Let’s make the commitment to ourselves and each other to send more loving, healing energy to every being on this planet.
Below is a beautiful video to take you through the steps.

The post Loving Kindness Meditation appeared first on Guide for Spiritual Living.

By Barbara Doern Drew and Walter Drew
» Please enjoy a meditation on forgiveness by Jack Kornfield and a guided forgiveness practice by Charles Filmore at the bottom of this online exclusive.
Nature’s gardens are always rife with pithy lessons about personal growth, and last spring we received one about forgiveness from our giant Oriental poppies. In the process of ultimately revealing their brilliant orange and coral flowers, they must burst through their protective pods, which serve a purpose only to a certain point in their evolution and then they must expand beyond them.
Dr. Barry Heermann, author of “Noble Purpose,” refers to this “sheathed” state as the “bounded self.” He describes how when we are infants, we relate to life from the pure essence and unlimited potential of our “essential self,” in which such qualities as love, trust, joy, spontaneity, creativity, and openness naturally abound. However, as life unfolds, for most of us painful and challenging things begin to happen, and to protect ourselves and survive we begin to develop a “hard, outer veneer, especially into adolescence, perfecting it throughout adulthood.” While understandable, the end result of this impermeable facade is a diminishment of the valuable life energy that can assist us in accessing and living from what he calls our “noble purpose,” unique for each of us.

These photos of a poppy’s life cycle were taken by Walter and Barbara Doern Drew, 2016

Misconceptions About Forgiveness

If forgiveness is so essential to the full functioning of ourselves, why do so many of us hesitate to engage in it, or perhaps only dip our toe in its waters but do not fully immerse ourselves in the process? There are many reasons, and some of them are based on “misconceptions” about forgiveness. Four of these are discussed by Dr. Frederick Luskin, director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Projects, and then summarized in the Institute of Noetic Sciences “Conscious Aging” facilitators guidelines:

• Forgiving an offense means that you condone the offense.
• Forgiveness means you have to reconcile with someone who treated you badly.
• Forgiveness depends on whether or not the abuser or lying person apologizes, wants you back, or changes his or her ways.
• Forgiveness means that we forget what has happened to us.

None of these is true, says Luskin, and he stresses that forgiveness is really about us, not the other person. “Forgiveness is primarily for creating your peace of mind. It is to create healing in your life and return you to a state in which you can live and be capable again of love and trust. … [It] can neither be compelled nor stopped by another.” He emphasizes that painful events can actually be life-enhancing experiences when we grieve and learn from them.
Another critical reason to practice forgiveness is that not doing so has a direct impact on our health. Naturopathic physician Dr. James Rouse, in his article “Choosing Healthy Forgiveness,” points out, “Unresolved anger and bitterness are toxic emotions. Holding on to painful emotions can eventually lead to health problems including depression, insomnia, and stress. Prolonged anger greatly increases the risk for heart disease, high blood pressure, asthma, and angina.” In contrast, he says, “forgiveness heals. Forgiving others isn’t about them; it’s about us, loving and caring for ourselves enough to move from bitterness to owning our happiness.”

Elements of Forgiveness

Ron Pevny, author of “Conscious Living, Conscious Aging,” describes what he terms the “elements” of forgiveness: (1) uncovering and feeling what happened, (2) committing to forgive, (3) humanizing the offender, (4) honestly looking at your role in relation to the hurtful situation, and (5) forgiving and continuing to forgive.
While all of the elements are essential to the process, we have found the third one to be especially powerful in our own forgiveness work. Pevny explains, “Try to separate the hurtful act from the person who did it. … What might the other person have been experiencing internally and externally? In what ways has he been wounded, and how did he carry that wounding into his relationship with you?”
Barbara had a painful childhood incident involving her father that she had worked to resolve for decades. She describes, “In 2014, when we were taking practitioner training, the issue surfaced yet again. Soon after, unexpectedly at a conference a minister did an unconventional affirmative prayer process in which I became my father and she became me, and the two of us had a heartfelt dialogue. Though my father had died in 2000, this role reversal significantly shifted my perspective about and my relationship with him. When I returned home, synchronistically the next week’s class theme was forgiveness! For the succeeding two weeks, I forgave both my father and myself 70 times each day and feel that the healing work is now complete, which has cleared me on many levels to do the creative work in front of me at this time.”
In alignment with Pevny’s fifth element, Dr. Martin Luther King states, “We must develop and maintain [italics ours] the capacity to forgive. The one who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. Forgiveness is not an occasional act. It is a permanent attitude.”
Walter understands the importance of an ongoing forgiveness practice. “A few years ago,” he shares, “at a nephew’s rehearsal dinner I made an inappropriate toast to my brother and sister-in-law. Within in a week, I had sent them a letter of apology asking for their forgiveness, which I received.
“The more difficult part was forgiving myself. I ran through the usual cursory excuses like, ‘Well, I was just trying to be funny, we all make mistakes, I will never make a toast again,’ etc. The truth was that I needed to examine the deeper underlying causes of my behavior, which months of self-reflection revealed more clearly. With this new understanding I was able to forgive myself, though I still shudder at times with the memory and wish I could take it all back. And then I start the forgiveness process all over again.”
According to Pevny, “Self-forgiveness depends upon our willingness to carefully examine our choices and actions and, in many cases, acknowledge that we did the best we could with the awareness we had at the time. … The biggest catalysts for our growth are often (perhaps mostly) what we learn from our mistakes, weaknesses, and poor choices. …
“It is also worth noting that in the bigger picture—the soul’s eye view of our lives—things are often not what they seem. What may seem to be mistakes or poor choices from the perspective of our ego and culture may be (from our soul’s perspective) what needs to happen to move us forward on our unique life paths. Rather than forgiveness, what may be needed in such situations is honoring ourselves for making difficult yet important choices.”

