Controversial Love Drugs

April 15, 2013

Many love songs croon “I can’t live without you” and “you’re everything to me.” Love can sure be overwhelming! When we are newly in love, we think about our sweetheart all the time, imagining the next time we will be with them and reliving the best moments. We can get kind of obsessive, and as long as we aren’t stalking someone who doesn’t like us back, it’s all good. That obsessiveness normally fades over time and we develop a nice, balanced relationship. When we spend a lot of time with someone, we get used to having them around, but lately I’ve noticed it is more than that.

I’ve been learning a lot about the human energy field; we each emit an energy field that extends out a little ways from our bodies. When we are close to someone — physically and/or emotionally — our energy fields overlap and interact. When you spend a lot of time around someone, your body literally becomes accustomed to that other person’s energy field, and when you are then apart, you can feel their absence.

I know, a large part of “missing someone” is psychological. We want to see their smile, feel supported by them or be an encourager to them. There is, however, evidence that there is an energetic reason for “missing someone” and I have experienced this phenomena myself. It is very noticeable for me when I spend a lot of time with one person, visiting them, and then go back home again. My energy field feels different because it hasn’t touched that person’s in a while. The effect seems to wear off in a week or so, and my energy adapts to my new location and the people around me there. I don’t think it really matters what emotions I have for the people involved — love, admiration or just toleration — the energy fields will interact no matter what.

I say all this in order to discuss the new “love drugs” that are being studied. There are two in question: one is intended to boost the feelings of being in love for couples who have lost the spark, and one is to help people stop feeling in love. The love-booster does not seem overly strange to me. I can see why someone might manufacture the chemicals that make one feel in love — it is such a high! I can see why couples that logically want to stay together would want to renew their amorous feelings. The drug that is designed to kill feelings of love did surprise me a bit.

I listened to an interview on CBC Radio (the Q show) where the host, Jian Ghomeshi interviewed an ethicist, Brian Earp, about the use of love- and anti-love drugs. The doctor advocated the anti-love drug in particular for people who are trying to leave an abusive relationship and they are “addicted to the other person” and keep going back to the abuser, even though they know how unhealthy the relationship is. If they took the anti-love drug, it would stop their feelings of love (or addiction) for that person and make it easier to end the relationship and start a new life.

In my role as a Victim Support Unit volunteer, I counselled several women who were leaving abusive men, and I’m not sure how much a love-killer drug would help. Overcoming abuse takes time, work, and a support network to help the abused woman grow her self-esteem. The love-drug is such an artificial solution to this problem, and I can easily see the drug being misused in many other situations. The radio host, Jian talked about just taking it to get over a bad break-up, which isn’t so horrible, I suppose, but imagine someone slipping this drug into another’s food in order to manipulate them into a divorce, or the drug being added to an antidepressant to help people be even more “numb” to the world. If I took a little of this drug, would I still love cheezies, sunsets, starry nights, or hiking in the woods? Would I be able to enjoy a nice meal or a good movie with a friend?

I don’t think the love-booster drug is any better. Do we really need to chemically induce every feeling to feel? I think there are some science fiction novels about societies doing that, and it never ends well! Have we become so removed from simple pleasures that we can’t just feel good when we do something we enjoy? Whenever I spend more time being aware of what is going on — what my body is doing, breathing, coming back to the present moment — I am so much more responsive and I am never far away from feeling good. Maybe not ecstatic or elated, but good. Content. Happy.

avocadoOn the other hand, one could argue that food itself is a drug. Have a hot chocolate or mocha and feel the boost it gives you! Enjoy a perfectly-ripe avocado and notice how clear your mind feels afterwards. Eat a big meal of turkey and stuffing and feel the sedative effects. How do donuts make you feel? What about a nice, fresh salad? Steak? Notice any change in the biological feelings in your gut? Besides the obvious fact that food is fuel for your body, every thing you eat is fuel for your mind as well. You can choose to alter your feelings by what you eat. You can alter your feelings by what you think. It all starts with taking ownership of how you feel, and not blaming anyone or anything else. And isn’t it interesting how it can also be explained by energy?!

