OMTimes Magazine December A 2019 Edition

December A Issue

STEPHANIE KAZA

Green Buddhism

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5 NATURAL TIPS FOR TREATING ANEMIA

60

RELEASING RESPIRATORY PROBLEMS & BREATHING DIFFICULTIES

SPIRITUALITY

SPOTLIGHT

70

THE ROUTE 80 PHILOSOPHY

STEPHANIE KAZA: GREEN BUDDHISM

74

WHEN GOD SHOWS UP ON EARTH

TRENDS THE ROUTE 80 PHILOSOPHY

110 114

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METAPHYSICS FOCUSING ON THE PROCESS OF THINKING 4 WAYS TO KEEP YOUR SPIRITUAL LIFE FREE OF TOXIC INFLUENCES

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134 HOW TO BE A CHANGE JUNKIE

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Stephanie Kaza:

Green Buddhism Interview by Sandie Sedgbeer

We’re living in unprecedented times, with climate deniers occupying the highest levels of Government, and the US pulling out of the Paris Climate Accords. With species rapidly disappearing,

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global temperatures rising, and the growing urgency to do something meaningful to act on the ecological crisis we face, two key questions arise: How can we stay sane in the face of such blatant denial? And how can we take wise action?

Stephanie Kaza is Professor Emerita of Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont. A leading Buddhist environmentalist, she’s the author of Mindfully Green: A Personal and Spiritual Guide to Whole Earth Thinking, Conversations with Trees, and Intimate Ecology. She’s also the Editor of Hooked – Buddhist Writings on Greed, Desire and the Urge to Consume, and Co-Editor with Kenneth Craft of Dharma Rain – Sources of Buddhist Environmentalism.

Stephanie Kaza joined Sandie Sedgbeer to talk about her latest book Green Buddhism – Practice and Compassionate Action in Uncertain Times, which offers guidance on how Buddhists can be a critical voice in the green conversation.

SANDIE SEDGBEER: Stephanie Kaza, in your introduction to Green Buddhism, you write that

when you began your studies at college, you thought you would concentrate on the sciences with a view to possibly becoming a surgeon. What happened to change that trajectory?

STEPHANIE KAZA: Well, my original thought was that I was so moved by the human body, the complexity, the amazing chemistry and sensitivity of the human body, and I wanted to be a healer, and I think I’ve taken the healing urge to a larger scale – to the environment. And I fell in love with much more than the human body. To see that gorgeous complexity in every life form from a small amoeba to a huge Sequoia Redwood.

SANDIE SEDGBEER: How did that inspire you to become a Buddhist?

STEPHANIE KAZA: I was enjoying being outdoors quite a bit, hiking, river rafting, and camping. I felt a deep sense of spiritual connection to nature, and I was looking for some religion that would support that.

It just turned out that the basic principle of inter-dependence and sense of connection with all of life was right in the center of Omtimes.com

Buddhism. That’s what pulled me towards it.

SANDIE SEDGBEER: You’re Professor Emerita of Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont. You’re an Environmentalist, a Buddhist, a writer and author, and a lot more besides. And yet the first phrase you use to describe yourself on your website is “A Lover of Trees.” Does that trump it all?

STEPHANIE KAZA: Well, that’s a tremendous source of deep love and gratitude. I just returned from a pilgrimage to our most beloved trees, the Bristle Cone Pines, in the eastern part of California. These trees live to be four thousand years old. So, you bow down before these tree elders. They carry a lot of wisdom through that much lifetime of experience.

SANDIE SEDGBEER: In the first part of your book, you talk about intimate relations and the intimacy of non-dualism. Say more about that.

STEPHANIE KAZA: Very often in all the different kinds of religious traditions, from Omtimes.com

Shamanism to Catholicism to Judaism to Islam, there is an experience at the heart of their religious experience that’s often described as being at one with— or a “oneness”—either with a God or with some nature spirits, but some bigger sense of awe that goes beyond the human.

The kind of intimacy that I talk about in Buddhism that goes under this name non-dualistic is intimacy with that oneness, but also with a sense of twoness.

Here’s this tree, or spider, another being that’s completely different than you as a human being and acknowledging that difference at the same time as acknowledging the connection makes that spiritual experience even deeper. It’s quite profound to both senses that you’re in the same universe, but you’re also living completely different experiences and lives.

SANDIE SEDGBEER: The book is extremely thoughtprovoking. Thinking about how most people love trees, and then talking about non-dualism, and stereotyping, and how we talk about deer, rabbits, and songbirds, as “nice” things, and yet call spiders, snakes, and bats nasty, mean names, and separate

ourselves from them. Yet there is no separation from anything. If we can’t separate ourselves from deer and rabbits, we certainly can’t separate ourselves from spiders and snakes.

STEPHANIE KAZA: Yes, this is one of the practices I picked up from Buddhist study that’s profoundly helpful in the natural world—that there is no picking or choosing. Be present with all the things that are here. Some of which you think you’ll like and some you think you won’t like, but the Buddhist training is not to turn away. Not to go towards something in greed, or turn away from it in aversion, or make up stories about it on your own – it’s a kind of delusion.

Those three are seen as the three poisons that cloud clear thinking.

So, a lot of Buddhist training is about learning to recognize greed, aversion, and delusion in all its different forms. As you say, we’ve many conditioned ideas about parts of the natural world that get in our way to seeing what it really is.

SANDIE SEDGBEER: It was a challenging book to read because it made me squirm in places. It brought home to me

that I need to be looking at my own dualistic thinking. You also write about feminism and how that’s exposed a particular aspect of conditioned thinking that is generally overlooked in Buddhism.

STEPHANIE KAZA: Buddhism, like many religions, has inherited a lot of patriarchal social forms and social conditioning, such as that the men will become the priests, or certain male intellectual streams are the ones that will dominate. A wonderful thing happened when Buddhism came to the west in the 1960s, at the time that feminism and environmentalism were both very much in public consciousness and dialogue. So, I just ran with that.

I had read quite a bit of ecofeminism, and there was a lot of very strong intellectual critique, and clarification and development going on. But nobody was looking at the intersection with Buddhism. So, I brought my own ecological version of this and tried to find where these streams intersect.

It did seem to me that feminists offered some wonderful insights that corrected some of Omtimes.com

the more patriarchal or nonfeminist aspects of Buddhism and at the same time helped to expose some of our conditioned thinking about the natural world, which isn’t really anybody’s fault. I certainly don’t want you to feel bad about some of the cultural stereotypes that you grew up with because we were taught them in books, they’re in our movies and television scripts, and people repeat them all the time. So, of course, we all tend to think the same way about some of these things in the natural world.

SANDIE SEDGBEER: It is a powerful reminder. Each time I read something about what Buddhism can bring to these issues, I found myself wondering, What can I learn from Buddhism that I can bring to this? Each essay in the book reveals such deep, contemplative thinking about these issues. Did you find it hard deciding which of your essays to include and which to leave out?

STEPHANIE KAZA: I’d written many more pieces besides these, and they had to find a certain congruence and pacing.

I wanted it to feel as if all this Omtimes.com

thought was still very important and relevant. So that was my goal in editing the book.

The three sections ended up determining what went into the book, and I wanted to begin with this intimacy because that’s my life experience. That’s where I start from, even before Buddhism; just being with nature – being with the natural world and all of its various members, whether it’s in the garden or out on a hike, or just walking in your city streets.

And I particularly enjoyed writing the piece about Tea Mind, Earth Mind, because of our beautiful Japanese Garden here in Portland, Oregon, which I go to all the time. A very intimate place.

So, beginning there and then going on to ‘so what does Green Buddhism offer?’ Tying to give people who want that history, and the ethics chapter especially, and then action – how do we take action? So, it seemed to build naturally from experience in the natural world that is motivating and transforming, and then on to how do you think about it? How do you put all this together? And then, so what? What will you do now?

That basic trajectory can happen whether it’s in a religious context or any kind of spiritual context for really anybody.

SANDIE SEDGBEER: Let’s talk about Part Two of your book Envisioning Green Buddhism and, specifically, Ethics Matter.

Because many people are saying that this is the underlying problem on this planet right now—what has happened to our ethics?

STEPHANIE KAZA: Let me tell a little story about where all those thoughts came from. In the early-mid-2000s, Shambhala asked me to write a book that would have a more contemplative foundation than the usual 50 things you can do to save the environment because those books were coming out one after another, and they made it sound so simple. Shambhala, as a Spiritual, Psychological Press wanted more depth. At that point, I started thinking about these different contemplative principles, and what really sharpened my thinking was that my mother passed away in 2007. I took a kind of retreat. It was, of course, a very, powerful experience,

and I just concentrated on this book and really thought about it, and came up with these three areas that could help simplify the way one thought about the commitments and the dedication one took. It just seemed to fall into place quite quickly, and what really dawned on me was this idea of a Green Practice Path.

I took this idea, and I tested it after the book came out, and took it to the Thomas Merton Centre, which is a Catholic Centre supporting Thomas Merton’s contemplative life, and gave it in the form of a keynote address in an inter-faith setting.

Then I knew that these ideas could really hold up because they resonated so strongly for people of other religious backgrounds.

So, this Green Practice Path is a path you can step on, and just keep trying, even though you’ll make mistakes, and things will be easier and harder on different days. But it’s a commitment to just keep trying. I could see, using the Catholic model, that there’s a kind of beginner’s mind when you first get excited about this sort of approach, and then a more developed state Omtimes.com

- I use this Catholic term “The Novice,” where you’ve made a commitment, but still are learning a lot. And then if you take this to the farthest depth, you’re just living and breathing the Green Practice Path all the time as part of everything you do. It’s a trajectory you can step on at any point and pick up any of these contemplative principles to work with one at a time and see “How can I reduce harm?” “How can I be with the suffering right in front of me?”

“How can I embrace and act from a deep view?”

So, this Green Practice Path can really provide us a container for orientation in everyday life.

Sometimes people respond well to something you can hold on to, rather than feeling overwhelmed by all that looks so impossible and undoable. It quickly stops you in your tracks.

SANDIE SEDGBEER: It certainly does. I want to read a little piece that really spoke to me. You wrote: “The impact of human activity on the natural world has been well documented by many observers across many regions of the earth – soil erosions, species decimation, Omtimes.com

habitat destruction, water depletion. There’s no shortage of evidence for the powerful nature of greed. In some cases, greed is driven by profit motivation in others by hunger.

Environmentalists have made careers out of documenting the scale of its impact and fighting this biological drive run amok. Most of the time, they point their fingers at others associating greed with capitalism or economic globalization.”

