The Alternative Broadcasting Online News Station

In the Northeast, we have a few months to prepare for winter by gathering firewood, securing windows and doors, and getting furnaces cleaned. As with any change, there is always a period of adjustment required. Often change in our lives doesn’t occur so predictably.

Change can seemingly come out of nowhere and catch us off guard. We are unprepared, shocked and numbed by the news of the results of some medical tests we had, that the job we’ve worked at for the past twenty years is being phased out or, as what happened in Florida recently, a hurricane blows through and wipes out everything in its path. In order to heal from our wounds and disappointments we must turn on our feelings and not stifle our emotions.

Did you know that crying is actually the bodies’ way of keeping us from collapsing? When we allow our tears to flow it releases built up emotions like a cloud bursting from the full weight of rain. The rain then washes down clearing the air and renewing everything.

Like the rain, our tears wash away the toxins built up in our bodies. Yet, many of us are taught that crying is a sign of weakness and must never be shown in public or even in private. We are all taught to “toughen up” if we are to survive when what we need to do is loosen up and let our tears flow.

When was the last time you allowed yourself a good cry that wasn’t in reaction to a sad movie but a reaction to something that happened in your life?

When we are cut off from any of our feelings and emotions this only creates more suffering. Avoiding and denying our circumstance delays us from moving forward in our journey to authenticity.

Like the animals, birds, and butterflies that take refuge from the cold by migrating to warmer places or to a dark cave for the winter, we also need to find places of refuge and comfort as we wait for the sun to return in our lives.

This month, if you find yourself needing a little shelter from life’s inevitable storms, spend a time creating a space in your home where you can go and cocoon. Make your space inviting and nourishing. Fill it with soft blankets to wrap up in and pillows to hold. Add music, candles, flowers or plants and whatever symbols or photographs that bring you peace and hope.

You can also create this space in your imagination. Think of a place that brings you peace. Picture all of the details of this place: the sounds, sights and smells. Whenever you are feeling overwhelmed by change and needing refuge you can close your eyes and go to this safe and nourishing place.

Remember, the sun will come out again and summer will return.

Nancy Bishop is a Life & Inspirational Coach. She provides coaching to women at midlife who are in career and life transition. For more information and to subscribe to her monthly newsletter, Authentic Living News, visit her website at http://www.yourlifeyourway.com

The problem with meditation is attachment.

We get in the habit of needing our altar, favorite cushion, incense, CD, certain time of day, necessary length of time, or particular style of sitting. If we can’t do it the “right” way, we tend to skip it altogether. We get so attached to the trappings that we get a little testy if we don’t have everything just so.

This is funny when you think about it. In Buddhism, the core belief is that life is full of suffering, and this suffering is due to attachment. Isn’t it ironic that we become so attached to the idea of meditation? Isn’t it a bit absurd to think of followers of particular styles of meditation as obsessive about their own approach?

I find it hilarious. I also find it destructive.

I’m all for whatever works. If committing to a ritual is right for you, by all means, light that candle. If you must do some yoga exercises prior to sitting, go for it. If you need to go for a run before chanting, be my guest.

However, if you find that your concept of what you need in order to meditate is hindering instead of liberating you, it’s time to take a look at what I refer to as “wireless” meditation.

The beautiful thing about going wireless—-whether it’s with phones, computers, or your own quest for mindfulness—-is that you suddenly become unencumbered by extraneous connections. You can continue with your day. You can go anywhere. You are free.

Just as a wireless phone allows you to think of your workplace in a whole new way, mindfulness practice gives you the opportunity to bring attention to whatever you’re doing.

Your connection to your mind and your heart is hooked up while you’re taking a shower, washing the dishes, walking the dog, or tending your garden. You no longer see mindfulness as something you can do only if you’re sitting in your family room before the kids get up.

For those who’ve given up on meditation, consider the freedom of mindfulness practice.

Here are five questions to ask yourself in order to stay connected anywhere, anytime:

* “What can I notice this minute?”
Look around. What do you see? What colors pop? What kind of light fills your space? What do you smell? What do you hear? How does your body feel right now?

