Discover How To Love Yourself

What does it mean to love yourself?

Discovering how to love yourself is an essential part of good mental health and emotional wellbeing.

Loving yourself is also demonstrated by the ways you take care of your body, by eating well, sleeping well and giving yourself the things you need to thrive, to grow and to be successful and happy.

Loving your self is one of the first and important steps to a successful loving relationship.

It might seem that to love yourself is so basic that it is easy and natural. However, in my many years as a counselor and a coach, I have found that for many people this is a challenge.

There is a lot of glamour and illusion about what it means to love. That is true when it comes to relationships and especially true when it comes to loving yourself. Loving yourself, honoring yourself and respecting yourself are foundations of a loving and healthy relationship.

It is said, that before you can love someone else you must first love yourself. So ask yourself what you can do to learn to demonstrate self-love if you realize it lacks in your life. Take the very first step to understanding and acknowledge that you are worthy of being loved, exactly as you are. In one of my previous articles “The Greatest Love”, there are eight affirmations you might find helpful in this process. (I have provided a link to that article at the bottom of this article.)

Relationships with others, especially romantic relationships, all too often fail to result in the fantasy of “happily ever after.” To sustain a real relationship you need to establish realistic boundaries of what you are willing to give in a relationship and what is not acceptable in a relationship. Knowing yourself, respecting yourself and being true to yourself in a relationship is vital.

Shakespeare said it well in Hamlet with Polonius’s advice to his son.

To thine own self be true. And it shall follow as the night to the day, thou can’st not be false to any man.

Being true to yourself and honest in your agreement’s with loved ones are critical.

My grandmother once gave me the sage advice:

Don’t put up with the first day in a relationship behavior you are not willing to accept for the rest of your life.

When I think of the times and ways that I failed to heed that advice, I see many of my life’s mistakes that could have been avoided in friendships, in romances and even in business relationships.

How To Love Yourself

Integral to my grandmothers advice is to both know and respect yourself, and honor and love yourself, as someone who is both deserving of love and who loves themselves.

It is wise to honor yourself, know yourself and then, in any new relationship consider what is acceptable to you. In this way, you are true to yourself, and you are beginning a new relationship open to a future built on honesty and mutual respect. This establishes a context in which you can learn to love one another, grow and thrive together.

A part of learning to love yourself is letting yourself both accept and receive the love that is all around you. There are so many ways that you can demonstrate your love and so many ways that love can enrich your life. Love is something that spans all of your relationships. It guides your relationships with friends, with family, and lovers. It is integral to your relationship with the Divine.

Love is available for you. Open your life to it. Love is all around you. Let yourself accept the love that is coming to you, from relations and God. Your Soul is an unlimited source for loving yourself. I have found you can open yourself to that love and receive that love directly through meditation.

Love truly makes the world go around and is fundamental and reflected in all of your relationships. Loving yourself is a guideline you can use in all of your relationships.

Accepting and appreciating Divine Love affirms that you are a spark of Divine Light, and you are worthy of receiving love. Using the love of God and the love that your Soul brings to you, demonstrates to you what it means to love.

Having received love, you are also a source for love in the world.
– Genevieve Gerard

An essential element of your ability to love is also your ability to love yourself. In the love that you give, you can be a blessing to others. Ponder on this.

When you love someone, you value and appreciate who they are and accept them. The same is true about loving yourself. You are unique and special. Appreciate, accept and enjoy who you are.

You are not perfect, but there is no reason you should be. Treat yourself with the compassion you would show to another. You have made mistakes in your life. Forgive yourself. There are faults and issues you are striving to resolve. Be gentle with yourself.

You are in an ongoing process of growing, transforming and becoming more and more of the person you are meant to be. Support that in yourself, for yourself.

Life is all about learning lessons. No mistake is meaningless if you have learned from it and grown from it. When you show patience and compassion for yourself, it becomes easier to show patience and compassion to others.

By forgiving yourself, you become a more forgiving person. The compassion and grace that you open up to become available in all of your relationships. As you learn to accept and respect yourself, you are also learning how to accept and respect others.

Learning to love yourself is an ongoing lesson in how to love, that makes you a better person. By loving yourself, you are demonstrating the skills and behaviors that are needed to demonstrate your love to others.

Ultimately, you know love because God loves you unconditionally and this love is shown to you with unlimited forgiveness, profound grace, and acceptance. When you let yourself accept and receive this love you are empowered to be a force for love in the world. You become a better person, a happier person and a more successful person.

You can be love, give love, demonstrate love with respect and honor for both yourself and others. The more you love, the more joy that comes into your life and the happier you become.

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on all that you do!

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Ways To Relieve Stress

Genevieve Gerard

Ways to Relieve Stress

No Matter Where You Are or What You Are Doing

Today you are going to learn quick and easy ways to relieve stress.

First, know that your body gives you tools you can use to overcome stress.

Second, your mind can be used to modify stress.

Third and most important, you don’t have to let stress become distressful. Stress is a normal part of living.

Stress is one of the places you can most see the mind-body relationship active. Because of that you can learn to both control and gain mastery over stress. To conquer your stress, it helps to understand how your mind and your body can best work together.

When thinking about stress you can see that stress has always been a part of life. From the earliest evolution of life, stress has been a reality of life. The stress that is created by the needs of human life for survival has existed since the dawn of time. The fulfillment of those needs fuels most of the stress today.

Educational Psychologist Abraham Maslow created a hierarchy of human needs that explains this relationship brilliantly.

Maslow Hierarchy of Needs leads to reduced stress — Maslow Hierarchy of Needs

The most basic of human needs are food, water, sleep and breathing. Fulfilling those needs for yourself and your family remain the primary causes of stress. Likewise the need for safety and shelter from the elements is a universal need. The failure to manifest those needs threatens survival and can cause stress.

Yet, once those steps of food and water, safety and shelter have been satisfied you can move onto needs over which you have more control. Those first two steps on the pyramid as identified by Maslow are so basically physiological that unless they are achieved they remain the primary needs.

However, even within these very basic needs are decisions and choices that can certainly affect how much you stress. In truth, it is the way you choose to fulfill those needs that create lots of stress. Therefore, discriminating between need and want becomes an important aspect of learning to manage your stress.

