Tag: spiritual
Priority #1: LOVE YOURSELF
The saying goes, “we are our own worst critic,” and it is so true! What I notice most about myself and the clients with whom I work is… we can be really mean and hateful to ourselves. We beat ourselves up for things we felt we should have done better and we often give little credit when appreciation is due.
I did not realize how negative my thoughts were about myself until one day I was at a spa taking a mineral bath. I decided to go through each of my body parts and send loving thoughts to all of my body, piece by piece. As I did this and moved around from my eyes, to my nose, to cheeks, chest, stomach and so on, I remembered all the nasty thoughts I had in my past about nearly EVERY single body part.
I had been completely unloving to myself and my physical body. I have had negative thoughts about my nose, my eyes, arms, stomach, thighs, hips, legs, head, feet, hands and on and on. The only body part that I never was cruel to was my ears and elbows!! Pretty much everything else had been attacked in one way or another.
This is just one example of how my thoughts have been directed towards my body. I could spend another few pages talking about how mean I am about other aspects of my life, but let’s not go there today. You get the point.
I believe many of us experience these discouraging thoughts about ourselves. My goal here today is to let you know you are not alone in this experience. Nearly EVERYONE has these thoughts!
So, what can we do? I have a few tips that can help you shift the energy around how you feel about yourself. These have been effective for me as I am moving towards more self-love and acceptance. These suggestions also help to increase awareness about how you really are treating yourself.
SUGGESTIONS TO LEARN TO LOVE YOURSELF A LITTLE MORE!
- Look at yourself, or rather into your eyes every day in front of the mirror and tell yourself how much your love yourself. Let you know how amazing and wonderful you are. (Sometimes, I can’t quite feel that emotion, so if I’m not “feeling” it that day, I ask that I love myself as much as source/god/creator/the universe loves me).
- Find ways to appreciate yourself. Give yourself compliments and encouragement even if you just did something small. Maybe you went for a walk instead of watching TV. Give yourself a pat on the back.
- Notice when you’re being “mean” or experiencing negative self-talk. Chose a mantra or a phrase that helps to shift from that experience. My favorite is, “I love and accept myself just the way I am with unconditional love”! Repeat this as needed and even more powerful to do in meditation.
- Journal or meditate about your feelings. Some of these lower vibration thoughts and feelings need a place to go and need to be acknowledged. Release them by writing them out, by meditating on them or allowing the emotion to be expressed. Sometimes we just need a good cry to let these go.
- Practice vigilant self-care every day and every week. Do something every day that supports your well-being. It could be taking a 10 minute walk or a 10 minute breathing meditation. It could be to read an inspiring message from a book or article. Then do something once a week that really makes you happy for at least an hour!
- Be patient with yourself. You are here to experience these challenges to overcome them and ultimately come from a place of unconditional love for self and all. I may be an idealist, but I believe that is our true nature to be in a state of LOVE and we can ALL get there!!
Coming from the perspective that loving yourself is your number one priority allows you to get in touch with who you really are. It helps you to shift more quickly from less than desired feelings to feelings of joy, happiness, love and peace. Isn’t that what most of us are striving for? Enjoying life, helping others and feeling good? If you get in with and follow your heart, you will find your way back to LOVE!
Jennifer Cunnings
Trinity Energy Progression Facilitator/Practitioner
Come Play in Life…Get Out Your Kaleidoscope and Join Me!
Ever felt as if you were just going through the motions? Found yourself frowning more than smiling in life? Wondering if this is all life has to offer? Counting the days, hours, and/or minutes to the next moment you might feel some pleasure, regardless of the source or of how little it might last? Find yourself doing things which are out of integrity for who you’d like to be in life in order to just feel good about something? Hesitant to look too closely at your past choices and actions for fear of being overwhelmed by too much emotion, possibly regret?
If so, you’re not alone. I had felt that way for a good majority of my life, and wasn’t even aware of it. I was born in 1960 and raised Catholic… including 18 years of Catholic school. In that era, there seemed to be an overriding life philosophy of sacrifice and suffering and just not having “too much” fun. Or, if you did, you were “bucking the system.” This still seems to be a perception in society, at least in the United States. Otherwise, if you’re having “too much fun,” which usually means enjoying all aspects of life … then you must be “up to something” or “getting away with something”. I mean, surely we’re not supposed to be enjoying life when others might judge we need to be “upset” or “concerned.”
Yep, I am “up to” enjoying life … I am “getting away” with enjoying all aspects of my life! Nowadays, I look at most aspects of life as fascinating.
Life can be so much more than just plodding through. Not only is it possible … it’s possible for YOU, AND it doesn’t have to take years or lots of money. For me, it’s merely taken the willingness to change how I viewed life.
