Excerpts from interview with Julia Cameron:

Well I think that people are often ungrounded and at a loss as to exactly what their position is in life.  I find that if people work with morning pages, where they get up every morning and write 3 pages of long hand writing, telling the universe or, whatever you care to call it, exactly where they are and how they feel, they begin to become more centered.

I think it’s an interesting thing, morning pages work for lawyers and judges and housewives and people who have not previously declared themselves to be artists, and they also work for artists.   They are very powerful centering technique.

I just had someone say to me, “Julia I’m blocked on writing a new book”, and I said to her, start morning pages, those are the grease slide to creativity and I believe that’s true.

What happens is that as we become more in touch with ourselves, we become more deeply in touch with our intuitive guidance, and we find that there is a pathway, and that as we proceed a step at a time, we are led.  So I think that what I’m teaching people is essentially a spiritual radio kit.  With the morning pages they are sending.  They are saying, this is what I like, this is what I don’t like, this is what I wish I had more of.  And something, whatever you care to call that something, is definitely listening.

I probably should explain to you a little bit about what morning pages are and what they aren’t.  They are not high art.  You do not need to be a writer to do morning pages, and in fact sometimes it’s a little bit harder for writers because they feel morning pages should be quite real writing.  But what they are, are 3 pages of long hand early morning, stream of consciousness about absolutely anything.  So it might be I forgot to buy kitty litter yesterday, I didn’t call my sister back, I didn’t like the way Jeff spoke to me at the staff meeting,  I wonder if I should paint my kitchen yellow.  So they jump around.  I often tell people when you do morning pages its as if you have ADD because you go from topic to topic to topic to topic.

Another way to think of these, it’s a meditation technique for westerners.   We sometimes have a hard time sitting and doing nothing for 20 min, so I say why don’t you sit there and do something.  What happens is, in meditation we have what we all cloud thoughts which are thoughts that sort of just drift across your consciousness.  In morning pages, you write your cloud thoughts down.

So often morning pages  may feel petty.  You feel like you are being bugged by little teeny things.  They may feel like you’re griping.  I have an ex-husband who says that I always make them sound so negative, and that actually sometimes they are sometimes delightful.  So I should say, and yes, sometimes they are delightful.  You don’t necessarily very often get a direct line between morning pages and creativity.  It’s a little bit more zen.  You do morning pages and behind your back you start to be more creative.

One of the things that happens when you do morning pages is you identify who your naysayers are and you begin to say that’s not the truth, that’s just their belief system.  I have a tool called crazy makers where you look at your circle of acquaintances and you say which people get in the way of my creativity.  Often a crazymaker is very dramatic, and the creative person in his midst finds himself rescuing and being overly concerned about the crazy makers crazy agendas.

As we start to unplug from our crazy makers,  we learn to be much more self loving and self forgiving.  We learn to be more tenacious and we learn to say who does make me feel more good about myself.   I think I’ll spend a little more time there.

by Joe Vitale

I love magic. I know many magicians and often attend magic conventions and shows. I haunt the dealer room, where magic tricks are sold. I’m looking for the tricks that make people gasp in surprise and delight.

Unfortunately, most magic is on the level of a prank or kid’s joke. That’s not for me, so most magic that I see disappoints me.

But one day I met a magic dealer at a convention who was very friendly. He took his time with me, listened to my needs, and then responded with some truly hypnotic stories. For example:

“I went into one of those big discount stores,” Mr. Williams, the dealer, began. “The woman behind the counter seemed bored so I decided to do a little magic to liven up her day.

“I asked her to pretend I had a deck of cards in my hand. I then let her shuffle the make believe cards, cut them, deal them out, and pick any card she wanted.

“Remember, all of this was done in her head,” William explained.

“After I let her choose her card, I asked if she wanted to change her selection. She said no. I then announced that her card was the seven of spades.”

Mr. Williams paused before telling me this next statement:

“Well, you could hear this woman’s scream all throughout the store.

