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Even asleep, infidelity counts: Study finds dreams affect our relationship behaviour

Even asleep, infidelity counts: Study finds dreams affect our relationship behaviour:

Which comes first though? Does the Dream prime the behavior or is the dream telling us what is already present and simply informs what is behind the actions rather then causes it.  What do you think?

Are you experiencing a spiritual bypass?

Are you pursuing a spiritual path? Have you found yourself disappointed or frustrated? Either with the people or the work? Are you ready to give up?

Here is what I think is happening. There has been a great deal of interest in pursuing mystical, esoteric, spiritual mysteries. People have been jumping on the band wagon of spiritual pursuit, both traditional practices and "commercialized" versions of enlightenment. What I am suggesting is that one needs psychological healing in psychotherapy before spiritual work is effective.

What is a spiritual bypass then? It is when you are not recovered from your psychological wounding, and to heal you become involved in a spiritual pursuit. Thinking this is "THE" answer to everything that has been bothering you. The outcome often is feeling let down, one loses faith and trust.

The ability to trust, have faith and have discipline to practice true spiritual pursuits requires one to have a balanced psychological foundation. With out this you are bypassing work and jumping to spirit to find peace and balance. You have no foundation to support this work and it will collapse.

Here is one example of how this might happen. Early psychological wounding (first year of life) can result in an impaired ability to form healthy attachments. The wounding to early consciousness needs to be repaired in order to provide a balanced, solid foundation. Someone wounded in this way will attach to the people and practices of the tradition in a dysfunctional way. They might want to be controlled (taken care of), becoming dependent on, or becoming so disappointed by the humanness of their companions that they reject all.

Do yourself a favor. Heal yourself in the emotional and mental realms first. Do not try to climb the ladder to the divine until the lower rungs of your ladder have been repaired.

First make sure the basics in your life are handled. You have a secure home and way of maintaining your day to day living. Then heal your psyche. Seek a therapist or group to work through any wounds, patterns or beliefs that are destructive.Counseling can help you discern what is truly healthy for you. Now when you begin your spiritual journey you are prepared to respond to the wonderful fulfillment as well as the disappointments, and frustrations along the way.

THE GOOD NEWS IS: When you have a solid foundation of psychological health you can then fully enjoy the benefits of spiritual pursuits

Seven ways to calm down quickly

Today we all have a great deal of stress. Unemployment, foreclosure, cutbacks at work, businesses closing, problems and so on. Your stress may be leading you into distress. This can be hard on your body and your mind. Try any one or all of these tips and see if you can help yourself to calm down quickly.



1.Ask yourself: "Is this a true emergency"? An true emergency means you are experiencing an imminent threat to your life. Most situations are not true emergencies. Everyday problems like a fight with your spouse, your car breaking down,  an unexpected bill or something else, often feels like an emergency. You feel anxious, your heart races, your mind gets foggy and you are overwhelmed.All of these  problems are false emergencies.  Although none of these problems are welcomed, they are not immediately life threatening. When you ask yourself if this is a true emergency and answer no, you will immediately start to calm down. Most daily problems are false emergencies.

2. Breathe. The first thing you do when a problem occurs is to tense is hold your breathe. When you hold your breathe you build up carbon dioxide in your lungs and you can not take in a deep breath. This increase anxiety.

 So start by breathing out  through your mouth. A long slow breath out, like blowing out candle on a cake. Then breathe in through your nose normally. You can do ten of these breaths, with a long slow exhale through the mouth and a regular inhale through the nose. This way of breathing will help you relax and calm down.

3. Go outside. Listen to the birds, look at the sky, smell the air, feel the sun.  Research tells us just five minutes outside helps you come into a state of balance.

4. Listen to music. Your heart rate and blood pressure responds to music. Put on soothing slower paced music that you enjoy and your blood pressure and heart rate will slow down and you feel better.

5. Imagery. Use your imagination to focus on a calming image. The secret is to use all your senses. See it, hear it, smell it, touch it, sense it, know it. The image you use is personal for you. Ask yourself what is your image for calm. Close you eyes, do the breathe you learned in number two above and focus on your calm place for 3-5 minutes. You will feel more relaxed.

6. Count to ten. This old advice hold some truth. When you count to ten you give yourself a pause between the feeling and any action,. During this pause you focus your attention on the counting. This focus and pause can help you to calm down before acting (action which may escalate the situation).

