Struggle Between the Heart and the Head

Have you ever noticed that sometimes we find ourselves caught between two opposing parts of ourselves?  I do not mean simply contradiciton., I mean a down home in the gut kind of feeling that tells you that there is, inside you, a deep divide between who you think you are and who you could be.

Within this divide there lie opposong elemnets deep within our psyches which seem to be competing for strength .One element wishes us to stay true to old values...traditional perspectives and culture...the other invites us to view new vistas where we can "experience" ourselves differently. As you may have noticed, the second chice comes with more work: a commitmen to forge forward in courage, and a " Leap of faith"- It comes with the knowledge that the past is of enormous sgnificance.BUT, if we am to grow and spread our wings....some of our oldest and dearest beliefs must die. And so a certain sorrow follows us around, a sadness or pain that we seem unable to identify......and yet,just the smallest  hint of a new Dawn is present aswell.

The Sorrow is unavoidable..it comes with making choices to change that which has become familiar. It means in essence that we are letting go of something that has served us well in the past; so well that we established a comfort zone around it. Comfort zones are tricky little things: they make us feel safe, but on the down side...they cannot lat us grow. And so, we are left with decisions to make as to whether to follow the path of safety and familiarity,or,take a chance and step into a brave new world where the possibilities are endless.It takes courage, I know,and some mistakes will probably be made along the way. But ultimately, its about the journey and fulfilling the heart's desire.

The Future is Llimitless

We all have an innate ability, passed down through generations of genetics… an ability to weather the storms of our lives and still find ourselves intact, if not actually strengthened! It does not help us to enumerate our weaknesses or failures…that just puts us in victim mode. We have the ability to take our lives and look for something better than what we previously had .But you know what often stops us dead in our tracks?...CHANGE,……Small word big impact!

Change: On some level, it’s what we’re all experiencing, but what we forget is that we have to get used to it as it enters our lives. Why is it that change is so rattling?  Because it’s not always easy, nor necessarily pleasant either… Change is uncomfortable simply because change is different – no getting around it; with change you don’t know where you’re headed!

We are all creatures of habit more then we care to admit, and although life may be difficult, it’s a familiar difficult, and so we hesitate to change anything because we know how to manage what we’ve got .Because goodness!: the future could be worse! 

 Bah-Humbug! Its time to try on a fresh pair of eyes…a heretofore untried set of crystal clear glasses…a new way of perceiving life; a chance to shift our perceptions from “Isn’t this awful to there’s more this than meets the eye”

So, how do we do this? How do we take years of learning that we are made out of a particular mold, summon the courage to throw out the old mold, and courageously decide to make ourselves anew?  Ready? To knead a new mold, to create yourself anew requires a leap of faith: trusting in something larger that ourselves. It isn’t a religious concept, but it does require a heart connection to positive outcomes. For example; A leap of faith (albeit a little one) is looking for the rainbow despite the storm clouds and pouring rain. A leap of faith is learning to trust that things always get better in their own time. A humongous leap of faith would mean a decision to forgive yourself for everything that is in the past….and begin anew, today, NOW! Another biggie in the Leap of Faith department would be to decide that no matter what, you deserve a good life, good things, and good people!

Leaps of faith are like that. you can’t get there by bringing up the past…you HAVE TO look to the future through the innocent  eyes of a child…you have to be willing to believe in good, in abundance, in joy, in deservedness, and mostly, that it’s ok for you to receive. You’d be surprised at how many people have difficulty receiving from their fellow man. They like the giving because it gives them a sense of participation and sharing, but receiving is hard.

A leap of faith is deciding to put your mistakes behind you: you make a choice to let go of the storms and the past pain and flow into the future with an open heart. This time  you cannot stay in the old wounds: they’ll fester. After a while, old wounds become our reason to stay stuck and we become afraid to try something new. The thing is, we have to learn to heal ourselves by daring to look at a future with a heart full of promise and hope….and FAITH. Stay positive…the glass is not half empty, it is actually, half full!!!

Dealing with Intense Feelings

They creep up on us just when we’re not looking!!!!…At first, quietly, unobtrusively………for a while. Then, they begin to gain in power and strength…no longer to be ignored!

After a while…they strengthen their hold on you; they entrench themselves into your mind… and you begin obsessing just a little as the feelings gain in intensity.

 Then, without a word of warning, you wake up one morning feeling this enormous sensation of (anger, fear, hurt, grief etc…) gripping you. You are totally overwhelmed with the feeling. You don’t understand where it came from; but mostly you want it to go away; that would be the natural reaction to the situation, no? So you reach for a cigarette, a drink…new clothes…some sort of sedative… anything to silence the voices within.

