This is another quote from Mother Theresa that I’ve always loved:

We cannot do great things, only small things with great love.

St. Theresa the Little Flower, one of my favorites, is also known for doing this. She served God humbly with small acts.

In the end though, if the small things we do have a direction and goal and are carefully checked, just as Ilchi Lee always says, won’t the small things add up to something great?

Of course, whether small or large, the most important thing is great love. Without that, nothing is great.

Here is to a love-filled day!

I found this quote today.

“Be happy in the moment; that’s enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.” – Mother Teresa

Every time I feel frustrated by where I am versus where I want to be, I am reminded that all I really have is this moment. If I focus on being what I want to be right now, then I don’t need to worry about whether I’ll make it in the future. I can only do it now anyway. The thing is, all of the now’s add up to my future.

Ilchi Lee recently emphasized this:
“A person who lives well for a day will also live well for a week. You need to live well for a week to live a good month, and if you live well for a month, you will live well for a year. This is how important your each and every day is.”

Even a day is composed of a series of now’s. I will begin now, and be now.

This is a screenshot of a Tumblr post by the White House that I saw this morning. I didn’t watch the State of the Union last night, and I don’t know what to think or feel about the state of the Unites States, my homeland. But when I read this, I felt it was true. At least, I want these ideals we hold as a country to be true. I also want it to be true within myself. These are my own ideals. To make them more than just a philosophy or ideal, I need to remember them all the time. They need to affect me and my actions.

Ilchi Lee said recently that if we put energy behind information and enough energy accumulates, then that information becomes material. If I don’t notice what information I am really focused on throughout the day, then I’m being created by information instead of using information to create the reality I want.

By only paying attention and giving energy to the negative side of things, I’m only making that side grow. But everything has more than one side.

I saw a video recently of the 2015 Mnet Asian Music Awards (MAMA). A Korean singer named CL was one of the performers at the award show. I’ve seen her work before, both as a soloist and as a part of the group, 2NE1. I like her, but there was a cheesy line in English in one of her singles about which I heard a negative comment from a reviewer that stuck in my head. She had also gained a little weight, which is a big no-no for a kpop star (I think). Her performance took those two potentially negative aspects and turned them around and made them cool. She used them creatively and in unexpected ways to make a performance that was different from most at the show.

I realized later that in order to be able to do that, I really need to accept myself and what I have to offer. Rather than complaining about it or avoiding it, I can use it creatively for my goals. One of those goals is the message above.

So I won’t be afraid to be natural and authentic, open and loving, undaunted by challenge and ever-ready to change. The only information I want to be a “slave” to is the information/energy transmitted by soul.

If you’re curious, this was CL’s performance at MAMA.

I was ok for a moment, just focusing on my work for the Power Brain Education book we’ll publish next year. Then I started to focus on my boss, and all of my insecurities came to the surface of my consciousness. All of the things my inner self says I’m doing wrong, such as not doing a particular task yesterday and being late this morning—things that don’t meet my own standards, have put me on edge. I am sitting in constant fear of reprimand.

Because I wasn’t experiencing that a few minutes ago, I could notice the difference in how it affected my brain’s ability to function. Suddenly, it became harder to think, integrate different ideas, or decide anything.

Although there is a part of me that wants to be a “good worker” (I was essentially bred to be one by my parents and schooling), I think this concept is not life-giving. It takes me away from my soul and it’s dream.

Instead, I’m redirecting my consciousness within myself, focusing it on my center, my soul and core, and following that energy instead. I practiced this a lot while I was a member at the Body & Brain centers in Boston, so I already know its power. I’m glad I have this tool and awareness to go back to when I unconsciously veer off course.

Fear of being “bad” or “wrong” for any reason . . . why should that be the master of my life? Hope, love, and faith in my own divinity and the greater divinity of which I am an expression sound like much better guides in what can feel like an uncertain and insecure existence. Those are all already inside me, so all I need to do is remember to listen.

