Alexia's Views

How to Release Your Pain

A while back I wrote a post called "You Can Have It All." It was the first time I believed that life could be joyous and bountiful and not riddled with one drama after the other. I believed it but didn’t see it manifest for long periods of time in my life. After listening to The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, I paid special attention to the chapter that talks about how we grow accustomed to attaching to our “pain body.” In other words we develop patterns in life and expect certain things to happen. I secretly believed that I always had to be dealing with one major drama and that life didn’t flow smoothly for extended periods for anyone or me.

Then I had an epiphany of awareness as many pieces of the puzzle came together for me. I realized that pains entered my life, as in times when I have been sick, lost a job or a relationship, all happened when everything was going smoothly. I remember having a drama occur in the fall, and the first thing I told my brother was, “It was like it knew I was happy.” Now I see that I am so used to associating with pain or drama in my life that I don’t know how to feel and act without one, so my subconscious responds and makes me sick or messes up some other part of my life to maintain drama in my life. It’s a form of self-abuse.

Now that I am able to be a witness of myself and tune into my intuition, I am finally learning to engage in the ongoing process of disassociating myself from a “pain body” and drama in my life. I can see from my past the many times I’ve chosen bad men to keep drama in my life. I’ve had years of job drama during the most recent recession, and I finally attracted a job to my life that I love, where I feel happy and content.

My health has been going well, and I’ve even learned separate from drama instigating doctors that choose to instill fear in you as a medicine. Now, that I know all things are in the right flow, and I’m more centered with self, my true self doesn’t really know how to react or respond because it has never felt separation from the outside, drama and the “pain body” before. Now. I’m experiencing it for the first time, and it’s like my subconscious is getting nauseous to keep me in a negative life pattern because it is all it knows.

I feel grateful to be able to recognize it, so I can embrace my life in all of its peace and beauty and bask in the wonderfulness of it. I can feel the growing essence of freedom entering my life. Life can be peaceful. You and I can have it all and not be punished for it either outwardly or inwardly.

Release attachment to your pain and free yourself because you can!

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Do You Live in the Past, Future, or in the Now?

Do You Live in the Past, Future, or in the Now?

I am an avid book listener. I like to read fiction and listen to non-fiction. I read when I ride the stationary bike at the gym, listen while I run and when I'm walking around. I am a compulsive multi-tasker trying to make the most of my time, and I'm also trying to learn to live in the now.

My latest listening adventure has brought me to The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I'll be honest. Someone recommended this book to me a year or so ago, and when I listened to it then, it was too esoteric for me. I wasn't in a place to understand the message, so I was surprised when I awoke one morning with a desire to revisit the book. After a few days of the nagging voice of my intuition, I decided to go for it.

After all I've learned over the last year about choosing to be happy and using meditation as a tool to create awareness and make new choices, I was delighted to see I was in a place to use the message in The Power of Now to build on all of the learning.

In his book, Eckhart Tolle, explores how we use the past experiences and future fears to build pain centers in our lives. We focus on the pains of the past and the fears of the futures to motivate our action and consume our energy, rather than focusing on this moment in time. He explains that if you can separate yourself from your past and the future and focus on right now, then you will become a witness of yourself and feel greater peace and joy in your existence.

The book offers many questions and answers that attempt to challenge his theories. He admits there is value in facing your emotions and learning from the past, so long as you use them to be present rather than live in the past.

I must confess, I'm experienced in not being honest with myself, dwelling in the past and using my painful experiences to prevent me from moving forward in many areas of life. I never thought it was entirely possible to extract yourself from the past and the fears and emotions that controlled me. Now, through the power of meditation, I'm growing in my presence of mind and awareness, and I am encouraged through The Power of Now to continue growing the experience.

I encourage you to live in the now too because you can!

