Peace and Inner Guidance

The past year, I have not listened to my inner guidance on several occasions because of other seemingly important and urgent matters. It made me resentful, unhappy and even depressed. I hope to change all that and start living in peace and harmony within myself. This new year serves as a very good platform for personal rebirth.

According to the Para-Gram PEACE by Paramahansa Yoganada:

Change yourself and you have done your part in changing the world. Every individual must change his own life if he wants to live in a peaceful world. The world  cannot become peaceful unless and until you yourself begin to work toward peace. It is only by removing hate from our hearts that we can live a Christlike life.

But how does one remove hate within himself? Since its source usually comes from the fact that we are always doing what is expected of us rather than what we really want to do, then it just means that when we change ourselves according to the dictates of our inner voice (that voice being of God's or from something greater than all of us), then we will start achieving peace and divinity within ourselves.

This also resonates with a quote I read by Shakti Gawain:

Every time you don't follow your inner guidance you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness.

This is why we easily get tired and lethargic when we do things we feel are not meant for us to do; This is why on occasions that we do listen to our inner voice and follow our own bliss, we feel much more alive, powerful and full of unconditional love. A balance can be attained if we don't want to risk everything just yet for that one thing we want to do. We can enjoy the process and continue learning from it while slowly changing the direction of our lives to our true calling.

I now include these quotes in my daily reading to bring me peace, and to guide me in my quest for creativity. You can also use them if you want to bring to the surface your creative spirit rather than remain as a shadow of your divine artist self the coming years.

Vision Boards and Guide Folders for a Better New Year

My new vision board for 2012 and beyond.

I spent about five hours from dawn til morning creating my vision board and guide folders. Having a vision board is an amazing tool to help any person achieve his/her goals. According to Jack Canfield, author of of The Success Principles, if you have trouble seeing your goals, use pictures, images and symbols you collect to keep your conscious and subconscious mind focused on your goals. Once you have created these images, you can place them on a dream board or make a collage on a bulletin board, a refrigerator door, or somewhere where you will see them everyday. I placed mine on my office wall, right in front of my computer.

I've been using my old vision board since Oprah taught me how to do it in 1999. Everything I pasted on that old vision board has already come true.

my super old vision board (since 1999)

I made a smaller one which I posted on my 2009  Belle  de Jour planner before but that one got forgotten.

 My 2009 vision board which got neglected when I stopped using my BDJ planner

Dec. 23 Gratitude Journal

I promised myself before that I'll do this gratitude journal on my blog. Here are three things I am thankful for today:

1. Discovering the course The Artists' Way - a Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
2. My sister being home this holiday season
3. My parents staying with us until New Year

How about you? What are you thankful for today?

Morning Pages and Artist Date - Tools of the Artist's Way

As the year is ending, I am reminded once again of projects undone and creative pursuits kept on hold because of lack of time, motivation and the need to earn real money... fast!

So I am embarking on this task of unleashing my inner creativity by taking a 12-week course through "The Artists' Way - a Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity." It is a course in discovering and recovering your creative self written by Julia Cameron and Mark Bryan.



I've gone through the introduction and I was taught how to use two main tools for the duration of the course: Morning Pages and Artist Date

What are morning pages?

Basically, as a student of this course, I am asked to write every morning three pages of whatever comes to my mind. When this course was made, blogging hasn't been born yet. So ideally, this should be written down on a notebook. But I prefer to write it on a separate blog I call Jen's Morning Pages.

Anyway, in terms of its content, there is no right or wrong way of doing this. The things I write about can be negative, positive, boring, wrong grammar, wrong spelling, whatever. It doesn't really matter. The point of this exercise is to be able to write my thoughts the instant I think about them, no matter what I think about the activity, no matter how I feel at the moment, no matter how much I resist doing it, whatever the case may be. No corrections should be made. I just have to do it. This type of discipline will allow me to detach myself from my emotions. Eventually, this act will help unleash my creativity no matter what I feel or think.


What is the Artist date?

This is a set of time (like two hours a week for instance) where I take my own inner artist out on a date. It should just be me and my artist self. Spending time in solitude with my artist child is essential to self-nurturing. It could be anything as long as I do it on my own. I should do what intrigues me, what excites me. In order to have a real relationship with my creativity, I must take the time and care to cultivate it. Generally, the student's creativity will use this time to confront himself, to confide with himself, to bond with himself, and to plan.


