I have always been fond of the idea of a yoga practice. And at various times in my life I have practiced postures on my own or taken a class for a short period of time.

However, I have had great difficulty doing yoga due to my lack of endurance and physical pain. I tried a class a few years ago but it got more difficult each week so I dropped out. And at that time I was not experiencing enough benefits to continue. I knew it was a healthy thing to do but I just couldn’t stick with it.

It has been frustrating to say the least and I had hoped that the day would eventually come when I could begin a practice.

Well that time has come. As I have shifted my energy during this journey I have been feeling better physically. I then had the good fortune of a friend offering to work with me individually to help get me started.

This was a true blessing. I had my first session on Monday and my instructor was surprised and impress with my alignment and flexibility. My friend is a skilled teacher and I felt safe and encouraged. And even though it was difficult and taxing….it was so in a good way. It is clear that I need to build my strength and endurance. But I was not overwhelmed and did not feel pressured to do anything I wasn’t ready to do. It was a great experience and I felt better after the session. In fact I went for a long walk right afterwards! That was unexpected surprise to feel that good and that energized!

I was delighted that the session went so well and that I felt inspired to continue. What I know is the importance of a safe space for me. I am very sensitive and if I don’t feel safe and supported exactly where I am, my fear builds and that increases my stress.  And that stress translates into increased physical symptoms. But once I feel safe, I am comfortable enough to push through a bit and move to the next level.

With my friend I found a safe space where I can learn and practice and build my core strength. For this I am grateful.

Sometimes we need a little hand-holding and individual attention to get over those initial hurdles that hold us back. Even when we know that, it can be difficult to ask for what we need or to find the right person to work with. I now have what I need to move through my fear and resistance. This is such a blessing.

I have practiced yoga twice on my own since I had my individual session 5 days ago. I pray that I can keep the momentum and embed this as a wonderful habit into my life.

I’m sure I will feel resistance again and might even try to convince myself that I can’t do it or don’t need to.

If that happens When that happens I hope I will remember to read this post so that I can sidestep whatever excuses my mind has conjured and will continue my practice.

Last spring when I cleaned up my financial act and started managing my personal and business accounting more consistently, an interesting thing happened. My money began to multiply. I was also consciously working on shifting some negative beliefs about money. In fact that’s partly why I began to pay more attention to my bookkeeping.

It was a chicken and egg kind of thing. Money started to flow more easily into my life and I believe that was because I was consciously creating more positive beliefs about it. And as part of that process I realized that I had to be more aware of how much money was coming in and going out.

As I was more respectful of my money, I was more respectful of myself in general. How money shows up or doesn’t show up is often clearly related to self-appreciation and self-respect levels. No surprise, huh?

Once again the upward or downward spiral impacts so many areas of life. And once again the good news is that things snowball in a positive direction just as easily as in a negative direction.

Sometime late last summer I started to slack off with my bookkeeping. I was very busy with some new projects and let go of my new habit of recording my revenue and expenses on a consistent basis.

What happened? Yep, you guessed it! My revenue decreased and became more inconsistent. Now, I could come up with many reasons why that happened and they would all be true, but I really don’t think it was coincidental that my income dropped right after my attention to my finances started to slip.

So guess what else?

Yes….as part of my healing process that I am documenting in this blog, I am getting back in the habit of paying attention to my finances. Funny how it was one of that last elements for me to remember to address.

And today I was thinking about needing to be more respectful of my money and how that was a form of self respect.

It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that people who have a deficiency of self-love could also have a deficiency of money. The big question is, what is the correlation between net-worth and self-worth?

If we don’t feel worthy, it makes sense that we wouldn’t let ourselves have money, doesn’t it? I’ve heard many self-development teachers refer to this phenomenon.  It often shows up as self-sabotage. In other words, when someone who feels unworthy receives money, they either spend it immediately or they suddenly find themselves in a situation that creates an expense that takes that money away from them.

I have experienced this in my own life at various times. It’s fascinating to watch.

