By: Barbara-Lynn Freed / Source: Waking Times

1. The Benefits of Personal Responsibility

Accepting responsibility for your life can be profoundly transformational, as it enables you to live consciously and be in charge of everything that happens to you. The keys to this enlightened way of life are through self-examination with a commitment to change. When you take responsibility for all your decisions, mistakes and life situations, you generate freedom from the cycle of blaming others for your problems and becoming a victim.

By harnessing self-awareness, clear perception of who you are and conscious choice, you become empowered to change the course of your life. In this way you can understand your weaknesses, build on your strengths, and make necessary improvements to your character.

By taking full responsibility for all of your actions and non-actions, and by owning all of your personal issues, you will empower yourself and move towards creating a fruitful life.

2. Trusting Your Inner Authority

Cultivating self-knowledge, self-understanding and self-acceptance are critical to developing your Inner Authority. When we trust our inner knowing and act accordingly, we begin to align with our Spirit and embrace spiritual growth.

However, this simple action is sometimes difficult to grasp, for as children we are socialized to look outside ourselves for answers. Parents, teachers and advertisements give our lives direction by enticing us to disconnect from our inner guidance.

So how do we find our way home?

Because we are each unique in our needs, what is true for one person may not be true for another. By paying attention to your gut feelings, instincts and what your body is suggesting it wants, the process of uncovering who you are will begin. As you practice and discover what you need and want, you will develop more confidence, wisdom, and harmony in your life.

When we take the time to slow down and contemplate our priorities, we nourish, support and encourage our true nature to shine. By fostering life-decisions with our Inner Authority, we open ourselves to living consciously, creating our own future and cultivating lasting relationships. We also begin to grow spiritually by aligning with the Divine spark within.

3. Authentic Vulnerability

Most people associate vulnerability with the disadvantage of being defenseless, fragile, weak, and susceptible to emotional pain and suffering. However, this is a misconception, as Authentic or True Vulnerability is really a source of our greatest spiritual strength, integrity and wisdom.

When we have the willingness to step out of our comfort zone to accept challenges, walk toward new experiences, or take risks, we begin to allow vulnerability to enter our lives, and in turn, discover our mental, emotional and spiritual strengths and limitations, while allowing personal growth and life enrichment to occur.

By working with our Heart’s Intelligence and accepting our human frailties, we can begin to see that Authentic Vulnerability can open our eyes to new perceptions of life’s circumstances. For True Vulnerability inherently commands respect, elicits compassion, connects us with the Divine, disarms others and creates a state of Beingess where deeply rooted healing can take place for us and all our relationships.

As we progress along our spiritual path, we begin to honor our inner wisdom more consistently, and our ego gives way to true spiritual presence and compassion. Here, where open acceptance and self-responsibility are the norm, our awakened spirit can bathe in the state of Authentic Vulnerability and be an open book for all to see.

4. How to Cultivate Unconditional Love and Forgiveness

We are all familiar with Personal Love as a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection we have toward people, pets, or treasured items in our lives. Often used as a term of endearment, we usually see personal love as an intense, emotional attachment or attraction to those we care about. With personal love we can lapse into our lower emotions and hold grudges against others, or concentrate on suffering. In doing so we hinder the effectiveness of our love in relationships, as well as, our own wellbeing.

However, if we allow ourselves to focus on Divine or Unconditional Love, we can learn to look at our glass of life, as being half full, instead of being half empty. In this way we can learn to transform our lower emotions of anger, jealousy, envy and greed into something positive. Pure, Unconditional Love, works without expectation, or attachment to the outcome, and asks for nothing in return. It’s radiant light can resist and overcome every other energy it encounters, for it is the binding force of the universe.

So how do we bridge the gap between Personal Love and Unconditional Love? The first step in this mighty process is learning how to love and accept yourself for who you are.

The second step is to expect love in your life, in all your relationships, and with everyone else you encounter. Here we must remember the Universal Law that says energy follows thought. If we think it, it will happen! Finding goodness in others will help you achieve your own goals, by attracting the same to you. The third step is to work for the highest good of all, by surrendering all your expectations to Spirit (or your favorite Divine Deity).

