OMTimes Magazine August A 2019 Edition

August A Issue

SANDRA

INGERMAN

Ceremony and Sacred Wisdom

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CONTENTS • OMTIMES

Table of Contents

28

56

110

30

SANDRA INGERMAN Shamanic Wisdom

by Sandra Sedgbeer

50

How Metaphors Heal an Injured Soul

56

Are You A Feeler?

60

Transitioning to Spirit: Celebrating a Life

62

By Jayita Bhattacharjee

50

By John Holland

By Judi Lynch

Feng Shui & A Spiritual Phenomenon in Your Building

60

By Kartar Diamond

August 2019 A EDITION

CONTENTS • OMTIMES

72

Why Does Compost Make Good Sense?

78

Embracing Aging as a Wonderful Part of Life

82

The Witch Doctor’s Secret

88

Radio Host Spotlight - Sharon Sayler: The Autoimmune Hour

Table of Content

90

126

01

70 82

78

88 02

72

110

86

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118

Table of Contents 96 104 110 116 122 126 130 136 142

The Secret To Getting What You Want Career Change and The Allure of the New Shades of Grey – Who Are the Greys and What is Really Going On? 9 Signs of a Reincarnated Soul Success Is Not Your Enemy Are We Trapped in Our Own Expectations?

Undoing the Story How Cruelty-Free Products Support Animals and the Planet All at Once Book Spotlight - The Book of Ceremony OMTIMES | AUG A

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Editor's Note

A Ceremony or a ritual is a series of actions, or sacraments performed mainly for their symbolic and Intentional value, usually based on traditions. These rituals usually performed outside realms of time are a powerful catalyst of spiritual change.

The term «rite» comes from Latin ritus. Rituals are real practices that have accompanied human beings throughout their existence. Some rituals accompany the life of a human being, like religious Sacraments .

For Sandra Ingerman, our celebrity shaman, Ceremony is a Sacred Act, and it bridges the sacred into everyday life; a way where we open up the veils between the ordinary and non-ordinary realms and we have that unique opportunity to access the Universe and to create a new form in our life. It is our pleasure to bring this discussion about Wisdom, sacred space, and Ceremonial Traditions to your awareness.

Liane Buck Editor In Chief OMTimes Magazine

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OMTIMES MAGAZINE

SANDRA INGERMAN Ceremony and Sacred Wisdom

by Sandra Sedgbeer

Studies show that focused minds can influence physical reality in surprising ways. But while science is just beginning to understand the nature and scope of mind-matter interactions, shamans around the world have known for tens of thousands of years how to enter states of awareness that optimize these reality-bending effects through ritual or ceremony.

Sandra Ingerman is a world-renowned teacher who spent more than 35 years teaching shamanism workshops internationally and reversing environmental pollution using spiritual methods. She's helped thousands of people heal from past and present traumas, through the classic shamanic healing method of Soul Retrieval. She is the award-winning author of 12 books, including Soul Retrieval, Medicine for the Earth, Walking in Light, and her latest work, The Book of Ceremony: Shamanic Wisdom for Invoking the Sacred in Everyday Life.

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Ceremony is a Sacred Act, and it bridges the sacred into everyday life.

Sandra Ingerman

Sandra Ingerman joins us to discuss how we can use the ancient art of ceremony for waking up our intuitive knowing, releasing old wounds, invoking blessings and healing, creating our souls’ desires and dissolving collective negative energies such as hate and fear in the world.

Sandie Sedgbeer – Sandra Ingerman, welcome. You started the Book of Ceremony by sharing that you performed your first formal shamanic ceremony in 1982, shortly before you moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. What first sparked your interest in ceremony and shamanism?

Sandra Ingerman - I got involved in shamanism in 1980. I was always the spiritual child, and I had three near-death experiences in my life that opened me up to different dimensions of reality. I also grew up in the ’60s, and we won't go into that, but I did the whole 60’s experience, and so I was really searching for how to be a positive change.

The world didn't make any sense to me, and it just seemed like people didn't treat each other well, and we didn't treat nature well and was aware of what was going on. I also grew up in Brooklyn, where it looked like everybody with suffering which they were, and so I really followed different spiritual traditions by reading books, but I didn't have anything that gave me a structure like a practice, I just had information.

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Sandra Ingerman Interview

I was introduced to shamanic journeying in 1980. In shamanic journeying, shamans and shamanic practitioners work with water called helping compassionate spirits. I met my helping spirit, and he started answering all these questions for me about my life, and I felt I finally found my path. I was looking, but I had no path, no road map, and shamanic journey gave me that. I'd only heard as there wasn't anything written back in those days, only a couple of books on shamanism. I had heard about ceremony and ritual, and my personality loves things like that, but I was terrified to perform a ceremony because I thought there were a right and a wrong way, and if you do a ceremony wrong, your life is over. I was too shy to even step forward to even thinking about performing the ceremony.

At that time, somebody called me for a shamanic healing session, and it turned out that she was famous in the Bay Area for leading ceremonies and had written a book. I said, let's make a trade: you teach me how to perform a ceremony, and I'll teach you shamanic journeying and do the healing work that you would love. She told me that there's no right way to do a ceremony just get out and do it. And so that was the door, that opened me up to performing ceremonies and I just love them.

I just love them and I love sharing ceremonies with other people and bringing them into ceremonial work and right now my passion is trying to help people lead ceremony, simple ceremonies in their communities.

Where people don't have to have any kind of religious belief or spiritual belief, where you just go in, and you use neutral words, but you help people in a community together,

To release their pain, release their prayers, their fears, and to pray for each other. for the benefit of each other and it's beautiful work.

Sandie Sedgbeer – Why is a ceremony, so important to people in shamanic cultures?

Sandra Ingerman Ceremony is a Sacred Act, and it bridges the sacred into everyday life. When we perform a ceremony, the beauty of performing a ceremony is that we set an intention and we design what we are going to work with, but once we actually step into performing a ceremony, we lift out of our own Human-ness, out of our rational minds and we become a divine being ourselves. And through becoming a divine being and performing a ceremony, we actually create a line of connection

"Shamans perform ceremonies to create harmony between humankind and the environment" Sandra Ingerman

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AUGUST A ISSUE

Special Interview

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Sandra Ingerman Shamans perform ceremonies for Rites of Passage is because every time you make a change in life when

between the Divine and us and the Divine

you go from childhood to puberty, or you get married,

without, and so we can set an intention of a

or you give birth: you now have different gifts that

prayer of asking for healing, or for a blessing,

you are going to bring into the community and a

or honoring a transition that somebody's going

ceremony to acknowledge that change is important.

through.

Shamans perform ceremonies to create harmony between humankind and the environment.

It's a way where we open up the veils

In Shamanic cultures, people talked to the elements.

between the ordinary and non-ordinary realms

They talk to everything alive. Shamans could perform

and we have that opportunity for whatever

ceremonies for the rains come to feed the crops so

prayer we put out into the universe that, as

that the people might survive or that the rains be

long as we surrender the timing of the

mitigated a bit so much flooding doesn't happen.

outcome, we do create a new form in our life, whatever we ask for that is answered in

Ceremonies have always been used to honor a

reciprocity. And so, in shamanic cultures, the

change, but also to create harmony and to ask for

ceremony was so important because when

blessings about what would help the community and

children were born, they were so honored

individual survive.

because the shamanic community is one Organism and so everybody is part of that

Sandie Sedgbeer – They also bring the community

Organism and contributes a gift.

together, don't, they and they create a focus for the community.

It's not like in our culture, where we're so isolated and separated. Everybody works

Sandra Ingerman - It's amazing. In my 35 years of

together. When a new baby is born into a

leading ceremonies around the world, people bond in

shamanic culture that's a big deal: a being is

ways that I've never seen before. I call shamans,

coming in, who is going to contribute to the

“Gardeners of Energy� and they work with the

survival of the community.

energetic garden of Spirit.

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19

SHAMAN'S CALL When we try to build a new landscape, or we want to build a new building, a structure in our life, a new dimension of reality. How shamans work with that is they prepare the ground and then they use ceremony to keep building energetic building blocks. That will grow into a beautiful form and physical landscape overtime.

I'm talking using a metaphor here.

But, if we want to change the world from a shamanic point of view, we start to create building blocks in the unseen realm.

It is because it's known, in every spiritual tradition, that everything that forms in the physical realm starts in the invisible realms first.

So, you have to build in the invisible realm of substance first. By using the chanting, and ceremonies, and prayers, over time, we keep building new energetic blocks that start to take the place of the fabric of the reality that is now unraveling. We create a beautiful new fabric of reality using ceremony.

Sandie Sedgbeer – So what are the most important elements that we would need to create a powerful ceremony?

The preparation work from me is the most important and what I mean by preparation work isn't just finding a place to do your ceremony indoors or outdoors and creating altars and sacred tools and spaces to bring power into the work that you're doing, but it's so important. This is so true in the West.

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Sandra Ingerman – Intention. What is your intention? The intention is so important. We have to surrender the outcome and the timing of the outcome because we are working outside of time, but the intention is really important.

"We create a beautiful new fabric of reality using ceremony."

WORDS BY SARAH SANCHEZ

We bring our rational minds with us into a ceremony, so the most important part of the preparation work for me is having people dance and sing, and spend time in silence and meditation, and stepping out of their Egoic selves, so it's their heart, their spirit-self, their divine-self that's actually stepping into the ceremony, instead of our ego of just I want, I want, I want. It's really important to put our rational mind aside, our ordinary day aside because I watch people just jump from work into performing a ceremony, but you can see there's no power in it.

There wasn't that preparation work of how we take the time to dress, and to pray, and to create altars around us, and light beautiful candles, and put out flowers. It really makes a very big difference. So, I would say that setting intention and preparation work are the most important parts of the ceremony.

Once a ceremony starts, it takes on a life of its own. If you do the right preparation and everything is perfect, you don't have to worry about if it starts raining in the middle of a ceremony, or somebody starts crying in the middle of a ceremony because their sacred space is holding everything and everything that happens in a ceremony is perfect.

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In shamanic cultures, instead of people going, “Oh, I think something went wrong in the ceremony,” they’ll laugh about what happened in a ceremony and say, “wasn't that a beautiful ceremony.”

They know that once you've done the preparation work, and once you start from being your divine self and connecting to the unseen realms and to the divine without, that everything that happens next is absolutely perfect.

Sandie Sedgbeer – Why is it so important to do it at the right time? We hear that if you want to set an intention for your future, you need to do it in this phase of the moon. Why does that make a difference?

