Love to Learn

When my son graduated from the U.S.C. School of Music, Vince Mendoza, a famous composer and arranger, gave the commencement address.  He advised young musicians entering the music industry to always ‘practice and play positive.’ Have positive energy while creating music, he said, and if you are making music with gusto and love, you will not only translate the art form into something that uplifts humanity, but you’ll make the loudest mistakes. The best musicians are unafraid to put themselves out there 100%.  Finally, he reminded the graduates to have faith. Remember, the music is always in you. Always.

He also spoke about how important is to have an attitude of continuous learning in life. Without this humble attitude, a person can never be empowered to serve another human being, nor personally or spiritually grow. We teach our children the importance of a good education, going to school and the value of homework.  But learning is more than getting prepared for a better job or tomorrow – it’s a positive attitude about how we should view life.

Commit to Constant Improvement and Growth

We can showcase our capabilities simply for the joy of doing it, but also we must make a commitment to constant improvement. Life is a process and we can never really expect to reach perfection. Often, it is not the material that provides a personal growth lesson, but the context surrounding the learning.  Volunteer for an organization that teaches impoverished inner city kids to read. At the end of the day, you’ll find you learned far more from them then they did from you. Life is a big, reciprocal exercise and if we don’t put ourselves out there to learn something new, we will miss an opportunity to grow.

The possibility of what you can do keeps life interesting! To live a balanced life and feel empowered we must encourage others to learn, but also show we are not above making positive change. As adults, it is important to take a class. Test your limits to learn anything new. Develop your innate gifts that can help someone.  By doing so, you are helping to serve and uplift humanity.

Together, let’s:

1. Show people that learning is about elevating the human condition. Learning, and improving your mind and heart, is about how we can better release our gifts to the world and serve humanity. Show your children you desire to challenge yourself in order to serve another human being. Teach them that learning and education is not all about making more money.
2. Fill each day with enthusiasm, positivity, and hope for a better world.  All positive energy is contagious when you are committed to living life fully. Learning is a result of that process. You will experience life differently when your attitude is positive and hopeful. Teach others to see their challenges as opportunities, not obstacles.
3. Be humble to the process. Whether you want to learn to dance, get a high school diploma, or complete your Ph.D., feel empowered by the process. Don’t be critical of yourself and feel you cannot learn fast enough than someone else.  You will always have your own rendition of every song, so sing with gusto and happiness. If you do, no matter what you learn, you will face your responsibilities with a sense of renewed joy and confidence.

We can trust life to show us what we need to learn but we must put effort into the process! Let’s affirm:

“When I look in the mirror, I see a person whose potential knows no boundaries. I am an example of a miracle and a work in progress. I engage in life robustly and wholeheartedly, without fear, knowing I contribute to the greater good of humanity.  My contribution is important because no one has my unique essence.  I love life, and love to learn.”

Become a life-long learner. Your desire to learn uplifts humanity and is vitally important to experiencing an empowered and balanced life.

Every Blessing,

© Charlene M Proctor and The Goddess Network, Inc. All Rights Reserved. For more affirmations, read The Women’s Book of Empowerment:323 Affirmations that Change Everyday Problems into Moments of Potential. Click Here to buy.

Boredom

Each day is an opportunity to stretch the limits of my mind and give more to humanity. The unlimited universe now gives me room to grow in unlimited fashion. It is time for me to step outside my space and expand my world. I give to the world with excitement and love I have extra energy to find ways to channel my capabilities, through either this situation or another, and I am grateful that I have time to take mental, emotional, and spiritual inventory in order to improve myself and my attitude. New opportunities are coming to me now!

Life Passing Me By

I live in the present moment; therefore it is impossible to watch the past or the future. I am fully engaged in a present life experience. I am the center of experience; I watch nothing and experience everything. My presence on earth contributes to a beautiful mosaic of everyone. I leap into life with vigor and say yes to all life has to offer!

Connect with your food

Autumn is the season when we can fully appreciate our connection to what sustains us—our home and hearth, families and friends … and our food. Having a balanced outlook on life means you know you are part of the whole. It’s understanding the energetic exchange between you and the universe, your symbiotic relationship with the whole. The fall harvest is a great time to recognize that growing your own food and eating it is part of your interdependency with your spiritual source and with the planet.

We are interdependent with nature

Our culture and society of convenience have divorced us from our natural connection with the earth. Capitalism has changed how we nourish ourselves. Our kids no longer see their connection with nature. They think our food magically arrives at the grocery store in microwave-safe baggies. We adults have also lost our reverence for nature. I remember the time my son wanted me to buy him something. “Sweetie, we can’t today,” I told him. “I don’t have enough money for that.” What did he say to me? “Don’t worry, Mom. Let’s just go to the ATM and get more out of the money machine! Don’t you know that’s where money comes from?” It’s up to us to teach our children that we and nature are one, big organic equation.

