Merging With Presence Mini-Meditation
Do you ever feel that life starts to take on a pace of its own, perhaps getting more and more hectic and robbing you of any peace of mind, as you keep running raggedly to keep up?
Does there seem to be an endless list that needs attending to….and if that list should ever get depleted, your mind compulsively invents several more “vital” things to add to it?
I know I felt that way a lot and it led to overwhelm and exhaustion, not to mention feeling cheated out of the sweet satisfaction I had done enough at the end of the day.
Then, one day, during my morning meditation, I started to use my hypnosis and energy awareness skills to amp up my experience of the life all around me. Out of this experimentation comes the Merging with Presence mini-meditation. Each time I do it, I am recharged and enlivened. The overwhelm leaves, my energy increases, and I experience a joyfulness to be alive.
Eckhart Tolle’s book: “A New Earth”
“When the basis for your action is inner alignment with the present moment, your actions become empowered by the intelligence of Life itself.” Eckhart Tolle
I have recently had the opportunity to review Eckhart Tolle’s work again, and it has been so worth it. I read The Power of Now when it first came out and loved it but also found it difficult to STAY in the present at first. As time passed, I received more inspiring and helpful information.
Michael Mohoric, the Tibetan Qigong Energy Healer (www.QigongEnergyHealing.com) that I am working with, recently told me his story of overcoming a spinal cord injury using his Qigong methods. After experiencing his work, I was reminded of my first Qigong Teacher’s message to us in one of his Instructor training classes: “if you forget everything else, just remember that Love heals.” (For more info, http://www.springforestqigong.com/index.htm.) This concept is core to Qigong’s power to heal and so my question to Michael was “What’s your take on how to get into that place where you feel the peace and calm that evokes healing love?”
Another take on releasing your pain
I have recently been reminded to review Eckhart Tolle’s work again, and it has been so worth it. I read The Power of Now when it first came out and, as often happens, take in the obvious good advice and wisdom with great relish. I do my best with it and move on, maybe letting some of it go by the wayside as I move through life. The growth curve may go up and down but, fortunately, the end result is linear, in an upward direction. I love the wisdom that comes with age! And the deeper cut on what’s really important in life.
Michael Mohoric, the Tibetan Qigong Energy Healer (www.QigongEnergyHealing.com) that I am working with, recently told me his story of overcoming a spinal cord injury using his Qigong system. After experiencing his work, I was reminded of my Qigong Teacher Chunyi Lin’s message to us in one of his Instructor training classes: “If you forget everything else, just remember that Love heals.” This concept is core to Qigong’s power to heal and so my question to Michael was “What’s your take on how to get into that feeling of peace and calm that evokes healing love?” Read more
Detaching from the story
I so enjoy the work of Jack Kornfield, the Buddhist monk who started Spirit Rock (a spiritual retreat center) in Woodacre, CA. Actually I lived not half a mile from Spirit Rock when he was writing “The Wise Heart- A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology,” while I was recovering from my divorce in a small cottage on a creek. He tells about writing this book at Spirit Rock, listening to the rain, and I love knowing I was probably at home in my room listening to the same rain. It’s comforting. This book is nearly a bible for me- I refer to it frequently and highly recommend it.
He tells the story of Paula and her journey out of her divorce experience. I thought you might be encouraged by it. There is so much to learn from his gentle way of being, whether you’re going through a divorce or any other tough time.
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What the World Needs Now… is Love, Self Love
I have a dear, long-time friend I trust completely. She remembers the actual date we met 30- some years ago, maybe because she was singing in a band for a big gathering or maybe because part of her knew we’d be friends forever. Rebecca is a ‘sensitive’ and can feel the energy of people and situations that most people can’t (yet.) She was my ideal choice to do this self love exercise with because I knew I could be vulnerable with her.
We both realized at about the same time that we needed to become more forgiving of ourselves, and self compassionate, in order to completely heal ourselves at the core level. It’s not the commitment to a strict diet, debt-reduction or exercise regime that will make us happy, we’ve discovered, but rather the commitment to finding a way to just give ourselves a little love when we feel we’re going down that old road of not feeling good enough.
