On the one hand, all the BLOCKS that prevent us from achieving our goal seem to pop up. At the same time, it is as if the invisible hand of The Uni-verse comes to our aid so help us along The Path.

When a decision is made – the problems appear, but so does the Grace. Our job is to apply an empowering meaning to ALL the events of our lives and SEE everything as happening FOR US, never TO US. The obstacle of today is tomorrow’s blessing. The opportunity that fell through today will leave room for something even greater to be. Let us not give up. Let us try, not until some date in our mind, NO – let us try UNTIL it HAPPENS!

A decision is only a decision if we ACT on it! Not once, not twice, but UNTIL! Expect the challenges to come; this is how you grow. Expect Grace to come – it is your birthright. See ALL of it as a dance. The UPS. The downs. The all arounds. They are all here to teach you, to guide you and to help you GROW.

Grace is here. Synchronicity is real. The portal of possibility for a new life opens when we decide and then COMMIT to act on our decision. No one can make this choice FOR US. We must make it for ourselves. It is by doing this, every day, as our WAY OF LIFE, that we slowly begin to SEE – FEEL and KNOW that our inner world is FAR stronger than ANYTHING the outside world gives us.

This is the way that it is… If we BELIEVE. If we DECIDE. If we ACT. And act UNTIL. There is no deadline on your dream or expiration date when living a life of your dreams is your LIFESTYLE!

You say you’ve decided – but what are your actions showing you? Are you dabbling towards your dreams or are you COMMITTED to this new LIFESTYLE? Do you have what it takes to try – UNTIL?

How To Know If You’ve REALLY Decided To Follow Your Dreams! by by MASTIN KIPP

Thoughts
Thought is an energy form. Science has proven a positive thought allows our energy to flow freely and unrestricted. Whereas, negative thoughts decrease energy within our body. Every thought (whether mental or emotional) is connected to a chakra. For example, a passionate thought is a red energy stimulant, but an angry thought decreases one’s positive red energy flow. This means that continual angry thoughts will lower your root chakra’s energy.

The Sun
This is our most important energy source. Through light all the seven color energies flow from the sun’s rays to the earth. People, animals, plants, minerals, water and our chakras receive energy from the sun’s light. (If you are not able to enjoy the sun for a few hours daily, add a quality full spectrum light bulb to a light source in your work area or in a lamp at home.)

Food
When the sun’s rays bless all plant life, it gives the plant life/energy. Once the plant absorbs energy, the color energy that remains is the energy of that fruit, vegetable or flower. Without this energy our body could not assimilate the nutritional value of the food. Balance your chakras daily by eating foods that contain each of the seven color energies (that’s why the doctor always said to eat a plate of different colored foods… for the color value!).

Visualization
Meditation & Breathing (Yoga). Since thought is an energy form you can stimulate your chakra centers through meditation, visualization or breathing energy into your various chakra centers. By adding the color intention adds additional power from a chakra’s vibration.

Gems/Minerals
Gemstones and minerals are also energy forms. For example, crystals contain a similar crystalline structure as the human body. Crystals amplify energy and can be programmed (e.g. computer chips and watches). Wearing gemstone jewelry or placing gemstones and minerals in your environment is a simple way to absorb the stone or mineral’s healing vibrations.

Color Bathing
(One of my favorites!) Water is a conductor of energy and color is an energy. While lying in the colored water your body absorbs the vibrational frequency from the color. Take the time to give back to your body and soul! While bathing, balance that chakra by thinking about what you would like to achieve from that specific energy and maybe add the correlating aromatherapy oil. Do not use chemical food coloring to dye your water. I recommend Colour Bath™ by Colour Energy Corporation, as it is totally organic and therefore safe to use.

Aromatherapy
Essential oils are the pure essence of the plant or flower. Every oil has a vibration that correlates to a color. Oils contain the healing properties of herbs, flowers or plants. Use only therapeutic quality oils (inexpensive oils may contain toxins). Also never apply oils directly on your skin (dilute with a carrier oil or in a bath).

Music & Dance
Music effects us in a positive or negative way. Every musical note corresponds to a color and chakra center. Certain sounds can stimulate an emotional, mental, physical or spiritual response. E.g. Listening or dancing to primal music, such as the beating of drums, can energize your physical body and stimulate your root chakra.

Toning & Sounds
We can vocally make sounds to vibrate at the same frequency as various organs in our body. Regular toning can help keep our body’s organs functioning properly. Noise pollution can be very disturbing to our environment. Surround yourself with sounds, which make you happy and productive!

Color Tonations
By shining of light through various color filters directly onto the body, the vibration of the color will be absorbed through your skin effecting the designated area.

Solarized Water
Charge water by filling a colored glass with water or by placing a colored filter in front of a glass of water and let the sun’s rays kiss the water with color energy. Make sure the glass is not leaded and of a clean color hue.

Syntonics
Is the use of color through the eyes. Via our eyes color stimulates our pituitary gland, which in turn releases hormones connected to the correlating organ of the same frequency. Therapeutic eye glasses that are manufactured with various colored filters can be simply worn whenever you need a boost of a certain color or chakra energy. Make sure the color eyeglasses are 100% UVA & UVB coated if wearing outdoors and again the exact color tint of the lens is very, very important. Note: Unless the color glass manufacturer or distributor is aware of color therapy, chances are their colored lenses are not made for healing purposes.

Decor
Use colors consciously in your home or work environment to give you more positive and productive energy. Paint a room or add different colored pillows, artwork, carpets, etc.

Clothing
What we wear will influence our mood, mind and energy level. Light penetrates through our clothing amplifying the color energy we are wearing. The more vibrant the clothing the better the energy transfer.

Art & Color
Art and color can be used as an outlet to either express or stimulate. Surround yourself with the colors, which are suitable for what you need to accomplish in that area. Use calming colors in your bedroom and mentally stimulating colors in your workspace.

Here are a few reasons that come to mind, not all of them obvious.

Low self-image
The appeal of martyrdom
Inner conflict and confusion
A belief that suffering is good for you
Depression and anxiety
Feeling trapped by circumstances
Living with high stress
Resistance to being healthy

These are powerful forces, and although billions of dollars are spent on drugs for treating depression and anxiety, it could be that the other causes of unhappiness are actually more powerful. I say that because we now know, after four decades of studying the messenger molecules sent by the brain to every cell in the body, that there is no line to be drawn between body and mind. Your cells feel every moment of stress that you experience, and at a subtler level persistent beliefs are enough to cause changes in the chemistry of cells. With that in mind, the first axiom of happiness should be “You will be as happy as you believe you deserve.”

How happy do you believe you deserve to be? To answer that question, you must first learn to think psychologically. Happiness is never automatic. It depends upon a negotiation of the self with the self. That is, each person has contending forces within, some of which are destructive to happiness, some of which promote happiness. Consider how subtly the following beliefs contribute to long-term unhappiness, even though they might seem innocuous in the short run:

I love to make others happy.
I take care of everyone else before I take care of myself.
It’s my duty to take care of others.
I don’t want to be the center of attention.
I like fading into the background. Others want the spotlight much more than I do.
It’s a sin to be selfish.