We all do that but, as you say, what about other forms of greed? There are many forms of greed that we don’t even think about. Most of us would say, ‘No, I’m not a greedy person.

I don’t consume too much.’ Tell us about some of the other forms of greed that we could contemplate.

STEPHANIE KAZA: There’s a nice chapter in the book where I forced myself to do exactly that exercise and be really honest, and I realized that I, as a Professor, and a learner, and a great lover of knowledge, had a greed for knowledge.

I have quite a collection of books. When people come into our house, they remark on the bookshelves, and that’s one

place my greed is expressed. I’ve rationalized it, of course – that as a teacher, I would share these with others, and so on. Even though I’m not teaching as much, right now, I love collecting Natural History Field Guides.

And so, I have books on geology and birds and mushrooms, and so on. That’s one kind of greed that looks very positive.

It’s just that greed in a more traditional, religious sense is seen as a sin. From a Buddhist sense, it’s seen as something to look at and try to understand.

It’s the drive towards something you want more of. So, that could be money and profits as a corporate development of fossil fuels, but it could also be status and clout, or more members in your environmental group - you just think that if you have more people, and were more recognized, then everyone would believe you.

Sometimes, it’s for scientific data. That’s often been true in environmental work. You think if you have the numbers, and you can show people that there’s more carbon in the atmosphere, they’ll automatically respond and do something. Of course, it turns out that’s not always true. So, just to understand how

greed pulls us towards those things we like and want more of, whether it’s good coffee or good friends, to watch how it works, because the opposite is what we’ve pushed away from, and to feel that as a biological and social organism develops great self-awareness. It doesn’t mean you stop feeling greed, it’s a quite natural thing. After our very cold camping trip I had quite a lot of greed feeling for a hot shower.

SANDIE SEDGBEER: Yes, it does make you think about it differently. I mean, you say that the Buddhist Psychology explains greed in simple terms of attraction and aversion and, in Buddhist terms, all emotions can be boiled down to three fundamental tendencies. Wanting more of something – greed – or, we might call it passion. Wanting less of something – hate – and wanting something that doesn’t exist – delusion. So, talk about how wanting less of something can become hate and delusion as well.

STEPHANIE KAZA: Wanting less of something - people can work up quite a head of steam around Omtimes.com

trying to get rid of the bad people or develop very strong ethics around “What you’re eating is wrong, what I’m eating is right.” I imagine the vegans of the world would prefer there be no Omnivores just because of all their rationalizations for choosing vegan eating practices.

So, when we take up an aversion stance, it’s quite easy to become self-righteous and decide that your ethics are the best. And this is a real, typical character flaw among environmentalists, I have to say with a little bit of laughter, because it’s in their urge to correct things, and to make the world better, that they can make a quite black and white distinction between something they think is the right way and not the other way. That’s a very ugly manifestation of aversion, and I think one of the Buddhist contributions is to downplay that and to encourage all voices to participate, and never to lock in on one way as the only right way.

throughout the world, as you said, by people in positions of authority, but also by people who are just afraid. People who don’t want to think about the kinds of change that might shake up everything in their towns and communities and families. It’s not an easy thing to look at, and I think it’s as important as compassion for the human psyche that doesn’t want that scale of disruption. It’s very scary, and when you look at all those floods and hurricanes on TV, you don’t laugh. These people are losing everything. So, to stay in a world of delusion is kind of comfortable and safe feeling. It’s the “pull the covers over your head feeling.” Some days, you do need that just to take a break, but ultimately, to look at it is going to deepen awareness and capacity to see right now that this is what’s going on. For me, and for others.

So, working with those three is a really important piece of this Green Practice Path.

Now, the delusion – I’ll just say something about that because we’re in the middle of such a climate crisis – and delusion is being actively manufactured, and reinforced, and amplified

SANDIE SEDGBEER: This is where we see what we can learn from Buddhism and Buddhism’s approach here. I don’t know that I would have thought about these things in the same way if

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you hadn’t detailed them so well in the book. I mean, take passion.

We call it passion but often it is just greed.

STEPHANIE KAZA: Well, Western psychology has many complicated emotional responses that are described there. Despair, rage, frustration. There’s a long list, and we are pretty well trained, those of us interested in emotional literacy, to use those kinds of vocabularies. So, for me, the Buddhist psychology simplifies things, making it a little easier to study personally, and then it allows you to make ethical choices out of those three principles. So, for example, reducing harm. That’s the very first principle. Ahimsa [not to injure] in the Buddhist precepts, and you could see that you might be harming yourself with one of these greed patterns. So, if you want to reduce harm, then it might mean that you choose less alcohol. Or maybe you’re not digesting meat so well, so you might choose to do something with your diet, or perhaps with your transportation choices, or with your social relations. Maybe you need more Green Practice friends to support your choices.

So, reducing harm is a never-

ending field of opportunity, particularly in our very consumerist, materialist world.

SANDIE SEDGBEER: You taught classes on unlearning consumerism. How do we unlearn it?

STEPHANIE KAZA: Oh, that was so much fun. It was one of my favourite classes, and I based it on a class that I’d heard about called “Unlearning Racism,” and I had the sense that our understanding of race was so powerfully influenced by social forces that it was somewhat parallel in consumerism. So, we tried to do a certain amount of deconstruction, but I based it all on experiential learning.

Every week, the students had some little task they had to do – such as measure their energy use – but the very first exercise sort of put the whole course in relief. I asked the students to make a list of every single thing they owned. They had to list all their hiking and skiing and snowboarding equipment. They had to list all their clothes, their underwear, their T-shirts, their prom dresses, their wigs. They had to list their toiletries. I said, “Don’t forget the kitchen and Omtimes.com

the bathroom.” Well, by the time they listed all those things and then wrote a very short, reflective essay, their minds were quite opened to how much stuff they had, and how oriented to stuff they were. So, we had a wonderful, wide-reaching, openended conversation, but the key to it was non-judgmental. That’s where I brought my Buddhist background into the classroom so the students would know it wasn’t right or wrong, what they had or didn’t have. I wasn’t going to jump on them, and I wasn’t going to allow them to jump on each other, either, because it was just to look, just to see how deeply shaped we are by brand names, by wanting to own something, wanting to participate in a certain activity and get all that stuff. So, my eyes were opened as well. I didn’t say too much, but it was interesting what they did own, and I appreciated most of all their honesty. That’s where we could start. It worked really well with undergraduates because, actually, they don’t own much yet, it’s all in one room – their residence hall room. When I’ve done this with adults, I have to restrict them to one room. I say this will be too overwhelming, Omtimes.com

so pick your bedroom, or the kitchen, or the living room, and just list everything in that one room. It has the same effect.

SANDIE SEDGBEER: So, now let’s talk about Obstacles on the Path, like anger, frustration, impotence, all of which get in the way of us being able actually to be useful.

STEPHANIE KAZA: Well, we’re human beings, aren’t we? And these things are part of what makes us who we are. Part of what happens with the Obstacles is we protect ourselves. We don’t want to feel certain feelings. We don’t want to feel overwhelmed.

We’re not strong enough for really difficult mind states. It takes practice. It takes a focus and a commitment, and it takes something else I talk about in the book “Spiritual Friendship.”

I don’t think you can do this Green Practice Path alone, but in a hyper-individualistic society like in the United States and much of the Western world, we’re taught that we’ll do it all ourselves, a kind of tough attitude. These things are difficult. We need friends, we need people that can help us when we get discouraged and

get stuck on some of these obstacles. So, I mention one possible exercise. There are a number of them from this wonderful teacher, Joanna Macey, who I’ve been working with a lot in the last year on a new to honour her at age 90.

She’s been doing this work with obstacles for 50 years.

You start from gratitude, being glad that you can do this work at all, but then you acknowledge where you are, with whatever the pain is. “I’m feeling depressed. I’m grieving over losing the birds that used to come to my yard”. People feel these things very deeply and with a lot of sadness and anger, but they are still a powerful response to the world, and that’s where the energy is. If you feel that strong an emotion, it gives you a place to work with that energy and let it transform by being honest with it. From there, you can shift out of that self-absorbed perspective of your emotional state into one that reflects your sense of relationship with the rest of life. Once you’re in a state of relating with all other beings, there’s much more energy. Such exciting energy

coming from trees or even from your cat or dog in your house.

Or, currently, I’m very fascinated by mushrooms and fungi, and how they have little root hairs scattered all across the earth and dirt and tying the whole world together. So, that sense of being connected to all of that is a tremendous source of energy and joy in the face of overwhelming obstacles of difficult emotions.

SANDIE SEDGBEER: That’s been brought home to us a lot in recent years with all the books that have emerged about trees and the way trees support one another. The community, the society they have, the brotherhood in a sense, and the way they work together. This has been a real eye-opener for many people, opening our minds to other ways in which we’re connected that we cannot see.

STEPHANIE KAZA: Exactly.

“That we cannot see.” It really pays to have what some Buddhist teachers call “Don’t know mind.” Just take the attitude of humility that there is so much more we don’t understand, and before we chop it down, or spray it with Omtimes.com

pesticide, think twice about what else is going on here?

What is the story behind this tree or these little flowers that just popped out that you’ve never met before? To take a little bit of a precautionary stance. We could slow down the rate of destruction quite a bit with just that first precautionary principle.

SANDIE SEDGBEER: In 1993 you published a book called The Attentive Heart – Conversations with Trees. Which recorded the series of your personal, sometimes spiritual, relationships with individual trees. That book has now been republished this year, and in the preface to the re-released version you point out that many of the stories you share reflect the changing conditions for trees and forests throughout the West Coast of America owing to Climate Change. You talk about how, with Climate Change accelerating and National politics precarious and the future of the planet is at stake in such a frightening way, many people are feeling overwhelmed, despairing even at what is happening to the planet, and to us. In this context, you raise the question of what the stories in Omtimes.com

Conversations with Trees offer us. How are these stories about trees helpful to us?

STEPHANIE KAZA: When I first wrote this book, I felt incredibly shy and maybe a little bit crazy to be putting these stories in this kind of form, and I was greatly encouraged by a teacher. I was in a Seminary Program for the Unitarian School of Thought, and I even considered becoming a Minister. In fact, right now I’m sitting in a Minister’s office in our local, downtown Unitarian Church. This teacher encouraged me and said you should keep going with these, and so my classmates and the teacher helped me get this to the form of a book. Then I was quite deeply encouraged by meeting a wonderful man at a meditation retreat just before I moved to Vermont, who turned out to be a very good artist, and I was really hoping we could convey something about the stories through the art. So, he did these illustrations, and in the course of working on the book together, we fell in love and got married, and we just celebrated our 21st anniversary. So, I didn’t put all that in this new preface, but there is a joyfulness in this book

that I think can offer a respite, a refuge for people. In a time of being overwhelmed, there’s a hunger for taking a break from the pace of social media and internet and email, Instagram, everything that moves so fast.

