Good news! Science has proven that happiness is contagious, and it's contagious even to people who don't directly come into contact with the happy person!
A 20 year study of more than 4,700 people found that people who are happy or become happy increase the chances that those they know, or even don't know but are in their network, will be happy. read study here More happy news: unhappiness is somewhat less infectious than happiness! Good vibes spread more easily.
Thus, being in a network of happy people, like Braveheart Women, promotes happiness!
This reminds me of part of an interesting experiment my partner, Judi Piani (aka Braveheart's EndlessPossibilities), does with her Reiki I students. She has one student stand at one end of the room, the rest behind Judi at the other end. She then measures the aura of the single student using dowsing rods. Then she tells the group behind her to think negative thoughts about the single student. They all watch that person's aura shrink. When the group thinks positive thoughts, the person's aura expands.
Judi then has the test student think positive, loving thoughts while the group thinks negative thoughts. The aura is unaffected.
This dramatically shows how our thoughts, even not voiced, are energy that influence other people for good or ill. We need to stay positive to prevent our energy from being affected, not just by negative thoughts about us, but by all the negativity out there in the world.
Like thoughts, feelings, like happiness, have energy. Both affect others as well as ourselves. Once we realize just what kind of influence we can have, it expands our view of how we can happily serve.
My daughter was born by emergency C-section, and my husband was the first to hold her. He was only willing to relinquish her for nursing. Thank goodness, he couldn't lactate! Right after her birth, I was so foggy on awakening from the anesthesia I wasn't even capable of holding her for a while.
It was clear that food isn't everything, as she bonded strongly to him. He stayed in the hospital with me and she slept on is chest, while I anxiously watched, afraid she'd fall. Months later, when she developed colic, I walked the floor, turned on the water or washing machine, and tried everything to soothe her piercing, painful cries. When I was exhausted and all else had failed, I would wake him and within a few minutes she would calm down. I hated to wake him since he had to go to work early, and I was staying home.
When she was about 6 months old, he left on a business trip for a couple weeks. She seemed to get sick, got a small fever, and cried a lot. I remember trying to comfort her and feeling so frustrated. Suddenly, I became aware that as I became more frustrated, her crying became more intense. I relaxed,and her crying subsided to a low level.
It took her a while to train me to relax and just accept her crying, and when she had completed my training we were both so much happier.
It was only years later that I realized why her training had been so effective. Humans really do sense vibrations, and energy does get translated in the subtlest ways. Perhaps I was holding her a little differently when frustrated, but the key was to change myself, going from frustrated and contracted, to relaxed and expanded.
But how do you relax when you are holding a screaming baby? It comes when you accept the situation as it is. When I stopped wanting her to stop crying, when I was suddenly willing to just hold her or put her in her crib, whether she was crying or not, things improved. I became less frustrated because I wasn't resisting. There is a story that monkeys are trapped by putting fruit in a glass jar. The monkey sticks its hand in and grabs the fruit, but the fist makes it impossible to get its hand out. The monkey never thinks to drop the fruit. I never thought to drop my desire that things be different.
Of course, as with children, with parents. It takes a long time to teach them to say please and thank you, and a long time to teach us to relax! I'm grateful to have had such a cute, persistent and effective teacher.
I saw the funny Youtube video below called Everything is Amazing and Nobody’s Happy about how people (implied young people) complain rather than appreciate the wonders of modern life. In one way it resonated. One of my personal favorite gratitude exercises is to pretend I am a woman from the Middle Ages, say 10th century, who has been magically transported to my current life.
So why did I feel some discomfort with this video? Watch it and see if it strikes you the same way.
I finally figured out my discomfort: the guy was complaining about complainers! Old saying: When you point a finger at someone, watch where the other three fingers are pointing. It was the energy of that complaining coming through. Ironically, complaining is about ingratitude!
