This post is a book review of The Soulmate Experience by Mali Apple and Joe Dunn reviewed by Sean A. Mulvihill…

As a guy who isn’t really looking for a serious girlfriend with any urgency, I didn’t seem a likely candidate to read The Soulmate Experience: A Practical Guide to Creating Extraordinary Relationships by Mali Apple and Joe Dunn. Surprisingly though, this 268 page paperback from A Higher Responsibility has given me multiple strategies that have improved my relationships with my roommate, friends, and my parents, and I’d like to share with you some of the things I learned.

Mali and Joe, the authors, have worked with couples for years (and are a couple themselves) and most of the stuff they came up with is counter to the traditional advice marriage counselors would give, because Mali and Joe have found that compromise, the core of the “old school” of relationship building, just causes disappointment and resentment in both parties.

Here’s an example of one of the unique strategies in the book: one woman’s partner always leaves stuff out on the counter, water on the sink, stuff out of place, and he leaves the house. Instead of getting angry, she now sees the misplaced dishes as loving reminder of this wonderful person who is in her life. I hear you saying, “Yeah, but the guy still needs to shape up.” That is precisely why the people who read this book are happier and more in love than you: they accept one another without expecting changes. When someone is free to be who they are, they can start to move into the space of self-improvement.

I tried this strategy with my roommate, who sometimes burps while I’m eating. It’s annoying, no doubt. But I realized, it’s actually kind of funny. So by accepting him, rather than trying to get him to stop burping, I just get a few laughs out of the whole situation. And who knows, maybe eventually he’ll stop burping of his own accord.

This book is all about turning lemons into lemonade. Take jealousy for example: the trick is not to try “…to control what going on out there. Instead the answer lies in transforming what’s going on in here, in our own experience.” I was on a date shortly after reading this book, and my date and I met some of her old college friends, including an old boyfriend, for a drink. I could tell he was still attracted to her and vice versa, but I let their attraction to one another make me appreciate them both more, as I started to see what these two old friends loved about each other! I had a great experience and I was lauded with love by both of them!

The bulk of the book is a constant preaching of the effects of taking responsibility for one’s inner space. The couple constantly reference their transitioned teacher Michael Naumer, who was an absolute inspiration to the both of them. One of his great sayings was: “Don’t assign responsibility for your emotional experience to your partner.”

Another instantly applicable tip is the recommendation to have “a guest in your life.” When a loved friend comes to town, we have infinite patience with them. Mali and Joe talk about starting fresh with one another every day, like a new guest, and that keeps the physical side exciting, and prevents nagging and arguments. We simply need to increase our acceptance and stop demanding our partner be like us, or expect our partner to meet our needs. The Soulmate Experience is all about meeting our own needs inside, and letting that wholeness create a safe place for others to be around us and with us.

The toughest part of relating to others is when someone violates one of our standards, such as theft or a large breach of trust. Mali and Joe would suggest that we don’t handle these situations alone, so always ask advice of a trusted friend or counselor, but one of the unique things they suggest are “looking through a different lens”. For example, if you look through the lens of “people shouldn’t steal things”, you’re going to be pissed if I nick your wallet. But if you look through the lens of “Everyone is doing the best they can,” you can have compassion on me because I’m struggling with lack consciousness.

I can’t really say enough good things about this book and the positive effect it has had on my relationships and my happiness. If you are willing to open your heart and your mind, you have the chance to transform your life, too.

This post was written by Sean A. Mulvihill, President Hollywood Happiness Studios.

By David Lacey

In November 1994 newspapers carried a report about an Iraqi terrorist called Khay Rahnajet, who didn’t pay enough postage on a letter bomb he had made. It came back with ‘Return to Sender’ stamped on it. Forgetting it was the bomb, he opened it and was instantly killed.

To many folk, this is a classic example of karma. We pay for our bad deeds; we are blown up by bombs of our own making.

There is no need of human intervention, no need of judgement or a court; nature somehow ensures that we get what we deserve.

We each post letters to ourselves, both good and bad. They bounce around the universe and somehow end up back on our own doorstep.

Karma is an eastern word that has now entered the western lexicon. It is a vast, subtle and all-encompassing concept. It affects us all; it is one of the prime influences on our life’s journey. Most people are familiar with the idea yet, paradoxically, few understand it.

But in a sense this is true of many areas of human understanding. We in fact know very little, despite our certainties and our intellectual bravado. We have taken but a spoonful from a vast mountain of knowledge. Fortunately our understanding of the natural world is increasing all the time. It seems to come to us in fits and starts. The graph of knowledge versus time appears to be a series of irregular steps rather than a smooth upward curve. A new idea is born, followed by a period of reflection, confirmation and assimilation. Each step is constructed from small mosaics, discrete bits of information that combine to form a whole. As each piece is added a larger picture begins to emerge.

An example of this is what quantum scientists call ‘The Standard Model.’ It is a hypothesis, an abstract theory which describes the way elementary particles behave and how the fundamental forces of nature affect those particles. The standard model is not yet fully proven, but slowly, over decades, it is being verified one step at a time, using mathematics and experimentation.

It has intrigued physicists for over a century, and at the time of writing they are searching for a particle known as the Higgs Boson, which will provide one of the final and most significant pieces of the picture. The Standard Model will no longer be a theory; it will be a truth.

This seems to be how science works. This is how knowledge evolves. A new idea, a flash of imagination somewhere deep inside a scientist’s brain, opens the door to a new way of looking at the natural world. Other scientists learn about it, they discuss it and eventually somebody sets about verifying it. The verification process takes place in steps. A picture begins to take shape over years, decades, even centuries, as scientists fill in the remaining gaps.

Another example of this step-by-step approach is the periodic table, which lists in rows and columns all of the chemical elements. It was first proposed by George Mendeleev in 1867, though his table had more gaps in it than elements. But it proved to be an accurate predictor of what might later be found.

