Archive for the ‘Inner Peace’ Category
Applying the Seven Spiritual Truths in Your Life – Truth # 5
Posted by learning | Filed under Being in the Now, Empowerment, Enlightenment, Inner Peace, Self Realization, Spiritual Evolution, Spiritual Growth
Greetings from Learning To Flow!
Spiritual Truth #5 indicates to us that God is within us. I encourage you to explore this connection through prayer, meditation and learning more about your chakra energy centers within you.
This week, I give you a start into that, but it will help you to research this on your own…to find the information that resonates with you…and then use the exercise from this week to flesh out something that works for you.
Namaste
Jeff
Quote of the Week
“Every time I create a gap in the stream of my mind, the light of my consciousness grows stronger.” – Eckhart Tolle
You are Never Alone…
Truth Five:
You are Never alone because…God is always with you!
Each of us are a child of God and yet many feel separate not only from God, but each other as well. Because we feel separate, we seek outer power. The endless search for outer power is what creates war, terrorism and most certainly situations like what is happening down in the Gulf right now. This was an outward act of arrogance and greed…the signposts of the feeling of “not being enough” or “not having enough.” Because many feel they are separate from God, they do not understand that everything we want, need and desire is already within us.
We have a connection to God within us and when we connect to our Source, we find the essence of what we have been seeking. While outward things can be enjoyed, they are the reflection of our connection to joy…not the source of our joy.
When we find our connection to health within us, we follow our inner guidance towards making any life changes necessary to create more health…whether that be by making dietary changes that align more with the vibratory levels of health we intend, breathing in more life force through Pranayama and/or physical exercise…or simply practicing abundance by consuming what we need instead of taking in more sustenance than our body requires.
We find this connection not by “thinking,” but by finding the still small space within us that connects us to God.
What is it that you seek? How would you feel if you knew it was coming to you?
Through the practice of prayer, we send out our desires into the Universe and through the practice of meditation, we can feel the joy of having what we desire.
This is the energetic cycle of giving and receiving.
Practice opening your connection to your own Source energy, getting your mind out of the way and allowing joy, peace and love to flow through you.
Finding your Portal
Close your eyes and go within. Take three deep breaths and allow your consciousness to move down out of your mind and into your root chakra.
Experience the ruby red light spinning from this chakra for a few moments. Breathe into it and just BE there.
Now move to the bottom of the chakra and notice that there is a white oval light there. Move through this portal and find yourself outside of your body and in a new space, full of different colors of light. This is unmanifest energy from which you can draw personal satisfaction, stability and inner strength. Through this chakra, you can access the energy you need to feel safe to be on Earth…even during times that are very difficult.
Just breathe into this area and exhale deeply to allow energy to flow from the unmanifest energy area through the oval portal and out into your world. Notice how this energy feels going through your body. Do you feel more grounded?
Now move up to the sacral chakra and note that the portal of light is towards the front. Once again move through the portal and into the unmanifest energy. Breathe deeply drawing energy through the portal and into the chakra itself. See the orange light from this chakra growing even brighter and expanding outwards.
Feel the joy of the energy flowing through balancing your masculine and feminine energies…cleansing and removing any negative fear-based thoughts about the use or limitations of your sexual energies from your mind.
Travel up to the solar plexus chakra, find your portal and move through it. Breathe into it and allow the energy to move through your Root and Sacral chakras again…cleansing their energy and bringing you even greater insights.
As you move up through the remaining chakras, allow your inner voice to guide you to the portal, to breathe in through it, drawing new energy into the chakra itself and then out into your world.
Through each of these energy centers is your connection to the unlimited creative power of Source energy.
© Jeffrey L. Scholl 2010. Permission is granted to copy and redistribute this transmission on the condition that the content remains complete and intact, full credit is given to the author(s), and that it is distributed freely.
The Key to Your Spiritual Practice
Posted by learning | Filed under Being in the Now, Empowerment, Enlightenment, Inner Peace, Meditation, Self Realization, Spiritual Growth
Greetings from Learning To Flow!
Meditation is the last spiritual practice we will discuss in this series. It is the most difficult for me as I have a very active mind. Yet the more I allow myself to just spend time in silence, the peaceful my life becomes.
