you embrace the three steps, understanding the nature of the parenting is key.

  • Parenting is modeled.
  • This means that you learn how to parent from your interpretation of your own parenting.  This concept of learning social interactions through your group associations is a function of how the human brain develops over the first 24 years of life; and a part of what happens whenever you enter a new social group, environment.
  • What you see done is what you incorporate into doing to others and to yourself; as you age the internalized reflection of yourself becomes solidified.  Once you are into middle age the malleability of your reflection, your internalized sel-persona/picture requires a release of the accepted self and a reevaluation of ‘who you are’… due to the solidified nature of your introjected self, often this requires a traumatic event to shift your internal accepted picture of self.
  • There is a strong desire to be accepted and approved of by your significant others (beginning with moms and dads, and then moving on to peers).
  • You know who you are and how you should be treated, what you perceive as your role in relationship, from what is reflected to you by your parents, your primary caregivers, and your first social groups –> your siblings and cousins, and then your peers, friends.
  • So, if there is dysfunction or trauma or damage in those early relationships you have deficits in your ability to navigate the waters of parenting your children.

Cognitive/behavioral therapy, meditation, yoga, and mindfulness development uplevel your consciousness so that you can shift and rebalance your inner self perception and your outer actions.

Trust, be trustworthy, act with strength and kindness, be forgiving and persevering.

As you guide, be willing to incorporate new information about your child or your beliefs and make adjustments to your course to align your actions, beliefs/values, and your parenting.

Parenting is a dynamic, organic (as in living and responsive to environmental changes) process.

  • Be confident, proactive, reflective, flexible, and trustworthy in your actions and intentions.
  • Be willing to adjust your response and be flexible as you see the need to do so and be firm when you perceive this is important.
  • Respond with seriousness to serious problems, and playfulness with problems which are not serious; stay responsive and discern the difference.  in love and light, bg


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12 step program applied to parenting

Hello and Welcome!

When you feel like a failure as a parent, or have a challenging parenting situation,

apply the 12 step program 

To shift your defeat, or discouragement to courage and healing:

1.  admit you are not perfect.

2.  recognize you are powerless to be perfect at all times with every child

3.  connect with a higher power and engage that sense of spirituality to support you.

4.  honestly reflect and identify the mistakes and flaws you bring to parenting.

5.  humbly admit to your spiritual support, partner, loyal friend – your imperfection and reaffirm your commitment to do your best.

6./7.  Reaffirm your trust in yourself and your team; Be willing and ready to shift out of the habits that do not serve you and embrace more effective styles of parenting.

8/9/10.  identify injuries or mistakes you have made; say you are sorry to your kids for these mistakes; make a commitment to not do it again; stay connected, and repeat when necessary.

11.  practice compassion, meditation, prayer and lovingkindness toward yourself and your kids.

12.  be a helper to your peer parents rather than a competitor or bully; share your positive experiences with love.

  

How to help kids do better on tests.

 Prepare:  talk about what testing is and what it really means.  Testing can help you know what you are good at and where you have limitations; allow the truth to be neutralized so it doesn’t get blown out of proportion.

Discuss (in communication, parents sometimes think that what they have to say is the most important thing – it matters, but what your child thinks/feel/and wants to say matters equally).  Listen as much as you talk when discussing.  Actively listen with your third ear to what is underneath, the meaning in the content and the energy of the words.

Deflect:  shift energy away from competition, being best, pushing ahead,  and any anxiety provoking thinking equation regarding the outcome of the test.  From what you discussed in the above section you will have identified what may be causing fears or anxieties for your child – accept this, and neutralize it, sometimes neutralization means acknowledging that the thing feared may happen; talk about that and help your child understand that he or she has the ability to respond to that situation if it happens.  This teaches empowerment and response – ability; this allows your child to accentuate his strengths and deemphasize his limitations.

