What I Learned From Don

By Nalini MacNab

Don is a self-avowed, full-blooded Apache. A warrior in its truest sense, though it took me quite some time to see behind the mask. His loudly-proclaimed ancestry made amazing amounts of sense until I stared into his blazingly blue eyes. Hmmm. Not going there. No right. Definitely no invitation, though we did become allies over time.

Don was scary. Tall, almost gaunt, with nut-brown skin and what remained of his long dark hair tied back most of the time. He had received his first black belt the year I was born. He refused to test after that, until finally forced, but it had been decades. No one wanted to spar with him, so I was blessed with that pairing almost every practice. He and my sensei were close friends. Sensei was always telling me I needed to toughen up. So…Don. And, a blessing he turned out to be.

Don taunted his sparring partners. My body shook with outrage, until the moment when... Keep Reading

Mindfulness Meditation For Everyday Living

By Padma Gordon

When you are mindful of your breath and grounded in your body it makes it much easier to navigate everyday tasks and the nuanced dance of relating to yourself and others.

Mindfulness is the ability to notice what is in present time. When you notice signals of stress like scrunching up your shoulders or holding your breath, you can pause and make a new choice.

Mindfulness offers you the option of breaking physical, mental and emotional holding patterns which enable you to make healthy choices.

You can choose to relax, breathe and drop your shoulders. You can begin freshly.... Read More

The Fork and the Road

By Umair Haque

One day, a weary traveller came to a fork in the road.

He was desperate to find his way home. “But which way is mine?!”, he cried.

The fork replied, gently, “all these roads will lead you home”.

The man, offended by the fork’s illogic, didn’t notice for a moment that the road was speaking to him.

“How can that be! This road goes left, and that road goes right. I am seeking the end of the road. But only the right road! That is my way home. That is everyone’s way home,” he added.

The fork laughed. “All these roads will lead you home”, it said to the weary traveller, again, this time even more gently..... Keep reading

The Birds, Buddha and a Flower

By White Feather

Somewhere, an enormous stadium-sized flock of birds is laughing. "Return to one-ness?" they ask. "How can one return to one-ness when it is impossible to be separate from it?" The birds live their entire lives in one-ness and have no concept of separation, so they laugh. Those goofy humans, however, have created a perception of separation and this has given them an opportunity to see one-ness from the perspective of learning what one-ness is not. While the birdies live in one-ness, as that is all they know, the goofy humans have expanded their awareness of that one-ness--or at least moved into a possibility of expanding their awareness of that one-ness. They stopped living in one-ness in order to expand their awareness beyond simply living in one-ness. They will eventually return to living in one-ness but they will have a new awareness of it when they do. Through the humans, one-ness will have a new awareness of itself. That is when the humans will finally laugh..... Keep reading

Shamanic Inititation For Spiritual Awakening

By Sharon Ramel

Your spiritual growth and transformational healing begins here. Today, you are invited to explore and experience a unique deeply spiritual journey. You are personally invited to learn, to be initiated into the Nine Rites of Munay Ki engaging in the quest for deeper, broader vision of who you truly are. The Munay Ki rites are intended to help you to become a person of wisdom in your lifetime.

Spirituality is a core human need. Spiritual explorers receive a calling, something that speaks to us deep inside.... Read More

Abraham On Joy

"Everything exists for joy. There is not one other reason for life than joy. We've got nothing to prove to anyone, because nobody other than All-That-Is is watching. In other words, we're not trying to get brownie points from some other galaxy. We're not trying to get someplace else; we're not trying to get it done, because there is no ending—we cannot get it done. Everything exists for the purpose of joy in the moment." - Abraham, as channeled through Esther Hicks

To Be Held

By Umair Haque

I am never happier than when, like a child, I’m being held. The only real difference between me and you is that having spent years at death’s edge, I’ll gently admit it.

After all, we spend our lives desperately trying not to admit it, don’t we? I did. We are not children, we cry. We are not weak, dependent, needy. We certainly do not need to be held. We are grown ups, we are adults, we are proud and independent and self sufficient. That’s the idea of strength we’ve been taught.

And yet..... Keep Reading

What Is So Great About Flow?

By White Feather

Of course you created the game that you are playing. It is a game created by projecting consciousness through the infinite field of possibilities, which can be seen as a holographic template. After going through "The Field" the consciousness manifests as a reality in which the game is played out. The human, which is the player you created to play the game, exists because of the consciousness that you stream through "The Field" into this reality. This flow of consciousness is what keeps the player/human going/moving/living in this reality. As soon as you stop this flow, the human disintegrates and dies. So in order to keep playing the game and experiencing your creation you have got to keep this flow going uninterrupted..... Keep Reading

Somatic Descent: Experiencing the Ultimate Intelligence of the Body

By Reginald A. Ray

Most of us sense that our bodies contain uncommon intelligence—we “feel it in our bones” or notice it in our “gut instincts.” But is there something far vaster here waiting to be experienced? With Somatic Descent, you are invited to tune into the natural wisdom of your body, refine and amplify it, and explore it fully.

In this program, pioneering teacher Dr. Reggie Ray presents a fascinating audio program on this rich dimension of Tibetan Buddhism: how to go beyond the veil of the thinking mind to tap the wondrous yet wholly trustworthy domain of your body.

Beyond Basic Mindfulness and into the Empowering Realms of the Soma

For those who've worked with basic breath and body-based meditations, this course will be a revelation: step-by-step guidance into some of the most transformative and powerful experiences charted by Buddhism's vast maps of consciousness.