In one way or another, there’s something good about each of these beliefs — no one is advocating a society of selfish egotists who feel no duty toward anyone else, and the last thing I am talking about is not living up to one’s family obligations. But taking care of your family while you feel miserable isn’t the answer, either. Sadly, it turns out to be the answer that many people settle on, because their ability to cope with difficult situations is so limited that rather than moving into risky psychological territory, they choose to be passive, they go along to get along, they favor the status quo, and in the end their lives are ruled by inertia. All of this comes under the heading “resistance to being healthy,” which can reach an extreme. Therapists are well aware that when a patient is really stuck, especially in neurosis, addictions, or obsessions, there is a real fear of getting well. When they encounter someone who is psychologically healthy, such patients don’t want to be that way. To be healthy means having flexible boundaries, an open attitude to new things, lack of vigilance, and a love of spontaneity. These aren’t appealing qualities if your own life is barely sutured together.

There are a hundred ways to describe unhappiness. It’s more productive, when thinking about your own happiness, to see if you live the way real happiness dictates. By real happiness I mean the kind that cannot be taken away from you. That’s the acid test for whether or not you deserve to be happy. Many people are unable to find happiness except through the approval and love of someone else. In an Indian scripture known as the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, a husband is distributing his wealth among his wives, but one wife doesn’t want money or jewels. She wants to know her husband’s deepest wisdom. What he tells her is this: Everything we think will make us happy, including the most intimate love, is actually for love of the self. I can hear people crying out against this as pure solipsism, egotism, and selfishness. But the self in question is a spiritual concept. Whether you call it the higher self, the real self, or the core self, this is the “I” that finds its happiness purely in being here. Existence is enough to establish a base of calm, peace, quiet joy, and total security. The world feels safe when you feel safe, and likewise, the world will feel happy only after you secure inner happiness.

In the end, I approach all the psychological factors in unhappiness as symptoms of one cause: What makes us unhappy is the lack of spiritual knowledge. If we knew that we had a core self, a self whose happiness could never be taken away, wouldn’t every person seek it out? I’ve always believed they would. We still have the obstacle of being afraid to be happy. People often repeat that it’s dangerous to be too happy, on the premise that the higher you rise, the harder you fall. Society still needs therapists to deal with the mental obstacles and suffering that seem endemic in modern life. But you can’t arrive at a goal without a vision, and if a person’s vision is limited to gaining pleasure and avoiding pain, or not expecting too much out of life, or feeling that it is somehow good to suffer, happiness will be forever elusive. If it’s important to you to be happy for the rest of your life, begin with a vision of happiness that is high enough to strive for, year after year. In my experience, the people who do that wind up being much happier than they ever supposed they could be.

Deepak Chopra

The seemingly endless array of both conventional and alternative medicine self-help guides available in the popular press bewilders even the most savvy health care professionals. Patients, of course, find this informational landscape even more confusing and frequently bring with them into the examination room questions about what they have read or should read. One bestselling author of medical self-help guides is Deepak Chopra, MD, who for 15 years has written prolifically on behalf of the holistic care movement. Dr Chopra consistently produces work that is both sufficiently scientific for the professional community and adequately clear and readable for the lay community. His recent book, Grow Younger, Live Longer, written with David Simon, MD, represents a valuable addition to this library.

The book offers a pragmatic, step-by-step guide to natural health promotion and disease prevention. At the heart of Dr Chopra’s program lies a premise expressed in the following quote from the book: “The ‘normal’ experience of the body and its aging is a conditioned response–a habit of thinking and behavior. By changing your habits of thinking and behavior, you can change the experience of your body and its aging” (page 8).

Dr Chopra then goes on to detail a ten-step program for reprogramming one’s consciousness and physiology, with the goal of appreciating “aging” as a process that can be not only decelerated, but indeed reversed.

In addition to his endocrinology training, Dr Chopra’s background is in Ayurvedic medicine, the traditional health care system of India. Indeed, Ayurveda translates literally as “knowledge of lifespan” and represents an ancient and sophisticated science of longevity. Dr Chopra devotes an entire chapter to each of ten separate action steps (see sidebar) that collectively span a broad range of Ayurvedic self-care modalities, including meditation, diet, exercise, daily routine, yoga, nutritional supplements, and detoxification. The first page of each chapter details specific, practical implementation points encompassed by the action step. In the body of the chapter, the author elucidates supporting theory and implementation guidelines for each of these ten points. The result is a pragmatic, informative, concise “how-to” manual for integrating holistic medicine into modern life.

For example, in the chapter about enhancing mind-body integration (action step 5), Dr Chopra describes three implementation points: performing breathing techniques, performing yoga, and practicing body awareness. The remainder of the chapter provides practical details for doing these techniques. The author gives specific instructions for doing three different types of conscious breathing exercises: an “energizing” technique for invigoration, a “soothing” technique to help relieve irritation and frustration, and a “relaxing” technique to help relieve anxiety. The section on yoga includes excellent diagrams with clear instructions for learning the 12 “sun salutation” yoga positions.

Dr Chopra is at his best where he weaves his authentic knowledge and appreciation of Ayurvedic wisdom into inspiring and practical advice. For example, he begins the chapter on “Cultivating Flexibility and Creativity” (action step by describing in terms of Ayurvedic theory the threefold fundamental forces influencing the mind: the evolutionary, the stagnant, and the tension between these two. Against this backdrop, Dr Chopra emphasizes the importance of maintaining spiritual and mental flexibility by letting go of negative experiences and emotions. According to Dr Chopra, attachment to negativity–and, indeed, attachment to any material outcome–accelerates aging and impedes progress in life and self-development. Stated another way, if you are attached, you cannot move forward. Detachment implies having the flexibility to absorb personal development and change and allow nature’s evolutionary intelligence to guide one’s destiny.

Although the book draws heavily from Dr Chopra’s Ayurvedic roots, it does not serve as an introduction, or guide, to Ayurveda. Many fundamental Ayurvedic principles (most notably, “Tri-Dosha” theory) are not mentioned at all. This approachs not a fault in and of itself, yet we must acknowledge that Dr Chopra’s work grows progressively more eclectic as the years go by.
In Grow Younger, Live Longer, the author steers back and forth from Ayurveda to Chinese Medicine, to Western Herbalism, and so on. In addition, Dr Chopra sometimes contradicts Ayurvedic thought altogether. Dr Chopra’s knowledge of Ayurvedic tradition and wisdom is undoubtedly authentic, but his work has been the subject of some controversy: Can readers truly achieve meaningful vision and understanding through the eclectic lens that he offers?

On balance, health care professionals can expect to find in Grow Younger, Live Longer not only a compelling and enjoyable introduction to holistic medicine but, more important, a practical and balanced approach to growing younger and living longer. This is an excellent book to recommend to patients interested in natural health care. Dr Chopra is a skilled writer who remains among the most eloquent spokesmen on behalf of the holistic medicine movement.