Holding back. It’s what I do nowadays. Rather than move forward with all of my energy, I hold back and guard my energy preciously. Perhaps I don’t have enough energy, but I think it’s because I’ve let my energy become too stagnant. I keep refusing to dive into ChangeYourEnergy.com every time I’m pulled into its projects. I reject being a team player.

This is not how I used to be. I used to be a team player. I used to believe in things. I used to want to use my energy for a cause. I used to believe in what I’m doing.

Now, I hide.

I think I hide because I fear rejection—from myself and others. I don’t want to prove once again that, “I can’t do it.”
I can’t be cool.
I can’t write well.
I can’t come up with good ideas.
I can’t track and check things.
I can’t make a strategy.
I can’t do things for the future.
I can’t speak well.
I can’t communicate in a way that people care about and listen to.
I can’t match with the people around me.
I can’t stop being angry and frustrated.

But actually, I know I can. That knowledge hovers just beneath the surface of my consciousness. It doesn’t need to go any deeper, because I happily ignore it. I’m protecting myself. But from what? The trials and tribulations of living? From the pain and suffering that will always come with pulling your head out of the sand and looking life in the face? Why do I, like so many other people, self-medicate?

My personal drugs are caffeine and media, especially books and online TV shows, both American ones and ones from Asia. I can go for days and days without expressing my true self much with these easily-accessed helpers. It’s no wonder my anger and frustration grows until it spills out to every area of my life!

I try to regulate these emotions with empathy and understanding, but this strategy only seems to go so far. It doesn’t allow me to be the bright, shiny beacon of hope and love that I want to be, and that I see Body & Brain instructors and members being. I can’t even deny it’s possible with its manifestation right in front of me.

Lots of change is happening around me right now. It offers the opportunity to step up and become something more than I’m showing, to step into my greater potential. This, the wonderful people around me, the feeling of evil energy seeping out of my tailbone blockage, and the distance from my own vague dreams are my motivation to change.

The only way I know how to change for real is by changing my energy with mind-body practice and new habits (aka Brain Education).

What I will change:

1. Do more training every day. I will do all 3 Solar Body exercises for 10 minutes each (Toe Tapping, Brain Wave Vibration, Plate Balancing Exercise), plus Energy Dance for 5 minutes.
2. Curb consumption. Limit reading to non-fiction and video watching to 5 hours per week. (Even as I wrote that, many parts of me said, “No way!”)
3. Pray sincerely every day without doing anything else at the same time.

This plan makes me feel hopeful and miserable and scared all at once. I’m going to latch on to hope though. I’m choosing hope right now. Taking these actions will make me strong enough emotionally and mentally to enact greater changes in my life.

Lately I’ve been pretty good about doing bowing meditation every day. I usually do 103 full prostrations. Today as I was doing them, I had a lot of thoughts and ideas. This is normal, because bowing circulates a lot of energy in your body. As a result, old, stagnant energy gets cleaned out and fresh energy comes in. Thoughts and emotions are energy. It’s also easy for your heart to open and for your energy to become strong and stable as a result of bowing.

I was excited at first about all of the good ideas that were coming to mind and about all of the emotional processing I was doing. But then I remembered, is this really the point of bowing? Is just having good ideas why I’m doing this? No, what I really wanted was something deeper: a special time to reconnect and listen to my soul.

After that realization, my focus changed, and I looked deeper inside. In my mind, I laid down all of my thoughts and emotions before my soul. I offered them up to my soul with each bow, remembering once again how I’ve promised myself that I would live for and according to my soul. And with each bow, I could feel my soul more strongly.

I was feeling really good about this—proud of myself.  I became afraid of this pride and self-congratulation and offered that to my soul as well. Underneath that was self-doubt and self-criticism, which I realized was as untrue as my pride. So I laid that before my soul too. Beyond that, there was nothing, which was truth.

“I’m so wonderful,” and “I’m so horrible,” neither of them are really true. I am more than that and I am nothing. That is truth.

This is the type of bowing meditation that I do. It’s a great health practice, regardless of the spiritual aspects. When I bow a lot, especially more than 103 bows, I simply feel more . . . myself.

