Jealousy is one of the most destructive mind states leading us to behave in deplorable ways – from launching verbal swipes/put downs at others to some of the most elaborate and heinous crimes of murder.

Put simply, jealousy is that mind state of thoughts and feelings that is rooted in a belief – that someone else has or is something that I want but which I believe I cannot have or be.

Because we see someone else have what we want and what we believe we cannot have, we direct our resentment towards that person.  Yet, when we examine it closely, we find that our jealousy has far more to do with our belief that we cannot have what we want than it is to do with someone else having what we want.

This is an important distinction to make because it allows us to see that the source and cause of our jealousy is not someone else and what they have but our very own mind and its beliefs about our power and freedom.

If we believed that we could have anything that we want and we felt free enough to go after what we want, we would never feel jealous about anyone.

When we believe that we cannot have or do something, we effectively put blocks in the natural flow of our free, limitless energy.

When we believe that someone else, by virtue of what they do or who and how they are, is a threat to our inner happiness, we put blocks in the natural flow of our free, limitless energy.

All this causes us to feel powerless and it is the feeling of powerlessness that causes us to take jibes at others, behave in childish and petulant ways and, in more extreme cases, take more extreme and destructive action.

In the relationship we have with our partners, jealousy, which ultimately results in the feeling of powerlessness, blocks the flow of love and gets in the way of our inner happiness.

You cannot feel happy and powerless at the same time – they are two very different vibrational states.

Are you interested in finding out how you can overcome jealousy in your relationship and have the relationship you truly desire?  Are you serious about taking charge of yourself so that you can be the kind of partner you wish to attract?

You’ll find guidance on these and other relationship issues that trouble most partners in my free ebook, Relationships – Burning Questions, Illuminating Answers – The Inspired Guide to having the relationship you truly desire.  You can download it here.

“I have read a number of lengthy books on this subject and none have inspired me to ‘change’ as much as Lucy’s book.” Alison McCartney, Social Worker, Wife, Mother

Love always

Lucy

Awakening to Happiness, Prosperity and Freedom!

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You could say that yesterday was a wreck.  At least, it felt like that for the most part!

I’d gone to the airport to meet my sister who was flying interstate from Melbourne.  I thought she was arriving at 12 noon but her flight wasn’t actually due till 1.15pm – 1^st oversight on my part.

Next, I was convinced she was flying Qantas as that was the airlines she’d flown coming in from overseas – 2^nd oversight on my part.

I got to the airport by 11.15am, much earlier than I needed to be.  I was taing a new route to the airport and had allowed myself extra time.

I hadn’t seen my sister in over 2 years and I was quietly excited about spending the next four days on our own – something we’ve rarely had a chance to do as we’ve always had the company of other family members and friends on the rare occasions our schedules allowed us to meet across continents.

I knew we’d spend a good bit of our time talking about the thing that matters most to us – our ongoing spiritual awakening – and I was so looking forward to it.

Well, 12 noon arrived and no sister.  1 pm arrived and still no sister.  2pm and I knew something was amiss.

I’d paced the domestic airport arrivals lounge and allowed my excitement to build up each time I saw a bunch of people or a single figure appear at the top of the escalator.  And each time, my spirit flagged when I didn’t see the face I was expecting!

It was a long wait, not just in hours but especially in the cycles of anticipation and disappointment!  I’d also not had a drop to drink nor a bite to eat.

By 2.15pm, I knew I had to do something.   Three flights from Melbourne had landed by this time.  There’d been no cancellations or delays.  Where could she be? Why hadn’t she called me?  Surely she would think to have the airport help desk page me?  Besides, we’d confirmed just the night before that she was arriving at the domestic airport and that I’d be there to meet her.  Out of desperation, I decided I would go and check the international terminal just in case.

Before I went to my car, I stopped at a parking ticket machine to pay for my parking but the machine swallowed my ticket, refused to accept my $20 note and wouldn’t respond to the ‘Cancel’ button.

I pressed the intercom button which, fortunately, did work and got to speak to someone and explained the situation.  I was told to pay at the exit gate.  I did.

I drove in the unrelenting heat (the air conditioning in my car had packed in) to the International terminal, about a 7 minute drive, parked my car and raced over to the arrivals lounge.  It had been almost a year since I’d been at that terminal and much had changed.

The arrivals lounge was almost deserted but for a solitary man.  It was clear she wasn’t there and I started debating with myself whether to return to the domestic terminal or head home and call the place in Melbourne where she’d been staying the last couple of weeks. (She’d gone down for a conference).

Driving out of the car park, I noticed all four lanes to the exit gates had overhead signs saying ‘Prepaid Tickets’.  I had not noticed any parking ticket machines either on my way to or from the arrivals lounge.  They certainly were not where they used to be.