As part of this commitment to my healing I know it’s important to work on all areas of my life. Therefore, I have been doing a little tune-up on money beliefs in the last few weeks. Today I gave more attention to my financial records.

I am respecting myself and my money!
Now, I will prepare myself to receive more and more of it!

How about you?
How can you be more respectful and conscious of your financial wellbeing?

I was sitting in a business meeting this morning. It’s a regular meeting that I attend. This week I noticed a dramatic difference in the way I felt while I was there.

I felt so much better physically and emotionally in that meeting today than I have in many months. What I noticed most today, was that I felt happy, confident, uplifted, with a very positive outlook.

My brain has an uncanny way of convincing me that I have felt this way all along – whether I am in a negative or positive mindset. I guess it’s a coping mechanism, but it’s often hard to remember feeling good when I’m in the midst of feeling bad, or feeling bad when I’m in the midst of feeling so good.

But some part of me is hip to this phenomenon, so as long as I can step back and witness, I can catch my ego mind in action and then hold a broader perspective.

Because of that phenomenon I almost can’t remember that just a few weeks ago I was in a very difficult space physically and emotionally. But the truth is that I was. This blog has documented it!

And the reality is that I have been writing about self-acceptance and forgiveness for the last few weeks. And I have been practicing self appreciation affirmations and exercises.

The good news is that even though I was concerned that I was writing a lot more then I was practicing, I am experiencing results. The most significant change is not so much in how I feel physically, but how I feel emotionally, intellectually and spiritually.

Another dramatic shift which is a demonstration of the law of attraction is that since energetically I have slipped into a more positive space, I am manifesting more success in my business. I’m closing on pending contracts and attracting new clients. Consequently, I have shifted from a downward spiral back to an upward spiral. I am experiencing the positive snowballing effect of the law of attraction and have left behind the negative snowballing effect. Thank you, God.

Yes, this is why I often say I don’t “believe” in the law of attraction but rather, that I “experience” the law of attraction. The law of attraction doesn’t care if I focus on the positive aspects of my life and my business, or the negative aspects of my life and my business. It just brings me more of what I focus on. It merely matches my vibrational level and brings into my experience things that are on the same wavelength – that might be people, clients, types of interactions, relationship dynamics, or specific kinds of experiences.

This is why it’s so critical to recognize and shift out of a negative experience. Because it can so quickly become a downward spiral that takes on a life of its own. And the longer we stay in that negative space the more difficult it can be to make the shift to focusing on positive aspects of our life. In making the shift we begin to focus on what we want rather than what we perceive as our current reality.

Sure the negative stuff is all “real,” but the thing is that if we dwell on or complain about the difficult stuff, we tend to get more of it. And I have experienced over and over again that when I am able to do an about-face and think about what I am grateful for I inevitably feel better and break the negative spin cycle. And if I find it hard to focus on or even find anything positive in my experience, I can create the positive myself by consciously practicing affirmations and intentionally reorienting myself toward uplifting aspects of life.

While the shift I am experiencing is mostly in my mood and outlook, I feel a little better physically. It’s interesting how my perception of my physical symptoms is very different when I feel happy and confident. It is somehow easier to handle the physical discomfort and I don’t tend to dwell on it or complain about it.

And I do believe that if I can sustain my positive experiences, and continue to practice self-acceptance and forgiveness on a daily basis, that I will also begin to experience more physical comfort.

We shall see!

You have people in your life who love you. Yes, you do.

Some of us have a larger tribe of loving peeps around us than others, but we all have people who care about us.

How good are you at knowing this and accepting it?

Do you recognize the kind gestures, the positive comments or the looks of admiration and appreciation? Or do they fly over your head unnoticed? Do you dismiss or trivialize the caring behavior of others? Is it difficult for you to believe that you are cared for deeply?

Can you internalize the love that others feel for you? Can you feel it and take it into your heart? Do you truly believe it? Do you understand that they feel for you what you feel for them?

Truly recognizing, accepting and internalizing another’s love can be a most profound experience.

It might not come easy for you. It takes practice to tone and strengthen your self-appreciation muscles.

