OMTimes Magazine December A 2017 Edition

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December A 2017

Cover Story

Metaphysics

24

94

Rob Greenfield: The Dude Making a Difference

Health & Wellness 44 48

Successful Weight Loss and Fitness Depends on Spiritual Balance Being Present with Pain

Spirituality 54 58

Are You Listening to Your Soul or to Your Logic ?

Why Do We Have to Suffer So Much

OM Living 66 70 74 78 80

Getting Sober Reviving Ancient Vegan Wisdom Manifesting Made Easy: 7 Tips to Increase Flow Spotlight - International Yoga Festival Creating Your Travel Journal

Relationships 88

Why Bubble-Wrapped Kids Grow Up Feeling As Overwhelmed As Abused Kids

9 Best Crystals for Protection 98 How to Activate Inner Wisdom 104 The Hard Thing About Following the Clues 110 How to Put Your Psychic Powers and All the Answers You Seek Right in the Palm of Your Hand!

Personal Growth 118 Dealing with Your Trickster Ego 122 Questions for Developing Self-Wholeness

Books 128 Spotlight - The Akashic Tarot

Rob Greenfield: The Dude Making a Difference It’s a simple idea, albeit not an easy one, to inspire people to live in a manner that is beneficial to Earth, our communities and ourselves.

But Rob Greenfield gave up doing

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easy, when at the age of 24 he started paying attention to the environmental and social issues of his generation and discovered that he was contributing to many of these problems himself through the food he was eating, the car he was driving and the stuff he was buying and consuming.

At which point he began his transformation from a drunk dude to a dude who’s dedicating his life to making a difference.

From cycling across the USA on a bamboo bicycle to foraging in grocery store dumpsters. From traveling across the USA without credit cards or cash, Rob Greenfield’s extreme adventures, and his activism campaigns, TEDx talks and TV series bringing awareness to important environmental issues, that have not only caught the attention of the world’s media.

changes in countless people over the last six years to be the change we all wish to see in the world.

Sandie Sedgbeer: Rob, your extreme adventures, and your in-your-face activism campaigns have been featured in numerous media outlets, including the BBC, CBS, Discovery Channel, US Today, Huffington Post, The Guardian and the LA Times.

Did you have any idea when you set out on that first trip across America that you were riding into a whole new life as an environmental activist and humanitarian?

Rob Greenfield: Yeah, that was completely my intentions. At that point in 2013, well, I had been making changes in my life for two years at that point. I really started to feel like I was becoming an example, the change of what I wanted to see in the world.

He also inspired positive Omtimes.com

And so that’s where I decided that I really wanted to start leading by example and live it out loud. And so, I planned to really shake things up and try to get media to talk more about environmental issues and get more people to make positive changes. So yeah, that was the plan.

Sandie Sedgbeer: So what rules did you determine to live by throughout that journey?

Rob Greenfield: Well, it was a very difficult journey. That was biking on a bamboo bike from San Francisco to Vermont, 4700 miles and, trying to pay attention to every action that I made. Nevertheless, biking across the country in itself is hard. But doing it while trying to create zero trash, use, less water than for the entire trip than the average American uses in a couple of days, to try to eat only local, organic, unpackaged foods, to try to use no electricity from on the grid. I had all these rules to kind of bike off the grid across the United States with as little impact as possible. Every day it was a challenge, for sure.

Rob Greenfield: Well, on that bike trip the idea was to cross the country trying to have an as little environmental impact as I possibly could. So, and the idea was to do it in a way that I would be bettering myself while doing something that was kind of an interesting story for others to follow. On that trip, I focused on all the basic aspects of sustainable living.

That’s food, water, energy, waste and transportation, all the things that we deal with on a daily basis whether we think about it or realize it or not.

Sandie Sedgbeer: I was reading your book, and you say how there were so many people who were so supportive along the way, but some people wanted to help you in ways that you didn’t want to be helped.

They wanted to cook meals for you, but that was counter to, the way you wanted to live your life and have your meals cooked en route.

Sandie Sedgbeer: So how difficult a journey was it?

Rob Greenfield: Well, yeah.

So, for this summer, I was doing

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a very set thing. I had set these rules to follow for the summer.

And so, and they were kind of extreme rules to really prove a point and to get people to really step outside their box with me for at least a moment and start thinking about these things.

And so for the summer, the only food I could eat was local, organic, unpackaged food, which meant, pretty much nobody could cook for me because I had a very, set thing going on. And the same, I couldn’t use electricity, so that means they couldn’t use their stove or anything like that. When I was staying with people, setting up my tent in their backyard, as I was crossing the country and they really wanted to provide so much hospitality, it was a challenge because I often had to say well no, like I’d love to have your homemade cookies, but I just can’t.

Sandie Sedgbeer: Where did you get your determination to resist temptation from?

Rob Greenfield: Well, I guess

I do feel like one of the most important characteristics is to have self-control. We’re talking about, changing ourselves environmentally, our mental consciousness, in a world where you’re being bombarded every day by 1000 times more consumeristic messages than you are health-conscious messages. If you turn on the TV, if you turn on the internet, if you walk down the street generally you’re being told to buy this, to purchase that, you need this and not things like just eat healthy food. Just be happy. So, you need self-control to be able to live a conscious and ethical lifestyle.

Sandie Sedgbeer: One of the things that are so shocking in your book is the amount of waste. I mean the number of dumpsters you dived into and the plethora of foods, many of which were still in within their sell-by date that you were able to plunder there. Were you aware of the scale of waste before you started on that journey?

Rob Greenfield: No, I definitely wasn’t aware at

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all. So, the deal was that I could only eat local, organic, unpackaged food. But the exception was that I could eat any food that was going to waste, which meant dumpster diving. And I had never been dumpster diving before, and on this trip, I basically was, I was forced to because I couldn’t find local organic unpackaged food in most parts of the country.

We have this term, food desert, which is an area where there is no access to healthy food. And so that resulted in me having this exception, and that was that I could eat food that was going to waste.

So, I started to look inside dumpsters, and I was just instantly blown away. I mean the first dumpster I ever looked it was full of food, and then across the nation, I just continuously would check the dumpsters. And I found that dumpster after dumpster after dumpster, and we’re talking about grocery store dumpsters that are filled, often to the brim, with perfectly good food.

I was blown away. At first, it wasn’t something I talked about because of the whole Omtimes.com

ego aspect. But after a while it was just like a man, I’ve got to put my ego behind me. We’re talking about half of all the food in the United States is wasted. It’s a huge environmental problem, it’s a huge human problem. One in seven Americans are food insecure, so we’re wasting we have enough food to feed the entire country, yet people are hungry. So, I had to put my ego aside and start showing what I’m seeing now to really raise awareness about food waste.

Sandie Sedgbeer: Rob Greenfield, to put the scale of this waste into context, you say that we throw away $165 billion worth of food a year in the USA. This is more than the budget for the US national parks, public libraries, federal prisons, veterans health care, the FBI and the FDA combined.

And we’re not just wasteful with food. In fact, you say that basically everything we need can be found in the trash. Can you expand on that?

Rob Greenfield: It is really hard to wrap our heads around because the thing is, most waste is out of sight, out of mind. It

goes into the garbage can, or it goes into the dumpster, and then the garbage truck comes and picks it up, and then it’s in a container that you can’t see through, and then it goes to a landfill that is usually in a place where we never see. It’s out of sight again. And so the whole entire process is something that is very much behind the scenes.

And so because of that, it’s totally out of mind. We never really have to think about it. It’s been done in a way that’s really just largely invisible to us. Now I think that’s something that’s not going to be able to continue forever. That’s sort of one of the delusions we have today that’s going to really catch up to us.

But anyway, we don’t see how, I mean literally in the United States there is a population of about 320 million Americans, but we waste enough food to feed another entire America.

What that means is we produce enough food to feed about 600 million Americans. And because of this system that we’ve created of disposing of it, it’s just not something that really crosses our radar.

Food waste is actually one

of the biggest environmental issues of our time. When you waste food, you also waste all of the water used to produce that food, all of the land that the food was grown on, all of the work hours, all of the pesticides, and the herbicides, and the fungicides. The people working, for $5 an hour spraying those pesticides that have higher rates of cancer, for nothing. So that’s, what’s happening when we’re wasting food.

Sandie Sedgbeer: Throughout Europe, many big supermarkets are now changing the way that they deal with food that is approaching or past its sellby date and have all kinds of initiatives in place to address that issue. But you did a wonderful campaign to draw attention to this, which was 30 Days of Trash. Tell us a little about that.

Rob Greenfield: Yeah, so I like to come up with very visual ways to catch people’s attention and get them to think about important issues. As far as our individual waste that we create, again, it’s out of sight, out of mind. We put it in the trashcan, and the garbage man comes Omtimes.com

and picks it up, and we never really see how much it adds up to. So, I thought how can I create a visual that will really help people to like see how much trash we create and wrap their heads around it. And so I thought what better way than living like the average person, just like, eating, shopping, consuming like the average person does, but with the catch that I had to wear every piece of trash that I created. That way I wouldn’t be yelling at anybody.

I would just be out there, kind of in people’s faces. I wouldn’t be telling anybody they had to listen. I was just doing it. And if they wanted to ask what it was that I was doing, they could. But anyway, the whole idea was just to create that vision. And it definitely worked. At the end of the month, I was wearing 87 pounds of trash, which is quite the sight.

Sandie Sedgbeer: Yeah, and quite a lot to be carrying around. I mean, any woman would shriek in horror if she thought that she was carrying an extra 80+ pounds on her body. But when we think what we’re doing with that 80+ pounds that we all throw Omtimes.com

away every month, I mean the thought is just really horrific.

But that, that certainly got a lot of attention. I mean I think you had media coverage in France and all over the world for that one. How do you come up with the ideas?

Rob Greenfield: Well, I find myself a lot of times the most inspired while I’m out on a long ride. And it’s just brainstorming.

Constant brainstorming. I brainstorm with my girlfriend, Cheryl, quite a bit, and just whoever I’m hanging out with. I kind of am somebody who likes to be productive pretty much all the time. If I’m just hanging out with friends, I’m talking about ideas and running ideas past them.

So, for example, Trash Me, where I wore all my trash for a month, came from Super Size Me where Morgan Spurlock ate only McDonald’s for 30 days to bring attention to, the fast food industry.

