There are so many things in our past that we allow in to fashion what our ‘today’ will be, and it takes a lot of focused effort and desire to work on undoing and releasing these unhelpful influences from the past.

It was more common for myself to get to a point of total frustration because things would not be turning out as planned, despite all the spiritual work I was doing on myself. The universe seemed unfair or unaware, or perhaps just not concerned at all about my particular situation or circumstance. Then, a point would come where I would have enough and would just set aside any desire to pursue spirituality and would just go on with life.

Inevitably, something within myself would draw me back over time and I would once again try to resolve the issues I could see and work on setting a better direction. I would generally get invigerated and find a goal, persue it, … and in most cases, nothing seemed to change or happen, and I would just let it go once again.

Actually, I can’t say that nothing happened since I always did see how I was gradually changing. I was bothered less by some things, attracted more to some things, less concerned about some things, and more peaceful in general. The issue, however, is that I was more fixated on the endgame and was not appreciating the small steps being realized along the way.

I can’t say that this would be the same experience you may have been having, or may have had from time to time, but I feel as though I made a turn and I’d like to share what this means so that if anyone keeps ending up frustrated like I did, maybe I can shed some light on how to get past it, or at least provide a different place from which to start.

Let’s go back a little

Why would I get frustrated? I had an idea in my mind of what it meant to connect to source or spirit and if that idea did not have the results I had hoped for or anticipated, I would experience a sense of failure, and I did not like having that experience.

What idea did I have? In general, I just expected life to improve where abundance would flow, relationships would get better and life would become more balanced and happy.

On the surface, that seems like a practical expectation of what life would be like when following a spiritual lifestyle, but it took me dozens of times through that cycle until I saw the flaw in that idea and finally stopped being frustrated with the results.

The flaw? As much as it helps to have goals or aspirations, when any spiritual goal includes or expects a physical result, this is not a spiritual goal, but simply a misguided ego goal.

So, my spiritual goals always included the hope of finding or creating a better way to make a living, a hope of improving my relationships, and things of that nature. There is nothing wrong with having these desires, but that was not a helpful place to set my focus.

Moving Forward

Where Should I Focus? Now I see where it’s best to simply focus on being, and to trust that my needs or desires are known, so I don’t have to be concerned with them at all.

How is this different? I have been aware for quite some time that we often attempt to fix the result of our problems, but ignore the source, resulting in those problems never being resolved. I now see that this is no different. By my focus being on income or relationships, I was never working on the source of the problem, but was simply trying to fix the result of the problem.

Now, I see that to resolve issues with finances or career for example, I take a moment to share my desire with spirit and acknowledge they are aware and extend gratitude they will work with me to bring about whatever is best for me and just forget about it. It’s no longer in my hands and no longer my concern. Now I can let go of that burden in my spirit and mind and focus on being peaceful, being kind, being loving, being forgiving and being a light.

Why will this work? Because there is no problem, there is only the experience. As I change my focus on what I am being, my experience will shift all on its own with divine guidance and aid, because that is the natural order of things. Whenever I tried to control this on my own in the past, it failed, because I was attempting to do a job that was not mine to do.

I have to laugh because this reminds me of an article I wrote over 10 years ago and I wonder how or why I did not follow that advice back then. The truth of the matter is that I did not see how I was not applying those principles to all things in my life, but just to a few.

Here’s an excerpt of that article:

There is nothing God requires that you do. There is no payment or sacrifice he requires or desires. There is no path to discover by racking your brain in trying to figure out what it is that God would have you do. There is no physical thing in the entire universe that you need to give God or to those who claim they follow God. There is only one thing that God desires from you and that is for you to Be Willing.

• Be Willing to see clearly.
• Be Willing to choose differently.
• Be Willing to set aside what the world has taught you.
• Be Willing to be what he would have you be.

Your willingness creates an opening in your being that allows the Holy Spirit to Do things. It allows the Holy Spirit to heal you, teach you and guide you. Learn to Be willing and you’ll truly see what God Can Do.

– Excerpt from article: In Everything You Do

So what’s my first step in being? I am feeling a distinct desire to release my attachments to certain things. For example, I was following the impeachment process closely because I wanted a specific conclusion because I felt our President did not represent the true values of our nation. Again, my focus was on a physical outcome, so my focus was flawed. With the process concluded, I could choose to express my flawed dissatisfaction and write articles accordingly, or, I can choose to be a part of the answer and be the change I had wished I had seen.

In many ways, these are not new messages because we have all heard these things time and time again, but the change is in how I am choosing to apply those messages.

The other day I felt a shift into something different, like an inner choice was made to simply not let certain things matter as much as they did, or not at all. This is similar to what I was gradually feeling happening to me from time to time in the years past, but was not appreciating it at the time as being the change that mattered.

This shift in thinking is almost outside my awareness, but I know something is there, opening a new doorway to seeing. It feels like a sense of ease that I will be able to apply to things, thereby shifting how I see them and interact with them.

I’ll write more when it anchors in a bit deeper where I can more clearly see it, but for now, unlike before, I extend gratitude for this change and for what is yet to come.

Namaste

add your quote or affirmation

I was at a spiritual gathering a few weeks back, and after the event a woman asked a question related to the very specific perspective Christians have on sexual preference and what this really means to those who are homosexual or transgender. Are they living in perpetual sin? Are they sentenced to eternal damnation? These are heavy questions that can cut to the core of a persons ability to be at peace within themselves, so I wanted to take some time to express how I believe God or ‘Source’ sees these practices and the individuals involved.

