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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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.

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Release history through forgiveness
become more light filled more time less

in the act of forgiveness

the role of forgiveness
becomes fully empowered
dominates the matter world
totally collecting your power
mystical act
of course he resurrected
we can resurrect form anything that takes away our power

He goes through everything that human beings use as excuses for vengeance, and he models different response. Everything that would render us powerless, his last act as he dies on the cross is the most irrational one.

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It is mathematically impossible for the genetic code of life to have emerged through the process of evolution alone. Astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle described the equivalent of a tornado sweeping through a junkyard and assembling a jetliner from scattered debris. If we’re the result of something more than pure chance, then it makes sense that our lives are about more than purely surviving. It implies our lives have purpose.

Discovery of an extraordinarily well-preserved female Neanderthal infant, dating back 30,000 years and the comparison of her mitochondrial DNA to ours, tells us definitively that the earliest modern humans were not the descendants of ancient Neanderthals. Human chromosome 2, the second-largest chromosome in the human body, is the result of an ancient DNA fusion that cannot be explained by the theory of evolution as we understand it today.

As part of our advanced nervous system, the heart partners with the brain as a master organ to inform the brain on what the body needs in any given moment. Ancient traditions have always held that the heart rather than the brain is the the center of deep wisdom emotion, and memory, as well as serving as a portal to other realms of existence. Heart has 40,000 sensory neurites.

Telomeres are specialized sequences of DNA located at the ends of a chromosome that serve as a bugger to protect the chromosome’s genetic information when a cell divides. With each cell division, the telomeres become shorter, until they can no longer protect the vital information of the cell, at which point the cell experiences old age, senescence, and eventually death.

The purpose of the telomerase enzyme in our cells is to repair, rejuvenate, and lengthen the telomeres that determine how long our cells live.

Heart-Brain Coherence by Institute for HeartMath

1. Create heart focus – allow awareness to move to heart, which signals that you are becoming aware of the world inside you
2. Slow breathing – 5-6 second inhale, and similar pace exhale, which signal that you are safe and stimulates relaxation response of nervous system.
3. Feel rejuvenating feeling – feel genuine sense of care, appreciation, gratitude, heartfelt emotions which optimizes coherence between heart and brain
4. Ask heart a question silently to tap into heart’s intelligence to open up your intuition.
5. Listen for an answer, make note of any sensations

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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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There is, some say, in God a deep but dazzling darkness. Black but holy darkness of the Core.

Many universes, love lay at the center. Evil was necessary because without it free will was impossible and without free will there could be no growth, no forward movement, no chance for us to become what God longed for us to be.

The only way to know these higher dimensions is to enter and experience directly.

The false suspicion that we can somehow be separated from God is the root of every form of anxiety in the Universe, and the cure for it was the knowledge that nothing can tear us from God, ever.

On subatomic level, every object in the physical universe is intimately connected within every other object. In fact, there are no objects, but vibrations of energy.

We have to go deep into our own consciousness through prayer or meditation to accept these truths.

I never heard Om’s (God’s) voice directly nor saw Om’s face. It was as if Om spoke to me through thoughts that were like wave walls rolling through me, rocking everything around me and showing that there is a deeper fabric of existence – a fabric that all of us are always a part of but which we’re generally not conscious of.

Communicating with God is the most extraordinary experience imaginable, yet at the same time it’s the most natural one of all because God is present in us at all times.

Each of us carries a memory of heaven, buried deep within us. Bringing that memory to the surface, reawaken spiritual memory of who we are, where we came from and where we’re going.

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Not just believe in God but through direct experience come to know God. By deepening contact with Real Self that dwells in God. (Unknown)

Mystical experience is typically described as dissolution of one’s ego followed by a sense of merging with Nature or universe. Noetic quality – mystical state of knowledge. (Michael Pollan, How To Change Your Mind)

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1. Shame prone culture {scarcity thrives in shame prone culture of deep scarcity (never enough)}
   1. painful belief we are unlovable
   2. we are flawed and unworthy of love & belonging
   3. we experience shame as trauma
   4. shame based fear of being ordinary
2. Comparison vulnerable to scarcity
3. Disengagement

Oppositie of scarcity isn’t abundance, it’s wholeheartedness, which at its core is vulnerability, worthiness, facing uncertainty and risk and knowing you are enough.

Wholehearted people believe they are worthy of love and belonging.