Following are the ten “action steps” detailed by Dr Deepak Chopra in Grow Younger, Live Longer:

I am reversing my biological age by changing my perceptions of my body, its aging, and of time.
I am reversing my biological age through two kinds of deep rest–restful awareness and restful sleep.
I am reversing my biological age by lovingly nurturing my body through healthy food.
I am reversing my biological age by taking nutritional complements that have a direct effect on the prevention of illness.
I am reversing my biological age by enhancing mind/body integration.
I am reversing my biological age through regular exercise.
I am reversing my biological age by eliminating toxins from my physical and emotional bodies.
I am reversing my biological age by cultivating flexibility and creativity in my consciousness.
I am reversing my biological age by making love the most important thing in my life.
I am reversing my biological age by maintaining a youthful mind.

—Lao Tsu
Tao Te Ching

Meditation should be directed toward the realization of oneness with God. Your entire attention should be given to the realization of God, always bearing in mind that the kingdom of God is within you, neither lo here nor lo there, but within you.

—Joel Goldsmith

Illumination Technique

THE ILLUMINATION TECHNIQUE, or Meditation on the Twin Hearts, is a technique to achieve Buddhic consciousness or cosmic con- sciousness or illumination. It is also a form of service to the world because the world is harmonized to a certain degree by blessing the entire earth with loving kindness.

Meditation on the Twin Hearts is based on the principle that some of the major chakras are entry points or gateways to certain levels or horizons of consciousness. To achieve illumination or Buddhic conscious- ness, it is necessary to fully activate the crown chakra. The crown chakra, when fully activated, becomes like a cup. To be more exact, the twelve inner petals open and turn upward like a cup to receive spiritual energies which are distributed to other parts of the body. The crowns worn by kings and queens are but poor physical replicas or symbols of the inde- scribably resplendent crown chakra of a fully-developed person. The fully activated crown chakra is symbolized as the Holy Grail.

The crown chakra can only be fully activated when the heart chakra is first fully activated. The heart chakra is a replica of the crown chakra.

PRANIC HEALING

When you look at the heart chakra, it looks like the inner chakra of the crown chakra, which has twelve golden petals. The heart chakra is the lower correspondence of the crown chakra. The crown chakra is the center of illumination and divine love or oneness with all. To explain what is divine love and illumination to an ordinary person is just like trying to explain what color is to a blind man.

The heart chakra is the center of higher emotions. It is the center for compassion, joy, affection, consideration, mercy and other refined emotions. Without developing higher refined emotions, how can one possibly experience divine love?

There are many ways of activating the heart and crown chakras. You can use physical movements, hatha yoga, yogic breathing techniques, man- tras or words of power, and visualization techniques. All of these tech- niques are effective but are not fast enough. One of the most effective and fastest ways to activate these chakras is to do meditation on loving-kindness or to bless the whole earth with loving-kindness. By using the heart chakra and the crown chakra in blessing the earth with loving-kindness, they become channels for spiritual energies; thereby becoming activated in the process. By blessing the earth with loving-kindness, you are doing a form of world service. And by blessing the earth with loving-kindness, you are in turn blessed many times. It is in blessing that you are blessed. It is in giving that you receive. That is the law!

A person with a fully activated crown chakra does not necessarily achieve illumination for he or she has yet to learn how to make use of the crown chakra to achieve illumination. It is just like having a sophisticated computer but not knowing how to operate it. Once the crown chakra has been fully activated, then you have to do meditation on the light, on the mantra Aum and on the gap between the two Aums. Intense concentration should be focused not only on the mantra Aum but especially on the gap between the two Aums. It is by fully and intensely concentrating on the light and the gap between the two Aums that illumination, or samadhi, is achieved!

With most people, their other chakras are quite activated. The basic chakra, sex chakra, and solar plexus chakra are activated in practically all people. With these people, their instincts for self-survival, sex drive and their tendency to react with their lower emotions are very active. With the pervasiveness of modern education and work that requires the use of the mental faculty, the ajna chakra and the throat chakra are developed in

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Note : Aum is a Sanskrit word for the Supreme Being; in Arabic, Allah; in Chinese, Tao and in English, God.
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a lot of people. What is not developed in most people are the heart and crown chakras. Modern education, unfortunately, tends to overemphasize the development of the throat chakra and the ajna chakra or the development of the concrete mind and the abstract mind. The development of the heart has been neglected. Because of this, you may encounter people who are quite intelligent but very abrasive. This type of person has not yet matured emotionally or the heart chakra is quite underdeveloped. Though he or she is intelligent and may be successful, human relationships are very poor, with hardly any friends and no family or a broken family. By using the meditation on the twin hearts, a person becomes harmoniously balanced.

Whether the abstract and concrete mind will be used constructively or destructively depends upon the development of the heart. When the solar plexus chakra is overdeveloped and the heart chakra is underdeveloped, or when the lower emotions are active and the higher emotions are underdeveloped, then the mind would probably be used destructively. Without the development of the heart in most people, world peace will be an unattainable dream. This is why the development of the heart should be emphasized in the educational system.

People less than 18 years old should not practice the illumination technique since the body cannot yet withstand too much subtle energy. This may even manifest as physical paralysis in the long run. People with heart ailments should not practice Meditation on the Twin Hearts since it may result in severe pranic heart congestion. It is important that people who intend to practice Meditation on the Twin Hearts regularly should also practice self-purification or character building through daily inner reflection.

Meditation on the Twin Hearts not only activates the heart chakra and the crown chakra but also the other chakras. Because of this, both the positive and negative characteristics of the practitioner will be magnified or activated. This can easily be verified by the practitioner himself and through clairvoyant observation.

PROCEDURE

1) Cleansing the etheric body through physical exercise: Do physical ex- ercise for about five minutes. Doing physical exercise has a cleansing and energizing effect on the etheric body. Light grayish matter or used-up prana is expelled from the etheric body when exercising. Physical exercises have to be done to minimize possible pranic congestion since this meditation generates a lot of subtle energies in the etheric body.

2) Invocation for divine blessing: Invoking the blessing of one’s Spiritual Guides is very important. Each spiritual aspirant has spiritual guides, whether he or she is consciously aware of them or not. The invocation is required for one’s protection, help and guidance. Without making the invocation, practicing any advanced meditational technique could be dangerous. You can make your own invocation.

3) Activating the heart chakra—blessing the entire earth with loving- kindness: Press your front heart chakra with your finger for a few seconds. This is to make concentration on the front heart chakra easier. Concentrate on the front heart chakra and bless the earth with loving-kindness. You may improvise your own blessing with loving-kindness. I usually use this blessing:

Blessing the Earth with Loving-Kindness

From the Heart of God,
Let the entire earth be blessed with loving-kindness.
Let the entire earth be blessed with great joy,
happiness and divine peace.
Let the entire earth be blessed with understanding, harmony, good will and will-to-good. So be it!

From the Heart of God,
Let the hearts of all sentient beings be filled with divine love and kindness.
Let the hearts of all sentient beings be filled with great joy, happiness and divine peace.
Let the hearts of all sentient beings be filled
with understanding, harmony, good will and will-to-good. With thanks, so be it!

For beginners, this blessing is done only once or twice. Do not overdo this blessing at the start. Some may even feel a slight pranic congestion around the heart area. This is because your etheric body is not sufficiently clean.