To make sure we are taking in the bigger picture, let’s first look at the sources or reasons of why sexual preference has been a tainted or taboo subject for thousands of years as illustrated through the Bible, the predominant reference used for Christianity.

There are many places in the Bible where it clearly defines boundaries between male and female sexual activities and also indicates the repercussions of not adhering to those guidelines. I am going to include them in detail below so that you clearly understand the source for the beliefs a Christian or any religious individual may embrace as unchangeable and a valid reason for gods punishment.

All scriptures below are from the King James Version (KJV) since it is still the base version used by many Christian beliefs.

“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.“

– Genesis 2:24 , repeated in Mark 10:6-8 and Matthew 19:4-6 KJV

Genesis 19 – The whole story of Sodom and Gomorrah – “For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord; and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it.“

– Genesis 19:13 KJV

“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”

– Leviticus 20:13 KJV

“And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; 29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”

– Romans 1:27-32 KJV

“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”

– 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 KJV

“Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, 10 For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;”

– 1 Timothy 1:9-10 KJV

Although the actual words “homosexual“, “lesbian” or “transgender” do not appear in these passages, the references to our modern vocabulary can be clearly seen where the verses focus on “natural use“, “men on men“, “effeminate” and similar references.

OK, from a Biblical perspective, there seems to be some clear implications that sexual behavior between men and sexual behavior between women is unclean, forbidden and therefore punishable. Is this really valid? Do we blindly embrace it or can it be questioned? Do we ignorantly look away from it or confront it? Do we fear it and hide? Do we get angry about it and fight our accusers? Let’s get all the other facts into place first.

Since many of the major implications come from the Old Testament, it could be argued that they should not count since there are so many other references within the Old Testament that make many other things equally forbidden, such as:

“For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him. 10 And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”

– Leviticus 20:9-10 KJV

According to this, anyone who curses at their parents or cheats on their spouse would come under the same heavy foot of doom and gloom the church has singularly focused on sexual preference. To get past this, the Christian belief is that the New Testament releases you from the laws of the Old Testament, unless, the same or similar law is indicated in the New Testament as well.

There seems to be some connection there since the New Testament, as indicated in the versus above, does indicate similar viewpoints with respect to same sex relationships. However, the New Testament also says this:

“He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.“

– Matthew 19:8-9

So, if you cheat on your spouse, this is still adultery, which according to Leviticus 20:10 “…the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death“. So the question then is this, why isn’t there the same cry of outrage over adultery as there is against same sex relationships? I can’t say for sure, but I think it has to do with the reality that there are just too many people that are directly or indirectly guilty of adultery, and very often, those in the highest places.

So, since adultery is a somewhat common activity in society, the church justifies it to some degree within their doctrine. It is still generally frowned upon, but is not something that is set in the forefront as a wicked and detestable act before God, worthy of death and torment, even though the Bible clearly shows it still is.

OK, but why this big push against sexual preferences? Why should it matter to Christians what I do with my life if it has nothing at all to do with them? On one end, some feel they are on a mission from God to eliminate evil from the world, while some others are simply upset that they have rules to follow that others do not. Either way, if a Christian or any person sees themselves as superior, selected, chosen, etc, and you are not, this places their ego in a place where they feel they have the right to dictate to others how things should be and point out who is being bad and what should or should not be allowed.

Of course, this can only happen if they completely ignore the scripture:

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which spitefully use you, and persecute you;

– Matthew 5:44

OK, enough of that. Having provided the Christian perspective of same sex relationships, and having shown where this choice is simply a bias they have chosen to make pivotal, let’s step back and look at the broader picture of how God truly sees anyone in a same sex relationship.

To get started, I do believe some of the Bible was written by inspired people, but I don’t believe that everything they wrote was the actual verbatim word from God. Most of it is a result of the individuals mind warping the channeled information into what they believed was true or necessary, or in many cases, outright writing of their own to emphasize a personal belief of what they believed an angry and unforgiving god would require of his subjects.

I have a previous article, ‘Contradictions of Spirit‘, that shows so many of the contrasts between the spirit of what the god in the Bible dictates we do and how we behave and spirit in which he then does and behaves, but I’m not looking to repeat that all here. However, the base of the article is this: There are undeniable truths in the Bible that show our God as a god who loves unconditionally. So when you encounter anything that indicates otherwise, in the Bible or any other place, just set it aside.

The definition of unconditional love is simply what it says. There are no conditions, no requirements, no qualifications, no errors, no judgments, no threats, no pre-qualifications, no magic words to say, no specific thing to believe, no specific person to believe in, no belief or knowledge that God even exists is necessary.

The only condition to qualify for God’s unconditional love is to have been created by him because he unconditionally loves everything he creates. The reason for this is that God creates through extending his thoughts into whatever it is he would like to experience. One extension of his thoughts became us. We are a part of God because we are a thought in his mind, and this manifests itself through us to be creators as well, being created in the image of the creator.

Being a thought within the mind of God, he cannot judge us without judging himself. He cannot condemn us without condemning himself. He cannot punish us without punishing himself. He cannot destroy us without destroying himself. Whatever applies to our creator must also apply to us and it simply has to be this way since we are all truly one. Jesus teaches :

Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:

– Luke 6:37

Read the scripture above again and know that it is not referencing a retribution from God, but only from yourself if you do not forgive, or if you condemn or if you judge. God knows this as well and this is a universal law that applies to all things.