The hunger to slow down and think deeply is coming back to life amid all the craziness.

So, this book is one island of refuge, and for people who have a little bit of a fellow feeling for trees, they’ll find a fellow spiritual walker here.

When the book first came out, people would come up to me after reading it and say, “you know, I have this Maple Tree in my backyard, and I look at it every day, and it really means a lot to me,” but they were whispering. They weren’t sure it was OK to talk about a treelike this like it was a child or a pet or something, and I just encouraged them. So, what I think of this book now is more encouragement, that whatever messages of love and care and complexity around trees and their stories we can spend time with, the stronger we’ll be individually, and the more we’ll feel we have friends. Anyone reading this book will know

they’re not alone. That there is a swelling cry for caring for trees and for doing it in a beautiful, organized, personal and intimate way. So, the trees are just an example of deeper relationship with some other part of the natural world than just human society. So, I’m looking for, hopefully, better relations between humans and trees, but I’m also as interested in spiders and songbirds and the other beautiful things that make our lives so rich. So, I hope the book is a bit of a refuge and an encouragement to be listening to one’s own soul in relationship to the other living members of our community here. It’s much bigger than just our people.

SANDIE SEDGBEER: There are many people who want to do something about Climate Change, but may not necessarily have the time, money, or the skills to do something big, but I’m sure there are many small things that we can all do. What would you recommend for somebody who says, “I don’t know where to start?”

STEPHANIE KAZA: I get that question a lot, and I really love it because just even asking the Omtimes.com

question means something is opening inside that wants to respond. So, I say stay with that. The fact that you want to respond will lead you to something that makes sense for you to do. It doesn’t have to be a prescription, but staying open is the most important part.

So, what I often say is just talk about it. Even if you can’t think of a thing to do yet, if you can talk about the news, the Greta Thunberg talk, pass that on to a bunch of friends, or bring it up at a family dinner. If you can talk about the Extinction Rebellion tactics, even if you don’t like it, or you’re not sure what you think, you’re still talking about it. So, talking about climate is the most important thing we can do right now because the world conversation is swelling so quickly. This is only, really, maybe a 10-year-old movement.

Our big guy over here, Bill McGibbon, who founded www.350.dot.org. He was a colleague of mine in Vermont, and back in the early 2000s he thought, “Why don’t we just have a climate march? It will be small, it’s Vermont, but let’s just do it.” So, he led this little group from Middle Bury up to Omtimes.com

Burlington and, when we got to Burlington, which is where my University was, we had all the local politicians come and sign a little statement: “I will pay attention to Climate Change.”

We thought it was huge, with about 1,000 people. Now look at where things are. Millions marched a few weeks ago for the Climate Strike. So, anybody, in any position, can just talk about it and say: “I heard on the news” or “The local Bus Company is now running that bus every 15 minutes. Maybe I’ll try that.”. Or, “I just heard about Meatless Mondays.

Maybe I’ll try that.”

It’s the combined, small efforts that will help, but honestly Climate Change won’t really be turned around by individual efforts like this. That’s a hard thing to recognize, but ultimately, it’s going to mean laws, and regulation, and bigscale changes, big business incentives, big shifts in energy infrastructure. Those are things we can’t do as individuals, that really requires a much bigger scale of effort, but we can encourage those choices where they’re happening. So, if your local power company is trying

to change their mix from coal or more polluting forms of energy to greener forms, you can support them. You can say, “Way to go, that’s going to be good.”

So, I’m really big on talking about it. Even my own little Buddhist sitting group is now talking about Climate Change, and one of the people goes and sits on a corner in downtown Portland and says: “Want to talk about Climate Change, talk to me.” So, I think that’s a really good place to start.

As far as specifics, it is true that eating meat is one of the larger energy consumers on the planet, so if you cut down your meat and eat more vegetables, you’re likely to have made a little bit of difference in carbon emissions, but that’s also true about transportation.

Transportation choices are one of the most important choices you can make right now. About a third of the carbon emissions come from transportation. So, just choosing how many cars you own, how many miles you drive, how you get around. Do you ride a bicycle? Can you walk? All those things will help make a difference and will support the cities that are way

ahead in making some of these transportation changes. It is very exciting about bike paths and electric vehicles and buses, and so on.

So, I think that things to do are all around us, but staying close to the heart is very important here. Staying open to the difficulty, to the call for a compassionate response, and just being willing, just to cultivate that. That’s what I tell people.

SANDIE SEDGBEER: Going back to the non-dualistic thinking that we discussed at the beginning.

It is a lot easier, I think, for people to grasp that an animal or a tree is not separate from us and maybe change the way they relate to something they didn’t like before – like spiders, for example. When it comes to other human beings that aren’t behaving in a very nice way, it’s much harder to apply this nondualistic thinking. People are getting very angry…with the US Government, the fossil fuel companies, with anybody who they believe is contributing to the problem. What can we learn from Buddhism about cultivating compassion in those circumstances?

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STEPHANIE KAZA: You have really identified something so important now. This kind of divisive, free-flowing anger and rage. It’s so harmful to human relations, and it makes it so much more difficult to do the things we need to do to take care of the planet, so we can continue to live here. Someplace to start with compassion is cultivating equanimity. A sense of stability. Anywhere that’s already somewhat stable is a really important island for that cultivation of compassion. So, that maybe your own home, where you know things operate well. You can have three meals a day. It’s warm, the bills are paid, you’re kind to your partner. That kind of equanimity and stability is really important in a society where people are throwing a lot of tough things at each other.

So, that’s one aspect of this, and that’s seen as one of the highest Buddhist virtues, equanimity. It’s seen as a way of offering love to the world without being too flamboyant about it. Just staying very steady.

The compassionate side means

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trying to find that horrible behaviour inside yourself.

Understanding that it has a root cause. That it exists in all human beings, and you may be choosing not to act on it, but somebody else is feeling something similar and acting on it. So, rather than separating, isolating, and condemning, understanding that we’re all made up of the same biological urges and some people are under more pressure than others and less able to restrain those impulses.

Cultivating equanimity provides a kind of buffer zone, some margin for that acting out, and it can be a very proactive thing to do, to say: “No, we will eat meals at the same time every day.” Or, “We will act this way in our household or at community meetings, or in the workplace.”

So, I think of a Buddhist Green Practice Path as being a little island of safety, even if it’s difficult, but a place that helps others relax. That you’re always thinking it’s a way of serving other people so that we all have a better chance of living successfully on this much more

fragile planet than we realize.

SANDIE SEDGBEER: If you had to distil everything you’ve accomplished in your life, the things you’ve learned, experienced, taught. All the appellations that have been applied to you. How would you most want to be remembered?

Would that phrase “Lover of Trees” be the thing that would remain at the top of the list?

STEPHANIE KAZA: It just might.

I’ve already figured out the tree that means the most to me where I would like to have my ashes placed. So, I think the “Lover of Trees” is a coded way of saying “Lover of Life” and “Lover of all forms of Miracle.”

From the beautiful constellations in the sky to the changing phases of the moon, to the cycles of life across the year, and all the beings, human, plant, fungi, and otherwise that inhabit this miraculous planet.

SANDIE SEDGBEER: As I said before, your book touched me on so many levels, I didn’t know where I would even begin as

there was so much, I wanted us to talk about. What settled everything, for me, was that phrase, “Lover of Trees.” I thought ‘right, there is a place to begin.’ Because when you learn about trees, and you really understand your connection to all beings, everything else falls into place.

STEPHANIE KAZA: I do talk about green wisdom sources and, of course, trees are one of the big ones for me, and there you are in the UK where there’s a long, long, centuriesold tradition of trees like a green wisdom source. So, when your own culture offers that up and makes it an easy place to go for green wisdom, there are many stunningly majestic and amazing trees in every neck of the woods. I encourage everyone to go out and meet a new tree.

Green Buddhism by Kaza is published by Shambhala Publications Inc. and for more information on Stephanie Kaza and her work, visit www. stephaniekaza.com

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

5 Natural Tips for Treating Anemia

Anemia is a condition in which you lack enough healthy red blood cells to carry adequate oxygen to your body’s tissues.

Having anemia can make you feel tired and weak. There are many forms of anemia, each with its own cause. Anemia can be temporary or long term, and it can range from mild to severe.

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Depending on the particular causes of anemia, you may or may not experience signs and symptoms. Anemia can be so mild that you don’t notice it. But symptoms worsen as anemia worsens. If symptoms do occur, they might include fatigue, weakness, pale or yellowish skin tone, irregular heartbeat, shortness of breath, dizziness or lightheadedness, chest pain, cold hands, and feet, and/or headaches.

Causes of Anemia Iron deficiency anemia: This most common type of anemia is caused by a shortage of iron in your body. Your bone marrow needs iron to make hemoglobin. Without adequate iron, your body can’t produce enough hemoglobin for red blood cells. Without iron supplementation, this type of anemia occurs in many pregnant women. It is also caused by blood loss, such as from heavy menstrual bleeding, an ulcer, cancer and regular use of some over-the-counter pain relievers, especially aspirin, which can cause inflammation of the stomach lining resulting in blood loss.

Vitamin deficiency anemia: Besides iron, your body needs folate and vitamin B-12 to produce enough healthy red blood cells. A diet lacking in these and other vital nutrients can cause decreased red blood cell production. Also, some people who consume enough B-12 aren’t able to absorb the vitamin. This can lead to vitamin deficiency anemia, also known as pernicious anemia.

Anemia of inflammation: Certain diseases such as cancer, HIV, rheumatoid arthritis, kidney disease, Crohn’s disease, and other acute or chronic inflammatory diseases can interfere with the production of red blood cells.

Aplastic anemia: This rare, lifethreatening anemia occurs when your body doesn’t produce enough red blood cells. Causes of aplastic anemia include infections, certain medicines, autoimmune diseases and exposure to toxic chemicals.

Anemias associated with bone marrow disease: A variety of conditions, such as leukemia and myelofibrosis, can cause Omtimes.com

anemia by affecting blood production in your bone marrow. The effects of these types of cancer and cancer-like disorders vary from mild to life-threatening.

with the Western medicine diagnosis of anemia, Traditional Chinese Medicine has one pattern of symptoms that are considered to be the closest diagnosis.