Some people literally have no “receptor sites” for receiving love. There is no place for love to land. When it comes at them it does not stick. Their brain is not wired to accept the love that is extended to them.

Why? Because they have come to believe that they are not lovable, or don’t deserve love. When you deeply hold the conviction that you are not worthy of love, or that you are flawed in some way that makes you unlovable, no matter how much love comes your way, you will not, CAN NOT see it. You don’t have the emotional capacity to experience it.

Do you know people like that? That no matter how much you tell them you love them, they just can’t take it in? You know what I am talking about, don’t you? It is often clear as day to the observer. They are unable to receive the loving kindness you express. You can feel their pain and see that underneath their “modesty” is a wounded soul and a damaged self-image.

I recently had an experience where I recognized the love that was present for me from an unexpected source. I had an epiphany when I was able to see it so clearly for what it was, and then allow myself to internalize it and then hold it in my heart as an expression of loving kindness toward myself.

This is truly what it’s all about. When we can fully accept the gift of the love we receive from others, we can embrace our beloved self. And once we identify the inner self as a loved one, we expand our capacity to love others.

The continuous loop nourishes itself and love abounds. There is no longer the distinction or the duality of “the loved” and “the lover,” for they are one and the same. And there is simply……love.

I am two weeks into this project and I am noticing that I am spending a lot of time writing about the self-acceptance practices but that I am actually avoiding  the practicing of them. Surprise. Surprise.

I am doing some of them but not in the committed way that I had intended. I am not carving out specific time for this. Instead I am working on building out this site and publishing  what is here so far. While that is important it is not the substance of this project.

I know these practices work and I love the “idea” of them. But establishing the discipline of doing them often eludes me. This is a long standing pattern for me. I have been an early adopter of new concepts, philosophies, healing modalities, etc. Because of this I fool myself into thinking I’ve got it down – whatever it is that I dabbled in or learned about.

But the truth is that I love learning new things and while I initially delve deep, I too quickly think I’ve “been there – done that.”

I started doing Zen meditation in high school. And for many years I had this sense of myself as someone who was “into” meditation. The only problem was that my actual meditation practice had gone by the wayside. A minor detail.

So of course this pattern is showing up here. Busted! Can’t get away with that anymore….

The good news is that I recognized it early on. The bad news is that I now have to address it. Just kidding. The bad news is for my ego only….my ego that would rather be a know-it-all but not have to do any work!

Anyone relate to this?

Do you have trouble staying with your self-care practices?

Somehow, through what I call “cosmic synchronicity” (or perhaps intuition!) I came across neuropsychiatrist, Dr. Mona Lisa Schultz on Facebook a few days ago.

Dr. Schultz is quite a gifted medical intuitive. I had a telephone reading with her 11 years ago and all I can say is that it was astounding. With nothing more than my name and birthday, she completely zeroed in on the emotional issues and patterns that were playing out in my life at the time.

At first I denied what she was telling me, insisting that I had worked through that issue. But in a matter of minutes she pointed out a very specific dysfunctional dynamic in my life that I could not pretend wasn’t happening. It blew my mind how quickly and accurately she hit the nail on the head.

The best to describe it is that the truths I uncovered and the insights I gained were the equivalent of 10 years of psychotherapy. Really.

The information I got from her assessment was so powerful that the moment I got off the phone I made plans to dramatically change my life. I knew these changes were necessary for my healing. And I was right. I moved forward in a new direction and I can’t imagine where I would be now without that “intervention.”

So, after finding her on Facebook a few days ago, I went to her website and watched her intro video. And lo and behold she is telling the story of her personal journey and the impact that Louise Hay had on her healing! Years ago, Dr. Schultz had an unusual physical condition that was hindering her ability to complete medical school. After exhausting the traditional medical route she came across the book You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay.

Dr. Schultz reports in the video that after using the techniques and affirmations that Louise Hay recommends, she experienced a level of healing that was previously unattainable and was able to finish medical school.

What did she do? She practiced self-love affirmations. She described it as a “workout” and how she did “reps” of “I love myself exactly as I am” like she would do physical reps in the gym.