I do not wish to be naive or cavalier in considering this factor. Indeed, as the old folk saying reveals, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

So much stress is created by the failure to determine whether something is a need or want.
– Genevieve Gerard

Ponder on this statement.

Being proactive in your choices about the commitments you make is an important way to limit your stress, however; although that is about avoiding future stress. It is more important to find ways to relieve the stress that is challenging you today.

10 Ways To Relieve Stress

Here are some quick ways you can learn to use your mind-body relationship to release stress and be more relaxed and centered, that you can do anytime and anywhere when you start to feel stressed.

1. Learn From Your Lessons. Whatever choices you have made, mistakes or errors of judgment, evaluate them and then let them go. They are as of this moment, now in the past. Let them be in the past. You now have new decisions and choices that require your attention.

2. Let Go of The Past by taking a deep lung expanding bottomless breath as you exhale. This works as a subtle physiological factor that uses the important mind-body relationship to release and relieve your stress.

3. Forgive Yourself and open yourself to receive what the unlimited potential of life is bringing to you.

4. Forgive Anyone Else from whom you are estranged.

5. Say A Positive Affirmation with your whole heart, mind, and Soul. (You may wish to have some favorite pre-chosen for just this purpose.)

6. Consider Your Perspective, is there a shift you need to consider that will shift what you are thinking or feeling.

7. Ask yourself “Are My Expectations Realistic.” You are not perfect and you do not need to be perfect.

8. Monitor Your Thoughts, reframe, and re-write any “Stinking Thinking.” There is a positive side and a negative, side so it is up to you to decide.

9. Look Around You and find something for which you are grateful. Then express that gratitude deep into your heart and mind.

10. Free Your Emotions to find your centered calm. Let go of your hurts and your anger to let yourself clear away any negativity. Open yourself to what life is opening up before you that has never been before.

Highly Recommended For Stress Reduction:

Once a day give yourself the Gift of Relaxation. If you take the time each day to do a 10-15 minute meditation or visualization to let your body and your mind deeply relax you can move through your day more easily before the little things can accumulate and become a primary focus of your time and attention. This once a day helps to reset and re-establish a calm baseline.

Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift.
That’s why they call it the present.”
– Eleanore Roosevelt

Open your heart and your mind to the incredible opportunity of life and celebrate the possibilities that are emerging, right here, right NOW. Life is an amazing adventure. Enjoy!

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on All That You Do!

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BE All of You

Genevieve Gerard

BE All of You

To come into your full power as an individual and to achieve success and experience real happiness takes becoming aware of and activating in your life all of who you are.

As a human being, you are a complex and multi-dimensional being who functions on different levels simultaneously. Increasing your awareness and potential within those different parts of yourself can empower you to achieve great things.

The more conscious and integrated you become of the fullness of who and what you are as a human being, the more you can harness your abilities and focus them on fulfilling your purpose and your destiny.

What it means to be a human being may seem to be self-evident, but within each of us are untapped powers and potential that can become manifest when we utilize them with consciousness and awareness.

To activate your full power and potential it is advantageous to understand the ways that the different aspects of your human nature can work together for greater health, happiness and success.

To do this let us explore our multi-level nature. Each of us is composed of a physical body. It has very specific very physical requirements and needs. Among the most basic of these needs are water, food, and shelter from exposure to the elements. A body not provided with these very basic needs will not survive long. This is self-evident yet important to understand because the quest for survival and the fulfillment of these basic needs motivates a great deal of human behavior.

However, a human being is more than just a body and both, its needs and its talents are more diverse. In addition to our physical body and our survival needs, we have emotions, a mind, a personality (a merger of our body, emotions, and thoughts) and a Soul (our Divine Spark that makes us more than an animal.) As human beings, we are a most amazing being.

We, in this miraculous merger of the physical body, emotional body, personality, and Soul are stronger than we imagine. To harness the full scope and power of our full potential is what man is evolving to become. Humanity in its present form only has been on earth a relatively short span of time when we look at the history of humankind.

I was listening to a few T.E.D. (Technology, Entertainment & Design) programs published on N.P.R. recently that made this point quiet well. Humanity emerged from the cradle of civilization to occupy the planet a short span of time ago in evolutionary terms. Yet science is looking to a newly evolved type of human being emerging.

As I listened to these two programs, I began to wonder at the deeper meaning of this and consider what all of this means to you and me as we strive to live happier more fruitful and empowered lives.

I began to consider what this all means in relation to principles and concepts I have previously written about in the concept that “energy follows thought,” and a concept I have mentioned previously that we as human beings were created to work in cooperation with the Divine as co-creators of our world. It seems these rather “woo, woo” concepts have a basis in new scientific discoveries. The concepts of what is known as The Ancient Wisdom about how thought can influence material reality are being revealed in the newly explored field of Noetic physics.

I realized that discovering and manifesting the power of thought in the creative expression of your life are important keys that need further exploration and demonstration. Thankfully, you don’t have to be a scientist to explore and demonstrate these powerful principles. You have your whole life as a living laboratory.

You could simply use the powerful tool of affirmation and observe how your life changes. Alternatively, you could watch your thoughts and gain mastery over them in a way that transforms your daily events and experiences. On the other hand, you can practice and refine the tools that will change your life as you hone the discipline of your mind.

It is, in my opinion with the power of your mind and with the focus of intention that you will be able to experience and manifest the next step in evolution. It is in this exciting integration of your Higher Self as a co-creator with the Divine that humankind will evolve.

When you use the power of your mind to empower and transform the events and circumstances of your life, you are joining a movement to bring this new kind of human being into manifestation. When you share your success and wisdom with others, you are actively demonstrating the promise and potential of what being human can be. You become a guide for others on the path to becoming.

This is an exciting time in the evolution of consciousness. This adventure into the awareness of what it truly means to be a spark of Divine Light on planet earth is thrilling. It is an amazing time in which to be alive, grow and thrive.
– Genevieve Gerard

As a resource, I have listed a number of posts that include techniques to create awareness, in the related links at the end of this blog post. There are also other articles and blogs that you can search out on this website. One will undoubtedly work better for you than another. Sometimes a simple shift in how something is said clarifies a concept or grants a new perception.

