When the world seems to be crumbling around you

I must share with you a very interesting phenomenon about my day yesterday.

As background to this, let me just tell you that I have arranged for the FILMING of my next four scheduled seminars, and to say that I have been just a LITTLE stressed about this would be putting it mildly!

Well, what happened is that the venue where I was intending to host these "free" filming events called to tell me that they were not going to be able to let me have the building now without charging me some very hefty fees after all.

Now I LOVE all these people at this location, and let me tell you right up front that they were NOT the ones calling the shots about this fact, and they were as incensed as I was shocked.

So when I hung up the phone in a pure stupor, realizing that I only had FOUR DAYS to figure out where else I could hold this event, I was feeling MUCH more about how wonderful I would feel if I just CANCELED this event!!!

But then when I followed THAT thought through to the next level of reasoning, I realized that ALL this stress was because I was soooo darn worried about the FILMING of it all!

... And if I would JUST get out of my own way, and no longer try to make it "more" than what it would automatically BE ... I realized a very important thing:

(This might sound simplified to you, but it was an epiphany to me ...)

All I needed to do for ANY of these filming events is just SHOW UP!!!!!

I realized that the audience is not going to care if I like the way my hair looks, or I stumble over a few words, or I even repeat myself too many times about the way I say something!

In fact, the ONLY thing at stake at that point was my "reputation" as a speaker, for whether or not I would "come through" and just BE THERE for them all!!!!

I am relaying this story to you now ONLY because I realize that this is something we ALL should remember!!! ALWAYS!

No one is EVER looking at us and critiquing anything if they believe that we have really, truly, and honestly "showed up" in heart and spirit to BE WITH THEM in THEIR lives!!!!

And ya know what?

YOU can do THAT!!!

YOU can ALWAYS SHOW UP and simply BE THERE!

There is really NOTHING else that you EVER really "need" to do!!!!

I plan to remember this as I "show up" this weekend just to be with my family!!!! Even if it IS then only two days before I get to be shaking in my boots when I hear the words ... lights ... camera ... ACTION on Tuesday!!!!!

Tell me to "break a leg" and just know that I will appreciate your wonderful support!!!

...

Oh, and by the way ... the outcome?

It turned out that all the doctors of this building came to bat for me IMMEDIATELY and got the management company to back down and wipe the fees away!

Aren't I lucky that I got to experience a complete reframing of all my stress ... in a way that even felt like MORE stress until I "surrendered?"

For without this "nightmare" of a day I would have been going into this weekend with a WHOLE LOT MORE STRESS on my mind than I have now!!!!

Now, I just remind myself that all I HAVE to do at any point of next week's two filming events is "show up!"

... and ... well ... ANYONE can do THAT!!!!

If you're tired ... look to your thoughts.

I woke up the other morning before it was time to get up (and thank goodness I was able to go back to sleep), but what hit me about that "event" was that I was aware of just how "tired" and "depressed" I felt at that moment!

And since it was in the wee hours of the morning (when our subconscious mind is usually the most available to us), it hit me that the whole reason I was feeling this way was that I was JUST SO TIRED OF THINKING!!!

That's IT ... nothing MORE ... and nothing LESS!

I was TIRED OF THINKING!

It may sound silly, but I have been planning a few upcoming workshops and events for the last few days, and so a lot WAS on my mind. I was yearning for (yes another) vacation ... anything ... to relieve me of these "burdens!"

But then it hit me with even MORE CLARITY ... well why don't I simply turn my mind "OFF?!"

Well ... I am sorry to say that I don't exactly have the secret formula for knowing how to DO this. But I DO know that it still felt as if I was able to get some "relief" from simply KNOWING that this was all that I needed to do!!!

So all the next day, I tried to focus more on the fact that IF I could turn off my mind ... what would that feel like ... and it was GREAT!! I found that I simply had to keep reminding myself that it's OKAY to "stop thinking" and just BE!

In our culture, we're just not "big" on this idea. The more we can check off on our "to-do" list, the better. Yet I found that with this new focus, I surely didn't accomplish any LESS! And I have a feeling that in the long run, I am going to be able to accomplish MORE!

