Knowing Your Heart

The Institute of HeartMath has done some amazing research on the heart revealing how much the heart actually influences the quality of our lives on so many levels.  As I was doing my research (and after reading this post I encourage all of you to go to HeartMath's website and do some of your own research on the scientifically-based, consciousness expanding work they are doing), I felt this information would be so informative and helpful to the readers of this blog.  Knowledge is power, and when we understand the influence and power our hearts have over our entire bio-system, we can then consciously take that information and with the right tools, put this knowledge into practice and create a whole new experience for our lives.  As we become more and more aware of how much we are in control of how we react and respond in our given circumstances, tapping into the true nature of our hearts and the immense energy emanating from it, we can affect the fields around us and change our experiences.  We can move from victim consciousness to creator consciousness, learning that we have the power within us to affect the changes we wish to see in our lives.  Connecting to the intelligence of the heart is paramount for this transformation to occur.

In the book, The HeartMath Solution, authors Doc Childe and Howard Martin explain how the electromagnetic fields radiating from the heart affect all the fields around us, and they also show us how to move into sensing and experiencing with the intuitive nature of the heart's brain rather than just operating from our cranium's brain of limited linear thinking.  They say that

"Heart intelligence is the intelligent flow of awareness and insight that we experience once the mind and the emotions are brought into balance and coherence through a self initiated process.  This form of intelligence is experienced as direct intuitive knowing that manifests in thoughts and emotions that are beneficial for ourselves and others."  (p.6 HMS)

 Here are some interesting facts and bits of information HeartMath research shows about our hearts:

• "Because the heart is the strongest biological oscillator in the human system, the rest of the body's systems are pulled into entrainment with the heart rhythms."  (p. 46 HMS)
• How do you harmonize your heart rhythms?  The quickest way is to focus on the core heart feelings such as care, love, and compassion.
• The heart has its own independent nervous system.  It's called "the brain of the heart."
• There are at a minimum forty thousand neurons-nerve cells in the heart alone.  These relay information back and forth to the brain and allows for a two-way communication between the brain and the heart.  The heart, though, beats independently of its connection to the brain.
• Research by Joel and Beatrice Lacey at the Fels Research Institute in the 1970's discovered that when the brain sent signals to the heart through the nervous system, our hearts didn't automatically obey.  The heart's response depended on two factors:  the nature of the task and the type of mental processing it required.  However, what they also discovered was that the brain obeys all messages and instructions sent to it by the heart!  Messages that could influence a person's thoughts, actions, and behaviors.
• The Fels Institute also discovered the heart is not just a mechanical throb, but a language, a system of intelligent language influencing our perception and reactions.  Other research has found that the quality of the hearts rhythmic beating influences the higher brain centers governing emotional problems.  When we're coming from a place of love, gratitude, and appreciation, instead of a place of anger, resentment, or blame, we open up these higher brain centers which help us to solve our problems.
• Research at the Institute of HeartMath have found that the heart rhythms become jagged and disordered when the person was experiencing negative emotions.  Positive emotions, on the other hand, produced smooth, harmonious heart rhythms which enabled the individual to have increased mental clarity, clearer intuition and enhanced ability to perceive the world.  It also improved and enhanced their ability to communicate with others.
• When a person is able to sustain balanced and harmonious heart rhythms, they are then able to sustain a positive life perspective, experience an increase of intuitive flow, and easily access positive emotions whenever they need.
• The electromagnetic field of the heart is approximately 5000 times greater in strength than the electromagnetic field produced by the brain!  This electromagnetic field not only permeates every cell of our being but is strong enough and powerful enough to radiate out into the field around us, a radiation which can be measured by magnetometers.  (Wow!)
• What is the difference between head and heart intelligence?  The head is open to linear, rational, logical solutions while the heart is open to intuitive solutions.  The idea is to get them to work together.  When our hearts and heads are in alignment, cooperating with one another, working together, we have more choices in life, and we gain a clear vision of our dreams and how to fulfill them.  Coherence between our head and heart grants us the freedom to operate and move more effectively through all fields and aspects of life - a fact the Institute of HeartMath has tested repeatedly.

Knowing your heart, understanding its intelligence, and learning how to connect to this intelligence on a regular basis, could be one of the most important things you do for yourself.  This information alone can help you to see the world differently; and perhaps, when enough of us have this knowing and start to live from our hearts, emanating from our essence the core feelings of love, care, and compassion in all that we do, our world will change.  

