How Smiling Enhances Happiness

A smile is a powerful thing.

Have you ever noticed that when you smile at someone, they almost always smile back at you even if you are complete strangers. Even if they were not smiling before, once you looked into their eyes and smiled, they smiled back.

A smile is a universal way of connecting with one another.

Years ago, I lived in New York City, and the hustle and bustle of city life were at times lonely and alienating. There were times when that bothered me, so I began a little game with myself that was both an experiment in the nature of energy and the power of a smile.

Now, this was just a young woman learning about life, so this was in no way a scientific experiment. Luckily science has since proven some of the things that I discovered in this game.

The Smile Game

When walking down the City sidewalks I noticed that many people did not smile as they hurried by me. The challenge in my little game was to see if I could get them to smile.

As they walked by I would make eye contact, something I noticed people in the City seemed to avoid, and smile.

A smile can be an affirmation of your joy and our unity.
– Genevieve Gerard

Amazingly I noticed that most of them would smile back. At times, I even saw confusion in their eyes as they did so, but they would almost always return my smile. It was a spontaneous response.

I like to think even that brief sense of connection served in a small way to lighten their life and dispel the sense of separation and isolation that can trap people in their loneliness.

Smile Research Studies

Years later I heard about a research study conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) that discovered that a smile biochemically released endorphins into the body. In fact, the endorphins released were the same endorphins that are released when people are falling in love.

The study went on to say that the mere act of smiling worked to release those endorphins. It did not matter if the smile had a reason or not. The smile worked as a part of the amazing autonomic nervous system’s stimulus-response mechanism. The smile produced the reason to smile. The smile helped to make the person happy.

Now I understand, based on the research, that my little smile game on the City sidewalks long ago made me feel happier because it released endorphins and dispelled my sense of loneliness and isolation that could sometimes darken my emotions.

Since then, UCLA social scientists have done a great deal more research about this amazing relationship of body language and the autonomic nervous system. They have found that smiling or assuming a posture associated with success, happiness or victory, are the results in the feelings associated with the body language that is being created all around you.

Below, in the related links, I will give you a TED talk I recently heard that spoke of the many ways that you can use this information to have a positive impact on your life. As I often write, “energy follows thought,” but I find it amazing that action also has a dynamic influence on what you experience.

Back when I was a child, there was a song about whistling a happy tune that makes this point. I also think that the immense popularity of the emoticons on smartphones demonstrates this point too.

There is an old folk wisdom saying, “smile and the world smiles with you” that also makes this point.

I invite and encourage you to play with this concept and to create your own experiment. As you walk through your daily life, whenever you see someone, a friend or a stranger, look into their eyes and smile. As you do this, observe. Did they smile back at you? How did that make you feel? Did you notice a change in how you felt just by smiling? Did you observe a little jolt of joy in your heart when they returned your smile?

At the end of this post, there is a place you can comment on your experiment. Also, on my website I have a section called transformation stories where you can share your experience in more detail. I invite you to post there what happened in your life with this test.

You can raise it all up a notch by imagining love flowing from you to them with your smile. A smile is such a simple thing to give and can have such a powerful impact. Or as you make eye contact you can simply greet them with a silent Namaste.

Let my soul smile through my heart and my heart smile through my eyes, that I may scatter rich smiles in sad hearts.
– Yogananda

Real Life Example

I remember a little incident that happened after 9-11.

I was in a bank and saw a woman with a headscarf in line. I looked at her and smiled at her thinking nothing of it. As I was leaving the bank she rushed up to me and thanked me profusely. She said that since 9-11 she had felt such anger from people, and that everyone averted their eyes from her.

My simple smile reassured her and gave her hope. We ended up sharing a brief moment of healing at a terrible time in history, all because of that simple smile. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know her and never saw her again. At that moment, there was a connection.

I invite you to use your smile as an instrument for good in the world and enter into joyful playfulness that will enhance your happiness.

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on All That You Do!

The Hidden Power of Smiling: TED Talk on Smilling
The Happiness Habit
Discover How to Choose Happiness
Bliss is Perfect Happiness: Article with video meditation
Bringing Joy into Your Life
Recommended Meditation

Expressing Your Divine Spark

How Smiling Enhances Happiness Read More »

Breaking Through To Forgiveness

Genevieve Gerard

Breaking Through To Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a subject that I write about frequently. This is because in my life, in my experience, whenever I have been able to forgive someone, my life changed and improved in a dramatic and dynamic way.

Not so long ago, when speaking with my much-loved Aunt Merle, we were talking about my writing and teachings, and my efforts to use my life lessons for the benefit of others.

I commented to her that forgiveness was something I knew a great deal about and that I had become very good at it.

My aunt, who knew many of the challenges I had experienced in my life’s journey, got very quiet for a moment. Then she said with love and compassion in her voice, “Perhaps dear that is because you had so much that needed to be forgiven, happen in your life.”

That statement gave me pause. It is certainly true that my life has provided, possibly like yours, so many experiences and situations that were so awful that I rarely speak about them. In my mind, I just consider them my own personal horror stories. I frankly rarely think of them anymore. Still they are a part of my past, a past I have been able to be free of through my ability to forgive. Because forgiveness freed me.

By forgiving, I was able to let what was in the past, not be a factor in my present.

It is in light of this awareness that I write today to encourage you to forgive.

It’s not an easy journey, to get to a place where you forgive people. But, it is such a powerful place, because it frees you.
– Tyler Perry

Moreover, I encourage you to do it for what it will do for you and how it will impact your life.

It has always fascinated me that the most powerful and significant impact that forgiving had, was for me, rather than upon those I had forgiven. In fact it is not even necessary for those you forgive to know you have forgiven them. My forgiving freed me from carrying the pain. My forgiving permitted me to heal and move forward in my life.

Forgiveness is not always easy…
And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.
– Marianne Williamson

When I think back to the moment that I was able to fully and finally forgive, I feel such joy remembering the relief and release that I experienced, it still makes me smile.

Energetically, when I broke through to forgiveness there was a shift that felt like a thousand hurts and burdens shattering, like tempered glass, into refuse on the floor of my life, that could now be cleaned up and swept away.

Up until that moment I knew that I had only attempted to forgive, I even told myself that I had forgiven the myriad of betrayals and cruelties I was made to suffer. I persisted, and with each attempt I paved the way that helped me reach a point where I could finally and totally forgive, and with each attempt to forgive the burden got lighter.

In fact, I had been working on forgiving much of my life. It is as if I knew from an early age, even in the midst of being subjected to terrible acts and situations that I needed to find it in my heart to forgive. In fact, when I shared what was happening in my life and what I was being subjected to in terms of abuse with teachers, preachers and counselors; they advised me to return love and forgiveness. And I certainly tried.

It was only when I realized that an important part of forgiveness was acknowledging the wrongness of what I had been subjected to, that I could release the anger that I was carrying. Otherwise, in the words of my spiritual mentor it was “premature transcendence.” Honoring and admitting the reality of my anger was important.

Actually, it was only when my own spiritual journey took me to doing A Course on Miracles and I entered a phase of daily seed thoughts and affirmations on forgiveness, that I was ultimately able to forgive sufficiently and to be truly free.

Two seed thoughts that had a profound impact upon me, which were offered back to back, and which I spent days contemplating on I offer to you now. They are, “forgiveness is the key to happiness” and, “forgiveness offers everything I want.”

Doing, Not Trying

I had been doing spiritual work in A Course in Miracles when my business travel placed me in a situation where I felt compelled to visit my Mother. In my life, much of what I needed to forgive was centered on my relationship with my Mother. Some for what she did, but much for what she failed to do, for the ways she left me vulnerable and unprotected.

When I found myself face to face with her after many years of my avoiding being subjected to her cruelty, and the memories that being with her made inescapable, I thought I might as well put into practice what I had been learning.

I went into my visit with my mother determined to not fall victim to her abuse. I had decided that I would not give her the power to push my buttons. (Up until that time, her behavior stimulated a response in me that I did not like and was vastly different from my usual self.)

Certainly, it is true for most people that their Mother knows exactly what to say or do to push their buttons. That was very true for me. My Mother’s strongest weapon was her poison tongue. Her vitriolic attacks and demeaning insults were only a part of what I needed to forgive, but they were something that had continued even after her failure to protect me from others was no longer relevant, because as an adult I could now protect myself. These verbal attacks made it hard to be with her.

In addition, although I could never understand how or why she seemed to enjoy being mean and cruel, I knew that I needed to find a way to not be her victim.

When, in the course of our visit she said something that was both demeaning and cruel, something shifted in me. This was not new behavior for her and certainly not new in our troubled relationship. What was new was how I reacted to it. I looked at her and instead of being angry, I returned love. I maintained my center and did not react. In fact, I recall feeling a deep sadness.

Then, the most amazing thing happened. When I did not respond in kind by saying something mean and cruel back to her, she became angrier. She became frustrated as she lobbed insult after insult at me. As I stayed centered in myself and not reactive she became so angry and so frustrated that she ultimately insulted herself back for me. She did this by saying “I know what you are going to say is…” Ironically, what she said had never even crossed my mind.

What I then said, from my center, calmly was “I didn’t say that Mother, you did. Is that how you feel?”

In that moment, I was finally able to break through and forgive her. In that moment, I became free. I knew that for as long as we lived after that point I had the power to be who I was and not give her the power to control my behavior. In that moment, I discovered the amazing power of turning the other cheek.

In forgiving her, I was now free. That moment changed our entire relationship and that change remained until she passed from this life.

That does not mean that she was never mean again. Of course not. She was who she was. She did, over time come to appreciate the forgiveness I had given her, but the significant change was in me. The freedom and the release was mine, and that freedom and release allowed me to be in her company and be true to myself. To be who I had become in life.

There are in other articles I have written on forgiveness meditations and techniques that I have shared to assist you. I encourage you to consider them on your own quest to learn to forgive.

Forgiveness often contains many layers. Each time you forgive a wrong you peel away a layer and weaken the hold that the hurt has on you.

At its core, forgiveness is tied into love. The more you can love, the more you can forgive. The more you can forgive the more your compassion is stimulated as you understand better the factors that led to the circumstances you are striving to forgive. I encourage you and will continue to offer guidance and support on your quest to forgive.

When you forgive, you in no way change the past – but you sure do change the future.
– Bernard Medtzer

Over the next 4 days I will post daily seed thoughts on forgiveness to support you through my Imagine 1 Minute social posts (please follow me on Facebook and Twitter.) Also, keep checking back, I am sure I will write again on the subject of forgiveness.

I invite you to experience the freedom that forgiveness gives. I encourage you to find it in your heart to forgive whatever horrors you may have been subjected to in your life. Your intention provides power.

Honestly own your anger and then let it all go with forgiveness.

Forgiveness Affirmations

To help you forgive here are some affirmations that you can use:

I Forgive You

I forgive myself for letting you harm me.

By forgiving you, I release you from our mutual past.

By forgiving you, I release me from the past.

By forgiving myself, I am now free of the past

I am sorry for all the time I reacted with anger.

I forgive myself for the times and ways I failed to love.

Now is a new moment, forgiveness enables me to open to new possibilities.

Forgiveness frees me to have the life that I desire.

What I receive by forgiving is freedom; freedom to free myself from old hurts, freedom to let go of the past. With forgiveness you are able to break free of old established patterns in relationships.

Most importantly, after you have forgiven, there is an opportunity for healing.

Forgiveness allows you to leave what has happened in the past where it truly belongs, in the past. This frees you from constantly needing to relive it or react to it.

It is even possible to develop a new bond and a way of being with the person you have forgiven that is much more satisfying and gratifying than what had preceded.

Forgiveness changes everything because forgiveness changes you.
– Genevieve Gerard

On the heels of forgiveness comes the chance to build something new and different. You are able to shed the anger that held you captive and limited, and give yourself the ability to move forward in your life. Ultimately, forgiveness permits both compassion and understanding to emerge. Ponder on this!

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on all that you do!

P.S. I see that I have 20 other posts on forgiveness. Some offer tools and techniques that may be of help to you.