I used to get exercise because I wanted to be thin for my first husband. He valued my thinness, which I never quite felt I achieved to either of our standards. Eventually I began to resent not being liked for who I was (or liking myself for who I was- crazy, huh!) I knew exercise was good for me and I wished I could have done it just for the love of it but that never truly happened until the ability to get exercise was taken away from me, as it has been with this lyme/polymyalgia rheumatic/whatever problem I’m dealing with now- all my docs have different theories. Read more
Only Love Remains
I wrote this when I was deep in the pain of my own divorce. Even in the midst of despair, I found something more true than my pain, something more sustaining – something guiding me toward wholeness, healing and joy. And I want to ensure you, if you are going through a painful transition, that there is hope, things will improve and that we can turn our greatest challenges into the catalyst to be our greatest selves.
Deep within me lives a song yearning to be sung. A song so sweet and beautiful that in its very expression, the illusion of separateness from the Divine dissolves, revealing the radiant glow of Oneness.
Deep within me there lives an eternal womb of creation, pulsating with infinite and ever expanding possibilities that respond to my willingness and direction.
Deep within me is my home, a living holy temple that embraces me with the knowledge that I have never been alone, and that the Loving Spirit of the Divine has never left me. Read more
Brain Freeze on Live Radio- Yikes
Is this your worst nightmare? It wasn’t mine- until this morning. Ugh, it was embarrassing to not have my brain work ON THE AIR and, worse, I felt I let my team down.
I have a wonderful couple of business partners here in the Napa Valley. We joined forces to give powerful wellness and stress relief workshops, called To Your Health Napa, to groups and corporations when they come for their retreats at all our beautiful resorts amongst the vineyards. And the plan was to introduce our workshops on Dr. Sharon’s wellness radio spot on Kellie Fuller’s show on KVYN- Kellie in the Morning. (Catch that? As in VINE.) Read more
What exactly IS the point of it all?
A few months ago I watched a documentary that actually caused a major shift in my thinking- a major shift in how I was going to be in the world thereafter. I can’t say that happens every day. And it happened in a rather round-about way.
The documentary is called The Nature of Existence. It was done by a young guy named Roger Nygard. I watched it on Netflix and it was both funny and disturbing. The gist is that he goes out into the world to ask many, many (many) people why we’re here and what our purpose is.
He interviews priests, rabbis, gurus, and waitresses, as well as professors and atheists- just about everybody- and every one of them state their beliefs about what the human race is doing on this planet. I expected more of a scientific exploration and what I got was a jumble of everyday people and their thoughts on the matter, one after the other, after the other, continuously for an hour and a half. It was a bit hard to follow. I wanted more time to absorb what each person had to say but it jumped so quickly to the next person and jumbled the serious with the downright nutty perspectives that I wanted to turn it off. But something kept me going. Read more
What’s your Desired End Result?
I love this story that Gregg Braden tells. It’s not because I love rain so much (though I do) and it’s not because I’ve been watching the East Coast struggle with the after-effects of Hurricane Irene, it’s because his story points out the power of our minds- our thoughts actually. Let me paraphrase for you:
He tells the story of his Native American friend who agrees to show him how the rain dance works. They’re out in the New Mexican or Arizonian desert and it hasn’t rained in months. Gregg watches his friend walk out a distance and expects to see him start a traditional dance. Instead his friend stands quietly for many minutes, with his face lifted toward the sky and his arms outstretched, palms upward. Nothing seems to be happening- no dancing and no rain. After a while, his friend walks back to him and Gregg asks him what just happened: “Isn’t praying for rain the purpose of the rain dance?” His friend explained: “I wasn’t praying for rain, I was praying rain.” Read more
Love heals
So, I’m looking more closely at the concept that ‘love heals.’ I’m at a place where either I need to deepen my understanding and faith that the power, or energy, of love can heal or go back to accepting western medicine’s level of healing, knowing it has limitations and side effects. As a kid I witnessed my parents’ journey with western medicine and its drugs and surgeries. Their bodies would recover to a certain degree but, even as a kid, I could see my parents could use a dose of real happiness. If laughter is the best medicine, then there was just too much stress (of The Depression, wars and the fear of survival) to have the time for philosophy or spirituality that might have led to the mindset of true happiness and health.
I’m still re-reading the classic self-help book “You Can Heal Your Life” by Louise Hay. I love that she says “When people come to me with a problem, I don’t care what it is- poor health, lack of money, unfulfilling relationships, or stifled creativity- there is only one thing I ever work on, and that is loving the self. I find that when we really love and accept and approve of ourselves exactly as we are, then everything in life works.” Read more