Dr. Schultz also states in the video that what Louise Hay had discovered many years ago through observation, has now been proven by modern medicine – primarily brain research. She shares that when she worked with patients as a psychiatrist, she used Louise’s techniques of self-love. And she states that no matter what the diagnosis, she used the same approach – she taught her clients to love and accept themselves.

She states that she learned the biochemistry of how someone can rewire their thought patterns from “I get one health problem after another” to “I love myself just the way I am. I am completely loveable.” She mentions that Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy is actually based on the same concepts and that we can rewire the patterns in our brains with that therapy or the use of self-acceptance affirmation practices which actually changes the biochemistry of the brain, and can now be measured with brain scans. She also mentions that these practices can be as effective or more effective than Prozac, Zoloft and other anti-depressants.

Well, if I wasn’t convinced before, I am now.

What comes to mind right now is the amount of resistance there is to doing this kind of work. I feel the resistance in myself. I want to intellectualize about it but I have a hard time committing to the actual practice. And I believe in its effectiveness! As I continue on this journey I will be writing about my experience of resistance and my observations of it in others. I started this blog in order to get myself to commit to this path. I am writing a lot but now it’s time to do the practices!

What about you? Have you tried these kinds of affirmations or other self-acceptance practices? What’s your experience? Please chime in by leaving a comment below.

Here’s the video for you to watch. The segment I am referring to is the first 6 minutes. After that she goes into more about intuition.

Here are some of Dr. Schultz’s books:

“All roads lead back to spirituality and intuition, no matter how brainy you want to become.” -Mona Lisa Schultz

When I listen to certain music I can’t help but feel uplifted. Kirtan devotional music is so wonderful and at times transports me into a blissful state. The melodies are hauntingly beautiful and the Sanskrit chants actually impact us on a soul level.

This is one of my favorites:

The album that features this song is entitled Grace. It is magical. Out of 42 reviews on Amazon, 41 gave it 5 stars and one gave it 4 stars.

Here it is with others that may bring you inspiration and light.

Today, not long after midnight my friend Michele passed from this earth. We were not extremely close but I had known her for about 10 years and we had a sweet loving connection. We were part of the same spiritual community and were both members of the River Women Art Collective a few years ago.

She had the “C” disease. It started in one part of her body and then spread. She had planned and held a memorial service for herself in March of 2011, not sure if she’d be able to attend or not. She was there with bells on and managed to rally after that for 10 more months of life, mostly of a half-way decent quality.

Today my heart is heavy as I grieve the loss of her. And with this loss I continue to reflect on the mystery of physical conditions and dis-ease.

Michele had a difficult life and yet managed to be one of the most loving people I ever met. She was the kind of person who would take you into her home if you had no place to live.

In fact, when she was close to death 10 months ago, I began paying close attention to who she was and who she had been to so many people. And I started a practice that I would do whenever I became aware of my judgmental side (which was daily).

When I noticed myself having critical thoughts, I would ask myself – “What would Michele do?” In other words “What would love do?”

And now I am reminded of that practice as I remember my friend and her impact on my life. As I write on this blog about my self-healing quest using practices of self-acceptance and loving kindness, Michele will stay in my heart as I a model of unconditional love.

Thank you Michele for coming into my life and being the model of an open heart. I love you. And I commit to loving myself and others as you have loved.

Blessings to you dear one. I will think of you when I paddle through the salt marsh and will hold you forever in my heart. I pray that when I get off course, I will never forget to ask myself “What would Michele do?”

Each year I choose one word that describes my intention for the upcoming year. Today is January 6, 2012 and a few days before the New Year I knew that my word for this year would be “Forgiveness.

As my intention for the year, the concept of forgiveness has a broad definition. Or perhaps a different definition or concept than what most people hold. Let me explain.

The word “unforgiving” has been very present in my consciousness for the last few months as I’ve gain more awareness about myself and my personality. I have not thought of myself as someone who can’t do forgiveness. I think of myself of as someone who is very willing to forgive when I believe forgiveness is called for. However, I have recently realized that the whole concept of forgiveness has a wider spectrum and a more profound meaning than I have understood before. I have come to realize that I can be a very unforgiving person. What I mean is that I am rather critical. I am critical of myself and I am critical of others.