  

Institute of Heartmath
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Charlie Pacello is a PTSD and Healing Trauma Recovery Expert and Life Coach, a former US Air Force Lieutenant, and creator of the program, 'Lt. Pacello's Life Training Program.'  He can be reached by visiting his website at www.charliepacello.com

Bringing Mindfulness to the US Military - by Bryan Reeves

Since I am preparing to leave in two weeks for a pilgrimage to Greece to study with Dr. Edward Tick the archetypes of the Warrior, the Healer, and the Goddess, I have asked others to help support my blog and its readers as I dedicate my time and effort to get my mind, heart, and soul ready for the educational and healing journey ahead.  So many wonderful people are stepping up with their skills, talents, and wisdom to bring healing to those struggling with PTSD and trauma, and my friend Bryan Reeves is one of those individuals who is out there making a difference.

Bryan Reeves, a former Air Force Captain, is doing some amazing work with veterans suffering from PTSD.  I asked him at the last Operation Mindful Warrior event (March 30, 2014)  if he could send me something to let those who read this blog know about the work he is doing.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with Operation Mindful Warrior, Bryan and another veteran, Ken Lynch, formed the organization back on Memorial Day 2013, to teach mindfulness to veterans suffering from PTSD, and help them acquire the tools which can immediately impact and transform their lives.  Meditation was a key factor in my healing of the disorder and so I know how absolutely essential it is to establish a mindfulness practice.  He recently was asked to speak at Brooks Army Medical Center about mindfulness and meditation.  Bryan graciously sent me this post he wrote for his own blog (thiswildwakingjourney.wordpress.com), and I am proud to share this story on my blog for all of you to read.    

Bringing Mindfulness to the US Military

Posted on March 2, 2014 by Bryan Reeves — Leave a comment

On Friday, I returned to the US Military. I hadn’t been on a military installation in official capacity in over 13 years.

But the world is shifting.

A few months ago, I got an email from an Army Lieutenant Colonel. She had just read my popular blog on The Daily Love about how to give a truly great hug, saw that I was a former Captain in the Air Force and was working with military veterans suffering from PTSD. She wanted me to come to her facility, Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, to talk to her staff about mindfulness and meditation.

WTF? … Someone in the US Army is reading The Daily Love? I would have thought the military would block such sites from their servers. TDL creates love viruses that could be dangerous for troop morale. I was dumbfounded.

That’s the internet age for you: there’s no hiding anymore. Whatever your heart longs for, Google can serve up in 0.0092 seconds.

So this past Friday, the US Army flew me to one of their premier medical facilities, Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, TX.

The last time I traveled on official military orders, I was leaving Patrick Air Force Base in Florida, for good, on my way to … I had no idea where. I had been depressed for years. I was so ready to remove the heavy intellectual armor my military experience had locked me into; an armor that kept emotion from touching me, and that simply did not let me feel my life. I could not laugh. I could not cry. I was angry – angry at God, angry at life, angry at myself. Why had I gone through this suffocating experience? Why did life take a passionate 16-year old kid and exile him to 10 years of a spiritual solitary confinement so deadening that his enthusiasm for living would quickly fade from memory like a sweet morning dream.

I was not encouraged to think deeply in the military. Yet that’s all I seemed to know how to do as a young man. I wanted to explore the profound depths of life, of humanity. I wanted to know who we were, what we were doing here on this planet, and what it would look like to live life fully. I didn’t want to dominate, control and destroy life. I wanted to fully inhabit life, to breathe myself into every vast nook and through every adventurous cranny in its unending labyrinth. I would sometimes sit by a highway close to base and fantasize about driving off into the horizon, never to return. As a young man, I wanted to explore everything!

But the military would have none of that. It ordered me into a box.

Where I stayed and suffered.

Profoundly.

So late on Thursday, when I finally arrived on base after a travel miscue by the government system turned a 6-hour travel day into 14 hours, old suspicions crept up. My driver drove me through the base checkpoint and I began to feel like a space traveler entering a foreign world, one both familiar and yet vastly distant from the more diverse planet I had since come to know as my own. I began to sense stirring inside me that once-familiar emotional chill that commanded I stay hidden, disconnected, protected by a gunpoint’s length from the mechanistic humanity around me. I imagined myself wearing a space suit in this place, oxygen turned on full blast to ensure I could breathe normally.