A Greater Impact

There is a larger sphere beyond our personal work and immediate relationships that is impacted by our forgiveness work. Azim Khamisa, who 21 years ago made the choice to forgive his son’s killer rather than seek revenge, states in his April 2016 online newsletter, “One is not able to perform at their zenith if they are mired in resentment and guilt. You cannot be out in the world giving 100 percent of yourself if you are hindered by these negative emotions. It is important that we are all out there fully if we are going to shift our world from so much anger, hostility, hatred, resentment, war and violence—things we experience in the media and our world on a daily basis.”
We are all being called to the great work of “unbinding” and freeing ourselves so that the “good” that wants to immerse our entire planet can do so. Are you ready to make a conscious choice to examine areas where you are holding on to old wounds and grievances? Some helpful questions to ask yourself are, With whom do you need to make amends? What harm have you done to others? What relationships need repairing—with your parents, other family members, someone in your workplace or spiritual community? Have you extended forgiveness to yourself?
The practice of forgiveness is a necessary component of a life well lived. We all make mistakes in our human endeavors, yet we also have the innate capacity to forgive others and ourselves so that we can function at our optimal spiritual and human potential, expressing our vibrant brilliance like the Oriental poppies. The freedom afforded by forgiveness opens the portals of inner and outer peace. Incorporating forgiveness into our spiritual practice is good for our hearts, our minds, our health, our spirits and the world. 

A Forgiveness Meditation by Jack Kornfield

Jack Kornfield, author and cofounder of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California, offers the following healing forgiveness meditation in the Institute of Noetic Sciences “Conscious Aging” facilitators guide.
It covers the three essential areas of forgiveness: asking forgiveness of others for ways we have wounded them, forgiving ourselves, and forgiving those who have hurt or harmed us. It begins with an exercise where we relax and breathe into our heart and feel all the barriers we have erected and the emotions we have experienced as a result of not having forgiven ourselves and/or others. Then he says:
There are many ways that you have hurt and harmed others, have betrayed or abandoned them, caused them suffering, knowingly or unknowingly, out of your pain, fear, anger, and confusion. Let yourself remember and visualize the ways you have hurt others. See and feel the pain you have caused out of your own fear and confusion. Feel your own sorrow and regret. Sense that you can finally release this burden and ask for forgiveness. Picture each memory that still burdens your heart, and then to each person associated with that memory repeat the following: I ask for your forgiveness, I ask for your forgiveness.
Next, you repeat the exercise with a focus on yourself, ending with these words: “For the ways I have hurt myself through action or inaction, out of fear, pain and confusion, I now extend a full and heartfelt forgiveness. I forgive myself, I forgive myself.”
Finally, you turn your attention to those who have wounded you in some way and do the steps of the exercise again, ending with: “I now remember the many ways others have hurt or harmed me, wounded me, out of fear, pain, confusion and anger. I have carried this pain in my heart too long. To the extent that I am ready, I offer them forgiveness. To those who have caused me harm, I offer my forgiveness, I forgive you.”
Kornfield encourages us to be gentle and forgiving toward ourselves if we are not yet ready to let go and move on—this is very deep lifetime work. He acknowledges that forgiveness cannot be forced or artificial; however it can be practiced, with a gradual effect over time.

