Change Begins Within

Change begins within

The pathway of life is filled with numerous challenging situations that we sometimes avoid or choose to work through. Inevitably though, we survive them.

To help work through these challenges you can implement an invaluable exercise which will feed your spirit and attract positive experiences into your life. This exercise is gratitude.

Gratitude is a state of being that is thankful for everything that is good and received in your life. Gratitude is appreciating and identifying the richness of all the blessings in your life. When you feel truly grateful and focus your attention on gratitude each day, the experience of it within your being intensifies a sense of energy - of aliveness.

Moreover, this powerful and positive energy attracts likeness.

Meister Eckhart said, “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you’, that would suffice.”

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."
Melody Beattie

"Many people who order their lives rightly in all other ways are kept in poverty by their lack of gratitude."
Wallace D. Wattles

"You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you."
Sarah Ban Breathnach

"Take full account of the excellencies which you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not."
-- Marcus Aurelius

Be Thankful

Be thankful that you don’t already have everything you desire,
If you did, what would there be to look forward to?

Be thankful when you don’t know something
For it gives you the opportunity to learn.

Be thankful for the difficult times.
During those times you grow.

Be thankful for your limitations
Because they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for each new challenge
Because it will build your strength and character.

Be thankful for your mistakes
They will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you’re tired and weary
Because it means you’ve made a difference.

It is easy to be thankful for the good things.
A life of rich fulfilment comes to those who are
also thankful for the setbacks.

GRATITUDE can turn a negative into a positive.
Find a way to be thankful for your troubles
and they can become your blessings.
~ Author Unknown ~

I am truly thankful for the gratitude exercise Michael gives freely with Discover Meditation for change begins within.

I wish you an abundance of peace and joy

 

Rumi poem

Pollyanna, thanks for the terrific post. I especially love that Meister Eckhart quote. It was a favorite of my mom's and I love being reminded of her.

Probably many of you are familiar with this poem, but it's one of my all-time favorites:

The Guest House -- by Rumi

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

One of my brothers introduced me to Rumi a few years ago. Every time I read this poem I'm grateful for him (the brother, not Rumi) (well, Rumi, too!).

 

Thankyou WeeHoo, I will read more of Rumi. You are so right, it is wonderful to be reminded of our mums and dads - we truly only have one of each and I am so thankful for the loving parents I had. They taught me the immense value of counting my blessings. Peace and joy to you and yours

 

Took me a while to get into it, but now that I have been practicing it for some time, I have to say Pollyanna, it is an excellent post !

Thank you for posting this, I am learning to be gratefull for all that I have, and I feel more balance in my life !

 

I am so pleased for you Edwin and I can understand that it takes time to get into. Sometimes, when many challenges are faced it is difficult at times to really feel thankful and simply saying or thinking sentences without "feeling" thankful doesn't work.

Once the habit is formed though, I truly believe it can be a great asset to anyone. I wish you an abundance of joy and happiness - you really deserve it

 

Dear All

i think your ability to be grateful and practice gratitude is amazing. i was wondering if you could pass on any ways of increasing your gratitude. i know that i have to really feel it not just say it but i was wondering if there were ways of doing this.

thank you very much for your help

april

 

Increasing gratitude

I keep a little notebook by my bed and every night I write down five things for which I'm feeling grateful. Right now I have a nasty cold/fever/blech and so tonight I imagine I'll write that I'm grateful for cozy beds, and hot tea, and the sunshine that we had today. I find that doing this 2-minute exercise really helps me think back over my day and puts me in a good frame of mind before I sleep.

I also suggest you visit this website: GRATEFULNESS.ORG - A Network for Grateful Living. It was started by Brother David Steindl-Rast. He says, "Happiness is not what makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us happy." He has this cool practice of picking a gratitude theme for each day. So if his theme for the day is clouds, every time he saw clouds, he'd be reminded to be fully present in the moment, and to be grateful. I love this exercise, because you can choose anything to call you back to gratitude--the sound of a phone ringing, a bird chirping, sunlight streaming through a window, whatever.

I have found over the years that the more aware I am of the blessings around me--whether it's the sunshine, or our goofy dog, or the fact that we have food and shelter (don't most of us take these two things for granted? try being consciously grateful for them!), or the cats purring around me while I'm lying here coughing my head off--the more my gratitude expands. It's amazing. I find myself being, if not grateful for the weeds in the garden, grateful that I'm agile enough to bend over and pull them out. And grateful that we have a garden. I wish I had found this attitude at a much younger age.

