Believing In Our Memories

Believing In Our Memories

In the book, You Are The Answer, by Michael Tamura, states on page 168 that "we have such power and ability to make these pictures come alive that we end up believing in them more than we do in ourselves". While this may sound like a simple truth, it is much more real in our every day life than we may want to admit.

We all have memories and we form those memories out of pictures or images of these moments imprinted with emotions when they were created. The memory pictures of our mind are created beginning at an early age and continue to our current moment. Often these previous memory pictures play over and over throughout our day.

Dream Diary On The iPhone Using Momento App

Dream Diary On The
iPhone -Momento App

I've got an app on my iphone that I just love called Momento. Momento is a diary writing app that lets you record your thoughts for any given day and then export the file to your computer. It works so good and I use it frequently for recording my dreams.

In the past few months, my dreams have picked up, but the thing is, I often forget what I dreamed about at night. Sure, sometimes I think my dreams are a way my mind does a defrag, but there are other times, I get the sense that my dreams are more than that. So I attempt to record everything I dream about.

Breathe, Connect And Find Peace

Breathe, Connect And Find Peace
In This Moment

Just today in this moment, I will stop and focus my life. I will rise above all that I deal with in my life. I will let go of the stress and worry in my life, the uncertainty, the anger and despair. I will just breathe, connect and find peace for this moment.

Today in this moment, I will stop and take time out of my busy schedule to appreciate all that is around me. I will watch the birds play and fly from high wire to high wire, tree to tree. I will watch a squirrel run up a tree and a duck swim like there is no tomorrow. As I take in all that is around me, I will just breathe, connect, and find peace in this moment.

Letting Go When Life Unravels

Letting Go When Life Unravels

It is so easy to see the difficult moments in life as an end to all that we know. When life unravels, we tend to unravel as a result. After all, who can blame anyone when times look bleak and all hope seems to be lost.

However, I read something the other day that made sense to me. Paraphrasing what I read, it was stated that when life unravels, that is a good thing because it means we are getting rid of the old and letting go. We are in the process of clearing out our life so the new chapter of our life can begin.

I Don't Belong In This Family

I Don't Belong In This Family

It amazes me every time I think about how I came into this world. I'll never understand, how I ended up in this family. To me, I don't belong in this family that we share a last name together. Yes, at one time, I was just as pious, pompass and a critical a-hole as any could get.  Okay, maybe I'm giving myself too much credit here because I could never out perform others in my family in this area.

You see, we were taught to hate others and dislike and critize or put down others. Anyone who didn't think like we did or saw life the way we saw it, were less than in our eyes. We would wait until they left our presence and were out of hearing range, before we talked about them behind their back.  It must have made us feel good about ourselves while we claimed to just speak the truth.

Hope For Haditha Children And The Trauma Breaking Point

Hope For Haditha Children
Song by Don Shetterly

Back in 2006 when I heard about the Haditha massacre, I wrote the article below. At the time I was horrified. Yes, I understand that sometimes in war, innocent people are killed. However, in this case, this was not an innocent event. From all accounts in the news, it was a deliberate act upon innocent people. If the war had not been going on and this happened in the US, the individual(s) would have been on trial for murder.

Out of this tragedy, I wrote a song called "Hope For Haditha Children". This song never really took off, but I still wrote it in memory of those children who faced the horrors of watching adults murdered before their eyes. While I can fully understand the trauma breaking point, especially in a time of war, I weep for those little children.

Solar Flares And The Impact On Our Mind Body

Solar Flares And Mind Body
Sun Through The Tree

Today, we are in for a major blast from the sun. Scientists are expecting a major solar flare to have finally reached the earth. I read that on a scale of 1 to 5 used to measure these solar flares, that this is expected to be a 3. This event should occur between January 24 to January 25, 2012.

It seems there is no immediate threat or pending doom to our civilization that will yield some apocalyptic end. Instead, from my understanding, we get things like this from time to time and they may cause an impact upon different parts of our world, but they are not life ending. This is expected to be one of the strongest since 2005.

