Meditation
Active Listening – A Message From My Guides
Your ears are working all day long. They hear thousands and thousands of sounds. Most sounds are routine, so many are dismissed as the normal cacophony of a busy life.
Without particularly focusing, you can easily differentiate between outdoor construction work, the squeal of tires on pavement, and the subtle dripping of a faucet indoors. You can also be awakened by an unusual sound while you are sound asleep.
With all this hearing going on 24/7, how often do you really make time to truly listen? Not just to miscellaneous, irrelevant sounds, or humdrum activity, but to the voices of loved ones and your own inner voice?
The key here is time. Everyone is so busy these days, that we are often thinking of something in the past, or planning hours, days or weeks in advance. Meanwhile, golden opportunities to learn more about each other can easily slip by.
People often hide their fears behind words of bravado or arrogance. When strangled by ego, they can overcompensate by sounding obnoxious or condescending. When they are feeling small or insignificant, people can try too hard to impress. Each of these attitudes can be annoying to the listener.
Choosing Love And Expecting Miracles
I begin each day with the affirmation, “I focus my attention on the love that is around me, and I expect miracles.” After saying this affirmation of faith, I step back and watch the many miracles of the day unfold.
I learned this, and many other spiritual techniques, from the author and speaker, Gabrielle Bernstein. The daily result can be as simple as coming across a favorite book in a second hand shop, knowing it is Universe’s way to tell me that it’s time to read it again… or realizing that I hit every green light on my way home!
When the Universe blesses you with such miracles, big or small, it’s important to say thank you. Your relationship with Universe should always be an ongoing conversation, in the same way you would with a close, loving friend. Connecting with the Universe daily, is the key to receiving these miracles.
If you want to be on a powerful spiritual path, meditation is the best way to get there. Even if you have to start by sitting silently and simply listen to your breathe for a few minutes, you can begin to feel the benefits almost immediately. Continued meditation can lead to amazing miracles in your life, and also offers you less stress, reduced chance of depression, calmer mind, and the ability to have successful relationship.
I argue less with my husband since I started meditating, for example, and our relationship has grown stronger (another miracle). In times of crisis I have also been able to reduce my stress significantly, compared to what it used to be before I chose to meditate (another miracle).
You Could Choose Peace Instead
It is the natural order for seasons to change. This is true on a macro scale in weather systems, and on a micro scale on our soul’s journey. Life is a constant ebb and flow, and it is useless to fight against the tides. Spirit often reminds us, when we are in a difficult season, that it is simply a part of the process of change and growth.
I read the Tarot, a divination system based on universal archetypes, which can be used to see the momentum of a person’s life. The Tarot consists of many archetypes that are challenging and even represent the darker aspects of the human experience. However, these experiences are not ‘bad’ or ‘wrong.’
Too often people will get a challenging message from the Tarot and they will immediately freak out. However, all of life is meant to be embraced and we all have the ability to transcend even the most challenging of obstacles.
There are two primary factors that decrease the severity of the challenges we face in life. The first is acceptance and the second is responsibility.
Becoming ‘stressed out’ over our circumstances cannot resolve the challenges we are facing. We must accept where we are and understand that we cannot change the past. We have no power over the things that led us to this moment, or to these challenges. The only thing we can do is accept the circumstances and understand that we are the only ones that have the power to make changes in our life.
Meditation Is Easier Than You Think!
No doubt you’ve heard of the many benefits of meditation, both physical and spiritual. But how does one start a meditation practice? It doesn’t have to be intimidating. According to the Zen master and teacher, Shunryu Suzuki, approaching meditation with a beginner’s mindset is actually ideal.
It’s important to clear up a common misperception about meditation. Meditation is not simply ‘thinking of nothing.’ Rather it is a spiritual process in which we learn to center, breathe, and achieve clarity.
Meditation is practiced by cultures all over the world and does not have to be associated with a specific spiritual tradition or religious belief system. It also does not have to involve sitting passively with a ‘blank mind.’ Rather it can be anything from coloring mandalas, to a walking in nature.
So, how does one begin, if you’re new to the practice? Consider the goals you wish to achieve with meditation: stress reduction, taming your thoughts, physical relief from pain, spiritual growth? Tailor your practice to build toward your personal goals. Remember, it’s a journey and not a destination.
