Change

The Power of Positive Thinking: Applied

Just the other day, my mother recommended I read The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. The book was written over 70 years ago and my mom had read it then, but she recently heard it mentioned in the news and it had piqued her curiosity.

For as far back as I can remember, my mother and I have been drawn to the teachings put forth by Esther Hicks (The Law of Attraction), Rhonda Byrne (The Secret), Pam Grout (E2), and Louise Hay (You Can Heal Your Life) to name a few. We have always had a strong inner belief that our thoughts influence everything around us including our health, financial state, relationships, emotional well being, and the dreams we are able to manifest.

What we think becomes reality. It’s as simple as that.

The idea has been gaining traction in recent years and we are seeing more books, blogs, webinars, and seminars on the topic. The power of using our thoughts to create our reality is a concept not that far reaching today. However, back in the 1950s when Peale wrote his book, the ideas were novel.

Since I am a practicing student of the laws of attraction, meditation, positive affirmations, and manifesting magic and miracles, I decided to give the book a try, and although I am only on chapter 3, I have already gleaned a new realization.

The concepts presented cover familiar territory, clearing out negative thoughts, practicing daily silence, visualization, and filling our minds with positive words and pictures.

What is new to me, however, is the practice of bridging these two concepts, the emptying and then the filling. For some reason, I have never before put that together.

I have tried many of the techniques for “emptying the mind” to which Peale refers. I have visualized my worries and fears being thrown overboard and have practiced the art of meditation or what Peale calls a “daily practice of silence.”

On the flip side, I have filled my mind with daily gratitude and positive affirmations, have written down what I would like to manifest, and created vision boards; but it isn’t until now, that I realized the power of putting these two methods together.

Once it is empty, says Peale, “ immediately start filling your mind with creative and healthy thoughts.” These thoughts can be words of gratitude, visions of peace or that which you want to manifest.

“Then when the old fears, hates, and worries that have haunted you for so long try to edge back in, they will in effect find a sign on the door of your mind reading Occupied.”

The Power of Positive thinking has been in the news recently highlighting its influence on the life and career of President Trump. An article in NPR (July 25, 2020) points out “It has been argued that Trump stands as the single most successful practitioner to date of Peale’s philosophy,” and by following Peale’s suggestions, Trump has been able to defy reality and gain increasing amounts of power.

article link: https://www.npr.org/2020/07/25/894967031/2020-crises-confront-trump-with-an-outage-in-the-power-of-positive-thinking

My mother wanted to find out if anyone could wield successful results by following Peale’s ideas, regardless of the quality of the intention. After the events of this past week, she’s thinking not.

Check out https://www.mysoulpurposeproject.com// Life Coaching Program

The Benefit of Habits

My Soul Purpose Project: mysoulpurposeproject.com

It’s Monday and I am feeling defeated before the week even begins. All of my ideas and goals are swirling around in my head trying to land in the appropriate place on my calendar, in order of priority. I am also evaluating my overall mission and looking at which tasks resonate and which should be discarded. The words and pictures I am contemplating involve my hopes and dreams as well as my fears and frustrations. It can be overwhelming.

After an hour and one break, I finally settle in on a plan I can live with. At least for the day. Chances are, I’ll go through the same process again a few more times during the week and each time it will change. Each time I recreate the wheel, I’ll be stalling the forward movement and eroding my confidence and hope for success.

One of my new endeavors is an online business I am calling, My Soul Purpose Project which helps people identify and move towards their life’s purpose. https://www.mysoulpurposeproject.com/ . It is a process of self discovery in which I use tarot, dream interpretation, flower essence, distance healing, the Law of Attraction, and other proven techniques to help the participant move closer to their true nature.

As part of planning the business, a friend suggested that I read The E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber, a book which outlines the benefits of systemization and how some degree of franchising can be the key to growth and getting a product or service out to an unlimited number of people.

I enjoyed the book a lot and it got me thinking about ways to set up my own business so that it can deliver quality and consistency every time. By automating at least some of the process, I realized I can grow a successful business without weighing myself down. What could be better?

