Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Raising Your Consciousness, The 10 Step Program

I have rather eclectic interests and the Yahoo Groups and discussion forums I belong to reflect that. I didn't write this piece, I picked it up from one of those said forums. I'm reasonably certain it wasn't one of the Second Amendment-pry my gun from my cold dead hand guns/shooting groups that I belong to. I'm thinking it may have been from one of the groups devoted to Paganism/Wicca/Spirituality. In any event, get those consciousnesses (that can't be right) up off the couch and give them a little workout. They're getting soft and flabby sitting in front of the computer reading blogs all day.

Top 10 Ways to Raise Your Consciousness By Ronya Banks

Life can be a GIFT or a NIGHTMARE, depending on where you choose to operate from consciously. Practiced regularly, the following 10 tips will assist you in shining your beautiful unique light so brightly that your resulting raised consciousness will be a GIFT to yourself, humanity, and the Cosmos.

1. Forgive yourself and others. Life is too short to hold on to regrets, grudges, miscommunication, or disappointments. Free yourself by forgiving and letting go of any negative energy you're holding on to about yourself and/or others. There are many ways to do this. One way is to write down anything you're ready to let go of and ceremonially tear it into small pieces and throw it away as you forgive. You may even choose to verbally forgive anyone you've been resenting. Either way, the process of forgiving yourself and others will result in your feeling light and free, and consequently raise your vibration.

2. Practice gratitude and appreciation. Whatever you focus on grows. So, when you focus on every thing in your life you have to feel grateful for and all the wonderful people you appreciate, the universe hands you more to feel grateful about. It's a wonderfully reciprocal consciousness raising process.

3. Live each day as though it were your last. If today was your last known day in this lifetime, with what type of people would you surround yourself? What would you say to the people you care about? What personal gifts would you make sure you imparted to humanity and the earth? Live each day as if it was your last, and you will be living in a state of light, love and unconditional contribution.

4. Meditate/Pray. You open up a direct link between yourself and the spiritual realm when you meditate and/or pray. Meditation and prayer can be used to bring you closer to your creator energy, raise your vibration, bring you peace, clarity, joy, and connection, as well assist you in experiencing a perfectly balanced state between your mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual bodies.

5. Suspend judgment. This world is laden with judgment, irresponsibility, and finger pointing. One judges another to feel less guilty about one's own misgivings. Judgment energy is dense, dark, and heavy. On the other hand, unconditional acceptance is light, free, and accepting. Let go of judging and criticizing yourself and others. Everyone is on a different path, and some appear to be further ahead on their path than others. Neither path is better nor worse than another. Raise your consciousness to one of acceptance.

6. View every experience as a GIFT. If you look back at occurrences in your life, you can easily see how even the worst situations you experienced in your life ended up teaching you invaluable lessons and therefore ended up putting you in the perfect place for your continuing development. When you view every experience, the good, the bad, and the ugly as a GIFT, life flows more like a gentle, inspiring breeze.

7. Stay consciously aware of all of your thoughts and feelings. Until you raise the consciousness of the entire human race, it is extremely easy to fall back in to all pervasive negative patterns of complaining and feeling like a victim of society and a victim of your life. To stay out of these patterns, check in with yourself your present thoughts and feelings several times a day. When you catch yourself in the Negative zone, don't feel badly about it and beat yourself up. Simply choose to switch your consciousness to one of gratitude and positive thinking. Remain conscious.

8. Treat your physical body as your temple. Your body is the only vehicle you've been given for this ride called "LIFE." The better you care for your body by eating a healthy, balanced diet, and by implementing a regular exercise routine, and by giving your body the rest it requires, the more you will experience increased energy, vitality, joy, and freedom. Honor, love, appreciate and take extra good care of your body, and you will be raising your energy and your consciousness.

9. View the world through the eyes of a child. Observe a baby or a young child. It won't take you long to notice that young children are constantly totally enthralled by the process of observing and experiencing the wonder and beauty in every single thing, color, texture, and person they meet. They can't get enough! Look at every tree, sunset, cloud, and human being as a child would and you'll be in a constant state of wonder, joy, surprise, acceptance, and enlightenment.

10. Give LOVE, LOVE, LOVE from your heart. It's all about love. Do you remember the feeling of being in love for the first time? Why was it so wonderful? That's because love is the highest vibration. Allow yourself to receive love unconditionally from others. Give love from your heart unconditionally to yourself and others, and you will experience the highest state of consciousness possible.

- About the Submitter: This piece was originally submitted by Ronya Banks, Degrees in both Psychology and Computer Programming, as well as certification in extensive leadership trainings, Life coach, trainer, business owner, entrepreneur, mother, writer, and mentor, who can be reached at rbanks@livinginacti on.com, or visited on the web. Copyright 2000-2003 CoachVille. May be distributed if full attribution is given and copyright notice is included.

11 comments:

Kitty said...

In general terms I agree with almost all of that. I'm just struggling at the moment to view some of what's on my plate as a GIFT.

x

Bruce, a work in progress said...

Kitty if I had written something like this I don't know that I would have worded it like that. I don't think "gift" is the right word. But I do know that everything does seem to happen for a reason. Sometimes that reason is revealed right away other times...well it may not even be in your lifetime. That's the Universe for you.

Vicki said...

Thanks for posting this. Although at times it is hard to do all ten, I'm certain it makes us better when we can.

A quote that I love is: Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take away or breaths.

If I stop and think about it, while I've had my fair share of not gift like moments in my life, I've also had amazing take my breath away moments.

mslizalou said...

I have to agree that it is hard to always look at what comes at you as a gift. I guess it just has to be a choice to see life that way. Not saying I always have or will, but it is a good goal.

Bruce, a work in progress said...

You're welcome Vicki. I'm a collector of quotes. I have little yellow sticky notes all around my computer monitor. Every time I see on I like I write it down.

Liza I think you're right. It has to be a conscious decision. Hey, I certainly don't do all of these all of the time but that's why my signature line says "a work in progress". Part of the journey.

Malicious Intent said...

WEll no one can ever do all ten at the same time, but the piece does give you points to focus on and you focus on different things at different times, depending on what is going on in your life at any given time. They are tools, and some tools are better for some things than others.

One of my favorite things is similiar to the ripping up the paper thing. Except we like to write our "intentions" on paper, fold them up and then light them on fire sending them up into the cosmos. It's rather fullfiling and fun to burn things. ;)

Mike said...

I was pretty good about all of these until I hit number 8. That was my downfall.

I'm gonna do better next time.

Malach the Merciless said...

I love it, but it is not much different than what Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, et al taught us.

Bruce, a work in progress said...

No MI, not all at one time. I hate multi-tasking. You're right, use the correct tool at the correct time. You wouldn't use a screwdriver when you really needed a hammer. And with someone really annoying you, you wouldn't use the hammer no matter how much they deserved it.

Yea Mike, I don't do too well with number 8 either. I'm not much of a church (or temple) goer. I definitely think you should get a do over, especially since you put up that picture of Salma. Go ahead and take a Mulligan.

Oh thanks Mal. You go blabbing about those guys now everybody's gonna know. Well, a good message can't be repeated too many times. We can all use a reminder.

meggie said...

The older I get the more grateful I am for all of my life. Sadness as well as the sheer utter joyous parts.
I too, would not word it quite this way, but these are good values to live your life daily.

Hungry Mother said...

I'm about to get back into yoga after a few years away. Those 10 tips are similar to what I take away from yoga along with looser joints.

I would think that someone with degrees in Psychology and Computer Programming would be a highly conflicted person like Dr. Stranglove in the movie of the same name, but she seems OK.