Changing Beliefs in the New Year

Posted: December 20, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Energy Medicine DNA | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

As we think about New Year’s Resolutions, it seems to me in order to end the year with the desires we chart at the beginning of the year, we need to change our beliefs. Valerie Lipstein, a Results Specialist, Certified Coach and Consultant has agreed to share with us about changing Beliefs!

Valerie, there are so many people today who are hoping to make changes in their lives by changing their beliefs. I understand you teach about changing beliefs. What do you teach?

I love this topic and believe it’s one of the biggest stumbling blocks to our success.  Our beliefs are so powerful and they affect around 80% of our behavior and the results we get.   In fact, the Law of Cause and Effect says that our results are reflective of our thinking yet many still believe that their results are the cause of some outside force or circumstance. It is true that many people want to make changes, however without knowing about and learning how to re-program the subconscious mind imprinting it with what they really desire, most people do not change. They become frustrated and look at outside circumstances as the culprit.

You must understand the concepts first and then have strategies and practices to shift outdated, ineffective and destructive paradigms.   Thinking authentically and asking empowering questions are two powerful strategies.  Most people think shallow thoughts and their results in life are reflective of this.

Situations occur all the time. We often label them “good” or “bad.”  We are unhappy when things seem bad yet once we get in harmony with the immutable laws of the universe we realize that situations are really neutral.  It’s our surface mind that attaches the labels which can keep us in our prisons; all the while we only need to push the door open and walk outside.

We look at our beliefs and challenge the dis-empowering ones. We really live in an abundant universe. To know this truth and live from it is very powerful and will create success. It is a practice and takes discipline. There is not a lack of resources on this planet, yet there are millions who live in poverty; all the while abundance exists.  The problem is with distribution, awareness, and perhaps greed.

In The Science of Getting Rich, Wallace Wattles speaks about this being the hardest work we ever can do, “To think what you want to think is to think TRUTH regardless of appearances….To think according to appearances is easy; to think truth regardless of appearances is laborious and requires the expenditure of more power than any other work man is called upon to perform.”

My mentor, Mary Morrissey, says that “we don’t deny the facts; we deny the facts to control us.”  When we allow the outside circumstances to control how we feel and act we are dis-empowered.

Many people do not have a direction for their lives, living by default doing what they have always done yet not really thriving.  It’s like sleep walking through life.  I experienced this for almost a decade until my wake-up call.

I support people to get a crystal clear vision of the life they would love to live and support them to get their results.  Success starts with a strong desire for something.  We look at longings and discontent and start there as these are powerful signals that a person is out of alignment with their true nature. We look at 5 domains: Financial well-being, spirituality, relationships, career/creativity and health/well-being.

What are the most important behaviors to assure that changing one’s beliefs can impact their lives on a daily basis?

  • Foremost, pay attention to what you are paying attention to.  Our subconscious mind reads our attention as our intention.  We will create our results from this mode.
  • Be in a structure of support, it is very difficult to do this work without support.  Mastermind groups, mentoring, being around people of increase awareness
  • Study daily and be a life long learner-successful people are open and receptive to new ideas and are willing to challenge themselves
  • Practice Gratitude-gratitude is at the heart of successful people’s lives.  This is not kindergarten gratitude for things we have or when things are good.  This is gratitude in all situations, which is transforming
  • Have a daily practice to quiet the mind-Intuition can only be accessed when we are open and receptive.

What is the belief you changed that had the biggest impact in your life?

I was living my life by default in 2005 and felt stuck. On the one hand I had been studying spiritual and personal growth principles and had made some advancement. Yet, I did not fully grasp the concept of how powerful our habitual thinking can be.  I was working as a Social Worker at a state agency, making good money with great medical benefits. I looked successful and felt horrible.  I was living for Fridays and dreading Mondays. Being raised in a family where safety and security were valued over passion and creativity, I adopted this belief. My parents were products of the depression. You stay at your job even if you don’t like it because you get that weekly paycheck.  My rationale mind didn’t agree, yet my subconscious mind ruled.  The belief was affecting my whole life, yet I didn’t know it.  All I knew was that I was unhappy and felt STUCK.  I had lost my passion for social work yet I had excuses and rationalizations for staying.