Most important in any experimentation or exploration that you do is to incorporate your Higher Self and your intuition into the process. In this way, you can use your whole being and your whole self to empower your life experiment as you change your life.

A Brief Technique to Empower You

Sit quietly and receptively. I encourage you to “Calm Your Mind, Open Your Heart, Invite the Light.

Imagine a beam of Light descending from your Higher Self into the top of your head filling your mind with insight and understanding.

Invite from your Soul (Higher Self) the intuition of a clear vision of what you can do better to bring into manifestation the opportunities you desire to achieve the goals you have identified in your life.

Stay with this for about 10 minutes and record your thoughts, your impressions, and direction in a journal you keep for this purpose.

Then go about your day keeping your thoughts positively focused.

If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing,
you’re right.
– Henry Ford

Remember that today is the first day of the rest of your life. Celebrate it and enjoy it.

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on All That You Do!

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Ways To Change Your Life

Genevieve Gerard

Ways to Change Your Life

and Experience Transformation

Many tools are available to change your life and increase your joy.

By your conscious decisions with your awareness and intention, you can have a dramatic impact on the joy you experience in your life.

Today I give you my list of actions you can take on your own to change and transform your life and have better relationships, greater joy and happiness.

1. Love Someone Unconditionally

The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance. – Brian Tracy

When you transcend your own needs sufficiently to love someone without expectations or conditions you are opening your heart to a bond that can comfort and sustain you all the days of your life. To truly honor, cherish and treasure another without criticism or judgment is a way of loving that supports the good and the growth of the beloved. This is a powerful gift that is a transformative touch of the Divine.

2. Forgive Yourself

Forgive yourself for your faults and your mistakes and move on.
– Les Brown

When you forgive yourself you are freeing yourself from the pain and bondage of the past, and are opening your life to the unlimited possibilities that all you have ever desired can manifest for you. You no longer need to bear the shame of past mistakes. You are now free to live your life in a way that is new and different from what has been to express your full power.

3. Forgive Someone

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

When you forgive another, even of what may seem unforgivable you are creating a grace that frees you from past hurts as you enter into the NOW, no longer bound by what used to be. You are, by your forgiveness releasing both you and the other from the limitations of the past. Forgiveness changes everything. When you forgive you are enfolded in joyful grace and compassion. The one you have forgiven is now freed to become what they are meant to be.

4. Express Gratitude

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.
– Brian Tracy

Your expression of gratitude and appreciation opens a portal for abundance and blessing to flow freely to you from Source. It magnetically draws to you what you need to receive more of what you desire and what you need to manifest your Higher Purpose in Life.

5. Align with Your Higher Self

When you connect with your Soul, also known as your Higher Self, you become aware of a part of yourself that is so glorious and magnificent that experience is often transformational and profound.
– Genevieve Gerard

By consciously aligning with and inviting your Soul presence into your life you are opening your mind to the wisdom and insight of your Higher Self. When you call upon Your Soul to guide you and listen in the silence to its promptings and guidance you are opening your life to living in a co-creator relationship with God.

6. Practice Harmlessness

Make a habit of two things: to help; or at least to do no harm.
– Hippocrates

As you move through the events and circumstances of your life this week consider your words before you speak and the potential impact they may have on others in light of the principle of Harmlessness. Thinking of the impact of your words and actions on others transforms your relationship into stronger, healthier and more mutually supportive and loving bonds.

7. Give Generously of the Gifts You Have Received

True generosity is an offering; given freely and out of pure love. No strings attached. No expectations. Time and love are the most valuable possession you can share. – Suze Orman

When you give to others freely and without fear, you open a portal of abundance and blessing into your life. An important part of abundance is the multiplication factor of giving and sharing. Each time you freely share and freely give you are demonstrating your faith in the future and reinforcing the powerful thought form that you have enough and you are enough for whatever the future brings.

8. Surrender Your Personal Will to Divine Will

Whatever I will become will be what God has chosen for me.
– Elvis Presley

When you surrender your personal Will to Divine Will your life is guided by a sense of purpose and joy that is sustained. By this mighty marriage of doing all that you can do with the alignment of your physical acts of doing, with action, your emotions freed from fear and your mind with clear intention, surrendering an affirming that God’s Will and God’s wisdom are greater than what we can see and know from our human perspective you are imbuing and empowering your life with a Higher Purpose as revealed from your Source of Higher Power.

9. Release Your Fears

Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones. – Thich Nhat Hanh

When you release your fears, you take your place as a co-creator with Source in your life manifesting what you need spontaneously. Your mind is the most powerful creative force on earth. When you release your fears, you stop creating what you don’t want and you are empowered to create the life you are meant to live. Each time you release a fear and replace the negative thought with a positive thought from your mind, and align with your Soul and life purpose, you are gaining power to manifest the success an abundance that you envision and desire.

10. Love Yourself

I have an everyday religion that works for me. Love yourself first, and everything else falls into line. – Lucille Ball

When you love yourself, you are affirming the truth that you are a beloved child of God and will be nurtured and provided for with love. When you accept and love yourself, you are aligning to empower your life with the guidance and wisdom of yourself to help you be and become all that you are meant to be.

When you bring your body, your heart and your mind into unity and relationship with your Soul, the universe expands to incorporate a vision that is timelessly and endlessly sustained by love.

By opening yourself to the love of your Soul you realize a state of oneness and unity that transcends the material world so that you may fly on the wings endless bliss, peace and joy beyond time or space.

When you are aligned with the power and the purpose of your Soul, magic, and miracles manifest. You are able to use the fullness of your being in the joyous expression of your human adventure as a Divine child of God here on earth.

If you open your heart and your mind and your Soul to each of these thoughts and intentions each morning of the day as a part of your spiritual practice, you are tuning up your life to use the gifts you have received to have a happier and more fulfilling life.

By focusing on your intention to manifest these qualities in your life this week, you will find more joy, more peace, and more prosperity in your life by this time next week.

I wish you the best as you open up to ways to change your life and experience transformation.

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on all that you do!

