Listening is an active process. It is active in that it requires focused attention and neutral or accurate interpretation.
Hearing is a function of this process of focused, unattached listening. Meaning is the by-product – it is what you hear.
When you listen fresh, and without attachment, you free yourself to hear the meaning sent versus your internal negative dialogue or grandiose spin on either the speaker or your self perceptions.
What you hear reveals information about yourself when you hear through the filter of this inner dialogue.
In addition when information is heard through this inner dialogue filter, what another hears you say has more to do with him than with you.
There are levels of information sent in communication. This can be clarified and understood in context when your own filter is removed.
Knowledge is not an inaccurate filter. So that placing the message sent within the context of the sender allows you to accurately interpret the sender’s meaning.
The personal filter through which you hear can interfere with your capacity to do this, your capacity to be neutral.
Fears, misperceptions about yourself such as insecurities or historical relationship information that do not apply to the current relationship are all filters which will interfere with accurate hearing, and will result in inefficient meaning making.
Follow these steps to create clarity and move yourself into a neutral posture for active listening.
Be open to clarity. Clarify what you heard – Repeat what you heard including the hidden message, and request if that was the message sent.
Be neutral – face your inner fears, inner insecurities, and inner mis-perceived paradigms or pictures by questioning yourself about their veracity.
Utilize an integrated listening and hearing system – integrated spirit, mind, and body. Do this by paying attention to what you feel, sense, and experience when listening to the message. Does the information feel right in your heart, does it cognitively go in straight, do you have a physical catch or block to the information?.
Your spirit, mind, and body sensory guidance system guides you to the truth – it cuts through the internal negative or grandiose dialogue and allows truth to be revealed instantly when you are willing to actively listen and remain mindful and present. This is a type of listening with your third or inner ear. It is a hearing, feeling, knowing experience. It is multidimensional in that you know it in your mindfulness or unattached cognitions (understanding), feel it in your body (a sense of flow and ease) and hear it in your heart (a sense of ringing true).
Being present, connecting to listening, and the information, in a present-moment way that incorporates what you know (but discards insecurities, historical patterning in your relationships, and what you fear) is listening without attachment.
This uplevels your consciousness, truth is revealed and you may take action from an enlightening and powerful place to create relationships and environments that are prosperous. in love and light, beth
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
Hello and Welcome! When on a quest for change, consider having the attitude of adventure. This allows you to be open to the many possibilities that can unfold, spontaneous and flexible in your responses, and attentive in the present moment.
Adventure is a mixture of heart-pounding excitement, gentle strength, cautious speed, energy, and breath. The most effective tools are honoring your self, loving yourself, and forgiving yourself. This is true with any kind of growth and is a great way to stay centered when going through change.
Self first, not in a selfish way but rather, in an honoring way. Whatever is starts at home. Forgiveness, love, change, creation, letting go, and acceptance. These are all actions that have the strongest effect within. It is through the process of forgiving yourself, you can forgive others, the process of loving yourself that you can fully develop a loving relationship with another. It is in the process of accepting yourself precisely where you are that you can then shift, let go, and change.
This is how boundaries work. Boundaries create a definition. This is me and this is you – through knowing and defining, you can then drop into a sense of oneness, but it is in definition first, you create the space for a true acceptance of one. This definition is dynamic. As time moves, and we shift, we change, and the definition changes. So flowing through the process of change begins with this idea of gentleness, self-love which can be increased and accessed through breath and strength, a sense of knowing where the edges are, feeling them, acknowledging them, and then using them to guide your movement, your process. This too is accessed and increased through breath.
What is, is. Acceptance of this is the first step to changing and transforming; flexibly moving what is – into what you define or desire it is. Acceptance is a gentle and strong emotion and action. It is flexible and flowing in nature, like bamboo in wind.
Part of self-love is self knowing and acceptance; accepting responsibility for limitations, and obstructions you have created through fear or protection, to take care of yourself.
Once you allow yourself to see your story, how you came to be who you are, then you can decide to write and create changes in your character so that your actions and being are more in sync with your internal, congruent self. This happens most easily through a lovingly kind attitude toward yourself and your habit or limitations.
Smile, Laugh – First smiling at yourself and your creation, maybe even laughing at your self with love and tenderness; this energy allows you to shake loose the fear or protective energy and instigates a breaking-open, crackling, and letting go of restriction.