A lot of humor is about separation, seeing ourselves as different from and superior to those other people, and humor is probably a lot better way to channel anger than many methods. It reminded me of the subtleties of communication, how easy it is to deny intent because of the words' content. I'm sure you, too, have had apologies that don't feel like apologies, and this can be part of passive aggression.
I don't think it was his words. Only 7% of information comes from words, 38% comes from tone of voice and 55% is nonverbal. We pick up these cues subconsciously.
Could he have made his point with humor and a positive energy? I think so. Lots of humor is fueled by anger, but not all. Think about some comedians who are funny but don’t come off as condescending or angry. Bill Cosby and Ellen DeGeneres come to mind. Their underlying perspective is "Aren't we funny?" But it seems to me that a warm appreciation of the human condition wasn’t behind his spiel, but anger and a put down.
Can negative energy bring about something as positive as positive energy? I think of Marshall McLuhan's "The medium is the message." I'm not sure who said "Who you are scream s so loudly I can't hear what you say." The energy infusing the message is 93% of the message, so in communication, where we are coming from really determines where we are going.
I recently had one of those days. Actually, I was just fine, but a number of people I care about had serious emergencies. After dealing with what was needed, I became aware that I was not in a very happy place, and that since people connected to me were affected by my vibration, the best way to help would be for me to change.
But it was hard! I was tired, and it's interesting how what you know and can easily practice in one state you have a hard time accessing in another.
This was brought home to me recently when I was feeling a bit queasy and off and mentioned it to my partner, Judi, who suggested I take some probiotics. I did, felt better, and then remembered that I had suggested the same thing to her months before.
Anyway, the problem was how to jump start a better vibration, and I was feeling pretty tired about doing anything. I sort of remembered about smiling and gratitude, but just didn't feel like doing it. Probably it was my state. Different things work better at different times. So I asked for help and remembered this video. Apparently, you can get happy vibrations just from watching happy people online (we know it works with cute kids and animals in person), because it turned me right around. It gets better and better as it goes on. So for those times when you need a delicious energetic boost, click
I recently received an email that revealed so much about how we think ourselves into problems in relationships and everything else. Here it is:
Answer me first then forward to your friends!!!
If you saw ME in a police car what would you think I got arrested for?
Reply to me, alone, then fwd this on and see how many crimes you get accused of.
What an example of the Law of Attraction, of course, a great way to brighten any day!
My friend was operating on the belief that there was something bad about her, and she was seeking others to tell her what she assumed they saw wrong in her. You give the universe or your friends a request, and generally both will fill it right in the terms you ask. The universe usually fills it precisely, so be careful what you ask for. Best to just vibrate how you’ll feel when you have what you want, rather than focus on what you think want.
Funny aside story on this. I know of a woman who asked the universe for a particular type and color of new car in her garage, spent time visualizing it. Then one of exactly that type and color crashed into the garage. She did not feel good about the result. Gotta be specific, especially about how you’ll feel.
That’s why it’s so important to be aware of what you ask for, what you focus on. Good to focus on what people appreciate and do more of it. My friend could have emailed asking if she was being applauded, for what would it be?
Assuming there’s something wrong and focusing on the negative is different from asking what's right and how things could be improved. A nice little exercise if you really want feedback is “On a scale from one/lowest to ten/highest, how would you rate our relationship? What could I do to make it a ten?” That gives you something to go on, and you can decide whether, for example, being consistently on time vs., say, always cleaning up after him, is what you consider worth the ten.
The real problem is when we don’t realize that we are asking for what we really don’t want. We are caught up in a thought paradigm and can’t recognize the terms in which we are thinking. We think that by requesting criticism, we can somehow see our weaknesses and correct them. In my experience, I get plenty of opportunity to improve myself through the feedback and interactions of everyday life. It is vital to confront and release or transform our negative beliefs, but asking for negativity only reinforces what you want to release. And my friend was assuming that others’ responses to something they had to make up had reality!