I am now at the point of refining the operations of My Soul Purpose Project and it is going very well. And, something unexpected is beginning to occur.

I am starting to look at the systems of my own life.

How do I organize my time and efforts in such a way that I don’t have to rethink or redo it every week or every day? How do I eliminate the emotional dance that accompanies each reiteration? Can I set up my life so that it will operate as efficiently and effectively as one of the franchises outlined in Gerber’s book?

This thinking brought me to another book I read last year called, Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin. In the book, Rubin points out the benefits of creating healthy habits and gives tips and techniques on how to do it. She emphasizes that the best way to achieve our goals be it weight loss, better sleep patterns, improving our relationships, or starting a new business, is to learn how to replace old debilitating patterns with new ones. And once these habits are formed, they run our lives with automated precision and allow us to move towards our goals with efficiency and consistency. According to Rubin, if we put our focus and care into the creating and maintaining of these habits and keep repeating them, the objective will be achieved. Automatically. Everytime.

I am finding the habits of our lives are much like the systems of a successful business. Once we decide on a goal, we then need to break it down until we can piece together a series of habits that will lead us to that end. With continuous monitoring and adjustment, the series of habits can effectively run the operations of our lives. Once this happens, we can sit back and relax, continue to manage the overall process, and let the dream unfold.

Everything Grows

Pruning Blog Everything wants to grow.

The importance of this idea came to me the other day as I witnessed a tree being pruned in my neighbor’s yard. I realized that every living thing seeks growth and without the proper attention, like the kind being given to the tree, my life could end up somewhere I didn’t want it to be.

I had been feeling unsettled and couldn’t quite put my finger on what was causing it. True, I was experiencing the pangs of empty nest syndrome after spending a week with my adult daughters in Maine and then having to say good- bye. I was also at the end of a divorce and there were still some unanswered questions and new decisions to make.

I reflected on my current situation and couldn’t find anything really wrong. I had landed on my feet. My children were healthy, accepting and independent. I was financially secure with a steady income. I was in good health. I had developed a friendship with my former husband and was in a new relationship that was supportive, loving, and fun.

There was no reason not to be celebrating my liberation and good fortune.

Then it dawned on me that the thing that was causing me the most angst was my uncertainty about the future. I have a lot of options, but haven’t yet pinned them down. And, without this future plan and an idea of how to get there, I was worried that my life might go awry or I would lose all that I did have.

I have been working on my vision. I practice the Law of Attraction, Pam Grout’s Manifesting Magic and Miracles, and Mike Dooley’s Playing the Matrix and am becoming clearer on the importance of visualization, taking action, listening for the universal cues, practicing gratitude and believing in the outcome.

I also realize that for anyone to flourish, they must be nurtured and in an environment conducive to their unique needs. Like a plant that requires pruning, a person must eliminate the areas no longer beneficial to move in a more specific direction.

In addition, we all benefit from the help of outside sources like the sun, rain, or a good friend, and thrive best when given time and space to move where we may, as there are forces more wise than ourselves helping to guide our path.

And there is another even more difficult practice to adopt that will help us move more fluidly towards our life’s goals.

Embracing change.

Growth is change, and change brings about fear, uncertainty and discomfort (almost always) and so we avoid it at all costs. Yet, the truth is that everything grows whether we want it to or not, and it is up to us to nurture, prune, and guide the growth towards our unique vision.

Diving Into the Shadows

Shadow

I have had the pleasure and privilege of spending the last several days in Maine on my favorite lake enjoying the sun and nature. Last night, it began to rain so my daughter and I decided to watch a movie. After scanning the selections and reviews on her computer, she suggested we watch “The Florida Project,” a 2017 slice of life drama which, according to IMDb TV, follows a “precocious six-year-old Moonee as she courts mischief and adventure with her ragtag playmates and bonds with her rebellious but caring mother, all while living in the shadows of Walt Disney World.”

Childhood. Adventure. Disney World. Sounds endearing, right?

Not exactly.