So, I thought, how can I use this like idea and switch it over to, raising awareness about trash? I lived like the average American and wore all my trash, so Super

the whole month. I was the opposite of me. My thing is paying attention to every action and trying to create as little trash as possible, and instead for the month what I did is I just lived like the average American.

I went to the grocery store, I looked to see what was in other people’s shopping carts, and that’s what I bought. I would go to the restaurant, and I’d say what does everybody order?

And that’s what I’d get.

Size Me, Trash Me. That was one of the big inspirations.

Sandie Sedgbeer: So for that entire month were you going against every rule that you made on that bike trip and eating normally, consuming electricity, water, power, everything, or were you just picking up trash and carrying it?

Rob Greenfield: No, that was the thing about this is that for

I hadn’t eaten at McDonald’s for five years since back in the day when I wasn’t very conscious I ate fast food. So, day three I went to McDonald’s. I said what do you what do people get?

And they said a Big Mac is the most common thing, so I ate a Big Mac. It was the first time I had that in, again, five years.

And so, it was a very immersive and interesting experience that basically just flowed along in the breeze of American consumerism for a month, but I fully embraced it. I knew what I was getting into when I decided to do it.

Sandie Sedgbeer: So, and you didn’t just do this with trash.

I mean you decided in 2014, Omtimes.com

to go moneyless. You made another trip across the USA without any money, and you’ve traveled abroad without any money. Tell us a little bit about how you did that because most people would think that’s impossible.

To create something that would really get people thinking, my thing was that I landed in Panama with no money, with just the clothes on my back and my passport, and I had to make it all the way back to San Diego.

people out there, contrary to what the news will say that it’s a dangerous, bloody place. And then secondly, it required me to be resourceful, and I think that’s one of the most important characteristics that we can work on is being resourceful because the thing is if you’re not resourceful, then you’ve got to be a consumer because you need to buy everything to solve your problems. You need to throw money at every situation, then you’re stuck in the money trap. But once you become resourceful and you realize the earth provides us with what we need if we only know how to use the resources wisely, then you’re able to really step outside of that trap. By traveling with no money, I was dependent upon the kindness of others but also dependent upon my resourcefulness to get me home.

I had to pass through seven countries, through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico, and really, I was two things, one, dependent on the kindness of others. I wanted to show that there are so many good

Sandie Sedgbeer: Rob Greenfield, who lives a near zero waste lifestyle with just 111 possessions to his name and donates 100% of his media income to grassroots environmental nonprofits.

You lived off the grid in a

Rob Greenfield: Well, it was 2014 in the spring. Our society is so dependent upon money, there’s a saying, money makes the world go around. But it’s just something that I don’t believe is a reality. I think that it’s possible to live very, very good lives where money is either not a part of your life, or it’s a small part of your life.

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50-square-foot tiny home in San Diego, California. What did that actually entail for you?

What did you have to do to be completely off the grid?

it many steps further than living off-the-grid. The idea was to really have an as little environmental impact as possible while living in the city.

Rob Greenfield: Well, basically.

I think there’s a lot of confusion about what the word off-thegrid means because really what off-the-grid means is it means you’re off of the municipal public utilities, which is basically electric--electricity and water.

So, a lot of people when they hear off-the-grid they think that means everything. It means you don’t have a Facebook account or, a computer, or that you’re some like, somewhat nonexistent citizen.

So, I simplified find my life down to not having a single bill to my name, not having a single debt, not having any credit cards. It’s been three years now, although I don’t live in a tiny house now; I’m traveling. But living in the tiny house was a really, really great experience of simple living in the city.

But off-the-grid, it just means that you have your own supply of energy and water and that you’re not using the literal grid, because that’s what it is, above and below us. The power lines are a grid, and the water is a grid. They’re arranged in a grid.

So, for water, I harvested all my water from the sky, from rainwater. That’s rainwater harvesting. And then for electricity, I had small solar panels. But I really did take

Sandie Sedgbeer: And not much bigger than what most people would use as a garden shed, and you had all your possessions. You harnessed energy from the sun. You created near zero waste, and you composted your own humanure, as it’s called. But then after a year of that, you auctioned off your little house and raised enough money to build 10 tiny houses for homeless San Diegans. How is that project going?

Rob Greenfield: Yeah, so I bought the house originally for $950, and then I was able to auction it for $10,000, which Omtimes.com

the idea was to build 10 houses at $1000. And when I did that there was a community that I was partnering with who already had land that they could use to build the tiny house community on. So, things were looking like they were going to happen pretty quick.

Then the land got pulled out from underneath them, so now they’re still working on finding land. So, the money is just sitting in an account waiting so that they have the land to be able to put the tiny houses on.

I just visited Opportunity Village in Eugene, Oregon, and they’re doing some amazing stuff with tiny house communities for people that don’t have homes up there, and they’re starting another community up there.

Sandie Sedgbeer: One of the things that impressed me when I looked at your website is how transparent you are with the amount of money that you’ve earned and where that money has gone. Is it getting more difficult, as you get more famous and you’re asked to travel a lot more, does it get harder and harder to live by Omtimes.com

your rules or easier?

Rob Greenfield: I would guess I would say harder, in a way. I mean most of it’s not more challenging. The main challenge is flying. I try to minimize flying as much as possible. Like just this morning I got invited to speak in Morocco at a time when I’m already planning on being over in Europe for a speaking tour, so it kind of works, but it would require one more flight. And the thing is I try to minimize my flying as much as possible. On my Europe tours, I take buses and trains, even on like, 12- to 20-hour trains that would only be a one- or two-hour flight or as a couple hour flight instead.

I personally believe that the flying that I do is worth it for the change that it creates, but that’s one of the challenges is really picking the right ones that are worth it because flying is one of the most environmentally destructive things that we do. So that’s really the big challenge.

Everything else is easy, though, because I’m really living the life that I want to be. Any fame or anything like that

aside, I’m doing this because I want to be doing it for myself, for the world, for the community. I don’t want to have much money at all, like period. There’s no desire for it. It’s pretty easy for me to do because I’m only myself.

Sandie Sedgbeer: I mean you’ve given 100% of your media income to nonprofits.

So, there are times when you’re going to need money. If you’re going to book a flight, you’ve got to pay for it even if somebody else is going to give you that money back later. How do you cope? I mean, where does any money that you do need to have come from?

Rob Greenfield: So public speaking is where I make the funds, the money that I do personally have. So as far as like TV show and book, 100% of that’s always donated directly to nonprofits. And then most of my public speaking is donated to nonprofits as well. This year my personal income cap was $5000. So, once I had made that $5000, everything else that comes in is donated directly to nonprofits. And the way that it works is the money never--I

don’t have the money come to me and then donate it. My TV show on the Discovery Channel, I just wrote right into the contract this money is donated directly to these nonprofits. I did the same with my books. I have never been involved in the money at all except for finding great places that can use the money well to affect positive social and environmental.

Sandie Sedgbeer: You write about shaking off social norms, and this is probably one of the biggest blocks, that we have to contend with, to change our consciousness because societal conditioning runs so deep. All of your extreme adventures and activism campaigns are meant to bring attention to these really important issues and inspire positive change.

Can you share some of those tips with us?

Rob Greenfield: I do extreme things, but the idea isn’t that we have to run out and do extreme things. It’s about getting us to think about what we can do in our own lives to make positive changes for ourselves, for the community and the earth.

You can change, take shorter Omtimes.com

showers, for example. You can ride your bike more and drive your car less. Shop local. Support local businesses. Carry your own reusable bag to the grocery store. Ditching bottled water, that’s a big one.

Some of the bigger ones, which I think is one of the things that the environmental movement doesn’t talk about enough, some of the really big ones, eating a plant-based diet, eating much more fruits and vegetables is one of the single largest changes that we can make to reduce our environmental impact. And so I’m not personally vegan, but I’m 80% or 90% plant-based.

I think anytime you do 80% or 90% of something you’re making a huge difference.

You’ve got to start somewhere to get somewhere else.

Sandie Sedgbeer: I mean clearly you are very passionate about what you do, and you’ve really dedicated your life to this.

Do you see at some point that you might want to live a slightly different life?

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Rob Greenfield: Well, so I know my life will constantly be shifting. And the thing is there are many ways to live out my beliefs. I don’t have to be fully in the spotlight, like, because I think one of the most important things you can do is lead by example and in balance. I plan to start a sustainable living institute where It’ll be a place where you’ll be able to learn all of this stuff, to learn, how to change your life, to live a more environmentally-friendly and socially-just and less moneyfilled life with less, destructive life. And I’ll be able to just live my life then, and people will be able to come learn.

When I’m 60 things are going to be different. By different, I don’t mean I’m going to go back to the mainstream consumeristic way of life, but it is going to have to shift as my physical abilities, like my age, as these things change.

But I will always, as long as I live, be living out my beliefs to a great extent. I am very confident of that.

Sandie Sedgbeer: Tell us about some of the nonprofit organizations that 1% of the planet supports and that you support.

Rob Greenfield: Yeah, I actually have a list on my website, which I would recommend people check out. It’s just robgreenfield.tv/nonprofits, and that’s 50 nonprofits I think on there that I really, really like and support that cover different environmental issues.

Some of the ones that I really like, Food is Free is an awesome project that basically is all about spreading that food is free, getting people that grow their own food and then share it for free in the community.

The story of Stuff is another nonprofit that I love.The Story of Stuff, The Story of Cosmetics, The Story of Electronics, all these really amazing films that teach you about where our stuff comes from and the impact it has on the earth.

1% for the Planet is a nonprofit that I’m an ambassador for, and they’re a network of businesses that commit to giving 1% of revenue to environmental nonprofits. So whether you make $1 million a year or $1000 a year, you just commit to giving 1%. Recently they just opened it up for people.

People can give 1% of their revenue, their income to environmental nonprofit.

Sandie Sedgbeer: Rob Greenfield, thank you so much for joining us today. We spoke with Rob Greenfield, about his book, Dude Making a Difference, which is inspiring people around the world to reexamine the way they live, the amount of waste they create and their relationship with the Earth’s resources. If you’d like a copy of Dude Making a Difference, I would encourage you to acquire at Amazon.

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Health & Wellness Innovative new approaches to Healing as well as holistic methods for dealing with health issues and personal growth

Successful Weight Loss and Fitness Depends on Spiritual Balance

by Karen Ulvestad

It’s easy to become trapped in the notion that weight loss is purely a physical process.

After all, we see our physical image in the mirror, and it reflects what the world sees.