The funny thing was, when I read about seeing her in a police car, my assumption was that she’d had car problems and perhaps the police were giving her a ride to get gas. I didn't think in terms of crime, even though she'd asked. But that was because I'd learned some things I'll post in the next blog.
I recently read a quotation that really got at how to flip into a more positive vibration quickly. It may also explain how some things that help us grow work. Mair Llewellyn, an EFT practitioner, reported that "One of my greatest teachers came from within an audience I was speaking to many years ago about inspirational thinking. She said to me 'I know what you mean Mary – when I’m down, I’m thinking in, in, in so I say to myself out, out out and that thought helps to lift me.'”
I think when we are "in" we are captured by old beliefs and patterns from childhood, we are in an inner child, navel gazing. When we are out, we are out of childhood patterns.
Of course, it's important to recognize negative beliefs and deal with them, we can't repress or bury feelings. There's a great book titled "Feelings, Once Buried, Never Die."
But so often, it's just the same old mind chatter, and if we can't deal with it right then, we can change the channel until we remove the station using one of the many techniques available. In the meantime, we're vibrating at a better frequency.
This explains why helping others has been found to be so healthy for volunteers. Gets us looking out. Gratitude, too.
How do you interpret this quotation? Do you think it's helpful for those down times?
Look at the t bars above. Do you have a sense of which of them indicates the writer will accomplish her goals?
You’ve probably noticed that your handwriting has changed over time, may change with your moods, and is like no one else’s. Handwriting is a direct reflection of your energy at the time you write, it reflects your emotions, your health, your personality traits, and your issues. Graphotherapy is a way of changing your life by changing your handwriting. While it’s complicated and shouldn’t be attempted by novices, there is one aspect of it that is easily applied to affirmations which can really boost their effectiveness.
You probably know how feeling or visualizing the affirmation as being the case right now adds power. You may even know that writing affirmations by hand at bedtime can boost effectiveness. However, how you write them can make a big difference. Just as speaking affirmations like you believe them programs your subconscious to think they are already the case, writing them that way works, too.
The way you cross you t’s tells about your goals and your will power. Think of t crossings as the path to your goal. Is your path straight, wide and clear?
If you cross your t’s quite low on the t stem, you may be setting goals mainly to avoid failure, unless you’ve recently achieved a major goal and are resting for a while. If you cross t’s midway up the stem, the way you may have been taught, you set achievable goals that require you to stretch a bit. If they are high, that shows you like challenges and are shooting for high goals. If a few of your t bars are above the stem, it’s the sign of a visionary who looks ahead and sees possibilities. If it’s many, you may be out of touch with reality, unrealistic about your goals, like someone 5'3" planning on becoming a pro basketball player. It's really daydreaming.
So, when you cross the t’s on your affirmations, make sure they are not too low or too high. If they are, you might want to rethink your goals or how you are thinking about your goals.
If you find you are lowering the bar, or your bars are weak, you may also want to consider whether you are having too hard a time believing your affirmations. Sometimes it can help to start with “I choose to,” “I am willing to,” “I am becoming,” or “I am starting to,” then when you feel more empowered go to "I am/have," etc.
Even more important is the pressure and length you use to cross your t’s. The length indicates your staying power, enthusiasm. The pressure indicates the energy you have to get to your goal and withstand pressure. Pressure that starts strong and fades indicates someone who starts strong, but fades before completion or loses energy and interest.
A long, firm t bar is a sign of a dynamic will of someone who will put great effort to get what she wants. A bowed t bar indicates a feeling of pressure from outside, an inability to stay the course or resist outside influences. Cross your t’s firmly, straight, and with significant length. As you do it, you will feel a sense of belief, determination and empowerment. Just as you would not say an affirmation in a weak, doubting voice, don’t writing in a weak way. Either can program your subconscious to doubt. How we do things is vital. Saying affirmations or writing them without sufficient energy won't convince your subconscious. Cross your t's strongly for a clear path to success!
