August 25, 2013

Samuel: This is a very nice front row tonight. Greetings, dears.

Hello, Samuel.

S: How are you? Did that work? Sort of . . . maybe, maybe. And you say back . . .

Great.

S: Great? Good! I was going with the fine.

How do you spend your time? And that’s not a raise-your-hand-and-give-me-an-answer there. It’s a something-for-you-to-think-about. How do you spend your time? The first category that goes with that is, What takes up the most of your time? And for a lot of people that’s sleep and employment. What is it for you? How is it in both of those areas? Let’s start with sleep. Are you sleeping all right? I hear odd choking sounds. Might have to do with “Oh I wish . . .” or something like that.

Funny dreams.

S: Funny dreams? I’ll talk about dreams in just a moment. One reason you might be having difficulty sleeping is as you become more sensitive you will find the cosmological things going on, particularly with the sun. When you have a lot of solar flares it changes the electromagnetic atmosphere and you feel it. That can be the reason for some odd dreams, as well. But the odd dreams are more likely related to, again, as you are becoming more sensitive to anything or everything, as you are becoming more sensitive, it’s easier to touch in with “the other” while you sleep. So it’s not just real dreams where it’s like watching a film with a beginning, and a middle, and an end. And it’s not quite like stressed and working brain stuff out with a little picture of something here that all of sudden turns into a fox running through a field that suddenly becomes something else. This is very vivid, usually short, not so hard to go back to, and tends to be very symbolic to you, or out and out conversation.

Dreams are so important. And if you are not resting well enough to be dreaming you need to work on that. If you know that you’re dreaming but simply not remembering your dreams, get yourself into the habit of remembering those dreams. You do that how? Write them down, even if what you are writing down is “I don’t remember it” or “I only remember this color” or “I only remember this,” because it grows and grows and grows. You have dreams for a reason. You want to let yourself become familiar with what those reasons may be.

What do you need to do to ensure a good night’s sleep? We’ve discussed this often enough you ought to be able to answer it. Yes.

Be careful of diet. Don’t eat very much before you go to bed. Stay away from things you know you shouldn’t be eating, you’re either allergic to them or have difficulty with them. Take drugs if you have to.

S: Because sleep is that important.

Make sure your room is dark, that there’s no noise.

S: Try not to have a lot of electrical equipment right around you. Have the room cool rather than warm because you dream better and more quickly when it’s cooler than when it’s warm. Try to have a regimen. [If] you generally go to bed about this time, don’t watch television before you go to bed, don’t do things that will get you revved up. Is that what you say, revved up? All right. Which rules out some things right before you try to fall asleep unless you go to bed earlier.

[. . .]

S: It induces sleep for men, it does, but it does not have that same effect on women.

That’s okay. [said by a man]

S: Be careful. I think you’re outnumbered in here.

What about the solar flare stuff?

S: Wait. What else for a good night’s sleep?

Did anybody mention exercise during the day?

S: Good, good! One of the most important things you can do to ensure that you are going to sleep well is to be sure that you are getting regular exercise. It makes a difference. It might take as many as nine, maybe twelve weeks before you fully notice it, but you will notice a difference. Regular exercise. Now, what can you do about when solar flares are going on and your skies are in a bit of chaos, and the moon is full . . . ?

[. . .]

Wear an aluminum hat.

S: I agree with Jean more than I do with Steven in this case. You probably treat people who wear aluminum hats. And what Jean said was, “Get a good book,” or do something that isn’t related to work. Do something pleasurable. But just go with it. Don’t fight it. Go with it. You get yourself into trouble when you lie there saying, “Oh, why am I not asleep? It’s been how long? It’s been three hours now.” Pull out your book or even go into the other room and write somebody you care about. But, don’t just lie there. And at times such as solar flares, etc., etc., that’s about all you can do. So, the sleep part of your time, a few ideas there about how you can make it a bit more productive.

With your dreams, something you might want to start trying to do, if you’re not already doing it, is to start looking to see if you cannot direct your dreams from the inside. And that starts by doing it first from the outside. Start trying to set up, “Tonight I want to dream about this.” You may find that never works. Ever. “Tonight I want to dream about this,” and you do all of it, and you’re directing your dreams. But you’re never getting it right when you say, “I want to dream about this tonight,” and you don’t. That’s all right. Some people are able to do that. Or you wake up, you liked that dream, and you say, “I want to go back to that dream,” and so you go back to it. Start putting a little pressure on yourself, “I’m going to remember my dreams tonight, hopefully I’ll dream about . . . ,”—and I think I was supposed to say, “I’m going to dream tonight about Johnny Depp.” Got it, all right. And ideally, ultimately, you are going to be able, by way of your dreams, to teach your body how important that deep sleep is for you. You will go more quickly into that sleep, and again, I will say hopefully, because this isn’t something that always comes about. Hopefully you will reach the point where in any dream you are able to say, “I’m so tired of being here. Let’s change you the scene.” Or, “You don’t look like that now, I want you to look like how you look now.” Or whatever works in that way.

