Empowering those who are asking for what they want, those who want to live their dreams, those who believe deep within that life is supposed to be good – and that is you.
“During a difficult time, gratitude is more important than ever. Research shows that gratitude can help us cope with traumatic events, regulate our negative emotions, and improve our well-being. More importantly, gratitude can have a positive effect on our friends and family, too. It’s a small way to have a meaningful impact.”
– Ryan Fehr, associate professor of management at the UW Foster School of Business
Sometimes, when the pain and suffering feels too much to bear, it can be difficult to feel gratitude and appreciation. We are all human and it’s of value to be kind and gentle with ourselves and acknowledge wherever we are vibrationally. Forcing oneself to feel positivity may find oneself digging one’s heels deeper into the suffering, resistance and struggle. The suggestion at times like this is to allow, as per one’s path of least resistance, something as general as being in the present moment just for the sweet relief it brings. Mindfulness and meditation can be of value in allowing the present moment. The present moment can be extremely restorative, nurturing and healing. This year has shown us, more clearly than ever before, the value of being present in the here and now, the gift just being in the present moment can be.
“The present moment is the only moment available to us and is the door to all moments.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh
As we focus on the present moment, as per our readiness and path of least resistance, we allow ease and relief. As we allow ease and relief, we move closer to hope. As we move closer to hope, we move closer to allowing gratitude and love.
“Gratitude is an essential part of being present. When you go deeply into the present, gratitude arises spontaneously.”
– Echart Tolle
As we head into the holiday season this year, I affirm the connection, for all of us, to the place of hope, gratitude, faith and strength within. From this place of ease, love and strength, we are of so much value to ourselves and those we want to be of value to.
I affirm a Thanksgiving for everyone which is filled with gratitude for all the goodness even though there is so much pain and suffering.
I am thankful for each and every act of compassion and kindness in the world. I am thankful for the medical fraternity and those working tirelessly to find a solution to help others. I am thankful for the emergency responders, teachers, essential workers, volunteers providing food to those in need, utility employees, truck drivers and workers in warehouses, journalists and so many others who continue to work and respond even as they cope with the impact of the pandemic in their own lives. I am thankful for the value of human interconnectedness that this year has shown us more clearly than ever before. I am thankful for the resilient human spirit full of hope, prayer, strength, positivity and compassion. I am thankful for all the blessings we have.
“The ancient art of meditation has been practiced by many cultures for centuries. Meditation is more than simply deep relaxation – it is a life changing practice that can help alleviate stress, anxiety, depression and bring inner peace.”
– Tamia Jaelynn
This year has shown us more than ever before the value of centering within, of focusing and feeling ease and connecting to the place of love, hope, positivity, resilience and direct knowing within, of aligning with who we truly are. Thankfully, there are many ways to allow alignment and one can choose depending on the resonance one feels. One of the ways to align is meditation. It’s an easy and effective way to connect to the answers within, the clarity within, to our essence, to our beingness.
As a certified meditation teacher, I feel honored to be sharing meditation with others. I am so pleased to share that in addition to my life coaching sessions and meditation sessions, I am now also offering meditation classes at WITHIN. These are online classes. I am deeply appreciative of the dedicated and committed team that WITHIN has. I am so excited to be part of the awesome community at WITHIN.
If one wants to explore taking a class at WITHIN, one can take a free class to see the tenor and if one feels a resonance, one can continue taking more classes or become a member. The promo code for a free class is KEEPCALM. The link to the website is here.
In 1994, I was in the second year of my bachelor’s degree in Psychology. The Psychology department had organized its annual seminar which was a great learning experience for all of us attending it. The sessions were well thought-out and engaging. In one of the sessions, there was a line uttered which I remember very clearly even today. The session was led by an eminent psychiatrist and he started his talk by saying –
“If you want, your mind is your best friend and if you want, your mind is your worst enemy.”
The words made an impression in my mind even though at that stage in my life, I could not fully absorb them. During the following years, as I completed my bachelor’s degree, master’s degrees, started working in the corporate world, continued studying within programs as well as on my own and lastly and most important, learned from life itself, I started understanding and practicing living these words. It is still a practice as we are all human and it’s of value to be kind with ourselves. It’s an eternal journey and as Abraham-Hicks have said, “even for people who feel ecstasy on a rather regular basis, there is more”. There is always more growth to look forward to, more to grow into for each one of us wherever we are in our unique and beautiful journeys. The good news is that as one goes along allowing in one’s journey, one continues to connect to the insight and clarity within. It’s an eternal journey on which the easier it gets, the easier it gets. There are tools, techniques and processes which can help in one’s journey in order to empower oneself and feel free, predominantly and consistently. One of these techniques, an easy and effective technique, is meditation.