7. Write in your journal. Some people find that writing about a problems help to discharge the anxious feelings and gain clarity about a situation.



 THE GOOD NEWS IS: These tips work quickly and can be immediately, without any special expensive tools.

How to find Peace

Peace is the experience of those moments when “all feels right with the world and oneself”. You sigh in relief and relax in a treasured moment. All thoughts and feelings seem to be quiet and an inner joy and contentment comes with the silence. If you have experienced this then you will seek it again.

These days everyone is searching for peace. You may want a break from the pace and pressure of your life. From everyday stresses at work, home or simply the pressure you put on yourself. It takes a toll. How can you experience more peace in your life? Here is a list that can lead you to peace. The list is simple but the practice is a moment to moment process. The rewards are great.

1. Become aware, wake up instead of operating on auto-pilot. The patterns of behavior and your beliefs about yourself and the world create the experience you call your life.

2. Identify your feelings. Use this information as a guide to your hearts desires.

3. There is much beauty and harmony on this earth. Look closely at the trees, grass flowers, animals and people around you. Enjoy, savor, and appreciate with gratitude all that you have. Establish a relationship with the divine in the world. Watch the sky.

4. Everyday set the intention to live your life in balance. Eat well, move your body in ways that feel good (i.e. exercise, dance sports and so on). Treat yourself lovingly. If you fall back into old habits go back to the other steps and understand what needs to be different.

5. Get connected to your instincts and natural tendencies. Honor, respect, and acknowledge them, but do not let them rule you.

6. Find someone to be your guide, or work in a group as you make changes. Seek support until you become your own best source of guidance. You can become your own expert.

7. Start now.

Benefits of Dream Groups

You dream up to five times a night. Even if you don’t remember your dreams they are part of your mental health system and affect you daily.

Dreams:

1.     Give you a deeper understanding of yourself, your life, and relationships

2.     Reveal your feelings about current life events

3.     Clarify your fears and concerns

4.     Warn you of upcoming physical problems and consequences of current  choices

5.     Indicate solutions and advice about your problems

6.     Reveal habits and patterns that are present

7.      Open a channel to spirituality

What are the benefits of attending a Dream Group? You will:

1.     Receive assistance understanding the messages in your dreams

2.     Utilize the wealth of advice and solutions your dreams reveal

3.     Be surprised how much your dreams relate to your feelings and problems and daily life

4.     Learn to read the language of your personal dream symbols

5.     Open you to new ideas and behaviors

6.     Change and enrich your life in more ways than you can imagine

Dates: January 7, January 28, February 18

Time:6:00-8:00pm    

Location: 221 Greenwich Cirlce, Suite 100, Jupiter FL

Instructor: Debra Joy Goldman LMHC

Fee: $50 Each session will have a minimum of 3 participants, maximum of 6. Space is limited. To reserve your seat(s), please call 561-602-8041.

Debra is recognized as a leading therapist, writer, and educator for over twenty years in the South Florida area. Currently she has an office in North Palm Beach where she provides counseling for individuals and couples.  www.debrajoygoldman.com

How to Stop Your Thoughts from Keeping You Stuck

Have you begun a self -improvement project lately? How is it going? Are you feeling stuck, frustrated or confused?

Sometimes you start making changes with great motivation and energy and then stop. Sometimes it gets too hard, you get bored, or the old habit comes back. How can you move through these obstacles and develop the desired behaviors?

One of the things that you need to learn about is your thoughts. Your thoughts act like containers, they put a certain meaning on life for you. These meanings then create a feeling and this feeling fuels your choice of action (or inaction).

Here is an example. You have decided to begin an exercise program. You decide to go to the gym three mornings a week. The first week goes fine. Then, the second week you find yourself struggling and experiencing a civil war inside your head. It can sound something like this: I don't feel like going to the gym today. I should go to the gym , I am so lazy, I am really tired and did not sleep well last night, one time won't hurt to stay home , I am scared that I will not be successful here, I never doing anything right. You get the picture?

Now what is happening here? You are going from missing one morning at the gym to being scared and feeling like a failure, a lazy person who can't do anything right. This meaning that you have given the situation,this "thought track" can result in anxiety, low energy, low self esteem. Probably you are going to give up on this self- improvement project. I bet if you identified with this thinking that this is not the first time your thoughts have shown up this way.