So know that I'm trying to turn my mind off more than I used to. And if you would like to support me on this, I would love it!!! Just tune in to me and MY mind (... to send me lots of QUIET thoughts, of course ...) and I will try to do the same thing for YOU!!!

This is the only way that we can even GLIMPSE our true connection at the quantum level.

Isn't it spectacular when one is able to turn off the "demands" of life and simply imagine what it would be like if we could simply LIVE!?!

I'm with you! (in every way) ... even more than you "know!"

I guess I like it GREEN afterall!

Well, my husband and I just got back from our vacation in the wild west of Montana and Wyoming, at the northern entrance of Yellowstone, and it was incredible to see the world from such an expansive viewpoint!

But it was all so BROWN!!! I know that it had been dry out there, with some fires in Montana, but every bit of brown helped me to appreciate GREEN even more!

On our way out there, Terry and I stopped off at the Black Hills of South Dakota, and THAT felt like "home" to me. Of course, since I come from PA originally, I suppose that anything like the Allegheny mountain range will remind me of home. But the mountains in the Black Hills were GREEN (and not Black like I was picturing) because the trees are a very DARK green!!!

Isn't it beautiful how we are able to perceive our world??? Our senses are sooo powerful!!! They can even make us cry when the emotions are touched by our senses!!! They can make our hearts beat faster too!!

Like when we saw our first bear in Yellowstone, and we were outside of the car filming it, and it suddenly stood up on its hind legs! Everyone around us moved back!!!! And yet, this bear had no interest in us. It was quite obvious to all of us that he was standing up to get a better look at the antelope that was also plainly in sight and moving away. We all "knew" this. Yet I think that we all LOVED the anticipation of potential excitement in our lives, for we ALL love to seek this emotion to feel ALIVE!!!!

So just beware in YOUR life!!! You may be seeking the emotions to feel ALIVE!!!! And sometimes we find the darndest ways to embrace them!!!!

Your body is "tuned in" more than you know

There is a natural vibrating radio signal that is pulsating around our earth at 7.8 Hz. This phenomenon was discovered in 1952, and is known now as the Shuman Resonance.

This also happens to be the dominant brain frequency of all vertebrates ... yes, even humans.

However, we find that the brain frequency of people living in the industrial world is slightly higher. It is as if we are spending too much time in our upper brain wave frequencies, and metaphorically as if we are trying to go faster in order to keep up!

Those people in the industrial world who are often sought out for their spiritual, shamanic, or healing traits, however, prove to be vibrating closer to nature, at 7.8 Hz.

This is not magic. Nor is it a difficult thing to change if you wish to change it! The biggest difficulty is getting people to recognize how important this is.

There are many tools available that can help you to resonate more closely with the intended natural rhythm of your truest self:

• Time with Nature
• Good quality guided imagery
  
• Meditation
• Contemplative prayer
• Listening to soothing music with an undistracted ear
  

Any one of these things, with enough daily practice, can and will help you to "get out of your beta mind" and back into "remembering" what it is like to include slower brainwave frequencies in your day. This is a state of mind that we call "flow."

Oh ... and about that part about how difficult it is to get you to recognize how important this is...

Let me put it this way. Look around in your life and see if it is in balance. If it is, then you're probably already "in sync."

If it is not, well ... then ... the choice is yours. How much longer can you afford to be out of sync with your optimal self?

Decisions, Decisions ...

Think you know why you had that cup of coffee this morning? How about why you picked the person you married?

Well, most likely you don't really know why because NONE of us get to see the intricacies of connections to our deeper brain.

We think that the habits like our morning coffee don't even really involve a decision, yet EVERY decision ... even the most mundane ... is ONLY able to occur when our brain is hard-wired to perceive the emotions.

We may think we know more about the emotions behind why we picked a spouse, but even there, our conscious brain constantly deludes us into thinking we know the depths of the reasons why.

There are some good books written about the illusions of the brain. A Mind of Its Own, by Cordelia Fine, is a wonderful book that is as funny as it is well written, and it helps you to learn more about how the brain deludes you in so many ways.

Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, is probably even more well known for its examples and research behind the subconscious mind when it comes to making decisions.

But if you're looking for the specifics of how to make decisions that affect your perception of happiness, the book Stumbling on Happiness, by Daniel Gilbert, helps you to put things into perspective so that you may even be able to affect your own ability to be happy!