A Forgiveness Practice by Charles Fillmore

Unity founder Charles Fillmore, in the pamphlet “A Sure Remedy” (Unity Publications), offers this comprehensive forgiveness practice:
“Here is a mental treatment that is guaranteed to cure every ill that flesh is heir to: Sit for half an hour every night and mentally forgive everyone against whom you have any ill will or antipathy. If you fear or if you are prejudiced against even an animal, mentally ask forgiveness of it and send it thoughts of love. If you have accused anyone of injustice, if you have discussed anyone unkindly, if you have criticized or gossiped about anyone, withdraw your words by asking him, in the silence, to forgive you. If you have had a falling out with friends or relatives, if you are at law or engaged in contention with anyone, do everything in your power to end the separation. See all things and all persons as they really are—pure Spirit—and send them your strongest thoughts of love. Do not go to bed any night feeling that you have an enemy in the world.”

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In the September 2016 issue under “Letters to the Editor,” reader Helen Pohlig wrote in about her favorite Guide for Spiritual Living authors, including the wisdom of Jesse Jennings, Margaret Stortz and Jane Beach. Her new favorite writer is Eugene Holden. And Helen isn’t the only one — readers want more Eugene!
As promised in “Letters to the Editor,” you can download his entire feature “Surrender to Your Greatest Good in 5 Steps” here.

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Robert Brown created a massive ripple with his heart of service that continues to transform generations to this day.

Mr. Brown may be one of the most remarkable people you’ve never heard of, but his work has touched millions of lives, both through his Civil Rights advocacy in the U.S. and his reading outreach program for the people of Africa, the International BookSmart Foundation. Brown’s life was forever transformed at the age of 12 when his grandmother gave him a little book by Dr. Ernest Holmes, “It’s Up to You” (you can find a copy here).

How have the powerful teachings and philosophy of Science of Mind and Holmes changed your life? How have they made a difference in the lives of those you love?

Create your own ripple like Robert Brown by sharing with Science of Mind Development. »

Your year-end gift makes programs possible like Global Services, World Ministries, Youth Programs, Spiritual Living Circles, Lifelong Learning Classes and Guide for Spiritual Living: Science of Mind magazine.

Enjoy this powerful video below, “Your Wishes Delivered: Mr. Brown’s Books,” and learn more about his worldwide impact born from a seed planted by Dr. Ernest Holmes.

And find the entire feature about Brown by Rev. Dr. John Waterhouse in the October 2016 issue of Guide for Spiritual Living: Science of Mind magazine.

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In our January 2017 issue, Ester Nicholson, ALSP, reveals the power behind admitting that you are powerless. And Nicholson knows from experience.

“What I’ve learned, in applying and sharing this material in workshops, training and private sessions over the past 30 years, is that the very same approach I used to heal myself of smoking cocaine applies to issues far beyond alcohol and substance abuse alone,” she vulnerably shares.

Nicholson developed Soul Recovery, a curriculum of study and practice she used to heal herself of a life-threatening addiction. This ultimately birthed the writing of her book by the same name. She believes the reason that we obsess about a drug, a relationship, a job or anything else is that we have lost sight of our wholeness. Through our life experiences, many of us have “adapted” ourselves to believe that we are unworthy and incapable of being truly happy and fulfilled. That just isn’t true.

Guided Meditations: 21 Days to Healing Dependence

We are entitled to feel as whole as we really are, compassionately and fearlessly.

Let Nicholson guide you through 21 daily contemplations, connecting to Truth and healing dependence — whatever form or appearance that takes in your life. » Sign up on her home page and begin to feel the benefits and profound shift in how you view your circumstances.

Other Powerful Resources

Receive regular insights on Nicholson’s blog: https://esternicholson.wordpress.com
Join her life-changing Forgiveness Course: https://www.udemy.com/soul-recovery-forgiveness/

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By Rev. Dr. Terry Drew Karanen |
As a multi-talented columnist for Guide for Spiritual Living: Science of Mind magazine, Rev. Dr. Terry Drew Karanen writes regularly about money and mindfulness in “Practical Prosperity.” He serves as the director of Spirit, Mind and Body Foundation, a Centers for Spiritual Living focus ministry. You can also find his blog at Patheos.com.
Karanen has a new book out, “How to Find Your Vision and Get a Life!” According to James Mapes, author of “Quantum Leap Thinking: An Owner’s Guide to the Mind,” Karanen provides simple, easy explanations to the challenges of life without the “metaphysical psycho-babble” often seen in topics like this. Through relating his own life challenges he provides the reader with practical, usable exercises to clarify his/her purpose in life and how to best fulfill that vision and mission.