You may also be interested in my 5-star guided meditation called “How To Forgive Yourself: Let Go Of The Past and Release Your Pain And Sorrow.” Because when forgiving another, it often brings up the need to forgive yourself for not standing up for yourself or letting another harm you. This seems to be true whether you had any control over their actions or not.

Last updated 2-21-2018

Breaking Through To Forgiveness Read More »

The Keys to Harnessing Your Thoughts

Genevieve Gerard

The Keys to Harnessing Your Thoughts
to Create Your Life

In the writings and the teachings of many, the human potential movement is an amazing and very powerful concept, “Energy Follows Thought.”

It is powerful because as you really understand this principle and how it works, you have the tools to create the life of your dreams.

However, to really utilize this to its full potential there are some things that will help you to understand.

Understanding the subtle way that “Energy Follows Thought” works and then applying it in your life is a key to empowering you to fulfill your life’s purpose.

This potent law about life is one you can use to change your life right now. It enables you to claim your full potential to be and become all that you are meant to be.

It is a key element of success. When you use this dynamic principle that energy follows thought, you activate the Law of Attraction.

What is very important to understand about these (often touted but frequently not fully explained) is that when using a universal law or principle to impact your life, that rule is always active. You can use it to help you or it can be a stumbling block, but it is at work all the time. Once you realize this, it becomes your choice whether to use it to have what you want or not.

Like many truths about life, the fact that energy follows thought is simple. However, harnessing your thoughts to create what you envision in life is not always easy.

This is because thoughts are multilayered, also multifaceted and run through your mind lightning fast. Unfortunately, thoughts flow constantly and are most often unconscious. This unconscious and unharnessed element of your thoughts is what is known as mind chatter.

For eons one of the most significant goals of learning to meditate has been to gain mastery over the chaotic damage created in life by undisciplined mind chatter. It is a challenge that is sometimes explained as learning to master the monkey mind.

The monkey mind is a phrase that teachers have used to describe the content of thought that creates the chaos that is evident in most people’s lives.

This content is filled with fears and worries, jumbled in with occasional hopes and aspirations. Therefore, what you are sending out to the universe to activate the principle that “energy follows thought” is the hodgepodge of your hopes, mixed in with a generous dose of your fears.

Is it any wonder, that your life doesn’t unfold consistent with your dreams and desires when what you are sending out as instructions for creation is garbage. To borrow a phrase from the early days of computer science the function of your mind power is “garbage in, garbage out.”

Learning to quiet and control the negative impact of the chattering mind is a primary purpose of practicing meditation.

An important step in gaining mastery over the creative power of your mind is to become aware of the content of your mind chatter, and then to use that awareness to create what you intend.

A Key Tool

A technique I often recommend is to pay attention to the content of your thoughts from the perspective of a detached observer. As the detached observer you will notice what you are thinking, and therefore you will be sending out to the universe your correct instructions for manifestation..

As you do this, suspend judgement and just observe.

It may be easiest to see how this principle is at work by considering and observing your own emotions. You might like to experiment and try this exercise:

Every time you feel depressed about something, try to identify a corresponding negative thought you had just prior to and during the depression. Because these thoughts have actually created your bad mood, by learning to restructure them, you can change your mood.
– David D. Burns

Your ability to observe, to become aware, to reframe, to replace and change your thoughts, are some of the other keys to changing your life. Change your thoughts, change your life.

When you begin to pay attention, to really listen and consider the content of your thoughts, you will be amazed or you may be horrified. If you consider the ways that your thoughts create your reality through the elements of the Law of Attraction, and the principle that energy follows thought, you will begin to realize the control and mastery you can achieve in your life.

Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.
– Willie Nelson

You will begin to understand that you are more in control and more powerful in your life than you have ever dared to dream.

With the understanding of the creative power that is available to you also comes the realization that you are not a victim of your own life. Therefore, you have a responsibility to yourself to create in your life that which will support you in fulfilling your life’s purpose.

Know that the process of mastering your negative mind chatter and learning to replace and reframe your thoughts will require vigilance and discipline.

Negative thoughts stick around because we believe them, not because we want them or choose them.
– Andrew J. Bernstein

This isn’t the first time I have spoken about that energy follows thought and how to use it to ignite the Law of Attraction. It is a subject that I have written about frequently (there are several links to related posts listed below.)

It is a subject that I plan to explore further in a webinar in the near future, where you will have the opportunity to ask questions. Please watch for the announcement of that event.

What you think, is not beyond your control. You can choose to use these tools to be empowered in what you do, to create your life and bring it into more alignment with your goals and your desires.

Taking control of the creative power of your mind is a dynamic first step in learning how to create your life, and bring into your life what you need and what you desire more effectively.

This is your life. It is the stage on which to act out your dreams. It is the opportunity for you to be the director of your life, to act positively and affirmatively instead of being reactive.

Overcoming your fears is an important part of learning to use the creative power of your thoughts in a way that manifests positively. So is using positive affirmations.

Throughout this website, contained in many of my guided meditation products and affirmations are tools that can help you in your quest. You are more powerful and capable than you have ever imagined. You have unlimited potential to manifest the life of your dreams.

This quest to harness your thoughts to create your life will enlighten your awareness as you travel along your journey and you will find much that you can use to transform your life to be more joyful.

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on All That You Do!

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Last updated 4-4-2019

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It Is Always Only NOW

Genevieve Gerard

It Is Always Only NOW

You can do something in this very moment of time that can have a powerful impact in your life.

It is so very simple that it may hardly seem worth saying, yet it will have a far-reaching impact on your life experience. That is to be in the NOW.

That certainly sounds simple. In my many years of coaching and counseling people, I have learned that just because something is simple, does not make it easy.

You may think, “Well, when else could it be, than right NOW?” Of course you would be right. The quicksilver nature of the mind is such that it all too often plays with time through what I call “the Plans, prayers and promises game” (or how I make myself miserable.)

The “plans, prayers and promises game,” has a lot to do with what many people tend to do that keeps happiness outside of their experience.

Many fall into a thought pattern that involves looking at what is happening in the present moment and then judging it as unimportant or not good enough. Once you have done that, it is a slippery slope of self-criticism that contains the thoughts “I should have or could have.”

Right behind those thoughts come “I ought”. Then rather than being in the moment, a process of thoughts and projections into the future will begin, for most people these thoughts are composed of past fears that caused pain and thoughts of that pain happening again in the future.

At times, the perpetual reliving and fearing the past traps you in the past in your consciousness and deprives you of realizing and appreciating what is happening right now.

Interestingly, these thoughts become so buried in your negative “mind chatter” that you are most likely unaware of them although they leave in their wake a general sense of discontent and longing.

This mind chatter is usually a way of being in the past, or in the future. These are not the thoughts of being in the NOW.

In the dynamic power of the present moment, you can simultaneously and spontaneously shed the burdens of the past and your fears of the future.
– Genevieve Gerard

If you take a pause to consider what is actually happening right NOW, at this exact moment in time and free yourself from any thoughts or consideration of the past or the future, you will be amazed at the sense of calm that washes over you. When you consider and understand how much of your mental attention and awareness may be occupied by thoughts of the past or desires for the future, it is astounding.

If you then take this understanding to its next and logical conclusion, you will realize that you can influence your life in powerful and dynamic ways that will immediately affect your personal happiness and save you from a lot of misery.

Now it may be a new idea to you that your misery is a result of your thoughts. If you have never been aware of that before, please take a moment to consider this concept. It is a very different idea. It can change everything in a way that empowers you to live the life of your dreams and become all that you are meant to be. It is a portal to success and joy.

The past is past. It has already happened, and nothing you can do right now can change it. That realization may come with sadness or a great relief. Whichever emotion you experience with that realization common sense cannot escape the acknowledging of the truth of that fact. What you can do is embrace the incredible relief and freedom that it grants you.

You don’t have to strive to re-write it or change it since that simply cannot be done. You are then left with the decisions of the present moment, what you can do right here, right now.

If you are contained in the events of your mental rewinding of the past, if there is something you are still angry about or some wrong that has been done to you, you can free yourself by forgiving that person for that wrong. You can say that they don’t deserve forgiveness, and that may be true, but you deserve the freedom from the past that forgiveness will give you.

Forgiveness frees you from carrying a painful burden. Forgiveness frees you from the past and opens you to the amazing possibility of receiving and appreciating what is happening in the present.

For many, past events are riddled with mistakes or failures you have made. You can free yourself from the burden of the past by forgiving yourself.

Forgiveness is an act that can do more to transform your life than any other tool in the quest for enlightenment, awareness and joy. Check out my “How to Forgive Yourself” Genevieve Gerard MP3 and let go of the past and release your pain and sorrow now.

Since you cannot ever change the past, no matter what you do, consider the alternative, forgiveness. It certainly cannot do any harm and in my experience brings with it lots of relief and release. It can be a powerful element in your personal happiness.

The other logical conclusion to entering into the moment and appreciating right here, right Now, is that the future is not NOW, it remains something in the future that will only happen when it happens. You can only deal with it, resolve it, or respond to it when it becomes the present.

No amount of planning or promising yourself how it should be or will be, brings the future into the present.

Your thoughts are magnets to the creative process of manifestation, so it is important to rid your thoughts of as much fear and worry, as you are able.
– Genevieve Gerard

Far more beneficial than the self-critical mind chatter of the “plans, prayers and promises game” is the realization that the future, while as yet uncreated and unformed, can be influenced by your positive thoughts and intentions because of a universal principle that energy follows thought.

Therefore, you can free your mind from the ceaseless spinning of “could have, should have, or I ought to” and open your mind to being an active and proactive force in the creation of your future.

How To Be In The Moment

To be really effective in being in the moment and creating the future that you desire, there are some important things you must do.

First

The first thing you must do is acknowledge that the past is over and unchangeable and has absolutely no more power over you. Then forgive yourself and any others from your past that you may be shouldering on.

Just coming into the present time in your awareness is a strong first step. Bringing your consciousness to present time spontaneously frees you from a lot of the negative consequence of the unconscious mind chatter by interrupting that pattern.

From the very moment, in the very moment that you shed your minds projections into the past or fears for the future, everything changes. That is why there is such a sense of relief and release by coming into the present, what Eckhart Tolle calls the Power of NOW.

Always say ‘yes’ to the present moment… Surrender to what is. Say ‘yes’ to life – and see how life starts suddenly to start working for you, rather than against you.
– Eckhart Tolle

Second

The second is to let yourself enjoy and appreciate the release that comes with bringing your awareness to this exact moment of time. At the moment, nothing is ever too much to bear because it only is for a moment.

Third

The Third is to understand that the future is still free and unfettered in a state of potential that is becoming and emerging. That leaves you with a great opportunity to create the life you want to live, starting in this moment.

This active, proactive, energetic approach to the, as yet, uncreated and unrevealed future can help free you from the fears that are embedded in your undirected and undisciplined “mind chatter.”

Plant the seed of desire in your mind and it forms a nucleus with power to attract to itself everything needed for its fulfillment.
– Robert Collier

Fourth

Next you can continue to gain mastery over what you are creating with your mind, by observing what thoughts you are sending out from your mind.

This means being aware of the content of what you are thinking and then take conscious control of the content of your thoughts.

Utilize the universal principle that “energy follows thought” and activate the Law of Attraction. Use the power of your thoughts to create what you desire while living the Noble Eightfold Path of Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration, Superior Right Knowledge and Superior Right Liberation.

By focusing upon what you desire and consciously choosing to not confuse and litter your mind with fears and worry and the negative input of unaware and unfocused mind chatter, you can take the reins of your creative power into your hands.

Change your thoughts and you change your world.
– Norman Vicent Peale

Your life is a gift, placed within your hands to be a co-creator with the Divine. What you choose, moment-to-moment, of the vast array of ways to improve and empower your life is life’s ongoing blessing to you.

Enjoy it in the magic of being, right here, and right NOW. This is your life, your amazing adventure. It is only available moment-by-moment. This is it, live, love and celebrate and remember, it is always only NOW.

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on All That You Do!