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Healthy Hugs

Genevieve Gerard

Healthy Hugs

I recently read an article about the health benefits of hugs that is directly related to both the healing advantages that came from hugging and how we hug one another.

The real health advantages in a hug occur when it lasts at least 20 seconds. The average hug, the author lamented lasts only 3 seconds.

As I began this blog and looked for pictures it was interesting to see how many of the hugs that were available on the photo site I use, were given sideways. The energetic blending of life force that to me represents a healthy hug is heart-to-heart.

In a heart-to-heart hug, you both give and receive concurrently. That is part of the magic that unleashes the physiological and psychological benefits of a hug. Oxytocin begins to be released after 20 seconds in a hug. Oxytocin is nature’s antidepressant and anti-anxiety neurotransmitter. In that way a “healthy hug” is healing.

The information that hugs result in better health and wellbeing is not new. Over 40 years ago, when I worked as a counselor in a community mental health center in Los Angeles, there was research published that proposed that for optimum mental and physical health an individual needed to receive 7 hugs a day.

Of course as mental health professionals, we were all into optimum mental and physical health. Among the staff, a tradition began that changed the work environment in a way that made it less stressful to be in a very intense and stressful work environment. The staff began to hug one another in the interest of health and wellbeing. Since you cannot really give a hug without receiving one the atmosphere of the workplace began to transform into an environment that was much happier and supportive.

Teams became much more effective. Networking and interdepartmental collaboration improved. Patients and clients who were by professional ethics not eligible for hugs seemed calmer and I know in my program migrated back out of the hospital and into society much more rapidly. The measures for success improved.

If I was a researcher, which I am not by nature or inclination, this would have been a wonderful opportunity to understand the healing power of hugging. My observations remain anecdotal and completely subjective. Of course, as others and I migrated into other work environments I realized how rare and special work environments like that little community mental health facility long ago were.

Actually, I had not thought about that experience in years until I read the article about hugs achieving their optimum effectiveness at 20 seconds and realized that even in non-intimate situations where hugging is considered socially appropriate average hugs are so brief.

This realization made me evaluate the nature and duration of the hugs I give to close friends and family members and resolve to relax into a hug and sustain it beyond that brief socially acceptable 3 second parameter and I have found that the researcher was right. A hug of at least 20 seconds is more relaxing.

Stress and tension I had been unaware that I was holding is released in the longer hug. Breathing is deeper and in just a few days of my own brief experiment with healthy hugging, I seemed able to return to my work tasks more creative and focused. In a longer hug, you seem to share breath and the life energy or Prana.

Now, to make a healthy hug also a healing hug add the power of your intention and the principle that “energy follows thought.”

As you are hugging heart-to-heart imagine the person you are hugging being infused with love, from your heart to theirs, and see them being strengthened and supported in what is right and good for them. In this way, your hug becomes a healing force in their life.
– Genevieve Gerard

This you can do without any personal needs or expectations. This hug is a gift you can give freely. This is a gift that by giving you receive. Your gratitude as always enhances the experience.

Since you have to feel comfortable with both the person you are hugging and the concept of giving and receiving a hug it is perhaps the mutuality required in the act of hugging that enhances the power and effectiveness of a hug.

Consider this simple way to reduce stress and enhance everyone’s wellbeing.

When you hug, linger a bit longer and make it a healthy hug.

So as a way to reduce stress, increase joy, and in general, live both a happier and more healthy life I encourage you to hug one another. Relax into the hug and let your hearts blend, and enjoy!

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on All that you Do!

P.S. Comment below with the number of hugs you gave or received today.

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Be The Director Of Your Life

Genevieve Gerard

Be the Director of Your Life

The nature of thought is that it directs what is created in your life.

This is the subtle principle behind the Law of Attraction and the teaching that “energy follows thought.” This is why thought leaders of diverse backgrounds tell you that to change your life you need only change your mind.

In this simple statement of truth about the nature of reality and the nature of life is a powerful tool that you can use to create the life of your dreams.

Universal laws, such as the “Law of Attraction” and the principle that energy follows thought reveal how the world works. And, it works that way whether you believe it or not, whether you choose to use this information or not. The workings of these forces can be something you bring to your conscious awareness or ignore. Whatever you do, whatever you choose does not change the law. It works and operates with or without you consciously doing anything at all.

Whether you say you can or you can’t, you’re right.
– Walt Disney

Your mind and your thoughts are always sending out messages that affect the creation of what you experience. That may be a painful thought for you to get your head around because most certainly in your life you experience both situations that you want and enjoy, and circumstances that you do not want.

As you read these words you might find yourself arguing with what I have just stated as you think about some particularly unpleasant situation and contend, “well I certainly didn’t want this or that.” However, whether you were conscious of your thoughts or not, this is how the world works. It is not personal, but it is real.

In fact, it is the very impersonal nature of these laws that contain both the blessing and the curse of this fact. The idea that you had anything to do with or were involved with creating the experiences in your life of sorrow, pain, suffering or failure can be a frustrating and frightening thought. However, if you stop to think about it, it can also be very empowering because then you realize that to change your life you need only change your mind.

It sounds simple, but if you examine the content of your thoughts, you realize it may not be easy. In fact, the technique I will be presenting to you today is all about examining the content of your thoughts. It is by using the technique that you can become the director of your life and leave behind the role of actor and reactor to a life that happens to you unconsciously.

You are already the co-creator of your life. That is part of what came with the spark of Divine Light that animated humanity from the dawn of creation. It is what it means when they say; you are a child of God. And deep principles such as free will make that something you can choose to use, or you can choose to ignore. Your choice doesn’t impact the nature of personal reality, but it does affect the life you live.

It is our choices that show what we truly are,
far more than our abilities.
– J.K. Rowling

That said it is important that you consider the nature of the thoughts that you are sending out to create your life, your personal reality. It is to help you consciously bring to your awareness what you are thinking, that I created this exercise.

The First Step – Observe your Thoughts

It is the nature of thought that it is quicksilver-fast and has within it many layers embedded with emotions. Herein lays the challenge. What you are broadcasting from your mind is all too often, what you don’t want to happen. If what you are sending out with your co-creator power, consciously or unconsciously are your fears and worries then you will most likely create more of the same.

