Archive
ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: Is Your Life Reflecting Your Values?
We’re getting down to the nitty gritty here and I hope you’ll seriously consider what’s in this article. How do you decide which activities will receive your attention today? What values are you using to allocate your precious hours today, the hours that you will never be able to recapture after they have been spent?
This is where living a conscious life meets living the hectic 21st Century busyness that seduces us all into thinking that things have to be the way they are.
You have 24 hours in each day. Your human body requires 7-9 hours of sleep – good, peaceful, restful, restorative sleep. The rest of your hours are yours to spend as you choose.
‘Wait!’ you say. ‘I have to go to work, get the kids off to school, teach my class, meet with my clients, go to the grocery store, and ______________ [fill in the blank]! I don’t have control over those hours!’
To which I answer, ‘Yes. You do.’
Every moment of every day we are at choice as to how we will spend that moment. You choose to work at that particular job. The kids might be able to get themselves off to school or a nanny could do it. You scheduled your class or your clients. Groceries can be delivered or a personal assistant or a spouse can do the shopping. And so the choices go. You might think that you can’t afford things but you can afford certain things because you choose them.
I’m not being simplistic here. We all make choices and ‘I can’t afford it’ really translates to ‘I choose to spend my money elsewhere’ or, even, ‘I CHOSE to spend my money elsewhere and now I have to pay the bills.’ Still, it is all based on choice.
So knowing that you choose how to spend your time, how can you make sure that you are choosing according to your values?
First, you must know what your values are and you must know them in priority order. I frequently see a client who feels conflicted and the answer to clarity lies in examining the values that are bumping into each other. Here are two questions to ask yourself:
Who do I really want to spend time with today?
AND What is the most fulfilling activity that I can put on my calendar today?
If the answers match the schedule, good for you! And if not, then ask yourself, Why not?
You have the power to make choices about how you spend the precious hours you have each day. Are you LIVING your life or are you SPENDING your life?
Choose to schedule your day based on what is important to you, what really matters. Don’t let anyone else control your schedule. If your boss wants you to be in a meeting at a certain time, then, by all means, attend the meeting. But instead of spending emotional capital resenting it, accept that you choose to remain in this job [even if it feels as if you have no choice to remain in this job. You could choose to quit and maybe live on the street so you might be making the right choice for the moment!] If your family is making a demand on your time that causes you to resent saying ‘yes’ then say ‘no.’ And release feeling guilty about it!
Notice how often you make choices that don’t feel right to you. Making the choice to take an injured kid to the ER feels right, doesn’t it? Making the choice to escape into TV when there might be something else you could do might be escaping your life instead of living it. AND watching TV might be your active choice to relax and rest your mind for a bit, so release the feeling of guilt about making that choice!
CHOOSE. Match your schedule to your values. Raise your consciousness about your moments and you’ll feel happier!
Monday’s Poem: Retreat Time (Renewal)
Rosemary and I are away for a long weekend retreat. We are assessing values, making plans, adjusting and transforming. In anticipation of this activity I wrote this:
Retreat Time
(Renewal)
Deep Winter, cold:
Withdraw, pull in,
Retain, restrain;
Inside is warm.
Quiet time, ease:
Relax, go in,
Let go, let god;
Practice presence.
Retreat time, now:
Visions flow in,
Hear, smell, taste, touch.
New Mind, new you!
©2013 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
Mind over Matter
Rosemary attended a LiveStream event with Joe Dispenza last week. She was very impressed and is now committed to Breaking The Habit of Being Herself: How to Lose Her Mind and Create a New One to paraphrase the title of his latest book. This is something right up her alley if you have been following The Scientific Mystic for any length of time. She loves the new brain science that is emerging and meshing so excitingly with quantum science. Of course she has been evolving her brain for as long as I have known her! We are both explorers and open to the unfolding wonderment of discoveries and advancements on our paths together.