Hemolytic anemias: This group of anemias develops when red blood cells are destroyed faster than bone marrow can replace them. Certain blood diseases increase red blood cell destruction. You can inherit a hemolytic anemia, or you can develop it later in life.

Blood deficiency is a commonly treated syndrome in TCM. Blood deficiency is described as excessive blood loss or “inadequacy of the blood.”

Changing diet or adding iron supplements may not treat long-term anemia if there is an underlying syndrome.

Sickle cell anemia: This inherited, and sometimes the severe condition is hemolytic anemia. It’s caused by a defective form of hemoglobin that forces red blood cells to assume an abnormal crescent (sickle) shape. These irregular blood cells die prematurely, resulting in a chronic shortage of red blood cells.

But the most common type of anemia in Chinese medicine is iron deficiency anemia. While iron deficiency is measured by a blood sample in Western medicine, Chinese Medicine can determine this from indications based on pulse and tongue diagnosis as well as signs and symptoms. These can include a pale complexion, pale lips and nails, pale tongue, dizziness, blurred vision, insomnia, numbness of the limbs, palpitation, hypomenorrhea, delayed menstruation, amenorrhea, and/or a weak and thread pulse.

Anemia from a Traditional Chinese Medicine Perspective Traditional Chinese Medicine has an excellent record when it comes to treating anemia.

Although not allows lining up Omtimes.com

The first clinical symptom of

anemia is fatigue, and fatigue is always a Qi (energy) deficiency symptom. However, fatigue does not always imply anemia or deficiency. Additional symptoms must be noted to form a pattern of blood deficiency.

Acupuncture and herbs provide a great natural remedy for treating anemia. Building up red blood cells, improving blood circulation and flow, and boosting additional organ patterns of heart, spleen, and live These 8 factors place you at an increased risk of anemia: A diet lacking in specific vitamins and minerals: A diet consistently low in iron, vitamin B-12, and folate increases your risk of anemia.

Intestinal disorders: Having an intestinal disorder that affects the absorption of nutrients in your small intestines — such as Crohn’s disease and celiac disease puts you at risk of anemia.

Menstruation: In general, women who haven’t had menopause have a higher risk

of iron deficiency anemia than do men and postmenopausal women. Menstruation causes the loss of red blood cells.

Pregnancy: If you’re pregnant and aren’t taking a multivitamin with folic acid and iron, you’re at an increased risk of anemia.

Chronic disorders: If you have cancer, kidney failure, diabetes or another chronic condition, you could be at risk of anemia of chronic disease.

These conditions can lead to a shortage of red blood cells.

Slow, chronic blood loss: especially from an ulcer or other sources within your body can deplete your body’s store of iron, leading to iron deficiency anemia.

Family history: If your family has a history of inherited anemia, such as sickle cell anemia, you also might be at increased risk of the condition.

Other factors: A history of certain infections, blood diseases and autoimmune disorders increases your risk of anemia. Alcoholism, exposure to toxic chemicals, and the use of Omtimes.com

some medications can affect red blood cell production and lead to anemia.

Age: People over age 65 are at increased risk of anemia.

5 Natural Tips for Treating Anemia Many types of anemia can’t be prevented. But you can avoid iron deficiency anemia and vitamin deficiency anemias by eating a diet that includes a variety of vitamins and minerals, including, 1. Treat anemia (blood deficiency) first, with the richest source of iron which is algae (this includes both seaweeds and micro-algae) such as spirulina, and blue-green algae.

2. Iron: found in vegetables, legumes, grains, nuts, seeds.

When a variety of these foods are consumed, abundant protein, copper, and B vitamins necessary for iron absorption will be available. Iron-rich foods include beef and other meats, beans, lentils, iron-fortified cereals, dark green leafy vegetables, and dried fruit.

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3.Folic acid: found in microalgae, sprouts, leafy greens, and chlorophyll-rich foods. Folic acid is destroyed when cooked.

Folate is a nutrient, and it is the synthetic form folic acid, which can be found in fruits and fruit juices, dark green leafy vegetables, green peas, kidney beans, peanuts, and enriched grain products, such as bread, cereal, pasta, and rice.

4.Vitamin B12: sublingual vitamin B12 or B complex.

Foods rich in vitamin B-12 include meat, dairy products, and fortified cereal and soy products. ALSO, Foods rich in vitamin C include citrus fruits and juices, peppers, broccoli, tomatoes, melons, and strawberries can also help increase iron absorption.

5.Royal Jelly: made by bees, for their Queen (is very fitting for you.)

Andrew Pacholyk MS L.AcPeacefulmind. comTherapies for healingmind, body, spiritÂ

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Releasing Respiratory Problems & Breathing difficulties

by Stefanie Arend

Respiratory problems often present in the form of breathing difficulties or shortness of breath. An adult normally breathes, on average, twelve to eighteen times per minute. Yoga practitioners often manage with six to eight breaths as they practice certain techniques that train deep breathing. Environmental influences, psychological

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problems, and illnesses such as asthma can also restrict breathing.

From a holistic perspective, there is a difference between problems with inhalation and exhalation: difficulties with inhalation are linked in the figurative sense with topics such as rejection and non-acceptance, and problems exhaling relate to difficulties in giving up and letting go.

Possible questions for reflection are: • What is stopping me from breathing?

• What am I unable to accept?

• What am I unable to let go of?

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, it is usually the lungs, spleen, and kidneys that are treated.

Respiratory problems can be influenced positively not only through yoga or sports but also with the right choice of nutrition. A diet that is low in salt can

improve lung function and alleviate possible narrowing of the bronchial tubes. The same recommendations apply for allergies as allergic reactions frequently occur in the area of the respiratory tract. Histamine can play an important role here. If the body comes into contact with an allergen, more of this messenger substance is released, provoking the immune reaction. A high intake of vitamin C—for example, dark green vegetables, peppers, or parsley—can help reduce the distribution of histamine.

Sauerkraut or citrus fruits are less suitable here; they are rich in vitamin C but are a source of histamine in themselves, and also tend to stimulate the release of histamine.

Additionally, it is advisable to cut out dairy products, as they often have a congesting effect and can, therefore, hamper the breathing.

Poses: Bridge (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana)

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This position opens up the thoracic spine, the heart chamber, and the shoulders.

Effect

The stretch is particularly effective for the meridians of the stomach, spleen, kidneys, liver, lungs, heart, and pericardium.

Practicing the exercise

Place a yoga bolster lengthways on the mat and a block at the lower end of the mat. Sit at the lower end of the yoga bolster and lean back so that your shoulder blades are on the upper end of the bolster.

Place your shoulders and head on the floor. Rest your head on a blanket or small cushion if the position is uncomfortable for the cervical spine. Take your arms back above you slowly and place them next to your head.

Stay in Bridge for three to five minutes. Either push yourself up gently with an activated

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pelvic floor or roll out of the position sideways. Place the props to one side and come into Relaxed Supine Position, relaxing into it for several minutes. *** Lying Butterfly (Supta Baddha Konasana)

This exercise opens your pelvic area, has a positive effect on the organs of the lower abdomen, And stretches the insides of the legs. It also expands your chest area, which can help you with deep breathing.

Effect

With Lying Butterfly, the focus is on the meridians of the liver, kidneys, and spleen, and—when the arms are outstretched—on the lungs, heart, and pericardium meridians as well.

Practicing the exercise

Lie back on the mat; place a yoga block under your head, and a second one at shoulder

height under your thoracic spine. Alternatively, you can use a soft cushion under your head. Bring the soles of your feet together, and let your knees sink outwards slowly. Should the stretch be too intense on the insides of the legs or the groin, you can place more blocks or cushions under your knees.

Stretch the arms out long next to your head, and place them on the floor so that you can feel a stretch in the chest and shoulder area. If your fingertips go numb doing this or you do not have the range of motion to do this, change the position of the arms so that the hands are more at your side or on your stomach.

Stay in the position for three to five minutes. Take the arms back next to your body, close your legs, and push yourself up with an activated pelvic floor. Place the props to one side and relax into Supine Position (see image below).

Cat Pulling Its Tail

In this position, the stomach organs are gently massaged by the rotation and your breathing. It also gently stretches the front side of the thighs, which are often shortened nowadays as so many people sit for long periods. The slight stretch in the spine also has a positive effect on the health of the back so that the fascia in the lower back that is prone to pain is stimulated.

Effect

Cat Pulling Its Tail mainly works on the meridians of the stomach, spleen, gallbladder, and bladder, on the arms, and also on the meridians of the lungs, heart, and pericardium.

Practicing the exercise

Lie on your left side and position your head comfortably on your left arm.

Bend your right knee and angle your leg at 90 degrees in front of the body. Now also bend your left knee and grip your left ankle with the right

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hand behind your back, so that you come into a gentle rotation.

Alternatively, you can also grip your pants or use a yoga belt. Either remain balanced lying on the side, or shift your weight back a little more.

Direct your breath into your stomach to strengthen the detoxifying effect of this exercise on your stomach organs.

Hold the position for three to five minutes, then release the hand from your foot, turn back to the center, and change sides.

I suggest always ending your sessions with a lying pose. One of my favorites is the Supine pose: In addition to the poses, please check out my YouTube Channel to access this video to reduce stress with the right breathing technique: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Tt7rnfQAGgo&fe ture=youtu.be

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Excerpted from Be Healthy with Yin Yoga: The Gentle Way to Free Your Body of Everyday Ailments and Emotional Stresses by Stefanie Arend (She Writes Press, August 2019). For more information, visit: https:// www.yinyoga.de/en Photo credit: Forster & Martin Fotografie, Munich About the Author: Stefanie Arend is a renowned Yin Yoga instructor, holistic health coach, nutritionist, and energy worker. As the first German author to focus exclusively on Yin Yoga, she is the author of six books, including the classic bestseller, Yin Yoga: The Gentle Path to the Inner Center (2011) and Surya Namaskar: The Sun Salutation (2014), both of which were named Best Yoga Book of the Year in German-speaking countries. Be Healthy with Yin Yoga is her first English language book. For more information about Stefanie or to watch her videos, please visit her website and YouTube channel.

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.

The Route 80 Philosophy

Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road, Healthy, free.

The world before me. –Walt Whitman Be grateful that there is a loving infinite Mind who wants to see each of us express the spirit of creative love for which purpose we were created. The key thing is to pray or meditate to be gratefully one with your peaceful soul and its connectivity

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with the infinite Mind, envision loving goals from this place within, and work hard, trusting that there is a power for goodness that is higher than ourselves that will help you along the way so long as you let it. Sometimes it is enough just to remove the obstacles of bitterness and rumination that block the flow of God within us, and by getting these destructive emotions out of the way we let God do things through us.

