Spirituality Archives - Lightwords - Life Coaching, Healing, Wellness

12 Sep

Live With Equanimity

Choosing to live with equanimity—or even-mindedness—is a great step that improves our life experience.

By taking a calmer approach to life we feel better; we deal with situations more effectively and open ourselves up to higher guidance.

Here is a message from Spirit that talks about the power of equanimity in our lives.

Spirit’s Message

“Dearest ones, the toils of life are transitory experiences that move you forward along the path. And as you move, episodes both joyful and sorrowful occur.

All is best taken with equanimity. Remove yourself from judging situations as to whether you are pleased with them or not and take all life experiences with equanimity. In this way you open yourself up to receiving guidance from your Higher-self. Your ego has less power and less control over you when you do not judge.

Stay calm, stay poised. Move deeper into the loving relationship that you have with Divine Love. Open your mind to the possibility of solutions to your problems.

Stay even-tempered, lessen ego control and you will receive guidance intuitively that will help you through all of life experiences.

Equanimity brings strength, peace, direction and serenity.

Blessings and Love,

Spirit”

Equanimity: Connect to the peace within

Whilst, at times, it can be hard to stay even-minded—particularly during testing times—a helpful technique is to focus on the breath. The following exercise restores a sense of calmness to our being.

It goes like this:

Pause for a moment… then take a deep breath—preferably one from your belly—and then hold the breath for a second or two. Now slowly exhale, ensuring that the exhalation of your breath is calm and very, very slow. Sink into the feeling of peace that emerges from the slow exhalation of the breath.

Repeat the process 3 times.

Taking time to quieten the ego and to disengage from the emotional body is a helpful strategy towards establishing peace, balance and equanimity in our lives.

Three-step approach to living with more equanimity

Next time you are faced with an upsetting situation, immediately recall the word ‘equanimity’ to mind. This will remind you to deal with the situation with a more even-minded approach. Then, do the above breath exercise which will help to settle the mind and reduce agitated feelings.

Once you feel calmer, take a moment to go inwards and ask for guidance on how best to manage the situation at hand.

This three-step approach is a simple strategy that helps work our way towards living life with equanimity.

This Month’s Video

This 3 minute relaxation video will help reconnect you to the peace and calm of your deeper-self.

12 Apr

The Purpose Of Service

Recently I have had the joy of reconnecting with a group of spiritually-minded friends who I have not seen for some time. Our relationship goes back a long way, 1993 in fact, and spending time together was as joyous as slipping into a favourite pair of comfortable slippers—warm, familiar and deliciously comforting.

As we gathered together in devotional prayer, the spiritual gathering concluded with a reading on the topic of service. It was a great reminder to me that every day, each one of us serves. No matter who we are, our lives involve serving others.

In fact, when we take stock of our day, the majority of our time involves service in some shape or form. For instance, preparing food or driving children to and from school. Whether we are washing, sweeping or working—we are serving.

Service is not restricted to community service. Service is part of everyday life!

Making the most of service

More often than not, most of us begrudge the daily service activities that we need to undertake, believing that we could be doing better things with our time. Sometimes we feel angry, resentful that we have to serve or we feel that our partner gets off lightly when it comes to helping with the kids and chores in the home.

Each day we are presented with an opportunity to turn every day acts of service into acts of love and devotion.

How?

This can be achieved by focusing on the end goal. To do this, ask yourself, “Through this act, who am I serving?”

Whilst it may appear that we are helping others, we are, in fact, serving The Divine. As the energy of Divine Love is in each one of us, then each act of service is ultimately serving Divine Love. That is who we really are serving!

This being the case, if we think of the end goal as we go about our activities, we become more conscious of Divine Love in our daily lives. With this shift in awareness, our attitude towards what we are doing, changes. Focusing on the bigger picture helps us to serve seeing the oneness and connectedness that we have with all. Mentally and emotionally, we feel we have a sense of purpose to our lives for we see that even the mundane chores have a higher purpose to them; spiritually we move closer towards our goal of self-realisation.

Service is the highest spiritual exercise. When we serve with love and in consciousness of The Divine we sanctify our lives.

How best can we serve?

With:

A pure heart
A selfless attitude
Gratitude
Good feelings

Even though many of the acts of service that we do daily may seem mundane, holding the right attitude toward them is the key. Focus on: through this act I am serving The Divine.

Another point to be aware of is, if the feeling of love is missing, our acts of service hold little value. We are simply carrying out actions without heart.

Whether the service activity we undertake is big or small—the love we impart as we serve—is what matters most.

Love All Serve All

Keep life simple, love those whom you come into contact with daily and serve them with love.

If we take to heart and follow this one principle we enjoy life more and, most importantly, live life with purpose!

Service pays well

No matter how much money we may have in our bank account—it’s not transferrable when we pass from this earthly plane. However, our bank account of love comes with us.

Service—whether it’s through everyday chores or community service—is the highest act of love. It pays big dividends and high interest.

