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Self Cultivation

Where Did You Come From?

August 16, 2018 By Cara Lumen

Where Did You Come From?

Live in the nowhere that you came from, even though you have an address here. – Rumi

When the world becomes too human, I move within to my inner world, the Emptiness that Holds Everything, the Nowhere That I Came From. 

It is still.  It is comforting.  It is filled with unconditional love.  I sink deeply into its arms and become restored.  

Take time during your day, your life at this moment, to go to the Nowhere That You Came From.  Then live your life from there.

To Sing a Deeper Song, consider:

Be Still and Know 

Discover Your Spiritual Heart 

The Path of Supportive Service 

Abide at the Center of Your Being

Live in the Present 

Filed Under: Deep Listening, Self Cultivation, Self Transformation, Spiritual Expansion Tagged With: self-awareness, Spiritual Expansion, transformational thinking

The Things We Tell Ourselves

December 20, 2017 By Cara Lumen

“I’m worried.” “I’m scared.” “It’s not going to happen.”  What we tell ourselves comes true.  So why do we keep saying these things?

To avoid disappointment?

If we don’t expect to get something, then we won’t be disappointed when it doesn’t happen.  So it’s easier to tell ourselves it’ll never happen or we don’t deserve it.

Does not being afraid make us face the unknown and the uncertain?

Fear is a sneaky thing.  It tiptoes in with a few doubts or points out a few new things we need to learn, and the next minute we find ourselves frozen in fear and uncertainty about our ability to proceed.

Has fear become a habit?

I have a friend whose conversation is filled with “I don’t know how.”  “I’m scared to do that.”  “I’m worried.”   One time the statement was even that she was worried that her dog was worried.

And of course, what you tell yourself becomes your life experience.

Your words become a fulfilling affirmation

As this self-doubt increases, her ability to function lessens. She truly cannot learn new things.  She truly cannot figure out things.  She shuts down at the mere idea of learning something new and is so filled with the belief she can’t do something that she truly can’t.

What we tell ourselves becomes our reality

“I’m smart, I’m beautiful, I’m clever, I’m …”  If you feel it, you will be it.  You can change your life by changing your thoughts.  What thoughts are you giving yourself every day?

Your Inner Garden

We grow our life in our inner world, our inner garden.  We can sow ideas of doubt or seeds of encouragement. We can sow seeds of hope and expectations.  We can cultivate crops of anger and hatred or love and empathy. It’s our choice.  Our inner world.  Our crop – to plant, to care for, to feed and to harvest.

Our choice.  Our seeds.  Our harvest.

Begin by noticing

Notice your words. Notice your thoughts.  Are they positive?  Or negative?  Consciously begin to correct your thoughts and words and turn them into positive affirmations.

Notice the results and keep making changes

Notice how worry affects your body – your back, your muscles, your headache.  Physical manifesting begins in your mind, and it can be changed simply by changing what you put in your mind, what beliefs and thoughts you plant in your inner garden.

If you’re not getting the results you want in your life, go work on your inner garden and see what you’ve planted and what crops you’re growing and what weeds you need to pull out.

Do you have a fear of exploring, of trying something new?

Life is one big constantly changing cycle, so the more you learn to adjust and adapt and roll with the changes, the more positive will be your life experience.  Exploring something new is like opening the door to take a breath of fresh air.  It offers a new view, a new perspective, and new opportunities.  Change is super good!

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

What Do You Really Want

How to Eliminate Worry

The Mirror of Appreciation

Repurpose Your Thought to Change the Outcome

The Unfolding Vision Board

Filed Under: Positive Change, Self Awareness, Self Cultivation Tagged With: positve change, Self Mastery, self-awareness

Your Breath is a Doorway to Higher Consciousness

September 5, 2017 By Cara Lumen

meditation gold

All spiritual practice begins with focusing on your breath. Breathing is recognized as being the doorway between formless and form, spiritual and human. Conscious, focused breathing is the starting place for meditation, prayer and shamanic journeying.

Clearing the mind with a focused breath is used by musicians and artists and athletes. A deep breath brings your attention inward and focuses the forward movement of your next step.

All inner world work begins with your breath. The yoga word prana means the life-force energy that moves throughout the body. The first thing we do upon entering this life is breathe and the last thing we do upon leaving it is to stop breathing.  Breathing is a powerful doorway to our inner journey.

Begin with mindful breathing

When we begin to focus on our breath, we step away from the physical limitations of our body suit and move into the freedom of our invisible self.  Ninety-five per cent of our world is in the unconscious.  Focused breathing helps us go there.