In her excitement about Dr. Dispenza’s presentation her natural response is to order books! Yes, we already have both of them (we are unrepentant collectors of books!). And as is my response I immediately absconded with his first book: Evolve Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Mind (she already got this material through the webinar, right?). And now I’m plowing right through it; I do have to keep pace with Rosemary to be sure I still love this new person she is becoming! Oh, and while I’m at it I had better “create a new mind” for myself so that there’s a better chance she’ll love me back!
Seriously this is all good stuff and right in line with what Rosemary has been writing about and what I’ve been responding to after crossing the threshold of 2012 and into the new territory of the Transformation of 2013. For some of you Dispenza may not offer a lot of new material in his books, but it is presented in a very accessible way and backed up with wonderful stories.
The essence of this work is, in fact, Mind over Matter (Mom) – and yes, my Mom did say this to me a lot. In yesterday’s post I quoted Mike Dooley: “Thought becomes things” and other authors, including Rosemary: “Thoughts are things.” We certainly can all agree that thoughts are energy, and Einstein clearly knew energy and matter are tightly bound. Our thoughts are incredibly powerful energy sources. And just as energy is preserved, never lost, so too our thoughts have lasting effect, both on ourselves and others who may be the recipients of our projected thoughts!
Rosemary’s admonitions, “be careful what you think” and “think new thoughts for 2013” are certainly worth attention. And this attention comes from the meta-mind I wrote about in yesterday’s post. Go meta; monitor your thoughts; just practice this awareness as a first step. There is no judgment required here, only assessment, conscious observance of the thoughts that run through your mind and conscious recall that these thoughts are energy and become things!
When we get a firm grasp on the characteristics of our thoughts and this practiced ability to monitor them with our meta-mind, we can then begin to consider their value, whether they are supporting the life we want to live, whether they are helping us, if they are helping others, and, in general, if they tend to be positive or negative (here I might rather say “yin or yang” to keep the judgment out of the evaluation.)
And when we have a good grasp on our thoughts we can then begin to make choices on how we want to think. And this is where MoM (Mind over Matter) comes in. Our higher intelligence as humans gives us the freedom of choice. And through the highest form of that intelligence, our higher or meta-mind, we can sift through all the possible choices open to us and decide consciously which thoughts manifest the life we want for ourselves. And this is not to deny obstacles, other matter (even other people’s thoughts!) out in our pathway, that may disrupt our journey. These are lessons; they are opportunities to refine the choices, or even change them if necessary to learn what we are here to learn. And this is when mind over matter becomes most powerful. Not only are we free to choose, we are free to continue in that choice, despite all odds and obstacles, or we are free to re-choose and refine the very vector of our life-story!
Rosemary and I are constantly refining our stories. It’s an exciting trip! And we know we can always trust that our minds are powerful enough to overcome all matter.
And so is yours!
Thanks, MoM!
ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: Think New Thoughts for 2013
It seems important for us to look at the state of the world and the way that humans are treating humans today.
This is not about politics although the politics of each country reflect what is happening in the psyches of the inhabitants. What are you projecting from your psyche?
Since thoughts are energetic projects and have an effect on the environment we must take responsibility for the thoughts that we hold in our energy fields. Ask yourself about the thoughts you projected today. Did they come from a place within you that is sourced in Love? Were your thoughts uplifting ones that, if written down and shared with others, they would make someone smile and feel good about themselves? Or were you angry or upset and projecting that energy outward?
Think about the effect on a city when anger and hatred are stirred up and people are focused on disenfranchising others or hating and separating others. Think about what could happen in a place where the people are fearful or wanting to kill others or angry at their neighbors.
Now think about the effect on a city when the inhabitants come together around a common cause to support each other. Think about a community where kids can play safely because neighbors look out for neighbors. Think about the energy in a place where neighbors spend the evening sitting together outside sharing chitchat and watching kids play together.
What do you feel as you imagine these scenarios? Can you picture the column of energy that rises up from a place when the energy is what you pictured? Which energy column would you rather sit next to?