So in the spirit of silence and simplicity this week, I will keep everything as simple as possible…including my intro. J
Namaste
Jeff
Meditation: The Key to Your Spiritual Practice
Meditation is the place where all of my other spiritual practices come together. In taking the deep cleansing breaths, I am detoxifying my body. I am letting go of that which does not serve me by bringing my focus to my moment of now, feeling my repressed feelings and surrendering these toxic energies to the Universe.
Sometimes I use my meditations to focus on what I intend to create and project the vibration of my intended creations out to bring me the essence of what I am feeling.
It is when I meditate that I realize how much value my mind places on “doing.” My mind tells me all of the things I NEED to be doing, all the things I haven’t done and all the things others have not done for me. My mind places great value on action and little on allowing. And yet what my mind has not fully accepted is that it does not matter how much I do…if I have not aligned my vibrational frequency to what I desire…by simply allowing myself to attune to it, then it cannot come to me.
When I close my eyes, place my attention in the center of my chest and use my awareness to find the stillness waiting on me there and simply breathe into it, the chattering of my mind stops. Spending just 15-20 minutes a day in this stillness allows all that I desire to flow to me…instead of me trying to make it come to me.
I have found that it doesn’t matter how my legs are folded, what chair I sit in, if I have incense burning or not…as long as I am in a space where I can be quiet and comfortable, I can reach the stillness. Quite often I don’t want to leave when my meditation timer goes off. Sometimes I just reset the timer to go another 20 minutes.
When I first started to meditate, I couldn’t say that the practice brought peace to my life. Rather what I experienced was a lack of drama.
But the more I practice silence, I am finding subtle feelings of peace and even joy in my practice.
I encourage you to implement this valuable practice into your life.
Peace be unto you.
Namaste
Jeff
This Week’s Quotes:
“MEDITATION…is the key to your spiritual practice. If you have the right key in your hand, no matter how tightly the lock is closed, when you take the key and turn it, the lock falls open. If you use your MEDITATION KEY you’ll open intuitive heart to your hearts desires” – Ajahn Chah
“Meditation is not at all a way of making your mind quiet, rather it’s entering the quiet that’s already there buried under the 50,000 or so thoughts an average person thinks each day.” – Deepak Chopra
Spiritual Application
Close your eyes. Take in 3 deep breaths. Visualize the light of a candle in your 3rd eye. (between the eyebrows). Watch this candle flame. Notice that the flame flickers with every thought that enters your mind. The more thoughts that flow in and out of your mind the more the candle dances in front of you.
Focus on the flame of this candle. See the light dancing and flickering as if someone has turned the ceiling fan to the highest setting. Now focus on stilling the flame. If a stray thought enters bring your attention back to the flame. Bring the flame back to a place of calm and stillness. Take in a deep breath. Reconnect to the place in your heart that is still and quiet.
The more you practice meditation the fewer and farther between your thoughts will come. When they do interrupt, do not judge them or analyze them or follow them to their conclusion. Just refocus on the light of the candle in your third eye and continue to watch it burn slowly.
- Created by Pratima Scholl
Being in the Moment of Now
Posted by learning | Filed under Being in the Now, Enlightenment, Inner Peace, Spiritual Evolution, Spiritual Growth
Greetings from Learning To Flow!
My mantra for the past couple of weeks has been “I AM THAT I AM.” Saying that every day has helped me to become more aware of when I am not in the moment and what I am thinking and feeling about that moment. It has helped me to understand how often I am not accepting someone for being who they are or what I am thinking about a situation in which I am focused on what I don’t like about that situation.
It has helped me to feel the subtle energies of my emotional body, to take my awareness to the next level of being able to feel when I am holding something, where I am holding it and instead of resisting it and allowing IT to control my thoughts and feelings. I can just let it be there…breathe into it and release it.
I know that everyone around me is always doing the best they can and I realize how hard I have been on others and myself. They do not do what they do to disappoint me. They do what they do because just as my first priority is ME, their first priority is themselves as well it should be.
Realizing this has enabled me to take a step back and just allow people to be who they are…and to start appreciating more of who they are. I find that when I step back and just allow myself to be in that moment, I almost automatically start seeing how hard people are working, how much they have on their plate, how frustrated and unappreciated they feel already. Seeing this sparks compassion and understanding within me.
