“I have developed several emotional issues like lack of self confidence, self-esteem, concentration problem, anxiety and being a perpetual worrier on trivia”.

Although his case may seem uncommon to those of us who have lived in comparatively safer and freer countries, you might be interested in reading about the common causes of our mental, emotional and psychological unrest in my response to him:

“A blessed New Year to you Z!  And thank you for your inquiry.

Moving from one country/culture to another even when the two countries/cultures are similar is quite an upheaval – pulling up one’s ‘roots’ and establishing new ‘roots’.

When the two countries/cultures are so different, that upheaval has an added dimension of adjustment.  In your case, this adjustment may have much to do with trust.

I say this because it seems that you have grown up and lived in a culture that you now see as oppressive and one that you appear to be unable to trust.  Perhaps you have always felt the culture, religion and government of your country of birth to be oppressive and untrustworthy.

Whichever it is, the fact is you don’t feel you are able to live your life as fully and freely as you would like to, personally and professionally.

The first thing I’d like to say, Z, is that there are many, many people who are not living their lives as fully and as freely as they would like to.  They can be found in all parts of the world.

The clinics and offices of professional therapists, psychologists, counsellors and other related professionals in the West (and to a slightly lesser degree in the East) are well patronized by such people.

My point here is simply this:

While our backgrounds may be different, our experiences unique and the triggers for our psychological and mental disquiet many and varied, the underlying cause of our mental/emotional/psychological pain is the same – it is fear.

Fear takes many forms, one of which is distrust.  We are unable to trust the world to be kind to us, to do right by us and to allow us to live fully and freely.

At the same time, we have lost confidence in ourselves and we are unable to trust ourselves to know what is best for us, to make the decisions that we need to make and to follow our dreams.  In short, to live fully and freely!

Let me say it again – most of us are in the same boat.  We differ only in degree!

So, what can I recommend in a situation such as yours?

I shall put it in dot points.  I suggest that you use each one as a point of reflection and meditation.

Begin by sitting in a quiet and comfortable place.  Allow yourself to relax by holding a sense of softness in your mind.  Take some deep and gentle breaths.  Then instruct your mind in the following way:

I allow myself to be soft, open and spacious.

I allow myself to sit in the direct flow of universal energy, source, unconditional love, god, Allah (use the term that you are most comfortable with).

I allow myself to feel the peace, power, joy and freedom of this universal energy.

Take a few more deep breaths.

Now, reflect on one or more of the following.  Take your time with each:

I am an expression of god/love/universal energy

As an expression of god/love/universal energy, no one and no thing has power over me

The only thing that is vulnerable is my fear-conditioned mind

My natural mind is powerful, peaceful, joyous, limitless and free

No one and no thing is responsible for my happiness or unhappiness, my sense of power or powerlessness, no more than I am responsible for anyone else’s

When I cease to hold someone or something else responsible for who and what I am, I assume full responsibility for, and power over, myself.  I am liberated.

As an expression of ultimate source/universal energy, I am free to be, do and have anything I want.  I am only limited by my fear-conditioned mind

My purpose in life is joy.  It is something I can choose right now and focus on right now

When I focus on joy, on living fully and freely, I feel empowered for I have dropped all disempowering thoughts and feelings

May I also suggest the following articles that you will find at my blog:

Being happy means being powerful  http://www.lucylopez.net/planethappiness/?p=654
Whatever you believe, you are right    http://www.lucylopez.net/planethappiness/?p=246
A beautiful meditation for the happiness of all    http://www.lucylopez.net/planethappiness/?p=398
How do you handle barriers to your happiness     http://www.lucylopez.net/planethappiness/?p=678

I hope you find them useful.

Have faith Z.  Trust in the true nature of who you are – powerful, limitless and free.  Experience it in meditation.  Be joyous in your intentions!”

Love always,

Lucy

Awakening to Happiness, Prosperity and Freedom!

PS  Keep an eye out for my free new ebook, 10 Power and Prosperity Themes for the New Year, that you’ll be able to download from this blog!

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Sometimes, in our desire for happiness,  it may be necessary to adopt an attitude of ‘zero tolerance‘ but I must add a cautionary note to this advice.  Let me do it by using a personal experience.