It was early morning, silvergray misty, up high over the sea, at the end of a road to the unknown west. A long-haired blond youth leaned outward over a ledge, about to let go, when out of the mist appeared the light blue image of an angel’s face, and it spoke these few words softly with great love: “If you save him, you too shall live.” Then she faded back into the silver-gray haze of the dawn.

Stephen Post’s (the boy) blue angel dream was filled with symbols, but they were hard to interpret. The blue angel dream felt deeply spiritual and provided a path for the boy when he embraced it as a guide. Such dreams can arise in the minds of people from any spiritual tradition and be equally meaningful. The infinite Mind transcends all human cultural limits and symbols and does not wish to be named, perhaps because, once one group of humans decides that “my name for God is better than yours,” it can lead to conflict and even war. In a significant revelatory moment, standing before a burning bush, Moses asked God for a name, but God answered, “I AM WHO I AM.”

The Chandogya Upanishad (c. 600 BCE), an ancient Hindu sacred text, stresses the phrase, “tat tvam asi,” or “thou art that,” as an expression of the nature of Brahman, or the Supreme Reality, with “that” referring to the infinite Mind that is both the highest as well as the inmost.

Indeed, “Allah” is used by Arabic speakers of all the Abrahamic faiths (including Christianity and Judaism) to refer to God and is based on the word for “I AM,” as is Yahweh in Hebrew, so it is not a name at all. These days, many spiritual people refer to the infinite Mind as “the Universe” or “Universal Mind,” which also suggests something too profound to be named. It is good to give people and dogs names, but bad to give God names.

When we acknowledge that in this original, universal, and infinite Mind we “live and move and have our being,”we are unconsciously guided toward our destiny, and we are empowered to love and value other human beings in a much deeper sense, as equally gifted with some part of the Mind of God. Our minds are part of something infinite just as they are, and we can consciously cooperate with God in creative Omtimes.com

love. We are a spark of and in the divine Mind. So, we have a natural tendency to pray, to meditate, to receive meaningful dreams, to enter flow states beyond time and place, and find the silent oneness within.

Infinite Mind is at the center of our own being and unreluctantly responsive to us as we are responsive to it. But we have to be precise and clear in the things we aspire to and consistent with creativity and love for self and for others.

Every one of us is then a treasure in an earthen vessel while embodied on this earth.

But all visible things at the quantum level are shaped and formed and even comprised by divine Mind, which sustains the universe in energy and the material form of that energy.

That Mind gave infinitely sophisticated mathematical order and constants of energy to a beautifully formed universe.

Whether looking at the internal soul or mind that lies within or looking outward at our universe and all that is, life is an awakening to the constant union with God. No limit can be placed on the individual mind Omtimes.com

in conscious union with infinite Mind. We are in God, as God is in us.

Ethics and conscience have their ultimate ground in the realization that we are each a small circle within the infinite Mind that includes all people without exception. Our connectedness to God and to one another is much more powerful and real than we often know.

The great Jewish philosopher Martin Buber wrote that at our lowest state of awareness, we relate to others only to the extent that they contribute to our little selfish agendas. He called this way of living “I and It” because we treat others as mere means to our ends. As an alternative, Buber proposed “I and Thou,” meaning that we are in awe of others and honor them as ends in themselves.

There is still an “I,” of course, but at a higher spiritual and ethical awareness. But going beyond Buber, when we help others in our oneness, we also are helping ourselves because of that oneness, so, therefore, the highest state is not “Thou and I” but “I and me.” When “I” realize

that the security and well-being of another is inextricably a part of my own security and wellbeing because all are equally participating in infinite Mind, then “I” have arrived.

Never give up on your dream and your soul. A soul is not just a mix of evolved human emotions and accumulated social influences. A soul is spiritual and eternal, a little bit of the infinite Mind given us to sense God and experience Oneness. So much in our culture pushes us away from the level of spiritual focus on our inner being, and it is worth it to just leave things behind and strike out free on whatever road you like unless you have a lot of responsibilities. Have faith that God is already waiting for you down the road with wonderful surprises. Be “all in” for God and let miracles happen along Route 80 or whatever path you find.

Remember, “In the beginning, God!” Infinite, creative, everywhere, loving before time and space were born. From the divine Word and Thought came the universe with the intent of creating free spiritual beings like ourselves who could, in their creative love, extend

divine creativity in such a way as to bring great joy to God, to neighbor, and to themselves.

This is how we live on Route 80.

The key thing is: Take the journey and stay very grateful for it.

Excerpted from God and Love on Route 80: The Hidden Mystery of Human Connectedness by Stephen G. Post (Mango Publishing, August 2019). Foreword by Larry Dossey.

Stephen G. Post is a bestselling author and the founding director of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love. Dr. Post, a professor at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, NY, where he also directs the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics. A leader in medicine, research, and spirituality, God and Love on Route 80 is a meditation on the meaning of life and the importance of spirituality.

1.

2.

Exodus 3:14.

Acts 17:28.

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When God Shows Up on Earth

I am a big Beatles fan. The more I hear their music, the more I recognize the sheer genius behind it. I saw a rare YouTube video of an especially vibrant 1964 Beatles concert in Australia at the height of

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Beatlemania. (“Beatles Live— Australia”) One comment on the YouTube page struck me: “I’m a solid atheist. But I swear John, Paul, & George (still love u Ringo!) were slapped on the back by a higher power. How does it happen that 3 of the most incredible songwriters EVER just come from nowhere?

If I meet God, and I tell him he didn’t give me enough information to believe, God might say ‘I gave you proof.

The sun, the earth, and the Beatles.’”

The writer is far from an atheist. He or she recognizes the presence of God in the world through the Beatles.

God manifests divinity by way of people. We are the windows through which heaven shines into the world. The Beatles, talented as they were, did not give themselves their talent. It was seeded within them by a Force far beyond their human personalities. Their role was to bring it to a

waiting world, which they did masterfully. Those talented musicians served as vessels through which the Creator delivered huge gifts to make the world a better place During this season many people celebrate God showing up on Earth.

Christians remember the birth of Jesus Christ.

Jewish people observe Hanukah, when God miraculously extended light to beleaguered freedom fighters. Hindus enjoy Diwali, and people of African descent observe Kwanzaa.

All of these holidays recognize that for a moment in time, God reached into the world and lifted it closer to heaven.

The same God that blessed the world through Jesus, the Beatles, and other visionaries wants to bless the world through you. You have talents that no one else can bestow. But you have to honor your inspiration

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enough to deliver your gifts. The only difference between great people and mediocre people is that great people trust and act on their guidance. The German philosopher Goethe said, “As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”

A turning point in my career came when I was about to lead a weekend seminar.

Until that time, I went into my programs doubting my abilities, wondering if I was qualified, questioning my decisions. At the outset of that seminar I decided to do an experiment: I would imagine that any intuition I had about where to take the program, was guided by a Higher Power. I would not judge my choices. Instead I would envision that I was working in co-creation with intelligence that knew how to create the best possible program. The results were phenomenal! The seminar turned out to be the most successful I had ever done,

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and I enjoyed myself far more than I had when I doubted my decisions.

Certain talents are unexplainable except as intervention by a Higher Source. Mozart wrote his first opera at the age of six.

He later stated, “It is when I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer .... Those ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not, nor can I force them” Genius inventor Nikola Tesla explained that his ideas came to him in a flash, from a source beyond this world.

He would then work them out in his mind such that the inventions were complete before he even reached his laboratory to construct them.

Beethoven wrote many of his greatest compositions when his physical ears were essentially deaf.

A Course in Miracles Lesson 353 asks us to affirm, “My eyes, my tongue, my hands,

my feet today have but one purpose; to be given Christ to use to bless the world with miracles.” You don’t have to be a Christian, or any religion, to put this vision into action. You just have to live true to your passionate purpose. Every day we have a thousand opportunities to help God show up in the world. To let someone into a traffic lane when you could speed ahead. To phone a friend who is hurting and say, “I just want you to know I’ve been thinking about you and I’m on your team.” To publish your book or song or start your business, trusting you will reach the right people who can benefit from it. World change agents are so focused on giving life to their visions that they pay no attention to naysayers, within or without. If Steven Spielberg, Steve Jobs, or Barack Obama had denied their gifts expression, the world would be emptier for it.

You don’t need to be a Spielberg, Jobs, or Obama.

Just quit comparing yourself to others and finding reasons you can’t. What is within you must come forth.

Live true to your visions, knowing that you did your part to make the world a little more like heaven.

When you do, you will look forward to getting up in the morning, your heart will be at peace, you will sleep well, and one day some not-sosolid atheist will say, “I now see proof that there is a God, after all.”

Alan Cohen is the bestselling author of A Course in Miracles Made Easy. Become a professional certified holistic life coach through Alan’s 6-month program beginning January 2020— the year of clear vision. For more information about this program, Alan’s books and videos, free daily inspirational quotes, online courses, and weekly radio show, visit www. alancohen.com.

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OM Living For those living a more Conscious Lifestyle

Simplify Your Life & Style Embrace Minimalism

By Fiona WoodÂ

A minimalistic way of life is only a part of sustainable living, and if you are opting for an eco-friendly life, then you have to embrace minimalism with all its

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perks. Luckily, there are more than you can imagine.

A minimalistic way of life brings us closer to our most essential values and teaches us how to be more satisfied with what we have and enjoy life as it is. This doesn’t mean that you have to give up on improving your life, but merely learn how to focus on what’s truly important to you. Continue reading to find out more about some changes you can incorporate into a minimalistic way of life.

Declutter your living space Living surrounded by piles of unnecessary stuff is the worst enemy of minimalism.

In a consumerist world, we tend to gather and pile up a lot of things that we keep “just in case,” although this case is very unlikely to happen. Moreover, we tend to get attached to all this stuff and avoid throwing it away, so we keep it all and hoard more and more.

Eventually, we find ourselves overwhelmed by our own clutter, living like hamsters trapped under piles of their own shed fur. Distance yourself from the things you piled up by simply asking: “What are the odds of me needing this shortly?” Once we realize that our stuff doesn’t define us, we are already one step closer to a minimalistic lifestyle.

What you want is not equal to what you need Although this might sound obvious, nowadays, it’s very hard to differentiate the two. Thanks to globalization, personalized ads, and overall aggressive marketing, we are led to believe that we need all the stuff that we might like. Once your search engine makes an algorithm from your search history, it’s already late, because all your social media feeds will be covered in boots that you’ve recently searched for. It’s never been as important as it is now to understand how

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these mechanisms work and try not to be hypnotized by them. Before urgently typing in your credit card number to buy those boots, think about how many pairs you already have. Do you really NEED another pair, or are you buying them just because they are on sale?