Define  – clarify what is involved in testing.  Try to not say it doesn’t matter and try to not act like it is the most important thing; find a balance in how you encourage your child to do his best and be proud of what that best is.  If your child really does have a learning special need – help with that.  If she’s too revved up – teach her skills to bring to neutral or move into the next gear, which means to use the extra energy efficiently:  Teach her now that it is her responsibility to manage her special character so she can use you to help learn how to do this.  If he’s spacey and distracted – teach him to develop ways to get himself focused, or more revved up for the task:  Teach him it is his responsibility to manage his special character, so that he can find a way to embrace the whole of who he is.  He may find that special character and his solution to it, is what makes him unique and this will empower him.

Know your child.  Use your knowing to help him or her be the best he or she can be.  Don’t worry about arena or group-mind.  Trust yourself and your authentic knowing of your child to be the best judge for him or her.

Here are some simple biofeedback tricks:  stare at your hand.  Tense relax.  Mantras. Song tunes for memory training.

Importance of sleep, eating, no stress, acceptance, and esteem:  these are biological, emotional, and physical needs that when off interfere with your child doing his or her best.  Do what you can to keep these in balance.

Hope this is really helpful.  in love and light, bg


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Covey’s Win-Win or No Deal, and a word about psychopaths

Greetings !

I just returned from an amazing event that offered an elevated example of how groups can indeed find agreement and harmony through a concerted effort to focus energies on the thread of connecting and similar thought and a commitment to upleveling consciousness.

The focus of seeing where there is agreement and to honor a partnership of love, offered a perfect starting point for compassionate mindfulness.  Several politically and culturally diverse groups came together in harmony without the need to compete, push their agenda or malign the others.  I  observed individuals who typically lived in a way that required them to push their ‘rightness’ shift and search for a way to meaningfully connect and open to the ways in which others were ‘right’ too, or at least where there was agreement in broad terms.  Through this openness there was a transformation and increase in consciousness and light that vibrated at a higher frequency; a stable threshold opened for 48 hours creating an environment that was indeed a bit like the description at the end of the Celestine Prophecy (Redfield 1993) wherein the protagonist simply vibrated into a different dimension or the Star Trek Next Generation episode where the doctor’s friend simply evolved in front of her eyes into pure light energy.  It was amazing.

I left considering the implications of such an evolution of consciousness toward the concept of one world.  I visualized and fantasized about how this could be a view into what was to come in the new generation, an evolution of spiritual and cognitive consciousness for the embracement or inclusion of all of humanity and the planet.

Mindfulness, compassion, paradigm shifting and sincere, open-minded interest and focus on looking for a way to truly create a consensus that is driven by love and understanding is the most effective way to create success in partnerships – to truly embrace the space of “we”.

I observed something else which I had not anticipated.  There are those who cannot do this.  There are individuals who use mindfulness, and the words of compassion or understanding as a manipulation to trick others into vulnerability.  This was something I had previously understood was a reality, but had not considered in my writings on the application of mindfulness.

As a therapist I would use the term psychopathic to describe this kind of behavior.  A psychopath is an individual who is devoid of a conscience.  He or she manipulates the chosen target against him or herself.  The psychopath has no real internal experience of guilt or shame, but manipulates the normal aspect of guilt in others to manipulate them to act in ways that suit the needs of the psychopath.  An individual with this style of relating in the world can shift their exterior behavior, continence, tone, and words to appear as if he or she is something he or she is not.  This type of personality structure does not have the interior strength or flexibility to evolve his or her consciousness and so simply observes and imitates without a real or true internal shift.

When considering mindfulness and its application toward parenting or partnering you must be able to discern when you are dealing with a psychopath.  When this is the case it is best to follow the words of Stephen Covey in his book The  7 Habits of Highly Effective People:  win-win or no deal(Covey, 1989).  This is to say when you are interacting with a psychopath the habit of mindfulness and focusing on where you agree and the concept of win-win is unattainable as a psychopath is unable to move into a true “we” relationship.  A psychopath is “I” only and therefore unable to negotiate in an honest and fair fashion.

