Archive for the ‘Healthy Spirit’ Category

I’ve found my tribe
I have found this wonderful group that feels like home to me. Common Ground Interfaith Fellowship is creating community with events related to a healthy mind and spirit. Started by Kit and Andrea Thomas this fellowship invites those of all faiths and ethnic backgrounds to "come together in sacred space to learn from each other and cultivate a deeper understanding of the divinity and inter-connectedness of all life."

Monthly Sacred Space Gathering
Everyone is welcome at these free community gatherings featuring a different theme each month. Gatherings are held in Philadelphia on the first Sunday of the month from 3:30 to 5:15. It is currently looking for a new home. Meditation is from 3:00-3:20, celebration from 3:30 to 5:15.

Other monthly events
Spirit Dancing
Creative movement expression and barefoot dancing: spirit dancing, are to be found at Stillpoint Yoga Center in King of Prussia, PA as part of the effort to create community and make heart-felt connections.  I can tell you these are amazing experiences. You will find our own freedom and feel safe within this space. Join the community for spirit dancing on the second Saturday of each month from 7:45 to 10PM.

Spiritual Cinema Circle
Mentally and spiritually provocative films take on a whole new meaning in the post-viewing discussion with fellow Common Ground members. This event creates a whole new way of looking at movies. What do they mean to your spiritual life and the life you lead as you walk your talk in this world and how did they make you  feel and think? Space is limited so you must RSVP for this event which is from 7:30 to 10PM on the third Friday of each month.

Special Second Anniversary Celebration
"The Heart of Community" is the theme at Common Ground Interfaith Fellowship for the Special Second Anniversary Celebration on Sunday, May 7, 2006. Multiple Grammy winning saxophonist Paul Winter joins Samite, Phil Roy, The Common Ground Choir and The Native Nations Dance Theater in bringing the theme to life. The keynote speaker is Jonathan Granoff, International Peace Advocate. This is one celebration you’ll want to be there for!

Kit and Andrea Thomas
These lovely people have made me feel right at home in the Common Ground family. I really feel like I’ve found my tribe. Everyone is welcomed and accepted and loved just the way they are by these two amazing people a trait which is common among the community members. Common Ground is their baby and they have loved and nurtured it making it what it is today. They deserve much thanks and praise for being the change they want to see in the world and making a difference for all of us.

Namaste’

Gathering and event summary
Sacred Space Gathering   First Sunday of each month from 3:00 to 5:15
Spirit Dancing                       Second Friday of each month from 7:45 to 10PM
Spiritual Cinema Circle      Third Friday of each month from 7:30 to 10PM

Donate to Common Ground by clicking on the "Make a Donation" link on the left-hand side of the screen at Common Ground Interfaith Fellowship
Visit the website Common Ground Interfaith Fellowship

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Yesterday’s experience
I’m not sure what it was but after I got those first ten things I didn’t see the love in the things around me as much as I had been. I guess seeing love was a mind-set I started the day with and it carried me through, seeing love in all that was around me until I had reached my goal. Well, I’m setting a new goal for myself. I’m going to work on seeing EVERYTHING with love, ALL THE TIME. I know how to do it, too.

Make every day Global Love Day
Just like God told Neale Donald Walsch in Home with God, I’ve found my own truth as far as what works to keep me feeling loving. What works for me is heart breathing; seeing God in everyone and everything;  watching what I eat, meaning mucusless or mucuslean foods, eating simply, eating only as much as I need and not eating refined foods, except agave nectar as a sweetener; meditating every day; exercising at least four times a week; doing what nourishes me like spending quality time with my family, spending quality time with my friends and spending quality time with me; continuing my spiritual studies like doing the Lyricus Discourses, meditating on the Home with God principles; and doing meaningful work like writing. I’m currently writing a line of children’s books and writing for Dawn of a New Day and New Visions Magazine. The two things that I find especially helpful are doing the Discourses and the heart breathing regularly. Everything else is also essential, it’s just that doing these two things can make a difference for me when I’m not feeling my best. They do it pretty quickly, too. And when I fall off the edge into an indulgence of anger nothing brings me back faster than the exercises in The Power of Now. (See, this site is all about what works for me.)

