ask yourself...

Self Discovery Ritual - 11 Questions

Directions: Take one hour for Self Discovery. Light a candle and put something next to it that you love. Sit quietly with a warm shawl about your shoulders. Soften your body - starting with your feet and going up to your crown, paying attention to each part of you, including your organs, with a special focus of becoming present to your heart. Say a prayer that you will be able to listen into the spaciousness of your own soul. Be quiet and still and let yourself enter dream space.

Then one by one, read the questions and answer them just in your mind or out loud, see what comes up.

When do I feel happiest being me?
What do I love to create?
What do I feel I was born to do?
When I am the most at peace?
What do I long for?
What is between me and being happy?
If my heart could send me a message what would she say to me?
If my body wrote me a letter what would it say?
If my spirit were a song, what would it sound like?
If my mind were free, what thoughts would I think?
If my soul could speak to me, what would she say?

When you are complete with that, you can also write out the answers. At the end, see what you feel like. Feel into your emotional self. How do you feel? What did you discover about incredible you?

Source:  Shiloh McCloud  Cosmic Cowgirl

take the vow

The Vow for 2011
by Debbie Ford


My life is worth a billion blessings to all those I meet on my journey.

I am the heaven and all that exists in the sky above.

I am the vastness of my greatest thought and the infinite power that sources and sustains the entire universe.

On this day, I will remember who I am, what I am here for and why I chose the experiences that have come into my path this past year.

Today, I promise to leave the smallness of my darkest thoughts and melt with open arms into the never-ending, all-powerful love of my highest self.

Today, I surrender into the open arms of 2011, allowing each day of the upcoming year to surprise, comfort and nourish my soul's deepest desires.

I vow to return to the spark of the divine and use my power to light up the world.

This year, I will give to others what I want back for myself.

If I want love, I will find ways to love each and every person I come across.

If I want peace, I will think peaceful thoughts, say peaceful words and pray for peace for all those who are living in chaos, including myself.

If I want success, I will work diligently to help those around me succeed. I will stay focused, do my absolute best and seek excellence in everything I do.

If I want respect, I will begin by respecting life and all that comes with it. I will respect those around me and those who work hard to make this planet a better place. I will respect the earth, my body, my past and the gifts that I hold and I will surrender judgment for reverence.

In 2011, I trust that what I give to the world will be given back to me.

do thoughts become things?

THOUGHTS BECOME THINGS from Nic Askew on Vimeo.

Even the vague possibility that your thoughts have any bearing on the experience of your own life should have you sitting up straight in the most uncomfortable of chairs.

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And there is more than the aforementioned vague possibility that thoughts do become things.That seems obvious. Of course, the workings of this mysterious inexplicable phenomenon is
subtle. And a subtlety worthy of a lifetime’s full attention.
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This is important - MIGHT YOUR LIFE BE PROOF THAT THOUGHTS BECOME THINGS?

Underlying Commitments

Our recommended reading this week.....

 
In order to become the magnets for love, money and opportunities that we want to be, we have to de-magnetize ourselves first. It is what is in our unconscious mind that has the power -- all the stuff that you wish wasn't there, that you want to get rid of, that you're still pissed off about or ashamed of, all the beliefs you're still limited by. Our unconscious is holding 80% of our power to magnetize our life experiences to us. So if our conscious mind has only 20% of the power, this is the time to get to work on uncovering, owning and embracing our unconscious by truly understanding and transforming what's no longer wanted or needed.

One fruitful place to start this exploration is to look at what I call underlying commitments. These are commitments that exist at an unconscious level that, if not made conscious, will override any other desires we have. Our underlying commitments drive our thoughts, our beliefs and -- most importantly -- our choices. They are the unseen forces that shape our realities. They are responsible for the discrepancy between what we say we want and what we're actually experiencing.

These underlying commitments are formed by unconscious decisions we've made in the past. In the dark recesses of your unconscious, for example, you may have decided that you can't trust anyone and that it's easier to be alone. So even though you want love and intimacy in your life, you always choose the wrong mate because your first commitment is to being by yourself. You become a magnet, but instead of attracting what you think you desire, you are a magnet for failure, for missed opportunities, for being less of a success than you strive for. You continually make choices that are in direct conflict with what you say you want and you find yourself baffled by the choices you are making. Sound familiar?

Underlying commitments keep us stuck in the same place year after year. When we carry the wounds, hurts or outdated beliefs that created these underlying commitments in the first place, we will unfortunately keep attracting the same circumstances over and over again so that we can be right about these early decisions lurking in our unconscious. Our underlying commitments become self-fulfilling prophecies. And our unconscious becomes the driver of our lives.

Transformational Action Step

We must expose our underlying commitments before we have the power to shift them. By exposing these unconscious commitments, we gain the freedom to stand in the truth. Then we can begin the process of transformation.

