My Music Expressed

"When you are connected to the power of intention, you'll actually think and feel that any disease pattern has never been present, and that you're already healed."

           

                                             - Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

I have set the intention to live my life fearlessly with no apologies for who I am.  So I am throwing caution to the wind and writing this post today, putting myself in a position of vulnerability which makes me a little uncomfortable - even scares me a bit.  I want to say up front that these are only my thoughts and mine alone - my intention is not to convince or to offend, it is solely to speak my truth so that others may possibly benefit.  And if not, that's fine too.  Normally I don't write about extremely personal things so this is new to me.  I hope that you will accept this without judgement or condemnation.

During my illness several months ago, it became clear to me that I was on my own.  All external means of assistance had failed and I literally felt that I was dying a slow, painful death.  One day last May, I woke up, dragged myself out of bed and somehow found the strength to walk the few short blocks to downtown San Anselmo.  I have no idea what compelled me to do this - it was like I was on automatic pilot.  I found myself in a bookstore and spent quite a bit of time looking around, not sure what I was searching for but somehow knew that I'd just know when I found it.  

A book caught my eye.  It was called "E-Squared" by Pam Grout.  It looked interesting to me so I bought it and walked back home in a dream-like state.  I hadn't been out of bed in days so the fact that I had made this journey was a bit surreal.  Back home, I devoured the book and finished it just a couple of hours.  Now this was also strange, since my vision was so blurry and my head so scrambled that I hadn't been able to read in weeks.  

The book talks about the power of intention and how powerful it can be, even creating miracles.  I needed a miracle.  Pam doesn't just write about how to create miracles in your life, she lays out a series of hands-on experiments to prove that it really works.  The first experiment focuses on the premise that there is an invisible energy source or 'field of infinite possibilities', which she refers to as the FP.  Pam insisted that she had proof in the form of many, many examples and stories from her own life and the lives of thousands of others that this really works.  I figured I had nothing to lose so I gave it a shot.  I asked the FP to please, please help me get well.  I followed Pam's instructions exactly.  I don't know if I really believed it - but I wanted to because frankly, I was desperate.

Exactly one week later the Rife machine, the thing that I believe saved my life, showed up out of the blue.  My dad and my Aunt Julie had sent it to me because they had become desperate too - desperate to do something to help me get better.  I had no idea he was doing this.  My dad called and told me that a package would be arriving at our town's post office and that I needed to pick it up immediately and follow the instructions on how to use the machine.  I remember feeling no sense of urgency whatsoever.  You see, going to the post office required too much energy and I was having trouble even comprehending what he was telling me.  What in the heck is a Rife machine?  

My dad was persistent and kept calling and emailing me to go pick it up.  I finally did, just to appease him quite honestly.  I had little hope that this thing called a Rife machine was going to be of any use to me. It was a Friday when I got the machine and once again, I figured I had nothing to lose so I gave it a shot. How I even figured out how to use the damn thing in the state I was in is a miracle in itself - it's somewhat confusing at first.  

But somehow I managed and began twenty-four hour treatments for the next three days.  Looking at me hooked up to this contraption, my family thought I was nuts.  Add to that the fact that I actually got worse at first, which I was prepared for based upon the information provided with the machine regarding the dreaded "Herx" reaction when killing off large quantities of pathogens and toxins, but I think my husband and children must have found this discouraging.  I don't think I was awake for more than 10 minutes that entire weekend.  I remember my dad texting me, wanting to know if it was working and replying, "It must be because I feel a thousand times worse!!".  

But I kept at it and low and behold, a miracle did occur!  Tuesday morning I woke up bright and early feeling like a million bucks - actually it was probably more like the normal state of a human being but in comparison to how I was just a day earlier, I felt like I could run a marathon.  My head had cleared and I could actually speak in coherent, complete sentences.  I remember chatting with my husband that morning and him looking at me like I was a martian from outer space - and my kids had the same reaction.