It’s your turn
So, what have you found that makes you feel really great, loving and seeing everyone and everything in your life experience with love? Some of the things that work for me might work for you as well. However, if you’re not sure what works for you find out by compiling your own list. As you go through your day take the time to write down what makes you feel loving and what makes you feel unloving. Figure out what you have to do to create more of the things that make you feel loving and eliminate or counter what makes you feel unloving. (Things that make you feel unloving might have become habits for you and you’ll need to break them. Habits you want to break are best broken by incorporating the opposite "good" habit.) Through this process of discovery you will start to see what works for you and you’ll find your own truth in terms of what puts you in a loving space. You’ll be glad you did. And so will those in your life experience.

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The set-up
Today is Global Love Day. I started my day by opening my notebook, as I remember to do most days to find out what’s in store for the day, and seeing my reminder that today is Global Love Day. Under the "Global Love Day" heading I had numbered lines 1-10 to record 10 loving experiences that I had during the day.

How it changed my day
Immediately my mind started seeing things differently. I found myself looking for the love in the things around me, people, objects and experiences. I started making notes right away. Before 10:30 AM I had my list of ten, but don’t think I’m about to stop! Check back at the end of the day for all of the things I was able to write down. Trust me, they’ll be some things I don’t get to write down right away, like when I’m driving, that I won’t remember later since so many other things to love were coming up. I’m really amazed at how easy it was for me to shift my mind and start looking for the love in things.

1. Cuddling with Missy
2. Sunbathing
3. Sharing laughter with someone
4. Looking into someone’s eyes while we are having a conversation and they are looking into mine
5. The smell of blossoming lilac bushes
6. Someone smiling and waving while calling out to me to, "Have a great day!"
7. Beautiful days like today
8. Open spaces
9. Beautiful vistas
10. Feeling healthy, strong, focused and in my power
11. Seeing God in people, animals, plants, everything
12. Fresh air and sunshine
13. Heartfelt sharing with Martin
14. The Universe revealing to me how my consciousness has changed to one of prosperity from my work with The Abundance Book
15. Laughing with Martin
16. Realizations and Revelations
17. Meditation
18. Having loved ones to share my life with
19. Falling asleep in a comfortable bed
20. Sleeping

Check out the music being released on May 1st in honor of Global Love Day

Join the celebrations of Global Love Day at The Love Foundation

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Summary
Utilizing HeartMath Solution this book has exercises and techniques that, if practiced regularly, relieve stress, worry, tension, fatigue and related problems. I’m greatly oversimplifying this book. There is so much more to it, I’ll just get into the techniques and the book will tell you how and why they work. The techniques can even help you sleep better. Quite a promise, huh?

Stress related illnesses
These methods, after several weeks of practice, have been proven to eliminate mild depression, anxiety attacks and other stress related illnesses. You would be surprised by what illnesses are caused by stress and how they can be relieved and/or reduced through these HeartMath techniques. It just might increase your quality of life, get you to slow down (and slow down time as mentioned in Home with God), be in the NOW and have a happier life.

Practice
It is recommended that the techniques, all involving variations on breathing through the heart, be practiced regularly starting with Quick Coherence. After practicing for a few days or so you can add another technique and so on. I practiced Quick Coherence first as recommended in "Setting Up a Practice Program" on page 128. I practiced that one technique several times a day for about a week. After that I added the Hearth Lock-In and did those two techniques for about ten days before adding Attitude Breathing. Attitude Breathing is a much faster way to "change your attitude" as many of us have been told to do through the years.