Covey wrote when you cannot find a place of win-win then it is most effective to choose no-deal(Covey, 1989).  This is to say using mindfulness can assist you to discern what another wants and seek to understand the other but when you are interacting with a psychopath once you understand the other is unable to create a win-win (a negotiated perspective that includes both parties needs/wants) you are best to choose no-deal.  This no-deal concept can look like a termination of the relationship or in the case of someone with whom you must continue to interact (like a divorced parent of your child) it can look like an acceptance that there can be no “we” so negotiation is from an “I” to “I” experience, where you seek to simply create what is most effective for you and any other party involved ( like your child) but not get into a discussion of an integrated “we” with the psychopathic personality.

Once you have discerned you are dealing with a psychopath you must take care to not let him or her “play” on your emotional fears, concerns, or feelings of guilt to manipulate you toward his or her goals.  This is a different form of mindfulness it utilizes compassion and understanding so that the actions, words, and behaviors you choose are without malice, but they incorporate the full and complete understanding of the other person’s true lack of capacity for “we”.

Here are a few simple guideposts to assist you in discerning if you are interacting with a psychopath:

  • He or she acts dramatically different in specific situations.
  • He or she has a chameleon quality and can take on a persona that is expected to be accepted.
  • He or she utilizes your feelings of guilt or desire to be kind, helpful and the bigger person to get you to forgive him or her and give him or her another chance.
  • When a third-party is involved in mediation or evaluation, he or she is able to manipulate the third-party to agree with him or her against you – even once you have shared your concerns.
  • He or she never takes true responsibility for any negative behavior inflicted upon you and deflects such to some element of you.
  • He or she changes his or her continence to get his or her way including mimicking words and emotional behavior .

Finally, it is important to use your internal guidance system, your neutral, mindful, observation powers to discern whether you are interacting with someone who is honestly and sincerely communicating with you.  Notice whether his or her actions, behavior, and words are in congruence.

Pay closest attention to the subtle, small things as this is where the psychopath’s true consciousness and intentions will be shown.

I can feel that the energy of how partnership and collaboration is evolving.  It is moving toward a higher degree of spiritual oneness.  As this shift continues to develop focus your energy on interactions that will be fruitful, loving, and increase the value of your world. Give yourself permission to use your mindfulness to discern the capacity for partnership and focus your energies on those who are also working toward the thread of compassion and love and “we”ness.

Having had this moment of perfection over this last weekend my heart is on fire with the joy that awaits in our near future as a community of “we” on this amazing planet.  It starts with each one of us, love, compassion, open-minded neutral mindfulness, and focused attention toward harmony and balance. in love and light Namaste, beth


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when I look into my daughter’s eyes I see the change

Hello and welcome!

Parenting offers the chance to rewrite history.  It gives you the chance to choose which aspect of your childhood you want to model for your children and which aspect you want to change.

Be –ing the change you wish to see in the world requires an understanding of what interferes with your own joy and what limits your consciousness.

You can use this knowledge as your guide toward mindfulness.  An awareness of differing perspectives creates the space to embrace paradigm shifting to increase awareness and find connecting points.

As you practice this you will discover that you are drawn to connecting and solving problems devoid of hate and anger, proof and defensiveness.

This can be applied to every aspect of your life including from how you consume, to how your model relationships and partnerships,  to how you parent.

The inner and outward congruence of joy, forgiveness, compassion, and real interest or curiosity in the other leads to real power to change not only your world and sphere of influence but the world.

Happiness is a state of mind – it reflects your inner capacity to be the best you can be.

I am grateful at this time in my life to see this gentle, mindful, compassionate, strength, and sense of empowerment in both my son and my daughter.  I feel joy in my own release from the prison of proof and defensiveness that separates humans, and gratefulness in the path chosen by my children.

Look into your children’s eyes see that joy and empowerment.  This is how you can change the world, by modeling your commitment to practice mindfulness and compassion in your interactions and parenting.

Just as water through its persevering flow along a crevice can create a canyon, so too can you transform your environment through this gentle, persevering pressure of mindfulness, compassion and non-violence.

First you must see it in your mind’s eye then you can create it and see it reflected all around you.

To increase your capacity for mindfulness, compassion, forgiveness, and non-violence practice Yoga, prayer, meditation, internal paradigm shifting, listening to understand before speaking to prove, through these practices, in time, your will shift your perspective and through this your words and actions.  Namaste, in love and light, beth


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on my way to enlightenment I discovered my flaws

Hello and Welcome!