Give wardrobe items a second chance A good way to embrace minimalism is to start living sustainably and Earthfriendly, and you can do so by immersing in the world of second-hand and thrift shops. Many people are repelled by the mere idea of wearing clothes that someone else has worn before them. If you’re a part of this group, there are some facts about the second-hand businesses that you should know. First of all, many items that come to second-hand shops have never been worn.

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Moreover, a lot of those that have been worn were only used once or twice.

For instance, you can find beautiful silver earrings straight from the box that someone was saving for a special occasion but never got to wear them. Stuff you buy in the store has been tried on more times than that.

Finally, the prices here represent the actual value of the clothes without the industry behind it. It does take more time to find just the right piece than it would when shopping online, but it’s worth a shot if you wish to lead your way to a wastefree life. In the end, it’s important to learn how to recognize quality. You have to train your eye to carefully examine details to know what will last and will not.

This way, you will buy less stuff, enjoy higher quality products and also live in a minimalistic manner. The choice is all yours.

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The Journey from 3D to 5D 2020 is the year of balancing the Divine Feminine with the Divine Masculine so now Sophie is offering two Spiritual Life Coach Training Certifications. One that certifies women to become powerful Spiritual Life Coaches and another certification for men to become Spiritual Entrepreneurs & Life Coaches. Both courses offer a 16-week journey, which begins with a Spiritual Retreat in a tropical villa in West Palm Beach, and then moves into an online classroom.

The next Spiritual Entrepreneur & Life Coach Certification training for Men, starts January 18th, 2020 for a one-day retreat in West Palm Beach, FL. Spiritual Life Coach Certification for Women starts March 6-8, 2020 in West Palm Beach with the 3-day retreat.

www.AwakenwithSophie.com

Tips for Self-Care as Beloveds Die

by Robyn M Fritz

Whether a human or animal family member is dying, the living has work to do you’re grieving, possibly in shock, and trying to figure out what to do to help yourself, your family, and your dying beloved get through it.

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In the first article of this two-part series on preparing for death and grief, I covered how to prepare others for a beloved’s death.

Here I’m offering simple but necessary things you need to do to keep yourself healthy and balanced as you support the living—and the dying.

These are things we don’t usually think about, so let’s get to them.

Don’t Buy into the Guilt The current medical establishment believes that fighting death, no matter the odds or the suffering involved, is more important than a life well-lived, and a death gently met. Someday the system will grow up.

In the meantime, you are a grown-up for it. Pain, suffering, and disability are cruel things. You will know when enough is enough.

You cannot beat death.

You can make it acceptable— even glorious.

If you live somewhere where humans can choose to end

their lives, discuss this option with beloveds, and support their choice. For your animals, yes, you’ll feel bad if you resort to euthanasia, and you haven’t sorted through the whys and whynot with them, yourself, and the rest of the family.

You’ll feel bad if you don’t and drag out an ending that causes misery for no good reason. You’ll feel bad, regardless.

Take steps to support yourself by figuring out what the limits are for both the dying and the living.

Walk away from anyone who tries to make you feel guilty for choosing to meet death on your own terms and supporting your dying beloveds the same way.

Hospice is learning, even with animals, but be careful of animal hospice, because some of those people still don’t understand mercy.

Figure out what love looks like to you and to the rest of the family, from the first day to the last. Cling to it.

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Stay Present We can get caught up in thinking about the past and the future—about what life was like before dying showed up and what it will be like afterward. That’s normal but be careful: don’t miss the “now” of the dying process. Walk the mystery with your beloveds. You’ll be exhilarated and crushed, but you’ll also never regret it. And you know what? I’m a medium, so I can assure you that your dead beloved won’t, either.

Schedule Self-Care Caught up in our beloved’s dying process, we often forget to take care of ourselves first, a mistake that can lead to illness and despair. We can’t help ourselves, our dying, or others, especially children, if we’re worn out. Take time for yourself, whatever that means at the moment: take a walk, a nap, or time to think; light a candle; dance; read a book; sleep; eat. It’s important. Put aside your

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ego, that part of you that thinks you can tough it out and go it alone or ignore your needs. It’s not just okay to be vulnerable, to need support, to bolster mind, body, and spirit—it’s part of the job of being human, especially when a beloved is dying.

Remember: everyone involved, including you, needs you to put yourself first, if for no other reason than you can’t help them, or yourself, if you don’t.

Schedule Venting You stay sane by letting out the fear, anger, grief, and everything else you feel as you helplessly watch a beloved die, so schedule time to do just that. Try starting with twenty-minute blowouts: set a timer and scream, yell, cry, throw things, whatever it takes to vent. When the buzzer goes off, dry your eyes, buck up, and get back to your living and dying beloveds. Yes, it works, before and after a

death. I’m proof.

Did these tips surprise you? They’re so basic you probably realized they’re part of your consciousness.

Also, realize you can easily bypass them when you’re caught in a crushing moment, and there are few things more crushing than a beloved’s impending death.

It’s hard to think straight when the experience is before you, so take some time to consider it now, while there’s time. I promise it will help.

Robyn M Fritz MA MBA CHt hosts the OM Times radio show, “The Practical Intuitive: Mind Body Spirit for the Real World.” An intuitive and spiritual consultant and certified past life regression specialist, she is an award-winning author whose next book is “The Afterlife Is a Party: What People and Animals Teach Us About Love, Reincarnation, and the Other Side.” Find her at RobynFritz.com.

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Climate change is a terrifying reality, and that much more frightening for people who have children. Many parents wonder what kind of world their children are inheriting, and they’re unsure how to help their children cope, let alone answer their children’s questions about climate change.

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In the wake of the devastating landslides and fires in California, in which numerous celebrities and industry leaders lost their homes and their lives, it’s clear that no matter how wealthy or famous you are, climate change and its associated disasters spare noone, regardless of money or social status.

Parents who’ve been through a climate-related disaster, whether it was a flood, a fire, a landslide, or a tornado, are all too aware of the devastating impact of this type of experience on their children.

All of the experts are saying that these events are becoming the norm, not the exception, so how does a parent help their children cope?

Here are 5 ways that parents can help their children deal with climate change anxiety: One: Parents can explain what climate change is and what causes it so that children understand what they’re dealing with. Confusion often leads to worsened anxiety, whereas understanding often diminishes anxiety by giving us

something tangible we can do to make things better.

Two: Parents can put in place a safety plan in the case of a climate-related disaster, and then reassure their children that they have a meaningful way of dealing with anything that might arise.

Three: On a day-to-day basis, parents can model to their children the kinds of habits that will benefit the environment, such as avoiding the use of single-use plastics; recycling and reusing household items; reducing waste by accumulating fewer possessions; adopting alternative methods of transport; composting food products, diapers and animal waste; choosing to use non-toxic, biodegradable household and personal cleaning products; eating organic and cutting back on the consumption of red meat (which uses enormous amounts of land and water).

Four: Parents everywhere can do an annual spring project with the kids, planting pesticide-free flowers and Omtimes.com

shrubs in the garden or on the balcony that will attract and feed local birds, bees and butterflies, so that the earth’s pollinators have a better chance at survival.

Five: Parents can get involved in environmental causes and encourage their children to take up social activism against climate change. People always feel less anxious and more empowered when they take positive action toward a goal.

Children have plenty of energy and enthusiasm to bring to the cause, and by being involved in positive change, they’ll be less likely to feel helpless or overwhelmed and more likely to improve things for generations to come.

Sign up here for my free, monthly newsletter. August is all about making better choices in your life.

Childhood abuse can often lead to a pattern of abusive relationships in adulthood.

For more insights and tools for coping, check out my new online course, “How to deal with difficult family members, once and for all.”

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Relationships

The interconnectedness 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.

How to Heal Your Shame and Supercharge Your Empathy

By Marcia Sirota, MD.

A lot of people these days seem to be lacking in empathy. We watch horrors on the news, and we’re hardly moved. We hear of terrible tragedies befalling other people, and we’re barely motivated to offer any help. We walk by homeless people on the street, and we don’t even notice them.

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Maybe it’s the amount of sensationalism we’re bombarded with every day that’s causing us to be so emotionally shut down.

Maybe it’s the stress of modern life. Whatever it is, it’s not doing us any good.

We need to have empathy for one another. It’s what keeps our society from crumbling into chaos and violence. It’s what enables us to feel a sense of belonging. When we feel connected, our stress levels go down. Our immune system is boosted. We’re happier and healthier when we feel that sense of oneness with others.

One reason why we might be lacking in empathy these days is that a lot of us are burdened with shame. We feel bad about ourselves, and it adversely affects our interactions with others.

How do we develop shame?

When bad things happen to us, especially when we’re little, a typical psychological defense mechanism is to blame ourselves.

On the surface, this doesn’t seem to make any sense, but think of it this way: When we’re in a hurtful situation, and we feel powerless to change

things, feelings of despair rise up within us. We feel helpless and hopeless, and this is almost worse than the sadness, hurt or anger that come on in response to our hurtful experiences.

It’s almost intolerable to feel so helpless and hopeless, so we unconsciously default to a primitive defense mechanism (coming from the not-so-smart part of our brain). It’s supposed to make us feel that we have more power and choice in the situation, but like all such defense mechanisms, it backfires spectacularly.

It’s paradoxical to blame ourselves, but we do this because the primitive part of our psyche is convinced that if the bad things, we’re experiencing are our fault, then we’ll have the power to change them.

Unfortunately, blaming ourselves for the bad things we’re going through doesn’t actually work.

When we have bad experiences that are beyond our control – like childhood abuse or neglect, or an adult diagnosis of a lifethreatening illness – taking on responsibility for what’s happening doesn’t make it possible for us to change things.

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Self-blame just makes us feel worse because not only are we living in a bad situation but then we hate ourselves for not being able to change it.

As time passes, the self-blame turns into shame. We feel ashamed of the abuse we suffered as a child, or for the medical condition that afflicted us, because we’re now convinced that it was our fault.

And then, another psychological defense mechanism kicks in, adding insult to injury: we believe, deep down, that we’re shameful and that we deserve to feel shame, so we’re unconsciously driven to do things that will perpetuate our shame.

It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

People who carry a lot of shame will often behave selfdestructively. Someone who was sexually abused will be promiscuous and go after abusive partners, in part to maintain the shame that they feel they deserve, deep down inside.