I’m just back from two weeks of traveling, which included five days in gorgeous Killington, VT, where we presented our work in progress on relationships and personal vibration at the Dowsers’ Conference. However, even with the fascinating presentations, the coolest thing that happened was when one of the six women sharing a condo with me took a nasty fall.
“Jane” is in her mid seventies, and has fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, knee replacements, and, well you get the picture. She had tried to walk up a small, steep hill and fell backward to the parking lot pavement.
She was bleeding profusely, but happily two of us were nurses and ascertained she hadn’t broken anything. All of us but Jane were Reiki Masters, so when we got her back to the condo, one of the nurses dressed all her wounds with large gauze bandages she’d brought. Since I was the only EFTer in the group, I did EFT with Jane, and two of us did Reiki on her for about a half hour.
She then felt much better, but the cool thing was the next morning, she was not at all stiff or sore and was walking easily. Her wounds weren’t bleeding or oozing anymore and had scabbed over. She continued fine for the rest of the conference.
We all knew how powerful Reiki and EFT can be, but it was still thrilling to see it in such quick action on a person people would not expect to heal so rapidly. We'd only heard about another, more incredible, recovery from a much worse fall.
Last year, my partner, Judi (EndlessPossibilities) went to a hospital to do a healing on a 2 1/2 year old who’d fallen out a 2nd story window to the cement below and had traumatic brain injury, crushed skull on one side, and crushed eye.
The doctors did not expect much recovery, rebuilt his eye socket, extracted the bone slivers from his brain, put a plate in his head, and told his parents to expect he'd be a vegetable. He was paralyzed on one side, couldn't swallow, and was expected to be on a tube.
His mom contacted Judi, who went to the hospital three times a week for two weeks to treat him. After two weeks, he regained his swallow and some movement on the paralyzed side and was moved to a rehab facility. Judi visited to treat him three times a week for two weeks there. After two weeks, he was sent home, walking, talking, and with only a slightly droopy eye with perfect vision, and totally normal in behavior and abilities.
His brain scans still look like he should be a vegetable, but he's clearly not! His progress, and his mom’s lobbying, is getting the rehab facility to investigate developing a holistic center as part of their program. Now his fall now has the potential to help many people get up.
When our kids are learning to walk, they fall down and sometimes even get hurt and cry, but we know it's a necessary part of learning to walk. It's only if they get really hurt that we might get concerned. Sometimes when they are learning to walk in adult life, it can be hard to see them take a nasty fall.
I've been so thrilled to watch my daughter find a way to view challenging situations in a positive light and turn them into gifts. Usually, she does this very quickly, but something very traumatic recently occurred from which she has not yet found the all gifts.
When it first happened, I was able to see the potential gifts, painful as the experience was, and feel grateful. However, as time went on, I realized that I was feeling strained by her pain. I tried my partner Judi's 13th row middle seat technique. This is where you imagine yourself in the best seat in the theater, 13th row middle seat, where you can see the entire stage and the actor's faces.
Life is like a play, everyone is scripting their own drama, and you wouldn't get out of the seat or even feel the need to help the actors unless they asked you up on the stage. It's their play, they get to write the script.
However, even recognizing this, I still wasn't feeling relaxed. Then my friend Andi asked me if I'd cut chords to my daughter. This is something I do all the time for clients who often experience incredible transformations. I had forgotten to do it with my daughter because I'd never felt the need (I didn't learn about chords till well after the terrible two's and teens, or I probably would have done it earlier!)
I did it immediately, and the relief I felt was amazing! I kept sighing and thanking Andi for reminding me.
It's so funny, I have cut chords before between myself and others, but I've never felt that level of immediate relief. I had been so energetically enmeshed with my daughter. Now I can relax and watch with compassionate interest from the 13th row middle seat.