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Sandra Ingerman Interview

Sandra Ingerman – I do ceremonies whenever, so I'm a rebel? I don't follow any rules, but I think that what's important to understand is that we are ruled by the cycles of nature, so when the new moon comes out, all of life, every being - not just you all of life is starting a new cycle and so if you want to bless something? What a great time - there's a new cycle starting or the full moon.

We know the power of the full moon. We know what happens to people and their moods on the full moon. The full moon has exponential energy, so when a lot of power needs to come into a ceremony, often, we will do it on a full moon.

And then we're moving into the solstice, and we want to honor the changes in cycles because everything in nature

is changing in summer, fall, winter, and spring, and we are changing too because we are not just connected to nature, we are nature, So when we perform ceremonies on the Solstice and Equinox, what we are doing is we are actually harmonizing with the cycle of nature and the changes that are happening on the land where you live.

What that does is it puts you in flow with the River of Life, so you are starting to live in accordance with the flow that happens at the change of times of the year, instead of going against the River of Life, which is what many of us do, It helps us to harmonize with nature cycles.

Sandie Sedgbeer – In The Book of Ceremony, you write about the exponential power of working in a group, saying that when everyone in a group or community works together at the invisible level first, the result can lead to powerful transformational change to create a healthier world.

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Given the rising levels of violence, fear, and destruction occurring in the world today, your offer to harness the collective field of energy that we're creating right now with our listeners is absolutely perfect for the live, guided ceremony so.

Thank you for offering to do that for us.

Sandra Ingerman – When we perform a ceremony we step into such an ancient collective because ceremonies have been performed for thousands of years with the support of the Earth, which is 4.6 billion years old, and all the elements which are so ancient and so there's so much that we can join into a collective that's been working for tens of thousands of years outside of time and we step into new frequency and a new vibration of life where we can travel back and forth between the dimensions of the unseen realms. What happens is we build bridges, so healing energies can flood our current collective.

Sandie Sedgbeer – Could you give us an example of a ceremony that could be adapted for different purposes, maybe releasing an old wound or healing toxic energy?

Sandra Ingerman – The ceremony that we just did you can do by yourself, but you can also bring it into your community, and you can do it as guided visualization, or you could build a small fire. You know, depending on fire conditions. You can have sticks present at the fire and you can ask everybody to blow a pain into the stick instead of a blessing and have each person come up to the fire with the whole support of the community and put a stick into the fire to release a pain into the fire or a prayer for the community into the fire.

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OMTIMES magazine AUG • B 2019

Another classic way to work is with a prayer tree. Prayer trees or blessing trees were used all over the world. A tree that volunteered itself was blessed with offerings of food or sacred herbs, and then you can tie a ribbon or a piece of yarn - really loosely because branches continue to grow - and you can ask for to be released from a pain or an illness, or you can ask for a blessing for a good life, a new job, a blessing for the planet, or a blessing for your family.

So those are two ceremonies that I share a lot.

Many people bring really simple fire ceremonies into their communities, where everybody comes together and releases something together or prays for something together, and you can only imagine the bonding that happens and how that strengthens the community, but you can also do it for yourself, and you can always do these ceremonies alone, too.

Sandie Sedgbeer – A lot of people like to write down their intentions at specific times of power throughout the year. One of the things that. Made me my ears prick up when I was reading your book when you talked about dissolving paper, which sounds to me like the most fabulous idea.

Sandra Ingerman – Dissolving paper is amazing, and you can get it from sciencebob.com, which sells children's science supplies for school.

What happened for me, and a lot of the people who I trained in ceremonial work, is that there are many places on the planet right now where we can't do fire ceremonies outside because of the fire danger.

Dissolving paper is paper that was created to be ecologically correct with no pollutants in it. You fill a bowl with warm water, cold water won’t work, and you write down whatever intention you want.

I was doing it every day for a while when I was dealing with an illness that I wanted to be released from, and you put the paper into the water, and it literally dissolves completely. So, your pain dissolves right in front of your eyes, or what you're praying for it dissolves right in front of your eyes, and then you go out and gift it to the Earth.

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Sandra Ingerman It's another form of working, and it's a very feminine form of working. It's a beautiful ceremony with sitting by a bowl of water and putting in your intention in, watching it disappear, and then bringing it outside and feeding it to the Earth, so that the creative power of the Universe can make your intentions so.

Sandra Ingerman – In Shamanic cultures, people would use ceremonies like what I just led, and I chose a Blessing ceremony because of the solstice which is an amazing time to pray for the whole entire Earth. It is a powerful time. So, I did that intentionally.

One way that we start to create a new vision for the Earth is either doing ceremonies alone or coming together to perform them. It's really powerful to use your imagination when you sit out a nature and engage all your non ordinary senses of seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling the world that you do want to be living in and you step into that world; and you see it, feel it, hear it, taste it, smell it, as if it's already happening, and you're living in that world right now.

Sandie Sedgbeer – What a great idea! I'm going to get some of that. Some time ago, you wrote an article for The Huffington Post on how to create a new vision for the planet. If ever there was a time in our history when we need a new vision, it is now, so tell us a little bit about how to create that vision.

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As we keep doing that work, we keep building up that invisible world of substance that I talked about and that's necessary to do before we start to see any new fabric of reality, new ways of life moving into physical form on the planet. So [it is important to be] sitting, and reflecting, and being in nature, and really using your imagination to imagine exactly what you want to see for the planet right now.

Sandie Sedgbeer – In the Book of Ceremony, you remind us about the importance of thoughts and words. You talk about expressing and how that is different from when we're sending energy to someone, that it is important to express our feelings, but it's also important not to be throwing that energy at other people.

Thinking about the thoughts that we have during the day, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who sometimes catches myself thinking a negative thought and has to shake myself out of it, I was surprised and delighted to see that you have developed an app called “The Transmutation”, which actually helps us to shift the way we think. Tell us how that came about.

Sandra Ingerman – In Shamanic cultures, children, as soon as they can take in this information, are taught how to discipline their thoughts, their daydreams, and then the words that they use, because words are magic. Our thoughts create our reality. Our daydreams create our reality.

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And so, I lead a lot of exercises to help people transmute because as human beings, we came here to experience the whole range of emotions, from bliss and joy to suffering, to hate, to fear we came here to experience that. But we want to experience it, and then to transform it so that we're sending love and light to ourselves to our loved ones on the planet.

I created an app for myself. When the app goes off - you could have a go off every hour or two hours, and there are bells and a couple of other sounds - and when you hear that, it's what are you thinking about right now? There's a library of beautiful pictures or statements or words that will help bring you back to remembering that what you want to be sent to yourself, or to your loved ones, and to all of life on Earth is beautiful because there is only Oneness.

So, if you're sending hate to some political leader, you're actually sending that same hate to yourself, your favorite nature being, and your loved ones, so we have to learn how to experience our emotions and then transform them. The Transmutation app brings people back to a place of beauty where we remember that what we want to be doing is emanating love and light and radiating light, just like the stars in the night sky.

Sandie Sedgbeer – I should imagine that's an app that everybody on the planet should have and definitely many will want. Is it selling well?

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Sandra Ingerman – It has sold really well with all the updates going on. I have to get a designer to help me do some updates with it because all the devices are changing so quickly and so I need to do a little bit of updating, so that's my next project, actually.

Sandie Sedgbeer – Well, I've downloaded the app, I think it's a wonderful idea. And I certainly need it to keep my thoughts on track.

Sandra Ingerman, it's been a delight to have this time with you. Thank you so much.

Sandra Ingerman – Thank you so much Sandie and I want to wish you a beautiful Solstice and for everybody listening. Thank you for all for the brilliant work that you're doing, and behalf of all of the life blessings. Thank you.

Sandie Sedgbeer: The Book of Ceremony: Shamanic Wisdom for Invoking the Sacred in Everyday Life is published by Sounds True. For Sandra Ingerman's books, podcasts, audios, and events, and, of course, her Transmutation App, visit sandraingerman.com.

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SAM MITANI EDITOR IN CHIEF

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

How Metaphors Heal an Injured Soul

By Jayita Bhattacharjee

From the rationale to the imaginative, from the reasoning to the enchantment, from woe to wonder, is a journey that can be accomplished so effortlessly through the metaphorical path.

It carries us from reality to a beauty that is so surreal. Along the path lies a journey of

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healing, which seeps inside and before even we understand it, the night seems to end as the morn begins to break in the welcoming light. How the imagination fills our eyes with the golden dawn, so we get to feel the beat of life again, and that is where the healing begins.

How a metaphor heals a wounded heart is often veiled in mystery. In unveiling the process of healing, do we open new possibilities for the injured souls? In the most profound area of the brain, lies an affinity for the realm of metaphors, where a phrase sheds light on imaginative thinking. It stimulates the advanced levels of mental processing, nourishes us with a richer expression of emotions and triggers us to think in elevated concepts and perceptions. Metaphor, though is a natural language of arts and humanities, still when applied, becomes sacred art. And as the phrases travel through the brain, they gently push us to wander in the paradise of imagination. While we visualize ourselves in that

realm, in our subconscious mind, we walk away from the lost battles of yesterday. The pain, the anger, the agony, and the grief, all fall off through the weaving of phrases, and all we are left with is a beauty bursting in brilliance.

Life is a journey. In the chills of winter, the earth is covered with a blanket of snow. The healing power of metaphor lies in the extension of the way we see and think, thereby rejuvenating and enlivening our perceptions. Life flows into us again. Metaphor bypasses our rational thinking and leads us to our imaginative world. Through the metaphoric pathways, we begin to explore the forces, ideas, and power that goes beyond our rational thinking. The familiar concepts of daily lives are skillfully manipulated, in a way, juxtaposed through metaphors to reveal higher concepts.

Metaphor directly speaks to the heart and soul, and it is only with the heart and not with the head, that we begin to heal. It is the healing power of metaphors due to Omtimes.com

which they are widely used in poets, storytellers, and expressive artists. It is an effective tool of the heart holding which we go beyond our rational thought. In the process, metaphors weave mystery and magic, and such a beauty arises from them, that they begin to have medicinal properties. We come alive and refreshed as if the soul had been in a vibrant dance, as we let our minds wander in that heightened imagination. Scientific evidence shows emotions function more like muscles.

The more we use them, the stronger becomes the neural connections that underlie them. With an increased focus on any emotion, the likeliness grows that we will re-experience it.

Metaphors help people describe so they can make sense of their lives. They also act as a source of motivation, encouragement, and gratitude. They help us gain a bigger and broader picture. Metaphor can properly be described as a word picture. “Life is a Omtimes.com

journey.� It reminds us that destination is not the only goal, but what we encounter and experience along the way, it is those meetings and events that weave our lives with richness, giving us the wealth of wisdom. The pathway may be straight or winding, with surprising turns now and then, but it is what we discover along the journey that enriches us to the fullest, not where are we headed to.