I did not like the film at first. I kept waiting for the plot to unfold or an inspirational moment, but neither surfaced. Instead, I felt a mounting anxiety combined with sadness and despair as the reality of life in a poverty stricken hotel-turned-residence community exposed all the things that make me uncomfortable: poverty, lying, foul language, cheating, stealing, hustling, betrayal, fighting, child abuse, pedophilia, drug use, prostitution.

The movie was shown through the eyes of a child who had friends, freedom, food, community and a caring mother, all of which made it more palatable. However, the stark contrast of the lives profiled to those of the privileged thousands visiting nearby Disney World, made me stop and think.

The movie did an outstanding job of portraying the reality of the situation, but I wasn’t happy with the way it left me feeling. Something was tugging at me to look deeper.

It wasn’t until morning that I realized the importance of what I was experiencing. It became clear that the issues in the movie that made me uncomfortable were the ones I needed to examine more closely. Maybe it was time to look at what it means to lead a privileged life. Had I been turning a blind eye to the realities of those less fortunate?

With all of the recent unrest and attention pointing towards inequality and racism, my viewing of this movie was particularly timely. It became evident that the cinematic story I witnessed was one I had chosen to overlook, just as many instances of injustice get somehow justified through the selective stories we tell ourselves and the parts of our psyche we choose to keep hidden.

I have recently been working on my own personal growth and have also started “The Life Purpose Project,” a series of one on one sessions to help people reach their life’s purpose through discussion, dream interpretation, tarot, and flower essence therapy.

I am a believer in the power of positive thinking and healing through love. However, I have been finding that in order to truly heal and make significant progress forward, we need to look at something called our “shadow self”.

According to an article in highexistence.com, “the shadow is a concept first coined by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung that describes those aspects of our personality that we choose to reject and repress. For one reason or another, we all have parts of ourselves that we don’t like–so we push those parts down into our unconscious psyches. It is this collection of repressed aspects of our identity that Jung referred to as our shadow.”

Full Article: https://highexistence.com/carl-jung-shadow-guide-unconscious/

Some examples of repressed shadow tendencies include “aggressive impulses, taboo mental images, shameful experiences, immoral urges, fears, irrational wishes, unacceptable sexual desires.”

Our shadow self develops as a result of societal expectations that tell as we are a “bad” person if we have certain thoughts and behaviors. We want to fit in and be accepted, so we deny and hide these impulses and pretend they do not exist as parts of ourselves. On top of that, if left unchecked, these qualities feed into a larger collective societal shadow which can multiply and become more systemic, resulting in a world that tolerates prejudice, racism, abuse, and inequity.

Jung believes that these innate qualities are present in all of us and the only way to effectively deal with them is to recognize, accept, and find ways to constructively manage their presence within our lives.

I have been using dream interpretation and the Tarot to help uncover the shadow within myself and my Life Purpose Project participants. Both methods point out areas of the subconscious that ultimately want to be seen and accepted before allowing us to move forward on our spiritual path. Meditation and identifying psychological triggers can also help shed some light.

One thing “The Florida Project” made clear was that when we look at these shadow qualities, whether within ourselves or society as a whole, the feeling can be extremely uncomfortable. It can bring us to places and uncover a world that is unnerving and painful.

The idea is not to run and deny, but to look directly into the areas of darkness. When we do this, “fear becomes an opportunity for courage. Pain is a catalyst for strength and resilience. Aggression is transmuted into warrior-like passion. This wisdom informs our actions, our decisions, and our interactions with others..” (highexistence.com).

If we seek to accept the shadows as part of who we are, if we allow them to come forward without condemnation, we may be able to heal not only ourselves but the world as a whole, and people like those featured in the “The Florida Project” may have a fighting chance.

The Power of Flower Essence

Flower Essence Pic

I first got involved with flower essences about 15 years ago when I was studying energy healing for personal growth. My soul had been nagging me for years to take a deeper look, to make some changes, so that it could bloom in full.