In the military, there’s an overwhelmingly masculine ethos of formality, bravado, mission-accomplishment whatever the cost … and a complete avoidance of expressions of vulnerability.

As I acclimated to the base, this ethos tempted me back into its spell.

But I had been invited by the US Army to share the heart of my 13-year post-military journey. The very deep thoughts I was not free to explore inside its fortress, the military was now asking me to come home and share what I had discovered.

Since the Army called me, I gave myself permission to fully be Me. I never gave myself such freedom when I wore the uniform.

I talked for 5 hours on Friday, giving 5 presentations about the process and sweet fruits of Self-Awareness, Meditation and Mindfulness.

I spoke to about 70 military personnel and staff. Many started out skeptical, probably ordered by their commanders to show up for my briefing. But as I invited them to just notice the judgments they were experiencing while I spoke – even about their boredom or judgments about me, something many of them surely had never been invited to consciously observe before – I could feel the electricity of awareness crackling alive throughout the room. I had men and women in uniform closing their eyes, breathing intentionally, and experiencing their thoughts through the eyes of the observer, without judgment, simply noticing and then letting them go.

Under No Illusions

I know this work is not some huge magnificent thing that will change the world overnight. What I did on Friday is merely plant one tiny seed in the vast fields of possibility. Soldiers came up to me and thanked me, but far more of them simply left the briefing with little more than a glance of acknowledgement. Still, I can’t know what actually happened when they closed their eyes and witnessed their own thoughts – for perhaps the first time in their lives.

I like to hold two diametric perspectives for this work:

(1) Yes, it’s a beautiful service that can create meaningful positive impact on people’s lives and thus the planet; and
(2) There’s nothing broken, nothing to fix, and I’m doing nothing but following my flow and giving myself to an experience that life calls me to in this moment.

In each moment, we’re simply planting seeds for the next. That’s it. There is no destination. There is no human world where problems don’t exist.

Meaningful work is often about creating a world with less violent, more inspiring problems; not the absence of them.

Operation Mindful Warrior

Twenty-two military veterans will commit suicide today. One every 65 minutes.

58,000 soldiers were lost during the Vietnam War. Since the war’s end, more than 102,000 have committed suicide.

War rages on for soldiers long after the battlefield gets quiet.

I started Operation Mindful Warrior on Memorial Day 2013 with another military veteran who suffers from PTSD. We recruited my business partner in the Center for Mindful Educationand a psychotherapist who also teaches mindfulness to help address this unfolding tragedy. We now hold monthly mindfulness gatherings around Los Angeles, including for homeless vets living on Skid Row (over 6,000 homeless vets live in Los Angeles; 1 in every 9 homeless people is a veteran). My presentation at Brooke Army Medical Center was certainly a breakthrough moment, a seed planted.

We want to expand our offering nationwide by training people to lead OMW mindfulness gatherings in their communities.

If you want to help or know more, contact me at bryan at mindfuled dot com

My Military Redemption

I’m honored that the Military called me back inside the fortress to share what I’ve learned on my adventures. One sensitive person inside the compound, in a position of influence, saw an opportunity to make a positive difference in soldier’s lives and took action. She invited me to come and stand as my Authentic Self, in front of my soldier brothers and sisters. Long ago, in a time of angry confusion, I cursed the military in my thoughts. This moment felt like redemption. The circle drawing itself complete. Coming home.

I now understand that our world today demands we maintain a strong military, like holding a sharp spear to keep aggressors at bay. However, a sharp spear requires vigilance, lest we hurt innocents or ourselves when wielding it.

Mindfulness is a powerful tool that can help us deepen our understanding of our selves, of others, and of life itself. It can help us meet the problems in our midst with compassion, kindness, clarity and wisdom. Sometimes wielding our spear is truly necessary to battle the darkness whose nature is to seek to extinguish the light.

Let’s just wield that spear Mindfully.

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Learn more about my mindfulness projects:

The Center for Mindful Education: www.mindfuled.com
Operation Mindful Warrior: www.operationmindfulwarrior.com

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 Bryan Reeves

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About Bryan Reeves

Conscious Stardust. Former US Air Force Captain. Previous swiss-army-knife manager for conscious pop artists Here II Here and Ash Ruiz. One-time Oprah Show Guest. Now on the Executive Board of the Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment (GATE) and Director of The Center for Mindful Education. Author of coming book "Tell The Truth, Let The Peace Fall Where It May" ... among other hobbies. My life unfolds daily in the context of dancing with Magic.