Someone who grew up being told that they were a “bad child” might become an over-eater or a drug abuser as an adult, in an Omtimes.com

unconscious attempt to maintain the shame they’re convinced that they deserve to feel.

The more we engage in selfdestructive behaviors, the more shame we feel. We unconsciously create a shame spiral that grows and grows.

And the more shame we feel, the less empathy we feel because shame isolates us and separates us from others. We feel undeserving of connection and unworthy of love. We can’t feel empathy toward others when we have no empathy for ourselves.

So, the answer to our empathy problem is, in part, to let go of our shame. Primitive defense mechanisms (like self-blame and shame) arise spontaneously in our psyche, but they never work. We need to over-ride them and replace them with selfcompassion.

We need to start letting ourselves off the hook for the bad things that happened to us in the past.

We even need to start forgiving ourselves for the bad choices we’ve been making that have been perpetuating our shame.

Just as we created a shame spiral by repeatedly engaging in behaviors that would perpetuate our shame, we can break the shame spiral by stopping these behaviors and by giving ourselves understanding, acceptance, forgiveness, and love.

When we’re compassionate toward ourselves, we can heal the pain caused by the hurts we lived through. We can heal the shame perpetuated by our repeated selfdestructive behaviors. We can start to build self-love, which will open our hearts to others. Suddenly, we can have empathy for ourselves and for everyone else.

The pay-off for having more empathy is huge. Multiple studies have shown that being caring, giving a person makes us so much happier than being a selfish or insensitive one. The more empathy we feel toward ourselves, the more empathy we can feel toward others, and the more empathy we feel toward others, the happier we are.

On a physical level, shame causes stress. It raises the levels of Cortisol, our body’s stress hormone. This leads to obesity, premature aging, and a lowered

ability of our immune system to fight disease. On the other hand, empathy for ourselves and others increases Oxytocin, the bonding hormone in our body, which lowers the levels of Cortisol and promotes well-being.

In my recent podcast with Dr. Brian Goldman, he spoke eloquently about the role of shame in society’s current lack of empathy and how important it is for us all to let go of our shame.

Even if you’ve been carrying a lot of shame up until now, you don’t have to hold on to it. You can start to let go of the shame and selfblame and be more empathetic with yourself.

You’ll feel happier, healthier, and more connected to others, and it’ll be a lot easier to care about everyone else when you’re not busy hating on yourself.

Sign up here for my free, monthly newsletter. October is all about developing healthy relationships and avoiding toxic ones.

And click on this link to check out my latest online course, How to Handle Difficult People, Once and For All! Omtimes.com

Metaphysics

Focusing on the Process of Thinking

Thoughts, not fate, lead us to where we are now and determine our future. Basic to metaphysics, mind is the foundation of everything.

Our physical world, fueled by underlying dreams and imaginations, is manifested

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by thought, individually and collectively. By recognizing our thoughts as they arise, we can more clearly chart the reality we desire.

Waking Reality & Dreams are Symbolic Languages Our modern society “knows” the mind to be separate and distinct from the physical world, and similarly sees dreams as random images and sounds flying about the sleeping mind. We who study metaphysics know the waking world, just like dreams, is an illusion. Modern society has it wrong. Our waking world is a construct of “mind,” made of the stuff of dreams, all founded in “mind.” We are thus wise to understand waking reality and dreams similarly, both as a communicative process with a higher purpose than it so seems. Whether dreaming or in waking, we perceive and interact with “symbols,” not real objects (for real objects don’t actually exist), and all that we see and encounter and experience should be perceived as a

communicating of ideas.

Waking and Dreaming Differences Our waking world is reliably stable and predictable, whereas our dreaming experience is in a constant state of change as we may perhaps watch people and objects transform and appear before our dreaming eye. The waking experience thus gives the appearance of a solid concrete living space, yet underlying it is an elementary fluidic state (dreaming and formlessness) offering unlimited possibilities to a mind that is stable and disciplined. If we can apply the dreaming mind to waking reality, we can free ourselves from the prison of an entrapping physical world.

The mind is the Elusive Treasure We can better understand waking reality by redirecting our waking focus away from the experienced objects, which are not real yet seem real and focus our mind on the process of thinking. We can

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do this within our modernday fast-paced daily living experience, hurrying about doing things and going places.

It is a matter of training the mind by learning to focus on the process from moment to moment, for the result is always temporal and effectively is not real. In understanding the process, not fixated on a result, we will find the true treasures, for the mind itself is all that we have, and the mind can give us all that we want.

A Method for Focusing the Mind Our “classroom” begins in morning when we awaken from sleep. When a recognizable thought occurs, like “I have to get up,” we think back to the beginning of the thought and imagine the process of why the thought arose. Was it spontaneous or did I initiate the thought?

Is this thought helpful? In this example, it probably is, because we need to get up in the morning. But we don’t need to think about

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getting up, we merely get up. Whether the mind thinks the words “I’m getting up” or we just get up without thinking the words, there was a mental process where the mind determined it time to get up and the body, knowing the mind’s intent, began the mechanics of getting out of bed. This, whether imagined in verbal thought or merely accomplished intuitively, is what I define as “the process of thinking.” It is a process that never stops; we think something at some level of thought and acts on the thought or let the thought pass. These small steps, combined, build into events that become narrative over time — the stories of our lives — and define who we are and what we will become.

Shaping Our Destinies Training our minds so that we focus on the process, not the result, we will begin to better see that our reality facing us is guided by and builds upon our earlier thoughts. Training the mind is not easy at first.

Effecting to make thought itself our focus, we will quickly forget as familiar repetition, and emotive wants steer us.

We will progress through the day, hardly realizing how we are shaping the day and unconsciously mapping our futures. But if we start now, recognizing our thoughts as they enter our head, and if we return to this process each time, we remember that we have forgotten it, we will see the gaps between lapses in thought grow shorter.

Eventually, in perfect harmony between mind and body, our every thought will be recognized, considered, and acted upon when we deem it proper. In the process we will be taking control of our own life and destiny, becoming less susceptible to outer world influences.

Focusing on the process of thinking, we will begin to become aware of and feel our world is created, supported, by our mind, continually, perpetually, and congruent with the minds of the others

who surround us.

All the world a mental construct, our thoughts carefully crafted at superficial and at deep levels of the mind, we will better shape both verbal thoughts of what we say and think, and deeper inner non-verbal thoughts intuitively and unconsciously shaping our world, giving us greater clarity in finer detail, our every moment steered more precisely by our own hand. We will more control our future presents in this world, and our temporal natures should fall away as we see the illusion to be no longer necessary.

Arthur Telling has written numerous stories and articles on religion, philosophy, and metaphysics. His article, “A Different Jesus Message” appeared in the Nov. 2011 AMORC Rosicrucian Digest.

Telling is author of eight books, including his newest release: “And the Cock Crows: How Rome Buried the Jesus Message.” His website: www. arthurtelling.com

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4 Ways to Keep Your Spiritual Life Free of Toxic Influences

By Meghan Belnap

If you intend to live a life of spirituality, you must make an active effort to keep toxic influences out of your life.

Though you should always embrace the concepts of love and kindness, there are steps you need to take to keep yourself safe. Below are four steps you can take to keep your spiritual life clear.

Keep Your Thoughts Clear with Professional Help A good first step is to make sure that you are in regular contact with a person who can help you clear out negative thoughts.

While some turn towards spiritual leaders for this kind of help, it’s absolutely possible

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to get the same kind of support from a good therapist. Make sure that there is someone in your life with whom you can discuss your negative feelings and who can help you to process them in a healthy way.

Remove the Bad Energy Whether you think of it as bad karma, black magic, or a curse, it’s always wise to look at ways you can remove bad energy from your life. Depending on your particular belief system, you might want to speak someone who can help you with black magic removal in order to feel confident that you’ve moved past this sort of problem.

The shape this takes is going to vary by person, but it’s always a good idea to shield yourself from the things that would attempt to hurt you.

Meditate Meditation is an incredibly important spiritual practice. It can take the form of traditional meditation, prayer, or other types of communion with the universe, but what’s important is that you find a way to center yourself and touch on those things that you find to be greater than yourself.

Though meditation does always take practice to perfect, the process of making the attempt can help you to find a better spiritual path.

Spend Time in Nature Finally, you may want to get in touch with the universe in a more direct way. Go out into nature and really discover what helps to keep the world connected. If you’re able to spend some time outside in quiet contemplation, you’ll find it easier to move past the kind of toxicity that develops in daily life.

Getting rid of toxic influences takes a great deal of effort. You’ll want to work on keeping your energy cleansed both through quiet practice and directed actions. If you can push the positive forward in your life, though, you’ll fill much more spiritually fulfilled.

Meghan Belnap is a freelance writer who enjoys spending time with her family. She loves being in the outdoors and exploring new opportunities whenever they arise. Meghan finds happiness in researching new topics that help to expand her horizons.

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

3 Tools to Shift into Happiness

by Dagny Grant and Beth Donnelly

If you think that happiness is the result of your experiences or possessions, you may want to re-think that!

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There are many tools to help us shift our vibrational frequency to a happy state of being. The tools that each person resonates with are unique to their own preferences. These tools help us move our focus into our heart space, which is the first step to initiate a harmonic mind-heart coherence. It’s important to understand that our heart-mind coherence is not always happy or positive.

For example, if we are angry or in grief, our heart space feels sad, constricted and dissonant.

Acknowledgment of the situation is good but investing our focus for a long period does not benefit our mind or heart. Life has an organic heartbeat of its own. We aren’t meant to always be happy or unhappy.

The balance of yin/yang is a continuing process and imperative to the vibrational flow of the universe. The most important thing to remember in our intention to master our emotional state is that we have a choice.

While we are choosing how we desire to feel, we are also able to choose which tools we want to use to achieve that state. These tools can be chosen circumstantially and viewed as a toolbox of fun, playfulness, peace, and healing.

We’ve chosen 3 of these tools for you to consider. Internal Consciousness Tools 1. I AM Statements Statements that acknowledge your internal self-identity.

• I AM Grateful • I AM Love • I AM Hope • I AM Deserving • I AM Happy • I AM Joy 2. External Symbolic Tools Powerful only in the meaning that you give them. These things may be attached to a belief that you have, and they inspire you to feel better.

• Religious symbols • Rituals • Lucky socks or shirt

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• Burning sage • Special rocks • Four-leaf clover • Fortune cookie • Rabbit’s foot • Daily Horoscope • Art 3. Energetic Tools Energetic elixirs that can shift your being. These tools have measurable energetic vibrations. The use of these tools has been known throughout history to have a powerful effect in lifting a person’s state.