“Meditation is like a gym in which you develop the powerful mental muscles of calm and insight.” – Ajahn Brahm
In an article by Ryan Smith, in the Harvard Business Review titled – “How CEOs can support employee heath in a crisis”, the statistics were on the lines of what many of us have been feeling about the way this crisis is affecting the world. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, 75% of people say they feel more socially isolated, 67% of people report higher stress, 57% are feeling greater anxiety, and 53% say they feel more emotionally exhausted, according to a global study of over 2,700 employees across more than 10 industries undertaken by Qualtrics and SAP during March and April 2020. There is a clear asking for more well-being. In addition to this, the changing markets and consumer demands over a period of time have been leading to companies asking for more agility and innovation.
Even if one looks at the world in its entirety, there is a lot which is being asked for with regard to well-being. According to WHO in May 2019, globally, an estimated 264 million people suffer from depression, one of the leading causes of disability, with many of these people also suffering from symptoms of anxiety. A recent WHO-led study estimates that depression and anxiety disorders cost the global economy US$ 1 trillion each year in lost productivity. Close to 800 000 people die due to suicide every year, which is one person every 40 seconds. There are indications that for each adult who died by suicide there may have been more than 20 others attempting suicide.
At a time like this, there are answers which can be implemented (and to an extent, are being implemented). One of the answers, the ancient technique of meditation is probably more important to the world in modern times than it was when it took birth or was realized.
Studies have shown the benefits of meditation leading to better decision making, increased productivity, more capacity for happiness and less propensity for negativity. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), some of the most empirically proven positive benefits of mindfulness meditation include reduced stress, improved memory, better focus and greater emotional control. These make the ROI on meditation extremely high.
According to an article in the Harvard Business Review in 2018, ongoing research has suggested that a regular meditation practice can help by changing how the brain responds to stress and anxiety. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD sifted through nearly 19,000 meditation studies and their findings, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, suggest that mindful meditation can help ease psychological stresses like anxiety, depression, and pain. One of her studies, Dr. Elizabeth Hoge, a psychiatrist at the Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School found that a mindfulness-based stress reduction program helped quell anxiety symptoms in people with generalized anxiety disorder, a condition marked by hard-to-control worries, poor sleep, and irritability.
It’s the value that meditation allows which is making people turn to meditation for nurturing their well-being. In an article in the Business Insider titled, “5 successful business leaders that have used meditation to improve productivity, creativity, and business acumen” CEOs like Jeff Weiner of Linkedin, Marc Benioff founder of SalesForce, Bill Ford executive chairman of Ford and Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates speak about how meditation has been helpful. Among others who believe in meditation are Bob Stiller, founder of Green Mountain Coffee, Andrew Cherng, founder Panda Express and Russell Simons, founder of Def Jam Records. Companies like Apple, Google, Nike, Aetna, Bosch, Goldman Sachs, Intel,Target, Linkedin, Twitter and SAP are among the many who have implemented meditation. According to an extensive study by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), more than 18 million Americans practice meditation on a daily basis. In recent years, surveys have been conducted to find out how many people meditate globally. Though there are no reliable results, rough estimates range from 200 million to 500 millions globally.
Since meditation honors the unique and beautiful being that each individual is, it is extremely self-empowering. It’s like the old saying attributed to Confucius which goes something like, “Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you’ve fed him for a lifetime.” If you advise or give an answer to someone, it will be a temporary solution as compared to teaching the principles or the tools for ascertaining his own unique solutions. Meditation is the tool or technique which allows the latter by allowing the connection to the insight within. It allows one to make friends with one’s own mind, one’s own clarity, one’s own strength.
Also since it honors each individual’s uniqueness and magnificence, it’s not hurried or rushed. The process or technique never forces any insight without the readiness of the meditator. Insights are allowed by the meditator as per his own path of least resistance, his own readiness.
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” – Lao Tzu
And nature’s brilliance and magnificence is a sight to behold.