Or we can say, garden as a metaphor for life where relationships with friends and family can be very much cultivated like flowers. They need watering regularly and adequate sunshine. At times, they also need to be pruned, like we need to weed the garden, which means we need to eliminate toxic friends. The outcome can be the growth of plants or relationships and be beauteous as they bloom into flowers.

As we work with the mysterious and magical beauty of metaphors, we can address a lot of issues, from anxiety to aggression, grieving,

mourning. Therapeutic stories that rely increasingly on metaphors have the potentials for nurturing positive values so the lost and the confused can build emotional resilience and strength in character. We do not have to moralize or induce any type of guilt, but we can select therapeutic metaphors to create a journey or weave a quest to meet the needs of the situation. The objective is merely to reflect on what is happening, and we can intensify the situation by integrating metaphors in the therapeutic stories and daily lives. Metaphors form imaginative connections and take the listener to an enchanting world. The listener leaves beside the invisible agony and falls in the spell of metaphoric imagination.

The healing begins through enchantment. Metaphors become integral parts of the story journey, and they can play both the roles, positive as well as the negative. For those who struggle to heal…”

A scar is not a wound.” How it motivates a person to rise and to walk the path of life again by a heartfelt metaphor,

that he /she may have scars or bruises, still they cannot be defined as wounds — implying that there is still something left to fight with. The body/ mind/heart and soul is not yet crumbled to pieces. It is not the picture of an ultimate loss.

Rather he /she can be back on the road again, to give in to the invitation of life. It is still a gift.

Jayita Bhattacharjee was born in Calcutta, India. She had her education from the University of Houston in Economics, where she had chosen her career as a trustee and teacher. Her Indian residence is in the vicinity of the famous Belurmath. Currently, she is settled in Tampa, Florida.

The books “ The Ecstatic Dance of Life,” “ Sacred Sanctuary,” “ Light of Consciousness,” “ Dewdrops of Compassion” “ are among the many that she has authored. https://www.goodreads.com/ author/show/6850731.Jayita_ Bhattacharjee

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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 A Feeler?

By John Holland

While there are a wide variety of psychic abilities, I often focus on the three most popular: clairvoyance (“clear seeing”), clairaudience (“clear hearing”), and clairsentience

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(“clear feeling”). It’s quite natural that some of you already know where your core psychic strengths lie. For example, if you think your individual psychic aptitude is to become a feeler, then you should work to strengthen your clairsentience before you start developing your other psychic senses.

I’ve noticed that many students who participate in my workshops start off with the belief that clairvoyance (I’m seeing or being shown) is the best ways to receive psychic information.

However, being a good clairsentient (I’m feeling or sensing) can also produce excellent results.

Clairsentience is the inner sense of knowing. This is one of the more familiar intuitive senses, and it’s probably the easiest one to develop and access.

Let’s say you’re introduced to someone for the first

time at a social gathering, and you immediately get that feeling of discomfort or uneasiness. It’s not so hard to grasp what you’re sensing. You just know you’re not really going to bond with that person. It’s a gut reaction, but we tend to rationalize it by telling ourselves that we probably won’t have anything in common with them.

What’s actually happening is that you’re receiving thoughts and feelings from that person’s aura, which are then transmitted through your solar plexus chakra, which is in the abdomen area. This results in what we so often call that “gut feeling,” which in this case, is a form of clairsentience.

Are you clairsentient? Take some time to answer the following 6 questions. Each yes is a strong indicator of your clairsentience: Are your feelings easily hurt?

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When meeting someone, do you intuitively know when something’s wrong, even though they appear to be happy?

When you’re driving, do you instinctively sense when you should take a particular route, only to find out later that there was a terrible traffic jam on your original route?

Are you the person who everyone goes to when they’re feeling down, or when they need to get something off their chest?

When you walk into a room, do you just feel whether the placement of the furniture is correct or not?

Have you noticed people are simply drawn to you?

Do people often come up to you and ask for directions?

Also, when you’re shopping in a store, do people think you’re an employee and ask you questions?

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JOHN’S LESSON People are naturally drawn to clairsentients. If you’re clairsentient, it’s likely that you’ll pick up other people’s emotions, whether happy or sad. If your temperament is usually one of an upbeat personality, and for some inexplicable reason you start feeling down (even though nothing is happening around you to cause this), try approaching it from a different angle. Instead of wondering, “What is wrong with me?” ask yourself, “Who is wrong with me?”

You’re probably tuning in to feelings or vibrations from someone else, without even knowing it. Your psychic ability can and wants to help.

Do you have specific questions for me about being clairsentient? Feel free to ask them in the comments section on my Facebook page.

Live a Soul-filled life!

Transitioning to SpiritCelebrating a Life

by Judi Lynch

Our human life on Earth is very short compared to the life of our souls. Through countless lifetimes and lessons, our spirits evolve in our terra missions in every conceivable way. We honor and celebrate the lives of those who have transitioned with rituals, memorials, and gatherings. Our religious, Omtimes.com

spiritual, and cultural beliefs help us to process the crossover with grace and dignity.

Some may think a life well lived means financial success and the collection of material things while others view a life of service to others as the ultimate accomplishment.

Some people wish to have no fanfare at all when they leave this earthly plane and others who want a marching band with a bartender serving margaritas. This world has many unique ways of helping the soul to cross over into another existence.

In India, according to Holy Scripture like the Bhagwat Gita, it is acknowledged that the departed is on its way to the next level of existence. The rituals help the conscious soul to manifest a peaceful crossover to that next level. A Hindu death ceremony called the Teravih is a period of mourning starting from the day of the death of a person to the 13th day after the funeral services.

There are many rules that family members must observe.

They are to refrain from attending religious functions,

eating certain foods, wearing new clothes, or participating in any cultural activity or festivity.

Reverence for the deceased is not just a ceremony, it is culture.

New Zealand and Australia share customs with the Irish in that drinks and food are served at a wake. Celebrations with happy memories and loving comfort for family and friends. Some funerals in Ghana include putting the deceased in brightly colored coffins which look like boats, airplanes or fish. They are called “fantasy coffins.� In many Asian countries, it is customary to wear white as a symbol of death, while those in the West traditionally wear black.

In the United States, a unique funeral tradition occurs in New Orleans, formed from French and African influences.

A funeral begins with a march that includes friends, family and a jazz band from the funeral home to the graveyard.

During the march, the band plays somber music, but after a graveyard service, the music changes to celebratory on the way back to a common Omtimes.com

gathering place.

We can view life transitions as a time of reflection for our own lives and what we would still like to manifest and experience. We send our love and support for each other through memorials and condolence messages, which help us cope with loss. We can view the process as a fantastic voyage back to the consciousness from which we came where we reunite with loved ones who made the trip before us. Many believe there is a great party in Heaven to welcome us, helping us process our life review and decide if we want to incarnate again.

Celebrating a life means that we acknowledge the beauty, fragility, and meaning of living.

No matter how long or short, every life born here incarnated for a purpose. The uniqueness of a soul is a miraculous thing.

We can celebrate our loved one’s time here with music, photography, videos, and stories about their adventures and accomplishments. We can choose to remember the good times and appreciate that another soul touched our lives.

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Made us better, stronger, and more loving. Their energies are a part of us for the rest of our time here. We can share that our hearts, minds, and spirits were made better by their being. We can be grateful for the good times and the challenging times that changed us. Made us think, feel, and strive to manifest the best life we can with our time here.

When we send a smile up to Heaven, we create beautiful energy that will never be silent.

Celebrating a life means that we acknowledge the beauty, fragility, and meaning of living.

No matter how long or short, every life born here incarnated for a purpose.

Judi Lynch is a psychic medium, intuitive counselor, healing channel, and author. She is president of the Crystal Healing Foundation, Inc. a 501(c) spiritual charity and writer for OM Times Magazine.

She has authored two books, Friends with Lights and Conscious Ascension and has read for clients all over the world. To learn more or contact for a session see judilynch.com Omtimes.com

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OM Living For those living a more Conscious Lifestyle

Feng Shui & A Spiritual Phenomenon in Your Building

By Kartar Diamond

Feng Shui practitioners sometimes talk shop and debate concepts and practices from distinct schools or traditions. For example, some Feng Shui Schools teach that a house will manifest unique Omtimes.com

energy based on when it was built, while another School will interpret a house based on when the occupants move in.

a main entrance on the street side, but the major views and the architectural emphasis is facing the ocean.

When it comes to any house or building and every School of Feng Shui, there is a concept called “sitting and facing.” This is just another way of saying the front and back of a house or building.

The Sitting side is the back, and the Facing side is the front. Many applications and interpretations are reliant on first identifying the front from the back.

There are many things to learn and observe when it comes to the sitting and facing of a building, including a residential apartment complex. Once we have established the facing side of a residential building, does that mean that every individual apartment faces the same direction as the whole building? Some practitioners will say yes.

And this is consistent with the practice of viewing every room in a house as a miniature version of the whole house.

And while you may think this is a “no-brainer,” it is actually not always obvious what is the facing or sitting side of a house. Some of these distinctions require training.

For example, the front of a house is not always on the side of the house with the main entrance. Some people actually have their main entrance on the side of the house. And some houses actually face their “backyard.”

One classic example is the beachfront home, which has

The difference, however, is that with a single-family residence, it is one person or one family who occupy the space so it can truly be viewed as one comprehensive energy field.

With an apartment building, you have several or numerous individuals or families

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within the building, but they otherwise have their separate lives. The tenants of an apartment building may have almost nothing to do with each other except for some issues that affect more than one unit in the building, like a plumbing problem for the whole building.

A popular way to interpret individual apartments within a building is to give each apartment it’s own sitting and facing, which is often different from the sitting and facing of the whole building. It is very common for individual apartments to have balconies and views which face away from the building they are in, on all four sides of the building. You could have a west facing apartment in a south facing building, for example.

I have found this to be a true phenomenon: that the individual unit has distinct energy from the rest of the building and can have its own orientation. This can be taken for granted, and one

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can proceed mechanically in assessing the dwelling. But if we stop for a second, we can ponder the amazing phenomenon going on, which is that the qi (energy) of the space has intelligence or consciousness.

That qi-energy can recognize that it is part of a whole, but also separate. That qi-energy is in a special relationship with humans and animals.

The fact that the qi-energy recognizes the different lives and karma of individuals is truly amazing. This is just one more indication that the physical materials making up the structure and the energy encased inside is not just “space” or “air” but a living, breathing, Gaia-esque body of consciousness. This just underscores the very personal relationship we have with the spaces we occupy, and its origin is all-knowing and based on spirituality.