* “Where can I focus my attention this minute?”
Choose something within you—-a physical sensation, a thought, an emotion. Or, go outside your skin and shine all of your attention upon something around you. Spend one minute in full discovery mode.

* “What can I do to connect with this person?”
If you’re a parent and you’re feeling a little burned out by your child’s demands, stop thinking about how to fulfill a request and focus on how to fulfill a need. Can you give loving attention without giving a thing? Can you focus your full attention on your partner in the way most likely to make them feel cherished?

* “How can I bring more mindfulness to this task?”
Whether you’re filing, copying documents, folding laundry, or scrubbing the bathtub, you can focus intently and intensely upon your particular task. Take note of the textures. Pay attention to edges, creases, folds, warmth, texture, and color. Focus on the muscles you’re using in each step of the process. Feel the bending, flexing, and stretching your body must do to perform each movement.

* “How can I find more meaning in this moment?”
In every moment, we have the opportunity to connect to what matters most. We can choose to find a reason to feel grateful, content, secure, uplifted, and cared for.

By paying attention, we can find value in the simplest tasks and the greatest challenges. Going wireless means you can choose to connect whenever you like. Find ways to tap into mindfulness without becoming attached to meditation.

Use your wherever-whenever minutes—-and get more.

Maya Talisman Frost is a mind masseuse in Portland, Oregon. Through her company, Real-World Mindfulness Training, she teaches fun and effective eyes-wide-open alternatives to meditation. To subscribe to her free weekly ezine, the Friday Mind Massage, please visit http://www.MassageYourMind.com

What you believe in the inside, to a large extent determines how your life turns out. If you believe you cant, chances are, you are right.

Our beliefs create a world or sort of bubble within which we operate. It creates the limits or boundary of our potentials. If you believe something is unattainable, you simply block it out of your subconscious. You don’t even think about attempting it, and if you don’t attempt it, your chance of achieving it is nil.

What you believe will eventually come to pass, or catch up with you. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is why our greatest enemy lies within. You set the limits of your potential. No external force can box you in, if you are rearing to go. Your greatest enemy is you.

How did we come about what we believe about ourselves?

A lot of this happens during our growing up years. We believe what authority figures (parents, older relatives, teachers etc) in our life said about us. Most of us grew up in an atmosphere of criticism. As it is much easier to criticize than praise, we got a much larger dose of criticism than praise. These criticisms, though often backed by good intentions (to provoke us to improve or excel) leave us scarred for life. We grow up with a feeling of inadequacy and low self-esteem.

Parents often attempt to juxtapose their dreams on the children, especially unfulfilled dreams. Oftentimes, the strength of one child is used to judge the weakness of the other, forgetting the fact that we are all unique. Sometimes we get compared with the whiz kid in the block. This puts further pressure upon our already fragile self-esteem. It gets much worse if teachers in school deliver the coup de grace: the veritable last straw. You are told how your life will turn out, the highest you can aspire to, what you can and can’t do. We get written off. Coming from such an authority figure, we tend to swallow it hook, line and sinker.

With our own minds, we impose limits on ourselves. We may have a dream, but within us, we conclude that we don’t have what it takes to make it happen. So we bury our dreams and carry on with the all too familiar reality.

After all said and damage done, what you believe about yourself is what matters most. That, to a very large extent will determine whether you will dream big, and go for it, or remain stuck in the rut of status quo, hoping for better days.

What you believe about yourself will determine the effort you put into any project, and how far you will go. Our brains act on impulses or instructions we send it. If you send your brain the signal that something is impossible, it will cease from trying to figure out how it can be done. It will simply power down and remain on stand-by. It will remain on standby, until a new signal is received, indicating that it is possible. If you decide to go for it, you brain roars back into life, processing millions of calculations, simulations etc per second, trying to figure out how it can be done, against all odds. Sometime soon, the answer may come to you in the most unlikely of places, and you scream “eureka!”

What is your dream? Do you believe you have what it takes to fulfill it? Do you believe it is possible? Do you believe you can do it?