Bob Proctor said, “You can’t get out of a prison unless you know you are in one.”  It took a life changing phone call to snap me out of my prison. My best friend I had known since I was 17 died suddenly, she was only 52.  Susan was living from her passion, however, when she died.  I had a choice; I knew intuitively I had to take it or I would continue to live in my prison. My prison was my thinking.  Once I changed my thinking, realizing that I could create a life I loved and did not have to “settle”, my whole world changed.  Now I do work that I love, making a difference in the world by supporting others to live from their passion.  Most days I wake up and can honestly say, “I really love my life.”  What a gift!  I am so grateful for the opportunity I was given to begin again. 

What services do you have available to assist others in this important practice?

I offer individual and group coaching programs. They include Think & Grow Rich Masterminds, The DreamBuilder™, Working with the Law™ and Into Your Genius™.  Additional services include quarterly seminars and motivational speaking.

You can reach Valerie at

Phone: 509-869-0255

Email: info@inspiredlivingforyou.com

Website: www.inspiredlivingforyou.com

Interview with Swami Samayananda Part 2

Posted: September 2, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Energy Medicine DNA | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

This interview was taken at Yashodhara Ashram in British Columbia, Canada on the beautiful Kootenay Lake.

(Some sections have been edited for grammar.)

Candess: When I hear you talk, it sounds like what’s happening is that you are keeping the truth of what Swami Radha had in terms of living out what she taught, to truly keep living it and not have a separation.

Swami Samayanda: Yes, and no matter what the changes are that happen, there is that very solid core that cannot change, because that is what an Ashram is. It is the center of one teacher’s teachings and we are all committed to that. To what she gave us and in our gratitude, that is what we give back. These have to be applied to what is happening in the world. Our focus now is to be carbon neutral by 2013. We are not cut off from the world. Our sustainability, how do we care for our forests? Our development, Yashodhara Heights, three cabins that we built are all extremely green. We are very much in tune with what is happening with the world and what the concerns are in the world, and bringing them right in to our community, right here. We are always asking. We can go back to her teachings and it is all there. Carbon neutral, it is all there. Sustainability, it is all there. We say, “I am sustained by Divine Light, I am sustained by the teachings.” So how do we bring that out then, into the actual physical place we work and to the people who come.

Candess:  That is exciting. The more I hear about this, I am so grateful I am here. My connection with the Spokane Radha House has been mostly through Yoga for Health and Healing and the Dream Yoga. There are a lot of forms of yoga other than the physical. Can you tell me more about yoga?

Swami Samayanda: It is interesting in the West, we have taken one yoga practice out of the entire yogic system and we call it yoga. It’s basically Hatha Yoga. It’s working with the body. It is mainstream. When you say the word yoga, everybody thinks of a studio and doing postures and that kind of thing. Yoga, actually if you look at the original sutras, the yoga sutras by Patanjali; asanas are a very tiny, tiny, part of the yogic system. Their original intent is to prepare the body to be still for meditation and other yogic practices.  I see that changing in the West, where a lot of people were just interested in the physical part of it. More and more I hear people say, I know there is more. What more is there? There has got to be more to this. There are probably about 39 kinds of yoga, of which Hatha is just one. What Swami Radha brought back were several that we work with here.

We work with Dream Yoga, which is the interpretation, learning to interpret our own dream messages. We work with Kundalini Yoga which is the study of, really of how we use energy, how we express ourselves, the choices we make and how that comes out in our speech, in our behavior, in our thoughts. We also work with the Yoga of Light and our primary way of doing that is through the standing practice of doing the Divine Light Invocation. We focus on Mantra Yoga, which is the yoga of chanting, sound, vibration. We work with Karma Yoga. Karma Yoga is the basis actually of our Ashram which is the yoga of action. Work is service. It is different than just volunteering. We actually do the yoga and ask ourselves what we are learning from it. What is the work teaching us? It is not just doing the work, getting the work done itself, its what we are learning in that process.

(next . . . Part 3)