Today I want to encourage you to do something nice for someone. Think about the things that are important to your heart. If you do not have a favorite charity, group or school that you feel led to support take some time to make a list of the things that are important to you.

I have gone to charity watch to check out how charities rate if I want to make a donation. If money is tight right now, think about sending a note or letter to an soldier serving overseas, far from home. There is a wonderful site called anysoldier.com. You can get some friends together and write letters, or collect beanie babies and mail them. They love to get care packages as well.

A charity that I have recently become aware of is called “Filter Pure”. They provide water filters to the Dominican Republic and Tanzania. They are trying to grow to encompass more countries. Lisa Ballantine wrote and article about Filter Pure called “Providing Safe Water: A Sustainable Solution” and it is posted on Oprah’s Angel and also on facebook.

In my community, I like to support our local food pantry. I am hoping that there will be a bounty of veggies from my garden that I will be able to share with the food pantry.

Another thing that I think is wonderful is freecycle which is on yahoo groups. If you have things that you do not want any longer, you can post them on this site and people will pick them up. It is a good time to go through your summer clothes and get rid of those items that you are no longer using. You can also get rid of toys or books that you no longer need.

If you are adventurous, you might consider sharing your home with an AFS student. Students form all over the world come to the United States for 6 months or 1 year. They need a host family that will provide a place for them to live, food to eat, and American experiences to enjoy.
It changes the family dynamic as you take in someone from another country. There are lots of different kids and some are outgoing and some are shy.

You can never know the effect that doing something nice for someone else has on that person or the world. It creates a ripple effect that helps make our world a better place.

There is a wonderful site called www.worldgratitude.com which promotes sending waves of gratitude out to the world. They are starting a 42 day program tomorrow. Please check it out.

And with thanks and blessings, have a wonderful week.

A friend sent me an intersting site devloped by Jean Adrienne called Inner-Speak. Jean developed these cards to help heal blocks in your life by accessing your subconscious mind.

I admit that I was skeptical when I tried these cards. I have had some amazingly responses just by asking a simple question like why am I having discord with this person. The next amazing part is that the energy shifted between the person and I and the situation that I inquired about. Amazing. Other friends who have used these cards have reported similar amazing results.

Jean also has books, cards and private sessions on her site.

Hope you enjoy. Blessings, Eileen

Lynne Twist has been involved in the Hunger Project, The Soul of Money Institute, and The Pachamama Alliance. She is the author of the book, “The Soul of Money” and the website soulofmoney.org

Lynne’s premise is that our society focuses on scarcity. We are always working on accumulating for ourselves and it is a belief that we are separate from everyone else. She believes we need to switch to a belief in abundance, which is focusing on having what we have, being thankful and knowing that there is enough for everyone.

She talks about a society from South America that had never used money. But as other countries became interested in what their land had to offer, they became educated in using money. She describes money as energy. And as such, we have the ability to use money to make us happy or unhappy. By using money to support our beliefs and hearts desire, we use the energy as an expression of ourselves.

This got me to thinking about what I would like to spend money on in my life. I love to garden and planting flowers makes me so happy. It makes the area around me look wonderful. I want to plant a vegetable garden and share the bounty with others who do not have a garden.

I would like to purchase products that are “green”. They help us to sustain our environment for our children and their children. It is sometimes more expensive to purchase these items. I have been trying to purchase items that are fair trade.

Recently though, I shopped at a store that sells all fair trade goods from all over the world. There were many handicrafted items and the prices were a steal. The store is not for profit which lowers the overhead compared to a for profit store. I purchased a basket from Kenya for $10.00. Having made baskets and visited basket makers here in the US, I was shocked at the low price.

How much could this basket weaver possibly be making. It sparked a discussion between my friends and I. They argued that it could be a lot of money to this family. I argued that to make money they may be having the kids spend all day making baskets. How do we know that fair trade is equitable trade or is it just a stamp on a product that promotes child labor? And if we think that woman or family is better off now because they can afford a bag of rice or a bag of beans that they are better off then I ask, what is better off?

I found a site which promotes ending poverty in other nations with equitrade, http://www.equitrade.org/ In the long run, I suppose that goods that we import would become more expensive as trades become more equitable.

We all have different organizations that we support. “The Soul of Money” is a book that helps us to think about how spending money is really an extension of who we are and what we believe.