Argue For The Sake Of Arguement

Argue For The Sake
Of Argument

I'm sure you could make this post out to be one that is argumentative even if it not meant in that way.  All too often, people argue for the sake of argument.  Often in our society, we call it debate or discussion, but its still just arguing.  People seem to love to practice this and it almost invokes its own energy.

 

One of the places that I see it is on the internet forums.  Person 1 comes along and the next thing you know is person 2 says something that just seems to take the opposite position for the fun of it or so it seems.  Person 3 than comes along and tries to offer something to balance and the next thing they know, they are in the middle of world war 3.  It amazes me on the online forums and message boards.

Paula Deen And Type 2 Diabetes

Paula Deen's Resturant
Lady And Sons
Savannah, GA

Sometimes we get an opportunity in life to really learn, grow and evolve as a human. Unfortunately too many times, we reach for the easy way out. We look for the quick fix of putting the band aid on something, thinking that we have solved the problem.

Paula Deen is one of the loves of my life! She's my long distance girl friend. Of course, she probably doesn't know that, but I fell in love with her southern charm. I admire what she went through in life and how she raised herself from the ashes to get to where she has in life. She is an inspiration. A few months ago, I got to visit her restaurant "Lady And Sons" for the first time in Savannah GA which was a special treat for me.

I'm sad that Paula Deen is going through this rough time and I don't wish Type 2 Diabetes on anyone. I'm hoping that instead of just turning to the medication, Victoza,  that she searches out more natural methods of working with this disease. I do see she is working on changing her diet and adding exercise into it, but there are many other things that could offer

Mind Body Walk Through The Park

On a Sunday afternoon when the sun is shining, it is a good time to get out in nature. Sometimes a mind body walk through the park is good for the soul, great for the body and refreshing to the mind. Here is a recent journey of mine, after it had been very chilly for a few days. I must admit, it was chilly for those of us that live in Florida and who are no longer used to the colder weather.

As I arrived into Gemini Springs park, I could see just how busy it was. So many people were enjoying the same

Biological Mind Body Connection

Biological Mind Body
Connection

Sometimes when we begin to go in and connect the mind and body together, we come upon places in our life that sometimes appear rather ugly.  They are the parts of us that we often avoid and can make us feel very disconnected, depressed and angry.  These places are usually where growth can occur, but in many ways the fears of going into them, prevent us from reclaiming our power. They are part of the biological mind body connection.

Time and time again in my own life and that of other people I have witnessed, life can get very rough before it gets better.  Events from our past including trauma, stress, abandonment, or other horrible acts that we inadvertently become part of, can yield a toxic build up in our biological mind body connection.  In these moments, the energy of these events we experience, has no place to exit from our body and mind.  The energy then become stored and

New Age Nonsense Of Yoga

New Age Nonsense
Of Yoga

Today I came across a religious forum talking about how good Yoga was, but of course they had reservations.  In the words of the person, you had to be careful of this new nonsense that was part of Yoga.  Although they stated that it helped them to relax, they were very frightened by this practice.

I'm scratching my head at the ignorance here in these statements.  Yes, you can have your beliefs, but please evaluate them to see if they are founded upon fact, or just rooted in fear.  I've been to Yoga classes in my life and never once have I had someone tell me I must believe a certain way or follow some religion or new age thought that Yoga is based upon.  In many churches, if you don't follow their beliefs lock, stock and barrel, you're viewed as deficient in your life.

Getting Rid Of The Pain

Getting Rid Of The Pain

One of the things that I keep seeing in an online course that I am taking is comments by people who cannot understand why the pains in their body increase as they begin to shift their energy.  As a society, we do not understand pain and we fear the pain because often it is too intense for our life.

So many times, we want to flee from the pain and find ways to get rid of it, rather than going into the pain.  I see advertisements all the time from new age healers and massage therapies that focus on "getting rid of the pain".  In addition, there are many advertisements that we see, offering some medication or procedure to help us get rid of the pain.  We also find ways to minimize the pains in life and in our body by ignoring it, numbing it, and hoping that it will go away with all kinds of "funky home remedies".