“But the story doesn’t end there,” he continued.

“There was a man and his son who heard the scream and went over to see what happened. The woman who saw the trick pointed at me and said, ‘He just fried me by reading my mind!’ They were all as white as ghosts after that.”

As this magic dealer told the story, I could see it all happening in my mind. The details were rich enough to help me picture it in my head. And when he said the woman screamed, I felt that rush of excitement that said, “Get that trick, Joe.”

And yes, I bought that trick.

This same dealer told me two more stories, about magic tricks he did for people and their reactions to them. In every case I was there, mentally, and I ended up buying the tricks.

If you haven’t caught on yet, this is Hypnotic Selling at work.

I’m sure the magic dealer has no idea what Hypnotic Selling is. He does it naturally. So let’s review some key points:

1. He listened to me.

He couldn’t offer any suggestions or stories to me until he first knew what I wanted. So he probed to discover I wanted magic that made people gasp. That clued him to what he should offer me. Had I said I wanted magic for kids, I’m sure he would have told me a story about performing magic for kids. He tailored his story to me. Be doing so, he met me in my existing trance.

2. He told true stories.

He didn’t make up his stories. He told me exactly what happened when he used these tricks in the real world. That subliminally communicated to me that he was honest, and that these tricks would work for me, too. People are always making conclusions based on the little information you tell them. Always be honest, so trust is there when it’s time for the order.

3. He used lots of details.

He told me what store he went to, the name of the woman he performed the trick for (I left them out here, though), and all the details of her reaction. This brought the story to life in my mind and made it easy for me to see myself performing and receiving the applause. People will generally “live out” the story you tell them in their head. The more specifics you can offer, the easier it will be for them to relate to your story.

You get the idea. Hypnotic Selling is all about delivering a message to people that fits what they are looking for, and is delivered in a vivid way.

Do this and you’ll see real magic. People will marvel at your storytelling skills — and they’ll pay you real money, too.

And that’s the best trick of all.

Dr. Joe Vitale is the author of way too many books to list here.  Find him at:  http://www.mrfire.com

Joe Vitale is one of the experts featured in the documentary Beyond Belief. Get the DVD: www.beyondbeliefthemovie.com

Excerpt from Beyond Belief interview with Timothy Freke:

What I hear at the heart of every single spiritual tradition which I’ve had the privilege of studying is essentially the same message, and it’s this, and that is things are not what they seem to be, and that we’re not who we think we are.  Because this moment, this strange experience we’re having, this flow of colors and sounds, its like a collective dream, and we can wake up.

And what I’ve seen in my own experience is that waking up is comparable to the experience of lucid dreaming.  So, when I dream normally I’m completely engrossed in my dream.  I think I really am the particular character I happen to be dreaming myself to be.  But when you dream consciously you recognize that you’re dreaming, so you are still dreaming, but you are conscious that you’re dreaming.  So when I dream lucidly I recognize that, ah ha, things aren’t what they seem, and I’m not really this person in this dream world.  There’s a deeper level to my identity, actually I’m Tim, who’s dreaming, and in that sense the whole of the dream is in me, and I’m one with the dream, the whole thing.

This waking up which the mystics from every time and place have talked about is the same only it’s right now while we’re awake, and that’s why I call it lucid living, because it’s just like lucid dreaming.  You start to become more conscious.  You start to recognize that things aren’t what they seem to be.

And that there is a deeper level to our identity, and that deeper level to our identity is much more than just Tim.  And that, the life dreamer, the dreamer of this dream of life if you like, there’s one of us, there’s one of us dreaming itself to be everyone and everything and then meeting itself in all these different forms.

So the waking up happens when we become conscious of this deeper self, which Hindus call it the Atman, the Buddists call it the Buddha Lecha, the Christians, the Gnostic Christians they called it the Christ, and each one of us calls it I.  We each give it the same name, and we write it like a one (1) which is kind of cute because there is 1 of it.