Probably every culture on planet earth has given some sort of mental practice that can be termed as meditation. Meditation is a practice by which an individual uses different techniques to calm and focus the mind. There are many different types of meditation like mindfulness, Transcendental meditation, Zen meditation, mantra meditation, Sound meditation and many others from so many lineages and teachers of meditation. Each one of them has value depending on the resonance felt by the meditator.
Mindfulness meditation combines concentration with awareness which together lead to insight. Both concentration and awareness work like a team and are important in order to allow insights. Concentration results in a state of calm, stillness and tranquility during the meditation. There is sweet relief, rest and respite in this place of deep calm, silence and a quiet mind. Combining concentration with awareness leads to an unbroken continuous awareness in the present moment. This state of concentration (leading to calm and tranquility) and awareness together can be thought of like a “receptive state” or a mind that is able to allow, receive, translate or interpret the insights and clarity within.
One can carry mindfulness to day-to-day activities too. Whenever one is resting one’s attention in the present moment and in whatever one is doing, i,e, one is being in the present moment and being awake to life, one is being mindful. As one practices mindfulness more often everyday, the momentum is allowed to be more predominant and consistent. Realisation of ideas, inspirations, answers, clarity and insight can come in at any time and not just during the sitting mindfulness meditation.
Being in the present moment, being immersed in the activity one is doing – focus, concentration, calm and awareness are what can be referred to as “being in the flow” or what athletes call “being in the zone”. It seems like time has slowed down. One’s senses are in heightened awareness of the present moment, of the here and now. One is aligned with the task at hand or the creative activity or the physical work. This combination is when the inspiration for the composition is realized, this is when the idea for the next scene in the book one is writing comes in, when the ball goes into the hoop, this is when the answer for something at work or in one’s business comes in. Authors, composers, inventors have long realized that until and unless they are not in the flow, nothing flows. The good news is that this state of flow is available and accessible to all and can be practised in the formal sitting mindfulness meditation as well as in everyday activities too.
Though it must be mentioned here that the purpose of meditation is not solving problems or getting answers but it is the meditation itself whether in a formal sitting meditation or carrying mindfulness to everyday activities. When one meditates in order for something to come out of it, as a means to an end, then one keeps calculating and judging each step. When one is completely immersed in the sitting meditation or totally immersed in the activity one is doing in the present moment with mindfulness just for the sake of the meditation or the activity itself, i.e. one is being in the moment, then one just lets it all unfold and easily allows the flow.
Bhante Gunaratna, in his book, “Mindfulness in Plain English”, writes that mindfulness is extremely difficult to define not because it is complex but because it is simple and open. Mindfulness meditation is inherently experiential and not theoretical. In meditation, one is one’s own laboratory. Mindfulness can be experienced and it can be described,as long as you keep in mind that the words are only fingers pointing at the moon, they are not the moon itself. The actual experience lies beyond the words. According to Bhante Gunaratna, mindfulness can be described in completely different terms than the way he uses in his book and each description would be correct. I feel that Bhante Gunratna says this because mindfulness is such a living activity, it is so experiential.
The purpose of mindfulness is to clearly see our experiences without any reflections, without any memory, without any judgement or story about them. It is to see our reality for what it is, to see it in its preconceptual awareness, without adding or taking away anything from it. When we first become aware of something, there is a fleeting moment of pure awareness about it before we identify it. Something like when we wake up in the morning, for a fleeting moment, our mind has just a soft awareness before any thought starts to come in. This is a flowing soft moment of pure awareness and according to Bhante Gunaratna, it’s like what we see with our peripheral vision as opposed to the hard focus of normal or central vision. This soft flowing moment of pure awareness is mindfulness. This moment contains a very deep knowing. Mindfulness meditation is the use of techniques to prolong this moment of awareness. Mindfulness is learning to observe our thoughts without getting caught up in them and this is what makes it resistance-free, free of any struggle – the soft slowing moment of pure awareness of just being in the moment. When this moment is prolonged, the experience is deep and profound of the knowing, the insight, the clarity within. Mindfulness is cultivating the mind with the aim of seeing in a special way that leads to insight and understanding.
Mindfulness helps in sharpening one’s focus, managing stress effectively as well as recharging and renewing one’s energy. Daniel Goleman, a Harvard psychologist and Richard J. Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin provide proven benefits of mindfulness in order to thrive in uncertainty and unpredictable environments. Their book, “Altered Traits” sheds light on these proven benefits – staying calm and open minded, mental agility, ability to perform complex cognitive tasks and maintaining focus and clarity.
