Love Honor Cherish… Two Out of Three is Bad.

To Love, Honor and Cherish.

These words have been included in wedding ceremonies, both Christian and Civil services for the last 200 years and while the first two are fairly self-explanatory, it is the third, Cherish, that has, over the years, lost its true meaning.

So what does it mean to cherish someone?

The word Cherish is defined in most dictionaries with the following five definitions:

 1). To care for, be fond of or attached to.

2). To love and care for somebody.

3). To value something highly

4). To retain a memory or wish in the mind as a source of pleasure

5). To cling fondly to a person or memory

I don’t know about you, but all five of those definitions come up a bit short – and none of them explain why the word should be included in the words of a service as binding as that of marriage.

To care for or be fond of could apply to anyone you are close to, not necessarily a marriage partner.

To love and care for seems to me to be covered under “love.”

To value something highly – sorry, but that makes the other person sound like something that is owned and prized like a trophy.

To retain a memory or wish in the mind as a source of pleasure – well, a bit shallow for all that, and hardly worth including in the marriage vows.

To cling fondly to a person or memory – again, the concept of “fondly” is hardly strong enough to see it included.

So what DOES the word Cherish mean? Not what has it come to mean, but what does the word truly mean? What does it mean to Cherish another person and why is the word included in one of the most binding ceremonies known to man?

Perhaps a clue can be found in a synonym of the word Cherish. The roots of the word Cherish can be traced back to the 14th century, and at the time the word was synonymous with the word “foster.”

To foster is to promote the growth and development of the object whether the object is a child or a situation… or one’s spouse.

In order to promote another’s growth and development it is necessary to provide that other with everything that they need in order to continue to grow and develop.

With children this is a fairly straightforward thing. You brought them into the world, it is your responsibility and duty to foster their growth (promote their growth and development) until they reach the point where they can go out into the world on their own.

But with one’s spouse or significant other, it takes on another dimension altogether. When it comes to Cherishing one’s mate, you are dealing with equals; two individuals who have come together voluntarily to share themselves.

To Cherish one’s mate, one must be willing to give them everything that they need in order to achieve their growth and development. As you can imagine, this goes far beyond simply giving them the physical things they need (food, shelter, safety etc.).

In fact, this goes beyond physical security and “things” altogether.

To truly Cherish one’s partner one must also be willing to give the other everything that they need in order to grow and develop in a mental and spiritual sense as well; the moral and spiritual support to continue to grow and develop as individuals throughout the marriage.

And here is the key – unless both partners are giving equally – cherishing equally, you are going to have unbalanced relationship and someone is not going to have what they need in order to grow and develop. Even in the best of relationships this can lead to feelings of resentment and frustration.

And that is very likely why the word Cherish was originally included in the words of the binding ceremony.

Love. Honor. Cherish.

Love should be a given if one is even considering getting married, nine times out of ten both parties at least believe that they are in love with the other.

Honor can also be seen as respect for the other; respect for who and what they are, for what they bring to the relationship, for who they are as individuals.

But to Cherish; to Cherish is, perhaps, the most important element of all, for without it neither party in the marriage can continue to grow or develop within that relationship. Without being able to Cherish your other, and without them Cherishing you, the relationship becomes about the physical provisions; the security; the money; the children; and ceases to be that of a partnership where both are striving to help the other towards becoming the best and most that they can be.

Quotable Quote

“It doesn’t matter how long we may have been stuck in a sense of our limitations. If we go into a darkened room and turn on the light, it doesn’t matter if the room has been dark for a day, a week, or ten thousand years — we turn on the light and it is illuminated. Once we control our capacity for love and happiness, the light has been turned on.” ~Sharon Salzberg~

How the Fear of Being Wrong Blocks Intuition

“It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover.” Henri Poincare

(Photo contribution by 9-year old Min, my daughter)

Have you allowed the fear of being wrong stop you from developing your intuition? You have been ruled by logic all this while and somehow, trusting your intuition is not something that you are used to. You are so afraid of making a mistake that you refuse to allow yourself to be intuitively guided. Your ego needs to know it is right for it fears being wrong.

It was exactly what happened to me. I have since realized that developing intuition is very much a journey. There was a time long ago when my ego needs things to be backed with concrete proof before I allowed myself to trust in a specific piece of intuitive or channeled information.

Recently, I became aware how letting the ego be in charge can affect my day. I was bothered by something that happened in the morning. However, as my Kundalini Reiki class was starting early, I did not have the chance to address my issues before I left home.

Well, during class and after one particular exercise, I refused to share my internal experiences. An unexplainable fear that the teacher would proclaim that I was wrong with what I have seen in my mind arose. I did not want her to think I was imagining or hallucinating these visions. Luckily, noting my resistance, the teacher did not press me to share.

For the attunement exercise that followed, I had to lie down and go into meditation.

To my surprise, during the exercise, I found myself hearing a voice (not the teacher’s) that said: This won’t Do! I tuned into the message that not sharing what I have seen would curtail my progress and development. Gulp!

And so, after the completion of the attunement, I braced myself. I let go of the fear of being wrong and proceeded to share my visions with the teacher.

Well, it was nice that she was able to later see the same images that I also had in my mind. So I was not wrong after all! And I was not imagining things!