As the part of you that is not a true representation of what is within falls away you may experience a sense of vulnerability of not being covered – breathe into this and set your attention and intention into your heart center – from there you will experience a lightening, a sensation of life bubbling up – maybe a happy, giggling, burpy laugh or smile – a recognition of your true self – seen.
What an adventure in joy; risky, a sense of danger and a sheer experience of loving bliss – all at once. By simply applying an attitude of adventure to your quest for change and development you may get precisely what you desire.
in giggling, burpy joy, I wish for you a lovely adventure, beth
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
Hello and Welcome! I love the name of this post because it could be read inner guidance intravenous (IV) and I think that is the whole thing in a nut shell. Infuse yourself with your own inner guidance and your cells will swell with real joy, strength and the necessary resources to create anything you desire.
Remember two things: that mindfulness, compassion, and love are your best tools AND following your inner guidance simultaneously supports you and your community. This is a different notion than scarcity of resources where competition for resources is required – this notion is that inner guidance will increase opportunity for all. The idea of taking from another to fill your pocket keeps you in the duality that results from the concept of scarcity of resources.
Opening to your inner guidance increases trust and faith so that you are able to see how you and your community can prosper and uplevel together, not one over the other.
The more you can see another person’s point of view through mindfulness–> the more increased your understanding –> and the greater your understanding, the greater your capacity to see the other as yourself –> see how you are similar –>which increases your capacity for compassion and love –> and through this: war, conflict, and those activities that spawn from mis-understanding will diminish and an overall upleveling and prosperity for all is increased.
Here are some reminders on how to get back to your inner guidance.
1 always draw your strength from within and source*.
*source as spirit, god, the spiritual universe as you connect with it as an entity or energy or supportive pattern.
2 to do so feel, listen and see your internal presence and connection to source through your internal sensory guidance system, your 6 senses – surround yourself with love and light and joy.
Listen to your inner guidance over and above the propaganda around you .
3 remember to focus on a higher spiritual plane and understand changes come on the planet from stepping out of the earthly battle and into the spiritual light –
so if you are feeling let down by the infighting, in politics or tragedies – Focus your energies in being even more light even more love and forgiveness – smile – and ‘do battle’ by living in that light with spirit.
think of the battle as not against human forces but against the mistruth or lack of truth.
4 to remain steadfast, surround your self with source and the inner truth.
This can be like an armor or coat of truth, light, and love – surrounding yourself with that energy so that you can feel more protected as you see through the lens of compassion and love.
5 believing is seeing – so believe, know the truth and you will be shown and will see light, spirit and prosperity –
ignore and look away from the propaganda of the earthly plane – political and business – focus on spirit for guidance and truth –
make each choice from an integrated and spiritual connection and then you will feel strength from your feet all the way up your spine to your head or crown – surrounding your waist like a belt and spilling out and around your chest and heart center.
6 walk in the truth of what you know and remember to always be in gratitude and love –
mercury is seen as wearing wings on his feet and on a helmet on his head consider the power of the swiftness of truth to spread through a community –
truth spreads more quickly than propaganda because it goes straight into your heart – no glitches or questions.
7 Through everything have faith and be faithful, when you feel fearful acknowledge this and then stand in your faith turning the fear on its head –
it’s fine to be educated about what is happening around you in the politics but act from your inner truth and inner guidance
8 see the way and follow it like a path –
Know your truth, live it, say it, feel it, see it, be it!
9 share your knowing with the world in love and light without pressure or hardness –
Meditate, be mindful, listen from within and share it at every opportunity.
This is the way to inner guidance and it can bring you an infusion of peace, joy and prosperity.
Hello and Welcome! There is a lot of reference of the negative of the “ego” among alternative healers and spiritual healers. These groups tend to perceive the ego as negative; this is a matter of not understanding the role of ego in self-development, and further of mis-connecting ego and narcissism.
The story of the ego to which I refer is its identification in the development of self, and each person’s interaction with self and other. The ego is that aspect of your personal self that can mediate between your personal wants disconnected from society and your belief systems swallowed whole from society. Ego basically is mediating between individual wants or needs and the needs or wants of the group. So from this perspective ego is a neutral more helpful aspect of your personality. It is the part of you that can be objective and see self and other on the same plane.
