Proper Use of the Mind

Posted on April 10, 2016 by rick_ranum

Recently I attended a retreat with a delightful presenter. Here name is Maria Manuchehri and she is primarily a energy intuitive. She is very capable of tuning into you, in many ways.

One of many things I learned from her was the proper use of mind. She suggested our mind primarily be used to hold positive, loving, peaceful thoughts while keeping a focus on the area a few inches below the naval. Now, my explanation is quite simplified and I am sharing this because it correlates with recent scientific research saying that our human minds are often on the future (anxiety) or the past (depression). It is good to look into the future if that future is one you would like to experience and to look into the past of that past memory is a pleasant one.

Forty Day Manifestation Prayer

Posted on November 21, 2015 by rick_ranum

Recently I read an article that was about The Magical Forty Day Manifestation Prayer

The idea underlying the 40-Day Manifestation Prayer is that of thankfulness. With the 40-Day Manifestation Prayer, you are not just generally thankful for whatever comes into your life. In this prayer, you specifically pray about something you really want. Similar to the Law of Attraction, you phrase your prayer in positive terms as if you already have whatever it is you want. You do not say, “Take this awful thing away from me,” or, “Give me this wonderful thing I want.” Both of those thought patterns assume you do not have what you want. They will continue the lack in your life.

Instead, you pray with thanks as if you already have what you want. The 40-Day Manifestation Prayer focuses that thankfulness.

It also emphasizes your relationship with the Infinite by asking for what you want in the name of what you consider to be your Higher Power. It is important to say the prayer once daily for 40 straight days. If you forget or miss a day, you must start again, counting from 1. ( I wrote my prayer out each night saying it out loud. Now it is normal to remember this Prayer at bed time or upon awakening.)

In the name of ______________________ thank you that I am ____________________

In the name of love, thank you that I am healthy.

Addictions

Posted on November 20, 2015 by rick_ranum

My mother’s generation often said, “will wonders ever cease”. I find myself often wondering, I have my entire lifetime wondered about more things than I have had time to research and experience.

These days I wonder much about habits; why we choose certain habits and why we believe our chosen habits have more power than us. Why is that? How can a substance so dominate and eliminate the self-power of people.

Most Americans are addicted to sugar, as the average consumption is almost 130 pounds each year. Certainly it is added to most commercial foods. However, if people stop buying those foods, those very large agribusinesses will change. They are only in it for the money, and shareholders will revolt when no one buys their nutrition less foods.

Amphetamines, heroin, cocaine, cigarettes, alcohol and other such habits, are these just death wishes masquerading as pain relievers? A most interesting theory long ago suggested that the weakness in resistance connected to alcohol was the influence of dead spirits prodding weak minds to have another drink so that they could enjoy the consciousness of drunkenness.

I wonder what the Greeks thought of alcohol? A quick peek at Wikipedia reveals it was a problem then too. Perhaps it is best to say that as greater and greater intelligence and reason permeate future generations, it will be a curiosity, this thing called habits,addictions,these choices, just a curiosity of ancient times.

I know a gambler, and even when a casino explains the odds to him, he still must play. He has as a central life focus, how to beat the odds. Of course, he can’t beat the odds, the odds beat him. And is it really for us to judge those that like to risk against the odds? Why shouldn’t they have the right to bet against the house? They do if they have choice.

I wish I could help everyone change, and I am very helpful to those who do want change. This is their journey through this space and time. Each has free will. To deny free will is an act of free will. So, no matter what the the condition there is hope. This is a bi-polar world and if someone is in the midst of bad habits of body, mind, or mind and body, that means it’s opposite exists and somewhere in between lies a balance, a balance of self-awareness, love, and acceptance.

What might be perceived as preordained in ordinary life, may only be the logical result of habits projected into the future. Hope springs from the realization that something may be discovered, something that unlocks the mystery of habits. Addiction is a habit and addiction is a constant part of the human experience. There are so many kinds of addictions. And we would agree that meth is worse than computer games and we might agree both are undesirable.

Caroline Myss says of the addict: “Every one of us is touched by the Addict archetype. The only question is how much of our lives is consumed by it. Besides the usual suspects–drugs, alcohol, food, and sex–one can be addicted to work, sports, television, exercise, computer games, spiritual practice, negative attitudes, and the kinds of thrills that bring on adrenaline rushes. In its positive aspect, this archetype helps you recognize when an outside substance, habit, relationship, or any expression of life has more authority over your will power than does your inner spirit. Confronting addiction and breaking the hold that a pattern or substance has on you can impart great strength to your psyche. Discovering the empowerment that comes with perseverance has a life-long impact, becoming a reference point for what you are able to accomplish. In the words of one former alcoholic, “I know now that if I can quit drinking, I can do anything.””