So here we’re separate in this dream of life and then if we become more conscious we realize there’s another element to our identity, where there’s one of us.  And that I think is what spirituality at its deepest heart has always been about: waking up to that.

When we’re lost in the dream of separateness, its terrifying.  It becomes a nightmare.  It doesn’t look good for this.  I mean look around you, it doesn’t look good.  There’s illness, there’s old age, there’s death, and if we are really identified with the separate self, and we’re not terrified, we’re in denial.

And there’s a loss of, to cope with that there’s a numbness.  We become more unconscious.  If we don’t lighten up we tighten up.  We become stuck in our story about who we are, and we start to even forget we’re really alive.  Once we begin to pay attention to the moment, then you can reverse that process.  You start to wake up, and you come to life.  For me its very much like I remember, I’m alive.  Oh, I forgot that I’m here at all.

And when you do that suddenly the colors are richer, the body is pleasurable, just to breath can be such a fantastic experience.  And you are aware of the miracle of your own existence, which you don’t even notice when you are asleep in the dream, you don’t even notice the most obvious thing about our predicament which, that a life is this awesome, breathtaking mystery.  But pay it attention, and all that comes into focus.

Timothy Freke is one of the experts featured in the documentary Beyond Belief. Get the DVD at:  www.beyondbeliefthemovie.com

by Drs. Tad and Adriana James

As mentioned in the movie Beyond Belief – by Dr Tad and Adriana James, Time Line Therapy® is one of the fastest ways to get results. There are only four steps to make your life change and be better than you could imagine. Using these four steps you can make a change beyond belief!

Step One: getting in contact with your time line

Many people are not aware that they have their very own internal time machine. This can affect the very basis of your personality. Are you always concerned with time? How do you use time? Would you like to be on time more often, or would you like to know how to switch off on the weekends and relax? Inside your mind you have an understanding of time. You can tell the difference between yesterday, 3 weeks ago or five years ago. Time Line Therapy® uses your concept of time to remove negative emotions like Anger, Sadness and Limiting Decisions that lead to Limiting Beliefs (statements such as “I am not good enough” or “I will never find love”.

Step Two: let go of the past

The first thing Time Line Therapy® will do is to allow you to let go of negative emotions from the past. Starting with anger, then sadness and leading all the way to fear and guilt. Once the negative emotions have been removed from past memories, you will truly move forward and will not carry with you all that emotional baggage.

Step Three: Limiting Decisions

Limiting beliefs are always preceded by limiting decisions (consciously or unconsciously); and limiting decisions are the very reason why you have not had the success you would like in life. Be it in career, relationships or health. Limiting decisions are the decisions that you made before you had a belief about yourself. An example would be “I will never be wealthy because I did not go to university”. Or “Everyone in my family has heart disease or heart problems – therefore I will, too”. As a belief it is hard to change – be it unconscious or conscious. However, when you work using Time Line Therapy® with the decision that led to that belief you are working with something that can be changed and the effects are remarkable. And on the spot.

Step Four: Creating your Future®

The most exciting part of any Time Line Therapy® session is the seeing how Time Line Therapy® can help with the future. As mentioned by Dr. Tad James in Beyond Belief DVD, “the future is what you make it and you start now”. Once the past is cleaned up, the future is ready for you to make it exactly what you want. Using Time Line Therapy® and the Creating Your Future® process to create the ideal future is just a matter of taking the last step of your success and dropping into your time line. Let’s say you want to go on a holiday.  When do you know you are on holiday? Is it the planning of the trip, or arriving at your destination? What’s the last step so you know you’re going? Whatever it is, if you put that in the future – it will happen!

So, with Time Line Therapy® you can change how you feel about your past, improve your time in your daily life, let go of what’s holding you back and create the future you have always dreamed of!