According to an article by Christian Greiser and Jan-Philipp Martini of the Boston Consulting Group, Aetna has demonstrated the benefits of mindfulness by a reported stress level reduction of 28% which led to a secondary benefit – productivity improvements estimated at $ 3000 per employee. Mindfulness was introduced gradually in the company leading to these benefits. In the field of sports, NBA coach Phil Jackson introduced the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers to mindfulness. Mindfulness is taught to the politicians in the British parliament to help them make better decisions on public policy.
Mindfulness is a very gentle technique but it is very thorough. Through our inner experiences, we seek to understand life, existence, reality and the world. Simply put, mindfulness helps experience ourselves and the world through a process of self discovery. In this sense, it’s an inside-out approach.
“Mindfulness is intimacy with life.”
– Oren Jay Sofer
As one continues practicing everyday in a formal mindfulness meditation session as well as carrying mindfulness to everyday tasks, one finds oneself allowing an acceptance based focus, love, kindness, compassion, lightness of being, joyful and energetic vibe. Life experiences become so much more richer when one starts living one’s authentic self consciously. For example, one’s daily walk becomes so much more with mindfulness than without as one can feel the breeze against one’s skin, hear the leaves rustle up as they move in the breeze, hear the different birds chirp, feel as each foot lands on the ground, feel how the legs and arms move, being aware of one’s breath. One is more open and aware. As Oren Jay Sofer says, mindfulness is getting intimate with life. Of course the mind gets distracted and wanders away. This is absolutely natural for the mind to wander away and when one becomes aware, one can gently bring one’s awareness back to the present moment. It is mindfulness which makes one aware that the distraction has occurred and it is mindfulness which redirects the attention to the present moment or the object of focus. Mindfulness is cultivated by gently reminding oneself to be in a state of awareness of the present moment.
In a similar way, when we eat more mindfully, we savor each mouthful, we taste the different flavors, we smell the aroma and appreciate the gift food is. Mindfulness also helps in being aware of the choices one wants to make when we want to reach for more beyond our hunger or beyond what we would like to eat. Mindfulness helps in being aware of the richness of life and also helps in discernment. Intentionally slowing down and becoming aware of day-to-day activities like eating, walking, sipping a cup of tea, tying shoe laces, solving problems in intensive calculus, cooking, exercising, brushing our teeth etc – whatever the present moment is, allows one to penetrate far more deeply into them than one otherwise could. As one practices this, one finds that profound revelations occur during sitting meditation and also as we become more mindful in the midst of day-to-day activities.
Another benefit of mindfulness is that it helps in avoiding the reacting out of habit in situations as one is cultivating calm, focus and awareness and connecting to the clarity within. As one practices mindfulness, it enables one to choose consciously to act rather than react on reflex from behavior patterns developed over time. In an article on mediate.com, Leonard Riskin, the C.A. Leedy Professor of Law and director of the Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution and the Initiative on “Mindfulness in Law and Dispute Resolution” at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law shares that mindfulness can help mediators in many ways one of which is being aware of one’s habitual impulses. Professor Ricken shares an example here to illustrate this point – if a client begins to raise his voice and the mediator begins to feel anxiety, the mediator’s normal reaction would be to insist the client lower his voice. However, if one is really mindful, one can become aware of one’s anxiety and decide whether to carry out one’s habitual impulse to quiet the client or decide to release one’s anxiety. If one is aware of one’s anxiety, sometimes that anxiety without judgement is enough to dissipate the anxiety and to have less power over oneself. Mindfulness can also help in releasing the impulse to react in a certain way.
One would have seen in one’s experience that it takes time for a negative emotion to build up. For example, initially irritation leads to anger which can lead to rage. As one starts feeling irritated and if one is mindful, it’s easier to become aware of irritation right in the beginning stages. At this point, one can decide whether to progress on to anger or to release the irritation on one’s own. Practicing mindfulness makes it easier to become aware and choose the latter, to practise pivoting and hence feeling more empowered and free from the ups and downs of life. As one practices mindfulness, from this place of strength, it’s easier to be tuned in and tapped in to the insight within.