I hope you get a chance to check out her site,
Blessings, Eileen

The Four Agreements was written by Don Miguel Ruiz. It is called a book of Toltec Wisdom.The Four Agreements offers us four rules to live by to help us live our life in love. The first agreement is to be impeccable with your word. The second agreement is” Don’t take anything personally.” “The third agreement is “Don’t make assumptions”. The Fourth agreement is “always do your best”.
This sounds easy enough but if you gossip at all it is not possible to be impeccable in your word. Don Miguel says that words are a contract with other people. If we accept what other people are telling us it becomes a contract. Many times a child may be told that they are stupid or not good enough and they will believe it and live that out. It means not saying mean things about others . Take time to think before you speak.
Don’t take anything personally makes sense. What another person does or says to us is just our perception. We do not know if what we believe is true. We do not know if what they say or do is true for us. What other people do or believe is true for them but not necessarily for us. If we can detach from reacting to others beliefs or judgments and just let them have them it frees us up. They have their perception and you have yours. “You eat their emotional garbage, then it becomes your emotional garbage. But if you do not take it personally, then you are immune in the middle of hell.”p.49
What a difference we can make in our day if we just quit listening to the news. They tell the story of the day from their perception. They can take a story about our economy and have us thinking that we have nothing, we are all suffering. I heard of a news person recently, who wanted good stories and was deluged with stories of people helping other people. Our news thrives on fear, and scarcity and violence.
The third agreement is ” do not make assumptions”. All living human beings have had this happen. Have you ever had someone slight you, only to find out that they did not realize they had forgotten you. Or you wave at someone and they do not wave back. You wonder what you did. Then you find out they did not see you. Or you think that someone you love knows what you think just because you spend a lot of time with you. And then you find out that they are not mind readers after all. I have had people say to me, well they should know what I think about this. One thing I tend to assume is that if I like it, my family will like it. OR a big one is that what I think is correct and if they do it a different way it won’t work. It comes back to the addage that what we believe is our story.
The fourth agreement is ” always do your best”. This agreement reminds me of living in the moment. It does not say to try harder. It comes back to living with passion, joy and enjoying each and every moment. When we do what we love or love what we do we bring our best to the table.

The chapter that resonated so much for me is “breaking old agreements”. It can be a revelation to look at ourselves as an observer. What is that person(me) doing. I am reminded of a story about a woman who was making a ham. She cut both the ends off. Her husband asked her why she was cutting the ends off. She told him that is how her mother cooked ham. He encouraged her to call her mother and ask why she cut the ends off. Her mom told her that she cut the ends off so it would fit in her pan.
The moral of the story is that we sometimes continue doing things in our lives that make no sense. They may work perfect for other people but not for us. Sometimes this happens with our life work. We may be doing a job because our parents thought we would be good at it when we were children. We may also have agreements with ourselves that are not for our best good. For example, working out is important for good health. But sometimes we have to sacrifice something to spend time with our kids our our parents. Or we may need more sleep. I meet many people who get very little sleep because they think other things are more important. Other things may be more important than sleep, but it would be a good idea to step back from ourselves and take a look at what we are doing. Who are we trying to please or be by overdoing.
I would recommend that you read this lovely book. I also have “The Voice of Knowledge Cards”. I choose a different card by shuffling the card then picking one. It gives me a thought of the day. Today I got, “When you unlearn, your faith returns to you, your personal power increases, and you can invest your faith in new beliefs. On the opposite side it says,” The way to transform what you believe about yourself is to unlearn what you have learned.” What a perfect thought for today. Let me look at everything with the eyes of a child.

I hope you enjoy Don Miguel Ruiz’s books.

Blessings, Eileen

Feeling the connection with the earth, digging in the dirt, watching things grow from little seeds to beautiful plants is one of my joys in life. Perhaps it is the farmer genes lingering in both myself and my husband. As soon as the ground warms up in the midwest, people are out working in their yards.

Lots of people I talk to are planting their own vegetable gardens this year. It is a way to assure that the vegetables are chemically free. One of the first things I researched is non GMO seeds. These are seeds that have not been genetically modified. I do not know if it is possible to not eat genetically modified foods, which can be found in corn products and soybeans. After reading some information on Cornell University’s web page which I found on the website “The Seeds of Deception” it sounds as though genetically modified seeds can cause food allergies. I do not really want to focus on the bad points, I just want to focus on finding organically raised fruits and vegetables.

