Apr
Rage is running ramped. People are angry about everything; not having enough money, time, sex, intimacy, energy, support systems, friends, pleasing environments, circumstances, rest and relaxation. The rage is about not having enough, doing enough, being enough. It’s feeling powerless, not being in control, not having what we desire. It’s an incredible frustration that we let out sometimes on ourselves as anger turned inwards which often leads to depression, or else we let it out on others, which leads to blaming, shaming and raging.
For years psychotherapists and communication experts have been telling us to express our anger. However, about a year ago there was an article in the New York Times Magazine Section saying researchers have found that expressing anger only makes us angrier. What a dilemma. How do we get rid of our anger now? We process it before opening our mouths.
Much of the advice for dealing with anger while having an argument with someone is to count to 10 – or even 50 – if need be before opening your mouth. Others say just take a deep breath, contain the anger and then speak rationally. Then we’re to process the anger later by exercising, meditating, walking in nature, listening to music, or whatever other method that lets the energy divest itself. These are excellent ways of diffusing anger temporarily, however, not necessarily the best in changing future karma of situations creating anger, or restraining it, and better yet, not having it at all.
Many gurus, sages and spiritual coaches today teach that we create our lives. If you believe like I do that this is so, then we also create how people treat us and react to us. If they react in ways that anger us, then it must be something in us that is triggering them and us. If we learn what that is, and change it, then we’d have less situations that anger us.
For instance if we are angry at others or even ourselves it’s usually because we’re judging. Whatever we judge either within ourselves or towards others is a reflection of something we haven’t resolved within ourselves or are not dealing with. It might be that we were like that person at one time and still are embarrassed by it. Or else we may want to be like that person and are jealous. Or, that person is just the opposite and we go overboard to compensate. It could also be that we don’t like what we’re hearing or, perhaps, there is a misunderstanding and we don’t speak up or speak up too blatantly. In all these scenarios we get down on ourselves – and therefore often unconsciously or even consciously we get angry at ourselves for not communicating our needs or desires appropriately or assertively, and therefore, don’t get our needs met.
All anger comes from ourselves and is at ourselves. If we can identify what that is, then we won’t create negative reactions in people that anger them or us to begin with, or even if others do get angry, we’ll respond more appropriately.
Although it does help in the moment to restrain the emotion, in the processing later, rather than just diffuse the anger it’s more beneficial to understand the root of the anger. To process effectively it helps to feel the energy or vibration of the anger. Recognize it only as a vibration, just a vibratory sensation in your body. When we emote in anger it is usually an acting out of a deeper CORE feeling we’re not allowing ourselves to experience. As you continue to focus in on the vibration of anger see what deeper feeling is going on underneath it. Anger is often experienced physically in the jaw, neck, and/or shoulders. If there is constriction in those areas it’s usually an indication of some deeper feelings of shame, guilt, deep grief or powerlessness. If any of these feelings resonate, then just sit with the identified feeling, experiencing it in your body as a vibration. While identifying the core feeling and sitting with this vibration ask what it reminds you of from the past – perhaps in childhood or early adult. Or else ask yourself, “When was the first time I experienced this sensation and emotional feeling?”
A memory will often crop up from your body, not your mind. One woman complained that her significant other never helped. She said she was angry because she always had to do things on her own. In processing through internal inquiry she remembered sitting on a stone bench waiting for her mother to pick her up. Mom was late and everyone else left and she was alone and scared. I did some internal inquiry with her.
I asked her, “What did you think of your caretaker?”
She answered, “She isn’t here to take care of me.”
“What belief did you formulate about yourself?” I asked.
“I’m not important.” She said.
“What decision did you make about how you would live your life?” I asked.
She said, “I have to be strong and do things on my own.”
“How have you lived your life as a result of this fear and decision?” I asked.
“I always have to do it all. I get it done but resent when people don’t help me,” she said.
I then asked her to sit with the feelings, thoughts and behaviors. After a minute tears started rolling down, “I’m the one who never asks for help and even when people offer I don’t let them. I actually push people away and then resent having to do things all by myself and get angry at them. Oh my, I’ve done it to myself.”