What We Do To The Least

What We Do To The Least
Bird at Blue Springs Park

I was watching the movie "I Am" last night on OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) that I had recorded from Oprah's Super Soul Sunday a couple of weeks ago.  The first time I saw this movie was in a small coffee shop in Daytona Beach, Florida several months ago.  It is a must see movie especially if you ask the question, what is wrong with this world?

Tom Shadyack created this movie and if you recall, he is the producer behind movies such as "Bruce Almighty", "Liar Liar" and "Ace Ventura, Pet Detective"
. 

There was one section in the movie that just hit home to me.  In the movie he talks about the hunter that is so good at hunting that before long, the hunter gets irritated with how much he does for society.

Time To Wake Up World

Time To Wake Up World

In a recent CNN article, the population should now be over 7 billion on this earth.  That is a staggering number when you think about it. 

Often, I wonder where are all the new people are going to live because it seems as if we keep cutting down the trees and paving the land with a parking lot like in the lyrics of the song, "They Paved Paradise".

Of course, the more human inhabitants that arrive on earth, the greater the needs and unfortunately the more destruction of our earth that takes place.  The economic realities can appear harsh as our population increases while trying to find enough food to feed everyone becomes a burden on all man kind.  It is clearly a challenge that we are facing as a world civilization which not only affects us today, but in the years ahead.

While many do not want to think about these things, if we don't begin to do this, at some point it will catch up with us as a civilization.  It will no longer matter what boundaries we have between each population subset of our world.  It will no longer matter how we interject politics into the basic issues of the earth.   At some point, we will be past the point of no return and then as a civilization, we will be forced to deal with the issues we are leaving behind.

Wake Up Moments In Life

You Are The Answer
Wake Up Moments
In Life

One of my favorite books that I am reading right now is "You Are The Answer" by Michael Tamura.  I just love his insight, but more importantly, I like how he states things.  It tickles me that he claims he is not a writer and writing does not come easy, but his words state some difficult concepts in easy to understand terms.  This blog post is based upon an adaptation of a passage from this book on page 52.

Those moments in our life that wake us up, also known as a wake up call usually stop us dead in our tracks!  They get our attention and these moments are almost like a baseball bat between the eyes.  You cannot miss them no matter what you do and even if you try to avoid them, they are unavoidable.  If you are able to go through the wake up call and still remain enslaved to your fears and unconscious life, you can almost bet that another wake up call will attempt to get our attention until we open up and listen.  A wake-up call helps

Oprah Surrenders And Lets It Go

Oprah's Master Class on OWN
Surrender And Let Go

From Oprah's Master class, I found a YouTube video on one of her beginning experiences in letting go and connecting to source energy.  Talking about how she became part of the cast of the Color Purple movie, is breath taking, especially when she tells it in her own personal way.

I am sure during these moments, it was extremely difficult to keep going and most likely they did not all happen quickly as in telling the story.  In fact, I think she does state that there was considerable time that passed.  She struggled along the way and it was not easy for Oprah to understand what had happened or where she was in her life at that moment.

It was when Oprah decided to let go and release all the anger, bitterness, and frustration to her source energy that things changed.  She saw as a result,

Understanding Neuroplasticity

Understanding Neuroplasticity
Change The Brain
Change The Mind

One of the concepts that I have begun to learn over the past few years, is just how much our brain and mind is wired through what we allow our self to consciously connect to in our life.  Neuroplasticity is all about how the neurons fire together and wire together.

The following video lecture of Rick Hanson, author of "Buddha's Brain" is on how neuroplasticity impacts our life through the firing and wiring of the neurons.  The following information I have written, is excerpts from this 7 minute video that explains a lot about neuroplasticity and the mind body connection.

Through the MRI and other research, we can see more clearly that as the brain changes, so does the mind.  In other words, what is fed into the brain, the mind focuses on in those moments.  The left part of the prefrontal cortex is responsible for controlling negative emotions.  The more it slows down the negative emotions, the more positive our thoughts become.