Apply localized sweeping to remove the congestion.
This blessing should not be done mechanically. You should feel and fully appreciate the implications in each phrase. You may also use visu- alization. When blessing the earth with loving kindness, visualize the aura of the earth as becoming dazzling pink. When blessing the earth with great joy, happiness and peace, visualize people with heavy difficult prob- lems smiling—their hearts filled with joy, faith, hope and peace. Visualize their problems becoming lighter and their faces lightening up. When blessing the earth with harmony, good will and will-to-good, visualize people or nations on the verge of fighting or fighting each other reconciling.

Visualize these people putting down their arms and embracing each other. Visualize them being filled with good intentions and filled with the will to carry out this good intention. This blessing can be directed to a nation or nations, a family or a person or a group of persons. Do not direct this blessing on a specific infant or specific children because they might be overwhelmed by the intense energy generated by the meditation.

4) Activating the crown chakra—blessing the earth with loving-kindness: Press the crown with your finger for several seconds to facilitate concentration on the crown chakra and bless the entire earth with loving-kindness. When the crown chakra is fully opened, some of you will feel something blooming on top of the head and some will also feel something press- ing on the crown. After the crown chakra has been activated, concentrate simultaneously on the crown chakra and the heart chakra, and bless the earth with loving-kindness several times. This will align the heart chakra and the crown chakra, thereby making the blessing much more potent.

5) To achieve illumination—meditation on the light, on the Aum and the gap between the two Aums: Visualize a grain of dazzling white light on the crown or at the center inside the head, and simultaneously mentally utter the mantra, Aum. Concentrate intensely on the point of light, on the Aum and on the gap between the two Aums. When mentally uttering the mantra Aum, you will notice that the Aums are not continuous and that there is a slight gap between two mantras or between two Aums. Do this meditation for five to ten minutes. When the spiritual aspirant can fully concentrate simultaneously on the point of light and on the gapmbetween the two Aums, he or she will experience an “inner explosion of light.

The entire being will be filled with light! He or she will have the first glimpse of illumination and the first experience of divine ecstasy! To experience Buddhic consciousness or illumination is to experience and understand what Jesus meant when he said: “If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be fall of light.” (Luke 11:34). “For behold, the kingdom of heaven is within you.” (Luke 17:21).

For some people, it may take years before they experience an initial glimpse of illumination or Buddhic consciousness. Others may take months while others may take weeks. For the very few, they achieve initial expansion of consciousness on the first try. This is usually done with the help from an elder or a facilitator.

When doing this meditation, the aspirant should be neutral. He or she should not be obsessed with results or filled with too many expectations. Otherwise, he or she will be actually meditating on the expectations or the expected results rather than on the point of light, the Aum and the gap between the two Aums.

6) Releasing excess energy: After the end of the meditation, the excess energy should be released by blessing the earth with Light, Love and Peace. Otherwise, the etheric body will become congested and the visible body will deteriorate in the long run because of too much energy. Other esoteric schools release the excess energy by visualizing the chakras pro- jecting out the excess energy and the chakras becoming smaller and dim- mer, but this approach does not put the excess energy into constructive use.

7) Giving thanks: After the end of the meditation, always give thanks to your spiritual guides for the divine blessing.

Strengthening the visible physical body through massage and more physical exercises: After the end of the meditation, massage your body and do physical exercise for about five minutes. The purpose is to farther cleanse and strengthen the visible body since more used-up prana is ex- pelled out of the body. This facilitates the assimilation of the pranic and spiritual energies, thereby enhancing the beauty and health of the prac- titioner. Massaging and exercising after this meditation also reduces the possibility of pranic congestion or energy getting in certain parts of the body which may lead to illness. You can also gradually cure yourself of some ailments by doing exercises after doing the Meditation on the Twin Hearts. It is very important to exercise after the meditation; otherwise, the visible physical body will inevitably be weakened. Although the etheric body will become very bright and strong, the visible physical body will become weak because it will not be able to withstand the leftover energy generated by the meditation in the long run. You have to experience it yourself to fully appreciate what I am saying.

Some of you have the tendency not to do physical exercises after this meditation but to continue savouring the blissful state. This tendency should be overcome, otherwise your physical health will deteriorate in the long run.

Sometimes when a spiritual aspirant meditates, he or she may experience unusual physical movements for a limited period of time. This is quite normal since the etheric channels are being cleansed.

The instructions may seem quite long but the meditation is short, simple and very effective! It requires only ten to fifteen minutes excluding the time required for the physical exercises.
There are many degrees of illumination. The art of “intuiting” or “direct synthetic knowing requires constant practice (meditation) for a long duration of time.

To be more exact, it requires many incarnations to develop facility in the use of this Buddhic faculty.

Blessing the earth with loving-kindness can be done in group as a form of world service. When done in a group for this purpose, first bless the earth with loving-kindness through the heart chakra, then through the crown chakra, then through both the crown chakra and the heart chakra. Release the excess energy after the end of the meditation. The other parts of the meditation are omitted. The blessing can be directed, not only to the entire earth, but also to a specific nation or group of nations. The potency of the blessing is increased many times when done in group. For example, when the blessing is done by a group of seven, the effect or potency is equal to more than one hundred people doing it separately.
Just as pranic healing can miraculously cure simple and severe ailments, the Meditation on Twin Hearts, when practiced by a large number of people can also miraculously heal the entire earth. This message is directed to readers with sufficient maturity and the will-to-good.

MEDITATION ON THE TWIN HEARTS

1) Clean the etheric body, do physical exercise for about five minutes.

2) Invoke for divine blessing.

3) Activate the heart chakra, concentrate on it, and bless the entire earth with loving-kindness.

4) Activate the crown chakra, concentrate on it, and bless the entire earth with loving-kindness. Then bless the earth with loving-kindness simulta- neously through the crown chakra and the heart chakra.

5) To achieve illumination, concentrate on the point of light, on the Aum, and on the gap between the two Aums.

6) To release excess energy, bless the earth with light, love and peace.

7) Give thanks.

To strengthen the visible physical body; massage face and body, and do physical exercise for about five minutes.

Meditation on the Twin Hearts is a very powerful tool in bringing about world peace; therefore, this meditation technique should be disseminated. Permission is granted to all interested persons to reprint, re- copy, and reproduce the Meditation on the Twin Hearts with proper acknowledgment to both author and publisher.

My brother-in-law, who is very intellectually oriented, (studies statistics, does double-blind studies, reads respected scientific journals) is faced with a dilemma. Should he ask for the check from the waiter, declaring that he has an important meeting to attend, change the subject, or probe, while holding back an urge to laugh? My bet says he changes the subject.

Pranic Healing is however, making its way into the jargon and minds of the west. And like acupuncture and other healing modalities that have come from the east, Pranic Healing will first have to overcome the skepticism of the western world.

I’m a skeptic by nature myself, but after attending a two-day workshop on Pranic Healing®, I believe those walls of skepticism will break, crumble and fall, sooner rather than later.

WHAT IS PRANIC HEALING®?
Pranic Healing, according to their website — www.pranichealing.com — “is a highly developed and tested system of energy-based healing techniques that utilizes ‘prana’ to balance, harmonize and transform the body’s energy processes. ‘Prana’ is a Sanskrit word meaning ‘life-force.’ This invisible bio-energy or vital energy keeps the body alive and maintains a state of good health.”

