Take the next 18 minutes of your precious time and listen to Jill Bolte Taylor’s story. We promise it will blow your mind.
Thank you Jill for your profound insight! Your story is one of the most profound and articulate descriptives of not only how the brain functions, but its power and what we are capable of when using it and ourselves consciously. Beautiful!
Sure, we human beings have these big, complicated brains. And that’s awesome. But sometimes, it’s equally awesome to remember that we’re animals, too. Because we’ve forgotten some of the best life lessons we were born with:
1. Animals eat when they’re hungry, drink when they’re thirsty, and sleep when they’re tired. How much better health would you be in if you did the same?
2. Animals are always present in the moment. They are not worried about something that happened in the past (though a past scary event can trigger present fear is the animal is presented with similar circumstances). They aren’t off daydreaming or living in the future. Animal time is always “now.”
3. Animals, instinctive defensiveness to protect themselves or their young aside, are without judgment, no matter how any cat cartoons and photos you’ve seen attributing smugness, disdain or other human emotions to felines. You can train an animal to fear you by your actions, but otherwise, you are just you to your pet.
4. Animals are great at finding the opportunity in any event. Garbage spills all over the floor? Free food! Someone left a dirty t-shirt on the floor? Cool beans, a new bed (or, possibly, chew toy, depending on the age of your pet). The gate’s open? Run with your face into the wind for the sheer thrill of it!
5. Animals are nurturers. Yes, they also hunt, kill and eat each other. But there are simply too many photos and evidence of interspecies care of young to ignore. Animals instinctively take care of others.
6. Animals are completely non-materialistic. Sure, they’ll wear that cute sweater you bought ’em, and they may love their stuffed chew toy. But without the accessories, they’d be just fine, too. They have no concept of “stuff.”
7. Animals give 100 percent to everything they do, whether it’s wolfing down kibble, chasing a butterfly, giving themselves a bath, or methodically chewing the baseboards. They are always all in.
8. Animals live on THEIR time. They “know” when it’s dinner time. They “know” when you are coming home from work. But a clock is as meaningless to them as the concept of “today” or “tomorrow” or “next Thursday.” Their concept of time is a felt sense, within their bodies, cued by nature.
9. Animals are rarely embarrassed by anything. Yes, you can see the occasional cat falling off a table and acting like “I totally meant to do that.” But look: they live their lives, naked, in front of everyone else. They have no self-consciousness about their bodies or its functions.
10. Animals never lose their sense of play. A stick? A ball? A reflection in the mirror? It’s all good!
If you’re getting yourself twisted in knots over something, take a cue from the animals and ask yourself, is this something an animal would be worried about? If the answer is no, try a second question: so why am I wasting my time caught up in all the drama?
Eat if you’re hungry. Drink when you’re thirsty. Sleep when you’re tired. Preferably on a comfy surface dappled with the smile of a sunbeam.
Relationships go through phases, and it’s important not to confuse the weather–the storm–for the overall climate. But sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between the normal flow and progression of a phase with signs that something’s breaking down. If we miss early warning signs, it can come as a complete shock if things break down to the point of being irreparable.
Here’s the stuff to watch out for:
1. Your partner doesn’t touch you as often. It’s normal for affectionate, casual, or even sexual touch to decrease a little as you move out of the passionate honeymoon phase of the relationship and into a more long term, settled phase. But if your partner isn’t reaching for you, seldom or never initiates touching, and starts bypassing casual caresses or hand-holding, chances are, they’re not feeling the connection.
2. You don’t spend any quality time together anymore. Life can be busy and hectic, and without realizing it, days and even weeks can pass without putting in quality face-to-face time with our loved ones. But being together is important to maintain you sense of connection to your partner. Make time for each other.
3. Eye rolling. In a fascinating experiment, the degree of eye-rolling in a relationship was found to be a very good predictor of whether or not the couple would break up. Eye rolling can become a reflexive response we don’t even realize we’re doing–but it’s devastating to the other person. It’s disdainful, disrespectful, and conveys a clear message that you’re not taking your partner seriously. So the next time you catch yourself rolling your eyes – STOP! What would happen if you smiled instead?
4. The TV is always on and you don’t really talk anymore. This is more about a change of pattern than it is about a behavior. Some people are naturally quiet and need alone time to wind down and recharge. More extroverted types may want to talk almost all the time. Something’s wrong if one of these patterns changes within your relationship. If you used to talk and now you really don’t. If you used to watch TV together, but now you’re watching separate shows in separate rooms. If you used to never watch TV but are now using it to avoid connecting with each other. Heads up.