Therefore, love to serve and serve to love!

This month, as you engage in your everyday acts of service, focus on the end goal. Say to yourself: “Through this act I am serving The Divine.” Turn everyday actions into acts of love and devotion.

Here is a lovely video of animals that are very willing to love and serve!

08 Mar

Self-Love Time!

I held a retreat last month and part of the focus was on love—including self-love. Self-love is an area with which most women struggle. We spend a lot of our time giving to our partners, children, family, friends and work colleagues but when it comes to giving to ourselves—being kind to ourselves—that is more difficult.

A way to develop self-love is to engage in self-care. Self-care is an act of self-love. When we self-care well we attend to the many responsibilities in our lives with more enthusiasm; we feel better emotionally—feeling less resentful, frustrated and angry when managing life’s demands.

Care about your whole self

Most of us do not engage in good self-care with respect to our body, emotions and our spirit; we may care for one area of our being and forget about the others. However, all aspects of our being need to be nourished with love in order to feel whole and complete.

Therefore, we need to take good care of our body, as our body is the vehicle that carries us through life. Looking after our emotional wellbeing is very important too, for our emotions play a big part in our enjoyment of life. And giving attention and love to our spirit is essential if we want to live a balanced life. Self-care strategies that feed our soul are the ultimate acts of self-love.

Here are some examples of self-care acts that will help you to be more kind and loving towards yourself.

Physical self-care

Joining an exercise or movement class to keep your body in good shape

Eating healthily

Regularly treating your body to a massage, a Reiki session—or whatever therapy you enjoy—that will help to maintain or improve the condition of your body

Emotional self-care

Being honest to yourself about your emotional wellbeing and undertaking strategies that help you to feel less anxious and frustrated—more peaceful and content

Setting boundaries, knowing when to say ‘no’ to things—instead of taking on more commitments

Seeking professional help when your emotions get the better of you

Spiritual self-care

Making time for yoga, meditation, prayer or contemplation—quiet time that brings feelings of peace and balance to your life

Subscribe to an online course or attend a spiritual group where you can learn and have the support of like-minded people

Feed your soul with words of wisdom from inspirational reading material

Self-love is our responsibility

We have a personal responsibility to take care of ourselves. If we don’t ensure that we are in a good place physically, emotionally and spiritually, it makes attending to life—to all of its demands and responsibilities—much more difficult.

So it’s time to be aware of how to care… for yourself!

Action Challenge

This month make self-love your focus. What little things can you do that will help you to be kind and gentle to yourself?

We feel much better and we are able to give more easily when we have had a little top-up of love ourselves. So start loving your-self today!

To learn about my number one self-love tip, watch my 3 minute video.

09 Feb

Relationship Divine!

With Valentine’s Day occurring this month, I thought that ‘relationships’ would be an appropriate topic. Valentine’s Day is focused on love and relationships—but sometimes personal relationships don’t always work out. When this occurs does this mean we have failed?

Read on to find out…

Absolute relationship!

Whilst relaxing in the evening, I happened to pick up the book Your Sacred Self, by the Late Dr. Wayne Dyer. My hand randomly opened a page.

As my eyes scanned the page they fell upon the following paragraph. I smiled; it was no coincidence that my fingers were guided to the page for, during the day, I had seen several clients who were dealing with broken relationships issues.

As I read Wayne Dyer’s words of wisdom, I found myself nodding in agreement for his words succinctly said it all…

“Dropping your personal history means dropping the belief that a failed relationship makes you a failure. There are no failed relationships. Every person who enters and exits your life does so in a mutual sharing of life’s divine lessons. Some have longer roles to play than others, but ultimately, you will return to your relationship to the absolute.”

—Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, (1995) page 46, Your Sacred Self, USA, Harper Collins Publishers

The spiritual perspective

Every person that walks in and out of our personal story plays an important role in our spiritual development. Sometimes the roles they play are difficult for us to let go of; it takes time for us to adjust and realise that the relationship has served its time—has come to an end

A helpful outlook is to focus on the spiritual meaning of the relationship. To appreciate that, ‘the role’ they ‘played out’ in our personal storyline occurred for growth and lessons that are designed to move us away from our ego-driven selves—into the heart of our spiritual nature.

In truth, every physical relationship that we encounter has a divine plan and purpose that leads us to a better understanding of our spiritual selves and our Divine relationship.

A relationship that’s Divine

Throughout life, many of our relationships will come to an end. No matter how much we love another, physical relationships are not permanent. Only our relationship with The Divine is eternal. It’s the only relationship that is built on unconditional love and it’s the one that we can truly say will last forever!

That being the case, surely our divine relationship deserves our utmost love and attention!

Do you want to improve your relationship with The Divine? Here’s a video I put together a little while ago on the greatest relationship of all.

