Is “Working Your Joy” Your Next Step?

Posted on February 17, 2012 by

It’s interesting how certain dates stick in your mind even years after the event.  The date of December 6, 1992 was a turning point for me. On that evening I attended a lecture at Unity Center in Walnut Creek, CA given by Matthew Fox entitled, “The Spirituality of Work.” In that talk Matt said, “If everyone worked their joy, there would be no unemployment on this earth. So when you are looking for your work, the work that you came to this planet to do, meditate on what brings you joy, crystallize it in your heart, build your work around it, and the universe will support you 100 percent.”

Those words resonated within my heart. I knew I was not working my joy. For over 5 years I had been working long hours in an extremely stressful environment that had begun to destroy my mental, physical and emotional health. But I continued to work there because it offered me “security” in the form of a relatively good paycheck twice a month. And, of course, that is what working is all about–security and a paycheck–right?

I could not get Matthew’s words out of my mind and at the same time I felt I could not just up and quit my job. So, I thought that maybe a compromise would work. I decided to ask my boss if I could work a 4-day work week. I would work 40 hours in those 4 days so that I would still be giving the office a “full” work week and at the same time give myself an “extra” day to “work my joy” (which I had not yet crystallized in my heart). On December 8th I approached my boss with my request and told him that this was so important to me that I would forego the raise I had coming if he would grant me this request. He said he would think about it.

On Christmas Eve I was called into my boss’s office for my annual review, my bonus check and my raise. He handed me my bonus and dismissed me. I was a little surprised that he hadn’t offered me a raise because I knew I had one coming, so I thought, “Well, he must be at least thinking about my 4-day work week request.”  So, as I was leaving his office, I turned and asked him if he had made a decision about my request. He gave me a blank look and then dismissively waved his hand and said, “Oh, I haven’t given it a thought.”

Something inside of me snapped at his response.  I turned away from his office door and walked back to his desk. Standing in front of his desk, I looked down at him and said, “I have thought of little else since I made my request. And, if you had said, ‘Carol, there is no way I can give you a 4-day work week right now, we are so busy,’ I would have understood, because we are busier than we have ever been in this office. However, if you had said, ‘OK, let’s give it a try,’ that wouldn’t have worked. Knowing you the way I know you, you would have had an emergency on my day off and you would have called me to come in and if I wasn’t available you would have made me feel guilty, and pretty soon I would have been back to working the hours I’m currently working. So, that wouldn’t have worked. However, based on you ‘not giving it a thought’ (and I waved my hand in the same dismissive manner that he had) you have my resignation.”

You could have heard a pin drop in the room as the full realization of what I had just done hit me.  Believe me, I had not gone to work on Christmas Eve with the intention of resigning my job. I had no money in the bank and was $30,000 in debt. So when those words came out of my mouth I literally jumped out of my body as I thought, “Who’s talking for me!” My boss looked at me in stunned disbelief and said incredulously, “WHAT?”

I found this voice coming from deep within me calmly saying, “You are eating me alive and I will no longer sell my soul to this company.”

His eyes drilled through me as he asked, “What are you going to do?!”

“I have no idea,” I said. “I don’t have another job. All I know is that it’s going to be something spiritual.”

Well, when those words came out of my mouth, I KNEW someone was talking for me because I had never even thought those words.

My boss was equally shocked as he literally sputtered, “SPIRITUAL!?!?”

Get the picture. This was an engineering firm and about as removed from a spiritual environment as one could get. Squinting his eyes at me he asked, “When are you planning to do this?”

Not having intended to resign at all, I had not quite thought that through, so I said the first thing that came to mind, “On my birthday. You have six weeks.”

With that, I walked out of his office and drove home, my mind racing with all the ramifications of what I had just done. On one level, I felt a degree of intense panic and yet on another level I found myself to be extremely calm and centered.  It was really a weird dynamic.

In those days, I used to read Tarot as a hobby and had been in the practice of drawing a card every morning from the Medicine Woman deck. For some reason that morning I had neglected to pull a card. So, guess what I did when I got home? I spread out the deck, carefully pulled a card and looked it up in the guidebook that came with the deck. The book indicated that the card meant: “You have long sought your freedom and today you have achieved it.” Smiling as a wave of relief seemed to wash over me, I thought, “Well, that’s a good sign.”