As I've written about before, I continued to improve each day and I am currently headed toward complete recovery, having never looked back.  I tell this story because this was a monumental, life-changing moment that has literally changed the direction of my life.  

First of all, I felt gratitude that enveloped my entire being - gratitude like I had never before experienced - toward my dad, my aunt and the Universe that had provided for me this miracle.  My whole perspective on my life changed in terms of what my priorities are and how much I appreciate waking up each day feeling good.  This was something I had previously taken for granted but never, ever again will that happen.  Each morning I wake up just so grateful for my health and to be able to live my life again - be a mom, take a walk, make dinner for my family, even attend a parent-teacher conference, which I missed last year.  I say thank you, thank you, thank you Universe for my life!

But even more importantly, I came out of that situation with a feeling deep inside of my very being that all I needed to do was to turn inward, that relying on external things to get well were actually what got me sick in the first place.  For the first time in my life, I listened to myself and not the thoughts, opinions and beliefs of other people.  OPT, I call them.  Other People's Thoughts.  

I knew with no uncertainty whatsoever that all I ever needed to live a happy, healthy, joy-filled, abundant  life was inside of me.  It was there the whole time, it's been there my whole life.  I just couldn't hear what my higher self was trying to tell me because it was being drowned out by the voices of other people, well-meaning I'm sure, but they were not mine and therefore did not work for me.

I felt free for the first time in my life to just be me and trust myself.  I also had the feeling that I didn't really have to do anything to create this reality, I just had clear my head of all of the OPT and the rest would unfold as it was meant to unfold.  I stopped stressing and worrying about everything because I knew that everything was happening as it was meant to happen and that, as Pam Grout says, "The Universe has my back!".  How earth-shattering to realize that life doesn't have to be so hard - we, as humans, make it hard but it doesn't have to be that way!!

When I started to tell people my story, many encouraged me to write about it to encourage others.  I soon realized that I love to write.  I started my blog and have not stopped writing since.  Even if no one chooses to read it, just the very act of writing fills me with sheer joy.  I never knew this about myself previously and I certainly didn't have the self-confidence to try it.  I felt I was being guided by a force I couldn't quite explain and I was okay with the ambiguity of that.  I just went with it.

Ironically, I heard about the death of Dr. Wayne Dyer from a post on Pam Grout's blog and that led me to learn about his teachings, which have been another guiding force in my quest to live life to it's fullest, the way it was meant to be lived.  Dr. Dyer reinforced all of the things I was feeling and put into words so eloquently many of the thoughts and feelings I had had since childhood but could never articulate or feel safe enough to express.  

For example, the idea that spirituality is possible without the involvement of organized religion.  Since I was a little girl, I felt nothing but disdain for organized religion of any kind.  I was raised Catholic and even went to a Catholic school for a bit, but I dreaded going to church.  I disliked everything about it - the strict rules, the structure, confession, smell, the automated way people recited prayers - all of it was almost offensive to me.  I know there are some people who might be offended by what I am saying, but I am just telling my truth and I'm not going to be afraid to do that anymore for fear of judgement by other people.  I was exposed to other religions as well and my entire being just rejected anything to do with religion.  I do not in any way sit in judgement of anyone who feels differently - let me just make that clear.  I wholeheartedly support everyone listening to their own voice inside them.  That being said, what I do have a problem with is people who try to force feed their beliefs and thoughts to others and expect them to comply just because it feels right to them.  This is not acceptable under any circumstances, in my opinion.

Deep down, I knew I had a relationship with God, or a higher power of some kind, that did not require any external intervention.  My entire life, I have always talked to the Universal Source and felt that we had a personal, private relationship that was all my own and I didn't feel a need to share it with anyone.  I was undeterred by people telling me that it's not possible to be spiritual without organized religion, a church, another person or organization telling you what to do and say and how to behave in order to be worthy.  I did not believe that we were all sinners and that we needed to "earn" God's love and acceptance.  I never believed it, not for one second.  I also felt strongly that organized religion was just someone else's interpretation of spirituality, not my own.