1. Write down a goal or desire that you've been unable to attain.

2. Make a list of the actions you have taken or not taken in the past year that are in direct opposition to this goal.

3. Now take your list and imagine that these choices that have taken you away from your desired goal and not brought you any closer to it are an expression of a deeper commitment, your first commitment.

4. Close your eyes and ask yourself "What commitment are these choices in direct alignment with?" There you will discover your underlying commitment.

When you reveal the underlying commitments that prevent you from achieving your goals, you are beginning to turn your life around. You can now replace your old commitments with new, powerful commitments that are in alignment with your highest vision for the future.

5. Write down a new commitment you can make this week that will move you toward the future you desire.

(Source:  Debbie Ford)

the gift of gratitude

The beautiful gifts of gratitude begin at home
so today, invite a healing to happen
in your own body,
in your own consciousness,
in your own loving heart
that feels blessed to be alive.

Notice all the riches you've been given:
the feet that allow you to stand,
the legs that allow you to walk,
the stomach that allows you to eat,
the lungs that allow you to breathe,
the throat that allows you to speak,
the mouth that allow you to taste,
the nose that allows you to smell,
the eyes that allow you to see,
and your beating heart
that allows you to love.

Honor them all.

Become present to the treasures of your life:
the opportunities that you have been given,
the ones that have effortlessly opened up for you this year.
Reflect on your family, your kids, your partner, your friends.
Look through appreciative eyes,
the eyes of what's right,
the eyes of the divine.

Give thanks in a way that you never have before.

Allow fear, doubt, struggle and pain
to melt away in the presence of this all-loving appreciation.
Thank God that you have a consciousness
that is able to shift and transform in just a moment.

Thank God that you are courageous enough
to take a moment to bless yourself,
to bless the universe,
to bless all those who love and guide you,
and then to bless all of the world,

Send your tears of love and gratitude
to those who are in pain,
to those who are alone,
to those who are confused.

Allow the heavenly vibration of gratitude
to puncture their fearful illusions
and open up their hearts to what is truly divine.

Today, take this vow of deep self-love and gratitude,
knowing that when you are in the presence of this kind of love,
you - as well as all of those around you - will flourish.

Take five slow deep breaths, breathing in
love, appreciation, gratitude and joy.
Know that you are never alone and you will never be alone.

We are all here surrounding you with love.

(Debbie Ford) 

the fear voice

Over the years, I’ve watched many creative women not share their voices, not embrace their passions, not ask for what they deserve, not take the risks involved in creating their “hit the home run ball out of the park” life because of the fear voice.

We’ve all heard it at one time or another – the voice that whispers in our ear and tells us we aren’t smart enough, or creative enough – or that we’ll fail, or worst of all, that we don’t deserve the something we know we want.

Having been intimate with the “fear voice” myself, I came up with some ways to help myself (and hopefully you) fight back……

1.)   Create a character that illustrates how the voice of fear feels in you. And when you hear the voice of fear, greet it: “Oh, hello Cruella, it’s you again. What’s up?”  Creating a character helps you separate the creative part of yourself from the part of you that’s afraid. Fears come from an instinctual part of the brain that seeks to avoid risk at any cost. That’s why it’s important to separate it from the place of creativity, dreams and inner wisdom.)

2.)   After hearing the voice of fear say something like: “you’re going to fall flat on your face” or “no one will like your ideas”, ask your rational self: “Can I be absolutely sure that this thought is true?” (Because in most cases, what the voice of fear is saying isn’t true. The voice of fear is irrational and overprotective.

3.)   Stay focused and continue to think it through to the end. Fear holds us hostage, making threats that if you do “X”, a disastrous outcome will occur. So take it one step ahead of the fear. Using your creativity, imagine how you’d handle fear’s projected outcome, and evaluate just how bad it would really be.

Keep shrugging your shoulders and ask “so what?” again and again. For example, the voice of fear tells you that your request for a raise will be turned down. This is when you ask yourself, “So if I was turned down, so what? Then what?”

You’ll probably hear yourself thinking something like, “Well, I’d be disappointed, and I’d think about whether that means I need to change jobs.” You’ve just taken a great deal of power away from your fear.

Or, if that outcome still feels super scary, and your next answer to “so what?” is “I’d feel horribly embarrassed around my boss every time I saw her!” Then ask the question again: “So I’d feel embarrassed and awkward, then what?” Keep following the fear through to the end. You’ll find your resiliency and sense of perspective as you keep asking, “So what?”

Having done the preliminary footwork, it’s time to take affirmative action!

(4.) Compliment the fear. That’s right – stroke it’s ego before you prepare to kick its butt to the curb. “Wow, Cruella – THAT was good! In fact one of your best – you put a lot of work into that one! You almost had me believing you there with that one.”

