READ: 5 Keys to Stay Positive in Challenging Times by Pragito Dove
December 15, 2011 by Pragito Dove
Filed under •-Feature, Health & Well-being, Insights, Meditation, Motivation, Personal Growth, Reflection, Vision
Are you having trouble staying in a positive state of mind when challenging circumstances present themselves? The Universal Laws state: so without, so within. Everything is a mirror. We cannot change the reflection, but we can change the original(ourselves),and then, automatically, the reflection changes.
Here are my top 5 Keys that can help you cultivate not only a positive mindset but also the feeling state necessary for the positive Law of Attraction. The more you focus on bringing awareness to accepting and loving yourself, the more your inner beauty and harmony is reflected in your outer circumstances. The Sufi master who designed the Taj Mahal based his work on meditation. It shows, doesn’t it?
1. Relax and Accept
Relax and accept the challenging situation. Don’t fight it because that will make it worse. The more relaxed you are, the more productive you are. Creativity arises out of a relaxed state. And it’s creativity that you need to come up with solutions to the situation you are in. Notice that I use the word “situation” and not the word “problem”. There is no such thing as a problem, only a situation. When you shift your perspective and see the situation as it is,without negative commentary, then you come up with creative solutions, and/or you find the right person to help you.
2. Watch the Mind
Make a practice of watching the thoughts of the mind with non-judgment and compassion for yourself. It is not the thoughts that are the problem, it is our identification with them, that creates stress and anxiety.
For 5 minutes a day sit with eyes closed, body relaxed, and observe the thoughts of the mind. You don’t have to censor them, or force them to be other than they are, simply observe with non-judgment, and let them pass by.
Over time, you become less identified with the thoughts, and more connected to your creativity, wisdom and clarity.
3. Create Positive Thoughts
A powerful way to undermine the influence of negative thoughts on your well being is to create a practice of saying positive thoughts to yourself. At the beginning these might seem tedious or silly, but, believe me, it works! The easiest way to break a bad habit of self-judgment and criticism is to create positive phrases that you repeat to yourself as often as possible. Even if you don’t really believe them in the beginning, say them anyway! Over time they become a habit and the negative thoughts simply dissolve.
4. Surround yourself with Positive People
Be alert to people who like to complain, bad-mouth others, and/or have a depressed outlook on life. AVOID THEM. Keep yourself in the company of positive thinking people. This is a powerful way to keep yourself in a positive energy field which will LIFT YOU, rather than bring you down. Your life is not determined by outside circumstances, but rather by how you respond to those outside circumstances.
Remember that all things are possible, there is a lot going on that is unseen to you.
The more you keep yourself on a positive vibrational level, the greater your chances of having positive outcomes to challenging situations.
5. Be Grateful, Laugh, Celebrate
Be grateful for what you have. If things are really bad, be grateful for being able to breathe, get out of bed in the morning, use your legs. Be grateful for the sunrise and sunset, for the beauty of the sky, the trees, the birds and flowers. There is always something to be grateful for. Put your focus there and celebrate what you have. Laughter is a powerful attractor factor. Seek out ways to bring more laughter into your life. You will be amazed at the miracles that occur.
Meditation: Befriending the Mind
Benefits:
When you befriend the mind you are surprised how radically life can change. It becomes much easier to disidentify from the mind’s constant chattering and see yourself, and life’s situations, with more clarity and objectivity. You see life’s dramas with perspective and compassion, and insights and understandings arise naturally.
Find ways to befriend your mind. The mind is our bridge from the subconscious to the conscious, our gateway of expression to the outer world. Be grateful for it. Find ways to appreciate the insights, understandings, and creativity it brings. See it not as an enemy but as a friend.
As this friendship with the mind deepens, your mind no longer disturbs you. You are not fighting it; you are simply letting it’s thoughts pass by.The mind and the ego want to make it complicated, but it is not. Life sings a different tune when you are not controlled by the mind. Your natural joy, spontaneity, self-acceptance, love and compassion arise quickly and easily.