The true God is not petty or demanding since he does not see things the way we do. He does not fear what we do as the god written into the Old Testament did. He is not threatened by our actions as the god in the Bible is. With a few exceptions, he is not the god portrayed in the Bible.

Consider this … Jesus had a much clearer perception of God than anyone at the time he was here. He saw God as the unconditionally forgiving God he was. When the religious leaders of his day rose up to kill him, it wasn’t because they had a few differences in doctrine. No, it ran far deeper than depicted in the Bible. The reason for their swift resolve to eliminate his influence was because he revealed that they were worshiping a false god, Yahweh, the god of war, not the true unconditionally loving God.

The god of war gave great opportunity for religious leaders to control through fear, whereas the unconditionally loving God works with each person individually along their journey to rediscover him and rejoin the union they had at the original point of creation.

This same influence of the god of war warped the teachings of Jesus as depicted in the Bible by undoing the idea of unconditional love. For example, here is what Jesus probably really said when asked about forgiveness:

“Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? 22 Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.“

– Matthew 18: 21-22

Basically Jesus is saying you should simply be forgiving. Jesus is teaching here about the spirit of his God and creator and is reflected in the words in which forgiveness should simply exist as a natural reaction, without the person even requesting it, because that is how the true God is.

However, that teaching would undermine the spirit of a controlling god if it weren’t followed shortly thereafter by something that undoes the spirit of forgiveness that Jesus just taught as illustrated here:

“Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? 34 And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. 35 So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses. “

– Matthew 18:33-35

So, after having indicated you should stay in a perpetual state of forgiveness, it says that unless you do this, god will not forgive you and will go even further and inflict torment on you. So it is saying you must forgive unconditionally, but that god himself will not unless you meet his condition. This is a direct contradiction to the spirit of Jesus’s true teachings and clear evidence of the interference that the entity, Yahweh god of war, still had on those who put together the New Testament and initiated Christianity. This same entity and his influence is still there to this day.

The good news is that we are moving into a new age of enlightenment and discovery. You could say this is an actual second coming of Christ as we witness the restoration of the true teachings of Jesus, other ascended masters, and of our unconditionally loving Creator. This second coming is not the fabrication of any physical kingdom, but an awakening of spirit and the acceptance of love and forgiveness for all, because this is the true nature of our creator, and therefore, it is the true nature of his creations … the true nature of us.

So pulling this all back around with respect to how God views the sexual preferences of his creations … it doesn’t matter to him in any way, shape or form what you do. There is no judgement from him, only from yourself, so let go of any guilt you are carrying that was planted there by ages old controlling scripture, stories, society, etc., and see that it was never the true expression of God, so just let it go.

Whether society decides to embrace a persons right to choose or not, your right is already given to you by your creator to be the person you desire to be. This applies to us all because regardless of your sexual preference, there are so many unnecessary taboos associated with sex in general that we are all messed up to some degree. It’s time to purge this, so sit back for a moment, take in a deep breath as you imagine yourself breathing in the life force of your creator. This awareness of life force will energize your being and clear your spirit and mind of what is not being helpful. Knowing that, exhale all the baggage, unhelpful ideas and the limitations you accepted over time, and just let them go.

Namaste

“Love will find a way…”

– Healing Touch Shoppe

“God is a God of unconditional love, and He does not teach through fear or use fear in any way.”

– Being Willing

“I am here only to be truly helpful”

– Healing Touch Shoppe on Etsy

add your quote or affirmation

It is still hard to fathom how so many people in our country have so embraced their right to be openly hateful to those who are defined as different or unwelcome by our president.

This is nothing new, but a recent event has made it so clear that those who support our president of hate will immediately hate whoever he targets and send hate to them as well.

Case in point, our president recently attacked Greta Thunberg. Many people may or may not have had any specific love/hate for this young girl prior to this presidential attack, but I just saw a facebook ad that attacks this young woman by implying her endorsement as Person of the Year by Time Magazine directly implicates her as condoning the destruction of trees for the magazine to be published.

Getting past the fact that our president would have loved to have received this award himself, this attack against Greta to indicate she does not really care about the environment is an attempt to provide justification to be openly hateful against her, just because our president did this first. This ad so clearly demonstrates what the leader of the greatest nation in the world fosters in those that follow him … the justification, spreading and embracing of hate and division.

In contrast, let’s take a look at those who openly love this girl. Due to copyright reasons, I can’t include this image here, but simply click here to view this image in a new window. This picture includes other world leaders and the Pope. Unlike our president, these individuals are not fearful of the world and do not embrace or spread hate, instead, these individuals embrace and spread their love of the people of the world.

For those who are blindly following our president, I simply suggest you take a moment and think about this by yourself. Sit quietly for a moment and set aside everything ever handed to you by our president and see if this is truly at the heart of who you are. Would you openly express your hateful feelings against Greta if our president had not planted the seed in the first place?

Ask yourself why you hate our immigrants (see this article). Ask yourself why you hate Greta. Ask yourself why it’s now normal to call people names because you don’t like them. Ask yourself if it is fine that our president be a bully, or doesn’t the First Ladies ‘Be Best’ initiative apply to him?

By promoting values such as healthy living, encouragement, kindness, and respect, parents, teachers, and other adults can help prepare children for their futures. With those values as a solid foundation, children will be able to better deal with the evils of the opioid crisis and avoid negative social media interaction.