Thoughts are like tracks you lay down. Our brain develops pathways of firing, similar to the idea of tracks. Once you define a life experience or yourself in one way and create these tracks they are going to color your experience of future situations. You can get caught giving the same meaning to new situations over and over again, following the same thought tracks. Your thoughts tend to follow it over and over. This can result in what is termed "kindling" which is a similar to a sensitivity. Your feelings become more intense, super charged when the existing tracks are activated. It will take very little to activate the thought tracks and the feelings and they will come very quickly, often intensely.

Others, your teachers, parents, friends, spouse, children, co-workers, boss etc. are ready to tell you what your behavior means to them and how they think of you. You get hypnotized. You believe what they say to be true. Then, it's as if you are wearing glasses that slant the meanings of incidents in life to line them up with these thought tracks.

What ever the meaning you give to the situation becomes real to you. It is your "reality". It may not be "true", but your experience it as real. For example I am lazy ). Then you act as if it is true and your choices are based on this reality. Often although it appears "real" it is not "true."
So what can you do?

First become AWARE of the familiar thought tracks that you have laid down. Notice your thoughts, there are patterns there. Journal, talk to a friend, learn skills of self awareness.

After you are aware, explore the thoughts. ACKNOWLEDGE the source, how they developed how habitual they may be. Often it is helpful to work with a therapist at this point to understand how these patterns of thought developed. If the thought is not one that you want to continue to hold, if it does not serve you well then CORRECT it.

How do you correct it? Well, thoughts are created by you. They are subjective, and if you create them you can de-create them.

Here are a few exercises for changing your thought:

1. Ask yourself what thought you would like to live by. In the above example, change the thought I am lazy and can never do anything right. What is a thought that will help you to feel the way you want to feel, one that would help you to act the way you would like act. How about I can trust myself? If this new thought feels too far away from your current" reality", try something else. For instance " I am learning how to trust myself." So when you become AWARE of the thought, the I am lazy and can never do anything right, thought, first ACKNOWLEDGE this familiar thought, and where it came from. Now CORRECT it by remembering the new thought, I am learning how to trust myself. Now every time you have the old thought you have an opportunity to change.

2. Take the same example above. This time when you think" I am lazy and can never do anything right" Imagine you see a blackboard in your mind with this written on it. See and sense yourself taking the eraser and erase this thought. Now see and feel and know yourself picking up the chalk and writing I am learning to trust myself". Now how do you feel?

3. Whenever recognize the old thoughts in your mind say to yourself "interesting, there goes that part of me making up those stories again".
Does this seem too simple? Well try an experiment and do one of these exercises for 21 days consecutive days. See what happens. What do you have to lose? What are your thoughts telling you now? Oh no, here you go again!
Go back and restart at the beginning and read this again!

What do your dreams reveal?

Have you ever woken in the morning and thought "What a strange Dream, I wonder what that means?" Do you have a dream that repeats itself throughout your life? What is the message? What do you dreams tell you about your mental health?

Your Dreams can reveal a number of things.

1. They can tell you what is happening in your life NOW. You can see your current thoughts, feelings and how you are experiencing your life.

2. Dreams can show you a direction to take in your life. Dreams often give us signals about rhythm... slow down, speed up, go forward, pause, review etc.

3. If you have a Dream that repeats itself, it may even be the same theme with a slightly different story line, over and over. This means there is something  you need to paid attention to. If the Dream does not resolve or end in a way that is satisfying, then there is an issue in your life that needs  resolution.

4. Dreams tell you what is possible for you. If you can do something in a Dream then you have the capacity to have that experience. 

5. Dreams can reveal an upcoming physical problem. The Dream often proceeds the illness by 21 days.

6. Dreams inform you about your relationship to freedom. You have free will, yet your choices and actions can be restricted by self imposed slavery to certain thought, and emotional patterns. The Dreams reveal these themes for you and express your relationship to this habit.

7. Dreams also tell you about your qualities of self. At one level all aspects of a Dream are qualities of your self. Each person, each element of the dream is you. You are meeting parts of yourself in each person and object in your dream.

Since Dreams speak in symbol language, in order to understand the message you need to read the language. Numbers, colors, directions all have meanings. words in the Dream often have a double meaning, as homophones do. For example: If you Dream about a resort, is there something you need to resort too?

If you are interested in learning more about how to read your Dreams you can visit her website an and listen to a free download from her Dream CD. Visit http://www.debrajoygoldman.com.  Dream Groups are available at her office in North Palm Beach Florida. You can reach Debra at 561-602-8041.

