METTA CENTER

(This article was first published in November 2007 Metta Center email newsletter.) In Taoism and Chinese Energy medicine, there is an exercise called "Inner Smile", where you smile at your inner organs. This exercise has a very practical purpose: self-acceptance and appreciation. This simple and gentle practice is very effective in balancing your meridian system and is very nourishing to your spirit. Here is a slightly different version of this exercise: Sit or lie comfortably. Alternatively, you can even do this exercise when you are walking or in the shower. Begin by taking several deep breaths, exhaling slowly. Allow yourself to recall the time someone extend a kindness to you and you can feel a sense of appreciation gently arising from within your heart-center. Noticing this feeling of appreciation, you bring your attention and extend this feeling to various parts of your body. Starting from the top of your head, bring your attention and appreciation to...

Giving positive energy to others creates spiritual well-being. Imagine the light and love of the universe flowing into everyone you interact with today, bringing them peace and well-being. Give them your full attention and appreciation. Please remember to take some time to also give yourself your full attention, appreciation and love as well.

(This post was first published as an article in April 2008 Metta Center email newsletter.) I was outside enjoying myself, reading a book that has captivated my heart and soul. The weather was beautiful, the garden was fragrant, my family was with me playing outside. All is well. I felt peaceful and complete. Despite that slice-of-heaven moment, however, I noticed some quiet stirrings of unease and restlessness in my chest. I stopped my reading, and check inward with myself. I brought my attention to the sensations I felt on my chest, and gently waited for an inner response. "I feel lost. I don't know what to do. I have no purpose," came the answer from within me. I was aware of a feeling of confusion that accompanied the restless energy. This answer came as a surprise to me because I was very clear about what my purpose was on that day. My purpose was to be in love with life, and I was doing it so well, I thought. Because of my self-healing practice in working wit...

Recently, I came across this limiting belief that is fascinating to me. It's about being exposed. But not about hiding some inside flaw from being found out by others. It is about keeping the information that we are loved from being exposed even to ourselves. The belief I came across was along the line of "if we even try to remember we are loved, we are not safe." It blew my mind when I finally understood the full grasp of this thought pattern! Ever felt like a fake? Well, duh, it made sense to me how we could feel that way especially when we don't allow ourselves to remember, let alone, know and embody our own deepest truths. Incidentally, I was realizing that remembering something is a kind of like exposing what was once hidden in our mind, isn't it? What was buried, hidden or lost in the deep folds of our psyche is now in clear view again. So, how does this belief manifest as a limitation in our lives? It can show up as: Feeling unsafe and vulnerable ...

We nourish our body with healthy food (hopefully!). You know the feeling of contentment when your belly is full with good and tasty food? How about nourishing our soul, too? When we nourish our souls, we feel great, fulfilled, happy, alive, vital, eager, energized and inspired. Here are some of my practices for nourishing my spirit and cultivating my connection with Love: Spend some time, either quietly or loudly, appreciating your life, your home, your work, your clients/friends/coworkers, your family, your health, and yourself. You can do this when you just wake up or when you are about to go to bed.  You can also do a Gratitude Walk, as you walk in nature or out doing your exercises, you can appreciate what you notice along the way. You can create a Gratitude List or even a Gratitude Journal, where you write down all that you are grateful for in your life. This is a great resource to look at to help you resonate again with joy. Think of something that brings a smile o...

(This article was first published in the February 2008 Metta Center Newsletter.) It is interesting for me to observe that the more I appreciate, adore and accept all of life, the sweeter I find life and the more loved I feel. Of course, it feels so counter-intuitive to feel loved when I am the one doing the loving.  But, here in lies the wisdom of love - when you give it freely, without expecting anything in return, you receive it in return. I believe that when we love, we feel good inside because we are in complete harmony and integrity with who we truly are, Love itself. I enjoy being Love and allowing love to flow through me, or should I say more accurately, allowing myself to flow with the energy of my Source, the Love within me. Sometimes, it feels like my stomach and chest is being tickled with mirth and laughter. So much joy, love and wonder flow through me. I feel expansive, clear, peaceful, safe, powerful, free, playful, soft, happy, compassionate and kind, all at the...

I was sitting in contemplation when an inner voice said to me, "Do you realize that we often criticize ourselves when we make the smallest mistakes, and we don't celebrate ourselves or feel proud of ourselves until we accomplish something 'grand,' whatever that thing is? And, when we finally reach that big-goal, often after much stress and effort, before we even have time to savor our success and celebrate ourselves, we immediately give ourselves the next thing to do. We are bad if make a small mistake and only good if we make a good, huge, achievement. Don't you think that is out of balance when we do so to ourselves?" Hm, a good point, I thought. Looking at my own life, I can see places and times where I did just that, I got upset with myself for a small mistake and I didn't even realize when I did something significantly important for myself, my family or the world around me. Have you done that? Do you do so often? Well, how about joining me in...