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Charlie Pacello is a PTSD and Healing Trauma Recovery Expert and Life Coach, a former US Air Force Lieutenant, and creator of the program, 'Lt. Pacello's Life Training Program.'  He can be reached by visiting his website at www.charliepacello.com.

Break Out of the Nightmare of PTSD Workshop, 27 February 2014

Why Working with a Licensed Professional is Good, and Why Working with a Creator is Better

A few weeks ago, I opened my emails to discover a rather discrediting comment on a post sent out by my dear friend and web designer to the facebook community for a chance to work with me utilizing a 2 for 1 gift certificate.  The gentleman, Mr. Hunt, spoke rather harshly about life coaches and my work with PTSD and trauma.  Below is the message he wrote in its entirety:

"In many if not most states "life coaches" are not licensed and therefore there are no set professional standards that govern their training, credentialing, and professional practice.  PTSD is a serious condition, often with very serious symptoms.  As a licensed and practicing clinical psychologist myself, I would encourage anyone to thoroughly vet any prospective therapist before going to see them for something as serious as PTSD, and I would also encourage anyone seeking therapy for something as serious as PTSD to find a therapist who is licensed and therefore accountable to a state board for upholding certain professional practice standards.  Also, personally, I would think twice before going to see a self-styled "life coach" about anything, especially without checking into the training they've received, whether they have a history of malpractice claims or unhappy past clients, etc."

Normally, I would let this pass, as I believe, as George Washington believed that, "To persevere in one's duty and be silent is the best answer to calumny."  However, this particular indictment against me and the work I've dedicated my life to demands a response.  Sometimes one must check those who speak out against those who have found a new, healthier, and better way.  They speak without completely understanding the other side and the purity of intention and commitment from the man who has thought outside the box in order to bring true, lasting, and permanent healing to those suffering from this extraordinarily painful and crippling soul disorder.  I know.  I lived it.

This is my answer to Mr. Hunt:

Notice the education system in our country when we have all these markers and criteria for children, they don't thrive.  Anything that makes it to textbook takes 10 years.  The system and approach that I have is SELF - I healed it within myself!  I've spent more time learning than any clinical psychologist or therapist would and I'm working with the leaders in the field - Dr. Edward Tick, who wrote the book War and the Soul and is one of the preeminent leaders on PTSD in the country, and Dr. Sarah Larsen.  I'm personally trained, the way that it was meant to be done in Hippocrates' apprenticeships.

Our system today takes the healing out of individuals and puts it into systems, that's why it doesn't work.  My program is tried and true and sent through by logical, historical experts.  They worked for me; they are working for my clients.  This is not in a textbook.  This is not license-able because it works with each individual person, we are not all the same.  You should always vet any person you are working with that's going to influence the way that you think and feel.  So that's a really good point.  But just because someone has a degree and a license doesn't mean they are effective.  It means they are able to do the cookie-cutter approach.  That doesn't always heal.  We are 27th in the world in our health, below Morocco.

In your statement, I know you are concerned for people with PTSD, I know this comes from a loving place inside of you to question my credentials and my ability to work with this serious condition.  This is your love of humanity where this comes from.  It is my love of humanity that I'm speaking from now.  If you have the tools that are effective, they're working, if you've spent over 10,000 hours to date - probably going on 12,000 - 15,000 hours of personal research and development into a system, - if the people you are working with are becoming followers of you and your program because it is effective, if your teachers help you to understand and create this are giving you the thumbs up, the go ahead, saying, "Yes, Charlie, this is brilliant," experts in their fields saying "You've got it!", if you are being offered book deals and advice on wow there is nothing like this out there, are you going to stop and learn the cookie-cutter approach?  No.  What you are going to do is create a new system that cuts through because it is needed right now.  If there weren't a great need, I wouldn't be here now.  I healed it.  I recognize the need.  I'm one of the many that had this and now I'm thriving!  I want everyone who has this to thrive, whether it's with me, or a licensed professional.

And for the record, I anticipate I will be teaching the licensed professionals this system.  That's what's coming.  You heard it here first.

Blessings.

