Archive for the ‘Life’ Category
In keeping with the Biblical theme I have going right now, I wanted to introduce Emmett Fox to my readers. Emmett Fox’s life spanned 1886 to 1951. He wrote a number of books on the stories of the Bible, searching for the deeper meaning behind the stories. Most of the Biblical passages are treated as allegory.
Emmett Fox was a scientist, philosopher and spiritual teacher who lectured widely in the US and Great Britain and promoted tapping into the infinite power that surrounds us.
I have a number of his books on my bookshelf. The one I will focus on today is “The Sermon on the Mount: The Key to Success in Life.
” This is one of those books to own because each time you reread it you will gain further insights into life and yourself. To give you an Idea of his writing here is a quote from the book
“If, when someone is behaving badly, instead of thinking of the trouble, you will immediately switch your attention off from the human to the Divine, and concentrate upon God, or upon the Real Spiritual Self of the person in question, you will find – if you really do this—that his conduct will immediately change. This is the secret of handling difficult people, and Jesus understood it thoroughly. If people are troublesome, you have only to change your thoughts about them, and then they will change too, because your own concept is what you see. This is the true revenge.”
This particular book was first written in 1934. I have found a number of books written from 1910 through the 1950’s that promote ideas that are considered new in our times; specifically the Law of Attraction and Manifesting, both of which actually have deep spiritual roots. Although not called by such names, all these older books contain such ideas, this book is no exception.
The Spirit Creates Our Lives
Posted by: Ann
July 10th, 2010 >> Change, Energy, Life, Manifesting, Physical/Material, Relationship, Spirituality
I feel I need constant reassurance that God is there and cares about what is going on down here on the material plane. Sometimes I think God is only concerned with the Spiritual.
But no, the spiritual and the material are both tied together. The spiritual is important because it continues after the material is gone, after the physical is gone, after the relationships are gone. All these; physical (health), relationships, and material (wealth), are reflections of the spiritual or the ongoing soul.
Are they different aspects of the soul?
It is like a bud that cannot contain itself any longer and it burst out into a flower; that is what the spirit is doing. It bursts out into something you can sense better, something physical be it a relationship, wealth or health. Sometimes the spirit is troubled or not on the right path. I hate using the word ‘right’ as there is no true wrong or right path, it is more of not being true to whom you are (a child of God) and things we don’t like crop up in our lives. This is a form of manifesting.
The spirit is an energetic force, a vibration. This force creates feelings and emotions. These feelings can have a direct impact on our health. Many illnesses have been linked to negative emotions.
Our relationships are definitely linked to our emotions. Try to have a close relationship without any emotions! It won’t happen. You may have positive or negative emotions but you will have emotions.
For the physical, the new rage is the law of attraction and that involves feelings. You attract more of what you are feeling into your life. If you are feeling hopeful and optimistic more comes to you to give you hope and optimism. If you are feeling worried and scared more comes to you to emphasize those feeling.
We are constantly evolving personally and as a species. It can’t be helped. We are all generating things on this earth, that is why nothing ever stays the same but all is constantly changing.
Our church youth group went on a mission trip recently and I was intrigued about one of the stories that they came back with. The group that our pastor was in was to do roofing. Now remember most of the participants are Jr. High and High School age kids with two adults per work site. Our pastor admits to not possessing carpentry skills and was rather lost about how to shingle a roof let alone teach a bunch of kid how. There was a person who came to the sites for basic instruction but he had a lot of sites to cover so each team was basically on their own.
Luckily (…but there is no luck or coincidences) next door lived a professional roofer who had been out of work for almost two years. With the economy, no one was building. When he saw what was going on, he came over to help out (much to our pastor’s relief). This man had seen that his neighbor needed a new roof but he did not have the money to buy shingles for this person. The neighbor was glad for the opportunity to help, putting his skills to work.
The team had all week to work and several days into the roofing job, the neighbor had a call which contained a job offer that would start the next week! No job for 2 years then he steps outside of himself and it comes to him.
We are often confronted with such idiosyncrasies. We worry and worry about something and that holds it back. Law of Attraction again, we worry so it brings more worry to us. Then we start to do something constructive and it feels good and things start to turn around to provide more of what feels good.
Yesterday was Paul and my wedding anniversary. Twenty years seems so long but then again not long at all. I think about all that has happened in the last 20 years. We moved 4 times, had a child (who is now 16), raised angora goats, raised cows, created a subdivision and built and lived in a house I designed. There were also many personal accomplishments and experiences that have been overcome such as depression, panic attacks, and asthma.
This makes me wonder about the next 20 years.
Paul gave me a card that said “The Adventure Continues”. That is so appropriate. Life itself is a journey, not a destination, and our journey has been an adventure.