What do you think of the love-drugs? Would you want to take them to help you through a situation? Do you think there’s a place for them or do you think they should never be approved? I know this is a big topic, so forgive me if I summarized a lot!

One last thing: if you are missing someone, or trying to get over someone, give it time. Try to get yourself in a new environment, with some new friends, and see if you can get your energy field sorted out.

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How Do Thoughts Feel?

February 10, 2013

A little while ago, I wrote a post about thinking, and how certain thoughts make me feel good and I can improve my mood by changing my thoughts. This is a grand form of self-manipulation, and I’ve been doing it a while so I’m getting pretty good at it.

But manipulating my feelings is not always a good thing to do. Sometimes, my feelings are actually my intuition trying to get through to me, to tell me that something is not right… that I need to change what I am doing… or that I’m making a bad decision. So, I have been learning to listen to my intuition better (read Part 1 here).

The other day, I had yet another realization when it comes to thoughts and feelings. I had been meditating for a while, and my mind suddenly wandered away from the happy, healthy, harmonious thoughts I had been thinking. I mean, I was feeling really good, humming along at a very high vibration, and feeling very “floaty.” And then, out of the blue, I thought “I really need to log in to the online banking and see how much money is in the account.” Woah. I distinctly felt my body react to that thought. It was a slight churny feeling in my gut. So, I made a note of it, re-centered myself, and continued meditating. A little while later, my mind wandered again, and all I thought was “I should check what time it is.” Again, I had a little “worm wiggle” in my gut — very slight, and not exactly in the same place or same way as before, but definitely in response to the thought.

I am sure you have had the experience where you talk about food with someone, your gut “hears you,” and pretty soon it’s churning away and you’re feeling very hungry. It’s happened to me many times, and the strongest when I am talking about my favourite foods! It’s like my gut is saying “give me some of that! That sounds awesome!”

Interesting, isn’t it? When I was meditating, I felt exactly what those thoughts did to me. Both were related to a lack of something — time or money — and had deep, hidden roots in worry. And here I thought I never worried! Well, I don’t worry much, but even just a little bit of worry affected me physically, so I can’t imagine what a full-blown worry-fest would do. Would it affect my digestion? Almost certainly. Would my thinking be clouded? Most likely.

My beliefs about money and time seem to be connected to my gut, and I don’t know if this is universal, or if you would find that a different part of your body responds to similar thoughts. I think it is probably different for everyone, because all our beliefs are individual. No matter what, recent research is showing more and more that we have huge numbers of neurons (brain cells) in our gut. Scientists have proven that our gut chemistry affects our moods, and we all know that thoughts affect our moods, and now I’ve put the other side on our triangle — our thoughts affect our gut. So if one of the three — gut, moods, thoughts — isn’t healthy, looking at the other two can help to fix it. For many of us, it’s the gut that shows up as unhealthy, so it’s good to know that by changing our thoughts and moods, we can have a healthy gut again.

We are energy beings, so we need to remember to take care of ourselves on all levels. Often when we are sick, it’s because our intuition has been trying to get our attention, to tell us something VERY important, and we just aren’t listening. When we get sick, we are forced to stop and take notice, reevaluate our lives and make new decisions.

If you would like to try this experiment on yourself, let me know your results! I’m sure your mind will wander naturally, so don’t feel like you have to think about money or time. Just let me know your experiences (you can leave a comment or contact me directly if you prefer). 🙂

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Getting Out of a Funk!

November 24, 2012

I was in a funk the other day, and not the good kind of groovy, breakin’-a-sweat-on-the-dance-floor kind of funk. It was more like the funk you find on leftovers that you forgot about in the back of the fridge. That kind of funk, emotionally.

I was frustrated, ticked off. I couldn’t believe that a phone company could have such bad customer service. I was right annoyed. And from that one frustrating event, I ended up getting into the funk I mentioned — an emotional confusion, frustration and general ugliness. It wasn’t full-blown anger but it wasn’t pretty. I was definitely not myself.