Another scenario would be that regardless of all the pain, frustration or ager you may have withstood throughout the years…you’re FINE!!!! A little tense, wound up maybe…possibly irritable and restless, some even anxious …but, YOU’RE FINE!  Congratulations!!! You’ve managed to push your feelings underground. You’ve; suppressed them so you won’t feel them…its easier that way isn’t it?

Here’s the thing though. These feelings of yours are going to need an outlet or they will begin becoming toxic and threaten to affect your body and mind.

 For example: if there were too much fire and lava inside a volcano with no outlet because the crater was blocked, the fire would create a new outlet. It would simply explode itself a new crater. We are so very similar to the nature that created us.

The moral of the story is that there’s no escape; not if you want to feel whole. Feeling whole requires dealing with all feelings, not just the good ones! Now I’m not saying it won’t be difficult at times; nor am I saying you cannot get some periodic relief with medication. What I am saying is that when we suppress our feelings, particularly for extended periods of time, we become emotionally stuck. We become unable to feel not only the challenging feelings, but also the ones that would bring us joy and a connection to our inner selves.

Many of us are out of touch with our feelings; in our present society it’s not really o.k. to feel bad so we look for quick fixes because it hurts and we want it to go away. Whatever the cause of our discontent or pain may be, if we cannot find someone who cares about us and will listen, or if we get negative responses to the expression of these feelings, we learn to suppress them. The energy of these suppressed feelings, however, remains within our bodies because it has no outlet, eventually causing emotional and physical discomfort; the end result being that we become numb inside, even somewhat deadened.

 Some of my inspiration comes from Louise Hay who has written several books on how we can return to our joy. Louise cured herself of very serious cancer. Another of my sources is Shakti Gawain; also an author. Other sources of inspiration are Candace B.Pert, Ph.D., and Bruce H Lipton, Ph.D. both of whom have written about the science behind mind – body medicine.

  Shakti Gawain says: On the emotional level, it is our resistance to a feeling that causes us pain. If, because we are afraid of a certain feeling, we suppress it, we will experience emotional pain, eventually even physical pain. There are no ‘negative or positive’ feelings – we make them negative or positive by our rejection or acceptance of them. So what are we to do? Let’s take a look at how to begin handling  some of them. According to Shakti Gawain:

FEAR: the most important thing we can do when faced with fear is not to reject it, but to accept both ourselves for feeling the fear as well as accepting the fear itself .She counsels us not to try to push ourselves past our fears which will with time diminish its intensity, and will actually help move us into feeling more secure.

SADNESS: Give yourself permission to feel the sadness – to cry. This allows you to express the feeling and will actually open your heart.

GRIEF: This is an intense form of sadness which comes when we are literally parting with something or someone who has been important in our lives. Grief can sometimes last for quite a while. Allow yourself to grieve fully and give yourself as much support as you need.

HURT: This is an expression of vulnerability which we most often tend to mask with either defensiveness or blame. If possible,Shakti counsels us to express hurt directly and in a non-blaming way.

ANGER: This feeling  surfaces most often when we have allowed someone or something to have too much power over us. It is important to recognize that this is about your own power to make choices that are best for you, not power over others.  It would be helpful if you can express anger in a constructive way either by talking to a friend or a counselor or by creating a safe situation for its expression. You could for example write a letter expressing your feelings and then burn it.

There are of course situations so intense that they need to be dealt with by a professional…give yourself permission to do that as well; it takes courage to tackle our feelings head-on sometimes, but you are worth it!

The Intuitive Edge

“What we know determines how we think, decide and act.” Harold H. Bloomfield M.D.

Most of us have been brought up to “think” logically, rationally and critically. Our society has valued reason and critical thinking over any innate feeling sense when it comes to making decisions or evaluating situations.

Animals have instincts to help them survive; to assist them in detecting danger and in sensing their immediate environment. Without this instinct they would be at a crucial disadvantage. The human animal, a sentient being possessing a number of heightened senses coupled with the ability to think logically, has however been traditionally relegated to developing the rational at the cost of the innate.

I am not talking about the psychic senses, although those can often have validity as well. Nor do I want to expound on the virtues of looking into the past or the future. I am referring to an extra sensory perception we all possess, that which goes beyond our ability to perceive via the normal 5 senses; I am talking about: INTUITION.