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The Power of Rest

I'll be the first to confess I'm not very good at resting. I love to stay busy and productive. I even label myself a producer (a title I snagged from my amazingly productive mentor, Rhonda Shasteen). I feel good when I have things to show for my work at the end of my day. So, I don't like to lie around that much and rest, that is, unless the objective of my time is to do nothing but rest. I've written about R&R before, but find it valuable to revisit the subject from time to time since it is so easy to forget.

I devour non-fiction books on personal growth, business, faith, foreign language, or anything that is teaching me something. I almost feel guilty reading fiction;however, in the many non-fiction books I read, I've come across a recurring theme...REST. 

There is so much value in taking a day to rest from all things you consider to be work. It can be your job, your side job, or your exercise routine. This advice hit me so much to my core that I decided to try a new approach and take one day of the week as a dedicated a resting day. Christianity and Judaism call it the Sabbath. Regardless of your belief system, a 24-hour period to allow yourself time to recuperate and recharge will allow you a more productive week. There are even studies that show people who rest one day a week are more productive the other six days than someone who works without resting.

Now that I carve out one day, I don't have to wait for a day that just isn't busy, to rest. If I wait for a slow day, it will never come because I love staying busy. On my day off, I read fiction, watch TV and sleep more. I hang out with friends and spend time outside if the weather is permitting. All of these things enrich my being without necessarily producing anything other than a well-rounded, recharged, whole person, and that is worth far more than any one product from the rest of the workweek.

Find time to rest because you can!

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You Are Responsible for Your Own Happiness

Are you happy? Do you want to be happy or feel happier? I think most of us just want to be happy and spend our lives figuring out what makes us happy and why. I'll confess that I spent most of my life people pleasing and believing I was responsible for other people's happiness. Believing I could make others happy, in turn, made me believe others were responsible for my happiness. 

Life ended up leaving me feeling let down and frustrated as I learned I couldn't make another person happy and they often wouldn't make me happy. We can influence other people's happiness, but the root of happiness comes from within. That's why I wrote about how to be happy now! I finally learned that joy is my job.

Happiness is a choice, and I realized I was responsible for my own happiness, I saw that others were responsible for their happiness. All of a sudden, it was like a huge weight of the world was lifted from me as I finally released the responsibility I had put upon myself to make everyone happy because it's something I have absolutely no control over.

Now, I am free to focus on my happiness and develop it through self-love and continuing to work on developing a healthy self-esteem and sense of self worth every day. 

Each one of us is in a constant state of evolution on our path to expansion and personal growth. The greatest gift we have as people is the ability to change and grow. I encourage you to nurture your happiness today because you can!

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For the last year, I've been on a path of discovery centered on learning the true meaning of self-love and choosing happiness and joy. I've made many posts about this journey including several about trusting your intuition and practicing the art of allowing.

Be Grateful For Your Challenges

Challenges don't always have to end in a dark place. They can often have many benefits and set you up for more.

How to Stop Making Bad Decisions

That's a tough one, huh? 

I think the first step to stop making bad decisions is to realize you're making them in the first place. I, along with most of us, have spent months and even years, plugging along in a particular direction without any idea that I'm creating a pattern of bad decision making with regards to an area of my life. Then, I can't understand why problems continue to creep up in the same area. With the help of feedback from friends and loved ones, I might be lucky enough to open my eyes in self-awareness and see my fault. The painful step of admitting a personal flaw can often be the hardest.

The next steps are challenging as well. It's a process of stopping a bad habit while creating new good habits. Did you ever bite your fingernails as a child? I did. My mother tried to get me to see the error of my ways with Tabasco Sauce and soap, but that was no match for my determination. That same determination has served me in countless positive ways as it has given me stick-to-itiveness that has seen me through Dean's Lists and a health scare. It's a huge blessing until it's working against you in the form of stubborn blindness.

Once I've seen my mistake, the beast takes a positive form again, as it is determination to persevere and win a battle. I always have loved and thrived from a good challenge. After acceptance, comes a stage of processing all the past behavior in an effort to determine where things went wrong over and over again. I spend time thinking, doing yoga, and journaling to help bring me to greater awareness. During this time I'll go through emotional highs and lows, highs with joy over this new found vision and progress, and lows in grieving over past mistakes. 