In general whenever there is a problem, the real anger is at your own behavior based on feelings, thoughts and beliefs experienced and formulated as a child. Although they helped you survive as a child, and even may have made you stronger for it, you want to ask yourself how these feelings and beliefs are serving you now. If they are not serving you well and you wish to transform them, you can thank them for being there to help you all these years. Send love to them and send them out with love. There is a good chance you will feel a release of the anger. Then ask internally, how in a similar situation in the future might you do it differently. Often images and/or words will pop into mind. These are now intuitive affirmations that come from your own truth; the sage in you. Now affirm that new intuition in a form of a declaration. Imagine it in detail as if it’s already accomplished. Put a ball of light around it and bring it all into your heart. Give thanks for the ability to set the seed into potential.
Notice how you feel.
Invitation:
The more you practice feeling and freeing the old feelings, thoughts, beliefs and behaviors, the easier it will be to free it spontaneously even during an argument. Keep practicing this so when new situations crop up that are similar, you will respond from the intuitive sage in you, and just by changing the beliefs you will actually change your karma to a life free of anger altogether.
Good luck with your new anger free life.
Staying In Touch & In Love
Penny
How do you know when you’re in love? This is a question I get asked very often.
Some people may answer that it’s when you want to be with someone for the rest of your life. Or, you adore the person and you want to care for that person forever. True, these are aspects of loving another. But what does it mean to connect with and feel “in love” with another? What’s the difference between loving and being “in love?”
I had a client who was in what she described as a great committed relationship for about a year. She said it was very close, she truly cared about him, wanted to take care of him and nurture him, but she still wasn’t totally “in love,” with him. Then one day she came in excited to tell me about the shift she experienced. She said she was feeling overwhelmed with buying a new house and moving, having exorbitant expenses and just budgeting her money. She shared this with her boyfriend, who is an accountant. He went with her to help negotiate the mortgage loan, helped her move, and also helped her set up a budget. She said when she thought about how much he did for her she had tremendous love and respect for him. She shared with me that when they made love after closing on her house, “It was the first time that I truly allowed him to love me.” But then she added, “I realized it was the first time I truly opened my heart to him. The passion was incredible.” And then she paused with a sigh, “I allowed myself to be vulnerable.”
What really happened is she let her defenses down. She allowed his energy to merge with hers. There were no, judgments, criticisms, expectations, boundaries. The two souls merged. That’s when we feel “in love,” and loved.
The most impressionable experience I had regarding “receiving love” was at a workshop I attended many years ago on Unconditional Love.
There were twelve people taking the workshop including three friends who had come down from Boston together. They were the grossest looking people I’ve ever seen: purple streaks in the woman’s porcupine hairdo, the others in dirty, unkempt clothes, etc. I think you get the picture. Anyway at one point we had to choose a divine quality we wanted to meditate on in groups of three. I chose love. Two of this gruesome threesome chose love. I couldn’t fathom the thought of meditating with them. I told the facilitator. She told me everyone had chosen a quality and that I could sit it out if I wanted to. She reminded me however, that this was a workshop on unconditional love.
Duh!!! I gave in.
Upstairs in a bedroom we were instructed to lie down with our heads close together like the hub of a wheel, then we were to meditate on the feeling of love for approximately twenty minutes. When we started the meditation I kept thinking of sending love. About ten minutes into the session, one of the men said to me, “Penny your energy just changed. You have an incredible amount of love coming from you.” I started to ponder what transpired. I realized that the more I relaxed I stopped sending love and was open to receiving the love in the room. He felt my love, not while I was sending, but when I was open to receiving. That’s when a closeness pursued.
Now the question is how do we maintain this intimacy with our partners in everyday communications.
To love is to care for each other. To be “in love,” is to have a deep soul, emotional and sensual connection. In order to accomplish this, we have to be open to our own soul; the love within ourselves and be a coach for each other. What emerges when we’re in touch with our own innate love is a deep desire to give rather than get. A way of giving is by valuing another by receiving their words and feeling their energy with them. It happens by listening, validating, empathizing, giving effective inspirational feedback and support. It also involves forgiving from the heart, not just the head and being non-judgmental, non critical, non controlling, and grateful. Staying centered within ourselves and tuning into our partner helps us stay open to our own love, give love to our partner, and in return receive love. It becomes a cycle of receiving love, sharing love, and being “in love.”