In a recent blog called “Why Let Worry Waste Your Time,” I make the point that worrying is like praying for what you don’t want. When your thoughts are sending out your fears or worries, the universe usually responds by providing situations where those thoughts will be manifested.

Therefore, if you choose to be the director of your life and harness the incredible power of your mind this first step of observing what you are thinking is essential. It has long been the goal and purpose of meditation through diverse methods and techniques to help the meditator gain mastery over what is often called “the monkey mind.”

The exercise I offer you today is a technique I have taught for years to help people gain mastery in their life so they can be the director of their life and manifest the positive power as a co-creator.

I Am the Director Exercise:

Spend Just Three Minutes a Day to Change Your Life

and Observe Your Thoughts as the Detached Observer

I recommend that you pledge to yourself that you will do this for
3 minutes each day.

To be the detached observer requires that you consciously drop all judgment and criticism of yourself as you observe your thoughts. It is helpful when you start the clock on your observation of your thoughts that you consciously connect with your Higher Self and you open your heart and your mind to the promptings of your Soul.

This makes your observation a meditative experience and automatically adds more power to the experience.

Sit quietly with your spine aligned as you:

Calm your mind, Open Your Heart, Invite the Light.

Then just listen in the quiet to what you are thinking. It is important that as you do this, you suspend judgment and self-criticism or those may become your thoughts.

Then, as soon as you recognize a worry thought, a fear thought or a limiting belief, take the conscious role of director in your life and edit it, correct it, stop it and reframe it with the thought of what you want or desire.

As the director command “Cut,” and rewrite the script (thought) reframe it and affirm the thought that is now in keeping with what you want to create. Then you can use an affirmation to help you to bring the new thought into greater clarity and focus. Then you can take action to bring what you have chosen into full manifestation.

Continue this process on to the next thought until you observe another thought that contains worry, fear or a limiting belief. Do these processes repeatedly as many times as you can in the 3 minutes you have set aside.

If you are like most people I have taught this technique too, you will be astonished at how much of your unedited, and uncorrected thoughts are fearful and if allowed to go unchecked would result in what you do not want to happen.

Although you can continue this exercise as long as you wish, I have found that 3 minutes is a significant amount of time to discipline and harness the mind. Although this is much easier for experienced meditators, I have found that the regular practice of this technique for 3 minutes a day is sufficient that you will see a transformation in your life.

As such, using this technique where you take control as the director of your life is sufficiently empowering and rewarding that you begin to monitor and edit your thoughts on an ongoing basis consciously. In this way, you manifest the power to “Change Your Thoughts to Change Your Life.”

This power is your birthright. This power is yours to use or ignore. This technique is a tool in your quest to “Be and Become All That You Are Meant to Be.”

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love On All That You Do!

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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.”

Are You Still Carrying the Past?

Genevieve Gerard

Are You Still Carrying the Past?

There is an old Koan that tells a story of two monks who were traveling from their monastery to a neighboring monastery far away.

Now a Koan is a story that Zen masters of old told to impart an important lesson.

A Koan is a story the student is to ponder to learn an underlying truth that leads them to intuitive enlightenment.

Long ago in my spiritual training, my Zen Master told this one to me. It is one of my favorite stories. Today I share it with you.

The Story

Two monks were traveling on a long journey. As was the way of the times, they were walking. Their journey eventually took them to a stream that was rapid and overflowing. As they were considering the best way to cross the stream, a beautiful maiden approached them.

It was the tradition of Buddhist monks that they take vows of celibacy so these monks had little experience with or exposure to beautiful maidens. The woman explained that she must get to the other side of the flooded stream and had not been able to cross. She asked for help.

One of the monks, upon hearing of her difficulty swept the woman up into his arms and carried her across the flooded water. He gently deposited the maiden on the opposite bank. She thanked him profusely. Then he walked on.

When his brother monk had also made his way across the stream, the two monks traveled on. As they walked, there was an uncomfortable silence between them. The brother monk seemed to be agitated and annoyed.

Eventually the monk inquired of his brethren monk what the cause of his distress was. The monk finally blurted out in anger and judgment. “I don’t understand how and why you could touch that woman. We, monks, have vowed to have nothing to do with a woman.”

After a few moments of considering what had distressed his brother the monk stated calmly “Brother, I left the woman back at the stream, are you still carrying her?”

This simple Koan speaks to the distress that is trapped in judgments and anger. The longer you hold onto that judgment and that anger the more you are trapped and limited from moving on. Clinging to your anger and righteous indignation can keep you from enjoying and appreciating what re opportunities and possibilities are before you. Clinging to those feelings, especially holding on to resentments keep you unable to see what is available in the present, in the moment, in the NOW.

I have always liked this simple story because it is clear that the angry monk did no harm to anyone but himself. The Buddha is reported to have said “It is not that you will be punished for your anger, but that you will be punished by your anger.” Ponder on this.

To carry your anger forward from the event that initially created the anger is one of the most significant ways we interfere in our own happiness, our ability to enjoy life, and our ability to experience true joy.

EXPERIENCING EMOTIONS

Of course, it is natural for us all to experience anger. That is an unavoidable part of our human experience. However, once someone has done something that makes you angry you get to decide how long you wish to carry it with you. In that decision, you decide how much you choose to be hurt and ultimately held back by the anger.

An emotion, any emotion, but particularly a strong emotion like anger has a flow to it, much like diving into a pool of water. When you dive, you know instinctively how deep into the water to take the dive before you naturally and spontaneously turn to the sky and come out of the dive.

When you take that natural and spontaneous feeling of anger and layer it with judgment (they shouldn’t have done that to me), resentment (I deserve to be treated better) and any of the other justifications you can create to cling to the anger, you are prolonging the pain of the initial injury. This is where you have a choice that can have a far-reaching impact on your life. This is the crucial point where the choices you make have an impact on how much joy you have.

In the thrall of your anger, judgment and righteous resentment at the wrong, it may be difficult to see that you have a choice. But anything beyond that initial spontaneous flash of the emotion of the anger is within your control, your choice. You might ask what you can do other than experience the outrage? You might wonder what choice I am talking about. You could feel completely trapped in that past event and see no possible solutions; after all, you were wronged.

