Suze Speaks

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about something Suze Orman said on Oprah. The woman, deemed a “one-woman financial advice powerhouse” by USA Today, for the most part scares the living crap out of me. I fall short on so many levels according to her financial rules. But even some of her best laid plans and strategies for people have buckled under the strain of this economy and she has found it necessary go deeper in her counsel. Remember, she mostly deals with the symptoms of our lives and not with the causes; and yet it’s the causes, the thoughts and the beliefs that speak the loudest and dictate the most. It was to them she spoke when she said, “We must be grateful for what we have, not for what we had.” Brilliant. Simple.

Suze was talking about mourning less over the loss of “stuff” and being more grateful for what we still have. She was advising a minister and his wife, who had lost their life savings, to concentrate on the positive aspects of their lives. She was trying to shift their focus. But like most of us the “yeah but” came into play so quickly, with all of its reasons and justifications, that it pushed her wise counsel right out the window. ‘You make a good point, Suze, but what about my 401k, my retirement, my future? How am I supposed to be happy when I have lost so much?’ When we win in the argument of “yeah buts,” we have all but lost the possibility for providence to move in to create the miracle that was supposed to be born out of the situation. We have just argued for our limitations. We might have been right and justified in our anger but we are certainly not happy.

Suze sure said a mouthful in that succinct admonition. Our lives are hijacked when we mourn our past – whether it be for material things or physical things – thinner, firmer, younger. We become so mired in the thoughts of the past that we miss the happiness that is ours in the moment and surrender the power to change it. As A Course In Miracles so aptly puts it, “You do not ask too much of life, but far too little. When you let your mind be drawn to bodily concerns, to things you buy, to eminence as valued by the world, you ask for sorrow, not for happiness.”

When our thoughts dwell in the past or leap to an illusive future, we have just sacrificed joy in our present moment. The moment is where our power lies; it is where we live our lives. When we choose joy it not only makes us feel good in the moment, it also sets a precedent for joy in the next moment, which begins a chain reaction for our good.

Suze also emphasized gratitude, which is such an important stance. It moves us out of the realm of feeling sorry for ourselves or of being a victim, which only serves to make us miserable in the short run and attracts more of the same in the long run. That is not the spiral I wish to descend. Gratitude points us in a more positive direction, but I would go one step further than Suze’s recommendation, I would encourage appreciation. Gratitude is a wonderful emotion, but it implies overcoming some difficult situation, a struggle; while appreciation carries a vibrational essence that is not contingent upon conditions. It aligns us with the source within. I will not call it God since that word is charged with so much meaning. I will simply refer back to the field that we talked about last week. The vibration that the ancients, sages, prophets and teachers have known forever. The field which quantum physicists and scientists are just beginning to define. It is that intelligent field, that “Divine Matrix,” that connects us all. It is responsive to our thoughts and our feelings and it is instrumental in creation. When you are joyful, happy and full of appreciation, you align yourself with a Force that holds galaxies in place.

I would encourage you this week to let go of the past as best you can by focusing on all the beauty that still exists in your life. If you are sad, cry. If you are angry, go beat a pillow senseless until you can release the pain that the anger is masking and then have a good cry. Do anything you need to do to let it go. Do not dwell on the pain. Let go of the story of your past so you can begin to write a new one that will make you happy, that will bring you your hearts desire. Write a gratitude list born out of the situation, and then write an appreciation list about yourself and your life. Assume the best this very moment so that you can give birth to possibilities. As my friend Jacob would say, “lots can happen.”

I leave you this week with a quote by Henry David Thoreau who said, “You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in every moment.”

The Blame Game

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the extent to which we take responsibility for our lives. We seem to do a lot of blaming, which only serves to exacerbate feelings of powerlessness. There’s certainly a lot of blaming, criticizing and complaining going around today, especially in light of the economic climate. Nothing is more debilitating; and nothing makes us feel worse. Remember we talked about the four emotional cancers: comparing, competing, criticizing and complaining? Nothing tears down our resolve to create a happy, successful life more. It also gnaws at the very fabric of our culture. As learned scholar, peace proponent and Buddhist leader, Daisaku Ikeda states, “The power to change even the environment exists in the heart.”