• Music • Laughter • Meditation • S enses… sight, sound, smell, touch, taste • Earthing/grounding • Water energy • Prayer • Crystals • Essential Oils • Nature • Animals • Writing/journaling

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Choosing your tools.

Bottom line…your belief in any of the things above gives or takes away power.

It is important to note that the external influence is not creating the outcome; it is the internal belief in the special powers of the tool, whether consciousness, symbolic or energetic. This is clearly seen by the fact that one person’s tool is different than another.

Consciousness tools are very personal. Each individual holds different personal emotions and self-identities based on their own life experiences. The joy of neural plasticity is that just as we release and add new cells to our body, we can release and add new neural pathways and positive beliefs that forever change our state of mind.

An example of a symbolic tool can be one person finding no meaning or outcome in burning sage, while another might find it the most

important thing they do to cleanse a space of what they perceive as negative energies.

Another symbolic tool can be an athlete’s belief that their special/lucky green sock has to be worn at every game to perform well. Their minds and ultimately their behavior and performance can be influenced by that belief. This is understood as the placebo effect. On the other hand, if you don’t have that sock during a game, that belief can literally “psych you out” and take away your power to perform well. This is understood as the nocebo effect.

We’ve all experienced energetic tools that shifted our state of being. Just the focus on our senses gives us unlimited examples of the creation of states. Seeing a rainbow, hearing our favorite song, the scent of a bakery, a comforting touch, or the taste of chocolate are all

experiences that may shift our state. You can choose the energetic tool that uplifts your spirit!

Remember, happiness is an intentional practice. Notice how you feel…

“If you want to be happy, BE.” –Leo Tolstoy About the Authors: Matrix Productions is a multi-media company represented by partners Beth Donnelly and Dagny Grant. Co-authors of the internationally BestSelling Children’s book series “Journey of Joy,” they share mind, body, and spirit connections, teaching mindfulness and I AM principles. Their publication of books, and “Echoes of the Soul” multi-media projects, produce tools that shape the thoughts and hearts of like-minded people.

Find them at http://bit.do/ MatrixMedia and http://bit. do/FaceBookMatrix!

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How to Exude Positive Energy to All Around You

by Rachelle Wilber

Giving off a positive vibe can make everyone gravitate to you.

No one wants to be around a downer or a buzzkill, after all. If you want to feel like sunlight to the people who are in your life, you can give off unparalleled energy. Be someone who puts smiles on others’ faces day in and day out. Remember, a sunny and bright outlook can be an infectious one.

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Exercise frequently Exercise can get your body in tiptop shape. It can achieve even more than that, as well. That’s because moving your body can actually boost your serotonin levels. If you want to increase your “feel good” hormones in a big way, then you should make a point to squeeze in sufficient physical activity daily and weekly. Others will definitely notice your sunnier attitude.

Listen to the Right Podcasts Podcasts can keep people updated on all sorts of topics.

There are all sorts of podcast options out there. You should make a point to listen to positive podcasts that can get your mind on the right track. If you think positive thoughts, then that may encourage the people in your life to do the same exact thing. Steer clear of any sources of incessant and distressing negativity.

Eat a Healthy Diet Dietary choices can also influence the way you come across to others. Stay away from food items that may put you in a bad mood and make you feel sluggish and devoid of energy.

You may want to refrain from eating overly greasy and salty foods. You may want to refrain from eating foods that have excessive amounts of sugar, as well. Nutritious and balanced diets can contribute to upbeat attitudes that are practically impossible to ignore.

Look on the Bright Side Simply adjusting the way you think may help you give off

an energy that’s sunny and optimistic. It may help to look at the bright side of life. It may help to try to make lemonade out of sour lemons. You should aim to be a problem-solver who believes in yourself. It’s critical to remember that the sky is the limit for people who care and who are 100 percent determined.

Positivity can be one of the most beautiful things in the world. It’s difficult to dismiss, too. If you want people to gravitate to the energy you bring to the table, then you need to have the right attitude.

Rachelle Wilber is a freelance writer living in the San Diego, California area. She graduated from San Diego State University with her Bachelor’s Degree 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; https:// www.facebook.com/profile. php?id=100009221637700

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Self-Improvement Won’t Make You Feel Better - But This Will

By Kelle Sparta

We’re all seeking more happiness. It’s the reason we read articles, take classes, attend retreats, buy books, sign up for coaching and energy healing, and a whole host of other services.

We want to be happy.

And the world has convinced us that if we

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can just find the RIGHT service, book, class, retreat, etc., then we will be happy.

But that’s the misconception in the world of spirituality and self-help. It’s this idea that the more we know, the more skills we have, the more “spiritual” we become, the happier we will be. This just isn’t true - take it from me, I’ve spent more than 40 years in the personal growth and spirituality world, and I’ve seen this happen to people over and over again. They dive in with both feet, learn as much as they can for anywhere from 2-20 years and then come up for air only to realize that they feel just the same on the inside as when they started.

Sure, they can do an amazing ritual, meditate for hours, have more crystals than anyone they know, and can-do asanas standing on their heads, but they aren’t happy. They are still either spending more and more time trying to leave their bodies to escape their lives, or they are just not happy.

What is needed is an understanding of the

difference between selfimprovement (skill-building and understanding the self) and transformation (becoming someone new). The former gives us better-relating skills and coping mechanisms. The latter changes are the very nature of who we are. Each has its own benefits and downsides.

Self-Improvement The process of understanding we at a deeper level is awesome. It helps us to see how we are acting in the world and how those behaviors create our realities.

Building new skills and coping mechanisms are also good for changing the way we behave and, therefore, the way others respond to us. But this is all an external change. Inside we remain the same. We may feel slightly better because our new ways of behaving are getting us better responses, but the feelings that caused the poor behaviors are still present. And when those feelings get triggered, most of the skills we learned can be forgotten in an instant, leaving us to pick up the pieces when

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we have calmed down.

Benefits: it is easily learned and quickly implemented for fast results.

Downsides: it only goes skin deep, and it can disappear when we are triggered Transformation On the other hand, the process of transformation is quite different. It involves changing our perspectives and literally changing who we believe ourselves to be. Notice that I said “I believe ourselves to be,” not who we are. At the core, we are who we are, but throughout our lives, beliefs, judgments, assumptions, and stories that have been told to us and that we have told ourselves have layered on top of that core being creating a morass of misery. The process of transformation is the process of clearing out the morass to get back to the pure self. This isn’t easy; it’s rarely quick (although it can be if our resistance to it is low), and it requires doing hard, and scary things like looking at the parts of ourselves that we

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think are ugly or unacceptable.

Some people call this shadow work. Ultimately, to become someone new, we have to accept that the person we were has to die. This is known as a shamanic death.

This means we also have to overcome the fears and resistances that our ego throws up in our faces as we go. This path is harder, but in the end, the work goes deep inside us and changes our insides. We FEEL different. Any changes that happen on the outside are a function of the changes on the inside. They are not skills we’ve learned; they are new responses based on our new ways of seeing ourselves and the world around us.

Benefits: Changes the way we feel inside, and our outer responses are now a function of that new way of feeling.

Therefore, the responses don’t disappear when we are triggered.

Downsides: We have to look at stuff that makes us uncomfortable, and we have to overcome our fears and our resistance to change.

Ultimately, if we want to be happier, it is a transformation that we are seeking, not self-improvement. And this means that we need to stop looking for that magic pill and recognize that we, us, the person inside us IS the magic pill. We are the doorway to our own freedom, our own joy, our own happiness. It all starts with us. With great responsibility comes great power. Seize it.

Kelle Sparta, The Spirit Doctor (TM) is a Spiritual Alchemist, psychic, medium, channel, empath, shaman, and energy healer. She specializes in helping people from challenged childhoods claim their space, set their boundaries, own their power, and internalize their sense of value so they can finally love themselves. Get a free copy of her Boundaries for Empaths program at http:// www.KelleSparta.com and visit her podcast, a guide to all things energy, magick, and the spirit world at http:// www.SpiritSherpaPodcast.com.

Like her page on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ KelleSparta1 Omtimes.com

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 To Be A Change Junkie

There are much joy and happiness that comes from getting addicted to change.

The blessings are endless, and the opportunities are without limit. We’re all personally just a few baby steps away from our most fulfilled selves and, collectively, from a whole new Omtimes.com

world. Being a Change Junkie means getting addicted to the positivity and abundance that change can bring.

No matter the goal, the dream, or the healing written down on someone’s wish list, the path will require many things but only one thing for absolute certain: change.

It’s a word that strikes fear for some of us. The idea of change can often inspire our most painful memories of difficult transitions and challenging circumstances. Even the bravest among us would admit to being fine without it and taking measures to avoid it altogether.

And yet, it is the constant ebb and flow of the universe. We may equate change with our least favorite memories, but we rarely give it the credit it deserves for our most rich and valuable experiences.

After all, Change was there for all of that too. It is a necessary part of becoming our Best Self.

This type of change begins when we get spiritually hungry when we start to look deeper and reveal more and more

of our potential. As we strive to be better than we were yesterday, we begin to find ways to build upon our success and to course-correct when things don’t go as planned.

Instead of living a robotic existence, we try new things, face our fears, and nurture passion and inspiration instead of safety and comfort.

We start to create positive change wherever we go, we smile at strangers we meet, we leave people, places, and things better than how we found them, and we practice kindness even when we don’t want to. This is what becoming a Change Junkie looks like.

The kabbalists teach that our purpose for coming to this world is to transform and perfect our positive traits, transcending our negative qualities.

Becoming a Change Junkie means getting addicted to this chain of events, to the positive energy that change can bring.

We will no longer run or hide from change; instead, we will look for and embrace it. This is our life, and we alone are responsible for the quality of Omtimes.com

it. This is the importance of making friends with change.

Change requires urgent and immediate action every day. If we don’t love what we do, the immediate action is finding something we do love. If we already love what we do, we can look for immediate ways to do more of it. And if we are unsure of what we love, we can urgently get to work finding out what that thing is.

One change in the right direction is all it takes to change the course of someone’s life. The trick is knowing how to make the first domino fall.

Once the step is taken, change has already begun, and that momentum brings about hidden gifts and makes a way where once there was none.

All that’s left to do is celebrate how far we have already come.

Monica Berg is a teacher and writer who specializes in assisting people in living their most fulfilled lives through the wisdom of Kabbalah. She is the author of Fear Is Not an Option and serves as Chief Communications Officer for Kabbalah Centre International.

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