MUSE-INGS: Consciousness. Success. Freedom.

These are all concepts that are not easily discussed in a short piece but it makes sense that we are being called at this time to consider these topics. In this long-awaited year of 2012 we will be experiencing an expansion of consciousness that is really challenging every human being to address their own understanding of their ‘self’ and their place in the Universe. I believe that no one will be allowed to ignore what I will name ‘The Call of Consciousness.’

Humanity is on an evolutionary path that is not just about walking upright or brain size or the physical attributes of the human. Quantum Physics is exploring topics that were not even dreamed of 100 or 200 or 1000 years ago. I started my professional career with a degree in mathematics and a job programming complex operations on a computer that filled a huge room in the basement of a building. I think my iPhone has more compute power than the computer on which I did matrix transformations of spectrum allocation analysis [are you suitably impressed?]. When our kids were young we had an Atari computer that has been replaced in our home by a desktop PC, a Mac Book Pro, a Mac Book Air, an iPad, 2 iPhones and a Droid. Not to mention our Kindles, etc. Who even bothers to remember their multiplication table because we all have calculators on our phones?

But because we have computers and technological advances we are not necessarily more advanced as a civilization. We still seem to have a need to kill each other. We still steal from each other, and harm our neighbors and covet what they have. I could list a lot of other things that we do to each other, but I think there is a very simple reason why this list is so long. It’s because we still think of ourselves as separate beings living a separate existence in the world and if I have something then it must be taken from another. And if someone else has something it means that I don’t have that. We then create the need for greed because I want what you have.

We have forgotten that we are all connected in an abundant Universe. We focus on lack – you have something that I lack and, therefore, I must make that imbalance right by going out and getting what I want [‘keeping up with the Joneses’ syndrome] or taking from you so I can feel better about myself when I have it and you don’t [‘king of the mountain’ syndrome]. We think of ourselves as separate and then we act to make ourselves feel better about that separation.

Religions, societies, communities, spiritual teachings all address connectedness in some form, but humans can twist that message into a message of ‘otherness’ and separation that cause great deals of conflicts between parties because they have fallen into the traps inherent in a belief in separation.

Each child in a family is a separate being with a personality all their own, but don’t they, at the same time, feel a sense of connectedness in a family unit? And I’m not talking just about what some people call a ‘family’ but of what we create – the ‘family’ of people united into community by some kind of bond. What if we all started to expand our definition of ‘family’ to include all sentient beings, especially all human beings, so that our awareness encompasses the consciousness of the connectedness of all?

Couldn’t we improve life on Earth by adopting this expansion of consciousness? We are being called to become our greater selves at this time. Think of yourself as connected to all others. Expand your own consciousness. You will be contributing to the expansion of the collective consciousness. This is how your life purpose fits into the whole.

Namaste.

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BOOK LIGHTS: from “The Divine Matrix: Bridging Time, Space, Miracles, and Belief” by Gregg Braden

“A long time ago, our world was very different from the way we see it today,” the wisdom keeper began. “There were fewer people, and we lived closer to the land. People knew the language of the rain, the crops, and the Great Creator. They even knew how to speak to the stars and the sky people. They were aware that life is sacred and comes from the marriage between Mother Earth and Father Sky. In this time, there was balance and people were happy.”   

 I felt something very ancient well up inside of me as I heard the man’s peaceful voice echo against the sandstone cliffs that surrounded us. Suddenly, his voice changed to a tone of sadness.    

“Then something happened,” he said. “No one really knows why, but people started to forget who they were. In their forgetting, they began to feel separate – separate from the earth, from each other, and even from the one who created them. They were lost and wandered through life with no direction or connection. In their separation, they believed that they had to fight to survive in this world and defend themselves against the same forces that gave them the life they had learned to live in harmony with and trust. Soon all of their energy was used to protect themselves from the world around them, instead of making peace with the world within them.”

Gregg Braden

Gregg Braden tells this story about his encounter with a Native American wisdom keeper he met serendipitously while hiking in New Mexico. What wisdom! We forget our connections are sourced WITHIN us. Learn to go inside, to tap into the wisdom that lies there, to trust your own intuition and you will find that we are all connected. This is why it is so important to live your Life Purpose – it is connected to all the others’!

 

 

MUSE-INGS: Awaken to Your Life Purpose

The Time of Awakening has arrived! Each of us is being called to awaken to our role in the development and evolution of human consciousness. So the question is not, ‘Do I need to evolve?’ It is, rather, ‘How can I expand my consciousness at this time?’

