When we’re born, we step away from the Reality of Love and the knowledge of our Oneness with It.  Temporarily forsaking the Reality of Love without limits, we enter the physical world in order to learn about ourselves in a completely alien environment – a world of limitation, in which we believe we are separate from Love.

Imagine, then, awakening in an utterly unfamiliar realm, believing we’re  separate from the Source of our own Being.  It is easy to understand why the desire to find the Love we believe we’ve lost becomes urgent, and why we desperately look to those around us to show us the meaning of Love.

In our vulnerability and innocence, we rely on the quality of our interactions with our parents and those around us to show us what Love must be.  Too often, however, we experience parental and other relationships as conditional at best, with many of us experiencing love as treacherous.   As a result, we develop beliefs about love which are deeply distorted, but which become the pattern for the relationships in our lives.  Love remains elusive, and our hearts carry the wounds of a long and painful quest!

This month, as we celebrate Valentine’s day, let the Inner Self give you the gift of a new heart, returned forever to the awareness of its Oneness with Love.  As you drift off to sleep, see your heart wrapped in a bandage.  Begin to unwind the bandage – slowly unwinding and unwinding.  When your heart is fully exposed, ask your Inner Self to bathe your heart in the Light of Love without limits, and know you are in the process of letting it be healed, forever and ever.

Happy Valentine’s Day from The Land of Love!

What we concentrate on, becomes our experience!  So, as we begin this wonderful new year, it’s very important to honor the power of our own thoughts, and learn to hold in our consciousness only what we love and want in our life.

It’s easy to become distracted, forgetting about our relationship with the Inner Self and the power of our own consciousness.  We can veer off, then, in many different directions – loosing our focus and feeling lost in what seems to be the chaos and confusion of a world apart from us.  If the Inner Self handed us a complete printout of our thoughts at the end of the day, most of us would be horrified to see the ideas we were using to construct our lives!

So, what can you do to begin to take command of your own conscious thought – and gain creative control of your life?  Do you have to guard your thoughts so tenaciously, you become exhausted and fearful about what you’re creating, and give up, becoming numb and unconscious again? Not at all! You can take a giant step toward taking charge of your life by remembering Gandhi’s famous advice:  “Become the change you wish to see.”

A beautiful and unforgettable example of the power of “becoming” what you want in order to create change is described in MUTANT MESSAGE DOWN UNDER, a best selling book by Marlo Morgan.  In it, the author chronicles a journey of self discovery in which she goes on a four month walkabout with a group of aboriginal people, who teach her about her relationship with the Inner Self.  As she is pushed to learn that her life is truly the product of her own thought, she finds herself on the verge of dying in the outback, unable to find water.  She finally realizes her only hope is to trust what she has learned and turn to her Inner Self for help.   In desperation, she closes her eyes and asks for assistance.  Immediately, she hears “BECOME the water!!!”  Although she doesn’t understand what this means, she obeys the command and closes her eyes, imaginatively feeling herself as rain, waterfalls, the ocean, a bubbling brook, mist -  and, in essence, she ‘becomes’ the water.  After a few minutes of intense concentration in this way, she looked down in amazement to see an aquifer – an enormous expanse of water on the barren outback plain!

This is a spectacular demonstration of the powerful result possible, when you completely alter what you hold in your conscious mind. You can use this method of BECOMING what you want to see in order to PRODUCE what you want, very effectively in your own life.

As you begin your day, set aside time to close your eyes, and gently let yourself relax.  Imagine that the soles of your feet open and everything you currently believe drains out of your Being.  Open your heart and see and feel the image of what you want.  Let it grow within you until it expands and you feel yourself completely immersed in it.  See it radiate beyond your physical self into your life and your world.  Repeat the exercise as you drift off to sleep at night.

As you continue the exercise each day, your image will grow within you, until you BECOME, and therefore manifest what you desire

Send us your comments, and let us know how this is working for you!

This year, resolve to let yourself fully accept the Love your Inner Self longs to give you.  This is the one resolution that makes all others unnecessary, because your choice to receive Love gives you everything.