I cannot push to you enough how important your sleep is. You don’t all need the same amount, but you need it.

Now, what about your employment life? Usually those are the two big ones. And what I would ask is, “Do you enjoy what you do?” I did not say are you good at it, are you great at it, lousy at it? I said “enjoy it.” If you cannot say as a whole, “Yeah, I like it,” if not, what do you like about it? When you are in a situation in which a huge chunk of your time is being spent at something you’re not enjoying, before you fall into the trap of negative thinking and self-pity, instead figure out what it is you do like, and yes you can find something. And focus on that. How do you retrain or train something, somebody, some creature? What’s the easiest and best way to do that?

Positive reinforcement.

S: Yes, the first time! By positive reinforcement. You find what behavior you want to see more of, and you encourage it. Now, Mary Claire, how do you encourage it with Quinn?

Encourage good behavior?

S: Yes.

With treats of course, and lots of praise. He’s very receptive to verbal praise, too.

S: Yes, yes! Here, have something you really like because that association becomes an olfactory, a taste, a hearing. It’s involving everything. You can do that with people. Really. Remember that what you are doing is you are encouraging the positive behavior. You are at work and what you are not enjoying is this person’s behavior, just like with our four legged guests tonight, we’ve lost one, just like with those you find them doing good. Here is where most people fail in relationships. They get used to the good, only remember the bad, and therefore don’t encourage those good behaviors. Somebody in your office is always late. When they’re on time, when you get a break, run out and buy a snack, and bring it and say, “You were in early this morning and I wanted to say, ‘Great, good for you?’ and here is this.” Or maybe you aren’t in a position to be that obvious about it. So you might say instead, “I saw this, I thought you might like it. Good to be starting the day with you today.” Or whatever it happens to be. The point being that you’re going to involve the whole sensory system because those create by far a stronger mark; almost as strong as a negative behavior. “Samuel, what are you saying there? That doing something really good isn’t as strong as something bad?” Exactly. Exactly what I’m saying.

Cognitively, it is so much easier to remember the negative. Why? Oh, it’s because you’re such a negative group of people you just haul it right to you, right? Thank you for disagreeing with that.

It probably has something to do with survival and avoiding what you find dangerous.

S: Instead of the bear coming out of the woods and eating you up, it might be your boss coming out of the office and chewing you out. But, you are tuned more sensitively to the negative because very often the negative has something to do with one of your survival mechanisms. But the other reason, and this is important for you to remember, is because you have more good things that go on with you than you do bad things, so the bad things stick out because of their difference. So, looking at the positive and rewarding the positive can bring about change in those relationships. As a way of retraining, any kind of relationship can benefit from that. One small hint. Don’t be obvious about it. Then it becomes insulting, condescending. Don’t go there. Patronizing. Yes. So, how you spend your work time and your sleep time, which are usually the two largest chunks of your life, bring up control issues for many, many people. If you don’t sleep well, you start getting worrying about that. If don’t enjoy where you work and what you do, you get stressed about that. And when you are undergoing stress, you start trying to order your life in such a way that you won’t be under that stress anymore. That sounds perfectly reasonable, doesn’t it? But too often the way that that’s done is by just taking over everything whether it’s yours to take over or not. You are surviving but you’re going to be lonely because people don’t like to be around controlling people. That’s a particularly hard one for Guardians. Guardians have a tendency to be very controlling. Why is that?

We know more than anybody else.

S: Certainly think so. Because you’ve gone through a lot, very often on the fast track. You have done a lot of introspection, you’ve looked at your life very clearly, you know what your buttons are. And when see them in someone else, you kind of figure they must be like you, and if that’s the case, they’ll make the same mistakes you did. You’re saving them, you’re not controlling! Unless you ask that person.

It was our compact to save them.

S: It was your compact, yes.