These are the two most important things during this whole 12 weeks of unleashing my inner creativity and unblocking my fears and roadblocks. The artists who have taken this course in the past have continued doing these things well beyond the 12-week duration of the course. Many of them have fulfilled their dreams of becoming artists, some have become movie producers (like Steven Spielberg), real authors, painters, etc. I intend to finish this course and continue using the tools afterward. I've already signed my contract and I am committing myself to this.

Wish me luck!

SUCCESS: A Para-Gram by Paramahansa Yogananda

I have applied this Para-Gram time and again... I felt that I have chosen well in terms of work that I want to do but now I'm not so sure anymore.

This card came to me unexpectedly after I did some tarot card reading the other day because I was feeling very confused. It cemented the signs that the universe has been throwing my way as of late.

As the cliche goes, if there's one thing that's constant in this life, it's change. And right now, the wind of change has blown in my direction and whispered in my ear: "Take risks, take a different path and be great at it."

I know it's scary especially when I'm already living a life of comfort and peace. But my heart tells me there could be more.


The Para-Gram of Success says:

THE PARA-GRAM OF SUCCESS

Attitude of Gratitude

I think my okra plant is bearing fruit!

Thinking of things you're thankful for each day can bring such a sense of calm and feeling of happiness even when you've been feeling down for so long. It's just a matter of discipline and constant practice but if you do this every day, I promise you, the quality of your life will be so much better. I should know. Although I must admit that I haven't been doing this for a long while and was focusing on the negative side of things and that was when things started falling apart. My husband and I were constantly bickering at each other, I got sick, and our finances dwindled. But once I stopped myself from falling into that old destructive pattern and regained control over my feelings, things started falling into place once again and it's getting better and better.

Anyway, I'd like to start this gratitude journal here on my online self-help blog. You can do the same and as you practice the attitude of gratitude, notice how things begin to become better in your life. It could be small things, it could be big things. Just be aware and continuously practice giving thanks to blessings you receive each passing day NO MATTER WHAT.

For this morning alone, I have three things to be thankful for:

• By discovering HP Plus for my laboratory tests, I was able to save Php 10,000 on medical expenses.
• The person who extracted my blood this morning had such gentle hands that I didn't feel a thing. It was a first for me! In the past, whenever I'd get a blood test, the experience was usually painful. Thank God it wasn't today!
• My husband was with me the whole time and he was more sweet than usual.

When I got home, more blessings greeted me...

• Our fridge and pantry are full of healthy foods I can eat.
• Our house with the Christmas decors around is looking lovely as usual.
• I have a bag of new Nivea products I'm testing which I'll share with you on my other blog.
• My vegetable plants are growing (both my okra and tomato plants have just sprouted some flowers and maybe even a fruit!)

My tomato plant has flowers now!

Realizing these blessings made me happier today. And because I'm happier, I'm more productive and efficient with everything that I have to do. I even got to do 4 blog posts in between!

I'll also be going out on a fancy dinner date with my hubby tonight, and another fancy dinner date with my parents tomorrow. Those are two more things I am thankful for. How about you? (^_^)

Ready or Not

I've done a lot of scary things in my life: I married my first true love with zero money in our pockets; I've jumped off a 15-meter water fall; I did zip lining thrice (one in Lignon Hill in Albay, one in Club Manila East, and one in an Eco Park in Misibis Bay); I almost died while surfing; and lots more. But I think walking into the bathroom this morning and taking those two pregnancy tests were the scariest of them all. My knees were literally buckling under my weight; my body was shaking; I can't breathe... it's like I am being buried alive. I never experienced anything like that before.

Then I opened the kit and read the instructions. I want to do this right so I can be sure. I went downstairs to get an empty disposable container, just like the ones people use when submitting urine specimen. I went back upstairs and locked myself for a few minutes in the master's bathroom. I tried to calm down a bit. Seconds before taking a pee, I finally knew what I wanted.

So I did it. Then I waited. It was only a few seconds of waiting but it felt like forever. Then I saw the line.

I did the same thing to another pregnancy kit. One line.

Whew.

After that, I feel like I don't ever wanna have sex again. Just to be sure.

People say otherwise, but I really think we're not yet ready for this. I don't know when we'll ever be.

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To know a little more about what's behind this story, please read my previous entries on my other blogs:

Misibis Bay Buffet Meals - where it all began

The Power of Friends, Exes and a Smashing Good Time

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Here's a follow up blog post about the topic of pregnancy: To Be or Not To Be Pregnant