Incredible inspiration in this world and out of this world, and both from NASA! First, become an experimental subject and prove happiness is visually contagious by watching http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080722.html Resistance is futile!
Their scientific explanation : "Many humans on Earth exhibit periods of happiness, and one method of displaying happiness is dancing. Happiness and dancing transcend political boundaries and occur in practically every human society. Above, Matt Harding traveled through many nations on Earth, started dancing, and filmed the result. The video is perhaps a dramatic example that humans from all over planet Earth feel a common bond as part of a single species. Happiness is frequently contagious -- few people are able to watch the above video without smiling."
Yesterday on Car Talk, Tom & Ray told the caller to sit down they had some bad news about his car. Caller Roman from Chicago said, “It’s all good news.” The car guys were a bit nonplussed. I admired Roman's perspective. Sometimes when I hear stories about the hardships many people are suffering in this economic situation my immediate reaction is not that “it’s all good.”
The universe gave me a little jolt to help me when my 2001 Volvo was rear ended at a stop light by what seemed at the time to be the most enormous SUV I’d ever seen up too close. The other driver was very nice and asked if I’d be willing to get an estimate and let him cover my expenses rather than go to insurance, if the cost wasn’t too high.
It felt good to be able to help him this way, and I got an estimate lower than I’d expected from a great Green-friendly car repair place. I didn’t have any whiplash or other problems (I gave myself Reiki afterward). The driver brought me a money order, so I thought that was it. Not exactly all good, but not bad. I figured I'd somehow attracted this, but it seemed minor, so I didn't think more on the lesson.
Then, after we'd settled, the repair place called to say that their initial estimate was low. Not good! When they got the bumper off, they discovered that the connections that attached the bumper to the car were in bad shape, and it would be good to fix this now, rather than after the bumper had been further damaged by connections failing. Thus, we saved a lot of money from having trouble with the bumper down the road, since this problem could be repaired at the same time. Good!
The frosting on the cake came when I was chatting with the owner, who told me that they were certified Volvo mechanics. I immediately asked him for an estimate on an expensive job I had coming up at my usual place, and saved more than the additional repair costs by having him do it.
It sometimes takes years, if ever, to see the silver lining or larger view, but it was a wonderful reminder to me that things are not always what they seem or feel from my limited perspective. That’s why I’m so grateful that I was rear ended when I needed a nudge.
I want to know what is happening in the world, but sometimes it's hard to keep up with the news while keeping my vibration up. Good news!
We can find uplifting news easily now. A very inspiring organization is forming bringing people of all nations, all faiths, all backgrounds, to create the Charter for Compassion. You can go to their website for inspiring stories of courage, compassion and love.
This organization is based on the idea that recognizing that the Golden Rule is fundamental to all world religions can inspire people to think differently about religion and differences. The website has very inspirational videos and more information, if you'd like to be a part of this effort.
The intention is to highlight the many efforts to bring about a better world: The Charter for Compassion will not be a new organization. There are hundreds of existing organizations around the world already working tirelessly in the name of compassion and interfaith dialogue. Our goal is to highlight these groups in effort to raise the profile of their work.
So you can this organization is an antidote to the news in more than one way!
PS the Heart world is the logo of golderuletravel.com. What a great idea!
I've collected relaxation techniques the way some women collect shoes. Yesterday, when I learned that my elderly mother's financial situation was much worse than I'd thought, none of them seemed to fit for more than a few minutes. In between other commitments, I spent much of the day dealing with her financial situation and kept wondering why I couldn't stay relaxed for more than a short period. After all, right in the now, things were ok. There was much to be grateful for. It wasn't till evening when I took a full hour for relaxation that I could deal with it.
Then, synchronicity! This morning, I got an email with a link to an article that reminded me of why, and what I could have done that would have been a lot quicker and gotten me to the same place. The article is Our Economic Crisis is an Emotional Problem, by Raphael Cushnir. Of course, he was talking about our national crisis, but I thought it applied directly to my own little economic crisis. Do you agree with his assessment?
Some days I tend to focus too much on the little picture and need help remembering how fortunate I am for the opportunity to experience the incredible beauty and diversity of the world so easily! The internet has made it possible to do this in trips that last only minutes at a time. I visit http://www.wondersoftheworld.tv for a quick vacation pick me up. It always ups my gratitude level. Plus I don't have to deal with luggage.
What really helps is realizing that I have focuser trait, and tend to forget about the larger picture. When you know your personality traits, you can adjust your perspective and behavior much more easily. If you'd like to know more about traits, go to our traitsecrets website and click on the trait guide at left.
