Generosity is an inward feeling, a feeling state a willingness to share your own being with the world.  At the deepest level, there is no giver, no gift, and no recipient… only the Universe arranging itself.

It is useful at times to admit that you don’t know your way and to be open to help from unexpected places.  Getting caught up in normal human tendencies of self-cherishing and arrogance, ignoring larger order of things will lead to impasse in life in which you are unable to go forward, unable to go back and unable to turn around.  You will never find the water of life with such an attitude, and you will remain stuck, potentially forever.

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Our experience teaches us that relating to a dog can be profoundly spiritual.  In this book we have avoided religion and religious jargon and we generally avoid mixing religion with dog training.  Nevertheless many of the ideas we hold about dogs have philosophical and spiritual basis that can be a catalyst for personal change and transformation.

St Francis of Asisi – Though his love of animals have been romanticized to the point of sentimentality, beneath the legend we find a human being who was conscious of the mystery of the interconnectedness of everything and who expressed this in his attitude of reverence and wonder.  Both people and animals responded to him in dramatic ways. 

Francis’s taming of the wild wolf of Gubbio resembles the way the prophet Daniel naturally communicated with the lions in their den, through the sensitive use of body language.  These episodes point to a certain spiritual wholeness and integration as the keystones to relating optimally with animals, breaking down the traditional opposition between human and nonhuman creatures.  By their focused inner attitude, these two saints unified the world of animals and human beings. Francis saw the elements of nature, the cosmos, and all living creatures as his brothers and sisters.

Jesuit Father and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin felt that the mystical vibration is inseparable from the scientific vibration, something often underscored by many later physicists.  He proposed that the entire universe is moving toward a cosmic unification and transformation, which he called the Omega point.

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1. Stewed apples are highly effective in repopulating gut with good bacteria and help repair gut lining damage that may occur due to taking antibiotics. Wash 3-4 apples, dice them with skins on, put them in pot with 1/3 water. Add cinnamon or raisins. Cook 8-10 minutes, until skin starts to shine. Pectin is a fiber inside the skin that helps to seal gut lining.
2. Chicken bone broth contains collagen, which acts as a probiotic and seals the gut lining.
3. Pomegranate juice helps rebuild good bacteria.

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What is the ideal job?

• look forward to going to work
• feel energized (most of the time) by what you do
• feel your contribution is respected and appreciated
• feel proud when describing your work to others
• enjoy and respect the people you work with
• feel optimistic about your future

The secret to career satisfaction lies in doing what you enjoy most. A few lucky people discover this secret early in life, but most of us are town between what we think we can do, what we (or others) feel we ought to do, and what we think we want to do. Concentrate instead on who you are, and the rest will follow.

The post Do What You Are (Notes) appeared first on Interiors For Healing.

Lie down on your back with your arms at your sides. Make yourself comfortable. Allow body to relax. Be aware of the floor beneath you… and of the contact of your body with the floor. Breathe. Allow body to sink into the floor. Breathe.

Become aware of your breathing, in and out. Be aware of your abdomen rising and filling as you breathe in and out.

Breathing in, bring your awareness to your eyes. Breathing out, allow your eyes to relax. Allow your eyes to sink back into your head… letting go of the tension in all the tiny muscles around your eyes. Our eyes allow us to see a paradise of shapes and colors… Allow your eyes to rest… sending love and gratitude to your eyes. Breathe.

Breathing in, bring your awareness to your mouth. Breathing out, allow your mouth to relax. Release the tension around your mouth… Your lips are the petals of a flower… Let a gentle smile bloom on your lips… Smiling releases the tension in the dozens of muscles in your face… Feel the tension release in your cheeks… your jaws… your throat. Breathe.

Breathing in, bring your awareness to your shoulders. Breathing out, allow your shoulders to relax. Let them sink into the floor… Let all the accumulated tension flow into the floor… You carry so much with your shoulders… now let them relax as you care for your shoulders. Breathe.

Breathing in, become aware of your arms. Breathing out, relax your arms. Let your arms sink into the floor… your upper arms… your elbows.. your lower arms… your wrists… hands… fingers… all the tiny muscles… Move your fingers a little if you need to, to help the muscles relax. Breathe.

Breathing in, bring your awareness to your heart. Breathing out, allow your heart to relax. You have neglected your heart for a long time… in the way you work, eat, and manage anxiety and stress. Your heart beats for you night and day. Embrace your heart with mindfulness and tenderness… reconciling and taking care of your heart. Breathe.