I’ve recently realized some great ways to boost the effectiveness of affirmations. One of techniques I’ve used for other purposes can enhance the effectiveness of affirmations. In addition,this technique protects you from negative influences on your energy field, helps you to center, and promotes a feeling of confidence. I’m going to put a brief review, a sort of Affirmations 101, at the bottom of the page, so this will assume you know the basics of how to use affirmations.
One exciting addition I only just realized was relevant is the “zip up” energy technique, taught by energy practitioners, especially Donna Eden in her Energy Medicine. From the book:
“When you are feeling sad or vulnerable, the central meridian, the energy pathway that governs your central nervous system, can be like a radio receiver that channels other people’s negative thoughts and energies into you. It’s as if you are open and exposed.
The central meridian runs like a zipper from your pubic bone up to your bottom lip, and you can use the electromagnetic and more subtle energies of your hands to “zip it up.” Pulling your hands up the central meridian draws energy along the meridian line.”
The Zip Up will help protect your from negative energies, increase your confidence, focus your thinking, and instill new beliefs.
Along the lines of instilling new beliefs, you can also use it to zip the affirmation into every cell in your body.
1. Stand feet hip width apart. Breath deeply the whole time, in through your nose, out through your mouth. It you know how to do Ellie's Prosperity breathing, that's great, too.
2. Tap your collarbone K27 points (which are indentations on your collarbones a bit further out than where your lips end, going straight down) about 10 times. Not an essential step, but good in case your energy is not flowing well. I couldn't figure out how to place the picture showing them right here.
3. Place your hand at the bottom of your central meridian, which is located at your pubic bone. Take a deep breath in as you simultaneously move your hand, either touching your body or a couple inches away from it as you move upward, tracing the meridian to your bottom lip. .
4. Exhale and return your hand to the pubic bone. (Don’t run your hand back down, you don’t want to unzip!) .
5. Repeat three to five times. Even once is helpful. .
6. As a nice finish on the final time (or if you just do it once), make a locking up motion and envision hiding the key. You are locking the belief/affirmation into your cells. After locking up, I like bring my hands straight up over my head and then out to the side and down. It’s a gesture that feels confident and celebratory, and as a bonus, helps you have great posture!. .
Zipping up is part of an energy routine that’s a great way to start your day. I’m posting a video here (the Zip starts at 7minutes 33 seconds) , with the basics, but a bit more written instruction can be found on The Relationship Dance. Personally, I love doing it all by itself during the day. Just try it and see if you feel different.
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I’ll give more advanced suggestions soon, but here are the Affirmation Basics:
You can watch Amy’s video, or review with these quick pointers:
1. Always state your affirmations in the positive. No negatives, “won’t do's” or “try.” Not "I will lose weight" -- weight is what you don't want, if you lose it, it's likely you'll find it again, and it's not specific. Rather "I am slim and healthy" or if you don't believe it, "I'm becoming slimmer and healthier every day."
2. It does help if it’s believable. If you inwardly rebel at the idea that you currently are as you wish to be, try saying “I am becoming more ___ every day,” for example.
3. Keep it brief and simple, but specific. It has to resonate or feel right to you, too.
4. Keep them in the present tense or set a time in the future by which it will be accomplished.
5. The more senses you can use in imaging the experience, the better--use sight, sound, smell, and touch.
6. It’s especially important to feel the emotions you’d feel.
7. First thing in the morning and/or at bedtime are the best times.
Whatever feels best for you is what you should do. If you like writing out affirmations, that’s a great way of creating new neural pathways. See my blog on the topic for ways to make written affirmations more effective.
I recently posted a topic in The Relationship Dance prompted by a friend being very disappointed to find someone she had liked had been manipulative in what appeared a deliberate attempt to hurt someone else. The question was, how do you manage to separate the action from the person? I’ve discovered that different methods work better for different people, and sometimes different methods work better at different times for the same person. That’s why I like to get as many approaches as possible, and the Dancers helped me. You can see some of our Dancers’ wisdom on this topic.