As  the video says, if you’d like to try bowing meditation for yourself, you can start with just 9 or 21 bows until you build your stamina. Enjoy!

I just spent the last six hours reading half of Mockingjay. My husband is out. He went swimming at the community pool. He likes to do that on the weekends. Sometimes I go with him. I feel great afterward. But this Sunday, I was too wrapped up in my book, and the most important things I needed to get done didn’t involve going anywhere.

When I came out of my book stupor, I actually had the wherewithal to take a shower. While I was showering I thought, I should clean up. I’ll start with the shower since I haven’t done it in a couple of weeks. And I should call Jill (my friend from high school) before it gets too late on the east coast. I’m thinking that I need to do physical, concrete things to get my life back on track. So I get out of the shower and start to get dressed and clean up. But as I do so, my brain opens up. I had been doing my best to stay away from my usual train of thought—the I need to do this, and this is the way that is—just to keep from thinking and feeling the way I usually feel because I didn’t want to return to the same old state. I didn’t want my mind to swirl around with what I thought I should do, what I thought others thought I should do, and random desires to do things. Sometimes these all compete in my head. To do that, in a way I was blocking my thinking. For a moment, however, it was like I stopped and this “spiritual” information came in. I had been blocking that too because I had wanted to do something simple and “real” and not just have a lot of nice thoughts and feelings.

For once, I was not confused from the  influx of energy and information. I felt quite clear. What I sensed was, “You’re not fulfilling your mission.” I asked what I was supposed to be doing, and the answer I got was writing. I asked what I was supposed to be writing, and I sensed this blog. Now, from a logical perspective, writing in a blog that no one actually reads when I have lots of work and cleaning to do is a little ridiculous. And maybe I’ll regret it later . . . or maybe not. But hope and energy started to circulate inside and I knew that I needed to do it, even though it didn’t make sense.

So here I am, writing nothing to no one. I have a feeling, though, that something is coming down the pipeline, and if I keep going and keep listening to that feeling, something will grow and develop and come out. I’m not a person with special talents or expertise. I don’t have brilliant things to say or an engaging writing style necessarily. But I am someone who asked heaven to use me and who asked how I can be useful today. To get an answer and not act on it is even more ridiculous. I’m not going to follow logic, and I’m not going to block this flow of energy, even if I have doubts and fears and don’t know what to write. I will keep writing until it’s time to stop. And I know that I’ll know when it’s time to stop.

Last night I attended a ceremony at Mago Castle, the physical version here in Sedona, not the metaphysical one in the ancient story of Mago Castle.  It’s at the top of a hill that’s at the intersection of the four known major vortexes. When I stood there at dusk, looking out over Cathedral Rock and Bell Rock and everything in between, my soul felt healed. I felt a deeper connection to Mother Earth and feel strong energy come up from the ground. That place is known for its strong energy.

When I walked into the house on the property, maybe it was because of the faint smell of wine that is used to clean the ceremonial bowls and platters that hold food, candles, water, and incense, I had the same soul-fulfilling sensations I feel when taking the Eucharist during a Catholic Mass. In that place, after that ceremony of chanting and prayer, my soul felt much stronger.

During the ceremony, the person guiding it asked us to reflect on what it meant to be able to do this ceremony in that special place that honors the Earth. As I did so, I felt and saw the Earth opening up and bright light coming from it.

Just as many people are opening to brighter light right now, the Earth is as well, and vice versa. I also knew at that time that I should be brighter.

How can I have amazing experiences like that and then the next day spend six hours reading a novel with lots of killing in it? That’s what I ask myself. I don’t have an answer yet. Of course, it’s also about survival and valuing life, and taking pleasure in the small things. Katniss had her own way of thinking about the world, as everyone did, and in the end it didn’t seem any better or worse than anyone else’s.

All I wonder now is how can my soul really be free? I’ll just keep following my instincts, bit by bit, and see where they take me. Right now, I think it’s time to clean the bathroom.