judgment
Dealing With Negative Energy This Holiday Season
What do you do when you have to go to a family holiday gathering you have dreaded all year? What is supposed to be a positive, happy reunion this time of the year is often a negative, argumentative and energetically draining occasion!
I know from experience that diverse personalities show up to these types of gatherings and over the years I have learned to keep quiet, and smile, and muster through it. I have helped several of my clients lately find solutions to deal with these challenging situation.
There was the uncle that swears around the children who my client is trying to raise in a loving, Christian environment. I have also helped a client find out why her sisters-in-law and mother-in-law constantly gossip about her behind her back. I have helped bring light to a client’s ongoing problems with her siblings’ argumentative nature.
I want you to know that the choice is yours if you choose to deal with these people. Remember you always have free will, even in the most dire circumstances. You don’t have to be around family members who steal your energy and drop their poison of negative energy and comments on you.
It’s unhealthy to put yourself in situations that are uncomfortable, especially when the environment is saturated with dis-ease. Sometimes you have to exercise your right to say: “No thank you, I will pass!” If you do this, you will find you have more energy for those that do treat you well and don’t talk about you behind your back.
Also, do not allow yourself to feel guilty that your not going to attend. Make positive changes this holiday season by saying no to unnecessary stress, negative people and toxic energy. Embrace your own assertiveness for the betterment of your health and mental well-being.
Sometimes It’s Okay To Keep Your Distance!
Many of us have that one relative we do get along with. In every family there is a ‘Cousin John’ or an ‘Aunt Lydia’ who we simply cannot stand. Try as we might, we just cannot find it in our hearts to love them unconditionally.
In my case it is an uncle who’s views and opinions I just cannot tolerate. I despise all forms of racism, misogyny, and bigotry, and I am also an avid supporter of the LGBTQ community. I have no patience with people who criticize or belittle others for who they were born to be. It is unacceptable and despicable.
For many years now I have been consciously practicing healthy boundaries with relatives and people in general. I preach it! Healthy boundaries are vital for one’s mental health, personal growth and emotional well-being.
My Grandmother and I got along so well when she was in this life. We were like two peas in a pod. When she eventually came to live with us later in her life, there was however one issue that caused tension between us – her son.
My uncle was so out of line, in so many ways that I just could not tolerate having him anywhere near me. He is an extremely hateful man who has no qualms about freely spewing his vitriolic prejudice, verbal abuse and bigoted views in front of anyone who cares to listen, including the children in the family.
My grandmother stubbornly remained loyal to her son through it all, and she could now understand why I could not accept him. She said that it was such a shame that we could not all get along, while I felt it as a shame that he is so hateful. She would make excuses for him, saying for example that he was bullied in school. But I felt he should work on himself, instead of hating on other folks for no reason. She could not see my perspective from her way of thinking. Continue reading
Dealing With ‘Unawakened’ Friends And Family
Spiritual awakening is a profound shift in our perception that forever alters the way we experience life. But after we have made the shift it can be difficult to relate to less spiritually aware friends and relatives and leave one feeling lonely and deeply isolated.
The following strategies can be helpful in cultivating more harmony between yourself and ‘unconscious’ people without compromising your own energy vibration.
COMPASSION AND EMPATHY
At one time you were also not awakened. Think back to what that was like. What kind of thoughts dominated your mind? How did you feel about your life? How did you feel in general? The truth is, although you’ve gone through a spiritual awakening, you can still relate to those who have not. You have a point of reference for this.
Someone who is unconscious typically doesn’t have a pleasant inner world, because they aren’t intentionally governing it. Think back to what your life and most importantly – your relationship with yourself and your mind – looked like before your awakening. What did your own resistance look like? At some point your perspective shifted. But prior to that point – how receptive were you to changing your views and ideas? Especially when a family member came to you and said, “Hey, you’re doing it wrong.”
Put yourself in their shoes. Now that you’ve awakened you have the pleasure to start putting it to use in a way that serves the highest and best good of all. Remember that every soul is a spiritual being, and just because you have awakened to this fact, does not make you ‘better than’ anyone else. This is a trap that the ego likes to throw up early, and often along the spiritual path.
The ego is something we must constantly be mindful of. You are not more spiritual because you are vegan, or because you meditate, or because you do Yoga. If you are living in judgment of others through these practices, you are trapped in ego. Be mindful of yourself and come back to a state of compassion and empathy. Allow people to awaken in their own time.
Telepathy Is Our True Spiritual State
I can read other people’s thoughts. It is known as telepathy, or the direct transference of thoughts from one person to another without using the usual sensory channels of communication. It is a psychic ability, or what parapsychologists refer to as extrasensory perception (ESP).
My first awareness of being telepathic was around age three. As a child I thought everyone could read other people’s thoughts. It wasn’t until my early teens that I realized this was not the case.
Being a telepath is not necessarily fun. I sometimes hear, for example, people judging me in their thoughts. These brief telepathic perceptions can be so sudden and unexpected that they completely stop me in my tracks for a moment.