Understanding Blood Pressure And Pulse Rate

Understanding Blood
Pressure And Pulse Rate

If you are like I am, you may not be aware of some things when it comes to blood pressure and pulse rate.  While the following website page is not a complete source on this subject, it is one that I have tried to put together to help people begin to understand these concepts.  The more we know about our biological body, the better we can take care of it.  You can visit this website at Finger Pulse Oximeter

In the mind body connection, you have two parts.  One of course is the mind and the other is the biological or physical body.  Of course, I am sure this is obvious, but we often forget these things.  Sometimes we only think and speak in terms about the mind body connection as being something mystical and magical.  Yet, we often forget the biological component.

Pulse rate is one measurement we can take in our body that gives us not only a measure of the health of our cardiovascular system, but also the autonomic nervous system.  Blood pressure is a measurement that gives a better idea how our blood is pumping through the heart and our arteries.  Yet, just because our blood pressure is high, that does not necessarily mean our pulse rate is.  The same thing can be said in reverse.  While they can impact each other, it is not necessarily a cause - effect relationship.

Mike Lew Upcoming 2012 Events

Books by Mike Lew
Victims No Longer
Leaping Upon The Mountains

Mike Lew has been very instrumental in my own healing and so I'm sharing the list of events he has coming up throughout the world.  If you are a survivor of child abuse or helping those that are, this information is for you.  His books, "Leaping Upon The Mountains" and "Victims No Longer" are excellent resources for a survivor as well as his workshops!  I highly recommend these resources.

Early on in my own recovery, there were no books for male survivors.  The only book I could find at the time was Ellen Bass and most resources were oriented towards women.  We have come a long ways in giving male survivors a voice.  Oprah has helped push that along as well with her 2 part series on male survivors where I was a participant.

Reading Mike's first book "Victims No Longer" helped me realize that I wasn't alone and some of the things that I was experiencing as a result were because of the trauma I had been through in my own life.  His second book, Leaping Upon The Mountains, was a book that I am not only quoted in, but that it helped me to see so many others out there had gone through things and were healing.

Here is a list of events for Mike Lew around the world coming up in 2012.  If these catch your interest, I would urge you to attend.

Difficult Moments Of Release In Life

Difficult Moments Of Release In
Life Consciousness

Sometimes when we release things in our life, it can get ugly.  While many may want to create a system of beliefs, practices and rituals around things you release, it all boils down to a normal biological part of our mind body connection.  It is more of a simple truth where the answers are within you, not somewhere else in the belief system of another person.

Humans don't like to suffer or go through experiences that aren't pleasant.  Humans would rather live life like a fairy tale where things are beautiful and happy while the big bad witch is kept in the dark evil forest.  After all, why not only see what looks pretty and great rather than connecting with something deep inside that appears ugly, unpleasant and sad.

If we look at the difficult moments in life that they are something to be despised, or something that indicates a malfunction in our life, than how much are we putting limits on our life?   Instead of these difficult moments in life being a malfunction, what if we viewed them as an opportunity of growth?  If we saw these things that we encounter as something that is a part of our life and a message to grow in awareness and understanding, would they still be a malfunction?

Finding Happiness In 2012 With A Smile

Finding Happiness
Give A Smiley Project

By the time you see this post, several days will have already went by in 2012.  We will be past the New Year celebrations and after the stress of the holiday season, many will be settling back into the routine of life.  Hopefully you haven't already forgotten about your New Year's resolutions or whatever it is that you focused on as the calendar ticked forward.

As we inch forward in our lives, I hope that each day is a new year of celebrating in our life of what possibilities lie ahead.  It should not just be about one moment in time that we hoop, holler and jump up and down.  It should be something we carry through each and every day.

I wrote an article that was published right before 2012 started.  The title was "Finding Happiness In 2012 With A Smile".  You see, I'm a believer that as we find happiness in our own life, that it will radiate forward and we'll end up sharing it with others.  Most likely we will share it before we even think about it.

One such way of sharing that happiness from our life in the year of 2012 is by offering a smile to others we meet.  There is a movement that is off to a wonderful start called the Give A Smiley Project.  The hope of this movement is that by one smile at a time, we can change the world.