Narcissism is a more problematic aspect of personality. Narcissism is a skew in personality away from mindfulness and neutrality and objectivity. Narcissism is problematic in relationship as individuals who are narcissistic have little to no capacity for empathy.
Empathy is the shear act of paradigm shifting – putting yourself in another’s position and understanding that other’s perspective. Mindfulness, lovingkindness attitude and paradigm shifting require empathy. Lack of empathy disconnects you from society and others. Narcissism allows you to take actions without regard for how you may hurt another and focuses your actions on self alone without a connection to society as a whole.
Your cognitive mind has a way of tricking you. It is a thinking aspect – with cognitive firings and logic. It is that aspect that can get caught into a habit of relating, or be guided by indoctrination. You can think of mind as an aspect of the information available to you as part of your inner guidance but when it is disconnected from spirit it can skew perceptions and actions out of balance.
These groups that teach you their language and then have you act by that set of symbols and beliefs are having you work with your mind while simultaneously saying your ego (aka mind) is guiding you away from your true self – which from their specific perspectives is whatever they are teaching. Be aware. Allow yourself to trust yourself first.
Ego allows for the integration of mind and spirit as it allows for empathy and negotiated action that synthesizes individual and groups needs/wants.
The simple rule found in so many spiritual texts to not treat others as you would not desire to be treated incorporates ego, mind, spirit integrated and in balance – it requires empathic lovingkindness guide your action.
Guidance from without must be filtered through your inner guidance to experience its truth.
Truth is not an abstract concept to be discussed and proved through the cognitions of the mind in isolation, but rather it is something that is a trifold experience of knowing, feeling, and understanding.
You can feel when it is not truth. Something doesn’t ring true, look right, feel right. There is a catch in how the information goes on or a blip or bump – if you are paying attention you know it – you fully and completely know it.
The tricky part is the paying attention part.
If you are simply on automatic and going through life as a passive receiver then you may miss the information present in every interaction, in each dream, and story, and connection you make or have. This includes how you respond or react to the story of your politics, your family, your ethnic group, your partner, and your peers. The stereotypes you allow to guide you rather than the personal information you feel, hear, see, know from within.
Paying attention requires attentiveness, awareness, openness, and a willingness to follow the inner thread of inner guidance. To risk discovery of new information, change your opinions, and allow truth to be revealed.
Each person is unique when born. Each life has a unique path. Each being is special. Each of us is a child of source energy, of god or spirit. Each has access to source energy through the source guidance built into her cells, into her internal sensory system – her six senses.
These are always present within you and speaking to you all the time if you would just listen.
You actually are constantly being directed through your inner guidance through these messages; when you feel like something that someone says is off then that is a message from within. Paying attention to these messages through your intuition, your inner hearing, seeing, knowing, feeling. This is the fastest and most effective way to get onto your path and create your life fortune.
The truth will set you free and following your bliss will indeed bring you success.
So here’s an important message – if you are not doing what you want or living at your highest potential – go within reconnect through you internal guidance system with yourself. You can use prayer, meditation, Yoga, running, ice skating, walking, dancing, writing, journaling, dreaming, sound, toning, therapy, or anything that assists you in connecting with your inner truth – but the key is that whatever you use your guide is within, not without, and the answer is personal, empathic, and loving.
When you begin to listen, pay attention to the subtle, gentle messages in the background not the angry, emotional loud messages in the foreground.
Your personal inner guidance will generally not yell at you unless you are about to have a car accident. Otherwise it’s just a quiet, firm yet light message or vibration turn here, let go, trust, believe, and ooh that doesn’t feel, sound, look right.
And give your self/ego a break – your ego is trying to mediate all your inner wants and outer expectations – have a little empathy, love and kindness toward yourself while you begin to acquaint yourself with your inner guidance.