Time Line Therapy® and Creating Your Future® are worldwide Registered Trademarks to Dr. Tad James.
Tad and Adriana James are two of the experts featured in the documentary Beyond Belief: Get the DVD at www.beyondbeliefthemovie.com

by Sandra Anne Taylor

Balancing the activity of the heart and mind is a very important factor in your energy projection and an important step in changing what you attract to your life.  So many people live their whole life in their mind, always analyzing, thinking about their problems, and worrying too much.  If this is the type of energy your mind engages in most, it’s time to make a shift to a heart-centered consciousness.

The function of the mind is to contemplate and analyze what is or could be valuable in one’s life, yet the function of the heart is to experience value and appreciate all the value that’s already present.  The heart feels joy while the mind spends much of its time searching for it, and wondering why it always seems so elusive.  This is the constant schism in which we find ourselves.  We’re always so busy worrying about how to be happy that we’re dismissing our power to find happiness in our heart right now.

But you can break this pattern and start to develop a joyous, heart-centered consciousness, one that will create a much more positive and magnetic vibration in your life.  An easy technique can shift your negative mental focus almost immediately.  Try this process and you’ll see a real difference in how you feel – and soon you’ll find a real difference in the results you’re attracting, too.

When you catch yourself worrying about something or when you’re annoyed or dissatisfied, use your power of choice to shift your consciousness from the anxiety of your head to the peace of your heart.  Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and relax your muscles.  Visualize your problem lifting up and floating away like a cloud on the horizon.

Take another deep breath, and as you inhale, sense the energy of your mind quieting down; feel your awareness slowly dropping down into your heart center. Just relax, keep letting go of all concerns, and focus your consciousness on your heart.

Then, as you continue to loosen up, let yourself think about something that makes you happy, that you appreciate.  Whether it’s a bright memory, a person you love, or a beautiful place that you’ve visited, let yourself picture that now.  Visualize all the details, and put yourself right in the center of the picture.  Bring it up close, and make it vivid and colorful, immersing yourself in that happy situation.

Feel the joy and let yourself smile.  You’re so relaxed, happy and peaceful.  This is the state of heartfelt appreciation, the warm feeling of grateful acceptance.  Hold on to it.  Know that its ultimate form is loving your life, and when you go back to your daily activities, choose to find gladness and peace in all that you do.

Joyous appreciation is the heart’s most magnetic vibration.  It is such an important energy that it can’t be overemphasized.  It brings serenity in the release of striving and allows you to rejoice in what you already have – opening your heart to receiving even more.  Every moment spent in this resonance creates a highly attractive vibration and a powerfully creative consciousness.  Along with self-honoring, it’s one of the most life-changing things that you can do!

I often tell my clients that there’s more than one meaning to the word appreciate.  The one we’re talking about here is in the present moment – in your heart right now.  But when referring to commodities such as real estate, the term means “to increase in value” – which is an absolute energetic truth.  Your life will have greater worth when you choose to appreciate it.  When you create a real consciousness of the quality of your days, you bring more value there.  And choosing to experience joy in the present moment means that your jubilant energy will magnetize much more to enjoy in the future.

Affirmations for Heartfelt Appreciation:

• I have so much to be grateful for!  I look around myself and am satisfied.
• I live with joyous and heartfelt gratitude.  As I appreciate my life, I attract more and more to appreciate.
• I value my life and myself more and more each day. I deserve my own self-appreciation.
• I always take responsibility for my own happiness.  I find many wonderful things to be happy about each day.
• I am choosing to increase my focus on appreciation and self-acknowledgment.  I become more and more conscious of all that I have to be thankful for, and I take time to acknowledge it each day.

Sandra Anne Taylor is one of the experts featured in the documentary Beyond Belief.  Get the DVD at:www.beyondbeliefthemovie.com

by Brad Morris

“You must assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled until your assumption has all the sensory vividness of reality. You must imagine that you are already experiencing what you desire. That is, you must assume the feeling of the fulfillment of your desire until you are possessed by it and this feeling crowds all other ideas out of your consciousness.