Energy (read creation) follows vibration and intention.  This theory implies that if you think about something efficiently and powerfully you can create that thing.  When living by this theory it’s important to remember fears, worries, and habits are efficiently and powerfully energetic.  So that if You DESIRE to be A and you worry, fret or fear that many things may interfere with you creating A, then, you are actually working against your own desire via these energetic worries/fears.  In psychological terms, this may be called anxiety.  So that anxiety interferes with the process of creating A, whereas self-confidence enhances the process of creating A.

Self confidence enhances the process through vibration and intention.  When you are self-confident your vibration and intention are stronger and more clear so it directs energy to the creation desired.

The fear neutralizes your movement toward the creation of the thing.  Fear creates a current away from the desired thing.  In this way you are energizing two currents, one toward your creation and one away from your creation.  The result is either to move toward, and away from, in an alternating fashion or to remain stuck in place.  The pragmatic person says this recognition of problems is an important part of being responsible but the more effective concept of responsibility is the ability to respond.  Such that, although you may be aware and note through non-attached observation that there may be conflicts or bumps in the road in creating A, you feel that you can respond to these effectively and persevere to create A.

This behavior/thinking/faith is a current toward self-confidence and the desired creation and a diminishment of the current of fear or worry.

You can see this in  the process of learning Yoga.  Correct movement into the position (asana) requires a working with your body.  Your focus is in creating an asana that is correct and to get there you must have non-attached concentration, attention, and breathwork.  The non-attached component is the part that observes and corrects posture and placement without an evaluation of  good or bad (non-attached).  Focused breathing while attending to your posture and release of tension is the intention the energy follows, for the practice.  Being in the present moment, with your breathing and body, is the non-attached attention and concentration.

It is an accepting and allowing process of breath and movement. Fear blocks movement and binds the energy from flowing.  Deep, intentional breathing shifts the energy and releases blocks, both physical and emotional.

You can see this in the practice of mindful meditation.  Breath, non-attached observation, in the present moment expands your understanding and your access to fuller information.  It deepens and broadens your perspective.   So that rather than, proving your point and digging in, you clarify your understanding and deepen your compassion.   From this place you may focus your energy toward your desire and focus your intention and energy.  Breath, along with present moment attention, and non-attached observation, focuses intention and allows balance.

Since energy follows vibration and intention, creation of desires happens most easily and quickly when the desire is unopposed, which is to say clarifying your intention and vibrating in a space through breath of present moment awareness and clarity of intention, assists the process most efficiently.  Actions taken from this space will give rise to information about how you are interfering with your intended creation through fear, worry, anxiety and/or insecurity.

Standing in your center

  • mindfully through unattached observation and acceptance of truth,
  • spiritually through your faith and clarity in your capacity,
  • and, physically through breath and confident action

allows for energy to flow directly toward your intended creation and result in delivering what you seek.

This allows for enlightenment through the acceptance, reframe, and release of perceived flaws.  Energy follows vibration and intention so when you find you are stuck, look to reset your intention and your vibration through mind, body, spirit alignment and centering.

Visualize yourself in the intended creation.  Feel it, see it, accept it and stand in gratitude of it – this amplifies your vibration by removing the worry, anxiety, fear, and insecurity.  Once you allow the removal of the current which pulls you away from your intended creation, you will immediately observe an elevation in your progress toward your intended creation.

Being grateful for where you are and for the intended creation as if it has already taken place will serve to strengthen your vibration, and intention and your self-confidence.  BE the change you wish to see in the world.  in love and light,  Beth


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Know thyself, know your partner, use mindfulness

Hello and Welcome!  Partnering is one of the most important and trickiest of ventures.  I have been watching partners break apart for years but recently I have been noticing an interesting pattern.

Agreements are set down in relationship, I’ll do this for you, you do this for me.  This is part and parcel to developing partnerships.  These can be explicit or implicit but they are there.

Pay attention to what you agree to implicitly.  When relationships break apart the more the agreements were implicit the more there is disagreement about the agreement.  The less spelled-out, clarified, identified the equation of exchange,  the more each party puts his or her own spin on the particular exchange components/expectations.  This is especially true in partnerships where one party gets a lot of recognition for what perhaps both parties are doing.