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Last updated 2-20-2019

It Is Always Only NOW Read More »

Discover How To Choose Happiness

Genevieve Gerard

Discover How To Choose Happiness

It is true, but often not realized or understood, that you and none other hold the power over your own happiness.

It is a power that you can hold and develop, or a power you can give away.

When you embrace the power to choose happiness in your life, you are making a conscious step to fulfilling the creative potential of your life.

Wikipedia defines happiness as, “a mental or emotional state of well-being defined by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.”

Also according to St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, “man’s last end is happiness.”

Many years ago when I was first learning how to meditate, I received instruction at a Zendo. In Zen Buddhism, the zen-dō is a spiritual dōjō where zazen (sitting meditation) is practiced.

Zen instruction tends to come from little stories or statements, which the student explores, ponders or considers.

In the very best results, this leads to a moment of awareness that shifts your entire understanding. A moment of enlightenment where sometimes these seemingly offhand comments by the Zen master resonate so deeply and profoundly that they bring a significant shift in understanding or perspective that is life-changing or transforming.

One such statement in my early experience was on the subject of happiness.

The Zen master and I were sitting quietly over a cup of tea after the actual meditation time was over. We were talking about beliefs and culture and the far-reaching implications of those things. The subject of happiness came up, particularly the concept so deeply embedded in the American consciousness, that of the pursuit of happiness, a concept the Zen master unequivocally declared as absurd.

In one of those enlightening moments, one has when their consciousness and perspective changes, I saw and understood happiness in an entirely different way. I realized that by pursuing happiness I could never be happy. I realized that happiness was not something I got, but rather something I brought to life.
Happiness was something I could choose to be.

At that same time, I realized that I could choose to feel victimized by others, blame them for either what they had done or not done. That would functionally put my happiness outside of my control.

This paradigm shift in my awareness had a deep and very life empowering influence on my life. It changed my expectations and needs for others in a way that was very freeing and empowering for me. The power for my own life and my own happiness come under my control. I didn’t have to wait for others or life circumstances to bring situations and circumstances to my life for me to be happy. I could choose happiness.

As with any moment of enlightening (and I have learned over a lifetime of expanding and exploring consciousness) moments of enlightenment shift my awareness and the cascading effect of this realization was profound. It put me in touch with the power of choice in my life experiences. Of course in that morning over tea, long ago there was a great deal I did not yet know or understand that would influence my ability to take this insight and incorporate it into my daily life.

As with all flashes of enlightened consciousness, you need to learn to integrate and demonstrate what you now understand.

Much of what I have since discovered, and come to understand, has been built upon the foundation of recognizing that I have a choice. I am not a victim of my life and circumstances; I am the actor and director.

I am, by the power of my thoughts empowered to join my conscious creative power with the Divine as a co-creator of my life.

Effective Tools To Be Happy

Choosing to be happy can have an amazing impact on your life. Once you make that choice there are some tools and techniques, many of which I have suggested time and time again. These tools and techniques can be used and adjusted to different situations and circumstances to energize and support your choice.

Affirmations

Among these effective tools are using affirmations. The power of saying an affirmation sets up energetic ripples in ways that help bring what you are affirming and what you think as you affirm it, into manifestation.

Using the powerful assertion of an “I Am” statement in your affirmation activates the dynamic principle that energy follows thought.

Right now, you can experience that control if you say with conviction and intention one of the following affirmations I wrote.

I am happy, peaceful and calm, right now.

I choose to be happy in this moment of time.

In this event, I am learning to be happier and more fulfilled in my life.

You might notice that whatever you had been thinking or feeling before you affirmed this has started to fade away and that assertion and affirmation have been elevated in your mind and your consciousness. This is not a trick of the mind to affect your feelings, but rather a dynamic tool to give you the ability to transform and influence your life, right now.

Experience my Soaring to Success Affirmations for Abundance CD or MP3’s to allow yourself to envision your life beyond limitation and allow them to train the imaging faculty of your mind to create perfect pictures of the life you will create with these >> affirmations.

Mindful Breath Meditation

You can expand and enhance the use of affirmations by adding a simple Mindful Breath Meditation (that I created) while you breath.

I am breathing in peace and calm, right now.

I am aware that I am choosing to be peaceful and calm right now.

Observe how affirming the state of being you are wanting shifts your experience, how it influences your consciousness.

Reframe & Reinterpret Your Experiences

In addition to the capacity to affirm the state of being that you desire, you also have within the vast capacity of your mind the ability to reframe and reinterpret your life experiences.

My mother-in-law used to say. “It’s not what happens to you, it’s how you react to it.”

So much of what interferes with your personal happiness lies within the content of your negative mind chatter, which is mostly based upon fear.

Remember, in life, there are many things that you have no control over. These life experiences can be viewed as negative things just happening to you or opportunities for life lessons learned. It all depends on the meaning you attach to them.

Therefore, ponder on these life experiences and take the space to re-frame and re-interpret them in a positive light.

Live In The Moment

When you examine the content of your negative mind chatter, particularly when you bring your awareness to the perspective of the detached observer, you may well realize that much of what is limiting your happiness is created by your expectations and your fear of what might happen in the future, instead of being in the NOW.

These are underlying factors that can influence your choice to be happy in any given situation and circumstance in your life. Inherent in every event in your life is a choice. The choice to be the primary force in your life or to surrender your personal power to the people and happenings you bring into your life is of great importance.

In every moment, you consciously or unconsciously decide.

Needless to say, I encourage you to use the power of your mind and the mastery of your emotions to choose happiness.

Master Your Emotions

It is important to note that mastery of your emotions does not mean the suppression of your emotions. Emotion, any and every emotion experienced has a natural ebb and flow to it.

When allowed to wash through you without fear, and kept in the present time emotions should not disrupt your happiness. It is when you overlay the emotion with fears, with the thought that what you are feeling has always been that way (which is not true), or (it will always be that way), which also cannot be true, does an emotion take hold and create misery.
This is important to understand. This is something that is entirely within your control and is inherent in your choice of being happy. The tools that you can incorporate into your life, including affirmations, observing and reframing your thoughts, and releasing fears and expectations, all impact whether or not you are happy. And, they are all tools that are available to you today.

I encourage you to choose to be happy. You can use an affirmation of your own creation or from the vast array of positive affirmations that are available in the world.

You can pay attention to the input of your negative mind chatter by observing and noting the thoughts that interfere with your happiness. If they are fears, you can release them by entering into the present time, which is much more real than the fear and incredibly freeing.

You can take a moment to re-frame what you are observing in light of greater understanding and awareness as you focus on what is going on. This process is amazingly freeing and empowering, especially when applied to your own personal happiness.

So today, I invite you to discover to choose happiness and experience how to BE HAPPY. It is your birthright and your empowerment as the co-creator of your life.

Namaste,

Genevieve,

The Blessing of Love on All That You Do!

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Last updated 7-8-2020

About the author:
Genevieve Gerard teaches Transformational Consciousness – from first awakening to enlightened Soul awareness. She helps you experience the joy that results from the spontaneous “touch of your soul.”

Read more details…

Genevieve has a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy and Theology and a Master of Arts Degree in Counseling and for over thirty years has worked one-on-one with people who were recovering from devastating disabilities and chronic pain. Teaching the mastery of the mind-body relationship she was one of the early professionals trained in biofeedback, visualization, imagery, and meditation as essential techniques to help people heal their bodies, heal their emotions, heal their minds, and heal their lives.

Genevieve’s work demonstrates what she knows so well, “It is spiritual connectedness that triggers physical healing and emotional and mental well-being.” Helping people, like you, tap into your higher-self is the power she wields to guide you to heal and transform your life.

Now, with this understanding, she combines the effective techniques she developed over decades teaching mind-body mastery along with her extensive experience in meditation and spiritual development to create a synthesis of mind-body-spirit that delivers complete healing and opens the door to unlimited personal growth and an encounter with your Soul.

In addition to her current life guidance coaching sessions, and workshops performed around the world, Genevieve has produced more than 20+ guided meditations in the last eight years that are available on iTunes, Amazon, CDBaby, and her website.

It is her vision that through your experience with the techniques of awareness, visualization, and meditation, the love of your Soul will touch and transform your life through her writings and products. It is her sincere desire that the potential of a life of joy and celebration that seems to elude so many people can become a reality for you, now and forever.

Browse her life story and read the Touch of the Soul that changed her world. To contact Genevieve, visit her keep in touch page.

Discover How To Choose Happiness Read More »

Reasons Why to Keep a Journal

Genevieve Gerard

Reasons Why to Keep a Journal

Journaling is a wonderful tool you can use to help yourself in the process of transformation and growth.

A journal is a way you can share your thoughts and your deepest feelings, knowing there is no judgment.

It can help you understand yourself better and open your awareness to thoughts and feelings that seem to gain clarity when put into words. This is true when you share with a friend, but becomes even truer when you symbolically serve in the role of befriending yourself by keeping a journal.

One of the main reasons why to keep a journal is because your journal can become a way of clarifying what you are experiencing. It becomes a meditative experience, which helps you gain insight and get in touch with the perspective and wisdom of your Higher Self. In this way, writing in your journal becomes a tool for deeper insight and understanding. It becomes a way that you can heal your life.

Over the years that I have kept a journal there were countless times when a problem or issue that was troubling me resolved when I sat down to write because my thoughts and my feelings were clarified and resolved by the process of writing. This happened so frequently and profoundly that I now associate journal writing as a way of transitioning from the perspective of my personality to the wisdom and insight of my Soul. This is why I recommend to my counseling and coaching clients that you keep a journal.

It not only becomes a record of your personal growth and healing, but becomes a way you can look at your life circumstances and situation from the perspective of the detached observer, something I frequently recommend as a tool for insight when you are striving to change your life. By understanding the power of your thoughts being sent out into the universe, you can gain a better perspective.

Understanding that “energy follows thought” helps you look more objectively at the consequences of your thoughts. You then, after seeing your thoughts expressed in black and white, have the opportunity to revise and re-frame your thinking to enhance the result you desire.

At times, I have noted that what I was initially thinking was not only dramatically different from what I wanted to create in my life but also at times upon reflection was actually silly or absurd. The opportunity to consider my thoughts helped to shift my feelings and empowered the technique of reframing.

Journaling also helped me to identify and release limiting beliefs that came to my awareness as I wrote.

The best time to begin keeping a journal is whenever you decide to.
– Hannah Hinchman

Keeping a journal can be a valuable and comforting experience. That is why I am always amazed when someone drops the simple discipline that regular journaling requires.

I have played with the idea of intermittently recording my thoughts and feelings, but the very intermittency of that sacrifices the primary benefit in keeping a journal, which is to reveal the process of change and transformation you are undergoing.

For that reason, I encourage you to approach journaling with discipline to make an entry daily. Even if that entry is as simple as, “too tired to write tonight,” or “too busy to write today,” those entries become launch points for your next entry.

A journal is really a record of your life over a period of time. Like life itself, some are good, some are difficult. Some are well done and some of it has room for improvement.

As a record of your life for a particular span of time, I recommend that when you decide to start a journal you get a fresh book. Indeed, a new journal is a symbol of a fresh start. At this time in my life, I like to pick a new blank book. There are many beautiful blank books to choose from. The choosing of a new book in which to record my new revelations and my new story has become for me a significant step in the process of keeping a journal. The cover, the design, and any pictures often reflect the place I am in with my consciousness at that time.

You may choose a book with lined or blank pages. Journals are certainly available either way. I like a blank book because that gives me the freedom to make lists, chart things or draw pictures or images along with the words I write.

Many, many years ago, when I first began keeping a journal I did not purchase books with a designed cover. I purchased basic black artist sketchbooks and only the dates within revealed when I wrote in them. However, when I chose a book that had a beautiful cover or image, I found that it enhanced my overall satisfaction and enticed my interest when I went back to read my old entries.

I would now recommend that you choose your book cover by what you are intuitively drawn to as part of the reason you are journaling. It is a special book, almost a sacred book, where you can capture and reveal the promptings of your heart, mind, and Soul. It deserves special attention.

I have always liked to identify a special pen for journaling. My all-time favorite is a fountain pen, although they have over the years become more and more archaic.