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We become distracted by this illusion of ourselves, and forget we embody a spirit. Learn ways to see past the mirror’s reflection, and gain lasting weight loss and physical fitness.

Physical weight loss and fitness are bound closely with our thoughts and spiritual well-being. Often, the extra pounds are the result of physical or emotional trauma.

What we do not see is that this permeates our thought processes and to our spiritual core. Trauma or abuse is pervasive throughout our entire being.

It is easy to think that people will not notice us if we add the extra pounds. That is not true.

We are noticed. We garner the attention that we are trying to avoid, because of the deep seeded pain we are carrying in our core self.

Put simply, we are more than a physical body. Our logic may deem that losing weight is solely associated with the physical body. The physical body reflects the physical

aspects of too much weight. It harbors painful joints, illness, or chronic sleep issues.

This is the physical manifestation of the issues that trouble us.

The first step to lose the weight is to acknowledge we are perfect the way we were created. The issue isn’t ours.

It belongs to the abuser, and they wanted to give it to us. So, let it go.

Beyond the body, our minds think thoughts all the time.

The mind doesn’t shut down unless we allow it to be quiet.

To reach this “quiet” state, we can meditate, drink a glass of wine, or exercise. The question becomes, do the thoughts stop, slow down, become clear, or continue uninterrupted?

The second step is to gain understanding and control over our own thoughts. Our belief system is based on our thoughts and feelings. We are influenced by all the events that happen to us on the physical and spiritual realms.

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Our thoughts are energy. We are energy. Focus on becoming the energy beacon that reflects internal beliefs.

The spirit portion isn’t necessarily as clear-cut as the body or the mind. It is something less physically tangible. Part of it is the energy flow through the physical body, mind, and energy field surrounding the body. It is the soul essence. It is that part that is activated when following “your heart” or dreams.

The spiritual body holds onto the energy of the trauma or abuse. It reflects our physical being, emotional state, and thoughts. It carries our past life, unresolved issues. It is our connection to the Universal Life Force energies.

The third step is to create a positive spiritual routine to incorporate into our lifestyle.

Fitness is a great way to release spiritual issues and contribute to weight loss. This does not mean spending hours at the gym. It means becoming present in our lives. It is the

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walk on the beach or hiking through the forest, enjoying the outdoors. Fitness is simply moving the physical body more, and burning calories (energy).

These 3 parts of ourselves are the key to successful weight loss and to attain greater fitness. If we believe we can lose weight, we will. Our self-talk directs our physical appearance and spiritual presence. Each is equally important to address when making life changes.

Losing weight is a major life change. It takes courage, strength, and determination. It is one of the most important choices we can make, and it’s solely for ourselves.

Karen Ulvestad is a Reiki Master/Teacher, intuitive, writer and Aroma Therapy student.

She has been on this path for most of her life. Through the process of learning, she has come to the conclusion that all things are related. She strives to come from a place of balance, peace, and calmness.

Her book “Whisperings of the Spirit” is available at www.

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Being Present with Pain

by Linda Bloom

Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.

Regardless of what we do, life will at some point, bring us losses, disappointments, and instances of physical and emotional pain. Pain is the experience of something that creates physical, mental or emotional distress. It’s the body’s way of bringing Omtimes.com

awareness to something that needs our attention. Pain, either physical or emotional, is the body’s way to inform us that we need to attend to something.

Although pain isn’t an emotion, there are emotions that are painful to experience.

Grief, anxiety, guilt, shame, and rage are all examples.

Emotions are energy in motion in the body. Some are more difficult to experience than others and we identify them as being “negative,” but those are simply labels that describe our assessment of those sensations. Suffering is what we experience when there is prolonged resistance to painful experiences. It is often during our efforts to avoid, deny, or resist that which is inevitable, that we create suffering.

People who live at a high level of well-being know how to respond to the messages they receive from their body, and are able to attend to their emotions appropriately and skillfully. They are neither compulsive pleasure-seekers, nor compulsive avoiders.

They don’t compulsively deny

pain, but rather experience feelings and sensations with a minimum of attachment or aversion.

The tendency to withdraw from painful experiences is deeply embedded pattern. We do it involuntarily, which in many instances is a good thing.

We don’t have to try to decide whether or not to let go of a hot plate, our nervous system implements that decision and takes the appropriate action in a nano-second. Most people don’t have any idea that another response is possible. If you are running a marathon, and develop an excruciating chest pain, it’s appropriate to stop running. If you don’t, your body will be stopped in its tracks, literally.

The Advantages of Staying Present for Discomfort And yet, there are times when staying present with uncomfortable feelings is more skillful or appropriate than letting go of the hot pan.

Developing the capacity to listen to someone’s grievances, rather than to disengage or become defensive with Omtimes.com

them will bring about a very different outcome. If your business partner is upset with you because you didn’t do something you promised to do, and you are feeling pain, it may be better to experience the discomfort than to walk away or argue, either one of which is an example of trying to disengage from your own pain. To be able to distinguish a skillful from an unskillful response requires the development of the trait of discernment, as well as the capacity to tolerate intense feelings and sensations.

One of the things that distinguishes highly accomplished athletes from others is their ability to tolerate physical pain and discomfort. We are not encouraging people to create unnecessary suffering or to seek it out, but to increase their capacity to be present with strong sensations with compassion and care. While we can’t eliminate pain, we can learn to respond to it in ways that don’t prolong it and minimize unnecessary distress.

We can’t expect to be happy Omtimes.com

all the time; that would be unrealistic. But there is more that we can do to make room for discomfort so that we experience it thoroughly and then it came move through us and pass on by. The antidote to suffering lies not in the elimination of pain, but in our ability to meet it with compassion and acceptance.

When we can do this we will also become able to respond to another’s pain in the same way. Not only is making room for some unhappiness a gift to those we love, but to be able to hold their blues with them is a profound addition to developing any healthy, wholesome relationship.

Linda Bloom L.C.S.W. has served as psychotherapist and seminar leader practicing relationship counseling almost forty years. Check out her OMTimes Bio. If you like what you read, click here to sign up Bloomwork’s monthly inspirational newsletter and receive our free e-book: Going For the Gold: Tools, practice, and wisdom for creating exemplary relationships.

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Simply Spiritual To perceive reality from a different perspective is to open oneself to the wonders and unlimited wealth of creation. Simply Spiritual offers the opportunity to visit new places, new methods, and different ways to perceive the vast human knowledge of our Universe.

“Are You Listening to Your Soul or to Logic?”

By John Holland

I’ve just returned from a beautiful and inspiring teaching weekend at Lily Dale Assembly recently, where I taught one of my signature workshops on the basics of psychic development and mediumship. It’s always wonderful to watch a student develop their spiritual abilities and to teach them how they can integrate the spiritual into their equally important physical lives.

Of course, these workshops are incredibly rewarding for me, but take a lot of energy. I have to prepare everything, prepare myself emotionally and

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spiritually, and then pack, jump on a plane, teach and return home all within a few days. It can certainly take its toll on the body, especially when flights are delayed and you end up getting home in the early hours of the morning. So, it’s times like these that I have to stop and take a moment to nurture my own body and soul. I make sure I practice my own routines, just as I did this last week.

I have my usual set routines when I get back from a busy weekend, such as taking time to exercise, meditate, do the laundry and other house chores.

While those domestic chores help to ground me again, they don’t truly nurture my Soul. I find the best way to do that is through nature. I’m in the final stages of editing my new book “Bridging Two Realms,” and by sheer synchronicity, friends asked me if I wanted to spend a few hours out on their boat on the ocean. When they asked, I said, “Yes” but as the day came I could feel myself gravitating towards canceling,

because of how much work I had on. Another friend offered some strong advice that I really needed the boat ride more than a day at the desk! I realized she was right! There will always be something in life that will try to pull you away from what you know you really should be doing for yourself.

Did I need a long day at my desk to edit the next few chapters, or should I nurture my body, mind, and soul for those few hours?

It’s always a choice.

So, I gave myself permission to just stop – yes, to stop for a whole day and take time out to enjoy a beautiful summer day on the water. Being out for a day in the sun, with the healing salty ocean spray, no phone constantly buzzing to tell me about the next appointment, or the pressure of emails … It’s an amazing tonic to infuse the Soul.

I came back after this beautiful day refreshed, reinvigorated, rebalanced and above all feeling more like myself again.

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Why Do We Have to Suffer So Much?

By Carmen Vasquez

Suffering is something that most of us, as human beings, live with every day. Sometimes it feels like an unfortunate feature that is permanently installed within us by an unknown programmer without our permission. For some people, suffering begins at conception or birth. For others,

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suffering appears a bit further down the road; they arrive on Earth in a non-traumatic way and are surrounded by love from day one. Sadly, as they grow up, this “perfect reality” starts falling down and their lives are gradually filled with problems and impossible challenges. As this trend, that these people tend to perceive as fate or bad luck continues, suffering starts taking hold.

The important question here is this: “Why do we have to suffer so much?”

When we enter our physical bodies, in our current existence as well as in our past ones, we fall into a “deep sleep” and forget who we really are and our true purpose. This purpose is no other than the self-knowledge that leads us to understand that we are not meant to be perfect. This is the real reason why, since the beginning of time, life was created as duality and imperfection. The only true way of knowing what we are is by not being.

To understand this question fully and find a good answer, first, we must understand the true reason why we are here on Earth. All of us, every single one of us, came into this world as a particle, a small fraction of the Whole, that Being -or Energy- that, in its absolute perfection, created everything.

That entity -by dividing itself into infinite particles- gave birth to every single living creature. That is why we are told that we were created “in the image of God”. Actually, we are a part of that Being, Energy or entity that is known by many different names all over the world.

Asleep, forgetful and completely disconnected from our true purpose, we have spent millions of years asking ourselves how and why we are here. In order to fight the emptiness that we feel, we have created a plethora of organizations and belief systems that have convinced us that we can fix all of our problems and find our “salvation” if we entrust our faith in external things.

Unfortunately, sometimes this quest for answers ends up causing even more suffering as those beings and people, in whom we put our faith, fail to deliver the solutions that we Omtimes.com

so desperately want. In many cases, all this disappointment leads us to a painful state of frustration and depression.

It is very important that we remember that we are our own creators. Most of the time we create our reality unconsciously as it is not our Conscious mind that controls our lives, but our Unconscious one.