Much love, peace, passion & purpose,
Penny
Penny@PennyCohen.com www.PennyCohen.com
Thank You For Not Thinking is a sign I have on a wall in a foyer that people can see when they walk into my home. It often sparks conversation. “How can you stop thinking?” they ask. You can’t actually stop thoughts, but you can stop thinking. Furthermore, there are pure thoughts and your thoughts and thinking about thoughts. And when you stop thinking about thoughts, your pure thoughts are clearer.
Thinking generally stops us from being in the present and taking action. Thinking involves interpretation of thoughts that come to us. Pure thoughts are generally thoughts that come to us and through us from higher intuition without being filtered through the body. Our thoughts can come from the past – the far past and past lives, from our ancestral lineage, or from our current life and are filtered through the body and therefore wrought with emotional charges. Pure thoughts can be so fleeting that we often don’t catch them. Yet we get some feelings of discomfort without knowing why. Or, we dismiss them by not wanting to believe them, and then we go into thinking about them. For instance, one evening I woke up with a start. I saw an image of my mother, who was in the hospital gagging. I knew she was in trouble. I wanted to stay in bed and ignore it. However, I did get up to call the hospital and was told she wasn’t doing well and I should come quickly. That was paying attention to my intuition. But then sometimes a fleeting thought will come in like when I fell down the steps. I had an inkling that would happen and instead of being more careful, I missed the bottom step and fell. I didn’t adhere to the intuitive message.
Our thinking about thoughts usually involves regrets of the past, or fears of the future, or are made up stories, illusions of what’s happening now. Regarding thinking about the past, they’re often ponderings about what should have been done, wasn’t done, or what went wrong. Regarding the future it’s usually worries about what will happen, what to do or not do. Regarding thinking in the now this often involves stories we make up about what’s going on, without experiencing what is. These all keep us in fantasy rather than reality.
Thinking, in general causes stress. In a workshop I was presenting I did a guided visualization for people to relax and then just to pay attention to their breath. After about ten minutes I walked around with a peeled orange that I held under their noses. After waiting quietly a few minutes, I rubbed a feather on their arms. Waiting another few minutes I rang a bell. They all chuckled when they came out of the relaxation. Their responses were very interesting.
One said, “I was fine and so relaxed when we first did the visualization on relaxing the muscles in our bodies. Then when you put the orange under my nose I kept thinking about what it was. It made me thirsty and I started fantasizing that a glass of orange juice was waiting in front of me. Then I began wondering if I was doing something wrong. Wasn’t I supposed to be meditating?” Another said, “I wasn’t sure what the feather was and I got into a heavy duty preoccupation mode thinking there was a bug crawling up my arm, debating whether to kill it and I got anxious.” Another said, “I can now see how easily we can get out of being in the present and very relaxed and then go into thinking and most of the time it’s stinking thinking. I also noticed when we tell ourselves stories, even fantasies of the future, it can cause stress because whatever we’re thinking about isn’t here and now. We’re not in truth.”
When I keep saying we have to stop thinking people will often tell me, “You have to think about the future, or figure out something from the past. So you have to think. “No you don’t. You have to do.” I retort. When a pure thought comes in and it feels right and you take action on it, you remain in the flow. If you start thinking about the thought, it takes you out of the flow, delays action and then fears may crop up, and then you go into stinking thinking. You can plan the future by sitting down and writing what needs to be done. Or, you can ponder the past with the idea of how to move forward rather than regretting it and getting stuck on it. To explain it better I think of the movie Forest Gump. Forest Gump was a mentally challenged man, who had no self-reflection abilities. He just took action on what came to him. We don’t have to be mentally challenged to challenge ourselves to be free of emotional charges and take action on what comes. We can also plan the future by imagining it, feeling open to having it – without an emotional charge, which puts out a pure thought into the universe. If our thought is pure, it’s heard in that fashion and then we get more pure thoughts on how to accomplish what we want and are innately motivated to do it. If we take action on the pure thought, we’re being guided.
