The Rules of the Game

Recently, I’ve had a series of shows with Tom Campbell on consciousness. During our last 2 shows (please see his page) he has said some things that I believed to be quite profound. To understand his analogy think about a computer game like Sims or World of Warcraft where our consciousness is the person who has the mouse or controls that are making the choices within the virtual reality. It is our choices that determine whether we are evolving or not. When we become so invested in the game and what we perceive as our “story”, which we use to justify our fear and our ego, (please see last month’s article) we begin to identify ourselves as the game.  We forget who we really are.

We get so caught up in our story that we put all of our energy on fixing, manipulating, or trying to control the game in our search for happiness; that we may miss the very reason we are here at this time, in this human experience. We are here to evolve! Evolution occurs when we make choices from a state of Being that is love not fear. All the stories we create around justifying our choices that are not love, move us away from the “rules of the game”, which is our freewill to make choices that allow us to evolve our consciousness or not!

 

We are in a Virtual Reality and realizing this is how we can fast track to evolve our consciousness. When we learn to make choices from Love not fear, than our choices create more love through our compassion and caring for others, and we are evolving our consciousness. We all know that it doesn’t always feel like a choice, but that is just our ego needing to justify itself or our choices (why we are “right”, why we can get frustrated or angry etc.). It is important still to be authentic and allow our emotions to be felt, however, once we have our initial reaction in the now moment, we must be vigilant to not add to the story of why we felt our initial reaction. Just ask yourself how can I come from a state of Love now?

It takes time to learn to catch ourselves in the act of creating a story around a situation. Once the story is there, we need to fully see our story, where it came from and begin to let it go. Letting go is easier said than done, but it is essential to allowing us to come from a state of Love. After you have mastered and embraced making a choice from a State of Love, we still have more to let go of! We must then let go of all expectations and any need to see the “outcome” of our loving choice.

This is where timing is so important. Time is a “virtual reality” concept, and not a part of consciousness. We need to really want to make our choices from a state of Love instead of fear because that is how we evolve our consciousness, not because it will make our “outside” world better. Our outside world is just part of the game. How much money or accumulation of conveniences is not the focus. Our focus is on whether you are making a difference (through loving choices you make) and if you can enjoy the game. (This focus came from a crystal child in the book “Communication with Children of Now” by Meg Blackburn Losey.) We have to let go of the desire to manipulate the game or have the game meet our timing preferences. We also need to let go of the “happenings” within the game and just focus on our choices.

I guess it is important to remember what the Rules of the Game are and not to focus on the Game, just enjoy it!

See more at: http://www.intuitivesoul.com/the-rules-of-the-game

Gratitude ~ Can you be Grateful for what you don’t want?

What is gratitude? I just finished listening to Abraham-Hicks video on YouTube and although I don’t particularly agree with their view that The Law of Attraction is the only law that governs our lives, they made a couple of interesting points I’d like to discuss. The first point is to ask yourself, can you appreciate what you don’t want? We easily see the value in appreciating what comes into our lives when it is something that we wanted but what do we tell ourselves about all of the rest? When you stop to reflect on this, you may find that behind each event or happening in your life you have created a story. For example, with almost everything in my life that happens that I don’t desire, I will find a way to add it to my “story” of abandonment. Whether it is on a friendship, intimate relationship or my relationship to money, it is added to my story in some manner. It can be different words, like being unsupported or feeling separate and alone, but it always adds to my experience of abandonment. So what effect does this type of storytelling have on our well-being?

Abraham-Hicks in their discussion on the LOA tell us that we are in control. I believe this is not entirely true. In our world of taking 100% responsibility for everything in our lives we have to remember that we are co-creating with 7 billion other people, and things do happen that are outside of our control. However, we are the ones that interpret what significance they play in our lives and whether we take things personally and what story we will tell ourselves about it. Once you have initially reacted to a situation, you can then choose whether you want to remain in the energy that you initially responded to and adding it to your story about what happened or you can choose to have a new response to an old fear. You could acknowledge that this is not something that has “happened” to me, but just something that has happened and I now choose to be grateful for this new experience in my life, for all the richness it has brought me. Sometimes is it very effective if we dive into our discomfort and lessen its hold of fear over us. Once this is accomplished, decide if it was something that just happened and change your emotional experience of it, or whether our ego is engaged and has made it personal and about US. When our ego makes it about us, it can be much more challenging to shift the discomfort we feel, whether that is rage, anger, frustration or fear. Ultimately, we each need to decide how to “feel” about all that happens in our lives. This is where I believe our control or being in charge lies.