When our consciousness finally feels the need to wake up, many of us feel the urge to start a new journey. Many of us do it by practicing things like the Laws of Attraction, which in the end tend to disappoint its practitioners, repeating empty mantras and giving encouragement to our own reflection in the mirror using silly, manufactured, feel-good phrases. Finally, many of us find spiritual leaders who tell us that with enough faith, we can achieve anything that we want.

These people try to convince us that the entire forces of Heaven are on our side, willing to make miracles rain on us and fix all our problems. Sometimes we do witness miracles, but the things that we really desire always seem to be beyond our grasp.

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These Saints, teachers, gurus, psychics, Angels and even God himself, end up disappointing us. Not only do they not seem to listen to our prayers, but they also seem to take pleasure in “punishing” us. The truth is that nobody is really punishing us: it is our belief which is creating our reality.

The truth is quite clear: we expect too much from external things. Every time we search for that absolute truth, that which “must be”, which will bring us happiness, we look outside of ourselves. However, all the answers that we seek are within ourselves, NEVER OUTSIDE! The first step we must take if we want to create this new reality is to understand that creation comes from the Unconscious. If we do not want to go through the same experiences, again and again, we must remove the lid of the steam pressure pot of our Unconsciousness, the place where all our past and present lives are stored, and let it be filled with new experiences.

That is how we heal, free and make everything that is there conscious as it whispers and tells us things like “don’t go that

way” or “take a new path, you can do it!”

Then we must start acting consciously, being aware of every single moment, in order to grasp that new reality and find that new direction. Once we act consciously, we will stop putting all our expectations in external things, external people and external situations. We will start understanding that we are our own creators and we don’t need anyone to come and solve our problems, let alone lead us to “salvation” or change our reality. Finally, we must let everything flow, understanding that all things have their own rhythm. It’s like planting a seed, which needs time to develop and grow before it can bear fruit. Everything that we create needs to run its course, so we must let things flow.

Once we remember where we come from, the true purpose of our existence and our great inner power of constant creation, we will learn that no aspect of reality deserves that we suffer for it. On the contrary, at this moment, we are on Earth to experiment, flow and observe. If we achieve

that, all of the challenges we face will feel lighter as we understand that sooner or later, all things will pass. We will also understand that we live in a world of duality and that imperfection is an integral part of that. That is why, in this plane of existence, the search of a perfect life is a fool’s errand. At least in the present, where our evolution and the awakening of our consciousness still need a few centuries to be completed.

Have a happy journey on this Earth. Let go, flow, enjoy the duality and don’t let expectations lead you to suffer!

Carmen Vasquez is the author of inspirational and motivational articles that always share positive messages with her readers. Carmen is a writer for OM Times Magazine and along with her husband, the founder of Journey Angels. Her website www.journeyangels.com has been created to inspire people to transform and develop their lives. Carmen is happily married and a mom of three beautiful angels. She and her family live on the Pacific coast of the U.S.A. Omtimes.com

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OM Living For those living a more Conscious Lifestyle

Getting Sober

by Alan Cohen

I recently learned of the death of a musician I admire. Ruud was a trombonist in AndrÊ Rieu’s orchestra. Besides being a talented musician, he was something of a comic spark plug, performing clever antics in skits the orchestra wove into

their performances. I enjoyed watching Ruud on YouTube for years. He died suddenly at a relatively young age.

I was surprised at how moved I was at the news of Ruud’s passing. I found the incident sobering. We usually use the word “sober” as the antithesis of being drunk. When an event sobers us, it dashes cold water on our face to extricate us from the drunkenness of the meaningless activities we often engage in. We are awakened from the addictive behaviors we use to distract ourselves from our pain. The list of our addictions, hard and soft, is substantial: Drinking, drugging, email, Internet, smartphone, gaming, anxious eating, overworking, compulsive shopping, disconnected sex, neurotic cleaning, mindless babbling, arguing, continual drama, and on and on and on—all tricks we play on ourselves to stay hypnotized by emptiness. We each have our preferred escape.

Then something happens that forces us to face ourselves and our lives. A death, divorce, accident, business setback, health issue, legal problem, or weather disaster. Some crisis or emergency. Then we have to think about what is really important and what our priorities are. While such challenges are painful, they are also liberating. They jolt us to dig into our soul rather than hang out at the shallow surface of our lives. When we go through such difficulties, we resist and curse them. After we graduate from the lessons they bring us, we find deep gratitude.

None of us knows how long we or our loved ones will be here.

It could be a very long time or a short time. Some people disappear quickly, without notice. For that reason we must appreciate the people and gifts in our lives while we have them. Don’t take anyone or any situation for granted. Bless it while you have it. Tell your close ones that you love them.

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Thank them for the good they bring you. Imagine that you might not see each person after this encounter. What would you say if you knew this would be your last meeting?

Hopefully you will have lots more time with your loved ones. Just don’t wait until they are gone or almost gone to express your heart to them.

Likewise, don’t wait until you find your soulmate, lose 20 pounds, get your ideal job, make your first million, or attain nirvana before you appreciate who you are. Now is your big moment to fall in love with yourself. Right where you are. As you are.

In Arthur Miller’s play After the Fall, a character says, “I dreamed I had a child, and even in the dream I saw that it was my life, and it was an idiot, and I ran away. But it always crept into my lap again, clutched at my clothes.

Until I thought, if I could kiss it, whatever in it was my own, perhaps I could sleep. And I bent over the broken face, and

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it was horrible. . .but I kissed it. I think that one must finally take one’s life into one’s arms.”

We all have traits in ourselves, our relationships, and our lives that we believe are unlovable.

But if we can find beauty and goodness in ourselves and others, even with those traits, we find release that does not come as long as we use judgment to separate ourselves from healing.

We are now heading toward the holiday season, which brings unique joys and challenges. Family issues arise and unhealed relationships get in our face. Perhaps you had a loss or a relationship end during the past year. The season conjures countless distractions—shopping, parties, social obligations, travel, lavish food, financial issues, and many other temptations to stay foggy. Yet we also have many opportunities to get sober, to get clear on our values and the kind of relationships and activities that are truly meaningful to us.

In my town during the holidays the police set up roadblocks to check for drunk drivers.

Likewise, it might not be a bad idea for each of us to check in with ourselves occasionally to see if we are staying sober, remembering what is real in the face of illusions to the contrary. A Course in Miracles tells us that we have set up the world as a place to hide from ourselves, each other, and love.

The Course also tells us that we have many invitations each day to cross the border between illusion and truth, connect, and live in ways befitting the noble, magnificent spiritual beings we are.

When André Rieu learned that his beloved trombonist of 22 years had died in the midst of the orchestra’s tour, he cancelled the remainder of the tour—a bold move when many thousands of fans were waiting and millions of dollars were on the table. But André decided it was more important to honor the orchestra’s fallen brother and be there for Ruud’s family. He reminds us

that every moment of life is an invitation to get sober. _____ André Rieu and his orchestra will be in the U.S. for a rare tour this Oct and Nov. He is one of the great souls on our planet at this time. He has changed my life, and I heartily recommend you see him. You will love his program and be glad you went! Visit andrerieu.com Alan Cohen is the author of A Course in Miracles Made Easy: Mastering the Journey from Fear to Love. Join Alan and friends in Hawaii, Feb 26- March 2 for a rare retreat, Unplugged. Put your devices aside for a few days, liberate yourself from technology, and reconnect with yourself and your life. For more information about this program, Alan’s books and videos, free daily inspirational quotes, online courses, and weekly radio show, visit www. alancohen.com

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Ancient Vegan Wisdom

By Will Tuttle, Ph.D.

What sort of world will our children inherit from us?

With every passing day, it seems to become more obvious: the mentality that underlies our culture’s socio-economic

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system is destroying the biodiversity, climatic stability, and ecological integrity of our earth and poisoning human health and damaging communities and relationships.

This underlying mentality is mandated and continually reinforced by our culture’s daily meals, in which we’re taught as children to disconnect from animals and the suffering we cause them, and see them as mere commodities. We are taught to eat like predators, and the industrialized factory farms and slaughter plants permeating our culture are actually systematized predatory mechanisms that have co-evolved with other predatory mechanisms—the massive corporations and financial institutions that prey on the earth, animals, and vulnerable people being one example. Our meals and institutions reflect each other and reinforce the delusion that we are violent and competitive by nature.

Spiritual and religious teachings say otherwise.

The Bodhisattva ideal that Buddhists emulate, for

example, embodies the understanding that our true nature is wisdom, lovingkindness and cooperativeness.

Our greatest joy comes in helping others and blessing them, and we hurt ourselves the most when we harm others for our own gain. This universal understanding has been suppressed in our culture, and we find the predatory violence of our daily meals projected in technologically magnified ways as cluster bombs, universal wiretapping, genetic engineering, whalekilling sonar blasts, and the commodification of the earth and her inhabitants.

It’s becoming obvious that our culture’s predatory mentality is blindly self-destructive.

Veganism is ancient wisdom whose time has come—with a vengeance! Though the word vegan is relatively new— coined in 1944 by Donald Watson—the idea behind it goes back many centuries. I lived in a Zen monastery in Korea, for example, where people had been practicing veganism for over 600 years, following a tradition going back at least 2,500 years— Omtimes.com

eating no animal-sourced foods, wearing no animalsourced clothes, and practicing nonviolence to other beings for ethical reasons.

This ancient idea of veganism is growing and even flourishing in our culture—a recent headline in the Tucson Daily Star proclaimed that “Veganism Creates $2.8 Billion Market”— and there is nothing more essential we can do than contribute to its propagation, and nothing more healing to our world than to be practicing vegans. Veganism is the essence of inclusiveness and nonviolence: seeing sacred beings when we see others, never reducing them to objects or commodities for our use.

Our culture’s dilemmas mount because our cultural mentality is obsolete. Our technology boosts this outmoded mentality in its task of predation and thereby reinforces it. Powerful high-tech weapons, bulldozers, fishing fleets, and surveillance systems are obvious examples of this. Of course, if lab-grown “meat” becomes available, that will reduce our killing and waste of resources. And it may Omtimes.com

help us move toward veganism, since our meals will no longer require us to disconnect from the suffering we’re causing animals. However, there are countless ways we oppress and abuse animals besides eating them, and if our culture doesn’t evolve to the vegan ethic of compassion to all beings, and continues to use and prey on animals, our technology will magnify our violence and we’ll do the same to each other.