Author: Kartar Diamond Company: Feng Shui Solutions ®

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Why Does Compost Make Good Sense?

Whether you make it at home or purchase compost from a reliable source, it is the key to fertile soil, and good soil is the key to healthy fruits and vegetables. Compost or what I call Black Gold improves soil structure and aeration, increases its water holding

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capacity and adds beneficial microorganisms. These microbes break down organic matter and convert nutrients into a more available form for plants. Finally, compost infuses the soil with natural antibiotics.

You can use old compost as an inoculator just as you would do with sourdough bread or yogurt. No need to buy those expensive compost starters go over to the compost pile you started last fall or spring.

The compost that was piled so high has now shrunken down.

The organic material on the top hasn’t broken down too much, but the stuff halfway down and on the bottom is ready to place on your garden. Spread it generously on your fall garden and dig it in lightly. Save some of the older compost that sits at the bottom of the pile. Mix it with peat, vermiculite and or perlite for potting and germinating mixes in the early spring.

Did you know the average American throws away

almost four pounds of garbage every day? A third is kitchen waste that could be used in a compost heap.

In other words, most people could have bins of compost cooking in their backyards.

Moreover, when you can add in leaves, old mulch, animal manure, strips of newspapers, fresh green lawn clippings, weeds, your neighbor’s vegetable wastes, wood ashes from the wood stove and more, there are many potentials for compost to heal the earth.

A compost pile can be started any season of the year. The basics are easy: collect the organic matter, pile it up, and let it rot. All you need to do is to keep the microorganisms in a pile well supplied with the proper proportions of food, air, and water and follow some simple rules described below: Compost Makes Good Sense According to many gardeners, composting is easy when you use your sense of sight, smell, touch, and taste.

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Use your eyes. Well-ripened compost is a black-brown crumbly material, colored somewhere between chocolate and spice cake.

Use your nose to smell when the sweet compost has completed its cycle.

Use your hand to feel the wetness or dryness inside the pile. It should feel like a wet sponge that doesn’t quite drip. If the heap is too hot, you can tell because your hand will burn. In this case, open up the pile and add some hay. It’s good to turn the pile at least once. If you can’t turn it, that’s okay but turning it too much is a waste of time and effort, and it upsets the natural process of decomposition.

Finally, there is the sense of taste. Once I had a friend who liked the taste of well-ripened compost. Hm! He said it was sweet to the palate and he used to taste to tell him when it was time to spread it on the garden — each to his own.

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Ron Krupp, teacher, writer, entrepreneur, and community organizer has been farming and gardening in Vermont for more than thirty years. He has a master’s degree in teaching from Antioch University and a master’s degree in agriculture from the University of Vermont.

He studied biodynamic gardening and farming at Emerson College, U.K. In the 80’s he edited The Green Mountain Farmer. In the mid 90’s he had a garden column in The Vermont Times and a garden commentary show on Vermont Public Radio.

He is a frequent guest for features on the Vermont Public Broadcasting System and does garden and farm commentaries.

His book The Woodchuck’s Guide to Gardening is going into its tenth printing revised 2013 with over 20,000 books sold). His second book titled Lifting the Yoke: Local Solutions to America’s Farm and Food Crisis is in its second printing.

He is working on a third book titled The Woodchuck Returns to Gardening

The Magic Of Conscious Relationships Try Ascending Hearts.Com For Free

Embracing Aging as a Wonderful Part of Life

by Crystal Presence

As children, we thought of being as old as something very far away. We looked at older adults with a curious mind and welcomed grandparents who gave us presents. The years passed, and we suddenly find ourselves being one of those older adults!

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Every culture has a different way of looking at the aging process. In some cultures, particularly the western ones, elders are seen as a burden, forgetful, sick, unattractive, in pain, and having a terrible quality of life. In other cultures, such as in Japan, elders are honored, revered, and respected for their wisdom, skills, creativity, inspiration, and purpose.

Aging is not an experience that needs to be fixed. Nor is it a disease to be cured. It is a natural, empowering, and lifelong process that we all have in common. Aging may be difficult to accept at first as our bodies change.

Our ability to physically do things changes, and we can find ourselves feeling less valued in our society. Often, we struggle to find a new way of living and taking care of ourselves. It is a time of redefining who we are and what our purpose is now.

The biggest obstacle as we move into the later phase of life is living in a culture that tells us that getting older means shuffling

offstage. In his passionate TedTalk, Let’s End Ageism, Ashton Applewhite defines ageism as “discrimination and stereotyping based on age.” He awakens us to the facts that only four percent of older Americans are living in nursing homes, and the percentage is dropping. It also turns out that most of us can continue to think very clearly. Dementia rates are dropping. The real epidemic is anxiety over memory loss.

Ageism is assuming someone is too old for doing a certain task, instead of finding out who they are and what they are capable of. Prejudice such as this relies on seeing a group of people as other than ourselves. The “other” in ageism is us! It feeds on denial, avoidance, and reluctance to acknowledge that we all are becoming that older person.

What if we embrace and celebrate our ability to adapt and grow as we move through life? What if we let go of trying to be the younger versions of ourselves and embrace our aging as an experience of curiosity, Omtimes.com

wonder, and fun? What if embrace growing old as a privilege?

People with a more positive attitude and feelings about aging walk faster, do better on memory tests, heal quicker, and live longer. Many people stay mentally, very sharp.

Howard Friedman, the author of The Longevity Process and psychology professor at the University of California, says that genes only contribute one-fourth to one-third of our longevity. The rest is up to us!

Choices that we can make to keep our lives positive as we grow older by…

Keeping our energy in movement. Moving our energy lifts our spirits, enhances our energy levels, and makes us feel better.

It releases us from being uptight and opens the space for new possibilities in how we age. It also supports conditions such as arthritis.

Pinched nerves, obesity, high blood pressure, and compromised immune systems.

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We are changing our beliefs about aging. We older folks can be some of the most ageist of all! With a lifetime of internalized beliefs about aging, we need to think about the expressions we are using, such as “senior moments.” We can invent new ways of thinking about and describing our experiences.

Staying connected to ourselves and our loving source with its greater intelligence. Keeping our inner guidance system open for insights and information on how to have the most empowering experience of aging.

We are having compassion for ourselves as we grow.

Asking the structural question, “What is the nature of the most loving, nurturing, fun and empowering experience of aging?”

I am acknowledging that culture can change. Cultures can create a new context for aging.

We are being aware of big business trying to convince us that to we need their latest, greatest and best new products for successful aging.

Envisioning and allowing the bodily felt sense of what our next phase of life is going to be.

Letting go of excess baggage.

Release ourselves from things that we do not want or need and creating space for more time to enjoy our lives. The relief of knowing that no one has to take care of any excess baggage when we make our transition.

Enjoying the fact that most children and elders are the happiest people, and that’s why they resonate so well together.

We are leaving loved ones with clarity, information, documents, and wishes of how we would like our transition to be handled.

We are realizing that every little pain is not from aging.

For example, if our elbow hurts do not assume it is

because we are aging.

I am having a sense of humor about it all. Growing older can be a great time to play with the funnier things in life.

It’s about lightening up.

About the author: Crystal is a certified expansion guide with the Total Integration Institute, author, multidimensional coach, and facilitator for the live event called Freedom at the Core. She is the instructor and coach for her online course, Freedom From the Inside Out. She draws from her own experience and the experience of the thousands of people she has worked with over the past 35 years.

Crystal is known for the fun and empowering way she supports people in bringing forth the experiences they want in their lives. Currently, she is writing a series of children’s books that embrace the principles of living freedom. www.crystalpresenceonline.com www.facebook.com/ crystalpresenceonline Omtimes.com

The Witch Doctor’s Secret

In rural West Bengal, India, many people harbor the strange belief that if they have been bitten by a dog, they have become pregnant with its puppies. The fearful

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victims run to a witch doctor, who administers yogurt and herbs and tells them they are no longer pregnant.

Then they go home relieved.

The dynamic behind Puppy Pregnancy Syndrome illustrates what A Course in Miracles describes as “magic,” the belief that material things outside of us can hurt us or heal us. The Course takes a firm stand that our pain and healing are more a function of our thoughts than physical causes. It tells us, “You are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws you have set up to save you. You think that a small round pellet or some fluid pushed into your veins through a sharpened needle will ward off disease and death.” The Course teaches that we are sustained not by medicine, money, or lovers. We are sustained by the love of God. The Course goes on to explain that the real

physician is the mind of the patient; we choose doctors as agents who play out our intentions. Because God has invested us with the ability to create, we are capable of making up stories of sickness and healing, and then manifesting them in our experience. v Considering the Course’s bold stance on the power of the mind, Puppy Pregnancy Syndrome is not so different from the ways we manufacture and offset more accepted diseases. We dream we are sick; we go to a doctor who believes in the same dream (or, more precisely, is an actor in our dream), the physician prescribes dream medicine, and then we experience a dream healing. In spite of the solid storyline, we were never really sick in the first place. We are eternal, whole, spiritual beings created in the image and likeness of a perfect God. We got mixed up thinking we are bodies,

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became subject to all the “laws” that govern bodies and produced the stories that bodies go through.

Even as this drama unfolds, we remain as God created us.

Neither the Course nor I am suggesting that you should avoid, deny, or discredit doctors and medicine, all of which help in important ways. Good doctors and medicine are blessings that serve nobly to relieve suffering. We achieve healing in accord with the way we are willing to accept it. Better to get yourself out of pain than hold out until you are enlightened.

Meanwhile, we can work to peel away our beliefs in magic. We must examine our thoughts and attitudes and recognize their link to the condition of our health.

Edgar Cayce said, “Mind is the builder.” Thoughts build illness, and they build healing.

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In a sense, all disease is psychosomatic. Not that we don’t have physical symptoms, which certainly feel real in the world of the senses. Yet physical symptoms do not appear randomly. They are always connected to our consciousness. Physical illness is the last step in the progression of thought and emotion. Louise Hay did groundbreaking work identifying the relationship between belief, feeling, illness, and healing. Her books Heal Your Body, and You Can Heal Your Life provide clear roadmaps tracing obvious symptoms to more subtle causes. When I coach a client, who has a physical illness, I pull one of Louise’s books from my desk drawer and read to the client the correlation between the mental pattern and the disease. In almost every case, my client has an “aha!” and hooks up cause and effect. Then we mobilize Louise’s suggested

affirmation of the truth that offsets the illusion to which the client has been subscribing.

Yogis tell of a man who went to visit a friend in the country. During the night, the visitor got up to go to the bathroom and saw a deadly snake coiled at his feet. In the morning, the host found his guest dead on the ground, next to a coiled rope. The guest had gotten so frightened that he died of a heart attack. Even though there was no snake, he was just as dead as if a deadly snake had bitten him.