These resources and more, teach that the subconscious mind actually goes so far as to invent responses ... and then "think" they are valid.

I can just hear you now! YOU wouldn't do this! Right?

But it is fact that everyone does this. And in the paraphrased words of Marvin Minsky in The Emotion Machine:

"The illusion of the 'simplicity' of thinking and reason comes from forgetting our infancies, which is the time in which we actually grew these abilities."

And believe me, our infancies are extremely rich for emotional interpretation of every event.

We are an emotional machine! It is almost as if our emotions are another sensor for our bodies. We may give it the label of "the sixth sense" through our intuitive reasoning, but it is amazing to me that this "sense" is not given the status it deserves as one of the body's mechanisms for interpretation of its environment. It's time to give it equal footing with sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell.

So it is best if you don't ever downplay ANY emotion. Don't try to avoid it, or push it away, or cover it with an antidepressant. Our emotions provide us with wonderful insights into our lives. And when you learn to TRUST those emotions, they can direct us in a healthier way so that we don't need to bury it, where it will later express itself in some other form.

This doesn't mean you must punch someone in the nose with your anger. In fact, when you acknowledge anger, it is more likely that you will express it in a healthy fashion, for anger has a wonderful meaning in that it is trying so hard to direct you away from a particular outcome.

Nor does this mean you need to do anything dangerous about your grief either. Even grief, which none of us like to feel, is a wonderful emotion that is trying so very hard to direct you inward ... to "cocoon" and heal from your loss so that you can then be "reborn" again with a whole new expression of yourself ... just like our teacher, Mother Earth, does each spring.

Simply acknowledge the gift of information from emotion. In the same way you might acknowledge the gift of the taste of chocolate when you bite into that awesome birthday cake someone made for you this year.

It's all information. It's only information.

And if we can learn how to "detach" from the intensity of the emotions just as much as we need to detach from the addictions of ... yes, might I say chocolate ... then somewhere in this world and body of yours you will find balance. The balance of night to day, winter to summer, hot to cold, and I could go on and on.

For it is ONLY in the balance of receiving all information and perceptions that we can then ever determine what it is that we are REALLY deciding for ourselves in every moment of life.

Where does one ever begin a blog?

Blogs, although they often have a few pictures here and there, are mainly trying to entertain the reader through the art of the written word.

In my work, I try to constantly teach the limitation of words so that a person will learn the value of working through multi-dimensional imagery. This is the way a person can best change their body chemistry.

Words are three-dimensional. Bodies are multi-dimensional. Effective guided imagery is much more than visual. It also uses images that involve sound, taste, smell, and of course, touch. When it is multi-sensoral and becomes "real," the imagery taps into the brainwave frequencies that enable one's thoughts and emotions to more successfully communicate one's intentions for specific events. And the images which work best are metaphors.

Why metaphors?

I think it's because the fact that we ARE multi-dimensional vs. three-dimensional beings. We can label things body, mind, & spirit. We can label ANYTHING with a word really. But a word is ONLY able to communicate three-dimensional aspects of something. Metaphors are able to communicate whole concepts.

And the ability to use metaphors that speak to your emotions ... well, that is the whole secret to "successful" guided imagery!

Whether you decide to incorporate guided imagery into your attempts to diminish the size of a cancer tumor or speed up your metabolic rate, your bodily functions are going to be affected most by metaphors that can conjure up the most intense emotions within you.

The "perfect" metaphor, then, is one that will "speak" the symbolic representation of your desired result, in a way that is meaningful ... all the way down to your soul!

So my goal is to make this blog RICH with meaningful input.

Sometimes I will dialogue around my thoughts on some interesting books, sometimes I will offer information on the latest scientific concepts around anything from health to quantum physics; but overall, I will offer you verbal descriptors and images that will hopefully help you to stretch your mind beyond the three-dimensional scope of these very same words and images.

This is when 1 plus 1 turns out to equal 3!

So I ask that you please be patient with my words. Words represent a whole three-dimensional culture that we so love to be a part of ... and, in fact, the Internet you are interacting through right now actually thrives and has completely taken off because of them!

In the end though, it is all meant to encourage your thoughts ... and even more fun ... perhaps a brand new way of thinking!