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Hippies, Hipsters, and Hypnotic distortion

Hello!  One of the challenging aspects of parenting is to stay abreast of the newest, hip new thing.  It allows you to use the information to connect, educate, and understand your child’s set of issues for development.

This becomes more difficult as you age because either you think the hip new thing is stupid or you don’t actually know what it is.

So my first tip is to look for it; you can find it in the popular dress, music, books, television and movies.  What is a bit tricky is that it may not be obvious, it may be slightly hidden – words and phrases may not mean what you think so you have to investigate and use your listening and intuitive skills.  This is especially important when the lyrics of your child’s favorite song doesn’t make sense to you – you can ban him from listening to it – but it’s more useful and effective to get a handle on what is out there so you can discuss it with your child and at least get your “spin” on the whole thing into his brain and heart so he can make better, informed decisions.

The second tip is that due to the serious marketing population of our children, at least in the United States, there is a whole level of what is “cool” that is just propaganda and it is infused with information that is written by people way older than your child, so make an effort to look underneath the generally acceptable story to what may be a skew of energy.

You have to figure out how to manage the effect of propaganda on your child.  And this issue of what is popular in their environment is key.

The best way to manage propaganda is to go to its source and to have a way of giving a fuller, broader and more in-depth, bigger picture – this teaches mindfulness and can help your child in learning how to develop his critical thinking skills.  Through this development he can find a way to see through propaganda and make decisions that best serve his real needs throughout the course of his life.

Since it is part of child development for children, teenagers and young adults to be attracted to what is popular and hip in order to fit in and find their place in the world, then depending on your child’s age he is also going to be  working though different periods of fusion and independence with and from you, his parent.  It is through this process of fusion and opposition that your child discovers his unique perspective and position in the world.  That perspective is going to be his unique experience of biography, experience, and temperament.  Of course a typical goal of a parent is to guide his child toward a perspective that closely aligns with his own perspective.

The key to having a voice that is heard by your child is to maintain an honest, open communication pathway.  This includes discussion and presentation of how and why you see the world as you do, what other opinions are “out there” and what you would like to pass on to your child.   You want to do this with an openness to how you and your child may be different in  – biography, experience, and temperament.  When you are out of sync in one of these areas you can share your perspective but may find a dissonance in how your child views the world.  In order to maintain that open communication pathway you need to be open to the possibility that your child may at least, go through periods of disagreement and opposition to your perspective and at most, choose to live quite differently from you, and impart a perspective that this is his choice.

This issue is central to why it is important to teach critical thinking skills early your child’s development.

Hippies was a negative term applied to youth in the sixties generation.  Although it has mixed connotations both positive and negative, at the time, it distanced the youth from their parents..  Hipsters was a term in the forties for young people connected to the then new musical movement of jazz – it was a fonder term.  It was later revived, in the late nineties and early 2000s, a later, more positive term, to refer to a group that aligns with retro clothing, independent music, and innovative style.  And hypnotic distortion is the way in which pop culture can lull the youth into propaganda that distorts their true options and sets up an intangible thread of control over youth for marketing and materialistic reasons – regardless of the overlay of hipness.

Discover what is hip.  Find a way to connect to it and to your child.  Distill information that assists you and your child in determining whether propaganda is at the base of the hip, cool, thing.  Stay connected to your inner guidance and teach ways for your child to remain connected to his true source.  Then he can wear the cool clothes, dance the hip dance, and sing the latest songs while remaining connected to what truly matters within.

Maintain a clear voice and assist your child in finding his voice.  Sometimes this leads to your child setting his own trends and finding his way, hip, while not hypnotic or distorted.  All you need is love – that begins with self-love.  Offered in love and light, Beth


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leadership and inner strength of will

Hello! Welcome and thanks for your interest and support!

Leadership and will are strongly connected.  How the will within is communicated and utilized is different with different leadership styles.

Will without heart can lead to a hollow and disconnected success, and it is also the way to dictatorship.

This can look like a person who drags others forward toward a goal regardless of the consequences.  Propaganda, divisive rhetoric, and shoulds and should nots are some of the mechanisms involved in this style of leadership.

Heart without will results in partially developed ideas that swirl around a person but cannot be fully manifested, and this can look like anarchy.

This leadership style has a tendency to be reactive and emotional without a deeper understanding of the complicated factors encompassing the need and end result required.  Will is the element that simultaneously presses-on, pushes-through to create the change as well as sees the bigger picture that incorporates the whole of the problem.   So heart without that will component results in a lot of emotional smoke without a real transformation – think of the picture of the Peanuts character Linus surrounded by the grey cloud; – all that this leader can see is what is inside his head; he is unable to transform his concerns or ideas into something that can create change, or move a community beyond the vague sense of discontent.