When I started reading Dr. Dyer's books I soon found out that he felt exactly the same way!  I felt as if he was speaking directly to me.  Finally, I wasn't alone, someone else had the same intuitive beliefs that I did and that was an amazing feeling.  This is when it clicked for me - I realized that I had been suppressing the real me, my true self, for my entire life.  I also realized that in order to be truly happy, your true self must be expressed.  

As Dr. Dyer repeated over and over again in his books and his lectures, 'Don't die with your music still in you'. Dr. Dyer, I will not die with my music still in me!  I will play my music with wild abandon!

So I will make no more apologies and I will live my life as I see fit and not as other people think I should.  I will listen to my inner voice, my highest self, who, by definition, is never wrong and does not make mistakes.  I will speak my mind fearlessly and without regret - and I will teach my children to do the same.  I now realize that this is the greatest gift I could ever give them.  

End the Pain, Find the Joy: All About Love & Forgiveness

End the Pain, Find the Joy: All About Love & Forgiveness: "When you judge another,  you do not define them, you define yourself."                                     - Dr. Wayne ...

All About Love & Forgiveness

"When you judge another, 

you do not define them, you define yourself."

                                    - Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

One of the things I have struggled with the most during this time of transition and enlightenment in my life is learning to forgive others for the pain I perceive to have been inflicted upon me.  The advice has always been to "just let it go" or "decide to forgive and move on".  But this was not working for me.  I think I have finally learned the key to success in this area of forgiveness and I want to share it in the hope that it might help other people as well.

The other concept I struggled with is the idea of learning to love myself.  My first reaction to this was that it sounded pretty narcissistic and selfish.  Once I made the connection that self-love is really about remembering your spiritual essence, which by definition is pure, perfect and always connected to the Universal source of being, and not about your physical self and ego, it was much easier to wrap my head around it.  Your real self, not your false self.  

I found that once I started to really embrace this concept of loving and accepting myself, forgiveness just naturally flowed through me without me having for force anything.  I think it's a mistake to try to 'force' any emotions - actually I think it's an exercise in frustration because in order to exist, emotions must be tied to a feeling.  So if you're not feeling it, the emotion will be false or fake.  This doesn't work at all and can be very frustrating.  

My advice in the area of forgiveness is to really focus on releasing any negative feelings that you may have towards yourself, such as hurt, blame, guilt, anger, judgement, fear, and resentment.  Once you can do this successfully, the rest will just flow naturally.  The concept of loving yourself becomes effortless and forgiveness almost becomes unnecessary because all you will be able to feel toward the offending individual will be compassion and understanding.  Don't try to force it - trust me, it won't work!

My spiritual teachers and role models have taught me that how you treat others is a direct reflection of how you treat yourself.  For example, if you are constantly berating and criticizing yourself, you will do the same to others.  The things you say to other people, either positive, loving and encouraging or negative, critical and judgmental, are the same things you are saying to yourself - whether you realize it or not.  

In this way, we can understand someone else's deepest insecurities and fears about themselves just by listening and paying attention to the criticisms they make toward other people.  I had an "aha" moment this morning when I realized that people who come across as angry, resentful, critical, judgmental and jealous are simply saying aloud the negative things that they perceive to be true about themselves - or greatly fear to be true.  Most likely these are all of the things that they were told was wrong with them as very young children.

This realization allows us to forgive others more easily and to understand that the criticisms are not a personal attack against us.  Rather, it's a sign of a person who is truly struggling with their own self-image and someone who is living with a significant amount of pain and fear.  Making this connection allows compassion and love to flow through us as opposed to anger, defensiveness and resentment.  