This is usually a power exchange.  I will do this to promote you and you do this to promote me.  The one who doesn’t get the recognition feels betrayed but it is difficult to really get to what the true exchange was.

These agreements may be spiritual, emotional, or physical.  Problems develop on both sides, if the individual who gets more recognition is truly depending on the less-recognized partner to make it happen, that person stops doing what is required or leaves and takes that work with him, then, the person who is getting the recognition is left unable to move forward and looks a bit like a fraud.

From the less recognized perspective if the person getting the recognition is able to use that to move into another position and doesn’t take the less recognized partner with him, then, the person who has actually been doing the work may be left with nothing.

The place where this is most painful is when someone is exchanging his hard work to simply receive love.  This is a more spiritual agreement that is broken and injures the person who sees the love leave with the partner.

Identify what you see, feel, hear, want to give and get out of the relationship.  When creating partnerships, avoid making assumptions that you and your partner have the same understanding about your participation and outcome.

Know yourself, know your partner, use mindfulness.

  • Be prepared to have a full and complete conversation about what you desire from and give to the partnership.
  • Look underneath the surface of what your partner is offering – pay attention to what you see has happened previously with that person, in relationship.  Do not presume that if he has historically abandoned his partner that he will be different with you – unless you are aware of a fundamental experience in that person’s life that supports a fundamental change in relating.
  • Personally evaluate your true intention and agenda in the partnership.
  • Be open to the fact that you and your partner are dynamic and therefore your, or your partner’s, needs, expectations, and capacities may change over time.
  • Keep the conversation going, check in on a quarterly basis and make adjustments.

These actions may not keep the partnership going, but you will have a dissolution when and under circumstances that promote your and your partner’s health rather than injury.  in love and light, beth


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your heart center links mediation and meditation

Hello.  I have been involved in a lot of mediation recently.  I think mediation is an art.  It requires an ability to listen and see with discernment.  It is part intellectual and part intuitive.  A funny equation of knowing, feeling, and being present with another to hear the subtle messages of tone, shifts in energy, and word choice.

I enjoy it as long as I can keep my right/wrong brain out of the equation.

It requires you stay in that mindful, open, compassionate place that seems often unavailable in contract negotiation, couples counseling, and problem solving.  The more I am willing to see everything, accept everything as truth to the speaker, and understand that in most situations all participants just want to be heard, cared for, treated with love, and be understood, the more I find healing, clarification, and solutions.

This place of being within requires you stand in your heart center.  From that space you can hear and see with mindful, compassionate, lovingkindness.

I find it an interesting spelling oddity that mediation and meditation have a single letter that shifts their meaning.  The letter t.  It’s like a clue about how to get where you need to go, because the letter t is a wonderful picture of the Yoga standing mountain pose, Tadasana – standing feet together, eyes lightly gazing, with your arms and hands held in a prayer position at your heart.

When mediation is done from this heart centered, focused, humbling place then the mediator is creating an opportunity for meditation.  Present moment acceptance and clarification of what each party wants from heart center, clarification of what each person means from heart center, and a centered present moment place from which to move forward.

A beautiful example of this image is represented in this picture by Rabbi Chava Bahle, her post at Yenyoga blog, Tadasana, mountain pose arriving in the present moment, gives a beautiful account of the simplicity and profound benefit of Tadasana, the mountain pose in Yoga.  See the t.  Perfect picture of light focus in the present moment from the heart.

Love, compassion, acceptance, allowing, and forgiveness are heart center emotions.  Centering your attention in the present moment, receiving information through the filter of your heart, increases harmony, understanding, and Soul-utions focused resolutions in mediation.

Mediation is not just an action in the law or business, not just an action in couples counseling, it is present in parent-child relationships, friendships, and work partnerships.  It is an action present in all interactive-relating between humans, even between species.  Our willingness to come from this centered place, this heart space increases our capacity to understand and act in ways that uplevel consciousness, increase our interconnectedness, and increase our overall harmony in living.