This is what we each have a responsibility to create and to monitor. Your energy is magnified when attached to the energy of others. What do you chat about with your friends? Your co-workers? Are you spinning each other up with thoughts of hatred and anger and separation? Or are you finding common ground in which to discuss ways that you are similar and can agree? When you spout off do you move the conversation to solutions or do you stay in the emotion of the problems? Are you more comfortable discussing issues than seeking strategies for moving beyond the problems?
Each of us has responsibility for the thought energies we project. When we gather with others, we intensify the energy of the ideas expressed and discussed. Conversations do not have to be confrontational. There can be real, honest agreements to disagree, but there must be respect for the person even if the ideas expressed cannot be embraced.
Somewhere along the line we seem to have forgotten that we are all connected. We are all members of the human race. We have differing perspectives based on what we have been taught or what we have experienced or what we have embraced as our values. Yet each person is on Planet Earth to learn lessons, to grow, to advance human consciousness, whether or not they have embraced that responsibility.
Accept that you cannot control the thoughts of others, but you can control your own. Catch yourself building a column of energy that doesn’t feel supporting and light and stop it. Shift your thinking to thoughts of Light and Hope and Community. Make sure you are projecting energy that you wouldn’t mind having projected onto you!
And surround yourself with people who are willing co-creators of columns of Light rather than anger and hatred. We will all thank you!
PS: To guide your thoughts for 2013 with incredible inspiration from The Divine Feminine you can get the 8 recordings Rosemary made at the end of 2012 during her Wisdom of the Week (WOW) calls. Get them here.
INSPIRATION FROM ROSEMARY: The Energy of Your Thoughts
Here’s Rosemary’s video for the week: The Energy of Your Thoughts
PS: For more inspiration and incredible guidance from The Divine Feminine you can get 8 recordings Rosemary made at the end of 2012 during her Wisdom of the Week (WOW) calls. Get them here.
Monday’s Poem: Seed of the New Human
Seed of the New Human
The seed holds the infinite,
All future generations of
Its kind within its
Hard shell.
The hard shell must burst
To give way to the sprout,
The shoot, the stalk, the
Leaves and flowers and seeds.
The brain holds the infinite,
All future thoughts and
Possibilities within the
Neural nets of habit.
Old patterns must burst
To give way to the thought,
The path, the net, the
Impossible, the New Human.
©2013 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
PS: To start 2013 off with incredible guidance from The Divine Feminine you can get the 8 recordings Rosemary made at the end of 2012 during her Wisdom of the Week (WOW) calls.Get them here.
Yoga and Diet
I worked with a new yoga teacher tonight using a style unfamiliar to me. This teacher, (whom I’ve known for 30 years!) has been studying, practicing and teaching Svaroopa® Yoga for the past nine years. He is a gentle teacher and the yoga is a somehow gentle and at the same time strenuous approach to “strengthening the core” and aligning the spine. And the real result is a “stilling of the mind” – the goal of any yoga and certainly one of the reasons I am interested in continuing to study this style and approach.
I have practiced yoga off and on for more than 30 years. And I have been more disciplined recently working through a morning routine which also includes Qigong. These practices are enjoyable; I am feeling good about the stretching of my sometimes tight body and the easy motions through the Qi-field as I move through the 5-element form of qigong. So, why a new practice?
Do you ever feel stuck in a routine? Do you sometimes wish things would change, that something new would come in to shake things up? Or maybe you are reaching to take a next, deeper step. I’m feeling like this at the beginning of 2013; and this year is all about the process of the transformation, right? How do we expect to transform by sticking with our customary routines?
I may have found a practice that is going to take me deeper. Even in this first introduction I felt my body release, relax and go deep. More importantly, I felt my mind quiet. I don’t think I have experienced such a rapid alignment of body and mind into that space of peace and silence since I was first initiated into TM (transcendental meditation) in 1969!
And here’s where diet comes in and links back to my post yesterday about that mirror my vegan friends hold up for me!
Before my class tonight Rosemary and I had a quick bite, early dinner, at a Chinese bistro. One of my favorite dishes there is a spicy Korean dish that I usually get with beef. True to form I ordered that about two hours before class. And it was delicious. I didn’t even finish the serving, packing up the last bit for a snack later, maybe after yoga. On our way home I remarked to Rosemary that I had thought to eat light, remain vegan for the whole day leading up to this new class. But habit tripped me up as I ordered my usual.