The day after Christmas I met a man who invited me to attend a 24 hour meditation on New Year’s Eve. I accepted that invitation and in between Christmas and New Year’s I began to meditate on what brings me joy, because I hadn’t crystallized that in my heart and I knew I didn’t have much time. What came to me is that healing work brings me joy. But I knew I could never be a healer until I healed myself. I had always hated my body. Ever since I was a little girl I had wished I had a different body and I knew I had to resolve that before I could ever be a healer.

So at that 24 hour meditation on New Year’s Eve, I prayed for a tool that would bring body, mind and spirit into alignment, a tool that would enable me to love me just the way I was. What came out of that meditation is the process I’ve come to call “Lighten Up.” That easy 5 minute a day process transformed my life in so many ways.

My last day on that job was February 12. On January 23 I met a woman who asked me to co-partner a new healing center, the Reunion Center of Light. I agreed and we opened the center on March 1, 1993. It started out with 3 rooms and 4 practitioners and grew to 9 rooms and 30 practitioners within 8 months. I began to do my healing work (Reiki) out of the Center. I also expanded my Macintosh consulting and training business.

As I continued to do the Lighten Up process on myself, people began to ask me to teach them the process. I began teaching classes in September of 1993. When I met Victor in 1994, he joined Reunion Center and attended my class. (I required all our new practitioners to attend a complimentary class because I definitely wanted everyone on our staff to love themselves!) Soon Victor and I were a couple and he began teaching the class with me. In the summer of 1995 we started traveling together around the country teaching it.

I am so very grateful to Matthew Fox for reaching into my heart in such a powerful way. He gave me the courage to take the risk I needed to take in order to experience the freedom and empowerment of being in alignment with my Divine purpose.

Several years later I had an opportunity to thank Matt in person when I attended another one of his talks. During the Q&A I raised my hand and told him that as a result of his lecture in 1992 I had quit my job. When I said that, he put his hand on his heart and took a step backward.  I then assured him that it was the best thing that ever happened to me and I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank him.

A little while later someone in the audience asked, “Matthew, what is your definition of sin?”  Matt paused for a moment before answering.  Then he said, “Sin is when you see your next step and don’t take it.  This woman,” he said, pointing to me, “saw her next step.  If she hadn’t taken it, THAT would have been a sin.”

 

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Seven Easy Tools for Achieving Inner Peace

Posted on February 16, 2012 by

Today I am focusing on ways you can achieve inner peace.  Even if you add just one of these practices to your  daily routine, it will make a difference in your life.  I’d love to hear from you about any changes you have experienced in adding one or more of these rituals to your life. So, please post your comments below!

1. Meditate Daily, Even If It’s Only for 5 Minutes

When we take the time to bring ourselves into a quiet sacred space with Spirit, we open ourselves to Grace and unlimited possibilities. Just 5 minutes a day can make a difference in how we move through our day. Some meditation techniques are included below:

  • Breathe:  Consciously bring your attention to your breath. Respiration and Inspiration both have their root in “spirit”.  Use your breath to “re-spirit” your body and “in-spire” your  mind.
  • Light a Candle: Begin to focus your attention on the flame, letting your mind drift into a quiet oneness with the candle.  Remember to breathe.
  • Invoke Spirit Through Prayer:  This  can be as simple as asking to be brought into a state of peace and  harmony.
  • Read from a Sacred Book: This can help set the tone and inspire you during your quiet reflective time.
  • Journal your thoughts in a notebook.

2. Add Some Silent Time To Your Life Every Day

In addition to meditation, I suggest you take every opportunity to consciously add some silence to your life. The world we live in is inundated with sound and noise and it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to experience true silence. Taking a walk in the woods is ideal, but not everyone has the time or the opportunity to do that. So, I have found it helpful to create silent times during my everyday activities. One of my favorite silent times is driving in my car. Instead of turning on the radio or listening to music, I drive in silence and open myself up to my inner creative voice that can easily be heard when I consciously create the environment.