Another designation is to choose a particular type of pen or a special color of ink. As strange as that may seem, the shift in ink color has often signaled a shift in my growth and consciousness. It has often surprised me how significant a change in ink color can be, even over a specific period of time.

The rituals of a special book, a special pen and, or ink color, enhance the experience of keeping a journal. When I determine I will start journaling, choosing those things seem to prepare me and commit me to the discipline.

I have also found it beneficial to have a particular time of day to write. Most of my years, it has been early morning upon awakening. In that way, my journal can also serve as a dream journal where I record any significant dreams that I can remember.

I now use that ingrained discipline to do the writing that I share with you in these various articles and books. Still, a journal is different from, and in many ways more special than regular writing.

When I began journaling, I resolved to live each day so that when I looked back upon it when I got older I would smile. Now, no matter what sorrow or loss I may have been experiencing at the time I was writing, when I pick up an old journal to read, I find I do smile.

Although it may be bittersweet, I realize that I have new understanding and compassion for the person I used to be. The love and compassion that the passage of time has granted to others, put everything into perspective.

Journaling Affirmation

I find that journaling allows you to look back and affirm:

I did survive,

I did prevail, and

I have arrived in a different moment of time,

bringing with me the wisdom that those events long ago imparted.

I am able to see the growth and understanding I have achieved.

– Genevieve Gerard

The very act of journaling has brought magic into my life with the healing way it has brought me through the dark night of many experiences into the light.

Early in my experience of journaling, I began to notice that no matter how unhappy or unsettled I was when I began to write, the process of writing would begin to clarify things. By the conclusion of the writing, my perspective had shifted and I was able to understand life and events with a greater depth and clarity. This aspect is still one of the main reasons and primary benefits of keeping a journal.

The change to a new season, a significant shift in time, such as a New Year, or a new monthly Moon which starts a new lunar cycle are all powerful times to make a commitment to starting a journal. Picking out the book and bringing it to where you can easily reach it, with your special or designated pen helps encourage you.

Whatever your choice of book, I encourage you to write the start date on the title page and when the book is filled, record the end date. This is valuable when you go back to remember specific times and life-transforming events.

For that reason, specifying a book for a special trip is often helpful. By just letting the dates record the start and end of the journey clarifies that those insights or even people who came into your life were unique to that experience.

If you chose to begin journaling now, I would recommend you take the time to choose a special book, identify a pen, and make the choice of those things special. It is too easy to lose random notebooks.

Certainly, in these days of computers, notepads and smart mini computer cell phones, any of those could be used to journal. The advantage I could see to using these new technologies is they tend to be kept with you and easily available. The cloud and new platforms open up a completely new possibility. The ease of accessing your journal from where ever you might be, opens new opportunities and potential.

Another good reason to keep a journal is it is a great way to make valuable use of waiting time. I have found it often a great way to nourish and support myself when eating alone. Keeping a journal gave me the freedom to be alone in many of the places and times that people were with others, without making me stand out of feeling lonely. In the years that I frequently traveled on business and found myself eating in restaurants alone, it also helped me to not feel lonely.

Whatever equipment and whatever platform you choose to use, I would recommend that before you begin to write in your journal you take a few minutes to ground your energy, to center yourself, to open your heart and mind and to consciously choose to be aligned with and receptive to your Higher Self. This can only enhance and magnify the benefits and advantages of journaling.

Check out Grounding Arrow MP3 by Genevieve Gerard

Experience how to ground your energy, center yourself, and rebalance yourself to your life force with my Grounding Arrow Guided Meditation MP3 Download.
Click here to >> learn more about this guided meditation.

Remember, your Higher Self, your Soul is an integral part of you and is always available to you wherever you are.

As I write these words to you, I realize that I would like to add this new technology to my smartphone through Google Docs. I will share my experience of that with you the next time I reach out to you and write about the advantages of keeping a journal.

Whatever tools or techniques you choose to use, I encourage you to make the commitment to yourself to use this way to transform your life and grow. Make a commitment to open your life to the increased awareness and insight the journaling can give you.

This is a gift you can give to yourself, to empower yourself. It is something you can do today to open your life to becoming all that you are meant to be.

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on All That You Do!

P.S. Do you keep a journal? Why or why not? I’d love to hear your thoughts on journaling in the comments section!

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Last updated 1-24-2019

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Life is a series of spontaneous changes

Genevieve Gerard

Life Is A Series of Spontaneous Changes

Invocations and Affirmations for Change

Change…
is a fact of life.

From the moment we are born to the last breathe we take, change is a part of life.

This aspect of living can serve as the seat of all hope and promise, or the fuel for all fears.

This understanding of the nature of life as a never-ending cycle of change leads me to wonder how this can be used to enhance what is experienced in an individual life.

It is important to understand that the life principle that brings change, is neither good nor bad. You can use change to create the life of your dreams when you harness the inevitable and direct it with your positive thoughts and affirmations.

When things are in the flux of changing is an excellent opportunity to look at the events in your life and reconsider them. All too often, there is a tendency in life to accept the status quo, letting life move on without conscious thought or consideration.

These times of change can provide you the opportunity to consciously consider what is working for you in your life and what changes you may want to make or need to make.

I believe it is human nature to have an initial fear response to change. You know deep down that you can handle and cope with what has been, but even if it wasn’t what you wanted or needed, a change takes you into the unknown and untried.

Fortunately, sometimes life conspires to introduce change, not only through conscious decisions and choices but often through life lessons and happenings beyond your control.

Life is a series of spontaneous changes.
– Lao Tzu

It is at these times in life that it is important to harness your fears and seize the day. When you transmute and transform your fears of change, you opening your life to an unlimited possibility to become the life you have, until now, only dared to dream.

Some Important Steps to Take Advantage of Change

1. Put the past firmly in the past.

2. Realize that what will become the future is just now being formed and created

3. As you consider the events of your past, take a moment to consider them from a different perspective, the perspective of your Higher Self.

One cannot step into the same river twice.
– Heraclitus

4. This is a dynamic time to use the techniques of journaling to support you in your transition.

5. Choose to use the powerful universal principle, that energy follows thought

6. Release your fears.

7. Now is a good time to

forgive yourself

8. Consciously use the tools of affirmation and invocation

Invocations and Affirmations for Change

As the winds of change blow into my life, I open my life and invoke and invite into my life the circumstances and situations that will help me to fulfill the purpose of my life.

I call upon my guardian angel and guiding angels to bring to my awareness the opportunities that I may not see in the confusion and chaos that may accompany change.

Heavenly Father, Divine Mother I know that as things change your love is eternal and your grace is sufficient to my needs.

With full faith and confidence in life, I open my heart to love as new people come into my life. I welcome new friends and companions on the path.

I welcome the possibilities and potential that change brings to the present.

I call upon my Divine Self for inspiration and my Higher Self for direction, that I may take advantage of the changes that life has sent my way.

It is in times of transition that you can transform and
empower your life.
– Genevieve Gerard

Some Positive Affirmations to use in times of change

I affirm that:

The seeds for my success are available in each new situation.

Life brings me what I need to grow and to thrive, so I will thrive and grow.

With change comes a new chance to manifest my goals.

Take advantage of the times in life where change comes, often without your plan or desire. Harness these times to bring into your life what you have learned you need to align your life with your life’s purpose, your goals and your dreams.

Whether the changes that are occurring in your life seem to be happenstance or are planned, they present you with new conditions that you can utilize to bring into manifestation conditions that support and encourage your success.

What has always amazed me about the dynamic principle of change is that no matter how sudden or unexpected it might be, it can bring with it, in an instant, opportunities beyond your wildest dreams. So use that awareness to minimize your fears and embrace new possibilities with a sense of excitement and promise.

Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created for something new to emerge.
– Eckhart Tolle

So whether a change is planned or not, invited or not, use it as a chance to practice the tools and techniques of conscious living.

Calm your mind, open your heart and invite in the wisdom and insight of your Higher Self.

Listen to the quiet promptings of your intuition. Ponder on this.

Remember to, in this moment of time, in the midst of the challenges of life and the chaos of transition and change, align with your life purpose. It is your life and belongs uniquely to you to make of it what you will.

Right now, this very moment, you are free of the past and empowered to be an active and vital force in the creation of a future that is, as yet, unformed.

Today, right now, new possibilities come your way on the wings of change. Harness the power of your mind. Use the tools and techniques of transformation to bring into manifestation the life that you desire.

Namaste,

Genevieve Gerard

The Blessing of Love On All That You Do!

The Truth About Worrying

Genevieve Gerard

The Truth About Worrying

– You can’t cross a bridge till you come to it.

One of the truths that I have observed is that most of what I spend my time worrying about never happens.

That means all of that energy of worry was wasted.

Right next to that observation was the realization that if something I worried about did happen, the worry did not change the situation. The worry I had invested did not make things better. I had to handle the situation when it happened in the midst of the life circumstance in which it happened.

All worrying had done is sap the strength I needed to cope with things and increase my fear response. It did not improve my ability to handle the situation. It did not decrease my sorrow or frustration one little bit.

What I did realize when I looked back on the events that I had been worried about was the actual facts were very different from my worries.

However, what the time I spent worrying did was diminish my appreciation of what was actually happening in my life.

When I objectively consider the time and the energy I had consumed with worrying, I was able to see that it was a waste.

When I further considered the nature of the worry, it was mostly based on the fear that I would lose something or someone I had in my life in the present, so diminishing my appreciation of what was real in my life at that moment was a significant loss.

The joy of the moment that I sacrificed to worry cannot be recaptured. It led me to understand that worrying is a joy spoiler and a life spoiler.

Worrying brings you out of what is actually happening in your life, in your real life, into a future that may never happen.

Right now in the present moment, the future is unformed and uncreated. As such, what will happen in it is unclear. No matter how hard you try, you cannot know what will happen. You cannot change that.

What is interesting is that no matter how much time or effort you give to worrying in the present, it does not change anything.

When you expand your awareness to consider the principles that energy follows thought and other factors about life, such as the Law of Attraction, you realize that worrying is like praying for what you don’t want.

In the words of folk wisdom.

In the journey of life, you can’t cross a bridge until you come to it.

Having been mostly raised by sage women who were my grandmothers, I recall their different ways of making the same point. One would say,

Never trouble trouble, till trouble troubles you.
– Mary Fisbeck

The other expressed the same wisdom by advising,

Sufficient unto the day are the problems thereof.
– Florence Hook

Truly, you can only live your life in the present moment. The past is over almost as quickly as it happens. This is an important fact. Nothing you can do can ever bring the past back.

Each moment brings its own gift and its own experience.
– Genevieve Gerard

That there is only right now to live in, gives you great freedom.

You are free from any past failures, past problems and mistakes.

Likewise, whatever challenges may be facing you at the moment can be tolerated when you realize it is limited to now. It is not how things will always be. That provides strength and courage to coping in the present.

This fact of living helped me to understand how we can be assured we will never be given more than we can handle.

Staying in present time is very important. The minute your mind offers the lie that “it has always been like this,” or “it will always be like this,” your strength falters.

The minute that you shift your awareness to the realization that the past is past and you are not limited by it or controlled by it in any way, your perspective changes.

Being in the present is of immense importance. Staying aware of now is of great value.

More and more I find I want to be living in a Big Here and a Long Now.
– Brian Eno

It is significant that this all takes place in your mind. Thankfully, your mind can be under your control.

Indeed, a primary advantage of learning to meditate and practicing meditation is learning to harness the power of your thoughts and your mind.

Indeed the technique of cognitive reframing gives you great power that demonstrates how you can change your life, by changing your mind. Reframing is a way of viewing and experiencing events, ideas, concepts and emotions to find interpretations that are more positive.

To stop worrying, to release your fears and harness the power of your mind allows you to be a force for living a happier, more successful and more empowered life.

An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up.
– Proverbs 12:25

Using the tools and techniques of meditation are a significant step in seeing the truth about worrying. The more you can bring the power of your mind under your conscious control, the more freedom and the more joyful your life can be.

Worry is twisted up in your fears, so when you choose not to worry, you are making a conscious step in releasing your fears.