The first pillar of the Be Best initiative

Ask yourself why you blindly accept the twisted truths and outright lies our president distributes on a daily basis. There are fact checkers that are neither Democrat nor Republican that you can use to see what is based upon the truth vs a lie. Are you open to see things from a clearer perception or is your presidentially given right to be openly hateful more important to you?

The core of hate is fear. The only reason anyone hates anyone or anything is because of an inner fear a person is not willing to look at and resolve. It appears easier to deflect this fear onto others as hate because this distracts a person from the need to look within to find the core issue for this or any problem.

It is not my place to say that those who hate should stop being hateful, but I would like to offer this … hate has never lead to anything that is truly helpful. Hate only breeds more hate, division and war. Alternatively, love always leads to something that is helpful. Love breeds more love, understanding, union , acceptance and true healing of a persons spirit and soul.

All I am saying … is give love a chance. It’s all you need. You can make a choice to extend joy to the world this Christmas season, and throughout the whole year … or not. It all depends upon who you truly feel you are, or who you would like to be.

Namaste

So that nothing is hidden on my end, I did not vote for Donald Trump, but since he became President, I opened my heart to accept him. I don’t agree with him or like what he is doing, but I wholly believe you should keep the President in your prayers, meditations and your thoughts.

We all have issues with how we interact with people and life in general, and Donald Trump is not immune to this. Quite the contrary, he appears to excel at ruffling the feathers of the population and has many agendas that are divisively viewed upon as well.

The bottom line, whether you agree with him or not, extending hate or resentment to him or fellow Republicans and Democrats, will never solve anything. Hate never solves anything, it just perpetuates and feeds on itself to create more hate. It’s not helpful at all and will never lead to a circumstance where anyone benefits.

Right now, the best thing any of us could do for our President is to quiet our minds and extend to him, love, peace and compassion. Extending thoughts like this will benefit him and all of us. Extending unhelpful thoughts will only make his unhelpful characteristics more concrete and this helps nobody.

A theme throughout this whole article will be that blame never resolves Anything. A friend of mine (Doug) once told me that whenever you point a finger at anyone, three of them are pointing back at you, meaning we are often just upset at ourselves, but attempting to project this onto somebody else as blame.

With the shooting in mind, I would like to look at how gun control and the NRA has been made a focus. I am more Democrat than Republican with respect to guns and I don’t see the need for anyone to have assault rifles that can cause quick and massive destruction. That being said, it is just a distraction if you blame guns or the NRA for the shootings that are occurring in this country.

The source of the problems is not gun control, although I do believe better gun control will increase our overall safety by making it harder for some people to access guns. The source of the problem is the racist based hate and blame associated with immigrants and Hispanics overall, a circumstance our President has embraced, endorsed and continues to perpetuate.

The Presidents obvious advantage with so many people is an underlying seed of racism that still exists within this country. I had no idea how deep and wide this ran until Donald Trump came into power.

This President gave license to be cruel to people you do not like, and so the masses who would have normally hid this hatred, felt comfortable coming out of their closets to also proclaim their hatred as well. You don’t have to call it racism, but you can’t get past that it is hate.

What astonishes me is how zealous or right-wing Christians also embrace our Presidents behavior where almost nothing he represents is in any way Christ Like. Actually, in most cases, our President is doing things that are the total opposite of what Jesus would do, and yet many Christians defend him. Do they love their newly created right to be openly hateful while saying they really are not? (note, this only refers to the “Christians” who openly express their anger about “illegal” immigrants)

I know that many of you will say you don’t care what color somebody is, you just want all the illegals to leave, but you are lying to yourselves on so many levels, and if you sit quiet with yourselves for a moment you would see that. A place to start is to stop referring to all immigrants as “illegals”. Most are here legally, but it is necessary for people tell lies to others and to lie to themselves about it so that their right to hate remains validated.

According to The Department of Homeland Security:

In summary, DHS estimates that 12.0 million illegal aliens were living in the United States in January 2015

See Full DHS Report

In summary, an estimated 13.2 million Lawful Permanent Residents lived in the United States on January 1, 2015, 9.0 million of whom were eligible to naturalize.

See Full DHS Report

About 2.0 million non-immigrant workers, students, exchange visitors, and diplomats and other representatives resided in the United States in 2015

See Full DHS Report

The statistics show over 15 million residents here legally, and 12 million illegally. It would appear that almost half of our Hispanic immigrants are here illegally until you look at this next two pieces of data:

In 2017, non-immigrants here legally to work or tour through legal visas totaled 77,643,247. Of that amount 45.6%, or 35,530,000 came from North America (Mexico and Canada).

See Full DHS Report

Then finally, we want to add in Hispanics that are full citizens and are not counted as immigrants at this time.

2018 census shows an overall population of the United States as 327,167,434 . Of this 18.3% or 59,871,640 is Latino/Hispanic.

United States Census Bureau

The bottom line is that most of the individuals you believe are here illegally are natural citizens or have received the right to work here legally with I-94 and I-94W Visas. If you combine the 59.8 million natural citizens, 13.2 million legal immigrants, the 2 million exchange residents and the 35.5 million visas, there are approx 110.5 million Hispanics here legally and approx 12 million who are not, for a total of 122 million. That would indicate that at most, 1 in 10 or only 10% are likely to be illegal.