3. Begin To Eliminate Negativity From Your Life

A good way to start is by filtering your exposure to the so-called “News.” The media sensationalizes and feeds us a diet of fear-based reports. When we continually expose ourselves to this type of negativity, it begins to affect our attitudes about ourselves and our environment. An easy way to begin is to join the World Peace Experiment by agreeing to say “Only Love Prevails” each time you hear a negative report in the news or when you perceive a negative event occurring. This sends positive energy to a perceived negative event and also puts you in a non-judgmental observer role. Sign up for the World Peace Experiment at onlyloveprevails.org. It’s free. It’s easy. It takes only minutes a day! It will help you attain inner peace. The outer is merely a reflection of the inner. Peace in the world can only be attained when enough of us (critical mass) reach a state of inner peace.

4. Start Using Your MUTE Button on Commercials

Become aware of the impact of “manipulative advertising” on your self-esteem. No matter what they’re selling, these types of commercials all have the same underlying message, “You are not good enough unless you buy this product”. This message is delivered directly to our unconscious with highly sophisticated techniques. Use your “mute” button during commercials and limit your exposure to these disempowering messages.

5. Pay Attention To Your Thoughts

Our thoughts create our reality. Consciously start paying attention to any negative or limiting thought that crosses your mental screen and when you spot them, ask that they be transformed. My Free Yourself from Fear booklet explains this simple process in detail and can be printed out without charge at openheartpress.com.

6. Clear Yourself Often

Use any method that works for you to clear yourself from negative or low energy. The process I use is the Rainbow Clearing Process (see end of post). Often we take on energy from others as we move through our day. Your goal is to stay in your own energy. The Rainbow Clearing Process can be used easily to remove energy that is not yours.

7. Develop An Attitude of Gratitude

An easy way to start consciously shifting into gratitude is by silently reciting a litany of things for which you are thankful every time something happens to upset you (i.e., I am thankful for my beautiful family, for my health, for my loving friends, etc.) You will immediately find yourself lifted out of the limiting emotional energy of anger into a state of gratitude and grace.

RAINBOW CLEARING PROCESS

This 2-step process can be used to clear yourself of energy that is not yours.  I use it after a session with a client so that I am clear for my next client. I use it whenever I’ve been in a large gathering, whenever I feel an emotion that seems to come “out of the blue” or whenever I’m tired for no apparent reason.

The purpose of the process is to get yourself back into your own energy.  Anyone who works with the public naturally takes on energy from others whether you’re a bartender, a beautician, a teacher, a banker, a retail clerk or a healer.  It is important to have a way to keep ourselves clear.  This is a very simple way to do that.

Step 1:  Visualize a rainbow colored shaft of light coming out of the sky into the top of your head and spreading throughout your body, filling every cell with rainbow light until your whole body radiates rainbow light. (This may take a minute or two in the beginning to visualize, but as your body gets acquainted with the process, soon it will take only a few seconds to fill yourself with rainbow light.)

Step 2: Choose for yourself a symbol of safety and protection and surround yourself with it.  Your shield can be anything — a powerful animal, an angel, a geometrical shape such as a pyramid or a sphere, etc. With your symbol in place you are now protected from taking on additional negative energy.
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The World Needs You to Love Yourself

Posted on February 14, 2012 by

It’s Valentine’s Day – the day of love – a day when we send greetings of love to those who are near and dear to our hearts. For me, Valentine’s Day holds an additional significance because it is also my birthday. I’ve always felt blessed to have been born on Valentine’s Day and as I’ve grown older and look back on my life, I feel that it is no accident that my life’s work for nearly 20 years has revolved around teaching people the importance of loving themselves.

I first started my journey into self-love in 1992 and my whole world changed. I quit a corporate job that I hated; I opened an alternative healing center with a friend; I developed a workshop called “Lighten Up” to teach people the importance of loving themselves and how to achieve that state; I manifested the man of my dreams and together we started giving workshops throughout the country. The ripple effect of loving myself has, for me, been the manifestation of a healthier, more peaceful, abundant and fulfilled life. The ripple effect is different for everyone who starts on the journey of self-love, but it is without a doubt one of the most important journeys anyone can take.