For instance, I could be teaching a class, and suddenly I ‘hear’ one of the students thinking something hostile, disparaging or disturbing about me. When this happens, it can make it difficult for me to continue speaking or functioning for a few seconds.
I have become much better at dealing with this as an adult, but it was very difficult for me as a child. I would often glare at the person, which I think freaked them out. I have since come to understand that their ‘mean thought’ is very fleeting, and that people have many other thoughts at the same time. They normally do not even notice or remember the thought they had about me, so they would not know why I was glaring at them.
Consider your own thought patterns and self-talk habits for a moment. Most people have a lot going on in their mind all at once. Imagine how overwhelming this can be for someone else – to get into your head and hear some of that chatter. Some of it can actually be quite alarming or upsetting. Being telepathic can be both a blessing and a curse.
There Is Only One Path To True Love
There is only one way to experience love, joy, and peace and that is in the now. Too often we have most of our mental energy focused on our future happiness. These thoughts conjure up ideas and imaginings about some future reality we are yet to experience, believing that a certain future event, experience or outcome will finally ‘make us happy.’
There is a real problem with this line of thinking, because there is actually no way to ‘arrive’ at a future happiness. Even if specific ‘happy events’ do occur someday in our future, the happiness derived from these events will always be short lived. It will be a temporary excitement or euphoria, not lasting happiness.
The truth is we always carry our consciousness with us everywhere we go in life and the state of our everyday consciousness is our only sustained experience than will be able to count on in a future reality.
Many spiritual wisdom traditions talk about the past and the future as being an illusion, because the only moment that is real is the present moment. All the love, joy, and peace that anyone can possibly experience in their lifetime all happens in the current moment.
The never-ending search for ‘somewhere out there’ happiness is also fruitless because the experience of happiness can only happen within and in the here and now, and not somewhere out there. Love, joy and happiness are internal experiences.
There is no external place out there in the Universe where you can find a secret fountain of love, joy or happiness. You will not be able to seek it out and fill up a bucket with these feelings, because the actual fountain is within. Continue reading
Empower Your Life With Ho’oponopono
I was introduced to the Ho’oponopono prayer several years ago by a friend I met at a meditation group. She told me that it is an ancient Hawaiian custom that can be used to resolve karmic issues in life. So, of course, I tried it, but with mixed results.
It is a simple, yet powerful three-line prayer:
I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.
I did not fully comprehend it at the time, but even in my lack of understanding, I still experienced some results. Then I reached a point in life where I was experiencing a lot of personal difficulties, and suddenly this simple prayer took on a whole new meaning for me.
It was at a time when I had lost three loved ones in short space of time, and I was going through an intense grieving process and associated life challenges. I figured trying out this prayer again certainly couldn’t hurt. So, for a few days, I made a conscious effort to repeat this mantra in my mind.
I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.
Then I came across a certification program Ho’oponopono. It is a seminar over multiple days. I had the time and resources to enroll, so it felt like destiny. I then learned a lot more about Ho’oponopono and came to realize it is not nearly as simple as I had originally thought.
The term Ho’oponopono means ‘to make right what is already right.’ The prayer itself is only part of the practice. As a spiritual endeavor Ho’oponopono is about untangling the patterns and blockages that contribute to the challenges we experience in this life. The prayer itself is merely a conduit to experiencing Ho’oponopono, or ‘making right what is already right.’
The Ho’oponopono prayer is intended to move the practitioner into a state of consciousness that is love, free from things like fear, worry, resentment, blame, guilt, criticism, judgment, desire for vengeance, jealousy, and so on.
The Wisdom Of Intuitive Eating
I remember reading an article many years ago about a research study conducted with children suffering from various nutritional deficiencies and food allergies. The scientists invited about 20 of these kids into a room with a table on which there was a variety of foods on display. They allowed each child to help themselves to any of the food they preferred. The outcome was astounding!
Each child chose a selection of food that their body naturally would tolerate the best. In other words, they instinctively chose foods that would not a bad for them or cause an allergic reaction. Furthermore, the children also chose more foods containing the nutrients their little bodies were lacking.
This confirmed for me the fact that our intuition or inner guidance system is not merely something we rely on when we are facing major life challenges, or when we are engaging in some form of spiritual practice. Intuition guides us every day in everything we do.
Intuitive eating is very much about honoring the temple which houses our soul. I believe we could potentially become nutritionally much healthier if we learn to trust our intuition more when we make dietary choices, instead of following fad diets and food trends.
Intuitive eating is about challenging modern society’s ‘food police,’ as well as the negative self-talk about eating and food choices many of us tend to engage in.
Intuitive eaters soon find that they eat just the right amount of various foods to nourish and satisfy their body, as they learn to truly recognize their body’s signals. Once you can do this, you are on your way to building a healthy relationship with food.
Be gentle with yourself. Avoid those magazines and influencer images on social media that prompts you to put pressure on yourself to look a certain way. Don’t give energy to such things. Instead, listen to your own body. You are uniquely you, and so is your body. When you express self-love within, you will also express it outwardly. Self-love ‘turns head’s like no designer outfit can!