This is no invasion

With this new data in hand, what would you recommend anyone and everyone to do to help heal the situation in our country? Honesty from our news providers and President would be a good start.

Alternatively, if you refuse to look at government publicized true facts, you could instead choose to riot, extend more hatred, bash the Democrats, build a wall and embrace news stories that are fabricated entertainment and not true at all. But none of this will heal the circumstance.

Many also embrace the idea of nationalism, which is defined as:

“exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups.”

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

By it’s definition, if we pursued nationalism, we would exclude all others from our country and only provide for our own needs and desires. This nation had been defined as the “melting pot” because of how uniquely broad our acceptance of others had been, and it is why we became the most powerful country in the world. Diversity is not something to fear. Our own history proves that this is why we are as strong as we are, not the other way around.

If we really want to heal our country, we need to let go of the hate and division. There should be nobody or no race that is hated. This is the United States of America where every single one of us (excluding native Americans), are immigrants or descendants of immigrants. Unlike many of the immigrants that legally enter this country today, we were all illegal immigrants hundreds of years ago .

Today, the Mexican’s, Dominican’s, Chilean’s, Guatemalan’s and more, are not an “invasion” as the President has stated. In most cases they are either fleeing a persecuted or endangered circumstance, or are just people looking for work and a better life for their families. They are people, just like you and me, and we need to find a solution that works for us all. Barring them is not an answer. Hating them is not an answer. Blaming them is not an answer. Fabricating lies about them is not an answer.

I have an answer. Let go of your hate. Let go of your fear of what you think they represent. Most of it is not true, but just fearful thoughts and ideas that have been embedded into your minds over and over again, but that does not make them true. It just makes them unhelpful lies.

Ask yourself why you don’t want the immigrants here and let’s take a look at the real source of the problem. If you truly want an answer, take a moment to be open to find one.

Excuse #1 – They are taking our jobs

Many of the jobs being taken by immigrants are farm related jobs that many Americans do not want to do in the first place. The immigrants are actually a blessing in disguise in that respect because their lower wages help keep food prices down. Bottom line, you are able to eat more and are healthier because of immigrant workers.

With respect to immigrants taking construction and factory jobs, the hatred for them is partially based upon a fearful knowing deep within some people that they did so little with their lives in this land of opportunity. The fact that a third world country immigrant that can’t even speak English can threaten their job is very unsettling to them. What have they done with their life that they can be so easily threatened by an illiterate person with little to no skills?

Their dissatisfaction and anger isn’t with the immigrant, but with themselves, so they either accept this and find a way to increase their skills and education, or do nothing and project the blame onto the immigrant. If they view this as an attack, they will project hate and blame on the immigrants, but if they use this as motivation to improve themselves, they could choose to expand their ability to do higher grade work that a third world immigrant can’t compete with.

Consider typewriters and tube TV’s. Over time, computers became popular and replaced the typewriters and tube TV’s usefulness with other technology. Manufacturers of typewriters and tube TV’s could choose to hate the computer industry and lay blame at their feet for this change. They could refuse to change and demand it go back like it was, but this will never happen and they would just go out of business, because that is what hate offers … if offers nothing but loss because it sucks energy from everything and gives nothing back, to anyone on either side.

Alternatively, they could embrace the change, choose to evolve and see there is something different they could do, and eventually find themselves doing better than they did before … thanks to the demise of the typewriter and tube TV.

Likewise, a person who feels their job is threatened by an immigrant could choose to evolve and go in a new direction where they find they are working smarter, not harder, and doing better than before … thanks to the immigrants who took over the labor intensive jobs.

Excuse #2 – They are costing us money with free benefits

The welfare system in this country is broke, but that has nothing to do with the immigrants. I don’t fully understand how our system got to where it is today, but anyone, immigrant or not, that either does not have work, can’t work or does not want to work, can often receive benefits that the rest of us pay for.

According to statistics provided through the Bureau of Labor and the KFF, almost 1 Trillion dollars was spent on Welfare in the United States in 2018. Of this 76% is consumed by the combination of Medicaid(49%) and Family and Children Assistance(27%), and is distributed like this:

• White: 44.5%
• Black: 21%
• Hispanic: 30%

According to the 2018 Census our population by race percent is roughly:

• White: 68%
• Black: 13%
• Hispanic: 19%

The numbers do show a higher percentage of Hispanics using aid at this time as compared to Whites (when considering population levels), but practically equal to Blacks, although you should consider that most Hispanics had much less opportunity for formal education than did Whites who were raised with significantly higher education standards and opportunities, so a higher percentage of Hispanics would be inclined to be eligible for assistance.

If you want to rant, you could instead see that Whites are responsible for almost half of the welfare costs, and they are the ones who had the greatest capacity to take advantage of all the opportunities this country has to offer, so put your rant there.

The Answer

I’ve already said it … let go of the hate by looking inside to find the source for your hatred and work on that. In most cases people will find that their true source of anger has to do with things they did to put themselves in the situation they are in, but if not, then simply accept that you are racist and stop pretending you are not.

If you do realize you are racist, I would suggest you don’t embrace it because the hate it creates does more harm to you than to the immigrants you hate. Your blood pressure rises, your digestion system gets compromised, your sleeping patterns become affected, your moods are unstable, relationships become strained, and your health overall falls, and you will likely die earlier than normal … because of your hate. Just let it go because it doesn’t help, has never helped, and will never help.