I encourage you to choose to live your life trusting in life to only deliver to you what you can handle in the now and let yourself enjoy and appreciate what is happening today, free from your worries and fears.

Dispelling Worry Meditation

To assist you in finding the truth about worrying, I offer you a little meditation that is straightforward and easy to incorporate into your life.

The first step is to use the power of your mind to choose to stop worrying consciously.

Affirm:
Whatever comes into my life I will handle when it is in my life.

Now take a deep relaxing breath.

Release any fears and consciously commit to considering a problem when it is real. Decide to cross a bridge only when it emerges in your life path.

Certainly, on life’s path, you cannot cross a bridge until you come to it. You may find that just this shift in your thoughts significantly reduces your stress.

Spend 2-3 minutes a day observing the content of your “mind chatter.”

Each time you notice that you are worrying, stop. Take three deep breaths while you bring your attention and awareness into the present moment, into the now.

Then consciously with your mind, replace the negative thought with an affirmation or reframe the just past event that seems to have stimulated your worry or fear response with a positive statement.

You could have at the ready some affirmations that engage the power of your mind in a positive direction. For your convenience, I have written some affirmations that you can incorporate into your life.

Affirm:
I will consider and evaluate each situation in my life based upon what is happening NOW.

Affirm:
Today’s challenges are sufficient for me today.

Affirm:
What is past is powerless over me.
The future awaits creation.
Only right now can I make the right choice.

Finally, live in gratitude for the blessings and abundance you have in your life, right here, right now.

I encourage and invite you to free your life from the stress and strain of worrying and stand confidently in the present moment. Trust yourself and trust life to provide bridges for you over troubled waters that you only need to cross when they are right before you.

Namaste,

Genevieve Gerard

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Browse her life story and read the Touch of the Soul that changed her world. To contact Genevieve, visit her keep in touch page.

Last Updated 10-30-2019

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A Mindful Breath

Genevieve Gerard

A Mindful Breath

Breath has long been used by those who teach meditation as a portal into consciousness.

Breath integrates your mind-body relationship by helping you to release stress and calm your mind while working with your natural physiology to relax.

To use your breath mindfully and consciously can be a powerful way to empower your life.

Every breath we take, every step we make can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity.
– Thich Nhat Hanh

Today, I will lead you through the technique of mindful breathing. As you sit, you can use this technique as a little consciousness shift in the midst of your day.

You can use this mindful breathing exercise as often as you like, and do it as often as you need. The awareness and stress release it brings will be effective almost immediately.

This technique only involves breathing, which certainly you do all of the time. However, I take this technique one step further to increase your consciousness and your awareness by breathing mindfully.

I suggest that to experience a mindful breath most effectively that you, as much as you are able, set aside 5 minutes or so without distractions or interruptions. If possible mute your phone. If you can, close your door and ask your co-workers or family to give you a few undisturbed minutes.

Let yourself calm your mind and open your heart as you do this simple mindful breath meditation.

To quiet the mind of meaningless chatter, to calm the emotions to peaceful repose and then to receive the Transcendent Love of the Soul is the joy of meditation that is available anytime, anywhere you are, once you learn how to meditate daily.
– Genevieve Gerard

A Mindful Breath Meditation

To begin, sit up straight, with your spine vertically aligned.

Along your spine, about 2-3 inches behind your physical spine, are energy centers that are called chakras. As you align your physical spine imagine that all of your energy is also aligned.

You might be aware of the sense of being in alignment that results from aligning your spine.

Place your feet on the floor. This helps you relax. It also helps you ground your energy and be mindful of the connection to the flow of the earth’s energy.

Consciously and with intention, let your energy gently come to center in your heart.

Take a deeply relaxing and centering breath and as you do so consciously enter into this present moment. Let the past go into the past where it truly is. Bring your awareness into the NOW. You are right here, right now. It is right now, right here.

Begin, by inhaling another really deep breath, bringing the air in through your nose. Relax your diaphragm and let the mindful breath begin energetically at your solar plexus chakra.

Then, bring the air into your chest and as you do this consciously open the energy of your heart to expand and open.

Then bring the breath into your lungs, all the way to the top of your lungs, letting your lungs expand and letting your whole being expand. Bring the breath in; filling your lungs as fully as you are able, bringing the air into the upper lung until it is just below your shoulders.

When you have filled your lungs as fully as you are able, release the breath through your mouth until you have released all of the air.

This is a relaxing breath. You might already be mindful of how much more relaxed and at peace you feel, having fully experienced a full breath.

With the release of the breath, you can also release any tension or anxiety you may have been holding.

Let your breathing return to normal.

As you breathe normally, be mindful that you are the one breathing in and you are the one breathing out.

Be aware that your body has the wisdom to take in with every breath exactly what you need and to let go of what no longer serves you.

Before you take another deep and relaxing breath, come consciously into the present. Again, consciously put the past behind you and relax. As you pause, appreciate the magnificent power and unlimited potential that is available to you, right here and right now.

When you affirm that the past is truly now behind you, realize that it has no further power over you, or influence over you, except what you choose to give it.

What will be the future is just beginning to be created, as you let yourself relax and reside in the peace and the presence of the eternal NOW.

It is in the eternal NOW that your Higher Self resides. This moment, this peace, this presence is available to you. It responds to your invocation and invitation.

When you are ready, begin to draw in another deep relaxing and healing breath, in through your nose starting at your diaphragm, through your solar plexus. Let the breath clear away any tension or stress you are holding there. As you bring the breath into your chest to your heart chakra, let your heart fill with love as you open your heart to receive love in and give love out.

Then bring the breath to the top of your lungs, drawing in as much air as you can hold.

Then as you release this breath, through your mouth, it may form a sound like a sigh as you let go of any stress or concerns and let yourself relax, releasing with the breath any tension or anxiety you may have been holding, letting it completely drift away.

Observe and be mindful of what you are feeling and experiencing.

Observe that you are the one breathing in and breathing out. You are the one who is experiencing the whole cycle of your breath. Know that you can choose to breathe with control or naturally.

Now, breathe naturally not attempting to control your breath, allowing your breath to direct how much you bring in and how much you let go of that you no longer need. You might notice a calm and peace filling you at this time. You might be aware that you are more present and aware.

Remember, having consciously released the past you have opened to the profound peace and potential of the eternal now. You are now open to the possibility of creating a new future that incorporates more of your purpose in life and fulfills your heart’s desire.

While taking one more really deep relaxing and filling breath with intention, invoke and invite the Presence of your Higher Self.

Imagine a golden Light coming from your Higher Self, infusing the air you are breathing in deeply.

Let this Light circulate through your whole being with your breath through your solar plexus. Let it calm you, releasing your fears and frustrations with its healing Light.

As the breath circulates from your lungs to your heart and from your heart throughout every atom of your body, the healing light balances you, restores and refreshes you.

As it moves from your lungs to your heart and throughout your whole physical body and energy body, accept the healing power and the profound love into your conscious awareness, into your heart and mind.

As you exhale, breathe out and release any negative thoughts or fears.

With each exhale, release any limiting beliefs that keep you from expressing the magnificent and full being that you truly are.

Now sit in silence and receptivity. Use this interlude to listen for the still prompting of your Higher Self.

In this pause you can offer up any issue or concern on which you would like greater insight or understanding from the guidance of your Higher Self.

Let your breathing return to natural. Bring your attention and awareness back to your physical body.

Observe the background sounds that surround you. Become aware of the smells, the quality of the light, and observe how you feel. Let your mind return to this present moment.

You might notice how much more relaxed and centered you feel. You might feel more empowered and aligned in your being.

To finish up, give gratitude to your Higher Self for any insights and clarity you may have received in this mindful breath meditation.

– GG

I invite and encourage you to practice this mindful breathing meditation often and let your body and mind relax and your heart be comforted.

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on All that You Do!

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LOVE Is An Action Word

Genevieve Gerard

LOVE is an Action Word

This post is part of my ongoing series on Love.

As I am sitting in meditation pondering what to write and teach about, I realize that many people in the world do not understand the relationship between loving as a feeling and love that makes life an exciting and amazing exploration of relationship and togetherness.

The phrase “love is an action word” came into my mind attached to a myriad of lessons and impressions about love and loving.

I shall try to unravel and share the wisdom and implications of this revelation with you today, lessons about love.

Love in action takes love from being just the emotions of love, into being a guide for your love relationships.

It supports and encourages your loved ones in coming into the fullness of their being. It supports their journey, even when it goes in a direction you may not personally desire.

Love is, of course, a powerful and dynamic force that has the power to transform your life and fill you with incredible joy and fulfillment.

Certainly “falling in love” is a peak experience in anyone’s life. For some love lasts a lifetime as cherished support that permeates their lives.

However, for others love becomes a source of agony, riddled with pain and sorrow, marked by disappointment and betrayal.

Love is certainly a complex emotional energy-riddled with a great many differing aspects. Although it is perhaps one of the most important issues in life, it is something that everyone assumes you know how to do.

In my experience, and my many years of teaching and coaching people to have a happy and successful life, I have realized that there is much about love that is not easily understood.

My meditations, and I hope my writings, will open you to a new way of considering love.

What It Means To Love

The very word love has so many variations to it that ancient Greeks divided love into multiple words.

Here is what Wikipedia says about these Greek love words:

Agápe means “love: esp. brotherly love, charity; the love of God for man and of man for God.” Agape is used in the biblical passage known as the “love chapter,” 1 Corinthians 13, and is described here and throughout the New Testament as brotherly love, affection, goodwill, love, and benevolence.

Éros means “love, mostly of the sexual passion.” The Modern Greek word “erotas” means “intimate love.” It can also apply to dating relationships as well as marriage. Plato has Socrates argue that eros helps the soul recall knowledge of beauty, and contributes to an understanding of spiritual truth, the ideal “Form” of youthful beauty that leads us, humans, to feel erotic desire – thus suggesting that even that sensually based love aspires to the non-corporeal, spiritual plane of existence; that is, finding its truth, just like finding any truth, leads to transcendence.

Philia means “affectionate regard, friendship,” usually “between equals.” It is a dispassionate virtuous love, a concept developed by Aristotle. Philia is expressed as loyalty to friends, family, and community, and requires virtue, equality, and familiarity.

Storge means “love, affection” and “especially of parents and children.” It is natural affection, like that felt by parents for offspring.

Unfortunately, in modern society, we only have one word that is supposed to fit all forms and aspects of love and we have romantic books, films and media products that seem to go out of their way to define love in a way that creates unrealistic expectations about what it means to love.

All too often, this fairy tale fantasy about love leads to the expectation and belief that when you love someone they want exactly what you want, that in some way doing what you need gives them what they need. This fallacy leads to many broken hearts.

As I pondered further about these love issues, the phrase, “Love is an action word” loomed in my consciousness.

To say ‘I love you’ is often easy.
To demonstrate that love in action is much more powerful.
– Genevieve Gerard

Put Your Love Into Action

What does that mean, put your love into action? How does just considering that concept change how you act with someone you love?

These are all valuable questions to ask yourself. There is no primer for how to love or what it means to really love someone. And, there is a lot of glamors and illusion surrounding love. In fact, in spite of how very important love is in life, there is very little available about how to truly love another.

To love and manifest your love for a beloved in a way that communicates to them that you love them requires action. To act in a loving way in the midst of your needs and their needs often requires sacrifice, clearly involves taking the time and effort to understand what they want that is different from you and what they need that is different from your needs.

Because love is such a vast, multi-dimensional and powerful force in life with so many distinctive and differing forms, it, unfortunately, falls into a category of everyone believing it is something that just comes naturally. However, you only need to consider the number of loves and lives that have crashed and burned, to realize that this is far from true.

This blog post, this concept, is only a drop in a vast ocean of need. Even so, I think “Love is an Action Word” is an important concept and an important way to empower your relationships and your life.

It is important to tell someone that you love them, for to feel loved is a deep longing in the human psyche. To tell someone you love them reinforces a lot of wonderful energies. Moreover, when you back up what you are saying by what you do with them and for them, by supporting and encouraging them, it is powerful indeed.