I tried a variety of modalities including yoga, Reiki, massage, craniosacral therapy, and nutrition and although they all helped to center my mind and calm my energy, they weren’t able to specifically address my deeper feelings. I realized there was an emotional component to whatever was holding me back and until I could temper it, I would never be able to fully heal and move forward.

The mentor with whom I was studying at the time recommended I try Essence Therapy.

I was quick to fall in love. I ordered a few bottles of the concentrated remedies from Alaskan Flower Essences (https://alaskanessences.com/) and began to experiment. Their gentle healing energy flooded my senses in the most subtle ways and suddenly I would notice my perspective had changed or I was no longer feeling angry or sad about a particular situation. It was that easy. No talk therapy. No painful memories. No medication. No discomfort.

Many years have passed and I am once again revisiting the power of the flower essence.

As I began to work on the Life Purpose Project (a business I started recently), I noticed that a lot of the obstacles that keep people from moving towards their fullest potential have an emotional component. I realized that even though I had developed tools for gaining insights and designing action steps, without the ability to remove the emotional roadblocks, we can only get so far.

In my program of identifying and moving towards one’s life purpose, I encompass dream interpretation, tarot, collaborative discussion and planning, and lots of additional resources. I also encourage everyone to choose one or two flower essences to help them move along more quickly and easily.

There are many excellent sources for essences including Alaskan Essences (https://alaskanessences.com/), Hawaiin Essences (https://www.janebellessences.com/), and the most widely known, Bach Flower Essences (https://www.bachremedies.com/).

According to the Flower Essence Society, “flower essences are liquid extracts used to address profound issues of emotional well-being, soul development, and mind-body health. They are part of an emerging field of subtle energy medicine, which also includes homeopathy, acupuncture, color therapy, therapeutic touch and similar modalities.”

Essences are made by harvesting pristine wild flowers and garden blossoms and then capturing their unique energy imprint in distilled water as it is infused by the sun. The potentized herbal infusions or decoctions are then preserved in an alcohol base and further diluted before being distributed. They are administered by putting a few drops under the tongue a couple of times a day or by dropping the essence in a glass of water and sipping as needed.

Many people confuse Flower Essences and Essential Oils and although each complement the other, they are in fact very different.

According to the Flower Essence Society, “The most significant difference is that essential oils have definite aromas; flower essences do not. Essential oils work primarily through the sense of smell and its effect upon the old brain. They are highly concentrated chemical substances, many of which are quite poisonous taken internally. Essential oils are produced from large quantities of plant material, the flowers, roots, seeds, or bark, depending on the location of the volatile oils in the plant. Steam-distillation is the most common extraction method. With flower essences, only the flowers are used and in a very small quantity. The vibrational imprint of the flower is extracted in water, which is then further diluted. Thus essential oils are a physical extract and flower essences are a subtle energy extract.”

For more information, visit http://www.fesflowers.com/learn-about-flower-essences/what-are-flower-essences/

During the pandemic, I have experienced more anxiety than usual. I have found Bach’s Rescue Remedy to help curb the stressful feelings and keep me calm. I am also working with Bach’s Star of Bethlehem and Walnut.

I am an advocate of flower essences for many reasons, but perhaps the most powerful is their ability to balance our emotions and help us adjust to a healthier perspective through the gentle and subtle genius of nature. Sometimes life’s greatest healing gifts are right outside our door.

What the World Needs Now is Self Love

Screen Shot 2020-06-15 at 5.11.03 PM

As a woman, mother, wife, and healer, my tendency is to take care of those around me. I have always felt a responsibility for the happiness of my children, husband, friends, family members and clients (really, anyone significant in my life). Whenever things get difficult emotionally, I fall into action and begin the process of consoling, re-arranging, compromising, supporting, comforting, rescuing. I do whatever I can to assuage the anger, sadness and hurt, even when it means sacrificing my own needs.

I have been under the assumption that by keeping everyone around me in a state of joy, I would secure my own well being. It’s taken me over 50 years. I’ve been through a divorce and experienced my children leave the nest, but I’m finally seeing that this is not at all the case.