Aren’t you totally justified being angry and resentful? To that, I say yes that may be true. But I ask you for your consideration, why would you choose to? What happened, whatever happened, is now in the past. The question I would ask for your consideration is what does bringing it into the present and carrying it with you give you? It certainly does not make you happy.

You can let go of the past pain, sorrow or injury by coming into present time and releasing the past. That immediately frees you from the burden of carrying old hurts. I understand it may require forgiving the person who hurt you. They may well not even deserve your forgiveness. The freedom that your forgiveness gives is to you, not them. The life forgiveness most influences is yours.

FORGIVENESS

Forgiveness is a way that you can put what is past behind you and move forward in your life to whatever new experience and adventure that life places before you. You do not have to choose to carry old hurts and waves of anger around with you. Ironically, the person who wronged you may not ever know that you forgave them. That really is not important. If you are in an ongoing relationship with that person they may sense it on some intuitive level, or you may choose to tell them. However, the most important change that takes place when you release an old anger is within you.

By forgiving, you are now free. You are no longer limiting your ability to seize the new opportunities that are unfolding before you because of something outside of this moment. By choosing to let go of the past you are empowering your life.

A SIMPLE FORGIVENESS TECHNIQUE

A very simple technique of forgiveness that I have found to be very freeing and very powerful comes from an old Hawaiian teaching called Hoʻoponopono [ho-o-pono-pono] (an ancient Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness.) Please note, I have added a few additional phrases to the standard teaching.

The Traditional Phrases are:

I love you.
I’m sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.

The additional phrases that I sometimes also add are:

I forgive you.

And

I forgive myself.

The elegance of this technique is its simplicity. All you have to say in your mind is the specific repetitive phrases above when observing the behaviors of those around you. Keep repeating the phrases no matter what is happening or what anyone is doing.

Beyond using the power of your mind there is nothing you need to do or say out loud. You don’t have to belabor the circumstance; the focus on these phrases creates the release.

IN CONCLUSION

The freedom to be in the present releases you from the past and opens you up to enjoy the possibilities of the future while you experience more joy in your life at this moment.

At times, although this technique is very simple it may seem hard for you. That is OK. Simple is different from easy. When you find it difficult to release the past or forgive it, it might be revealing to ask yourself what are you getting from clinging to an old hurt or wrong.

For many the lure of clinging to the past is the reassurance that you were right, and therefore, the other persons were wrong. Certainly, that reassurance is not worth carrying the pain of the anger with you and it is not worth limiting the potential and possibilities that are emerging in your unobstructed life as the future is unfolding.

Therefore, I encourage you to choose to stop carrying the hurts of the past and open yourself up to the new opportunities that will be revealed to you. You will be happier. You will be immediately rewarded with a greater lightness and more joy.

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on all that you do!

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Last updated 3-20-2019

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Attract Money

Genevieve Gerard

A Spiritual Way to Attract Money

We all need money to support and enhance our physical being, our need for food, for shelter. This is an integral part of life.

I’m here to tell you
it’s OK to ask for money.

It is even OK to pray
for the money you need
to be provided to you.

It is OK to provide what you need and desire for yourself and your family.

Often, those on the spiritual path reject money thinking that somehow money is bad or evil. The simple fact is money is material matter, therefore it is not spiritual, but it is simply matter. As such, in its material form it is neither good nor evil. It is spiritual neutral.

This rejection of money, because to have money is not spiritual, leaves many spiritual people without their needs fulfilled. Money, as matter cannot be more than its material nature. The good that money can do, or the harm that can come from money, rests exclusively in the hands of the one who uses it.

However, the love of money can lead you away from what is good and right action. All around us we see the attachment to money and the desire for money lead people astray. It is the however the greed and the desire for money that becomes the problem. It is the all too common tendency to put our faith in money or to let “things” take precedence over right action and right human relationships.

When you really look into it the money is not the problem but rather the over attachment to the money is the problem. It is not wrong to own things, but it is wrong to let things own you. It is this attachment and misplaced faith in money that gives material possessions a bad name in spiritual circles.

Your ability to attract money into your life can have a powerful effect upon your ability to express and fulfill your Life and Soul purpose. I believe fulfilling your Soul purpose is one of the most significant things you need to accomplish in your life. Ultimately in order to feel safe in attracting money as a spiritual person you must have faith in yourself to use what money comes your way for right action and purpose.

Many over the span of lives have become confused about this important fact. Those who identify themselves as spiritual often seem to shun the material, thus leading to a life of poverty and lack. This essential confusion may have its genesis in old traditions of humbly begging for one’s daily substance or religious orders who took vows of poverty.

Just as there is nothing inherently evil about money, at the end of the day there is nothing inherently good or spiritual about poverty. The often misquoted phrase that “money is the root of all evil” is actually correctly stated as “the love of money is the root of all evil.”

Although we are cautioned against a love of money or of placing money in the role of a deity in our life, to use money wisely with a positive spiritual intent (with harmlessness and a will to do good) can be a celebration of your Oneness with Source and your service to your fellow man. In fact ancient words of power affirm in the spiritual practices of the Ageless Wisdom the power of the invocation “The Highest and the Lowest Meet.”

Making money serve as a tool for good, and a spiritual tool for God, is a high and blessed calling. There are in the world so many ways that money can be used as a servant of what’s right and good in the world. It is when men and woman of goodwill and good intention fall into a trap of serving money that a problem is created on your spiritual path. It is however possible to not fall into this trap as long as you go about attracting money in a spiritual way and understand the importance of wielding money for good in the world.

Your power as a co-creator of life with the Divine requires your ability to use and accept all of the many opportunities and blessings that are available to you. Rejecting the abundance of the world of matter which creates self-imposed shortage and suffering is often more about fear and a failure to love, honor and value yourself. Be open to and have gratitude for the abundance that is available to you. Love yourself and honor the purpose of your life and the spiritual benefit of asking for money and what it can accomplish will be available to you.

So, it is ok to ask for and attract money in your life. However, the intention and purpose of the money you request is of great importance. Money can be used to serve good as well as serve greed and selfishness. What you do with the money you manifest is a very important life lesson and life challenge. The choice about how you use the money can have both spiritual and karmic significance. Remember money is just matter and how it is wielded determines its value in a spiritual life.