It makes me want to gently shake them by the shoulder and whisper, “Wake up. It’s safe to wake up now.”
And this is the purpose of my writings, my newsletter, my book and the ones that follow it. It is the purpose of my coaching and my classes.
Unlike some teachers who have experienced a spontaneous awakening, I have slowly let go of my ego mind a little at a time. And by sharing what I am doing, how I am doing it and what thoughts and feelings I am experiencing as I do it…I leave a trail of bread crumbs for any who are seeking to find their way as well.
Namaste
Jeff Scholl
Quote of the Week:
“Every time I create a gap in the stream of my mind, the light of my consciousness grows stronger.” Eckhart Tolle
Why I Avoided Being in the Moment
For much of my life, I carried a feeling of anxiety within me. I didn’t allow myself to feel that feeling much. I used alcohol for years to numb it. I fed it with foods that would stifle it for awhile, but which only resulted in more anxiety for the effects that kind of food had on my body. I distracted myself from feeling it by using TV, the Internet, email and video games. I kept myself busy with work, unconsciously taking small problems and blowing them up into larger ones…anything to consume my time and keep me focused on something.
All of it was simply a distraction from being in the moment. Because what that moment ultimately made me face was the very feeling I had been seeking to drown out by all of those activities and substances. Because those moments I had alone brought me face to face with a very uncomfortable feeling that for years, I simply didn’t know how to handle.
This is why I shared last week on how to feel your feelings. When you are able to face your feelings without running from them, you are then able to just BE in the moment.
When I allow myself to just BE in the moment and take a few deep breaths, I often find some of the emotions that I have been repressing start to rise to the surface. I can just notice that my mind wants to start up the thought cycle on whatever triggered these emotions and if I get caught up in my dramas, before I know it, I am thinking about the past or the future or thinking about what they might say or what I should’ve said…thus creating more vibrational signals of drama for the future.
When I can just allow myself to stay in that moment, to notice those feelings and just let them be, I can almost feel the energy as a paper-thin barrier that moves and tingles around different areas of my body. And then if I can breathe into those feelings and allow them to be there without judging them or telling myself that they shouldn’t be there, then they start to dissipate. When I allow them to just be there instead of thinking why they are there or who I am holding responsible for them being there or why I must be bad, wrong or broken because they are there…when I just allow them to be there, they aren’t quite as scary as they were before. And the more I practice being in the moment with them, the faster I recognize it when I am projecting that feeling out onto someone else.
Projecting is one of the most difficult things to detect when we’re doing it…mainly because almost all of us are doing it all of the time. Psychologists have a term for it as “projectional transference.” So for example, when something happens at work that upsets me and I get overly upset, what’s happening it that I am transferring similar emotions that I had already repressed out onto this situation.
If I can slow down however and allow myself to be in the moment and feel what I am feeling, I can actually USE this situation for the purpose the Universe intended. The purpose of the situation coming into my life is to show me where I have repressed emotions. So when I have situations that come up in which I find myself upset, I still get upset from time to time. However, the amount of time that I stay upset has greatly diminished. And the level to which I get upset over something that would have really set me off a few years ago may barely register on my upset meter. And if I just allow myself to BE in the moment for a few minutes and feel my feelings, then I find that I am not thinking about the issue 9 or 10 times later that day. I am not sharing what happened with my wife and then getting upset all over again. I stop and allow myself to be in the moment, feel it, release it and it’s gone. And not only is IT gone, but whatever else that it triggers, I go ahead and release that as well.
I will explain a little bit of how to do this in this week’s exercise, but I will also cover it in more detail as we go in this series when we cover Dis-Creation and Forgiveness.
However now that I’ve released the feeling that upset me and I feel better that I’ve released it, I’m not done. Because I remember that I am a vibrational being, IF I want to experience something different in my future, then I CAN choose to feel good in order to send that signal out. And so in the moment, I may allow myself to just feel relieved and to really enjoy the feeling of relief.
I may feel grateful that I feel good now and grateful to my teachers who have provided me the tools to release the feelings that didn’t feel good. I may just feel at peace or happy and allow myself to enjoy those feelings.
So I take a few deep breaths and allow myself to truly enjoy those moments of feeling good for at least 68 seconds…to send a new signal out into the world…a signal that now says, “bring me more of this vibration!”