Math Is Hard - Part 3

Math Is Hard
Part 3

This is part 3 of a three part series.  Please read PART 1 first.

There is so much more I could write here, but to be honest trying to write any more on this blog post is just way to difficult.  It takes more than I can give at this point of myself.  I actually am trying to finish this almost a month later because it got too difficult.

The point I really want to make is that often when kids struggle in school, there are emotional reasons that many adults fail to focus on for the child.  They look at surface things and try things that do not go to the root of the problem.  I have read in various places that kids who were abused or traumatized often struggle in school.  Either they struggle to comprehend or become a perfectionist and chastise themselves for getting anything less than a perfect score. 

Trauma and abuse alter the brain.  When a child goes through events that cannot be comprehended, often the only choice the biological mind has, is to freeze in place or alter how it perceives the world around it.  Simple and normal development is arrested and while the body may continue to grow as the child gets older, the brain may still be frozen in a time of hidden secrets and horrors. 

Math Is Hard - Part 2

Math is Hard
Part 2

This is part 2 of a three part series.  Please read PART 1 first.

Once my parents found out, a school meeting was called and everyone was angry with each other.  I don't recall too much of it but the thing I do remember is in the middle of the semester, being told that I would be put back in Kindergarten so hopefully I could catch up.  It was a sinking feeling and one that I had no choice because the adults knew what was best.  No one really cared about the reason for my struggle with math.  I'm sure they all thought they were doing the right thing, but in all honesty, it did very little to address the problem.

So, when Christmas break was over, I went back to school.  This time though, instead of being with my friends and classmates, I was put back into Kindergarten with other children I barely knew.  I felt out of place.  I didn't really fit in and no one seemed to really care.  After all, you were just supposed to suck it up and move on in life.  I don't remember having many friends that year and it wasn't long before we moved to a new school in the fall.

Math Is Hard - Part 1

Math Is Hard
Part 1

For many people, the subject of math like algebra, trigonometry, and calculus, can be a nightmare.  It is too hard for some people and I happen to be in that category.  While I can do basic math and my mind can be very logical, these other subjects are like big monsters that haunt me.  I'm at a place in life where I can get by without knowing the advanced math, but I often wish it was not a mental block within my head.

You see, back in high school, I only took the required math classes I had to take.  When I went to college, I took the bare minimum to get by and graduate.  Math was hard for me.  High school algebra was to me, as difficult as trying to land a man on the moon.

Fortunately in high school, I had a wonderful math teacher who believed in me, more than I believed in myself.  Algebra was a daily struggle and even though parts of it made sense, my brain could not complete the string of thoughts in my brain to complete the calculations.  No matter how hard I tried and no matter what I did, it was hard.  I worked my tail off in every way possible to pass the class and learn the material.

Update To Unlimited Abundance Blog Post On May 13

Update on May 13, 2011 Post
Unlimited Abundance

I find it quite amazing that a blog post written several months ago in May 2011, would be still generating the traffic and responses that it is.  When I wrote this blog post, I was just sharing my thoughts and concerns with this particular system.

Read May 13, 2011 - Unlimited Abundance


My frustration was getting sales propaganda shoved in my face for $999 before I even knew what the program was about.  The only thing that these people got correct back in May was the selling part, not the actual “information” part.  This is a major part of what the blog post was about at this time.  After not getting anywhere, I finally just unsubscribed from this place and went on with my life.  After all, I didn’t know who this place was that was sending me the sales propaganda. 


So now, let’s fast forward several months.  The company and this person had another webinar.  Again, the technical planning was atrocious, but they did make the webinar available to everyone who could not get in to see it.  Ok, case closed on that issue because I finally got to see the webinar. 

Top Book Reviews, Jan 2012 - Meditations To Heal Your LIfe

Meditations To
Heal Your Life
Louise Hay

I really love this book by Louise Hay.  Meditations To Heal Your Life has been around for sometime and my copy dates back to 2002.  Many people I know have enjoyed the book as one that really speaks to them.  It is filled with positive messages of light and hope.