I have never linked criticalness with the need for forgiveness before. But the truth is that when I am critical, I am unforgiving. When I severely judge myself or others I am being unforgiving. When I am unforgiving I am not offering forgiveness and therefore I am holding a grudge or resentment. Louise Hay says that when we have an illness or a disease or perhaps any physical challenge, we need to ask who is it that we need to forgive.

This is very profound to me and almost brings me to tears as I believe that perhaps I have finally found the answer – the answer to healing that I’ve been seeking for most of my adult life.

Could it be that simple? Yes I think so. It is in its simplicity that makes it so profound and so easy to recognize as the truth.

As I stated earlier, I was recently in a very difficult emotional place. I was experiencing a lot of stress with a new business project that was a higher level than I had handled before, and a short presentation that I was scheduled to give to a networking group. For whatever reason, these two things had brought on the level of anxiety that I had not experienced in a long time. And the odd thing was that at first I was not fully conscious of the intensity my fear level.

I knew I was obsessing a bit and taking longer than usual to complete the preparations, but I had no idea how stressed out I was. I started to notice that with only mild exertion my heart would start racing and would take a few minutes to come back to normal. Than it started to happen more often and not necessarily triggered by any exertion. I figured it was stress and I tried to ignore it hoping it would vanish on its own.

Then one night I awoke about 2 AM with my heart pounding once again. I was perplexed by this but was not initially concerned. I tried to relax but it would not stop. I came very close to asking to be driven to the emergency room, but I did ride it out and it ended after about an hour. It scared me and I knew that the next day I needed to consult with my doctor.

The long and the short of it is that I called a friend the next morning who strongly urge me to seek medical attention. I realized that if I called my doctor and told them I was having a racing heart that they would most likely send me directly to the emergency room. So I had a friend drive me to the ER.

I felt a “knowing” that I was fine but I also knew that I needed to be checked out medically. I had every test known to man for heart issues and sure enough I was declared to be fine.

I was well taken care of by some close friends who took turns staying with me during my five hour stay at the hospital.

After that incident I continued to have racing heart on a regular basis. I still had the client meeting and my presentation ahead of me, so the original stressors were still present. The day before my client meeting I found out that it had to be postponed for a week. That was a great relief and somehow I knew that having that extra week was what I needed to get myself back on track so my stress actually didn’t ramp back up around that. The next day I gave my presentation, so that was finally over.

I couldn’t quite believe how stressful preparing for that brief presentation had been, especially when once I was in front of my audience I was comfortable and confident. Anticipation really sucks!

After that my racing heart symptoms pretty much disappeared. And it’s interesting that I had just started re-reading the Louise Hay book at the same time. And I have no doubt that exploring my areas of unforgiveness and beginning the process of surrender also played a key role in my feeling better.

I began to practice some of the self-love exercises that Louise recommended. During my quiet time before going to sleep I would say affirmations of self-acceptance and forgiveness.

I also began doing loving kindness meditation. During this practice I would affirm myself being filled with loving kindness and I would affirm others being filled with loving kindness. In other words, I would practice loving myself as well as extending love out into the world. This practice in itself feels like an act of forgiveness. But I guess consciously practicing being loving is “preemptive forgiveness.”

As Louise Hay suggested, I also did a number of forgiveness affirmations directed at people in my past that I perceived as not treating me the way I would’ve liked to have been treated. And even though I wasn’t consciously feeling that I was holding onto any resentments toward these people, I figured I probably had some that I was unaware of and therefore did forgiveness exercises.

I then started to experience the deep shift. I had been locked into in negative space for weeks as I struggled with physical discomfort, and the emotional challenges that went along with it. I had been on a downward spiral not knowing how to get myself out of it.

I had been trying so hard in so many ways to feel better and yet the simplicity of picking up Louise Hay’s book, reading and doing some simple exercises resulted in a powerful shift. I begin to feel better. My anxiety had ceased, and I was feeling more positive and uplifted.