It has become clear that forging peace and happiness in this world is an inside job. It starts with us, one person at a time, and then it spreads from there – talk about viral marketing!

When I was studying to be a practitioner in the Church of Religious Science, I had a teacher who used to say, “There is one common denominator in all the bad things that happen in your life…you!” We create our lives with our thoughts, words and feelings – essentially with the energy or vibration we are emanating. Those may sound like “woo-woo” concepts in this age of metaphysics but they are actually facts that are being proven every day by some of our greatest scientific minds.

We all know that we are comprised of energy and matter. Now scientists have proven that there is a field, an energy, force or framework that is the underpinning of our universe, but what does it mean to us? Dr. John Wheeler, prominent physicist and colleague of Albert Einstein, the man who coined the term “black hole;” also acknowledged this field and studied its impact on people. Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist, called this force, “the Mind of God.” He borrowed the term from Albert Einstein who began studying physics because he wanted to understand this phenomenon. Gregg Braden, scientist and author tells us that the power of our belief literally rearranges the stuff, the atoms and the molecules that our world is made of, to create the conditions of our lives – our romances, abundance, peace and even the healing of our bodies. He found that this intelligent field, The Divine Matrix as he has coined it, is not only responsive to us but it connects us all. It is clear that scientists and quantum physicists are beginning to corroborate and find evidence of the truth that the ancient traditions, mystics and spiritual masters have known for eons. It’s just taken science a little longer to catch-up. However, many scientists, including the ones we talked about here, have been driven to address big, overarching questions in physics; subjects which merged with philosophical questions about the origin of matter, information and the universe. It is becoming more clear that we are part of a vast interconnected highway of creation and we are free to use it as we choose.

It is up to us to direct our energy. Dr. Christiane Northrup tells us that we have one of the greatest chemistry sets in the world between our ears. Our brains are capable of making every chemical that our bodies need to grow, combat disease and thrive and it’s our thoughts that steer it. The question remains that if we have the ability to rearrange matter why would we want to impact it negatively for a less than a desired outcome? Of course we don’t do it on purpose yet that’s what happens every time we blame others for circumstances in our lives. Our power lies in the awareness that we are creative beings by virtue of our thoughts, which impact our own atoms and molecules, which in turn affects this quantum essence of life.

I encourage you this week take a stance of responsibility for every circumstance in your life, good and bad. Let’s avoid blaming, criticizing or complaining about anyone else. If someone flips you off in traffic, consider where you might be holding anger or rage for another; if someone hurts your feelings or is talking about you unkindly, look to see where you might be doing the same thing. Once we begin to see things differently and understand that we are first cause, we incite the power to create the lives we want. It’s time to start cleaning up our thoughts, our feelings, our actions and reactions and then watch the changes that occur. They will seem nothing short of miraculous.

I leave you this week with a quote by William James who says, “The greatest revolution in our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.”

Limitations or Possibilities?

I’ve been thinking lately about something Ernest Holmes said. One of the most influential figures in metaphysical science and founder of Religious Science (not to be confused with Scientology), Ernest Holmes was a profound proponent of Universal Intelligence and said something that has stuck with me lately. He said,

“You cannot spend five minutes in the morning affirming that all is well and spend the rest of the day proving that it is not.“

Our minds have such a unique way of wanting to prove our beliefs right no matter what – even though it might not make us happy. A Course in Miracles puts it so succinctly when it asks,

“Would you rather be right or happy?”

Many might think, “can’t I be both?” Not if it brings situations into your life that make you unhappy. We must stop arguing for our limitations in order to attract the happiness and fulfillment that we so desperately crave.