Prana is an invisible energy which has eluded western methods of detection. Although a few years back a Russian scientist developed what came to be known as Kirlian photography, which documented an energy field around the body, there is still a reluctance on the part of western medicine to accept what cannot be tested by traditional scientific methods.

The website continues on, describing Pranic Healing® as “a simple, yet powerful and effective, no-touch energy healing. It is based on the fundamental principle that the body is a ‘self-repairing’ living entity that possesses the innate ability to heal itself. Pranic Healing works on the principle that the healing process is accelerated by increasing the life force or vital energy on the affected part of the physical body.”

THE WORKSHOP
The two-day workshop on Pranic Healing® which I attended was held at the Holiday Inn in Burbank, California. The workshop was led by Master Stephen Co, a disciple of Grand Master Choa Kok Sui, the founder of Pranic Healing®. There were about twenty attendees and five or six support staff for this particular workshop. The purpose of the workshop was to learn the basic healing techniques of Pranic Healing®. The workshop ran from 9:30 to 5:30, Saturday and Sunday. By the end of the two-day workshop, we would be able to practice Pranic Healing techniques on family and friends.

As I entered the room, a few minutes before the workshop was scheduled to begin, I was immediately aware of the soothing music floating through the air, and two individuals at the front of the room. One of the individuals was Master Stephen Co. Trim and youthful in appearance, Master Co was holding in his hand what appeared to be a crystal. It had the shape of a very fat pencil and was about six or seven inches long.

Apparently Master Co was performing a healing. The “patient” had his back toward Master Co, and was about three feet away from him. From my vantage point, it looked like Master Co was scribbling in the air with the crystal, occasional flicking his wrist (the one holding the crystal) toward a bowl of salt water on the floor. This mini-healing session lasted a few more minutes, as I stared in fascination. The “scribbling” I witnessed would make more sense by the end of the workshop.

The premise of Pranic Healing® is that there is an energy field around the body. This field is sometimes seen by clairvoyants and referred to as the aura. According to the tenets of Pranic Healing, disease will first manifest itself in this energy field before expressing itself in the body. The Pranic Healer works with this energy field that surrounds the body. Healing the energy field acts as a catalyst to inspire the body’s ability to heal itself.

After introductions and a brief discussion, we broke off into partners and began learning the healing techniques developed by Grand Master Shui.

Grand Master Shui was an engineer by training. At a very young age he became interested in eastern thought — from yoga to mysticism. His engineering background, combined with an interest in eastern thought and the healing arts, led to the development of Pranic Healing®.

The first method we learned in the workshop was referred to as “sweeping.” The practitioner sweeps his hands over the patient’s energy field, eliminating any “dirty prana.” At the end of each sweep, the practitioner would flick his or her hands toward a bowl on the floor containing water and salt. This salt water bowl would neutralize the dirty prana. The general sweeping was done five times in front of the patient’s body and five times on the back of the patient’s body with the practitioner’s hands always being at least twelve inches from the person.

After practicing the sweeping techniques, we learned how to clean and energize the various chakras in the body. In the workshop we would be focusing on eleven major chakras, or energy centers as they are referred to in Pranic literature. Each chakra had corresponding ailments associated with it. For example, if the patient had anxiety issues — emotional distress, anger, irritability — certain chakras would be cleansed and then energized, using specific Pranic Healing® techniques. The techniques could not only be used on others, but we could essentially heal ourselves using these same techniques.

The training we received was, by the end of the two-day workshop, more than enough to launch the attendees off on their own adventures as novice Pranic Healers.

STORIES
Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of the workshop was listening to Stephen Co recount story after story of various healings. One that comes to mind was a trip that Co took up Mt. Baldy on a ski lift — as a sightseer — during the summer. Apparently he and his wife were traveling with another couple, who were in the ski lift chair directly behind them. Half way up the mountain, Co turned around expecting to see his friend enjoying the beautiful sights, only to see his friend, head tilted down, grabbing onto the chair lift center pole in sheer terror. is friend failed to mention to Co that he had a fear of heights.

At the top of the mountain the two couples decided to have lunch at the restaurant. Co, being the Pranic Healer he is, decided to perform a healing on his friend, to relieve his friend’s fear of heights. The problem was, they were in a public restaurant, eating lunch. So, if you can imagine . . . two couples sitting across from each other at a table, laughing, talking and eating, while Co surreptitiously attempts to heal his friend — right-hand making bizarre gyrations . . . scribbling in the air as covertly as possible. To the casual observer, it must have been quite a sight.

Well, to make a long story short, on the trip down the mountain on the ski lift, Co observed that his friend was not grabbing the chair lift bar in sheer terror, but gazing in sheer ecstasy, enjoying the majestic views that nature had to offer.

Eric Robins, M.D., had some stories to tell also (via a video we saw at the workshop). Apparently, Dr. Robins was the first western physician to introduce Pranic Healing to a major California hospital where he is a practitioner. Robins decided to offer Pranic Healing to his patients who weren’t responding to standard medical procedures. As a result, he observed firsthand, that Pranic Healing is an effective healing tool. So successful were his trials with Pranic Healing, well over a hundred physicians and nurses at his hospital took classes to learn these techniques themselves.

Dr. Robin’s stories can be read in the book, co-authored with Stephen Co and John Merryman, “Your Hands Can Heal You.”

Pranic Healing® will undoubtedly make inroads into the western medical community. As of this writing, it is being offered in some eighty countries. It’s just a matter of time before hospitals throughout the U.S. will have Pranic Healing on their list of services offered.

For those drawn to energy healing, I would highly recommend the Pranic Healing® courses being offered throughout the country. They are inexpensive and offer a first-hand look at energy healing.

Physiological benefits:
1- It lowers oxygen consumption.
2- It decreases respiratory rate.
3- It increases blood flow and slows the heart rate.
4- Increases exercise tolerance.
5- Leads to a deeper level of physical relaxation.
6- Good for people with high blood pressure.
7- Reduces anxiety attacks by lowering the levels of blood lactate.
8- Decreases muscle tension
9- Helps in chronic diseases like allergies, arthritis etc.
10- Reduces Pre-menstrual Syndrome symptoms.
11- Helps in post-operative healing.
12- Enhances the immune system.
13- Reduces activity of viruses and emotional distress
14- Enhances energy, strength and vigour.
15- Helps with weight loss
16- Reduction of free radicals, less tissue damage
17- Higher skin resistance
18- Drop in cholesterol levels, lowers risk of cardiovascular disease.
19- Improved flow of air to the lungs resulting in easier breathing.
20- Decreases the aging process.
21- Higher levels of DHEAS (Dehydroepiandrosterone)
22- prevented, slowed or controlled pain of chronic diseases
23- Makes you sweat less
24- Cure headaches & migraines
25- Greater Orderliness of Brain Functioning
26- Reduced Need for Medical Care
27- Less energy wasted
28- More inclined to sports, activities
29- Significant relief from asthma
30- improved performance in athletic events
31- Normalizes to your ideal weight
32- harmonizes our endocrine system
33- relaxes our nervous system
34- produce lasting beneficial changes in brain electrical activity
35- Cure infertility (the stresses of infertility can interfere with the release of hormones that regulate ovulation).