Invitation:
I invite you to practice not thinking. See what happens. And if you go into stinking thinking put a stop sign up in your mind and say, “Thinking,” and let it go. If the thought is good, then don’t think about it, take action on it.
Keeping in touch and in love,
Penny
www.PennyCohen.com
When people tell me they don’t believe in God, I usually ask, “What is the God you don’t believe in?”
I’ll often get these answers:
“The God that rewards and punishes.”
“The God that’s supposed to take care of you.”
“The God that answers your prayers.”
“The God that’s supposed to be there for you at all times.”
“The God that’s the savior.”
“Oh my God,” I tell them. “I don’t believe in that God either.” The God I believe in is an energy source that adheres to everything we say and do and reflects it back. It’s a Guiding Organizing Design that shows us where we are going wrong, and therefore supports us in becoming good souls. It guides us to help our souls evolve, to access love and wisdom.
People ask, “How does it guide us?”
It shows us when we’re not in equanimity. When we’re not in a state of love or accessing our brilliance.
We are guided by our instincts, thoughts, beliefs, feelings, speech and actions. If our thoughts are negative, beliefs self-defeating, feelings repressed, speech slanderous (to ourselves or others), and behaviors dysfunctional we are coming from our ego instead of our soul and the Divine. That’s when we get tripped up and think there is no God.
These self-defeating thoughts and beliefs are the ego protecting us from reaching out and getting hurt or being disappointed. It keeps us inside; small, fearful, and walled off from everything and everyone else. It hurts us. We feel alone, abandoned, lonely and disconnected from everything and everyone else. That’s when we tend to blame others for how we feel – and it makes us even smaller, and we either close off more or lash out at others.
When we’re in equanimity and open to our soul we are in alignment with the flow and things comes to us easily and effortlessly. The right words come out at the right time. People show up to help. Opportunities abound. That’s when we feel divinely guided, supported and blessed. But the real blessing is the Guiding Organizing Design showing us when we’re not in a state of love. When we realize the lesson we can make changes and are truly grateful.
Invitation:
I invite you to notice your body throughout the day. If there is any constriction or tightness, then you’re not in equanimity and therefore not in the flow. Take a second to take a deep breath and free the constriction. Notice the shift in your mind and watch the miracles happen.
Keeping In Touch And In Love,
Penny
Apr
What does it mean to have a guided life? It means to feel supported, guided and blessed internally. That happens when we do Divine work. Divine work is the work of love: It’s loving yourself, loving others, loving work, loving life and loving God. I think of the word GOD as an acronym for the guiding organizing design of life. So loving God is loving life and life’s design.
I believe there is a system and a plan. How could one not? I recently returned from a safari vacation in the Serengetti. Watching the behavior, pecking order and survival of the fittest of the animals, and the migration based on weather and movement of the stars and planets was startling. In migration, the zebras led the wilderbeasts. We were told that zebras have better memories – and could remember where the water holes were. Yet, the wilderbeasts have better sensory perception and can detect danger more readily. It was fascinating how they worked in unison with the zebras leading the wilderbeasts. And then watching the vulchers and sometimes one not so patiently waiting their turn while a jackel was eating a dead gazelle karkas, and then from across the road a sprinting heina barged through the vulchers, scaring away the jackal, picking up the karkas and running away with it. It was nature at its best system.
So knowing there is a system and a plan and we’re in this system, then there is a plan for our lives. How do we find out what it is? We are guided by the sensations, instincts, intuitions, images, thoughts, and feelings in our brains and bodies as well as the way people treat us and who or what we attract to us. We are born with certain compulsions towards acting a certain way. Our role and goal in life is to transform these compulsions to love. As stated in the bible, when God told Abraham “Lech Lecha,” Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you, we come in with certain compulsions based on the DNA – the land of the fathers. When we free ourselves of these compulsions, we are more open, more loving, more real, and truer to ourselves. When we are in a state of love and follow our intuition we feel supported guided and blessed.
How do we know when we’re not in a state of love? It’s when we’re not in a state of equanimity. Adapted from my book, Personal Kabbalah, there are signals and signs:
HOW DO WE KNOW WE ARE NOT IN EQUANIMITY?