It’s wonderful to see that experienced meditators are jovial and can chuckle at their own mistakes with love and kindness for themselves and for others. They know that they too have had struggles and are able to feel compassion for themselves and from this place of strength for others. Happiness, being non-judgemental, compassion, love and kindness are some attributes which get nurtured with mindfulness.
As one touches base with the awareness within, one allows oneself to feel refreshed every time they connect. Focus, awareness and concentration are cultivated. Being in the present moment consciously, deliberately and on purpose helps in feeling free. Being in the present moment can be tremendously nurturing, healing and restorative. Being in the present moments also helps in having an attitude of non-striving, a resistance-free attitude in which you can focus on your dreams, goals and things-to-do from a place of beingness, a place of alignment, a place of ease and strength and therefore, increase your effectiveness manifold. Observing without analysis, acknowledging and letting go helps in further feeling free, feeling lighter, calmer and moving forward. The practice allows one to connect with the insight, clarity and wisdom within, predominantly and consistently. The best thing is that all this happens spontaneously as one continues practicing consciously, consistently and predominantly, as per one’s unique and beautiful path of least resistance. Mindfulness starts to pour into one’s life more and more effortlessly in unplanned and spontaneous ways. It’s a beautiful unique automatic spontaneous allowing as per one’s readiness of ease, calm, well-being, compassion, love, kindness, clarity, insight, resilience and growth.
“Let the waters settle and you will see the stars and moon mirrored in your being” – Rumi
“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.”
– Carl Sagan
Many astronauts have spoken about how they feel when they see the earth from space – as one planet, one human race, one humanity. In an article published in a journal of the American Psychological Association in 2016, the “overview effect” is described as a profound reaction to viewing the earth from outside its atmosphere. An increased sense of connection to other people and the Earth as a whole is one of the aspects characterizing the reported experiences of astronauts when they see the earth from space. Astronaut Edgar Mitchell described it as an “explosion of awareness” and an “overwhelming sense of oneness and connectedness”.
When we see the bigger picture, we can easily see how interconnected we truly are.
Yes, each one of us is a unique and magnificent expression of life but it is the same life force which is expressing itself through all of us. The same breath. The same consciousness in all beings.
“We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin, but we all belong to one human race.”
– Kofi Annan
And right now, what helps us all thrive as a humanity is being asked for in a voice much more clear than ever before. The asking for love, compassion, kindness, acceptance, feeling safe and secure is stronger and clearer than ever before as the world comes together for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and for so many others whose names we know and those whose names we don’t know. I want every black person to know that you are loved and you matter. Sending each one of you love and thoughts of ease and strength. Affirming that we align vibrationally with what we are asking for and from this place of strength, in inspired action, allow a world in which compassion is nurtured – for us, for our children, for our future generations, for humanity.
I am thankful for those of us who are aware of and nurture the interconnectedness between us and therefore, easily embody kindness, compassion, love, hope and faith. They are contributing in whichever way they can – sending love, and thoughts of ease and strength, signing petitions, peaceful protests, donating silently, posting on social media, keeping the hope and faith alive in their hearts, introspecting, gaining more understanding and knowing. May their tribe increase.
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”
During this tender time that we all are experiencing, I feel that vibrationally, at an energy level, we are so much more aware, aligned and in sync than ever before and therefore, so much more connected to each other than ever before – as a community, as humanity.
Sending love and thoughts of hope, ease, comfort, faith, compassion, strength, resilience and well-being for everyone – the medical fraternity, those working tirelessly to find a solution, those most impacted, those who do not have access to resources, those being kind and compassionate to themselves and to others, to us all.
“Your choices of action may be limited but your choices of thought are not”. – Abraham Hicks
______________________
These words have the potential, depending on one’s readiness, to point to what can provide a little relief in the experience that we all are together in…..to turn us in the direction of hope and positivity. This time has shown us that when the external is not what we want, we still have a choice and that is of how we react to it, of the thoughts we choose and that there is value in practicing this focus within ourselves if we want to feel ease. Yes, it is a practice. The suggestion is to be kind and gentle with yourself when you find yourself feeling far away from the ease, the relief, the hope, the positive place you want to feel. You are human and it’s okay. Whenever you want to and feel ready to, you can again start practicing your focus. You always have the choice.
