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4 Reasons to Forgive

Forgiveness is an essential part of healing. When you have suffered a wrong, or even a perceived wrong, the resulting hurt and anger can burrow deep into your heart and energy field and begin to fester. The longer you harbor the resentment and bitterness instead of forgiving the wrong, the higher the chances that those negative feelings will cause discord in your system, creating blocks in your chakras and eventually, physical symptoms and illness. Forgiveness is not easy for anyone. Trust me, I know. It took years of intense personal work through energy healing for me to be able to forgive my father for his abuse, and my mother for her blind eye and cold shoulder. If you have experienced severe betrayal or violence, abandonment or abuse, especially from a trusted family member or caretaker, forgiveness might seem like an impossible feat. It does take courage, but you can do it, and your life will improve a hundred times over once you do.

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Here are just a few of the reasons to practice forgiveness:

1. Forgiveness makes you feel better. Forgiveness takes the power away from the hurt or wrong and helps you to let it go. As long as you hold on to resentment or anger it can manifest in your life as depression, self-blame, guilt, loss of motivation, revenge fantasies, anxiety, and other emotional and mental issues, as well as physical health problems, especially those related to the heart chakra, including asthma, pneumonia, breast or lung cancer. When you forgive, you take a large step forward in healing yourself. Studies suggest that forgiveness improves the function of the immune system, and research has shown that pain levels decrease when patients forgive inner hurts. This is because forgiveness releases the clouds of darkness those negative emotions create in your field and body, and allows for light energy to fill those holes, which charges and energizes your whole being.

2. Forgiveness is not excusing. I want to make sure you understand that forgiveness is not excusing what someone did to you. There are likely very real betrayals and traumas in your life that are not excusable, and you should not have to feel like you need to minimize what happened to you. What forgiveness does entail is letting go of the residual emotions like resentment, anger, hurt, and bitterness that stem from what happened. Forgiving means you stop feeling hostile, that you let go of any need or desire for revenge or retribution. This is not a weakness; quite the opposite, in fact. It takes a ton of strength and courage to forgive, and if you can manage it, it will speed up your spiritual progress as well as set you free.

3. Guilt impedes your healing process. Guilt is a parasitic emotion. It eats at you from the inside, churning your stomach and making you tense, and not doing you any good. The only potential it has is spurring you to own up to your mistakes as best you can and to learn from them. Then you must move on, which includes forgiving yourself. Self-forgiveness is possibly more important than forgiving others, as you have to live with yourself every second of every day. If you are constantly beating yourself up over past mistakes, that blame and anger can cause blockages in your personal energy field. If you don’t forgive yourself, you put yourself at risk. If you already have a health problem like cancer or another disease, you must remember that it is not your fault! You were working with what you knew at that time, and you cannot control pollutants or genetics or abusers. There is nothing to be gained from wishing you could change the past, and self-blame only does further harm. As a spiritual teacher and energy healer, I encourage students to learn from the disease and then move on by forgiving yourself and letting it go. It is the only way to heal.

4. Forgiveness is for you, not them. The only person who suffers from a grudge is you. Holding onto the desire for revenge, or any other hostile emotion regarding someone who wronged you, doesn’t actually harm them the way you might want it to. In fact, it backfires, and causes you tremendous damage.

When you forgive, you lift a weight off your chest that you probably didn’t realize you were carrying, but you will feel so much lighter and freer once it’s been removed. When I finally realized one day that after years of journaling, meditating prayer, and energy medicine techniques, I no longer felt any hatred or bitterness toward my parents, it was like I was reborn. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and I felt utterly uplifted.You will, too.

If you have tried to forgive and are having trouble releasing your anger or hostility, try journaling about your feelings, which sets them free from your body and energy field and allows for fresh universal energy to fill that space. I also highly recommend you take one of my energy healing courses, which will give you plenty of techniques for processing and releasing your emotions so you can become healthier and happier. Lastly, be patient with yourself. Forgiveness can be very difficult, and can take time. But it is so worth the effort to be able to be free of the chains of guilt and bitterness, and move forward in creating the life you want.

Selma

Marching to Selma

I saw “Selma” this weekend. This movie tells the story of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the historic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, that led to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It does much more than give us a picture of what happened fifty years ago in the fight for civil rights. It ties in to what is happening in the US right now—to young African-Americans being killed by police, to protests that still use nonviolence as a means of being heard, and the grace and extraordinary courage of ordinary citizens who are determined to bring about justice for all.
It’s a powerful film that gives a new look at an American icon. Most people today know little about Martin Luther King Jr. other than his “I have a dream” speech and a national holiday that means a day off. In the film, we see him as the father of four children, a husband trying to make his marriage work, a gifted preacher who was an ordinary man that got caught up in a particular moment of history and did great things. But it also shows us that King did not do this alone. It gives insight into the leadership of others fighting the good fight for equal voting rights like John Lewis, a Congressional representative since 1987, who was a young leader of the civil rights movement at King’s side.