Lana got me to thinking more about the reasons why, as she said, "we can no longer afford the luxury of negative thought."
I think that luxury implies something pleasant, and in a way negative thought can be pleasant to the thinker in that it can make her feel superior or more powerful, as in giving a "piece of our mind," but it's a toxic luxury, like junk food that tastes good but is harming your body.
As Lana said, the negative thoughts hurt the thinker more, but they can affect the intended recipient. The old adage that "sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me" isn't true unless the receiver is in a positive place. That's why it's so vital to be positive, grateful and loving as a thinker or receiver.
I used to wonder about people who were "supposedly" affected by voodoo and curses. We know about the placebo or belief effect, but those things sometimes seemed to work even if people didn't realize they were being hexed. I think it may be that recipients who weren't in a powerful, positive place could be affected by negative energies aimed at them. Positive thinking is the energy world’s apple a day.
I think Masaru Emoto's work showing how words, thoughts, and prayer affects the crystalline structure of water for beauty or ugly may be relevant here. You can view some here. After all, humans are mostly water, and our thoughts are affecting us and ponds and oceans. Meditating on his beautiful water crystals, easily available on the internet, is a wonderful way to raise vibration.
While looking for an illustration, I found the one above in Google images from The Arcadian Society. It was a mind meld website! The website understands the effects of thought in Emoto's terms and goes further, talking about experiments that have affected crime and how we can intentionally transform using our thoughts. It's a lovely place to visit!
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.
A psych major in college, I knew all the right things to do to toilet train. I waited until my daughter was clearly ready, almost three, and really, really wanted to wear Big Girl Panties. There was also the incentive of keeping up with the Jessicas, since most of the girls in her nursery school wore them and she didn't want to be left out.
I tried only positive reinforcement, and made sure it was intermittent. We even had a little tabloid newspaper by the potty so she could be just like Daddy. But I didn't understand the spiritual principles under the psychological theories, so after a few months I was starting to wonder if my daughter was going to have to go from extralarge Pampers to extra small Depends.
Big Girl Panties were the Olympic Gold of our toilet training. She wanted the frilly, colorful ones so badly, almost as much as I wanted her to wear them. Yet, when I tried letting her wear them in return not peeing on the floor much, it didn't work. I tried negotiating them in return for sitting on the potty and producing, but that didn't prevent constant accidents, so we returned, dejected and defeated, to diapers.
One day I had a revelation as I went to wake her up in the morning. It came over me suddenly, and it was like I was taken over by a benign force. I was calm and positive as a force took me over and told her that she could wear underpants all the time if she just went to the bathroom and sat on the potty before each meal and at bedtime. "You just have to sit there for 1 minute, you don't have to pee. You can pee and poop all over the floor, if you want," I told her.
"You're kidding!" she said. I assured her I was not.
Excitedly, she jumped out of bed and ran to sit on the potty. When she returned she enthusiastically ordered, "Kid me again!"
She was dry from then on, even at night!
I thought that this was pretty amazing, but it was only years later I realized why it worked and the larger spiritual lesson it exemplified.
A number of spiritual teachers have offered the same insight in somewhat different ways. Byron Katie has a book titled Loving What Is, and her The Work is all about accepting situations and people, including yourself.
Eckhart Tolle says in The Power of Now, "Whatever the present moment contains -- accept it as if you had chosen it. Accept -- then act. Always work with it, not against it. Make the present your friend and ally, not your opponent. This will miraculously transform your whole life."
Of course, the accepting part is not easy. I really didn't accept cleaning up puddles all over the place. But once I really accepted them, they vanished.
Spiritual Guide Abraham says through Esther Hicks that we need to simply know what it is we want, trust we will get it, and it or the right actions to get it will come to us. However, if we want it too much, we are not trusting but grasping. We are actually pushing what we want away. "Nothing brings out the worst in another faster than your focusing on it."
I knew what I wanted, but had been wanting something negative -- no accidents -- rather than something positive. My epiphany was that I really trusted that the new approach was what was needed and I was willing to accept accidents. I was totally relaxed about it.
I had, without realizing it, focused on the negative--accidents--and children pick up what their parents focus on. I'd been using negative words "Don't pee on the floor" instead of "It's nicer when you pee in the potty."
By simply accepting the situation as it was and making it okay "You can pee on the floor," while offering a positive behavior and reward, sitting on the potty and wearing panties, the situation changed within minutes!
Of course, the trick is to really accept it. If only I had remembered the lesson my baby guru had taught me when she was an infant, I it would have been so much easier. But that's for my next blog post.