But why is it so difficult for some of us to love ourselves? I feel that the seed was probably planted in early childhood, not necessarily on purpose. Our parents may not have loved themselves and therefore did not have the capability or the wisdom to teach this concept to their children. If a child is raised by parents who don’t love themselves, then that child had no role model to emulate this ideal. Add to the mix the hundreds of messages we are bombarded with daily by the advertising media selling us on the idea that we’re not good enough just the way we are — that we need this product or that service to feel good about ourselves.

In addition to the above, I feel that our addiction to watching and listening to the news plays a significant role. When we allow ourselves to be bombarded by negative news it is truly difficult to feel good about ourselves and the world we live in. My prescription for curing this ailment is to go on a news fast for a couple of weeks to help accelerate the process of learning to love yourself. During those weeks, give up reading traditional newspapers, news websites, news email lists, listening to the news on the radio, and watching the news on TV. Instead, feed yourself during your news fast with sources that report positive news.  There are many of these and I provide links to some of them at the end of this post.

The lyrics in this old Johnny Mercer song I remember from my early childhood cleverly delivers the message:

You’ve got to accentuate the positive,
Eliminate the negative,
And latch on to the affirmative,
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between.
You’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum,
Bring gloom down to the minimum,
Have faith or pandemonium’s,
Liable to walk upon the scene.

I would venture to say that many of us feel that pandemonium reigns in many parts of the world right now. Could it be that the amount of unrest in the world is the result of a lack of love? A Course in Miracles tells us that there are only two emotions: Love and Fear. Fear, is defined as anything that is NOT love – for instance, agitation, anxiety, dread, anger, rage, hatred, animosity, revenge, frustration, annoyance, exasperation, aggravation, disempowerment – and the list goes on…. The Course also tells us that only love is REAL – that fear is an illusion, something that we have made up.

To me, then, the message is clear:
If we choose love, we eliminate fear.

But why does the World Need Us to Love OURSELVES? Wouldn’t it be just enough if we loved others? First of all, it’s impossible to truly love others if you don’t love yourself. You can’t give from an empty well. If you are not filled with love of yourself, you cannot give love to others. Secondly, when we begin to love ourselves, we then open the door to being able to tap into an inner peace that perhaps was unavailable to us before. In that loving place of inner peace our love radiates out to others around us. Thirdly, loving ourselves helps create a peaceful world. Think of how different our world would be if everyone loved themselves and that love rippled out in all directions. Would we be fighting wars?

World peace is an inside job.
It begins when enough of us reach a state of inner peace.
To reach that place of inner peace,
the first step is to love yourself.

The world needs you to love yourself!! So, as you are sending your valentines today, please remember to send a valentine for yourself FIRST! It is your opportunity to begin the journey of helping to change the world by giving yourself the greatest love of all – unconditional love of yourself!

Links to Positive News Websites:
HappyNews.com
GoodNewsNetwork.org
OptimistWorld.com/News.aspx
Gimundo.com/news
Only-Positive-News.com
DailyGood.org
Upbeat.net
PositiveNewsUS.org
PositiveNews.org.UK

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Dissolving Clouds: A Story of Manifestation

Posted on February 13, 2012 by

This story took place in 2004.  Victor and I were sitting on a BART train that had stopped temporarily to repair a problem on the track. We were returning from San Francisco where we had just completed a meeting with an attorney who had agreed to file corporation papers on our behalf to start a new company we were forming with two other partners. He had informed us that it would take 3-7 days to get the paperwork filed and back from the State. Because we had contracts to sign with another company in a couple of days, we needed the corporation papers completed within 2-3 days.  The attorney said he’d try but couldn’t give us any guarantees that the paperwork could be expedited.

There we sat on the stalled BART train, Victor reading a book while I stared out the window. The day was bright and sunny with lots of wispy clouds forming intricate shapes against the azure sky. I sat looking out the window remembering a book I had read many years ago called Illusions by Richard Bach. I smiled as I recalled his description of how his teacher taught him to dissolve clouds.

After reading that book I became fascinated by the idea of dissolving clouds. Back in 1996 Victor and I had taken an 8-week road trip traveling from the West Coast to the East Coast and back again, presenting workshops around the country. Eight weeks is a long time to be in a car so I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to begin honing my skills at dissolving clouds. I found that if I picked out a small cloud and kept it in my field of vision, focusing ONLY on that cloud while thinking “dissolve, dissolve, dissolve…” it would begin dissolving right before my eyes. The more I practiced the easier it got. Soon I was dissolving clouds on command without any effort whatsoever.