My teacher also pointed out that beings do not necessarily appear for attunement exercises. I have been lucky and blessed that a number of ascended masters came to heal and support us during the sessions. With the fear of being wrong out of the way, I went on to receiving beautiful messages thereafter.

Overcome the Fear of Being Wrong

The incident had me reflecting on my fear of being wrong. I can only guess at the many times that I had ignored the flashes, impulses and messages on an everyday basis. I also thought of the times when I ignored the fragrant smells (yes….these are indications that I am not alone) that would weave through while I am writing or meditating. I also realized about how important it is to be in a positive vibrational state to start off my day!

So much for advising others about keeping the antenna up and becoming more intuitively and mindfully aware. I need to do the same too. There is obviously more that I need to work on.

Still, I need to pat myself on the back about having come a long way. Luckily I have not allowed the fear of possibly being wrong overwhelmed me. The fear has not stopped me from doing distance reading and healing work and receiving validation with many of the findings, for instance.

I am not a teacher on intuition or psychism. However, I hope to share three tips that have helped me in my journey towards enhancing mine:

Say Yes to Developing Intuition. It always begins with the first step. My journey started when I started paying attention to the world beyond 5 senses. One of the first programs that had helped me was The Silva Method. I later bought the Silva Intuition and attended Silva workshops too.

Work on Self-Doubt. What is useful to remember is that there are no “wrong” answers when it comes to intuition. Each of us could be tuning in to a different aspect of the vision or there could be a time lag that took place.

During the class, my teacher was not able to immediately affirm the same visions. And so, for a while, my ego dwelled on the thought that I was wrong. I was hit with pangs of self-doubt. It was one or two exercises later that my teacher had the same images and with details that corroborated with mine. Hence, the lesson is never be too quick to dismiss what we have seen in our minds!

Check in with your feelings. Guides support us with messages that are uplifting and positive. If a message appears fear-based, it probably comes from the ego. The ego also comes in when you start to analyze and apply your thinking skills.

Art of Allowing

“Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.
Jonas Salk

The fear of being wrong can stop us from developing and enhancing our intuition. We have been schooled into believing that we need to give all the right answers. However, this belief can be paralyzing. The ego becomes in charge when this happens.

Instead, simply allow the images, impulses and signs to come through. Be guided by your intuition. Don’t apply your logic just yet. You can save this for later as you put the pieces together to decipher what the messages mean.

Love and Abundance Always,

Author. Adventurer. Life Coach. More About Me.

Helpful Resources

1. The Silva Method – There are already 6 million graduates worldwide. This program has helped and influenced many great thinkers, creative authors and personal development coaches such as Dr Wayne Dyer, Jack Canfeld and Shakti Gawain.

2. Silva Intuition – This is the Silva course which covers more advanced practices and that focuses on enhancing your intuition.

Recommended Sites for Learning Intuition

1. Powered by Intuition – Angela Artemis has wonderful resources, including books and MP3s, on developing and enhancing intuition.

2. A Clear Sign – Julie Barrett has a new psychic course that is just released. Do check it out!

Share Your Experiences

Do you have a fear of being wrong? How do you overcome it in your journey on developing and enhancing intuition? Share your experiences in the comment box below.

Reblogged from The Abundance Tapestry

What is Unconditional Love – Really…

We all want to be loved. If the truth be told, we long for love and will go to great lengths to have it in our lives. We also hold some pretty grandiose ideas of how it should show up and what it should feel like. Notice the word “should” here. It tells us a great deal about how we really feel about love.

 

Case in point. Just last week while sitting in a local coffee shop, I overheard a thirty-something woman reveal to her friend that she was finally ready for love. “I know exactly what I want now,” she said. “I know the kind of person I want to be in relationship with and what qualities he should have. I just need to know how to find him!”

 

It seems this eager-for-love woman had her partner “wish list” all ready to be checked off. She had created pictures in her mind of what he would look like, be interested in, even possible occupations. I bet she even had another sub-list of how he would demonstrate his love for her. Good luck, I wished her silently, knowing that as far as pictures of love are concerned, it does no good to harbor them. In fact, they ultimately prevent us from experiencing the unconditional love we seek.

 

Unconditional love, the glorious, forever after kind of love of dreams and fairy tales, can only become real when we set it free from expectations, from all those limiting “shoulds.” Unconditional love is love without conditions—love without rules and lists, even thinly veiled hopes. Simply put, if love is tied to any of these, it will surely disappoint. Our expectations of love limit it. The conditions we place upon it stop its flow.

 

Pitch the List
If you really want to experience great love, “Big Love,” as some like to call it, get rid of any notions you might hold about how love should be. Allow love to show up on its own terms, in its own way. Remain open and flexible. Holding someone to a roster of expectations will dampen their ardor faster than a bucket of cold water.

 

I recall another young woman with whom I had a recent conversation complaining about the new beau in her life. They hadn’t even had a formal first date before she began fuming that he wasn’t affectionate or playful enough. “He’s so serious!” she exclaimed. “Maybe, “I suggested, “he’s just a little shy or reserved. Maybe he isn’t comfortable with public displays of affection.” Her response was that she was pretty sure something was wrong with him because she was being playful and affectionate and wanted him to be, too. Needless to say, their relationship was doomed to fail because she began measuring him up against her ideals—her expectations of how she wanted him to be.