Veganism, the ancient wisdom of the interconnectedness of the welfare of all, is also the dawning mentality that is foundational to sustainability, freedom, and lasting peace. Our children’s world will be vegan, or the alternative is unpleasant to contemplate.

Will Tuttle, Ph.D., composer, pianist, Zen priest, and author of The World Peace Diet, is cofounder of Karuna Music & Art and of the Prayer Circle for Animals and Circle of Compassion ministry. http:// circleofcompassion.org/ Originally published in VegNews Magazine, November 2006

Manifesting Made Easy: 7 Tips to Increase Flow

By Sharon Kirstin

Life is hard. We need to hustle. In fact, we are lazy if we don’t. But doesn’t life feel like a struggle when we buy into this belief? We are in constant

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competition. We fight our way to the finish line, fight each other, fight ourselves.

What if there was a way to attract our desires to us?

Would we be interested to know how? Of course!

When we realign with the energy of our true desires we become magnets. We pull our creations to us instead of chasing them with a lot of effort.

The state of flow is our natural state.

If we are not in flow, we are very likely in resistance and out of alignment with our soul’s true plan. We are the creators of our reality and if we align our energy, mind, and actions to our inner plan, we start manifesting with ease.

Miracles, magic and instant manifestations are available to all of us. And yes, there is a recipe to enter a state of flow.

Tip #1: Raising our vibration The vibration (or frequency) of our energy field is what draws experiences, people and things to us like a magnet. When we change our energy, we change our experiences in life.

Meditation is a fast track to connect with our divinity within. When we attune our vibration to source energy we strengthen the relationship with the creator power within.

In this state of oneness with the vibration of creation, we can receive clear guidance on our next steps as well as profound healing. The more we connect to source energy the easier it will be to enter this state of flow. This enables us to skillfully cocreate (manifest) from thought to physical form.

Tip #2: Setting clear intentions Intentions are like a magic

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spell. But often we aren’t aware of our own intentions because we just don’t get clear on them. Yet, if we don’t we miss out on the powerful impact they have on our manifestations. If we ask ourselves each morning, “What would make today great?”, we communicate our desires to the infinite intelligence and lets it know what to deliver. It is as easy as making a silent (but clear) statement in your mind.

Tip #3: Surrender After being clear on our intentions we mustn’t think of them anymore. We need to release them from our minds completely. Basically, forget we ever asked.

When our desire is to create flow we cannot rely on our willpower to make things happen. We need to relinquish control and trust a higher power. Miracles happen when we don’t try to make them

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happen. Our job is to stay in full ease and open to receive.

No hustle. No pushiness. No resistance. No attachment to whether it would even happen.

Tip #4: Keeping the faith We need to trust that it is done. It is when we are in full faith that it is already done and coming to us, that it can manifest in our lives.

No matter when it will happen or if it will happen. Trust means surrendering our own ego’s agenda to a higher power. This higher power knows our soul’s blueprint, knows what is aligned for us and what will support our progress. It sees the full picture of our path. We can’t will things into existence that aren’t to our highest good. If it’s aligned it will come easy.

Tip #5: Doing it scared The universe loves courage. We need to keep doing things that

push us out of our comfort zone. Not once but all the time. Every day try we need to do something that we usually don’t do. Even small things matter to open up our energy and let new vibes enter.

Tip #6: Keeping an open mind and heart We can turn down any manifestation by not taking the courageous step we’re guided to take or by simply not interacting with the world. That’s why we need to trust our inner guidance and stay open to receiving the gifts we asked for. Our manifestations will always come to us by interaction and through other people. This is important to remember!

Tip #7: Follow your bliss When we follow our heart’s and soul’s true desires we automatically enter a state of flow. But how many of us rationalize away our desires through responsibility or

bad timing. Sometimes it can be tough to love ourselves enough to boldly follow our dreams, no matter the consequences.

Yet, the more we align with our soul’s blueprint the more magic, miracles and flow we’ll tap into.

We are all born creators and can choose our experiences.

Knowledge is only power when we apply it through action in our own lives.

Sharon Kirstin is a Bestselling Author, Life Coach & Energy Consultant. She built the usability department for a successful startup ranking #5 in The Wall Street Journal’s “Billion Dollar Startup Club”.

Now Sharon helps her clients attune to their soul’s design, master its energy and take authentic action toward manifesting their dreams.

Free video training: sharonkirstin.com/purpose

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Join us for the world famous annual International Yoga Festival in 2018 -uniting yogis of every culture, color and creed together in a one-world yogic family, expanding global consciousness, and bringing healing to the planet, one person at a time!

Come, Connect, Embrace, and Evolve Come home to Rishikesh, the birthplace of yoga, the home of the ancient yogis, sages and seers. Each year the International Yoga Festival grows and expands, embracing more and more people from more and more countries around the world. In 2017, we had nearly 2000 participants from 101 countries!

Connect with like-minded, conscious yogis and paradigm-shifters from every part of the world. Whether you are already undergoing a personal transformation or are in search of transformation, whether you are already an active co-creator of your own divine life or you would like to become one – the Festival is for all! Befriend a community that becomes family for life.

In the 7-day immersion and celebration, you have the opportunity to embrace every major style of yoga, learn from enlightened Spiritual Leaders, Master Yoga Teachers, Evolutionary Thought Leaders, and Wellness Specialists from the around the world. Awaken to the best version of yourself and ignite your inner light through this not-to-bemissed event at Parmarth Niketan Ashram, the largest ashram in Rishikesh and one of the largest interfaith yoga institutions in India.

The program offers an extensive schedule of possibility, starting with Kundalini sadhana at 4 a.m. for the intensely committed and ending at 9:30 pm with traditional cultural song and dance, kirtan, and enlightened entertainment on the banks of Ganga. You can customize each day as per your personal needs. We also have a Sacred Sound Stage for you to come, unwind and awaken through the power of sound.

Come Home to the Himalayas…. Awaken, Connect, Discover a New You. Come bathe in the energy of the towering Himalayas and majestic Ganga River. As you sit and watch the flow of the river, you’ll connect deeply with your own inner divine flow.

For 2018, give yourself the best gift in the world– the gift of yourself, awakened and illuminated at this life-transforming event!

Creating Your TravelJournal

By Andrew Pacholyk MS L.Ac

The Travel Journal or Life Journal is a great way to bring the power of your thoughts, good energy and a generous outlook along with you for the ride!

“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls.” – Anais Nin A Travel Journal can be used for Omtimes.com

writing down memorable events you have experienced during the day or a life checklist! These journals are good places to record the events you experienced, feelings associated with them and your goals for achieving your path along with your daily affirmations, things to see and places to explore. It can allow you to look at that information later

for inspiration and guidance. We gathered 10 Tips that will help you get your Travel Journal a jump started nicely.

“The gladdest moment in human life, I think, is a departure into unknown lands.”

– Sir Richard Burton

Tips for Creating Your Travel Journal 1. Upon waking, choose or create a positive affirmation you will say throughout the day.

2. It is a good idea to write words such as I am, I can, I will.

3. Write down your positive perception of the journey today.

4. Jot down significant words/ phrases, that signify your mindfulness, today. “My partner,” “my great career,” “my respect for myself.”

5. Where would you like to start on your journey? Explain in your journal.

6. What do you find pleasure in?

Write down each day, something new that you find pleasure in doing, seeing, smelling, hearing…

7. If there are colors, which you encounter, write them down.

Wear that color today. Find that color in food and enjoy it. Carry that color around with you today. Look at it periodically in nature. What colors during your trip had a positive impact or negative impact?

8. Do you see failure as a stumbling block or a stepping stone? Find three things in failure that make it a stepping stone to the next level!

9. Be sure and write the time and day on the top of the travel page.

10. Make this journal your own!

Buy or make a book that you are eager to go to each day. Use stickers, color, doodles that all express your happiness. Download the many journal apps for creating great memories!

Learn how to create more memories to journal about…

“Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta Andrew Pacholyk MS L.Ac (Therapies for healing mind, body, spirit) Omtimes.com

Relationships

The interconnectiveness among all human beings and, consequently, the relationships among us are the focus of this section. The dynamics of the web of connections we make is one of the most prominent aspects of human existence: how we interlace with each other’s existence in a meaningful way.

Why BubbleWrapped Kids Grow Up Feeling As Overwhelmed As Abused Kids

By Marcia Sirota, MD.

It seems like a lot of young people today feel helpless and overwhelmed. They’re anxious and stressed and have little confidence in their ability to solve their own problems. In fact, they feel like victims in their lives.

Two types of childhood experiences leave young people feeling this way.

The experience of childhood Omtimes.com

abuse and trauma that leaves the young person with a sense of “learned helplessness;” and the experience of being so bubble-wrapped and overly protected that the young person fails to develop a strong sense of autonomy, accountability, and confidence.

The experience of trauma leaves lasting scars. The young person’s feelings of helplessness

and being overwhelmed can linger for decades.

Abuse and trauma are debilitating, and when a child is hurt by an adult, and no other adult comes to protect or rescue him, he’s left with what’s called “learned helplessness,” or the belief that he’ll never be able to escape similar hurts when he’s grown up.

As an adult, he’ll feel incapable of fending for himself.

What few of us consider, however, is how debilitating it is to be raised by parents who bubble wrap their child.

Victim-mentality is a sense of helplessness in the face of difficulties.

It’s terrible to grow up being hurt or abused, but it’s just as bad for a child when her parents take over doing the things that the child should be learning how to do for herself, or when the parents protect the child from every possible hurt, loss or disappointment.

While it’s clear that trauma can be extremely damaging, an excess of coddling and over protecting can have the same result, as the child

fails to build the necessary skills and resilience (not to mention character) that will enable her to cope with the inevitable challenges of life.

Victim-mentality is a sense of helplessness in the face of difficulties. It’s a sense of fearfulness, a lack of confidence and the experience of self-doubt.

Someone with victim-mentality believes that they can’t cope with life’s stresses and that other people are far better equipped to deal with their problems than they are.

Traumatized young people often grow up feeling this way, but so do many kids who have grown up with helicopter parents. It’s clearly not just the presence of abuse but an excess of parental smothering that prevents a young person from growing up to feel confident and empowered.

The cure for those who’ve been neglected, abused or traumatized is to spend time on healing the emotional wounds incurred from such a childhood and to develop a deep and lasting sense of selfconfidence - confidence in their ability to handle whatever life throws them.