Thanks for your continued interest and support, please pass on this information as you are guided to do so – more joy for everyone, in love and light, Beth
Hello and Welcome I read this quote on Facebookfrom Marianne Williamson – she retells an old story from the bible in a way to encourage spiritual empowerment and healing; integrating spiritual healing and a description of mindful living:
The giant was a terrifying enemy; even the best warriors of Israel trembled at the thought of fighting him. David was merely a young shepherd and a musician, yet he was the one to defeat the giant. How did he do it? He had three smooth stones in his slingshot, and he hit the giant between his eyes. THE GIANT HAS NO DEFENSE WHEN HE IS HIT IN HIS THIRD EYE. He cannot defend himself against these three things: truth, virtue and love. So that’s the message for us: to speak the truth; to work on our own virtue; and to act with love. At this point in history, all three take courage… Marianne Williamson (my italics)
The elements – truth, virtue and love are so powerful – their essence creates a space for you to be impenetrable – solid and strengthened to see your way through the propaganda that is all around you.
From a metaphoric perspective the idea that truth, virtue and love are the powerful forces that work through the third eye is in essence a concept of standing in the light of spirit. I had a powerful discussion recently about standing in one’s heart center. It is a difficult thing and yet happens effortlessly when you open yourself and create space in relationship to truth, virtue, and love.
I receive my best lessons about truth when I am challenged to not speak the truth, not act from the center of my true self (virtue) and when I am not acting out of love for all the parties involved – for me the forgotten love is usually not acting lovingly toward myself – or simply when I am acting out of fear.
I once noticed that evil is live spelled backwards and it dawned on me that not living was evil and living was the opposite of evil. Fear seems to open the door to evil through the concept of not living in your true or full light. Love seems to fill you with faith and trust so that you can go toward your truth and virtue not avoid them from fear.
When I was a student living in Italy. These lessons came to me experientially in my awareness of the difference between my truth and that of my beloved boyfriend with whom I had traveled to Italy, as well as my perceptual awareness of national and political ‘truth” seen from my new lens of outsider in a foreign country. I learned that there were different kinds of truth and that truth had a time-stamp or perspective to it that shifted its relativity. I was already drawn to existential writers by this time in my life, but here I was introduced to the amazing writings of Carlo Levi in his book Christ Stopped at Eboli (1945). This book dealt with many issues of figure and ground when defining truth. It has helped me all these many years to assist others in relationship to discern the difference between what is true from a perspective point of view and what is truth from a universal spiritual point of view.
The first step in finding your way through the propaganda that surrounds you in the media, your cultural and political affiliations and your world is to discover your truth, your personal virtue and what love looks and feels like to you. Love from the compassionate, accepting, non-attached mindful perspective that connects us all as one.
This can be an effortless transformation. Simply notice, accept and feel gratitude for what is working in your life. Open to being rather than doing. Rise above the perspective of right and wrong and into the concept of living and not-living this will assist you seeing, feeling and knowing the truth. This will assist you in developing your virtue.
Though simple acts of lovingkindness and mindfulness you are strengthened. Smile more, laugh more, accept more, feel the pain of others more, love yourself more, forgive more – all these actions increase your capacity for truth, virtue and love.
The first step is through the use and active mindset of compassion.
The best way to get there is through a daily practice of meditation, yoga, and/or prayer.
I say it is an honor because I see teaching as a powerful responsibility that requires love, compassion, and care. Yes of course I need to also know the material, but more than that I need to be able to present it in a way that touches the hearts and minds of those I teach. This is more difficult than just presenting facts – it’s about presenting truth that can be incorporated into a world view and strengthen those who receive the information.
When you hear truth it has a quality of singing or ringing in key within your body, spirit and mind, all at once. Giving you a feeling of deja vu almost, a feeling of immediate comprehension and knowing.
This is very different then being compelled toward something from propaganda. Propaganda is seductive and alluring but it doesn’t ring true in your heart it has more of an emotional-visceral, reactive quality to it. Propaganda is something that lulls you into a sense of righteousness or patterned behavior. Advertising and politics are masters at using partial information or “spin” to guide you to take action that may not be inline with your heart/spirit connection but feels right. This feeling right is not the kind of truth that rings through to your heart/spirit.
Because of this peculiar experience of feeling right through propaganda it is important to be able to remove emotionality and righteousness from the conversation and work toward understanding, connecting and compassionate lovingkindness.
The art of seeing the world from a compassionate, neutral, and curious perspective encourages connecting with truth. It increases the kind of seeing of truth that is not righteousness but open-minded, strengthening and graceful.