 

Embrace the Differences
Unconditional love seeks to understand rather than categorize or label. It embraces our differences and appreciates the unique way we each step to the plate of love. Not every person feels or demonstrates love in the same way. For example, some of us are huggers and kissers, showing our affection in outright ways. Others are more stoic in nature, but that doesn’t mean their love is any less potent. As we attune ourselves to unconditional love, we find ourselves accepting, and even appreciating the unique way that love lives within each individual.

 

I remember early on in my relationship with my husband, I discovered that we each had very different ways of showing our love to one another. I was a gift giver and a card sender. He was not. I so enjoyed surprising him with little tokens of my affection and love notes. After a few months, my resentment began to build. I perceived myself to be very amorous and him not to be. One day, I tearfully asked him why he didn’t reciprocate. He said that to express himself in this way was not true to his nature. He wasn’t much of a card or gift giver. He helped me see that my expectations of him to express his affection in the same way I did was not a good thing. It didn’t honor his uniqueness. Then I began to look at all the other ways he demonstrated his affection throughout the day. There were so many I nearly lost count! Holding my hand whenever we walked anywhere, sitting close to me on the couch while watching television, intimate talks late into the night, back rubs when I wasn’t feeling well, are a few of them. Thankfully, I began to appreciate our differences as love’s kaleidoscope rather than love’s conditions.

 

Daphne Rose Kingma, author of over a dozen books about love, said it best. “Let go of love as you want it so that, finally, you can take hold of love as it is.” To me, this is what unconditional love really means—to release it from expectations so it can surprise and delight us again and again. Love blooms in an atmosphere of liberty, not shoulds, and when we allow our love to be free, especially free from expectations and conditions, so are we. Then, and only then, will we experience the love we have been longing for forever.

10 Poverty Myths, Busted

No, single moms aren’t the problem. And neither are absentee dads.

Going out on a limb here. I read this article and cried! I HAD to share it!

Karen Pulfer Focht/The Commercial Appeal/ZUMA

 

1. Single moms are the problem. Only 9 percent of low-income, urban moms have been single throughout their child’s first five years. Thirty-five percent were married to, or in a relationship with, the child’s father for that entire time.*

2. Absent dads are the problem. Sixty percent of low-income dads see at least one of their children daily. Another 16 percent see their children weekly.*

3. Black dads are the problem. Among men who don’t live with their children, black fathers are more likely than white or Hispanic dads to have a daily presence in their kids’ lives.

4. Poor people are lazy. In 2004, there was at least one adult with a job in 60 percent of families on food stamps that had both kids and a non disabled, working-age adult.

5. If you’re not officially poor, you’re doing okay. The federal poverty line for a family of two parents and two children in 2012 was $23,283. Basic needs cost at least twice that in 615 of America’s cities and regions.

6. Go to college, get out of poverty. In 2012, about 1.1 million people who made less than $25,000 a year, worked full time, and were heads of household had a bachelor’s degree.**

7. We’re winning the war on poverty. The number of households with children living on less than $2 a day per person has grown 160 percent since 1996, to 1.65 million families in 2011.

8. The days of old ladies eating cat food are over. The share of elderly single women living in extreme poverty jumped 31 percent from 2011 to 2012.

9. The homeless are drunk street people. One in 45 kids in the United States experiences homelessness each year. In New York City alone, 22,000 children are homeless.

10. Handouts are bankrupting us. In 2012, total welfare funding was 0.47 percent of the federal budget.

*Source: Analysis by Dr. Laura Tach at Cornell University.

**Source: Census

 

Reblogged from Mother Jones

Forgive Daily, Love Deeply

Learning how to forgive and extend love and compassion to others is one of the most important things we can learn. Holding grievances hurts ourselves far more than anything anyone else has ever appeared to “do” to us. It puts a veil over the Light that shines within us, cutting us off from our experience of being connected with God, and therefore, love.

 

 

Prerequisites For Forgiveness

 

In order to forgive, we first have to arrive at a place where our personal peace and happiness is more important to us than the desire to be “right” and make someone else “wrong”. Even though arriving at that point can take longer in some situations than others, eventually the discomfort of holding someone out of our heart just becomes too painful. In doing that we hold a part of ourselves away from our own love and there is nothing more painful than that.

Before we can learn how to forgive others, we generally have to do some self-healing first. The first step is to acknowledge where we are in pain. We can’t heal something until we admit to ourselves that it is there and take responsibility for our own feelings. Then we can bring loving compassion, acceptance and forgiveness to ourselves. After that, it is easier to extend compassion, love and forgiveness to others.

Another reason why it helps to do our own personal forgiveness work first before learning how to forgive others is that it helps us to see our own underlying wounds and how they cause us to act in “off balance” ways toward others. This makes it much easier to see that others’ actions are motivated by THEIR wounds. With this understanding, we begin to open, soften, and move toward letting go of our grievances toward them.

We learn how to forgive “others” for our own healing because actually there is only One Being here, and it is Us. Whether we appear to forgive someone “out there” or ourselves, it is all Us.

After years of holding onto some large grievances, I finally generated enough desire to learn how to forgive because I was tired of suffering over the negativity I was choosing to hold onto. It was just too debilitating. At that point my strong desire attracted the introduction of a very clear path to learn how to forgive and heal anything, finally and completely.