To make your love into an action word, to behave in a loving way that manifests that love into the world, is a way that can have a profound influence on the success of a loving relationship and the happiness of both you and your beloved. It requires extending beyond your needs to the consideration of who they are and what they need. In this way, you can honor and cherish them.

Immature love says, I love you because I need you.
Mature love says, I need you because I love you.
– Erich Fromm

To manifest love into action requires stepping outside of yourself, your needs, and your thoughts and take a fresh look at who they are. This honesty with yourself and honest consideration of who they are, and what they want or need that is distinctive and different from what you may want or need, is active loving. It demonstrates the respect that is affirming for them.

Doing this also avoids the senseless sacrifices that are often made in the name of love. All too often people make sacrifices for someone they love without this step.

When sacrifices are made without thought and consideration of what they truly need, or are really asking for, it is possible for you to have made a real sacrifice and find it is not appreciated.

Rather than being hurt or disappointed by this response, consider your sacrifice in the context of whether or not it was what was really needed or being requested.

To demonstrate love in an action that considers who your beloved is, separate from you is potent. It does require stepping outside of your perspective and considering the perspective of someone other than yourself. It also means loving unconditionally. This may not be an easy or natural thing to do, which is why it is so significant. This is why I say, it is putting love in to action.

To help you get in touch with your ability to love unconditionally and to be freed by forgiveness I created my Gift of Unconditional Love meditation. This meditation will help heal the hurts in your heart and open you to a source of love and grace that aligns your mind and your emotions with your Soul and invites you into a community of consciousness to help make the world a better place.

Sadly, all too often, the giving in a relationship falls into the tragedy of O. Henry’s tragic story “The gift of the Magi.” You may recall that this story of loving sacrifice ends with the irony of lovers both left with less by their great sacrifice for the other.

When you love someone, I recommend considering them,
what they need, what they desire, and
then take the step of demonstrating that love by action.
– Genevieve Gerard

Think of the little ways you can take action to make the life of your loved one a little better, a little easier. These need not be big things and need not cost money. Little considerations, small kindnesses that honor and support the other are all demonstrations of love.

These little gestures may not even be consciously observed by the one you love, however they will establish an atmosphere of love and support that builds and becomes more tangible with each active expression of your love. To truly understand and acknowledge and honor the person you love as a unique individual, who although they have joined their life circumstances with you, is a dynamic way of demonstrating your love.

It may require forgiving things they have done that you do not understand. Seeing your loved one as who they are, different and separate from you. This differentiation and clarification is the first step in learning to love unconditionally.

This requires thought and consideration. It is all too easy to fall into the pattern of projecting your thoughts and feelings onto your beloved and then expect them to think and feel exactly the way that you do, or to want exactly what you want.

To give your loved one what they want, especially when it is different from what you want may require sacrifice on your part, but if you have taken the time and the effort to consider what they want and need that is truly meeting their needs and wants, you avoid the all too frequent issues of unappreciated sacrifice because what you have given was not really what they wanted or needed.

Taking love from romantic fantasy’s, to the action required by understanding and respecting that your loved one is separate from and different from you, may shift a lot in your relationship that makes it happier, healthier and more supportive and empowering.

…let’s not merely say that we love each other;
let us show the truth by our actions.
– Bible, John 3:18

So, in this season of love I invite you to explore and consider who your beloved is as a unique person who is different from you; who may want different things and have needs that make no sense to you. Then, act upon that understanding. Make love an action word in your life and in your relationship.

This shift in your behavior, when you express your love, will strengthen and empower your relationship and your expression of love in a dynamic and life-changing way that can increase the happiness and satisfaction of both you and the one you love. Your love will mature and bring you both greater joy and happiness.

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on All That You Do!

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Give Love, Live Love, Be Love

Genevieve Gerard

Give Love, Live Love, Be Love

Love is a powerful force in the world.

To give love and be loved is for many the pinnacle of satisfaction and success. For most people love adds meaning to every action in life.

The giving and receiving of love is a variable in life that may well be the most significant factor in personal happiness and success.

To have love in your life brings joy and a sense of well-being. It is interesting to note that both giving love and receiving love can be deeply satisfying experiences.

Love blesses the life of the giver and the one who receives love. Remember love can take on many forms.

It has long seemed too limiting that in language there is only one word to express a concept that is so complex and manifests in so many different ways.

To give love and live love is much more profound than to simply have a successful romantic relationship. Love can empower all of your relationships in a way that expands and enhances your success and personal gratification.

I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.
– Arthur Rubinstein

The power of love can also be seen all around you. If you stop and take a minute to observe life and think about what you see in the context of love, the many forms through which love is manifested will most likely amaze you.

Kindness, compassion and consideration are all expressions of love. Little things do so much to influence your day’s experience and the experiences of those around you.

When you begin to see love in the essence of its nature and expand your definitions beyond the limitations of romance, family, and even friendship, you can see the dynamic force of love that can influence and direct your life.

Long ago in my academic days when I studied philosophy, I explored the concept of situation ethics. In so doing, I gave great thought and consideration to evaluating in life a vast array of situations and circumstances the question of “how is love best served?”

Amazingly, that question is very complex. Love is not always simple and is rarely as simplistic as you might want it to be. So, to give love, live love and ultimately be love, involves principles that can both guide and transform your life.

Relationship interactions influence all areas of your life. And, whereas business relationships, casual relationships, and impersonal relationships may not be considered when you think about love, they clearly have a profound influence and impact upon your success and how pleasant and satisfying your daily experiences are.

This makes your capacity to give love a power that can support and affect your life in a myriad of subtle ways that has a profound result.

The transformation in energy that giving love brings to each and every life situation is empowering. Touching, even the most casual of human encounters, with love may have a profound result that you will never know.

Download your copy of my Gift of Love Meditation MP3 instantly

A smile to a lonely clerk who recently lost their mate may give them the strength to face the lonely night. You can never know and need never know, the pain and sorrow of another, but when in your encounter with them you express love, you can help support and sustain them on untold levels.

Relationships and our inter-relationships with one another fuel so very much on an energetic level that every time and every encounter in your life that you give love, live love and be a source of the energy of love in the world, you are dynamically making the world a better place.

When you are a source for the precious gift of love in the world, even casual contacts through the day sense the energy you bring and are moved to respond to what you request and need.
– Genevieve Gerard

Amazingly, the more you share the energy of love in the world, the better, more successful and more joyous your life becomes. That awareness seems to be the genesis of the wisdom that “it is more blessed to give than receive.”

It is wonderful that by giving, especially when you give freely with no expectation or demand, there is a spontaneous response for people to give back to the giver.

This is an integral part of the Law of Attraction and an integral part of living a conscious life. Consider for a moment that when you smile at someone, really smile and share your energy through the smile, it is almost impossible for him or her not to smile back.

Years ago, when I lived in New York City, I used to try a little experiment on the busy city sidewalks. I would pick a distance, trying different lengths at different times, to make eye contact with someone coming my way and then smile at them. Since New Yorkers are notorious for hustling and bustling without smiles or eye contact, my behavior was a bit of an anomaly.

What I found was that as they drew near, there was most often a softening of their expression and that by the time we passed each other we exchanged a smile.

This little gift of warmth in our interaction helped me feel more joyful in my day. I think it gave them a little less stress, a little less anxiety, as it seemed that within a space of a few feet, I could make a connection of a smile and they would be a bit more relaxed, a little less anxious. That human touch had an impact.

Your influence, your impact on their life need never be known to you. It is a gift you can give freely with no expectation or demand. You have, by the very act of giving already received. Your world is a little better. You are a little happier. You are a bit more empowered to achieve your goals. Your energy is more open and expansive.

The simple instruction to give love, live love and be love
can have a profound impact upon your life.
– Genevieve Gerard

Try it! You will ignite a magnetic force to draw to you what you need by sharing what you can so easily give, a touch of love, a simple smile, the grace of contact and community.

You can at any moment open your heart and your mind to love. The love that you share will move through you. It can come from Source where Love is an aspect of the Divine and when you let it into your life, your heart, your mind and into your consciousness, you become a limitless source and force for good in the world, for love in the world, and for “right relationships.”

A Holding Love Short Meditation

A simple visualization meditation you might enjoy is to imagine that you can gather Love into your field and as it gathers you hold the Love.

Call upon Love as a viable energetic force from Source. Your call and your intention are to be a conduit for Love into the world. Open first your heart and your mind to the transforming Presence of Love.

As you call forth the energy of Love, realize that the Presence of Love is unconditional, transcendent and transpersonal. It can be given and received, requiring nothing in return. It is, in this form, pure energy that can flow to you and through you to others.

Take a moment to invite and invoke that Presence into your awareness and your field.

Affirm that you are now connected with Source. That the essence of Love and the Presence of Love flows to you as a radiating glowing Light represented as the golden fiery white Light of the Sun, filling your heart, your mind and your Soul with Love.

Let your whole aura be filled with the sensations of peace and joy and well-being that come with a touch of the Presence of Love. This is a gift to you and a gift that you can freely share. Since it comes from Source, there is an endless stream available to you whenever you call upon it or need it.

Open your arms as wide as you can to embrace and receive that down pouring Love energy. Gather Love into your arms and then taking your hands as receptacles, bring them to your heart and let your heart be filled to overflowing.

As you prepare to leave this visualization and return to your world and activities, realize that you are a dynamic instrument to give love, live love and be a force for Love in the world.

You are more powerful and more amazing than you know. Embrace the full scope of your being. Be an instrument of love in the world, in little ways throughout the day. It will magnetize people to you and draw to you what you need from the Source of universal abundance and the Will to Good.

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on All That You Do!

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When The Pupil Is Ready

Genevieve Gerard

When The Pupil is Ready, the Teacher Appears

Or as others have quoted it, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

This phrase is a proverb of how things work that has long been touted in the circles of the consciousness community.

Certainly, it is true that readiness is an important part of learning. After all, life is a series of lessons. From the moment you are born, you begin to learn.

But learning happens on multiple levels because you are a multidimensional being. Much of what you experience requires interpretation. It is in the interpretation that the art of life is demonstrated. Your perspective is of paramount importance. Another popular expression that outlines this truth is:

It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.
– Epictetus

Every situation and circumstance in life involve both the stimulus of the event and your interpretation and response to it. It is in the response that deep learning takes place. It is in understanding how to incorporate the situation into your life, especially in your dominant thoughts and emotions, that guidance and coaching are most useful.

This is why the technique of “reframing” can be such a powerful dynamic. It is a potent tool that can be used when activating the principle that “energy follows thought.”

Life is a magnificent adventure. And there is a direct relationship between what you choose to take from it and what you choose to give. This makes every circumstance and every situation have the possibility to bring you more of what you want in life, or make it harder to achieve.

Living consciously becomes a powerful tool you can wield to create the life of your dreams. There is a multitude of techniques and significant ways that you can use the power of your mind to ignite the Law of Attraction to bring what you want into your life. This is likewise true of wielding the potential of the principle that “energy follows thought.”

What you spend the energy of your thoughts on is an important choice that has far-reaching results. You can choose to let fear limit your life, or you can choose to transcend, transmute and release your fears. You can choose to spend your time dreaming and envisioning the life you desire, or you can spin on the wheel of worry and self-doubt.

These are the choices being offered to you every single day. These are choices that you make minute to minute and day to day. These are the choices that have a significant influence on what you create and what you experience in life.

There are many choices that you may have made in the past that might make choosing harder, but the key to that statement is in the past. Right now is a new opportunity to choose differently. NOW it is possible to take hold of the reigns of your life. Now is the time that you can decide to be the cause, the director of your life. You can choose to release your fears and empower your life.

Thankfully, choosing differently, thinking differently, results in different opportunities and different possibilities emerging in your life.
– Genevieve Gerard

You don’t have to limit your life with fear. You don’t have to waste your precious resources by worrying. The opportunity to change your life and bring to it what you actually want comes to you with every new moment, every thought and every intention. You can change your life in a split second when you change your mind.

For most people their negative thoughts, their fears, and their worries are just bad habits. And, most importantly can be changed. Limiting beliefs are just that, beliefs. Amazingly, you can change your mind and as a result, change your life. This is a gift of living.