Chemists looked at the patterns and were able to deduce the existence of elements long before they were actually discovered.

Over many decades experiments confirmed their reality, and so the hypothesis was confirmed.

Few theories arrive fully-formed and open to complete verification.

Science seems to be a sort of cosmic paint-by-numbers game; the more we work at it the clearer the overall picture becomes. We start with a belief, develop a theory and then gradually fill in the blanks. On the way to completion our confidence in the truth of the theory increases, step by step.

Is there such a thing as a Standard Model for the spiritual side of life, of karma, of what some call the perennial philosophy? We have lots of disparate beliefs – which often seem at odds with each other – but is there a model that we can, step-by-step, verify and confirm, so that even though the verification will remain incomplete we can refer to it with ever increasing confidence?

If there is a standard model perhaps it would read something like this: We each find ourselves here on earth, vulnerable and maybe a little perplexed, and conscious of the short and brutish nature of life. We struggle for our allotted three score years and ten and then we die. But a part of us continues. We find ourselves in a different realm, a realm where thoughts predominate. The life we have just left and the way we lived it affects the situation in which we now find ourselves, a heaven or a hell that we have created for ourselves. We soon discover that the nature of this new existence is determined by the quality of our thoughts: if we are full of love then that is what we experience but if we give out hate then nature gives us that experience too.

We eventually return to this world in another body, with our circumstances largely determined by our desires, our thoughts, our karma. Gradually, over many such lifetimes, we begin to realise that there is a developmental process going on. We become slightly wiser with each lifetime and begin to recognise patterns. Our compassion grows and our values develop. We see that we are in a sort of cosmic game of snakes and ladders where we can, through our own behaviour and choices, make progress towards happiness and fulfilment. But we can also make mistakes and slide back to a lower level.

Over dozens, maybe hundreds, of these learning experiences that we call life we develop higher values and a greater understanding.

Eventually we become what some call ‘enlightened’ and we can, so the theory goes, choose to leave this earthly coil and pursue our spiritual growth in a different way, a way that may be beyond our current vision.

This is not a standard model that everyone would agree with, though it would in fact find a lot of common ground with Vedanta and Theosophy, and with eastern religions such as Hinduism, Taoism and Buddhism.

There are numerous belief systems in the world, but that is all they are, beliefs, dogma. Belief may be defined as the act of holding something to be true despite an absence of evidence. It can be a starting point for a theory, but it must then move on to something more tangible if it is to have value as knowledge. If a belief does not lead to investigation and evidence-seeking it eventually stagnates, a process that prevents debate and dampens curiosity. It only has value as an emotional comforter.

This can breed the arrogant certainty of dogmatism which, as history tells us, can so easily lead to tragedy on a massive scale.

The seeker of knowledge is one who attempts to go beyond belief, beyond dogma, towards understanding, verification and ultimately truth.

So can this standard model of spirituality lend itself to investigation?

Can these beliefs be verified, and so become a body of knowledge that we can have confidence in. Can we fill in some of the blank spaces in our standard model, so that we can be sure that we are travelling in the right direction?

So many spiritual books simply state beliefs as if they are facts, whereas upon investigation they prove to only have the veracity of speculation or wishful thinking. They are like poetry: enjoyable and perhaps comforting to read but in fact only able to offer a temporary solace. The shelves in many bookshops are laden with volumes about spiritual issues, some of them sensible, some of them strange and some of them quite bizarre. When I read any of these books I often ask myself: how does the author know this? Why does he or she expect me to accept this point of view? Where does this certainty come from? Such books will assert that there is a life after death, that there is a phenomenon known as karma, and we will be asked to take the author’s word for it. No proof is offered. Thus these concepts remain beliefs and do not mature into knowledge.

This is not enough for many of us. We are not innocent villagers in a primitive society, easily won over by the enthusiastic rantings of a witchdoctor. We need an informed viewpoint, one in which we can trust. If we are to value spiritual ideas we must have confidence that they are sensible and honest. We each have doubts and scepticism, so why should we accept an idea if we are not offered evidence to support it?

We have largely left behind the age of superstition and ignorance. We see the shortcomings of ideas that rely on blind faith, dogma or fear. We look instead for concepts that are tangible, that can be verified empirically, that have some basis in reason and logic.

And sometimes we find those ideas.

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This article was contributed by David Lacey, author of Karma of Everyday Life, The – A logical exploration of the law of karma. Paperback: 978-1-78099-874-9 | $16.95 | £9.99 | 8.5×5.5 inches | 216×140 mm | 156PP eBook: 978-1-78099-873-2 | $9.99 | £6.99. Published by Iff Books

This post was contributed by O-Books.

Rooted in positive psychology, focusing on cardiac prevention and recovery, Dr. Austen Hayes’s The Good Heart: 101 Ways to Live a Positively Long, Happy Life helps readers replace depression, stress and anger with self-confidence, generosity and optimism. The book, with its 101 one- to two-page tips, written in easy-to-understand language by a well-respected expert in her field, targets the 80 million people in this country and millions more throughout the world who suffer from some form of diagnosed cardiovascular disease, as well as the 77 million Baby Boomers dedicated to disease prevention.

Dr. Hayes’s formula for providing succinct, up-to-date research-based tips helps readers quickly absorb information on how to behave, feel and think, approaching heart health in a new way—emphasizing more than exercise and diet—with changed attitude as the key to prevention and recovery. Combining information gathered from 30 years experience in cardiac psychology, hundreds of cardiac studies, and the most recent findings of both cognitive and positive-psychology literature, The Good Heart will change readers’ lives.

Here are 5 randomly selected tips.

1. At least two to three times each week someone tells me how much happier he or she would be if so and so would behave differently. This is usually accompanied with a vague, Of course, I know it’s not all him or her, but … Then the patient continues telling me how someone else’s way of behaving is interfering with his or her ability to have a positive outlook.

