The simple exercise of expressing gratitude can change a person’s entire perspective in life.

What do you guys think of these?

Friends, starting Sept 1st we will begin our next 4 month course. It’s a lot of commitment and hard work: completing the past, learning to process the present, and also how to shape our future emotions. I know it’s a lot. It needs to be. It takes a lot of time and dedication. Similar to getting healthy in our bodies, there are important steps we need to take CONSISTENTLY. We all know mostly what they are, but doing them regularly takes a lot of time and focus. If they were easy to be consistent with, we’d all be in great shape!! Interestingly, oftentimes our physical health is a reflection of our soul’s true state. We usually show on the outside what’s truly happening inside, and the 4 month course is designed to get our souls and most important relationships in much better condition. I’ve watched it time and time again with both physical and emotional health: people wait until something happens that’s so scary they start to do the work. Unfortunately, even with those wake up calls, many people continue as they are, but try to manage the symptoms. Managing symptoms makes us feel like we’ve done something about it, when too often the underlying cause is still there. If I could encourage you with something, don’t want to wait until something scary happens. Not only with your body, but with your family relationships. Prevention is always better than intervention. It comes down to choosing your hard. Working on this is hard, but how hard will it be to not have worked on it? Eating right and exercise is hard, but how hard will it be if you don’t? Again, 4 months is a big commitment. Some of you are ready for that, and some not yet. If you are one who’s ready for a commitment like this, the details of the next class are here. If you are one of those who aren’t ready for that now, my friend Sandi and I have a 2 1/2 day intensive coming up August 29-31. It’s also a lot of work, but is much less of a time commitment, and it’s a huge part of completing the emotions of the past. It’s what really got me into the work I do now, and the healing that happened when I went through this same intensive was shocking to me.

Closing down in the midst of pain as it’s a denial of our true nature. The true human is free in feeling and action, even amidst great pain and hurt. If necessary, one should live with a hurting heart rather than a closed one. We should learn to stay in the wound of pain and act with spontaneous skill and love even from that place.

In every emotional interaction there is a gap between the stimulant and reaction. For many people this gap is so tiny that they never notice it, and they immediately emotionally react to everything. With practice, you can increase the gap so that when something happens, you have more time to decide how you are going to either react, or whether you will respond. What practices or disciplines have you noticed help you lengthen this gap?