So, if you’re ready to experience the inner shifting of how you view life … If you’re ready to fully experience life including one regularly filled with fun, joy, bliss, happiness, laughter … and most of all, PEACE … then keep on reading.
Regardless of the day-to-day things that can pull at us and our peace, this is within your reach. It’s okay if your health, boss, job, relationship, finances, living situation, anything that has issues – and some seem insurmountable – is not how you want to live in this moment. I found that once I came to look at life fully – when I came to ACCEPT what had happened, what choices I had made and especially what actions I took – the peace started to come.
So what happened? What changed my inner perspective?
Around 2009, it’s as if a light switch went on. I realized I just didn’t want to continue to live my life feeling unfulfilled, feeling as if I was subject to the whims of life. It wasn’t necessarily one thing that turned on the light; it was the accumulation of a series of things. I think I finally got to the point of being “sick and tired” of being miserable and hoping for more. I became willing to shift and live more. In retrospect, the things which at the time I labeled “not fair”, “negative”, “bad things” are the ones for which I am now most grateful,
Initially, the peace came in small spurts … then in waves … ebbing and receding …. until one day I realized that it wasn’t the waves which reflected the peace …. it was experiencing the whole of the ocean, whether calm or storms … which reflected the entirety of the tapestry of my life and was key to my inner peace. When I fully looked into some of the seemingly more painful aspects of my life, I realized I wouldn’t be where I am now without each of those incidents occurring. I thought of the many people whose lives I touched in the simplest of ways, a “hello,” a smile … I wouldn’t be there in that moment unless everything had unfolded in my life how it had! Was I willing to risk changing my history, not knowing the effect on others? Instead of longing to have experienced a different history, a different series of pasts … I realized what I could do is change how I viewed it all.
In one of my favorite and enlightening resources of all time – which I was introduced to in 2012 – an article in Sun Magazine titled “The Prayer for the Body,” Stephen Schwartz says:
This work is an exercise in nonviolence toward oneself — approaching everything we’ve called an enemy with absolute, undeviating love. It is an exercise in personal nonviolence, in treating oneself with the most unbelievable compassion. ….
There are people who would try to bring nonviolence into the world, even though they can’t approach their own loneliness with complete nonviolence. How could they deal with somebody else in a nonviolent way? To know nonviolence means that you have no enemies inside yourself; that your loneliness, your grief, your anger are not your enemies.
A couple of years later (during which time was the beginning of deep self-work) I was introduced to Trinity Energy Progression, and my life began to change in exponential ways. All the pieces snapped into place. I took responsibility for creating the life I want to live NOW, and moving forward.
Across all of the experiences I had, all that I studied, I began to be grateful for everything, every pain, every heartache, and every sadness. I started to love myself, and my entire life. I began to embrace those aspects which were scary. Most importantly to me, I became willing to release my attachment to all of these situations, to looking at life only through a grey lens. I took out my kaleidoscope, literally, and made a decision to view life through that lens; through multiple reflections.
It was when my relationship with life changed and I have been on an active path to learn to be “grateful” for everything and I mean EVERYTHING ….. to learn to look at every single thing as a mirror for me to have an opportunity to shift how I view life ….. to accept myself, all of my choices and all of my actions … and to have peace about it all. My attitude, NONE of my attitude has anything to do with anyone else.
Some might think I had an “easier” life then they did and this shift isn’t possible for you with how your life has been … I guarantee you …. IT IS POSSIBLE. It’s the divine right of each of us to live a life of peace.
The specifics of my path aren’t necessarily relevant as each path is different AND you do NOT have to go through a long, complex process … The interesting paradox is in coming to a place of loving everything about yourself and your life, especially my “past” freed me up to live life in the present.
So, here’s what I suggest you consider doing:
- Love yourself; embrace all aspects of yourself;
- Cultivate an “attitude of gratitude” …. If there are some things you can’t yet be grateful for, then start at becoming willing to be grateful for those situations and people;
- Stop judging anything and everything, including yourself and your life;
- Put the focus of YOUR life on YOU ….. no matter what, look at every situation as a reflection of something you are choosing to experience … you CAN do this, it may take practice;
- Look at any resistance, any reaction to anyone or any situation as the road map for your inner work …
When you start living your life realizing that YOU can change how you react to anything, you will begin to experience inner peace and a new freedom you could only dream of. Continue on that path, and it will become your reality.
As Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl of “Man’s Search for Meaning” says,
Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
Come on, get out your kaleidoscope and let’s play! Want to know more? Feel free to contact me. I’m always happy to connect, and to play!
With gratitude for my life,
Laurel Ley
Trinity Energy Progression Facilitator/Practitioner
To Give AND To Receive!
To receive is just as much from the heart as giving!
Much has been said about allowing ourselves to receive (which is just as important as giving), but how many of us really know how to do it? I would count myself among those who – rather unwittingly – seem to resonate with the old adage “it is better to give than to receive.”