And as is often the way…..just as I had been on a downward spiral, I shifted into an upward spiral. And to no surprise my world began to change for the better. New clients came out of the woodwork.

The law of attraction is so predictable! And it can be so difficult to remember that and even more difficult to remember the practices that help me come to a halt, take my energetic car out of reverse and shift back into first gear to move forward once again.

I believe that the most direct route back to a positive loving space is down the road of Forgiveness.

That’s my word for 2012 and for as long as I need it.

I have the sense that it will be a daily, if not moment to moment practice.

Care to join me?

For that last few weeks I have been very stressed out and feeling pretty lousy. I had a few specific work related issues that were unfamiliar and were making me nervous. Things began to snow ball in a negative direction. I know better but couldn’t get myself out of my downward spiral. I was having heart palpitations and just feeling overwhelmed and not good physically.

What I mean when I say “I know better” is that the law of attraction does not discriminate and it draws things and energy together that is similar. “Like” attracts “Like.” Once I get into a negative space, more negativity develops. What we focus on increases. And when I stay attached to my difficulties, I am staying focused on them. When I try so hard to “get better” or “feel better” I am not at peace and I am trying to control too much.

What I always forget is that it is only when I surrender that a shift can happen. It is only when I let go; only when I relax; only when I stop paddling upstream against the current, that I can even hope for things to change.

It’s funny how often I need things to get into an extreme state before I can surrender and open to the flow of positive life energy.

I am not talking about doing nothing, but rather to stop doing what I have been forcing in an attempt to feel better.

So I stopped. I slowed down. I began to meditate more, and practiced Loving Kindness meditation. I had also been thinking about forgiveness a lot in the last few months and even though I consciously felt like there was no one I needed to forgive, I knew that it was a good idea to hold the intention of forgiveness.

I took Louise Hay’s book off the bookshelf. I had read her book, You Can Heal Your Life for the first time about 30 years ago. Therefore, I didn’t feel the need to read it again. I thought I remembered all the important aspects of the emotional elements connected to specific conditions.

I was in a “been there – done that” attitude about the book, even though again and again I hear people talk about how her simple exercises had such an impact on their life.

At a point of deep frustration, I picked up her book hoping to get some relief.

Not only did I get relief but I was reminded of the profound yet simple message that spoke to me 30 years ago and speaks to me again today.

For many years my open-mindedness and willingness to look at the emotional aspects of my physical health difficulties kept me dwelling on that. I realize now that that was just one more way that I was critical of myself and I know now that while it was courageous of me to keep over-turning more and more stones searching for the missing link to my healing, I was actually barking up the wrong stones. I was missing the direction I needed to pursue.

I picked up You Can Heal Your Life, once again and began to read it again from the beginning. The simplicity of her message is what makes it so profound and in my opinion so accurate.

Here’s the one statement that elicited my most recent jaw drop: “all disease is a state of unforgiveness.”

It doesn’t get any simpler than that. Many would argue with this blanket pronunciation, however when I read it again after having read it 30 years ago, as well as hearing other people make similar statements in the last 10 years, I knew in the deepest part of my soul that it was true. It was true for me. It might not be true for anyone else but I knew it was true for me.

And that revelation gave me a stronger intention to begin this healing quest. And to document it on this blog. I know I will be exploring some radical ideas and not so popular approaches to healing. We all want the silver bullet, the special medication, the easy cure. We want someone or something outside of ourselves to give us the cure or the answer. Our society is built on that paradigm. That’s why we give doctors and drug companies so much power. We want them to “fix” us. We really do. It’s how we’ve been programed.

Anyway….back to the book. I began to read Louise’s book and immediately I felt the warmth of her soothing words, as she spoke the truth about how unkind we can be to ourselves. Her simple approach was comforting and relaxing. I began to feel lighter. I began to let go and allow….To allow and actually generate a lighter more loving energy toward myself and toward the world.

Ahh…..if only I can keep remembering these simple practices that make such a difference.