It’s not the way others behave, it’s the way you think. If you make other people responsible for your happiness, your reactions will be unruly.
- Your mate doesn’t take out the garbage. You’re unhappy.
- Your best friend is late again and you’ve waiting in the coffee shop for 10 extra minutes. You’re frustrated.
- Your co-worker didn’t respond to the message you sent yesterday. You’re insulted.
- You start thinking how inconsiderate everyone is, how completely undependable. They’re ruining your life and your mood.

Was it the trash, the 10 minutes, the delayed reply or was it that you turned these events into something intolerable, something more important than they should be?

Your thoughts, your mood. Yours, not theirs.

2. The angrier you are, the greater the likelihood you’ll develop heart disease. If you’ve already been diagnosed with cardiac illness, your anger may contribute to a first or second cardiac event. If you’re young and you’re angry, you may develop heart disease earlier in life than the average person your age. A recently published Harvard University study associated hostility with “poorer lung function and rapid rates of decline among older men.”

Know yourself. What are the triggers that most frequently lead to feelings of anger? Try to avoid waiting until you’re facing the things that most often lead to anger. Think ahead. Practice and rehearse before you reach your melting point. How will you respond to what bothers you most? For example, say to yourself, I expect that when I get stuck in traffic I’ll feel agitated and annoyed. But today I plan to handle this differently. Whether or not another driver does something that I don’t like, I don’t have to react. It’s foolish of me to expect that every driver on the road will navigate the same way—my way. There are many different models of cars and many different types of drivers.

Let me be the best driver I can be. My heart is too important.

3. There is growing acceptance in the medical community about the link between depression and heart disease. This isn’t a surprise to anyone who’s ever experienced a bout of depression. If you were to ask them where their sadness was felt, a hand held to the chest says it all.

Depression sends the body into a downward spiral with the same constriction of blood vessels, rise in blood pressure, increased levels of unhealthy fats in the bloodstream and turbulence within artery walls experienced by people who are hostile, anxious or fearful.

Personal habits begin to deteriorate as the depressed individual grows more withdrawn and less active. Memory fails, concentration and attention are poor, and a rational inner dialogue needed to lift the depressed individual up and out of despair disappears.

It’s time for action, not just thought. “There is support for a causal link between physical activity and reduced clinically defined depression” (Biddle et al., 2000). Is it possible to find a renewal of hope in a 10-minute walk? Absolutely.

If you’ve been diagnosed with heart disease while experiencing depression, the risk of a cardiac event, such as a heart attack, or need for life-saving procedure, such as angioplasty, is far more significant than with a diagnosis of heart disease alone. If you’re sad most of the time, if you cry easily or you’ve lost interest in activities that you once enjoyed, rather than thinking about how awful you feel, take action: let your primary care physician and cardiologist know what’s going on.

4. Is there room for gratitude if your heart is failing?

Maybe you don’t think so. You think you don’t deserve this fatigue, this breathlessness, this loss of interest in things you’ve always loved to do, this awareness of the limits of time. You’re sad.
Sometimes you’re angry.

No matter how bleak the day, gratitude has a way of shifting attention from what seems to be missing to what we’ve been given. In a grateful moment you see what you may otherwise ignore: the outstretched hand of a small child, the green of spring grass, a best friend’s smile, the stranger who went out of her way to show kindness.

When hope is dim, more than ever you need something to help you cope. Try gratitude. It may surprise you.

5. Placing complete trust in every person you meet might not be a good idea. But, if like many who eventually develop heart problems, your level of trust is so low it borders on cynicism, the very thing you do to avoid harm, may do harm.

If you regularly doubt the intentions of others, and even good deeds are met with suspicion—What does this person want from me?— being with people will be stressful. A doubting person is guarded, on alert, always assuming others will only do what’s best for them.

When this happens, stress hormones are released. Fear of harm will activate the fight or flight response, raising blood pressure and circulating cholesterol. The association between people and discomfort fosters more and more social avoidance and isolation.

Maybe there are thoughtless, insensitive people out there, but there are also caring and compassionate people. Tell yourself you won’t jump to conclusions. Look for the good in those you meet.

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Good Heart, The – 101 Ways to Live a Positively Long, Happy Life by Austen Hayes. Published by O Books.
Paperback 978-1-78099-525-0 | $14.95 | £9.99 | 109PP
eBook 978-1-78099-526-7 | $9.99 | £6.99

By Philip Pegler

What is it that I hear in the hush of the night, through the owl’s cry, far beyond the roar of the aeroplane overhead, the traffic on the distant road? What is it speaking to me, calling to me?

What is it that I feel beneath my feet when they touch the dew of the grass in the early morning that meets my flesh with cool caress, and awakens remembrance of music, fragrance and rite long ago – when all things, as all movement were known to be one?

Who is it looking towards me through your eyes when words cease between us and an ancient yet timeless communication begins again, that takes up the thread of truth again where we left off, or forgot, or were sundered long ago? Whence the origin of this silent speech – and what is it saying?
Clare Cameron

These were the words of poignant invocation that opened an anthology by Clare Cameron, the sensitive, mystical poet, whose reflections form the substance of the book , Hidden Beauty of the Commonplace. They moved me deeply when I first read them many years ago and they touch my heart with their lyrical gentleness still – just as they always did. The anthology is long out-of-print, but I know more about it than anyone else, because as a young man I had conceived and compiled it out of an ardent admiration for Clare’s work.

The book, published in 1980, was entitled Mystic of Nature and it is an inspiring collection of essays by a remarkable writer, who was at the peak of her creative powers during the colourful but challenging decades of the 1960s and 1970s. Just as now, that time was a period of great social and political upheaval – a kind of crucible of change when our contemporary world with its high expectations and dangerous pace was beginning to take shape.