19 Jan

Perfect Timing

It was the 5^th January, 2016, and in less than 7 hours of arriving home from our overseas holiday the phone rang. It was the hospital to say that my husband’s brother, Richard, had been admitted to the emergency department.

In our discussions with the medical staff, the news was not good. Taking into account Richard’s current medical condition it was apparent that his chances of recovery were slim.

Richard was managed by the medical team with dedicated care and attention. Sadly, 5 days later he peacefully passed away.

Throughout this difficult time, I kept thanking The Universe for ensuring that we were home in time so we could be there for Richard. There was no doubt in my mind that the timing of our return was perfectly choreographed by a greater Source!

The right moment

This recent experience reminded me how the timing of events is not something that we can control. Whilst we are busy making plans— particularly at this time of year when we work towards our New Year goals and resolutions—life has its own timing.

Often we place a lot of pressure on ourselves believing that things need to be completed within certain timeframes yet, the rhythm of life has a more perfect timeframe in-store!

My New Year’s Resolution

In view of recent events, this year I have decided that whilst I have a list of goals that I want to work towards and achieve, I am going to be mindful and trusting of life’s perfect timing. Whilst I have a plan in my mind of ‘when’ things should be completed, and I work towards completing that plan, I’m still willing to hand the completion date over to a greater Source—a Source which has a much better grip on the perfect timing of life than I!

Trust life’s timing

During 2016, set your goals and dreams, work towards them, do what you need to do in order to achieve your goals but remember: if the timing does not match your desired timeframe, there will be a reason as to why this is so.

This doesn’t mean that you give up, that you drop your goals or abandon them. It does mean that you need to be patient as you surrender to a timing that is perfectly scripted for you.

Over time, your goals will be achieved and when you look back on the timing of how your goals came to be, you will marvel at the perfection of it all!

Video

Here is a delightful video of a dog that’s instinctively in-tune with the timing of life!

13 Oct

Love And Adversity

Everyone is handed adversity in life. No one’s journey is easy. It’s how they handle it that makes people unique. —Kevin Conroy

Is it possible to love in times of adversity?

A client came to see me for Reiki. She mentioned that she was going through a difficult period in her life, so we spent time prior to the Reiki session discussing how to better manage the problem that she was experiencing.

After our discussion, we progressed to the healing room. Whilst I was performing Reiki on the client the following visualisation appeared in my mind.

I saw my client walking along her life-path when suddenly, in front of her, several boulders appeared. The boulders represented the adversity that she was currently facing in her life. She met the boulders with the emotions of anger and frustration and the more anger she projected towards the situation—the bigger the boulders grew.

Trapped in the energies of anger and emotional pain, physically she became weak; she appeared crushed and downtrodden.

Then I was shown what happened when she faced the adversity with love. Each time she projected love to the problem that she was experiencing, a boulder would melt away, disappear—allowing her to move forward on her path! And her physical appearance began to change: she became strong, vibrant and healthy.

After viewing the two different approaches, she was then presented with the question of how did she want to deal with the adversity? Did she want to manage it with love or with anger?

At the completion of the session I mentioned the visualisation to her and the question that was posed. After reflecting, she agreed that love was the way to heal the situation.

Some tips on how to love during adversity

Coping with the ups and downs of daily life can be tricky. How can we love our way through adversity so that we reduce emotional pain? Here are some ideas:

Firstly, trust The Divine energy that It will guide and help you through the situation.
Secondly, place trust in your true-self. Recognise that you are greater than a body and mind. That the source within you has the power to help you work through the situation from a higher perspective.

Following on from the above two points if the adversity involves an issue with another person:

Focus on the essence that lives at the core of the person/s involved—the divine qualities within them. Place your attention on loving their spirit or their higher-self—as opposed to focusing on their personality or their actions which have upset you.
Use love as a way to heal another person. Send love across an imaginary rainbow that extends from your heart to theirs. If you find it difficult to project love to them then ask The Divine energy to transfer love across this rainbow bridge on your behalf.

General points that can help when dealing with adversity:

Whenever you feel that you are experiencing difficult times, remember the above visualisation. It’s a great one to recall when adversity pops up on the pathway of life.
Live in the present moment. Hold your attention on The Divine and the powers within you that can help guide you as how best to respond to the current situation.
Regularly remind yourself that your role and purpose in life is to love. When you affirm this truth you are more inclined to manage the matter from a higher perspective.
Tell yourself that a better way to walk the life-journey is to take the pathway that is less destructive—more productive!

The bottom line is …

Negative emotions that we can’t let go of obstruct our progress and our pathway! Anger keeps us emotionally weak; our lives feel stunted when we regularly engage in negative emotions. Conversely, we apply love during times of adversity we feel strong—not weak.

There are two options

No matter what difficulties we encounter we can choose to manage the adversity with anger or with love. The choice is ours alone.

Next time adversity crosses your path, apply love and allow love to melt the difficulties away. Drawing on higher qualities when managing life situations, will leave you feeling stronger, wiser and empowered.