Psychological benefits:
36- Builds self-confidence.
37- Increases serotonin level, influences mood and behaviour.
38- Resolve phobias & fears
39- Helps control own thoughts
40- Helps with focus & concentration
41- Increase creativity
42- Increased brain wave coherence.
43- Improved learning ability and memory.
44- Increased feelings of vitality and rejuvenation.
45- Increased emotional stability.
46- improved relationships
47- Mind ages at slower rate
48- Easier to remove bad habits
49- Develops intuition
50- Increased Productivity
51- Improved relations at home & at work
52- Able to see the larger picture in a given situation
53- Helps ignore petty issues
54- Increased ability to solve complex problems
55- Purifies your character
56- Develop will power
57- greater communication between the two brain hemispheres
58- react more quickly and more effectively to a stressful event.
59- increases one’s perceptual ability and motor performance
60- higher intelligence growth rate
61- Increased job satisfaction
62- increase in the capacity for intimate contact with loved ones
63- decrease in potential mental illness
64- Better, more sociable behaviour
65- Less aggressiveness
66- Helps in quitting smoking, alcohol addiction
67- Reduces need and dependency on drugs, pills & pharmaceuticals
68- Need less sleep to recover from sleep deprivation
69- Require less time to fall asleep, helps cure insomnia
70- Increases sense of responsibility
71- Reduces road rage
72- Decrease in restless thinking
73- Decreased tendency to worry
74- Increases listening skills and empathy
75- Helps make more accurate judgements
76- Greater tolerance
77- Gives composure to act in considered & constructive ways
78- Grows a stable, more balanced personality
79- Develops emotional maturity

Spiritual benefits:
80- Helps keep things in perspective
81- Provides peace of mind, happiness
82- Helps you discover your purpose
83- Increased self-actualization.
84- Increased compassion
85- Growing wisdom
86- Deeper understanding of yourself and others
87- Brings body, mind, spirit in harmony
88- Deeper Level of spiritual relaxation
89- Increased acceptance of oneself
90- helps learn forgiveness
91- Changes attitude toward life
92- Creates a deeper relationship with your God
93- Attain enlightenment
94- greater inner-directedness
95- Helps living in the present moment
96- Creates a widening, deepening capacity for love
97- Discovery of the power and consciousness beyond the ego
98- Experience an inner sense of “Assurance or Knowingness”
99- Experience a sense of “Oneness”
100- Increases the synchronicity in your life

Meditation is also completely FREE! It requires no special equipment, and is not complicated to learn. It can be practiced anywhere, at any given moment, and it is not time consuming (15-20 min. per day is good). Best of all, meditation has NO negative side effects. Bottom line, there is nothing but positive to be gained from it! With such a huge list of benefits, the question you should ask yourself is, “why am I not meditating yet?”

If you need a point to start from, you should try guided meditation courses. They are inexpensive and can provide you with a good foundation from which to begin meditating.

Make sure you meditate, there are quite simply too many positives to just ignore it.

By Frederic P

3 Keep a journal. Record your accomplishments as well as your delights. Take time to reflect on what has been previously written. Be an inspiration to yourself and others.

4 Love everyone.
Love yourself. Focus on your inner and outer beauty to see the same in others. Acceptance comes from within. Don’t focus on the things you don’t like about yourself. Rather, find the things you love about yourself.

Love others. Love the ones who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don’t. Life is too precious to be wasted on waiting for love.

5 .Accept everyone. Be kind and courteous. Enjoy the company of others. Acknowledge their goodness rather than the differences in their beliefs. Do not judge others. Treat others as you would like to be treated.

6. Find purpose in life. Find something that gives your life meaning, be it being a great friend, sibling, parent, grandparent, teacher, neighbor, etc. Once you have found something to live for, you’ll live better.

7.Give back. Be selfless in service to others. Begin with your neighbor. Do charitable service outside of your immediate community as well. Giving back will not only make you better as a person, it will help others.

8.Be realistic. Set attainable goals according to your abilities and talents. Consider each effort to be an attainment. Achieve one step before the other towards stability and security.

9.Seek balance. Understand the night and day, back and forth, good and bad in all things.

10.Be positive.
Focus on good thoughts and good things will happen. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Beating yourself up won’t help anything. Be positive. Say, think, and do positive things. Always look on the sunny side of life. Remember that the glass isn’t half empty, it’s half full.

11.Maintain control.
Be responsible for your actions and inaction. Be true to yourself. Maintain a personal code in the situation at hand. Find common ground.

12. Listen to your heart and soul. Listen for advice, but be confident in making your own decision. Use your instinct. Don’t let others tell you what to do.

13.Clear your mind. Rituals of yoga, meditation and tai chi will replenish and rejuvenate your soul to focus more clearly on serenity and happiness.

14.Be carefree. Desires, obsessions and possessions possess you. Free yourself from your impulses. Make an active decision to have simple daily needs.

15.Laugh. Laughter is the best medicine. It releases endorphins and promotes longevity. Inner joy is beautiful!

16. Be flexible. Accept change as a positive thing in life. At times, go with the flow that is before you.

17.List a few daily goals. Meet a new friend, swim at the lake or walk in the park. Enhance your day and initiate fun!

18. Appreciate the little things. Take a walk around your community to experience the wonder in a way that you have never experienced it before. Pretend that you are from a different country and you’re here for the first time. Go out with your family and take time to appreciate them. Take it all in and find the beauty it – it’s all around you, just open up your eyes and look!

19. Forgive yourself and others. Release your negative energy that holds you back, your past failures, embrace whatever life offers you.

20. Anticipate tomorrow. Everyday is unique, like the blossoming clouds. It’s never the same, but always beautiful. If things aren’t going right for you, remember that there is always tomorrow. Tomorrow, your life could change for the better.

21. Accept death. Pondering death brings appreciation to life. Take time to appreciate the expanse and beauty of your life and our earth. Don’t fight death or live in fear of it. Let go peacefully.

22. Appreciate the environment. Take a break occasionally and go for a walk. Assume that you have come from another planet. Take a fresh look at the clouds, the colors of sky at sunset and sunrise. Look at the plants, trees, leaves, and flowers and how they sway when wind blows. Look at water how it shakes and shapes itself in the vessel it’s stored. Look at numerous forms of life – insects, animals, birds and humans. This exercise will clear off the dead memories and monotony that kills the joy of living.

23. Erase your negative thoughts.
Take actions towards resolving the root cause any bad thoughts (anger, fear, doubt, hate,…). Cancel each one out with a good thought called affirmations: “I’m over that.” “I am brave!” “I know I can do it!” “I forgive and I do not hate!” You may not be feeling the best at the moment, but you will feel better once you think about good things. Think about all of the things life has to offer, because though things may be horrible at the moment — the future holds a lot of hope. It should make you smile and not store negative feelings to be relived later.

24. Maintain a strong foundation of beliefs. However, be humble and open to others opinions (in truth). Stand up for what you believe in and don’t let others push you around, but be open to other people’s ideas, as they may surprise you. Do not get caught up on little things.

25. Make a bucket list. Make a list of all the things you want to do before you die like learning an adventurous skill, making progress in work or sport, bungee jumping, sky diving, ziplining, etc. Check off your list! This will make you feel like you’ve accomplished something.