It wasn’t easy, but I managed to get out of that funky bad mood. Let me give you a few strategies to try that might help you when you feel crappy and don’t like it.

1. Feel the feeling. Don’t try to avoid the feeling, or pretend you don’t feel cruddy. Actually stop and “check in” with your body to see how that frustration or anger is making you feel. Stomach unsettled? Tension? Take a quick poll, and then breathe.

2. Ask yourself “how would I rather feel?” Would you rather feel content, happy, or even just blah? Usually when I feel cruddy, even just boredom feels like a relief. This can be a tough step, because you start to sense the big gap between how you feel now and how you want to feel. Just the same, it’s a good trick, because you can start to make a move to a better feeling.

3. What thoughts have you been thinking? If you have been thinking about how everything is unfair and nothing is working out right, then no wonder you’re funky. Try to identify what you have been thinking about lately. Act like a scientist doing research — try to be detached from the thoughts themselves.

4. Go general. Now, choose to think something different and start a little “good-feeling” rant in your head. It is always best to go as general as possible. It won’t work to try and criticize or analyze why that company had such bad customer service, for example. Instead, think that “this kind of treatment was unusual, because normally, people treat me well… generally, things go really smoothly for me… the sun in shining and things are looking up… whatever things in my life that aren’t perfect aren’t really a big deal… I am healthy and that is a huge blessing…” Any thoughts along general, positive lines are best.

If this is too hard or feels too fake, try this:

5. Distract yourself. It is absolutely perfectly okay to distract yourself from whatever is cheesing you off. Change what you are doing — go do something you enjoy. Play a game, call a friend (but don’t bitch at him/her), or listen to your favourite music. Do something with your hands. Go for a walk or move your body (this is great if you are caged in an office). If you are at work and can’t really leave, you can still change what you are doing, go for a coffee or other excuse to move your body a little. The point is to distract yourself from whatever was bothering you with something you enjoy. Like I often say, we are like corks; it takes considerable effort to keep us down. A little distraction is usually enough to let our spirit rise.

Hopefully, you will find these tips helpful to lift your mood when you need it!

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Hearing from Your Intuition (Part 4)

October 18, 2012

I mentioned centering yourself in Part 1, but felt I should expand on that some more. I would like to “de-mystify” some aspects of centering yourself and explain some new-agey-sounding terms in plain English.

Calming Down

The initial way to think of centering yourself is just to calm down. You can do this any time by taking a few deep, conscious breaths. What do I mean by “conscious”? Just be aware you are doing it. Think and pay attention to how your body feels while you breathe. Do nothing else for a second. Breathe… This is the first and vital step to calming down.

Pause and ask yourself what you were just thinking about. If you don’t know, that’s okay. If you can recall it, now see how it was making you feel. Was that train of thought making you feel good (excited, energized, happy) or bad (stressed, tense, worried). These “feelings” can be either mental/emotional (such as frustrated or depressed) or physical (tension in the neck, stomach uneasy). Now you have become aware of how your thoughts make you feel!

If those thoughts are particularly strong, you might want to have a “wave experience” as I describe in my book (chapter 19). This will help you pass through the emotions and gain some insight about them.

To connect with your intuition, continue “centering yourself.” Some physical things people like to do include putting both feet on the ground, sitting cross-legged, or laying flat on their backs. Some like to do this to increase their connect to the ground, kind of like grounding an electrical circuit. Others like to connect to Mother Earth. If you do it the same way every time, this helps “program” your body for connecting to your intuition.

Keep breathing all the while. Okay, that might sound obvious because if you stopped breathing, you’d die, but believe it or not, I need to mention it. We often hold our breaths without realizing it, or breathe in shallow, quick breaths. Taking slow, deep breaths does something to our bodies — something that helps us slow down, focus, and reconnect to the present moment. That’s why activities like singing and sports feel so great — we are breathing deeply, and paying attention to the moment in either to hit that note perfectly or score that point.