We have all heard the terms: “following a hunch”, “having a gut feeling”, or “feeling something in our bones” which refer to an innate knowing that seems to bypass logic. For example: a mother sensing that her child is in danger or having a gut feeling that something is about to take place, or knowing when the phone rings, who is on the other end before we pick up. Did you know that a large number of company C.E.O’s have verified that their decision making processes are often based on “gut feelings” about which way to go on major business decisions?

In our modern and often very complicated lives we are all faced with choices that can leave us confused because we cannot logically get a correct grasp on a situation and the options it presents: enter intuition!!.

As Shakti Gawain, personal growth and consciousness coach and author puts it:” Intuition is not some sort of mysterious force that comes to you through some transcendent mystical experience. In fact, our intuition is a very practical, down to earth tool that is always available to help us deal with the decisions, problems and challenges in our daily lives. We are all born with it; young children especially are very intuitive, although in our culture they are often trained out of it early in life”.

We have been programming our minds to doubt our intuition even though our intuitive knowing allows us a much broader spectrum of information intimately related to our personal growth, self expression, creativity and emotional focus. Learning to trust our intuition can, according to Dr. Bloomfield, cure us of “psychosclerosis, a hardening of the mind and spirit that stems from overdependence on rationality and analysis”.

Within the last twenty years or thereabouts there has been an over- all re-evaluation of conventional beliefs within a seizeable part of the scientific community. As we progress into the 21^st century we are fast learning that intuition is not some form of magic. In actuality it draws on information that is not “consciously” available to us but rather works with information that is available to our” subconscious” minds which is by far more powerful. Albert Einstein said: “the really valuable thing is intuition”. Many scientific discoveries including some of Einstein’s have had their origins in dreams or intuitive flashes.

For all of us having the” intuitive edge” means making more thorough decisions, tapping into our creativity at a deeper level and having more comprehensive insights into situations we are presented with. The thing is that we need to learn, not only to trust our intuitive insights, but also to develop our abilities to use our intuition .In the next issue we will discuss various ways and exercises to develop this sense which can and should be such a valuable tool in our lives.

As We Believe, part 2

In last month’s article, we explored the origins of our personal belief system and the fact that   we all have the opportunity to change beliefs if life is not working for us as we would like it to. We established that beliefs are instilled in us during early childhood by our caretakers as well as through the emotional impact of circumstances we found ourselves experiencing at this time in our lives. What this basically means is that we all perceive life through our own emotional filtering system which has its origins in our early childhood, and that this system can be revised or changed.

Two questions present themselves: how do we identify our beliefs, and how do we change them?

IDENTIFYING BELIEFS: This requires that we “tune” into our emotions and if these emotions make us feel less than adequate, then that would be our cue that how we feel is not serving us. Most of us believe that how we feel is the ultimate truth, but in actuality our feelings simply reflect what we learned about ourselves from others when we were young and innocent and therefore had no way of  realizing “hey!, this belief is not good for me, so I won’t adopt it”.

1.      In working with our beliefs it is essential that we be willing to look them square in the face. We do this first and foremost by becoming aware of circumstances that keep repeating themselves in our daily lives. For example, if we continue having problems and really struggle to stay in a positive relationship then we have to be willing to admit to ourselves: I believe that I have to experience struggle and difficulty in relationships. Another example would be if we cannot seem to achieve a desired outcome in our jobs no matter how hard we work then the probability exists that: I believe that I am lacking in some quality needed to make life fruitful and abundant.

2.      Another way of identifying our beliefs is based on using our emotions as indicators. If you feel” less than” in any area of your life (and again this requires honesty) then this is a good indication that you are holding onto a negative belief about yourself.

3.      Another clue to how we really feel is that what distresses us about our parents or our

             children is usually what distresses us about ourselves; we tend in others what needs tending in ourselves. An example here would be that if we feel that either our parents or our children never listen, then there is a good chance that we believe that we are not able to put our point across in such a way that we deserve to be heard.               .

This may seem like a simplistic way of looking at things, but our beliefs always outpicture themselves in our lives, and what we draw to ourselves is always an indicator of what we believe.

CHANGING BELIEFS: Positive solutions rely on our state of mind. We must look at what we believe and then allow ourselves to release the negative belief.

1.      This process begins with our refusal to blame others for where we are in life while simultaneously taking responsibility for our choices and feelings. Every time we blame someone or something external to ourselves for our lot in life, we give away some of our power which then strengthens our belief in our own powerlessness.

2.      Quite often, we find ourselves thinking in certain ways while knowing that our thoughts could be creating trouble for us. For example, there are quite a few people who end up getting sick at the same time every year. These individuals may even be aware of the fact that what they believe has an effect on their experience and yet feel powerless to alter the situation. The issue here is that we must become aware of the tapes we keep running through our heads and therefore make a new recording.