A Course in Miracles tells us, “Illusions are as strong in their effects as the truth.”

No one has ever gotten pregnant from a puppy bite, but plenty of people give birth to diseases resulting from stress and fear, both of which, A Course in Miracles explains, are entirely unnecessary and founded in illusion. While we may

be tempted to laugh at ignorant rural Indians, we all suffer from ignorance.

Fear bites worse than any dog, and love heals more powerfully than yogurt and herbs. Rather than running to a witch doctor to cure a disease we made up, let us run to reality, the ultimate healer. Let’s not attempt to escape from one illusion by trading it for another. If we are going to escape from illusions, the only place to escape to is a reality.

Alan Cohen is the bestselling author of A Course in Miracles Made Easy. Join Alan and musician Karen Drucker in Hawaii, December 1-6, for an extraordinary retreat, “A Course in Miracles: the Easy Path.” For more information about this program, Alan’s Holistic Life Coach Training beginning January 1, his books and videos, free daily inspirational quotes, online courses, and weekly radio show, visit www.alancohen.com.

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SHARON SAYLER HOST FOR THE AUTOIMMUNE SHOW, SHARON SAYLER KNOWS THE PAIN AND SUFFERING OF AUTOIMMUNE Sharon Sayler is a certified executive and wellness coach, communications trainer, public speaker, best selling author, and the founder of Competitive Edge Communications who specializes in teaching professionals critical nonverbal and body language skills including how to have those critical “tough” conversations.

She teaches how to up-your-impact on the stage, in the boardroom, with clients, customers, team members and even how to deal with difficult people.

Now, she's taken those skills, her passion for clear and competent communication, her own experience dealing with a rare medical condition and her frustration with the medical community in understanding what it is like to have a chronic and complicated medical condition to teach others to become courageous self-advocates so they too can turn life transitions into triumphs. One way she spreads the word is through the podcast and videocast called The Autoimmune Show: Inspiring hope and help for those with autoimmune OMTIMES | AUG A

OMTimes: What motivated you to create The Autoimmune Hour?

OMTimes: Who can benefit from The Autoimmune Hour?

Sharon Sayler: Several years ago, life took an unexpected turn when I received a life-altering medical diagnosis that has transformed into what my friends now call a “compelling-if-slightlyirrational-passion.” That passion is The Autoimmune Hour.

Sharon Sayler: Saying ‘everyone’ seems, so cliché, yet The Autoimmune Hour covers a wide variety of topics, from medical professionals and experts in autoimmune to ‘thrivers’ who are living their life—their way. We strive to bring together the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual sides of healing and offer many subjects that complement and enhance our ability for a life well lived.

As founder and lead consultant of Competitive Edge Communications and a lifetime of teaching professionals how to enhance their verbal and nonverbal communication skills to achieve their goals I could not believe my own experience dealing with what I came to call the ‘white-coatauthority.’ I struggled to be heard. I struggled to be taken seriously. (To be clear, there are numerous excellent medical professionals out there and several compassionately guided my recovery, and the above ‘label’ is not about them.) And there are those that I’ve experienced on my healing journey that did not seek to understand first. The Autoimmune Hour was born out of frustration with the latter.

OMTimes: Tell us a bit about your story and why you named your show The Autoimmune Hour.

Sharon Sayler: From the position of feeling crummy and not being heard of how I wanted my recovery and life to be, I thought if I was having trouble with my extensive experience as a body language and communications expert coupled with training others to deal with difficult people, what are others without my skill set going through?

I now teach others to become courageous selfadvocates. Self-advocacy communication techniques can turn life transitions into transformations. One of the ways I share the messages of ‘thriving regardless of your diagnosis’ and medical self-empowerment is through The Autoimmune Hour, along with the @UnderstandingAutoimmune YouTube channel, and the show’s website UnderstandingAutoimmune.com.

We even have guests that do not have an autoimmune and yet have a worthy lesson such as David Dachinger, a stage-4-cancer ‘thriver’ and his wife Tamara Green, his caregiver. In their episode What Now? Navigating Your New Normal, they share what they learned as a couple and as caregiver and care recipient. And, Sarah Peyton, author of ‘Your Reasoned Self,’ in our interview Understanding The Healing Power of Anger, the way I look at anger changed. Just one of Sarah’s transformative insights is, “dig deeper into the distinction between ‘predatory aggression’ and what anger is. Use the critical distinction between ‘are you angry that’ or ‘are you angry at?’”

Powerful!

OMTimes: What advice would you give someone recently diagnosed?

Sharon Sayler: If you can, take time to ‘sit with the bad news.’ If the situation is not immediately lifethreatening, take time, and do research. (Be discerning, study using professional-quality research.) The emotional response we all experience after bad news can often cloud rational thinking.

Early on, I was told by a ‘top-notch’ doctor to have a surgery that would have made my life worse in the long run, and with no real assurance that it would solve the immediate problem. Upon finding out that surgery wasn’t immediately necessary, I thanked them and sought other options.

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SHARON SAYLER Interview

Remember, it’s okay to say, “Thank you for your time, and no thank you.” In my experience, there are as many varied opinions as there are experts. It’s up to you to chose and take responsibility for your life. This is your life, your body, your way.

Plus be careful how you talk about what you are going through. Our words create our reality. Words such as ‘my body betrayed me,’ ‘poor me’ and ‘why me? construct our identity.

Consider the words ‘you have’ and how it denotes ‘ownership.’

Do I want to own my diagnosis? No. I prefer to look at the word ‘have’ from the viewpoint that I can ‘have’ cockroaches, but that doesn’t mean I own them and that I can and will eradicate them.

A doctor/friend later said, “ Breathe, there are other options. That’s a surgeon’s answer to a problem they cannot solve.” Wise words that I use everywhere now as in each expert has a specific point of view, and the more focused their expertise, the narrower their recommendations will most likely be. Some examples of questions to consider are: 1. W h a t a r e o t h e r w a y s I c a n v i e w a n d / o r s o lv e ‘this?’

2 . W h a t a r e t h e r i s k s / b e n e fi t s a n d h o w li k e ly a r e those possibilities realized?

3. Are there other options that might give us another answer?

When said enough times, your words become truth in your mind, and in the minds others too. A diagnosis is just a label to chart a possible course based on symptoms, and the prognosis is based on statistics — work hard to be on the positive side of the stats.

Challenge yours and others’ conclusions on what your future will be. On The Autoimmune Hour, we share numerous stories of people thriving regardless of their diagnosis. Join us in being a thriver too!

4 . W o u l d y o u d o t h i s p r o c e d u r e w i t h a lo v e d o n e , i f they had the same symptoms?

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OMTimes: What other services do you offer our audience?

Sharon Sayler: As a professional coach certified through NBC-HWC, I offer personalized wellness and well-being coaching and group masterminds.

I also love to speak to private and public groups on Patient Self-Empowerment and How to Speak Up For Your Self and Get Heard plus other topics.

We also offer at no cost The Courage Club where you can get the latest insights into how to thrive regardless of your diagnosis. And be first to find out about new shows, get exclusive Courage Club Insider Secret videos, plus an immediate download of the helpful e-book Five Things You Can Do Now That Will Help You Feel Better. Go now to https://understandingautoimmune.com/ to join us as we turn life transitions into triumphs.

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Reach Sharon through these channels. https://understandingautoimmune.com/FBFeelGood www.UnderstandingAutoimmune.com/Facebook www.UnderstandingAutoimmune.com/OMTimes www.UnderstandingAutoimmune.com/YouTube Instagram: @autoimmunehour and @understandingautoimmune Twitter: @autoimmunehour

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.

The Secret To Getting What You Want

By Marcia Sirota, Md

Over the years, I’ve written a lot about effective communication. These skills are more vital than ever before, as we’re living in a time of

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rampant misinformation, misunderstanding, and miscommunication.

When we communicate effectively, we get more of what we want and less of what we don’t want.

Effective communication is the ability to briefly and concisely convey the message we want to get across. It’s about speaking clearly but also listening carefully. After all, the root of the word “communicate” is “commune,” or come together.

Effective communication is just as much about hearing as it is about being heard. Too often we’re so focused on whether the other person is listening to us that we forget to listen to them. But, if it’s a onesided conversation, it’s not communication, it’s badgering.

One common problem with communication is that we make assumptions and jump

to conclusions. Rather than paying attention to what the other person is saying, we finish their sentence in our mind and come to our own conclusions.

As a psychotherapist, there have been many times when I’ve started a sentence with a patient, and they’ve finished it for me, but it wasn’t at all what I was going to say. My patient assumed that I was going in one direction when I was going in another.

In a therapy session, it’s not so difficult for the speaker to clarify their intention, but if the listener is doing this elsewhere, their tendency toward assumptions can lead to unfortunate misunderstandings and unpleasant interactions.

We may have a sense of where someone is heading in the conversation, but it’s always better to be patient and not anticipate their intention.

We need to be open-

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minded and allow the other person to make their point.

Otherwise, we’ll be hearing something that they aren’t saying.

Effective communication has to be clear and direct. We can’t expect the other person to read between the lines or guess at what we’re trying to express. Otherwise, we risk misunderstandings and potential conflicts.

For the same reason, we can’t pretend that we get it when we don’t. The speaker will think that we’re on the same page when we’re actually in a whole other book.

A mistake that we make far too often in communication is being much too vague. We have to say exactly what we mean and not simply hope that the other person gets it. If they don’t hear exactly what we intended to say, they’ll never be able to give us what we want.

Often, in a romantic

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relationship, we make vague statements when our partner has done something to upset us. We’re afraid to be authentic because they might get angry at us or reject us.

What we need to know is that if our partner gets angry at us for telling them that they’ve upset us, they’re not the right partner for us.

Another mistake we make in communicating is keeping things inside when we’re angry. We’re afraid to express our anger because the other person might not like it. We hold it in for as long as we can but then inevitably, it leaks out in passive-aggressive behavior or emotional outbursts. It’s always better to politely and respectfully tell the other person how we feel.

Passive-aggressive behavior is extremely off-putting, as are angry outbursts.

Our attempts to avoid unpleasant confrontations backfire when we hold in our anger. Also, we need to

know that if someone can’t tolerate our anger, they aren’t someone who we should associate with.

Of course, expressing anger should never be done with a raised voice. That’s unnecessary and overly aggressive. It’s enough to say, “I’m angry at you for X,” or “When you did Y, it made me angry.” These types of statements are clear and direct but not aggressive.