For a very long time, I was easily disturbed by a situation in my family.  To tell the truth, it ripped by heart.  The hurt and loss that I experienced were overwhelming, hovering above me like a dark cloud that just would not go away.

On the face of it, I appeared to be fine, managing my daily commitments, enjoying the company of family and friends and helping my clients along their journey. But that heavy cloud was always waiting for me and would find me in between my activities and preoccupations.  As I said, it never really left.

It got to a point where it would be the last thing in my conscious mind before I went to bed and the first thing that greeted me when I woke up!  It was not pleasant.  It was persistent, pervasive and it hurt my spirit.

Although I had spent time reflecting on it and putting it through meditative analysis which reduced its impact considerably, I still did not reach the point where it no longer disturbed me.

One day, as I was intending a shift from a state of sadness and loss to a state of happiness and freedom, it occurred to me that I might try something different.  I decided I would intend to be in a state where I would no longer tolerate being overwhelmed by sadness and loss.

Now, here is the thing.  I did not decide to be intolerant of the feelings of sadness and loss but to be intolerant of being overwhelmed by them!  It’s a subtle but critical distinction.

Feelings are vital to us as humans.  They are the indicators of whether we are in tune with our true nature or not and to what degree.  To be intolerant of our feelings would be to shut down what Abraham calls our ‘internal/emotional guidance system’, something that would diminish our self-awareness and our ability to choose appropriate responses.

On the other hand, to be intolerant of being overwhelmed by our feelings means not allowing fear to overpower us.  It means noticing the fear that arises within us and reminding ourselves right then of who we truly are – powerful, free, limitless and joyous expressions of the One!  It means choosing the truth of who we are over the falsehood of who we are not!

We are not fearful beings by nature.  We are not isolated entities by nature.  We are not here to suffer.  Rather, we are free, powerful, joyous creations/outcomes of love and as such, it helps to have zero tolerance for anything that attempts to persuade us otherwise!

I believe that this was the attitude and meaning that Jesus had when he rebuked ‘Satan’ (falsehood) thus:

“Away with you Satan! For it is written “You shall worship the Lord your God (truth), and him alone shall you serve”"

Matt 4:10

Lucy Lopez

Awakening to Happiness!

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Have you ever experienced being ‘in the flow‘?  In fact, would you say you are mostly ‘in’ or ‘out’ of the flow?  Or ‘with’ or ‘against’ the flow?  Or in the ‘down’ or ‘up’ stream of the flow?  And what indeed is the ‘flow’?  Is it relevant to you?

I consider ‘flow’ to be the creative force of life.  The word ‘flow’ connotes ‘movement’ and the creative nature of life is what gives meaning to the notion of ‘flow’.  If life were not creative, there would be no flow.

Being ‘in the flow’ therefore means being in the creative mode of life.  It means being creative which is being natural!  We are by nature creative.  If this were not so, we would not be here!  Neither would the rest of life!

If we are in the flow, we are being our natural selves.  If we are not in the flow, we are not being our natural selves, we are being our un-natural, conditioned selves!  Consequently, it is easy to see why it is desirable and necessary to be ‘in the flow’, to be natural, not just sometimes but all the time!

What is natural comes easily, effortlessly.  Most of us have been conditioned into effortful living to the extent that we believe that it is impossible to achieve anything of value or succeed without ‘effort’.  Hence the old saying ‘No gain without pain’.

You can certainly achieve things with great effort but this is not natural.  What is natural is creating effortlessly and effortless creation happens when we are in the ‘flow’, in our naturally powerful, limitless, unconditioned, joyous and harmonious state of consciousness.

Now, I am sure that most of us would have had at least some experience of being creatively in the flow and accomplishing beyond expectation.  The trouble is, we tend to regard these experiences as ‘fluke’ or ‘random’, exceptions to the rule.  In one sense, they are, not because they are ‘out of the ordinary’ or ‘unnatural’ but because they are infrequent.  The important question for us to ask here is: Why are they infrequent?

The answer is simple:  We have learned to live effortfully!  We have, through conditioning, got into the habit of remaining in conditioned consciousness where fear and all its offspring – anger, guilt, impatience, doubt etc – dominate our attention.  These are all barriers to natural flow!