Keeping a meditation journal, as you go along, can be very helpful. The most important thing is consistency. Make meditation a part of your daily routine, and ideally at the same time each day.
Once you have the basics in place, it’s time to begin. Choose a pose or stance which is comfortable, and a space which is calming, private and quiet. If playing comforting music or lighting candles, or incense, relaxes you, then do that!
The Power You Hold Within
There are days in everyone’s life when it feels as if you are at the end of your rope, and unable to face another day. These are actually the times that you have the most power!
When you are stressed, frustrated or lacking in energy, take time to go within and tap into your inner guidance. Quiet your mind, just for a few minutes, breathe and allow your guides and angels to connect with your energy. It doesn’t matter what type of energy you have going at the moment; it can be negative, positive, angry, happy, sad. It simply does not matter.
Once your guides connect with you, they can either enhance the positive energy, or they can take the negative energy away. They have the ability to lessen the pain, the anxiety, the frustration. They are also able to show you a new path, to enable you to walk away from the drama in your life.
It is vital to “cast your worries and cares to a Higher place.” When you let your guides and angels take these things off your shoulders, you will start to see a clearer path ahead. It won’t happen immediately, but with practice you will find that there is insignificance in most of the issues and drama. Even the ‘big stuff’ will just not feel as big anymore.
Relationships are a huge area of stress for many. Too often someone has chosen the wrong partner to spend their life with. Yet, when the relationship eventually falls apart, they often feel that the end of their world is upon them. They even believe their mismatched partner is the only person that will ever make them happy. This way of thinking is wrong in every way. No one else can make you happy. True happiness comes from within.
Visualizing Your New Reality
We all want certain things in life: an exciting career, financial success, good health, a fulfilling romantic relationship, and a happy family life. Achieving these goals require dedication, hard work and some sacrifices. What many people do not know is that they can boost their efforts to achieve these goals by using visualization.
To fast-track your dreams, begin by shaping and clarifying your vision. What we imagine in our mind’s eye, is what will become manifest in our life.
Some of our dreams are easy to visualize. It is simple to picture yourself on a tropical island, with a gentle breeze blowing sweetly across your face. Or visualize yourself driving down the highway in your snappy new sports car. Imagining such things are not that much of a challenge for most of us.
But what about the more serious, large scale goals? For example, how do you visualize making the huge leap from a mundane office job to an exciting, globetrotting career, that will offer you both financial freedom and sense of fulfillment? Or how do you envision moving from a tiny cramped apartment to a glorious, well-designed home? These things may be more difficult to imagine, since they are outside your everyday experience and seem out of reach.
The solution is to break these visions down into smaller, more practical steps, instead of focusing solely on main outcome. We must tap into our life experience, as well as the creative juices we all have within. Build an image in your mind of the desired goal or outcome by visualizing the different aspects towards accomplishing the overall dream.
Embrace The Many Blessings Of Autumn
As we approach autumn and transition through yet another season of beauty and wonder, let us reflect on our place within this most magnificent Universe. This beautiful time of the year is sometimes overlooked for its lack of summer and winter adventure. As it is neither hot nor cold, autumn brings us balance and provides us with the perfect climate for ‘cooling off.’
Metaphysically, this a period for each of us to step back and become more introspective, acknowledging the blessings that have been placed at our feet. This is also a time to peel away the old, to make room for the new. It is a time of self-renewal at a deeper level, that will guide us through the winter of our lives and ultimately into the newness of spring.
Science teaches that the cycles of the seasons occur as a result of our planet tilting on its axis, as well as its orbit around the sun. As the axis faces the Sun, our respective hemisphere celebrates the warmth of summer, while the hemisphere tilting in the opposite direction, away from the Sun, welcomes winter. This seasonal change, in turn, makes our days shorter and our temperatures cooler.
We can further observe other changes within the natural world around us, as vegetation slows down, trees lose their leaves, and animals scurry to prepare their nests and dens for winter’s dearth. But autumn is also a season of vast abundance, with the harvesting of a plethora of crops, especially here in North America, where much of the world’s staples ripen and fall at our feet.