Obviously, you will need to do an enormous amount of inner work to find true, Unconditional Love in your life. However, an exercise I have found most valuable in shifting my vibration and consciousness is to silently or verbally chant Divine Love for five minutes to an indefinite amount of time. You will be amazed at how quickly your mood shifts to one of peace, and the outcome of any situation becomes favorable to all concerned. When we have Love in our heart, life becomes a joy to behold!

The act of Forgiveness helps us to develop and nourish Love in our lives. Releasing blame and judgment of others is imperative to succeed, for Forgiveness is a spiritual initiative grounded in the humility of accepting that we don’t always need to be right.

When we use our emotions or intellect as a rational explanation to forgive, we fail to see the very essence of what we are trying to achieve. Forgiveness, being born from the heart, and not from the head, can teach us that we are all reflections of each other. In this way, we use the spiritual energy of Love to assess our relationships by looking for similarities in people, rather than differences.

5. Developing True Compassion

True Compassion develops after we have mastered the art of Forgiveness and learned to Love others unconditionally, for Compassion is an action of the transpersonal self. In this state of Beingness, we do not get entangled in the drama and emotions of the present challenge. Rather, we open our hearts to the people and situations at hand, without emotional attachment to pity, sorrow or suffering. Anything less, would be either sympathy or empathy.

By sympathizing (being in emotional agreement), or empathizing (feeling another’s emotions or pain), we become part of the problem, instead of part of the solution. For feeling another’s suffering, does not relieve their suffering. Only in a detached state can we truly hold space for that person to heal, or change their life. Practicing true compassion for another often means simply being present with them in silence.

Like Forgiveness, however, we must first find Compassion for ourselves, before we can truly feel Compassion for others. I learned this from a Tibetan Lama many years ago during a family crisis, where helping out, would have left me devastated emotionally, mentally and psychically. Rimpoche advised me that in this situation, I needed to have Compassion for myself, and that like a good warrior I needed to know when to advance and when to retreat. By following his guidance, I was able to release my feelings of guilt for abandoning my family in a time of need, and later, give them Compassion from afar.

By: Christina Sarich / Source: in5d

According to the numerous wisdom teachings, Lao Tzu, Edison, Gregg Braden, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, the Buddha, Ken Wilber, Louis Hay, the Dalai Lama, Paramahansa Yogananda, Dr. Wayne Dyer, and a thousand other experts, both ancient and modern, our inner world affects the outer world. This is the great secret that every other culture knows except the West – Egypt, Bolivia, Tibet, Polynesia, China, Japan, Peru, villages in the Andes mountains, etc. – until now.

Our past scientific assumptions have been erroneous more than once. The first wrong assumption is that the space around us is empty. It isn’t. It is full of a living essence, which we are just beginning to understand. This essence is like a conduit that is affected by our thoughts. Nuns and Monks know this. That is what they use prayer and meditation for. It charges thought to interact with this essence. We call it miracles, but it is getting in touch with this conduit – this empty space, which carries our mental frequencies out into the field of possibility. The second wrong assumption is that our external circumstances just happen. They don’t. We create them. Like oscillations of a bowed string, the notes we play do matter.

You’ve been hearing it everywhere. Your vibration, or the pattern of your thoughts, attitudes and actions, is what creates your reality. If you want to change what you experience then you need to change your vibration. There are a million ways to do this but here are just a few:

There is a learning curve. You can’t give up the first time you try to change your thoughts, and thus your vibration. You have to practice it – over and over again. So take out a journal and write your new thoughts – the ones which reflect your experiences as you would like to see them happen, not necessarily that which your current vibration is creating. There are thousands of neurons, which are recruited to physically write down a thought, instead of just typing it into a computer screen.

Find something of beauty and just appreciate it. It can be a flower growing from a crack in the sidewalk. It can be the glint in a lover’s eyes. It can be your child’s smile, or a newly organized shelf of books. Just one thing. That’s all you need.