Will and heart together are the best aspects of a powerful, intentional, and transformative leader.  These together allow for individual needs and community needs both being attended to in equal measure, and this can look collaborative and consensus in nature, not a dictatorship or anarchist.

The quality of everything we do: our physical actions, our verbal actions, and even our mental actions, depends on our motivation. That’s why it’s important for us to examine our motivation in our day to day life. If we cultivate respect for others and our motivation is sincere, if we develop a genuine concern for others’ well-being, then all our actions will be positive.  Dalai Lama

So what matters in this heart and will connection in leadership is attention (present-mindful-focus), and intention (compassionate, loving win-win motivation); caring for others even those with whom you disagree and a focus on mindful, present moment dialogue and action together toward the enhancement of all.

Leadership via collaboration is something more than facilitation of other’s needs.  It is not just a separate role of listening and then divining what the group desires –  it includes an inner strength of will, and an inner set of principles that are at the heart and will of the need and the solution.  It is a spiraling process of involution and evolution allowing for the various aspects of the problem and solution to be identified and incorporated.

Leadership is one of the most human of actions.  It incorporates a person’s ability to be altruistic while simultaneously incorporating individual needs.

Hermann Hesse wrote many novels in which he studied the human condition.  In Siddhartha, and Magister Ludi which was published posthumously (also published under The Glass Bead Game) he described the individual search for authenticity, self-knowledge and spirituality.  He also looked at the issues of individual needs versus needs of the group. His work has a lasting quality of important information for anyone seeking to develop an internal strength of will informed by a powerful heart-based internal guidance system.  Understanding how and in what ways individual and group rights and responsibilities interplay is a foundational aspect for effective leadership.

M. Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, jr are representative of this kind of leadership as were the non-religious-biased actions of Jesus and Buddha.  These men described a way of thinking and being as well as taking personal actions that were will and heart integrated to assist in the evolution of the spiritual consciousness of the environments in which they lived.  These are not the only leaders who have integrated will and heart to create change however these are leaders that are well-known to this generation.  Daw Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma (Myanmar) has been practicing this type of leadership to help transform her country throughout the last thirty years.

This idea of change is not owned by any political party, country, or religion it is a way of thinking and being that is directly guided by an integrated inner strength of will strongly influenced by a heart-based internal guidance system.  For this system of leadership to be effective and for the profound good of all it cannot be biased by any ideology that is not connected to a genuine caring, compassionate, mindful, lovingkindness toward others, self and community.

You can create the change your group or community needs by integrating your heart and will so that you act from an inner strength of will informed by your heart-based internal guidance system.

You can develop your powerful leadership skills by simply focusing on listening and hearing in an open, evaluative, interested way, guided by your inner strength of will and heart-based internal guidance system, with the goal that best serves the community and the individual together.

For this to be successful and effective you have to:

This information is the focus of the essays throughout this month through May 20,2012.

Be the change you wish to see in the world – Gandhi). Be a leader.   Start today by re-focusing your attention and intention to create what you recognize you, and your community, need for health and success.

This information is shared with so much love for you all.  Beth


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My experience with inner sight

Hello and Welcome!  I thought it might be useful to write about what happens when I receive information from source that I have no basis to know – some people call this channeling, others call it psychic, Jungians think of it as connecting with the collective unconscious – it is a type of inner sight.

For me this experience has been like breathing – an internal see-knowing that is sometimes accompanied with language and verbal information about others with whom I am in relationship or have an important connection.  I say it is like breathing because it is something that requires no direct attention – we breathe without focus on our breathing, unless in meditation or directed to do something different with our breath. So for me it is the same I breathe, I know or I see-know.

This has happened throughout my life – knowing information about others, often before or  without the other speaking the information to me.  It has served me extraordinarily well as a therapist and acupuncturist – as I am able to have access to more information when assisting in another’s healing process.  It has been problematic with friends and relationships as I have found that sometimes I am privy to information hidden from  that person by himself or herself and so the response to my identification and connection with it can be… less than positive.  I have had to learn to manage this “gift” of inner sight.

And in learning to manage it I have also developed my skills at accessing the information in a directed way – a dear friend of mine, Betsy-Morgan Coffman,  has assisted me in developing this more direct contact so that I may have a sense of control.  I am cautious to use the term control, as it has a negative connotation to it.  I use it here because for much of my life the information that I received I had no control over at all – it would present itself at the most inopportune times and sometimes when either I really did not want to know the information or the other did not want me to know the information.  I felt more accosted by this gift than grateful.  And this continues to happen now.  However through focused development I have also learned to access this inner sight at the request of others.  And this has increased my positive, grateful, relationship with my gift.