The fulfillment of your biggest dreams depends on you. You can do it. When you move, providence moves. Even when no one believes in you, believe in yourself. Believe in you.

Usiere Uko is the webmaster of the Financial Freedom Inspiration website and editor of the monthly Financial Freedom Inspiration Newsletter, a free ezine to inspire you to exit the rat race and fulfill your God given dreams. To subscribe or visit the site, please visit http://www.financial-freedom-inspiration.com. He is also webmaster of http://www.newdawninspiration.com

(Excerpted from the 2004 Jim Rohn Weekend Leadership Event)

To really help people in extraordinary ways, learn to deal in challenges. That is what sports is all about, challenges. That is what music is all about. The challenge to play so well, someone is inspired. The challenge to say it so well someone gets it. The challenge to be so gifted in language that someone sees it. Insight is unbelievable, only human beings can do this.

The man closes his eyes and puts his hands over his eyes and says, “I see it.” You say, “No, you don’t, you’ve got your eyes closed.”

No.

There is more than one way to see.

And all someone has to do is to see an answer that they can start on immediately and within six months their life could start to multiple and change. Within one year, the difference will be extraordinary and a person who was lost now becomes a person of influence. Just because someone helped them to see for the moment what was wrong and the possibility to change it. And then the challenge to go do it and do it well.

Now here is the best challenge of all, “Let’s go do it.” Don’t always say, “You go do it, you change”, but rather, “Let’s get healthy, let’s go change the world, let’s build an enterprise, let’s work on this together.” See I always respond better to, “Let’s”.

Sometimes it is hard to lift yourself out. It’s hard to be self inspired at first, and if someone says, “Come on let’s start a new program”, “come on let’s do exercises”, “come on let’s get healthy”, “come on let’s start something. I’ll be there you be there and you bring a guest and I’ll bring a guest, let’s start something.” That is so inspiring to have somebody say, “Let’s, Let’s do it. Let’s build a team. Let’s win the championship. Let’s walk off with the trophy.”

“Let’s” - Wow, there is something about that that can keep you awake at nights. There is something about that that turns on the juices. There is something about that that reaches deep in the soul.

For a person that could do extraordinary things when somebody says, “Let’s, Let’s do it”. I’ve got two with me already if you’ll be the next one we can conquer the world.” You say, “Whoa. Together nobody is a match for us.”

By yourself you’re vulnerable; but with us, nobody is a match. You say, “Wow! I want to belong to that team.” So figure out ways to say, “Let’s.”

To Your Success,

Jim Rohn

Reproduced with permission from Jim Rohn’s Weekly E-zine.
Copyright 2005 Jim Rohn International. All rights reserved
worldwide. To subscribe to Jim Rohn’s Weekly E-zine, go to
http://Jim-Rohn.InspiresYOU.com

What are you likely to gain from meditating?

Simple:

• It improves the power of your concentration.

• Calms you down.

• And enables you to know what you want out of life and how to achieve it.

In our experience, we each have two sides of us, two YOUS if you prefer.

ONE YOU: wants to be successful and has the ability of giving you all the help and encouragement you need.

THE OTHER YOU: wants you to be an all so ran. Mediocre and that one will also give you all the help and encouragement you need to be mediocre.

The question is:
Which of these have you chosen to work with?
Which of these have you activated.
Which of these have you given credence and credibility to.

Ask yourself:

When did you last say you would do something but never did?

When did you say that you volunteer for a task only to find that whilst you were procrastinating another person took the opportunity and made it?

When was the last time you broke a promise to your colleague, your partner or your children?

If you can identify with all or some of these behaviours then you have chosen to live with the You that is less powerful. As a result will find it difficult to reach the goals you have set for yourself in this life.

Success comes from the ability to concentrate on your strengths.

How do you do this?

Simple just give yourself five minutes a day. Just five minutes every morning to be with yourself and concentrate on the successful you.

If you really want to change your life give yourself five minutes every day to:

focus on your strengths.
focus on successful thoughts.
focus on fulfilling your commitments.
focus on encouraging others.
focus on delivering what you promised.

