For what may be obvious reasons, I've been really focused on going back to some core teachings I've shared regarding "Cultivating a Welcoming Place for Receiving."
It starts with a very powerful and bold question that I invite you to ponder today.
"Are You Welcoming or Repelling the Arrival of Good?"
This is a question I've been asking myself lately and honestly, I've been experiencing a conscious awareness of both, and taking responsibility for my shift when needed. On some level, no matter your focus or prayer, you desire to receive something.
Maybe it is direction and clarity, maybe its inspiration, maybe it is energy and healing, maybe it is courage or faith, maybe it is peace, maybe it is relief, and maybe it is prosperity and abundance. Whatever it is, the one thing in common is that you are praying to receive something. And…underlying that desire or prayer is often a key that is overlooked or unknown; something that needs to be resolved, healed or transcended in order to align fully for what you wish to receive. Think about it.
One of the most understated aspects of receiving is the cultivation of energies and states of consciousness that are welcoming to, as opposed to repelling against, the focus of your desires, regardless of timing and (drum roll please...) form. The environment created by your thoughts, mental attitudes, emotions, and the characterizing aspects of your physical body and the details and structures within your physical life is either expansive; open to receive in an inviting way, or constrictive; closed to receiving and unwelcoming.
Think about it as “becoming a vibrational match” to your prayer or desire and “becoming a vibrational mismatch” for that which you don’t desire. Simply put, be the energetic beacon that welcomes and guides the “good” towards you by shifting your focus on “receiving,” as opposed to “getting.” And, become more conscious of how you may inadvertently be welcoming in that which you don’t desire.
Are you a welcoming place for receiving that which you desire?
Think about it. Let’s say you are opening your home for an out of town guest, or a visit from a relative or old friend. There are preparations you make to ensure your home is welcoming. Whether you realize it, you engage in rituals that prepare your physical environment, and possibly, you may also prepare your mental environment, especially if the visitor kicks up any historical patterns that are not pleasurable. Some of us also attend to the energy of our physical environments and engage in clearing rituals such as smudging, lighting candles, and placing sacred objects in your environment that call forth a higher energetic reality.
Now, metaphysically speaking, when you think about the focus of your desire or dream, are you a welcoming place in terms of:
- · Your mental thoughts, beliefs and attitudes (a can’t vs. can do attitude, victim orientation vs. empowerment orientation, controlling vs. allowing, thoughts that are grounded in compassion vs. judgment, empathy, faith, love, positive expectation, and trust)?
- · Your emotions (gratitude vs. lack, joy vs. sorrow, loving vs. hating) ,
- · The physical details of your life (do you have room in your life, and the structures in place-are you taking care of your physical body and its need for nourishment, hydration, rest and movement?)
- · Your energy-the essence that is emanating from you (is the culmination of all of the above creating a magnetic, attractive field within you and around you)?
- · Your spirit – the essence of compassion, oneness, unity, love, gratitude, and faith in your connection to the Divine Intelligence that simply needs you to surrender, ask, and receive.
Let me share a very real example. In 1997, when I experienced my instant healing from Lupus, I had begun to cultivate a welcoming place for the energy of wellness and healing, first by opening the door to the possibility. I had been working diligently on shifting my mental attitudes, which had almost been crushed under the weight of many years of negative forecasting and conditioning (I had bought in to modern medicine’s opinion that my “condition” was incurable), and the chronic pain, debilitation, and fatigue that had plagued my every day experience for many years.
My sense of self-worth had been chipped away from years of emotional bashing and a bad, but Divinely arranged first marriage that was imperative and, I believe pre-destined, in service to my evolution. Previous to “making the decision to heal,” I hated my body, my marriage, my life, myself, my decisions, much of my past, and all of my pictures of the future.
My energy and spirit were anything but welcoming to healing; until I began to cultivate a different environment in my mind, body, heart, energy and life.
Systematically, I went to work on the details of my life. I departed from my first marriage and moved into my parents home, a physical and emotional environment more conducive to healing. I began having a different conversation with my body, one that was much more loving and compassionate. Meditation, prayer, spiritual study, and developing relationships and community with like and heart minded people became a priority.
I watched my thoughts and words and diligently re-wrote my story into one in which the themes were empowering and loving. No longer a victim of circumstances, I began to see myself as a creator of love and positive energy, I dismantled much of what had become familiar – and automatically conditioned. I built my inner and energetic immunity against pain and misery.
I opened to door to spiritual guidance and became intimate with the subtle energies in my own body and surroundings. I often wonder if I became so repelling to negative energy that my kid’s father just disappeared off the face of the planet within six weeks of my departure. It was only about four months later that my healing occurred. Maintaining a welcoming place, and continuing to sift and mine through the layers that still had the potential to “invite back in the undesired,” is something that I continue to attend to today.
It’s Your Turn
Bring your focused desire, prayer or soul aligned (this is important) dream into the forefront of your mind. In fact, take a few minutes, close your eyes, and imagine that desire being fully present in your life. What does it look like, how does it feel to be in the presence of that desire manifested? What will change, improve, and grow as a result of its presence?
1. Now, when meditating on those things (above) that create either an unwelcoming or welcoming place within you or your life, what is asking to shift with your thoughts, emotions, physical environments (body included) and spiritual and energetic emissions? More of what and less of what?
2. How is judgment, negativity, criticism, lack, anger, unforgiveness, unworthiness, or doubt creating an unattractive place for that which you desire, and therefore “not welcoming” the arrival of the good that simply put, is just searching for a welcoming place in which it can exist at the highest of its potential?
3. What might you create as a focus and commitment to cultivate within you and your life so as to become more welcoming?
What Poses a Potential Distraction?