You can re-interpret or re-frame every negative situation, and every experience you have ever had.

You can cling to your past mistakes and failures because they are familiar and what is familiar often becomes comfortable. Or you can grow, you can change, you can decide to live a more fulfilling and fruitful life. You can seize the new possibility that each new dawn brings.

For many to have a teacher or guide is helpful. I too have grown from the insights of my teachers and guides. Now I spend most of my life in that role for many individuals who desire a different life, a better life.

In my 40+ years counseling, coaching and guiding people along the path to more enlightened (Soul) awareness, I have found certain keys that are helpful when you are ready to transform your life.

Here is a list of 10 Keys To Transform Your Life
that you will likely find helpful:

The past is past. The only power it has is the power you give it. You can let it go and move on to live a happy, fulfilling life.

We have all made mistakes in life. What is important to take from a mistake is what you have learned from it. Then, you never need to make that mistake again.

Sometimes it is important to forgive. This means to forgive yourself and to forgive others. Forgiveness helps free you from the limitations and restrictions of the past.

What you think and what you believe is more important than you imagine. “Energy follows thought.” What you think is what you create in your life. Your thoughts have great power.

Nothing is ever too much to bear when you keep it limited to the moment, to the present, to the NOW.

What you say to yourself or think about yourself is especially powerful when it starts with “I Am.” You can choose to use that fact to positively transform your life.

Affirming and clearly stating your intentions is a dynamic way to gain control of your life.

Fear and worry are a colossal waste of time and effort. You can choose to wallow in them and invite bad things into your life. Or you can choose to live your life with intention, affirming and inviting what you want. You need to trust yourself to handle and resolve bad things, if they happen, realizing they are just one more lesson to learn from along the adventure of life. Worrying, as I have said before, is like praying for what you don’t want.

Realize that you are a powerful and dynamic creation that is both a human being and a spark of Divine Light. You are on this planet and in this life to learn and ultimately demonstrate and experience Love. Love is the portal to joy and enlightened Soul awareness.

Your Soul is the intrinsic part of you that connects you with the Divine and integrates your personality, your mind, your emotions, and your physical body. You are an amazing being with incredible promise and the amazing possibility of enlightenment.

Ponder on these!

– Genevieve Gerard

Go forward in this school of life, committed to growing and thriving, being and becoming all that you are meant to be. It’s your life. Live it fully and joyously knowing that when you are ready, your teacher will appear.

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on All That You Do!

P.S. If you are “ready,” you might want to consider life guidance coaching. I offer my services by Skype worldwide, in person or by phone.

Thank you again for your time, talents and mentoring.
It has been priceless and I am grateful for the
gift of your presence in my life.”
– Licensed Clinical Social Worker in California

Read more about what other people are saying about my Life Guidance Coaching.

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Surrender To Slumber

Genevieve Gerard

How To Surrender To Slumber

Sleep is a unique function in life. It is one of the most powerful tools for the body to rest, rejuvenate and heal. To surrender to sleep is a blessing of peace and relaxation.

Unfortunately, for many people it is a challenge to get to sleep and stay asleep.

More than 70 million Americans report they have trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep every night.
– National Sleep Foundation

The purpose of sleep is not fully known, and it is still studied intensely today. What we do know for sure, though, is that sleeping regularly is essential for survival.

What is especially significant about sleep is that it has an impact on so many different levels of your well-being. In sleep the unity of the body, mind and emotions are all inter-related.

The peace of sleep and the way that it works with your organs, your glands and your hormones make getting a good night’s sleep very important. While your body rests, balancing, healing and restoration takes place.

Today I would like to offer you some pitfalls to avoid and some things you can do to help you get the best sleep.

PITFALLS TO AVOID

Sleep Medication

When I think of pitfalls to avoid the very first thought that comes to my mind is using medication to go to sleep.

Since I first released my guided sleep meditation in 2011 to help people get a restful deep sleep, I have observed something that I think is very significant about people when they struggle to sleep. Those who regularly use medications to go to bed are less receptive to a natural way to go to sleep. Although using medication to sleep may not be addictive, it is habituating. In fact, of those who have told me they tried the meditation and were still unable to get to sleep, 100% were regularly using medication.

It is interesting to note that among those who were using medication to sleep, most of them reported that even with the medication they still had a significant problem getting to sleep. Frequently they told me they needed increasing doses. Still, they report that even with medication they fail to have a deep and restful sleep. This shows that the habits you practice to go to sleep can have a significant influence.

The worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to.
– F. Scott Fitzgerald

Not Letting Go

I often wonder what it is about sleep that is so difficult. After frequent consideration on the matter, it seems that one factor is that to fall asleep involves a letting go, or surrender to sleep. Even the common phrase to “fall asleep” implies a letting go.

Being multi-dimensional in nature, in order to go to sleep you must let go on different levels, your physical body, your emotional body and your mind. These layers of release must all take place to achieve a truly deep and restful night’s sleep. Perhaps this is a clue to ponder.

Then into the mix goes the nature of your dreams which are often a way that your Higher Self tries to guide you while you sleep.

Fear

As with so many experiences in life, fear seems to play a part in the problem with sleep. Some fear their dreams or the possibility of a nightmare. Many seem to fear the fact that when you are asleep, you are not in control.

I believe that it is an illusion that you are in control during your waking hours; however, this illusion seems to contribute to the resistance to sleep. You will sleep best if you let yourself relax your body. There are a number of ways to relax your body before you go to sleep.

Since regular rituals or habits seem to enhance the transition from waking to sleep, it is often helpful to incorporate some regular activities into your pre-sleep time. For the ease of consideration, these can fall naturally into focusing on the different parts of achieving a good night’s sleep.

THINGS YOU CAN DO TO HELP

Here are some practical things you can do to incorporate into your nighttime pre-sleep rituals that can help you surrender to slumber.

Breathe

Your breath is a part of a complex interrelated system that is run by the autonomic parts of your nervous system. Therefore, you can use your breath and this integration of the body, mind, and emotions to help you relax sufficiently to enter into sleep seamlessly.

Breathing in through your nose and filling your lungs fully, dropping the diaphragm and filling the lungs from the bottom up to the very top lobes of the lungs and then releasing the whole breath through your slightly pursed lips, is known as a deep and relaxing breath.

These kinds of breaths signal your autonomic nervous system that you are safe and not threatened. This kind of breath, especially when repeated induces a relaxation response that can prepare you for sleep.

When you find it difficult to relax, repeating deep relaxing breaths can be beneficial. Sometimes it helps to count the breaths. For most a repetition of 10 deep breaths put you into a state of preparation for sleep. In fact, you might just naturally drift off to sleep before you have finished the count.

Put The Day Behind You

When you lay asleep it often helps to consciously create an endpoint for the day. If you consciously release the demands of the day that have been met or have been left unfinished and enter into the present moment in your mind, you are making an important step in preparing to rest while you sleep.

The past is now over. It has no more power over you. You can let it go. Between the past and the future is the peace of the present and you can use that peace to let yourself surrender to sleep.

Tomorrows tasks, tomorrows challenges, will all be there waiting for you when the new day dawns. The promise and potential of tomorrow are part of the miracle of life because that future is uncreated and not yet formed.

By putting the past behind you, you are opening to the power and the promise of a new day unfettered by the limitations of the past. You can, as you let go of the old day, be assured that anything left undone can be incorporated into the tasks of tomorrow if they are important.

Prayer

Perhaps because many of us prayed before sleep as children, or as a way to surrender the cares and concerns for which you desire help, praying to a higher power (God) before sleep is an effective ritual.

I have often recommended a gratitude prayer before sleep which in the words of the old song recommends counting your blessings instead of sheep. This focuses your mind on what is good and positive in your life, and the gratitude stimulates and activates the Law of Attraction to bring into your life more of what you want.

Meditation

A meditation, guided or self-directed, can be a dynamic tool for transitioning from your waking state to a sleep state where your Soul and Higher Self are accessible. It allows you to breathe, focus in the moment and relax. There is between waking and sleeping a fertile time when you can open your being to the impressions and guidance of your Soul.

Because sleep is such a difficult issue for so many people, and the failure to get a restful and restorative sleep has such far reaching implications in life, sleep was one of the very first challenges I addressed when I started publishing my guided meditations. My Sleep In Heavenly Peace meditation CD remains one of my most successful, widely distributed, and reviewed products I have ever created. Click learn more here to check out this MP3 download and glide effortlessly into sleep.

Warm Bath

Take a warm bath before you get ready for bed relaxes the body and gives you the opportunity for reflective time before you get in bed. Combining the warm bath with a relaxing meditation can be very helpful.

Affirmation

Affirmations are powerful tools that speak to your creative mind to direct the life that you desire. Using a positive affirmation before you sleep sets the creative power of your mind toward what you envision for your life.

Ultimately, let it be. What filled today is enough for today. What will come is still evolving and being created. It is enough to release the day and take the time to rest, to relax and restore yourself with the healing blessing of sleep.

Sweet dreams!

Namaste,

Genevieve

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Love is the Antidote

Genevieve Gerard

Love is the Antidote to Criticism and Judgment

Criticism and judgment may well be one of the most damaging ways you hurt the ones you love.

Sadly, it is one of the most common ways that couples destroy the love that should be the greatest blessing and joy in their lives.

It is a trap of inter-relationship, which has seeds in the psychological concept of projection, but more importantly in the dynamics of how people often “fall in love.” Unfortunately, our media manufactures unrealistic perceptions of what it means to love another.

PROJECTION

During that special magical time of falling in love, it is human nature to project all that is good and wonderful onto your beloved. Just as later in the relationship, it is human nature to project your own faults and failures onto your beloved.

Both of these experiences are illusions and neither of these has anything to do with love. Although, if you consider any of your failed relationships, beginning middle and end, you will most likely recognize this pattern.

Too truly love accepts the other as who they are, supporting and honoring them in their unique life journey, although it may well be different from yours.
– Genevieve Gerard

At the beginning of a relationship, you may have been drawn to your beloved, from the impulse of your Soul (whose nature is love) or your karma with the person. When you meet that someone, you may feel a connection that is special. This may even have to do with a bond of love that has been forged in eternity.

You may feel understood in a way you do not feel in most of your daily relationships. You could feel a sense of unity with the other, a coming together in a way that transcends the mundane. You know and acknowledge that this relationship is different. With your beloved, you are more alive, more real, more fully in touch with your full being than you normally are when you are alone.

You feel connected, content, and joyful. You may even feel more connected and in tune with your Soul, your higher self. Since most of us do not always feel connected, content and joyful, it is easy to assume that these feelings come from the other and the process of projection begins. You say to the other “you are wonderful.” The other says to you, “no, no, you are the one who is wonderful.” Feeling validated, appreciated and loved, you both feel wonderful.

This process of feeling wonderful, supported, validated, appreciated and even complete provides a hint to the aspects that compose a positive and successful relationship. Ponder on this!

This positive and supportive relationship can then grow and expand into the declaration of love for each other. This unconditional understanding and acceptance is what you long for and expect from love. This is what we have grown to expect of “falling in love.”

The two keys in this concept are unconditional and acceptance. To receive life-affirming love and acceptance are powerful and life-affirming. It gives you the impetus to be the best that we can be. In addition, when you are willing and able to give your beloved unconditional love and acceptance that brings you together, you move forward in life to have the true strength and joy that comes from a loving union.

Thankfully, you can use this illusory period of projection to truly let love blossom and mature into true love. Armed with the blessing and the strength of love you are then able to move forth in life to be and become all that you can be, knowing and trusting in the benevolence of that love.

CRITICISM and JUDGMENT

Sadly, for many loving unconditionally is too much. Forgiving the little hurts and the real or imagined slights that could sustain the love is just too hard. Unfortunately, what follows next in the pattern of relationships demonstrates why learning to forgive is such an essential part of love.

The unforgiven slights and hurts build up and become criticisms and judgments. No longer do you say to your beloved, “you are wonderful and I love you.” Rather, the message becomes, “you have failed,” “you are wrong.” “You are less than you could be, ought to be or should be.”

