“Real peace and happiness can be experienced only when the pendulum of the mind stops swinging altogether. From that stillness, real peace and bliss ensue. This state of perfect stillness is verily the essence of life.”
-Mata Amritatnandamayi

Many of us struggle against unhappiness because unhappiness is uncomfortable. 

​Our minds tell us that if we can just do enough, be enough, have enough, then we will be happy. We constantly struggle to attain more of what we think we need, yet as Wayne Dyer says, “You can never get enough of what you don’t want.”

What this means is, what we think we want is not necessarily what we need for true happiness. The new car, new house, new romance, new job, new hobby, new exercise program, may feel good for a time, but no matter how many activities we do or how many things we have, it is never enough to create lasting happiness.

In our struggle to feel happy we energize the momentum of the pendulum in our minds. The pendulum swings back and forth from happiness to unhappiness, day by day, minute by minute. The seeking and struggle keep it in constant motion.

The Indian saint and great spiritual teacher, Mata Amritatnandamayi (Amma) speaks of stilling the pendulum of our mind. How do we attain the peace and bliss within that stillness?

We attain the stillness by wanting it, wanting it so much that we are willing to release the struggle against unhappiness. To do that we must also release the struggle for happiness.

What? Release the struggle for happiness?

Yes. The keyword here is ‘struggle.’ Release the struggle.

 “When something really, really, really matters to you, let it go! Say to the Universe: ‘You know what I want.’ Give it to me in the path of least resistance…”
- Abraham Hicks

The stillness lives deep underneath like the depths of the vast ocean. The waves and troughs of highs and lows roil about on the surface. As long as you stay at the surface trying to ride the highs of the waves, you are inevitably carried down into the troughs as well. Think of a surfer catching a wave at the top and riding from the height of the wave down to its bottom, only to have to return again to catch the next wave and ride it top to bottom. Over and over again the surfer rides top to bottom. When we constantly seek happiness, we inevitably ride the waves, top to bottom and back again.

While there is fun and excitement in riding the waves in the ocean, riding the waves of our emotions is a constant struggle to get back up to the top of the wave.  We try to fix unhappiness by having more, doing more, being more. We try to ensure happiness by struggling against unhappiness. We are constantly riding the waves of our emotions in an attempt to control what we cannot control.  

It is only in the depths where the stillness may be found. It is in the release of the struggle to keep our heads above emotional waters that we may encounter true peace.

When I was a child, I spent summers in a lake cottage with my grandparents. There we spent many hours each day swimming in the lake. My favorite thing was to be underwater. I would find a heavy rock and use it as a weight. Resting the rock in my lap, I could sit on the sand at the bottom. There I would feel the pressure of the ringing silence in my ears, surrounding me. It was so still and peaceful. It felt deeply restful.

As a child I understood the silence. As an adult I find I have to relearn the art of allowing myself the silence of my soul.

Are you allowing yourself the silence of your soul?

“Are you practicing the art of allowing or the art of disallowing? Are you practicing the art of allowing yourself to be in sync with who-you-really-are; the art of allowing yourself to be the true extension of Source Energy? That is who you were born to be.”
-Abraham-Hicks

“Overwhelm is an illusion that states: ‘I am not capable. I cannot handle all this. It is too much. I am doing this all alone.”
-Shoshona Ortalia Rogers from Goddess: 7 Rings of the Heart

We’ve just returned from a week in New England visiting with family and friends and a week driving back and forth. Our days were busy, fitting in everyone we wanted to see. It was wonderful and exhausting.

Getting back home, though tired, I swung full tilt into Weight Watchers and creating a new way of eating. Learning how to use my new FitBit, (which is at this moment buzzing my wrist because I haven’t taken enough steps in the past hour!) Preparing to co-teach a Goddess class. Taking an on-line writing and publishing course. Writing and editing fiction and non-fiction. Planning for our upcoming holiday and birthday parties. And last, but certainly not least, grandparenting, parenting and spousing (is that a word?). I swung myself right into overwhelm.

Overwhelm is a state of mind. It really has nothing to do with what and how much you are doing.

There are many who can handle a daily schedule that is packed from morning to night and beyond with equanimity. There are those whose flexibility makes it possible for them to easily go with the flow. And there are those who get overwhelmed by any change in their daily routine. I probably fall somewhere in the middle depending upon the day.

Overwhelm has everything to do with what and how you are thinking and feeling about what you are doing.

I experience overwhelm when I perceive a task as bigger than it actually is. This happens particularly when I have a number of different projects and responsibilities that I am juggling at once. They gather together, increasing exponentially, and loom over me, mountainous and huge.

I feel confused. I don’t know where to start, and so I don’t. I am stuck. I feel like there is not enough time to accomplish what I must.  I feel alone, as if there is no where to turn for support.

The specter of resistance then rears its head. My ego-self digs in her heels and pulls in the opposite direction from where I want to go for fear that what I do or create will not be perfect. Sigh…

Overwhelm is not fun.

So, what do we do when the illusion of overwhelm, does its thing and overwhelms us?

1. Understand that the feeling of overwhelm is an illusion. It is a misperception. You have the power to look at things differently.

2. Know that you are not alone. Your Spiritual Support Team is interested in and involved with every little bit of your life. They’ve got your back. You can hand that fear in your gut, which is at the base of the perception of overwhelm, over to your Team. They will take care of it. Today’s Spiritual Toolbox is a visualization guiding you through doing this.

3. Focus and Organize. Break each task down into, small, incremental steps. Then, take one step at a time. As you do so you reduce that looming mountain of overwhelm into manageable, orderly, small piles of pebbles. These you can deal with, one at a time.