Personally, just one method won’t work for me. For situations where I’m not personally hurt, but tempted to judge, my experience driving in the Boston area was a real help. You may have heard that Boston drivers are among the worst. That’s judgmental, but I can say that a significant number disregard traffic laws, lights and signs. When I first moved to Boston, my hands hurt just from clenching the steering wheel so hard, given that I was in a state of terror much of the time.
Then one day something came over me that allowed me to sit back and watch with the feeling “Isn’t that amazing? Wow, I can’t believe he did that!” This was not a judgmental perspective, more one of amused and detached interest and observation. My hands stopped hurting, my shoulders relaxed, and I felt a lot better.
I realized that my judgments and anger at the drivers had really hurt me. Increasingly, I’ve come to notice that every time I have a judgmental thought about someone not directly threatening me that I feel bad. This alone allows me to drop it, because I remember how much better it feels to be in the detached observer state. I don't feel good being a (potential) victim, and even the superiority of judging isn't enjoyable because I feel the anger and separation in it, the constriction of a frozen heart. That doesn't feel as good as the warmth of love and connection.
However, when I am threatened, when the adrenaline kicks in, detachment doesn't seem possible. Then, depending on the situation, I often do Ho’oponpono, (see the Resource Directory in The Relationship Dance) which reminds me that what is bothering me in the other person is also in me, since I’m also a human, and gives me something to do while I calm down. If I have plenty of time and a major issue, I do Byron Katie’s The Work, especially the “Judge Your Neighbor Worksheet.” I’m also adding in Ellie’s Vagus Nerve Breathing method from the Prosperity Hormone calls.
It often helps to remember that I have in some way attracted the situation, through carelessness or a lowered vibration, or even that there is simply something positive I'll get out of it I can't understand yet.
This happened when I was alone in an airport van parked on the side of the road in a snowstorm and the van was rear ended, giving me a bit of whiplash. I called my sister, whom I was going to visit, and asked her to find a chiropractor or craniosacral therapist for me. When I got to my sister's, we went straight there, and I got straightened out. The insurance of the driver at fault paid for the visit.
The good that came of it was that the chiropractor we saw turned out to be very helpful to my sister, and she probably never would have encountered him, had he not been the only one available at that time.
Now, of course, I have even more resources from my fellow Relationship Dancers, but I like to add to my resources. What helps you get out of judgment and thaw your heart?
Have you ever noticed how you understand the same saying in new ways at different stages of your life? Recently I've had an unusually large amount of work, but one particular project was really taxing my brain. "Why does it have to be so hard?" came to mind. Then immediately I remembered something that had illuminated things for me long ago, but now I saw another aspect.
Years ago I was taking my oral exam for my Ph.D. Three professors were on the committee. One I considered a tough, cold fish and I was a little scared of him. Another seemed a pleasant, if distant man, and I had no idea of what to expect from him. The third was my mentor, for whom I'd been a research assistant. The fact that he was in the room gave me a sense of comfort in a scary situation.
I was totally shocked when my mentor gave me the hardest questions, and then pressed me with harder follow-up questions. As I waited outside the room to find out if I'd passed, I was really upset that someone I'd trusted had tried to undermine me.
After they came out and told me I'd passed, I got aside with my mentor and said "Why did you do that?!!" He said, "I know you. If it had been too easy, you wouldn't have felt you'd accomplished anything." I had to agree, but said it need not have been that hard. I thought that after all, you want some challenge or a game is no fun, but then, if it's too steep a challenge, it's more stress than fun.
Fast forward many years. He had my number. I realized that I still believe that if it's not really challenging, I don't feel like I've accomplished much. Perhaps I've been attracting and choosing the very challenges another part of me doesn't want. I have decided I want challenges I can handle with ease, but aren't easy. My new affirmation is "I handle challenges with ease and enjoyment." I will also easily incorporate it!
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