What are you doing about expanding your consciousness? Do you have spiritual practices in place that support you in this endeavor? And I am not talking about religious practices but the deeper spiritual practices that connect you with the greater wisdom in the Universe, like meditation or journaling or participating in a spiritual community to explore the role of the human in the expanding Universe. Do you regularly ponder the bigger questions in life?

Or are you, as so many are, stuck in dealing with the details of daily life and planning to delve into the deeper questions later, when you have time? Friend, the time is NOW.

This does not mean that you must give away everything that you own and sit on a mountaintop awaiting enlightenment but it does mean that you must metaphorically do this by realigning your priorities so that you lift your awareness beyond the mundane and into the space where the greater manifests itself. Meditation is not the end in and of itself. It is the means by which one can expand consciousness by allowing you to tap into something that is greater than the mundane energies of daily life and into the spaciousness of greater awareness. Meditation also does not mean that you must close off a part of your intellect and become mindless, as some believe. No, it means that you become so mind-full that you use more of your perception, more of who you are, to interact with what is around you.

Are you in touch with your own greatness, what I call your ‘inner splendor’? Do you realize that you HAVE a Life Purpose, a reason that you are alive today? Do you accept that you are a part of the Human Family because you have gifts to share with the other members of this community and that the others are waiting for you to share those gifts?

Accepting that what I have said in the previous paragraph means that you accept responsibility for taking yourself into the larger role that you were born to play. No one becomes a human being to sit in isolation, never interacting with another human being, paying attention only to one’s own needs as an individual and not being concerned with the community of all other human beings on the planet, past, present and future. Each person has a role to play in the constellation of other human beings and in the environment of Mother Earth that welcomed him or her into life as a human.

The time has arrived when each of us must make our commitment to that Life Purpose in a public way. Do you know what your Life Purpose is? If not, then find out. Do you feel that you would like to help the others on the planet but don’t know how you can? Find out. You don’t have to start a huge foundation but you do need to know what it is that you came here to do and to be so that you can fill the gap you were meant to fill in the evolution of human consciousness.

This is why I do the work that I do, helping people to discover why they are here [their Life Purpose] and then helping them to expand their consciousness about the ways to manifest that purpose in their business or career, their relationships, their life. The time is now and each of us must become the person we were meant to be so that all in the human community can evolve. You have a role to play in the greater scheme of things.

I urge you to embrace that role by first identifying what it is and then creating the life that allows you to be who you came here to be. You will experience amazing feelings of fulfillment, the people and the world around you will be enhanced because you are YOU, and the future will look brighter, to you and to everyone else, because you decided to BE the person you were born to be.

Thank you.

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BOOK LIGHTS: from “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose” by Eckhart Tolle

“An essential part of the awakening is the recognition of the unawakened you, the ego as it thinks, speaks, and acts, as well as the recognition of the collectively conditioned mental processes that perpetuate the unawakened state.”

Eckhart Tolle

Decide how you will examine ‘the unawakened you’ so that you can move into a more conscious state and live an Awakened Life!

MUSE-INGS: Personal Work and Happiness

“The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being” — Socrates

As far back as the time of Socrates it was taught that examining one’s life is extremely important, to the point of making life ‘worth living for a human being.’ And, yet, in the 21st Century, we seem to have become so involved in being busy that it is difficult to pause and ponder. What does it really mean to examine life?

For one thing, I believe that we must be constantly aware of the choices that are before us all the time. An unexamined life creates a false impression that ‘I have no choice’ but that is truly never the case. There is always a choice. It might not FEEL as if there is a choice but that is because we are making a decision based on what we feel, think and believe about a situation. It might be because the alternative before us is so abhorrent that we cannot imagine making the choice to do other than the path we see as the ‘only way.’ But we could choose something different even if the consequences were unacceptable.

Many clients come to me with seemingly impossible choices that they face and they ask for guidance in making decisions about those choices. The answer is often not ‘this or that’ but, rather, ‘how can you find a way to have both?’ That is, they can move from ‘either-or thinking’ into ‘and thinking’ and the solution presents itself. But what we believe about ourselves and our world often prevent us from moving into the higher space where the solutions live.

I remember several years ago, after one of my favorite Christmases of all time, I was facing a Christmas without any family except my husband. I was very depressed about the prospect of not seeing our kids or grandkids or the rest of the family during the holidays. The Christmas before we had had a magical time when all of our children and grandchildren were together for Christmas, ‘Santa’ came to our house on Christmas morning to deliver a kitten and a Buzz Lightyear toy, and we had time to relax and be together. And then everyone had moved away and we were going to wake up on Christmas morning without any family to share in our day. We were even going to be visiting with the grandkids just before Christmas because Richard had a business trip to their area, but the trip was to end just before the holiday and we were scheduled to return home to the empty house. My belief was that we had to be ‘home’ for Christmas, no matter what my heart wanted. But it finally occurred to us that we didn’t have to leave when the business trip was over. We could stay in the hotel, be with the family, and celebrate Christmas the way we wanted to, even if it was not at home.