These memories made me smile and since I had nothing else to do while sitting on the stalled BART train, I decided to start dissolving some clouds. I had successfully dissolved about three clouds when I said to Victor, “Well, I haven’t lost my knack at dissolving clouds. I just dissolved three of them.”

Peering over his reading glasses, he looked up from his book and said, “It sure would be great if you could figure out a way to use that skill of yours on something practical.” We both laughed and he went back to reading.

I sat there thinking about what he had said. What WAS the energy that I was using to dissolve clouds? How could that energy be used to produce something practical?

As I was pondering these and similar questions, the train began to move. As we sped by the countryside, I tried once again to focus on a cloud to dissolve. Now that we were moving, however, I found it impossible to do because the trees we were whizzing past were breaking up my field of vision and I could not focus my energy on an individual cloud. I closed my eyes and thought about the whole process of dissolving clouds. What did it entail? Focusing, without any distractions, all my energy on ONE chosen cloud with a laser-like intent of thought… dissolve, dissolve, dissolve….

There must be a way to use that energy to produce a practical result. The more I thought about it, I began to realize that dissolving clouds was actually a manifestation technique. It worked when there were no distractions interrupting my focused energy. What if I were to use the same type of focused energy to create a picture of something I wished to manifest? Would that work?

Victor and I have been meditating together every morning since 1995. The next morning during our meditation time, I suggested that we add a ritual to our meditation. Just before we say our prayers and go into our silent time, what if we decide between us to focus on one thing we both would like to manifest and during our silent time we each would hold a focused energy on a predetermined picture of the completed manifestation? Since we had just been to the attorney the day before and the corporation papers were both something we wanted to manifest in an expedient manner, we decided that we would focus on a picture of receiving an email from the attorney stating that our papers had been filed and approved. The email would include an attachment of our filed and approved paperwork. We both could picture what that would look like.

We began our meditation holding the vision and focusing our energy on the picture of the email with the attachment. This lasted perhaps about 3 minutes. After our meditation we continued our day as usual and both of us actually forgot about the manifestation process we had engaged in that morning.

At 5:00 that afternoon I checked my email and saw that I had received an email from the attorney. The subject line read: “Articles of Incorporation” and I could see before I opened it that it included an attachment.”

I clicked on the email and smiled when I read:

“2idi Corporation was incorporated in California effective yesterday, September 20, 2004. I have attached a copy of your endorsed-filed Articles of Incorporation (certified today).”

The attorney had been able to get the corporation papers filed and approved by the State in less than one day!! We received the email exactly as we had envisioned it within 9 hours of our meditation! Both Victor and I were in awe!

The following day we were facing a challenging meeting with an investor. We decided that during our meditation we would hold the picture of everyone at the conclusion of the meeting smiling and feeling that we had reached a win-win for all concerned. I’m happy to report that the meeting turned out exactly as we had visualized. And, I realized that I had found a practical use for my cloud dissolving skills! I encourage you to give it a try, and then post your experience on this blog!

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A Gift in Every Experience: Alice Herz-Sommer Interview

Posted on February 12, 2012 by

A while ago I posted an article about Finding the Gift in Every Experience.  The video interview that I am attaching here goes so far beyond my slight, by comparison, inconvenience and yet the message is the same.

Alice Herz-Sommer, an accomplished pianist and a Nazi concentration camp survivor, was born in Prague in 1903 along with her twin sister, Mariana.  In this wonderful interview conducted by Anthony Robbins, she explains, at the age of 108, how she looks on her experience in the concentration camp as a gift and credits her long life to being born optimistic.  At the age of 104 she published a bestselling book: A Garden of Eden in Hell.

“Hatred eats the soul of the hater, not the hated.”
~ Alice Herz-Sommer

Enjoy the video!

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World Peace Experiment: Why 90,000?

Posted on February 11, 2012 by

When Victor and I were inspired to start the World Peace Experiment in 1996 the world population was estimated to reach 6.4 billion in a few years. Our goal was to reach 80,000 participants by start of the new millennium.  At that time we received many inquiries as to how we came up with the figure of 80,000 people. Here was our explanation given in 1996:

Physicists tell us that according to the laws of wave mechanics, the intensity of any kind of waves that are in phase with each other is the square of the sum of the waves. In other words, two waves added together are four times as intense as one wave, ten waves are one hundred times as intense, etc.

