Adrienne Summer

Oprah Interview withJohn of God by Crystal Church

2010-11-18T12:41:00.001-08:00

Coming home..................it is not just crossing over it can be a re-birth

Oprah is a very influential woman and her latest story about John of God, really caught my attention. I don’t have cable TV so I read the interview online. What really caught my attention was a statement from the Dr. that Oprah had on, Dr. Rediger, who met and experienced being in the realm of John of God. Dr. Rediger said, “Whatever is happening at the Casa with John of God, I believe it's not about the phenomena or even about the healer—it's about a shift that happens to these people internally, spiritually or psychologically.

The above statement got me to thinking about my recent journey. I have been de-toxing off an anti-depressant that I have been on for a while and it has really had a profound effect on me. If I used one word to describe it, it would have to be ‘clarity’. Just a bit of background information into why clarity would be an important feeling, I am a recovering addict and I have been sober for 4 years. I desire to be completely free of chemicals and I decided that since I have done so much spiritual work in the past few years and I am mentally strong, now is the time to trust my intuition and know that I can go off the chemical that helped me off and on for many years.

The link between what John of God is doing and what I am experiencing is this……an ordinary man who is healing with his love and faith is showing us that our bodies are just merely the vehicle for which we live on earth. The real power of us lies in our souls. As we learn how to tap into this power of our souls……as John of God has, we begin to heal ourselves and other. I too have tapped into my own power. It does not lie in a substance or drug, it lies in our ability to learn and trust that we have the answers we need inside of us.

As I have been exploring my past and looking at the why’s of my addiction, I have realized that my powerful self was protecting me from my environment from a very early age. As an infant when chaos came into my life I had to fight or flight. I could not fight and the only flight I could do was internal. I was merely a child less than 1 year old, so my own amazing soul changed my biochemistry to keep me safe and alive. As this change in chemistry occurred, it created an altered state that set the stage for addiction. I grew up and craved that altered state because it was familiar and comfortable. Add normal teenage experimental stage and you quickly have a drug addicted person.

So, in going back to my clarity… for the first time, perhaps in my life, I am clear. I am feeling emotions that have been muted and diluted for years. I am not afraid of them because I have learned that you can truly heal what you feel, but only if you feel it. This new me, that is close to the child I was born as, is tapped in to my feelings. I am fully integrated with my physical self, where as before I spent many years trying to get as far away from reality as possible. What caused the shift and the clarity? A conscious choice to feel. A desire to love and understand myself instead of belittles and tear myself down. I decided that I could not have been born into this world a bad person who wanted to be addicted to drugs and alcohol and make bad choices. Along the way I met my life coach and mentor Maia Berens who introduced me to a philosophy I quickly adopted. She told me we are responsible for everything that happens to us. So, I chose to take responsibility for everything that has happened to me since I arrived here on earth and once I did that……..I could see that I could also chose a better life.

Today, at the end of an uncomfortable detox, and in the midst of a sober life I realized….I am here, I am home. Amazingly enough coming home didn’t mean death for me. It was quite the opposite. It was a rebirth. I am like John of God, a normal person, who tapped into their own spiritual power and used it to heal. I have used it to heal myself. I like him, feel my work, my change, my shift, has been a divine intervention. It is like a channeling of information and placement of the proper people to enter my life when and where I needed it. I can clearly see that the power and potential of our spiritual self is unlimited in my opinion, and I plan to carry this message through out my work as an emotion based personal development life coach.

So, let me end with a statement from the doctor who experienced John of God……..In terms of his own experience with John of God, Dr. Rediger says it's been life-changing. "Perhaps the real heart within us is not just a pump, he says.”Perhaps the real heart within us is about love and faith. Perhaps the physical body is not who we really are. Perhaps we are these invisible souls walking around, and the body is just an instrument or metaphor for something we are trying to learn."

Self Confidence By Maia Berens You University Creator

2010-11-15T15:15:00.001-08:00

Is Self Confidence Elusive For You?

Boost Your Self Confidence

Self confidence is all about how you feel towards yourself and how confident you are in your life and the situations you encounter. High self esteem means you truly love yourself and who you are inside.

For example,

I know I am a truly good person.
I know I wish everyone well. I also know I am an authentic person.
I know there is no big gap between what I think and feel about something or someone and how I act.

I love those qualities within myself. I very much like who I am as a person.

Self confidence may change on a regular basis depending on the things that are happening in your life on a daily basis. The change could even be linked to not enough sleep or having a very stressful few days or even hours. Everyone has good days and bad days but if most of your days tend to be bad and you feel stuck where you are and not willing to try new things, you probably have low self confidence and, my guess is, you most likely know it. I suffered from low self confidence for years and I certainly knew it.

The good news is that you can build your self confidence but it will likely take time. With some work and a serious commitment there are techniques that you can use to build your own self confidence. You will find many of them on this site.

First you must commit to remaining positive. A positive attitude is crucial to the success of building your self confidence. Then you must stop listening to anything negative that you or anyone else says. And since this is mostly an inside job, the voices you have floating around in your head, are the most damaging or most beneficial. Good self messages sound positive. Low self esteem inner messages are negative, critical and have lots of shoulds in them.