We are living in especially critical times yet again and nobody is immune from the challenging impacts of sweeping change in an era being rendered increasingly bleak and uncertain by austerity and danger. It is this fact that gives the present study of Clare’s life and spiritual teachings such immediacy and special relevance now – and invests it with enduring value. Because what the world needs above all in its continual travail is not judgement or condemnation but genuine compassion and understanding.

It is only words of conviction flowing from authentic wisdom that have real power of transformation – the capacity to clarify confusion and ease the great suffering to be seen all about us. And the writings of this sensitive and unassuming nature poet have this radiant quality in overflowing abundance.

Of a deeply mystical temperament, Clare may be regarded as having had in addition the gift of prophetic vision. No stranger to periods of instability and warfare during her long life, she foresaw with remarkable acuity in her later years the present era of great unrest, which has culminated in such a dangerous clash of cultures between East and West as we are currently experiencing.

Firstly there was the brutal Islamic jihad leading up to the merciless and unprecedented attack on the New York Trade Centre; then came the long drawn-out wars of attrition in Iraq and Afghanistan, followed by the turbulent Arab Spring of 2011, which has released the pent-up fury of aggression mixed with hope of freedom. Clare Cameron had clearly foreseen these grim events long before they came to pass. As far as she was concerned, the writing for humanity was plainly on the wall in all manner of respects, and she issued a series of sober warnings in the spiritual magazine she edited, together with sound advice about how best to cope in the difficult days and years ahead. It is certainly bad news, but strangely one does not feel totally discouraged because of Clare’s resolute and uplifting tone. Her words instil great hope and awaken a strong determination for one to help as best one can. It is a rousing call to arms – but not of the usual sort, for patience and non-violence are always the chosen ways forward for warriors of peace.

Using dramatic imagery, Clare Cameron writes of the battlefield and the armour of light as well as the day of reckoning as she refers to the strong tide of catastrophic events such as we are witnessing in our own era:

It is coming in with increasing rapidity, sweeping away all the debris on our shores, all our former concepts, ideas, beliefs, attachments and, if only we can understand the promise it holds, the habits perhaps of a lifetime.

We are being cleansed and purified as never before, that we may be more worthy channels for what lies ahead for us in service to others. And those of us who have the knowledge will be needed to help others understand when the waters go over their heads in days to come. We shall reach out hands to those who could so easily drown under the waves of fear, anxiety, depression, despair. Even we ourselves at the present time can sink into inertia, indifference and a feeling of helplessness – or ride the waves with courage and hope.

For there is no doubt that just as the whole world is changing, now that the old order of things is breaking down to release the beginnings of the new, so we ourselves are changing. We are obliged to recognise it.

There is no more security in any aspect of life, no more security in the familiar and comfortable – either physically, mentally, emotionally or in the kind of spirituality that has served us in the past. Under this tide of higher vibrations and cosmic energies, the ground is going under our feet. There are new shores ahead, but only this tide can carry us to them.
Clare Cameron

I never ceased to be amazed how Clare calmly made sense of the most troubling of world events in this incisive and matter-of-fact way. I sought glad refuge in the warmth of her unruffled serenity, for she was like the loving grandmother I never had – and she has been a cherished spiritual teacher for me too. When I compiled her anthology all those years ago on behalf of the publisher for whom I then worked, my life had already become deeply entwined with hers. But I did not realise then how potent and far-reaching her influence upon me would prove to be.

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This article was contributed by Philip Pegler.  Hidden Beauty of the Commonplace – A nature mystic’s reflections upon the true meaning of freedom, by Philip Pegler. Paperback 978-1-78099-337-9 | $26.95 | £15.99 | 8.5×5.5 inches | 216×140 mm | 324PP eBook 978-1-78099-338-6 | $9.99 | £6.99. Published by Changemakers Books, March 2013. O-books (www.o-books.net) helped contribute this post…

By Stephanie Bennett Vogt

Most of us think of caring for ourselves as an extra-curricular activity. Something we squeeze into our lives at the end of the day. Or when everyone else in the family is taken care of. Or when we’re sick.

If I’ve learned anything at all about the subject as it relates to me personally and professionally it would be this: Supporting ourselves with daily doses of self-care is not optional. Without it, clearing the stress and stuff in our life becomes a tedious chore, and a big reason why most clutter clearing efforts do not last.

Self-care is not just something you do when you’re on vacation, or your circuits are fried, or you need a special treat after a long hard day at work. Self-care is something you cultivate and practice every day because it is as essential to the body and spirit as eating, or breathing.

Plus, why the heck not include it. It feels really good! The self-care model works because it is body-centered, and immediate. It softens and quiets the nonstop chatter of the critical mind. “I’m overwhelmed by stuff,” “This house is a disaster,” “If I slow down how will I get anything done?” for example, is unhinged in the presence of pure ease.

Self-care is something that you do because it supports your intentions and ongoing practice in letting go. Here are ten ways you can cultivate it (in no particular order):

1. Do at least one thing that makes your heart sing (read: love madly, adore) every day.
2. Listen to one fabulous song that is guaranteed to lift your spirits.
3. Light a candle and set an intention.
4. Take a “salt and soda” bath or shower (equal parts of coarse sea salt and Arm and Hammer baking soda).
5. Clap, dance, rattle, sing––anything to get the energy moving and awaken the senses.
6. Repeat the phrase “I choose ease,” every time you think of it and notice how your body responds.
7. Remove the word “should” from your vocabulary. Replace it with the word “could.”
8. Talk to or spend time with someone who is cheerful, optimistic, and supportive.
9. Avoid negative or sensational media and notice what it feels like after one week of “news fasting.”
10. Read or watch something every day that makes you laugh out loud.

Try each item on the list for a period of ten days. Or better yet, practice one every day for ten weeks. Notice how you feel after a while: Do you feel lighter? Calmer? More energized? Is it easier to clear out a closet or a drawer?

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• What helps you feel better fast?
• In what ways do you nourish yourself?
• What is one thing you can do this week that honors and supports YOU?The bottom line: Self-care is about lightening up and having fun! If you’re not having fun you’re not clearing!