How do you give up the hate? Whether you realize it or not, we are all naturally inclined to be loving and caring. You are going out of your way to use your energy as hatred. That’s why it eventually destroys you because it only takes and gives nothing back. Being loving does not take energy, it absorbs unlimited universal energy and extends it outwards to all. It’s your natural state of being, and I can prove it.

To let go of your hate you must embrace something else. If you think or know you can’t feel love for our immigrants, you are mistaken. You can. Imagine you are walking along a path in the woods that follows a river and you hear somebody call out. You go down the bank to the river and see a person along the edge of the river frantically holding onto a log. It’s a Hispanic man. What do you do? Your first natural response is to help because you do not naturally have an issue with race. Hate is a forced layer you placed on top of your capacity to love and be caring. And so you wade in and grab the mans hand and help him ashore, because love is at the heart of who you really are.

Being loving doesn’t mean you are going to have to go around hugging everyone and smiling all the time (although you could), but being loving can simply mean you are a little more willing to see people and things for who they really are, and not what the hate of somebody else has defined for you.

To finish off, let’s get back to our President. Set aside any thoughts, either good or bad about President Trump and accept that nobody may really know what is best to happen in this country. Set aside what you think is required or necessary and be willing to accept that a higher power sees a much bigger picture and would have a better idea of the best path to take.

I’m going to suggest you join me in a quick meditation about our President and country overall. Since it is performed with eyes closed, perhaps read the next paragraph a time or two before entering the meditation.

Close your eyes and take a deep breath, hold it for a second or two and then exhale. Take another deep breath, hold it for a few seconds and then exhale. Imagine a white light at the center of who you are. This light is you. This light is love. Picture your President and picture your country and send this white light out to them. Fill everything with this white light and simply say, “Father/Creator/Spirit, I am open for whatever is best for myself, my President and my country.” Just keep extending your light for a few moments to allow yourself time to truly mean what you are saying, and when you are finished simply say, “Thank-you, and so it is“.

Namaste

In addition to just the writing aspect, I will provide insight on many of the background issues you must resolve such as creating a nice book cover, obtaining royalty-free images, working on images, publishing costs and book promotion and advertising.

Since there is so much information to cover, I am going to break this into several posts so that any particular post is not too large. As I add them, I will link them together, so if a part is missing, just bookmark this and come back in a week to see the next part, or Like Us on Facebook to be automatically informed of any new posts.

#1 – You Don’t Need A Publisher

When I wrote my first book in 2008, I used a publisher to help with performing grammar checks, creating a glossary, creating the cover, and to perform the actual publishing and distribution of the book. The end result is that it cost me nearly $5000, and I’m pretty sure I never got that back. I look at that as being my “publishing education fee“, but unless you are writing a big novel or already have reason to work with a large publisher, that route is no longer a necessary one.

For most applications, Amazon Self-Publishing is the only route you need to take when choosing to write a book. You will save thousands of dollars and will be able to update the book more easily as time passes in the event you find something that was wrong, or just wanted to perform an update.

You can publish Kindle e-books and paperback books.

For paperback books, Amazon utilizes print-on-demand which means they don’t stock any or many of your books, but simply print them as they are ordered.

As an author, you can easily sell your books through Amazon at no additional cost to you (other than a commission when a sale occurs) or you can purchase your books in volume by just paying printing costs and shipping if you would like to sell them directly from your own website, store, or stores in your area.

With respect to e-books. Amazon’s Kindle ebook format works very well when the book only consists of text, but it struggles to provide a nice even flow when images are used within any book. I am not suggesting you don’t create a Kindle ebook version if your book uses images, but just be aware that extra time will be needed to make sure things end up as tidy as possible.

If your e-book is image heavy and the layout and placement of the images matter within the book (which they usually do), you can also sell this as an e-book, but in a PDF format that saves all your settings and layouts just as you created them. To sell these from your website, you just need to have a PayPal account and set up with a shopping cart system that helps to securely deliver electronic content. For direct e-book sales, I use a service called “Payhip” and it took less than a half hour to sign up and set up the first book for sale. Their base service is totally free, as they only take a 5% commission when a sale occurs.

If you do choose to distribute your ebook as well and also have it listed on Amazon, you cannot opt to use their KDP Select option since this requires that you sell your e-book exclusively through them. You can opt in or out of the service by just clicking a checkbox, but once opted in, you have to wait 90 days before being allowed to opt out.

#2 – The Basics

For the best writing experience, you will want to write your book using MS Word, and make sure grammar checking is activated. With spell checking and grammar checking being performed for you, even somebody who struggles with English grammar can do very well.

Still, if you are working with an older version of Word, or a different program altogether that does not include a grammar check, you can simply use an interface program called Grammarly to get you by. If you prefer something with examples, I could recommend a book I used called “The Only Grammar Book You’ll Ever Need“, which kind of sums things up in its name. Using either option, you should find all the insight you need to properly format your sentences and paragraphs.

It has always helped me to first create an initial set of chapter titles or ideas for the book or manual I was about to write. If you are performing very creative writing such as a romance or sci-fi story, maybe this won’t apply as much since your story will generally evolve on its own through time. But still, always write down the ideas for what your book should cover, and then just keep adding more sections as the thoughts surface.

