METTA CENTER

Thanksgiving Day usually involves getting together with one's own family. For some people, that is both good news and bad news. If it's bad news to you and you'd like to find a way to be appreciative rather than grumpy while you are with your family, here are some simple tips: Using EFT , you can tap with the setup phrase of: " Even though I don't like my family, I deeply and completely love and accept myself ," and tap on all the points. Don't worry if at first you feel guilty admitting you don't like your family. After tapping, you most likely will see that there are aspects of your family that you DO like after all. Then, you can choose to focus on those aspects to maintain a loving connection with your family while you are together. Even I don't like my family all the time, and after tapping using this setup phrase, I am able to realize and remember that I LOVE my family. Using TAT , get in the TAT Pose and focus on whatever it is tha...

(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...

 "The foundations of a person are not in matter but in spirit." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson The leaves are beginning to turn colors. I feel that suddenly fall has begun in earnest with the first rain of the season. The air smells different and feels crisper. As mother nature slows down in preparation for winter, you might want to check in with yourself to see if there is a need for you to turn inward as well. As the trees change and drop the leaves in autumn, and then grow more roots in winter, you might be going through similar changes internally. Perhaps there is an internal urge to drop old ways of being and to change something in your life. Perhaps there is the call to nurture your spiritual self, the root of you. Perhaps this is the time to ask yourself, how are you nurturing yourself? We nurture ourselves when we connect with and meet our soul's needs. Our soul's needs are always spiritual, expressed as qualities or virtues like acceptance, freedom, peace, respect ...

"If we want to be compassionate we must be conscious of the words we use. We must both speak and listen from the heart." -- Marshall B. Rosenberg Conscious communication requires us to be truly present to what is occurring. When we are unconscious, we both speak to and react to others out of habit. And in the face of what we perceive as someone's judgment and criticism, we automatically (and unconsciously) defend, withdraw or attack. To communicate consciously requires attention to two areas:     You speak from awareness of what you are observing, feeling and needing, and     Through watching and listening, you are aware of those same needs in others I learned about conscious communication through NVC (Non Violent Communication.) It is a process of learning to communicate compassionately and authentically. NVC was created by Marhall B. Rosenberg who wrote "Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life" (available through major bookstores and a...

from "Woman As Healer" by Jeanne Achterberg Healing is a lifelong journey towards wholeness Healing is remembering what has been forgotten about connection, unity and interdepence among all things living and non-living Healing is embracing what is most feared Healing is opening what has been closed, softening what has hardened into obstruction Healing is entering into the transcendent, timeless moment when one experiences the divine Healing is creativity and passion and love Healing is seeking and expressing self in its fullness, its light and shadow, its male and female Healing is learning to trust life

(This article was first published in November 2008 Metta Center email newsletter.) I was asking Spirit about what to write for this newsletter that would be most beneficial for my readers. Spirit answered, "Remind them of their Truth." Hmmm, I didn't know what that meant, to tell you the truth. (No pun intended.) So, I asked for more guidance on it. Spirit showed me that deep inside ourselves, we already know that all is well -- that all has always been well, will always be well and can only be well. Often, however, we don't remember this Truth. Like many of you, I don't always feel that all is well nor do I think that everything is well all the time. Again, I asked for more guidance. And, this time, Spirit asked me a question: "Have you ever seen your daughter having a tantrum and feeling anxious about something and you know it was not as big a problem as she thought it was, and that all is well, because you have the advantage of having a broa...

(This article was first published in May 2006 Metta Center email newsletter.) Joy, I think, comes in two flavors: the euphoric feeling (Hurray! Amazing! Yes! Hallelujah!) and the easy-and-happy feeling (Ain’t life good? Ahh, bliss, life is sweet!) Both flavors are delicious. How do you get to joy, and how do you maintain it? There are many paths to joy, as many as the grains of sand. Recall the various times you felt happy, and at ease. Was there any one formula for your happiness? Or were they varied, and in that variation, you felt alive and happy? What is “joy” to you? Perhaps your joys come in predictable patterns: you love nature, flowers, clouds, winds, water, music, birds, etc. So, by allowing yourself to experience and notice these wonders as much as possible, you feel joyous. Some of your joys may not be so predictable. They might come from your allowing your self to grow in your awareness, to bring healing to yourself, to explore life, to have adventures, to rest, to listen...