Paying attention to the body:
* Stomach discomfort
* Heart pounding
* Anxiety
* Losing temper
Feeling either superior or inferior to others
* Judging
* Criticizing
* Holding grudges
* Wanting revenge
* Blaming others
* Building cases against people
* Feeling insecure
* Not speaking up to others
* Withdrawing from confrontations
Making demands of others:
* Telling people what to do
* Getting the last word in
Watching other peoples’ responses:
* Other people attacking
* Other people becoming defensive about their behavior
* Other people withdrawing from the conversation
Being unforgiving
* Holding onto anger
* Carrying resentment
* Maintaining animosity
Being unproductive or uncreative
* Feeling lethargic
* Having no direction or focus
* Finding no meaning in life
* Feeling depressed
Being too high
* Feeling manic
* Feeling overly excited
* Blood vessels seemingly ready to burst
Invitation:
I invite you to pay attention to your brain and body, how the people in your life treat you, and what you have in your life now. If it’s not what you desire, then pay attention to the above signals and pray with the intention to free them.
Keeping in touch and in love,
Penny
Mar
One day while doing a presentation I made the rash statement to the group. I said, “I believe I am God,” then I looked up, “Right God?” Of course I got grimaces, frowns and rumblings in the audience. I overhead someone telling another, “She thinks she’s God. Is she an ego maniac or just plain crazy?”
Yes, I believe I am a God. I create my own life. However, there are outside powers to help me along.
When I explained this concept to a Rabbi versed in Kabbalah he agreed with me. He said, “We are our own God but there is a greater system and a plan.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Just look at the solar system, the stars and planets, the earth revolving around the sun. Everything works in unison according to plan,” he said and explained further. “Just think about the geese that fly in a pattern and if one dies a space is left where the deceased was positioned in the group flight.”
I remembered when I was in Guadalahara, Mexico looking down on a cement path and saw tiny ants carrying huge leave on their backs. They were all working on their own in unison.” And more recently in the Serengetti watching the animal migration with the zebras leading the wilderbeasts. What impulses prompted that cooperation? There had to be a system.
The rabbi went on. “If there’s a system and a plan and we’re in this system that means we each have a purpose. Our purpose is to repair our soul.”
A long time ago I read a quote from a sage who said, “Success isn’t about what you accomplish, it’s what you’ve learned to overcome.” I took it that that we had to transform any evil within us, and that means stuff from our ancestral lineage as well as past lives. We don’t come in as blank slates. We come in with a soul that has stamps on it from past lives that needs repair and that soul comes into a body with a DNA and RNA past down from our ancestral lineage, creating reactive instincts that need healing. Although we may forget our past lives and not be in touch with our ancestral lineage, they show up in beliefs and emotional charges that we may not be aware of.
Whenever we have anything in our lives that we are not happy about, it means there’s some negative belief or repressed feeling. Our work is to transform those beliefs and emotional charges to love and in that love access our truth and purpose. My purpose is to free myself of these obstacles and stay in my truth – the truth beneath the stories.
The way of getting to that truth is seeing that everything and everyone in my life is a reflection of me. And if I have a problem with anyone and anyone has a problem with me or comes to me with a problem, there’s something within me that still needs to be healed. The more I heal it, the more I heal the world, one belief and instinct at a time.
Invitation:
I invite you to think about what you need to overcome to heal your life regarding your thoughts and feelings. And when you do, send love to them, like you would a child, send them out with love, open to new love and wait and see what comes.
If you enjoyed this blog, please link it to your friends or have them send an email to Penny@PennyCohen.com and in the subject line write: I subscribe to Love-N-Life. Also, feel free to contact me for comments, questions, and just plain connection. Visit: PennyCohen.com
Keeping in touch and in love,
Penny
Feb
Since Valentine’s Day is coming up I thought I might share how my kids proposed to me.
It was the day of my kid brother’s wedding (he’s 13 years my junior). That morning I asked my then significant other, Karl, to take the children out to breakfast so I could get dressed for the wedding. While sitting at the diner my son, (Age16), asked Karl, “When are you going to marry my mother?” Karl choked a little. Then my son added, “Are you afraid of commitment?”