Pragito Dove M.A., C.C.H. is the leading authority on Expressive Meditation in North America. Using the principles she now teaches, Pragito transformed her pain and fear into joy and inner peace. Founder of the Laughing Buddhas Network and an internationally recognized master trainer, speaker, and meditation expert, Pragito is the author of two best-selling books, Lunchtime Enlightenment (Penguin Group), and Laughter, Tears, Silence (published in six languages). She has a private practice in Northern California from where she teaches highly acclaimed programs such as the Laughter Meditation Teleclass Program Series to an international audience! Pragito’s website is: http://www.discovermeditation.com
Read more from VividLife.me bloggers:
Stress is not what you think by Ed and Deb Shapiro
Ironically, the holiday season can be most stressful time of the year. Imagine you are trying to squeeze some toothpaste out of a tube but you have forgotten to take the top off. What happens? Deb actually did this in one of her most unaware moments and the toothpaste soon found another way out through the bottom of the tube and got all over her. It will force a hole in the side or wherever is the weakest point.
How to Express Emotions in a Conscious Way by Sarita
Human emotions are an inherent part of being alive. We may try to control them, repress them or manipulate them in some way. In spite of this, they are ever present in many unpredictable ways. Emotions are a tremendous blessing if we can understand and learn from them. In a sense, they are like weather, changeable and sometimes volatile, yet ultimately seeking a dynamic balance in our life and relationships.
VividLife Recommends- Upcoming Social Media Boot Camp for Authors
December 6, 2011 by VividLife Editorial
Filed under •-Headline, Classes and Workshops, Events, Social Media
If you are an Author or are considering writing a book, then you really want to check out this upcoming webinar offered by LileStyle Productions, LLC.
It’s a Social Media Boot Camp for Authors!
Tuesday, December 20, 2011 from 2pm – 3:30pm Eastern (11am – 12:30pm Pacific)
During this webinar you will learn Why Facebook and Twitter work and how you can use them to build an audience and keep them engaged with you and your message.
Here is an overview of the presentation:
1. Understanding how people interact with Facebook.
2. Why Facebook works to drive engagement with your message.
3. A brief tutorial about setting up your Facebook Page.
4. Understanding how people interact with Twitter.
5. Why Twitter works to drive engagement with your message.
6. What’s with Google+ and whether you should be putting yourself there.
7. Why it’s important to listen to social media.
8. Learn how to use promotions and advertising to build up a following.
Click Here to Learn More=====>
About your Presenter:
When Angie Lile was in the second grade, she was constantly writing sentences during recess time…
“I shall not talk in class”
“I shall not talk in class”
“I shall not talk in class”
Even at a young age she was embracing her love for communicating messages. It’s no surprise that Angie has found her way into the hearts of some of the world’s most profound spiritual authors which have given her the responsibility of amplifying their messages to people all over the world.
Using the video skills she acquired from the New York-based Food Network coupled with her years of social media expertise, Angie has grown her business to include many more writers, while she continues to expand on her social media training.
Each year Angie attends Social Media Seminars led by the World’s most successful Social Media leaders in Industry Marketing. She has learned Twitter tactics from Guy Kowasaki and some really great Facebook strategies from the experts who handle Hallmark, Southwest Airlines and Sprint.
Many hours are spent each day pouring over social media news about trends and disasters, making her a literal Maven on the subject. All of her friends agree that if you mention Social Media in Angie’s presence, you might not get her to shut up!
Along with managing accounts for several authors and for VividLife.me, Angie has provided Social Media advice to some of the world’s top Authors including: Neale Donald Walsch, Author of Conversations with God and other New York Times best-selling books; Hay House Author Doreen Virtue who has written over 20 books about Angels and Spirituality; and Ghost Whisperer’s Producer and World Famous Medium, James Van Praagh just to name a few.