7 ways to strengthen your will power

The power of your will is the energy that gives you the ability to make choices. Most people live their lives out of habit; they do not use their will to make conscious choices.

Do you want something different in your life? Do you struggle with having the will power to make a change?

Why do you want to make this change? Imagine how you will look, feel, and sound when this change happens. Imagining this can be a great motivator to generate your will. Remembering your motivation can give your will a direction, and help you make choices that support your intention.

Here are seven practices to help increase your will:

1.      Maintain a compassionate attitude toward self. Critical self judgment and guilt weaken your will. Missteps and slips are a natural part of the process of change. Be forgiving with yourself while you are learning to strengthen your will.

2.      Suspend negative self talk and negative attitudes. Be open to the possibility that you can be successful. Stop being cynical. Never give up.

3.        Laugh. Laughter will help you strengthen your will.

4.     When you are highly tempted to “give in” to a behavior (for instance eating chocolate) imagine yourself having the experience of eating the chocolate. Imagine how you feel after you have finished eating. Now do you still want the chocolate?

5.     Cravings usually pass after 20 minutes. Make a choice to distract yourself for 20 minutes until it passes.

6.      Eat a balanced diet to keep your blood sugar stable. Will needs mental energy to function; unstable blood sugar deprives you of the energy needed to use your will effectively.

7.      Sleep and rest. When you are tired it is difficult to activate your will. You are prone to want a quick fix when your energy is low. Aim for 6-8 hours of sleep a night.

Practice making conscious choices rather than following habitual patterns. Learn to relax, meditate, and move your body in ways you find fun. Having a calm, centered, peaceful frame of mind will allow you to receive the energy needed to strengthen your will.

Registration now open for new Kabbalsitic Healing Class: For a psycho/spiritual approach to healing.

Is your relationship breaking up? 4 steps to heal emotional pain

One of the big issues that brings people into psychotherapy is emotional pain. The emotional pain caused by the ending of a relationship is particularly common.



Here are four steps that will help you to heal from emotional pain.



1. Acceptance: You often resist what “is” especially when you are in pain. Letting go of the “if onlies” (if only he/she would call me, change, give me another chance and so on) will help you get unstuck from a merry go round of pain. Letting go of what you wish would happen and accepting what is happening is the first step. Recognize that you do not have control.

2. Feel your feelings and express them in ways that feel safe. Talk with friends, a therapist, your rabbi, priest or spiritual advisor, or get a journal write your feelings down. Expressing your feelings and thoughts will help you organize and understand what you are experiencing. This will bring you release and relief.

3. Be: Once you do the first steps you will begin to feel better. Breathe, relax and nurture yourself. Have compassion for yourself and provide experiences that are comforting and nurturing. (Take a nap, exercise; take a bath, lunch with a friend and so on).

4. Take action: Now it is time to literally move on. Take a bike ride, go for a walk, join a class, or start hobby. Get involved in your life.



When you are experiencing emotional distress you often relive trauma from the past, or feel that you will be overwhelmed by the emotions in the present.

Instead you can understand this experience provides a tremendous opportunity for healing. Follow these steps and you can move through the pain with a new perspective and a better attitude.



Interested in learning more? Visit my web site http://www.debrajoygoldman.com/ for free articles about relationships, dreams, spirituality, personal growth and more.

*as seen on examiner.com

Kabbalistic Healing Class

As a psychotherapist, student, and teacher of Kabbalah for over 20 years I have been studying how spirituality and psychotherapy intersect and interact. As a result, I am excited to offer this class which will provide psychological healing utilizing Kabbalistic principals.

In this class you will learn about The Tree of Life, a map of the universe and of your psyche. "Know thy self" is one of the important tasks for Kabbalistic healing. Enlightenment comes from studying yourself, understanding how your psyche functions, and why you feel and act the way you do. You can gain mastery over yourself by finding balance, being mindful, living in the moment, and making conscious choices. You will improve your physical, mental, and spiritual health. Kabbalistic healing will benefit your life and relationships (including your relationship with yourself).

In this six week course you will:

1. Gain a framework and map of the universe and yourself. This will deepen your awareness and understanding of the spiritual practices you have already developed.