Yoga Poses to Relieve PTSD

Yoga was instrumental in helping me to reduce and ultimately eliminate the trauma trapped in my body because of the PTSD I had experienced and accumulated over many, many years - decades of exposure to some form of trauma.  I encourage all of you who read this blog to take the time to locate a yoga studio nearby and inquire about what kinds of yoga they offer.  Having participated and done many different styles of yoga (and they are all good), I prefer the ones I'm about to list because of my particular personality, and not for any other reason.  I recommend trying them all, and then connecting with the style or styles that most resonate with you and stick with that one.  How do you know which one to choose?  It's an individual choice; you just have to go out and try them and find the one or ones you like the best.  Yoga means union, and its underlying intent is to quiet the "whirlpools of the mind"; the style or styles you choose ought to be geared towards meeting this goal.  Some people may require a vigorous, physical style with poses being held for long periods of time, others might like the heat of hot yoga, while others may prefer a more gentler approach, whatever it may be, choose them because it gives you the maximum benefit you are seeking, which is to relieve the effects of PTSD in the mind and body.

I have been doing yoga now for almost 10 years, and I have been practicing yoga at U Studio Yoga in Los Angeles with Andrea Marcum for most of that time (you can find her and her studio at this website: www.ustudioyoga.com).  She is an amazing yoga instructor, who teaches a core intensive vinyasa (which means 'breath-synchronized movement') flow class that is both rigorous and challenging, and at the same time, balanced and playful. I asked Andrea for some of her insights into how trauma affects our bodies, and if she could suggest a couple of yoga poses for those of you reading this blog.  This is what she said:

"We hold a lot of emotional stuff in our bodies.  Releasing that is part of letting go.  We tend to be stuck in the stress response, and certainly those with PTSD know that more than anyone.  Allowing the tension to leave our body allows us to move closer to who we really are instead of who we are under the grip of reactive behavior, elevated stress hormones and the anger and drama that they feed.  When we start to find our way to the relaxation response we actually reboot our nervous system. 

Forward folds help to turn our attention inward, allowing some of the outside chaos to subside.  Seated forward folds like baddha konasana (http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/486) are calming and can be done anywhere anytime.  Additionally a gentle inversion like viparita karani (http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/690) send additional blood flow to our heart that allows our heart rate to slow down and bring the relaxation response forward."  

One of the many values of a intensive flow class is it really grounds you in the now, you feel firm and solid.  A wonderful complement to this is what is offered through Kundalini yoga.  Kundalini (the yoga of awareness), is relatively new to the West, and it's focus is to open your heart, build strength, and release the energy located at the base of the spine.  I recently stepped into the Golden Bridge Studio located in Hollywood (www.goldenbridgeyoga.com) to inquire if there were any poses they would recommend for someone who is suffering from PTSD.  Elsa, the wonderful person who so kindly answered my questions, recommended the Breath of Fire pose.  Some of the benefits of the Breath of Fire pose are:

• releases all of the built-up anxiety and nervousness; the Breath of Fire forces the diaphragm in and out and this has a direct impact on the naval center, which helps in the releasing of emotions as well.
• readjusts and boosts your nervous system
• it helps you to regain control over stressful mental states
• it flushes toxins out of the blood stream
• it massages the internal organs
• expands your lung capacity for deeper breathing

Basically, you want to breath in and out of the nose (or mouth).  Pull the abdomen in towards the diaphragm during the exhalation and out during the inhalation.  The breath is very fast, as fast as 2 or 3 times per second, and is very loud.  You will probably get a little light-headed when you begin doing this (I know I did), and so I recommend starting with 30 second intervals followed by long deep breaths, and performing this for a few minutes.  Eventually you'll will be able to move up to 45 second intervals for 2 to 3 minutes.  And before you know it, with enough practice, you'll be able to do it for even longer without feeling any discomfort.  A great resource for understanding in even more detail about the Breath of Fire pose and its benefits can be found here: http://kundaliniyogabootcamp.com/breath-of-fire/.

Golden Bridge Yoga also informed me they offer free classes for veterans!  All you have to do is go to the studio and show them proof you served, your ID or DD214, and they will set you up.  So any veterans in the Los Angeles area, take a look at what Golden Bridge has to offer, they're wonderful people over there who want to help you, or come and visit me over at U Studio Yoga with Andrea Marcum, and start actively taking the steps to relieve your PTSD for good.

Hope to see you on the mat!