There are several sites that sell non gmo seeds. I have not yet picked out my what it is that I want to grow. I have decided on a site to plant the garden. The next step is to prepare the site. That is a big job. My husband and I differ on how to prepare the bed. It would have been better to start the bed in the fall. He wants to apply a chemical to kill grass and I do not. I know grass will be coming up and it might be more work but I feel more comfortable with no chemicals.

After reading Lynne Twist’s book, “The Soul of Money”, I would like to make a conscious effort to spend my money in accordance with my values. For me that means buying non gmo whenever possible. In order to bring the change for healthier living, we must all be stewards of the land. I focus on recycling. Making food without additives as much as possible. Eating at restaurants and shopping at stores that provide those options.

I checked out organic gardening’s site. It had many ideas as well. I would really like to purchase a compost tumbler. Plants thrive in organic matter but it must be well composted otherwise it burns the plants. I did not know that my first year of gardening. I felt lucky to obtain some manure which was not completely composted. I could not understand why it was hurting my plants. Luckily, they did survive and I learned a valuable lesson. I am also going to purchase red wiggler worms. I have a spot for them, and I can decrease the amount of table scraps I put in the land fill. It also says you add junk mail which would be wonderful way to use it.

Let me know if you have any great garden ideas. I’d like to hear about your favorite plants.

blessings, Eileen

I am so happy to see the sun shining here in the midwest. We had snow yesterday and it seemed to be a little ha ha that mother nature is playing on us.
Today the snow melted, the sun is out and we are pretending that spring has sprung.
I thought I would share a book with you that I have yet to read. It is called “The Soul of Money” by Lynn Twist. It states on the site www.soulofmoney.info that this book will help organization and people make peace and sufficiency with money. What could be more appropriate for the times that we are living in today?
Lynn was an original member of THE HUNGER PROJECT and is involved in many organizations that foster self sufficiency.
One of my goals is to start a youth center in my little town. After reading about some of Lynn’s work I am inspired to read her book. If she can bring change to the world, I should be able to do something in my little corner of the world.
I would love to hear from you if you have read this book or know more about Lynn’s work.
Too often we are deluged with depressing news stories. It is wonderful to hear about people that are having a positive effect on our world.
Every day I meet wonderful people that put themselves out for other people. These kinds of stories do not make our news.
So, I hope you have a wonderful day.
Blessings, Eileen

“The Breakthrough Experience” by Dr. John F. Demartini has developed a method of psychological healing called the Quantum Collapse Process. It is a process that helps us to transform our feelings and our lives per Dr. Blanca Diez M.D..
In the first chapter Dr. Demartini states that he wanted to discover a way to awaken the awareness of the divine order principle in people’s lives and the love in their heart. One of the goals of the Breakthrough experience is to embrace the opportunities you have right this minute. Everything you need to fulfill your life is available to you.
What Dr. Demartini discovered called”The Great Discovery” is that at any moment of your life, you will never be put down without being lifted up , nor lifted up without being put down. We are always in a perfect balance.p.12 If we only focus on one aspect or another we are not living in total awareness.
It may be yourself that puts you down or lifts you up as well as other human beings. So when someone puts us down or victimizes us they are just reflecting us. They are a mirror to us. ” People treat you exactly the way you unconsciously treat yourself.”p.14
So Dr. Demartini has you identify a person in your life who you has an emotional effect on you in your life. This is found on page 161. He has you make a list of good qualities of that person and a list of negative qualities of that person in equal numbers. He then has you initial all the people that have seen you exhibit this quality. It is an eye opener. It will bring you to a place of absolute love.
Well, I thought the book was excellent. I have only touched on the surface of his ideas. If you would like to explore relationships in your life that stress you out, this is a great book to try.
I hope you enjoy it. Dr. Demartini also does seminars. Check out his web site.
Blessings, Eileen