5. No sex. Put bluntly, unless you guys started out platonically, a cessation of sexual intimacy is a pretty sure-fire sign your connection is suffering. It’s normal for things to slow down as your relationship matures, but it’s also important that you still feel and express your attraction to one another. Sometimes we just haven’t made the time, or can’t get relaxed enough–these are things you can fix. If you’re getting signals your partner doesn’t WANT things to be fixed, it’s time to start talking. Like, yesterday.
6. It feels like a struggle. The relationship feels difficult, it doesn’t flow anymore. Communication doesn’t come easily or naturally when you do talk, or you always seem to end up fighting or feeling frustrated. This is a sure sign that your relationship is suffering and you need to take action (see below).
7. You lose sight of each other in the everyday grind. Responsibilities and to-do lists can zap even the most energetic among us. But when this happens, the romance of your relationship can fizzle.. Left unaddressed, you can eventually lose sight of why you fell in love in the first place.
So now what?
First, don’t panic. Most problems are fixable with good communication, but if you approach your partner buzzing with fear and anxiety, you may do more harm than good. So take a moment to regroup. Breathe. Trust in solutions.
Getting The Connection Back and Ramp Up the Romance
Remember the fun, romantic things you used to do together at the beginning of your relationship? Do more of those again. Laughing together ALWAYS builds connection, as does touch, talking, playing games, being together outdoors–even activities that take you a bit outside your comfort zone but closer TO your intimacy zone.
At the same time, do your own work on YOU. Each of you have a responsibility to yourselves as well as a commitment to each other, and that responsibility means self-care, managing your own emotions, growing and holding boundaries, and finding happiness and joy within. No partner, no matter how well-matched or amazing, can make you happy for you. It’s an inside job. When you are your best self, you are, quite simply, a better partner.
To find out more about exactly what you can do to raise your V.I.B.E., go HERE.
The short video, below, provides some affirmations that can be used every day to help change your life and start manifesting the circumstances you want. Affirmations that are repeated regularly can become beliefs– and once they become beliefs your circumstances will fall into place around them. And that, friends, is where the magic happens.
If you feel resistance when you say “‘I am . . . ” in your affirmations, you can replace the word ‘am’ with the word ‘intend’. So your affirmation would become “I intend to be. . . .” This usually brings up less push-back. Also important: if any of these affirmations don’t resonate with you, disregard them or adapt them to suit yourself and the unique set of circumstances you are trying to create.
Try using these affirmations daily for 30 days and see what changes happen in your life!
What we focus on expands. Or, as neuroscientists prefer to say, “what’s fired gets wired.”
But are you really aware of just what’s going down in your mind?
(image courtesy of Dominique – http://sexandheart.com/happy-happy-happy-2)
Most of us are aware of our significant thoughts–but even here, we may not understand that we choose them. Big thoughts like “nothing works out for me,” or “men are creeps” or “money is the root of all evil” go therefore unchallenged, and so they have the power to inform and influence every action we take.
Ick.
Do you want those kinds of thoughts driving you and creating your world?
And that’s just the big stuff. What about the little nattering soundtrack most of us play all day in the background, the one that narrates our day? “You should have turned left at that light now you’re going to be late oh you forgot to stop at the bank you’re going to have to borrow money for lunch again no wonder no one from the office wants to go out with you maybe not even your boss oh what if I lose my job but I hate my job but I need the money what’s for dinner?”
Buried in that stream-of-consciousness babble are some really painful and limiting beliefs. And there they are, thrashing around your brain virtually unchecked and perhaps even unnoticed.
Those thoughts impact your actions and create your reality to you.
Every thought, big or small, conscious or unconscious, is a choice.
Choose wisely.
Need help corralling your thoughts? Consider raising your vibration–and therefore the quality of your thoughts along with it–by joining us at https://raisedvibration.com.
Ask yourself this question, watch this video, and ask yourself this question again.
Your answer to this question is THE ANSWER to realizing your big dreams in life. You know you can do ANYTHING you want. NOW . . . GO DO IT!
In most Western cultures, we’ve been conditioned to believe that stuff = self-fulfillment.
We fall for the illusion that if and when we get a better (car, TV, gaming console, pair of shoes, house, crystal tiara), why, THEN we’d be happy! The problem is, once that initial thrill of acquisition wears off–and wear off it will–there’s always something new to long for. It’s like that old tortilla chip slogan: bet you can’t eat just one.