The best way to encourage this is the use of optimism, gratitude, kindness, compassion, and nurturance of ideas and growth; flexible, present moment response creates the space to open to truth in various forms through sound, word, and information.
The more you have a practice of mindfulness and meditation, breathing and prayer, internal spirit-self-communication with a quality of waiting to understand before jumping to conclusions – open-mindedness – the more you will experience truth in all your interactions.
The best form of teaching is through modeling. Our brains are hard-wired to learn through modeling. Living in a way that is consistent with what you value can go far to teach.
Many roles incorporate guidance, direction, teaching and strength building – managers, parents, coaches – all have the foundation of teaching at their base. Highly effective coaches, managers, and parents share the skill of meeting their students where they are, defining their strength and limitations, building their strengths and transforming their limitations into strengths all with compassion and frankness.
To develop these skills try the following steps:
Practice noticing what works.
Practice looking for how you agree and connect with another.
Practice flexibility and paradigm shifting, allow the other person’s meaning to connect with you even if how he says it is different from how you say it. Think here of the issue of recognizing that having different names for god isn’t having different gods. The connecting point is that both parties have a deep belief in god even if the story about how to be connected to god is different. Connecting to the elements that agree is the best starting point for understanding and teaching or relationship.
Be grateful for what is great about what is happening rather than sorrowful or even sullen about what isn’t. Practice turning things on their head, thinking the opposite, and just saying thank you.
For example if you just lost your job – being grateful is to look for how that loss allows for something new and better to come into your life. Maybe the loss of the job allows you to learn something about yourself that is negative that you have to change so that you can be successful.
The attitude of gratitude is when you have to define what is great about something that feels negative or is a loss – simply looking from the perspective of asking the question how can this be good allows you to open your eyes to see the positive aspects.
Sometimes the attitude of gratitude is using your thinking skills to put the issue in perspective – for example if you are unhappy with a habit of your partner’s – consider what else you love about him so that you can view the frustrating habit within context. You may find it is less bothersome or you may be able to communicate about what you don’t like without making it into a big fight. More on how to develop the attitude of gratitude here, less attitude more gratitude, 9.2.11.
Reframe the energy of your “student”. If he is willful guide his strength to help him be stronger internally rather than get into trouble. Of if he is rebellious support the innovation rather than reinforce the reactivity.
Relationships don’t require work because there is something wrong with them – relationships require work because we all live in our separate universes that are in constant need of interpretation and definition.
Effective teaching (managing, guiding, parenting, coaching) requires care and willingness and a compassionate practice of viewing, interpreting, connecting, and translating. Knowing yourself, allowing the dynamic process of evolution within yourself and the dynamic process of evolution in the other to be, and to be understood, and to be connected. That is the essence of effective teaching and ultimately the essence of loving, honest relationship.
Embrace your great honor of teaching with all the wonderful beings and “students” in your life. It will bring you immense joy and a real sense of love and connection. Start with yourself. More information about how to increase your internal connection can be found in an earlier article on this site, InstinctiveHealthMedicine, 8.28.10, Guiding ones beliefs and actions.
The divine spark of spirit lives in our truthful capacity to see and love one another. Namaste, is a Sanskrit word that means My soul (spirit light) within me bows to (sees or acknowledges) your soul (spirit light) within you. (Yoga Journal description of Namaste, Aadil Palkhivala ) It is generally stated with one’s hands in a prayer position at one’s heart and a very slight bow of one’s head toward the other with one’s eyes closed. It has a deeply reverent quality.
It is a statement that is often shared at the end of a Yoga session. Yoga is seen as a medicinal and spiritual practice, not simply an exercise by those who have studied it and maintain it these thousands of years.
Develop a practice that allows you to acknowledge in all your actions your connection to spirit and to integrate your spirt-mind-self. This will increase your opportunities for health and prosperity.
The practice of Yoga allows you to practice communicating with your self – mind, body, and spirit – through breath.
Any practice that is done with breath, compassion, lovingkindness, open – mindfulness, and meditation or prayer will increase your spirit-human connection so that you can align with your true self and create health and prosperity. Meditation on Lovingkindness
I believe that human beings are spirit-humans. The idea of managing your body and mind integrated with your spirit is what is your most primary work for health and prosperity because it aligns you with your true purpose and true self, not only individually but also as a community of human beings.