If you can’t squeeze five minutes into your schedule spend five minutes with yourself on the bus, train or in the traffic jam. Just give yourself five minutes.

When you start you will not be able to concentrate and will find your mind wandering all over the place. Don’t worry about this. It’s natural. It’s like learning to walk. You couldn’t do that immediately. It just takes practice.

The more you practice. The more you devote five minutes of your time to yourself, the easier it will become.

It’s like everything else in this world. You get a return of what you give. The more you give yourself the higher the return.

That’s the point of meditating. You improve your concentration skills, you gradually become at one with yourself and the world. And you know what you want out of life and how to achieve it.

Good Luck.

Graham and Julie
www.desktop-meditation.com

To improve your intuition, initiative and energy levels. Please go to:
http://www.desktop-meditation.com It’s free.

In brief, my book A REASON FOR LIVING is the product of a sustained effort to answer in the most enlightening and inspiring way this single question: Why live? I started to ask myself that question about thirty years ago after my diving accident, which left the husky and lusty teenage athlete that I was a near quadriplegic. What had given meaning to my life until then had become largely impossible. As a result, my life seemed absurd.

“Seemed” is the operative word here. Many years of reflection and study have taught me that the lack of meaning is always a lack of wisdom. Everything I have learned and that has turned the bitter and suicidal young man that I was into a mature and serene life lover is what I impart to my reader.

Listed below are some of the major points in my book:

1. There can be no contentment without acceptance of the limits of reality, within which excellence and joy are possible, but not perfection and infinite happiness. Furthermore, there can be no contentment without the courage to pursue excellence and joy persistently, against failures and misfortunes. That is to say, if life is to be compared to a car ride, we had better be in the driver’s seat and move forward at a good pace, but without haste, while steering in the right direction. We are responsible for our lives, even though we do not control everything, far from it.

Above all, our minds are at our command and determine our moods. Independently of circumstances and results, contentment follows from positive thinking and positive action – though admittedly it is not possible without circumstances and results being at least favorable enough to permit thinking and action.

2. In the pursuit of excellence and joy, the awareness of our adaptability is paramount. Change, and sometimes extensive and traumatic change, is part and parcel of life. Fortunately, we are able to adapt to this change. That is, the favorable habits we develop within relatively stable circumstances – for example eating, working, or dating habits that are conducive to our happiness – do not truly define the individuals we are. What does define them so is our innate ability to acquire favorable habits whatever the circumstances (provided the latter are not so bad that they cannot be turned to good account). In a word, we are by nature adaptable, just as the world is by nature changeable.

3. The one fact that differentiates life from infinite bliss is the struggle that is required of the living to achieve satisfaction, which is never complete and permanent. We can either sorrow over that fact or rejoice at it. Why rejoice? because with the struggle comes merit, and merit is a joyful emotion that any valiant soul knows intimately and values immensely.

4. Just as we cannot build a house without first securing a solid foundation, we cannot achieve fulfillment without first ensuring that our body is sound, thanks to a healthy diet and lifestyle.

5. To be free to do what we please is a precious right that we have as members of a liberal society. This right comes with a corresponding duty: to respect that right in others. Indeed, we are free to do what we please if what we please is not to make our fellow creatures suffer. Mutual respect is the sine qua non of collective harmony. It is the chief principle behind human justice.

The right to freedom, within the liberal society, also means that we are free to believe what we please. No institutionalized ideology is imposed on us besides the basic moral principle dictating that we respect one another so that society, however liberal, remains sufficiently ordered to be operational. The reverse of order is chaos, which only knows the law of the jungle: dog eat dog.

Now, the right to believe what we please comes with a
corresponding duty: to think by ourselves and for ourselves to define our own ideology according to which we see and do things in a certain way. Again, the only imposition is the basic moral principle dictating that we respect one another.

6. Within the context of my own ideology, which I cannot impose, but only propose, love is the essence of life, its essential purpose. It includes the love of ourselves, which consists in promoting our own life. This love is instinctive and foundational; it is instrumental in the love of others, as we feel solidarity with them.