4. Express gratitude for each small step that you take. Gratitude shifts your energy, lifting you into alignment with your Higher Self. That’s a nice place to be.

Are you willing to give it a try? Me too!

​“Here comes the sun (doo doo doo doo). Here comes the sun, and I say, It's all right.
Little darling, it's been a long, cold, lonely winter. Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here.
Here comes the sun (doo doo doo doo) Here comes the sun, and I say, It's all right.”
-George Harrison, The Beatles

In the past my everyday life felt pushed or maybe I should say driven, because it was me doing the pushing. I was always thinking about what else needed to get done, who I needed to take care of, how to keep everyone happy, how this or that wasn’t good enough. It took conscious effort for me to relax, allow and appreciate what was. At the end of the day I’d look back over the day and think of all that I should have accomplished and didn’t, setting myself up for a driven tomorrow.

My life was motivated by fear. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of not having enough, time, money, parenting skills, you name it. Fear of not doing enough. It is not a comfortable way to live.

Fortunately, I’ve learned that there is a better way.

When I began doing sessions for clients, I learned to center and align myself before each session, calling in my Spiritual Support Team. I learned to trust the guidance I received. Trust the topics that came up for healing. Trust the words and tools that came to me to offer and trust the outcome of our work together.

On several sacred journeys to Brazil and to Iceland I was able to expand this into full days of trust.  I learned to trust what was in my present reality enough to fully relax into the moment. Trusting that who I was with, where I was, and what I was doing, was exactly right for that moment.

I stopped thinking that I needed to be with someone I wasn’t. I stopped thinking that I should be saying or doing something else other than what I was saying and doing. I learned to trust and be with what was.

It was like in my sessions but expanded outward into full, shining days.

Unfortunately for me, there was a big difference in how I felt when I was doing a session, when I was on a sacred journey, and my daily life at home.

That sense of relaxing and trusting what was, was missing.

Instead, I pushed to get through to the next activity or the next person to connect with. I drove myself to get everything right, make sure everything and everyone was taken care of.

Yet, I couldn’t help but think, wouldn’t it be wonderful to feel that relaxation, trust, contentment, inner peace, acceptance, allowing and joy throughout all of my days?

Now I know it is possible.

We can each of us do this through consciously intending it to be so.

We make the choice in each minute to consciously connect with our Source within. We breathe deeply, relax and allow ourselves to align, until it becomes our habit and we are living our days in love rather than fear.

What is needed to make this possible is a change in perspective. It looks like this.

The contentment comes from trusting that we are connected and guided and following that guidance. Knowing that something greater than ourselves holds the big picture.

The inner peace comes from knowing that we live in a beneficent Universe and that we are a beloved and essential part of that. No one else can express the part of the Creator that is uniquely you.

The relaxation comes from focusing in on what is in this present moment, and being fully present with whatever that is.

The joy comes through appreciation, gratitude and allowing yourself to experience the pleasure inherent in whatever is.

​It is this change in perspective that allows you and me to relax into what is. When that becomes our habit, it changes our lives. We shine like the sun.

 “We all have memories that are malleable and susceptible to being contaminated or supplemented in some way.”
-Elizabeth Loftus

Have you ever had the experience of remembering an event a certain way, and finding out later that it happened differently than you remembered? I have, and it was disconcerting.
​
We think we remember an event a certain way and yet that is not what actually happened. Eye witnesses to traumatic events are notoriously unreliable. We perceive events through our personal filters.

“You must forgive those who hurt you, even if whatever they did to you is unforgivable in your mind. You will forgive them not because they deserve to be forgiven, but because you don’t want to suffer and hurt yourself every time you remember what they did to you. It doesn’t matter what others did to you, you are going to forgive them because you don’t want to feel sick all the time. Forgiveness is for your own mental healing. You will forgive because you feel compassion for yourself. Forgiveness is an act of self-love.”

- Don Miguel Ruiz, The Mastery of Love- A Toltec Wisdom Book

Forgiveness is a gift, not just for those you forgive but for yourself. When you feel continuing anger, hatred, fear or any negative emotion for another person, even when it feels justified, it ties you to that person. It creates an energetic cord that binds you together, rather like a sticky, energetic web running from your solar plexus to theirs. The longer you have felt this way, the more negative thoughts you have thought about this person, the more energy you have invested in those negative feelings, the thicker and stronger the web, the more firmly you are bound to this person. What’s more, the cord stretching between you feeds that negativity right back to you.

Who wants that? Wouldn’t you rather be free of all that negativity? Gift yourself with forgiveness. In today’s Spiritual Toolbox is a simple visualization that can support you to free yourself through forgiveness.

If the negativity you have felt is deep-seated, meaning the negative thoughts keep returning and reattaching the cord, you may need additional support. Negative thought pathways can be more like highways than paths, if so, you may choose to bring in additional tools to support you in the forgiveness process.*

There are many available on-line if you search on “Tools for Forgiveness.” Also, check out our Resources page for the technique of Faster EFT-V, which can support you to release negative emotions and allow the process of forgiveness.

"Love is not a quantity it is a flow. When you allow love to flow through you, you are then in a place of love for self, then the choices you make are with compassion for yourself and what you create outside of yourself.  There is no need to do the push/pull. It doesn’t become a trade. There are no disappointments. When we are truly in a place of love and forgiveness we are in a continuous energy spiraling and evolving upward."

-Red Feather


​*We want to remind you to seek out professional support if your emotions feel too much to handle on your own.  

​Photo by Kira auf der Heide on Unsplash