My experience
Visible difference
With all of this practicing I got into quite a regular routine and found myself doing the techniques throughout the day. After practicing for a few weeks other people around me started to notice a change in me. After visiting us my parents called to say that they noticed how I handled things more calmly during their visit and how they could really see that I was using it and it made a difference. They are the ones who gave me the book after using it themselves so they could tell what made the difference. My husband even commented on how east I was to get along with and how nice the energy in the house felt.

It made me feel awesome
I was feeling great and was in bliss quite frequently. I would spontaneously become aware of my heart and feelings of peace and joy as well as a connection to the Divine. It made such a tremendous difference in my life and how I handled things that came up for me. Things that previously got me stressed and overwhelmed were taken in stride and I was so pleased with my progress.

Example
Well, I’ve used these techniques now very successfully in various situations. One night I was sleeping very restlessly. I had eaten things that I don’t usually eat, Day Light Saving Time had started and in changing the clocks buzzers were going off in the middle of the night and my sleep was suffering. After being woken up the third time I did the Heart Lock-In technique until I fell asleep and the rest of the night I slept well.

Suggestions
Since there isn’t an index you might want to make notes. For your convenience I’ve supplied page numbers for the techniques since you’ll need to refer back to them later.
Practice Program Techniques:
Quick Coherence is on page 44
Heart Lock-In is on page 80
Attitude Breathing is on page 103

Also mentioned in the book is a technique called "Freeze-Frame". It isn’t described in the Transforming Stress book but I see the author devoted a whole book to it: Freeze-Frame. There is also software, Freeze-Framer® v2.0 Interactive Learning System with Patented Heart Rhythm Monitor, if you want to take your practice to a whole new level and monitor how you’re doing. (The software includes the Freeze-Frame book.)  The Journey to Wild Divine software program also provides feedback on how calm your energy is. It’s my understanding that the Freeze-Framer® software specifically uses the HeartMath methods and provides feedback on your HeartMath practice. See what works for you. I haven’t read the Freeze-Frame book or used the software so I’ll leave it up to you.

Conclusions
If you have trouble sleeping, feel stress, feel anxious, are nervous, depressed or just want to slow down and enjoy life more than I strongly suggest testing these methods for yourself. You will be pleasantly surprised. Included in the book are techniques and exercises to help you sustain and maintain your new calmer states of being.

View book details at Amazon.com: Transforming Stress

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Summary
In this, his latest and last book in the Conversations with God (CwG) series Neale Donald Walsch gets into the nitty-gritty of death and finds that he died at birth. Huh?! Well, that was in another reality, obviously, as we know he is alive and well in this reality. Home with God : In a Life That Never Ends has been touted as the most important book he’s written so far. Quantum Physics come into play as well as techniques on being wholly present in order to experience the Divine while still in the body. The principles from the other CwG books are repeated again in this book. You might ask why we keep having to go over the same things again but you could also ask why we aren’t living as if we know them already, couldn’t you?

Time
Consider that time is a tunnel. We can go forward and backward, up and down in this tunnel. We can go faster and we can go slower. Don’t you sometimes feel time is going slowly and other times it’s racing by? I’ve noticed that I can slow down time by being in the moment: paying deep attention to what I’m doing, take my time and not think about time, looking into my daughter’s eyes intently while she is talking, or just deciding I want time to slow down. Cool, huh? It works for me. We can also go through this tunnel of time more than once. Surprised? Doesn’t it explain déjà vu better than The Matrix? "I’ve been here and done this before!" It’s funny how I never have déjà vu about the spiritual stuff I’m doing. I probably wasn’t into this the other times I went through this life-time. I don’t think I lived this long in most of the other alternate realities of this life-time. I guess my spiritual path kept me from ending my life early.

Suicide
Speaking of ending one’s life early, don’t do it. You’ll be going nowhere fast. Basically, we came to this lifetime to have experiences. If we decide to end our lives before we have experienced what we came here to experience we’ll just have to start all over again and experience that. We might as well make the most of it instead of trying to "get done" early. It’s also very upsetting to those we leave behind.