Since this is a daily part of living, you can begin to practice at any time.

Increase your awareness in interactions to the tone, quality, and word choice of others – pay attention to your own word choices, and tone.  Don’t just think but feel into these various qualities and practice a light attention.  Practice hearing intention not just content.  Shift yourself into a t, into Tadasana, standing mountain pose, allow yourself to hear, see, understand, through the filter of your heart.

Do this and you will find the most amazing gifts waiting for you.  Amazing threads of understanding, depths of connection, inner peace, and clarity you have been missing out on in your interactions and relationships.  The more you can be present in the now with open eyes and ears and centered in your heart, the more your life will evolve into fullness.

One letter difference, t, connects worlds exponentially….in love and light, Namaste, beth


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How to stay centered and the use of Yoga

Hello and Welcome!  Staying centered is remaining balanced.  Balanced within your own sphere as well as balanced in your interactions and community.  Centeredness and balance infer a collaborative and open response to internal sensations and external expectations.

When you are pulled in one direction or the other this can have the effect of destabilizing you internally as well as  you within your environment.  It can then skew your energy and focus onto a path that is not in your best interest.

The best way to stay centered is to maintain an internal awareness of your senses.  Paying attention to how you feel in each of your internal centers will assist you in staying centered.  You may use you internal sensory guidance system – your five plus one senses – to remain centered.  The use of mindfulness and paradigm shifting are of great benefit in developing your relationship to your internal guidance system especially through paying attention and neutral observation of your sensory guidance system responses.

One way to develop this relationship to your centers is through the practice of Yoga.  This is because you will have the opportunity to connect breath, with the integration of physical body positions and energetic spiritual centers.

In the Yogic tradition there are bandha that need to remain closed or locked as you do various positions to assist in building physical strength and maintain the pose for clarification.  These bandha correspond with certain energy centers in your body called chakras.  What is useful for the musculature is related to the emotional component of the center – one is at the root chakra and is referred to a kegel closure – the root chakra relates to survival and may connect to issues of fear.  The next important bandha that is discussed is the belly button area – holding this bandha closed is described as pressing the belly button to the spine – this is related to the second chakra which deals with creativity of all types including sexuality and procreation.  The third bandha that is discussed is described as holding the chin to the chest – this has a dual effect of closing off the throat chakra while opening further the chakra at the third-eye or the brow chakra which relates to inner vision and intuition.  By closing off these centers while holding the Yoga positions the practitioner is strengthening the flow of energy within his centers so that the energy doesn’t dissipate.  This results in strengthening the muscles and the physical core of the practitioner as well as the energetic flow of internal connection between these centers.  This is how an intentional Yoga practice can assist in the strengthening of a practitioner’s sense of being, and remaining, centered.

Any focused attention with breath to your inner sensory guidance system will produce an increase in your awareness about what and how you are feeling, and responding, in any given situation and can provide guidance about what action is in your best interest which includes a choice to not act from an intentional place.

Centering your self is simply paying attention to, observation of, gathering information from, your internal sensory guidance system (your five senses plus one, intuition)  and responding from a place of compassion, love, and neutrality to that internally connected information.

Remember that  centered sensory guidance  information is in general a calm, and charge-free instinct and results in a sense that something is the best response – rather than a loud, pushing-through-to -the-fore, anxiety-filled, reactive response.

Simple focused breathing for 30 seconds to 3 minutes can increase your capacity for mindfulness and can re-center you.

Longer focused, breathing meditation for 15 – 30 minutes can increase your centering-practice even further and allow you a space to reconnect to your inner self and inner center, this has a lovely additional effect of reducing your blood pressure and reducing your sense of anxiety by bringing your fully into the present moment.

A focused intentional Yoga practice can also encourage you to develop a deeper centering practice.   For more information check out this article on Yogi Times, connecting spirit mind and body through Yoga.

Any activity that is present moment focused with love and breath will increase your capacity for centering, praying meditation, walking, running, singing, and dancing all have the components for increasing or deepening your integrated spirit, mind, and body connection.

Staying centered increases self-knowledge, self-love, strength, and right-action.  In love and light, Beth