I acknowledge and am sensitive to the concerns of all those who have shared their thoughts with me over the past few days. This time has shown us so powerfully how precious the gift of life is. It’s also shown us just how interconnected the world is. Sending healing thoughts to those infected, deep appreciation for the medical fraternity and all those working tirelessly to find a solution and helping others, thoughts of ease and strength to everyone esp. the homeless, small businesses and those who live paycheck to paycheck, thankful for those who are being kind and compassionate towards themselves as well as others at this time and affirming ease and well-being for everyone on our planet.
I think at this time more than ever before, we would like to be of value to ourselves as well as to others we love. To be of value, it’s useful to soothe ourselves so that we allow ease within ourselves. From this place of ease (closer to what athletes call being “in the zone” or artists, authors, composers etc call being “in the flow”) and therefore strength, we can be of so much more value.
In addition to adding to our well-being at the level of the body by following the directions and requirements of the government, we can also choose to facilitate our well-being at the level of our mind, our being by reconnecting to our essence, our core, the pure positive energy that we are.
If one believes in them, intentions, prayers, affirmations, meditation can be of great value at this time. They can be a powerful way to feel moments of ease and hence allow more well-being within as well as through our positive energy, to the world.
I know of many who are keeping themselves engaged and positive at home in activities like painting, doing projects in the house, knitting, singing, self-care, some are doing online courses, some who can work from home are continuing to do so, exercising at home etc
Nothing prevails like the human spirit. I believe that we will come out of this stronger than ever before as a community, as humanity. The human spirit is filled with resilience, prayer, renewed hope, compassion, positivity in its love for life.
Sending thoughts of love and compassion and affirming well-being for everyone.
“Today I decided to forgive you. Not because you apologized, or because you acknowledged the pain that you caused me, but because my soul deserves peace.”
– Najwa Zebian
What is forgiveness? Forgiveness, in very simple words, is when you decide to let go of the pain and be the joyful, appreciative and loving person that you actually are. When you forgive, you are not saying that the act committed (or the series of acts committed) are justified or okay. They never will be.
When you forgive, you are letting go of all the anger, the pain and the resentment and thereby, allowing in the joy, the appreciation, the love that you so want to feel. Don’t you like it when you are in joy? Don’t you feel good when you find yourself appreciating things/people/places/experiences? Don’t you find love such a wonderful feeling? The answer to these questions is yes and you do that because that’s who you are, that’s who your inner self is. When you hold yourself in anger (however justified it may be), you are far away from your true inner self and you feel pain in that separation. You don’t like it but it’s so difficult to let go as the resentment feels so justified.
Yes, forgiveness can be difficult but living in anger, resentment, pain, hatred every time you think about it – isn’t that difficult too?
You may decide to continue the relationship or continue the relationship and also reach out for help or you may decide to either temporarily or permanently end the relationship and firstly get to a place where you feel safe … – whatever you choose as per what gives you the most relief (i.e. as per your path of least resistance which only you know), what is more important is what you feel within.
Forgiveness means letting go of the pain, the anger and the resentment in your heart and feeling the relief that you so much want to feel. Forgiveness means looking at the situation, whenever you feel ready to, in a way which makes you feel relief and therefore, closer to the ease you want to feel. Forgiveness is your gift to yourself.
“Forgive because you deserve it.”
― Abraham-Hicks
Forgiveness can come up many times in our unique and beautiful journeys as the day-to-day experiences that make the tapestry of our lives are of great significance to us. Through the life coaching work that I do with my clients and what I see around makes me feel that it can be of help to remind ourselves of its value.
In the situations that one feels the desire to think about it, usually it does not happen in one swoop. It can be felt in one go by some people in some situations but generally it’s a process based on one’s path of least resistance. Initiating forgiveness by keeping one’s path of least resistance in mind makes it easier.
Affirming, for everyone, more and more moments of letting go of the resistance and letting in of relief, of ease, of feeling better than earlier. I feel the year – “2020” signifies something on the lines of a version “2.0” of ourselves for many of us who are willing and ready to start the process of letting go of the struggle, the resistance, the pain and letting in of the relief, the fresh air, the song in our hearts….letting in of the feeling of being empowered and free.
Affirming for everyone a beautiful 2020 filled with moments of ease, peace and joy!
In all of eternity, there never was and there never will be born again someone exactly like you are in this life. You are a unique and magnificent expression of life. Treasure yourself. Yes, you are ever-expanding and growing into more and at the same time, wherever you are, you are magnificent. You can choose to allow the more you want, the growth and expansion that you want, with love in your heart for yourself. You can choose to be your greatest cheerleader while allowing more in your life.