Teach yourself the difference between how something feels right that is false and propaganda and how something feels right that is truth.
Your first step is to develop a practice of integrated internal communication with yourself and spirit – meditation, prayer, neutral observation, open-mindfulness, and breath are your best communication tools. To find out more check out this article En-Joy Now, 12.29.10.
The idea of security drives much of human action and directed behavior. The search for security can take many paths. There are different forms of security attached to financial, physical, emotional, relational, and personal safety and various personalities are drawn to various hierarchies of security. The path chosen will be focused on the core insecurity for the person.
So if you find that being alone is difficult or you have your strongest feelings of insecurity around relationships then it was in that portion of your life that you have a lack of security and a lack of strength. If you live here then money may not be of much importance but human interaction is a focus of security. Individuals who live here will say, “the money will come” but if someone doesn’t respond to them quickly they begin to catastrophize about the meaning of the lack of communication, sometimes even after 15 minutes of waiting.
If you focus on making money and creating financial security then not having money creates an inner sense of insecurity. If you live here then relationships have less of a pull on you but wealth creation and savings is of great importance. Individuals who live here easily let go of other people’s needs or requests and in general can survive with few connections but they have difficulty spending the wealth they created. They may be unable to spend their money even on fairly necessary things because the spending causes them to feel paralyzed by insecurity. This is an example of someone who has the funds but never spends it – the money in the bank, or in some cases millions under the mattress, creates no sense of comfort except in the knowing it is there.
How a person develops a sense of insecurity is related to his early circumstances, his place in society, his parent’s perspective of security and his personal temperament and skill set.
So an individual who focuses on financial security will usually have a story or myth behind it that describes a powerful point in his life when he was without money and the lack of money felt dire, dangerous, and life-threatening. The gathering and having of money becomes the object of security.
In a different circumstance an individual who focuses on connection or relationship for security will have a story of being abandoned and the abandonment will feel like a dire, life-threatening situation. Physical neglect and abuse in early childhood can feel like an abandonment and individuals can develop an insecurity in relationship as a result of this. The relationship, being connected to someone, is the object of security.
The issue of insecurity is an equation of the experience plus the attached story or belief system connected to a feeling of life-or-death. So not all individuals that come from poverty or abuse, who have a challenging financial situation or individuals who have dealt with abandonment, will develop this sense of insecurity.
And this sense of insecurity is something that shows up along a continuum, from slight to overwhelming. On the slight end of the continuum, supportive groups and talking oneself through the anxiety can be enough to decrease the internal reaction or imbalance. On the more overwhelming end it can be debilitating, interfering with an individual’s capacity to function.
The word security can conjure up many different connotations: a sense of physical safety, inner balance, laws and rules; the meanings are diverse but the underlying concept seems to refer to a sense of balance and safety.
In order to create a sense of security, the work needs to begin at home. The first step is to build an internal sense of security or self-confidence and inner strength.
Child development theorists talk about this as the first stage of development for children. It develops out of trust or mistrust of your caregiver. From there, following Erik Erikson’s developmental model, each stage builds on the previous stage. A feeling of trust and confidence will lead to self-confidence, competence, success in relationships and career. Creating this pathway for your child is a function of being present and real with her. Creating this for yourself is a function of returning to neutral, returning to balance, through meditation and paradigm shifting with compassion and lovingkindness toward others and yourself.
Mindful meditation is a useful habit to help create this.
A feeling of mistrust can skew the development of these capacities; it can decrease your chance to develop the positive aspects of the stages. It can result in a lack of self-confidence, insecurity, timidity, a lack of internal strength, a sense of incompetence and ultimately if enough aspects are negatively affected then insecurity can create an individual who has difficulty with relationships, is unable to make basic decisions, and breaks down in nominally stressful situations.
This situation can be positively affected with meditation, prayer, breathing, and reality testing through compassionate paradigm shifting.
The first milestone to shifting your relationship with security into balance is through the development of self-confidence.
I have been thinking about change and the idea of turning over a new leaf. It is really quite poetic.
Change happens whether there is focus upon it or not as this is the way of things. But the intentional act of looking at something from a different perspective can have the feeling of transformation and illumination. Turning over a new leaf has a voluntary aspect to it. It is the action connected to changing perspectives or paradigm shifting.