(5.) Prove your competency and capability to be the bigger voice and take charge person. “Thanks for bringing that to my attention Cruella, but you don’t need to worry. I’ve thought about it and think I’ve got it handled. What you’re so concerned about probably won’t happen, but if it does, I’m strong enough to deal with it. Trust me.”

(6.) Trust yourself. Trust your heart, your inner wisdom, your intuition. You cannot be in a state of fear and trust at the same time. They can’t co-exist – one will always blot out the other. So decide which you will feed and nurture. Your trusting self or your fearful self?

And if all else fails, just accept that fear is nothing more than a cautionary voice in your life right now. Let it be there, but don’t let it be in control. Let it be there, listen to it even, but don’t take direction from it or stop moving forward because of it.

As I read somewhere, “Courage is nothing more than fear that has said its prayers.”  

desires, wants and needs....



Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.  - Harold Whitman

Many years ago, I attended a workshop on “connecting with your hearts desire.” The facilitator instructed us (when faced with a choice of what to do) to sit down with a piece of paper and write out all our options.

“Make a two column list with all the pros and cons for each potential choice” she said, “and when you are done with your list, tear up the paper and do what your heart calls you to do!”

In other words, the most important question we needed to be asking ourselves was "What is my heart calling me to do?"

This little interchange got me thinking about the whole issue of needs. And wanting. And how do we think and feel and respond to our longings and spontaneous wishes.

How many of us play devil’s advocate with ourselves, second guessing the inner voice that whispers in our ear. How many of us don’t have confidence in our desires, and will (sadly) push them back underground where they can't threaten us with their hungry insistence?

But why? Why is it so hard to just joyfully accept our desires? To feel excited and not so skeptical when they appear?

“BUT I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WANT!!”

One of the big stumbling blocks around embracing our desires is feeling blank or blocked when confronted with the question "What do I want?" You might get so far as knowing that you want something, but you convince yourself that you really have no ideas regarding what that something might be.

This is a lie. You always, always, always know what it is that you want.

It's just that sometimes the thing that you are yearning for is really scary because getting it means you will be changing the status quo in your life in a big way. So you unconsciously block the true awareness of what your heart is yearning for.

When you are feeling totally baffled around your desires and are caught up in believing the fiction that you really and truly just don't have a clue, try asking yourself this question:

"What is it that I am too afraid to want right now?" and see what shows up. And then ask yourself “Why am I so afraid?”

Having needs is not a bad thing or something to be ashamed of, but it often makes people very uncomfortable because it goes against the grain of a lot of internalized messages that advocate NOT expressing our needs or desires.

We talk ourselves out of what we want by telling ourselves that our needs are petty or unimportant. We convince ourselves that we can do without it because under no circumstances do we want anyone to know that we are dissatisfied, or that we want more. We don't want to be seen as selfish or demanding.

Most of the time what we are really doing is protecting ourselves. If we keep our desires invisible we won't risk being disappointed or heartbroken if we try for something that we're not sure we can actually have.

OK. OK. I'LL ASK. BUT ONLY IF I KNOW FOR SURE THAT THE ANSWER IS YES

Of course, there is no guarantee that you will get something just because you want it. But you for SURE won't even come close to it if you never even try.

The real secret around the whole issue of longing is that getting what we want isn't really the most important thing. The empowerment is in the longing itself. We are already feeding our deepest sense of aliveness by simply allowing ourselves to FEEL the wanting. To HAVE the wanting. To make space for it to even exist.

Our longing and our wanting gets us in the door - it propels us forward - it gets us engaged with our lives. When we follow our desires we are saying a big old YES to the journey, not necessarily to the destination.

We get ourselves in trouble when we hold back our desires because we are afraid we will be disappointed. We want some kind of guarantee that if we want something we will get it exactly the way we see it all worked out in our minds.

And we miss out on getting things that we could have never even possibly dreamed up.

BUT WHAT I WANT IS REALLY WEIRD!!

Another way that we shut down our desire capability is by thinking that everything we want has to make some kind of sense. Or be socially redeemable. It has to be acceptable in one way or another. And to fit in with who we think we are or are supposed to be.

There is a level of desire that is by its very nature just goofy and wacky and fun. If we are really paying attention to what makes us happy, there are things that we want that can be kind of quirky and offbeat. It's related to the childlike part of who we are that is coming out to play.

The part of us that can love and trust the whimsical & magical self is more than willing to accomodate the other part of ourselves because it knows that doing so is feeding something deeply important and essential.

Which is the point to all of our longings ... whether they be serious or silly they are always leading us in one direction. They are always taking us closer and closer to our core authentic self, to our inner point of greatest aliveness and to our felt sense of being at home in our own skin.

Which is the only thing that we ever really want when you get right down to it.