At a deeper level, love extends to that of everything. It proceeds from the divine principle behind the universe, thanks to which everything is the way it is, capable of being and better still, within certain limits, capable of flourishing. Like this principle, these limits can be ascertained through their obvious manifestations, but never explained. Ultimately, the universe and our relative knowledge of it are founded on a fathomless mystery.

Addendum

For a wider perspective of this book and its author, including pictures, excerpts, autobiographical information, plus details on where to purchase the book, please use the following link:

http://laurentgrenier.com/ARFL.html

Thank you. I wish you every happiness!

Laurent Grenier’s career as a full-time writer and thinker spans over twenty years. He has released various articles in art and philosophical magazines. He has also written some philosophical essays, a collection of memories and thoughts, and a compendium of physiology and nutrition, still unpublished. A REASON FOR LIVING constitutes his best work to date.

1. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.
   
2. Memorize your favorite poem.
   
3. Don’t believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.
   
4. When you say, “I love you”, mean it.
   
5. When you say, “I’m sorry”, look the person in the eye.
   
6. Believe in love at first sight.
   
7. Never laugh at anyone’s dreams.
   
8. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it’s the only way to live life completely.
   
9. In arguments, fight fair.
   
10. Talk slow but think quick.
    
11. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
    
12. Call your mom.
    
13. Say “bless you” when you hear someone sneeze.
    
14. Don’t let a little disagreement ruin a great friendship.
    
15. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, act immediately to fix it.
    
16. Marry someone you love to talk to. As you grow old together, your ability to communicate will be more important than their physical attributes.
    
17. Spend some time alone.
    
18. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
    
19. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
    
20. Read more books and watch less TV.
    
21. Try your best to create a loving atmosphere in your home - this is a vital factor that will contribute significantly to your children’s happiness and your family’s harmony.
    
22. In disagreements with loved ones, deal with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
    
23. Read between the lines.
    
24. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
    
25. Be gentle with the earth…and yourself.
    
26. Pray. There’s immeasurable power in it.
    
27. Don’t trust someone who doesn’t close their eyes when you kiss them.
    
28. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
    
29. If you make a lot of money, put it to use helping others while you are living. That is wealth’s greatest satisfaction.
    
30. Remember that the best relationship is one where your love for each other is greater than your need for each other.
    
31. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
    
32. Do not forget that your character is your destiny.
    

Resource Box - © Danielle Hollister (2004) is the Publisher of BellaOnline Quotations Zine - A free newsletter for quote lovers featuring more than 10,000 quotations in dozens of categories like - love, friendship, children, inspiration, success, wisdom, family, life, and many more. Read it online at - http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art8364.asp

“The power of discovery enables us to achieve excellence without having to be “perfect.’”

– Thomas Crum, The Magic of Conflict

I arrived at the conference center ready to present my workshop. Almost immediately I noticed the room was too small and it was not set up as requested. There were no flipcharts and there were tables, though I had specifically asked for open space. I caught myself and smiled. I drew the word D I S C O V E R Y in large letters on a piece of newsprint and put it at the front of the room as a reminder.

Discovery.

One of my favorite words, the concept of Discovery excites the brain, conjures up lost treasure, desert islands, new inventions, and old relics, something that was –- up to now –- unknown. Explorers discover new lands, scientists discover cures for diseases, and philosophers seek to discover the truth.

What about discovering each other? Learning what is new and important in each of our neighbors, friends, family, colleagues; what has been lost in the daily grind of work; truths, values, and hopes that are yet to be revealed? Discovery. A lovely word.

I first came to appreciate Discovery in The Magic of Conflict, where Thomas Crum describes it as a magical domain that “allows us to move beyond the fight, beyond success, to an open realm of possibility.” When we’re in Discovery mode, we are spontaneous, curious, fascinated, and appreciative of life in all its diversity.

Young children live in Discovery and sometimes we do. Katharine Hepburn lived a life of stardom but never lost her childlike fascination with people and life. Thomas Edison’s famous quotation after many attempts at inventing the light bulb shows a person in Discovery mode: “I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work!”