Breathing in, bring your awareness to your legs. Breathing out, allow your legs to relax. Release all the tension in your legs… your thighs… your knees… your calves… your ankles… your feet… your toes… all the tiny muscles in your toes… You may want to move your toes a little to help them relax… Send your love and care to your toes. Breathe.

Breathing in, breathing out… your whole body feels light… like a water lily floating on the water… You have nowhere to go… nothing to do… You are free as the cloud floating in the sky. Breathe.

Bring your awareness back to your breathing… to your abdomen rising and falling. Breathe. Following your breathing, become aware of your arms and legs… You may want to move them a little and stretch. Breathe. When you feel ready, slowly sit up. Breathe. When you are ready, slowly stand up.

The post 20 Min Full Body Relaxation Meditation (Notes) appeared first on Interiors For Healing.

What would make life more wonderful

• for me?
• for them?
• we can resolve any conflict as everybody’s needs get met without coercion or violence

Jackal language – language that makes it hard to give from the heart.

• criticism
• demand
• dominance
• don’t say “but”

Giraffe ears – giraffes have largest heart of land animals

• see only the heart
• cannot hear criticism
• empathy – hear at the moment what they feel and see unmet need

Blaming generates irritation

Translate message to feelings and needs. Connect to what’s alive in us, focus on humanity

Sincerely connect with needs. How can I communicate that it doesn’t sound like a demand? Demand results in blame or punishment if not complied. Needs make no reference to people taking specific action. All humans have same needs. Language of needs vs language of wrongness when needs are not met.

Problem is always an unmet need. The most aggravating person is our best guru. Resolve any conflict to meet needs without violence.

Whose behavior stimulates anger? Stimulus for your anger? When the person does this, I feel angry because

Are you feeling _____ because you’re needing _____?

Start by asking them to ask you what they need to know to give you what you want.

Ex: What do you need to know to decide if you are going to give me money for my project.

Ex: Would you be willing to___ vs. I’d like you to____.

Impact of empathy

• when someone really hears you without judging
• without taking responsibility for you
• without trying to mold you.

People who create most violence in the world have same needs but are caught in system that separates and can’t stay connected to needs.

What is alive in you? What are your needs? I’d like to know what you’re feeling. Need for connection.

Feeling – need – present request.

Don’t take responsibility for other people’s feelings. It is an unmet need. You are not the cause of other’s feeling pain. You are not the problem. Problem is an unmet need. Take responsibility for your behavior which may be the stimulus for pain but not the feeling.

Don’t connect yourself to other person’s pain.

Ex: Are you feeling uncomfortable because I _____

Instead, say

• are you feeling uncomfortable because you’re needing _____.
• are you feeling hurt because you’re needing some understanding?
• don’t be too quick to try and fix other person’s pain. They need the pain understood.

The post Nonviolent Communication (Notes) appeared first on Interiors For Healing.

Dr. Gottman’s Love Lab measured 700, tracking couples’ blood velocities, heart and pulse rates, amount of palm sweat, how much they squirmed in chairs, how quickly hearts pounded. Cameras recorded every word, facial expression, sensors tracking bodily signs of stress or relaxation. He can predict with over 90% accuracy if a couple will stay married.

What makes marriage work?

Friendship is backbone of marriage

Acknowledging and respecting each other’s deepest, most personal hopes and dreams is key to saving and enriching your marriage.

Shared meaning

• rituals of connection
• support for each other’s roles
• shared goals
• shared values and symbols

Repairs – attempts to prevent escalation

Negative capability – ability to exist amid uncertainties, mysteries & doubt without reaching for absolutes.

Mutual fondness (how they view past) and admiration

Let your partner influence you

Learn to yield to win

Solve solveable problems, soften start ups

Antagonisms that lead to divorce

• bad memories
• failed repair attempts
• harsh start-ups (negative, accusatory)
• criticism
• contempt
• defensiveness
• stonewalling
• flooding

The post 7 Principles That Make Marriage Work (Notes) appeared first on Interiors For Healing.

When you have a thought or memory, a biochemical reaction begin in brain and release certain chemicals which make your body feel the way you were thinking which generate more thoughts equal to your feeling, then release more chemicals to make you feel the way you’ve been thinking. Then you get caught in a loop where thinking creates feeling and feeling creates thinking, which becomes your state of being,
Then your entire state of being is in the past.