I remember a line in a play where a woman exclaimed that she did not want to have been dead before she died. I also remember a different show where the characters were headed to a funeral and one remarked that the deceased had died years ago. What this is saying is don’t give up the adventure of life until you have to because you are physically dead. Keep learning, experiencing and serving others. Make the best use of this life as you can. Keep your ears and eyes open and who knows what will open up before you; you may be living on the other side of the world this time next year, you never know!
The Holographic Universe
This is an intriguing book with references and explanations of a lot of research that has been conducted world wide. I was familiar with some of the researchers like Fred Alan Wolfe but this was my first introduction to most of them.
Many examples are given from various experiences of different people including the author. One such experience relayed involved a hypnotist who was hired to entertain a group of friends at Mr. Talbot’s father’s house, the author was in attendance. One guest seemed to be susceptible to hypnotic suggestion. Tom had never been hypnotized before but proved to be a very good subject. The hypnotist put him in a deep trance and performed the usual tricks that a stage hypnotist does. One trick was convincing Tom that there was a giraffe in the room at which Tom responded by gapeing in wonder. The hypnotist told Tom a potato was an apple and Tom ate it with gusto. But the real kicker came when Tom was told that his teenage daughter would be completely invisible to him. Tom’s daughter, Laura, was positioned in front of Tom and then Tom was awakened and asked if he could see her. Laura was giggling but Tom looked right through her. “No” he couldn’t see her. The hypnotist went behind Laura so that he was hidden from Tom’s normal view and took an object from his pocket. Tom could not have seen what the hypnotist had done and the hypnotist pressed the object against Laura’s back. He asked Tom to identify the object. Tom said it was a watch. Then the hypnotist asked Tom if he could read the inscription. Tom squinted and read out the name of the watches owner (someone that none of them knew) and the inscription! The hypnotist then showed the watch to the others in the room and everything was correct. Later Tom said that all he had seen was the hypnotist standing and holding the watch in the palm of his hand.
Many more experiences from other people are also given with the explanation of how a holographic universe could account for that.
What tops this for me is that two weeks after reading this book an article came out in our little sleepy town, conservative newspaper with the title “Are We Holograms?”. Makes you think.
Last week with Paul and Jesse gone on the mission trip with our church, I had the house to myself. It was nice. I was able to get a project underway that has been on my mind, I cleaned the house and it stayed clean for more than one day, I was able to make progress on an online class I am taking. But even with all of this time to myself, I missed them.
The Saturday they left I was depressed and did not do anything. Then on Sunday I created my list. I broke the task into small units to be accomplished daily. It was difficult to get started, but once I was able to check one thing off, I was on a roll.
What was this little life lesson? Doing something constructive is a good remedy when you are feeling down. So if you are feeling down in the dumps or mildly depressed – do something. But also allow yourself to take it easy if you need to.
Last Thursday I came down with a headache. Luckily it did not get so bad that I had to lay in a dark room with the ice pack. But it was bad enough that I did not feel like doing anything. So I allowed myself to take the day off. Friday I was ready to beat myself up about not doing anything the previous day as it threw me off my schedule, but I reminded myself that I needed the time off and I had been working hard all week.
What did I learn from this little life lesson? Allow time for yourself, take care of what you need and don’t feel bad about pampering. Everyone deserves a break once in a while.
Paul and Jesse got back from a mission trip Saturday. The Youth and 5 adults from our church went to Durant Oklahoma to help put roofs on houses and paint and do general maintenance for the elderly and disabled in the area.
I am glad I was not there because Paul almost fell out of a tree. He had been cutting branches away from the roof and the branch came down and hit his ladder, knocking him off and sending him head first down the tree. Luckily he was able to grab a branch on the way down and was hanging on upside down. I guess survival mode kicks in and makes you reach out and grab at things. Paul told me that his co-leader at the job site was screaming when she saw him headed toward the ground. He did come back with some colorful bruises, lumps and scrapes.
I had also asked for angelic protection for the crew and specifically Paul and Jesse while they were gone. I believe in asking for spiritual help for anything and everything.
We had a discussion in Sunday school about what to ask God for help with. Most were of the opinion that only ‘big’ or ‘important’ things should be asked for. I was in the minority (of one) that any and everything was reasonable to request help with.
God is not too busy to help with even the smallest most insignificant task. God is universal power and is not limited by time or place constraints like we are. You are not bothering God when you tell Him/Her (God doesn’t really have a gender you know, human kind has provided that and it has changed over time) your concerns. We are denying our power when we don’t access God’s power. If we deny our power, we are not performing our task to the best possible effort we can and therefore we are cheating ourselves and cheating the world.