Here are some insightful excerpts from Karanen’s latest work about using a personal vision and mission to create the life of your dreams:

Become passionate with your vision. Only you can create the excitement of passion in your life that is sustainable and reliable. Classes are great, seminars are wonderful, self-help books are enlightening, but when it comes right down to it, it all comes back to you. You can take as many classes, and seminars as you can afford and then some. You can workshop yourself into a stupor. You can buy every purple outfit there is to announce your spiritual enlightenment, search out every possible piece of crystal jewelry and burn sandalwood incense until smoke fills your house, and it still comes down to you. None of any of that will mean anything if you cannot feel the passion for your vision.
Obsession is not passion. Learn this. Know this. Do not be fooled into thinking that just because you are staying busy it means you are accomplishing anything more than staying busy.
It is imperative that we see the value in what we do. If you can do something better than anyone else, appreciate that. Release any thought that acknowledging your magnificence is egotistical. If you are not doing what you think you ought to be doing, begin with doing the very best at what you are doing. Continue to see your worthiness for obtaining your vision. Be willing to accept success.

» To purchase an autographed copy of the book, visit Karanen online.

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In our January 2016  issue, best-selling author and speaker Gregg Levoy talks with Rev. Duchess Dale about his latest book, “Vital Signs: The Nature and Nurture of Passion.”

In “Vital Signs,” Levoy examines skills that expand one’s exploration into the art of living life fully with a sense of adventure and discovery, opening the way for creativity in all areas of life. The book guides the reader into the soul in order to do the necessary work to uncover and maintain the visions and passions that are uniquely ours.

“Vital Signs” is geared to being in love with life, not just attaining passion. It’s about cultivating the skill of passion — not just passion as a place to get to, but a place you come from, says Levoy.

Watch the interview here:

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Shattering Limits. Inspiring Results. »

• Do you want to be happier, healthier and more productive?
• Are you looking for greater success in life or business?
• Are you willing to stop believing everything you think?

Perhaps you are working really hard toward creating your dream life and perhaps not. It’s time to rewire your mind and ignite the success that is your birthright.

The post Welcome to Your New Life appeared first on Guide for Spiritual Living.

By Margaret Stortz  |
I have long felt that, in our Oneness with God, we cannot fail to be recipients of the Divine Good, which filters through us all the time. I say “filters” instead of just plain “flows” because in our ignorance we tend to inhibit the flight of the Infinite Spirit within us and therefore only get some of what we could receive completely. We could and do call the Divine Good by others names, such as Spiritual Gifts, which enables us to separate out Infinite qualities into characteristics we want to experience. Sounds a bit mundane, perhaps, but then much of our lives is mundane and worldly, caught up in our hopes, dreams and responsibilities. Why shouldn’t we usher spiritual qualities into the most ordinary parts of our days as well as the most inspired? Divine Inspiration is ours to use as we see fit, and who is to say some uses are better than others?

Recognizing the Gifts

One of Ernest Holmes’s favorite scholars, the English jurist of the 19^th Century, Thomas Troward, gives a thoughtful, pragmatic look at how to recognize and use the Gifts of the Spirit. He lists some of them as identifiable characteristics that we will find familiar: Life, Love, Light, Power, Peace, Beauty, and Joy. No surprise here. As spiritual seekers we often gravitate to terms that point out certain qualities we would want to amplify in our lives. In fact, Troward suggests that we have access to them by what he called the “Divine Principle of Humanity” and that this is our “Normal Standard,” from which we continue to evolve. We could simply say that there is inherent, identifiable, expression-able spiritual DNA that we all come into life with and with which we have to become familiar. If Oneness means anything, it cannot be that we are not using the spiritual gifts. It can be, though, that we are clueless about the power within us. This can get a little scary because, as Ernest Holmes tells us, we can misuse our good.
Troward gives us clues as to how to access our normal standard, and he says simply that we can contemplate our sense of Spirit. We all have the capacity for self contemplation. We are all centers in Spirit, and as we think about our sense of Spirit, our personalities become anchored in it…part of our acts of being Troward’s “normal.” What is even more wonderful is Troward’s naming of a Divine Ideal, God’s desire to enjoy Itself through the expression of forms, some of which are ourselves. Could our invitation to live fully get any better than this?
I am especially thinking of the gift of Joy at this time because “Creating a Joyful Life” is the theme of this month’s GUIDE FOR SPIRITUAL LIVING: SCIENCE OF MIND magazine. As joy is one of Troward’s “normals” and is part of our spiritual DNA, we don’t have to scurry around trying to get it as much as we open to it through contemplation. Is it tied up in the acquisition of things, or is it a more ineffable quality of being that shows up, sometimes at the strangest times? In my service as a minister I have conducted many funerals and memorials, which are never happy times, but I make a distinction between happiness and joy. I believe happiness is mostly event based. We are happy when things go the way we want them to; we are unhappy when they don’t. Joy, on the other hand, being a part of our “normal” can show up at any time for no particular reason, and it does come up during some of our unhappiest events, such as end-of-life services.  When people come together around the lives of loved ones who have made the transition, in the midst of sorrow, joy can emerge, perhaps as a shared story or just a smile based on thinking of the one loved, thinking of how wonderful it was to share a part of life with them.