After a while, it's time to start practicing new behaviors, but be careful to keep your eye on the prize. Where your eyes go, your feet and behavior will follow. Keeping your sights focused takes another quality character trait, discipline, and discipline takes a lot of practice. Ask any dieter who has ever fallen off the wagon. It won't be perfect every time, but you can get back on track and continue.

Lastly, when you're trying to create a new path, you may get lost and need to ask for help. Use your support system of friends and family to help you navigate a sure course. With self-awareness, discipline and support, you can be on a path to better decision-making. You can!

 

 

You Can Have It All

Are you seeking the perfect health, job, partner, financial situation, or weight? I know I want all of that and even more. I wouldn't even admit to myself for the longest time that I wanted it all because I believed a lie that it wasn't possible to have everything I want. I believed that life had to be hard and be a struggle to be worthy. 

I know it's messed up, but that is what I thought. So, somehow or another, I spent my life struggling with a school I didn't like, a health problem or two, an employment issue, or roommate disaster. Something was always happening, until one day it wasn't. It was a strange feeling to not have a drama going on in my life.

I felt fully and completely happy. It was almost too good to be true. Then something happened to me that rocked my world yet again. It was completely out of my control, and my life changed again in an instant. I was proving this theory about life being difficult true. At least was what I believed in my subconscious. I believed I had to struggle. Now, I've exposed the lie. I know it is possible to be happy and have everything I want. The things I desire to see manifested in my life can continue growing and getting better. I just have to envision it and believe it.

Your Feelings Are Your Guide

Do you have feelings of joy and bliss, impatience and crankiness, stress and peace?  I know I do. Life feels easy and good when I'm enjoying blissful and joyful feelings and emotions, but I feel taxed and stressed when my emotions are negative or conflicted.  I notice that I become indecisive about what decisions to make. 

I've spent many years forcing myself to make decisions that my head agreed with versus my heart. It's hard to make decisions guided by your heart when you can't put your finger on what it is exactly that you are feeling.  When I can't articulate what I'm thinking and feeling, I just end up feeling cranky and frustrated instead.

My Story of Perseverance and Overcoming

I've been keeping this story somewhat of a secret to most of the people I encounter in every day life. For far too long, I listened to voices of fear that I would be judged for it rather than my listening to my true voice that is is worth sharing. Although you can treat this story and more in my book, Views from the 13th Floor, it is time to share it with the world. My story follows.

One fall morning, only a few weeks following the devastation we now call 9-11, the piercing sound of my alarm jolted me into reality.  Just five more minutes, I thought to myself as I rolled over and commenced the internal battle to convince myself to get out of bed.  I struggled to get out of my warm covers, knowing if I didn’t that I’d be late to drama class. The morning was calm and cool as the first crisp days of fall began to hit Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I opened my eyes and did a quick glance about the room.  The walls were white and reflecting the rising sun through the large paned windows welcoming the new day. My roommate was curled in a ball beneath her covers in her twin bed on the other side of our shared room.  She was lucky to still be sleeping.  The old splintered hard wood floors of a deep mahogany hue that nursed the growing dust bunnies beneath our beds beckoned my lazy feet.  I gathered my strength, then threw the covers back and sat up.  It was a Friday and the day before my mom’s birthday. I had been a little disappointed in myself because I didn’t make the time to get her something and mail it to her.  I really wanted to get her a birthday present and show her how much I love her.

I stumbled across the less than smooth hardwoods to our tiny white porcelain tiled bathroom. I commenced my morning routine of brushing my teeth and washing my face. I was thinking about having to walk across campus or maybe even run, because I was going to be late when there was a sudden POP, and I had the instantaneous worst headache of my life hit me like a tiny explosion with deep impact on the right side of my head behind my right eye.