And it was OK. But I did wonder as I relaxed into the asanas if I could have released even more if my early dinner had been lighter. Next week I’ll be more conscious of my food intake before class!
But is it only before class and other similar activities that I’ll be “more conscious”? Isn’t my goal in life to grow in consciousness at all times? Isn’t this the goal for humanity? That mirror is reflecting some serious thought-forms that are beginning to press back, hard.
Rosemary and I have discussed vegetarianism over many of our 40 years of knowing one another. We have both curtailed our meat intake but we have not eliminated it; and we both enjoy a moderate level of dairy. Rosemary, as an incredible intuitive, looks for the “light content” in the food she prepares and eats. If I take this literally I would choose foods as close to the sunlight as possible. This would mean eating a lot of green vegetables, right? And I do love the greens! But isn’t grass-fed beef only one step removed from the sunlight of green grass?
My dilemma remains. I am not ready to go vegan. But I am certainly thinking about it. I have a lot to think about!
I do know I like Svaroopa Yoga. And I do know that I can go deeper in that practice if my digestive tract is clearer and lighter. So, at least one day a week I’ll be vegan.
ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: “The I’s Have It” – Richard’s Commentary
Speaking of taking care of yourself first so you have the energy and resources to serve others, I’ve been thinking a lot about veganism and vegetarianism lately. I know a number of people who are and have been for years. In fact my son has been mostly vegetarian since his college days after reading “The Way of the Peaceful Warrior.”
And recently I have begun to know people who are not only very strict in their discipline around a vegan diet but are also strong advocates of such, recommending it as a way to eat to save ourselves and the planet in the process. In fact some folks become so enthusiastic about their lifestyle and dietary choices that they almost become zealots, fundamentalists in their beliefs and political views on the subject.
I could say that some people even push my buttons on this subject. And I ask myself, “what are they mirroring for me that I need to examine closely?”
Examining this question took me all the way back to my childhood. I grew up on a small family farm in Wisconsin; and yes, it was a dairy farm. But we raised pigs, chickens, and sheep as well. For the most part we were a self-sufficient farm growing and raising much of our own food. Milk was the primary cash commodity and it all, but what we saved out for our personal use, went to a local factory that made cheese. Everything was pretty local in those days. We traded the eggs to the local grocery store for credit toward the things we didn’t raise or grow ourselves. We ate the extra roosters. We ate our own meat from pigs and steers we raised. So, I grew up with a lot of meat, milk, cheese, eggs; and when the local hunters helped thin out deer herds during hunting season we had venison as well.
I look back on this childhood with a great deal of fondness; I feel blessed to have been raised in the country with what then would have been the nearest thing to non-GMO, organic food we could have had from any source at any price – and it came from our “back-yard”!. We knew exactly where it all came from and what went into it.
Fast-forward about 60 years and it is hard to believe how things have changed! While some of the family farm remains right there in Wisconsin where I left it, much of the land has been sold to a “giant farm” following the trend everywhere to big-agri-business; the family farms of my youth are mostly gone. And I now live on the east coast with just enough garden for a few tomato plants. The nearest thing to small farming is the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) approach we have supported for the past few years. At least this way we are sourcing some of our produce locally; it’s fresh and organic and supporting a healthy way of life and a healthy planet!
My diet has changed too: for several years I have made my breakfasts and lunches in my Vitamix “super-blender” by creating a concoction of nuts, seeds, fruit and vegetables; it’s all raw, as organic as I can find and it certainly qualities as vegan. I have lost a bit of excess weight, very gradually, while on this regimen, I have lots of energy, feel great and I believe I’m pretty healthy. And for dinner I often have a meat dish. I love cheese (here I don’t think I had a chance since from childhood I had more milk in my veins than blood!). And, while I’ve given up on chicken in my diet I still enjoy, now and then, a bacon-and-egg breakfast on a random weekend.