I have realized that I had been shouldering the emotional baggage of my family for years and had grown tired and resentful. What’s more, the pain and discomfort always came back. In attempting to solve the problem, I was actually preventing my loved ones from learning and growing, and I was sabotaging my personal journey along the way. In trying to make everyone else happy, I was missing the point.

Recently, I have been thinking about the concept of self love. What would it mean to treat myself as if I were worthy and loveable? What would it feel like to console and comfort my inner being with soothing words when I was upset? What if I spent time and energy rearranging my schedule so that I could do something that meant a lot to me?

According to an article in Psychology Today by Deborah Khoshaba, (March 2012), “when we act in ways that expand self-love, we begin to better accept our weaknesses as well as our strengths, have less need to explain away our short-comings, have compassion for ourselves as human beings struggling to find personal meaning, are more centered in our life purpose and values, and expect living fulfillment through our own efforts.”

The steps Khoshaba prescribes are; be mindful, act on what you need, stay away from automatic patterns that get you into trouble, keep you stuck in the past, and lessen self love, practice good self-care, set boundaries, protect yourself by bringing the right people into your life, and live intentionally.

Full article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/get-hardy/201203/seven-step-prescription-self-love

The Law of Attraction.com also recommends that we practice the art of self love by having fun by yourself, travelling once a year on your own, forgiving your mistakes, starting a journal, taking a break, making a list of accomplishments, creating a vision board, pursuing new interests, challenging yourself, giving yourself credit where credit is due, and working on self trust. Full article: https://www.thelawofattraction.com/love-yourself/

Learning to self love is a process. It takes time and consistent effort to nurture our own growth. It takes regular practice to change the negative internal dialogue, to let go of perfectionism, and to find the beauty in all that we are. It takes effort to change old habits and beliefs.

I have begun to pay attention to my own destructive patterns and negative self talk. I have realized that I am harder on myself than anyone else in my life. I have noticed that when I am angry with something I’ve done and my self esteem is low, I take it out on others. I become angry quicker. I make hurtful comments.

I am a better person when I am loving myself.

Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like if everyone practiced the art of loving themselves more. Would there be as much hatred, anger, defensiveness, hostility, and aggression? Perhaps if we each loved ourselves more fully, there’d be less room for injustice, violence, abuse, and inequity.

I wonder.

If the hate that feeds on human weakness is replaced with love, it will have nowhere left to go. Once it loses our attention, its power will diminish, and the next time it comes knocking, we won’t even notice. We’ll all be too busy enjoying our own company.

The Life Purpose Project

Even before the pandemic hit, I had been trying to discover my life’s purpose. Why am I here? What am I meant to do? I can remember (as far back as my teenage years) feeling that I was meant to do something important during my time here on earth. I began to pursue different options in my 20s, but then, like many people, my focus turned to finding a partner and starting a family. I knew I wanted to have children. That was a certainty.

My family life was traditional. My husband worked long hours while I managed the house and our two girls. We were busy. Between gymnastics meets, crew regattas, music lessons, schoolwork, meal planning and home management, my time and energy were pretty tapped. I added a part time massage business when my younger daughter was 5 and this satisfied some of my yearning. However, I knew it wasn’t enough, and although I received immense joy from raising children, I felt there was something else waiting for me.

I am now in my 50s. My girls are out in the world beginning their own lives and I have found myself staring into the future, knowing that the possibilities are endless, but also feeling myself frozen in old habits and uncertainty. Midlife is a challenging time of transition, loss, and redesign. Yet, it also offers a broad spectrum of possibilities and another chance to uncover the reasons why we are here. There is an entire new chapter of life waiting to be written.

During the recent quarantine, I have had time to reflect on where I’ve been and where I want to go. With the world in enormous flux and a massive state of upheaval, discovering my soul’s path seems that much more urgent.

I have been thinking about a way to realize my life’s purpose while also helping others reach theirs. I have been studying and testing a number of modalities and approaches over the years and feel that now is the time to put them into a comprehensive package ready for implementation and action.

