Archive for the ‘Life’ Category
This Memorial Day Weekend one of the cable channels had a Harry Potter marathon. This got me thinking about Dementors. Harry Potter’s dementors were dangerous because they first sucked the joy and hope from a person, then they sucked the soul out of them.
Do you realize we have present day, real life dementors? There is something a lot of us fall pray to that sucks the hope and joy from us and I believe it is totally capable of sucking the very soul from us. What is this horrible thing and why have we let it loose on the planet? This horrible thing is FEAR and yes we have let it loose on this planet. I believe we welcomed fear as soon as we left Eden. We were afraid of wild animals, we were afraid that the rains would not come, that the herd animals would not migrate, that the gods would be angry. I could write ten pages just listing all the things we as humanity have been afraid of through the ages and this would not even touch our personal private fears!
Why do we allow this fear to persist? OK, some fear is good, it keeps us safe. But what about the fear that wakes us up in the middle of the night in a panic about current relationship troubles or the pile of bills that we can’t pay. This is the fear I am talking about; this silent invader that does not contribute a solution but keeps our mind in a panic so we can not think logically. This is not a good thing. This fear sucks the joy right out of life. This is the fear that caused people to jump out of multi-story buildings during the great stock crash that preceded the ‘Great Depression’. This is the fear that smothers hope.
What can we do about it? Check back on Thursday when I will tell you how to overcome this fear, in the meantime, eat chocolate.
Today is my birthday. No I am not giving my age.
What do I want for my birthday? I have most everything I want; a loving family, a roof over my head, and food on the table. Yes these are wants but these are also needs. What about some true wants? Something I don’t have to have but would like? This is a hard one as it is asking me to negate years of conditioning and upbringing where I was taught to suppress my wants and desires. I think many of us are like that. We have learned to ignore ourselves. But what good is that? In ignoring ourselves, we end up requiring others to pay attention to us and our needs. We run ourselves into the ground so that someone else has to come along and take care of us.
I had a co-worker once who thought he had strep-throat but did not want to go to the doctor. Here he was at work, possibly infecting the rest of us. I overheard a conversation between him and one of the other workers. John said we use to not go to the doctor for every little thing. Jim rebutted, “yes, but we also only lived to about 40.” Jim went on to explain how strep can get down to the heart and weaken that vital muscle. John decided to go to the doctor.
Another co-worker had a brother who was in his late twenties. This brother suddenly died. He had gotten so sick with pneumonia that he could barely stagger into the emergency room where he collapsed and died. Why had this happened? He had ignored a need. Maybe he had labeled a need with a want, a want to feel better not a need to feel better. Sometimes it takes some one else to look at our situation and label it correctly as a want or a need.
These may be cases of ignoring our needs not our wants. But isn’t ignoring our wants, just one step away from ignoring our needs? I don’t want to end up like either of the two people mentioned above. So what do I want? Those Mini Convertibles sure are cute.
The Benefits of Being Positive
Posted by: Ann
May 29th, 2010 >> Energy, Life, Manifesting, Physical/Material
I have a neighbor who is always dwelling on how bad things are and how she just can’t get ahead with her finances. I really don’t care to listen to all these complaints as I am trying very hard to live a positive life. I have found that this person does not come around as much as she use to. I think it may be because I am sending out more positive energy waves which repell her negative one.
Last year I did an experiment where I noted when my emotional state changed and then noted what manifested in my physical life. I can tell you the emotional change occurred BEFORE the physical manifestation. When I started feeling down and woe-is-me the lack soon started coming into my life. When I decided to give myself a talking to and be more positive, things started picking up and money started to flow again.
This year I am doing another experiment. I have decided to be as positive as I can as much as I can. I have found that new information and help keeps coming my way to keep me on track. Some of the things that have come my way include: a friend starting a group called “Mindful Happiness” which is a support group for us trying to live a more positive life, I have also rediscovered some books that have helped me, each one coming when I needed to go a little deeper or concentrate on a different area.
What am I experiencing on a more tangible level? For one thing, the monthly bills are being paid even-though no major invoices have gone out since March!
I will keep you informed of any major changes. Let’s stay positive!
My husband and I head up a program for our church members who are college students going to school away from home. We wanted to do an end of year reception for all the participants and the best day was May 23 right after church. The students would be through with the spring semester and Summer school would not have started yet.
After we put it on the church calendar, I realized I was scheduled to count money after the service that Sunday. We could not move the reception to an earlier week (not enough time) and the best attendance would occur on a Sunday right after church. The next Sunday would be memorial weekend, a bad choice and then we would be into June and Summer school. So we stuck with May 23. I just did not have time to try and find a replacement for my counting duty that Sunday so I threw it out to God or the Universe that if I was going to be able to attend this event that I was planning ‘you’ are going to have to get me a replacement. I then let it go.
