past
How To Practice The Art Of Gratitude
My life has not been without its challenges. Nevertheless, I love my job, have a beautiful son, an adorable husband and supportive friends and family. Therefore, irrespective of current world events, I genuinely have a lot to be grateful for!
Gratitude is beneficial for all of us, including physically, emotionally and spiritually. For one, appreciating the good things in our lives helps us to be more tolerant and forgiving, with a higher sense of life satisfaction. Grateful people also tend to have more hope and inner peace and feel less anxious and alone.
God, Spirit, the Universe loves gratitude! Those who are sincerely grateful are blessed with even more to be grateful for. Like attracts like.
How does one ensure that you practice the art of gratitude ever day? The following guidelines should help:
Seek Out The Positive
In my own personal research into positive psychology, I became aware of something referred to as negativity bias. In case you have not heard of this, it means that our negative thoughts tend to be more dominant than the positive ones.
An excellent way of counteracting this negative way of thinking is to seek out at least three things in your life every day that you are well and truly grateful for. Try to make this a daily habit. By doing so, it should have you smiling in next to no time!
I remember when I was about 26 years old and in a particularly challenging place in my life. I was advised by a psychic, whom I reached out to with my troubles, to watch the film or read the book, The Color Purple by Alice Walker. It is some of the best advice I have every received. Once I had read the last chapter, I felt so grateful for whatever I had in my life.
My Near-Death Experience
About 12 years ago, right before Christmas, I had a lot going on in my life. I was taking care of my two kids and my brother. My cousin had a three-month-old baby, whose mother was in the hospital with complications due to diabetes. He brought me his new baby and asked if they could stay with us, and if I could care for his son while he worked. He was working the night shift, from around 7pm till 4am. Of course, I said I would help in any way I could.
Between my kids’ and my brother’s schedules, and now this new baby who was colicy, I was exhausted at the end of the second week. Somehow, I also got food poisoning. Never having had food poisoning before, I didn’t know the symptoms and thought I had a touch of stomach flu. Being so tired, I hadn’t realized how sick I actually was. After about 18 hours of fluid loss, I become so dehydrated that I had a seizure. My eyes rolled into the back of my head and I fell down. Apparently, I was clinically dead for around 1½ minutes.
I did not experience all of the typical near-death phenomena. There was not any floating over my body; there was no white light, no tunnel. I was simply here and then I was there. The first thing I remember is walking along a sort of grassy path. I don’t remember turning around to look behind me, but, I just knew that there was a darkness from which I came, back there.
There were two people there to greet me. A woman and a man, the woman spoke to me first, and the man was a little ways behind her. Today, I could not tell you who these people were. But, when I was there, I was so glad to see them. It was like when I had sent my kids to summer camp, and they were gone for all those summer months, and I missed them terribly. It was the same feeling I got when seeing my children for the first time returning home. I had a deep love and bond with these two people.
The next thing I remember is that I was taken to the top of a mountain. There was no journey to get there, I was just there. The only way to describe the mountain is that it was like standing on top of Pikes Peak and looking out. I was so high up that the only thing I could see was blue sky.
Release Then, Embrace Now
I did the most interesting and heartfelt psychic reading the other day. Once it was over, I thought about my responses as a reader for this particular subject matter and how we live and, hopefully, learn. This was a case of lost love come back around again, after many decades of separation and years of wondering ‘what if?’ My client had loved and lost her soulmate when they were mere teenagers, many moons ago.
The parting had not been easy or a willing one for either of them, but our parents’ opinions when we are a certain age often tend to determine our decisions and choices. The two lovers parted ways and went on to lead their separate lives with other people, but in their hearts they never forgot each other. It took a long time, but their paths did cross again – this time with life at the helm, instead of their parents’ wishes and decrees.
Their original parting was so painful for the woman that, although she was so happy to see him again, she could not help but react from a perspective of fear and panic. She approached their reconciliation from the then place, which was one of loss, confusion and grief.
During a reading on this matter, it was immediately apparent that there still were many rivers to cross. The first words from me were: “There is so much love here waiting to happen!” Little else seemed to matter much at all. But the client was still stuck in the past.
Then a pearl of wisdom came from Spirit. “Right now is right now,” the Angels confirmed. “We would not have brought the two together were there not unfinished business and love here to attend to. Tell her to release the past and take the leap of faith. Once she releases it, she will be able to see the now. Then she can proceed from an open heart, not from the fear of loss. She won’t experience the same scenario again, or have it re-enact itself, because she will have released the past. It will literally be a new lease on life.”
The True Value Of Psychic Insight
There is so much more value to accessing psychic insight than simply seeking to see what the future holds. The true value of life, in fact, is not in the future. It is occurring now, in the moment. This is where eternity is truly touched.
The Bhagavad-Gita (Song of God) is a spiritual manual for humanity, spoken over 5,000 years ago, between the infallible Lord Shri Krishna and His dear devotee Arjuna. It offers timeless wisdom to appreciate the value of the present, the now.