Our beliefs – and remember they are just thoughts that we keep thinking – will be proven in our physical world by the circumstances that they attract, wanted or unwanted. My mother used to say to me, “You’re so lucky; jobs just fall into your lap.” Not only did that piss me off - I felt like I worked hard for everything that came my way and somehow she was negating my effort - but it also set into motion circumstances that began to prove my limited thoughts. In truth I did have an uncanny way of attracting opportunity, but I was so addicted to struggle that I could not accept the ease with which I could create. I thought it had to be harder than that. I began to argue for my limitations. I began to make life harder than it had to be. I was proving my position right because jobs that came easily before stopped cold, and I was anything but happy.

Again, the world in which we live supports hard work, struggle, pain and fear and we just buy into those beliefs as truth. Our addiction to pain and struggle makes us believe that it is necessary to suffer and work hard in order to succeed, “no pain, no gain,” and the belief in "The Great American Dream" and sweat equity. But the paradigm is shifting. Even the lexicon is changing. Think about how prevalent words like universe, spirituality, affirmations, karma, etc. are in our society today. This was not true even a decade ago.

Let’s stop arguing for our limitations. Let’s adopt the new beliefs that are conspiring to change the world. Begin today to pay attention to your thoughts, and to certain words that you use with regularity that might be attracting things that you do not want. Set your course in the morning by setting aside some time, before your busy day begins, to settle your mind – pray, meditate, chant – do whatever you do to put appreciation, happiness and love at the top of your list for the day. But then, as Ernest Holmes reminds us, don’t let it stop there. Don’t let your thoughts run amok in directions that don’t serve you. Ask to become more aware of those thoughts. They will begin to jump out at you like crazy by virtue of your attention to them. Remember, it’s not hard. It is a matter of awareness. We are waking up to the notion that the facts that we so strongly believe in, might not be facts at all.

This week take a few minutes in the morning to set the course for your day; then, throughout the day, focus on happier things, brighter moments, appreciation and all the beauty that surrounds you. Your limiting thoughts will come up, but as you notice them they will not hold the power that they used to. With practice it will become easier. It will become more natural. I can’t think of a better way to learn than by marinating ourselves in positive, life affirming happy thoughts and circumstances - they abound.

I leave you this week with another video, a good news story of a woman who never let a limiting thought stop her determination; she argued for possibilities and possibilities came. Oh yes, and I will leave you with a wonderful quote (I cannot resist) from Louise Hay who says,

“What you think and what you believe is what will come true for you. Your thoughts create your life; it’s that simple, and when we get that, we can make enormous changes.”

Our Brains on Joy

I’ve been thinking lately about mind training and the notion of brain washing our minds for positive and happy changes in our lives. The thought of brain washing has had a bad rap in our culture but the truth of the matter is that our thinking is constantly being manipulated through advertising, films, television and the news. We get it whether we want it or not. Unfortunately, it is mostly negative input, which often leaves us feeling tired, depressed or unhappy and then we wonder why our lives are not better. Let’s face it; our world is skewed toward negativity. We take it in as a matter of fact because it is disguised as relevant, important and sensationalistic. Let’s begin to feed our brains a better diet to see what happens to our physical world.

I was challenged this week with an old, habitual thought pattern (and who knows where it came from). A circumstance arose that elicited a dormant thought stream of fear and paralysis. I became determined not to let it dictate the patterns of my life. I wasn’t interested in its origin; I just wanted to change it. Going back to the source to figure out where thoughts began can frequently make matters worse causing a downward spiral of cause and effect. Another teacher of mine, Terry Cole Whitaker, used to say – and I paraphrase here – “Once I throw out my trash, I’m not inclined to go through it again.” Lecturer and author on “A Course In Miracles,” Jacob Glass, drives home the point by using an example of a car's GPS system. He explains that if your GPS goes offline for some reason and you become lost, when it comes back online the first thing it wants to do is help you find your destination. It does not say, “How in the world did you get here? This must be your mother’s fault.” Years of analysis may not always be the answer. As Byron Katie says, “I’m a woman in a hurry.” Let’s be in a hurry for good to come our way and make a conscious effort to judiciously select thoughts that we take on as fact, and question the ones that are habitual but not true. It requires vigilance. And like any habit, the more you practice the easier and more ingrained it becomes.