As soon as you make your determined resolution to receive Love, the Inner Self will begin to heal your belief that you do not deserve it.  You’ll be able to sense years of accumulated self doubt about your worth begin to fall away, and make room for the presence of Love in your body and in your life.

Because any difficulties you face reflect the absence of Love, you will begin to see that all areas of your experience are gently changing in the presence of this profound, loving Light.

So what can you do to make certain that you are successful and sustain this resolution through the coming year?  Here are several simple but effective suggestions to help you do this:

1. As you relax and get ready to go to sleep at night, tell your Inner Self that you want to use your dreams to deepen your willingness to receive Love.
2. In the morning, begin your day by stating your resolution with deep conviction.  Remind yourself that as you continue to commit yourself to this one goal, all of your other goals will be achieved.
3. Throughout the day, if you find yourself feeling fearful or stressed in any way, close your eyes for a moment, take a cleansing breath and let yourself sink down an instant into your Deepest Heart.  This is the place within us that carries the Truth about the Reality of Love – a connection to Love that we can ignore but can never loose.  This will relax and enliven you, and set you back, securely, on the path to your resolution.

Happy New Year from The Land of Love!

We can prevent our children from being bullied by helping them realize their worth and power by turning inward.

Like adults, children form beliefs about their worth and strength based on their experience.  The Inner Self then uses these beliefs as the pattern for the manifestation of the child’s life.  As children grow up, they look for their parents’ loving affirmation to help them build a strong self image, and to develop their mastery in relationships with peers and in other areas of their lives.

When parents are stressed, however, and feel victimized by many forces they feel unable to control, it can be very difficult for them to create the peaceful, loving environment that is so necessary for the development of a child’s self esteem and confidence.  Children are sensitive to parents’ fears and they can easily feel threatened  as a result, concluding that their world isn’t a safe place.

In their confusion about the nature and source of the perceived threat, they may even decide that they are somehow to blame for the insecurity and unhappiness around them.  If these ideas are strong enough to become part of the child’s beliefs, their resulting experience with peers will reflect these expectations, and leave them vulnerable to being bullied or to bullying others.

When we give our children opportunities to turn inward and re-connect with the loving resources of the Inner Self, they will be reassured of their value and goodness and reminded of their strength.  This awareness creates personal beliefs in peace and safety that promote happy and successful relationships with others, and can protect them from victimization or the need to victimize others.

There are many simple ways both parents and teachers can create opportunities for children to learn about and experience the wonder of their relationship with the Inner Self.  There are excellent relaxation and meditation exercises available for children.  Yoga, too, deepens the connection within for children, just as it does for adults.

The Land of Love is a wonderful tool for relaxation and healing, and it can be used at home or in the classroom.

Whatever method is used, children readily accept the invitation to focus inward, perhaps sensing, intuitively, the natural and enjoyable experience that awaits them.  In spite of the simplicity of this approach, its potential to fulfill deep wishes for safety and nurturing make it an invaluable antidote for the problem of bullying.

I was barely out of graduate school and working in a residential treatment center, in charge of a unit for adolescent girls.  Shocked by the depth of abuse these children had experienced, I complained to a brilliant young colleague of mine, that it would take a miracle to find a treatment approach that could really help them!  As if on cue, he thrust a book into my hands entitled “Uncommon Therapy”.  It was about the work of Milton Erickson, a world-renowned psychiatrist, who taught clinicians how to use principles of hypnosis to help their patients create profound changes.

I finished the book at home that Sunday.  I had never read anything about this type of approach, and I wanted to learn everything I could about it.  There was a postscript in the back that said Dr. Erickson practiced in Tempe, Arizona.  So, I got the telephone number and quickly called what I thought was his office.  To my amazement, Erickson answered the phone!  I began to stammer that I was a  new therapist and, …uh, well, uh …. I just wondered…. Did he ever take students?  Much like in The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy heard the Wizard for the first time,  Erickson’s deep, booming voice responded, seemingly from out of nowhere, “Can you be here next Sunday?”!