My forgiveness path opened up in two steps: Ho’oponopono opened the door to the realization that forgiveness was POSSIBLE, and then studying The Disappearance Of The Universe and A Course In Miracles helped me to walk THROUGH the door of forgiveness, and into the Light of the Truth of who we all are.

First, I’ll tell you about Ho’oponopono.

 

Opening The Door To Forgiveness – Ho’oponopono

 

I had the great honor to attend a weekend workshop with an amazing Hawaiian shaman named Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len. He teaches an ancient Hawaiian tradition of forgiveness named Ho’oponopono. That weekend was life-changing for me.

Let me first give you a little background on the Ho’oponopono perspective then I’ll show you how it can be valuable in learning how to forgive.

Ho’oponopono is born out of the fact that all life is interconnected, and is all made of the very same Essence. Further, we create every single thing that occurs in our life, big or small, by the vibrations that are dominant within our own being. We are like a human projector. The vibrations within us project out and create images and dramas that are reflections of the energies within us. If it is in our life, it came from within us, otherwise it could not be here. This includes so called “other” people as well as every single thing we experience.

For instance, 10 people could attend the same party and have 10 very unique experiences, meet different people, have different conversations, and come away from the experience with 10 different sets of perceptions. Each of those 10 people will experience parts of themselves at that party, which will be different from the other 9 people, who are all uniquely experiencing parts of themselves as well.

 

Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len

 

Ihaleakala Hew Len, PhD, is famous for curing a complete ward of criminally insane patients at the Hawaii State Hospital, but without ever “treating” any of them. He didn’t even meet with them, except to occasionally play tennis or other recreational activities. At the workshop I attended with him, I met the woman who was the director of the ward at the time and she verified the following facts.

Instead of the usual psychological treatments, Dr. Len practiced Ho’oponopono. Without meeting in person with the inmates, he studied each person’s chart. From the perspective that there is really only one Being and it is Us, he looked within himself to see how he created that person’s mental illness. He then healed the part of himself that created their distress, by focusing love on that condition. He took total responsibility for whatever he saw that needed healing. From this perspective, he ignored the boundaries we are all conditioned to falsely believe, that there is some boundary between “me” and “you.”

As he focused on each person he said “Thank you, I’m sorry, and I love you,” to them over and over again, day after day after day. This is the essence of Ho’oponopono and this is ALL he did. 

 

“Thank you
for bringing this part of myself
into my awareness so that I can
take responsibility for it and release it.”

 

 

“I’m sorry
for harboring separating thoughts
that have created suffering for Us.”

 

 

“I love you.
You and I are One with God
and each other.”

 

 

 

Total Responsibility

 

Learning how to forgive is really about taking responsibility for our life in a far deeper and broader way than most of us have ever even considered. Total responsibility means that everything in our life is our responsibility. Everything. This means every person that comes into our life experience as well as their actions, everything we see or hear or experience, is here because they are a reflection of something within us.

By the Law of Attraction, nothing could be in our life unless we resonated with it in some way. It couldn’t be in our life unless it was a vibrational match to something inside us, whether we are conscious of it or not. What we dominantly put our attention on manifests in our life. The kind of thoughts that we think create reflections of that same vibration all around us. So, in a sense, we CREATE them. Each of us creates the world that we live in.

This means that when we see a politician or even a terrorist and we don’t like what we see, what we are actually seeing is a part of our self and it is being shown to us to give us an opportunity to heal it. These “others” don’t exist, in a manner of speaking, except as projections from inside us. The problem isn’t with them because there is no “them” that is separate from us. In order to change “them” we have to change our self. This is learning how to forgive.

Yes, this seems hard to grasp at first because it is so different from how we are conditioned to believe. It is an ongoing process to fully accept and actually live from this perspective. Basically, it comes down to loving yourself as the You that is everything you see and experience. As you love everything you experience, your world begins to change, because your outer world is a projection of your inner world. In order to improve your own life, you have to heal your life – and your life is you and everything IN your life. As we learn how to forgive, our life automatically shifts into a more loving realm.

 

The Results Of Ho’oponopono

 

As Dr. Len took responsibility for everything that was happening with each of his patients, they each improved! Basically he worked on himself and they changed because they are a reflection of him. He worked on how to forgive them as himself.

Before Dr. Len joined the Hawaii State Hospital, staff turnover was outrageously high because it was such a dreary place to live, work in, or visit. The heavy pull of the negative burdens the patients carried was far too overwhelming for any of the staff to endure long term. They couldn’t even keep any potted plants on the ward because the energy was so toxic the plants died.

However, in the four years Dr. Len was there, big changes happened. As patients that had to be shackled began to heal, gradually their shackles were removed because they were no longer a threat. Medications were gradually reduced, then eliminated. The inmates got better and better and the staff stabilized and began to enjoy their jobs. Eventually they closed the ward because all the patients were released! All of this came as a result of one man who was dedicated to learning how to forgive.

For a beautiful and inspiring account of how one woman used Ho’oponopono for healing, please read her letter in the right column of this page.

 

A Personal Example On How To Forgive

 

After I began writing this article something happened that provided me an opportunity to practice what I’m sharing here. It demonstrates the power of forgiveness, using the Ho’oponopono technique.

A few months ago some new neighbors moved in next door. I met them early on and liked them immediately. They also have two large dogs in their family. Recently there were a number of occasions when the dogs were outside and one of them barked for hours, only a few feet from my office window.