2. Understand and experience The Tree of Life, a map that guides you in the evolution of your soul.

3. Develop and expand your awareness of yourself, your relationships, and your life.

4. Develop and reconnect to a practice of awakening and remembering.

5. Explore your state of being. Learn how to harmonize areas of discord in yourself and your life, both on a spiritual and mundane level.

.Dates:

• September 11th
• October 2nd
• October 13th
• October 23th
• December 4th

Tuesdays: 6:00pm – 7:30pm

For more information about dates, times, fees, and how you can participate, call Debra Joy Goldman at 561-602-8041.

Tough time in your marriage? 7 helpful tips

Are you angry with your spouse? Are there ongoing issues that try your patience, compassion and love? You may want your marriage to work, but are out of ideas of how to fix the issues. I have been providing marriage counseling for over twenty five years and have put together these helpful tips:


1. Communicate. There are different ways you can communicate. Talk honestly about what is happening. Each of you can share what you are experiencing. If talking doesn’t work, write letters or get a licensed therapist to facilitate a dialogue. Even if it is hard to communicate keep on trying.

2. Create a vision of the solution. If you made a video tape of how your marriage would look when your issues are resolved, what would be on the tape? How would you and your partner feel, what would you being doing and saying to each other? What would be different?

3. Express your authentic feelings, how you truly feel. To the best of your ability, listen to your partner’s feelings with an open mind and a lot of love. You may be surprised to find you both have similar feelings.

4. You may both want the same things, peace of mind, to be loved, appreciated, supported and respected. When I listen to couples fight, underneath the anger and stories I hear hurt and a longing to be accepted and loved. When you fall in love you often feel “now I have a safe place, someone who will be there for me, and support me”. When this does not happen, you feel disappointed and need to blame someone. To some extent, these unspoken expectations are there for everyone.

5. Work together. You can work together and share the journey as you move in an agreed upon direction. Continue to communicate and share your vision for the relationship. This is an ongoing process. Keep practicing.

6. Instead of looking at your partner’s behavior, look at yourself. What are you doing to block what you want in the relationship? Change your behavior.

7. Learn how to move past disappointment. Everyone will at some point in your relationship, disappoint you, (not live up to your expectations). We are only human. After experiencing disappointment, learn how to repair the martial connection and continue on the road towards your vision (what you saw on the video tape).

Make the commitment to work through the tough times. Having a partner who works towards a shared vision can bring many rewards. Having a companion who shares the tough times, as well as the good, is all part of marriage.

THE GOOD NEWS: Your marriage will often be stronger after you work thorugh the tough times.



*as seen on examiner.com

Does it feel like you and your spouse live in different worlds?

In a study reported in the book Rapt by Winifred Gallagher couples were given a checklist of events and activities and asked to mark ones that had occurred during the course of the week. The list included items like fights, lovemaking, issues with children and so on. The data revealed the percentage of agreement between husbands and wives was at the level of mere chance. Your spouse is experiencing an entirely different world from you!

How does this happen? Your experience of the world depends on where your attention is focused. We all have selective attention. What you focus on is what you will remember.

What determines what you pay attention to? Attention is determined by many factors, both conscious and unconscious. Each one of us is unique. Your past, your beliefs about the world and your self all influence what you focus on. This creates an individualized experience of the world.

For example if you get a new hybrid car, all of a sudden there seems to be many hybrid cars on the road. Your attention is now focused on noticing these hybrids cars. Before you bought one you never paid attention in this way and did not notice as many hybrids.

How can you benefit from this knowledge? Realize how important communication is for your relationship. Without communication, sharing your feelings, perceptions, and thoughts you lose the connection with your partner. You stay in your separate worlds.

Learn how to communicate with your partner, pay attention to them and listen to what and how they have experienced the world. Invite them into your world and be willing to enter theirs. Neither view is objectively “right”.

Communication will increase intimacy and satisfaction in your relationship and it just might expand your world.

How does your marriage affect your health?

How does your marriage affect your health?
When you marry your lifestyle habits become more alike. The November 2008 issue of Psychology Today presents research showing marital relationships steer our physical well being. Researchers are finding that spouses influence each others eating habits, doctor visits, use of alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana.

Couples can even develop the same illness over time the Yale School of Public Health did a study over four years of over 6,000 people. Results showed that in every single behavior there was spousal effect. For example if one spouse quit smoking the other was 6-8 times more likely to quit. If one quit drinking alcohol the other was five times more likely to quit. The one exception to this is exercise. Here there was an effect, but it was milder.
The good news: one of the best ways to change your spouse is to change yourself.