I’ve always considered myself a giving person. Giving of my time, energy, compassion, laughter, and yes, some of the more material things in life too (my present wrapping skills are top notch!). I’m a natural giver. It comes to me very easily. I do what I do because I want to, and because I know it makes a difference in people’s lives. I like making people feel special, and I’ve been told I have a particular talent for it.
However, receiving is another story!
Oh, I know that you can’t have giving without receiving. I also know that someone else has always been on the receiving end of my giving. Becoming the receiver myself has always been difficult. It’s not that I’m not appreciative. I am! Deeply and truly appreciative. However, on some level, a part of me seems to wonder if I really deserve it. I wonder if you feel the same way?
Of course, it’s easier with the smaller things. You made cookies for me? Thank you, that was very nice. I need a ride to work while my car is in the shop? Your kindness is so appreciated. And when I needed to shoulder to cry on, you were the very support I needed. But as soon as a certain threshold is reached, that little voice inside my head pipes up and says that it is too much. Too much money spent, too much of an imposition for you, too much of yourself shared with me. “Who am I,” the voice proclaims, “to deserve so much?” This often stops me in my tracks and causes me to feel hesitant, insecure, and even bad about being on the receiving end of such a lovely gift. Why do I not feel worthy enough to receive such a large expression of kindness? From being on the giving end, I can tell you that I enjoy making people feel special and doing things to let them know I care. I certainly feel as though they are worthy of my gifts. Why then, would the same not be true for me?
Clearly, this is something for me to explore in more depth. In the meantime, I am going to work on receiving with gratitude instead of meeting it with insecurity. In fact, this may be the only New Year’s resolution I set this year! If you find that you also have difficulty receiving, I invite you to join me. We’ll soon find that is better to both give AND to receive!
Colby Hall
Trinity Energy Progression Facilitator/Practitioner
F.E.A.R.
When did I first know fear?
– Was I afraid of being born into this world while I was still in the womb?
– Was I afraid to be separated when the umbilical cord was cut?
– Did my mother pass along fears she may have had during my birth as a result of her miscarriage before her pregnancy with me?
– Was I afraid of moving from the protective darkness of the womb into the light of the world?
I continue to wonder if fear is innate to the human experience, and if so, if fear is something we need to learn to live with so that it empowers rather than impedes us. Maybe security blankets and night lights are just the beginning of ways we learn to live with it when we are babies. And then what?
Throughout my life, I have experienced the duality of fear:
– Fear of not knowing; fear of knowing
– Fear of being lost and alone; fear of losing myself in others
– Fear of looking at my authentic self in the mirror; fear of not recognizing who I see
– Fear of being too smart; fear of not being smart enough
– Fear of the unknown; fear of the known
– Fear of the dark; fear of the light
– Fear of making the wrong move; being frozen with fear
– Fear of failure; fear of success
– Fear that happiness is temporary; fear that sadness isn’t
– Fear of loving too much; fear of loving too little
– Fear of feeling smothered by love; fear of starving for love
– Fear of being in a relationship where my authentic self isn’t flourishing; fear of being alone
– Fear of knowing myself; fear of not knowing who I am
My journey has enabled me to realize that my fears are based on not fully loving myself unconditionally. Fear may live in our past. But I have realized that in each moment of our present, we have a choice to love ourselves unconditionally, and in doing so, to say no to living in fear.
I am still learning how to:
– Live with fears that arise by observing them and seeing how they could serve and empower me rather than sabotage and impede me.
– Open my heart and let unconditional love and light lift me out of fear
– Transform fear into something I can live with and not in, so that my authentic self can flourish
As I reframe my perspective on fear, I am reframing/transforming acronyms for F.E.A.R. into:
– Forget Everything And Remember
– Face Everything And Rejoice
– Feel Excited And Ready
– Forget Everything And Relax
– Face Everything And Remember
– Fortunately Everything is All Right
– Feel Entirely Absolutely Resourceful
What does F.E.A.R. stand for to you?
Sandi Newton
Trinity Energy Progression Facilitator/Practitioner
Shadow Boxing
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light,
but by making the darkness conscious.” CG Jung
I should’ve bought that bottle of wine
I’d drink it down in no time
Drown my sorrows, run from my past
Except I know now, this never lasts
No denying what’s happened
In this life of mine
Pure excavation, doing my time
To weed out, to blend, to mend
To reap, to sow, no fitting in
An outcast, a comic, no believer in sin
A mother, a sister, an old dear friend
Tried and true – weathered and worn
No sleep in the night – I must always fight
For freedom – for liberty – no path to the right
So stand up I must – no easy way out
Face demons returned, for the final bout.
Tammy Taylor
Trinity Energy Progression Facilitator/Practitioner
D5 Creation