This works equally as well when considering the need to change a belief – turning over a (be)-lief so that you are shifting your perspective allows you to change the lens of your internal vision in the same way you zoom in or out on a subject with a camera, focusing and refocusing.
In Gestalt therapy turning over a belief is also used to see what is under the belief – what is the etiology of the belief.
This idea is a great one for assisting you to determine how to shift your perspective. When you understand what idea or experience is the beginning form of the belief and you understand the function of the belief then you can determine if the belief still fits into your overall core value system or if you need a more functional belief.
Beliefs are the things that guide you. They are based on your core values. Some beliefs are a misconnection of core value and action. These are the beliefs that need to be investigated and understood at a deeper level.
How you know you are acting from a belief that doesn’t serve the purpose you think is through recognition of our feelings. You have to identify what you are getting out of the belief and the action.
To identify which beliefs may be not serving you, look for how you feel in certain circumstances. If you are feeling anxious or a sense of urgency – and the anxiety and urgency seem out of proportion to the situation – then you are probably acting under a belief that is not benefitting you.
Many beliefs keep you tied to others in a way that uses your energy to maintain the connection. And the actions you take to maintain that habit can be automatic and unconscious, or unthinking not mindful.
As an example: A person who believes she is unlovable, (belief) will over-give (action) to another in order to make up for her insecurity and low self-esteem. She is cementing the other’s reliance on her because she feels the relationship is not balanced without this extra action. However, this creates a lack of balance in how the energy flows between herself and others. She may feel taken for granted or not recognized. She may at times feel unhappy about how she is unable to focus her energy onto herself, can’t create success in her own life, or can’t get out of difficult relationships. Yet in attempts to shift her energy she will define it as necessary until she reviews the underlying belief – because she is acting from this underlying belief.
In order for a person to change her actions she must first shift her perceptions of truth or reality.
She must change the world within to change the world outside.
In the example above she must discover her truly lovable self and then from that space interact. This discovery would come less from some deep understanding of why and more from an alignment with what she observes. She would observe that she is connected, and others do care for her, and that it is through her overextension of herself that relationships breakdown. This allows her to simply shift her action to be more in balance and then her relationships would be more in balance.
The only time this equation doesn’t work is when the other person expects the overextension. If a person chooses to overextend but knows that is what she is doing then she is acting from a balanced and mindful state that allows her to be living more healthfully. It is when a person is taking actions unconsciously, in habit, from a misunderstood belief that lack of health occurs.
The action of making a change for the better, of Turning over a new leaf, requires the mindful action of reviewing and turning over the belief underneath the undesirable or difficult action, mindful paradigm shifting.
Your actions and thinkings are linked and together define how you see the world and how you act in the world.
If the world seems bleak or you are in a habit of acting in a way that does not serve you, doesn’t bring you joy, and you want to change, first look to the underlying beliefs that guide your behavior.
A simple technique is to get two pieces of paper and cut these into the shape of two large leaves.
On the top of the first leaf write the feelings that are bothering you, the habits you feel are destructive or not healthy that you want to change. Then turn over that first leaf and write what beliefs drive those habits. These will be deep inner feelings about yourself and your self in relationship. Issues of lovability, survival, fear, and loss are strong motivators for actions.
On top of the second leaf – the new leaf – write down changed actions – how you want to act in the world. Then turn over the second leaf and write down the opposite belief of the information on the first leaf ( so if you had written I am unlovable then here you would write I am lovable). The simple action of righting the belief will give you greater strength to change your behavior.
With this task you have created a path to change, turn over a new leaf and begin to live in a way that is more in-line with your true self. To further solidify this path you can write down a set of actions you are going to take to realign your actions with your true beliefs.
In the example above, she would discuss her feelings of overextension and being taken for granted with her friends and family. She would define different ways to both be helpful and identify what is too much. Then she would have to catch herself when she was acting habitually or automatically, rather than mindfully, to overextend. This would take some adjustment. In time her inner sense of balance and self-confidence would grow and she would feel more connected to the people around her.
Effective change happens when beliefs and actions are in balance. It is an act of mindfulness, with a focus on congruency and balance.
I see a pile of new leaves blowing in the wind. The seeds of change.
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