It is important to remember that effortful living is not natural and neither is fear.  However, these ways of being have become so dominant that we actually consider them ‘natural’, when in fact, what is natural is that state of consciousness that is in constant, effortless, creative, harmonious, limitless flow!

So, is it possible to remain ‘in the flow’ rather than ‘out’ of it?  Certainly.  It requires practice.  It requires holding our attention in that natural, powerful, creative state.  It requires bringing our attention back to this state again and again and again i.e. every time it strays.

How do we do this?  Simple.  Pay attention to your feelings.  Every time you are feeling less than peaceful, less than joyous, less than free, less than open, you are going upstream, against the flow.  Shift your attention to the emotions associated with flowing downstream, going with the flow – peace, joy, freedom, openness.

Allow these emotions to flood your mind-body.  How?  Recall past experiences of these feelings or imagine future experiences of these feelings.  The important thing is to allow your entire being to be flooded with these emotions.  These are the natural currents of ‘flow’!  And notice how much more you will achieve and how effortless it will all feel!

Lucy Lopez

Awakening to Happiness!

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There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
Edith Wharton

You may have noticed that you are happiest when you are doing something that you truly enjoy. In such a state, you are not encumbered by fear, being, instead, so completely absorbed in whatever it is you’re doing. It is quite a different state of consciousness to the ‘ordinary’ or ‘conditioned‘ states of consciousness that we spend most of our lives in.

I remember when I was a little child, perhaps three or four, I would dance with gay abandon in front of a mirror. For a few minutes, perhaps even an hour (I did not have much sense of time then), I would lose myself completely. Looking back on it now, it seemed like I was in a different world altogether, an enchanted world.

I can see myself now, lifting into the air and landing on the wooden floor, leaping across the room, arms flaying, face as if in a trance. At times , I would move with such intensity and speed, at others, slowly. As I watch myself now in a memory replay, it looks as if I was engaged in a wordless conversation, sometimes leading, at others, responding. What impresses me most is the state of oblivion or selflessness that I seemed to have been in, at least until one day when…I heard laughter.

A couple of older children had been secretly watching me. It was a terrible shock, a very painful one, as I was an incredibly shy child. I was transfixed. I stayed rooted to the floor for what seemed like an eternity. When I finally came to, I ran as fast and as far as I could go, tears streaming down my cheeks. It was an event I was hugely embarrassed by and told no one about, at least not until today! I never danced like that again for a very long time.

So why recall and share it now? Well, the recalling was really spontaneous but the decision to share it is motivated by my desire to alert us to the nature of  fear which can so unforgivingly cripple us when we let it. Consequently, we forgo countless opportunities to be happy.  In my story, my fear was of being ridiculed, laughed at ever again!

When are we really going to allow ourselves to live fully and freely? When we know that we are about to breathe our last? When are we going to allow ourselves to dance the dance of life? There really is no better time than now. Indeed, there is no other guaranteed and real time than now!

When The Lover is asked angrily about time, he says:

Time will get rid of itself and with it all illusions, all lies, all that does not speak of love.

Now is real. Now is here. Now is free of fears. Do your dance now, whatever shape or form it takes.   And when you do, you will be both the light of the candle and the mirror that reflects it, for you will be expressing the truth of your nature!  You are a creature of joy, of happiness. Do not deny yourself any longer!

Lucy Lopez – Hire Me!
Dancing Joy!

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Image from Photobucket

Did you forget

you were once

happy?

When you smiled

easily

and your eyes

twinkled?

When you walked

lightly and long

and the atoms in the air

danced with you?

Did you forget you were once

innocent?  In-

essence?

When you hadn’t yet been

introduced to

Fear?

When your spirit

had names like

Enthusiasm

Intuition and

Freedom?

Or

has that memory

blurred

as a spot of ink

dissolving

in a large drop of

water?

Do not despair

for the molecules of ink

are still there

among

the molecules of water

as are your memories of

happy times

there among the

rolling, repeating patterns of

rehearsed life

Memories to remind you that

you were once

happy

and that

that is all you’ve ever

wanted to be

Happy.


Lucy Lopez – Hire Me

Awakening to our Greatness!

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