Does that mean stuff = bad? Of course not. Sometimes, an object is closely aligned with an activity or part of ourselves that brings us great joy, like a wonderful, well-used stock pot you love to use for gut-warming stews, a t-shirt that makes you smile every time you wear it, or a vehicle whose features enable you to do something you hadn’t been able to do before–like go off-road. But even in these cases, the value isn’t in the objects themselves, but the feeling states we reach while using them. If we thought about it, we could probably get to that same feeling state in a bunch of other ways that might not cost a dime.
Stuff is just stuff. Not good nor bad. Not happiness or despair. Stuff is like most of everything else in our lives: it means whatever we make it mean. For many of us, so much of that stuff we were sure would make us happy morphs pretty quickly into inanimate objects we never look at, use, or feel sentimental over.
Are you wondering how to declutter, or whether you’re addicted to the high of getting more stuff? In this short video, Adam Baker from the website manvsdebt shares inspiration to help you break the addiction and free yourself from guilt, doubt and debt.
The good stuff is the stuff that feeds your soul, and THAT stuff could be animal, vegetable, mineral–or intangible. Take a look around your house. Take a look inside your heart. Let go of all that does not serve.
Is your relationship with your guy toxic?
“Toxic” is a word that gets tossed around a lot without really being defined, but let’s say that for our purposes, “toxic” here implies that you repeatedly allow yourself to be taken advantage of, devalued or hurt, or that your guy is consistently unkind to you and doesn’t seem to care about what you might be feeling.
“It’s not like he beats me or anything!”
Okay, don’t even go there. Someone does not have to hammer on you with their fists to be abusive. Withdrawal of affection, verbal criticism, social isolation, belittling and control are all ways of abusing another human being. And not a single one of us deserves it.
Why do we stay in relationships that hurt? Take a look at this short video of Rori Raye, a fantastic relationship coach, explaining why women can find themselves drawn to toxic men and relationships.
Even better, learn how you can train men to treat you better–just the way you’d train a dog. Yes, really!
Toxic Relationships and How to “Train” Men ~ Rori Raye Video
A picture, or so the cliché goes, is worth a thousand words. We don’t know about that, but what we do know is that visualizing works best when we use as many of our senses as possible. Making a collage, or what we call a V.I.B.E. Board, is one of the most effective (and, yes, the most fun!) ways we know to imagine our visions into reality.
Back in the Pleistocene era, before computers, creating a vision board was something of a delicious mess: a giddy jumble of poster board, scissors, magazines, crayons, markers and paste. We still love to make vision board this way, but honestly, we don’t always have the resources available, the energy for cleaning up afterwards or the time.
That’s the beauty of a V.I.B.E. Board. It’s completely electronic, so your image bank is almost limitless: your own library of photos, free stock images online, even your own mobile downloads—see a house you want to put on your V.I.B.E. Board? Go snap a picture of it and throw it into your personal V.I.B.E. System image library and there it is! We even provide tools for typing in whatever words or phrases are meaningful to you. If you want to work with baboons, baby, not only can you find a picture of a baboon, but you can print out a big banner that says “Go Ape!”
But don’t be fooled by how easy creating a V.I.B.E Board is into thinking it’s a small gesture, energetically. Visioning and setting intention is powerful mojo, whether you take five minutes or five hours to do it. And we could argue that playing with intention in simple, delightful little sips is actually more powerful, because it allows you to create without strong attachment to a specific outcome.
One of us might be very drawn to a photo of the Swiss Alps, for instance, without really knowing why or how that fits into our vision. No problem—if it resonates with you, put it on your V.I.B.E. Board. In another case, we might want to attract wealth, but we don’t know how. That’s cool! Put your perfect number, or even just a photo of money, on your V.I.B.E. Board, and let go of how it will or “has” to show up for you!
You could make a V.I.B.E Board with a vision of your life ten years from now—or you could create a V.I.B.E. Board that captures what you want tomorrow morning to look and feel like. Big dreams, little dreams, where-the-heck-did-THAT-come-from dreams—they’re all easy and powerful, and they’re a wonderful tool to play with as you seek to create an intentional and inspired life.
Why not give a simple V.I.B.E Board a whirl now? It’s fast, it’s fun, and it WORKS. And if you really miss that thick paste smell, you can always leave a jar open next to your laptop.
We’re offering access to our V.I.B.E. Board tool for a limited time for FREE at https://raisedvibration.com/v-i-b-e-boards Share yours with us–and with your permission, we’ll post it on Pinterest and elsewhere to help you put some of that great energy out into the universe!