Perfection.

What’s the opposite of Discovery? Perfection –- a place with which we’re all too familiar. In Perfection, things have to be done right, we have to look good, get good grades, and win the games we play. Our standards are high, and failure is to be avoided at all costs. In daily conflicts, sometimes at the expense of our dearest relationships, we have to prevail. When we feel attacked we fight back, sometimes with our own hurtful words, or with behavior calculated to control, manipulate and diminish.

Shifting Gears.

According to Tom Crum, when we shift into Discovery, we treat mistakes as outcomes and conflicts as opportunities to learn and understand more of the world and our partners. We stop being afraid to fail because there is no failure, only increased awareness and experience. We enter a world of wonder, spontaneity, and fun.

What Can I Learn Here?

We shift into Discovery, not with judgment, but with awareness -–by moving from “How can I be right about this?” to: “What can I learn here?”

When I’m angry because I just missed a three-foot putt, Discovery changes self-judgment into an opportunity for learning.

In the middle of a tough meeting with your department manager, try asking yourself — “What can I learn here?” What is it about this issue that’s important to each of us?

Upon arriving home, you find your life partner upset.Your first reaction is that it’s something you did. But wait! “What can I learn here?” jumps into your thoughts, and you ask: “Honey, you seem upset. Anything I can help with?” And you hear: “I’m just worried that I won’t finish this new project they gave me at work in time.”

Or your teenager is exhibiting new habits that have you worried. It’s worth checking out what the worldview is from her perspective before reaching a judgment.

We’ve all experienced moments of Discovery when we break through to a new understanding. It’s a powerful place that we like and want to revisit. The challenge is to choose to go there on purpose, especially in difficult situations. Katharine Hepburn has been quoted as saying, “Wouldn’t it be great if people could get to live suddenly as often as they die suddenly?” Shifting from Perfection to Discovery is the way. Try it. Discover for yourself.

© 2004 Judy Ringer, Power & Presence Training

You’re welcome to reprint this story. If you do, please include this reference: Judy Ringer is a conflict and communication skills trainer, black belt in aikido, and sole owner of Power & Presence Training. For ideas and inspiration on conflict, communication, and creating the life you want, visit us online at http://www.JudyRinger.com/

I call myself semi-retired. I work at a job that takes up 5 hours of my day, 5 days a week. I go home and I lock myself in my office and I work on the computer for 5-6 hours a day. I try and break up my routine by doing household chores in between times when I become brain dead. On the weekend I go out for breakfast and cruise the mall, check out some book stores and go shopping.

I use my day job to make outside contacts for inspiration. I have effectively eliminated the very few friends that I had and on occasion we touch base just for old time sake and history is now the only things we can relate to or share. For the last five years I have boxed and tightly wrapped my life in the camouflage of my own importance or many times the lack of it.

I have created Roy’s Library, a wealth of books, ebooks and articles written by myself for myself. I have successfully cloaked myself in the perceived importance of my work so that I do not have to participate in life socially. I have always been semi reclusive and centered on myself. I teach about spirituality so that I may learn about it and the information that I have, I make accessible so that others may grow and improve their lifestyles. By nature I am a collector and yet I avoid collecting things, I would feel at home in a junk yard, an antique museum or a hardware store. My mother was also a collector, but she overwhelmed her home with things so I rebelled by keeping my home clean and tidy.

I found a way to collect abundance and keep it hidden at the same time. I collect words and put them into the abyss of my hard drive. So now I have successfully managed to recluse myself effectively and also collect without being messy about it.

I love to be around books because they have stored energy. They are the preserved thoughts of the authors that have written them and they have potential energy. Their thoughts are organized and indexed on pages and neatly tucked away on a library’s shelf.

A library has potential, but no life until someone picks up a book and begins to read it. The energy in the book is then transferred to the reader. The knowledge of one’s life time has only potential energy until that knowledge is transferred to another and used. Oil has potential energy, the energy of sunlight assimilated by plants converted into matter and stored as oil.