Sunday May 16th I received an e-mail that the finance committee had a meeting Monday. I did not have this meeting on my calendar! I went and at the end of the meeting I told my dilemma and had a person volunteer to change days with me. Problem solved.
So did God or the Universe or I on another level cause this meeting to take place so I could get a replacement so I could attend the reception? I have heard about a technique of listing all your to-do items and then deciding what you really want to do and what you are going to leave up to God or the Universe to do. I have done this before with a problem concerning an incorrect income reported to the Social Security Administration and nothing has happened. Maybe it will be a moot point when it actually is needed so that is why nothing has happened!
Manifesting or Intuition?
Posted by: Ann
May 25th, 2010 >> Energy, Life, Manifesting, Physical/Material
I wanted to continue with yesterday’s topic as I feel it is very important. Maybe I am just trying to get it clear in my own mind.
One morning last week I started thinking about my watch. I had to take this watch in for some repair work in April and had to leave it with them. I was thinking it was about time to get my watch back. That afternoon, I received a call that my watch was ready.
Some people call these types of occurrences idiosyncrasies, others call them coincidences but I want to propose something else. What if these are actually manifestations of our thoughts? What if we have more power than we think we do?
Are you ready to take responsibility for your thoughts and resulting actions?
You could probably tell me your own stories. The time you started thinking about someone you have not thought of in years and all of a sudden you get a call from them. What about the list of things you wanted to do that you wrote up years ago then rediscovered the list recently and realized you have accomplished them all.
There are many such stories. Are these coincidences? In this household we have a favorite saying “There are no coincidences”.
I think one of two things is happening. Either we are using our intuition and accessing the future or we are creating, manifesting the future.
I find myself leaning more and more toward the idea that we are manifesting the future. What do think is going on?
Dream interpretation involves getting in touch with your intuition. Unfortunately our western, American society has tried to eliminate and downgrade our intuition by denying our feelings. How often do you hear a well meaning parent telling a child “you aren’t hurt, I don’t see any blood.” When it is obvious the child who is sobbing is hurt, it may not be a physical hurt but the hurt is there. Some times I feel like smacking that parent and saying “that didn’t hurt did it?” Well back to dreams and intuition.
On Tuesday I mentioned using Dream Dictionaries and the interview method. Today I have another useful method: alternate hand writing. This method involves writing a question with your dominant hand and answering with the nondominant hand. By doing this you are accessing both sides of your brain. Ask the same types of questions you would with the alternating chair method. The nondominant hand takes longer and more concentration to form the letters, this ties up the logical part of you brain so the artistic side can actually have a chance to have a say in matters.
The last method I will mention will probably be the hardest for most people: Meditation. Do a simple meditation, get quiet, take your mind to a beautiful, safe area and access your inner wisdom. It may show up as a person, another version of you, a feeling or an object such as smoke. Ask the questions and wait for an answer. If no answer comes immediately, don’t worry, one may come later in the next day or two.
All the methods listed (except the dream dictionaries) are ways to access your intuition. That is all you need to do to interpret your dreams. Your own intuitive interpretation will have the most meaning to you as it is the most personal.
If you do experience a series of dreams with similar elements it may be worthwhile to interpret the dream. Your subconscious is trying to tell you something.
I am going to delve into some dream interpretation today. Do you ever have a dream that repeats or one that has the same elements as another dream you had recently? I believe your dreams are trying to tell you something.
What I have determined is that our dreams are symbolic representations of our emotions. Our emotions are trying to make themselves know through familiar objects. Within the last week I have had two dreams that had very small ‘doors’ in them. This may sound a little like Alice in the Looking Glass, but the first had a stair way up to a very small opening about the size of a small pet door. I needed to get to the other side but there was no way I was going to fit through that opening. I found myself thinking if I was younger and smaller I would be able to fit but not now. In this dream I did not go up the stairs to make sure, but I went around the wall to look for another way to where I wanted to go. I did find a way and it was more direct than the pet door would have been. The second dream involved a small 2 foot x 2 foot opening that I had to slide out of the way. If you looked directly through the opening you would see a wall in front but I crawled through, turned the corner and went around the wall to find a large room containing all kinds of educational information.
How do you interpret such a dream? There are several ways. We as humans seem to have a ‘mass consciousness’. Because of this consciousness, we can assign meanings to specific images in our dreams. Google “dream interpretation” and you will find various dream dictionaries that say pretty much the same thing for the same words. For example: Dreaming about a campus (If you have been to college you have probably had such a dream) means you need to expand your thinking or knowledge and challenge yourself mentally; To hear a drum in your dream may symbolize the rhythm of life and a need to keep a steady pace in the pursuit of your goals. The term door had many meanings depending of if the door was open, locked, to the outside, inside a revolving door. What I settled on for the best fit for my door was that it meant a new opportunity that I am feeling is unimportant (being small) or difficult to obtain.