Irritation developed into anger and alas, I didn’t fully take care of it energetically inside me. I did some Ho’oponopono with it, but not consistent enough or long enough so it didn’t fully clear. I was caught up in the events of my life at the time, and put aside the fact that I know how to forgive.

A few weeks later the barking went on for hours once again. I spoke to the woman on the phone and all the unhealed energy in me came to the fore as anger. Understandably, she became very defensive. It was extremely uncomfortable for both of us.

I felt sick for a couple of days over it. I amaze myself sometimes at how long I’ll hold onto something that causes me intense pain. Actually, the part that was the most painful was the judgment I aimed at myself for losing my temper. After the second day of feeling miserable, dysfunctional and inept, I had had enough. I knew how to forgive – it was time to finally do it!

I sat down, closed my eyes and blazed all the love and light I could visualize into me, my home, them, their home, their dogs, our yards, and the space around us. I repeated again and again, “Thank you, I’m sorry, and I love you.”

At first I could feel myself resisting my own words, still wanting to make them wrong. But at that point my desire for peace was much stronger than my desire to be “right.” I kept on until it was about 50% love and 50% wanting to be right. Then it was about 60% love and 40% wanting to be right. I kept at it, for about an hour, until I was so flooded with love I wanted to run over to their house and apologize.

I bought them a package of chocolates, then wrote up a card for them, apologizing and showing my willingness to come to peace with them. Then I knocked on their door, with my peace offering. The man answered the door with so much love in his eyes and immediately began apologizing to me for the dogs, before I could even say anything.

While we talked, I saw the love in their small children’s eyes, and I even felt love for the dogs wagging their tails at me through the sliding glass door on the back porch. I felt absolutely high with joy, relief, and love.

The next day the woman called me and thanked me and then the following day she left a package of cookies and a hand-made heart shaped card, expressing how sorry she was, and wishes for a harmonious New Year together in our beautiful neighborhood that we share.

Whew! I still feel tremendous love for them. Whenever I hear sounds coming from their house, I feel warmth and comfort just knowing they are there. And, ever since that meditation I have not heard their dogs, except for one quick bark, then silence. In learning how to forgive myself and them, I healed the place in me that held that particular pocket of chaos. I am no longer projecting that particular energy out into the world and recreating the same negative scenario.

It is really quite miraculous how this works! We just have to remember that we DO know how to forgive. We just have to be willing to do it.

It is important to remember that sometimes long-standing issues need to be healed in layers. We need to be kind and forgiving with ourselves as we keep at this process, not expecting to heal deep wounds all at once.

 

Even If You Don’t “Mean It” At First
Still Do It And Your Willingness Will Increase

 

A wonderful thing I’ve discovered in learning how to forgive is that this Ho’oponopono technique works even if I resist doing it at first. When I first learned this technique I began using it with someone who I had a long-standing grudge against. It was very painful to continue to carry the negative energy toward them. Even so, I couldn’t seem to let go of the “I’m right and you’re wrong” energy. I began saying “thank you, I’m sorry, and I love you” to them over and over again, during my meditations, and at idle times during the day.

Gradually, over the course of a few days I noticed that even though I still felt a fair amount of negativity toward them, I was now willing to let go of the grudge. I continued on with the process and after a month or so I had a healing experience in meditation:

I was a hand on a huge body. I traveled all over the body and came upon the hand on the other side of the body and that hand was this person I had been wanting healing with. I experienced myself “globally,” as being the whole body, yet at the same time I could feel myself as the person called “Kai” as well as the person who was the other hand. We were quite literally all the same thing.

With continuing to forgive this person, eventually I was able to completely release all my negativity toward them.

 

Forgiveness Disengages The Ego

 

As you begin practicing Ho’oponopono, you’ll probably notice that your investment in being right and separating from the other person gets dismantled. Barriers seem to melt and the underlying truth of connection with the person shows itself. I think this is the reason this works. At the core, there is no separation between any of us, no matter what any of us has done. Holding back love creates the illusion of separation. Then saying “Thank you, I’m sorry, I love you,” melts that illusion.

Releasing Negative Bonds

 

After my workshop on Ho’oponopono, I did some healing work with a medical intuitive who taught me another aspect of Ho’oponopono about how to forgive. During that session I learned that there were was an energetic chord that connected me to a person I was in conflict with. In this case it was belly-to-belly because it was a power struggle.

I became aware of it in my body then pulled it out using an energy cleansing technique. As I was doing this I said to the person I was releasing the chord from: 

 

“I release you to your wholeness.
I forgive you.
I forgive myself.
I give you permission to forgive me.
I give you permission to forgive yourself.”

 

 

Whew! Repeating these words released the negativity on a much deeper level and I saw light in my inner vision.

As you’re learning how to forgive, In some cases a negative bond may be quite strong and you’ll need to repeat this process more than once. In other cases, there may be more than one chord to pull out. In still other situations, the person’s energy may be entwined with yours and you’ll need to roll them out of you. In all of these cases, I recommend saying the forgiveness words (in the paragraph with the rainbows above) as you’re doing this. It is very effective.

As stated before, as you begin the words, it’s okay if your heart isn’t totally into forgiving someone at first. I guarantee you that if you stay with repeating the words anyway, it will be. If you feel moved to do the exercise at all, it means that your heart really is wanting to learn how to forgive, but since the negative energy is there, it will color your thoughts. Just keep at it and you’ll release the energy.