Here is what Neale Donald Walsch has to say about Angie’s expertise:
“Angie Lile knows the Social Media world inside and out, making it not necessary for me to. I have been able to focus on my life’s work, knowing I’ve got Angie behind me. Using the combined tools of CWG’s wonderful insights and Angie’s remarkable expertise, a wide and continuously enlarging audience has been able to be satisfied in their search for this message. When I was young, those with something to say had to find their audience. Today our audience is trying to find us. Angie’s genius is to render my message easily findable and visually accessible. All I have to do is source the material. For me this is heaven, because I don’t want to have to know all that Angie knows in order to get done all that I want to get done. Do you suppose that ‘Angie” is short for ‘Angel’?”
Click Here to Learn More=====>
READ: Online Bullying
October 31, 2011 by Grace Ste. Croix
Filed under •-Headline, Conscious Parenting, Insights, Leadership, Parenting tips, Reflection
The positive uses of social media technology are vast. People are able to get in touch with old friends, increase and advertise their small businesses and connect with others. Both professionally and personally, social media technology has offered endless outcomes for adults. However, students today are growing up around social media technology. It is not a phenomenon as it is for many adults, but a way of life. Despite age requirements and rules, many children join social media groups to connect with their friends to access information. The once school yard brawl has now taken to the internet, where children and teens do not exchange blows but publically fight with one another over social media technology. Hurtful texts, instant messages and emails have been a problem for so many families. Bullying has taken on its own evolution to the internet; an evolution that parents should be aware of.
At one point in time, a school yard bully would harass children before and after school. The behaviour of the bully is inexcusable and the bullied child would run home, into the safety net of the house. The bullying would cease until the next day. The bullied child had a break. Today, there is no temporary sanctuary. With the connection of text messaging, Facebook, and twitter, teens and children can easily access and alter each other’s information and continue the bullying while the child is at home. Mean texts, photo shopping pictures to put the child in an embarrassing photo, or harassing emails are just some of the ways that bullying is a twenty four hour a day action.
Bullying is instant. Before the internet, gossip took its time to spread around the school. One had a chance to fix the problem or quash the rumors. Now, a simple text to each student spreads rumors instantaneously. Bullied children are depressed, often turning to their parents for help. Parents who grew up in a pre-internet world may not understand that the bullying does not end in the school yard, but is constant and that online attacks are a permanent, searchable fixture. Harsh words and horrible gossip can never be forgotten as it festers on the internet.
The internet and social media technology has produced so many positive results. However, schools should take the time to explain to students the severity of their words. Words, typed or said can be vicious. It is the unfortunate truth that suicide from online bullying is on the rise. If students are aware of the dangers of online bullying and respecting each other’s privacy, perhaps a few lives are saved. It is integral for parents to keep informed about social media technology. By keeping up to speed, parents will have a better understanding what sites their children are joining and how important it is to teach your children to respect each other. They do not have to like each other or agree with each other but respect the fact that information can be distorted and spread to strangers. By educating ourselves, we can help our children to use the internet positively to connect with each other.
READ: What’s In Your Name?
October 28, 2011 by Gangaji
Filed under •-Feature, Classes and Workshops, Enlightenment, Health & Well-being, Insights, Motivation, Personal Growth, Reflection, Spiritual teachers, Spirituality
A revealing exercise was discovered with a group of people interested in living freely, unencumbered by past definitions of themselves. When a person said her own name and then said what that name meant to her, self-definitions from childhood were exposed. Usually, if not always, these definitions of themselves were negative to at least some degree. Even if names had been changed, the old name still had hidden power, and hidden power is the most insidious. Many of these intelligent, bright, aware adults were carrying old burdens of negative self-identification within them. When a friend repeated the question, “What is your name and what does it mean?” layers of excess mental and emotional baggage could be recognized and dropped.