26. Make friends. Make true friends; friends around whom you can be yourself. Go more places with them so that you can share your joy with someone else. By being around people you will become a more understanding person.

27. Express Gratitude.
Recognize daily the things you are grateful for. Let your family, friends, and other significant ones know how grateful you are to have them. Share and express love while you can.

28. Inspire yourself.
Do something that inspires you, be it finding a role model or simply reading an inspirational quote life is better once you’ve enlightened yourself!

29. Don’t hang onto the past!
Don’t stress out about the mistakes you’ve made – take them in stride and learn from them. From each mistake spawns a lesson. Do not worry about the past because it is gone, do not worry about the future because it is yet to come, live in today and embrace it!

30. Take nothing for granted. Appreciate everything and everyone around you – your family, friends, house, pets, environment, and world. One day, you may wake up to find that one of those things is gone, so appreciate them while you have them.

31. Put things into perspective. Remember that even though your life may seem tough right now, there is no doubt somebody out there going through something much worse.

32. Don’t let possessions rule your life.
Don’t let new electronics, clothes, or cars take over your life and who you are. Material possessions are only accessories to you and your life. You come first.

33. Follow your dreams.
Make a list of everything you’ve ever dreamed of doing and then make it happen. Dreams aren’t achieved by sitting around and waiting. They’re achieved by getting up and working for them! Work hard and make your dreams a reality! Work hard and play harder! You can always fulfill your dreams. If you really want something, find a way to achieve it!

34. Don’t give up.
Do not accept defeat, even if it seems like it’s the only option. Look at the obstacles that others have overcome to be who they are and to fight for what they think is right. Translate that into your everyday life and use that mindset to accomplish simple things in life.

35. Be YOU.
Have the courage to be yourself. Don’t be shy! You are who you are! Even if society doesn’t like it, you are you, so forget what others think and live your life! Do what you want, because life is what you make it, and your life is yours! Nobody else is going to live your life, so it’s up to you!

I am convinced that once you understand SynchroDestiny, you will understand nothing less than the dynamics and mechanics of creation itself; but if that seems a bit abstract, I can also assure you that through SynchroDestiny, you can develop the ability to manifest abundance in your everyday life.

Abundance can mean many things. It can mean material wealth. It can mean emotional well being and spiritual fulfillment. Abundance can mean the ability to fully experience love and compassion. It can mean feeling joy and being able to spread joy to others.

At the most fundamental level, an understanding of SynchroDestiny can provide a sense of spiritual abundance–a sense that our lives are truly connected at every moment to the creative power of the universe. This power is the intelligence that orchestrates the whole dance of creation on every scale, from the furthest reaches of the cosmos to the events of our own daily lives.

There are seven key principles that must be grasped. Master these seven principles and you will have mastered SynchroDestiny. You will know the secrets of how the invisible is transformed to the visible. How what has been only dimly felt becomes what is absolutely clear and tangible.

These seven principles are the starting points for everything you will learn in this program and the process of mastering them will follow a very clear path. Each of the principles should be understood thoroughly and individually before moving on to the next one, so you may want to listen to some of the tapes several times before going further in the program. It is best to concentrate on the individual principles one at a time-really focus on them-and then go on to the next, until you’re finally ready to put them all together.

Here are the seven principles that underlie SynchroDestiny. Right now I will briefly describe each one and on the tapes that follow they will be discussed in much more detail.

The first principle of SynchroDestiny is the existence of the Conscious Energy Field. By that I mean the underlying intelligence that gives rise to my body and your body and to the universe as a whole, from the stars and galaxies down to the atoms and molecules-all this is really the extended body we all share. The conscious energy field is really the antithesis of the idea that the universe is a machine or a clock or some other mechanism that operates essentially without consciousness or awareness or intention.

I refer to the second principle as Creating Cosmic Connections. Understanding how human relationships operate is one of the most important keys to SynchroDestiny. In the West, we tend to think that the principles of the natural world exist separately from human thoughts and feelings. We may acknowledge that networking and meeting lots of new people is important to our careers-but this is really just using human relationships as a tactic. In mastering SynchroDestiny, the ability to create positive human relationships is much more than a tactic, it is fundamental, in the same way that gravity is fundamental or having air to breathe is fundamental. Creating Cosmic Connections means creating the human environment in which SynchroDestiny can take place.

The third principle, which I call Mastering Inner Dialogue, concerns the way your mind literally creates reality-and the ways in which you can transform reality to create abundance. Here is a quick example of what this means: Suppose you are dissatisfied with your job and you want to find a new one. You start looking through the newspapers and talking to friends who are familiar with your career, but nothing turns up. If you were asked to describe this situation, you might shrug your shoulders and say, “Well, there’s just nothing out there for me. I looked around, but there just wasn’t anything out there.

Now let me contrast this analysis with another example from a very different part of the world. Suppose a hunter in the Amazon rain forest is having difficulty finding game. If he goes to a shaman to deal with the situation, neither the hunter nor the shaman looks anywhere but within the hunter himself for the solution to the problem. It never occurs to them to say something like, “There’s no game out there,” because they know there is game out there. The problem is that something within the hunter is preventing him from finding the game. Maybe something within the hunter is even driving the game away. So the shaman asks the hunter to participate in a ritual that is designed to change what is in the hunter’s heart and mind-because it is the heart and mind that control the external reality.

This is an area in which I think we have a great deal to learn from traditional societies, because we really underestimate the extent to which we literally create the world around us.

When we find ourselves looking at the world and saying, “There’s nothing out there,” we should probably also look into our hearts and ask, “If there’s nothing out there, is there anything in here?” What is in here is what I mean by Inner Dialogue and Mastering Inner Dialogue is the third principle of SynchroDestiny.

The fourth principle is the art of Penetrating the Conspiracy of Improbabilities. This is a very exciting area of the program and it can really be a lot of fun. Penetrating the Conspiracy of Improbabilities means learning to recognize meaningful coincidences. It means learning to see them as opportunities rather than just little breaks in your daily routine.

The fifth principle deals with Harnessing Emotional Turbulence. Once we understand that external reality cannot be separated from internal reality–once we understand that the universe really is our extended body–it becomes very clear that negative energy within ourselves is very self-destructive. Emotional Turbulence is a major barrier to the spontaneous fulfillment of desire. Transforming negative energy into a higher level of awareness is the fifth principle of mastering SynchroDestiny.

The sixth principle is learning to use the Infinite Organizing Power of Intention. Again, mastering this principle means letting go of the idea that the universe is basically an inert machine. It means getting beyond the idea that there are certain forces like gravity or electromagnetism that control the universe to the utter exclusion of a force from within ourselves, such as intention.

But intention is a force of nature just like gravity. In fact, there have been experiments to measure the power of intention. Can you, for instance, cause a person to turn around and look at you simply by staring at the back of his head and intending for him to turn around? Experiments like these have yielded some very interesting results and we will be discussing this in connection with the sixth principle.