Once you stop judging, criticizing and blaming yourself, you will stop finding fault in other people and you will no longer be offended and hurt by other people's behavior toward you.  You will recognize that it's just about their internal pain and nothing to do with you.  I find that I am able to feel compassion and empathy toward mean, nasty or hurtful people once I understand how unhappy they must be. It's the equivalent of a protective armor against negativity penetrating your concept of yourself and who you are.  What other people say and do no longer has an effect on your self-concept, nor does it affect you negatively in any way.  It becomes their business, not yours. 

The spiritual essence inside of each one of us, your highest self, has always been there - we just need to remember it.  In order to do that we need to silence the negative self-chatter and "should's" and "have to's" that are constantly going on in our brain and only then can we recognize the truth that our highest self has been trying to tell us along.  In reality, we don't "have to" do anything - we have been programmed by societal norms and values to believe this but it's just not true.

Once I decided that I would only do things that I truly want to do, as opposed to things that I should do or feel obligated to do, I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders.  Forcing yourself to do things because other people want you to do them, whether it's family, friends, or societal pressure, just breeds suppressed anger and resentment, which in turn creates lack of harmony in your body and that can lead to illness and disease.  So you can see that everyone is better off in the long run if you just listen to yourself and follow your intuition about what is important in your life.  That is your higher self guiding you along your journey and once you are able to accomplish this on a regular basis, everything in your life will fall into place effortlessly.

There are reminders everywhere, attempting to trigger what we already know is inside of us, our beauty, limitless potential and permanent connection to the Universal source of consciousness.  

Everything in nature is a reflection of the perfection and purpose in every single one of us - nature flows so easily and effortlessly because it doesn't get in it's own way, like humans do.  Nature has no ego so trees, flowers and butterflies are not capable of feeling bad about themselves - they just are.  The unconditional love we receive from our pets is there to remind us that we are also, at our core, pure unconditional love or life-force energy - whatever you want to call it, it's the same thing from the same Source.  Somehow along the way we just forgot.  Let's all remember, people!  We need to stop thinking and start being.

A Change in Perspective Changes Everything

"Change the way you look at things 

and the things you look at change."

                                                - Dr. Wayne W. Dyer 
                                                   (May 10, 1940 - August 30, 2015)

Recently I read an amazing book titled, "Dying to Be Me", by a woman named Anita Moorjani.  In it, Anita describes her near-death experience (NDE) which occurred in 2006.  I had heard of Anita before but never had an opportunity to hear her story.  Anita's words literally brought me to my knees and touched my soul in a way I had not previously experienced.  I almost felt like she was talking directly to me.  She describes in detail her four-year struggle with lymphoma, which eventually spread all over her body.  

On February 2, 2006, Anita's organs shut down and as she lay unconscious in the hospital, her family was told that there was nothing left that they could do for her.  Anita's body was riddled with cancerous tumors, her organs were shutting down and she was dying.  The thing is, Anita didn't die.  She is alive and well and cancer free!  She now travels all over the world to spread her message of unconditional love and how powerful it can be.

The doctors have no explanation for this miracle but Anita does - she knows exactly what happened.  Her book describes her near-death experience while laying in that hospital bed in a coma, surrounded by her family who were being told that there was no hope and that death was not only inevitable, but eminent.  

During her NED, Anita experienced an indescribable unconditional love surrounding her.  Anita understood that in order to be healed she must let go of her life-long fears, self-doubt, guilt, anxiety, and feelings that she didn't measure up, that she wasn't good enough which manifested in her body as cancer.  She saw who she really is, a magnificent Divine, spiritual being deserving of love, health, happiness, joy - everything good that life has to offer - just by being herself and loving herself unconditionally, which in turn allows her to love everyone else.  If you don't have that love inside of you for yourself, then you don't actually have it to give.  

She understood that we are all connected, we all have this beautiful Divine presence inside of us that is part of the Universal life force.  That spirit, or energy, is present in every single one of us simply for the fact that we were born.  Once recognized, it can create miracles beyond our wildest dreams.  She saw that, at our core, we are actually spirits who are having a human experience - and not the other way around! 