Your mood will probably improve simply as a result of these actions. If you feel sort of “neutral,” consciously think about something that makes you feel good — like remembering a pure, happy memory or a time when you felt really great. If you focus strongly on these happy thoughts for a minute or so, you will really start to feel great. This is what people mean when they say they are “raising their vibration.” It is a conscious decision to feel better by thinking thoughts that make you feel better. You may also want to tell yourself something that you know will perk you up. If you are living a very stressful life, you can also take advantage of classic de-stressing techniques like taking a hot bubble bath, lighting candles, getting a massage, going for a walk in a park or other natural area to appreciate nature, etc.

Of course, there is no guarantee that following these steps will help you connect to your intuition, but they vastly increase the odds. One last thing: be ready to receive and write down (or record in audio) the inspiration you receive! Keep a note book by your bedside, in your purse or bag, or in your vehicle. Be ready to open a simple text editor to type in your computer.

My favourite way to “make notes” is to talk into a small audio recorder, especially while I am driving alone. It has 2-button operation, so it’s very quick and easy. When I get an idea, I grab it and start talking!

I hope you have found this series on hearing from your intuition helpful! If it has touched you, please leave a comment!

 
– The “Hearing from Your Intuition Series” –
Hearing from Your Intuition (Part 1) Feel the Answer | Hearing from Your Intuition (Part 2) Tapping Your Imagination | Hearing from Your Intuition (Part 3) Detailed Messages/Knowing | Hearing from Your Intuition (Part 4) Centering Yourself

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Hearing from Your Intuition (Part 1)

October 15, 2012

For some, hearing from their intuition is easy, but for many, it is so foreign, they don’t even know where to start. So, I thought I would give some ideas from my experience about how intuition speaks.

Let me start by reminding you about the two polar opposites of feelings: feeling good and feeling bad. Of course, we have many different words for emotions, and here are a few:

feeling good — excited, thrilled, happy, overjoyed, at-ease
feeling bad — tense, nervous, uneasy, anxious, cautious

Your intuition often speaks through feelings. That makes it tricky, because lots of other things can affect how we feel, like what kinds of thoughts we have been thinking, or even if we are hungry. However, if you aren’t hungry and you take a few minutes to breathe deeply and clear your thoughts, you can receive a message from your intuition by how you feel.

Feel the Answer

Try this. After centering yourself as described above, ask yourself a “yes/no” question that you already know the answer to. Think of something you like to do and ask yourself a related question. Then, see if you get a “feeling answer.” Let me give you an example.

I really enjoy knitting, so I might ask myself “should I do some knitting later?” The answer is Yes, and the corresponding feeling is one of happiness and anticipation of continuing my latest knitting project. If I ask myself a “no” question, like “should I get back together with my ex?” the answer is a most definite “no!” For me, I can almost hear the answer verbally, but I certainly get “yucky” (“no”) feelings — anxiety, stress, heart-pounding feeling.

Once you do this and feel both the “yes” and “no” answers, now you can try a less-obvious question and one that you don’t know the answer to. If you stay still, calmly breathing, you should feel the answer — either a good feeling, or a “bad” one. If you can’t feel the answer for some reason, try rephrasing the question or break the question down into a smaller part or get more specific. For example, if you ask if you should take a new job you’ve been offered, but you can’t feel the answer, try asking

– Should I leave the job I am at now?
– Is this job offer good for me?
– Should I look for an even better job out there for me?
– Is this new employer right for me?

A slight variation on this method is to use your fingers instead of just feelings. Make the a circle with your index finger and thumb, like the universal “ok” sign, on both your left and right hands. Now, interlock them like two links of a chain. Calibrate your response by asking yourself a “yes” question as before. Tug to see if your fingers will come apart — for a “yes” answer, your fingers will be strong. When you ask a “no” question, or say something that is untrue, one of your finger-thumb connections will give way and your fingers will come apart. This process is called muscle testing, and the video below will show you exactly what I mean. If you have a hard time feeling the answer, muscle testing will work for sure!