Karl apparently cleared his throat. “No, I’m not afraid of commitment. I haven’t asked your mother to marry me because your sister,” (age 12), never wanted us to get married.”
My son turned to his sister, and asked, “How come?”
“Well, I couldn’t go through another divorce,” she answered.
My son retorted, “But I’m going off to college next year. Wouldn’t it be nice to know that mom would be taken care of?”
She gave in shaking her head, “I guess so. But on one condition,” she added.
“What’s that,” both my son and Karl asked.
“No more kids.”
Karl was turning fifty. “Ok” he said quickly. “I can handle that.”
My son smiled at Karl. “It’s a deal man.” They shook on it and then my son added, “Now I have one condition.”
“What’s that?” Karl and my duaghter asked in unison.
“I want to make the announcement at the wedding today.”
Karl agreed, and then paused. “And I have one condition.”
“What’s that?” the kids asked.
“No one tells your mother.”
At the wedding after the garter was taken off the bride’s leg and the bouquet thrown, there was a drum roll by the band. I watched as both my children walked up to the microphone with champagne glasses in their hands. I figured they were going to congratulate their uncle and welcome their new aunt into the family.
I was busy talking to a friend when I was hushed to listen to my son congratulate the new married couple. Then he went on. “Now I have an announcement to make.” Karl was now sitting up front. “This morning Karl asked my sister and I for our mother’s hand in marriage. And we both gave our permission.” He paused. “But now I think it’s only fair that we ask some other people.” He turned to my mother and father, “Grandma, what do you think?”
Grandma, gleaming, put her hand to her face, “Oh vey, of course.”
He turned to Grandpa, “What do you think?” Grandpa was on the heavy side and always lost approximately 50 pounds for any affair. His hand went to his cheek, “You mean I have to loose another 50 pounds?” he said with his wonderful sparkling green eyes, “It’s worth it. Okay.”
Then my son turned to Karl. “You are four for four man, only I think now there’s someone else you have to ask.” He handed the microphone to Karl. Karl waved for me to come forward. “Penny, will you please stand up?”
I was in shock as my friends lifted me off the chair and guided me to the front of the room.
“Will you marry me?” Karl asked, as he handed me the microphone. There was total silence. Then I heard someone yell, “Say yes already.” And that I did.
In the car going home I was still in shock. Had he asked me out to a fine French restaurant with candlelight and violin serenade, and popped the question there, I probably would have said no. But in front of 200 people? As time went by I went into panic mode. We had lived together for six years. I knew all his faults. Did I want to live with them the rest of my life?
It was a big decision that I had trouble making. I wavered back and forth for two weeks until I realized I was projecting into the future. Whenever we do that there is fear. When I stopped projecting I realized I had lived with his faults the past six years and we still did well together. So when I got back into the present, I realized we did have a good thing going. We were married a few months later.
Invitation:
I invite you to think about when you have fear. There’s a good chance you’re worried about something going wrong or not working out in the future. Do something to get back into the present. Meditate, reframe your thoughts, plan a better future scenario and make the right things happen. Karl and I have been living that philosophy for thirty years now and we’re still happily married.
Keeping in touch and in love,
Penny
Blog 5. Love Is The Missing Peace
What is love?
The missing piece.
No. The missing PEACE!
When I first wrote this little ditty above, I had to really think about what it meant. How is love the missing peace?
The Act Of Loving or the State of Being Loved
Many people think love is doing for others, caring for others, and taking care of others. And that is the “act” of loving. However, unless we care for ourselves first there is no “I” inside to love another. Just like the instructions on an airplane for survival, before helping others, we have to put on our own oxygen mask first. Love isn’t something we do, it’s something we are. And that comes by taking care of ourselves first and being open to receiving love and being loved.
And what is love?
Love is a feeling that comes to us and through us when we’re in a state of inner peace and open to receiving. It comes with being intimate with ourselves; our higher selves. And what is our higher self? It’s the peaceful, loving, creative, compassionate part of ourselves that lends itself to goodness.