Decide what you want and ask yourself what it would be like and how you would feel if it were true. Then dare to assume you have it. Let the people who know you now see you after your assumption. Don’t make them see you; let them see the change! Then you will know who the cause of the phenomena of life really is.  When I say you are all imagination, I mean it.” -Neville Goddard

I was out walking by the Ocean and I had a REALLY powerful thought – or realization if you will.  I have known this to be True for quite some time, however in this particular moment with the simplicity of the thought it hit me on a cellular level. . . Do you know the feeling?? I have met many nay-sayers who do not believe that we have the power to create our reality.  I am going to argue that statement with this article and I invite people to agree or disagree…

EVERYTHING that has and will be created has all started from the same place.  The IMAGINATION.  If we look around at our world, the entire thing has started from that Cosmic space of ether, energy, and imagination – and from that imaginative space, came the physical creation of the desire.  Look at the house you live in, the car you drive, the garden you walk past, the stores you shop in.  Each of those things that we often walk past or overlook began as an image in somebody’s MindsEye.  From that moment of conception within the eye of the beholder came a ripple of events that aligned the desired creation with all the steps necessary to create it.

When we set out to create; whether it be a house, a social business, or our Dream-Life, we never have to know HOW it is going to unfold.  But when we’ve committed WHOLE-HEARTEDLY to that vision- the magic of the Universe takes over, and the seemingly serendipitus events begin to unfold to manifest that vision.  The vision is always created in divine timing, never human timing (as nice as that’d be).

As human beings I don’t think we give ourselves enough credit.  Or we are always looking outside of ourselves giving credit to those who have created a vision for their lives.  TODAY, I am asking you; What does YOUR IMAGINATION wish to express out into the world.  What are the details of the reality you wish to construct from the Internal Consciousness of your Being? I am not asking what society is telling you to create – WHAT does your heart strongly desire to turn into a reality in THIS lifetime!??

Meditate on this vision. Write EVERY detail on paper.  Meditate some more.  Write more.   Feel the feelings of having already created that which you want; or as Neville says “Live in the wish fulfilled!“  You have the power to create such Awesomeness in the world.  You have the ability and power to recreate a world that feels more beautiful to you.  Let nobody stop you from dreaming the big dream.  Let nobody tell you you can’t do it.  I am affirming from the power within me that is creating my DreamLife and helping others to build theirs’ that YES YOU CAN & YES YOU ARE!  As I mentioned in my previous article…BE PERSISTENT!

If you desire to align your Consciousness with a more beautiful reality because the one you’re living in right now just isn’t doing it.  Start by practicing meditation regularly.  Through your practice of meditation, you will become an observer of your limited thoughts and beliefs.  When you observe those patterns that hold you back, you have the ability & power to choose new belief systems that better serve the reality you wish to create.  A daily practice of sitting, Being, Breathing and Chanting will align you to those higher states of Consciousness and eventually with practice, patience & persistence….voila, YOUR DREAMS WILL UNFOLD – YOUR LIFE WILL CHANGE!

Brad Morris is one of the experts featured in the documentary Beyond Belief:  www.beyondbeliefthemovie.com

by Dr. David Hamilton

I love to meditate and have made it a daily practice. Being quite scientifically minded I love to monitor how it benefits me. Among other methods I often use the Heartmath FreezeFramer (see http://www.heartmath.com ) so that I can see how my meditations affect the rhythms of my heart.

Doing this helps me to stay in a meditative state for the duration of my meditations (usually 30 – 45 minutes). Any loss of concentration usually shows up quickly on the screen of my laptop as my rhythms lose their coherence. By periodically glancing at the screen, I am reminded to keep my focus.

Meditation has been shown to have many positive effects on the body. It is believed that around 80% of all health problems are either negatively affected by stress, or that stress had a hand in their creation. Meditation is a well-known antidote to stress and so has a positive effect on many health complaints.