You will also want to decide what size your book will be, such as the most common size of 6 x 9. Many book sizes exist, such as:

• 5 x 8
• 6 x 9
• 7 x 10
• 8 x 10
• 8.5 x 11

The reason you need to select a size is so that you will directly see how your pages will look when published. If you are including images or text boxes of emphasized text, it is even more critical that you work with the page at the exact size you will be publishing. In addition, any table of contents would be pointless if you laid out the book in Word at 8 1/2 x 11 and then published the book as a 6 x 9 because all the page numbers would be different as the text adjusted to the new layout. Overall, when taken one step at a time, this is not that complicated, plus Amazon provides a very detailed manuscript setup section for both paperback and e-book layouts.

Once you decide on the size of the book, adjust your margins accordingly, generally with .5 in all directions, then add a header and footer if you like. I always use a header and footer to include the author name on the top of the left page, the book title on the top of the right page, and page numbers on the bottom. You can do as you like, but I believe this provides a nice professional look.

#3 – Images

Depending upon the publication you are designing, images may be a vital part of illustrating your message or story. Since Amazon publishing provides the choice of including color or grayscale images in any publication, it’s helpful to consider if this is an option you want to or need to use. Let’s take a look at what is involved to make this process as clear, practical and easy as possible.

Section I – Be Aware of Copyrights

YOU CANNOT USE UNAUTHORIZED IMAGES

I made that sentence loud and clear because the costs associated with being sued for using an unauthorized image will surpass any profits you could expect to make. Fees and fines start in the thousands and can skyrocket from there. Just don’t do it. You want to make sure you create, obtain or buy images that are approved for commercial use.

Before we talk about about where to get these images, it’s best to make it clear about where to NOT get the images that will be used for commercial purposes in your book, on your website or in any software program or on any product.

• DO NOT use Google images
• DO NOT use off-brand image collections (their sources may be questionable)
• DO NOT use an image given to you by somebody else unless you are 100% sure they created it or have all-inclusive rights to it.

So where do you get your images then? There are a few simple guidelines I use with respect to finding images for websites or books and I suggest you use one or more of these three options:

Take Your Own Pictures – You can’t go wrong when the image you want to use is already owned by you. If you struggle with how to best approach taking a specific picture, look at other existing pictures of that item or similar items and let that inspire you when taking pictures of your own.

In most cases, you can very likely use the camera in your phone, but if you truly desire to have a quality image, and if you expect to be taking more than just a couple pictures, you should consider purchasing a high quality camera and lighting system. For my own purposes, I use a Canon Rebel EOS Rebel XT for my still shots, along with a Neewer LED Ring light to provide nice even lighting.

Use Public Domain or Creative Commons Images – There are tens of thousands of available public domain images or Creative Commons images. Granted, many are not of the highest quality, but many also are, so you have to weed through until you find something that will work for you. If you plan to use the images commercially, meaning you wish to make a profit with your book, website or publication, one important thing to remember is to perform your searches with the “commercial purposes” box checked when searching through Creative Commons.

Also, make sure you provide the proper author attribution for the images you use, and/or modify. Click this link for a detailed explanation of how to best provide Creative Commons Author Attribution.

Purchase High Quality Images – You will be surprised at how affordable high quality images have become, including royalty-free commercial use images. Still, you will always want to read their “Terms of Use” contracts to make sure that your commercial use is approved. For example, I use iClipart almost exclusively as the source for my high-end images for articles and books, but depending upon the license you purchase, the images might not be approved for as wide of a distribution as you would like or under the conditions you have, so always take a moment to make sure you are authorized to use the image as desired.

Actually, while writing my most recent book, Breaking Through When Feeling Stuck, I found that I could only use the images from iClipart in a paperback version of the book, but not in an e-book version unless I either upgraded my license or opted to purchase those specific images directly.

I opted to use Creative Commons CC0 1.0 and CC by 2.0 images for all interior images and paid directly for the image that I used on the cover. Overall, I kept costs down, but also obtained the variety and quality of images I desired.

Section II – Image Quality and Editing

Although I was able to find every image I wanted to use in my book, I had to make many changes so that they were better suited for the exact application and placement within the book. Let’s take a look at a few things that you will have to keep in mind when using images in your book.

300 DPI Images

Book publishers, such as Amazon, require that any image you choose to use in your book or on your cover, be at least 300 DPI in size. Because these images will be printed, their quality has to be higher than what is simply viewed on a screen, which generally uses images between 72 and 100 DPI .

To improve the image DPI setting, you need to use photo editing software. Almost all my editing is performed via Adobe Photoshop , but any photo editing program you desire will generally do fine as long as it has a resize function for changing the DPI.

Image Quality

Once your image is set to 300 DPI, you can look to see if there is any additional work needed to improve the pictures overall quality, such as adjusting the color or it brightness, adding shadows or special effects, etc.

While performing my own adjustments, I had one burning question for Amazon publishing that I could not find a direct answer for, so I will provide that answer here. Any color image used in a non-color book will be automatically transformed into a grayscale image. It is not turned into black and white, but into grayscale. This helps keep the picture quality in place, without having to modify the image into grayscale yourself.

Why not just save it in grayscale in the first place? Because if you were to want an e-book version of your book as well, the color images are so much nicer to see, so you just stick with color images and everything just works out well for both the paperback and e-book version of your book.

Image Type

In MS Word, when using clipart images in your book, you will want to use .PNG format for a transparent background and set them in place with Text Wrapping settings of Tight, then select See more… , and under its Text Wrapping section, choose either the Left Only or Right Only settings, depending upon which side of the page the image will favor, and make sure all Distance from image settings are at least .1 inches.