One thing that I love to do with this book is whenever I feel prompted or led to pick it up, I randomly select a page in the book.  Often I just allow the book to open to whatever page it does and then I read the contents of the page.  Usually, the page I read is something that I need to see at that particular point in time.  I'm always amazed at how this happens.

I'm sure that there are people that think it is just coincidence and probability for the right page to open at the right time.  I guess if one wanted to, that belief could be valid.  However, when you see this happen over and over again among many different people, than I would begin to rule out  that it was the luck of the straw.  Whatever someone chooses to believe reading this review is completely up to them, but I know deep within me the results that I get.

Truth In The Body

One of the best ways to discover the truth in life is by listening to your gut, body, intuition and your mind.  If you truly have come to know these parts of yourself, then the messages they send will be clear enough to get your attention.  All too often, humans are so induced by the mesmerizing parts of life, that they fail to see what is standing directly in front of them.  Listening to your body is not a mental exercise, it is felt in the body.

How do we listen to our gut?
One of the best ways is to give silence to our life during the day.  We constantly run here and to, not giving one ounce of concern for our physical, mental or emotional body.  We think that as long as we are running at top speed, that we are effectively living our life.  Just as a muscle needs renewed energy to continue functioning, so do we need renewed energy to perform at peak efficiency.  By not stopping in life, we take away the ability to renew our mind and body.  The stress of our days and the demands upon our time make withdrawals from our life until we realize through the pains or health conditions we face, that it is time to start taking care of our body.

Boundaries For A Helping Heart

One of the things that I have struggled within life is that my heart is often larger than the boundaries I have in place.  As a result, I've often been worked over, abused, used and put in situations where it was just dog gone uncomfortable.  I'm afflicted with the syndrome of lacking boundaries for a helping heart.

You see, I never learned good boundaries when I was growing up and it is something I've spent much time trying to teach myself.  Any boundaries I had when I was a child was crossed over and over again without the slightest thought of respect towards me by people who were close.  This has carried over into my adult life and made some situations pretty difficult.

People flash their pretty eyes at me and share what they want to do, and poof - the next thing I know, I'm hooked into tasks that I should have just said NO, in the first place.  Sometimes I get the phrases that "oh you are so smart and know how to do this" or "I just have no idea what to do".  Sometimes, being intelligent or understanding many things about different subjects feels like a curse.  Yet, I do not want to be selfish, but saying NO, or setting up a boundary with parameters is scary.  To be honest, when someone strokes my ego, it makes it harder to say no!

What Would Our World Be Like

What Would Our
World Be Like

As we start 2012, it seems to be a normal time to reflect upon this past year and to begin looking ahead to the next year.  Although you never need to wait until the end of the year to do this, it seems to be an appropriate time. 

The question I pose to everyone as I share some of my own thoughts is "what would the world be like if" and then you can fill in the blank.  My aim is for deep perception into our role in our day and how we impact the world immediately around our existence.

So what would the world be like if we all chose to stop each day and find time to relax and travel deep within the mind body connection?  What are the possibilities that could exist and how would this affect our overall physical body, our health, the peacefulness and productiveness of the day in following our life's purpose?  Just stop for a moment and ponder what the potential outcomes could be and see how this impacts your own life.

What Will I Take Into 2012

What Will I Take Into
2012?

Today I was reading a Garfield comic strip in which Garfield was telling Liz all his resolutions for the new year 2012.  Of course after she walked away, he stated that he needed to curb his excessive lying.  As I read that, I realized just how true Garfield's statement was to most people.

Most everyone it seems is worried about setting resolutions that seem great when they do it, but they never fully follow through.  There are the resolutions of exercising and losing weight which probably top the list.  There are the resolutions of spending more time with family, friends and enjoying life.  I'm sure there are plenty of resolutions to earn more money, pay off credit card debt and take a vacation.

Yet, after the first few days, weeks or maybe months, everyone seems to forget all about these things.  The importance of them take a back seat to life while the media makes sensational stories about not following through on our New Year's Resolutions.  We feel bad and we promise mid way through the year to reorient our self with the resolutions we made on New Years.  By the end of the year, we have all but forgotten what these resolutions were.