Life is not about collecting things, it is about movement. Collecting things is OK but it cannot be disguised as life unless the energy in the collection itself is released to others. What good is a thought unless it can be made manifest. A thought is nothing until it has movement, then it has life.

That is what we are accomplishing here in the physical world. We are creating life, by taking our thoughts and turning them into physical objects or movement. My writing and my collection are useless, unless someone takes them and makes them workable or demonstrates them in physical form. Words have energy but no life until they are spoken. The spoken word gives life to that which is hidden from us in a book or thought. A painting adds life to those that view it and a dance to those that witness it.

An artist or writer stores his/her life in the work that he/she creates. Many of these people have difficulty with relationships, everyday living and interaction with others. Their thoughts are often out of sync in time and place with the accepted knowns of the day and so they withdraw and become observers of life rather than participators.

I believe they are keenly aware of the separation and often put their physical lives on hold preferring to express themselves in their work. They store their life’s energy in their writings, poetry and paintings to have that energy released at a later time when it is more appropriate to have it manifested by another into physical reality. It may well be an adjustment in time and space that is made by the entity for a later purpose.

I trust that life is always shared in a natural order of things. I also believe that all of life can be shared altruistically. Sometimes it serves best to know the work rather than the worker, because humanity makes value judgments based on the writer’s or artist’s personal circumstances. I believe that many gifted people sacrifice immediate physical fulfilment for immortality through their work. I live and share an insular existence connected to others through my work at a level of consciousness that is unknown to me. But am I so different than those that would demonstrate their lives through their families and friends on a backdrop of physical symbols? As a writer I am just playing a trick with time in the knowingness that past, present and future exists simultaneously and immortality exists for all. Am I just making excuses for not participating or are my ideas and my awareness too outrageous for my time?

If I am trying to say that I was born at the wrong time and place, why didn’t I postpone my birth until a later date? Perhaps my writing is a glimpse into the future of awareness and enlightenment, maybe not believable at this time, but a seed planted for a new generation. The abstract painting is perhaps a portrait of another realm of awareness yet to come into our focus.

The importance of my work, my life or my circumstances has no purpose except for the purpose I give it while I am focused in this time and place. It is just too easy to give meaning and importance to something in the future because we do not have to take responsibility for something that is never going to happen. The future holds much promise for those that are not living now.

Roy E. Klienwachter is a resident of British Columbia, Canada. A student of NLP, ordained minister, New Age Light Worker and Teacher. Roy has written and published five books on New Age wisdom. Roy’s books are thought provoking and designed to empower you to take responsibility for your life and what you create. His books and articles are written in the simplicity and eloquence of Zen wisdom.

You may not always agree with what he has to say. You will always come away with a new perspective and your thinking will never be the same.

Roy’s style is honest and comes straight from the heart without all the metaphorical mumble jumble and BS.

Visit Roy at: http://www.klienwachter.com

In 1982, I found myself in Eden. What I found out from my brief visit there is that the Garden of Eden is not a piece of real estate, but a state of being—the reality matrix in which human beings were designed to thrive. While such forays into extraordinary states is the goal of spiritual aspirants, I did not gain entrance to the Garden via a conscious desire to—nor through discipline, self-sacrifice, meditation or fasting—I reached it because of something I did when I came up against a problem I couldn’t solve in the ordinary human way. When my back was against the wall, I gave up. I surrendered. I “let go,” as the saying goes, and “let God.”

The situation that triggered my ascent to Eden was a rapidly progressing case of that viciously painful, crippling disease, rheumatoid arthritis. I was 27 years old when I was diagnosed with it, and just months before, I had started a job teaching art in an international school in Japan, halfway around the world from home. I was virtually alone in Japan, without my family and longtime friends, I had only a rudimentary Japanese vocabulary, and I had big plans that did not include a serious illness. When I kept having odd aches and pains, sometimes excruciating, I went to see the Japanese doctor that all the teachers from my school used as a primary care physician for no better reason than that he spoke English. When he announced that my blood test results had come back “positive” for R.A., my initial reaction was to go numb, and I hightailed it to that zone named “denial” just as fast as I possibly could.