So, back to my original questions, can we be grateful for everything in our lives and what is gratitude? Gratitude is primarily an emotional response to our life experiences, something we experience inside of ourselves that is a state of “BEing” and it is a way to show reverence for what we hold sacred. Often we are trying to control even gratitude by manipulating a situation, by dissecting it to figure out why we responded the way we did. This brings me to the other interesting point that I wanted to bring your attention to from the video. Abraham-Hicks used the analogy of laying new pipes instead of getting stuck in the endless cycle of dissecting every thought and belief we have (at 28min into video). I wonder if our decision to understand why, keeps us always searching for deeper meanings in all of our experiences. This exploration will never end, as it will lead us into deeper and darker areas of our lives. For those of you who have tried, first you look for it in this life then continue your search for understanding in your past lives. This becomes an endless cycle of searching, which prevents us from letting go and moving into a state or emotion of gratitude.

I think that even when something happens that we do not want, the secret often lies in seeing the benefit or to not analyze it all by allowing acceptance and faith that things just are. We try to manipulate everything to our definition of what we want. Instead of just BEing with what happens to us in a state of true acceptance and surrender. Gratitude has the ability to transform us and our situations to the ever elusive “surrendering” that we have been told needs to happen for us to move forward. If we can be grateful, regardless of whether is something we desire or don’t want, then we can truly let it go and lay new pipes instead of trying to figure out what is wrong with us or what we need to fix. (Please listen to the video if you want to understand this deeper.)

So, what are you grateful for, and can you be grateful not just as a mental exercise, but as an emotional response from the heart and also with your gut whose job it is to protect you? What tends to trip us up is that we often understand something mentally, but we don’t integrate it into the rest of our BEing. (mBraining coaching can assist you to fully embrace and come from a higher expression.) Gratitude at the very least needs to be felt in the heart!

See more at: http://www.intuitivesoul.com/gratitude

How is Love Unfolding in your life?

As we observe the colder than average winter, we begin to long for spring and warmer weather. Our groundhogs have unanimously decided that we are in for another 6 weeks (although, our meteorologists were already confirming this). On a brighter note, this is the shortest month of the year and the one I have declared as “Love Month”. We allow ourselves an opportunity to open our hearts during this cold, short month because of one day. Unfortunately, many put so much emphasis and expectation on this day to be perfect and set it as a benchmark for how love will show up in their lives.

Valentine’s Day is a lovely opportunity to look at our lives and see what we truly desire in love. Love, first and foremost, should be appreciated from our own hearts. Asking ourselves what does love mean to us? Is it open and flowing or full of disappointments? Do we know Love from inside, or do we only know love from how others have given it to us? Do we share love or covet it like there will never be enough? Is it safe for us to love?

These questions are important to our definitions of love and who we continue to bring into our lives. Love almost always is defined through our parents, how they interacted with one another and with us. The imprint of these interactions are often unconscious, yet they are ever present in our day to day lives.

We often continue to play out these same patterns all our lives. Yet, we have the opportunity to become the observer and evolve our relationships. As with most growth, it must occur within us first. The goal is to become aware of what is operating in our unconscious that is sabotaging our best efforts to nurture love in our own hearts and our relationships with others. We must understand our relationship with self and who we are from the bigger picture. Are we generous, open and compassionate to ourselves? Are we unavailable, thinking only of ourselves and withholding love unless it is proven worthy or our expectations have been met?

Let’s face it, we usually have expectations and needs when it comes to love. We often manipulate and try to control how we get love to meet our needs. Or give love when others meet our expectations. And it is often difficult to just BE in relationship with self and others.

When it comes to love, I invite you to let things just unfold! That way you don’t have to make a quick judgment of the person or relationship (no matter how long you have known them). Judgments are debilitating because once made we then keep them held within a defined box with perceptions and choices restricted to our original judgment. The thing is nothing is how we perceive it, nor is it possible for our perceptions to be accurate, because our past experiences and our judgments are always influencing what we perceive. If you can release the ideas you have created around yourself and others, you can be free of the drama within your life. And you can observe the real unfolding of life. Instead we usually are trying to manipulate and control everything to have it fit our expectations.