Most of the roots of habits are below conscious awareness. There may be many theories in the conscious mind while the answer lies in the unaccessible subconscious mind. This is just how it is, there is a past experience, it was very emotional, and it was powerfully programmed into our subconscious. There it becomes understanding of something and with that understanding our conscious mind reasons forth in a logical fashion. We reason logically from a false premise.

Habits are very very useful. It is nice not to have to think about tying a shoe. Knowing how to tie a shoe is a useful habit.

On the subject of power; who is more powerful, a team of Navy Seals or Mother Teresa? Which one brought more peace to the planet. There are peacemakers and there are the others.

Who is more powerful, the British Army and Navy, or non-violent resistance exemplified by Mahatma Gandhi and India?

The power of love creates far more good than the power of force ever will. Force may kill a body, but love can change a soul. And a changed more loving soul is forever.

“If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive.” Mother Theresa

Rick

Five Techniques to Improve Life

Posted on November 20, 2015 by rick_ranum

The five techniques: Do one at a time. Do it for 21 days.

Sometime during your day, perhaps best at bedtime, write down three things you are grateful for that have occurred in the past 24 hours. Also, write down why you are grateful. Each day find 3 new ones.
Think of a meaningful experience from you life for two minutes each day. Write down every detail you can remember. As you do this look at the words you used to describe your experience. (The words we use describe us)
Add fifteen minutes of a fun activity each day with energy. This creates a cascading effect over the days. This is to be an active event.
Consciously add three smiles to your day. As you go through your day smile a people until three of them have replied spontaneously with a return smile.
Reconnect to your social network. Each day take two or three minutes to write to a person that you know and tell them how much and why you are grateful to have them in your life.Simple and powerful.

Pain

Posted on November 20, 2015 by rick_ranum

Emotional pain and attachment to life

October 9th 2012

There is no pain worse than emotional pain. Some news about our selves, our friends, our loved ones, or the story of some stranger having a struggle with life, these evoke strong emotions.

One such emotion is a loss of selfhood. A loss of selfhood occurs throughout life. There are many transitions that contain loss, this category of loss includes; becoming a teenager, graduating school, becoming an adult, becoming a couple, any body issue, and, ultimately the dying process.

Becoming a teenager is the loss of childhood, turning 20, the loss of teenage category. Sometimes the loss is a person and usually begins with the loss of the old and gray, or grandparents, great aunts and uncles. There is sometimes the loss of self due to a dis-ease moving from the formulative state of thought into three dimensional matter. Even a cold or the flu has its origins in the way we think and how that thinking impacts our body.

When some part of us is lost, there is a pause, an unusual state of mind. Our “mind” functions differently. You might call it a trance or shock. Now we apprehend everything differently. Things sound “different”, things seem “different”, the world appears “unreal”. We may come to realizations, we may react in fear, either way, it is an altered experience, that is to say, it is again, “different”.

At any age the threat of loss of some part of our selves is very much a reminder of our eventual passing from earth experience. This happens to all of us. We wear out or rundown, we slow down or pass rapidly, and this is a subject that brings most of us pause.

Every life has changes and challenges and the optimum possible reaction is acceptance. The opposite of acceptance might well be attachment. Acceptance has no fear. No fear means no anxiety, no worry, no anger, no saddness. Acceptance is peace, calm, understanding, farsighted, an expectation that the journey is always leading to greater opportunity to radiate outward these attributes.

How to be accepting with each change and challenge. This is truly the mastery.

Such a mastery is the desire of an inner part of us as we reach for selflessness. Selflessness, the desire to help.

Your Obituary as a tool for Transformation

Posted on November 19, 2015 by rick_ranum

Yes I have written my obituary. I have written it a few times throughout my life and it is time to write it again. When I write this current obituary it will again focus on the future and not the past. My experience in writing my obituary has always been helpful and revealing.

This exercise I first encountered in Stephen Covey’s book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. Over the years I have mentioned this idea and rarely has anyone gotten very excited about it. People do not like writing about death and especially their own.

I suggest writing your obituary beginning now and progressing until the end of your life. Writing about what has already happened is just reviewing history. You want to be writing about how you would want the rest of your life to be. Be fanciful and be realistic. It is most likely too late to join the space program or become a pole vaulter. This is about what you can really reasonably and fancifully create.

Your obituary is more than speculation, it is a constructive influence creating the future. Write it the way you would most like it to be, how you would feel fulfilled. If you later want to go back and write the history of life up until now, great. Now, write the future as you best imagine it. Write whatever comes to mind. You can come back and change it anytime so perfection is not necessary.

Do you know why Dr. Alfred Nobel established the peace prize? Because in 1888 a French Newspaper in error published a headline about him. The headline read: “The Merchant of Death is now Dead”. (He had invented and patented dynamite which became a very popular means of killing in warfare.)

What do you want the rest of your life to represent? How do you want to be remembered? Take up to an hour to write this. From this exercise you may more clearly define what you desire. You will gain in your sense of destiny, improve your clarity, purpose, and meaning.

Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. This process has power.