We should get up as if our prayer has already been answered. The problem is our senses fool us into separation. A person says, I want to be healed, healthy and wealthy. And they imagine it and come back and it’s not there. And when they see it’s not there, the thought of their future is the emotion of lack or separation. Thoughts are language of brain and feelings are language of body. Now you have mind and body in opposition.

When you begin to create from the field, instead of matter, you have to learn to take all your attention off your body and become a no body. Take all of your attention off of the people in your life that you give attention and energy to because you have emotional association with them.

Nitric Oxide

Oxytocin signals nitric oxide, which signals endothelial derived relaxant factor, which signals arteries in your heart to literally expand. When they expand, you’re getting more blood flow and a person’s heart is wide open.

Heart-Brain Coherence

The more you live in heart-brain coherence, you feel more whole. The more whole you feel, the less you live in lack. How can you want many things if you feel whole? It feels like you already have them.

The post Dr. Joe Dispenza (Notes) appeared first on Interiors For Healing.

Water is a magnet for our teeming throng of humanity.

Hypnotized by the pulse of the ocean

Pulled to the paradox of water as a source of life and death.

Prehistoric stone-age swimmer swimming down for dinner.

Green Sahara – dotted with ancient lakes

Cave of Swimmers, Egypt. 10,000 years old.

Paleolake Gobero

• aquatic system of interlinked shallow lakes
• mountains of shucked clamshells
• carved fish hooks.

Sea Nomads – Mokan kids

• underwater vision, can focus underwater, constrict pupil, which increases fine detail
• 50% larger spleen (similar to seals)
• early immersion training
• keen observation, intimate knowledge of marine environment
• storytelling, pass aquatic skills

Mammalian diving reflex

• heart rate slows
• blood vessels constrict
• blood flows away from extremities toward organs

Humble, gentle with coral, respectful of fish. Don’t take more than you need. Ocean will take care of you.

Cold seawater – cure for urban maladies.

Kim Chambers – nerve damaged right leg. blood rush back to extremities after warming up again, oxygen circulate back at higher rate than sedentary. Result nerves regenerate quicker.

Swimming – reduce blood pressure, pressure of water on body.

Best exercise, stimulates mobility without pain.

Buoyance, weightlessness, circulation

Submerge in water, submersion internal quiet, swimming to blankness

Brown fat – burns energy, generates heat

White fat stores energy

Chronic cold exposure – browning effect on white fat, revs up metabolism

Seawater in veins. Get in ocean every day, body calibrates.

Seawater similar mineral content to human blood plasma

Amniotic fluid, utero, fetus, gill slits become jaws and respiratory traits

After drop – mild hypothermia

Ama – cold water exposure effects – loss of hearing, lower heart attacks

Swim like a dolphin, swim like a SEAL

mindlessness (autopilot), biomechanics visualize, mental rehearsal

Physical repetitions – meditation transcends goal of winning, zen practice.

Swimming as self improvement (competition, integrity, dominance, power, adrenaline)

The post Why We Swim (Notes) appeared first on Interiors For Healing.

From 21 Days of Prayer to Change Your Life by Angela Montano

Prayer is deepest spiritual instinct and our greatest technology.

Prayer is a spiritual practice that has existed long before religions were formed. It is the language of our hearts.

Our simple practice is to say HELP (Hello Eternal Loving Presence). Acknowledgement of a need. Put hand over heart, close eyes and deeply connect to the request for help from “that which is too vast to be named.” Being open to possibility of support.

Being held in love by a Greater Wholeness. Allow my life to be held by a Love greater than our thinking. I am open to this Love now. Held in Love by a love greater than our thinking. This love is overflowing always.

News is a prayer list. Pray even as you hear about the news. Imagine Love is there. Turn it over to the Love.

When you are prayed up, you are vibrationally aligned with prayer. And you are blessed all day long and available to bless others.

Focusing our attention on our breath, we take this moment to turn within to the wholeness, to the love, to the peace that constitutes our true life in spirit in love. Guide us to wisdom. We come together that we may ground and anchor in our awareness of who we are in our wholeness. I am so grateful for this session. I accept that it is deeply and powerfully blessed through the Living Grace of the Universe. So be it. And so it is. Amen. Amen. Amen.

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