As you’ve probably noticed by now, Raised Vibrations (RV) isn’t about traveling cross-country in an Airstream—unless, of course, that’s one of your life’s dreams! We’re about creating magic and miracles in every aspect of your life. That means not just the easy parts—just about anyone can, with sufficient time and effort, declutter their living room—but in ALL areas, even the places where you feel like you’ve been stumped and stuck.
Whether you’re an Obama or Bob the Builder fan—or neither—the answer to “Can you do it?” is always “YES YOU CAN!” Yes, you can finally get everything you want out of your life—with a few caveats.
Let’s get those out of the way up front: we don’t have control over the life destiny of others, so your manifestations won’t work if they involve specific action on the part of specific people (sorry, there goes everyones’ plan to manifest a hot date with Colin Farrell or Beyonce, right?). And manifestation is not about simply chanting mantras. You can tell yourself you have a million dollars until the cows come home–and what time DO the cows come home, anyway?–but it ain’t gonna happen until you pair your intentions with actually putting yourself out there.
So what DOES work? The whole V.I.B.E. system is built on this: visualize, intend, believe, and experience. Here’s what that looks like in action:
1. Visualize the thing or outcome you want. (Here at RV, we often do that through collaging, but you can do this any way that works for you: meditation, journaling, telling everyone you know, sticky notes, drawing pictures.) It’s key to visualize yourself already having what you want in your life. For example, if you want more money, an ineffective and ultimately pointless thought around that is something like, “I’m going to be rich.” This places the outcome you want squarely in the future—where it will, sadly, stay.
2. Set your intentions. You don’t have to know the mechanics of how it will all work out (author and manifestor extraordinaire Mike Dooley calls this worrying about “the cursed hows”), but you do need to totally and completely hold the firm intention to receive and experience what you want. That means no second-guessing, no waffling, no worrying, no icky sticky feelings of “undeservingness” creeping about. You want this; you’ve got this.
3. Believe you already have it: fully immerse yourself in the emotions of how right it feels when your dreams are your reality. This might look like bathing in the satisfaction, joy, exhilaration, and gratitude of how having what you want feels in your heart, in your body, in your energetic field. Raising your own vibration so that it vibrates with that which you are attracting is where the magic is, baby.
Some people recommend “acting as if,” and that’s fine, as long as that doesn’t mean going into major debt spending money you don’t in fact have, or running down the highway pretending you’re driving that Alfa Romeo you don’t actually own. A great example is a woman we know who wanted to attract a solid, romantic relationship in her life. So she cleared out half the closet, emptied one of the bedside tables, made space in her dressers and in the medicine chest, and slept on one side of the bed. She created the intention—and therefore the space—for what she wanted. Do we even have to tell you that it worked?
4. Bring what you want into your experience by paying attention to the inspired actions that come up for you. By inspired, we mean that the action feels like a natural outgrowth of having what you want; it feels good and right to do. Action alone—busy work, task lists, going through the motions—isn’t going to get the job done. It is only in taking those actions inspired by your visions, beliefs and intentions that you will truly have exactly what you want in your life.
5. Finally, be open to how the universe brings you what you want, and be willing to receive it. For many of us, this is harder than it sounds. You might have visualized and set the intention for a new job, but instead you find yourself laid off from your current one and enrolled in grad school. What the what?! You may visualize the love of your life, but the guy who shows up, while thoroughly wonderful, is four inches shorter than you thought he’d be. Sometimes the road doesn’t look like we think it’s “supposed” to, and sometimes we get so lost in our “shoulds” that we don’t recognize the universe presenting us with what we asked for on a silver platter.
Those riches we wanted may come in the form of more responsibilities at work, or an insurance check from an accident, or any number of ways other than you might have imagined.
That guy who shows up because your mail accidentally just got delivered to his house might not look like Colin Farrell even one bit—but he may be perfect for you. That woman at the bank who just goofed up your wire transfer and is currently annoying the heck out of you may turn out to be the love of your life.
Bottom line? Life—your life, our lives—is simply a game. And you are the only one who gets to make up the rules and decide what “winning” looks like. So shuffle your cards, roll the dice, flick that little spinner with your forefinger and thumb—and get ready for the life of your dreams.
Check out our V.I.B.E. System of online tools that are designed to support you in getting every single thing you want out of (and into) your life. Beta version special offer: the next 100 members get grandfathered in at our low introductory monthly rate! https://raisedvibration.com.