No longer does the confidence and faith in yourself that came from being loved and understood give you the strength and courage to go forth in the world to be all that you can be. No longer do you feel strengthened and supported. Sadly, what has disguised itself as love now has become harmful, limiting and demeaning.

Having the one who says that they love you, or who has vowed to love you, be critical and judgmental can be very confusing. Often this transition starts a pattern of criticism and judgment that ultimately destroys the love that was once created. It may take a lifetime to destroy because love is a powerful positive force.

Receiving, in return for your love, criticism, and judgment, from the one you love and from whom you once received love, is devastating. It creates pain and often undermines your self-confidence. You cannot understand how you can love someone and receive back the toxic criticism and judgment where you once received love and acceptance.

The harm of criticism and judgment is immediate. You may feel betrayed by life and love itself. The ability to trust in your love is in some way fatally damaged. The lack of trust and the betrayal it brings may take years to destroy the relationship because the criticism and judgment is often interwoven with loving and positive messages.

It is important to realize a truth I first read in the seed thoughts of “A Course on Miracles.“

judgment is the opposite of love

Judgment fails the life direction of harmlessness because I can imagine little that you can do to another that is more harmful than judgment. It undermines confidence; it destroys the celebration and self-assurance that could come with every success by holding it up to an impossible and imaginary standard of perfectionism. It is a toxic poison in relationships, especially and most importantly in relationships that are presented as loving relationships.

Unfortunately, judgment and criticism are all too often the results of your own feelings of failure. The very projection that was so active at the beginning of the relationship, of declaring the beloved to be so wonderful, is now in full manifestation of a constant process of faultfinding or blame.

Also sadly, on some level you probably realize that the process of projecting feelings of failure on your beloved is damaging. This increases your feelings of failure. When you are actually trying to be loving and supportive, being the critic results in more self-criticism and self-loathing. On a very deep level, you know you are failing to love and are hurting the one that you love. This failure to demonstrate love only escalates this cycle of judgment and criticism. It is easier to blame the person you love than to take stock of yourself and face yourself with truth.

Recognition of how you have failed to love, by being critical and judgmental, is important. Asking for forgiveness, and/or repenting are all important parts of forgiving.

Committing to break the behavior habit of criticism and judgment is significant. Watching and evaluating what you say, with the consideration of harmlessness and right speech in future communication with the beloved, can help rebuild and re-establish the environment in which love can thrive.

THE FORGIVENESS PROCESS

Learning to forgive is of course the answer. Forgiving yourself, not only for your failure to love unconditionally but also for all of the little ways you have failed and fallen short of your own self-critical expectations of perfection or success is important. This is a very important step in stopping the toxic treadmill of criticizing others.

Self-forgiveness can open the door to loving yourself because loving yourself is essential to you truly loving another. Forgiveness is a way to heal your past. It can wipe the slate clean, and open before you all of the possibility, hope and promise that you have ever dreamed of. Self-forgiveness in your failure to love, and asking for forgiveness from your beloved, are key parts of rebuilding and reestablishing the promise of love you gave.

To forgive yourself you must open yourself to your Soul, which both now and always has loved you unconditionally. You do this by calling upon your Soul to help you with this awesome task.

Your Soul knows and understands all of the reasons you have failed to love. It knows what challenges resulted not only in your failures to love but also in all your failures in life. When you sincerely call upon its help, it can and will reveal to you clarity about your life and your choices that may be painful to observe. This often strips you bare of all of the excuses and justifications you have used.

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As you invite the higher vibratory energy of your Soul Light in, it moves through your consciousness and you are, by its revelation, able to know forgiveness and the higher nature of real love. Most important with insights from your Soul comes a clarity that shatters the behaviors of the past and opens up an unformed future that now lays before you, free from what has been.

The tears and horror of what you have done may need to be released, but the grace and peace of truly forgiving yourself are so powerful that you can now look at your old behavior patterns with compassion. You can emerge from this a new and much better person.

You realize that when you have forgiven yourself, you can now honestly ask for the forgiveness of the person you have failed to love unconditionally. You can stop criticizing or judging. Instead, you can give true love from the depths of your body and Soul. You can give unconditional love!

This journey to the Soul, to the self and too forgiving yourself may well be the most powerful and transforming decision you have ever made. In the act of self-forgiveness, you can silence the voice of self-criticism and judgment that you projected on your beloved and miraculously change your behavior.

Without forgiveness and love, you will live with resentment, bitterness, malice, and strife which result in more pain. You can never love without forgiving. Forgiveness deepens your ability to love and frees you from pain.
― Kemi Sogunle

The final step in this forgiveness process and returning love to your life is to ask for the forgiveness of your beloved. Forgiving the hurts and slights, that happened along life’s way is important. It is an essential ingredient in any loving relationship. Without it, love cannot be sustained and thrive. Amazingly, forgiveness is so powerful that it can restore the blessing of love in a relationship. It can renew both your hope and your joy.

It is never too late. Forgiveness and love both live in the “Now” and so can be restored in the moment. Such is the unlimited power of forgiveness, the promise of living in the presence and the miracle of love.

When you ask for forgiveness, let the truth that the Soul’s Light reveals guide you. Forgiveness comes from Love and Grace. It is a gift of your Soul.

As Church traditions teach, there is a powerful impact of contrition and making amends. These do much to solidify and manifest the changes in your life that self-forgiveness desires. In forgiving yourself, you seek the capacity to transform both yourself and your life in a dynamic and substantial way. This is available to you. You are not limited by your past.

Forgiveness is the handmaiden of Love. By forgiving, you express and manifest Love. Love is more than a romantic excursion but a momentous guiding force in your life. Learning to Love and learning to forgive are supporting pillars of a spiritual life. Through these two important acts, you can increase your peace of mind, find satisfaction and lasting happiness. These are the keys to a life of joy and serenity.

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on all that you do!

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Last updated 2-12-2020

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How Do You Measure Success

Genevieve Gerard

How Do You Measure Success?

There are many signposts you can use to measure what success means to you.

It is valuable to consider what is important to you in life when you are striving to be successful.

It is all too easy to sacrifice things that enhance your happiness and give joy by focusing only on material “stuff” and let the gathering of toys become a priority to the exclusion of what is really important to you.

We have all met miserable and bitter people who upon achieving great wealth realize that money could not buy them happiness. So, clearly success is about more than money.

Defining success is unique to you. As you embark upon life’s journey it is valuable to consider what is important to you and your life. Along the way, you will be presented with many choices and decisions that you must make. Understanding your desires and values will be a great asset in making those choices.

I encourage you to take some time to consider what you want from this adventure of life. Knowing what you want is the best way to assure that you achieve success. Many profound energy laws and dynamic principles are activated by your desires and your intentions. Learning to harness them and use them to your advantage is an important life lesson.

In order to accomplish and experience what you truly desire, it is important to know what you want. How do you measure success in your life? The amazing thing about life is there are many byways you can take to get to your ultimate destination, so it is helpful to focus on what you wish to achieve. This is a part of being successful, for without that you could fail to recognize success, or its value, once you have accomplished it.

Now, before you go any further down the path of life, is the perfect time to take the time to consciously consider these issues and questions. Taking the time to focus and clarify your values and desires will help you create the life you wish to live. Now is the time to make the choices and goals that will bring you happiness and satisfaction.

I recommend that as you ponder these questions you look at them from the perspective of fulfilling your life’s purpose, your Soul purpose. I suggest you ponder on and meditate upon what success means to you. By doing so you can give your intention the attention it needs to fulfill your dreams and manifest what you desire.

I suggest that you take 10-15 minutes a day to meditate upon what you want in order to clarify it. During or just after that meditative time, while you are calm, open and receptive, record your thoughts and impressions in a special journal that you use for that purpose. This will support you in living a more conscious and purpose directed life.

You can then choose to make use of the many techniques and tools available to enhance and bring into your life the success and experiences you choose and desire. There are several categories that are worthy of being considered. Among these are:

Relationships

All people live in relationship with others. How you choose to be in a relationship with others is a key element to evaluating what you experience as a success, or conversely failure. For some, intimacy, marriage or family are essential to feeling successful. Certainly being in positive and supportive relationships with others influences one’s personal happiness. These may mean marriage and family or friendships and working liaisons. Consider what you consider success in this vital life area. Then nurture and develop those relationships.

Satisfaction

In life most of us attach meaning to how something makes us feel. We don’t really just want a house, we want the feelings the house can give us, a sense of protection over the elements, a place for family to gather, the enjoyment of seeing what we have manifested and accomplished.

Reflect on what you want to experience. What makes you happy? What are you passionate about? For me, finding ways to live in joy is one of the things that really excites me and makes me feel successful when I have reached this state of being in joy. More importantly, is my connection with my Soul, and the oneness I feel when joined with the universal presence of source. Ultimately, I find great satisfaction by being of service and supporting others on their journey.

Career or Life Purpose

Identifying what you want to generate and create in your life is a primary psychological developmental task in life. Psychologist Erik Erikson lists generativity vs. stagnation (whether you produce anything in your life or don’t) as one of the eight essential life stages that determine success in life. According to his paradigm, failure to address this issue can result in despair at the “end of life” stage. Choosing what you wish to create in life is an important part of becoming successful.

It is my observation that the more aligned with your Life Purpose and your Soul purpose you are in what you choose to experience and create in your life, the greater the sense of personal satisfaction, and happiness. For many, that is the definition of success. It gives your life a sense of meaning and purpose that empowers and supports you.

What Do You Want Your Legacy To Be?

Each of us in any individual life leaves behind a legacy of memories and significance in those whose lives we touch. Considering what you wish your legacy to be, how you wish to be remembered when your life is over, is a powerful way to get in touch with what you consider being a success. This is a time-honored way that you can let your ultimate death serve as an advisor for your life. Ponder on this as you determine what success means to you.

Once you have determined what you consider success to be, you can draw from the vast array of tools and techniques to help you achieve it.

Among these are using the power of your mind to achieve success, using affirmations to focus your intention, igniting the Law of Attraction in your life and understanding the power of appreciation in co-creation of your life.

You Must Take Action

Success in addition to intentions and direction requires action. So once you have thought, meditated and reflected on what you consider to be the measure of success for you in your life, it is time to put your plans into action.

Then the dynamic principle that “energy follows thought” can be activated as you make plans and set the goals to achieve the life and success that you desire. Let your thoughts become a roadmap for achieving what you want. Then you can plan your work and work your plan using the active creative power of your mind.

Dare To Do

It is equally important to dare to do, as it is to dare to dream. Deciding and doing is required. There is a guidance phrase from the Ageless Wisdom that advises, “to dare, to do and to keep silent.” Once you have decided what to do you need only go about the doing of it, not dissipate your energy talking about it. There is a hint in this advice.

It is also essential that you not waste your energy in the process of only researching and deciding what to do. It is a trap to be so caught up in overthinking and over evaluating how to do something that you end up not really doing anything except thinking about it, instead of accomplishing it. It is important to avoid this glamor of being busy.

Edison is quoted as saying,

Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends, there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.
– Thomas A. Edison

Action is essential to manifesting. It is my experience that in the process of actually doing something, the “how-to” often is clarified. Therefore, I caution you on your quest for success to remember that, “not to decide is a decision,” a decision that can stand firmly in the way of your success.

Most of the time, that you decide and move forward in dynamic action is much more important than what you decide. It is easy for your fears to disguise themselves as thoughtful consideration, but they are really just the fear of making a mistake. Making mistakes is a part of life and most certainly a part of the creative process of achieving success. In business and in your personal life it is ok if you fail forward.

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.
– Theodore Roosevelt

Once you know what you wish to achieve, as the saying goes, “just do it.”

Be bold; be true to yourself and the purpose of your life. Dare to dream, dare to do and celebrate your success with gratitude. It is your life. You have the power to create and experience what you want. Shed your fears. Seize the moment, which is right here and right now.

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on All That You Do!

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Browse her life story and read the Touch of the Soul that changed her world. To contact Genevieve, visit her keep in touch page.

Last Updated 8-29-2019

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