Manifesting our futures
We are totally in control of the experiences we have in the "future". What we say, think and do all creates opportunities in the future. Keep your thoughts, words and deeds positive and uplifting to create positive and uplifting choices in the future.

Death
This book is about death and dying and life and living. Once you understand what death’s all about and what’s on "the other side", you can really start living. How about this, death is reversible and no one dies unfulfilled? Kind of makes all those seemingly "meaningless" deaths meaningful, huh? God shares with us a total of 18 things we need to remember about death and dying, 18 "Remembrances" he calls them.

Remembrances
Remember, there is nothing we need to learn here, only remember. We don’t have to learn about death we just have to remember about it. There are 18 remembrances everything from you die for yourself, to remembering we all have free choice. Don’t ask me to explain them. It took God a whole book. Do you think I can do it faster?

What this book’s for
This book is meant to help you find your own truth. Neale found his truth while writing this book and the hope is that this book will help others find what’s true for them.

Questions I had People are coming up with all kinds of questions after reading this book. The CwG foundation has been inundated with letters and emails in response to this book. Neale has even developed a new retreat called Conversations with God: The Retreat Home with God, in a life that never ends to help people who have questions and want to understand this information better.

Here are my questions:

1. With the information you brought in where does that leave other teachings like Eckhart Tolle and Paramahansa Yogananda? Eckhart said if we miss all the other opportunities for enlightenment during our lifetime that another portal to the Divine will open upon our death. It’s a bright light and all we have to do is go through it. So far so good, right? But then he goes on to say that… “most people see the light, turn away in fear and lose consciousness. What happens after that is automatic. There will be another round of birth and death because their consciousness was not strong enough for conscious realization.” (Or something along those lines.) And where does that leave enlightenment? Paramahansa, among others, said that once we achieve enlightenment we will “go out no more”, as in not be born into a physical body any more. And where does the consciousness go when in Samadhi?

2. How do we go around the “tunnel of time” in a spiral? How do we go backwards? I can already tell when I’m going more slowly or quickly forward and can slow myself down but how do we achieve spiral or backwards movement? And do we want to? What would be the benefit and affect of each?

3. What are ghosts? If everyone goes through the “death” door, remembers who they are and creates life anew on the “other side” then what are ghosts? Is the door still open for them and they just haven’t gone through all the way yet? How long would that go on?

4. Are our guides the same as angels or are our guides different voices of God?

5. Is it possible to come back as another person in the same life to help yourself or someone else?

Oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh, now I bet you’re really intrigued.

Addendum
Neale mentioned the possibility of writing an addendum to the book. If he does I hope he writes an index for the book as well. I have found the indexes in the other books very valuable and really miss not having one in this book. I made sure I made notes as I went along.

Suggestions
In addition to taking notes while you’re reading the book you can take further steps to ingrain this information into your consciousness. By taking the basic principles of teaching the mind a new truth from John Randolph Price‘s The Abundance Book we can create our own study of the 18 remembrances about death. John says it takes 40 days for the mind to learn a new truth. His method calls for meditating on one "remembrance" for our purposes. Each day we meditate for 15 minutes on one "remembrance" then write down the thoughts it brings up. I suggest doing numbers 1 through 16 twice each and then doing 17 and 18 four times each. This takes us 40 days. I’m getting started tonight. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Further endeavors
Neale has developed another website which combines the efforts of all the other websites in a united purpose to change the world in 10 to 15 years. It’s called The Group of 1000. Check it out to see if you are inspired to join. It’s intense. You could say the other organizations he’s created, Humanity’s Team, ReCreation Foundation and The School of the New Spirituality have been waiting for this final website to bring them into their full purpose and manifestation. It’s powerful stuff.

View book details at Amazon.com: Home with God : In a Life That Never Ends

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