“There is no cure,” he pronounced with a long, sad face, “but if you’re lucky, and undergo modern medical treatment, you ought to be able to take care of yourself for as much as ten years before you become totally dependent on others to care for you.” I left that day with five or six different medications—something that, at the time, I didn’t question. After all, he had told me that my only hope was to submit to medical treatment and I hadn’t yet jolted awake and realized that his reality and my reality did not have to be the same—indeed, that they were completely incompatible. Though I still had pain and stiffness, the medicine seemed to be preventing my decline into helplessness, the specter of which was always present just beneath my consciousness.

I took the three-times-daily handful of pills for about 7 months before the first signs of problems became undeniable. I had “moon face”—the classic side-effect of corticosteroids usage. I had not even known I was taking such a powerful and destructive drug, such had been the passion with which I adopted the ostrich method of abdicating all responsibility. I was instructed to immediately cease taking the little pink pill in the battalion of medications I had religiously taken since they were first prescribed, and obediently, I did that. Within 36 hours, I was in a crisis. Among numerous other symptoms, I was unable to lift my arms or bend my legs, every joint was on fire, and I experienced mild psychosis. You see, if you’ve been taking steroids at what turns out to have been the high dosage I was, for as long as I had, your adrenal glands, whose hormonal secretions regulate a mind-boggling number of your bodily and mental functions, have simply gone on vacation—sometimes permanent vacation.

That last bit is what I found out when I read Paovo Airola’s classic book There Is a Cure for Arthritis—my beacon in the darkness when I could finally stay in denial no longer. But all my newly found hope was shattered when I read that high dosages of steroids taken over protracted periods could so burn out your adrenals, you may be unable to heal.

That was rock bottom for me. By the time I read that, I had visited many of the most highly-noted rheumatologists in Japan, consulted with doctors back in the U.S., had tried several unsuccessful, painful programs to get off the steroids, and had finally come to the realization that I was at the end of the line. It seemed that nothing I, nor anyone else could come up with, could save me from my descent into a physical nightmare with no apparent end. So I did the only thing I could: I sobbed, I wailed, and I pleaded with the god of my Protestant Sunday school days to please, PLEASE help me! I had always considered this god the ace up my sleeve—the last-resort option in case I ever got completely desperate, and I was, by then, completely desperate. The sound of my pleading morphed from the voice of an anguished young woman into that of a terrified young child beseeching an omnipotent parent to help her. After a time, the pleading and wailing diminished and I was left with stillness—what can only be described as “the peace that passes understanding.” Nothing about my situation had changed outwardly, but everything had changed.

Starting the very next day, remarkable events began to transpire, including the catapulting of my faith into the stratosphere. Solutions to every challenge appeared as if by magic, and in a few months, I found myself at a famous Swiss clinic for natural healing. There, I was able to get off all medication, including the steroids, and become symptom-free within 3 weeks. Though I could barely walk when I arrived at the clinic, I was, after those few short weeks, able to climb to the top of a mountain, which is where I found the Garden Gate and slipped through—where I was able to experience cosmic consciousness—and the Oneness of our origins.

It took me over two decades to fully understand why and how that happened. I now know that my surrender to Spirit catapulted me up in frequency—up to the frequency level where Paradise manifests. It shot me up to the frequency level where there is no disease, no pain and suffering, and there is only harmony and bliss. When I hit rock bottom, it became my “launching pad” to the sublime, higher-frequency reality of Eden. My life since has been a quest to not only return, but to make sure everyone else knows how to get there, too.

©2005 Julia Rogers Hamrick

Julia Rogers Hamrick has been a spiritual-growth facilitator for over two decades, and is the author of Recreating Eden: The Exquisitely Simple, Divinely Ordained Plan for Transforming Your Life and Your Planet, which further chronicles her remarkable healing experience and the insights it blessed her with. Julia writes about and leads seminars on proactive joy, and the relationship between frequency and experience. For more information on Julia and on recreating Eden, visit http://www.recreating-eden.com To read about Julia’s own dance with Spirit, ego, and frequency, read Julia’s blog, accessible from her website.