Looks as if I've created yet another long-winded post. I just want to add that I'm currently reading a book titled "Happy for no Reason," by Marci Shimoff and Carol Kline. It is stuffed with exercises for increasing your happiness, peace and gratitude. It just came out in paperback, so hardback copies are going at sale prices--for which I am grateful!

 

Hi there April,

I think feeling grateful is very much like a strong feeling of love, joy and appreciation for life itself. Here are a few examples of mine - I hope you can imagine the feeling I experience when I think about these:-

I feel so very grateful everytime my grandchildren run to me and with smiling eyes they look into mine and say "grandma! I missed you!"

I feel so thankful that my joints don't ache and I can enjoy walking through the woods each day.

I feel so very thankful for my thoughtful and caring children and their partners - they are my best friends.

I feel so very grateful that I love and accept myself as I am.

I am so thankful for the deep peace and bliss meditation gives me.

I am so thankful to be alive with hopes and dreams.

I could go on and on but my eyes are filled with tears of joy and gratefulness for my life. I hope that helps you to enjoy this wonderful exercise, peace and joy

P.S. The character "Pollyanna" in the film has always inspired me - hence the name. If you get the opportunity to watch it, you'll see why

 

Thank You!!!

Ohh mann, guys you made me cry!!!!!

My heart is full to bursting and the joy abounds within,
so much that its expanding out pulling my face to a grin!
I thank you for your thank yous'
I thank you for your love
The truth right here abounding is that thank you makes us win!

I got the sillies!!!

Definately not mature enough for this site

Love Becc

 

Hi there Becc,

I believe what you have written is definately mature. Anything that makes your heart feel like it's bursting with joy and creates a grin is good for the soul.

We all deserve to feel happy and joyful - I believe it's our natural state and I wish you an abundance of peace, love and joy

 

Wonderful thread and a timely reminder TO NOT FORGET to keep on being grateful and thankful for all the beauty and love life has to offer each and every one of us. In my experience, just being grateful for the sheer magic which surrounds us is a life-changing force!

 

It's not our fault but is it our responsibility

By observing in a loving, non-judgemental and curious way, the various parts of our belief systems that are holding us back - by curiously and kindly asking where a particular belief pattern came from we can become responsible for the changes we need to make and allow ourselves to move forward.

We all have belief systems/maps of reality/ego and although it appears true to us, it is not necessarily the truth - it's simply what we and our ancestors perceive (often mistakenly) to be the truth.

For example, like many, you may have grown up with the belief that "money is the root of all evil" and therefore if you want more money because you are in debt or struggling to make ends meet, your sub-conscious will stop this from happening for you because it knows you don't want to be evil.

If you kindly ask where this belief came from, you may realise it came from a parent or teacher etc. You can look at the evidence and ask do I want to continue to believe the belief my parent told me when I was little? - do I believe it at this present moment, even though George Bernard Shaw said "The lack of money is the root of all evil"?

Many well meaning parents try to protect their children from being let down by saying things like "Don't get your hopes up"

By observing your thoughts and lovingly questioning your belief patterns that hold you back, you begin to disempower them. You begin to see clearly that it's not a proven fact - it's not the truth - it's just a belief pattern and if you ask yourself again do you want to continue to believe that money is the root of all evil you'll probably decide - NO WAY - this belief is not helping me, it is hindering me. This is the point that it will dissolve and you will be able to replace it with something like "Money is a beneficial commodity that I can use in my life"

Wealthy people don't love money - they love time and freedom - money is simply a commodity.

Meditation opens you up to the creativity of the sub-conscious and the universe. Welcome the things that come up for release, lovingly observe them and let them go if they do not serve you.

I wish you peace and joy in abundance

 

What are you saying???

Are you your best coach or your best critic???

Some limiting words come from within and some come from without.

You often have had them so long, you don't even realize you have them.

Realizing you have them is the first step to having the choice to change them Happy coaching

 

All in the mind.

Recently finished reading "All in the mind?" by Dr. Brian Roet. Found it very easy reading, compassionately written and extremely well explained

One of the things he explained was how talking to a psychologist helps the person involved because the person is listened to, accepted as they are and not judged.

This is what Michael teaches us to do when we observe. Be aware of the physical sensation that accompanies the emotion - accept it - curiously question "where are you coming from?" and keep observing it curiously until it fades away.