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Stephanie Bennett Vogt is New England’s leading space clearing expert and the author of Your Spacious Self: Clear The Clutter and Discover Who You Are. She brings over 35 years of experience to SpaceClear, a teaching and consulting practice she founded in 1996 to help homes and their occupants come into balance. Stephanie shares her unique perspectives on simplifying, personal reinvention, and letting go as a course contributor for DailyOM and a columnist for the Huffington Post. Learn more: http://www.spaceclear.com.

This article is a guest post written by Adele Vincent, author of A Circle of Light: Transform Grief into a Unique Opportunity for Guidance.

The Ultimate Transformation

People enjoy speaking about transformations in their lives. We all like to take on a new challenge, where we can grow and excel. That’s why we strive for job promotions, higher education or a more fulfilling relationship. We are comfortable talking about our personal journey, traveling, dating and career plans. Yet, we avoid discussing the bigger picture and the ultimate taboo, death.

Why is this?

Partly cultural, partly psychological our fear is deep rooted. Fear itself is a complex emotion. While it’s natural to be afraid of death, most of us have a morbid fear of the subject. A very wise man once said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

How we approach the subject of death directly determines our spiritual gains. We can view it as an ‘end’ or we can view it as a new beginning. The choice is ours.

Rethinking Death

People tend to think of death and grief as a linear finite process. However, they fail to comprehend the cyclic nature of energy. In physics energy can neither be created nor destroyed. In other words, energy is in perpetual motion.  It forever changes forms. If we apply this principal to our physical existence, a new pattern of thinking emerges. Death isn’t the end; it is simply a change in form. The word, “transform” or “transformation” means to change shape. The actual Latin root of the word is closer to “across, beyond, through” which links back to the idea of “the other side” or life after death.

If we think of death as a spiritual transformation, it becomes a unique opportunity to change for our betterment. This is also true of loss. When we lose a loved one, the experience can refocus us on what’s truly important in our lives. It is possible to turn grief into guidance.

Changing Attitudes

In her newly published book, Adele Vincent argues that while the death of a loved one may seem like an insurmountable loss, it represents a unique opportunity to grow. Here, she describes her experience and the premise behind her book.

“It took me a long time to realize I could do something with the grief I felt for my mother. This was nothing short of an epiphany. I carried around this terrible burden. I liken it to a very large suitcase without wheels. Wherever I went I lugged invisible ‘emotional baggage.’ Friends and family couldn’t see I was weighed down by emotions, but I think somehow they sensed I was suffering. I wasn’t myself. It never occurred to me that the suitcase was useful. If I had paid more attention, I would have realized I was being prepared for a journey. Everything I needed was in the contents of the suitcase. Each of us has an invisible suitcase we carry around with us. At times, its presence is barely noticeable. Other times we feel its weight more acutely. It becomes a burden which we find ourselves constantly thinking about.

 What’s Inside Your Suitcase?

• Emotions

• Memories

• Unresolved conflict

• Insecurity

While much of this content may seem negative at first glance, the issues represent golden opportunities for healing and growth. Insecurity and unresolved conflict are the pillars of grief. They often keep us from moving on from the loss of a loved one. We find ourselves consumed by feelings of guilt, remorse, anger or hopelessness. Because we can no longer engage in physical discourse with our loved one, we feel their absence all the more.

I often hear people express a simple desire to speak again with a loved one. ‘If only I could tell them how I really feel’ is a common refrain in many of my discussions. I usually reply, ‘You can! I did and you can too.’ What if I told you your loved one was patiently waiting for you to contact them with the help of angels (higher spirits)? There is nothing stopping you from making contact, except you of course!

Sometimes we are our own worst enemy. Disbelief is the skeptic’s crutch. People forget that skepticism means to question, not to refute information! I think of myself as a reformed skeptic. I regularly question the information I encounter, but I make a point of researching any questions I have, before making a decision to accept the information as true or false. So feel free to question the information you encounter in this book, but make an effort to be open and complete the 11 steps of your personal journey.”

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Adele Vincent, author of A Circle of Light: Transform Grief Into A Unique Opportunity for Guidance is a freelance writer, editor and writing coach. She regularly holds women’s workshops in London. Please visit her website for more information about upcoming events and her book: http://www.adelevincentbooks.com/.

This post is an excerpt from The Dimensions of Love: 7 Steps to Divine Love, written by Padma Aon Prakasha.

You can never fully be with or recognize your soul mate until you have developed more love within yourself first, and know yourself better, understanding the deeper feelings and experiences of the soul. It is love that draws and magnetizes you to your soul mate. In addition, you cannot fully enjoy being with your soul mate until the soul mate part of your heart opens, which is a definite feeling that you will know has happened or not.

Your soul mate may be found, but not acquired, until the love of the less developed soul comes into resonance with the love possessed by the more loving soul. This means you can be with your soul half physically and still not connect truly because of your own unfelt wounds and lack of humility.

Soul mate love lasts forever, providing the twin souls seek and obtain Divine Love. This love is only a complete One when these two apparently independent soul ‘halves’ come together in perfect unity. This unity comes when both have become At-One with God FIRST. One cannot unite fully with their soul mate until one is united with God first, although glimpses can be tasted and even lived in.

The fullness and eternal nature of human love is only possible between Twin Souls. Until a soul tastes and lives this, they will not experience the fullest potential depth of human love and how God created the human soul. God has created us to live this: He really loves us all so much.

The love of soul mates makes the happiness of two humans seemingly complete. Yet this love is not of a Divine nature, but the highest, purest and only eternal form of natural love. God has designed it so we can have both. Once it is included with Divine Love, love reigns in its fullness on every level. Only when we have the Love of the Divine can we fulfill the laws of the Divine; and if we have natural love only, we can only fulfill natural laws.