Self-Forgiveness Is Critical

 

I mentioned before that learning to forgive and love yourself is as important as forgiving another person. Actually it ends up being the same thing. If we hold a negative judgment against ourselves it is like trying to live in a strait jacket. It stifles joy and love. When we remember that this Ho’oponopono tool is available to us, we can say “Thank you, I’m sorry, I love you,” directly to ourselves – to the thought form of self-judgment itself. This releases self-judgment, revealing the love that is always underneath as we learn more about how to forgive. Doing this unlocks chains that guard and constrict our own hearts, our own love.

 

How To Forgive And Bring Harmony To Groups

 

A powerful way to bring a group into harmony is to practice Ho’oponopono at a gathering. Just look around the room, focusing on each person at a time and silently say “Thank you, I’m sorry, I love you,” repeating it until you feel love for that person.

If you are a group facilitator, you can also do this before your meeting. Go down your list of registered participants, focusing on them individually and saying the words until you feel love. It will clear whatever is on the surface of the group, so that by the time you meet together, you can more quickly get down to the purpose of your meeting. I’ve used this technique before potentially “sticky” meetings and have been delighted to see how smoothly things went.

We can also practice this when we see a politician on TV, or anyone to whom we feel resistance. It reminds us that they are not separate from me and that our resistance is our own responsibility to heal.

This is a powerful thing we can do together for our planet and all of us beings on it as a whole. Just envision the planet and say “Thank you, I’m sorry, I love you.” Keep repeating it until you feel love permeating your being. I’ve noticed that after I do this I see much more evidence of love in the world. I hear reports of selfless people working for harmony. I firmly believe that THIS is a way to heal our planet. By healing ourselves, by learning how to forgive, we heal our world.

 

A Course In Miracles – Happiness Only Comes From Releasing Grievances and Learning How To Forgive

 

After learning how to forgive with the Ho’oponopono technique, I was able to unwind a lot of trauma in my life. However, it wasn’t until I started reading and practicing what I learned from The Disappearance Of The Universe and A Course In Miracles that I was able to release the deeper grievances that I didn’t even fully realize were there.

A Course In Miracles thoroughly, clearly and lovingly explains the fact that the only way it is possible for us to be happy is to learn how to forgive. What keeps us creating suffering for ourselves is that we decline to take responsibility for our own lives and then try to project blame onto someone else. The fact is there isn’t a “someone else.” It is all us. If we hold negativity for someone else, WE are the ones who hurt from it. Everything that happens to us is a reflection of our own mind. Therefore, we create and design everything that has happened to us, usually unconsciously. Once we realize this, we can’t blame someone else for our lives. This realization is essential before we can fully learn how to forgive.

 

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The Science of Gratitude for Health

Our world is pretty messed up. With all the violence, pollution and crazy things people do, it would be easy to turn into a grouchy old man without being either elderly or male. There’s certainly no shortage of justification for disappointment and cynicism.

But consider this: Negative attitudes are bad for you. And gratitude, it turns out, makes you happier and healthier. If you invest in a way of seeing the world that is mean and frustrated, you’re going to get a world that is, well, more mean and frustrating. But if you can find any authentic reason to give thanks, anything that is going right with the world or your life, and put your attention there, then statistics say you’re going to be better off.

Does this mean to live in a state of constant denial and put your head in the sand? Of course not. Gratitude works when you’re grateful for something real. Feeling euphoric and spending money like you just won the lottery when you didn’t is probably going to make you real poor, real quick. But what are you actually grateful for? It’s a question that could change your life.

Recent studies have concluded that the expression of gratitude can have profound and positive effects on our health, our moods and even the survival of our marriages.

As Drs. Blaire and Rita Justice reported for the University of Texas Health Science Center, “a growing body of research shows that gratitude is truly amazing in its physical and psychosocial benefits.”

In one study on gratitude, conducted by Robert A. Emmons, Ph.D., at the University of California at Davis and his colleague Mike McCullough at the University of Miami, randomly assigned participants were given one of three tasks. Each week, participants kept a short journal. One group briefly described five things they were grateful for that had occurred in the past week, another five recorded daily hassles from the previous week that displeased them, and the neutral group was asked to list five events or circumstances that affected them, but they were not told whether to focus on the positive or on the negative. Ten weeks later, participants in the gratitude group felt better about their lives as a whole and were a full 25 percent happier than the hassled group. They reported fewer health complaints, and exercised an average of 1.5 hours more.

In a later study by Emmons, people were asked to write every day about things for which they were grateful. Not surprisingly, this daily practice led to greater increases in gratitude than did the weekly journaling in the first study. But the results showed another benefit: Participants in the gratitude group also reported offering others more emotional support or help with a personal problem, indicating that the gratitude exercise increased their goodwill towards others, or more tehnically, their “pro-social” motivation.

Another study on gratitude was conducted with adults having congenital and adult-onset neuromuscular disorders (NMDs), with the majority having post-polio syndrome (PPS). Compared to those who were not jotting down their blessings nightly, participants in the gratitude group reported more hours of sleep each night, and feeling more refreshed upon awakening. The gratitude group also reported more satisfaction with their lives as a whole, felt more optimism about the upcoming week, and felt considerably more connected with others than did participants in the control group.