Most people are givers rather than receivers of love. And when we keep giving and feel like it’s not returned that’s when we criticize and blame others for not being there for us. We begin to withhold love. When we withhold love to others, we also withhold love from ourselves. Our hearts close off. In reality we’re not there for ourselves because we’re so busy giving we’re not open to receiving goodness. Just ponder this for a moment. How easy is it for you to receive compliments, to ask for help and let other people help you? How easy is it for you to just be rather than do and experience the warmth and love within yourself?
The act of “being” isn’t a passive state. It’s rather an ecstatic state. It’s a state of being open to creative flow and universal love. And it’s in this state of open-hearted love that we feel whole, complete, creative and compassionate. It’s in being in the flow that we feel so fulfilled within ourselves that we love doing for others and also can stand up for ourselves and set boundaries.
How do we experience this flow? By being in a state of inner peace. And that comes with loving ourselves by honoring ourselves enough to reach that state of peace.
What does it mean to love ourselves?
I have many clients tell me they do love themselves. They take care of themselves through a regular exercise regime, eat nutritionally, get massages, manicures, and pedicures regularly and are generally good to themselves. They feel like they’re good, caring people who do for others. Yet, they still feel unfulfilled and often unloved. That’s because they’re taking care of themselves physically, but not mentally or emotionally. They do regular physical workouts but not internal ones. They neglect themselves and their souls by resisting to look within.
I had a client who kept complaining about her husband being too materialistic. She said she isn’t like that. However, she learned that what we criticize in another is usually something in ourselves that is unresolved. So she asked me, “Do you think I am materialistic?” I asked her, “What’s your priority, shopping or processing thoughts and feelings? She said, “Ouch.”
How do we love ourselves?
To love ourselves is to honor ourselves by looking within and processing our thoughts, feelings, speech and actions and tempering them until we reach a state of peace. It’s in that state of inner peace that we experience an expansiveness, an openness to our innately loving, wise selves; our Souls. Loving ourselves is staying in touch with this part of our Self. It’s honoring the love within ourselves that comes from our Higher selves. It’s when we’re in this state of inner peace that we experience the deeper love from within. That’s why love is in the “missing peace.”
Invitation:
I invite you to take some time every day to open to inner peace and your own innate love and creativity and radiate that love to others.
If you enjoyed this blog, please link it to your friends or have them send an email to Penny@PennyCohen.com and in the subject line write: I subscribe to Love-N-Life. Also, feel free to contact me for comments, questions, and just plain connection. Visit: PennyCohen.com
Keeping in touch and in love,
Penny
Blog 4. Coming Out Of The Closet With A God Who’s Love
Penny Cohen, LCSW
I noticed for years that many contemporary personal development and spiritual coaches, leaders and authors tend to avoid using the word God in their work. Instead, they use words like Universal flow, Source, Higher Consciousness, Higher Power, Love, Vortex, Oneness, etc. I know the word God can be a trigger if people have been brought up to fear God — but there is a God — a Creator; a Source. Something created this universe. Even if you don’t believe in the big bang theory and you’re an evolutionist, something still created that first amoeba – something started the evolution process even if it’s evolution itself. So as the creator is creating, the evolver is evolving. And what are we evolving to? We’re evolving to the concept of godliness that is guidedness and embracing a Divine presence within us, a God of love.
That being said, I’m on a quest to bring the word God out of the closet and back into the forefront – but not with the connotation of the God that watches over and rewards or punishes us and not even the God that takes care of us and gives us what we want. But a spiritual perspective of a God that is all knowing, all powerful, all present, transcendent and imminent – a God that is within us and around us. A life force of energy that just is. It’s a source of energy that we can access to receive inner peace, love, wisdom, and healing and guidance.
The new way I re-imagine God is that I am a God. I am the creator of my own life. However, there are powers I can reach to access, harness and direct such as divine love, wisdom, and healing. I think of these powers incorporated in a Guiding Organizing Design of the flows of life forces and creative energies of the universe. I call this the greater God, the all inclusive God of oneness.