Anita was given a choice to come back to the physical world and once she made this choice, she woke up from her coma, knowing she was cancer free.  Several days later that was confirmed by the astonished doctors who compared CT scans from just a few days before, which showed tumors all over her body, to the new scans which showed no evidence of cancer.  None!

Anita writes:

"I believe that the greatest truths of the universe don't lie outside, in the study of the stars and the planets. They lie deep within us, in the magnificence of our heart, mind, and soul. Until we understand what is within, we can't understand what is without."

I was amazed and fascinated by Anita's story.  I had just started learning about self-healing after reading Louise Hay's book "You Can Heal Your Life" and I began implementing some of the techniques into my daily life.  After reading Anita's story, any and all doubt melted away and I knew that I, too, could heal myself and restore my body back to perfect health but I must first address the negative emotions, thoughts and feelings that had contributed greatly to my illness.

I had also started reading books and listening to lectures by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer.  Oddly enough, I had never heard of Dr. Dyer before his death on August 30th of this year.  Never even heard his name.  That day, someone posted "RIP Dr. Wayne Dyer" on Facebook and for some reason I was compelled to do the same - so I did.  I then realized I had no idea who he was so I Googled him and became aware of his teachings which had inspired and transformed thousands of lives.  

Dr. Dyer has written 40+ books, lectured around the world, and even made a movie, titled "The Shift" which, when I watched it, moved me so much I began reading and listening to everything I could get my hands on that was related Dr. Dyer.  Some might say I became obsessed with him, but the truth is that his words, his thoughts and teachings woke me up to a new enlightened state of being that is difficult to describe.

There is something about this man and his teachings that speak to me on such a profound level that I just know with 100% certainty that he is speaking the truth, at least the truth as I believe it to be. The fact that Dr. Dyer had to die for me to become aware of him is unfortunate - I would have loved to have met him in person.  My heart aches for his family, his eight children, his friends and colleagues.  I can't even imagine how difficult it must be to have lost such an amazing man.  But lucky for us, his message lives on in his many writings, speeches, radio shows, PBS specials and movie.  

This new enlightened state of awareness has made me realize things about myself that ultimately led to my physical illness.  I recognized that, I too, like Anita, I have been plagued all my life with feelings of fear, worry, self-doubt, guilt, anxiety, self-blame, lack of confidence and not feeling valuable or deserving of unconditional love.  I thought about how much I beat myself up in my mind on a daily basis and how destructive this kind of thinking must be to my physical body.

The other thing that Anita wrote about in her book that struck a chord for me was the fact that when we get sick or feel depressed we often turn to external means to help us to feel better. After her NDE, Anita now understands that in order to achieve complete healing from any illness or disease, mental or physical, we must turn inward and begin to see ourselves for who we really are - magnificent Divine spiritual beings who have all been called to this earth for a specific purpose.  Once achieved, everything else in our lives regarding health, prosperity, happiness and peace will all fall into place - synchronicity will appear in your life without you having to force anything.

It is easy to look at the world as it is today and feel depressed or hopeless.  Just turn on the news and the majority of what you hear is so tragic, sad, horrific and scary that it seems far fetched to believe that things are destined to change any time soon.  Just last week there were two more school shootings and immediately the debate began about gun control, mental illness, what to do, how to handle it - and the problem is that these issues end up dividing us instead of bringing us together.  

To me, the issue is not gun control or how we handle mental illness in this country.  Yes, those problems do exist but they are just symptoms of a much bigger societal issue.  We have become a competitive, narcissistic, materialistic, "Me" society and as both Anita Moorjani and Dr. Dyer state, we have forgotten who we really are.  And to make matters worse, the things that we have chosen to prioritize and glamorize as goals to strive for do not create the joy, harmony, peace, and happiness in our lives that we so desire.

