Author Archives: admin

Scarcity

scarcity
Much of my social conditioning has come from a perspective of scarcity and lack. I grew up with the beatitudes as a kind of wish list. reasoning from Einstein’s theory that you cannot solve any problem from the same level as its source, there was seemingly no way I could be set free from my situation. Any action taken from a plce of scarcity cannot be productive.

I was fifty years old when I chanced upon books about abundance. One of my earliest books that awakened me to a positive and glrious world was Gary Quinn’s “Living in the Zone”. It reminded me convincingly that as a child of God the world was mine. I felt cheated; all the years of compliance within a religion that taught that man was created to the image and likeness of God yet limited me to a life of sacrifice and deprivation.

Eventually in Singapore I discovered the books of Esther and Jerry Hicks. Their statement of empowerment was:
Control over the way you feel – over your response to situations is not only the key to your consistent happiness but to everything you desire as well.
Moreover they continued: only when you are willing to find a thought, any thought that brings you a feeling of relief can you begin your trek up the emotional scale in the direction of love and appreciation that represents who you really are.

Processing

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According to Joe Vitale … your conscious mind is aware of only 15 bits of information while there are 15 million bits happening each time. According to Martha Beck the verbal region processes about forty bits of information per second. The nonverbal processes about 11 million bits per second. Martha Beck favors wordlessness naturally. Vitale and Beck use different statistics to describe how inadequate the conscious mind is.

On many occasions I experience this inadequacy while i work on my daily crossword puzzles. When I get stuck and can’t gt the answer I usually do something else. When I do something I don’t like, like housework, I get frustrated and the cloudiness of my mind worsens. When I relax and especially when I go to sleep I usually get answers I previously could not access. Sometimes I get answers while eating something I like.

This is a far cry from the tiring process of studying during my college years especially when a lot of memory work was involved. There was no time to relax. I felt I needed all the answers immediately. Had I known the information from Vitale and Beck, I would have loved school life more. Needless to say many years ago school life was simpler. There was no college thesis then much less APA rules to give students nightmares. There were no cellphones to be checked every so often. There were no computers either. It was an age where there were fixed answers for every question asked in the classroom. I managed to have some fun in school even under a regime of authoritarian discipline. Our fun was a whole lot of silliness by the standards of the youth of today.

Stories Re-Written and Re-Told

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In our self-talk we interpret life according to the stories we tell ourselves. For example, when we read about statistics about our ailments, we tend to include ourselves among those who won’t survive. Dr. Christine Page is saddened by this.

The shaman’s advice would be for us to think of ourselves as among the few that will be healed, no matter how slim the chances are, unless of course the dire medical pronouncement was made specifically for you. Find a detail in the prognosis that will make you an exception. Recreate your condition with a new vocabulary. Empower yourself towards health by telling a different story. Read about inspiring people like Louis Hay. Visit Facebook accounts of countless brave people battling health challenges and winning them.

This is the process I used to recover after a mild stroke. In the hospital during my therapy, I was warned about a specific window during which I would be able to walk again. Once I let slip the opportunity, I wouldn’t be able to walk again. Naturally I got scared. A former student of mine, now a medical practitioner banished my fears about the deadline. I told myself a different story.

A year after I can walk, albeit with a cane because my doctor doesn’t want me to risk bone damage in case I fall. With continued exercise I believe I can soon say goodbye to my cane.

Renewal

renewal

Recently, I view my world through Facebook. In the mornings I greet the day through pictures of trees on my newsfeeds, not only green trees but orange, yellow,red, violet, and blue leafed trees! Every so often I feast on different kinds of bridges.I like most the wooden ones. I also enjoy pictures of swans,ducks, chickens and birds; dogs and cats are so common I don’t enjoy them. Clearly I don’t have a house pet. I prefer horses and squirrels.

There are cute posts of children mouthing wise sayings. Cherries, my favorites appear once in a while and when they do I know my day will be cheerful.

My mood changes with posts about conflicts, wars, political upheavals and sickness. I don’t like gory pictures of Jesus which apparently appeal to a lot especially my countrymen. I am allergic to posts that start with “How many ‘likes’ … Posts that air dirty laundry spoil my mornings.

Whenever I find posts that may interest friends and relatives, I repost on their timelines. My intention is to spread the good messages and the healthy feelings evoked by the posts. I believe Facebook wisely used can set the tone of the day.

Some of my favorite posts come from: Buddhism; Oneness Happens Here; Whisper of the Heart; Beautiful Gardens; Sye of Relief; Nostalgia; Neale Donald Walsch; Pixelz; Lessons Learned in Life; Rose Cottage; Quotes Corner;Soul Speaking etc.