10 Things I Wish for You in 2014

To all the wounded soldiers and wounded souls out there, these are 10 things I wish for you this coming year:

1. This moment too shall pass!
2. The understanding of your shadow self.
3. The real Hero is YOU!
4. Place the future in the Hands of God.
5. Master yourself.  It is more powerful than mastering a thousand ideas.
6. Correct the errors in your mind.  Your life will fall effortlessly into place.
7. Make peace with your past so that it doesn't destroy your present and future.
8. Find the gifts in the wounds, and transform your pain into blessings.
9. Re-connect and remember who you really are.  Reclaim the joy of your own existence.
10. Love, joy, freedom, wholeness, laughter, peace, and happiness.

Have a Happy (and safe) New Year!

Blessings.

Agapite o Filo Mou - Making Your Mind Your Beloved Friend - Part 4

What are our thoughts?

Our thoughts are neither good nor bad; they just are what they are.  It is only the meaning we give to them that makes them so.  Metaphorically, our thoughts are like cloud forms passing through the sky.  If your mind is like the sky, and it is, when it is clear, it is vast, infinite, peaceful, and bright.  When clouds appear, these are like our thoughts, and they will pass through as long as we don’t attach ourselves to them.  The problem is when we have storms in our lives, we attach ourselves to the storms, and these storms become cataclysmic because we won’t let go of them.  They will pass, if we just let them go.  But we don’t, and so we stay in the storm long after the storm has passed.  We keep re-living the storm repeatedly, trying to stop it, trying to bring some kind of resolution to it, trying to do something different so the storm doesn't hit, but all we do is perpetuate the consequences of the storm.  The recycled storm disrupts our lives, influences our decisions and choices in the present, and we live out our lives trying to make up for what happened in the storm that is long gone.  As Plato says, “What is once done, can never be made undone,” however, what we can do is change our thoughts about the things that have happened to us, remember who we are, re-connect to our true selves, learn and grow from the mistakes of our past, make peace with those who hurt us or who we may have hurt, re-contextualize and re-frame the story of our past to find the good that came out of those experiences, heal our past, and then, take those lessons from those traumas and build a better, healthier, and happier future.

I want you to imagine your mind is like a projector of a movie and your thoughts are the images and words coming across the screen.  These words and images will continue on past as long as you decide not to hold on to them.  If you hold on to them, they will give you all the emotional charge, both positive and negative, attached to those images, however, if you just let them pass by, they lose their power over you.  Now, let me ask you something, does the movie screen hold on to the film image?  No, of course it doesn't.  Now consider this: you are the projector of all those thoughts running across the screen in your mind which are then reflected back to you in the outside world.  So, what are you going to do?  Don’t hold on to your thoughts.  Return to the present.  Be in the present moment.  The only place where any of this exists anymore is in your mind.  

The cause of the problem for anyone who suffers from PTSD or trauma is in the soul.  Your soul is in distress.  Thus, it is imperative you take the time to tend and heal your wounds.  PTSD and trauma is honorable and inevitable in environments of intense conflicts.  It's a sign of your humanity.  You must work on all four planes of your existence to heal and transform these moral wounds:  the physical (your body), the emotional (your heart), the mental (your mind), and the spiritual (re-connecting to your true Self, your very core, and thus remembering who you really are).  The work I have discussed in these last four blogs is the beginning of the work you do with the mental and spiritual planes.  You must build the skills and have the tools to re-train your mind to get out of the places that don’t exist. Nothing outside of you is doing this to you anymore, reality, 95 % of the time, is benign, and it is harmless.  These outside triggers which lead to a sequence of painful feelings, reactions, and memories initiated by a sensory memory, are in themselves, completely harmless, but they become harmful because of the mental association you have connected them to in your mind.  Replace the thought, change the feeling, and with consistency and repetition, they will lose their power over you.

One of my favorite quotes comes from Lao Tsu.  He states, “When you correct your mind, everything else falls into place.”  How do you do this? 

• Meditate
• Find a spiritual practice based on universal spiritual truths like A Course in Miracles to use as a daily guide to govern your thoughts and feelings about yourself and your relationship to the world
• Create a bliss list for yourself reminding you of all the beauty that lives inside you and brings you joy
• Tie a string around your wrist or wear a small ring around your pinky finger, and every time a distressing thought or feeling overwhelms you, go to this string or ring, twist it around, saying to yourself, 'This too shall pass, this too shall pass...' at least 10 times and then think of something from your bliss list
• Do my program

This is how you start to de-construct the thought forms that are causing you pain, and begin the process of re-constructing the ones that you want to infuse your daily life experiences with, which will assist you in creating the life you want to live.

Blessings.