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Metaphysics

9 Best Crystals for Protection

The power behind Earth’s minerals can be felt the minute you put a crystal in your hands or near your physical body. Crystals are the treasures of the earth. These stones are filled with energy to be used. Each crystal, stone, gemstone is rated by its hardness, shape, size, qualities and often have a metaphysical significance Omtimes.com

as their personality. Some of the best crystals for protection include Bloodstone, Carnelian, Hematite and Obsidian.

Agate Eye: Properties: The protective eye stone, is a spectacular variety of agate, sometimes onyx, sardonyx or “cryptocrystalline quartz”

containing layers of carnelian!

This is considered a stone of virtue allowing us to find the sheer delight in living. It is infamous for bringing stability and long lasting happiness to life partners, marriage and live in relationships! Used to enhance clear choices by limiting hesitation and therefore providing courage and protection to its wearer. This is a great stone to grid the home with in order to protect against crime and the “evil eye”.

Ammonite: Properties: Ammonite is often used for stability in life. This is actually a fossilized creature that resembled a snail, over 65 million years old. It is now a helpful stone which offers a sense of relaxation.

It is believed that Ammonite brings stability and order in life. Ammonite is a stone of protection. It provides for insight and it helps to assist one in seeing the “whole picture.” Since it is associated with the Root Chakra, it encourages ones survival instincts and is grounding.

Bloodstone: Properties: Increases courage helps in avoiding dangerous situations by soothing the mind.

Metaphysically, bloodstone is used to either promote a calm, tranquil atmosphere that is grounding or revitalize insufficient energy. A great stone for mentalexhaustion.

This stone represents both courage and strength and is used for achieving these attributes. It is associated with honesty and integrity and is useful in removing obstacles in life. Most effective on the Heart (green) and Root (red) Chakra.

Carnelian: Properties: This stone represents confidence, boldness, initiative, dramatic abilities, assertiveness and outgoingness. Precision, analysis, stimulates appetite, encourages celebration and brings awareness of feelings.

This stone helps you feel anchored and comfortable with your surroundings. Provides a connection to the past or to historical events. Carnelian can improve motivation. Helps one achieve greater success in career or personal matters. Helps ground people who meditate. Carnelian is one of the most helpful crystals for healing trauma, stress and emotional wounds that have accumulated in the etheric body or the Aura and are now manifesting as physical symptoms.

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Hag Stone: Properties: The infamous hag stone has occupied myth and “legends” for centuries. Used by farmers, people seeking protection and “magickal” minded people, hag stones are stones that have a naturally occurring hole inside them.

Often discovered in fields or along coastal beaches, lakes or streams. These holes occur from the elements beating down upon them over many years.

These stones were believed to be able to protect cattle, their milk and people from witches. These stones are found in a different parts of the world. Hag stones represent a magical time when these rocks where used for protection, fertility, good luck and safety.

Hematite: Properties: This crystal is the most recommended stone for grounding and is associated with the Root Chakra, by encourages ones survival instincts and is centering.

Hematite condenses scattered feelings, turns fuzziness into mental clarity, enhances concentration, memory, practicality and helps with sound Omtimes.com

sleep. Considered the symbol of life energy, hematite allows for more confidence, will power and boldness. Helps us adjust to being physical. A protective stone and helps bolster low selfesteem. Hematite is known to deflect negativity. It brings our awareness back to the body and helps one maintain their sense of self.

Jade: Properties: The ancient Chinese culture has revered Jade for centuries. Jade is considered the health, wealth and longevity stone, used also for courage, wisdom, justice, mercy, emotional balance, stamina, love, fidelity, humility, generosity, peace, harmony. Jadehas been used for protection for centuries.

Jade is known as androgynous, therefore it is considered having a gentle, steady pulse of healing energy. Jade is found in different colors and can be used on the appropriate Chakra based on its color. Properties common to all colors of Jade include its ability to mellow one’s existence. Helps one rid themselves of negative thoughts and energy. Very beneficial to the heart in both physical and spiritual senses. It is a very

protective stone and will keep its wearer out of harm’s way.

Jade bounds us to our earth energies and physical instincts.

Jade is a humbling stone.

Jet: Properties: Jet is a form of petrified wood similar to coal, though much harder. This stone has absorbing qualities. Helps draw out negative energy.

Especially useful for people who have unreasonable fears that limit their lives. Therefore, that is why this black stone, it relates to the Root Chakra, the center that connects us to our earth energy. The Root Chakra is connected to survival and our trust in the physical world, and in one’s own body.

Recommended for stimulating psychic experience and guiding one in the quest for spiritual enlightenment. If worn, it should be set in silver. Jet has been used as a protective stone in life’s physical journeys. It’s known as a traveler’s amulet, and the wives of sailors often burnt it to protect their husbands while they were at sea.

Jet has been known historically, to also protect from scorpions and snake bites, especially when the stone is wore over the heart.

Jet has been used to help soothe the pain of both a broken heart due to separation or the loss or death of a relative or loved one.

In the past, this protection stone has been used to ward against enemies, evil spirits, witchcraft and harmful magic spells.

Obsidian: Properties: This is a strong grounding stone and is known as “the protector”. It is said to “mirror one’s soul. This stone brings about objectivity, disattachment and is grounding. It reduces fantasy and escapism.

Absorbs and dissolves anger, criticism, fear, and therefore is protective. This unusual black stone absorbs darkness and converts it to white light energy.

It is a warm and friendly stone, which is used at the Root Chakra, encouraging ones survival instincts and is grounding. Black obsidian brings higher Chakra light into lower ones; cleanses and uplifts. Changes fear into flexibility with the advent of change. Obsidian is used for transformation.

Andrew Pacholyk MS L.Ac Peacefulmind.com Therapies for healing mind, body, spirit Omtimes.com

How to Activate Inner Wisdom

by Elohim Yael

When one’s head, heart and ‘will’ collaborate with the feet and belly center/area, one gets a clearer and integrated picture of one’s inner wisdom and truth. Whereby it is easier

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to make more balanced and fine-tuned choices. Then one can also hear the call of one’s heart clearer, without noise or disturbance. Besides it brings more life energy for a natural state of being. How to realize this inner fine-tuning?

heart, will, feet and belly center, which is the place of our emotions and natural intuitive capabilities. Also since we tend to use our power layers separately within the current dual orientated experienced world.

What fine-tuning inner wisdom brings

Furthermore feelings of insecurity and fear, how understandable or realistic they may be, trigger our mind.

Just as thoughts like ‘I don’t want this (in my life)’. It keeps us focused on matters of the mind. In our attempt to stay on top of things, we try to avoid things and push away (situations of) distress. This creates tension that blocks the life energy for inner thoughtfulness, compassion and the warmth of the heart.

When one’s head, heart and ‘will’ collaborate with the feet and belly center/area, one gets a clearer and integrated picture of one’s inner wisdom and truth. Whereby it is easier to make more balanced and fine-tuned choices. Then one can also hear the call of one’s heart clearer, without noise or disturbance. Besides it brings more life energy for a natural state of being.

Power play of the mind blocking life energy As our straight way of thinking is accustomed to direct and calculate things and keep everything in control, this ability has the upper hand.

Therefore it overpowers the signals, answers and information from the other wisdom sources – that of the

The power of the smile of the heart Adversely through relaxation and mindfulness the head is capable of bundling its strength with the other power layers and their information.

Which is overall in conflict with the tension and impressions that come along with our busy lifestyles. When it’s quiet, peaceful and empty in the Omtimes.com

head, we experience clarity in thinking and consciousness.

Then the abilities of the head are sharp, alert, clear, and oversee things.

In addition the smile of the heart can dissolve and see through the mind control. It is able to unite the different power layers and bridges what the head can’t see nor comprehends. It shows the way of warmth, compassion and being without judgment. This way enabling us to open up to all we experience without judgment or labelling into nice and not nice, good and bad etcetera. Which makes us aware of all essential and present in ourselves and our inner world.

The fine tuning and deepening of the power layers This state of thoughtfulness goes beyond thinking. It comes from a deeper level of feeling, knowing and sensing.

It requires lots of inner finetuning to pick up and learn to recognize the different signals and information one’s body displays. It also asks for alertness in order to combine Omtimes.com

all layers and use them in life as one balanced whole.

1. The head and its clear thinking Its non-troubled power can only be experienced when the head does not lose itself in its own labyrinth of thoughts, impressions and other mental(creation) capabilities.

2. The warm heart Its connecting and easing capabilities are blossoming when the heart is open and smiling. The more consciously connected with open heartedness the stronger its pure power works though.

3. The solar plexus as seat of our will(power) The will to create and realize things can be used from more ego and material driven ambitions or more immaterial or spiritual believes that serve the higher good or cause.

4. The belly center for shaping our natural state of being The less we are in our

head, the better we can be connected to our body and our natural abilities. In this area our experiences, emotions and feelings are processed amongst others. Whereas in the lap the creative capabilities and intuitive knowing are cradled.

How do you experience them and how different are they from each other - like tension, cramp, hardening, restlessness, softening or relaxation?

Then relax and investigate what this might tell you and what lies beneath. Also check what is yours and what belongs to somebody else.

5. The feet for being grounded with both feet on the ground The ground underneath the belly center and the heart contributes to clarity of thinking. While the feet take care of the fine tuning with the earthily connection and what is needed for this.

The more one balances and fine-tunes all inner wisdom(resources), the more natural the physical, cognitive, emotional, intuitive and energetic work together as one. And the more respect one gives to one’s vitality.

6. The hands that act (goal) oriented from the power of one’s wisdom.

Through her articles and presence, Yael reminds you of unconditional compassion.

This is an important step on the path towards living in harmony. She invites you to experience a deep connection with both yourself and the whole as heartily as possible.

Yael embodies the Elohim essence. This means she is connected to the Universe from a clear awareness of harmony and unity - www. ajourneyoflight.uk

Supportive questions Before taking action, check what your head thinks of things, what your belly area tells you, how your ego looks at it, what your heart is saying, how your emotions experience this and what your feet need.

What inner signals do you get and from which place?

About the author:

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When I was a kid, I was a big fan of adventure films like Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the legendary archaeologist, Indiana Jones (played by Harrison Ford) sets out with his friends to find the treasure. It didn’t matter whether it was the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail or some other Omtimes.com

random treasure – it was exciting to watch the twists and turns that led to the treasure.