Make a list of all that you are grateful for. The reason gratitude journals and thankfulness lists work is because, just like cognitive behavioral training, you can make neuro-pharmacalogical and neuro-biological changes with a shift in your focus on gratitude. Start with a few things: I can take a breath. I am here, now. I have at least one friend. I am able to change myself with my own will. Then expand to make your list your own.

Meditate. Think of nothing. This is more than likely a more neutral and therefore more positive place to take your vibration.

Do something for someone else. Giving to someone else shifts your thinking from “I don’t have enough, to I have more than enough to give to others.” Abundance is a high vibration.

Change your DNA. It has a vibration too. There are sound frequencies which when listened to frequently, shift your vibration with 528 hz. There are recordings all over the internet.

Listen to music you love. Music shifts your frequency by making you happy.

Stop complaining and gossiping. Are the things you are talking about bringing you more of what you want? Stop complaining, and start finding ways to rejoice.

Move. Exercise. Get active. Dance! Not only does movement change your perspective, it also creates endorphins which help you to feel happy. The happier you feel, the more you will draw happy experiences to yourself because you are operating at a different frequency.

Do something a little crazy. Have you always wanted to go sky-diving? How about learning to dance? Have you always wanted to try public speaking – find an open mic night and go for it. You probably feel like you have nothing to lose – so dive right in. Just doing something new rewires your brain.

Listen to the ancient chants from Buddhist and Gregorian monks. They are designed to shift your frequency.

Not sure where you are vibrating? Just check in. How do you feel right now? Just observe it and then you can change it. Perception starts with awareness.

Do mental reps. Say to yourself 100 times a day. I am happy or I am prosperous, or I am unafraid of change. You may not believe it yet, but with practice you will. Your 100 repetitions could just be, I can change my mind.

Do Yoga, Reiki, or Qigong or another of the martial arts. All these practices aim at shifting your mental vibration and raising your Qi.

Realize that you have more control over your life than you thought. You are not a victim to circumstance, past, family upbringing, trauma, or anything else. You can change your life in an instant. Just realize this. In many wisdom traditions this is called “total responsibility.” No one is responsible for how you feel right now but you. It isn’t a curse. It’s a blessing because it gives you your power back.

Breathe. Just sit and try to make your breath longer, fuller, and more relaxed. It has a direct affect on your nervous system and helps to calm you down. A calm vibration is a high vibration.

Drink energy charged water. Dr. Masaru Emoto made this practice mainstream with his pictures in Messages from water. But it is also a practice from Chinese healers from ancient lineages. You can hold your water with the thumbs and middle fingers touching on either side of the bottle (heart Mudra) and send the water love. Then drink it.

Practice Mudra. Mudras are ancient hand gestures that redirect energy, or prana, back into the body in much the same way that light is refracted/reflected from a cliff face or glacial wall. By learning specific ways in which to hold your fingers, you can direct positive energy into your body.

Jump up and down. It is said that the simple action of jumping excites the cells in the body and makes them healthier. Have some fun on a trampoline.

Practice Ho’oponopono. The ancient Hawaiians believed that sadness, depression and dis-ease only occurred when we perceived ourselves as separate from the Oneness, the Divine. One of the practice’s main themes is forgiveness. Forgive yourself or someone else and raise your vibration.

Hug someone. The American Psychosomatic Society published a study saying that just 10 minutes of positive physical contact with another human being can greatly reduce stress. Vibration…raised.

By: Elite Daily / Source: Spirit Science and Metaphysics

Life is about attachments. It’s about picking up things along the way until we have a bag full of relics and lessons from the past. Our load gets heavier with each passing year until we no longer remember what it’s like to walk without a heavy burden.

We attach ourselves to so many things that soon we find that our natural right to freedom is nothing more than an illusion. We attach ourselves to people, opinions and superficial objects, like money and time.

We glue ourselves to abstract notions and think that life is in the things around us, next to us and instead of us. We put our worth in intangible notions and unreliable people and wonder why we can’t find real happiness.