We depend upon nature, upon our Mother Earth, for our sustenance. Mother Earth’s bounty is awesome. We need to remember to express regular appreciation for it. It begins with connecting with our food—how it’s grown, what the soil smells like, how good it feels to harvest the miracle of nature that is one vegetable, any vegetable. When we sit down to bless our food and eat, we experience a more compete state of gratitude. We give thanks for our beautiful opportunity to be alive as a human being.

When we see ourselves as part of this larger equation, we become empowered and awaken spiritually, too. I have a friend who is now a monk living in India. When he was going through his awakening process, he sat down to dinner one night and began to laugh hysterically. “What’s going on?” we asked him. He was practically rolling on the floor. “What’s so funny?” He said he’d just realized that by eating his food, he was eating himself. He’d just realized that we are all one, that the universe is one and we are all part of this magnificence we call oneness. For him, it was a moment of happy spiritual awareness where he realized that he was a part of all oneness.

In everyday life, how can we better understand our oneness and appreciate our connectivity with all life?

1. Get out in your garden more. Spend less time (and money) in the store. Get close to nature. Smell the soil, dig in it. Show your kids how to plant seeds and watch them grow. Take time to talk to your kids about the miracle of nature. Everything is eating something else in this magnificent cycle of life! There’s a whole world going on out there that we don’t fully appreciate, so let’s learn to be part of it! When harvest time comes around, pick fruits or vegetables together and eat them for dinner.
2. Meditate outside regularly. Get quiet. Look up at the sky. Listen to the sounds of nature. Project a vibration of gratitude for the miracles of nature and for the planet. Don’t be embarrassed to be a tree hugger.
3. Bless your food. The family dynamic of connecting around the food is an important ritual. It’s an acknowledgement of sharing the things that sustain us physically. It’s acknowledging what we have in common with everyone on the planet. Blessing our food is an expression of thankfulness to the earth.

When we think of these simple acts in life, we are learning to live consciously in the present.

So, today let’s affirm (and let’s do this outside):

“At this moment, I see Spirit as my Source, my food, and I recognize this in myself, in every individual, and in everything on this beautiful planet. From this day forward, I choose to see the energy of goodness in everyone and their contribution, no matter how small or large. I am supported in the dynamic equation of life.” Watch the corresponding video on The Balancing Act here.

Every Blessing,

© Charlene M Proctor and The Goddess Network, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
For other affirmations about positive body image and weight loss, and Charlene’s Lose Weight, Feel Great, Meditate Diet, please click here to download. For more affirmations, read The Women’s Book of Empowerment: 323 Affirmations that Change Everyday Problems into Moments of Potential. Click Here to buy.

Planning an Ascent: How Do We Create Positive Change?

Planning an Ascent: How Do We Create Positive Change?

Human relationships are enhanced by setting a new mental equivalent and practicing mindfulness. We can do this in at work, at home, or any place we wish to ‘rise higher.’ Changing your thought patterns will elevate your energy and attract new and better conditions in your life. But when it comes to making positive change, some of us need advice on how to adjust our thinking to make it happen. How do we attract new and powerful opportunities in our lives?

Have Clarity and Passion

To consciously co-create an empowered life, we must have clarity and passion for what we want. It is the secret to demonstrating any idea or thought pattern as our real-world reality. Emmet Fox, a New Thought minister in the 1940’s, encouraged people to change a perceived reality by making positive mental statements. He believed the foundation for all productive expression is positive thinking.

Emmet used the phrase “mental equivalent”. To create the equivalent of every experience or object in the physical world we much change the thought to which it corresponds.  We must have a conscious awareness of our daily thought processes to make change in our external environment.  You receive that for which you provide the mental equivalent for.  It could be anything – abundance, a loving relationship, or excellent health. Energy attracts similar energy and conditions. Establishing connectivity to Spirit or your spiritual source, he said, was your unlimited supply. This concept was also taught by many mystics – including Rumi, Jesus, the Buddha, Gandhi, and many others across all wisdom traditions.

The reason, Emmet used to say, that we do not have world peace is that humanity still has a mental equivalent for strife and scarcity. Until we unseat our need to have war and poverty, we will remain a world community with war and poverty.  This mental equivalent, he said, begins within each individual. It is our inner reality, where our potential resides.

How do we build a new mental equivalent to attract success and positive change in our lives?