The problem, for all of these heroes, was that although there was a treasure, the map to find it wasn’t presented all at once … there would be one clue, and only by following

that clue could the next clue be discovered. Sometimes, our heroes would encounter obstacles ranging from Nazi soldiers to new construction over old historic sites, which would prevent them from finding the next clue.

Sometimes they would be led down a false path, and would have to backtrack to get back on the right trail.

If only we had the Treasure Map laid out clearly in front of us, we could follow the clues to find the treasure of True Success, just like Indiana Jones.

In our own lives, we are constantly receiving clues in the form or our intuition, gut feelings, hunches, synchronicity and even in our dreams.

By far the most difficult part of these tasks is not recognizing the clue—but recognizing the path of action the clues may be leading you to try out—a possible path or future that is being laid out in front of you.

Sometimes, the clue needs to be interpreted; at other times, the clue and the directions being implied are

quite obvious Here’s a simple example to chew on.

CASE STUDY NO. 10: Living between the Worlds In the fall of 1997, four years after the initial launch of our product, I left Brainstorm, the start-up that I had cofounded and had been running for four years.

While I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next, I kept seeing images and statues of mermaids in various places in New England—statues at restaurants, pictures on walls, in gift shops, etc. This was made more unusual by the fact that I had been to these places before; I just hadn’t noticed that there were mermaids on the walls and everywhere I looked.

This is a perfect example of how the “invisible hand” of the inner mentor works— it points out things in the environment that may have been in plain sight before but hadn’t been noticed by our conscious minds. The inner mentor then produces the feelings of unusual-ness so that you recognize you are

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being given a clue!

I had no idea what this mermaid imagery meant, but I kept seeing it—in shop windows, in books, and on and on. Whenever I noticed one, I would have that “funny feeling”—the “odd sensation” that something was in play beyond my normal sight.

This was a symbol, I realized, and, as with symbols that come in dreams, I understood that it might need interpretation before I could recognize where the clue was leading me. As I thought about possible interpretations, I came to the realization that a mermaid to me represented someone who lived in between two worlds— the fish world of the ocean and the human world of land. Many a good movie (Splash, The Little Mermaid) has been made about the challenges and difficulties that mermaids face by being “in between” worlds.

At the same time as I began noticing the mermaids, I had started thinking seriously about going to California to live in Silicon Valley. But I still liked the idea of living in Omtimes.com

Boston, and didn’t want to sell my condo. I was ruminating on some workable solution to the problem and wanted to become “bi-coastal” for a time—I could try out the west coast while still keeping one foot on the east coast.

Many of my friends, however, doubted that I could live in both worlds—the east and west coast—or cope with the difficulties of doing so, particularly going back and forth every few weeks, not to mention the cost and need for a stable income.

I took the mermaid clue as a confirmation that it was possible to live in both worlds, and I went ahead and spent the first six months of 1998 living on both coasts, traveling back and forth every few weeks.

It turned out to be one of the best decisions that I have ever made, not only because I had such a great time in California.

More importantly, it gave me time and space to begin writing, which led to a second career, becoming an author.

The mermaid theme of living in two worlds was reflected in my

thoughts concerning my career: to be a computer software entrepreneur and a writer— two very different parts of the business world, but it is possible to thrive in both.

This is an example of overdeterminedness, or multiple levels of meaning packed into a single one: the clue pointed out something that was an issue for me in my life at that time (east coast vs. west coast), as well as an overarching theme in my life (co-existence in two worlds— business and spiritual), and pointed toward a solution as being right for me at the time.

In fact, “living between the worlds” is an apt description for someone who pays attention to the wisdom that comes to us in our dreams and through synchronicity, and who also lives in the sometimes harsh but rewarding world of business.

To Act or Not to Act—Bring the Right Brain and Left Brain Together The fundamental question remains: how do you know when to act on a clue and when not to? Therein lies one of the paradoxes of

synchronicity—the more you “trust yourself” to follow your intuition, the more often you will get intuition that’s helpful and meaningful.

But how do you get the confirmation that will let you trust your intuition more? It sounds like a chicken-and-egg question. I assure you, however, that if you start writing down your clues, and even take tentative actions to try out the directions suggested by them, you’ll start to navigate with more confidence.

You don’t always have to take literal action based on the dream or clue right away; you can reflect on the more general direction or theme that’s being expressed by the clues and symbols and take small steps to move in that direction, before you look for more validation.

This brings us to the Clue Lifecycle, a way to bring the Left Brain (the logical side) together with the Right Brain (the intuitive side) to navigate our own personal Treasure Hunt.

Learning to Navigate in Your Own Way While it may not be immediately Omtimes.com

THE CLUE LIFECYCLE

apparent what a clue is telling you, if you learn to trust yourself and “go with the clues,” you’re bound to get very good ideas on the messages and to intuitively feel out the possible paths that you are being “led” on by the “invisible hand.”

By learning to navigate in your personal and professional life using your own personalized clues, you are devising your own personalized navigational system. This system, like that of the Phoenicians long ago, will allow you to hone in on areas of importance and fulfillment in your life.

Even if you don’t know exactly where a clue is leading you, and don’t take any action right away, by noticing and reflecting on the clues you are receiving, you’ve started on your own unique path to trusting your inner guidance as you build up your Book of Clues.

Using the Clue Lifecycle— intuition, interpretation, confirmation, action, validation and reflection—is an on-going process. Once you start it, the process goes on indefinitely, because you are always being led to the right place at the right time in your

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life. Like episodes of a TV show that reveal a season-long plot over time, your individual Clue Lifecycles will reveal the larger pattern of your Treasure Map to you over time.

You may find yourself following the cycle, stopping the cycle, and letting it go, only to find yourself picking up this thread a year or more later, spurred by a new clue which reminds you of the old one. This intertwining of cycles is very representative of how patterns emerge when we are learning to follow our inner guidance in the real world.

The important thing is to learn to take the first few steps of following that uncanny feeling down unexpected paths using your intuition, your dreams and synchronicity to guide you.

This could be simply walking into a second-hand bookstore and randomly finding a book on a subject you were just thinking about, or taking a moment on your way to work and driving down a road that you’ve been passing by day after day but have never explored. Or it may

start by calling someone you haven’t talked to in a while but whose image just popped up in your mind.

Taking the first step like this can lead to interesting adventures that you may not have anticipated . . . and that is what makes it so much fun.

In his fascinating book, Treasure Hunt: Follow Your Inner Clues to Find True Success, Rizwan Virk describes the difficulties of recognizing clues and which clues to follow…

Rizwan Virk is a successful entrepreneur, film producer, venture capitalist, and bestselling author of Zen Entrepreneurship: Walking the Path of the Career Warrior. His software products have been used by the largest enterprises in the world, and his video games have been downloaded millions of times, including Tap Fish and Penny Dreadful: Demimonde. He studied at MIT and Stanford, and is currently Executive Director of Play Labs @ MIT, a startup accelerator. Riz lives in Mountain View, CA and Cambridge, MA.

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How to Put Your Psychic Powers and All the Answers You Seek Right in the Palm of Your Hand!

by Sharon Anne Klingler

About the Author Sharon Anne Klingler is a bestselling author, medium, and an inspiring speaker. She has been featured in The London Daily Express and in many other newspapers and magazines worldwide. You can hear Sharon regularly on Hay House Radio’s Living Your Quantum Success show. Sharon is a Registered Medium in Lily Dale and an ordained Spiritualist minister. You can read her popular articles on the Hay House website HealYourLife.com.

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December A 2017 Edition

Wouldn't it be amazing if you could have access to a vast library full of all the information you could ever want—information about yourself, your life, your future, and even about your own past lives? No longer would you need to fumble around, unsure of who you are, wondering what to do next, struggling to overcome difficulties, and hoping you’ll recognize the best relationships and opportunities as soon as they present themselves.

You would know exactly how to create your most powerful, exciting, and joyful life because you'd have an immediate response to every question that comes up for you.

Guess what? The extraordinary library full of the insight and information you need actually does exist. And, more than that, it is in such easy reach that you can have access to it whenever you want. It's called the Akashic Records.

Now, you may have heard of the Akashic Records before, and perhaps you thought they might be strange or complex. But that’s simply not the case. For some people, the Akashic Records are held in a body of information likened to a great, ancient library that is somehow far away and very difficult to access.

And while the image of a great library is apt because of the enormous amount of information within it, the Records are actually as close and as accessible as the very air you breathe.

The term Akashic Records comes from the Sanskrit word Akasha, which means sky or ethers. In his book Esoteric Buddhism (1884) Alfred Percy Sinnett first described the Buddhist belief in “a permanency of records in the Akasa” and man’s ability “to read the same.” They believed that any clairvoyant could see – or read – the Akashic Records. So could those who sought out the Records in a trance state, like the Sleeping Prophet, Edgar Cayce. But you don’t have to be a professional clairvoyant or go into a trance in order to read the records. You just have to be a part of the Akashic mind, which you already are!

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December A 2017 Edition

The Akashic Records comprise the collective of all thought, all mind, and all energy, throughout history and every possible future for all things, from the smallest electron to the greatest universe. And it is this extraordinary ubiquity that makes the Akashic Records accessible in every moment for all people everywhere.

Throughout history, there have been times during significant events when the Akashic Records shared psychic information to many hundreds of people, even when that information wasn’t consciously being sought. One of these events was the sinking of the Titanic. Of course, it would take many, many pages to cite all the documented cases of people who had visions of this event before it happened. For instance, traveling the world with his wife, Milton Hershey initially planned to go home on the Titanic, but changed his plans to take a later trip. (How much sweeter is the world because he changed those tickets!)

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Other passengers, crew, relatives, and business partners tried to insist that their loved ones cancel their tickets (some did, some didn’t). Spectators from shore, authors, painters, and poets – all of them just regular folk – spontaneously tapped into the collective mind by receiving visions (before it even happened) of an image that was to become one of the truly iconic moments in modern history.

Perhaps the most famous prevision was the book written in 1898 by Morgan Robertson, 14 years before Titanic’s maiden voyage. Futility, The Wreck of the Titan, recounts the story of a luxury liner named Titan that strikes an iceberg on the starboard side and sinks with great loss of life during an April crossing of the North American shipping lanes. And that’s just the beginning of the precognition. The Titan’s registry, displacement, propellers, capacity, top speed, length, number of passengers, watertight bulkheads, and lifeboats all so precisely described the Titanic that pictures of the Titanic could have illustrated the book

December A 2017 Edition

– that is if the Titanic existed 14 years earlier!

presence enter the room. With that, Jessie died.