To empower your attraction of money into your life I have created this visualization and meditation to invoke the abundance that is available for you as a blessing. Then, when you remember to share your blessings with others you will be truly engaging in an act of love and your service will become truly spiritual.

And, when you express your gratitude for all that you have and will receive you will unlock the door of magnetic attraction to manifest and fulfill your Life Purpose and Soul Purpose.

A Meditation Visualization and Invocation for Money

Begin by aligning your body by sitting with your spine aligned.

Then, imagine your Soul as a radiating golden point of Light energy above your head.

Affirm yourself aligned with that Light and Higher Purpose of your Life.

Then visualize, descending from your Soul golden energy flowing, which may manifest as money, which may manifest as creative ideas and which may manifest as golden light transformed into real gold, as you invite and invoke prosperity into your life and affirm that in so doing “The Highest and The Lowest Meet.”

Add to your invocation and invitation of money into your life the clear intention to make your money a servant of good and right action in the world.

Then to attract money into your life consciously open your heart and your mind to receive money and imagine it freely flowing into your wallet, your bank account, your wardrobe, full to overflowing coming to you from Source, coming to you as a blessing, coming to you to serve both your needs and the needs of your brethren.

As you invite and invoke money into your life take a brief pause to consider how your life would be different if you had all of the money that you needed.

Put as many details into this imagining as possible. Vividly see in your mind’s eye where you are or will be living, what you are or will be doing, hear the sounds that surround you, sense what you will be experiencing when you have all of the money you want and embrace all of the money you need to do good in the world.

You might wish to add the positive affirmation that the money you attract will be used to fulfill your life purpose and to help others fulfill their Soul purpose. Affirming that you will dedicate a certain percent of whatever money you receive for service to others is a time honored way to deal with receiving money that has been shown to increase both prosperity and abundance.

To ask, in invocation or prayer, for money when you are committed to using it for right action, fulfillment of your Soul purpose and to enhance right human relationships is O.K. What you do with what you receive is where the spiritual lesson and demonstration lies. Ponder on this!”
– Genevieve Gerard

If you want to make a list of what you see, hear, feel and vividly imagine that can help to empower your manifestation. The focused goal setting and purpose clarifying intention helps attract the resources that are needed, for the purpose defined.

Now as a last step, with complete trust and faith, assert and affirm that the channels for money are open to you and flow freely for you as you accept the best in the world for you and offer the best of yourself to the world.

Now, give thanks and have gratitude for these great blessing you are receiving, and all of the blessings you have already received.

So it is and it is so NOW and throughout your life.

Namaste,

Genevieve Gerard

The Blessing of Love on All that you Do!

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Harnessing The Power Of Your Mind

Genevieve Gerard

Harnessing the Power of Your Mind

Your mind is a powerful tool.

As with any tool, how effective it is depends upon how it is used.

Learning to use the great and amazing power of your thoughts to manifest your life’s purpose and fulfill your goals is a primary reason that many people explore the subject of consciousness.

It takes only a minute of sitting quietly and observing what you are thinking to realize that the quicksilver nature of thought is so multidimensional and diverse and scattered that if the principle that “energy follows thought” is true and our thoughts create our reality as the “Law of Attraction” claims, we all have some work we need to do if we want to use our mind effectively and efficiently.

Gaining mastery over the mind, particularly controlling the free flow and often negative input of unbridled thoughts is a challenge. In your 1 minute of observation of the nature of your unfocused and uncontrolled thoughts you probably noticed how much of your thoughts reflect what you fear. This is not a judgment of you, but a simple observation of the nature of what spiritual teachers have for centuries or longer referred to as the “monkey mind.”

The practice of meditation provides a variety of techniques to help you harness the power of your mind and quiet the mindless chatter of the “monkey mind.” Different ways work differently for different people and at different times. You could certainly ignore the input from the world of meditation and teachings about consciousness were it not for the understanding of the mechanics of the “Law of Attraction” and the principle that “energy follows thought.”

This pesky idea that your thoughts have power, indeed the power to create your reality and can help by working for you, or can unfortunately work against you is a powerful motivator to explore how these subtle principles and laws work. These revelations about the power of your thoughts are not new. Way back in biblical times the book of Proverbs stated “As a man thinketh, so shall he be.”

Since that time, there have been a variety of teachers and preachers, business leaders and thought leaders who have both validated and expanded on that powerful wisdom. In writing this Wisdom Wednesday Blog I realize that I could fill the whole post with books and resources of those who praise the truth and power of your mind. I will, if you like, provide some links to some that I believe are the best at explaining or teaching about this important issue and help you explore these concepts from a variety of teachers and approaches.

A gift of one of my very favorites, Napoleon Hill’s life changing book “Think and Grow Rich.” This is a free Adobe PDF of the full book that you can download and ponder on.

Napoleon Hill once stated that “goals are dreams with deadlines.” Manifesting your dreams and fulfilling your life’s purpose is an important reason to use the tools and techniques of meditation to harness the power of your mind and make it work for your benefit in your life.

My main purpose in this blog today is to discuss this ancient wisdom within a perspective of what techniques you can use and activate in your life to help you harness this awesome power of your mind to make it a tool to help you achieve your life and your Soul purpose.

One technique that I have found valuable in my own practice and in my years of coaching and counseling people is that you begin just by self-observation. I recommend starting with committing just 3 minutes a day to consciously observe your thoughts. When you observe a negative or fear based thought flash through your mind, edit it, correct it and replace it with a conscious thought of what you want and are striving to manifest in your life.

This self-observation, edit, correct (with intention) and replace technique is most important and empowering when what crosses your mind is a fear. To do this consciously and with intention is best achieved in a meditative state while aligning with your Higher Self and focusing upon your life’s purpose. In this alignment you have a greater vision.

This technique is best done from the perspective of what I call “the detached observer,” free of self-judgment or criticism (each of which work against achieving positive thoughts to replace the negative and fear based chatter of the “monkey Mind.”)