The reason I believe it’s so important to re-imagine the old concept of God and bring the word God back into the forefront in a new way is that it is a word that is used often. It’s in the Pledge of Allegiance, the Constitution, in every religious organization’s prayer books and recited prayers. The word God is in articles and magazines, many songs and citations, and daily conversations and affirmations. It’s an automatic reflex when you’re in the ditches being shot at, or fearing death and automatically screaming “God help me.” Or, when you are in the clutch of orgasm, and you might scream, “Oh God!” If you think of a God of wrath when you hear or use the word God you will automatically clench up and close off from a source of power that can fulfill you with love, wisdom, and understanding and many other attributes including: mercy and loving-kindness; courage and inner strength; harmony, beauty and compassion; emotional freedom and faith; thought clarity and gratefulness; a firm foundation of love, and the ability to believe in miracles and manifest your dreams. Instead, if you re-imagine God as a Guiding Organizing Design of energy that you communicate and co-partner with, as in “what you think you attract,” when your heart is centered on a God of love, you feel divinely guided, supported and blessed.
Invitation:
I leave you with the thought of pondering God, and what that word or concept means to you. While doing so, notice how you feel within your body when you hear the word God. If you clench you’re still retaining the old concept of the word God – the God that rewards and punishes. If you’re open there’s a better chance of staying in the flow of love and wisdom. Make the commitment to open to the creative Guiding Organizing Design of the universe and feel free to use the word God with the connotation of Love and Creativity.
If you enjoyed this blog, please link it to your friends or have them send an email to Penny@PennyCohen.com and in the subject line write: I subscribe to Love-N-Life. Also, feel free to contact me for comments, questions, and just plain connection. Visit: PennyCohen.com
Keeping in touch and in love,
Penny
As for a summary of what led up to the spiritual experience mentioned in blog #1, I now explain the feeling of incredible warmth and love and the message I received as reaching a deeper level of love and innate wisdom. It’s a love and insight that came from the core of my being – the essence of who I am. I call this the Higher Self, the part of my Self that is connected to the essence of all life – the love and creative life forces in the universe – the part of my Self in potential – in source. Some explain the Higher Self as Christ Consciousness. Kabbalists call the Higher Self the “yechida,” the self or soul within oneness. According to Carl Jung the Self is an archetype symbolizing the totality of the personality. It represents the striving for unity, wholeness, and integration. Neale Donald Walsch said in Conversations With God: Book 1, “Your soul, (subconscious, id, spirit, past, etc.) is the sum total of every feeling you’ve ever had…When you reassemble all of the parts of your soul you will have remembered who you really are.” The goal is to connect again.
The concept is that we are all one and yet unique even within the oneness. Carl Jung calls the oneness the collective unconscious. Richard Bucke, in the title of his book calls it Cosmic Consciousness. Some call it love, Higher power, Universe, Nature, God. Our Self is part of the oneness. Our uniqueness is concealed within our Higher Self. Our Higher Self knows everything about us from the beginning of time and includes our potential. When we are in touch with our Higher Self we experience the essence of who we are; the deep loving part of ourselves, the part that feels secure, confident, whole, and intelligent. What emerges from that is an innate desire and the courage to express our uniqueness and be of service.
What separates us from our higher self and knowing who we are?
What separates us from our Higher Self is our unhealthy ego, which manifests in negative character traits, and acting out behavior rather than coming from our truth. The ego traits stem from an accumulation of memories and vows from past lives, our current lives and our ancestral lineage. It also includes thoughts, feelings, beliefs and decisions we made on how to live life based on how we were treated in childhood, or the role modeling we had and the way we behaved in order to get attention. If we’re afraid of abandonment we behave in ways to defend and protect ourselves for survival. We look to others for external support. We take on airs and develop facades based on how we think people want us to think, say, or act, rather than what we really think, want to say and how we want to behave; our untruth.
To be who we truly are is to know our thoughts, feelings and actions and transform them to love, free ourselves of the self-defeating behaviors and sufferings and make room for our higher Self to emerge. That’s when we come from our truth, our positive character traits and experience being loved, inspired and blessed.
Invitation: I invite you to begin to state I am willing to come from my Higher Self of love and wisdom at all times.
If you enjoyed this blog, please link it to your friends or have them send an email to Penny@PennyCohen.com and in the subject line write: I subscribe to Love-N-Life. Also, feel free to contact me for comments, questions, and just plain connection. Visit: PennyCohen.com
Keeping In Touch And In Love,
Penny