Nagging does not work and in fact can have the opposite effect. So look to yourself, and " clean up your side of the road", your spouse may follow. You may be pleasantly surprises what happens when you stop trying to "help" them change. Instead focus your attention on getting your own habits on track.

Three Steps To Change

Let’s say you have decided to make a change. You have recognized that you have a pattern or habit pattern that you want to pay attention to. So you have recognized something, you have choices. Congratulations!

Here is an example:

You may have found yourself following a habitual pattern or perspective on a situation in your life and you do not like it. You have yourself thinking self critical thoughts, measuring yourself against others, and coming up short. Thinking to yourself what a failure or burden you are, or that you are undeserving of love.

You ask “How can I change this?”
Here are three steps to take. Do an experiment, try this for 3 days.

• Awareness: Become aware of the signs that the pattern is present. Clues:
Thoughts and feelings.

• Acknowledge: Do the work to understand and explore yourself, so in the moment of awareness you can remember what is happening.

• Correct it: What is the change? What is the new choice? For example I deserve and receive love. See it, feel it, think it. Create a momentary, in the present, experience of this feeling. You may have a memory of something you experienced in you life that already gives you this experience.

Now follow these three steps through out the day. Practice this for three days. Pay attention to what happens. What inspires you, what dreams you dream, what is happening? Is anything different?
Perhaps you would like to continue this experiment a few more days and continue to pay attention.

Favorite Self- Talk

Here is my favorite self talk (self talk = things you think to yourself)

I AM HERE


If you like that thought, try this:

On a piece of paper write in large letters:

YOU ARE HERE

Hang this up where you see it often.

These tips will help bring you back into the present moment. Try it, and see what you experience.


In my esoteric studies of the hebrew letters I understood this about I am here:

This is what Moses was saying at the burning bush.

I am Here

I am present in a High place, a mountain, where I hear the still small voice.
A place I hear divine revelation. I breathe out.

The present.

Goals: Three Ways They Sabatoge Success

You might be thinking, WHAT, how can having a goal possibly sabotage me?

1.When you set a goal it is something you hope will happen in the future.The future has not occurred yet.You have no control over the future.


2. The goal you set might or might not happen. This future oriented focus puts pressure on you. It is an end point you are trying to get to and this pressure will sabotage the outcome.

3. Setting a goal puts an expectation in your mind. If what is happening does not match your expectation you feel discouraged, angry, and disappointed. You need to blame someone or something. Often you blame yourself.

So what can you do? Not set goals? Then how do you create changes in your life?

Here is what you can do. Set an intention. An intention is present oriented. It means in this moment you are putting your focus, your attention, and your will in the direction that you are aiming for. You can focus on the intention right now.

For example say your intention is to get a job. Right now, in this moment, you are putting yourself in the direction of a job.
 Right now, in this moment, you act according to that intention by making a call.
All of this is happening here and now and you have the power to make a choice now to act accordingly to that intention.
You can focus on the power of now by making choices that support the intention. This gives you power, because you have a choice each moment. Your actions take place in the present moment.

As you focus on your intention, you can make choices aligned with this. If you do not make the call today, you can refocus on the intention later and act.

Staying in the now helps. You have choices in the now. The future does not exist yet and what will happen out of your hands. You influence the future through the now, by the choices you make each moment..

Set an intention and conceptualize that this means all your attention will be focused in this direction today, the outcome, what happens in the future, will be what it will be.

Thoughts Become Things

How do you create?

First understand the basics of the creative processes. Causation comes from the divine. Another words, what this means to you... what is the spark or impulse of the first stirring in consciousness of the answer to this question, What Do You Want?

Believe it or not most people do not know the answer to this question. Let us say what you want is a successful business. Initially you experience this as a spark of energy, an idea. What happens then? You begin to have thoughts and images of what that will be like. These thoughts and images spur feelings. You may feel anything from excitement and motivation, to fear and paralysis, or some combination. Depending on which of these thoughts and feelings are happening you begin to make choices. The choices are the concrete actions (or in action) that you do in your everyday life. Do you pick up the phone and make the phone call. Or do you put it out of your mind. If you want to lose weight, do you take that walk this morning, or make some excuse to yourself.

So what is going on from the divine spark of the idea, to the thinking, and imaging, to the emotional response and finally the choices you make?