Namaste
Jeff
Spiritual Exercise of the Week:
What makes an experience memorable for us is the emotion that is attached to it. I can have a thousand experiences a week, but I only remember those to which I felt something. I may not remember the person who checked me out at the grocery store unless they were particularly nice or particularly rude. I may not remember going out to the mailbox and getting my mail unless something happened on the way there or back.
We sometimes think that we will always remember some memories, but I have found that as I release emotions attached to experiences from the past, either those memories disappear entirely or they become difficult to remember. I find that I don’t lose my good memories. I just lose the ones to which I have released the negative emotion.
So think of a recent situation that upset you and replay the experience again in your mind. Notice what you feel. Again, realize that if you feel some negative feeling you have repressed that emotion.
Take a deep breath and feel what you are feeling. Sometimes it helps to give it a name, so you can see it as something separate from you. So pick a word from the below list that matches it as closely as possible.
- Anger – Betrayal – Rage
- Sadness – Abandonment -
- Grief – Powerlessness
- Disappointment – Discouragement
- Frustration – Dissatisfaction
- Worry – Helplessness
- Afraid – Anxiety
- Hurt – Exclusion
- Embarrassed – Inadequate
- Envious – Jealousy
- Scared – Hopelessness
- Ashamed – Unworthiness
Really allow yourself to feel it. Where in your body do you feel it and what does it feel like? Write this down in your journal.
Allow the feeling to just BE there without judging it or wanting it to be gone. Just let it be. Imagine that you can see this energy in your body. What color is it?
Ask yourself if you have felt this feeling before and when? What was happening? Who was involved? What were they doing?
Allow yourself to feel this feeling again. Has it gotten stronger? Has it changed colors or gotten darker? Has it shifted to any other areas of your body or has it stayed in one place?
Allow yourself to accept whatever you feel without judging it or thinking that this shouldn’t be happening.
Start taking in several deep breaths and envision yourself breathing in a pure, golden white light. Feel the warmth of the light as it comes down into your body. Use your awareness to direct the light and the warmth into the emotion you are experiencing. Notice the light start to disperse the darkness. Just allow this to happen. You don’t have to force it to happen. Just observe it as it is happening.
As the light starts to break up the darkness, deepen your breaths and start to forcefully exhale. Sometimes when I do this, I find that I need to cough because so much is coming up and my body starts to assist me in clearing the toxins that I am releasing.
Continue to take deep breaths and forcefully exhale until you feel the feeling dissipate and be released. Take a few more deep cleansing breaths and use the sound of relief…the sound of “Ahhh” as you exhale. It is important to do this out loud. This sound is a therapeutic sound that you can use any time you want to feel relief in a situation.
Take a few moments and enjoy your improved feeling from before. Realize that you may not feel “perfect.” However after using this exercise, it is expected that you will feel much better than before. Keep practicing and use this with any new situations or feelings that surface. Allowing yourself to just be in the moment allows these feelings to surface on their own…which is much easier than having to experience all of them in your daily life in the form of drama.
Physical Exercise of the Week:
Practice yoga in some form this week and allow yourself to just breathe and BE in the moment. You can practice any form of yoga that you want. It can be something as simple as the Yoga on your Wii Fit program or as challenging as Rodney Yee’s “Slow Burn Yoga” DVD If you have FiTV on your satellite or cable, I recommend “Yoga Zen with Sara Ivanhoe” for beginners. If you want to try something different, try Maya Fiennes’ “Kundalini Yoga to Detox and Destress” DVD. We were able to rent both the Rodney Yee and Maya Fiennes DVD’s from Netflix and liked them so much that we purchased a copy.
If you are a beginner or even intermediate, it may help you to have someone else guide you through it such as a DVD. Or you may enjoy a class at your gym or a local yoga center. In your practice, focus on your movements and allow yourself to just BE in that moment. Focus on your breathing and allow it to BE what it is. Allow any emotions that you may feel to just surface and release. Some emotions are so strong that they need our attention in order to fully release them, but we do not need to do this for every emotion. Many can be released in our yoga practice simply by allowing them to leave us as we move, breathe and stretch.
May you have a wonderful week!
© 2009-2010, Jeffrey L. Scholl. Learning to Flow
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