3.      We are so very capable of harnessing the power of our minds to choose supportive and self-loving thoughts. One way of doing this is to create affirmations that we repeat to ourselves several times a day. We can also write these affirmations and display them somewhere at home where we will see them often (like on the refrigerator, or in the bathroom). If for example someone is overweight and is having trouble losing weight, one positive affirmation would be to repeat to oneself:” I AM AT PEACE WITH MY OWN FEELINGS. I AM SAFE WHERE I AM. I LOVE AND APPROVE OF MYSELF.” ( Louise Hay from the book: You can heal your life)

4.      Lastly, I cannot recommend this book enough: You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay. Louise’s key message is:’ If we are willing to do the mental work, almost anything can be healed”.         

5.      So many of us hold the belief that in order to be successful we must struggle and suffer; it is time to give ourselves the well-deserved break we all need and simply become willing to hold a different kind of thought in our minds: A POSITIVE ONE!!!!!

As We Believe

By Maia Rizzi
Whether positive or negative in orientation, we all hold certain beliefs about life, and how it works, and, we assume our personal beliefs to be based in “truth”. As we mature, we begin to negotiate  with circumstances and situations that present themselves  by using these same beliefs as a foundation and directional barometer

. Our life perceptions and decision-making processes are grounded in the beliefs that we hold. In other words, what we” believe” to be true about life, dictates what we are perceiving and therefore, also the way that we respond to circumstances.

At a very fundamental level, beliefs are fairly polarized; some are “life-sustaining,” meaning that they support us and generate feelings of hope and trust. Others are “life-draining” in that they leave us feeling vulnerable or inadequate in the face of circumstances that life presents us with.

For example: While some of us have faith that life unfolds in a manner that moves us towards positive results, others believe on some level that life has to be a struggle and that goals are difficult to manifest without great sacrifice.. Another example: some of us  believe that we are worthy of good friends who are loyal and supportive, while others feel they can never really rely on people, maintaining a serious element of doubt as to others’ motivations. While these two examples are on opposite ends of the spectrum, and there are, to be sure, places in between extremes, we basically vacillate between positive and negative hoping to find a happy medium.

  Our beliefs can vary significantly. While many of our beliefs may serve us well and help us negotiate life in a meaningful manner…others hold us back not only from getting what we want, but also from feeling good about ourselves. What we need to understand more than anything, if we want to create lives of joy and abundance, is where these beliefs come from, and why they rule our lives so profoundly. Where does this ingrained sense of value, whether positive or negative, that we hold about ourselves originate? Furthermore, we also need to address and greatly sharpen our ability to pinpoint the beliefs we do hold; we need to be able to identify what we believe in some way that makes it clear to us how we are to proceed to better our lives.

Where do beliefs originate?

From a psychological perspective, about 80% of our beliefs are instilled in us during early childhood between birth and the age of 7 (seven). During this period of life, we unquestioningly adopt attitudes and perceptions that are passed on to us via our caretakers and environmental circumstances. At this early point in life, as our minds are developing, we have absolutely no filtering system to help us distinguish between what will sustain us as grown individuals and what will not. Due to our inexperience and youth, we accept both what we are taught and what we are exposed to as absolute truth and this becomes the foundation of our future conscious and unconscious belief system whether for good, bad, or indifferent. Furthermore, we continue to adopt life attitudes during the precarious pre-teen and early adolescent years so that by 15 years of age we have formed the remaining 20%, and have thus established 100%, or the equivalent of a fairly complete life perspective and general belief system. We may do some rebelling and questioning of values and beliefs during our teen years, mostly due to “peer pressure” which exerts some hefty persuasive pressure on us to be sure, but the bedrock of what we believe has been laid.

So here’s the thing: as adults, most of us are looking at life through a filter that was provided for us by the people that brought us up during the first years of our lives and the circumstances that surrounded us at the time. Now, if these people and circumstances had only our personal good at heart, wonderful!; I would have no gripes. HOWEVER, if who and what we were exposed to as children leaves us feeling unworthy, inadequate or undeserving in any way, why would we want to hold onto those beliefs? We deserve so very much more! The beauty about life is that if we can become aware of the beliefs that we hold that do not serve us, we can change them! And in changing our belief system, we change our lives. So, let us all become explorers of the most compelling frontier of our time: our own consciousness! Let us look for what we believe and if the belief does not serve us…LET’S CHANGE IT!!!!!!!