When the information comes it is a see-knowing; a picture with words and energy imprint; it is like a flashback of information that is multi-level but has no personal charge.  Let me give an example:  When I review my living room in my mind’s eye I see each piece of furniture or knickknack and each has a charge of personal story to it as well as a picture of placement and form in space.  When I receive the information it is a similar thing in that there is a picture, placement and story including identified emotions but I do not actually feel the charge of the emotion of the story.  This difference, this lack of personal emotional charge, cues me to know I am receiving information about another’s experience rather than a remnant from my own life.

When I experience information about something that is currently happening physically with someone then I actually feel it in my body but it is as if I am a mirror.. so if I feel it on my right side it is in the person’s left and if I feel it in an organ then this is generally that organ.  And over time I have developed an understanding of how the pain feels relates to the kind of disorder with which the person is dealing – cancer for example has a very distinctive quality. Obviously I have to be able to distinguish between my own pain and that which I am receiving through inner sight so I need to have a clear picture of what is me and what is other.

When I was a young person, I did not know what was me and what was other.  I had a very confusing painful childhood; my way through was to learn to clear the pain and as I cleared it through my self then I cleared it through the significant other.  I believe my faith and connection to source was invaluable in saving me from insanity, or rather directing me toward mindfulness, compassion, lovingkindness and healing.  It did however take a while to understand.  In my twenties as a counselor I learned to simply trust the sight, act from the knowing and not directly share how I knew – not with those I was helping nor my supervisors.  In my thirties I began to get assistance with developing my gift and over the last few years I have begun to openly share my experience and offer my assistance directly.

I have written poems describing the experience.  It has helped me to define how to see through the multi-level inner layers of sight.

I feel at peace now with it and am grateful for this gift.

I share this in hopes that in reading this you may feel empowered to not cover over your true self out of fear or harm or ridicule or simply out of a lack of confidence and may be supported by these words, to reveal yourself to those you truly love and stand in the center of  your true self.

We each have amazing gifts, unique and empowering.  If you allow yourself to act from your heart center and be guided by your internal sensory guidance system you can transform obstructive, negative situations and create the life you want.

Embrace your true and full self; it may take a shift in perspective, it may take a willingness to accept yourself at a level you have not allowed before… your ability to accept yourself and treat yourself with love is directly related to your capacity to receive love…

in peace and joy, love and light, Beth


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inner guidance IV

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.

In love and light, many blessings to you, Beth


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ego re-balancing – inner guidance II

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


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Truth within – inner guidance I

Hello and Welcome!  When I was in graduate school I discovered a book  by Sheldon Kopp, although it had already been around for a while, for me it was transformative.   The preface of the book is what is most relevant here:  No meaning that comes from outside of ourselves is real.  The Buddhahood of each of us has already been obtained.  We need only recognize it – Thus the Zen Master warns his disciple:  – If you meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill him! (Kopp, 1976).  

The most effective and personal guidance is within.

Over the years I have noticed a number of programs “pop up” designed to assist you in becoming more successful and happy.  Even a burgeoning interest in Yoga and meditation has developed as a means for spirituality and stress reduction.

The focus for what is your true path remains within.  The promise of becoming more successful and happy is hollow when the center of the program is without a direct connection to your personal, spiritual center.  Any program that assists you in becoming more in touch with source connection and energy is a profound gift.  Many paths can provide guidance and direction along this path but the resultant information best serves the seeker when it is found within his own heart-center.

Some of these programs have a quality of indoctrination – indoctrination is actually the opposite of reaching a deeper connection within.  If you use your inner sensory system and listen to your internal responses then you will know if you are being led away from or into your center.  Indoctrination leads you away from your center and creates a layer between you and yourself.

Truth doesn’t belong to the guide or the giver of it – truth is.  It is available to anyone who seeks it.  If you have to learn someone else’s language to speak to yourself – you may be creating a connection that is not direct and there can be a skewing in the information you receive.

There is already a clear and direct communication available to you within.  Truth is present within.

Your internal guidance system that is part of you – within the integration of your spirit, mind, and body, your 6 senses (sight, touch, sound, taste, smell – and intuition) – these are personal and wholly connect you and source energy.  No need to learn someone else’s language.  By paying attention to your subtle responses within yourself you can be effectively and perfectly guided.  Just listen to what you hear, feel, know within yourself.