1. Don’t allow yourself to compare yourself to other people. You are your own unique person with your own purpose for being here and it doesn’t matter what others do, say or accomplish. It has nothing to do with you – except as far as you let it run your life.
2. Associate with positive people.
3. Spend your time doing work and activities that you truly love.
4. Do not go over your past mistakes in your head. Forgive yourself and move on.

Start small and celebrate all of your successes. As time goes on, your small successes will become larger successes and you will be on the road to much higher self confidence and many more opportunities to be happy.

2010-11-13T13:45:00.001-08:00

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I... I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. Robert Frost

2010-11-12T13:32:00.001-08:00

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. Mark Twain

Women Self Help by Maia Berens Founder of You University

2010-11-10T22:06:00.000-08:00

Become Your Own Life Coach – Women Self Help

Women Self Help

Of course being a life coach and having had the great benefits that great life coaching offers, I believe having a life coach is a helpful – sometimes vital – addition to reaching your goals and overcoming challenges in your life. However, for a lot of people it isn’t an affordable option.

The good news is there are ways to overcome these obstacles and become your own life coach. These women self help starters will help you accomplish this on your own. It is much easier to stay focused on your goals and achieve them when you have them laid out in full view.

Suggestion 1 : Start with two notebooks. On the first page of the notebook, write “To Do Now List” and make sure you leave a few blank pages after it. Now, take ten minutes and think of every little thing that you can think of that you want to do. Skip a few pages and begin to list all the things you would like to add or change about your life like buying a new house or car, improving your self esteem, regularly exercising or investigating a new career. Label this your “Dreams and Goals List”. After you have listed all of them, go further in the notebook and describe in detail, the changes you want to make. Describe the kind of house or car, where you want to go, what kind of career, the things you want to do in as much details as you can on a separate page for each.

Continue asking yourself questions and avoid any negative thinking until you feel like you have a good overall picture of what you want and when.

Now, take the second notebook and go back to your to do list and pick the top five priorities and list them in the second notebook. You may want to include the benefits of each one to your goals. Begin working on the tasks in the second notebook and refer to the first notebook frequently to keep on track.

Suggestion 2 : Invite a buddy to go on this journey with you.

When you find a buddy you have found:
1. Someone who shares the joys and difficulties of growth along with you.
2. Someone who is totally interested in what you have to say.
3. Someone who will be able to see your growth and tell you what they see – many times even before you are aware of it yourself.
4. Someone who will tell you if you are tricking yourself or are in denial.
5. Someone who will be able to tell you if you are being true to your Real Self.
pg. 48 excerpt from Once Upon a Time There Was You: Three Magic Secrets to Finding Your Real Self

Suggestion 3 : Keep coming back to this site for women self help and tips – or better yet, sign up for the RSS feed and let the updates come to you. Part of the purpose of this site is to help you help yourself. Enjoy!

2010-11-09T21:34:00.001-08:00

Success is a journey not a destination

WHY HURT? – Expressing Emotional Pain

2010-11-08T21:45:00.000-08:00

Expressing Your Emotional Pain

Are you afraid of your feelings?

You could have looked at this subtitle and thought one of two things: “What’s the big deal? We all know how to deal with our feelings” or “Yes. I think my feelings are too big or to0 many or too scary”. For those with the second comment: sometimes when we find a challenge, like in addressing our emotional pain, their are benefits. Only, if we look.

I don’t know what it’s like in other states on other freeways but you’ve probably heard we have lots of traffic here in L.A.

Well, I’m scared of driving on the freeway and so I usually don’t unless someone else is driving. A couple of weeks ago my husband was driving in pretty heavy weekend traffic going south on the 405. Sometimes when we drive we chat about this and that (in between grousing about the traffic and drivers). This day we were chatting about how lucky we are to have been trained how to deal with our feelings and emotional pain when along comes a license plate saying WHY HURT.

WHY HURT can mean more than one thing. It can mean:

First- “You don’t have to hurt” and I agree with that. We can make a choice. Unfortunately, many think they can’t, but still, WHY HURT?
Second (this is the reason it struck me so)- A reason to feel hurt (if you are really in touch with your feelings and know how to let them flow as they were meant to) could mean you are on your way to healing your emotional pain. HURT is milder than ANGER, on it’s way to having one know their FEARs and a bit closer to LOVE and FORGIVENESS.

So I ask you: “Why hurt?” you are so close to being in a place of love and forgiveness. Why not learn and move on and become that much closer with yourself? In the pursuit of not feeling our feelings, at the very least we become disconnected from ourselves and have problems relating to others deeply and well. Why hurt?

Accomplishment Exercise by You University Founder, Maia Berens

2010-11-08T21:42:00.000-08:00

Accomplishment Exercise – A Writing Exercise**

WHAT AND HOW HAVE YOU ACCOMPLISHED WHAT YOU HAVE ACCOMPLISHED IN THE FOLLOWING AREAS?

1. I have been willing to make these changes regarding my work or career and this is what happened ……. Date it, mark down the page. You could call this “Accomplishment Exercise”.