Once we achieve these goals and collect all of our "stuff" that we thought would fill us up, we realize that we are still not happy and so we collect more stuff.  We are living in a world where the thing to do is take "Selfies", get plastic surgery and collect material things.  This is what we are teaching our kids is important in life and what they should strive for.  We are teaching them that being the best at everything, being pretty, thin, good-looking, going to the best college, being successful and making lots of money guarantees happiness.

We are raising a generation of people who are full of fear, misery, depression and anxiety because they can never measure up to the unrealistic expectations set forth by society, the media, and even the expectations set by their parents.  They have been taught external things, things outside of us, make us happy and, as we know, those things never last.  They have never learned how to create true happiness, fulfillment and joy in their lives from the inside out.  They are constantly worried about what other people think of them and how they measure up according to others and usually come to the conclusion that they fall short.  Add to that the isolation and anonymity of the internet and social media and it's a recipe for disaster.  Kids are isolated, depressed, and disconnected.  In my opinion, we as a society have failed to give them the tools to address these issues within themselves.  They only know how to seek help externally and when that doesn't succeed, they feel like they have no options, no hope which leads to self-destruction, violence, drug abuse, the list goes on and on...

Dr. Dyer understood that the need to compete and argue and fight with one another is not only futile, but it creates negative feelings internally which in turn makes us act out and become ill.  He said that we are all connected to a Universal consciousness, the spiritual part of our being.  The physical self which makes us human, has a brain containing an ego.  The ego is our false-self, which if allowed to take over, wreaks havoc on our lives and makes us miserable.  This is the self that is full of fear and wants to compete and fight and be right, criticize and judge others - this is the part that causes the majority, if not all, of the problems in our lives.  What if all of our problems could be solved just by looking at things differently and loving each other unconditionally?

When we are born we are all aware that our spiritual self exists but gradually, as we are exposed to all of these negative messages about who should be, it gets suppressed and the ego takes over.  I picture in my head one of those light dimmers on the wall that slides down, allowing you to dim the lights, making the room darker and darker. Perhaps the people responsible for killing and harming others have simply forgotten who they are.  Maybe the lever on their dimmer is as far down as it can go and all they see is darkness and despair.  The thought occurs to me...if the lever can be pushed down, perhaps it can be pushed back up allowing the light to shine once more?  Not with medication, but with understanding, love and recognition.

According to Dr. Dyer, true happiness comes only when you become aware of your false-self and then disallow it to manifest in any way in your life by rejecting all thoughts related to ego.  Do not allow them to enter into your brain - and if they do, 'delete' them immediately as they no longer serve you.  Once that happens, your true self is recognized and allowed to fully express itself in the way that it was always meant to.  

The thing is, we are all the same - at our core, we are all come from exactly the same place.  No matter what race, religion, culture, or country of origin, everyone that is born in this world, has that light inside of them that originated from exactly the same place and everyone has a gift to contribute to the greater good.  We are all here to express our gift in our own individual way, whatever that may be.  Once we recognize that we are all the same, the need to condemn, judge and harm others disappears.  Nobody is better or more deserving than anyone else.  We are free to rejoice in the success and joy of others without feeling jealousy, frustration or anger that it's not happening to us.  The fact is that the more good things happening in the world, the better the world is - and that affects the lives of all of us.  

We also realize that giving to others and accepting people just as they are is the only way to experience true joy.  Offering our special gift to the world, whatever that may be, being of service, that's what it's all about.  It's like life is a big party and in order to experience all the fun you must bring your gift to bestow upon all of the other party-goers.  This may sound simplistic but I truly believe that if everyone realized this, our world would change dramatically.  Since nothing else seems to be working, why not give it a shot?  What do we have to lose?

Maybe its about maintaining positivity in our collective Universal consciousness that resides deep within us all.  Maybe it's about self-acceptance, self-love, being kind, compassionate to one another, caring for one another.  Maybe it's about focusing less on our differences and more on how we are the same.  Maybe it boils down to one thing: love.  Maybe, just maybe, it's that simple.

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