Our relationships can help us grow personally and spiritually. They invite us to rise to the challenge to be our true Selves. They invite us to allow ourselves to align with the unconditional Love we are inside, the love we want to give and receive. The most important of all the relationships we have is our relationship with our deep inner Self - the Love we hold within us and the Life that is us. Gently, just observe how often you accept and love yourself on a daily basis. How much do you trust your own goodness and gifts? How do you treat yourself? How do you perceive yourself? How do you soothe, comfort, care and support yourself? Do you bother to give your Self the time of day? Are you caging the Love you hold within, keeping it from radiating out and thus depriving yourself of your own fulfillment? You can't afford to deny the importance of You, the importance of being the Love that you are. It hurts deeply when others invalidate the love you have to offer and it hurts e...

My daughter asked me a thoughtful question: "Mom, is it OK for us to feel a 10 about ourselves?" Some background: many of you who work with me using EFT know that I use the scale of 0 to 10 to measure the intensity level on feelings as well as the "truth" of belief-statements. So, my daughter was simply indicating a scale, in this case "10", in how good she was feeling about herself. This question struck me as very poignant for several reasons: (1) there was a possibilty that it is not "OK" to feel good about ourselves, (2) that despite the belief I share openly with my family that we all deserve to feel good about ourselves, she is clear that, outside our home, this belief is not shared with her circle of friends in school, which led me to point (3): while my daughter attends a school that believes in developing children's self-esteem by honoring who they are, the influence of the message "it is not ok to feel so good about yourself...

"You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection." ~ Buddha The practice of metta , or loving kindness, cultivates unconditional friendliness toward the self and others. It raises the vibration of the person practicing it as well as the people receiving the energy of loving kindness itself. In this simplified version of the traditional form of metta meditation, send metta to yourself by inwardly repeating the following verses: "May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I be at ease. May I live in peace." Repeat the phrases several times, noticing and accepting any feeling that arise from deep within your heart chakra. Then, bring others to your mind and silently direct those wishes to them, replacing the "I" with "you". If you like, as you go about with your day, direct these thoughts and metta to everyone you meet.

You suppose you are the trouble But you are the cure You suppose that you are the lock on the door But you are the key that opens it It's too bad that you want to be someone else You don't see your own face, your own beauty Yet, no face is more beautiful than yours. - Rumi Here's to your blossoming and growing in bliss, peace, joy, abundance and light! Namaste, Christine

The following post was first published as an article in December 2006 Metta Center Newsletter.   As the holiday season approaches, I couldn't help but read all the messages of peace, hope, joy and love everywhere I look. These messages delight me because, whether or not they are consciously noticed at all, they subliminally invite us to explore and experience these wonderful qualities of ourselves. Ask yourself: Do you give yourself the license to feel and accept these high vibration feelings, or do you shrink away from them? This season also brings me to contemplate the topic of faith, particularly faith in oneself. What is “faith” really? Is it a conviction, or is it trust? What does it feel like, to have faith in yourself? How do you know if you have enough of it? And, if you are short of it, where do you get more? To me, having faith in myself means having complete trust that I contain within me all the skills, talents, guidance and wisdom I need to manifest my spirit, m...

If you knew of a very sad, scared, lonely, or angry part of you, what would you give it to heal it? So very often we look outward for sympathy, for assistance, for support, for gifts of love. But we forgot to look inward and give what we want to ourselves. Recently, I was very ill. While lying in bed, I took the time to go inward and seek the root-cause of my illness and bring healing to it. In my inner journey, I met a very sad part of me deep inside, where both time and I had forgotten her. There she was suddenly, front and center, both a visual image and a knowing. I knew from reading the Abraham-Hicks books that if whenever I feel a powerful negative emotion that means there is something really important that I want. I noticed how sad this part of me was, so I asked her what she wanted to feel better. She just looked at me, confused, as if she didn't know what to do with that question. No one had ever asked her before what she wanted. She started wailing because she realized ho...

How would you like to care for yourself? How would you like to be cared for? What does caring for yourself look like? What within you is asking for your care and attention? We all care for ourselves, one way or another. We care for our physical selves in obvious ways like driving carefully, brushing our teeth, eating nutritious food, dressing and housing ourselves, and so on. There are also numerous ways we can care for ourselves emotionally, mentally and spiritually. My client, H.P., recently wrote me her insights about what taking care of herself is about. I hope you find it as inspiring as I do. I got to communicate with my dad. At first, I was just watching myself as a one year old playing with him... Christine then asked me how it feels to be with him... It felt safe, comforting,and free, like I was "home." Then Christine said, "He lives on a higher plane and h.e has a lot to teach you, what is he saying?" ... And then it got really quiet and I heard him say, ...

I was using TAT (Tapas Acupressure Technique) to help myself soothe this anxious feeling in my chest this morning. (If you haven't checked out TAT yet, I recommend that you visit www.tatlife.com .) This anxious feeling was definitely all inside-driven. I am truly blessed with many good things in my outer life: beauty, harmony, love, peace, joy, abundance, and grace. So, the anxious feeling stuck out like a sore thumb. I was guessing that it was the "old shoe gonna drop" syndrome that I sometimes feel when things are going really well in my life. So, I proceeded to do Step 1 of TAT: "Everything that resulting in me resonating, identifying and connecting with this feeling happened." And I sat with that statement for a minute or two, just being with it. I was making space for energies, impressions, sensations, thoughts and feelings to move through me. I moved on to Step 2: "Everything that resulting in me resonating, identifying and connecting with this feelin...