The seventh and final principle is really about taking the ideas presented at the beginning of the program about the Conscious Energy Field and making them the guideposts of your own life just as they are the ruling principles of the universe. Awareness that these principles are not just abstractions, that they are operating in everything we do, is really more than just awareness, it is really a kind of celebration. I refer to it as Celebrating the Cosmic Dance and that is also the name I have given to the seventh principle of SynchroDestiny. When you have mastered SynchroDestiny, when you have learned to synchronize your life with the universe itself, you are Celebrating the Cosmic Dance. This is really a very important point. Suppose you were to ask the next person you meet this very simple question: “What are the principles you live by?” Most of the time, in answer to a question like that, you are just going to get a blank stare. People just are not used to thinking about questions like that and sometimes they even feel offended about being asked to think about them.

On the other end of the spectrum, you might get an answer that is so narrow that it avoids the question in a different way. Someone might say, “Well, I live by the principle of an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Or, “I live by the principle of always carrying some change for parking meters.” What I am suggesting is that we really can recognize a connection between how we live our lives and the way the universe works and we can live in harmony with that connection.

Julie Verner-Mackay has been presenting her outstanding successful Choices Program since 1974. Her company is VM Learning which is located in Brisbane, Queensland. I spoke to her about her program which has produced transformational changes in thousands of men and women.

Julie, what is the primary objective or outcome of the Choices Program?
In two words, conscious choice.

How significant is that in terms of the person’s life and managing stress?
The tendency for most human beings is to react rather than pro act in a situation. For example, most people who have experienced an extremely busy day tend to just automatically start saying “I’ve had a busy day, I’m really tired and stressed. Their self-talk propels them into a greater level of stress. They often don’t realize that there is a gap between stimulus and response and that they can actually choose another way of looking at things.
If you ask some very busy people how they keep going, my father-in-law is a perfect example, retired from medical practice at 65 but didn’t retire started mentoring and assisting others and then set up a horse stud and so on. He doesn’t see work as a chore, he sees it as a passion and so if he has had a really busy day his way of dealing with it is to say to himself “I’ve had a great day and got so much out of it”.

What we have as human beings is a choice continually and some of the choices that we make in terms of our self-talk are not altogether helpful for managing stress.

A person taking charge of their life and making choices, is it all about just internal self talk?
Now I think it also relates to the external choices that we make. The choices that we make in terms of the people that we befriend and the health of those relationships. Our choices in terms of the decisions that we make to do at any one time, like deciding to meditate or opening a beer and sitting quietly in front of the TV.
We are making choices all the time and I believe that our whole existence here on earth is basically the sum total of the choices that we make continually whether it be internal or external. I mean they all start internally but they impact on how we act externally.

So what guidelines do you give people to make the right choices?
What I try to stress is that it really is about stopping and thinking and asking yourself relevant questions. To do that you have to be in the moment asking yourself what is really going on for me right now. Asking what am I thinking, what am I feeling, what am I doing. To take a second out and think about what is actually happening, to become actually conscious of what is going on inside you. Developing that level of self-awareness.

So it is becoming conscious, first of all about how they are thinking feeling and acting, and then learning the art of reframing. If they find themselves sitting at work tense up against the computer thinking “Oh my God I’ve got so much work to get through, I’ve gotta get through, I’ve gotta get through” then that is not going to be very helpful because it is consuming the energy required to get through and it is causing them to become even more stressed. They get emotional about it which only sabotages their ability to finish it anyway.

Learning to say something a little bit more helpful like:
“I can only do what I can do”
I’ll do the best that I can”
“I can only do what is humanly possible and I’ll just pace myself and I’ll just keep going and I’ll finish what I can finish and if I can’t get it all done then it will be there in the morning”.
These statements take the foot off the accelerator of fear really, because that is often why we end up in a stressed state. We are perceiving something as difficult and the consequence of that is often as stressed state.
When people come to your Choices Program what do you teach them?

I give them some strategies in how to become more self-aware. Most of us are aware in terms of issues in our relationship with others but are not so aware of the issues in relation to ourselves. We tend to have a more external focus.

So often I explain the anatomy of a dispute or an emotional situation that occurs between people, an argument for example, and the process involved in that and then I get them to come out of that recognizing that we contribute to the relationships we have with other people.

I get them to go beneath the surface in terms of understanding what is going on for them. So get them thinking about the last time they had a dispute or difficult time with someone else. Initially they’ll explain it like “I went somewhere and I saw this person and she said this and then I got upset because she did that”.

I use a model called the Ladder of Inference and then get them to come down the ladder and try to imagine their contribution in it. So the first step in developing that level of self awareness, for example, is to ask “what was going on to me, what was I saying to myself at the time and how did that contribute an external situation that I have with another person”.

So if you get them to focus firstly on their relationship with others then it is much easier. If you look at a challenging time with another person you can usually start to understand the dynamics.

A large part of the program is understanding themselves, understanding their beliefs, and their core values. What are the things that push their buttons. We use language that people are comfortable with. Then I give them strategies for how, when they feel themselves reacting to situations, they can manage themselves.

I use an adapted model from Goleman. He talks about traffic lights and he’s done this for kids. So he talks about stop, think and choose. He uses the lights red, amber and green. He says when you see yourself starting to react you stop, then you think about “what’s going on with me why, am I feeling this response, what’s coming up for me? Is it that I am feeling that I’m being undervalued because the person’s not listening to me? Where is this emotion coming from etc.” and then recognising that you could think about it in a different way.

Mind you this is all very easy in theory, it’s very easy to talk about but the hardest thing to do because we have developed in this habitual way of thinking, we have got these thought patterns that have just gone for years – this happens, bang, I think this way!

So it’s about unlearning. It’s about a weakening of those neurological pathways in the brain so that we can start to get a different response, or a less automatic response. I give them some strategies around that.

Part of the program is also about empathy – how to get out of my position only and into the position of the other person. That’s really important training because some people have not really developed the capacity to imagine what is going on for another person and the more rigidly they stick in their position the more damaged their relationships will often be. That rigidity of thought often prevents them from making good choices.

A lot of people have developed coping mechanisms of saying “Well that’s the way she is and I can’t do anything about that – this is how I feel and this is what’s going on to me.” That reluctance to get over and try and see what it might be like for that other person. It is a human tendency to stay in our own position.

We do quite a bit of work on assertiveness and core communication skills.
On Day One they do self management and focus on developing a bit more self awareness and some self regulation using emotional regulation tools and strategies. Then I set them some work in the week between Day One and Day Two. When they go back home they have to journal, they have to record their running up the ladder and going and getting emotional and try and unpack it and look at things like:
• what happened to me;
• what was the trigger;
• what was the activating event;
• what was the belief that came up;
• what were the consequences and if I disputed those beliefs and saw it differently what would I say to myself (which is a bit of a reframing exercise);
• how did it feel when I explained it to myself?

The purpose of these activities between week one and two is that they start to actually develop some thinking strategies that they’ll put into place to stop themselves from automatically running up the ladder.
We know that this is a long-term process but I try and get them to a point of becoming conscious of their thinking strategies.

They often come back with remarkable stories. It is surprising when people take the information away and just even with the slightest attempt to think through their behavior they get a different result. So they can come back very excited. But I’ll come back and say “Well I totally stuffed this, I just lost it, but then I did I did it again” so they know that it’s one step forward three steps back.

On Day Two we explore managing emotions in others and managing your relationships with others when they are under stress. That’s where the empathy and assertiveness training comes in.

Thank you Julie.

by John Townsend ~ May 12th, 2011.