The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.
― Gloria SteinemMost people who know me say that I am calm. I think my tendency is to be able to see several sides of a situation and be to accepting. I have a good sense of taking responsibility for myself and looking at my side of a situation and how I have contributed to the problem.
I have been processing the last week. I found…
Meditation
“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Stepping into Freedom: Rules of Monastic Practice for Novices
The greatest gift I have found to develop a greater intuitive experience is meditation. It was in my meditative experience one morning I was given a specific meditation I now use.
Many of you already meditate and if you do, that is wonderful! You know the value of creating this time for yourself and the incredible connection you find with your Higher Self and the Divine. For many there is also the experience of connecting and communicating with Angels or Guides.
Many people who have tried meditation and don’t continue often think they are doing it wrong. Let me clarify some of the misconceptions. In meditation, you will not stop thinking. You have a central nervous system and therefore your brain will be thinking. What happens instead is you quiet your thoughts and rather than active thinking, you have what I call passive thinking. This means thoughts will enter and go by, but you just notice and don’t actively follow them. You can then return to your quiet mind.
I have also found people have a hard time quieting their mind when they meditate in the middle of the day or in the evening. I like to meditate first thing in the morning before leaving my bed. This allows me to tap into the wisdom of my subconscious mind and my Higher Self that has guided my dreams. Meditating in the morning also allows me to become filled with the Light of the Divine first thing in the morning!
For those who have not began the practice of meditation, here is a simple way to begin. Here is the meditation I have been given.
Set a timer to begin. This will help you to lengthen the time of your meditation.
As in other meditations, sit with your spine straight. I like to place my hands on my lap with my thumb, index and middle finger touching, facing upward.
Close your eyes. Take a deep breath and relax and adjust your body as needed.
Image a grounding cord such as a beam of light, a waterfall or a tree trunk going down from the base of your spine to the fiery center of Mother Earth. Release all the stress, tension and foreign energy down from the top of your head, down your face, shoulders, arms, hands, chest, upper and lower back, belly, pelvic area, hips, legs, ankles, and feet down your grounding cord.
Take another breath and bring your attention to above your head, to your crown chakra. Imagine a golden white Light spiraling down through the top of your head and spiraling in your heart. This is the spark of the Divine within you! This spiraling Light will emanate Light throughout your body and a few inches outside your body all around you.
Bring your attention to your third eye, which is between your eyes and a little above. Envision a water-blue color triangle at your third eye. Focus your attention through this triangle. Above your head about eight inches envision a burning ring of fire. This is the Eternal Flame of Isis. I share more about the triangle and the burning ring of fire when I teach intuitive reading.
Now you have the Golden Light Spiral, the Blue Triangle and the Fiery Ring of Fire set, bring your attention to your eyes. With your eyes still closed, move your eyes from right to left back and forth about 12 – 20 times. The pace is about one second for each set of from right to left and back. You can adjust this later to the best pace for yourself. This movement will be like pushing your eyes (with them closed) back and forth.
What you will notice is this takes you into a deeper into a meditative state. This increases with practice. Stop the eye movement and just be. Just notice what you experience. Stay in passive thinking and just experience and notice.
If you find you are thinking and lose the meditative sense, or you begin to come out of meditation, then use the eye movements back and forth to deepen again. This brings you back into a meditative state.
You may need to use the eye movement several times to deepen your meditation and this is fine. This takes practice, but if you commit to every day for a week, with a timer, this can change your life and increase not only your intuition, but your relationship with your Self and the Divine!
An added bonus, this eye movement is also therapeutic. It can assist in healing memories and traumas because moving your eyes from one side to the other activates the two hemispheres of the brain. When you begin your meditation you can set an intention of healing a specific situation, emotion, feeling, or thought.
Originally published in LiveEncounters
Evaluating your Situation!
Into the New Year, most people have taken a look back and reflected on the past year. Some have made resolutions and some just go forward with hope. Rather than making resolutions, I pick one focus for the year, one word to remember and increase in my life.
One year the word was money and I became more responsible in my spending, saving and earnings. That year I increased my income by 25%. I read money books, brought my attention to my habits and envisioned and created abundance.
Last year my focus was on food. I watched “foody” shows on television and regularly added nutritionally healthy foods to my diet. I drank green smoothies and my body glowed from all the enzymes. I increased my awareness on how foods affect my health (and my mood!)
This year my focus is music. I have a Martin 000M and my plan is to learn to play my guitar, listen to a variety of music throughout the year, attend concerts and experience music as a healing force in my life!