Since the widespread use of MRI scanners, scientists have been able to explore the effects of meditation on the growth of the brain. In one recent study (published in the journal, ‘Neurobiology of Ageing’), scientists Giuseppe Pagoni and Milos Cekic, from the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences at Emory University in Atlanta, looked at the grey matter volume of the brain to measure the effects of Zen meditation.

Cerebral grey matter volume usually decreases with age, so the study compared the grey matter volume of 13 people performing Zen meditations against that of 13 control people who weren’t meditators.

What they found was that grey matter volume decreased as expected in the control group but not so with the meditators. In other words, meditation had a ‘neuroprotective’ effect: It slowed down the rate of ageing.

Many studies have shown similar anti ageing effects. It has been found also, for instance, that meditation can slow down the decline in levels of the hormone DHEA, which also usually declines with age.

David Hamilton is one of the experts in the documentary Beyond Belief: www.beyondbeliefthemovie.com

by Jonathan Ellerby Ph.D. (part two)

Of all the things that people have in common around the world, stress and suffering rank at the top of the list. Regardless of how much you make, your age, looks, culture, or job, you likely do not escape frustration and aggravation with ease – it’s a part of being on planet earth. Fortunately, we also share the ability to rise above these things, and in many cases we can even learn to heal the stress and suffering in our lives. Spiritual traditions have long been the refuge from stress with simple techniques and philosophies that can transform daily life.

It is easy to feel that stress and suffering are unavoidable or that somehow you are doomed to face them again and again. This helpless feeling stems from the mistaken assumption that our emotions need to drive our decisions and our lives. The strong emotions that create suffering are rooted in either hurts of the past or unfulfilled expectations of the present.

A spouse, friend, or boss that talks to you the way a parent did while in a cruel or impatient mood will trigger the same old feelings, as if you were a child encountering the hurt again. If you have an expectation that people should always be polite or that airplanes should always be on time or that traffic should not be heavy when you are late, then you will consistently encounter the stress of that disappointment.

A spiritual perspective says that emotions like anger, anxiety, and sadness are normal and need to be felt, but when it comes to making decisions and taking action, we need to look deeper. It is possible to be less driven by old hurts and release the tight grip on unrealistic expectations. Learning about the power of perception and the mind-body connection can turn everything around. Here are six timeless techniques for managing or ending stress and suffering.

(continued from part one..)

FOUR:  Learn from Everything

Another common spiritual perspective that transforms hard times is to look for the lesson in each situation life presents. Even the most unpleasant and unexpected situations can offer you a great chance to learn what to do better next time or what to avoid or heal in your life. This is about the power of optimism and the ability to take a disappointment and turn it into something that makes you a better person.

Failed relationships can teach you things like the importance of having clear boundaries, the importance of good communication, the importance of trust, or how to let go of self-doubt. A loss of work can open a door to find new opportunities, refine your focus on what gives you joy, or show you where you have things to improve.

People who learn from each situation are always bettering themselves and bettering their chances at not running into a wall again. They understand that you will always be happier and less stressed if you learn to define your situations, instead of letting your situations define you.

FIVE: Set Inner Intentions

One of the biggest hooks that catches most people in life is attachment to outer goals and desires. Spiritual  traditions have long been warning people about how dangerous it is to place all your hopes and intentions on wealth, sex, beauty, a dream house, and clothing. These things come and go and are based on things we cannot always control. Even the most wealthy find that possessions can be taken away at a moment’s notice, and the desires of life often go unfulfilled.

An inner intention is a goal that is based on the type of person you want to be. It is about growing your character. It is about being more balanced and mature. The desires to be peaceful, loving, kind, or patient are all examples of inner intentions. If my goal is to love myself or be kind, then, no matter what happens, I can practice working toward that goal. In contrast, if my goal is never to be alone, I might fall apart every time a relationship ends. Inner intentions are goals we can take responsibility for and influence through choice. Outer intentions are like traps waiting to go off in our lives. Learn to let go of expectations about things that are beyond your control! Commit to one inner intention for the week. Try being grateful, non-judgmental, or kind.

