Author Archives: Primal Spirituality

A New Year’s Resolution You Can Actually Keep…

By Elizabeth Fritzler

generosity

Lose weight. Eat less sugar. Practice guitar more often.

New Year’s resolutions like these are fairly common in America. Weight loss and fitness goals regularly top the list of most popular resolutions. One trip to the gym on January 1 will show you just how many more people occupy the treadmills than in December.

“I swear I’ll keep it this time!”

We all start the year with the best of intentions: this time we’re really going to follow through! We’re going to make it all the way to December 31 without reverting to our old ways! We made a resolution for a reason—because we want change!

But if every New Year’s Eve, you find that you didn’t stick with your resolution (don’t worry, 92% of people are in the same boat), perhaps it’s time to think about some different ways you might facilitate change in your life.

The secret to resolutions that work

I’ll share a secret with you:

The most effective New Year’s resolutions—that is, the ones you’re most likely to develop into habits—are less self-punitive and more altruistic than weight loss.

One resolution that works quite well is generosity. Why? Because generosity begets gratitude, and gratitude begets a positive outlook on life. By doing things for others, you may be surprised to find that after just a short period of time you begin to see the little things for which you are thankful. This paves the way for a greater sense of life purpose, lower stress levels, and stronger identification with community life.

What can you commit to?

Now it’s time to get specific. What does generosity look like to you, in a way that feels fulfilling and keeps you going back for more?

Maybe it’s donating your time to a community center, where you read to kids once a week. Maybe it’s always giving your significant other the bigger slice of cake. Maybe it’s inviting old friends over for a home-cooked meal, or offering to give someone a ride home, even if it’s out of the way.

Acknowledging your accomplishments is another key to success. Use a calendar or journal to record your Random Acts of Generosity, and be sure to make note of how you felt after giving. Whatever you do, just make sure to establish how, where and when your generosity will take shape each day or week.

What if I fall off the wagon?

Unfortunately, no matter how good our intentions are, life will sometimes get in the way of our plans. You may not find you’re able to be as generous as you want, 100% of the time.

But you know what? It’s okay.

If you fall into bed after a particularly busy day and realize you’ve forgotten your Random Act of Generosity for the day, know that tomorrow is a fresh start and a new chance to try again. The point of a New Year’s resolution is to nourish your health and happiness, not set you up for failure. Allow yourself to make mistakes.

Get out there and get giving!

The best thing about consciously activating your generous side is that it’s flexible. You have the freedom and power to choose how, when and why to give. Whether you’re building trails or teaching a stranger how to juggle, your generosity will cultivate a greater sense of self-worth and better the world around you at the same time.

What resolutions have you kept in the past? What do you intend to do this year? Let us know in the comments below.

Align with Self, Align with Source

by Lori Rock, STANDING IN THE LIGHT® Teacher and Facilitator

 

Of all the New Year’s resolutions we can set for ourselves, what would be the one underlying quality that would help all of them? What one factor would help you achieve a better diet, a more appropriate exercise regime and more joy in daily life? Being more aligned with Your Self, being more aligned with Source.

All the characteristics that we would like to improve about ourselves, all the projects we would like to manifest and all the ways we would like to serve Mother Earth and Humanity have at their core the need to know what our part in the Divine Plan is and the passion and perseverance to take the steps to achieve that Plan for ourselves, individually and collectively. The Divine Plan is the interconnected puzzle that We have developed for Ourselves in order to play out our experiences as humans here and now. It may sometimes feel like someone outside of ourselves developed this puzzle as a cruel joke or an elaborate party trick. But, Mother Earth and Humanity have always been involved in this plan as a fully volunteer army. There was no ambush, no draft and it isn’t a punishment for some egregious behavior toward a superior being. We are inter-related and One with the entire universe. The sooner we recognize this, the sooner we can feel the joy of no longer viewing ourselves as victims.

This is why it is imperative to feel and know the connection and alignment with Our God-Self, with Source, in order to be able to sift through cultural and systemic influences and, instead, realize the inner wisdom and guidance that will help us heal the daily struggles and rise above the distractions that hold us back from being the higher version of ourselves that we know we can be.

Before I started on this particular path, I knew there was an interconnectedness between what I saw as my reality and the Universe. But, I didn’t realize or comprehend the extent of the possibilities and the power to change my reality by tapping into those Universal Truths and Energies available to us all. The Universal Truths are that we are not alone, we are loved and we have the wisdom and power to act with the love to bring more joy to ourselves, our world and our universe. Anything other than this full and complete recognition of Our True Selves is the illusion from which we need to awaken.

We need to eliminate any false belief that only a chosen few are capable of navigating the truth and wisdom available to us all. We also need to eliminate any feelings of unworthiness or lack of self-confidence that keeps us from seeing the Divine Power and Divine Love that is the real truth of who we are. The awakening can be done gently, step by step, as part of the Divine Plan. We can start that awakening, now.

I have had some great teachers who have helped me become more mindful of my connection and alignment to those Higher Aspects of My Self and to clear fears of truly remembering who I am, why I am here and how I can help.  It is my path, passion and desire to help others to recognize and realize this within themselves, as well.

What is your path? Have you found what your piece of the Universal puzzle is? I would love to help you find your path.