Speaking of a healing force in my life. I just published my book 12 Weeks to Self-Healing: Transforming Pain through Energy Medicine.
The first chapter focuses on Evaluating Your Situation. Whether it is emotional or physical pain, there is always an emotional component. I find that when people tend to focus on the past, they suffer from depression and when they focus on the future, it creates anxiety. On my website candesscampbell.com under Books and Self-Healing Tools you will find self-screening tests. One is for depression and the other for anxiety. If you find that you struggle with either of these, getting professional help is important.
Sometimes you live your life day to day without much self-awareness. It is helpful to look at whether or not you are getting your needs met. William Glasser, MD, a psychiatrist wrote a book called Choice Theory. In the book he talked about people having Four Basic Needs. The needs he lists are for 1) Love & Belonging, 2) Power and Worth, 3) Freedom and 4) Fun. These are beyond your need for survival.
Think about your life and what the main need is in your life. In your journal, write down your main need. Then write down friends and family you spend most of your time with. List some activities you engage in on a regular basis. Are you getting your needs met with these friends, family members and your activities?
For example I list as one of my loved ones, my Cairn Terrior/mix Domingo. The needs I get met by Domingo are Love and Belonging and Fun. When I image an oval shape and think about how full I am from my relationship with Domingo, I see the oval being maybe a third full. This means I need more people and activities to get my Love and Belonging and Fun needs met.
When I first did this exercise I listed out my friends. A few of the friends I spent most of my time with did not meet my needs at all. I found one friend met most of my needs. I realized I leaned too much on one friend and needed to create more relationships in my life where I felt more alive, full, and got my needs met. I also realized I needed to let some friends go. With self-awareness, I saw how drained I became after spending time with some friends.
Try this yourself. You may be amazed at how simple changes in your life can shift your emotional for physical pain!
Also, in evaluating your situation, it is important to look at the interrelatedness between your thoughts, feelings and behaviors. You can find a Total Behavior Map here to help you. http://candesscampbell.com/books/self-help-tools/70-2) On this map you can write out in the center what need you want to get met. Write down a situation that has been difficult for you regarding this need. List what you were doing, thinking and feeling. Then write again as if you were thinking something different. If you were thinking ___________, then what would you be doing or feeling?
You are an integrated being of Mind, Body and Spirit. You will notice that when you change your thinking about a situation, your feeling changes as well. You may choose to do something different and immediately your thinking changes and your feeling changes. The key here is you have 100 % control over your doing, 90 % control over your thinking and only 10 % control over your feeling. When you do or think something different – you feel better!
An example is Sarah was waiting for a phone call from Taylor to go out to dinner. (love and belonging and fun) Taylor didn’t call and Sarah thought, “I was stood up.” She started feeling angry and lost energy. Sarah began making up stories in her mind of what happened and worked herself into a frenzy.
An hour later Taylor called and said she was so sorry. She explained that she had witnessed an accident on the freeway and was pulled in by the police to share what she had seen. Taylor said she was so shaken, she didn’t even think about the dinner plans until she calmed down and realized she was hungry. She asked Sarah if she could come over, she needed a friend.
Sarah began to understand (thinking) and she empathized (feeling) with Taylor’s experience. She began cooking (doing) something to share with Taylor and prepared for her friend to arrive.
Can you see how the feelings followed the doing and thinking in this situation? You can write out some situations in your past, some times when you were really upset. Then write out what you could have done or thought differently, identifying how you would feel different.
Use your journal for this exercise and soon you’ll find you can do it quickly in your mind. So much of the emotional pain (which is under the physical pain) is manufactured in your mind. Now, you have a tool to change this!
Another tool is journaling. One situation I share in my book is for several days I found myself having a lot of pain in my shoulders. I left my office and sat down to rest and the pain was extremely disturbing. After about four days of this, I picked up my journal and began writing, “This pain in my shoulders. . .” and continued journaling for 20 minutes. What came up in my writing was a situation with one of my daughters. Once I wrote it out, the pain released immediately and was totally gone. This is a true testimony to how we carry pain in our bodies connected to our emotions!
There is so much more you can find in the book that will help you evaluate where you are and begin to move into self-healing. In February I’ll focus on Finding Your Passion!
12 Weeks to Self-Healing: Transforming Pain through Energy Medicine – UK
12 Weeks to Self-Healing: Transforming Pain through Energy Medicine – US