But if we fulfill and live both, then all forms of love are realized! And this is God’s Wish for us: to enjoy the fullness of love on every level, in every way we can imagine, and in ways we cannot yet imagine.

Soul mate love is an eternal love, and this great love requires that at some stage these two parts become One again. The fundamental law of the universe is that all things will come into harmony with the Will of God. Soul mate love is the only love that can have a separate and individual existence in the Celestial Heavens, where Divine Love exists to the exclusion of every other love save the soul mate love; and the more the two-in-one possess the Divine Love, the greater will be their possession of the soul mate love.

There is no other love or thing, except Divine Love, that can surpass it, or make two souls so united that even death cannot sever it. The relationship between soul mates is a very strong attraction, and has great importance in natural love. But it is important to remember all forms of natural, human love disappear when you are At-One with God, as the natural, human soul is transformed into a Divine Soul.

In the Celestial Heavens, there is no trace at all of the human soul, which makes this everlasting bond between soul mates even more special, and why it is even more important that each soul mate reaches At-One-ment with God so they can enjoy the fullness of their Union with each other, and take it to even greater heights within the Kingdom, within God Itself.

The strong attraction between soul mates is due to the resemblance of their soul’s structure. One can easily tell soul mates just by looking at them, as they share a similar vibrational signature, or the same soul signature. Even with the soul’s transformation this attraction continues to exist, because the change has not been structural, but substantial.

However, the union of separate soul mates is not necessary for enjoying the full happiness of Divine Love. It is not necessary for becoming At-One with God, and indeed cannot be fully enjoyed as the perfect One Soul until well after At-One-ment with God has occurred. So, At-One-ment with God is still At-One-ment with God, and is the primary goal, the focus of each soul mate’s life. At-One-ment with God is not dependent on being with your soul mate.

When we use the gift of free will to turn to God for Divine Love, what is the one thing that God imagined would bring us complete happiness throughout eternity? To find our soul mate, one whose qualities and unique perceptions bring the puzzle of ourselves to completion. This is how we were created.

God’s Will for us to become At-One with Him has provided us with the treasure of loving another who will remain for us a window into the heart of love. When we are At-One with God, we can enjoy the fulfillment of soul mate love completely because true soul nature and its qualities have become Realized. Because of the intensity of the pleasure and the pains involved in meeting and being with your soul mate, the wisest thing to do is to prepare: fully feel and release the wounds of all previous intimate relations and do as much soul healing as possible before even calling in your soul mate.

Ask to feel:
• the times you did not love yourself
• the times you projected mother and father wounds onto the other and vice versa
• all the times you felt and received emotional pain and did not express or release it (even if you did not feel it at the time)
• all the times you allowed yourself to be used or abused because you did not love yourself or allow yourself to feel your own pains
• all the times you felt betrayed and abandoned; or all the times you felt judged and separated from, not just in intimate relations but for all the instances this has occurred in your soul

Free your soul to meet your soul mate in a truthful and loving way!

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The Dimensions of Love – 7 STEPS TO DIVINE GOD, Padma Aon Prakasha, 978-1-78099-513-7 (Paperback) £17.99 $29.95, 978-1-78099-514-4 (eBook) £6.99 $9.99, publishing 28th June 2013 by O Books.

This movie review is written by Sean A. Mulvihill

“What would our Earth be like if man would understand that he and the Earth are one?”

At its most essential core, Oliver Hauck’s new feature film, The Blue Jewel: A Documentary about Planetary Healers, can be described as a love poem to humans from the Earth herself. What’s interesting about this film is that its profiled mystical healers are leaders in a truly growing worldwide movement of planetary healing, and the movie, from Starseeds Productions, is one of a growing number whose mission is to heal the Earth. And it is an important mission, as director Hauck says, “…there is no Earth number two, there is no Earth number three, there is only one Earth for all of us.”

The film, which is episodic in nature, blends gorgeous aerial photography with interviews of profiled healers and teachers who discuss their diverse methods for healing the planet and its inhabitants. One key teacher in the film is the channeled voice of Gaia herself, speaking in soothing tones to us through the medium of the lovely Pepper Lewis. Gaia gives us humans the impetus to take the reigns of the further evolution of the Earth, comparing humans to the transistors in an old radio set: without them, none of the other technology works.

Another teacher, Gudrun Miller, talks about inter-human relations as the key to planetary healing saying, “Forgiveness…unburdens you, the forgiver.” She and her husband, David, and are creating “Groups of 40” people in cities around the globe who use mental visioning to protect the consciousness of their metropolitan area.

Perhaps the most delightful interview in the film comes with German organic farming couple Ignaz and Johanna Leitner. They speak of how their cows kept getting sick until they found harmony in their community relationships. Johanna also speaks eloquently of her desire for everyone to truly experience a rose blooming, and through experiencing a rose, we can become blooms ourselves.

Some of the other teachers include a psychologist (Dr. Roger Nelson) who works with group consciousness affecting random number generators, and a Hopi Native American, Ruben Saufkie, Sr., who teaches gratitude for Mother Earth.

The film’s breathtaking aerial views and music by “Beyond” (a group which includes Tina Turner), are also accompanied by amazing 3-D computer graphics of the Universe, beautifully created by editor Tom Schumacher.

The Blue Jewel can be characterized as a meditation which has little nuggets of wisdom for us to digest, well spaced out with time for getting in touch with one’s breathing and beingness. The implied main question the film raised in my mind is: “How powerful are our minds exactly? How much of my/our world is within my/our control?” One interesting episode of the film is director/producer Hauck’s experiment to use group telepathy to produce rain in the Sahara Desert at a specific time. The results are fascinating.

Those who are looking for story, conflict, peril, or a traditional protagonist will be disappointed by this film, but those who are earnestly seeking alternative views on healing the globe, mainly through personal inner work, will be enthralled by this feature length offering.