Expressing our anger this way enables us to closely observe the other person and will tell us whether they’re capable of hearing us and responding appropriately.

The appropriate response to the above types of statements would be something like, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,” or, “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” If the person can’t respond in a reasonable way to our polite and respectful expressions of anger, they’re not really a friend.

One caveat: expressing anger in the workplace is a completely different situation. There, it’s often inappropriate to be clear and direct; especially about our supervisors.

We need to be more strategic and subtle so as not to offend or risk jeopardizing our position. In the workplace, it’s best to err on the side of caution and not engage in confrontation unless it’s strategically done.

It can be anxiety-provoking to communicate clearly. What if the other person doesn’t like what we’re saying? It’s disappointing to discover that a person we like or admire isn’t someone we can be open with.

On the other hand, if we aren’t clear and direct, the other person won’t know what we think, feel or believe and we’ll never get what we want.

It’s better to be disappointed early on than spend years

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with someone who can’t negotiate in good faith.

Effective communication allows other people to really know us. This way, if they like us and want to be around us, we know that it’s because of who we are. If they try to shut us down, we know that we’ll never get our needs met, so we don’t have to waste any more time on them.

When we don’t communicate effectively, people might be with us because they think that we’re someone that we’re not. This can lead to major misunderstandings and frustrations when the truth about how we think and feel final comes out.

We certainly don’t want to get married to someone based on them assuming that we’re someone that we’re not, and we don’t want to sign up long-term with a company because we assume that their philosophy is aligned with our own when in fact, it’s not.

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Part of effective communication is a healthy confrontation, which is when we tell the other person about what we must have and what we can’t accept.

One of the biggest mistakes we make in confrontation is in using force when clarity would suffice. We raise our voice or use intense, even threatening words when simply being clear and direct is enough to make our point.

Bullies yell and shout; they send texts and tweets in allcaps, but it doesn’t make their message any clearer. Their sole purpose is to intimidate and ultimately silence the other person. This isn’t communication; it’s abuse.

Another mistake we make in confrontation is making “you statements” like “you never do X,” or “you always do Y,” or “you’d better do Z.” The problem with these types of statements is that they put the other person on the defensive and then it’s impossible to know whether

they’re capable of hearing us and responding to us appropriately.

It’s always better to make “I statement,” as these build bridges rather than create defensiveness on the part of the listener. We can say, “I feel X,” or “I need Y.” These kinds of statements won’t make the other person feel blamed or coerced.

If the other person becomes hostile or defensive, we can see that it’s not because we delivered the message badly but because the person we’re speaking to isn’t reasonable or responsive to us.

Effective communication shines a light where there’s darkness and enables us to be seen and heard and appreciated for who we are. It shows us who we’re dealing with and empowers us to walk away from anyone who can’t acknowledge our feelings or meet our needs.

Sign up here for my free monthly wellness newsletter.

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Career Change:

The Allure of the New

There are times in our lives when we wonder whether what we have is good enough. This can apply to a relationship, a lifestyle, a home, a job. When it comes to your career, whether you

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are in the right place, at the right level of responsibility, is a question worth asking yourself. The risk otherwise would be to bask in the comfort of permanent selfsatisfaction.

At the same time, when faced with the prospect of a new career, it is worth questioning your motivations: Is it avoidance? Does a new job tempt you because it seems easier to jump ship and start afresh than to persevere in your current employment?

Is it an ego trip? Are you considering a move because the new job is more prestigious, pays better and will make you look good, or because it serves your deeper aspirations?

Am I attracted to the shortterm benefits that this new career offers me, or is my decision based on long-term career objectives?

However, career change isn’t always about increased seniority and better salaries.

It can be about serving one’s true vocation. We regularly hear of people leaving highly paid City jobs to become school teachers, artists, priests, or any other professions that serve their higher purpose. In a rather oblique way, such career moves can sometimes lead to more rewarding careers, not only for the soul!

I once had to make a difficult choice, early in my career. After four years in investment banking, I was tempted to quit the career I had studied for and worked hard at, to join a small communication coaching firm. I struggled with this decision and decided to spend my Christmas holiday in Jordan, hoping that after ten days of relaxation spent between archaeological sites and long desert walks, I would return to London with greater clarity about my choice. Unfortunately, I

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returned non the wiser.

The bank for which I worked tried to retain me, first my boss, then my boss’s boss. Ultimately the overall team’s Head gave me the best advice: “If you believe that where you’re going is a place where you will learn more than here; then you’re making the right choice.” I resigned the following day and have never regretted it.

This was two decades ago.

With hindsight, my advice to people considering career change would center on this question: what is it that you’re missing in your current job that you feel you will get in your new job (and how sure are you that it will be given to you?)

For example, if you feel that you’re not learning anything new in your current position, it may well be that changing job will fulfill this aspiration.

At the same time, there may be other solutions that would serve the same

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purpose, yet minimize your risks; for example:

current company? And if so, what would it take?

Seeking opportunities internally to move to a new position, or take on new responsibilities in your existing job

It may be that the conclusion will still be that accepting another job is the best option for you. In that case, all you have to do is take a leap of faith and sign on the dotted line.

Explore what training opportunities your current company may offer you Seek out learning opportunities outside your company (it could be starting a new degree or qualification through remote learning, attending evening classes, or negotiating with your company to have time off to complete such a course) This is only one example.

Perhaps what you feel you are missing isn’t learning opportunities. It could be anything else. But whatever the reason, it is worth asking yourself: what is it exactly that I feel I am missing here and is there a way I could find it while remaining in my

Joseph Bikart is a founding member & a founding partner and director of the international consulting firm Templar Advisors.

For the past 20 years, following a first career in investment banking, he has advised leaders in corporate and public life on their communication and negotiations. Through his work with thousands of decision-makers, he has created Decisiology, an innovative approach to executive coaching, drawing from his studies at the Institute of Psychoanalysis and the Tavistock in London.

He is also a keynote speaker and a lecturer at the London Business School.

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Metaphysics

The Greys are a vast universal culture that spans many planets and dimensions. For some of them, their story began billions of years ago on Earth when a species of human-type beings known as the Ant People were seeded on Earth by highly evolved insectoid star beings.

These Ant People are distant Omtimes.com

cousins to the off-planet Greys in the same way that Neanderthals and CroMagnons are distant cousins to modern-day Earth humans.

As a younger insectoid species, they operated as a hive consciousness. The off-planet Greys such as Zetas and BlueGrey Arcturians have longevolved past this and operate through the higher universal consciousness of Oneness.

Being insectoids, the specific work of the Greys involves the creation of bio-diversity in planetary eco-systems and adaptation of species to new environments. This is the reason for the genetic work being carried out by them over generations of humans, as well as other Earth species. They are also assisting the remaining Ant People in healing and evolving. This work is to ensure that no species is lost if the planetary environment is again destroyed, as has occurred several times in the past. If this does happen, Earth’s life-forms, including humans, will continue to evolve elsewhere. This mission being carried out by the Greys is the equivalent of the ‘Noah’s

Ark’ story in the Bible.

During the time of the dinosaurs, a human species that I call the Repterrans (reptilian Earth humans) were seeded here by the Draconians.

In the act of rebellion against Universal Law, these Repterrans “hijacked” the planet and took control. They attacked the resident Ant People, many of whom were captured, forcibly cross-bred and fitted with implants to control and enslave them. An ‘ethnic cleansing’ was carried out to stop the Ant Peoples’ ability to reproduce and therefore to evolve. Some of the Ant People managed to escape to the moon to avoid further confrontation, where they still remain.

The Repterrans are also still present, reincarnating here in Earth human form. They cannot evolve because of their fear-based need to control others, which blocks their own evolution. I refer to them as the Controllers, but they are also known as the Illuminati, the Cabal, and the Overlords. Their aggressive nature has caused continual Omtimes.com

warfare on Earth for many millennia. They continue to bio-engineer and clone their own hybrids, using genetic material taken from the bodies of ETs retrieved from crashed ships. These cloned bio-robots are the PLFs (Programmed Life Forms) spoken of by researcher and author Dr. Steven Greer.

They’re made specifically to resemble genuine offplanet Greys such as the Zeta Reticulans. The fact that two very different groups are involved needs clarification.

One group are highly evolved insectoid star beings, and the other is cloned insectoid/ reptoid hybrids created right here on Earth.

The Repterrans do not want to forfeit their control, nor do they want humanity to be awoken. They wish to remain here, exploiting, and feeding off human fear. The Programmed Life Forms, created through their own hybrid program, are an integral part of the MilAb (Military Abduction) program involving cleverly faked “alien abductions” that are carried out by the military to cause maximum fear and confusion.

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The Repterrans presence on Earth is now seriously threatened by the genuine star people, who began returning here after the detonation of the bombs that ended WWII. They use the moon as a base, as some of the Ant People are still peacefully settled there.

The off-planet people are deeply concerned, as are the Ant People, that humanity was, and is, taking Earth down a road to destruction, especially with the development of nuclear weaponry, which seriously impacts off-planet.

The effect of the two bombs that ended the last World War was felt right through the entire solar system and beyond.

There are also several star people resident here who are operating through what is known as a dual or blended soul consciousness. I am one of these, with conscious awareness of living a double life, both as an Earth Human and as a Zeta Grey. This is a pre-birth choice to enable us to carry out an ambassadorial role between the star people and Earth-plane humanity at this time of major change on

Planet Earth. I have conscious recall of carrying out work upon our ship as a Grey, as well as my work down here as an Earth human teaching Tai Chi and Reiki. The role that Greys and other ETs are carrying out on Earth is vital because our presence here is to intervene in the exploitation and enslavement that has blocked the spiritual evolution of humanity for millennia.

It is now time for Earth-plane humanity to wake up and become aware of the blocks and mind-control imposed upon you over millennia by the Repterran Controllers. Human DNA was interfered with by them during the time referred to in the Bible as “Genesis.”

This is now being addressed and rectified when people are taken onto our ships, where repair work is done. As well as this, quantum physics is now proving to you that ultimately you create your own reality.

Connecting with the “God Spark” of love that is within each and every one of you is your key to freedom and evolution. It is time for all of you to wake up to the fact that you are empowered beings

who can take your future into your own hands, as we and other older planetary cultures have also done in times past.

Please allow us into your hearts to show you the way. * * *

Judy Carroll is the author of Extraterrestrial Presence on Earth, The Zeta Message and Human by Day, Zeta by Night.