Lori Rock is a STANDING IN THE LIGHT® teacher and facilitator, as well as an Eminent Reiki™ Master Teacher / Practitioner. She teaches classes in Fort Collins, CO, and leads week-long retreats at Sunrise Ranch in Loveland, CO. Contact Lori at lori@iamstandinginthelight.com, www.iamstandinginthelight.com and http://sunriseranch.org/standing-in-the-light-sitl-program-retreat-0315/

YOUR RAINBOW BODY

Submitted by Jerry Kvasnicka
Double-alaskan-rainbow-2
Why are we so different from one another? I have always been rather curious about this and consider the fact of human diversity to be at least as fascinating and worthy of celebration as the fact of human unity. We are such a varied lot. On the physical level there are differences in height, weight, skin color and tone, hair color, eye color, basic physical abilities, ad infinitum. On the mental level, differences in IQ, talent, interests, aptitudes, ad infinitum. And on the emotional level the differences are even more vast and complex. How do we account for this infinity of differences, seeing that in essence all are one, all derive from a common life source?

According to astrologers, of which I am one, the positions of the sun, moon and planets relative to a band in the sky called the zodiac may be one way of accounting for human personality differences: each individual is, in effect, “stamped” with the unique configuration of influences that exist at the time of his or her birth in human form. Quite a few years ago another approach to this matter of differentiation came to my attention in the form of a book called You Are a Rainbow. This small paperback written and published by the University of the Trees community in Boulder Creek, California, is based on the life experience and exhaustive consciousness research of Christopher Hills, founder of the university and author of such books as Nuclear Evolution, The Rise of the Phoenix and Creative Conflict. Dr. Hills and the community became widely known for the development and distribution of Spirulina, a near miraculous health food derived from plankton.

But back to the question at hand, which is how to account for human differences. Here is a brief summary of how this matter is approached in You Are a Rainbow: Light, upon passing through a prism or multifaceted crystal, is divided into the colors of the rainbow. What you are and I am in essence is comparable to a beam of white light. At the time of birth into physical form on earth our light in effect passes through a prism and is differentiated and expanded into a rainbow of many colors. There are, as we know, seven primary colors in this spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Each of these colors, for purposes of our analogy corresponds to a particular life energy or quality of consciousness. Using one word to describe each of these life energies, we might come up with something like this:

Red – Physical
Orange – Social
Yellow – Intellectual
Green – Emotional
Blue – Conceptual
Indigo – Intuitive
Violet – Imaginative

During the span of our incarnation in material form on earth we have at our disposal a physical, mental and emotional capacity that consists at least in part of this rainbow of life energies. We have the potential to express the full spectrum of the powers and qualities present in our rainbow, but it has been found that one of these levels is generally dominant in the expression of a given individual. In other words, the kind of capacity we have may be dominantly physical or dominantly social or dominantly mental, and so on. One who is sensitive to auras will actually be able to see the color around a person’s body that corresponds to the energy most natural to that person. The dominant color can also be found by using a small divining device called an “aura pendulum,” which can also be used in a psychological/physiological healing procedure called “aura balancing.”

You Are a Rainbow includes a separate section on each color written by a member of the community in whom that color is dominant. There is a handy chart listing the positive and negative qualities of expression for each color, as well as the deepest needs, aptitudes and biggest challenges associated with each. Though the main emphasis throughout the book is on the uniqueness of each color and associated energy level it is also stated that “Hand in hand with our work on ourselves as individuals goes our work towards a group consciousness in which we tune to others’ frequencies and, in so doing, tune to the Universal Frequency that is the synthesis of all notes and colors and which we call the vibration of the Rainbow Body.”

I do have some reservations about this approach, however. Beautiful as it is in many ways it nevertheless strikes me as being offered to, and even in some measure offered from, a material or form-oriented level of consciousness. How can the rainbow help me to discover and develop my personality? seems to be the over-riding concern. As such it is likely to be used by many aspirants merely as a technique for self-realization and self-improvement rather than a means of greater service to the whole.

Nor, I feel, is the reader of the book sufficiently impressed with the fact that each individual is much more than the qualities and characteristics inherent in his or her color or even in the full Rainbow Body. This is but an aspect of the Being that I am and you are, a Being that is not a mere absorber and re-radiator of light but the light itself. However, if we approach You Are a Rainbow from above rather than below the rainbow, it can be of considerable value in helping us to understand and account for human differences and to more fully manifest the Reality that in truth we are.

Jerry K. - 2013Jerry Kvasnicka, a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, has had a varied career as a youth minister, a radio news reporter, a writer and editor for several magazines and journals and a custodian with the Loveland, Colorado school district. Jerry currently edits and writes for the mind-spirit section of the online magazine The Mindful Word. He has lived at the Sunrise Ranch spiritual community in Loveland for twenty-five years. He can be reached at jerry@themindfulword.org

Emissaries of Divine Light Launch New Primal Spirituality Online Education Website

Emissaries of Divine Light are thrilled to announce the launch of our new Primal Spirituality online education website! We have streamlined the registration and course exploration process. Once you have registered for a course, you can access your personal member dashboard with course materials and technical support options. In addition, we have added an onlineContinue Reading