Release the Fear to Manifest the Life You Want
Posted by: Ann
June 21st, 2010 >> Energy, Life, Manifesting, Vibration
I ran across a quote the other day that I really liked. “Attitudes are more important that Facts” by Dr. Karl Menninger – psychiatrist.
Last year I did an experiment where I noted my attitude then noted how life was going. I discovered that the facts of my life, if life was being difficult or easy, followed my attitude changes. Not the other way around! I may have been feeling good about life and what was going on and then I would let my fears for the future creep in. It was after I started to feel fearful that life started spiraling downward, money started getting tight, unexpected bills started arriving. I would then pull myself together and force a more optimistic outlook and then my money situation would start to shift.
This year I am making a major effort to stay focused on optimism. I have rediscovered faith; Faith in the future, Faith in ultimate good, Faith that God has my best interest at heart, and Faith that the Universe will provide. So far that has worked well. I went through some shaky fights with fear until I decided to release it. That was about two months ago now and I have been relatively fear free since. This is amazing to me as I have had fear all my life!
From talking with others and reading personal stories I have discovered that releasing the fear is the first step to manifesting the life you want. Fear stands in the way of life’s energy. It is the flow of energy that brings things to you. Since releasing the fear, so much information has come to me about positive attitude and manifesting what you want it almost feels surreal at times. I have had moments where I have felt overwhelmingly optimistic, that nothing was impossible. This feeling causes me to feel very light of body, almost a tingly sensation. I wonder if this is a feeling of higher vibration? I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Ask and It Is Given
Posted by: Ann
June 20th, 2010 >> Books, Energy, Life, Manifesting, Physical/Material
One of the original speakers on “The Secret” was Esther Hicks. We were so impressed by what she said that we bought several of her books one of which is Ask & It Is Given.
This book provides a way of increasing your vibrational frequency by improving your emotional outlook. There is a nifty scale about half way in the book that starts at the lowest emotion of “Fear/Grief/Depression/Dispair/Powerlessness” and moves up the scale through Anger and Worry through Frustration and Pessimism then into what we judge as the more positive emotions such as Contentment, Optimism, Enthusiasm and at the top is “Joy/Knowledge/Empowerment/Freedom/Love/Appreciation”. What makes this book such a keeper are the useful suggested exercises to help you move up the scale to a higher vibration.
Most of us lump all negative emotions into one group as being bad. But there are degrees. For example, the year I was depressed, I lost the depression when I became angry. Anger is higher up the scale from depression (which is at the very bottom) so anger was an improvement. Our society tends to view anger as one of the worst emotions, but it is not at the bottom. Anger can lead to much needed social change. Anger can cause a person to find a better way. But anger is still one of the lower vibrations and it is best to work your way up the scale from that.
Paul was so impressed with the suggested processes that he wrote them down on index cards and carried them around for a long time.
The purpose of the book is to get you to a place where you feel the Life Force in you and around you. It is the Joy you feel in life. A quote I like from the book is “Success is about a happy life, and a happy life is just a string of happy moments. But most people do not allow the happy moments because they are so busy trying to get a happy life.” So true. Our emotions are there as a barometer to tell you how far away from your true self you are. When you are feeling bad you are not in your true power. As the book says “Life is supposed to be fun–It is Supposed to feel good!”
Change Your Writing and Change Your Life
Posted by: Ann
June 19th, 2010 >> Change, Life, Manifesting
Yesterday I wrote about how saying certain words out loud with enthusiasm can make you feel better. Then I wrote about how your facial expression can lead your feeling, in-other-words, your feelings don’t have to lead your facial expression.
Today I want to throw in another possibility. If you can change your attitude by changing your facial expression does that also work with other characteristics that are expressions of who you are? The one that comes to mind is graphology, or handwriting analysis. The way you write can tell a lot about you. It can say if you are honest, if you are hiding something, if you can keep a secret, it can even tell someone if you have a bent toward wealth. If you can change your handwriting, can you change your characteristics? I believe you can.
This world is very symbolic. That is why if you tend to see the negative in things, more will come to you that is negative. If you are feeling stuck in some area of you life, you toilet starts clogging or the garage door starts to bind and get stuck. Your hand writing is just another symbol of your life.
It is not easy to change your handwriting. I have tried. I have practiced making certain letters a certain way but I tend to fall back to my normal writing when actually using the letter. When I allow myself to feel the emotion associated with that letter formation, I do make the letter easier. I think there is some basis to this but just like in yesterday’s blog with the man learning the facial muscles and expressions; it takes a lot of concentration and work. I will keep working on it and see if that one change takes place in my writing and in my life.