Love & Belonging

• What gets in way of belonging is fitting in

Play

• time spent without purpose
• voluntary
• lose track of time
• fun

Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to one another by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and belonging. Practicing
spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning, and purpose to our lives. Some of us call that power greater than
ourselves God. Some do not. Some people celebrate their spirituality in churches, synagogues, mosques, or other
houses of worship, while others find divinity in solitude through meditation or in nature. For example, I come from a
long line of folks who believe that fishing is church, and one of my closest friends believes that scuba diving is the
holiest of experiences. As it turns out, our expressions of spirituality are as diverse as we are. When our intentions and
actions are guided by spirituality – our belief in our interconnectedness and love – our everyday experiences can be
spiritual practices. We can transform teaching, leading and parenting into spiritual practices. Storytelling and creating
can be spiritual practices, because they cultivate awareness.

You either walk into your story and own your truth, or you live outside of your story, hustling for your worthiness.

Tactical breathing

1 inhale deeply through your nose, expanding your stomach, for a count of four – one, two, three, four
2 hold in that breath for count of four – 1, 2, 3, 4
3 slowly exhale all the air through your mouth, contracting your stomach, for a count of 4 – 1, 2, 3, 4
4 hold the empty breath for a count of four – 1, 2, 3, 4
square or box breathing used to increase mindfulnness and decrease anxiety and stress.

Compassion is recognizing the light and dark in our shared humanity.

Commit to practicing loving kindness with ourselves and others in the face of suffering.

10 Guideposts for Wholehearted Living

1. Cultivating authenticity: letting go of what people think
2. Cultivating self compassion: letting go of perfectionism
3. Cultivating a resilient spirit: letting go of numbing and powerlessness
4. Cultivating gratitude and joy: letting go of scarcity and fear of the dark
5. Cultivating intuition and trusting faith: letting go of the need for certainty
6. Cultivating creativity: letting go of comparison
7. Cultivating play and rest: letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self worth
8. Cultivating calm and stillness: letting go of anxiety as a lifestyle
9. Cultivating meaningful work: letting go of self doubt and “supposed to”
10. Cultivating laughter, song, and dance: letting go of being cool and”always in control”

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Deep faith that justice will win.

Do not seek to humiliate opponent but to call forth the good in the opponent.

Nonviolence seeks friendship and understanding of the opponent.

The post Dr. Martin Luther King (Notes) appeared first on Interiors For Healing.

• Contemplation is becoming aware of how I truly am in God.
• In contemplation, we journey inward and discover our union with God and with each other.
• Contemplative prayer, a prayer of wordless presence, invitation to penetrate below surface existence to live life’s Mystery.
• It is possible to experience God, to awaken to and become aware of God’s presence, to become real and whole, to become truly oneself.
• Inner experience, living life fully awake and aware to the reality of God, being touched by God
• It is not we who choose to awaken ourselves but God who chooses to awaken us.
• Being born again is a metaphor for contemplation.

If there is no silence beyond and within the many words of doctrine, there is no religion, only a religious ideology. Where this silence is lacking, where there is much bustle and activity but no peace, no deep thought, no understanding no inner quiet. Only in silence and solitude, in the quiet reverent peace of prayer, the adoration in which the entire ego-self silences and abases itself in the presence of the Invisible God to receive word of Love, only in these “activities” which are “non-actions” does the spirit truly wake from the dream of multifarious, confused, and agitated existence.

In solitude one is at the root. Solitude is not withdrawal from ordinary life. It is the very ground of ordinary life, the simple, unpretentious, fully human activity by which we quietly earn our daily living and share our experiences with a few intimate friends.

• Unity is our original state. We are already one. But we do not see it and, in our ignorance, live as though we are not one at all. The challenge before us is twofold: to realize the unity that already is and to find ways to live together that are consistent with unity.
• God, that center Who is everywhere, and Whose circumference is nowhere, finding me through incorporation with Christ, incorporated into the immense and tremendous gravitational movement which is love, which is the Holy Spirit. (from Seven Storey Mountain)

The choice before us is between violence and love. Violence rests on the assumption that the enemy and I are entirely different; the enemy is evil and I am good. The enemy must be destroyed but I must be saved. But love sees things differently. It sees that even the enemy suffers from the same sorrows and limitations that I do. That we both have the same hopes, the same needs, the same aspiration for peaceful and harmonious human life. And that death is the same for both of us. Then love may perhaps show me that my brother is not really my enemy and that war is both his enemy and mine. War is our enemy. Then peace becomes possible.

Instead of hating the people you think are warmakers, hate the appetites and disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, tyranny, greed but hate these things in yourself, not in another.

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