Since thought is an energy, and all energy occurs as waves – we believe that 80,000 people all thinking the same thing together are as powerful, in terms of creating the reality that we all share, as the random chaotic thought of the 6.4 billion people (80,000 times 80,000) that will soon inhabit the planet.

Therefore, 80,000 people who believe that only love prevails, will create a laser of intent that will change the planetary reality.

Well, we didn’t reach our projected goal by 2001.  In fact here we are in 2012 and still have not reached our goal.  Yet, we haven’t given up on the idea.  However, since the world population has now exceeded over seven billion people, we found that we needed to change the formula for achieving our goal.  Therefore, we are now attempting to recruit 90,000 people to engage in this consciousness shifting process that we hope to achieve by 2020 (or before).  Why 90,000?  The same explanation applies as before but now with updated numbers:

Thought is an energy, and all energy occurs as waves. Therefore, we hope to prove that 90,000 people all thinking the same thing together are as powerful, in terms of creating the reality we all share, as are the random chaotic thoughts of a little over eight billion people who are projected to inhabit the planet by 2020.

Therefore, 90,000 people who believe that only love prevails, will create a laser of intent that can shift consciousness and change the planetary reality — a reality that “only love prevails.”

Click here for more information about the
World Peace Experiment and how to participate.

To by-pass the explanation and go straight to the sign up page, click here.

This project is being grown by those who believe that we can achieve world peace through a consciousness shift. If you are one of those people, please share this project far and wide.

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Let Your Heart Be Your Guide

Posted on February 9, 2012 by

There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few that will catch your heart... pursue thhose.Today’s quote of the day by author Michael Nolan is one of my favorites.  With so many things these days vying for our attention, how easy it is to be drawn in many different directions that often leave us feeling overwhelmed, fragmented and disempowered.

One thing I’ve learned to do when an idea or opportunity presents itself is to check in with my heart to see if it produces a feeling of joy and then to notice if it makes my body feel energized. If the idea or opportunity passes both these tests, then I know that it deserves my attention.  If it doesn’t pass these tests it doesn’t necessarily mean it is a bad idea — it is just an idea that is not right for me at this time in my life.

By following this rule, I find that I can keep myself in a joyous state of personal empowerment and avoid feeling overwhelmed.

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The Harmonious Continuum of Giving and Receiving

Posted on February 8, 2012 by

No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted. -Aesop

Giving & Receiving Continuum

I learned a valuable lesson many years ago from a young college student who worked as an intern in my office at a local college. Several of us in the office were working late one evening to meet a dead­line when this student looked at his watch and said, “Ohmygod! It’s ten o’clock and I haven’t done my good deed yet today.”  Heading for the door he called over his shoulder, “I’ll be right back.”

None of us knew what he was talking about, so when he returned a few minutes later, we were all curious to know about this “good deed” thing.  He explained how his father had taught him to do an anonymous good deed every day and how he had been doing so since he was a young child.

“It can be anything, big or small,” he said, “but the important thing to remember is your good deed must be done anonymously.”

We asked the student if it wasn’t sometimes difficult to “find” good deeds to perform.  He said he was so attuned to looking for opportunities to do good deeds, he never had any problem finding them.

He went on to give us some examples of good deeds — picking up and properly disposing of litter, holding the door open for an elderly person, giving anonymously to a charity, dropping off magazines at a nursing home, helping a stranded motorist, shoveling the walk for a neighbor, calling the local municipal authorities to report a roadway hazard or, if possible, removing the hazard yourself.  The key is to do the deed without letting anyone know you are doing it!

I asked him how he could do something for someone who was the recipient of his kindness without them knowing he was the one who had done the good deed. He smiled and said, “Well, you don’t have to tell them your name.  You just do the deed and if they insist on wanting to compensate you in some way, you simply tell them to “pay it forward by doing a good deed for someone else.”  When we asked him what he had just done tonight, he smiled and said, “Well, if I told you, then it wouldn’t be anonymous, would it?”