This conversation is said to have taken place neat the battlefield of Kurukshetra, in the current state of Haryana, India. In the capitol, known as Hastinapura (present day New Delhi), the blind king Dhritarashtra sat with his minister Sanjaya, inquiring about what was occurring between his sons (the Kurus) and their cousins (the Pandavas), as they gathered with their respective armies to fight for the throne.
Dhritarashtra’s nephews were the rightful heirs and righteous rulers, whose kingdom was usurped by the intrigues of their evil-minded relatives. Refusing to go in peace, the Kurus incited war. As it was set to begin, Dhritarashtra was anxious and restless to know what was transpiring between the two parties.
The king’s clairvoyant, Sanjaya, tuned in to what was happening, as if by transcendental television. By the grace of his spiritual teacher, Sanjaya had received this ability to see and hear from afar.
Sanjaya’s guru gave him these gifts of clairvoyance and clairaudience in order to render a great service, not only to the king, but to the world for centuries to come. For, what he relayed to Dhritarashtra included divine instructions imparted by Krishna to Arjuna (one of the Pandavas) when he was bewildered by the situation before him.
Although Arjuna was, in fact, a fully-realized soul beyond the influence of illusion. He merely played the part of an ordinary conditioned human, so that these immortal words would be spoken for the benefit of all those seeking to navigate their way through the troubles of life, and reach its ultimate purpose.
Yesterday, Today And Tomorrow
A loyal client recently asked me to send her one of the guided meditations in my collection. I have collected many over the years, and she experienced several of them in a meditation class I used to offer. She said she was planning to start a small meditation group of her own, and would be happy with whichever meditation I chose to share with her.
I sincerely wished to help her, and therefore wanted to choose carefully. So, on my walk this morning, along a path lined with olive trees, I asked my guides for a sign or symbol of what script would best help her get going with her guided meditation venture.
Well, Spirit never ceases to surprise me. The ‘sign’ was almost instant, and prominent. Out of nowhere, I suddenly smelled the exquisite scent of the ‘Yesterday Today and Tomorrow’ plant (Brunfelsia). I immediately knew exactly which meditation to send my client.
Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow Meditation
Sit in a comfortable chair and close your eyes. With your eyelids closed, glance upwards for a few moments, directing your eyes towards the heavens. This is helpful in relaxing your eyes and also symbolic in connecting with Spirit.
Now, take several deep breaths and, as you do so, relax your head in a downward position. Allow your eyeballs to relax downwards too, whilst still keeping your eyelids gently closed.
How To Manifest What You Really Want
I have, for at least 40 years now, been a deliberate creator, and passionate practitioner of the Law of Attraction. Nevertheless, when I first started working with this fantastic cosmic law, I noticed that I often manifested almost the exact opposite of what I was hoping for!
How could this be, I asked myself? After all, I had read all the books, did the meditations and vision boards, was thinking positively, and even bought the incense. Why wasn’t I getting what I wanted?
The answer came to me in time. It was because I was inadvertently counter-manifesting. This can happen so easily when we attempt to manifest – particularly in one’s early days of learning the art of cosmic ordering.
Okay, so how does one manage to counter-manifest and, more importantly, how do you avoid it?
Align Your Energy
First and foremost, if our energy vibration does not match what we are wanting to attract, we simply cannot draw it towards us. Like attracts like, remember? No amount of visualization or list-making is going to make any difference if we are not in a positive, open state of mind and elevated mood. We have to be ready to welcome whatever it is we have set an intention for.
Therefore, the first golden rule of successful manifestation is to raise your energy vibration with some healthy self-work and personal investment. By doing so, you will begin to attract more good things into your life, rather than drawing those things that you do not want.
Live Only For Today, It’s Plenty Enough!
Living just for today is plenty enough to keep us busy. Why make it more stressful by also worrying about yesterday and tomorrow?
We can easily become inundated with the drama and chaos of the modern world, and bogged down with other people’s negative energy. These days there is generally a feeling of having to go, go, go, and do, do, do!
The demands of staying in the ‘rat race’ hypnotizes most people, until they are left feeling drained, depleted, and unable to function properly anymore. Many folks are constantly feeling exhausted, and they don’t know why.
Sometimes it’s all you can do just to get through the day. And often that is all you really have to do. If you just focus on what you need to do for just today, you will find the daily demands of modern life much more manageable. Living just for today is plenty, don’t put it upon yourself to do anything else, except to live in the now.
Spirit says people are too focused on worrying about the past, the future, and what could possibly happen. That is not the way to make the most of every day, says spirit. The better way is to live each moment fully. Make more of an effort to see, feel and hear what’s going on around you, in every very moment.
It is really that simple. When you rise in the morning do not focus on anything else, other than paving the way mentally for the day ahead. It keeps the mind free of nonsense. Living for today is plenty enough, doing it any other way steals the joy and substance from the moments.