Sunday, April 15, 2012

Spring renewal


As we move into April, moving out of the depths of winter I am enjoying the west coast sunshine (read rain) and I am looking forward with joy to Spring with its stunning colors, wildly serrated edges, oceans of emotion, mountains of possibilities, worlds of talent, and complex energies.


Spring is renewal and hopefully brings us joy and happiness as we look toward the future. What brings joy into your life? Are you aware of what makes you happy? 'To help you become aware of what makes you happy and to bring you into balance, try the following: 
How?
  • Take 90 seconds to think about all the things that bring you happiness. Think of all the people, situations, circumstances, and everything else that you feel grateful for in this moment.
  • Let that feeling go from your head into your heart so that you are really feeling it inside your body.
  • Define the feeling? Is it freedom, success, love?
  • In your minds eye, expand this feeling. Imagine a small wave moving toward you and as sthe wave moves toward you see it increasing in size, imagine the wave is the energy in your body and as  the wave flows over you, engulfs you, enjoy the increasing the amount of energy in your body.
  • Spend a time in this space everyday.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

More thoughts on self confidence

 
As we get older and we try something new and it does not work we tend to think I took a chance and “failed, " when we were younger we took a chance, failed, got up off the floor and took another step, until we were walking.

We did not judge oursleves. A secret to self-confidence is to not judge yourself. Instead, look at the action you took and honor yourself for being brave enough to take it! That is what really counts!

Self-confidence comes from walking through our fears. Every time we walk through a fear, no matter, how small – we build our self-confidence.

We have to go back to a time in our life when we were not held back by fear. Watching my grandson, as he tries to walk, or tries new things, I am reminded that we have a need to overcome fear to grow.

Decide that you will do it, no matter what. It doesn’t even matter if you do it well. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work out for you. The only thing that matters is that you step through your fear and do it. So many times we criticize ourselves for our perceived failures. Remember that as an infant, you did not criticize yourself, you just did it (no matter what it was).

Friday, April 13, 2012

Stories around the fire

Thinking about stories around the fire, as I watch the flame, it is in constant movement. So is it with my soul, my mind and my senses, my body. These are lways in constant movement, and so is everything around me. In addition, like the fire we humans have energy
 Life is full of stories that we create. Our reality is created out of events that unfold around us and the way we interpret, the events create the story of our life. We create stories for our friends, our family, and ourselves. The stories we create and which our mind accepts reinforce our view of the world and as we believe the stories we create, we feel the emotional sensations inside us. The stories that create an emotional sensation within us, also create patterns within us. Some of those patterns are positive and some of the patterns are negative. So when we are aware of the negative patterns we use therapy, rehab, diets, whatever to try to  kill these negative to get back into balance.
The problem may be that since it is just a story that we  have bought into we are only addressing the symptoms not the cause of being out of balance. Perhaps we need to change the story to see a new reality. Change the reality and our senses and feeling, which help create the patterns that threw us out of balance will move us toward balance
 Everyone has a story, where there is life there is a story, the question is what sort of story do you have? Is your story created out of the environment you find yourself in or is your story one that is created through understanding and conscious observations without judgement?
 I have noticed from observations that everything in this world is about maturity. The flowers grow and then blooms, so does consciousness within us. People who are moving toward consciousness have a transformation within; they start to understand the subtle energies that surround us, their minds begin to absorb the vibrations of energies around them. They begin to create images within that are developed and new stories begin to be created and believed.

Stories may be begin as streams of sounds, or images, or words passing but what they do is force us to begin to  question ourselves. As we question we make decisions about which stream, which story should be tapped into, which story should be continued, which should end. If you observe people, you will begin to understand what stories they may have bought into for their lives. Watch how people react verbally, emotionally and physically to the situations they are find themselves in and you begin to understand why for one person they will end up stressed out, depressed, in conflict etc., while another person is not affected

Many people today simply buy into their stories as reality. Is not all life on earth a social experiment? In this experiment, we all know our own truth, so in reality no one knows the whole truth. Freedom of thought is important because with this freedom we can see that everything we see as real is just a moment in time, and we have the freedom to change our truth.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Harper gets $100,000 per year + his retirement allowance at 65

Pension reform is a big issue and has caused many Canadians concern, sleepless nights, and fear. Somethings are so Outrageous that they defy explanation but I am sure there is one. So when I read this in Yahoo News I thought I should share and ask why would the cons not understand how uncaring this makes them look. Maybe they don't care how it looks because they believe that with a majority they can rule Canada without regard for the voters who are struggling to meet daily expenses let alone save for retirement.

OAS eligibility changes to 67 but Harper still gets his ‘retirement allowance’ at 65

All Canadian prime ministers who served at least four years in office are given a $100,000/year allowance beginning at the age of 65. That's $100,000 in addition to their already gold-plated pensions. (emphasis mine)

On Tuesday, the Liberals tried to introduce a sub-amendment to the federal budget which would have raised the eligibility age of the prime minister's allowance to 67.
It was defeated by the Conservative majority.

The Prime Minister's new director of communications, Andrew MacDougall, told PostMedia News changes to MP pensions, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper's retirement bonus allowance, are pending in the coming months.

"There's additional changes the government is looking at that will be part of a legislative package in the fall," he said....

"We're going to consider what they're calling the prime minister's allowance in that package with all MPs and we look forward to the opposition supporting changes to the pension regime for Parliamentarians."

Facts about the allowance to former prime ministers:
- It was introduced in 1963 by former Liberal Prime Minister Lester Pearson
- The cheques, paid monthly, start coming at age 65 and are for life unless the person returns to the House of Commons or the Senate as a sitting member
- Once the former prime minister dies, a designated 'survivor' will receive one-half of the allowance each year.
- According to the Liberals, the benefit is derived from general revenues, just like OAS
- Only two current prime minister's receive the allowance: Jean Chretien and Brian Mulroney
- Here is the legislation:

48. (1) There shall be paid to every person who has held the office of Prime Minister for four years an allowance beginning on the day on which that person ceases to be a member or reaches sixty-five years of age, whichever is the later, equal to two thirds of the annual salary payable under the Salaries Act to the Prime Minister as Prime Minister on that day.

Source: By Andy Radia | Canada PoliticsWed, 4 Apr, 2012