Guided Meditation • Visualization • Mindfulness

On Wed. March 2nd I will be giving a Meditation Service at the Redondo Beach Center for Spiritual Living.  Meditation services are relaxing and transformational!  Hope to see you there.The service starts at 11:00 AM and ends at 12:00 PM.Where: Redondo Beach Center for Spiritual Living907 Knob Hill Ave., Redondo Beach, CA 90277phone: 310-540-5080Cost:  Love donation

Numerologically, the year 2011 reduces to the number four.  Where last year was a year for trying new things the energy of this calendar year supports grounding, work, materially, and accomplishment.  ”It is a time to make solid foundations–financial, physical or mental–for your life…Financially, you will earn in direct proportion to your output.  Exercise and take care of your body, your physical home,” (Numerology and The Divine Triangle, by Faith Javane and Dusty Bunker).This quarter one of the classes I am teaching is called, “Guided Meditation and Visualization for Self Healing.”  In this class we will be deepening our understanding of ourselves through learning about and working with our personal energy centers or chakras.So today make a commitment to being your best self.  Work on creating and maintaining consistent energy levels through a well balanced diet, exercise, and of course meditation, visualization, and journaling.

After my morning run and stretching exercises I lay on the floor and contemplated the rest of my day.  I thought about tomorrow evenings workshop, the book that I am writing at a snails pace, and then my mind flashed to a student in a previous workshop who seemed very unhappy with the evenings lecture, at least that was my perception of it.

The scene in my mind caused me to be flooded with feelings of anxiety and guilt.  Then the thought came, “I should have at least tried to address the issue, next time I will.” Suddenly, I realized that I was at the top of a negative spiral, I said, “I can’t buy into that thought, it is not serving me.”

Since those kinds of thoughts and feelings come up often I decided to investigate them. Through the investigative process of contemplation I realized that I was using a negative image to motivate myself to be a better teacher. I realized too that the feelings of guilt and anxiety will never be abated as long as I perceive them as tools on my spiritual path.

The Law of Cause and Effect is a wonderful spiritual teacher.  It unfailingly demonstrates to us that like always attracts like, that every reaction has an opposite and equal reaction. So, for example I cannot create peace in my home if I have to yell at my kids to get it.  I can (and have) scared them into submission but ultimately the fighting and arguing continue…that is, eventually my little ones will demonstrate back to me my state of mind, anger.

Knowing how this Law operates, it seems that if I use anxiety and guilt as a motivator to do good works, not only are my works are tainted, but eventually I wind-up feeling badly again.  This is samsara, the cycle of suffering, the cycle of death and rebirth, operating in my experience.

So the question that I am posing for us all today is, “Can we be motivated to do ‘the good’ by something other than negative thoughts and feelings?”  If we want lasting peace, harmony, and joy then eventually we must all conclude that there is no way to experience peace, harmony, and joy except to be motivated by peace, harmony, and joy.

Your boss is unreasonable, you haven’t been intimate with your spouse in weeks, your kids won’t pick their clothes up off the floor, and traffic is a nightmare. Trying to change the people and the situations in your life is normal. You want to be happy.  Unfortunately, it is a fundamental Law of our universe that you can not change people and rarely can you change a situation.  So what is left? 

You want more affection, you want respect, you want cooperation because all of these things feel good.  But if you can not change what’s going on outside of you what do you have the power to change?  Is it possible to be happy in an uncooperative and irrational world?

Happiness is only possible when you have cultivated a state of mind that is supportive, loving, and nurturing regardless of your circumstances.  You cultivate this state of mind, not by arguing with your thoughts, your spouse, or your kids, but by realizing that your senses are deceiving you.  

Through meditation you learn to redirect your attention away from ”thinking mind” and into the refuge of the body, the breath, and the present moment.  Over time two things will happen:  One, you learn to ignore most of what you are thinking and rely instead on that aspect of yourself that always knows the truth, sees clearly, and loves deeply.  And two, the content of your thoughts will begin to naturally reflect the openness of your beautiful awareness.

So what will happen to the irrational and uncooperative world?  For you it will change.  It will change because you will be different in the world.  It will change because like your thoughts it will begin to reflect back to you the openness of your loving awareness.

Close your eyes and take three deep breaths.  Feel your body in the chair.  Take three more breaths.  Smile.

I have spent much of my life avoiding conflict.  Naively I thought that the more I meditated, studied, journaled, and prayed the less conflict I would encounter.  Yet as I grow older and deepen in my practices it is clear that the opposite is true.  Any spiritual practice that seeks to bring about peace is bound to reveal the non-peace that is within and around you. 

Conflict would usually trigger deep feelings of guilt from within me.  My mind would say, “If I were more spiritual I would not be having this conflict right now.”  Believing this thought put me in conflict with conflict.

There is nothing more uncomfortable then standing still in the midst of conflict.  But stillness is where our center is and where our power lies.

If we are still enough we can learn what conflict has to teach us:  Conflict teaches us about the nature of assumptions which is how most conflicts arise.   It can teach us how to listen so that we can hear the depth of the other person’s needs.  But more importantly it can show us the depth of our caring and how caring is a reservoir of strength. 

Today I spent six hours talking to the roofer, debating with neighbors, soothing my husband’s temper, writing emails, and even consulting an attorney.  I did my practices too though.  I breathed, I listened, I stayed in my center as best I could.  On the outside it looked really messy, like any woman dealing with roofers, neighbors, husbands, and attorneys but on the inside I felt the depth of my caring for the roofer, for the neighbors, for my husband, and especially for myself . 

Hello Everyone,

My fall teaching schedule is now available.  Just go to the calendar section of the site. 

 The Meditation Level II workshop was a tremendous success. We challenged our most deeply held beliefs about what God is and our relationship to the Divine within, the great “I AM.”  Our intention was to move away from these and other mental concepts and into a feeling state of union with our Source.  You cannot think about God and be in a state of conscious union God at the same time.  I will definitely be teaching another Level II workshop in the Winter Quarter. 

Currently I am working on finishing a book.   I am very excited about this project and plan on posting excerpts from it by the end of September on the blog and would love your comments. 

I pray that you are all well.

Love,

Krista

During this weeks classes we moved our consciousness into a deeper awareness of the Self. We discussed, contemplated, and meditated upon the truth that we are the master’s of our mind.  That it is natural for us to be the leader of mind and the master of our circumstances, and that it is natural for the mind to follow. 

 The fact is however, is that the vast majority of us are servants to our conditioned thinking, our emotions, and our environment.  Our minds run roughshod through our lives.  Through meditation, contemplation (study), and mindfulness practices we come into our true power and we are able to live freely and consciously. 

 I know that freedom, love, true power, and happiness are all of our birthrights, and I look forward to a day when we are all truly free and joy-filled. 

If you would like to start a meditation and contemplative practice or if you would like deepen your practice then come to one of my classes.  So far this summer I have three workshops booked at Beach Cities Health District and I am planning on scheduling a level two workshop at the Center for Spiritual Living, but this is tentative. 

I look forward to seeing you all there!

Hello All,

The next Meditation Workshop is Friday May 21st at 6 PM.  See you all then.

Warmly,

Krista

  FYI, tonights workshop at Beach Cities has been cancelled. 

At some point it becomes more difficult not to go with the flow of technology.  So recognizing that I am resisting the flow of my good I’ve finally signed up on Facebook and twitter. 

Hope to see you all soon,

Krista