We had an amazingly wonderful holiday that year! We cooked Christmas Eve dinner for 19 in our Residence Inn suite kitchen. We had a little tree from the drug store and a fire in the fireplace and enjoyed our extended family, missing only 1 son and his wife that year. But it took a huge leap in changing beliefs to allow that magic to happen when the closed-up, depressed thinking was keeping the possibility from presenting itself.

You can change your beliefs. You need to, however, first examine how your limiting beliefs are affecting your world. What negative thoughts are generated from these limiting beliefs? Fortunately, because I have the tools to help other people examine their beliefs and thoughts, I was able to use those tools for myself and find amazing possibilities that turned into realities for myself and my family.

When you choose to live a conscious life, you allow yourself to constantly be examining how the circumstances of your life are the result of your thinking and how you can change your thoughts to change your life.

What are you going to commit to today so that you can live a more conscious life?

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BOOK LIGHTS: from “The Law of Attraction is NOT a Secret” by Anita G. Wheeler

“How do you change an affirmation so it reflects the positive change you desire, without countering your belief system? You can accomplish both things and still create a true and positive affirmation by inserting the word ‘process’ into it. ‘I am in the process of creating a slim, trim body. I’m in the process of getting healthier and feeling great.’ That is a true statement which will encourage further progress, while putting the monkey mind to rest. Does it work? Yes.”

Anita G. Wheeler

Create affirmations for yourself around what you desire for your life and claim that, in this present moment, you are in the process of receiving that. This is true. It is real and it is in this moment. And then move into gratitude! [Thanks to my good friend, Anita Wheeler, for this great little book that de-mystifies the Law of Attraction.]

MUSE-INGS: Life Purpose and Manifesting in the NOW

Why is this such a difficult concept to implement in Life? It seems that everything around us conspires to pull us out of satisfaction with what is our current reality in this present moment.

If you watch commercials on TV they are always touting something we don’t have but need to be sexy, happy, healthy, wealthy. Politicians keep telling us that everything is in terrible shape and it’s the other guy’s fault but things will get better after we vote for them. Economic news is dire. The real estate market is in trouble. Nobody can sell a house. Nobody is getting mortgages to buy a house. Take your money out of banks and keep it under the mattress at home. There are no jobs. The list goes on and on.

And, yet, somebody somewhere has just bought/sold a house. Somebody just started a new job. Somebody just had a baby bringing new life into the world. This list, too, goes on and on. Why are we not focusing on this list?

The memes of our society get created by ‘them’ and we seem to buy them as if they are the Truth with a capital ‘T.’ We give away our power to a vision of dire circumstances without testing whether things are really that dire, for us, in this present moment. Maybe we can change that by becoming more cognizant of what is real for us in every present moment of our lives.

What is real for you right now? Are you sitting somewhere comfortable, at just the right temperature, reading these words on a computer or a smart phone? Are you enjoying the day, having eaten food that was tasty and well prepared? Are you clothed comfortably? Do you have a home to go to and family and friends to call on? The answer, in this moment now, is probably ‘yes.’ Tomorrow the answer might be ‘no’ but that doesn’t matter IN THIS PRESENT MOMENT.

That is the thinking that we need to become aligned with. This present moment is where we must focus our attention. This doesn’t mean that we don’t plan for the future and appreciate the past, but our energy must be focused on what is ours to do and to be IN THIS PRESENT MOMENT, for our thoughts in this moment will shape our future, no matter what we want it to be, especially if we create conflicting thoughts which can stop the flow of our desires. Learning to ask, ‘Who am I to be in this moment?’ and ‘What am I to do in this moment?’ will lead us into the space where we are preparing for what is to come in the future but our energy is not taken away from this moment now.

The difference is where the energy lives. If we are thinking about something that we want in the future but don’t have, then our present energy is that of lack and that is the energy that takes us forward. But if we focus on our desires in a way that brings the fulfillment of those desires into present time, especially if we feel gratitude for that fulfillment, then we create the experience of having those desires in the NOW and the energy is one of attraction rather than lack.