SIX: Commit to a Spiritual Practice

A spiritual practice is a regular time out from life to do something that helps you to feel at peace, learn about yourself, and connect to a sense of what is important. It is a time apart from stress and helps put pain and loss in perspective. It could be taking a daily walk in nature (without cell phone), meditation before work, prayer before bed, yoga, Tai Chi, bible study, volunteering at the hospital, or working in a garden. The key is to make it regular, intentional, and a non-competitive, non-work related activity. It should last long enough that you get a real break from the rush and demands of life.

=====================================

About the Author: Jonathan Ellerby, Ph.D., Spiritual Program Director for the highly acclaimed Canyon Ranch Health Resorts, has a doctoral degree in Comparative Religions and has traveled throughout the world, studying with spiritual teachers from more than 40 cultural traditions. He is the author of a new book published by Hay House, Return to the Sacred: Ancient Pathways to Spiritual Awakening. Jonathan Ellerby is also an interfaith minister and leads workshops, retreats, guided travel journeys, and trainings.

Jonathan Ellerby is one of the experts featured in the documentary Beyond Belief: www.beyondbeliefthemovie.com

by Jonathan Ellerby, Ph.D.

Of all the things that people have in common around the world, stress and suffering rank at the top of the list. Regardless of how much you make, your age, looks, culture, or job, you likely do not escape frustration and aggravation with ease – it’s a part of being on planet earth. Fortunately, we also share the ability to rise above these things, and in many cases we can even learn to heal the stress and suffering in our lives. Spiritual traditions have long been the refuge from stress with simple techniques and philosophies that can transform daily life.

It is easy to feel that stress and suffering are unavoidable or that somehow you are doomed to face them again and again. This helpless feeling stems from the mistaken assumption that our emotions need to drive our decisions and our lives. The strong emotions that create suffering are rooted in either hurts of the past or unfulfilled expectations of the present.

A spouse, friend, or boss that talks to you the way a parent did while in a cruel or impatient mood will trigger the same old feelings, as if you were a child encountering the hurt again. If you have an expectation that people should always be polite or that airplanes should always be on time or that traffic should not be heavy when you are late, then you will consistently encounter the stress of that disappointment.

A spiritual perspective says that emotions like anger, anxiety, and sadness are normal and need to be felt, but when it comes to making decisions and taking action, we need to look deeper. It is possible to be less driven by old hurts and release the tight grip on unrealistic expectations. Learning about the power of perception and the mind-body connection can turn everything around. Here are six timeless techniques for managing or ending stress and suffering.

ONE: Breathe

When stress rises, the body moves in to a reaction mode: the body tightens, the mind races, and it is hard to gain a better perspective. Try taking some deep breaths. Breathe in through the nose, and instead of puffing your chest out, try imagining that you are sending the breath into your belly – push your stomach muscles out.  Then, notice where you are tense or tight, and imagine you are breathing it all out your mouth, slowly and easily. When you are in a difficult moment, take at least 2 full minutes to be with your breath.

TWO: Stick to the Facts

One way we create our experience of stress and suffering is through emotional ideas like worry and regret. Instead of keeping our attention in the present moment and focusing on the limited truth we know for certain, too often we spend our energy on worrying about things that haven’t happened, or we dwell on the past we regret. Remember, “sticking to the facts” doesn’t include judgments like “she’s wrong” or “he’s a fool” or “what if I lose my job?” Those are emotional ideas, not facts.

A fact sounds like this “all I know is that he is late, but I don’t know why.” An emotional idea sounds like “he is late because he is selfish and doesn’t care. I must be a pushover.” A fact sounds like this “lots of people are losing their jobs these days, and some fall on hard times, and some find new work.” An emotional idea sounds like this “I am so worried every day I go into work. What if I lose my job and then cannot pay my bills and car payment – I cannot concentrate.” Learn to limit those thoughts, and stick to the facts.