1. Use Clarity and Passion when visualizing a new goal.  Clarity is to know what you want precisely. Passion is the positive energy and feeling you project outward about what you want. These are the key ingredients to create anything new and wonderful! If you only think about a new job once in awhile and don’t have any consistency or passion for what you visualize, you won’t get any results. It must be consistent to change your consciousness, a steady broadcast.
2. Be aware of negative thinking and seek to turn it around.  Worry, self doubt, and the lack of feeling connected to your Source can be unseated with sustained awareness and discipline of what enters your mind. You have a choice about what to think every day.  Use it to your advantage.
3. Use auspicious language.  When I was in India, the monks emphasized the use of positive language.  They said swearing, slamming people, criticizing others, or nasty speech carries a negative energy charge that is released and sets more negativity into motion. Energetically pull yourself up by using positive, loving language.
4. Change your ideas and attitudes about work activities.  Work is about offering a larger community your special talents.  You download your gift from the matrix. Nobody can do it like you because you are a unique rendition of God, an individualized spark of divine creation.  When you offer this to your family, organization, neighborhood, or community in a positive exchange, you light everyone up by raising the group’s vibration. That is what work is, so stop complaining about it. Rejoice in your ability to work. With this attitude, you will naturally attract more opportunity because light and positivity attracts opportunity and love.

Success in any corner of our lives is always articulated and precise. With a little discipline, self love, and mindfulness we can easily broadcast our intentions to the universe. So, let’s begin our day with an affirmation that will help us be mindful of the clarity and passion we need to make positive change. Let’s affirm:

“Today I begin a new, higher level of self-awareness of what I am attracting in my life. When I desire a better career, I hold thoughts of working in a loving environment with people who recognize my creativity. My new position feels like a rich, life experience because it is filled with love and joy. I am mindful of my Source, which is unlimited. I am filled with potential.” Watch the corresponding video on The Balancing Act here.

Every Blessing,

Find more articles on positive thinking on my website. For more affirmations, read The Women’s Book of Empowerment:323 Affirmations that Change Everyday Problems into Moments of Potential. Click Here to buy.

Being at Ease with Yourself

We are often so busy managing our busy lives that we forget to fill up our own tank of energy. How do we refill ourselves? Going to the spa or a yoga class helps us nurture ourselves, but learning to be at ease with who we are is more important to recharging our batteries. How can we learn to be at ease with ourselves? What does it mean to be an authentic person?

When we don’t know ourselves, we can’t have a healthy and balanced outlook on life. Self-power grows through self-appreciation and self-nurturing. Being at ease is accepting yourself. People, who know who they are, express self-love calmly and confidently. They’re extremely magnetic. Ease is everyone’s natural, healthy state. People who are not at ease with themselves must force themselves to be compassionate; they exhibit impatience and are unable to be fully present when you are with them.

You are a butterfly

Like butterflies, we are all in various stages of personal growth and spiritual metamorphosis. In the butterfly’s larval stage, it’s a caterpillar. The caterpillar has to shed its skin several times in order to accommodate its expanding body. It knows exactly where it is while it’s preparing itself and getting stronger for its final transformation. It goes into its chrysalis, into solitude, into the dark, and completely reassembles its cells to make itself into a new butterfly. Shortly before the butterfly emerges from its chrysalis, the chrysalis becomes transparent and reveals the butterfly inside. To prepare for takeoff, the insect’s swollen body pumps fluids into its tiny, shriveled-up wings. This fluid, which comes from a reservoir contained in its abdomen, sustains the butterfly and allows it to expand its wings and fly.

If we were butterflies, what would happen to us if our chrysalis cracked open early and we had to emerge before we were ready? Could we eat what was in front of us? Would we fly any faster, any longer, any higher? I like to think that we develop strength and spiritual vitality when we crawl out on our own. Without this work, we would die. We really can’t choose not to emerge. That’s the natural way of things. Like the butterfly, we must pay attention to what is presented to us and integrate the inner world of awareness and the outer world of experience so these worlds inform one another. This is how we develop authenticity.

The Sage and the Mouse

There is a wonderful story in my new book The Oneness Gospel. It’s a favorite of the monks of India.

Long ago, there once was a kindly wise man who adopted a mouse. The Sage, who was also a great wizard, turned this mouse into a girl and lovingly raised her as his daughter. Under his tutelage and kindness, she grew to be serene and beautiful. She became his greatest joy. He gave her an education, and she received all the benefits of a life of refinement and abundance. When she came of age, and it was time for her to marry, the Sage, knowing she deserved the best, looked for a suitable husband for her. He presented the overseers of the cosmos to her: the kings of the sun, the moon, and the stars, all great and noble beings. They were the most excellent and honorable marriage candidates in the universe.

The girl who had been a mouse thoughtfully considered the life that each king could offer to her. She contemplated on the lofty power each one represented. Then, one by one, she rejected them, turning down their offers of marriage. Still only desiring her happiness, the Sage searched to the ends of the earth to find more noble beings who represented the different aspects of nature: the lords of the wind and the mountain, the ruler of the ocean. These he presented to her in a grand ceremony, hoping to honor and please her. Again, she kindly refused each one.