Perhaps most tellingly, the positive changes were markedly noticeable to others. According to the researchers, “Spouses of the participants in the gratitude (group) reported that the participants appeared to have higher subjective well-being than did the spouses of the participants in the control (group).”

There’s an old saying that if you’ve forgotten the language of gratitude, you’ll never be on speaking terms with happiness. It turns out this isn’t just a fluffy idea. Several studies have shown depression to be inversely correlated to gratitude. It seems that the more grateful a person is, the less depressed they are. Philip Watkins, a clinical psychologist at Eastern Washington University, found that clinically depressed individuals showed significantly lower gratitude (nearly 50 percent less) than non-depressed controls.

Dr. John Gottman at the University of Washington has been researching marriages for two decades. The conclusion of all that research, he states, is that unless a couple is able to maintain a high ratio of positive to negative encounters (5:1 or greater), it is likely the marriage will end.

With 90 percent accuracy, Gottman says he can predict, often after only three minutes of observation, which marriages are likely to flourish and which are likely to flounder. The formula is that for every negative expression (a complaint, frown, put-down, expression of anger) there needs to be about five positive ones (smiles, compliments, laughter, expressions of appreciation and gratitude).

Apparently, positive vibes aren’t just for hippies. If you want in on the fun, here are some simple things you can do to build positive momentum toward a more happy and fulfilling life:

1) Keep a daily journal of three things you are thankful for. This works well first thing in the morning, or just before you go to bed.

2) Make it a practice to tell a spouse, partner or friend something you appreciate about them every day.

3) Look in the mirror when you are brushing your teeth, and think about something you have done well recently or something you like about yourself.

Sure this world gives us plenty of reasons to despair. But when we get off the fast track to morbidity, and cultivate instead an attitude of gratitude, things don’t just look better — they actually get better. Thankfulness feels good, it’s good for you and it’s a blessing for the people around you, too. It’s such a win-win-win that I’d say we have cause for gratitude.

The Neverending Search for Happiness

A dirt poor rickshaw puller in a slum in India once told me that he was the luckiest person alive. His hut was made out of bamboo sticks and plastic tarps, with raw sewage trickling out front, but still, Manoj Singh said he was happy, very happy, in fact. Though sometimes he only had only a few bowls of rice to feed his family, he said “I feel that I am not poor, but I am the richest person in the world.”

How could this be? I have friends who can become unhappy by bad cell phone reception or a delayed flight.

For the past six years I have been working on a documentary film about happiness calledHappy. The idea came from my friend Tom Shadyac, a filmmaker who had achieved great commercial success with hits like Bruce Almighty, Liar Liar and The Nutty Professoramong others. Tom had read an article that compared countries in terms of happiness, and the gist was that while America is one of the richest countries, we are nowhere near the happiest. Tom knew quite well what it was like to have money but not be happy, as he had noticed how much happier his gardener and his housekeeper were than the millionaire movie stars and producers that he worked with every day. So Tom suggested we make a documentary exploring happiness, to discover its true causes.

I have long considered myself to be a lucky person, but spending six years focused on happiness for this film has been even more rewarding than I could have imagined. One of my most profound experiences occurred when I spoke with one of the leading researchers of happiness in the world, Ed Diener, at the University of Illinois. He told me that a person’s values are among the best predictors of their happiness. People who value money, power, fame and good looks are less likely to be happy than people who value compassion, cooperation and a willingness to make the world a better place. That astounded me — but it somehow made sense. People who express their love — who rejoice in the health and happiness of others — are more likely to feel loved and happy themselves.

I was well on my way to finding the keys to happiness when I got a very upsetting phone call. One of my best friends, a reporter for the New York Times, had been kidnapped in Iraq. It was around the time that beheading was becoming popular, and we didn’t know if he was alive or dead.

I started to wonder about my own life and how I was spending it. Was I doing as much as I could be doing? While I was exploring existential questions about the meaning of life, sitting for months in a comfy editing suite, my friend was risking his life to tell the stories of people whose voices would otherwise not be heard. He was putting everything on the line to try to make the world a better place. Was I living my life with as much courage?

But in the course of making my happiness film, I learned something simple but completely illuminating. Research showed that just about all happy people have strong relationships. They are healthier and have happier children. They are more likely to find a creative solution to a problem and to help a stranger in need. Happy people have fewer conflicts and are less likely to commit crimes, pollute the environment or go to war. In other words, just about everything I cared about, everything I wished I could change in the world, was improved with being happy. So although my job was much safer than my friend’s, I realized we were working toward the same goals — to improve the world in which we live. On one of the happiest days of my life, my friend called from Iraq to tell me what had happened: he had been kidnapped and nearly killed but he had survived.

So now my film takes on new meaning. I am striving for nothing less than to change the world with it. Thankfully, I have some help — a lot of it. With happiness being good for everyone, it’s no surprise why a happiness movement has begun. A field of science called “positive psychology” has sprung up. Countless books and magazine articles are now being written about happiness, and every day it seems there is another website or blog dedicated to exploring or promoting happiness.

I asked Ed Diener if there is a single key to happiness, a secret happy ingredient that every happy person in the world possesses. He said that the formula is different for everyone, but the one constant is good relationships. He said every happy person he’s studied in over three decades of research had someone to love and someone to be loved by.