Add mindful breathing to your spiritual practice  

Sit or lie in a quiet place. Begin by simply noticing your breath.  Feel it move through your nostrils, into your lungs. Ffeel your muscles and organs responding.  As you breathe out, let go of all thoughts and tensions.

Let the element of your breath move through every part of you. Use the exhale to center you. Breathe in through the chakras. Begin to breathe through your skin until you feel like the breath of yourself.

Let your body disappear 

Mindfully let go of the physical plane.  Leave the awareness of your body behind and move into the unseen world, the Nowhere That You Came from, the Great Nothingness, the All-That-Is.  Use your breath as a doorway into the Invisible Realm. The more silent and deeply aware you become the more receptive you are to the gifts of your Inner World.

The invisible world is limitless

As you allow your breathing to help you relax, your outward experience begins to disappear and you find yourself in your inner realm.

Whatever is there has no form but will assume a form in order to communicate with you.  Your job is to interpret what you see, whether it’s in a dream, a shamanic journey, or a daydream. Even hunches and sudden insights originate in the inner realm. Let your imagination interpret what shows up.

Allow your breath to express your oneness  

We are all one energy, one web of life, one cosmic soup, one elemental energy.  Your inner observer knows that and will help you experience it. As you feel yourself drift into the Great Nothingness, allow your breath to help you feel your connection with what shows up. Look beyond your awareness of the physical plane and feel our collective oneness. We are all one energy.  One web of life.  Connected.  All one.

Bring that feeling of all-encompassing, everlasting connectedness back with you to the physical realm.

Breathe from a place of love

You can breathe from your heart. You can breathe from an emotion like curiosity or forgiveness.  You can breathe from a place of passion of self-awareness.  Use your breath to focus an intention for the inner work you set out to experience.

Breathing helps you relax into a higher state of consciousness

When you begin your inner work practice, notice what needs to be released on the physical plane – tension, worry, uncertainty, excitement, apprehension. With each mindful breath, let it go.  Leave the physical world behind you and move gently into a higher state of consciousness.

Make mindful breathing a conscious practice

Find what facets of your life need to be released so that you can move into a higher consciousness and simply release them through breathing.  Physical fatigue may suggest you breathe in the energy of rejuvenation and replenishment.  Sadness may suggest breathing in love and laughter.  Confusion may suggest breathing in clarity and self-awareness.

Tune into your present physical experience and choose an intention for your breath.

Become aware of the way you breathe  

There are many types of conscious breathing. A basic yoga one is to breathe in to the count of four, hold your breath for the count of four and exhale to the count of four.  Repeat. Counting your breaths is one way to begin to quiet your mind and focus on your inner self.

I find I yawn a lot when I begin to breathe.  That may be a release of tension or a need for more oxygen from being sedentary, or a welcoming recognition of something that’s meaningful for me. I often yawn when I come closer to a truth I recognize that I need to absorb into my life.  It’s a welcoming yawn of acceptance.

Remember, the breath is an open doorway to the invisible world.

The good ol’ diaphragm

Decades ago, when I took voice lessons, I was encouraged to lie on my back with a book placed slightly above my navel and breathe. The purpose was to make the book move with each breath, because that meant I was correctly using my diaphragm. That’s diaphragmatic breathing.  Singers and speakers use it.  We all should use it.

Diaphragmatic breathing is a habit to cultivate.  It keeps you from breathing through your shoulders, which can quickly create great tension.  Put your hand above your navel as you breathe and make your hand move in and out with each breath.

Use breathing to allow your inner healing work to be more effective. Cultivate mindful breathing to consciously move from the physical plane world into the depth and expansiveness of the unseen world. Use your breath as the doorway it is.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

How to Effortlessly Radiate Light

Embrace The Power of Your Inner Life 

Take Time to Contemplate 

Don’t Get Lost in the Ritual

Magic is Simply  a Change in Consciousness 

Filed Under: Self Cultivation, Self Transformation, Spiritual Expansion Tagged With: self-awareness, Spiritual Expansion, transformational thinking

What Seeds Do You Allow to Grow in Your Garden?

April 18, 2017 By Cara Lumen

seed sowing

I know how important it is to watch the words I say because they will become a part of my own life experience. But it never occurred to me to notice what seeds I was allowing to gain a foothold in my own garden. Self-doubt? Uncertainty? Fear?

How does your inner garden grow?

I recently did a releasing ceremony on a webinar and I found that what I wanted to release was my unbelief in my own value. Hmmm. What a sneaky weed that has been. What seeds of a belief will you release? “I can’t do that”? “I don’t deserve that”? “That can never happen”?