Tomorrow, I will talk about some other ways to connect with your intuition. Subscribe to this blog to make sure you don’t miss it (use the RSS button near the top-right of the page), follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook. Mention that you read my blog!

– The “Hearing from Your Intuition Series” –
Hearing from Your Intuition (Part 1) Feel the Answer | Hearing from Your Intuition (Part 2) Tapping Your Imagination | Hearing from Your Intuition (Part 3) Detailed Messages/Knowing | Hearing from Your Intuition (Part 4) Centering Yourself

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What’s Your Soundtrack?

September 29, 2012

I wonder what would happen if, all of a sudden, I was a ridiculously talented musical composer? What kind of music would I create? If, right now, I had a full symphony and every possible instrument at my disposal, what would the music in my mind and heart create? If my vibration were to suddenly be transformed into sound, what would it sound like?

Sometimes, I think it would be a bit like the background track to a scary movie. Other times, it would be the soaring, exalting melody of a hero’s homecoming, a struggle completed, the fight over…

Interesting idea, isn’t it? If you want to connect deeply with your inner guidance, this is an excellent way to do it. Imagine that right now, the sum of how you are feeling were music. What would it sound like? This helps you realize how you are really feeling and since your feelings are a very good barometer of the direction your thoughts are taking, you can discover the path you are on/things you are manifesting. As Abraham-Hicks says, when you feel bad, that is simply your inner guidance/higher self telling you that what you have been thinking or doing is not in alignment with your true purpose or your best course of action. So, if your internal music is sounding like a horror soundtrack, your might be manifesting trouble — ominous things are afoot. Thrash metal? Perhaps you have some sub-surface anger you weren’t aware of.

If you decide you don’t want trouble or anger (or whatever), then consciously change your thinking towards what you DO want, picture it as clearly as you can, and now imagine the new soundtrack. Will it be bubbly and happy? Will it be cheerful or peaceful? Dramatically uplifting? This is just another way to play with your vibration and get in touch with what you are manifesting before it appears.

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Sore Muscles, Sore Feelings

September 8, 2012

A very simple truth struck me today, in a new way, so of course, I wanted to share it with you: You cannot heal from a skeleton in your closet unless you are willing to look at it, yet, in looking at it, you must not obsess about it.

The same is true when you are trying to use the Law of Attraction to manifest something in particular in your life. You must see or know the reality that you want to change, but you cannot look at it too closely or it will only grow. The reality of the past cannot be “too real” to you. You have to have a stronger vision in your mind’s eye for what you are wanting to create.

Bear with me for a minute while I digress on this analogy: If you have a sore muscle, it won’t start to feel better if you baby it too much. You need to stretch it, move it gently to get the blood flowing and the healing power going. I know this from experience and it is a fact. You cannot ignore a sore muscle or try to never move it. For some types of sore muscles, working out intensely is the best thing you can do for them. I have a friend who even did this with a broken arm, but I’m not advocating that for everyone!

Now consider sore feelings. If you have been hurt by someone, you cannot ignore it or pretend it never happened and try to never “use” that feeling again. You have to look at it a little, move it, think about it, gently, to get the healing power going. But at the same time, obsessing about that hurt feeling is only going to make it feel worse, and “working it out intensely” is the best thing you can do for it. Ernest Holmes, the founder of the Science of Mind new thought movement said it well:

“We must be willing to look at a thing until it has no power over us.” – Ernest Holmes

Do not shy away from your hurt feelings. On the other had, you cannot give them more power over you. Acknowledge the way you feel, talk it out with a trusted friend or counsellor, and when you are ready, start to imagine how you’d like to feel. Imagine that you are happy most of the time, that you feel content and that you eagerly look forward to the future and good things that are coming your way. Even if you don’t quite “feel” that way yet, imagine that you will someday. This activates the Law of Attraction and will also help you to feel better now.

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