Another method of Dream interpretation that I was taught years ago involves sitting in a chair facing an empty chair. You start out as yourself and you talk to an element in the dream as if it were sitting in the opposite chair. Ask it questions such as: how do you feel, what is your purpose, what do you have to tell me? To receive an answer, get up and switch chairs. Become the other person or object and answer the question. When through, change chairs again and ask another question. When I did this with each of my door dreams, I got different answers. One door was sad and felt insignificant the other was happy and inviting.
There are other methods. I will continue with on Thursday.
Have you ever had one of those weeks where you are sick all week and can’t get anything done? Last week was like that for me and I am still recovering. I could feel the cold coming on Monday. I did not think much of it. OK, a cold, which means two days of sore throats followed by three days of only being able to breathe out of one side of my nose. Then I suffer through two to three weeks of drainage down the back of my throat, keeping me from singing in church.
I started taking my vitamin C when the sore throat hit. Vitamin C can help cut the sore throat to a day and the clogged nose to 1-2 days. I did not think much of the cold otherwise, at least not for the first two days. I guess that is why it was different this time, it just kept coming. By the end of the week the sleepless nights were getting to me. I hate trying to sleep when I can’t breathe!
Finally on Friday I looked up the healing properties of amethyst and Turquoise (the stones on the necklace my spirit guides chose for me). From The Illustrated Directory of Healing Crystals: A Comprehensive Guide to 150 Crystals and Gemstones
The cold may have been running its course or maybe the necklace was helping. Believe what you want but I do not believe in coincidences.
Order your own necklace at www.naturallyresilient.com/cicada/
Losing control a couple of times can play havoc with your social life. Not only will people not want to be around you but you may find it hard to hold down a job. This can lead to more anger. Often others don’t understand, they think it is a lack of control on your part. Yes some people with a host of pent up anger do well at controlling the beast, but it is still there. It is always right under the surface.
Did you know there are a host of diseases that are anger related? We all know that anger based hypertension can lead to heart attacks. But did you know there are many other medical problems that have a basis in anger?
Dementia can be rooted in unresolved anger. You get so entrenched in a wrong from the past that you no longer live in the present. Problems with the gallbladder can be from feelings of anger. Think about the indignation and anger behind the saying “what gall!”
Often the anger is repressed and has to make itself known through disease. Many cancers get their start from anger, often repressed anger. The anger that is unacknowledged has to go somewhere so it comes out in a tumor.
From my own past I have experienced depression that was due to unacknowledged anger. As soon as I found the anger, the depression lifted. Before discovering the anger, I would have sworn that I wasn’t mad at anyone!
How about being fat? Often when someone can not seem to lose weight it is because it is not safe to lose the weight. The layer of fat is protection and with that need for protection there is often hidden anger. Find the anger and resolve it and the weight will melt away. This can often be emotionally draining work and will eventually require true forgiveness but it can be done.
And then there is anger at yourself which can be an underlying cause of Addison’s disease. Even Anemia can have a basis in being angry at yourself for not being able to control things.
So I ask again, how do you deal with anger?
How is that working for you?
If it is not working for you, read tomorrow’s post.
Do you have fear in your life? I would be safe to say we all do. Remember the bumper-stickers from a few years back that said “No Fear”? I always wanted to write below them “No Courage”. You can’t have courage without fear because courage involves doing what you know you should do in spite of the fear.
Fear was very useful many thousands of years ago. Back then it told you to run from that wild animal, it told you that your neighbor tribe was to be avoided, it kept you alive. We don’t usually have the same type of life and death issues as we did back then (I know some people do have these survival issues but the majority of us don’t) but we still have the overriding fear mechanism in place “to keep us safe”! Safe from what??? Ourselves?
Fear can be an overpowering emotion. It can keep you from doing what you want in life. It can keep you from doing what you need to in your life. You have to let go of the fear so it doesn’t become master of your life. That is often easier said than done. EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) is very useful in helping to release the fear but what happens when you keep grabbing it back? Sometimes new issues keep presenting themselves which reenacts the fear in your life. You can keep doing the EFT and it will keep working. Many may think the EFT is not working when the fear keeps coming back. Let me assure you that the EFT is working but it is new issues that keep popping up to be dealt with. When you are in the middle of fearful situations you will have to apply the EFT many times a day.
There is another way out of the continual fear. This involves trust. Sometimes we just have to trust ourselves, trust the future and trust something greater than our physical beings. It is in that trust you can begin to let go of the fear. You can see new hope and possibility. That is what I did late one night several weeks ago. I reviewed all the fear I have had in my life since an early age. I reviewed the fear I have had in the past lives I know about. Then I decided enough was enough and I did not need the fear anymore. I then experienced a calm come over me. That calm has stayed with me ever since.
Let me know how you have dealt with fear in your life.