Drawing on decades of teaching and scholarship, Reggie Ray shares a 13-CD curriculum of practices and insights to access the deepest knowing enfolded in the Soma, the landscape of your physical body and the source of immediate and greatest fulfillment.

With him, you will learn: how your body is a field of infinite wisdom, the origins of somatic descent practices and how they transform us on both the neurological and non-physical levels, many meditations for connecting with and embracing the Soma, and how to integrate these profound changes into your daily life.

HIGHLIGHTS:
• Your body as the field of infinite knowing
• How to explore the wisdom of the Soma
• Yin Breathing, Connecting with the Earth, and many other guided practices
• Over 13 hours of investigation into the somatic dimensions of awakening

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Abraham Lincoln on Happiness

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Self-publishing Tutorials

The Beginning of Civilization According to Freud

Abundance Is Giving

Searching for the answer to abundance?

In the mood for an epiphany today?

Then read this article from White Feather on Medium:

Abundance Is Giving

Wisdom From Byron Katie

The Freedom To Choose Something Different

By Pema Chodron

Ever feel triggered and stuck in a reactive tailspin despite all your efforts?

It is from this place — this hooked feeling — that we find ourselves responding in less than ideal ways. These are the moments when we may speak with venom, act out, or completely shut down when faced with challenging situations.

It is only later, when we've had the opportunity to calm down and reflect on our actions, that we wonder where we went wrong and how we could have chosen a more grounded response.

In The Freedom to Choose Something Different, Pema Chödrön examines and illuminates this nebulous process, clearly identifying where and when you have the opportunity to change your habitual response patterns. . . to choose something different. In this eight-part video course, Pema personally walks you through the landscape of these internal thunderstorms and guides you through the tools to cultivate inner freedom.

Learn more here: Sounds True's Freedom to Choose Something Different, Part 1

Paul McCartney on Eating

Wisdom From R. Buckminster Fuller

Energy Cycles and Disease

By White Feather

Anyone who has spent much time on a beach knows about ebb and flow. The ocean is a great teacher of the cyclical nature of all life on this glorious planet. The tides come in and they go out. All the animal life and plant life living in this ecological zone is aware of these cycles and their lives are structured to follow these natural cycles. It is all about energy.

All energy is cyclical and nature responds and reacts to these cycles in a natural and harmonious way. Humans, however, have lost touch with these natural cycles of ebb and flow. They have lost touch with nature...... Keep Reading
 

What To Do When Your Partner Lacks Empathy

By Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

Were you born with the ability to feel others' feelings? I was, and one of the issues that I had to face was that not everyone is empathic.

This was very confusing to me as a child. In school, I often saw children bullying and making fun of another child. The more the child cried, the more fun they made of him or her. It broke my heart and I would often try to come to the child's rescue. I was deeply perplexed at how these bullying children could stand feeling the pain of the child or the animal they were hurting. Couldn't they feel the pain?

I was perplexed too with my parents, who obviously couldn't feel my pain. How was that possible? Why could I feel their pain and they couldn't feel mine? I had the same experience in my marriage and it took me many more years to understand that some people either lack the ability to feel empathy, or they shut it down so early in their lives that they have no access to it.

I tend to believe that everyone is capable of empathy, but I don't know this for sure. What I do know is that many people have learned to shut down their feelings to such an extent that they can't feel even their own feelings - and they certainly can't feel others' feelings.

It's disconcerting to discover that your partner lacks empathy. This is the situation that Georgia found herself in:

"I was recently involved with a narcissistic man who was completely unable to empathize/care or even think about my feelings and needs. Sometimes I would have to explain how his behavior was affecting me and he would eventually acknowledge he could see how I might feel, but never changed the behavior. Can someone be taught empathy or if they don't have that ability, they never will?"

Being the optimist that I am, I think it's possible for people to learn empathy, but they would have to go through an in-depth therapeutic process of reconnecting with their own feelings first, and learning to love themselves. In my experience, narcissistic people often do not think they have a problem - It's always the other person who has the problem. Because they believe they are fine and others are "messed up," they are rarely motivated to do the inner work necessary to open to their feelings and to others' feelings. They likely shut down their feelings when they were very young and they might not realize that they lack empathy.

If you are with a partner who is narcissistic and lacks empathy, don't count on this changing. You need to either accept that this person will likely never truly care about your feelings and the effect their behavior has on you, or you need to leave. Trying to change a person who currently lacks the ability to feel empathy is a waste of time and energy.

Sometimes, a highly sensitive person who shut down their feelings early in life may suddenly find themselves feeling empathy, but I've not seen this occur very often, so it's not something to count on.

One of the hardest things to deal with in a relationship is when you can see the beautiful essence of your partner, but your partner can't see his or her own essence - or yours. Many people go into relationships because they fall in love with the essence of a person, only to find out that the person's narcissistic wounded self is in charge most of the time. I've often said that we need to be able to acknowledge and tolerate a person's wounded self - putting it into perspective - in order to create a loving relationship with them. If you are attracted to someone who has narcissistic tendencies, but are unable to put their narcissism and lack of empathy into a healthy perspective,, then that person isn't for you - no matter how much you love their essence. Being in a relationship with a narcissist is never easy, and it's especially difficult for someone with empathic tendencies.

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Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books, including "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?" and "Healing Your Aloneness." She is the co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding® healing process. Learn Inner Bonding now! Visit her web site for a FREE Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com or email her at margaret@innerbonding.com. Phone sessions available.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9101621

Enriching Life

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Watching Clouds From a Swing

A delightful (and free) short story from fantasy author, J. D. Hanning:

Watching Clouds From a Swing