What are love, romance and relationships about? Can you be in love for life? What do you need besides love for a good relationship? In the acclaimed film about conscious loving, How Will We Love, filmmaker Chris Brickler started out exploring his grandparents' 65 year marriage, then moved on to interview experts such as Helen Fisher, Harville Hendrix and everyday people.
Here are just a few ideas from some of the experts in the movie:
The more intensely you fall in love, the deeper you were wounded in childhood.
You develop an unconscious list of what you want in a mate in childhood.
Conflict can indicate you are with the right person.
Most people leave a relationship just at the point where it could turn around and deepen.
Why we fall in love.
Love as a spiritual path
Did this movie move you? Which idea did you find most insightful, interesting or objectionable? Hard choice for me, but perhaps most interesting that going through the worst, a sort of dark night of the soul of the relationship, can bring new depth and connection. Of course, the problem is determining when it's worth going through. I think can relate to a favorite quotation:
“Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms you would never see the true beauty of their carvings” --
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
There are many interesting and controversial ideas. We will be discussing some in The Relationship Dance Community. Join us there for more discussions of specific ideas.
For Memorial Day, three and a half minutes of inspirational quotes and music. Appreciation of what we have because of those who gave their lives for us is the best memorial. Happy vibrations promote peace. As we gratefully remember them, have a truly happy Memorial Day!
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
Talk about awareness transforming! My 23 year old daughter, Sara, is spending a month in Morocco, where we have many good friends, in an effort to improve her French, and, aw heck, have a great time. She returned to her host family from a weekend visit to other friends of ours to discover that her host father’s brother had suddenly died. Originally, she thought that this was going to be a very difficult situation for her, however it led her to a more rewarding cultural experience than she’d expected. It really transformed her awareness of how so much of our reality is communal.
You can read her description of it at dramatrekking.blogspot.com It’s her June 15 entry, called Changes chez Chtatou. She especially adores the family's kids, 12 year-old daughter, Sourour, and 10 year-old son, Faris.
If you go to her first blog, you can see photos of her when she was first in Morocco, at 3 and 4 years old. Wasn’t she cute?
At 86, while driving his Honda, Dad was broadsided by a SUV. His aorta cracked, along with ribs and bones, and he was rushed to the hospital. When they asked my still conscious Dad in the emergency room if he wanted to try an experimental stent for the aorta, his question was how much it would cost. That kind of gives you an idea of his focus. The emergency room doctor was so amazed Dad survived he actually visited at home, after the 7 months of hospitalization and rehab.
I’ve heard that accidents can be sources growth, sort of jarring things loose. Or perhaps it was a near death experience, but Dad changed. Everyone always thought my dad was cute. He was 5’1” at his best height, and that was stretching it, and he had a wonderful sense of humor. He was a good, community-oriented man, who single handedly raised enough money for a much needed community ambulance, along with many other charitable works. Everyone who didn’t know him well thought he was really friendly, but really, he was a very driven, anxious guy totally focused on work. You can imagine retirement was tough for him. He handled it by commandeering the cooking and cleaning, annoying my mother, and by obsessively watching the news.
After the accident, he and mom went into an assisted living community, and in his final two years there he took on a new focus. I don’t think it was just the lack of something to do, many activities were available. Dad was a one man sunshine patrol. He managed to get the sourest residents to smile and became friends with all the staff. From being hard driving, he became more warm hearted and caring on a personal level. Always witty, he became even more fun loving and as a result, staff would come to the apartment or come to greet him in the hall. Positive vibrations do attract.
For his 87th birthday, his favorite Resident Assistant, Karen, surprised him in the dining room with balloons and a sexy performance of “You Make Me Hot.” It was the raciest thing the dining room had seen, especially in her red gown and boa. His hospice nurse took an entire day off to be with him as he passed away. He willed his body to science, so that they could see how he survived the accident.
Why he survived is something else. He did take good care of himself, exercise, eat right, even before his four bypasses. But he clearly had a final mission to complete. I’m not sure whether it was to warm the assisted living or show my sister and me just how much change is possible and what a difference one warm heart can make.
: "Many humans on Earth exhibit periods of happiness, and one method of displaying happiness is dancing. Happiness and dancing transcend political boundaries and occur in practically every human society. Above, Matt Harding traveled through many nations on Earth, started dancing, and filmed the result. The video is perhaps a dramatic example that humans from all over planet Earth feel a common bond as part of a single species. Happiness is frequently contagious -- few people are able to watch the above video without smiling." 
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