This incident happened many years ago and I’ve never forgotten the lesson this young man taught me.  It was actually a version of the now famous mantra: “Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” Since then I have not been as diligent about doing an anonymous good deed every day, but I do them often.  I have found the mere act of doing something good for someone or for the planet without anyone knowing fills me with a child-like inner joy.

A Course in Miracles tells us, “the cost of giving is receiving.” I have thus come to understand, whenever we give from our heart without expectation of reward, we always experience a positive energy exchange.  Giving is, therefore, the same as receiving — and the more we give, the more we receive. I like to imagine the joy we could create in the world if everyone opened up to the harmonious continuum of giving and receiving.

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Building Bridges to Find the Common Ground

Posted on February 7, 2012 by

We will always meet people who come from a different point of view. It is my belief that it’s important to keep an open mind and try to find common ground. This blog post illustrates how I did this when I received the following email from a person who had registered to participate in the World Peace Experiment. After registering he had followed a link to my personal website where I have a great deal of information about my political views.  Here is what he wrote:

“The “onlyloveprevails” site was so good and I liked your prayers, etc. that I submitted my name along with my wife’s to make the 80,000. Then I went to your site and found something completely different (I guess I shouldn’t have gone to the Politics page first). I am a supporter of the president AND of peace, but all I saw on that page was leftist propaganda garbage that did not seem to come from someone who meditates from the Course in Miracles. I hope someday you rise above duality consciousness and really represent a peace movement. I am not there yet either which is why the Politics page struck a bad chord. Peace, Lee”

I responded with the following:

Dear Lee:

Thank you for your email and for your heartfelt observations about my CarolHansenGrey.com site. I took your email into meditation with me this morning and asked for guidance.

I do believe that “only love prevails” and practice its principle in my day-to-day life. However, I also believe we each have a responsibility to work in our own way toward making our world a better place, whether that be in areas that personally touch my heart (including raising spiritual awareness, promoting peace, facilitating health and healing, supporting truth and integrity in government, helping to empower the disempowered, safeguarding our environment) or in other areas just as important. One of the reasons I created the CarolHansenGrey.com site was to give me a space to share my work and my personal views on various topics.

That being said, I also know that there are ways to share my views that are respectful rather than sarcastic. You did not specifically indicate on which page you found the “leftist propaganda garbage” so I took the time to carefully review the material on my site. I agree that some of the material I have posted in the political humor section and the political quotations section of the site is not respectful and I will be taking down the material that, in my opinion, fits that description.

Other than that, however, I found only articles that were a meaningful representation of the concerns I have regarding the direction the current administration is leading this country and accurately reflect my point of view. I am sure that your point of view is much different than mine and that does not mean you are wrong or I am wrong — it’s simply a different perspective.

Most of us are aware of the political polarization in the U.S. (and throughout the world). My sense is that there is actually more common ground between those who find themselves on the left or on the right of an issue than what appears on the surface. I believe if we were willing to start from that place of common ground we could begin to explore many ways to heal the polarization. I admit, however, that sarcastic humor is not one of those ways. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to see an area in myself that is in need of healing.

Thank you also, once again, for participating in the World Peace Experiment. Together, no matter what our political views, we will work to co-create a world of peace where…

Only Love Prevails, Carol

A few days later I received the following response:

I really didn’t expect a reply, seeing as how I live in the “red” heartland and you live on the “left” coast, but my heart was warmed as to how you responded. You obviously do study the Course in Miracles (I have on and off for two years now).

Since you were willing to re-evaluate some of the text on your website, I felt that I had to do the same (since I started this). It will be hard to get rid of a whole section of Hillary humor (there is a lot of funny stuff there, but it does create divisiveness). I will also get rid of the political quotes section showing the “less-than-fully-awake” statements of Kerry, Gore, Dean, Pelosi, Harry, and the rest.

Einstein said that a problem cannot be solved at the same level it was created. For years, I have gotten really good at debating the polarizing issues of the day. I’ve got the facts on my side, but the problem with that is – you and many others have a different set of facts from which to operate.