I would encourage you this week not to focus and replay thoughts that make you feel bad. These thoughts will not create the future that you want. Remember, we have 60,000 thoughts per day; 87% of those thoughts are negative and repetitive. 99% of all those negative thoughts are a gross misrepresentation of reality; they are simply not true and they are unreliable. Why would we want to continue to think or believe them? Talk about a happiness downer. As author, Anne Lamott warns, “My mind is a bad neighborhood and I shouldn’t go there alone.”

I would encourage you to simply begin to focus on the positive aspects of your life. Let’s leave the morbid statistics, warnings and fear to the advertisers trying to sell us something. If you look for more beauty you will begin to notice it everywhere. Let’s make an effort to stay away from the four emotional cancers: comparing, competing, criticizing and complaining. Continue to appreciate and write lists of things that are going right in your life; compliment yourself and others more often. Seek out activities that make you feel good – funny movies, intimate moments with friends and family and materials that inspire you (books, articles, blogs, YouTube videos, etc.). Remember, this is your life. It’s time to begin ignoring negativity and disturbing, repetitive thoughts and leave them behind for the lies that they are. Let’s begin a new regime of happiness and let’s do it with confidence.

Here are some new suds for your brain:

1. Happiness is vital. It isn’t some airy-fairy, vapid stance that we assume just to be nice. It is a choice – a powerful choice that changes everything. It provides essential hormones and chemicals for health, youth and vitality; it is contagious on every level: spiritually, emotionally and cellularly; it changes the way we begin to think about ourselves. As a result, things begin to shift because the circumstance we attract are vastly different. Money may not bring happiness, but happiness may bring money – think about that one for minute.

2. Thought creates. When we change our thoughts, which are the first act of creation, we change our lives. Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich, writes, “Thoughts have the peculiar quality of becoming their physical equivalence.”

3. Thoughts are attractive – they invite similar vibratory thoughts. The more depressed or morbid our thoughts, the worse we feel. Conversely, the better our thoughts, the better thoughts we attract and the better we feel, which causes a cascade of universal, chemical and relational support for better circumstances in our lives. It is an upward spiral.

4. Habits are just thoughts we keep on thinking. They are not set in stone and they can change with heightened consciousness, awareness and vigilance. Remember what my teacher, Dr. Vetura Papke used to say, “Put a gatekeeper up at the portal of your mind.”

Let’s begin the process of positive brain washing by exposing our brains to more joy, appreciation and happiness; then we will begin a powerful transformation of our lives.

I leave you this week with a prayer, by Macrina Wiederkehr, author of Seasons of Your Heart: Prayers and Reflections. “Oh God, Help me to believe the truth about myself no matter how beautiful it is.”

Vacation Time

I’ve been thinking lately about appreciation and what an incredibly powerful tool we have at our disposal. Frequently, however, we set it apart from our daily lives and compartmentalize in with kind acts, good deeds and churchy things when, in fact, it’s one of the most potent acts in our arsenal for happiness.

If you’re facing a challenge in your life right now I would encourage you to drop all your strategizing and planning and adopt a stance of appreciation. We seem to think that the only way to achieve a goal or solve a problem is to be proactive and assertive, get out there, “brain storm” and get the job done. I can’t think of anything more unsettling than a storm in my brain. That kind of “strategery,” as our previous President so aptly put it, has the effect of that proverbial bull in a china shop. It often makes things worse. We don’t immediately think of appreciation as a jumping off point in solving problems in our lives, but it is. Appreciation is not passive. Again, in our backwards world, we put the cart before the horse, set our minds on overload and try to manipulate our way out a dilemma – doesn’t that make for an exhausting day! I have a friend who says, “you cannot think your way out of situation that you’ve acted your way into.” We must engage our hearts and the wisdom of our infinite higher selves to create anew. One of the best ways I know how to do that is through appreciation.