Your connection to source is direct.

Your truth is within you not outside of you and finding the truth of your path is found from going within and reacquainting yourself with your heart, your spirit-self communication.

You may use prayer, meditation, Yoga, personal journaling, dreaming, therapy, or any other method to acquaint yourself with your truth – but the language is personal, idiosyncratic, unique and the way in is available to you through any and all of these methods.

Your internal sensory guidance system is always showing you the way.

Just listen and respond with love and neutrality.

You may discover that you have some habits that cover over your personal truth.  Some belief systems, or interpretations of truth that you may need to break through but the truth is already right there, within you waiting to be understood by you.

How you perceive the information presented to you through your internal guidance system is your path.  Yes you may have to go under the habit reaction patterns you developed from your life experiences and the “should” and “should not” introjects swallowed whole by you from your primary socialization groups – these are elements of indoctrination.  These may feel right on the surface but at a deeper level you may feel a quirk or dissonance within you.  That is what you pay attention to – that aspect of knowing deep within.

Truth is something that rings clear through all your internal senses and your intuition when it touches one or all of them.

Just listen as you move through your life and all is revealed in your own heart-centered language.

thanks for your interest, pass it on as you are guided to do so, Beth

Kopp, Sheldon, If you meet the Buddha on the Road,Kill Him. Bantam Books:  New york, New York:  1976.


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Focus your energy and breathe

Hello

As a therapist, my job is listening.

It  is a special kind of listening not the listening of a friend, or a mother who just wants to soothe.   Although I deeply care for those with whom I work, from a broader perspective listening has many facets.

It is a listening that requires rapid responses, redirection, and guidance offering a sense of calm.

The listening is active but not strained.  I’m present in the foreground in a neutral open way, while in the background my mind, heart, intuition, and senses are evaluating the information on some kind of inner grid; the person’s tonal quality, choice of words, and speech as well as the content of what was said and not said used to develop a multi-level understanding of the person and the problem at hand, in context.

I have developed a special kind of quiet speech, and stillness that becomes even more quiet and still in response to increased danger or lack of balance.  When working my voice has a soothing, relaxing quality that allows others to easily allow a trance state.

While in my personal interactions I may become agitated, in my therapeutic setting I seem to have the ability to drop my blood pressure and pulse in more dangerous circumstances, telegraphing a sense of calm composure.  In the same way an animal can smell fear I transmit a sense of security and peace to assist the person to return to a sense of calm balanced harmony.

This is something that I developed instinctively over a period of time when working in stressful, dangerous environments.  The calmer my demeanor the more likely the danger could be averted.

This tactic is directly related to the concept of energy and breath.

A fascinating phenomenon of activity and passivity in unison, which I believe is a the mechanism that allows others to feel better after being in my presence  and encourages them to return.

It is the sense of being seen and heard that allows the person to move forward to receive the necessary information and support from me.  This sense of visibility in a safe way is soothing and strengthening.

She experiences things already known by her as well as things unknown to her that have the quality  of truth or accuracy or deep familiarity.  In combination this increases a sense of security and strength.  And allows for a letting go of structures that no longer serve her and development of structures which do.

I have developed a way to transmit calm in stressful situations.  Practicing this skill will create an environment for harmony and I think it is what allows for the shifts in the people I see in my practice.

So it’s about paying attention and responding to the situation with a sense of calm neutral interest.  A serious and gentle way of guiding and supporting.

These are precisely the terms used to describe mindful mediation or mindfulness.  And it is through these actions that a person can reduce her anxiety or anxious behavior and feelings of obsessive compulsions.

So it is no wonder that the experience in therapy is soothing and strengthening.

But how to get that when you are not with your therapist.

It turns out the best thing to do is to imitate her in your response to yourself.

  • Smile, sit quietly, listen to yourself, your words, your tone, your word choice, what you say and what you hold back.
  • Listen and pay attention with a sense of calm neutral interest.
  • Appreciating the situation with a gentle seriousness.
  • To get to this kind of state the first thing to do is to focus your energy inward in a gentle, calm and interested way.
  • A gentle questioning: what is going on here, what do I feel, when did it begin, what relationships are present?
  • Then listening to the answer that presents itself with a neutral interest; no need to prove the rightness or wrongness of what is noticed.
  • Then Breathe.  Breathe again deeply and fully with a smile in between your exhalation and inhalation.  Allowing for your heart to open and listen too.
  • A feeling of Love and a connection to spirit help.

Feeling a warm caring and sense of spiritual connection allows me to move into my heart even when I have lost my way, by simply breathing, focusing my energy, smiling and being open  to the perfect answer to the situation presenting itself.