As soon as we initiate a change in our lives, lots of things can pop up as distractions and diversions that remove your energy and focus away from what is important. Old dramas and belief patterns can resurface to be healed, not to get in the way. Busyness can be both a distraction (from being present), and an excuse that prevents us from cultivating a more welcoming place within ourselves. Stillness and the quietude created within it are often avoided and even deemed unproductive (by our ego) amidst the competing thoughts of what we should make priority.
Over the last week I’ve noticed how being busy became a “justifiable reason” for me not engaging in some activities that are paramount to my own self-care. Although I spend a considerable amount of time in a meditative, prayerful state when working with my healing clients and leading groups in meditations and group healings, I can’t really “count it” towards my personal spiritual practice of daily meditation and prayer.
By Wednesday, I could feel a low level of irritation and stress building. When I simply checked in and asked, “What do I need?” the first thing I saw was water; the bathtub, the ocean,the pool, me snorkling and floating. After taking a salt bath, I asked again. I saw myself outside, facing the lush forest and pond in my backyard, meditating. I followed the guidance. I reclined in my zero gravity chair, closed my eyes and after a few centering breaths, I saw myself sitting on the ground and praying in the sacred ways of my spiritual tradition.
Again, I followed the guidance and began the ritual of prayer that has been passed down through my elders. I prepared my outdoor altar, smudged the sacred artifacts and sang the songs that activate and call forth both the conscious presence of the Divine, and foster a deep embodied presence of the Divine within my body, mind and spirit. Through the rituals, I attune to the subtle spiritual energies of the prayer ceremony and all it elicits. In essence, the rituals within the process raise my vibration so that I may be in harmony with that which I am calling towards me – making me a welcoming place. I felt harmony being restored and sensed an immediate shift in my own vibration.
Creating a Sacred Space – a Hocoka – Within Your SELF
In Lakota, the word hocoka (pronounced ho-cho-ka) can translate to many things. It can describe a sacred territory, a circle representing unity, continuity, or a sacred place for gathering in community. It can refer to a sacred altar or environment. It can also be used to describe the sacred space within your mind, heart, body, and energy – the internal altar and welcoming place for the sacred and holy to reside within you.
Becoming a more welcoming place for what you want in your life, may invite a reflection of what is unwelcoming and counter to the creation of the sacred, allowing space within your mind and heart. In Awakening the Healer Within, we bring great focus to the cultivation of a “Hocoka” through spiritual practice and practicing the various healing rituals I teach in the program. Living our lives in ceremony and becoming a hollow bone (for energy, information, inspiration, intuition and healing) are consistently reinforced.
Releasing or transforming blocks is also a focus, in particular when it comes to non-conducive energies such as:
- · Absence of Clarity (this is quite a block)
- · Lack consciousness, not enoughness
- · Unworthiness
- · Impossibility or negative thinking
- · Doubt, irrational, or conditioned fear
- · Anger, resentment, guilt, shame, judgment, etc.
- · Non-serving beliefs and perspectives about ourselves, others and how “things work” or don’t
- · Disempowering language (in our inner dialogues and conversations)
- · Illusionary identities tending towards a victim-based sense of self
- · Energetic imprints in one’s body, subconscious, chakras, and auric field
Each of these examples fosters a field that is unwelcoming to positive, desired manifestation, healing and receiving the good in a way that is sustainable. Engaging in spiritual practice and cultivating a ceremonial way of living (whether praying or doing laundry) are keys to raising our vibration to the level that is open to receiving the highest good in our lives.
Make Receiving a Practice – and a Priority
Make receiving a practice. Whether to compliments, gifts, offers of help, energy, prosperity, intuition, healing, or inspiration, receiving plays a primary role in everything that comes into – and through – our lives. Be the portal through which the good can come and cultivate a welcoming place in the totality of your being and life.
It’s All About the Questions – You Gotta Ask ‘Em
Inasmuch as we are often focused on "getting" the answers, I have found that the most profound shifts occur when we ask ourselves the BIG QUESTIONS. Inquiry and curiosity will lead you back to truth with a capital “t.” Asking also opens a welcoming place for clarity to arrive - often in its own timing.
1. First, reflecting upon the inner stirrings and insights relating to what you’ve just read, where do you see opportunities for yourself?
2. How can you choose to become more welcoming to that which you desire to receive in your life?
If you are resonating with what you have read and uncovered, consider joining me and other like and love minded pathfinders in a powerful program we are beginning soon at www.powerofmyway.com/awaken.html
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For a f*ree meditation please visit www.powerofmyway.com/newreality.html
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Enjoy! Lo ve and Blessings, Ani
First of all, I love this project/mission. I'm all in when it comes to soetmhing that's so completely POSITIVE. I hope this grows beyond your wildest dreams.As for what I, personally, hold sacred, several things came to mind pretty much at the same time. Family, Faith,and the American flag.As a wife and mother (3 daughters, 4 cats, 1 son-in-law, 1 future son-in-law, and 1 to-be-determined-son-in-law!), my beloved family is the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I think about at night. When I'm weak, they give me strength and when I'm strong they make me invincible.My faith is sacred because it's mine, all mine! I believe in God as much as I believe in my next breath. I know He's there and no one could ever convince me otherwise. When you feel your faith down in the core of your being, it's a part of who you are even more so than your DNA.Finally, the American Flag should be sacred to every American. Men and women have fought for, and given their last breath for, the stars and the stripes. They do so even today. Our country is a beautiful mixture of many races and fascinating cultures and I think of all of us when I look at the American Flag and it never fails to stir my emotions.
Posted by: Manoj | July 02, 2012 at 03:40 PM