When you align yourself with your Life Purpose you live every moment in the present fulfillment of that Purpose. Your energy is one of attracting that which you desire because you are in touch with the part of you that knows fulfillment. You also know when you are moving in a different direction because you feel the loss of connection to your Purpose and you must pull yourself back into the present moment. Knowing and living your Life Purpose can help you to manifest in the present moment that which will bring fulfillment into your Life. Learning how to focus your energy in this present moment will also bring contentment with it because your thoughts can align with what is and the field of all possibilities stays real and obtainable in this moment now.

These ideas are practical ways for you to learn to experience the fullness of the energy of NOW, but you must first open your heart and mind to the possibility that these things are true. Try this week to remember to be fully present to each moment so that you can experience fulfillment. This is your NOW!!!

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BOOK LIGHTS: from “Touching Peace: practicing the art of mindful living” by Thich Nhat Hanh

We all have the tendency to struggle in our bodies and our minds. We believe that happiness is possible only in the future. That is why the practice ‘I have arrived’ is very important. The realization that we have already arrived, that we don’t have to travel any further, that we are already here, can give us peace and joy. The conditions for our happiness are already sufficient. We only need to allow ourselves to be in the present moment, and we will be able to touch them.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Be in the present moment. Visualize yourself experiencing Peace and you will know that you have already arrived. Beautiful!

MUSE-INGS: Give the Gift of Peace

The word ‘chaos’ seems to resonate these days more than ‘peace’ when I am working with clients! How do we find Peace with a capital ‘P’ when the news is disturbing, finances are in an upheaval, everyone is too busy to sit still for a minute, and there seems to be no peace in sight?

I like the admonition to BREATHE. Sometimes that is all we need. When I work with a client and do a visualization, about their success or accessing some resources or finding solutions, I start by having them close their eyes and then take a deep breath. The shift is visible in seconds. And when I lead them through a relaxation exercise I can see them moving further and further into that place where they can let go of tension and stress and just BE. Sometimes that’s all that is needed [which is why I give away a 7-minute de-stress meditation audio when you sign up to receive my free weekly ezine!]. Of course, as a hypnotherapist, I can then offer much more to the client when they are relaxed and we can do the important change work in that state.

But reaching for Peace can be a struggle when you are on your own. That’s why the exercise in the Mystic Message is such an important one. It’s easy to close your eyes and breathe. And if you have once created your Peace-full place you can always return to the same place or conjure up a new one whenever you want. The important thing to remember is that you have a place of Peace and stillness residing within you whether you realize it or not. All you need to do is to remember and return to that place.

When your life seems to be chaotic, whether from uncomfortable stress situations or a good-feeling but overwhelmingly busy place, don’t let yourself fall into the trap of promising time for yourself and for mediation, visualization, relaxation ‘after the dust settles.’ How often have you promised yourself that massage ‘when things settle down’? Or maybe you’ve planned to start journaling or meditating or taking a yoga class when [the kids are in school, Mom is healthier, we move into a bigger/smaller house, I retire, etc.] and you keep living in the chaos until some nebulous time that’s always out in the future. Chaos can reign or it can exist without reigning. The dust may never settle. So what do you do?

Find a way to reach inside for that Peace NOW. Are you dealing with a lot of stress? Use that 7-minute meditation audio and relax to de-stress. Are you too busy? Is there too much drama in your life? Check out the productivity you can enjoy when you increase your resources by coming from a place of Peace within you. Now think about what’s happening around you. Have you ever noticed that when you lower your voice your kids lower theirs and pay closer attention to hear what you are saying? This same principle works when you lower your stress level and act from a place of Peace. That energetic then moves beyond you into your environment and helps everyone to feel more Peace-full.

Shine the Light of Peace all around you. Find it first within you and then share it. Stop the drama. Even if you are telling yourself that you can’t do that because the drama is all being caused by external events, realize that you don’t have to attach yourself to the drama – allow it to stay external to you and deal with it objectively [or make a decision not to engage with it]. Bring Peace to every situation or relationship.

Trust me. YOU will be the beneficiary when you practice this but you will also bring a level of Peace to all with whom you come into contact when you offer the energy of Peace. And remember that you cannot control other people – they might choose to continue in the drama and to reject the notion of Peace. That’s up to them. But you don’t have to join them in that choice.

Stay Peace-full this week and notice how good you feel and how relaxed other people are around you!

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BOOK LIGHTS: from “Lifeprints: Deciphering Your Life Purpose from Your Fingeprints” by Richard Unger

Knowing your life purpose means being clear about your big picture: what your life has amounted to so far and where things are headed. More than a set of core values or a worthy goal, your life purpose is your right life, your reason for being. Finding and living your life purpose is the single most important thing you can ever do.

Richard Unger

Make a decision today to learn and live your Life Purpose! It will change everything for you.