Judy introduced her life-long connections to the Zeta Greys in her first two books. In her new book, Extraterrestrial Presence on Earth, she reveals that she is a “blended” soul whose conscious awareness spans two planetary connections—both Earth human and Zeta Grey. Judy’s mission, along with other blended souls now incarnated as Earth humans, is to be an inter-planetary ambassador, introducing more clarity and deeper understanding of what has happened here in the past, offering an understanding of present time global events, and providing guidance on how to heal our future as a planetary civilization. For more information, please visit: www. ufogreyinfo.com

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9of Signs a Reincarnated

Soul

Often we find ourselves willing to give anything for one more meeting with a dear departed one: we long to embrace our late parents, to kiss the partner who left

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our side too soon, or to hear the pitter patter of a former pet running to greet us at the door. Often our wish comes true when the spirit reincarnates into a new body.

Energy never dies. It’s transferred back and forth endlessly, taking many shapes and different dwellings. Once energy escapes an expired body, it seeks a new vessel.

The soul that adored you can’t wait to come back into your life, many times with a similar purpose. He or she might look different, but the same, unmistakable spirit will radiate forth.

Do you wonder if the soul of your loved one has taken on a new form? Reflect on these telltale signs to find out: 1. They left before their time. If your loved one died suddenly or tragically, if they left unfinished business, or if you believe they passed before their proper time, their spirit will reincarnate as soon as possible. They will be reborn into the circle where they felt most loved, but also

into situations that allow them to resolve what was left open.

2.Language. My cousin’s grandmother was named Anna. A photo of her stood on a mantle in the living room. When my cousin’s baby girl was starting to say her first words, she pointed to the photo, mumbled the name “Anna,” then pointed to herself. The baby seemed to know who was in that photo without ever having been told. I’ve heard of many cases in which parents are astonished when their children suddenly say new words or sing in a foreign language, without any indication of where they might’ve learned such skills.

The reincarnated soul may use the same figures of speech or vocabulary as the person who passed on.

3.Mannerisms. An easy way to detect a reincarnated soul is the presence of similar gestures such as body language, laugh, physical expressions, etc. Personality traits may also carry over, Omtimes.com

like stubbornness, boldness, curiosity, or other qualities that were distinct to the deceased person. The new being will appear to behave like the person who’s gone, regardless of its age or gender. People around you may also feel the comfort and recollection of a soul they’ve known before, pointing out uncanny resemblances to the one who’s passed.

4.Physical characteristics.

It’s given that children will look like their parents and grandparents, but one giveaway of a reincarnated soul is being born with a unique physical feature that only the person who passed on possessed, such as a birthmark or mole. My good friend Debby was deeply affected when her stepfather died. She remarked that he had a birthmark on his leg.

When Debbie had a child years later, her boy was born with a birthmark identical to her stepdad’s! This defied logic, as her stepfather was not biologically related to her or her son. Debbie believed

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her stepfather’s spirit wanted to announce his return through the reappearance of this physical mark.

5.Their eyes. They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul, and for a good reason! When someone can’t speak or speaks a different language, we absorb their emotions and understand their intentions just by looking into their eyes. If you look at a child or animal and swell up with a familiar feeling, you may be looking into the eyes of a soul you’ve known for a long time.

6.Synchronicity. Take note of divine timing, as it’s never a coincidence. The day, month, and year of every birth are picked carefully and hold tremendous meaning. For example, a baby may be born in your family on the same day of the year that a loved one died, signaling that the soul chose the day of its passing to become new again.

7.Nostalgia. A big clue that your loved one has

rematerialized is that you’re overcome with a sense of nostalgia; this being brought to memory almost overwhelmingly the places, times, events, scents, even sounds you associate with the person who passed.

You will feel an incredible pull towards the more profound moments you shared with the one who departed, which can be bittersweet. But this out-oftime experience is a sure sign of the manifestation of an old soul.

8.Patterns. I had a client who was devastated when her mother suddenly passed away in a car accident. “Not to worry,” I told her, “she’ll come back as your daughter.”

Several years later, my client was overjoyed when she gave birth to a girl. The child was the new embodiment of her grandmother’s spirit—she was even involved in a car accident early in life! But the girl emerged unharmed, ending the pattern her soul had carried over from its past life. A reincarnated soul may be born into similar circumstances or have to live through events parallel with

its prior life. This serves as an opportunity to break the cycle and close out old karma.

9. They finally fill the void.

You may feel a persistent void since your loved one left that nothing, not even the endless love of others, has been able to fill. That’s because that inner space can only be replenished by the unique presence of the one who’s gone. Perhaps the greatest indication that you’ve been reunited with your loved one is that the painful gap has finally closed. Instead of lingering emptiness, you feel a profound sense of fulfillment that mends all wounds. This satisfying sentiment means the soul has rejoined your life.

The people who love us don’t want to leave us, but when they have to, their spirits make it a point to return. Pay attention to the signs above to recognize and welcome home a reincarnated soul.

To a new life, Dr. Carmen Harra

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

Personal Growth & Development

SUCCESS IS NOT YOUR ENEMY

By Johanna Kern

The Fear of Success can subconsciously haunt us, resulting in us repeatedly sabotaging our goals and dreams.

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Most scientists and psychologists agree that the Fear of Success is similar to the Fear of Failure. The reasons for developing the Fear of Success may vary from person to person: • It might be that we subconsciously believe that we are not good enough to reach for our dreams or – it might be that we associate success in our mind with things that we subconsciously believe to be “negative,” “wrong” or even “disgusting.”

• It might be that we subconsciously believe that we won’t be able to maintain our success and will eventually fail anyway.

• We might subconsciously believe that to achieve success in life; we need to be cunning, ruthless, arrogant, bullying, heartless, etc. We might even hold resentment in our heart toward some successful people whom, for whatever reason, we despise and do not want to “end up” being like them.

• Or – we may feel some level

of guilt or shame when we see less fortunate members of your family or co-workers who hadn’t had any success.

What happens when the Fear of Success drives our life: • We may avoid or procrastinate on big projects, especially if they could lead to recognition.

• We may compromise our agenda or goals so that it won’t cause any problems or conflicts in our family or organization.

• We may sabotage our efforts just moments before achieving our dreamed of or thoroughly planned success. Or we might give up already at the beginning and never start working on our plans at all.

If you find out that any of the above applies to you – it means that you might have a subconscious Fear of Success.

Its symptoms are often similar to the symptoms of the Fear of Failure. It is because the Fear of Success is rooted in our

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imprinted belief that success will bring us sorrow.

• We might believe that success may alienate us from our family because of working longer hours or being asked for favors and money.

• We might be afraid that we will be criticized more when we are “higher up,” and that our friends or family will react to us with jealousy, cynicism, and that we might lose our loved ones.

• Or we might be simply afraid that upon accomplishing our goals, we will intensely regret that we didn’t act sooner.

Whatever reason hides behind our Fear of Success – it is effectively sabotaging our happiness.

How to Overcome the Fear of Success: • Step 1: Ask yourself the following questions: – Do I think that it is better to be unhappy in an unhappy crowd, instead of proving

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to others that everything is possible, and if I can succeed, they could do it too?

– Do I believe that my family or friends are happier because I haven’t achieved my success yet?

– Am I sure that my success needs to lead to disappointments and bring me sorrow in the end? If so: what makes me think that way?

Ask yourself similar questions, bringing to the surface each of the issues that may subconsciously sabotage your life. Answer them truthfully on a piece of paper – compare pros and cons.

• Step 2: Notice and accept the simple fact: If we don’t follow our dreams, if we don’t reach for our goals – we will end up unhappy, frustrated, and disappointed anyway.

Success Is NOT Your Enemy.

Giving up on your dreams will bring you sorrow. You can be sure of that.

• Step 3: Notice that every

human being on this planet lives his/her own unique life.

Every single person has a choice of how to stay pure in their heart, and how to conduct their actions. There is no need to succeed in a way that is not in harmony with what you hold as precious and important.

You are a unique being, one in billions, with your own story to tell. You can be successful on your terms: you don’t need to behave in any other way than that which is TRUE TO YOU. • Step 4: Realize that the Fear of Success is stopping you from fully, and happily, experiencing your life: Fear of Success = fear of becoming our true self Fear of becoming our true self = not believing in ourselves Not believing in ourselves = wasting our potential Wasting our potential = lack of happiness Lack of happiness = lack of fulfillment/success

Living without the Fear of Success equals happiness, fulfillment, success • Step 5: Now you can admit to yourself how wonderful it would be to follow your heart, love your life, and share your success with those you love.

You are smart. You are strong.

Now you can be happy as well.

Johanna Kern is a transformational teacher, filmmaker and multiple awardwinning authors of “365 (+1) Affirmations to Create A Great Life”, “Secrets of Love for Everyone,” “Master and the Green-Eyed Hope,” etc. She practices and shares the Master Teachings of HOPE, helping people to find their power and progress in all areas of life. Her story received international attention, winning praise by readers in North America and Europe, and endorsement by three world-renowned experts: Stanley Krippner, Ph.D., Jerry Solfvin, Ph.D., and Brian Van der Horst. Facebook https://johannakern.com

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Are We Trapped in Our Own Expectations?

by Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari

Abstract: Everything in life cannot meet our expectations.

In the intelligent patterns of the creative universe, we are unique in our place and have a unique role to play in the larger drama of life. The Omtimes.com

scriptwriter is our mind. The director is unknown. The projection is continual on the screen of our mind. We react, we laugh, we cry, we manifest all shades of emotion through which we see the self-created movie of our own life. The need is to create a good, satisfying script. But as we go through the pages of our own life story, we find that our instant reactions and emotions have not brought us happy feelings but robbed our heart’s peace.

– Bodhi Shuddhaanandaa (formerly Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari) Writing a Blessed Life Script Sometimes, things do hurt us inside. How do we overcome our reactive chatter about these hurts? Is it to drop all expectations about how others treat us?

One of the simple practices in the path to peace is to be very mindful about our natural tendency to find fault with others. This happens for each one us have our tendencies

(samskaras) and conditioning.

It is only when we see something that contradicts our expectations, deep within we feel stress, an unpleasant state of mind; our reactions in most cases are instant. Hence, enlightened masters always tell us not to find fault with others, for in the process, we only lose our credibility to grow in consciousness.

The Long Journey from Reaction to Pure Witnessing We cannot instantly stop our mind’s patterns of expectations! It is a long journey. Instead, we start living each day being more available to the moment, and whenever hurt related thoughts appear on the screen of the mind, we just step back, pause, and become aware of all our reactions or judgments! The goal is not to fight or negate these thoughts. Just our flame of awareness, our very witnessing the thoughts will create the gap to allow those feelings to fade away without our deliberate effort to do it.

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Our need to make everything someone else’s fault will gradually diminish as the light of awareness increases through our regular practice.

We come to see the other person through different glasses, we see their helplessness, or weakness, or difficulties or even see a deeper message. When are we hurt? When our expectations are challenged.