This can apply to everything that you may want – you can allow more and more moments of kindness and love for yourself on the journey to where you want to be or you can allow more and more moments of criticism, fear and worry on your journey. The choice is with you. There is no right or wrong. It’s just a choice that we make based on what we feel. You always have a choice to introduce, predominantly and consistently (not always but predominantly and consistently) moments of ease for yourself, to be kind towards yourself on your journey to where you want to be.
“You can be fully satisfied with where you are, understanding that you’re eternally evolving. When you get into that place of feeling appreciation of where you are and of who you are, and appreciation of what you are, and you accept that you are a never-ending, always unfolding Being, then you can stand in that delicate balance of being optimistic about what is to come, without being unhappy about where you stand. Find a way of eagerly anticipating future changes, while at the same time you are in love and satisfied with who, what, where and how you be.”
– Abraham-Hicks
Whenever you find yourself thinking thoughts which make you feel negative emotions, the suggestion is to be kind and gentle with yourself….you are human and it’s okay. As and when you want to and more important, feel ready to, you can choose to soothe yourself, to be kind and gentle with yourself. As per your path of least resistance, you can always allow the relief you want, there is always hope.
“I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.” — Hafiz
You are filled with star light and you sparkle and glow. Love yourself, nurture yourself, soothe yourself, be nice to yourself, be kind to yourself. You are awesome!
“We are not human beings in search of a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings immersed in a human experience.” — Dr. Wayne Dyer
You have guidance within you which you can always tune into. Look within yourself to connect to the beauty and love that you seek. Embrace the intelligence, the guidance, the answers within. You are eternal consciousness. You are timeless, endless and eternal.
One of the easiest ways to allow yourself to reconnect to the guidance within is appreciating what is easy for you to appreciate and to give more air time every day to focusing on thoughts which make you feel better. As you allow moments of appreciation predominantly and consistently, you can feel the guidance within more clearly than earlier through the ideas, the impulses, the thoughts, the feelings, the answers that you start to feel and then come to know more and more. You start to allow more and more the moments of alignment which further make it easier for you to allow even more of such positive feeling moments. The easier it gets, the easier it gets.
“Appreciation in advance brings everything you want to you.” — Abraham-Hicks
Cherishing, loving, appreciating and respecting the unique and magnificent expression of life that one is could seem far-fetched from the place where some of us could be in our beautiful and unique journeys in which case the suggestion is to focus on thoughts which seem to be the easiest for one to focus on from where you are in order to just a little better every day from where one is. Being kind and gentle with yourself has value. If you can’t be enthusiastic from where you are as of now, that’s okay. You are human. You can, whenever you want and to and feel ready to, feel just a little bit better from where you are on an everyday basis through ways which are easy for you. You never miss the bus.
“We are wanting to awaken with you, your memory of how wonderful you are! How brilliant you are! How good you are! How worthy of whatever you are wanting you are!”
“The trick is to talk yourself back into your power”
– Abraham-Hicks
And this is the practice for all of us on a daily basis. Feeling good is not like a college degree that once we have it, it’s ours forever. It is a moment to moment choice on a daily basis. A suggestion that can make this practice a little easier esp. in the beginning is to be kind and gentle with yourself when you become aware that you have chosen to feel negative emotion. It is okay. You are human. You never miss the bus. Whenever you become aware and want to (and more important, feel ready to), you can always soothe yourself and become your own best friend.
Whatever we want (whether it is a better relationship or more money or a better house or a promotion at work or starting a venture…) is because we believe that we will feel better in the having of it. It’s that emotion that we are targeting. Why? Why do we love feeling positive emotions so much? Because that is our essence. We are pure positive energy and whenever we separate ourselves from it, in those moments the struggle we feel inside/ the resistance/ the pain/ the negative emotion is only an indicator that we have chosen to focus on thoughts that are making us feel separate/away, as of those moments, from who we are. That pain is an indicator of the distance between the “you” in your awesome physical body and the “you” in your awesome essence/ core which is pure positive energy. We will always feel the call of who we truly are, our essence in the moments we have chosen to separate ourselves from it – calling us lovingly and adoringly. Yes, there are times when anger feels better than feeling helpless but if one gets stuck in anger, one starts to yearn to feel relief as one starts to feel the separation/distance within. The good news is that whenever we want and feel ready to, we can always through our path of least resistance pivot and feel better from wherever we are.