I realized I would not be able to pay at the gate.  I drove back into the parking area, went looking for the machines and finally had to ask someone.  She pointed to a corridor where they were all standing like sentry.  Why wasn’t there any signage to those machines?

All this time, thoughts about my sister were running through my mind with the heat urging them on!  They vacillated between unjustifiable anger and frustration towards her for not being where she was supposed to be when she was supposed to,  to concern for her as this was her first time in this city.

I was finally on route home, some four hours since I’d set out in the morning, when my car brakes went!  How was I going to return to the airport if I needed to?  Would I get home without an accident?  When would I be able to get my brakes serviced?  How would we manage without a car?

I was beginning to feel that the day that had started so well had turned into a disaster.  I soon realized, however, that that kind of thinking wasn’t going to help.

I switched to thinking about how I would want the day to go from this point.  I also wondered why it hadn’t gone the way I’d imagined it.  What was happening here?

On some level, I sensed a greater purpose to all this although I could not yet see the ‘details’.  In the meantime, however, things were getting almost unbearable.

I did manage to get myself home safely when a friend called.  I told him about the situation and he volunteered to go to the airport himself since he lives closer to it than I do.

In the meantime, my sister had called my landline (the number of which she had) and had left a message saying that she’d been waiting over two hours!  I was both relieved and frustrated — relieved that she was safe and that both our waiting would finally be over.  Relieved also that all the anxiety and frustration that go with waiting and having your best plans thwarted were nearly gone.

But how on earth had we missed each other?  Still, my friend would be picking her up and bringing her home which he did, about an hour and a half later by which time I’d cooled off physically and emotionally.

What a day!  I don’t believe in punishment, but it certainly felt like a punishing day!  Why?  What on earth had I done to deserve this?

It is at trying times that questions about things that I no longer believe in or value seem to turn up as if to have another go and getting me to reinstate those old beliefs and values!  Questions about punishment and deserving things.  And there emerged doubts about being a conscious creator.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by them.  It’s easy to abandon your desire for freedom and joy and conscious creation when you cannot find ready answers to questions that challenge your desire, your beliefs.

I have learned to recognize some of these questions as old, unhelpful habits of a conditioned mind, a mind conditioned to be afraid to desire good things, a mind not yet prepared to take responsibility for its creations!

And it’s these moments of self-reflection, of remembering, observing and recognizing the habits of the mind that take us to the windows of inner happiness.

And it is the fresh permission we give to our desire for something better that throws wide open the windows to inner happiness!

Love always

Lucy

Awakening to Happiness, Prosperity and Freedom!

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My wife and I keep fighting about sex and money. I think she charges me too much, you know – Rodney Dangerfield

Money is an expression of abundance and abundance is a state of ease and wellbeing.  And since any good feeling state is a state of power, abundance is also a state of power

Money, therefore, is an expression of the state of power.  But there’s a lot of misunderstanding about power.

True power is not something that can be used against someone else because true power comes out of love.

When money becomes a means of control over others, which happens when we act out of fear, then money becomes an expression of fear rather than of power and love.

Many people, myself included, have grown up with unhealthy attitudes around money because we have observed and experienced the use of money as a means of control and an expression of fear (even if we may have mistaken it for power), rather than an expression of abundance, power and love.

So, what is power if it is not over someone or something else?

Power expresses itself in a variety of ways – through self-confidence, conviction, determination, perseverance, acceptance, openness, inner happiness, freedom and adventure!

When we understand that this is how true power, which comes from love, is expressed, then we’ll stop being afraid of holding and expressing power.

Neither will we be afraid of people whom we have thought to have great power over us or others.  They don’t have power.  What they have is fear, which ironically, is the ignorance or unawareness of their true power!

It is only natural that achieving inner happiness involves shifting towards greater levels of power – not ‘power over’ (which is fear) but power within!

What kind of power fear struggles does your relationship express?

You can change that right now by taking the time to tune into your inner happiness and the power that comes with it

Love always

Lucy

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In the West, we use the word ‘mantra’ both reverently and derrogatively.

For instance, in corporate culture, the word ‘mantra’ is used to refer to something that is said repetitively and often without true conviction.  People who are disenchanted with an organization may cynically refer to so-called ‘corporate motivational BS’ as a mantra!

I can tell you’re familiar with this… :)

Still, the original meaning and intent of a mantra is to serve as doorway to higher consciousness.  And it is in our state of higher consciousness that we are most in tune with our natural, inner happiness.

Neuroscience informs us that mantras repeated silently activate the limbic association area in the brain which is responsible for thought, learning, perception and emotion.

Just to give you an example of how powerful and instantly effective this can be, I’m going to share one of my dead-easy relaxation techniques using the word ‘softly’.

If you simply sit quietly, take a few gentle and deep breaths, and hold the word ‘softly’ in your mind, you’ll notice a great sense of ease and flow happening right through you.