Something the Tibetan monks will teach you is that happiness comes with scarcity. With fewer attachments comes a larger sense of internal peace as you get closer to yourself, shedding the unnecessary layers.

As you try to navigate your life, remember that the heavy burdens you carry can be let go. You will be not only happier, but liberated, when you learn to let go of everything around you.

The Approval Of Others

People are going to have opinions of you as long as they have breath in their lungs. Do yourself a favor and stop letting them waste any of yours.

Social Media

Social media platforms comprise the root of all heartache. If you don’t want to see what your ex is posting or those horrible pictures of you when you got too drunk, just get off social media. Trust me, you can learn to live without them and you will find that life is a lot simpler on the other side.

Time

Counting the minutes is the first step to refusing to live in the moment and the second step towards wrapping your happiness in moments yet to come. You are better than that, live by the ticking of your desires, not your clock.

Your Exes

In the words of Macbeth, “What’s done is done.” There is no need to hold on to your exes anymore than holding on to a dirty sponge. Throw it away before it creates a bigger mess and leaves you wondering why you didn’t just get a new one to begin with.

Fads

Fads are like Kim Kardashian. You think it’s beautiful, then you start to see it everywhere and suddenly all you want to do is get rid of it.

Indecision

Being indecisive will get you nowhere in life. It will keep you shackled to the pavement as you refuse to take the next step. Do yourself a favor and start making choices, because consequences and regrets are better than nothing at all.

The Past

It’s called the past for a reason and that’s where it should stay. Bringing your past into the future is only denying yourself the present.

Bad Television

I know it’s a guilty pleasure, but it’s also sucking the life from you. Five hours spent watching girls rip out each other’s extensions and scream about stolen catchphrases are five hours you can never get back.

Regrets

There is nothing you can do now, so wasting your time and energy lamenting over everything you’ve done wrong in life will only give you more regrets.

Nostalgia

We all wish we could go back to the carefree days of our youth, but unless you invent time travel, you’re stuck under the stressful burden of being an adult. Dreaming of the good days behind you is as fruitless as daydreaming of better days in front of you.

Parents’ Money

It doesn’t matter if you have a trust fund of $5 million, if you don’t learn to make your own money, you’re just an ignorant bum with $5 million dollars. The joys of life come from earning for yourself.

Mass Approval

It’s one thing to ignore one person’s opinion of you, but society’s is another thing entirely. The crowd is like a black hole that will try and suck you in. Those who resist are those who stay alive.

Bad People

You know who they are, even if you don’t want to admit it to yourself. They are the ones who always leave you with a bad taste in your mouth. They are usually very nice to your face, but you should move on before your back gets covered in spit.

Self-Doubt

If you don’t have confidence in yourself, what can you have confidence in? There’s no room for self-doubt in a world that’s going to judge your every decision. Lighten your load and start trusting yourself.

Guilt

Life is too short for the bitter taste of guilt. It’s a pill you don’t have to swallow and the sooner you stop taking it the better you’ll feel.

Comparisons

Comparing yourself to models will break your heart. Comparing yourself to anyone will keep you from knowing your own. You are the only standard you must compare yourself against.

Filters

You look good under the “Mayfair” filter that same way I look good under candlelight. But life isn’t filled with candles and “X-Pro II” filters, so stop living the lie and learn to accept yourself with “no filter.”

The Ideal

The ideal is a dream and dreams are for sleeping. Stop wasting your life and your hopes on nothing more than a mere illusion. Prepare for the un-ideal and your life will be filled with surprises.

What Ifs

What ifs are like the chicken pox. They are easy to catch and impossible not to scratch (rhyme not intended). You must resist the urge to avoid long-term scarring.

Closed Doors

If it’s closed behind you, there’s no need to look back. If it’s closed in front of you then you must spend your time trying to open it.

Toxic Friendships

Friends, like your past, must be shed when there’s no more room in your future for them. Evaluate those relationships closest to you and decide which bring you the most growth and true happiness.

Prejudices

Whether you were raised with them or grew around them, take a serious look at what you’re judging and decide if it’s worth the stigma.