As the initial divine impulse comes into being it channels through you. You have a set of patterns and beliefs, kind of like programming. This comes from both your life experience and from the meaning and responses that you bring to these life events. As the spark of divine light comes into being through you it begins to fragment, to split. Some Energy gets trapped, held or in some way diverted from the original intention. You may begin to de-rail your actions by how you think and feel about what is happening. Bottom line you are not moving towards what you intended. It is not happening, or perhaps something is happening but not what you intend.
This is the opportunity for you to become conscious of the thoughts and images, these create the feelings which provide the fuel for the choices in this world of action.

What fuel are you giving your self? Are your thoughts an unending stream of critical negative self talk, are fears and anxieties paralyzing you, stopping you from fully participating in life.

Keep going back to the original intention you started with. Follow the process:

Emanation Spark of direction. Flash of Inspiration. Make sure you have an understanding of what you are truly seeking.

Thoughts, beliefs, Images then begin after the initial spark.

Feelings: the fuel for the next step

Actions. Actual physical doing, what choices you make in your everyday life.

Working with a therapist can help you to make changes. Therapy can teach you how to develop tools to unlock places in your life you feel stuck.

Three Things You Can Do Today To Increase Your Happiness

Do you understand what gives you happiness? How do you describe happiness? It is not the giggling, jump up and down feeling. The definition agreed upon today involves feeling satisfied, content, and fulfilled.

What do you think would make you happy today? Most likely your answer is something like money, house, car or something that bring a momentary feeling of happiness.The happiness would fade as the novelty of the desired thing wore off. You are adaptable and the money, house, new car or accomplishments will decline to give you happiness. You will feel something is missing and want something else.

So what can you do? Living a meaningful life, utilizing your gifts and your time, and living with thought and purpose will help.

Here are three things to start today.

1. Gratitude: Tell someone every day that you are grateful to them, or write it in a letter or email. At the end of the day make a list of gratitude’s in that day. If something challenging has happened see if you can turn it around and find something to be grateful for in the situation.

2. Find ways to be kind to others, especially if you can do it anonymously.

3. Savor your life. Learn how to be mindful using all your senses fully in each moment. Mindfulness is a relaxed state of awareness of the present moment. You feel a curiosity and openness to life and others. You let go of judgments. This allows you appreciate what is present in your life now. It helps you become less adapted to what you have in your life now.

Are you ready to begin today? Try an experiment and do these three things for the next week. Check in with yourself and see if your happiness isn’t increasing, do you feel more content and satisfied? If your answer is yes then continue to remember these three steps and practice them daily.

Are You Experiencing a Spiritual Bypass?

Are you pursuing a spiritual path? Have you found yourself disappointed or frustrated? Either with the people or the outcome? Are you ready to give up?

Here is what I think is happening. There has been a great deal of interest in pursuing mystical, esoteric, spiritual mysteries. People have been jumping the band wagon of spiritual pursuit, both traditional practices and “commercialized” versions of enlightenment. What I am suggesting is that one needs psychological healing in psychotherapy before spiritual work is effective.


What is a spiritual bypass then? It is when you are not recovered from your psychological wounding,and you become involved in a spiritual pursuit in order to heal. Thinking this is “the answer" to everything that has been bothering you. The outcome often is feeling let down, one loses faith and trust.

The ability to trust, have faith and have discipline to practice true spiritual pursuits requires one to have a balanced psychological foundation. Without this you are bypassing work and jumping to spirit to find peace and balance. You have no foundation to support this work and it will collapse.

Here is one example of how this might happen. Early psychological wounding (first year of life) can result in an impaired ability to form healthy attachments. The wounding to early consciousness needs to be repaired in order to provide a balanced, solid foundation. Someone wounded in this way will attach to the people and practices of a spiritual tradition in a dysfunctional way. They might want to be controlled (taken care of), becoming dependant on, or becoming so disappointed by the humanness of their companions, that they reject all.

Do yourself a favor. Heal yourself in the emotional and mental realms first. Do not try to climb the ladder to the divine, until the lower rungs of your ladder have been repaired.

First make sure the basics in your life are handled. You have a secure home and way of maintaining your day to day living. Then heal your psyche.

Seek a therapist or group to work through any wounds, patterns, or beliefs that are destructive.Counseling can help you discern what is truely healthy for you. Now when you begin your spiritual journey, you are prepared to respond to the wonderful fulfillment as well as the disappointments, and frustrations along the way.