When is it time to look within? As human beings, we are drawn to rest, pause, and reflect on our journeys. When we feel tired, discontent, and lost, it is probably time to do some inner work. It will look like putting that phone down for a day or two or longer, turning the TV off, disconnecting from social media, and grabbing a journal.
There is nothing more powerful that you having to put down on paper the content of your thoughts!!! It might be scary at first – like looking in a mirror – until you incorporate it into daily routine. Then, it becomes an enjoyable activity you are looking forward to doing daily. You learn to slowly start shifting your focus to yourself. It will feel like pouring attention and love to yourself because you are consciously making an effort to understand yourself, and to illuminate your inner world.
In those moments of silence with yourself, you reclaim what has been lost through work, stress, emotional upheaval, drama, demands and expectations. As you spend time with yourself, you create inner peace and boost the joy that has been dormant inside of you. Add some gratitude on the list, and you will be in your way to feeling present, happy, and more like yourself.
1. Shut off your phone on weekends or hours at a time.
2. Fall in love with silence through turning off your TV.
3. Go for walks in nature, and listen to the natural sounds of birds and winds.
4. Journal and Focus on Gratitude
5. Meditate and Do Body Scans
6. Sit on the beach and watch the waves.
8. Invest in Self-Care.
Most people would probably agree that our world needs empathy.
The dictionary defines empathy as the action and the capacity of understanding, being aware of, and being sensitive to the feelings, thoughts, and experiences of another person.
If we can feel our own pain, can we naturally fee the pain of other human beings or animals? Are we really wired for empathy, or do we learn empathy?
Psychologists talk of three types of empathy. Cognitive empathy is when you can put yourself in somebody else’s shoes. We cognitively understand what people are going through. Understanding that somebody is hurting is limited, as it doesn’t produce the kind of acknowledgment the other person needs.
Emotional empathy is when you feel and sympathize with the feelings and emotions of others. We need this capacity to maintain relationships and friendships. Some people are better at this than others, for example therapists. Emotional empathy can be treacherous for sensitive people. Feeling somebody’s else emotions and pain without boundaries can cause you to become ill.
To have healthy empathy, we must practice Compassion. With compassion we understand and we feel for someone else, but also are capable of holding a safe place for them to have their own emotional experiences. Compassion is felt more in the heart. We are extending our heart to someone else’s heart, thus making the other person feel seen, heard, and acknowledged.
Transformation is a process. As we heal, we also learn and develop more empathy. Feeling the pain of others is an essential component of good health.
The famous author Caroline Myss says that “people are hungry for the sacred.”
Once, people in masses went to churches to reflect and to connect with a force stronger than themselves, one that brought them relief and peace and hope.
“Religion is part of the human make-up. It is our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing,” writes Christopher Hitchens.
Whatever the Gods represent for you, quantum intelligence or a divine intelligence, we need the humility the sacred brings into our lives to make sense of our illogical human existence. I heard one of the victims of the California fires say “only gratitude matters going forward.”
Collectively we need more inspiration, more beautification and purification of our characters, our personalities, our souls, and our energies.
We are a sacred temple, and everyone on earth is a sacred temple. Together we make one sacred tribe. We walk on sacred earth, and we desperately need to accept ourselves as sacred beings. No shift in collective consciousness will ever happen if we don’t welcome back this basic truth.
We need to respect the sacred each one of us has decided to pursue; it is the right one for you at this point of your human evolution.
The true sacred inside of us doesn’t wage wars, doesn’t wish bad things to people, doesn’t look down at other sacred beings.
When you are feeling stressed, bring to mind the image of a sacred space, feel the peacefulness and the tranquility of sacredness inside of you. Respect, devotion and faith are a part of who you are.
In my yoga class this morning, blessings were sent to my body, my friends, the people all over the world who are suffering and lacking peace. Send blessings to your own body, and your own friends, and all other places you wish to send some sacredness and healing
Listening to the news about natural disasters or phenomena happening everywhere around the globe, I couldn’t stop thinking about what is needed of us, when events of such magnitude threaten our material and physical security?
The earth is always evolving and changing, and the changes are opportunities for us to grow and learn as human beings.
The uncertainty of the events, and of life in general, teaches us that certainty can be found only inside of us. If we have a strong core and a strong sense of who we are, we will face these events with courage and calm.
The truth is that life is all about learning how to live with uncertainty. And becoming more comfortable with not knowing what tomorrow will bring.
That is why we need to develop courage. If we cultivate courage as a human quality and if we recognize the value of becoming courageous, we will fare much better in times of high stress and uncertainty.
If you don’t have courage, you will let your anxiety and fear topple your calm, when what you need the most is calm and self-control.
If you don’t have courage, you will not be able to examine the information given to you, and to make the right decision for yourself and your loved ones. You will let negative thinking, thoughts and feelings of gloom and doom, overtake you and make you lose your ground.
Without courage, you will hastily abandon your property, your pets, your life and embrace the fear of others.
Courage is the quality to stand on your own, to think on your own, to listen to your radar system, and to be plugged into a deeper awareness and intelligence. Courage allows you to say no to the herd mentality, and to always act with dignity and empathy.
In times of volatility and uncertainty, we need to learn to stay present, grounded, and to trust our senses.
And most of all, we need to trust life and to trust ourselves and that requires a lot of courage!
I am inviting you to start examining yourself, setting new intentions, and developing and living with more courage!
Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world. – Archimedes
I felt that August 21th, the day of the Solar Eclipse, was an extraordinary day in the U.S. I bet that almost everyone was able to step out of their worries and dilemmas, and look up to the heavens for magic. So many people were feeling happy thanks to the moon hiding the sun, thanks to a natural phenomenon that excited our imagination, vision and hope. I felt the happy vibes myself, and I am sure than many people did as well.
These events are glimpses of how interconnected our minds are with other minds and objects in this holistic reality. Or as Dean Radin says in his book, Entangled Minds: “It is as though we live in a gigantic bowl of clear jello. Every wiggle-every movement, event, and thought-within that medium is felt throughout the entire bowl.”
Many scientists measure our subtle human entanglement through the coherence of the frequencies we emit. This is called global coherence or field consciousness research. I refer you to consult the Global Consciousness Project conducted at Princeton. On their first page one reads: “Coherent consciousness creates order in the world. Subtle interactions link us with each other and the Earth.”
That is partly why people meditate together for peace, or we have group peace or climate marches… the happy feelings of togetherness and joy experienced by us seem to amplify and spread, and this can be measured.
This could explain why when we are surrounded by happy people, we feel happier. Their vibration entrains coherence to our own less coherent states.
So the more we bring change to our consciousness, and the more we direct our attention to common goals for the betterment of all, we elevate our collective consciousness and influence the consciousness of others.
One piece of wisdom to take from this is that nature makes us feel happy, and that fascination with heavenly natural forces move us to a childlike joy. In rare moments such as solar eclipses, we realize that our lives are small pebbles in an infinite universe. So the question for everyone to ponder after this is that our own pebbleness matters, that the way we carry ourselves in the world, the joy and the happiness we emit, affects everyone around us and contributes to the subtle changes in the consciousness of our cities and the world. So let’s continue this happy project, chirp about it and create positive waves of change.