THREE: Forgive

The cornerstone of most spiritual philosophies lies in learning to forgive. Forgiveness does not mean that you pretend you are not hurt by someone or something, nor does it mean you condone a cruel or harmful act. Forgiveness does mean that you are committed to letting go of the energy, stories, and actions you have become caught up in.  Forgiveness means that you are committed to letting go and moving on. It doesn’t start with a feeling; it starts with a decision. Start by changing the way you act and think, and then, eventually, the feelings will follow.

For example, if you have been hurt by a coworker or a romantic partner, you can invest a lot of time in complaining to friends, gossiping, and reviewing the offense in your head. Or you can say that being hurt once is enough, see that each time you replay it you are only hurting yourself again, and learn to change the topic.

Each time we encounter stress or hurt there is a small chance to practice forgiveness. The quicker we forgive a situation and accept it for what it is, the quicker we end our suffering and move on to better things.

TO BE CONTINUED in Part Two…

Jonathan Ellerby is one of the experts featured in the documentary Beyond Belief: www.beyondbeliefthemovie.com

Following is an excerpt from interview with Maisha Hazzard for the documentary Beyond Belief

Well if I give you a little background about my life, I began life in the home of a United Methodist Minister, who was actually a scientist turned minister.  So from the very beginning of my life I lived with parents who consistently talked about science.  My father talked about microbiology all of the time.  He talked all the time about us being light.  That you don’t really see me, that I am light, that everything is energy, and what you see are really light rays coming from my physical body.  He talked about how mass is really light compressed to the point of visibility, or the point of materiality.

So my life began with an awareness that there is something magnificent taking place in each and every one of us, and each one of us is a unique and glorious emanation of the divine.  He also told us that within each and every one of us was an intelligence.  That there was nothing that we could not do.  That it was possible to do everything because at the very center of our being, there is this intelligence that is aware of everything in the universe.  Every idea that has ever come into humanity, come to this planet earth through humanity, has come from this intelligence.

As I went through school I became aware that I could tap into this infinite intelligence and I could consciously actually ask for information and get it.  My education wasn’t really from books, it wasn’t about what teachers were giving to me or imparting to me, but it was what was being drawn forth from within me.

As a teenager when I moved to California I ran into Dr Joseph Murphy, author of Power of Your Subconscious Mind and that meeting with Dr Murphy coupled with what I learned from my parents brought me to a new understanding about what is possible for human beings.

So as I went thru school, I would have a meditation everyday.  Matter of fact, for every hour of studying I did, I had at least 20 minutes that was meditation, and 40 minutes of reading.

And if it was a really tough subject, something that I wasn’t  grasping very quickly then I would reverse it and it would be 40 minutes of meditation and 20 minutes of actually reading the subject matter.

And my meditation focused on the fact that there is an infinite intelligence that knows everything there is to know about everything in the universe, and is available to me.  My mind is the mind of god, that every mind is the mind of god, every individualized aspect of mind is really part of the one mind.   So in my meditation I would say infinite intelligence knows everything there is to know about this subject, and reveals to me everything I need to know, as I need to know it.  And I would add that infinite intelligence even knows what it is the professor is going to ask and the answers they are looking for.

Because anyone who’s gone to school knows, you can study for many hours, you can read everything that you were told to read, and on an exam you may not come up with the exact answer that the professor was looking for because you didn’t quite know what their area of greatest interest was within any particular subject.

So I ask, as I sit, infinite intelligence reveal to me everything I need to know about this subject, everything this professor is going to ask and everything this professor really wants to know about so I can get my A.

And I began to discover that it worked.  That just before I would go to class to take the exam or just before I sat down to write paper, that an idea would kind of drop down into my conscious reasoning mind and I would follow through with it.  Sometimes I would get the message to go back and read certain passages and I would go back and invariably when I would show up in class that’s what the test would be!

Maisha Hazzard is one of the experts featured in the transformational documentary Beyond Belief: www.beyondbeliefthemovie.com