Celebrating Joy

Recently one of our eminent ministers, Dr. Roger Teel, contributed to the Science of Mind Magazine with an article entitled “Celebrating Joy.” He, too, recognizes that joy is basic spirituality when he writes, “When I say this life is joy, I’m saying the basic essence of life is the spirit, and the spirit is joy. It’s celebrating itself as everything that we are, as everything around us.” He recognizes the naturalness of spiritual gifts as being the only given when he also writes “a lot of human experience is suffering, not because life has set it up that way but because we are out of alignment (italics mine), and we’ve bought into a lot of illusions.” How often have we realized that the great mistake we make is in not knowing the depth of our spirituality and therefore not recognizing how the gifts flow to us and through us! In this ignorance we do create many misalignments and illusions about ourselves and others.
Dr. Roger also speaks about a concern I have shared for several years now when he writes of the often-intrusiveness of technology. I believe that joy needs its way. It needs the uncluttered mind and heart through which to impress us with its presence. The ever presence of technology tends to keep us walled off from our own humanity in our use of it, as Teel writes, “gadgets [that] are a symptom of our separation from reality.” Who needs more of an estrangement from life?”

Making the Conscious Connection

In his last address at Asilomar, Ernest Holmes, in one of his uplifting affirmations, said that “everything that lives proclaims the Glory of God,” which in its day was somewhat astonishing, especially as one thinks of all the western belief systems that proclaimed the separation between God and humanity. Holmes went on to say that …”we are a part of the unfoldment of the Divine Intelligence in human affairs,” a clear identification of how the Spiritual Gifts are always expanding. Holmes expounded on an idea he shared with Troward that humanity had reached a point where it must now deliberately and consciously cooperate “with that principle of evolution and outreach of the Creative Urge of the Spirit.” Can anyone doubt the necessity of humanity’s knowing its place in the divine scheme of things and how disastrous life can be when it does not?
If we think of ourselves as conduits of joy, we should certainly have fun doing so, for what is fun and pleasure if not some of the ways and means we experience joy? Like so many of the great philosophers, the Sufi poet, Rumi emphasizes the idea that God enjoys Itself through its creation. He wrote that “God created the physical universe in order to manifest Himself, so that the treasure of His wisdom may be revealed. He said, ‘I was a hidden treasure,’ Listen! In the same way you must not let your spiritual reality be submerged, but instead must manifest your spirit in creation.” Our treasures are not meant to be hidden either. When joy has free access through us, our revelations are made much easier.

Swimming in Joy  

Some of nature’s denizens have always known this. Take fish, for example. For a number of years our family maintained a koi pond in our backyard. As I tended the fish, I noticed of course that they were immensely beautiful with their flashing colors and luminous bodies coursing through the water. But I also felt that they displayed an effortless joy in their movements. I don’t suggest that in their fish brains they were very self-aware and knew how lovely they were, but I do think that in their basic simplicity they were easy, uncomplicated conduits of joy. They simply did what they did without making anything a big deal.
In ponds as in any other body of water, there are always collections of what can only be called “gunk” at the bottoms, some of it edible, some not, but none of it very appetizing. On the other hand, pond keepers always have a supply of nourishing fish food that gets dispensed regularly. This is light in weight and always floats on the top. If they want it, the fish must rise up to the top of the water to get it. They’re smart enough to know that they have to come up for the best. They have to let go of the less desirable stuff on the bottom for the healthy stuff at the top, and they always do.
I so enjoy the spiritual metaphors that we can take from nature and its creatures. Birds, fish, animals… they know what they need, and they recognize their provisions when they see them. Their movements are beautiful and filled with natural joy. Who does not enjoy watching a soaring bird or a fish that leaps out of the water in sheer enthusiasm for where it finds itself. I think that we as human beings and the supposed “crown” of nature are not always helped by our complexities. Perhaps it is enough to remember that the Gifts of the Spirit emerge quite effortlessly when we remove unnecessary complications.
Margaret Stortz is an ordained minister of Religious Science and a long-time contributor to GUIDE FOR SPIRITUAL LIVING: SCIENCE OF MIND magazine. Visit her at MargaretStortz.com.

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