Naming is an extremely useful aspect of human intelligence. With naming we are able to make important distinctions. Distinctions are necessary for our survival, as well as mental and emotional growth and well being. With more sophisticated naming we develop more subtle and sophisticated distinctions. But great powers often come with a high cost. As we develop our ability to make distinctions and generate names, we usually lose sight of the connection between things.
And this is a tragic loss, a loss that generates dissatisfaction, restlessness and worse.
Names accumulate meanings associated with their owners. Over time, derogatory meanings can become embedded in our self-identification. We begin to believe that we are what our names, or labels, say we are. Even if we rebel against them, our names can seem like a kind of map of our persona, a map that defines how we are separate from others.
In the willingness to inquire into one’s own name, and with that inquiry the willingness to face unpleasant feelings, there arises the possibility to see through the name. We can see that the name has no substance by itself. We can see the unreality of the name per se, while the reality of oneself remains constant.
How burdensome these labels and distinctions are finally. All along didn’t you know your name didn’t describe who you are? And yet we spend much of life trying to accept a name as the symbol of our identity, or rebelling against one name and taking another in hopes that perhaps the new name will be a true description of ourselves. Some of us take animal spirit names, we accept names from our gurus (I did), and we have secret, special lover-given names that feel more like a fit for us. But if we tell the truth, no name can contain our true identity. Once we stop trying to name ourselves, and others, there is an obvious yet thrilling discovery. We are not actually discrete from one another, or from the “mountain” or “the ocean” or “the sky” or any other part of our universe. What were important distinctions for survival and power aren’t needed at all in self-reflection.
As Alfred Korzybski pointed out eighty years ago, “The map is not the territory.” If you only know the map you won’t experience the territory. If we try to fit ourselves, and others, into maps and labels, we will miss the essential thrill of being aware of ourselves as inseparable from all life forms.
Why not try this game with a friend? One of you asks the other, “What is your name and what does it mean.” Repeat this question for ten minutes or so before switching roles. When you are asking the question, be sure to include nicknames, and even hateful names you have been called. You can discover for yourself if you want to keep carrying around any old heavy baggage associated with any name at all.
Gangaji will present her new book, Hidden Treasure: Uncovering the Truth in Your Life Story, at a weekend retreat in the San Francisco Bay Area on October 29-30. In November and December she will hold retreats and weekends in Australia and New Zealand. Read more about Gangaji’s events and catalog of books and videos online. You can also join Gangaji in monthly Webcast / Conference Series which will begin an in depth study of Hidden Treasure in November.
READ: The Hidden Power of Belief
September 29, 2011 by Chris
Filed under •-Feature, Insights, Inspired Business, Law of Attraction, Law of Attraction, Meditation, Metaphysical, Motivation, Personal Growth, Social Entrepreneurship, Social Media, Spiritual Guidance, Spiritual teachers
Your Beliefs Create Your Reality
The first thing that we know about ‘beliefs’ is that you create your reality within the parameter of the beliefs that you hold within your own consciousness. This is a fancy way of saying that all of the beliefs that you hold, mostly unconsciously, create a window through which you create a constrained and limited version of yourself. Some people may argue that they are creating exactly what they want with no limitation, but this is usually the minority and many of these individuals simply do not like to be told that they have limiting beliefs. The truth is that everyone does. The power is in becoming aware of this fact.
Here is the trick; every single belief is ultimately a limitation in your consciousness. That’s right, a limitation. A belief is formed to help you cope with reality as it is, not reality as you want it to be. In other words you create, take on, or accept beliefs because you are (at the time) unable to create your own reality exactly the way you want it to be.