As you do this more and more you create space for your amazing gift of creativity

I wish you an abundance of peace and joy

 

Hi Pollyanna
Thank you very much for your post. I have heard a number of people talk about observing their feelings. Could you give me some idea how I do that, do I only do it during meditation or all the time. Do i stop and recognise that I have a that feeling but try not to go into the reasons I am feeling it but wait for it to lesson? Not sure if that is what I am supposed to do.

sorry if this seems a stupid question and still learning.

Cheers

April

 

Not a stupid question at all April - through observing you can allow supressed emotions to dissolve. Once you know how to observe, it's really simple, however, because we are not used to doing this, we just need to do it until it becomes a natural good habit.

Here's how I got into it:-

Bearing in mind, we all have busy lives and therefore we don't have the time to analyse all the feelings and sensations we experience - plus we tend to think that these emotions are who we are.

Feeling happy and at peace etc. can just be enjoyed and are good states to experience - just imagine you are in a happy state and then someone says or does something that offends, irritates or makes you feel angry or afraid, you have the opportunity to notice the feeling or sensation somewhere in your physical body which will accompany this emotion. (It could be a tight feeling in your stomach or maybe even a lump in your throat for example)

What you need to do is accept the sensation and without getting emotionally involved with it, just close your eyes, accept that it's there, observe it and in your mind, ask it where it is coming from.

Keep doing this until the sensation goes away - it may take quite a few minutes for this to happen.

I personally have a few friends who are meditating with LifeFlow and they are really enjoying some great benefits.

One of my friends however used to be irritable and angry after meditation which was unpleasant for his family. After spending a little time with him, explaining that he was probably resisting emotions that were coming up to be released, he learned to observe and watch them until they dissolved and now he and his family are benefitting tremendously.

He was contemplating giving up after only a few weeks, until I explained that these supressed emotions would stay with him forever if he didn't allow them to surface, accept them and observe the sensation they brought with them until it faded away. Although I'm not an analytical person, we discovered that he had never been allowed to be angry as a child and it was wrong to feel this way.

As I am writing now, I am remembering that in the early days of meditating with LifeFlow, I sometimes experienced the sensation of having a lump in my throat (this has happened a number of times throughout my younger life when I felt hurt by someone) Unfortunately, I cannot remember if I actually observed this feeling - I don't think I did, I was just aware of it, accepted that this was normal and trusted that whatever was happening in meditation was the right thing for me.

As I was sleeping better, experiencing clearer thinking and focus and enjoying more energy, I knew I was benefitting from meditation and so I happily carried on enjoying the special time for me.

This is when I began to observe, during my daily routine. If something happened and I felt irritable or offended for instance, I would seize the opportunity to close my eyes, accept and observe the physical sensation until it went.

Then the big clearing process began which allowed me to let go of some big supressed emotions from the past and experience the present moment on a consistant basis. I had a bad dream and woke up with a dreadful feeling as though I was paralysed with fear. It was about 4:30 in the morning and as I was about to shake it off and thank goodness that it was only a dream, I realized this too was an opportunity to observe and release.

I closed my eyes again, accepted and observed the feeling. Now, I'm sure you'll agree, things that happen in the dark of the night always seem more scary. This was certainly true in this experience. It took for me, amazing courage to do this - I even felt that I might become paralysed if I observed this physical sensation which was in my spine Anyway, I observed and curiously asked the question in my mind to the sensation "Where are you coming from?" After what seemed like about 20 minutes for the sensation to move slowly down my spine and disappear, the words betrayal and abandonment came to my mind.

When the sensation had gone I knew something big had been released and I got up and wrote four A4 sheets about the experience.

We all experience frightening things when we are little and for me, when I was aged 2, my mother had a complete mental breakdown and went to hospital for 9 months. The specialists told my father she would never be well again and she certainly wasn't in a healthy state for her two little girls to see.

I have no conscious memory of this although I'm sure this would have been traumatic to a little 2 year old at the time. Almost a year later I had polio in my right leg - fortunately after being hospitalised for a few months and attending many physiotherapy sessions I learned to walk again and was cured.

Who knows if there is a connection to this dream - it doesn't matter - what does matter is, that night I found the courage to face a fear and realised after, just how good it was to release it. It wasn't real - it just appeared that way.

That night I learned that I could observe anything I experienced - it's just a great release process. I have had 3 more dreams over the last eighteen months (all different and all dealing with different emotions) and now, when they happen, instead of shrugging them off, I just accept and observe, knowing I am letting go of things that have restricted me in the past.