When I asked Manoj Singh, the rickshaw puller, what enabled him to be so happy, despite the grinding poverty that surrounds him he pointed straight to his family. “When I return home and see my son waiting for me, and when he calls out to me ‘Baba!’ I am full of joy.”

The greatest lesson I learned while making this film is that my pursuit of happiness is not about me. It’s about our relationships and how we help each other. It’s about us.

Happy – A Documentary Trailer from Wadi Rum Films on Vimeo.

Reblogged from Roko Belic

The Benefits of Kindness: What We Get and What We Give

 

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” ~Plato

Ever since elementary school, I have had a built in network of friends, family, and colleagues who make up my rock solid foundation of support.

But recently, I’ve been struggling with being alone and desperate for human interaction—more specifically conversation and affirmation; and conversation that includes affirmation of my creative choices would be the holy grail of friendship.

Two months ago I moved to a new city where I knew exactly two people; one was my cousin who I hadn’t seen in over 15 years and the other was an old co-worker’s sister (which come to think of it doesn’t really count as knowing someone does it?).

Both have become wonderful companions, who I see every other week or so, and share many commonalities with; but I wanted a deeper friendship, someone to tell me that, yes, I had gained a little weight and tomorrow we’d go the gym.

Normally I shied away from strangers, skeptical of their intentions; but if I kept that up I’d meet no one. So, in a bit of a social experiment (forged by pure desperation), I decided to strike up a conversation with someone new every day.

So far, about 90% of the conversations end with a simple thank you and us parting ways, never to meet again. But the other 10% of my attempts have been eye-opening.

Today for instance, while at the gym, I met this stunning woman, whose legs were reason enough for me to hate her. But I smiled sweetly and asked her how she was doing. Ten minutes later I had learned that she ate extremely healthy and worked out every day (hence the amazing figure), but also that she was the mother of a 5 year-old girl. 

I told her I was a writer, working on my first novel, and her eyes lit up as she said, “I was at the park the other day and I thought to myself, I should bring my daughter out here to color or paint or something. Just to get her creative juices flowing.” She loved the idea of seeing her little girl as an artist.

As someone who’s walked the creative path, I know that I wouldn’t be here without the people who love me having made some sacrifices on my behalf. And I saw reflected in this stranger, with a permanent furrowed brow of worry, the willingness to be that sacrifice.

We’re taught as kids that we should dream big and follow our dreams regardless of the number of obstacles put in front of us. Yet, when we grow into adults the world seems to shift and the dreams we once had get lost in logistics and practicality.

So the legacy is passed on to our children until luck reaches a generation whose dreams really do come true.

Because of my age, (I’m 26) I often meet people who are in transition or just plain lost. Two days ago, I asked the guy sitting next to me at a bus stop what he did for a living and he sheepishly looked to floor before telling me that had just passed the bar in Chicago, which as he put it, “makes me an unemployed lawyer.”

I smiled sympathetically because what else could I do? But when we both simultaneously stood up to exit the bus at 8th street, I blurted, “Let me buy you a drink.”

He accepted because the role reversal was interesting but argued that it felt strange to let me. There were no romantic feelings, just a stranger lending an ear. Twenty minutes later, he thanked me for giving him a break from himself, and we parted ways without so much as an exchange of names.

Complex lives are what make us three-dimensional, and no two people that I have met share the same story; but everyone has problems.

Maybe it says something about our society that happiness is always fleeting. But in my exchange with the lawyer I got to be one of those moments.

A few years ago, a lady in her mid forties, brushed past me in the grocery store knocking the basket I was carrying over and causing its contents to spill about.  I was livid, as I too was having a particularly bad day, so I let out an exasperated profanity (or two) and bent over to start picking things up. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m just having the worst day.”

I looked up ready to rip her a new one, but my anger was diffused almost immediately when I saw the look on her face. I’d seen it in my own reflection so many times—pure defeat.

Making light of the situation, I said, “It’s okay; I’ll just tell them the eggs were already broken.” She laughed, offered to pay for my groceries (including the broken eggs, which the manager was not amused about) and we had coffee at the little Coffee Bean inside the store.

She had just been diagnosed with stage-4 breast cancer—something I would’ve never known had I stormed off in anger.

“You have my full permission to knock over anyone you want coming through that door,” was what I said, and she smiled.

I regret not asking for her information, but that one incident is the reason I no longer get angry when someone bumps into me, or cuts me off in traffic, and it’s also probably why I am so intrigued by strangers.

No one carries a sign around on their back advertising their problems. So I can’t ever know what someone’s life is like unless they tell me.

But if an act of kindness has the ability to shift someone’s bad day into a better one, then why not try to be that change?

Often I have wondered why a compliment from a stranger causes an instant eruption of smiles; yet, when my friends tell me how talented I am, the response is always, “Do you really think?” or “I hope so.” And now I know.

It’s because people I don’t know have no reason to go out of their way to tell me something they didn’t believe was true.

I started out being nice as a means to build friendships, but found a gratifying connection in my everyday interactions with strangers instead.

Everyone has a battle that they’re fighting and as people who occupy the same traveling spaces we should try to treat each other like neighbors, because for that moment while we’re standing next to each other, that’s exactly what we are.

 

 

 

 

Reblogged from Jamie Hoang