When our conditional rut is threatened, the whole purpose of meditation and mindfulness is to wake up to the need of being unconditional and mindful.

The more mindful we are, the less the need for us to be vocal about the other’s fault.

Being True to Our Self If our expectations are unreasonable, that is when we feel the pain the most.

Days come, days go, pleasant and unpleasant situations occur. We are all at some point on a rollercoaster. Some days are tougher at home or work; technology can help, but it binds us too. Yes, extremes of anything are

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poisonous; walk the path of moderation in expectations about others. As long as we are working from the plane of mundane consciousness, we will do things for others and have expectations, and at some point, of time feel exhausted and at times cheated. These are tricks of our ego. But if we learn to be true to our Self, true to our own consciousness, we will not stretch beyond a certain point lest we lose balance and overdue.

If we are expecting gratitude from others for what we did for them, then we are heading for unhappiness.

It is not like a man to be grateful. Happy people are the ones who find happiness in helping others and find joy in giving without the tag of expectations. Difficult?

Well, isn’t it painful to live with complaints and frustrations? If we are seeking happiness, then we can find that in living a life story of fewer complaints and more appreciation. People avoid the company of those who

are always complaining and love those who are positive and sharing the beauty of life!

Creating Positive Vibrations with our Presence Therefore, let’s avoid words of complaining. Even if things are not up to our expectations, it’s best to try to create positive vibrations with our presence and good words. What is the use of complaining, we are here to add positive vibrations, not to intensify the existing negative situations of life. Be a positive force; stand firm with conviction that loves alone is the invincible power on earth. Be the harbinger of love and peace. Spirituality is the culture of the soul to flower into that sublime love that knows to give beyond expectations. When our heart expands in such love, we live our life on our own right!!

It is not what other people do to us or give us that should decide our happy or unhappy life story. Today we

need to celebrate the very act of giving, sharing. Give joy and happiness to others without any expectations; give a few good words, compassionate forgiveness and some uplifting, positive stories, do something to light up another soul, and the script of our life will be truly blessed in return!

Bodhi Shuddhaanandaa (formerly Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari, India): Globally acclaimed spiritual teacher of meditation and mindfulness, author, and visionary social advocate; founded Lokenath Divine Life Mission, 1985, which serves thousands of poverty-stricken individuals. Received Lifetime Achievement Award, House of Lords, UK, 2015. www.courseinmindfulness. com www.facebook.com/ shuddhaanandaa10/ www.amazon.com/ Baba-ShuddhaanandaaBrahmachari/e/B003W5XP5W/

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The story defines our lives.

We cling to it, allowing it to inform our sense of self. We use it as permission to suffer and to blame others for our current reality. To move beyond story means looking closely at our inner world and

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all that we believe, and hold, as truth. It means letting go of our grasp on things no longer relevant. It takes courage and honesty to do this work, but it’s essential for cultivating the life we desire.

Each day we are born again.

What we do today is what matters most.

–BuddhaLife follows a narrative arc - a trajectory that encompasses our lived experience, the beliefs we hold, and the choices that we make. It is our story. We can choose to hold tightly, every aspect of our fabled lore or we can decide instead, to look at it from a distance - like a rainbow on the horizon after a storm.

From this vantage point, we gain perspective and begin to understand the lessons inherent in the journey. This is not an easy feat to achieve.

It takes time and practice for we are conditioned to grasp.

We hold dear to us all the storylines that we think define us; all the things that bring us close to the person we have

decided that we are. These may be things we are proud of.

They may also be things that bring us pain. How we hold them determines their value.

When we find ourselves consumed by the suffering aspects of our storyline, we are not available to the present reality. We become blinded to the opportunities that may exist, training our vision instead, to external explanations for our misery.

But the answers are not “out there.” To move beyond the comfort of our known reality means moving into the kind of self-examination that cracks us open and lets the light seep in. In this place of vulnerability, we begin to see more clearly, what is true for us. We begin to connect with a deeper and forgotten part of ourselves.

We give voice to our inherent wisdom and a kind of truth that nourishes, heals, and at times, surprises. Here the potential for evolving into more enlightened versions of ourselves exists. Doing so takes courage and a willingness to let go of outmoded parts

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of ourselves; aspects that restrict and limit the growth that we desire. Our flaws and tender points of “stuckness” are found here; so too is our shadow. And so, we come face to face with the personas that we have worn. Like a pair of old shoes, that which once served an important purpose in our lives becomes worn out; no longer easy to wear.

Undoing the story is not about denying our past or the power that it holds in our lives, or our memory. It means holding the past in a manner that does not suffocate us. Moving beyond the circumstances of our lived experience requires distance, space, and light. It means learning from all that we have lived so that we can create all that we desire.

When we hold too closely, the difficult experiences of our past, they become the lens through which we view all of life’s encounters. Our vision becomes clouded, narrowed.

Darkness dominates the view.

When light is relegated to the periphery; it becomes hard to

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see unless one turns their head in the direction of this new vantage point.

The Sufi tale “The Key and the Light” captures this understanding beautifully.

Through this fable, we learn that when we search outside of ourselves for the answers, we remain blind, unable to find the key to our truth. We must look within; this where true wisdom exists.

Living in the past ensures that our present will map out with the same kind of energy that we know and understand. A quote from Albert Einstein epitomizes this understanding: “No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it.”

There is little room for growth in this type of restricted field, and so, a shift in awareness is required.

So, how is this kind of growth achieved? How does one shift from an external orientation to something internal; selfeffacing?

In reflecting on the answer, the traditional modes and methods for cultivating inner awareness come to mind.

Meditation and mindfulness, in particular, are the prime approaches that buzz in the consciousness of mainstream culture today. They are powerful, ancient, and proven methods for bringing one into closer approximation with true self-knowing.

Mindfulness practices exist today in a myriad form.

Whatever approach is taken, calming the mind is essential; it helps one to navigate the chaos of the world with infinitely more grace than is possible amidst the din of mental chatter. In this space, there is no one else but the self. We come face to face with the all that we are, all that we believe, and the patterns woven through our lives as a story. In this space, humility is king; it has to be. To be truly honest with ourselves, we need to be willing to let down our guard and let go of the need to be right - about everything! We need to make room for other

possibilities, other voices and be willing to release ourselves and others from blame.

Undoing the story means exploring issues from a new vantage point. It requires fresh eyes and an open heart.

It means listening differently, loving unconditionally, forgiving fully, and honoring all that is. The approach taken is personal. The key is to find a way out of our self-limiting myths and into the discovery and the gift of a life worth living.

Denise Neumann-Fuhr is a Certified Transformational Coach who specializes in mind-body-spirit approaches to healing and personal development. She utilizes a method of assisted self-study grounded in mindfulness and somatic awareness. Adding to this is a background in Transpersonal & Jungian Psychologies, Shadow Work, and energy dynamics. Denise is in Kingston, Ontario. For more information see www. in-sightconsulting.ca Twitter: https://twitter.com/denise_nf

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When you look at the view of Earth from space, you are immediately in awe of what you do see: the incredible beauty of Creation. It is not until you look closer that you realize what you do not see.

You do not see lines partitioning countries.

You do not see separation between races.

You do not see division between religions.

You do not see the walls people build to isolate themselves from each other.

There is only One Planet. There is only One Humanity.

This section is dedicated to introducing thoughts and ideas to foster a greater understanding of Humanity’s interdependence.

World Vision

How Cruelty-Free Products Support Animals and the Planet All at Once

by Rachelle Wilber

Cruelty-free products are products that haven’t been tested on animals. In addition to saving the lives and preserving the wellbeing of animals, buying cruelty-free products can benefit the planet. Here are some of the keyways that buying crueltyfree products supports animals and the planet all at once.

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Charitable Organizations Are Supported Many manufacturers of cruelty-free products donate portions of their proceeds to support animal and environmental charities. By purchasing these items, you can feel good in knowing that some of your money will go to support worthy causes that benefit the planet as a whole.

The efforts of these charities could benefit generations to come in both the human and animal populations.

Fewer Chemicals Are Used Generally speaking, crueltyfree products contain fewer chemicals than other products. The reason why tests are often done on animals is to determine if the chemicals will have adverse effects on their health, which could also be dangerous if humans are exposed to them.

Some of these chemicals can also harm the planet by polluting soil and water. Since cruelty-free products usually contain natural ingredients that are already known to be safe, the lack of potentially

harmful chemicals can be better for you and the environment. You’ll also be benefiting your health since many of these products don’t contain sodium lauryl sulfate, parabens or fragrances that can have adverse effects on your skin and other parts of your body.

Safer Packaging Makers of cruelty-free products are known to be environmentally responsible with their packaging. Some of the top private label cruelty-free hair products and cosmetics are packaged in containers and pouches that are made from materials that can be recycled.

Many of these packaging materials also don’t contain any dyes or other harmful chemicals. Most warehouses that package these items are further committed to environmentally responsible practices.

Encourages Other Greener Decisions Buying cruelty-free products will likely encourage you to adopt other eco-friendly Omtimes.com

practices in your life. You’ll be more aware of the planet and animal welfare and be more inclined to shop for other items that don’t harm the environment. You may even be encouraged to adopt better practices in how you eat and travel so that you can continue to do good for yourself and the planet.

You can take a proactive approach to help animals and the environment by buying products with the “crueltyfree” label. These items will benefit animals and the planet in many ways while still enhancing your life.

Rachelle Wilber is a freelance writer living in the San Diego, California area. She graduated from San Diego State University in Journalism and Media Studies. She tries to find an interest in all topics and themes, which prompts her writing. When she isn’t on her porch writing in the sun, you can find her shopping, at the beach, or at the gym.

Follow her on Twitter and Facebook: @RachelleWilber;

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Books

The Book of Ceremony

We perform ceremonies to mark important events and celebrate holidays―yet our modern approach to ceremony only scratches the surface of its true potential. With The Book of Ceremony, shamanic teacher Sandra Ingerman presents a rich and practical resource for creating ceremonies filled with joy, purpose, and magic. "We are hungry to connect with more than what we experience with our ordinary senses in the material world," writes Sandra. "By performing ceremonies, you will find yourself stepping into a beautiful and creative power you might never have imagined."

The Book of Ceremony is more than a "how-to" guide―it will inspire you to create original ceremonies tailored to your own needs and the needs of your community. When you invoke the sacred power of ceremony, you tap into one of the oldest and most effective tools for transforming both yourself and the world. As Sandra writes, "If you perform one powerful and successful ceremony for yourself, the principle of oneness ensures that all of life heals and evolves."

For more information, or to purchase the book, click the cover or visit:

Amazon.com

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