I had a chance to talk with German director Oliver Hauck before and after the U.S. Premiere of the film in Beverly Hills, and he had the glow in his eye of one who has found the work which he was born to do on this Earth. He spoke of how his mission to make this project attracted all of the right people at the right time. And I couldn’t help but think about other people who might be reading this article, and how they might want to help heal the globe by creating something, but might be confused as to what they can do, or are simply caught up in the day to day of life: paying bills, working, running errands, surfing the web, exercising, sleeping and then doing it all again the next day. They don’t perceive that they have time to go out into nature and say prayers in a big circle. So what can this busy city dweller do to help out? At the film’s finale, David Miller says, “Everyone on the Earth has seen those beautiful pictures that the astronauts took from the moon and those images are so beautiful. When we [first saw] those images we [began to call] the Earth the Blue Jewel…” He encourages us to meditate for a few minutes each day on the beauty, harmony, and balance which make up our world. This simple method can help to heal the globe. Surely we’ve all got a few minutes a day for that.

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Sean A. Mulvihill is the President of Hollywood Happiness Studios and can be reached via www.hollywoodhappiness.com

This is a guest post by Miriam Subirana

Today we co-exist with diverse models of partnerships and family relationships. The grandparents or the great-grandparents— who have always lived together. The separated parents. Young people who have brief flings with one another without commitment. Some people want to reproduce the grandparents’ model: it seems more secure. Others opt for solitude as their faithful companion. Others decide to adopt children from other countries. Some bring up their partner’s children. Others have children in vitro, with homosexual partners. Others decide not to have children or have them after the age of forty when they are professionally established.

All of these formulas open out in the present day like a rich social fan of different models of new ways of family living. In practically all of them, women continue to be the backbone, the fundamental axis that keeps all these new family groupings together.

These new groupings are making themselves a place in our social, educational and cultural spaces. Whilst as women we have advanced in all areas, men have watched, almost without participating, this female liberation that is transforming our social, cultural and relational foundations. In general, they have felt disarmed, not ready on an emotional level to co-exist with these changes which directly affect the sphere of the family group.

In a discussion group on self-esteem, various men confessed that they do not have problems in the professional arena, but that in the emotional and personal sphere they doubt themselves; they feel ‘disarmed’ and lacking in self-esteem. The self-esteem of most men is based on their professional achievements.

Another factor that affects men is that, in general, they find it difficult to be with a woman who is intellectually brilliant, highly educated, talented and professionally successful. For them, sharing life with a woman who has greater achievements and more resources in the professional world makes them insecure. They are afraid of being less than what she might hope for or desire, and of not being able to offer what has been traditionally considered the male contribution. They are subject, states Marina Subirats, ‘to feeling threatened by a loss of admiration or to doubt as to their own value and being reproached for their lack of achievement. Instinctively, therefore, men tend to make less of the positions reached by their partners, so that these latter will make fewer comparisons and demands’.

Taking this power game as a starting point, we need to understand the reasons that lead men to try to prevent or not make it easy for their wives to work outside the home. What is also the case is that through doing so they have been able to keep greater control of them. In the traditional social model, what prevailed was continuity, the children. For their sake, the woman subjugated herself and tried to keep hold of her belief in the handsome prince, in the king and protector of the home.

In these pages we will see how this traditional context continues to impregnate our spaces of relationships. In the chapters to come I offer paths towards reflection and radical transformation, from the inside out, in order to achieve a more harmonious co-existence. We will see how to connect to our essential identity, freeing ourselves from limiting conditioning, and we will focus our viewpoint and energy on creating bridges towards a world that is better for all women and men.

Relationships

At the present time it is necessary to strengthen a vision in which relationships can come to exist in a harmonious complementarity. We need a complete transformation so that harmony in freedom is possible. Men have much to offer in this. Without mutual collaboration and understanding, we will not be able to go forwards towards a true encounter with one another. Let us be partners in the creation of a new reality in which relationships are the expression of our wholeness.

Fortunately, there are more and more men who are making an effort to reach a maturity that can make satisfactory relationships possible. We should all of us, women and men, work to facilitate and encourage this change in order to eradicate the violence, the dissatisfaction and the insecurity that reign in the present day in all spheres of human life. For this change to be possible, we have to look anew at the basis of our relationships. And this reflection should begin in each one of us, in me, and in you.

If, for example, your relationship with the other is based on a need, on the constant search for gratification, you will also establish a similar relationship with society: you will try to get society to fulfill your needs and your deficiencies. The fact of relating out of need, looking to the other to satisfy you, makes it inevitable that there will be expectations, conflicts, frustration and a permanent dissatisfaction.

Then you feel yourself to be a victim because things neither work nor are as you want them to be. This causes a state of constant complaint. The universe does not seem to dance to your tune, your desire and your will. You hope for situations and others to make you happy. And since this desired happiness does not arrive—or when it arrives it dissolves as quickly as sugar on the tongue—the dissatisfaction increases in scale, ending up as desperation or dejection. You feel that you can’t do anything to change what you would like to. You might also feel impotent in a relationship that does not seem to give you the satisfaction that you hope for.

In the pages to come I show the context in which our tendency towards dependence, and, therefore, permanent dissatisfaction, is generated. I suggest changes in perspective and attitude in order to achieve satisfaction, personal wholeness and harmony in relationships.

What do we want?

An important factor in connecting to our potential and transforming energy that would enable us to support each other in creating a new reality is the need to find out what our essential desire is. What do we want? What are we looking for? It is fundamental that we come to understand ourselves. Understand the self.

Who am I? What do I want? What is my identity? What is my will? From where do I act? From where do I choose? From fear and lack or from trust and abundance? Am I covering up a deficiency and am I hiding something, or is what I am doing born of desire?

What desire? What drives me? Are my actions driven by a mature love, a love that is worked at? Or am I seeking for the other to satiate my thirst for satisfaction, for pleasure and for love?