The book, “Feelings Buried Alive Never Die…”is written by Karol K. Truman. Karol provides tools to help us become aware of feelings that we hold in our body can make us ill or cause us to have negative behavior issues. I was prepared to look at this possibility when I read the book so it resonated with me. If you are not open to looking at how your thoughts about significant negative experiences can continue to create pain or disharmony in your life, then you may not want to read this book.
Her premise is that feelings that are unresolved are alive in our physical energy field. These feelings will create challenges, dis-ease or pain in our life. They may surface in our life by coming up over and over in similar situations until they are resolved. We may think, why does this keep happening to me?
She explains the energy vibrations…how we tune into others feelings. She also explains how feelings begin and how they impact our lives. She has a chapter on becoming single minded. When a strong feeling connects with a thought and emotion is created. When we try new things in our life, it can trigger this emotion and stop us from creating the life we want. So though we have a good thought about what we want in life our emotion disagrees so we become two minded instead of single minded. Our left brain is our conscious brain and our right brain is our subconscious. Our goal is to bring left and right brain together and then bring in the wisdom of our heart.
In her chapter about erasing illusions, she focuses on our self talk. What is our subconscious mind saying to us. Here is where it is possible to have buried feelings talking negatively to us and affecting our conscious response. For example, when you were a child you were not very good at sports. You accepted that you were not a good athlete. As an adult, you go out bowling and you are terrible. Others offer to help you, but your subconscious mind is telling you that you just are not a good athlete. But by changing those thoughts, you can change your bowling. You will still need to practice and let go of the outcome but you will have more fun.
She offers a script that helps us to heal these negative thoughts. It is easy to do and feels very powerful.
She also addresses how our early up-bringing can affect our beliefs. This chapter also addresses co-dependency. She offers a script to identify and change our patterns of behavior at a dna level.
The last chapters focus on how we have created these beliefs and emotions and how we can take responsibility for what we believe.
She has many emotions that she helps us identify and change. This book is just one of many in the process of freeing us from our damaging self beliefs.
I would love to hear what how it works for you.
Blessings, Eileen

Today I read an article by Michael Bernard Beckwith from the Monthly Aspectarian, a free magazine dedicated to awakening consciousness. Michael Beckwith was in “The Secret”. He is a powerful speaker. He offers a different way of thinking.
Who doesn’t need help with a new thought process when we are bombarded daily by new of how the economy is getting worse.Most of us know people who have been deeply affected by the change in our economy who have lost jobs or lost their home.
He points out that material things only give us temporary happiness. Once we have the object of our desire the joy of it wears off and we are thinking about what we need next.
He tells us genuine happiness can only happen when we co-create with our Ultimate
Source. What if you do not believe in an Ultimate Source? Before you become totally skeptical, I ask you to consider trying one new thing in your life. That new thing could be meditation, or prayer, or yoga or service to others. I started out doing Heart Math which is a meditation focused on the heart. With some practice the heart energy gets stronger and stronger. You begin to feel the energy in your hands, arms, legs, feet until you are aware of the energy in your body. Once this awareness happens, you can connect to the energy of other living things. And when you think back to your chemistry days and how electrons move around protons and neutrons and connect to other atoms it is possible to imagine that we are physically connected by energy that we cannot see. If you scoff, then I ask you how is it that we are all connected all over the world by internet? Do we really understand how it works?
As you practice quieting your mind the awareness becomes more apparent. It takes practice though. Some people may be able to instantly feel the awareness just as we instantly get online. But other people may start out with an energy awareness that is like dial up. We can easily loose our connection. With practice we can stay connected like we come equipped with broad band. All of us our equipped. It is the beliefs that we grow up with that foster the connection or cloud it up with thoughts of disbelief. Our connection is always on but our receiver may not be working.
When we are tuned in we can find that we connect with living a joyous harmonious life.
Many of us pray, pray, pray, pray, pray but do not listen for the answer. We pray, pray, pray some more and still we miss the answer. At times we may feel that we do not deserve the answer or that we deserve to suffer. These are just our learned beliefs.
I truly believe that one of the main life purposes we have is to be joyful. I always imagine after I have done laughing yoga is the entire world covered in laughter. Wow, what a difference it would make.
By bringing happiness to others we may change someone’s day or even their world. They may feel a shift from negative to positive.
Micheal Beckwith offers 5 suggestions for tapping into happiness. First is through activities that promote joy in our life. Meditation is just one way.
Second he recommends moving through life with a “yes” point of view. It helps us be open to the answers to our prayers which may not show up in the way we saw the answer. For example, at laughing yoga we end the session with positive affirmations and everyone agrees with the affirmation by moving the arms and hands in a forward motion while saying yes. This is an amazing energy builder. For example, we say we are the happiest people in the world…YES! We are the luckiest people in the world….Yes! We love everyone…YES! and everyone loves us…..YES! Of course saying yes should resonate with your heart.
Michael says the third way to create authentic happiness is to share our gifts but not worry how it turns out. I learned this lesson after doing several laughing yoga groups. Many people only come to one session. I was frustrated thinking that people just did not like it. Then I started to see people who had come to one class when I was out in the community. Many of them told me that they are practicing on their own everyday. When I taught, I had envisioned a large group of at laughing yoga. When it did not happen, I interpreted the result as not successful. The truth is that I do not know what effect it has on others. So, I continue to teach and I do not worry if someone really likes it or not. I just pass on the message that we can react to our circumstances with humor or with negative energy.
In the article, Michael give the fourth way to happiness is to drop our sense of self-importance. He says that we should slow down enough to become aware of how to support others. This may be our natural approach, but it can be the opposite of how we are raised. In America, we focus on getting good grades, getting a good degree and getting a good job that makes lots of money. Many times if we do not have a degree we can feel lesser. However we feel, this can help us take the ME out of the situation and focus on others. The only thing I want to add to this is that mothers often put the needs of others ahead of themselves. Women tend to learn over care. We may jump in to help when help is not needed. It is helpful for woman to ground their energy then do a heart rather than head check in as to the best way to help. Sometimes the best help is letting the other person try to do something on their own and succeeding.
Michael’s fifth way to happiness is focusing on gratitude. I have written about gratitude myself, and I feel this is a very important focus. I give thanks everyday for myself, the body and energy that I have been given. My family is such a gift. My home and the joys of running water, hot water, shelter, gifts of nature, food, clothes, clients, internet, ect. It really brings an awareness of how lucky we are in this country. We can go to the store and purchase what ever we want off the shelves. It makes me feel happy as well as thankful when I look at the blessings I have in my life.
I am thankful for Micheal Beckwith and for “The Monthly Aspectarian”.
The Monthly Aspectarian can be found at www.lightworks.com
Michael Bernard Beckwith has his own website @ www.agapelive.com
He has a wonderful cd entitled “Life Visioning: A Four Stage Evolutionary Journey to Live as Divine Love. I will write about it I have finished it. So far, it is very powerful.
I hope you have a day filled with joy and happiness.
Blessings, lol Eileen

