| Presence, your Gift to the World by Renae Cane |
| As a miserable, low-level professional at an insurance company, I kept having this feeling that I would die if I stayed there. I'd gotten my Bachelor's degree in business, but something was telling me "This is not right." The insurance business was not good for me, and I was not doing it any favors. Every day, I would come home and seclude myself in the bedroom until I could de-stress enough to not bite someone's head off. Finally, I quit The Job. When I told Andries that I wanted to quit, he confessed that he'd been wanting me to do that for months. I was relieved and grateful that he'd allowed me the space and power to figure that out for myself. And I was so involved in the drama of that "reality" that it was hard to let go. Amazingly, I still worried and got angry about things that happened there months after I left. Why would I torture myself with thoughts and memories about something that is no longer part of my life? You wouldn't do that, would you? Nah! Because you know you can't change what you said or did even a second ago. We've all said things we regretted or acted like a dork. We can't take the words back and replay the scene, we can only change what happens Now. But how do I keep myself from doing or feeling or saying those things again, when they seem to happen automatically? And what about things that happened in the past that still make me angry or sad when I think about them? Well, the first step in being free to really live Now is to separate who you are from your thoughts. Your body and your mind are in many ways autonomous. You don't have to consciously decide how you're going to walk, you just get up and do it. You don't have to think about many things like how to write your name or look up your friend's phone number each time you call, it just comes automatically. That's a nice thing. All of it is good. And those memories that make you unhappy or guilty or traumatized? Those are good, too, when you have tools to deal with them. And boy, do we have wonderful tools in this world now. One of them is Byron Katie's The Work. You take this problem, these chronic thoughts or beliefs, and write everything in the worst possible light. How much you hate it, why it makes you angry or sad, and then ask 4 questions. Your willingness to examine this thought and see how it affects you and your willingness to ask the questions is all that's required. Watch the videos. Read the book, Loving What Is. You'll amaze yourself with your ability to change your thoughts and change your life. Another great tool is Robert G. Smith's Faster EFT. EFT is a system that uses tapping on acupuncture points to release those immediate body responses to stress that hold those thoughts in a state of Now. Because the thoughts and memories that cause that pain are not things that are happening Now, they're things from your past, and you're the one who is recreating them every time you think them. Watch the videos. There are some in which he explains his philosophy and the reasoning behind Faster EFT, and there are many videos in which he demonstrates the tapping for different issues on real people with real pain. And you'll notice that his expectation is that they are up there to release the pain and look at the issue with new eyes, and he doesn't stop until it's completely gone. You might want to go to the last page of videos and work your way through to the first page, because the last pages have his explanations and will provide the framework for your own self-tapping. Another resource that has helped many people is Eckhart Tolle's Power of Now and A New Earth. You can still access Oprah's webcast of them going through the book and taking questions from all around the world. This is great stuff! |
| Give yourself the gift of Presence, Now. Look around and notice the wonderful life that you have and the things about yourself that you love and the things you do that bring you joy and the people who are a blessing to your life. Enjoy your life NOW -- if you don't, who will? And today, notice a beautiful sunrise or sunset without thought or words. Just look and feel it without the need for someone else to acknowledge it. It's just for you. For every moment you are Present Now, you are a Gift to yourself and the world. |
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