What steps do we take to eradicate that weed? What needs to happen for me to feel my own value to a deeper degree? Find a persistent unwanted weed with a very long root and pull it out of your garden. You will sigh with relief.

You choose your own crop

I love the Khalil Gibran quote, “I like to think I am a seed spreading awareness.” What a wonderful image to feel myself as a flying seed fluff being borne along by a summer breeze and landing in places I never expected. If you don’t know where you’ll end up, you’d better make your seed super special so it has a chance to develop.

One seed can make a difference

You need to pay attention both to the seeds you plant and the seeds you simply allow to flourish in your garden. That means we must examine and question what comes our way. A negative opinion belongs to that other person, not in your garden. A shared laugh is a welcome addition.

Look closely at what hidden doubts are hiding in your garden and order them to leave.

To Sing a Deeper Song consider:
The Shedding of Your Skin
How to Nourish Your Inner Fire
Be the Story you Want to Tell
Where Do YouPlant our Stake?
Accept Yourself as You Are

Insights of a Deeper Song (vLOG)
Reflections of a Deeper Song (Podcasts)

Filed Under: Positive Change, Self Awareness, Self Cultivation, Spiritual Expansion Tagged With: positve change, self-awareness, Spiritual Expansion

What to Do When You Don’t Know What You Need

March 30, 2017 By Cara Lumen

question and circle

She had come to the end of a big chunk of time and a lot of money spent and she wasn’t where she had expected to be. In retrospect, she had gone into the project not knowing what needed to be done. She had been overwhelmed and because of her inexperience in developing an online business, she didn’t have a clear overview and she had not chosen wisely. She had not even followed her heart. So what do you do when you don’t know what you need?

Explore and collect

As with everything else in life, the more self-aware you are, the more on-target your choices will be. The first step is to not quit your day job until you know what it’ll take to sustain you and how to make that happen. My friend’s problem was that she had been in a huge corporate job with ten-hour days and didn’t have the time or energy to explore new possibilities.

But you have to figure out what combination fits you. You have to know how skilled or unskilled you are in certain areas. You have to know what you love to do and what you’d rather not even learn to do.

You look at what other people are doing in a similar venue, decide what resonates and what does not align with who you are and then you make your list. Prioritize what you need first. And they explore one piece at a time.

Allow your direction to evolve

Look at a choice as an exploration. Wander down the path of that choice and see where it takes you and how that feels. If it doesn’t fit, make another choice, try another path. Build on what you learn.

Identify your weaknesses

Early in my entrepreneurial career, I took a marketing class. The advice was great but marketing was and is not my skill set. A wise choice would be for me to consider a partner in my endeavor, one with the skills I am lacking. Or even to hire someone to coach me through my reluctance. The bottom line is that the skill and willingness to market is not there for me. I’m an introvert. It has always been a hole in whatever I try to do.

Go with your strengths

What have you been doing well all of your life? How does that fit into your business? I’ve been a communicator in many forms throughout my life, so I build on that. The rest I have to learn or hire out.

Learn by doing

It seems like I’ve been immersed in technical stuff forever. I had to learn Rainmaker , I switched from PC to Mac and had to learn GarageBand and KeyNote. Then I got Scrivener and loved it, even though there was a big learning curve for me.

When I was setting up my site in Rainmaker, I often cried with frustration — not at having to learn a wonderful new platform that was going to make a huge difference in my life, but because I felt overwhelmed by all the digging in I had to do to learn a new, better system. I wanted the final result so much that I just dried my tears and went at it again.

An entrepreneur is responsible for it all

If you’re an entrepreneur, you have to be willing to learn. You have to be willing to fail and thereby to learn what does not work. You’re going to have to learn enough about every facet of an entrepreneurial business that you can know when the person you hired is working effectively.

Explore before you dive in

Start simply. Master one thing at a time. Perhaps you start with a blog, a WordPress site and an email provider. Use that platform to try out your idea, to measure the response, to shape your own method.

Failure is a gift

When something doesn’t work, that’s a gift. When you do it poorly, you have received the gift of at least going through the process and you know that next time will be easier. You know what you like. You know what you don’t like. You increase your strengths and you make adjustments to allow room for your weaknesses.

What do you do when you don’t know what you need? Go exploring. Go adventuring. Try on some ideas. Learn some techniques and give yourself time for it to all flow together into the gift you, and only you, can give to the world.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

The Move From Inner to Outer Work
What Do You Do When You Feel Stuck?
What Makes You Valuable?
The Responsibility of an Artist
How Do You Define Success?

Filed Under: Alligned Choices, Positive Change, Self Awareness, Self Cultivation Tagged With: personal growth, positve change, self-awareness

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