This week I was consoling a friend who suffered a loss – of material things – and I was trying to get him to focus on all the other amazing things he has in life and he has many. He said to me, “I know I should be more appreciative, but…” As if to say, “I know I should floss, but…” It’s that qualifying “but” that keeps us in a state of suffering and just ruins our ability to recreate any situation.

I would encourage you this week to make an appreciation list. I know I’ve said it before but let’s ramp it up – write down the things you appreciate in your life; qualities that you appreciate in the people you know and love and in the people with whom you might be having trouble. This is one of the most powerful things you can do to transform a relationship. Even if there is only one tiny thing you can find to appreciate about a person, write it down and ride it for all its worth this week. You will begin to notice a change. Write down things that you appreciate about a situation that you might be going through – especially those that seem troubling or problematic – mine it for its value. You’ve heard it said that we only have control of how we “react” in any given moment, but I would postulate that if we appreciate and change our minds about a situation, the reaction phase of counting to 10 before we pull out all of our hair, will never come. It’s a new way of thinking and again, we’re here to retrain and transform our minds. Make a list, add to it every day and read it every evening.

It’s summer! Give your brain a vacation from all its strategy and “best” thinking and let your heart and intuitive higher self sweetly and powerfully engage in appreciation. Rest in the knowledge that all is well and getting better.

I leave you this week with a quote by Meister Eckhart who said, "If the only prayer you say in your life is thank you, that would be enough.”

Moments

I've been thinking lately about the power of the moment. We hear so much about it: "stay in the present; all your power is in the moment; live in the moment; all we have is the now;" and it's all been profoundly punctuated by Eckhart Tolle's guide to spiritual enlightenment - in the oh so popular (thanks Oprah) - The Power of Now. But really, how does that notion parlay into our lives today? What does it really mean for life in the 21st century?

These are exciting times because scientists are now corroborating spiritual theories that great thinkers have been postulating for years. It seems that our minds need proof for what our hearts have known to be true for a very long time - we are spiritual beings having a physical experience. As we said last week, form follows thought. This week we’re exploring how much power we possess in the now. In the moment, we have the power that determines our next moment - it creates our future. Again, it's backwards in the world. We think we have to decide our future, make plans and go from there when actually the reverse is true. We must stay out of the future and power pack our now with as much vitality, happiness and joy that we can; and in doing so we set the blueprint for the next moment and, consequently, our future. We set in motion a chain that not only bodes well for a happier future, but also makes us happy in our present. How much are we postponing our happiness as our lives pass us by?

We frequently live in the past where we tend to judge ourselves right or wrong, or compare ourselves with someone else who has done it way better than we ever could. It has us wondering if we'll ever get it right (compare and despair). That makes our present miserable and sets up the next moment (remember we attract what we focus on) less than desirable. Or, we're in the future of “hope” and “what ifs.” Hope might sound like a positive notion but many times it sets us up for a fall, "why isn't it happening now?" or "I have to work hard, sacrifice, give up things now to get what I want in the future." It never works. That future never comes. It's like waging peace through war - it just doesn't work. We must make a decision to make our present happy and milk it for every bit of life and joy that we can in order to ensure a future of the same. If we deliberately choose joy, we are happy in our moment and we set a precedent for the future.

Scientist Masuru Emoto (The Hidden Messages in Water) tells us that water exposed to positive words, beautiful music and stimuli that is joyful, respond molecularly and create beautiful, healthy, vibrantly formed crystals; while those exposed to negative stimuli create malformed and fragmented water molecules. Pharmacologist Candice Pert, who studied brain biochemistry and discovered endorphins and serotonin receptors, questions the use of brain altering drugs like Prozac and Zoloft. Her research has convinced her that how we think and what we feel generates all the biochemical materials that our brain needs. She says, "We are hard—wired for bliss…our mind, body and spirit are inseparable.” Doctor Christiane Northrup (The Power of Joy) says, ". … If you do not put joy into your agenda deliberately, because it creates these biochemical changes in your brain that are so beneficial, increasing serotonin, decreasing cortisol and stress hormones, making you sleep better, all that. If you don’t do deliberately, what do you do? - You do it by default. You do it through sugar, drugs and alcohol."