One day, the Rat Guardian, who was not invited to be presented with the other noble beings, arrived at the palace to ask for the girl’s hand. His greatest achievement was to tunnel through the hard structure of the mountains. The Sage’s daughter instantly fell in love with the Rat Guardian, whom she thought was the finest candidate of all. When the Sage saw this, he was perplexed. How could this be? Then he remembered that his daughter deserved to know her true self and know happiness. With this realization, he instantly turned her back into a mouse so she could marry the Rat Guardian and live with authenticity and happiness.

What’s the moral here? You can never deny who you really are. If you try to be something you’re not, there can be no joy, no feeling of completion. To be at ease, you must be who you are. If you can only be a mouse, then be that mouse and feel satisfied with the choices you make in life that arise from that authentic part of you. Being yourself will be your greatest joy. When you know your own truth and relax into who you are, life will always support you. Watch the corresponding video on The Balancing Act here.

Every Blessing,

© Charlene M Proctor and The Goddess Network, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
For more affirmations, read The Women’s Book of Empowerment: 323 Affirmations that Change Everyday Problems into Moments of Potential. Click Here to buy.

Today’s Tips

What facilitates a state of “being at ease?”

1. Live from the inside out.  Let’s learn to develop calmness and a feeling of inner expansion. Calmness invites focus, self awareness, energy, intelligence into our experience.  Bliss is not going to knock on our front door and asked to be let in!  Calmness is developed with diligence – we must learn to quiet the mind in meditation or contemplation.
2. Practice inner awareness.  We must get to know our own behavior. When we learn to live as an observer, we are aware of our own behaviors and how it affects others.
3. Be fully present with people and circumstances. Quit texting when you are talking to someone and give them your full attention. Slow your mind down and focus on the task or situation at hand.
4. Value honesty and seek to be authentic. Part of being at ease and living a balanced life is to be an authentic individual.  You can never, ever give someone something you do not already own yourself, such as love. To try to do so is inauthentic. So, as you get to know yourself, learn to be honest with your feelings, recognize your unique perspective on life. As long as it’s not hurting anyone, celebrate you and your gifts to the world in your work, personal life, and activities.

Today’s Affirmation

Developing ease and positivity also comes from affirming the best in you. So let’s begin our day with an affirmation that recognizes our desire to get in touch with ourselves. We cannot lead a balanced life until we love and appreciate who we are. Let’s affirm:

“Today I change the way I internalize life. I inhale living spirit with every breath I take and focus my energy to help others on their soul journey.  I love my entire self and trust life. I am comfortable knowing that I am loved for who I am because I am a unique expression of creation. I am in love with my true and authentic self.”

© Charlene M Proctor and The Goddess Network, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
For more affirmations, read The Women’s Book of Empowerment: 323 Affirmations that Change Everyday Problems into Moments of Potential. Click Here to buy.

A Time to Dance

Lately, my heart has been uplifted by the joy and hope that is so strongly felt by everyone during the holiday season. Part of the Christmas celebration is to renew our faith in the light that naturally shines through each one of us. The deeper message of the season is that we can experience a rebirth from our physical or matter-bound existence and embrace the limitless nature of our own soul. It is the time of year that we recognize each of us carries an individual spark of divine creation. To understand and practice our unlimited potential to love brings us closer to the Creator’s idea of us.

When I studied with the Oneness University spiritual guides in India and Fiji, I learned that once we clearly tune into God, we are open channels for grace. We become huge pipelines for unlimited and unconditional love and are walking, living, physical manifestations of this energy. We are able to uplift others by expressing grace with our natural gifts. As long as we have an open heart, our presence becomes a blessing and our participation in any activity uplifts others into a higher stream of conscious awareness.
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Get to Know God through Gratitude

Nobody can achieve their greatest aspirations and sustain them for any length of time without being well-aligned with God’s intelligence. But if we directly and consciously align with divine intelligence by first recognizing it within ourselves, we can succeed. We live within a responsive universe whose nature is to keep us evolving, moving, and flowing through all forms of life. It’s a living, responding organism heeding our beliefs and requests, so when we are in a conscious relationship with the Divine, our alignment produces faster responses, especially when we express gratitude for all we receive.

Expressing gratitude for coincidences is one way we can align with God’s intelligence. Gratitude is a beautiful recognition of the love and support that continuously flows to you, and expressing your gratitude is the beginning of establishing a more conscious relationship with God. Be aware of coincidences; they are moments of grace flying in to lend you a hand. When you have a conscious relationship with the All and ask for help when you need it, you can actually, consciously make coincidences happen. You can invoke a Divine happening or a beautiful event that will serve your purposes. When you are conscious of the Divine Presence all the time, you can learn to invoke it anytime.

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