The Log in Your Eye

I celebrated my birthday this week. It was a day of many lessons. I had an appointment that morning but because of a wrong left turn, I ended up missing my appointment. Instead I spent the next two hours driving along unfamiliar roads. I was relieved when I finally made it back to my sanctuary, my home.

That evening, when I picked my daughter from school, I was greeted by a tearful girl. My daughter had signed up for a culinary arts competition in school with her best friend. Due to circumstances which could not be worked out, both parties agreed to drop out of the competition.  However, both parties were terribly disappointed and as a result. started to blame one another. It was not healthy but not unexpected. Their friendship has been affected. I felt that they had to learn to cope with their disappointment and learn from this incident. However, what was totally unexpected was that  a mother had  joined the blame game.

I was shocked at the turn of events. As a parent, we act as  guides and advisors  for our children, We are there to lend support and provide resources for them to bloom to their full potential, During the school going years, they will meet many new friends who will go in and out of their lives. Some of the best friendships are made in school but not all friendships will last. Friends too will have their disagreements. It is all a part of growing up and learning how to relate with one another.

Therefore, I was dismayed that a parent had jumped right into the fray to say some very disparaging things about both my daughter and myself. Those scathing and hurtful words, as expected, came back to my daughter's ears and I could see that she was deeply hurt. As parents, we have to remember too, to keep within our boundaries. We have to respect our children and other children's decisions and privacy too.. Before interfering in our children's relationships, ask first what our true intentions are. Will our actions benefit our children? Or will our need to justify, blame and be "right" cause more problems for those we profess to love?  How can blaming others possibly bring about more peace and harmony in everyone's lives?.

Words, words, words. We use them so loosely but forget that they are as sharp as knives. If you can see psychically the impact of words on the aura of a person, you can actually see people sending daggers or knives to one another. They cut and hurt deeply.

I regret how juvenile we adults can become. As adults, we are role models to all children, whether or not they are our own. It also matters not how many times one professes to be "religious". The real test is in the way one carries oneself and the words that comes out of one's mouth. To quote a Bible verse "a good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of". "First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye".

Mind over Healing

I shall share what I learned from listening to David Hamilton, Ph.D this week. He is the best selling author of the book, "How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body." He leads workshops to help people understand the link between their minds, their health and their lives. The power of the mind and positive thinking can actually bring about physiological changes in the body, through visualization, belief, and affirmations to heal. How do thoughts and visualisation affect the neurosystem and our brain?

As we imagine something over and over again, we start to cause changes to the physical structure of the brain. In a research, volunteers were asked to play a simple combination of notes on the piano with all five fingers daily for 2 hours. Their brains were scanned daily and scientists found that the area of the brain connected to the finger muscles had grown in size. The brain actually generated  hundreds of neurons. but not only that, genes were being turned on and started changing.  To study the effects of visualisation, another group was asked to visualise that they were playing the piano notes for 2 hours daily. At the end of  5 days, a brain scan showed that the brain had changed in identical ways. In many ways, the brain does not distinguish whether something is really happening or it is just an imagination.

He believes that the power of visualisation can be used to heal, provided that it is done properly. An example is the visualisation of tumours shrinking. However, it has to be visualised in great detail, thus taking time and must be done consistently everyday.

In another study, 150 married couples were asked to talk about a topic of their choice for 15 minutes  From their interaction, couples were grouped into those who were hostile, aggresive and those who were more compassionate to one another. What they found was that the hostile group had more cases of heart disease whilst the other compassionate group had healthy arteries. The difference was the way they treated each other. He said that hundreds of genes are turned on by the way we treat people.

When two people are interacting, their emotions and body language has an effect on each other. The phrase “emotional contagion” embodies the idea that humans will synchronize their personal emotions with the emotions expressed by those around them, whether consciously or unconsciously, and thus that an emotion conveyed by one person will become “contagious” to others. In the presence of a happy person, others around them become happier. This unfortunately applies to negative emotions as well. Gentleness and compassion can protect ourselves.

It is indeed true that the people we spend our time with are very important. They not only have great influence on our thoughts. They also have great impact on our health.

Dying to Be Me

 

I have been spending  some time listening to many world-renowned experts from the personal growth field sharing the practical, applicable ways in which they incorporate their teachings in their own lives. Topics range from health, diets, womanhood, happiness and success, the spiritual realm, past lives and so on..  I shall write on some of these speakers whose work have benefited millions of people. 

One such speaker whom I find so very inspiring  is Anita Moorjani. Her story is not new to many. Anita was diagnosed with end stage cancer (Hodgkin's Lymphoma) in April 2002.  On 2 February 2006, she fell into a coma. Her body was ravaged with cancer when she arrived at the hospital. Doctors said that her organs were shutting down and gave her hours to live. However, she went through a NDE or near death experience but made a choice to  come back.I chose to come back into physical when I understood that ‘heaven’ is a state, not a place.Anita Moorjani

She is now a famous speaker and author of the best seller, "Dying To Be Me." She has been sharing her fascinating life story and the many insights she gained when she went to the other realm.  "I realized what a gift life was, and that I was surrounded by loving spiritual beings, who were always around me even when I did not know it. I understand how illnesses start on an energetic level before they become physical. I then understood that when people have medical treatments for illnesses, it rids the illness only from their body but not from their energy so the illness returns. Everything going on in our lives was dependant on this energy around us, created by us. Nothing was real – we created our surroundings, our conditions, etc. depending where this “energy” was at."

"After what I have seen, I realize that absolutely anything is possible, and that we did not come here to suffer. Life is supposed to be great, and we are very, very loved. The way I look at life has changed dramatically, and I am so glad to have been given a second chance to experience “heaven on earth. Miracles are possible in your life every day."

What was her most meaningful lesson? "The most meaningful lesson I learned from being at death’s door is that unless I love myself, nothing else in my life can function at its best. The amount of depth, meaning, and joy I experience in my life is in direct proportion to how much love I have for myself. The amount of love, kindness, patience I have for others is also directly proportional to how much love, patience and kindness I have for myself, because we cannot give others what we ourselves do not have."

I resonate so much with what she said. That life is indeed a gift.  We create so much of our own unhappiness due to a lack of love. And it starts from a  lack of love for ourselves. If we do not know how to love and honour ourselves, how then can we genuinely love and honour others?.

We sometimes confuse narcissism with self-love so we hold ourselves at arms length. There is a big difference between the two. The energy of narcissim is one of fear. It is closed and contracting, wanting to keep everything for ourselves. It is about "me, me and me."  Self love is expansive, open and inclusive of others.  That is the energy of love. It is like a cup of love which overflows.

We are meant to be amazing, magnificent, loving beings but we have forgotten who we are. However, we do not necessarily need to go through a near death experience to realise that. The love is right there in our hearts already. We just need to open our hearts and tap into it.