Here I do want to add that we are all human and it’s of value to understand and respect whatever choices we make in life from wherever we are even if our path of least resistance was feeling negative emotion at any point in our unique and beautiful journeys….from where one is today, some of the choices made in the past may not be the ones one feels like making now but at that time in the past, from where one was vibrationally, they seemed to be ones one felt like making and it’s of value to respect that, it’s of value to be kind to oneself….your choice at that point of time had value then in your unique and beautiful journey, maybe not now keeping in mind your new vibrational place…now you may feel inspired to another choice based on where you vibrationally. The journey is eternal and there is no right or wrong in it. As Abraham-Hicks say – “It is exhilarating to us to announce to you that you can’t get it wrong, that you’ve never been getting it wrong, that no matter what you do, you will not ever get it wrong, and you will never get it done. And the reason it can’t ever be wrong is because it is never done”.
Athletes, composers, authors, artists, inventors etc. have long realized the important of being in the flow. They know that if they are not in the flow, nothing flows (athletes call this being in the zone). Is it a practice? Yes, it is. Even for people who feel ecstasy on a rather regular basis, there are moments where they may not be “in the zone”. These moments for them may be less than earlier in their journey but they are there and that’s okay. We are all human. Such moments have value as they give us clarity about what we want (whenever you are aware of what you “do not want”, you also become aware of what you “do want” to the same degree/intensity). These moments are clarifying moments for us. Positive emotions and negative emotions are both part of our inner guidance, the manual within that we were all born with. Practicing one’s focus from what one does not want to what one wants (pivoting) is the inner work for each one of us and we all have our own beautiful, individual and unique journeys. Following one’s unique path of least resistance is of value in this.
What can make the above practice easier is feeling better through ways which are easy for one to feel good through in the initial stages of starting this practice in life. Once one has developed enough vibrational muscle, one can pivot on a specific situation which one feels is important to oneself. How much time will it take to reach this good feeling place of strength (predominantly and consistently) where one feels ready to pivot on specific situations? It will depend on two things – what is happening within you vibrationally and how committed you are to feeling good on a daily basis? Even if you can feel good 55% of the time every day, you would have managed to bring about a substantial change to your vibrations in favor of positive emotions, you would have tipped the balance towards positive emotions.
Once you are predominantly and consistently feeling good, many times you will find that because of the change in your vibrations, predominantly and consistently, the situation that you thought was painful has also changed to a situation which now makes you feel better as you have allowed the law of attraction to match you up with the solution you wanted. The law of attraction states – “ like attracts like” i.e. what you are feeling attracts more to feel the same. Therefore, when you are (in a way which is easy for you) feeling positive emotions, predominantly and consistently, the law of attraction can now match you up with something that makes you will make you feel even more positive. Just in case, the situation is still the same as sometimes it could (because of a variety of reasons), chances are high that you will feel ready to pivot on any specific situation that you want to. As life goes along and you practice pivoting on topics, you continue to show yourself your power to think thoughts that you want to think (even if the situation has still not changed) and therefore, allow the solutions you want. This practice will find you becoming better and better at this developing the skill that Abraham-Hicks talk about in their quote below –
“The most valuable skill or talent that you could ever develop is that of directing your thoughts toward what you want – to be adept at quickly evaluating all situations and then quickly coming to the conclusion of what you want – and then giving your undivided attention to that. There is a tremendous skill in deliberately directing your own thoughts that will yield results that cannot be compared with results that cannot be compared with results that mere action can provide.”
As you practice this skill everyday throughout the day, one of the beautiful things which you start allowing is that more and more of the action you feel inspired to offer now starts coming from a place of strength (rather than a place of lack), predominantly and consistently. When you feel despair, the action you feel like offering is very different as compared to when you are feeling anger. When you feel anger, the action you feel like offering is very different as compared to when you are feeling hope. When you are feeling love and appreciation, the action you feel inspired to offer is again different from the above three vibrational places. Yes, action is important but more important is the vibrational place from where one feels inspired to a particular action. Vacuuming the floor is important but to plug the vacuum before you start vacuuming is even more important. As you practice this skill predominantly and consistently, you allow more and more feel-good moments predominantly and consistently and you start living more and more as the creator of your life experiences that you intended to be when you decided to come in this beautiful time-space-reality.