That is why it is so important to be open and allow things to unfold, especially when it comes to love! Love is like a flower opening up to the sun! It breathes the sun into itself and allows it to grow. I believe we can be this open with regards to love. To let go of the pain associated with our first introduction to love and redefine what love means to us. We do however, have to begin with ourselves! Share love openly to yourself as well as to others. Focus on the giving of Love and not on the receiving of necessary needs and controlling expectations. Understand the choices that keep you stuck in your misperceptions of love. Love is always evolving and unfolding all around us. God is always showing us how we can evolve. As we evolve, our understanding of what Love is changes. It is Love that feeds our soul and evolves our consciousness. When we can BE and let life unfold, we are embraced in the dance of life. If you desire more love in your life (whether new or renewed) then give unconditionally of your heart and let love unfold freely.

See more at: http://www.intuitivesoul.com/how-is-love-unfolding-in-your-life

What are your New Year’s Intentions?

As we prepare to welcome a New Year we always review the old. 2014 has not always been an easy year, especially April, eclipses, Grand Square and Uranus square Pluto… Yikes, I hope that never occurs again! And typically as we prepare for a New Year, we come up with a series of New Year’s Resolutions, which are quickly broken and we end up feeling shame and guilt. I am not a big “goal” person, because mostly our goals are outside of us, number one resolution this year, is to spend more time with the family, numbers 2 and 3 have to do with fitness and weight loss, then quit smoking, drinking, get out of debt… although, number 5 is Enjoy life more!? Why save the best for last?!

Now we all have things we would like to change and we all want to make this change effortless and achievable, however, instead of making lists of external chores, let us shift our focus to the inner feelings we desire! Instead of weight loss and fitness, what inner feeling are you trying to accomplish? When we are overweight, we feel sluggish, depressed, anxious that we aren’t changing fast enough or frustrated that we aren’t following our goals. Fitness makes us have more energy and a sense of accomplishment. Regular exercise has been associated with more health benefits than anything else known to man. Studies show that it reduces the risk of some cancers, increases longevity, helps achieve and maintain weight loss, enhances mood, lowers blood pressure, and even improves arthritis. In short, exercise keeps you healthy and makes you look and feel better. Therefore, following my idea of feelings, don’t think of fitness or exercise as a chore, but as a way to feel better. What about, an intention to feel more balanced or a way to connect and feel grounded to the earth (to me the best form of exercise is walking). Find a way to achieve what you desire, by nurturing the feelings you want within you. If you want to stop smoking, think about feeling free to breathe fresh air. Instead of focusing on what you aren’t doing, focus on what you want to feel. Take baby steps towards this inner feeling you want to create. Be gentle with yourself. Be kind and understanding with yourself too.

I believe that it is through our feelings that we will make the biggest changes we desire. If we want harmony, then everything that doesn’t have harmony in our lives will come up for us to examine, however, it is still our choice to feel harmony within, and not expect others to change in order for us to feel harmony. As long as we feel harmony within us, then it will reflect outside of us… and if there are others we want to be harmonious with us, we can invite them but we don’t have any control over what they choose to experience. However, what others choose to create won’t bother us when we feel harmony within ourselves!

I believe the best intention for 2015 and the years to come are to feel love for yourself! Honestly, this seems like a work in progress for me. I understand the concept, I am gentle and I work to improve and evolve every day. Yet, I am so critical and hard on myself. I am definitely my own worst critic, as many of us are. It always seems easier to accept and love others than to do the same for ourselves. This year I am intending to feel love, above the acknowledgement of all that I have accomplished and created within my life. I am opening myself to love and feeling safe within my Being and sharing this with all that I know. I will let you know how this goes throughout the year! Maybe we can share in this intention together.

So this year, I invite you to focus your intention on what you choose for your inner life. Choose Joy, Freedom, Passion, Abundance, Love, Success, and a life filled with a Higher Purpose! Choose this for you and intend it for everyone. Fill yourself with Gratitude for everything happening in your life; the good, the bad and the ugly. It’s all leading you to discover your next highest vision of the most joyful you! May your Dreams be realized in 2015 and may you have the Awareness to nurture this highest vision within! Happy New Year!

See more at: http://www.intuitivesoul.com/what-are-your-new-years-intentions