Allowing things to flow seems to be the most difficult.

If you have created success through your mind’s ability to discover the answer and prove it, you will find this allowing part difficult.  Remembering that pushing the river takes more energy and doesn’t get very far – go with the flow.

In general the best answers come to us, they appear or present themselves.  Yes perhaps as a result of study, and work on the problem but is usually after the problem is set to the back burner that the whole picture is revealed along with the solution.

So focusing your energy on the problem, setting a desire or intention, and then releasing it unto breath – breathing through the need to make it happen especially when it’s out of your control, that is the place of real strength and power.

Focus your energy and breathe, you will feel that inner sense of calm and a sense of inner balance.  From this place you will see solutions present themselves if you are paying attention to the information in the universe.

See you tomorrow,

Beth


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What if that funky mood is telling you something

Hello

I wrote a blog  funky to joyous, how to shift the energy, posted january 28, 2011, with great ideas about how to shift yourself out of a funky mood.

But what if that funky mood was itself the cue that there was an underlying problem but it’s too vague to figure out?

When things just don’t feel right it may be that you are out of sync or you have taken a wrong turn.  Sometimes feeling off, or in a funky mood is just the cue to get you back on track if you use your mindfulness, observation skills, and pay attention.

Instinctive knowing is more of a bothering rather than a loud shout that there’s a problem.

A funky mood can be like a bothering, a nagging, sense that something is out-of-place.  So you can view it as a cue that you need to go within, get centered and listen, or mindfully look at what is bothering you.

I find this is especially true when the funky mood seems out-of-place.  You can follow the thread back to when you began the funky mood and see what happened just before your mood shifted into being funky.  Often through this process you can use your observation and investigation skills to see the precursor to the funky mood, and that will give you information about the problem with which you are bothered.

The funky mood is your instinctive knowing informing you that something is awry.

This tends to be an insidious experience; in a subtle, pernicious fashion things begin to go awry and the funky mood develops in response to this shifting.

When you use you attention to look at the circumstances leading up to the shift in energy you can see the precise moment the shift occurred.  It is often a word or statement from another or a set of interactions that are linked in some way to an attachment or expectation or agreement you hold about yourself, others in relationship with you, or a group.

First you use you attention to discern whence the funky mood originated, and then you use your intention to bring into light that which is bothering you.  Once you can identify the problem then you can clarify and choose to respond to it with your whole self, in a mindful and centered way.

Our natural state is to be in balance, easily connecting and interacting with those in our environment who matter to us.

A funky mood could be a sign that you are out of balance.  Using it as a cue you can engage your mindfulness and paradigm shifting skills to center yourself into your life and respond from within that center and feel a return to balance.

When the issue is an attachment then the shift may be to unlink the should of how things should be.  This is to say you have to evaluate if you have an attachment about emotion and action or an unexpressed linking of your behavior to another’s behavior in response.  ie:  I make everything ok and you owe me.

When the issue is an expectation then the shift may be to clarify, re-evaluate, and re-negotiate the arrangement that corresponds to the expectation.  Sometimes expectations are unacknowledged and there isn’t agreement among parties.  In this situation the resolution may be to create a space so that the expectation is identified and shared with all parties involved.  Sometimes the expectation is inappropriate and the shift is to let it go.

Expectations are often unexpressed agreements that are part of one parties’ belief system (or habit reaction pattern), but not part of another parties’ belief system.  This leads to resentment, conflicts, and funky moods.

When the issue is an agreement it is important to bring to light whatever aspects of the agreement that has either 1/ not been fully identified and expressed or 2/when the aspects of the agreement have changed.  You see this a lot with partnerships or love relationships ie:  with monogamy or loyalties – if the parties have different belief systems or when feelings have changed, what one party thinks is an agreement may not be held by the other party.

Agreements, expectations, and attachments are a normal part of relationship however they are dynamic.  This ever-changing aspect is the source of much conflict, discomfort, and miscommunication.

I have found that both expectations and attachments tend to result in dissonance and an imbalance moving people out of their center.  This is especially true when they  are unexpressed or unidentified until they go unmet.

It is wise to make an effort to evaluate these in your relationships on an ongoing basis.

You funky mood can be seen as an early warning system.

Paying attention to it allows you to adjust your focus and use your mindfulness to increase your alignment of your agreements, expectations, and attachments with your centered, balanced true-self in your relationships and your interactions.  You may find a cleaner, less funky relationship ensues, resulting in a more balanced present (available), happy, secure (confident), mood.

See you tomorrow.

Beth