Now, I believe, through learning how to observe and release emotions that have imprisoned me, my mind is freed up, allowing me to be creative, focused and able to find solutions so easily.

April, I know this has been a long winded reply, I hope it helps you understand what a wonderful difference you can make to your life through meditation, observing and releasing the emotions that hamper our lives. I wish you an abundance of peace and joy

 

Hi April, just want to say, if the above explanation is not clear to you, please don't hesitate to let me know and I will do my best to simplify the explanation for you

 

Hi Pollyanna

Sorry i didnt reply yesterday, i am working in a very rural area in Sierra Leone so dont always get strong internet or anything. just wanted to say that i thought you explination was great and I have been working at it yesterday and today.

My only question is on asking where this feeling comes from. Does that not mean that you engage in the feeling. Also a lot of my upset comes from one event in my life so asking where this feeling comes will bring other feelings around this and i cant seem to get to any core feeling if you know what i mean. So if i think about my ex not supporting me when i was pregnant then it makes me sad, so sometimes that is triggered by a friend telling me they are pregnant etc. how do you find the core of that feeling, the feeling is around loss and that one event (does this make sense). observing the feeling and where it is in my body is really helping but i want to get rid of these once and for all so that is why i am asking all these further questions.

also just wanted to say thank you so much for all your help, really touched that you always write back...one more thing, do you really believe in LOA or by postive thinking are we just ignoring what is there, do we really manifest things into our lives?

Take care

April

 

Hi April,

I don't believe you ever need to focus on "the story" because it's gone and in the past - trust me, I dwelled in the past for the longest time and that was like a kind of self torture.

I don't need to regret the past anymore because out of that time came two wonderful gifts of my two oldest children (and two adorable grandchildren from my eldest daughter) who bring joy to my life each day

Focus on the physical sensation that accompanies the emotion. All you have to do is be aware when it presents itself - until it arises, if you are able, just keep enjoying the moment you are in.

Meditation will allow whatever needs to surface for you. Whether this happens during meditation, during your day or on waking from an unpleasant dream, all you have to do is to grab the opportunity to unemotionally observe the sensation, not the story.

You'll probably find that it stems from some experience when you were little.

To be honest, I don't particularly like the term "Law of attraction" and I think it's also hugely misunderstood. Many seem to think it's all about material things and money.

I believe with all my heart that "thoughts become things" and we do create our own reality. However it doesn't just take thoughts or writing something down and putting it in a drawer - you have to act on opportunities when they arise.

For example, in my own story in the following link, I used to imagine working from home and opening my patio doors and just walking out into my own woodland with my dogs. The first picture in the link is taken from the kitchen patio doors.

I used to imagine this picture many times when I opened the patio doors in the house I used to live in which was on a housing estate. I was very happy in that home and very thankful for the blessings in my life, however, this was my dream and I was passionate about it.

http://www.project-meditation.org/community/law-attraction/173-law-attraction-2.html#post577

To achieve this dream I had to make sacrifices, the main one was sacrificing time with my family. I explained this to them and was prepared to do whatever it took as long as I did not sacrifice my values and principles.

I understood that whether I pursued my dream or not I would have to pay a price.

Many years ago (seems like another life now) I used to be a victim with little confidence and low self-esteem. I used to crucify myself on a daily basis, listening to sad songs like "What becomes of the broken hearted" and "Some things you never get used to" etc.

Then I realised I had a choice. I learned I could be as happy as I chose to be. I learned to take control of my life and create a much better one for my family. I replaced some bad habits with good ones. Read inspirational books instead of watching negative programs on the T.V. Played inspiring songs like "A whole new world" and "Nothing's gonna stop us now" instead of the crucifying ones.

By steering away from negative influences and surrounding myself with positive good stuff I built up my self esteem and confidence. By changing me, I changed my world.

Now, I appreciate not everyone will want to do this, and that's o.k.

The greatest thing each person can do, which is really simple, is implement the daily gratitude exercise and learn to release negative emotions through daily meditation.

These 2 exercises will make such an improvement to your health and happiness. Life is a journey and I wish you an abundance of peace and joy on yours

 

Pollyanna,

thank you for your post. I have been so miserable lately..... It feels good to know that there are people out there with a good heart.

Thank you again and please carry on with your supportive posts, it's feels good to read positive stuff.

All the best x