When using photographs, you can use either a .PNG or .JPG image type, but just be sure to maintain a good degree of image quality when compressing the images at the time of saving. As with the clipart images, you can use the image settings in MS Word to add space around an image to make sure the text and image are not too close together.

Well that's it for now. I will be adding the next
section soon, so be sure to look in on us from time
to time, or Like Us on Facebook to be automatically
informed of any new posts.

Peace and Blessings to all

First, let’s look at the concept of a ritual and why they were important. Any ritual places you in a mode where your focus is captured while also creating a circumstance to help you believe a certain result may happen. They exist solely to help us get past the perception that we cannot do something on our own.

For example, many ancient rituals included the concept of a blood sacrifice in order to be granted forgiveness or favor in their god’s eyes. Likewise, many modern beliefs still have a system of orderly tasks that must be performed in order to gain Gods’ favor or attention.

For any type of ritual, no matter how old or new, the act of performing specific tasks, in a specific order while saying specific things, leads to qualify the act as a something worthy of God’s attention, and then the specific request could then be granted by God.

So why am I now saying this is no longer necessary? I am not saying that. I am saying it was never necessary, but we didn’t believe enough in our true connection with our creator, so it was an inevitable path we had to take that would eventually lead us to understand it was never necessary.

About four years ago while attending a Reiki class, this confusion between the perceived need of ritual and the true power of intention became clear to me.

During the class, two things I was taught stood out to me to be in direct conflict with each other and it surprised me that nobody else was seeing this. The concept and associated ritual were:

• Concept: When performing Reiki, learn to let go and release your idea of what needs to be healed. Spirit knows what needs attention or healing, and it will direct the energy where it is most useful. Reiki practitioners are a conduit for the energy, not the creators or directors of it.
• Ritual: While performing Reiki, there is a system of hand placements where you spend approx 3 minutes at each location being a conduit of energy for that location. You would place your hands, above the head, then behind the head, along side the head, over the third eye chakra, over the throat chakra, over the heart chakra, over the naval chakra, over the sacral chakra, over the root chakra, over the knees and legs and finish over the feet.
• Ritual: There are symbols you can use overall or at each location to provide deeper healing. These are Japanese writing symbols created by Mikao Usui, the founder of Reiki. To use these symbols, you must memorize them and then write or draw them in the air at the time of use. Some symbols are:

• Cho Ku Ray (bring the power of the universe here)
• Sei Hei Ki (Emotional healing and calming)
• Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen (The higher self in me connects with the higher self in you)

Maybe it’s obvious to you as well, but I know my first thought was that if spirit knows what needs to be healed, why is it necessary to go through this process of placing attention at all these specific points around the body?

Likewise, having to memorize and re-write the the various symbols in order for them to work also seemed to be unnecessary since spirit is not physical, so there should be no required physical gestures in order to communicate a thought.

At first I questioned whether I was just being lazy or maybe I just wasn’t serious enough to see the necessity of all the required steps to perform a successful Reiki session on myself or somebody else, so I actually set aside the idea for several years.

Recently I came to a knowing that the only thing that matters is your intention, so again, using Reiki as my example, you would approach your healing or the healing of another with whatever approach is comfortable for you.

You could visualize that experience in any way you desire, provided your intentions are true that you are a conduit for healing and that healing energy will simply go where most helpful. You could then perform the entire session with your hand placed only on the persons head, or from any distance with them not being there at all. It doesn’t matter.

There is no wrong way to extend healing. The results may vary depending upon what you believe or allow, but if you keep yourself open for spirit to direct and guide you, you will be given ideas of what allows better energy flow and then you simply let go of ideas that are not as helpful as you originally thought.

NOBODY here has coined the end-all, be-all system for healing, because if they did, I think they would immediately transcend, so while you pursue being a healer or just including healing in your meditations and prayers, accept the thought that spirit welcomes your attempts, no matter what the form, ritual or not. I’m just saying that ritual isn’t necessary, so don’t let it hang you up. Allow yourself to expand into what feels right for you, and you will be a wonderful conduit for healing.

Namaste

On very many occasions, I ran across an individual that really provided helpful advice, insights and healing and although I usually do take a moment to extend thanks to them at the time, I wanted to do something a little more concrete and also share this with you in the event they have answers for you as well.

Below are links to those websites and videos that I found helpful. This does not include everyone who has helped me, but simply those who I have reached out to recently. I think I will update this list regularly so you might want to bookmark this page and check in on it from time to time.

(note: these are in no specific order, they just are.)

• The Tarot Lady
• Abbey Normal’s Wisdom Quest + (YouTube Channel)
• Natural Healer + (YouTube Channel)
• Anna Sayce
• Soul Mentoring + (YouTube Channel)
• Next + (YouTube Channel)

There are also a few sites that deserve honorable mention since they do aid in my growth and the overall growth of this web site. In no specific order, they are:

Self Improvement from SelfGrowth – SelfGrowth.com is the most complete guide to information about Self Improvement on the Internet. 

Tree of Life Shoppe – Dedicated to providing quality metaphysical and holistic goodies . has an impressive online presence, plus a brick and mortar shoppe located in Ringtown, PA. 

Healing Touch Shoppe on Etsy – The Healing Touch Shoppe is an extension of Deep Healing Light which is a powerful healing modality. Our products are created to provide true pathways to healing and are infused with spirit to ensure you are helped and guided each step of the way.

Namaste