The following Sunday,  I was seated in front of this great teacher for the first time.  Smiling, his indescribably blue eyes twinkled as he said, “You don’t believe I can do anything for you, do you?” and, before I could answer, he said “Now try to stand up!”. Astounded, I couldn’t move!  I was paralyzed from the waist down!  Erickson grinned at me, saying, “If you delivered a baby now, you wouldn’t feel a thing!”.

In a matter of moments, he had effectively used all the elements of a great demonstration of the power of belief.   He disarmed my resistance, by acknowledging my disbelief and giving me permission to have it.  With no need to resist anything, I focused all of my attention on him, and was willing to temporarily accept his suggestion about paralysis, in place of my own, usual belief about my legs.

This was an unforgettable event in my experience, and one that literally changed the course of my life.  It was the beginning of a long and wonderful relationship with Dr. Erickson in which I had a unique opportunity to learn about the inexhaustible beneficence of the Inner Self, and it’s mission to empower the physical self.  And even now, if I find myself questioning the probability of manifesting some desired change and wondering how long it might take, I think back to that day when, in an instant, my cellular structure changed with the change of my belief.

And so I was given an unforgettable demonstration of the power of belief.

Your experience is produced as the Inner Self descends into your belief structure, materializing all the ideas you currently hold about who you are and what you deserve in all areas of your life.  As you become more and more conscious of your deepest aspirations,  you realize that you truly share the goal of the Inner Self. You want this structure to be cleansed, so that what you believe about yourself and your world, and what you create, conforms to what this Loving Self knows to be the Truth about you – that you deserve to be loved and to be loving.
As you practice Yoga, the various poses automatically rotate the body in different alignment to the Inner Self.  Like turning the lid of a spice container to allow the contents to flow through, the poses shift the physical self in a way that creates an opening in the belief structure, and gives the Inner Self the opportunity to direct It’s love, power and peace more deeply into your body and your life.
As you focus on the poses, your usual beliefs are momentarily left unattended, and the heightened presence of the Inner Self goes to work – to heal your self image and enhance your knowledge of your worth and deserving.

No wonder you feel rejuvenated after Yoga!

It’s easy to become discouraged when you look at your life, and see so many things you want to change.  For many of us, the prospect of trying to come up with new solutions for areas of our lives we’ve struggled with for a long time, can feel overwhelming.  You may begin to realize that more of the same kinds of efforts won’t produce the real changes you want.  It’s at this point that you may begin to hear a voice within you seem to say, “Stop looking outside yourself.  Look within and discover the limitless, loving resources that are there for you!”  This is truly an invitation from your Inner Self to shift your focus inward, to find the help that you need to solve all your problems.

Now, sometimes clients will me ask how the Inner Self could possibly solve some of the problems they think need a miracle.  To this I say, if we were to manifest their Inner Self in the room, and ask about a specific problem, do they really believe this Divine Self would have to check Their list of miracles to see if this were one They cover?  Of course not!  And so it is for us, and everything we want to change in our lives.  In Truth, when something feels too difficult for you to solve, let this be a trigger for you to give the problem to the Inner Self.  Simply allow yourself time and space to relax and, with your eyes closed, to sense the presence of your Inner Self.   As you do, clearly state the change you want, and use your imagination to see and feel yourself with this desire already fulfilled.

It may take time for you to see the changes you want begin to happen, but not because what you ask for is difficult for the Inner Self.  We’ve spent many years seeking outside ourselves for the answers to our problems.  It takes patience and practice to learn to trust the process of going within for what we need.  But know it’s perfectly natural for you to rely on you Inner Self in this way.  In fact, it is your Divine right and your responsibility to demonstrate this creative freedom!

The effect for these children was immediate and powerful.  It can be for you as well.  For even though the meditation was originally created for young children, I soon discovered that it is a powerful, healing tool for people of all ages. The story of Cinderella is evident in some form in all cultures around the world, because the Fairy Godmother is a universal symbol of the Inner Self – that Being within each of us that will respond to our needs – whatever they are.  Even if you were never abused, many of us had painful experiences growing up that continue to affect us now.  Let yourself be taken to the Land of Love, and allow your own Inner Self to transform any early memories you may still carry, that keep you from experiencing the peace of mind and the love that you deserve.