I am not troubled by the claimed factual inaccuracies (that happens with every historical film), especially in regard to the role of LBJ; it’s impossible to tell the full story of the three years covered in the film. And since it was directed by Ava DiVernay, an African-American woman, it comes from a black perspective—in itself a refreshing difference from history textbooks. Bill Moyers was recently interviewed about “Selma” and he said, “…it’s good to be reminded of a time when courage on the street is met by a moral response from power.”
It’s such an important film to see that a “Selma for Students” movement arose to offer thousands of free tickets to middle-school children across the country this past weekend as Martin Luther King Jr. Day is being celebrated.

On Sunday, Oprah Winfrey (one of the film’s producers and an actor in the film) and others from the cast along with a thousand ordinary people walked across the bridge in Selma to remind everyone that the civil rights struggles from the 1960s are not over; we are still living in a land that fails to provide equal justice for all. But the march yesterday was a far cry from the scene on March 7, 1965 when billy clubs and tear gas stopped the marchers from walking 50 miles to the capital of Alabama in Montgomery in order to get the right to register to vote. “Bloody Sunday” reminds us, yet again, that when we don’t see everybody as one, when we discriminate against others based on their race or religion or sexual orientation, blood is shed, innocents die, and hatred in the heart is reflected in leering faces like that of then Alabama governor George Wallace.

Hollywood somehow missed the boat on “Selma” by not nominating either its star, David Oyelowo, or its director. In fact, this year there was not a solitary person of color nominated for an Oscar in any acting category, the first time since 1998 that has happened—a snub that went deep since it came just before the MLK holiday. And a reminder that the Academy is 93 percent white and 76 percent male, with an average age of 63—much like the old white men in the South who tried to silence the voices of those not like themselves.

This movie is a “must see.” Do not miss the chance to understand the true nature of courage, to remember why we have to do whatever it takes to root out the seeds of prejudice from our own hearts, and to stand up fearlessly for justice and equality for all.

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Kick Off a New Healthier and Happier You!

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Beginnings are important. The first page of a book, the first line of a movie, a first encounter, the first month of a new year—they all set the tone for what’s to come. Think about how often the tone of your morning sets the tone for the day. Similarly, how you begin this new year and the behaviors you establish this month can set the tone for next twelve months, so you want to make it good!

January sees an increase in gym memberships and dieting, an up in detox meal plans and walks. Everyone wants to be healthier, and they figure that if they start the year off right, the positive momentum will keep them on track the rest of the year.

Real Healing Comes from Within

The problem is that fad diets and other thirty-day quick fixes don’t actually heal you, and therefore can’t really eliminate the negative behaviors you’re trying to put behind you. Real healing has to come from the inside and must treat your whole being, getting at the root of the issue. If your unhealthy habits are fueled by an old trauma or suppressed emotions—and nearly all bad habits are—you won’t be able to fully conquer the habit until you’ve dealt with the underlying emotional and energetic causes. This is where energy healing and meditation come in.

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Energy healing heals all of you. It clears up emotional blockages in your chakras so they can move energy in and out between your field and the universal field, keeping you recharged and replenished. Energy healing also gives you the tools to process current emotions to prevent further buildup. Not only does meditation heal you, it also expands your awareness, and brings you closer to Source and your higher self. With the guidance of your higher self, you become able to glimpse your true soul purpose, the reason you are here on Earth, which helps you stay more closely aligned with that purpose and speeds up your spiritual progress. All these benefits and more from something that you can do from home in just minutes each day!

Meditation really is the best way to jump into energy healing, and it’s my best recommendation for how to kick off this new year healthfully and set a calm, collected, and centered tone for your 2015.

Here are three tips for successfully beginning and maintaining a meditation practice:

 

  1. Do it daily.

Meditation is like wine: it only gets better with time. It is an incremental process that re-sets your physiology and psyche. Done daily, it decreases stress, slows heart rate, reduces blood pressure, improves sleep, turns back the clock, as well as spiritual expansion and increased connection to the Divine. Twenty minutes, twice a day is ideal. Try meditating first thing in the morning, to start your day refreshed and centered. Keep in mind as you begin that every single person in the world can learn to meditate. Like anything else, with practice it becomes easier.

 

  1. Schedule it!

You’ll need to schedule your daily meditation time, just like you do your gym time or walking your dog or hair appointments. It’s that important! In the meditation technique I teach, you’ll see that I encourage you to meditate before you leave the bedroom in the morning, before the pressures of your day hit. Early morning is also the most powerful time of the day for you to connect with Spirit – right around sunrise is ideal.

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  1.  Learn from a spiritual teacher.

Some of the mainstream meditation teachings put an emphasis on simple relaxation or tell you to empty your mind while meditating. How in the world do you do that! No wonder so many people give up! Instead, in the meditation technique I teach, I teach you to focus on a special mantra I choose just for you, which allows you to float just outside your thoughts and keeps you from getting restless.

No matter what you’re hoping to cultivate in this new year, meditation can help you. It improves every aspect of your being, just like energy medicine, and with continued meditation, all the pieces of your life will seem to make just a little more sense. Meditation can help you begin this year with more balance, clarity, peace, health, and happiness. I hope you will start right now!

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