I am far from vegetarian, let alone vegan! And I am not sure I ever want or need to become a strict anything. I tend to avoid becoming a zealot about things in life.
That said I have asked myself if I need to look more closely into this mirror held up to me by those who are more zealous! Are we on an evolutionary path toward a meatless diet? Will this path, in part, be driven by realities of limited resources and over-pollution by the current approach by big-agri-business? Are we killing ourselves with GMOs? Can we rely on science and technology to continuously increase production of already strained resources?
And the real nagging question, because I want to think of myself as an evolutionary and cultural creative: “Is the New Human vegan?” I’d love to have your thoughts.
ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: The I’s Have It
Most messages are about serving, about how connected we all are, how helping others is helping ourselves. Today’s message is different. This one is about YOU and taking care of YOU.
Society teaches us to serve others until we are depleted. At least, that’s what I learned as I was growing up, especially as a woman. ‘It’s better to give than to receive.’ ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’
The problem with those sayings is that we didn’t get the nuance that we ALSO need to take care of ourselves or we won’t have anything to give to others!
If we give, give, give until there is nothing left to give, then the next person who needs us is out of luck. I learned from Lisa Nichols the best image of appropriate service. She used the metaphor of a cup and saucer, where the cup represents you and you fill it up until it overflows, then you serve from the saucer. If you are always filling up your cup, there is always overflow from which to serve and you are never depleted. This means that you don’t have to stop serving to restore yourself – you keep filling yourself up and you can keep serving from the saucer.
And if it’s so wonderful to give, what about those of us who have learned to give but have never learned how to receive? Aren’t we depriving others of the opportunity to give to us? Think about that nuance. Maybe it is better to give someone else the opportunity to give to us than to always receive the pleasure of giving without letting anyone else have that fun.
Now, I’m not referring here to the political debates about the ‘givers’ and the ‘takers.’ Those labels are being used maliciously to justify certain positions and we’re not getting into politics here.
But most of us know what giving to others means and our generous, conscious, compassionate humanity leads us to give what and when we can.
It’s okay to consider yourself and your own needs. Sometimes we need permission to do that. You have that permission now. Focusing on what you need is vital to supporting your efforts to help others in need. Fill up your cup so you can serve from the saucer.
Reframe the word ‘selfish’ to ‘self-focused’ so you can release the pejorative judgments that go along with the idea of thinking of self. YOU are the one on Planet Earth at this time to live YOUR Soul Purpose. Taking care of yourself is essential to showing up for your Purpose.
Recently I’ve been doing Scientific Hand Analysis sessions for clients who are in the School of Service, one of the four schools in this system. The lesson in this Life School is to become a Master of Service Consciousness, understanding the difference between Service and Servitude. Service comes from a place of joy in the service and the act of serving is its own reward, with no concerns about ‘thank you’ or reciprocation. Servitude is saying ‘yes’ and then resenting that choice, wishing we’d said ‘no’ and wanting to get out of the obligation, or, worse, resenting the person to whom we made the commitment.
All of us are here to serve, not just those whose handprints indicate that their Life School is Service [this is just their Major at Earth University!], but we all need to learn to take care of ourselves so that we are available to help others.
What does this mean for you? Are you able to say ‘no’ when you need to, without feeling guilty about it? Are you filling up your cup so you can serve from the saucer or do you wait until you’re depleted so you can give yourself permission to stop and refresh?
Be conscious about putting ‘I’ on your to do list! Take care of YOU first and you’ll be able to take care of everyone who needs you!
After all, ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself’ doesn’t mean much if you don’t love yourself enough to take care of YOU!
PS: Are you curious about how your hand and fingerprints reveal your Life Pupose? Explore this more here.
INSPIRATION FROM ROSEMARY: Take Care of YOU!
Rosemary’s video for the week: Take Care of YOU!
PS: To start 2013 off with incredible guidance from The Divine Feminine you can get the 8 recordings Rosemary made at the end of 2012 during her Wisdom of the Week (WOW) calls. Get them here.
Men and The Goddess 