You are probably right about us having much common ground and I am sorry that I came down so hard on your personal web site. I guess it stemmed from a seminar I went to the previous weekend, given by Judith Pennington. She is a highly-evolved person who occasionally lapsed into duality-consciousness when talking about the president (I believe that Bush 43 is the most honest and straight-forward president we have had in my lifetime). Anyway, I saw how this highly-evolved person quickly came down into the lower vibrations and brought me down also.

My goal in life is to be able to rise above the chatter and really “know” the material in Course in Miracles and the other study group I attend – A.R.E (Association for Research and Enlightenment). Thank you for rising above my accusations and raising the bar for me to do the same.

It is true that Only Love Prevails, Lee

This exchange helped me to see the importance of keeping the lines of communication open, even if the person is coming from a completely different viewpoint.  I feel a closeness with Lee now, where if I had chosen to simply ignore his email or even worse,had responded in anger, that bridge to common ground would have never been built.

Posted in General Interest, Inspirational, Personal Stories | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

The Empowerment of Surrender

Posted on February 4, 2012 by

The term “surrender” is surrounded by the connotation of “giving up” or “losing the battle.”  So when we are told to surrender to God by saying, “Thy Will be done,” we may feel that in some way we are giving up something we want but can’t have, or that we are giving up our power. I now understand that surrender is the highest form of empowerment.

In 1995 I underwent emergency open heart surgery for removal of a rare, tennis-ball sized tumor located inside my heart.  Following the three and one-half hour surgery doctors told Victor that I had little chance of surviving.  My pulmonary arteries had begun to spasm and my blood pressure dropped to 50 over 30. It had been 8 hours since the operation and despite the best efforts of the hospital staff, they had been unable to raise my blood pressure. They were certain I was not going to make it.

Victor, who was certified in hypnotherapy, asked if he could be with me. For the next two hours he whispered in my ear, explaining to my body what it needed to do to stay alive. He talked to my heart and talked to my arteries. Even though I had not regained consciousness, he trusted that some part of me could hear him.

After two hours, he took a break and returned to the waiting room where he went into a meditation. During that mediation he reached a point of surrender by saying to God, “Thy Will Be Done. It is my will that she stay here and I place her in your hands. Thy Will Be Done.” Within minutes of his surrender, a nurse hurried into the waiting room to tell him my blood pressure was stabilizing. By the time they made it back to my room, my blood pressure had returned to normal — 120 over 60.

It took about five days for me to fully regain consciousness. I remember an incident one night as I was becoming more aware of my surroundings. One of my nurses, a tall, thin, South African man, was ministering to me. I remember being very cold and uncomfortable. He covered me with heated blankets, helped adjust me in my bed, rubbed my back, all the while speaking to me softly in a soothing melodic voice. At one point, he came to the foot of my bed and holding gently onto my feet he asked, “Mrs. Hansen, do you believe in miracles?”

“Yes, I do,” I replied.

“Well, I want you to know that when you came out of surgery, there was not one person on this floor who thought you had any chance of surviving.” He paused and holding my feet a little more firmly he continued. “I saw you leave your body,” he said, pausing before continuing, “And, I saw angels bringing you back. I am here to tell you that you are a miracle and you need to always remember it.” I will never forget the loving look in his eyes or the soothing tone of his voice has he delivered this message, giving my feet a final gentle squeeze.  It felt as if he was pulling me fully back into my body.

After that point, each day I improved at such a rapid rate that it was being called a miracle by the hospital staff. One of the doctors told me that in all his years of practice he had never seen anyone undergo what I had undergone and recover so rapidly. “It must be your positive attitude,” he said.

Shortly after I returned home from the hospital, Victor and I were discussing the power of surrender during one of our morning meditations. Victor was reminded of the miracle that occurred when he surrendered after my surgery.  It then became clear to us that when we surrender by saying, “Thy Will be done,” we are invoking OUR will as well as God’s Will.  We are one with God and our will IS God’s Will.

So now whenever we use the Law of Attraction to manifest something in our lives, we surrender our request and acknowledge our oneness with God by saying:

Thy Will be done.
My will and Thy Will are One.
Thy Will be done.

Surrender is not “giving up.”  It is consciously joining forces with the unlimited nature of your God Self.  This is the highest form of empowerment!

Posted in General Interest, Healing Processes & Rituals, Inspirational, Personal Stories | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment