The Global Conversation

Tag: energy

  • Moralizing and Judging

    I wonder if any of us are truly aware of how often we moralize and judge not only ourselves but others during the course of a normal day. I am currently taking a free class online on moralities of everyday existence that is offered by Yale (yes, the Ivy League school– but you get no credits or grades for the class.) The first week of class reminded me just how careful we have to be to avoid moralizing and judging the events in our daily lives.

    Let me give you an example from my daily life. I am a paramedic. Invariably, at some point during the course of any given day, a call comes in to respond to such and such an address for a patient with flu-like symptoms. A groan often accompanies this summons and it’s exacerbated when you get to the residence and find five apparently capable drivers and three cars parked in the driveway. “This,” we think to ourselves while in the patient’s presence and say aloud when the call is over, “is why our health care costs are so out of control! Anyone of those people could have taken that person to the hospital!”

    What we DON’T know is that one of the driver’s has a suspended license for a DUI, one has no car insurance because she can’t afford it, one has three kids sleeping upstairs that are going to be getting up from their nap soon and two of them are also sick and don’t want anyone by mommy/daddy, one just took some cold medicine that makes her drowsy and the fifth’s car isn’t inspected or registered because he couldn’t afford to do it last month when it expired. (As an aside, I recently suffered from a bout with the flu and I have never been as sick as I was for that nine days and there were times when I wanted to call an ambulance to come take me to the hospital.)

    How many times have you been standing in line and watched someone pay for steaks with food stamps and thought “How fair is that? I’m eating hamburger helper and you’re eating steaks on food stamps!” Of course, what we don’t know is that the steaks are for the man’s son, who has terminal cancer and this is to be the last meal they have as a family before he goes out of state for experimental treatments that still only give him a 2% chance of survival.

    Or here’s one I hear often when someone sees a woman with lots of kids that are apparently very close in age. “Keep your legs closed so I don’t have to support another of your brats!” Of course, what we don’t know is that the woman has taken custody of her sisters kids (which were born in between her own kids) because her sister is fighting a drug addiction and is in rehab and the woman doesn’t want the kids to get stuck in the system.

    But what about the smaller moral decisions and judgments we make every day? Are you eating meat? Do you know if the animal who sacrificed their life for your food was treated humanely during its existence? Does it matter?

    Are you vegetarian or vegan? Are you eating all organic foods that were harvested by people who were paid a fair wage? What happens to all the migrant workers if everyone buys only foods that were harvested for a fair wage?

    Did you flip someone off while driving down the road today because you got cut off or someone didn’t use his turn signal? Maybe you didn’t flip him off but called him a nasty name or even thought what a horrible driver he was. Would it change your mind about him if you knew he just found out his wife was taken to the hospital after a serious car accident and wasn’t expected to survive?

    In the area I live in, we have had 22 people die of heroin overdoses in the last two weeks because the heroin is laced with fentanyl. I’ve seen stories about it posted on Facebook and local news websites. Comments range from “Good! One less addict to worry about!” to “And we’re supposed to care about these people why?”

    Do you catch yourself judging how your siblings are raising their children and think that you could do a better job? Do you find yourself looking at the clerk in the store and thinking that he needs to find a better barber? Do you overhear your waitress talking about her wife and leave her a smaller tip because you don’t agree with the “gay lifestyle”? Do you see a stray cat running around your neighborhood and think “Someone else is probably feeding it…”? Do you think that the person who is talking in line behind you, who is obviously the opposite party affiliation than you, is a stupid moron for what he believes? Do you speak up when someone in the break room makes an off-color or racist or sexist or homophobic comment or joke? Do you constantly buy pre-packaged meals so you don’t have to cook despite the amount of plastic and cardboard that goes into making just one of those meals and is going to end up in our rapidly filling landfills? Are you more pleasant with someone you know who shares many of your beliefs than you are with someone who thinks your beliefs are a joke? Did you notice that many of these questions are judgmental and moralizing? Or do you think that only the “other side” (or, in other words, someone else besides you) does that kind of thing?

    Perhaps some of the most subconscious moralizing and judging we do is with ourselves. How many times have we said about something we did, “That was stupid!” or “I’m such an idiot!” or “How could I be so naive?” How many times have we judged what we have done as “less than” what it should have been or even as a complete failure? How many times have we said that we “really screwed up” on that one? How many times have we belittled or diminished our contribution to the co-creative process of life? It is a habit we are taught young (“we’re all sinners worthy of death”, “there’s nothing we can do to get into God’s good graces and it’s only his mercy that allows us to live”, “we’re born with original sin on our souls”, etc.) often by religion and it’s a habit that is very difficult to break.

    I’d be willing to bet that there are those who are saying “So what? As long as I don’t voice my thoughts or hurt someone else’s feelings with what I’m thinking, no harm done!”

    But God and science tell us energy is neither created nor destroyed: it simply changes form! So your thoughts are energy that you’re putting out into the world and that energy, if it’s judgmental or moralizing, is helping to co-create the reality in which all of us live.

    It takes being completely aware and in the moment at all times to catch yourself doing the moralizing and judging that the vast majority 0f us do without a second thought. Take the time before you think a thought or speak it aloud to ask “What would Love do?” or, even simpler for some, “Is this how I would want to be treated or thought of?”

    Try, for one hour, to pay attention to every thought that comes into your head. See how many of them are truly judgmental or moralizing and figure out what you can replace that thought with. Sometimes a simple “Bless you” is more than enough.

  • Cure your stress and burn-out

    If you are tired, irritable, stressed out, sleep-deprived, burned out, or exhausted, there are quick changes in food and behavior you can implement to reduce your symptoms, heal yourself, and, in the long run, prevent disease. Stress causes and accelerates chronic and terminal diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and depression. Chronic stress will give you adrenal fatigue and make you feel like you are always either exhausted or wired or alternating between both!

    The stress of daily living has an enormous impact on your physical and emotional health – both good stress and bad stress. If you are experiencing back pain, dizziness, heart palpitations, low stamina, chronic infections, poor sleep, or food cravings, you may have adrenal fatigue. The adrenal glands sit on your kidneys and control hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. If your adrenal glands aren’t working properly, your thyroid and immune system will not function correctly. You may get infections repeatedly. You may lose your immune system function and your energy level may plummet.

    Here are 7 things you can do to reduce your stress level:

    1. Get enough sleep and sleep regular hours without exception. Go to bed at a decent hour every night. Go to bed at about the same time every night.

    2. Re-evaluate your priorities.Do you need to work after normal work hours? Do you need to check your email and smart phone constantly? Do you have normal conversations and relationships with people, or are you living on electronic and social platforms? You may have relationships, family, children, and friends who miss you and want to spend time with you relaxing and sharing. Slow down and enjoy life! Figure out what life is about – is it about money and “things”? Aren’t the people in your life worth more than things? Don’t forget about your pets!

    3. Eat whole foods – fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, and grains. Eat only 100% whole grains and don’t consume bleached, refined, or processed flours.

    4. Cook at home as much as possible. Your recipes should be built by combining foods that just have one ingredient in them. This will automatically replace your consumption of processed foods with whole, healthy foods. You will know exactly what you are eating.

    5. Eliminate sugar, syrups, and artificial sweeteners. Drink water or green tea unsweetened instead of sodas, sweetened drinks, or coffee. Sweeten drinks with stevia extract – it is a natural super-sweet plant that has no calories or chemicals! Eat fruits instead of sweets. Start reading your food labels and figure out how much sugar you are really eating! It’s okay to eat 20-30 grams of sugar a day if you are healthy, but you might be surprised to know that there are 65 grams of sugar in that 20-ounce bottle of soda or sweetened drink.

    6. Eliminate or reduce coffee consumption. Eliminate caffeine altogether or, if you must, limit it to a cup of coffee in the morning. Be aware of everything you consume that contains caffeine. Carry fresh water with you at all times and drink it instead of anything else.

    7. Do an emotional cleanse. Most people benefit from digestive cleansing, but an emotional cleanse can also help dramatically. A Harvard study showed that men who are angry are three times more likely to develop heart disease. UCLA has found that stress seems to reprogram immune cells into more toxic cells that feed disease. An emotional cleanse can allow the body to reduce stress and toxicity. The most prominent stress-causing emotions are guilt, anger, shame, and negativity. Start doing self-reflection and identify the causes of these feelings if you have them. Work to rid yourself of the negativity, and if you need help, seek help from friends, support groups, or a counselor. While you are ridding yourself from the negative emotions and thoughts, replace them with positive ones that appeal to you – family, pets, friends, hobbies, work, art, anything that you love.

    Try one or more of these quick fixes and let me know how your stress level is!

    (Beth Anderson is a certified Holistic Health Coach and founder of the Holistic Health Hotspot in Evansville, Indiana. She is also the author of “The Holistic Diet: Achieve Your Ideal Weight, Be Happy and Healthy for Life.” Beth received her training from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Beth is helping people improve their lives through nutrition and lifestyle education, health coaching, and by helping others to learn to make informed choices. Beth continues to spread understanding of the connection between body, mind, and spirit and encourages all to discern the truth about food, consumer products, environment, and life choices. You can find Beth on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/HolisticHealthHotspot or email her at beth@holistichealthhotspot.com)

  • What is robbing your energy?

    Everyone seems to be tired, stressed out, fatigued, lethargic, or burned out today. We work too much, become caregivers for parents or children, and spend way too much time worrying about others instead of ourselves.It’s time to focus on YOU and making yourself feel better. Let’s start by looking at what is stealing your energy and vitality from your system!

    There are four kinds of stress that will deplete your energy store – chemical, emotional, mental, and physical. Here are some examples of each type of stress and what you can do about it.

    Chemical stress can come from your food, air, water, and environment. You ingest hundreds of chemicals daily simply from the food you eat. The more processed foods you eat, the more chemicals you ingest. By processed foods I mean foods that have been changed or transformed from their original state in nature, packaged, and sold to you through a grocery store, restaurant, or shop.

    You are eating food coloring, artificial and “natural” flavoring, artificial sweeteners, and preservatives in every bite of your pre-prepared foods. You eat pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers in your conventional and GMO foods. You drink in the water pollutants in every soda or glass of unfiltered water. You are surrounded by air pollution in your workplace, airport, and even outdoors depending on where you live.

    Read your food labels when you buy food products. If the ingredients list is long, has confusing words or unpronounceable words, or has recognizable chemicals in it, don’t buy it. Make it yourself. Cooking isn’t that hard and doesn’t take that much time. If you can’t cook it, get it from a place where you know who made it and what went in it. For today, just make a better choice. Try to drink filtered or purified water when you can, and get outside in a clean natural environment whenever you can.

    Emotional stress can come from toxic relationships, caring for children, or lack of boundaries. There have been many studies done that show that the better your relationships are, the healthier you are and vice versa. If you are stuck in an unhealthy relationship, either figure out how to improve it or leave it behind. You can do this by setting healthy boundaries for yourself even if it is your own children you are dealing with. Learn to say no, and teach people how to treat you by letting them know what is not acceptable, enforcing your boundaries and following through.

    Mental stress can come from your work environment, school or education pressures, and especially self-inflicted standards and expectations. If you take your work home with you, work at all hours, check your emails or are on call while you are “off,” or can’t stop studying, then you probably need to look at your standards and expectations. Set a time when you are truly off work. For example, after 7:00 p.m. stop checking your email, stop studying, and stop beating yourself up in general for not being perfect. If you don’t start taking care of yourself, no one else is going to do it for you.

    Finally, physical stress can result from your immediate environment – loud or constant noise and lack of sleep are some great examples. Try to get some quiet time daily and make sure your sleep schedule is regular and enough. Most people need 7-8 hours of sleep a night. If you sleep less on a regular basis, you might need to make some changes in your schedule. Too much partying or alcohol can also put your body in a state of physical stress.

    The biggest and most common source of physical stress on your body is a lack of nutrients. There are no nutrients in packaged cereals (except what they fortify it with after removing the natural nutrients!), fast food, processed foods, sugar, alcohol, white flours and rice, and much more of what we eat on a regular basis. Try to start eating whole foods – foods with one ingredient. Cook more of your own food with whole ingredients. You will at least know for sure what is in your food!

    Take a look at what kinds of chemical, mental, emotional, and physical stress you are putting your body through and start making changes here and there to improve your life. You will end up with more energy!

    (Beth Anderson is a certified Holistic Health Coach and founder of the Holistic Health Hotspot in Evansville, Indiana. She is also the author of The Holistic Diet: Achieve Your Ideal Weight, Be Happy and Healthy for Life.Beth received her training from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Beth is helping people improve their lives through nutrition and lifestyle education, health coaching, and by helping others to learn to make informed choices. Beth continues to spread understanding of the connection between body, mind, and spirit and encourages all to discern the truth about food, consumer products, environment, and life choices.)

     

  • Co-Worker is Driving Me Crazy

    I have a co-worker who I just don’t get along with.  I do my best to be nice, have tried the “kill her with kindness” approach, but I have to admit I am getting sucked into the drama of it all more and more.  I don’t like having a relationship like this in my life, I sometimes dread going to work because I don’t want to have to interact with her, and I certainly don’t like the way I act sometimes because of it (gossiping, complaining, acting less than my highest self).  I’m not exactly sure what the problem is, I think our personalities just don’t match, but it’s beginning to drive me crazy because it’s taking up so much of my energy!  How do I make this problem go away?

    Janelle, TX

     

    Hi Janelle,

    On this day of your life, I believe God wants you to know…

    …that you cannot hope to solve any problem using the

    same energy that created the problem.

    Whether it’s the endless wars in the world or the

    unending quarrels and fighting in your own home, the

    problem is the same: conflicting energy. If you want

    to change the outcome, change the energy.

    The extraordinary aspect of this solution is that you

    do not have to wait for the other party in order

    to do it.

     

    Do you receive the daily emails from Neale?  If not, I highly recommend them, you can sign up at www.nealedonaldwalsch.com.  Anyway, the above quote is from the email sent out today, actually, and I believe it addresses your question perfectly.  In other words, you cannot fix a problem from inside the problem.  You must move outside of it, and actually shift your attention away from it.  This approach is difficult for most to understand, because it can appear to be avoidance, and we have been conditioned in our society to attack a problem head on.

    I assure you that shifting your attention is actually not avoiding it.  It’s “changing the energy”, as Neale articulates above.  When we change the energy, we are giving ourselves access to more information, broader perspectives, and yes, solutions.  And, as also articulated above, you do not have to wait for the other party in order to do it.  This is another great demonstration of how you can always control your experience of something, even if you can’t control the event itself.

    So how exactly do we change the energy?  What does that look like? 

    It looks like shifting your attention to things that feel better, to things you can control.  You may not be able to control what your co-worker says or does, but you can most certainly choose what you say and do.  You may not be able to choose how your co-worker perceives you, but you can most certainly choose how you perceive her.  Instead of focusing your attention on what you don’t like about her, consciously focus your attention on what you do like about her.  And I get it, that may be difficult at first, but I urge you to give it a try.  Even the smallest of things, do you like her hair color?  Perhaps she has a nice smile, or she actually does her job really well.  Furthermore, shift your attention to things you like about yourself, who are you being when you feel you are being your higher self?  What are you grateful for in your life?  In your job?  What things in your life are occurring that you wouldn’t label as “a problem”?

    All of these things, including other things such as meditating, journaling, spending time with people you love, doing things you love to do, help shift the energy.  And, while it may appear that you are not directly addressing the problem, you’re right, you’re not.  In other words, you are no longer looking at it as a problem, and in time, it no longer is experienced as a problem.  Trust me, I’ve seen it happen time and time again.

    One more thought for you, Janelle: when you find yourself thinking about this co-worker, try just sending her positive, loving energy, just as she is.  Silently bless her, and show her the greatest demonstration of love possible by allowing her to walk the path her soul has chosen to walk at this point.  Remember, in the largest picture, your soul and her soul have already made an agreement to help each other out in this lifetime, to give each other a certain experience of yourselves through one another.  For a deeper explanation of this, check out “The Little Soul and the Sun”, by Neale Donald Walsch.

     

    (Nova Wightman is a CWG Life Coach, as well as the owner and operator of Go Within Life Coaching, www.gowithincoaching.com, specializing in helping individuals blend their spirituality with their humanity in a way that makes life more enjoyable, easy, and fulfilling.  She can be reached at Nova@theglobalconversation.com. )

    (If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to: Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com, where our team is waiting to hear from you.)

  • Let’s Talk Money

    I am newly married and a few months in, and I’m loving the married life!  I haven’t noticed much has changed, really, except for one thing – my husband and I are definitely not on the same wavelength when it comes to money.  We recently moved into a new house and now have the whole mortgage and budgeting thing going on, and I now see that we operate entirely differently when it comes to money: I am a go with the flow, trust that things will work out type of person who definitely does not enjoy making sacrifices, and he is a follow the budge to a “t” kind of a guy.  This has caused some tension between us, and I’m not sure what to do about it because I don’t even like talking about money! I definitely don’t want this to be a bigger problem though, or drive us apart, so I need some advice.

    Kristi, Jacksonville

    Hi Kristi,

    Congrats on your marriage, and let me acknowledge you for bringing this issue to the light before it becomes a bigger problem.  You’re right, money can definitely be difficult to talk about for a lot of people, and it happens to be the number one thing that couples fight about, and incidentally, one of the top reasons for divorce.  Let’s avoid that, shall we?

    So, what most people don’t realize is that money is just energy, like everything else.  What we believe about it, how we think about it, speak of it, interact with it, etc., all contributes to our experience of it.  So the first place I’d like to direct you is to what your current idea of money is.  Do you believe money is bad, the root of all evil, limited, is earned in large quantities only by those who have either inherited it or work unGodly long hours and are miserable anyway?  Or do you believe that there is enough out there for everyone, that we are all deserving of large amounts of abundance of all kinds?  If you are unsure, a good place to look is what you heard a lot of growing up.  We were sponges as children and it was very easy to unconsciously inherit the beliefs about money that our parents had.  For example, if you saw your parents fighting and worrying about money all the time, you’re likely to grow up feeling stressful about money, not wanting to talk about it, avoiding the topic altogether or fighting about it with your spouse, not to mention having the experience of not having a lot of it.

    The good news is that a belief is just a thought you continue to think, and it is entirely possible to change that thought.  And that brings me to step 2: once you’ve acknowledged what your current beliefs/ideas about money are, decide whether or not they are serving you, and if you decide they aren’t, choose a new belief you’d like to have about money, one that does serve you.  Next, begin creating new habits that are in alignment with this new belief.  For example, say you’ve chosen to believe that money is wonderful and there’s enough to go around for everyone.  Some habits you may choose to adopt may be only saying good things about money and avoiding complaining about it, saying a prayer of thanks every time you pay a bill because you have the money to pay for such luxuries as heat and electricity or your cell phone, and you enjoy them all.  You could even start a dialogue with your husband about what his beliefs are about money, letting him know that although it’s been a difficult topic for you to talk about in the past, you’d like to be able to talk about it together and find a place in your finances that you both can feel good about.

    But I encourage you, Kristi, to start with yourself.  When you get into vibrational alignment with Who You Really Are in relation to any topic in life, it has a way of making everything come together without much effort on your part at all.  And everything I gave you above are great ways to come into alignment around money.  Look for what you appreciate about money, not what you dislike about it or feel helpless about.  Share what you do have with others lovingly and joyfully, now that’s a wonderful way to feel and experience your own abundance.  Look for what is currently working for you around money and share that with your husband, giving him the space to share what works for him around it.  Marriage is definitely about being willing to love and grow with each other not just through the good times, but through the challenging ones.  And this could be a wonderful opportunity for the two of you to grow closer and more intimate in ways you haven’t yet.

     

    (Nova Wightman is a CWG Life Coach, as well as the owner and operator of Go Within Life Coaching, www.gowithincoaching.com, specializing in helping individuals blend their spirituality with their humanity in a way that makes life more enjoyable, easy, and fulfilling.  She can be reached at Nova@theglobalconversation.com. )

    (If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to: Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com, where our team is waiting to hear from you.)