Another lesser known, yet startling event occurred at 11:00 p.m. on April 14, 1912 in a small city in Scotland. As part of his duties in the Salvation Army, Captain W. Rex Sowden was caring for a little girl named Jessie. Orphaned and dying, she held his hand tightly as he sat next to her bed to comfort her. Suddenly she began to describe the tragic events that would happen in just a few short hours in the cold Atlantic waters.

Of course, the Titanic’s sinking was so significant an event that the psychic experience seems to have spread like waves through the Akasha, across the Atlantic to the shores on either side. But the Akashic Records are not only for extreme historical or cultural events. The word Akasha means sky, and the skies are not only over our heads, they’re all around us.

And, consequently, so are the Akashic Records – with its many answers to all of life’s questions, from the mundane to the lifechanging.

“Can’t you see that big ship sinking in the water?” she asked. “Look at all those people drowning. Someone called Wally is playing a fiddle and coming to you.” She spoke, of course, of Wallace Hartley, the Titanic’s bandmaster whom Sowden had known well in his childhood, but hadn’t seen for years. He had been unaware that his old friend Wally had even gone to sea or worked on an ocean liner. Hours later, Sowden heard the door latch move and felt an unseen

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The reason people think the Akashic Records are so hard to access is because they don’t know where to look. But it’s not that you need to know where to look; you just have to know how to look. The answers we perceive intuitively (whether from the Akasha or from the spirit world, since they are – we are – all part of the same collective) often come to us through visual or conceptual symbols. Why are they symbolic? It’s because our spirits (indeed, all spirits and all

December A 2017 Edition

parts of the etheric mind) talk to us through the imaging side of the brain, the imagination.

Happily, the symbols that speak volumes to us aren’t at all abstruse, arcane, or hard to understand. The Akashic mind penetrates everything in every part of our daily lives, and thus the symbolic messages we receive are simple, every day, and quite obvious. For instance, if you wonder if you’re going in the right direction with a certain goal in your life, you might get the symbol of a train on track. If you have a question about a new job or relationship, you might get an image of a contract. If you wonder if you should start a new project, no matter how small or how large, an idea of architectural drawings might come to mind.

Or, perhaps, you’re uncertain about how much time you have to complete a project.

You may perceive a symbol of an hourglass with most of the sands at the top (showing you have lots of time) or with most of the sands on the bottom (letting you know that time’s running out, and you’d better hurry).

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Clearly, all of these symbols are recognizable and very obvious in their meanings. This is how the Akashic Records speak to all of us, with immediate answers in understandable ideas. Still, many people don’t trust what they get through the imaging side of the brain. (For many the trusting part often takes more practice than the imaging part!)

Luckily, there is a powerful new tool that gives you the Akashic Records and its precise symbols and messages (including all of those mentioned above and many more). It’s called the Akashic Tarot, and each card was designed to help you tap the Akashic forces and get the answers you seek in immediate and very clear ways.

So try the Akashic Tarot. You’ll be pleased to find that the Akashic Records are in easy and immediate reach. Edgar Cayce had to go into trance to access the Records and receive his many thousands of readings. But you don’t have to do that. With the Akashic Tarot you can put the Akashic Records right in the palm of your hand!

December A 2017 Edition

Sacred Music

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iOM.FM The best of Alternative and  Sacred Music,

Personal Growth & Development We grow as individuals as we face challenges and overcome life’s obstacles. This section is dedicated to helping you chart your course.

Your Trickster Ego

Are you making decisions based on your most deeply held values? Do your choices reflect your emotional desires of the moment but not your priorities?

You want to make courageous decisions in synch with your best self, but that means reducing the power of that aspect of your ego that is a trickster.

Your trickster ego leads you to make bad decisions out of fear, Omtimes.com

preventing you from being true to yourself.

The trickster ego likes instant gratification. It is afraid it won’t get its needs met if you don’t hurry up and do what will produce fast results. Integrity goes by the wayside as the trickster ego rushes to get things done. You think you are on the right track but you do

not listen to your wise inner self that whispers, “Slow down and be cautious! You are headed in the wrong direction!” The trickster ego makes you feel everything is going well, but it is deceiving you.

Your trickster ego is guided by fear that keeps you from dreaming big and listening to your inner wisdom. It steers you toward compromises that do not honor what is important to you, and causes you to make mistakes. Even if you achieve some success through following your trickster ego’s guidance, that success will be limited and ultimately unfulfilling. It’s not easy to admit how much this aspect of your ego has influenced you—and misled you with false promises that you will feel happy and contented if you just do its bidding.

Yet if you can be brave and acknowledge how much you have been misled by your fears, you can recommit to being true to yourself—and taming your trickster ego.

When you are honest with yourself, you can more easily see when you are being distracted by surface successes

and rewards that don’t make you feel happy and empowered.

Deeper successes that are in synch with your values often require a deeper commitment to being true to yourself. It takes courage to make decisions from your most deeply held values and banish worry, fear, and expediency.

Making decisions based in your most deeply held values requires you to quiet the trickster ego that confuses you and leads you astray. Fortunately, you can establish a new relationship with this aspect of yourself.

First, pay attention to your trickster ego. Know how it works and what causes it to spring into action. Expose its shenanigans and become aware that it is influencing you. You can do this by getting in touch with your witnessing self, the aspect of your consciousness that sees what is really happening within you. Your witnessing self arises naturally when you relax your mind, opening the door to your unconscious. Your witnessing self will tell you, “You’re not being true to who you are,” and “Listen to yourself!” The Omtimes.com

witnessing self is ultimately kind, not cruel, even if the truths it reveals make you feel ashamed or embarrassed at first. The witnessing self helps you to see when you are making a decision you may come to regret. It allows your inner knowing to arise. Awaken your witnessing self often so you can practice being true to what you desire when you are your best self.

Once you notice the workings of your trickster ego, it won’t have so much power over you. You can even become amused by how it works. Smile at yourself, observe how you have been tempted to make a choice out of fear, and then say a firm “No!” to your trickster ego.

You know what you most value. When faced with a decision, your trickster ego will start to make excuses for why you should make choices that serve its needs—quickly!

But your witnessing self will say, “Slow down. Look at what is happening.” Working in conjunction with your wise inner self, it will remind you to operate with integrity. Heed that wisdom, and you will

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start to feel uncomfortable with what your trickster ego is doing. It will be easier to make a choice in synch with your deepest held value.

Yes, you will get sidetracked and turned around by the trickster ego at times. Notice when it happens and put your trickster ego back in check as you forgive yourself. We all make decisions based in fear and the desire to protect ourselves from discomfort or pain. It’s being willing to catch yourself and say, “No, not this way,” and make new choices based in your deepest held values, that keep your trickster ego from running amuck.

Pride, joy, and success can be yours if you remember to awaken your witnessing self so you will not be fooled by your trickster ego.

Carl Greer, PhD, PsyD, is a practicing clinical psychologist, Jungian analyst and shamanic practitioner. He teaches at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago and is on staff at the Replogle Center for Counseling and Well-Being. Learn more at CarlGreer.com.

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CHANGING FOR SUCCESS

New Questions That Lead to Self-Wholeness

by Guy Finley

Our stressful, pain-filled experiences are not caused by people or events but by our reactions to them. And yet, if we will honestly examine the way we presently question

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our defeats, here’s what we see: we are still desperately seeking answers that serve only to correct the surface or exterior conditions. We are still blaming circumstances for crushing us. The direction of our questions proves that we are still thinking incorrectly about our problems.

This is supremely important to grasp if we wish to change our inner and outer world. By their very nature, our old questions tend to make and then keep us victims. They imply that someone or something outside of ourselves is punishing us.

No human being is a victim of any punishment outside of their own undeveloped lifelevel from which their inner reactions are seen as outer attacks. This is why we must learn to turn our questions into tools for developing selfwholeness instead of letting them lead us off in the wrong direction.

Here are ten new questions that lead to self-wholeness.

These new questions are the power that defeats defeat.

They alone assure total victory.

Questions for Developing SelfWholeness 1. Instead of always asking yourself why things always happen to you, learn to ask: What is it inside of me that attracts these painful situations?

2. Instead of always asking yourself why things had to go this way or that way, learn to ask: Why is the way I feel always determined by external conditions?

3. Instead of always asking yourself how to protect yourself in challenging situations, learn to ask: What is it in me that always needs to be defended?

4. Instead of always asking yourself how to clear up your mental fog, learn to ask: Can confusion know anything about clarity?

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5. Instead of always asking yourself what to do about tomorrow (or the next minute), learn to ask: Can there ever be intelligence in anxiety or worry?

6. Instead of always asking yourself why so-and-so acts this or that way, learn to ask: What’s inside of me that wants to hurt itself over how anyone else acts?

7. Instead of always crying out “Why me?” learn to ask: Who is this “me” that always feels this way?

8. Instead of always asking yourself if you’ve made the right choice, learn to ask: Can fear ever make a safe decision?

9. Instead of always asking yourself why doesn’t so-and-so see how wrong they are, learn to ask: Is what I’m feeling about that person right now good for me? Or them?

10. Instead of always asking yourself how to get others to approve you, learn to ask:

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What do I really want, the applause of the crowds or to quietly have my own life?

Each time you ask the right question about an inner ache, you receive the new and right result of being released from the dark deceptions that want you to fight with life. Use them to see the difference between how you used to think and how you will question defeat from now on.

You will win!

Guy Finley is the best-selling author of more than 40 books and audio albums on selfrealization. He is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study located in southern Oregon where he gives talks four times each week. For more information visit www.guyfinley.org, and receive your free Guy Finley Starter Kit. You get several free downloadable gifts including a special newsletter filled with helpful insights and encouragement emailed to you once each week

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December A 2017 Contributors Writers Alan Cohen Andrew Pacholyk, MS, L.Ac. Carl Greer, PhD, PsyD Carmen Vasquez Elohim Yael Guy Finley John Holland Karen Ulvestad Linda Bloom Marcia Sirota, MD Rizwan Virk Sandie Sedgbeer Sharon Anne Klingler Sharon Kirstin Will Tuttle

66 80, 94 118 58 98 122 54 44 48 88 104 24 110 74 70 Copyright Information Original material generated by contributors is copyrighted in the names of the contributor, and commercial publication and reprint of material for distribution is strictly prohibited without written permission from the contributor.

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