I refer to this as a meditative state because it is not really meditation, but as you are seeking to consciously align with your Soul and your Soul purpose in life you are in a higher state of consciousness and keener awareness than just thinking. So this exercise of observation from the perspective of the “detached observer” is a bridge between normal uncontrolled and casual thinking and meditation.

This can be a powerful and transforming technique. As I mentioned I recommend starting with this technique 3 minutes every day. That may seem very short but if you really consider and catch most of your negative thoughts to edit, and revise and replace the thought, you will have made a huge step forward in your ability to harness the power of your mind and learn to quiet the chattering mind. This simple (although sometimes not easy) step is important in learning to meditate and to empower your life.

In teaching this technique to my coaching clients, most have observed that a daily 3 minute practice of this technique begins major transformation in their lives.

The substitution process of exchanging a negative thought for a positive one can also be used with other meditation techniques such as affirmations or by following a guided meditation. The powerful principle that “energy follows thought” and the activation of “The Law of Attraction,” will be incorporated into your thoughts and life on a multidimensional basis, shifting your thoughts and your perspective on a daily basis.

The more often you practice this technique the better the response in the material world. Your thoughts are more powerful than you realize and your mind is a co-creator in your life in cooperation with the Divine or Source or however you envision the Creator to be.

The choice is yours. The time to activate the awesome power of your mind to live the life you have always envisioned is NOW. It is your life and your power to master.

Namaste,

Genevieve

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Stress and Procrastination

Genevieve Gerard

The Relationship between Stress and Procrastination

A Wisdom Wednesday Blog

Recently, I had the opportunity to observe how procrastination – putting something aside to complete later, impacts your stress.

This is a lesson that I thought I had already learned, but sometimes our behavior or the behavior of others on whom we depend impacts us in ways that are frustrating and harmful to us. Stress can be a negative factor in your health and certainly unpleasant to experience.

Sometimes stress is completely unavoidable. When that happens, I am compelled to use meditative and visualization techniques to return, hopefully quickly to a state of equilibrium.

At other times the pounding heart, the on edge feeling of too much adrenaline in the system, the vague tension of an impending headache is the penalty that life extracts from faulty planning and procrastination. I don’t know about you but I hate to be late. I hate to miss a deadline even if it is only a “soft “or self-imposed deadline. When it is a deadline imposed by events in the world, the stress of missing it is dramatically increased.

The hands of time move forward in life without regard for your position in the plans of your life. No matter how we try, we cannot ever change the impact or influence of what we have done in the past, or what we have left undone in the past. Once a situation or event becomes the past, it releases us from any mistakes we may have made or disappointments we may have suffered. As freeing and comforting as this is it is also significant to observe recent events to see what you can learn from what has happened so you can avoid whatever was stressful, uncomfortable or unpleasant in the future.

It is after a stressful work experience that resulted in a missed deadline and accordingly diminished effectiveness and success that I am writing today, trying to learn what I can do better and more effectively in the future. In exploring what I can do to avoid the discomfort of too much stress that resulted in dis-ease I realized that often the culprit creating stress is a direct result of procrastination, although it fortunately did not create disease.

The impact that procrastination has on your level and experience of stress can be significant.”
– Genevieve Gerard

Procrastination results in a backlog of unfinished events that often result in feelings of being overwhelmed. Ironically, it often takes much more time and effort to bring a task to completion than it would have in present time. To complete a procrastinated project you often must review what you have previously started to bring it into the current situation and circumstance.

This is not always an issue, but when working on multiple projects with any time or external deadline significance I find the time at hand sometimes expands by at least a third, how much work needs to be done to accomplish a single project. Therefore, the procrastination has ultimately increased your workload and as a result has increased the stress that you experienced. That does not even take into account the fact that until a task is concluded it remains a small pressure in the back of your mind, increasing your sense of stress and your tendency to feel like it is all too much, overwhelming and frustrating.

This pattern of choice compounds your stress and reduces both your effectiveness and efficiency. Like the old time management axiom advises that you handle an individual piece of paper only once, procrastination deprives you of the satisfaction and feeling of success that finishing a task brings.

Yes, it is true that there are always more tasks to be addressed in the ongoing adventure of life, but bringing a task to completion actually reduces the volume of work required since you don’t have to revisit where you were before when you placed the task in the “I’ll do it later” pile. Soon, that pile becomes so high that, prior to beginning any task you have to prioritize your tasks amongst all of the procrastinated tasks. You may feel pulled into too many directions and the constant need to re-evaluate and re-prioritize actually adds to the work load.

The extra work of the constant re-evaluation and re-prioritization it creates is a direct by-product of the procrastination. Otherwise, you could have moved on to more fulfilling and creative parts of your work. We tend to procrastinate most about those tasks we enjoy least.

So the wisdom I offer you today, from the life lesson I again learned, is to understand the relationship between procrastination and stress. Leaving things unfinished, uncompleted is disruptive and damaging on several levels. First of all, it deprives you of the satisfaction that a finished task provides. An unfinished task then adds to the tension and stress with which you approach your work because you know you have not finished. Even if you go on to supposedly relax, what has been left undone is a subtle pressure added to you mind where you know what is left to do. Even if you try to put it aside in your mind it adds to a sense of distress and burden about your work.

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The other damage and harm that results from procrastination is that procrastination brings you out of time by constantly requiring a focus of the past, considering how you will finish what you left undone. It also requires you trying to constantly project into the future as you strive to plan for and incorporate the procrastinated task. All of this reduces the free feeling of being in the moment with an unencumbered future brimming with possibility and promise.

Although, it is not always possible to finish every task once you begin, it seems that by realizing how stress is compounded by procrastination, it would be wise to build completion into your work and life habits. It may require better planning and assessment of a task at hand, but whenever possible focus on completing one project at a time. If you cannot conclude the task, planning the time to bring it to completion and then executing the task as soon as possible eliminates the expanding work of procrastination and reduces the stress of being overwhelmed because you never feel finished or free.

Consciously choosing to complete a task the first time it needs to be accomplished, even if it takes a little more time to finish in the present, will ultimately not only reduce your stress but you will have less work to do because the work the procrastination pattern created will not exist.

Changing your mind about how you work when you work is a powerful way to increase your sense of satisfaction and success in life.

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on all that you do.

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