I see myself as a Life Purpose Facilitator of sorts with the objective of helping individuals identify their life’s mission and then begin to remove blocks that prevent them from moving forward.

I envision myself attracting those who have an inner gnawing and strong desire to uncover a hidden or under developed life purpose. This journey can begin at any age, though I see a particular need for middle aged men and women going through their “second birth.”

A couple of weeks ago, I put together a program that I can carry out online through a weekly zoom meeting. I decided to offer it to 5-10 volunteers free of charge once a week for one month as a way to practice, revise, and refine the service. I sent out a letter to my past and present massage clients and the response was affirming.

I am now halfway through the month-long trial and it is going extremely well. I am offering a holistic, natural approach to soul purpose discovery combining tarot, energy healing (distance Reiki, chakra healing), dream interpretation, and flower essence therapy. These are all modalities I have studied over the years for personal growth and am now thrilled to be able to share them with others. It is encouraging to observe the insights and breakthroughs that are already beginning to happen with my clients.

The Life Purpose Project, as I am calling it, is the perfect convergence of many areas of interest and study. Everything about it feels right. I have a sturdy base of knowledge with much to learn (all of which is inspiring and intriguing), and although I’m not sure exactly where it will lead, I can tell that I am on the right path. What a surprising irony, that my own life purpose would be to help others find theirs.

What to Keep

LA Skyline As the world struggles through the Covid-19 pandemic and begins its slow recovery, there seems to be a need to shed all that is no longer serving. In order to heal, we need to reflect on our current condition and define that which is harming us and that which makes us stronger. We need to let go of old practices and patterns that are holding us back and build upon the things that work.

I believe this to be the case with the Earth, with the global economy, and with each of us individually.

Ever since the human lockdown in mid March, the Earth has felt substantial relief. With an enormous decrease in the use of fossil fuels, the carbon footprint has been drastically reduced and as a result we have seen less pollution and a re-emergence of wildlife.

Many believe that we are being offered a unique opportunity to use the reduced levels of CO2 output as a starting point and find ways to maintain this lower level in the coming years. However, many also fear that as we re-emerge into the world, it will be easy to fall back into our old habits without earnest intent and strict discipline.

The good news is that we have been given another chance. What remains to be seen is how we choose to move forward.

Economically speaking, there is an overwhelming need to re-evaluate as well. With many businesses being forced to shut down (albeit temporarily), consumers have explored alternative ways to satisfy their needs.

We have cooked more of our meals or done takeout and curbside pickup. We have turned towards alternative forms of exercise such as walking, biking and online workout classes. We are seeing the benefits of internet shopping as we enjoy the safety and convenience of having food and products delivered right to our doorsteps, and as additional people work effectively from home, we question the need for elaborate office space in expensive locations (or any office space for that matter).

Many of these new practices will permanently replace the old ways of doing business. We may see fewer restaurants, gyms, office buildings, and storefronts. We’ll see a difference in the way food is distributed and how we work. In an attempt to survive financially, we’ll rid ourselves of the practices that no longer work in favor of those that do.

On a personal level, I have been consumed with a similar thought process. My life and habits have changed drastically over the last few months and I’m realizing some of the new ways may be working better. I have found that coloring my hair once a month is easy, looks almost as good, and is much more time and cost effective. I have found that I can cook a meal just as well if not better than most restaurants at a fraction of the cost and that the scope and variety of workout options online may be all I need. I have realized that I don’t have to travel long distances to find adventure and outdoor activity, and I have seen the advantages of being able to work virtually.

The overall trend is towards scaling back, becoming more efficient, spending less, choosing quality over quantity, having a decreased impact on the environment, reducing meat intake, and adopting a healthier lifestyle (which values less as more). In other words, shedding what I don’t really need and building on the rest.

As the world begins to re-open and we evaluate our new and old habits, I urge everyone to give careful consideration to what is working and what is not, for the earth, for our economy and for ourselves. I hold hope that we will let go of the habits and practices that are harmful and decide wisely what to keep.