For instance, you may have dreams of running a business, being an actor, flying an airplane, or being an entrepreneur. However, unconsciously within you is instilled the belief that you need to get a college degree in order to become anyone of worth. So, either one of two things happen. Either a) You go get the degree only to find out that it doesn’t necessarily mean that your life goes exactly the way you want it to (because you encounter other beliefs along the way) or b) You don’t get the college degree and subsequently sabotage yourself via the fact that your worth is subconsciously associated with whether you do have a college degree or not. Now, you have one unconscious strike against you that is registered in your subconscious mind saying, “I am less worthy and less likely to succeed because I do not have a college degree.”
Knowing who you are
Most of us just aren’t born knowing who we are and what we want to do in life. What happens to people along the way, especially for those of us who aren’t born knowing what we want to do, is that we begin to absorb more and more beliefs into our psyche. We read studies, watch documentaries, and read books that portray limited versions of ourselves. We continue to absorb all of this disinformation into our psyche until we get to the point where we firmly believe that life is a certain way. Eventually it gets to the point where we are looking to outside sources to tell us who we are.
At this point, we no longer know who we are. Instead of the childlike innocence of creative imagination, we have a strict, limited version of how our reality is supposed to be. Worse, now we rely upon the very sources of disinformation that put us here to continue to guide us through our now, very limited reality.
Every time you rely upon a ‘study’ to tell you who you are you are in the process of giving away your personal power. I’ll tell you right now that no one and I mean NO ONE who ever became famous or incredibly rich did so by conforming to the mass consensus beliefs on the subject. In fact, most of these people are those who made their own rules and lived outside of the box, way outside the box.
When you begin to realize the power of who you are and that you hold to create your own life then you will begin to see the futility in prescribing to mass consciousness beliefs. All mass consciousness beliefs are constrictive and limiting.
Pay attention to that which you wish to become
In life we are constantly bombarded via the media with massive amounts of limiting ideas and beliefs. Big pharmaceutical companies pay for massive amounts of advertising to insert fear based beliefs about made up diseases into the consciousness of the people of the planet. Big oil companies pay hundreds of millions of dollars to insert belief systems about different companies and types of gas that are better for the environment. Fast food companies pay out massive sums of money to insert the belief that certain types of food are supposed to be a cultural way of life.
How many beliefs are really yours?
Have you ever wondered that? How many beliefs that you have in your consciousness did you actually consciously choose to accept as your belief? Probably around 1% of them; the other 99% were inserted subconsciously. I’m sorry to have to say that to you, but it is most likely more true than anyone knows.
Sow what do we do?
Pay attention to what you are paying attention to. That’s a good first step. In other words, do you automatically turn on the TV when you get home? If so then you are probably being programmed to a certain degree. However, if you turn on the television with a specific show in mind, then you are less likely to be programmed. Any television viewing has limited, subconscious programming involved. However, the more conscious your choice is in what you watch and why, the less likely chance you will have of being subconsciously programmed.
If you are a regular purchaser of fast foods then it is quite possible that you are doing so because you have been programmed to. I’m not judging you for the fact as we have all been subjected to massive amounts of programming that are designed to create unconscious beliefs within our subconscious. Rather, I’m saying that it is time to take back your mind. Part of the taking back is waking up to what you are doing and why you are doing it.
Meditation
For those of you who know me know what my number one cure for just about everything is, especially limiting beliefs. Meditation has been a tried and true technique for thousands of years in its ability to help you take back the power of your own mind. Meditation, done consistently, can help you to get to the root of your limiting beliefs deep within your subconscious mind. From consistent meditation you will be able to, slowly but surely, unravel the layers of beliefs, ideas, and emotional patterning that has been serving to keep you rooted in the same reality over and over again.
Meditation has the ability to begin to deconstruct the limited version of reality that you have been projecting out upon the world and thus living. With consistent meditation you will begin to notice that, over time, your reality almost appears to physically deconstruct itself, resulting in something new that you have never experienced before. But, it takes time and the commitment to change, the commitment to become a conscious creator. That time is yours to spend however you want to, but I ask you to consider who’s mind your mind belongs to…
Christopher A. Pinckley
Author of Reality Creation 101