Karma was the subject of my yoga teacher’s yoga teachers talk a few months ago. He describes karma as the end result that our choices in life have on our life over the years.
For example, if we always slouch, we eventually develop round shoulders. (Everyone in the room sat up straighter. ) He talked about how the simple act of standing in tadasana or mountain pose helps to improve our posture as well as open up our heart.
There are many things that we can choose to effect our karma. We can choose to stay calm and loving rather than upset and reactive. ( It takes lots of practice!) We can choose to forgive ourselves if we occasionally do react and then replay the scene in our head with the way we want to react next time.
Take time during the day to think about how lucky and blessed we are. Focus on on the haves in your life instead of the have nots. As we listen to all the news about the economy, try and focus on what we do have that is good. Sometimes we just need to bring that feeling of gratitude into our day and let others know how lucky we are in this very moment.
We can start to change our diet. Purchasing foods that have no pesticides or antibiotics is a way to start. Try to cut sugar from our diet. Try to cut out processed foods. Drink less caffeine. Eat more fruits and vegetables.
We can get more exercise. Walk somewhere instead of driving. Use the stairs instead of the elevator. Find a yoga class. Go out dancing. Ride you bicycle.
Take time to breath. Take some slow deep breaths. Calm you body. Know that we are all breathing the very same air. We share the air we breathe with everyone on this planet.
Laugh. I had a woman tell me that she imagines smiley faces in her arteries and veins. It makes me chuckle just to think of it. I imagine breathing in smiley faces then breathing them out to other people.
Sit up straight at your desk. I find it so so so much easier to slouch. I see that my shoulders are rounding and when I do sit up straight they are still rounding. But I will keep working on it.
Say hello to a stranger. Make a lunch date with a friend you have not seen in awhile. Try to listen to every word someone else says.
Watch Bill Nye the science guy. Pay attention to how our choices effect our planet. Can changing our habits save our planet? My son drinks from a sigg metal bottle. He does not buy plastic bottles for water anymore. I finally ordered one for myself today. I am trying not to use paper towels.
I am trying not to leave the water running when I rinse dishes or when I brush my teeth.
Have you heard that sugar causes wrinkles? Maybe that is why I have so many. I love chocolate.
Pesticides on our food can cross the blood brain barrier and effect our brain. Maybe that is why we see so many older people with dementia…. now where did I put my car keys???
Whatever choices you make today, and tomorrow, I hope that you remember to have fun. Remember that your choices may not be right for everyone.
Blessings, Eileen