As we said last week, we must mind our thoughts. This week I am encouraging you to make a deliberate choice to add joy into your moments. Listen to music that you love, watch movies that make you laugh, find something to compliment in a friend, relative, co-worker. It feels so good to compliment someone. Let's try to suck joy out of every moment. Even if you’re at a job that you don’t particularly like, find something to enjoy. When you are doing chores (to do lists seem endless these days) put on music, dance, make them joyful - this is our lives. Enjoy your children in simple moments. Time passes quickly, and if we're joyful in the moment it will impact us cellularly, biochemically and spiritually causing a happy life for ourselves and others - it is contagious.

I leave you this week not only with a quote, but also with a video that makes me happy every time I watch it. It's a true testament to one man's unmitigated joy and its worldwide contagion. The quote is from Dr. Northrup who said in one of her lectures, "Every thought you think creates a cascade of biochemical changes in your body that are measurable. And every cell in your body communicates instantly with every other cell in your body. And every cell in one of your bodies, believe it or not, communicates instantly with every cell in my body. And I’m thinking the energy shift that we do [tonight] is the best hope for…the war in Iraq, peace on the planet, cleaning up all kinds of pollution…this is the only thing that will change anything."

Reality Begins With A Thought

I've been thinking lately...this business of deliberately making happiness a primary focus and making sure that our thoughts remain as positive as possible is quite a task and requires practice and persistence. A Course In Miracles calls it a radical mind training. I had a wonderful teacher, an old metaphysician and one of Ernest Holmes' first Practitioners in The Church of Religious Science, Vetura Papke, who would say, "Put a guard up at the portal of your mind." She knew how powerful our thoughts were in creating our reality and how easy it was to let thoughts of negativity become our primary mode of thinking. We live in a world that lends itself to negative thinking, "Nothing is easier than negativity - the entire culture plays into it," so says leading OBGYN, best-seling author and teacher, Christiane Northrup. It's as if we have had an unspoken agreement, a group consicousness, if you will, that lends itself to worry, complaining and the proliferation of bad news. Negative thinkers have been branded as significant and even erudite, while positive thinking people have often been deemed as airy-fairy or kooky. But there is a significant shift taking place, and the change is a direct result of a cumulative change in thinking. It turns out that it's not so kooky afterall.

I started writing this blog because the economy and world culture began shifting so significantly that people started to question what it is that really constitutes happiness. Was it only the security that came with our 401ks? - Or in having it "all?" Not so much, as we watch those things evaporate right out from under us. We are beginning to understand that true happiness comes from the inner landscapes of our own lives and in our connection with each other. This understanding has called for a significant change in our thinking - our most creative and powerful tool in changing our lives and, as hackneyed as it might sound, in changing the world. Consequently, the journey within becomes the most important thing we can do.

So what now? What can we do today, right now? We can train our minds to think on other things and it's not that much different than working out a muscle. It becomes easier with practice. Write a gratitude list every day; write down what went right. I know it sounds simple, but it is profound. It shifts the gears of our thinking away from "what's wrong," "what always goes wrong for me," "my dumb luck," and the worst thing that we do: keeping score of how many things go wrong. We build a case for the pattern to continue. As much as you can this week, begin to be conscious of things that are going right. Try to detach from the "story" of who you think you are (check out Byron Katie under Teachers and Tools for more on that) and begin to redefine yourself by your positive virtues. Write down, right now, three things that you like about yourself. We must begin to see ourselves as the powerful, infinite beings that we are.

Some of today's most important and influential medical researchers and scientists are telling us that the most powerful chemistry set that we have--to combat diseases, chemical imbalances and even genetic patterns--lies between our ears. We have the power to affect signifiant changes in our bodies, our lives and in the amount of joy we gleen from every day...and it all begins with a thought.

I leave you this week with a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson who said, "What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."