If you’ve had aches and pains, even chronic ones, practicing this can give you instantaneous relief.  There is no need to (in fact, you mustn’t) manipulate your body in any way.

A variation of this can be used when you are doing therapeutic exercise.  In this case, as you move, you hold the sense of ‘softly’ or ‘softness’ in your mind.

You’ll find that much of the resistance to movement dissipates and movement is a lot less painful and much more fluid.

Okay, so that was just to show you how the use of a simple word can have a very powerful effect on your mind-body continuum.

Let’s get back to inner happiness and making happiness your choice.  How can we use the idea of a mantra to achieve happiness?

Let’s first ask ourselves a few questions:

• Do I actively think about happiness?
• Am I generally so busy doing what I think will help me achieve happiness that I’ve actually forgotten why I’m doing it?
• Do I believe that happiness is something that I must strive for?
• Do I believe that happiness is my natural state, that state that lies underneath my conditioning into fear, anger, distrust, guilt etc?

You see, your answers to these questions will determine how willing you are to turn this statement ‘Happiness is my choice’ into a mantra that you will feel the effects of and that will guide all your thinking, speaking, feeling and acting.

As I said in a previous post, many people will readily declare that ‘happiness is a choice’ but they say it without conviction.

Perhaps when you are ready to say ‘Happiness is my choice”, perhaps then, you can make it your ‘mantra’.

Christmas is a time when emotions run wild and stress levels can soar –   so much to do, so many people to think about, so much money and time to (have to) spend…

If you choose to make happiness your choice, how will all this be different?  Reflect on that for a while.

Now, if you choose to make ‘Happiness is my choice’ your mantra, I suggest you do so ‘softly’.  There’s no need to chant it loudly and aggressively as we tend to do when we are trying to convince ourselves and others about something!  You know that’s only more BS.

So, how about starting today, now, Dec 1?  Softly, with deep conviction…let all that limbic association light up with your ‘mantra’ –

‘Happiness in my choice’.

‘Every moment, everyday, happiness is my choice’.

Smile.  Enjoy.  Let the truth of it flow through every part of you…

Mmm…how good is that!

Love always,

Lucy

Awakening to Happiness, Prosperity and Freedom!

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Coexistence… what the farmer does with the turkey – until Thanksgiving.

Mike Connolly

On this side of the Atlantic, where I happen to be (specifically, Australia), this Thursday and Friday are like most other Thursdays and Fridays – working days.

But over in America and Canada, these two days are holidays, with Thursday being Thanksgiving and Friday being the day after Thanksgiving, a day which is known in the retail industry as ‘Black Friday’.

And, no, it’s a very good kind of black because store accounts will hopefully go from ‘red’ to ‘black’ with all the shopping that people are expected to do on and after the Friday following Thanksgiving!  Or so the urban myths say.  It’s officially the start of Christmas shopping.

Clearly, there’s a lot happening during these days and during the lead up to them and following them as Americans and Canadians slide (or struggle uphill) from Thanksgiving to Christmas and the rest of us wind up (or down) for Christmas.

I love the idea of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, on the other hand, can be marred for some at least, by national history, when battles between the early settlers and the indigenous people were waged, or personal history, where conflicts persist in the hearts of everyday folk with unhappy childhoods, estranged families or financial struggles.  For these people, Thanksgiving can be an occasion when their inner happiness feels most threatened.

Yet, for all of us, regardless of our current situation or history, thanksgiving -giving thanks and feeling gratitude – is exactly what can help restore our inner happiness.

Now, for me personally, gratitude is quite simply the recognition of goodness.  Gratitude, for me, does not even remotely hint of indebtedness or humility or feeling small in the presence of greatness.

For me, gratitude is recognizing the greatness and goodness in everything, including myself.  And that is not only a marvelous, enriching feeling, it’s a powerful one.  You see, you cannot be grateful without recognizing goodness and greatness.

If, on the other hand, gratitude simply means feeling good because of what someone or something has done for us, then I think we remain trapped in the craving and attaching habits of the ego-mind, a mind preoccupied with its unnatural and untenable survival.  Such a mind demands that other people and other things behave in certain ways in order for us to be happy.

On the other hand, recognizing the greatness and goodness in all things and enjoying freely and fully this recognition of greatness and goodness – that’s when I feel most grateful.  That’s when my sense of gratitude is not limited to what has been done for or to me, personally, but simply and inclusively, for what is.

To all my American and Canadian readers, may Thanksgiving be truly a day of gratitude for you.  And to all of us everywhere, may we enjoy the inner happiness of recognizing the greatness and goodness of all of life!

Love always

Lucy

Awakening to Happiness, Prosperity and Freedom!

‘INSPIRED PARENTING’

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