In this book we will see the repercussions of living in the paradigm that is based on need, on greed and an awareness that is based on what we are lacking. We will see how we can change to a paradigm that is based on the giving of oneself, generosity and abundance. Perhaps we should change the question and ask ourselves: what does the other need?

Rabindranath Tagore says:
I slept and I dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and I saw that life was service.
I served and I saw that service was joy.

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This article is a guest post by Miriam Subirana. Author Miriam Subirana shares her profession as a painter and writer with being a teacher of meditation and positive thinking. She coordinates programmes, projects, seminars and retreats whose objective is to refind and live your own identity and enjoy a fuller life. She lives in Barcelona, Spain.

From Neediness to Fulfillment – Beyond Relationships of Dependence, Miriam Subirana, 978-1-78099-129-0 (Paperback) £11.99 $19.95, 978-1-78099-130-6 (eBook) £6.99 $9.99.

Thank you www.o-books.com for helping to contribute this post.

The following post is an excerpt from Mark Abadi’s book Evolve: Living in Balance and Self Acceptance through Science, Spirituality, Mindfulness and Nutrition. For more information about the book, please visit his web site at: http://www.markabadi.com/evolve/.

Yes, that old bucket of fish! We’re all designed to desire to form romantic bonds with others, mainly as a way of creating security and sharing skill sets for optimal survival. Through this ‘safety in numbers’ principle, or tribe mentality, we’re best able to procreate and advance the species. There are other more spiritually important reasons for a romantic joining, which we’re going to explore. The mechanism that drives us together is the Universal desire to be in balance. It’s actually a law of physics to constantly desire neutrality. It’s the same law that makes the wind blow. Wind moves from one place to another because there is more pressure (i.e. air) in one location than another. Continuously seeking balance it moves around the Earth and this is the basis of weather. This is also the blending of opposites, the uniting of the feminine and the masculine, the yin and the yang, the extrovert and the introvert, the ida and pingala.

At the most fundamental level, creation of life is the ultimate goal of romantic relationships. This occurs when two opposites join, to become one. Getting preggers is the same Universal process that governs the movement of everything, from the stars to the wind and the ocean. Of course there has to be an attraction between two people. This attraction will be on a physical, psychological and energetic level. The physical level will depend upon your experiences, the culture you grew up in and in many cases how your parents looked. The psychological attraction will be on how much you feel their interests and skills support yours. How their culture and economic background can gel with yours.

The energetic is slightly different. At this level edges and thus definition lose their meaning and the vibrations are more like a symphony of sounds. A guitar might well sound good with a piano, but if one’s playing rock and the other’s playing classical, they might clash. Deciphering the ideal percentage ratios between all of these three is as boring a question as the nature nurture one. Who cares? The point is you, uniquely will have your own ratio set up and so long as you are being true to it and following your instincts you’ll find what attracts you.

Recently, I was flirting with a pretty girl and her sister called me shallow. I said “You have to go through the shallow to get to the deep!”, which I thought was very witty and now I think it’s clever and brilliant – oh Leos and their ego! We were talking about opposites and laws of attraction. So what about like attracting like? Currently you can’t make life with two identical sexes bonding. This doesn’t mean there’s no point to gay relationships, on the contrary. There is much to be learned in every sort of relationship and anything you can do, is natural, as you, my dear, are part of nature. In reality there are somethings you can get from a same sex partner that you’re less likely to acquire from an opposite sex partner. For example such a relationship might yield a deeper understanding of your gender specific perspective. Remember I said it’s only a current fact that you can’t produce life without the blending relationship of two opposites sexes.

This fact, as many have in the past, can change as science advances. As creating children is a fundamental reason for romantic relationships, the inability to do so removes one of the corner stones of a successful relationship. I mean it’s hard enough to find someone you can stand let alone spend your life with. Now take from that a core, base, animal attractor and you have less than you started with. So if you don’t have the support of your base animal instinct, that hard relationship just got harder. This will also be the case for opposite sex partners who can’t have kids, although there will be somewhere a sense inside them that they are still fulfilling the base requirements. That being said, in today’s climate we have expanded the function of a romantic relationship away from procreation alone.

Relationships these days emerge as emotionally supportive and intellectually stimulating companionships. This topic and the potentially awkward interpretation by an emotionally sensitive reader, reminds me of a funny tale about males and females courtesy of a hilarious comedian Daniel Tosh. He’s talking about how ridiculous it is that people suggest God hates gays. He tells a story to illustrate why it’s not the case. So there we are chilling in the Garden of Eden and the girl goes and eats the forbidden fruit. I mean come on girls, do you have to eat everything? I know you were hungry and there was a snake talking to you, stick to that story, it’s worked this far. So anyway she gets caught, classic mistake! Then all humanity is punished for all time. What’s women’s punishment? Menstrual cycles and painful childbirth, men’s punishment, having to put up with women! The point is, it’s not that God hates gays, he’s just pissed that they found a loop hole in the system!

The same key I shared with you before is even more relevant here – be true to yourself. If there’s anything you’re holding back, especially from yourself, then it’ll come round to express itself at some point in time.

What’s more it won’t be a convenient time of your choosing either. Believe me, it’s far better to get it out of the way, face your demons and be done with them. That ‘be done with them’ saying is also misleading, as it’s suggesting that they’ll be gone, history, nada. As you’re getting by now, the key is to allow them to be present in your life without causing you an issue. So it’s not about eradicating them from the face of your world, but relocating them, in a place, within you. Here they can feel comfortable enough to cause you no more trouble.

Remember, just like the loud guy in the bar, once he feels accepted he no longer has to shout. Your exterior appearance to the outside world, although it might seem important at the time, is unimportant and has nothing to do with your happiness. You might appear to be happy, but true happiness seems to be positively correlated with your degree of sincerity. In other words, happiness comes from being truthful with yourself and others. Even if you feel miserable, be happy about it because it’s not about the flavour of the ice cream but the temperature that makes it ice cream!