The next most important time chunk in your life is what you do when you’re not eating, sleeping, or working. What do you do when you have free time? Now, what you do in your free time can give you a lot of information. The first thing is for those of you who are saying, “Free time? Free time? What’s free time?” You’re doing yourself a great disservice. You need time to yourself doing something you enjoy for the pleasure of it. If not every day, at least most days a week. That gives your emotional health a break. What you do in your free time also tells you what you’re good at. “Well, clearly, I’m good at napping!” Got a couple of those over here. Or, “I’m really good at watching crime shows on the television.” There often is a period in which you need to look at your life and determine if the way you’re spending your time is out of habit, you’ve not really put much thought into it, you’ve not particularly developed a routine because it works for you, it’s just what you do, and it’s a habit. Or, if you are doing something that you enjoy for a conscious purpose. There is no problem sitting down on the couch and watching a crime show on television. You could just look at newspaper instead. If you’re doing it because you want to get your mind off, it’s a way to relax. A long time ago Bonnie said, “This is something my husband wants to do and it’s my opportunity to just sit and be with him.” And that’s fine. The key to it is consciousness. If you are falling into ruts with regard to what you have for theoretically, free time, if you are falling into ruts, just doing the same things all the time, I can guarantee that parts of you are dead. Because the parts of your life that are in a rut are dead. Oh, they may still be breathing, and talking, and walking, but there isn’t growth. Growth comes form—ooo, scary word here—change. And choices that bring about that change. Change is my friend, change is my friend, change is my friend, change is my friend. Good mantra if you need one. Don’t even need to know your birthday to give that one to you.

[. . .]

S: So let’s talk just a few moments about what you do when you have free time. Ideally in your free time, you do something to help your physical body–I have a suggestion. Exercise. You do something to stimulate our mental self. Suggestions?

Puzzles . . . something creative . . . gardening . . . languages . . . painting . . . cooking.

S: Creative, and a new recipe also works the mind. Word games. Absolutely. Reading a book, reading that little electronic book. Kindle, or something like that. Music, lovely. You also want to do something good for your emotional self, and this is going to be in one of two categories. Something you do that’s good to you. When is the last time you did something just because it would make you laugh? Or just because you enjoy it? Or when is the last time you indulged yourself with something. Now, some of you are a little too good at indulging yourself. So if you think back the last few days, you have said more than once, “I need to do this for myself. Why the heck not?” Just take a look at it. Because the other part of it is you want to balance your personal emotional self by giving to others. So, real important balance there: giving to yourself, giving to others. Emotionally speaking, what can you do to give to yourself? How about I ask it this way. What do you give to yourself?

Are you looking for an answer?

S: I am.

I get my hair cut, I get a manicure and a pedicure, I get a massage, I go to a friend’s house who has a swimming pool and I swim with her.

S: Yes. Good ideas, all. Yes.

Sometimes, at least for me, the nicest thing I can give myself is time.

S: She said sometimes the nicest thing she can do is to give herself some time. Steven.

What I’m giving myself is permission to do those things, any of those things.

S: Yes. And you need a list. You do. You need a list—stick it on the refrigerator or the bathroom mirror, or one of those places where you’ll see it often—that tells you things you really enjoy. Because as sad as this is to say, I have noticed that sometimes you don’t know what you really enjoy. What makes you laugh? What touches your heart? What do you enjoy? What do you tend to gravitate to when you look back for a pattern of really great days, things that you’ve enjoyed? And the thing you need to give to yourself is love, ultimately. What do you see when you look in the mirror? This is another kind of unsettling fact. Most of the time when you look in the mirror you are looking for something instead of at yourself. You are looking to see if your hair is in order, those of you who have hair. You are looking to see if have something in your teeth. You are looking to see if the outfit looks all right. I think it does. You are looking for something. You have a tendency to not look at yourself and guess why? If you have not allowed yourself to really love you as you are, in that amazing package that you have slipped into for a while, then you’re not enjoying looking in the mirror. And I don’t mean like an actor has to do. “Let’s see, what are all the kinds of smiles I have?” And I don’t mean as a narcissist might, just always looking in the mirror. I mean to be able to look and truly see you and be all right with what you see. Every one of you in here are old enough to be able to do that. And you have been able to do that since you were about eleven. Well, all right maybe nine to twelve. Do you love you? And if you do, you might be able to look back on that list of Things I Enjoy Doing, and actually have a list because you find yourself worth it.

The second emotional direction is “other people.” What have you done today to make somebody’s life better and brighter? To make someone smile or feel good, to encourage them? To help them if they needed it? And here’s why. Because giving to yourself is one thing. But giving of yourself is something much different. Giving of yourself feeds you because you are here to love. Yes, of course, to receive it, but to give it. One of the reasons that I love having canines here is because they’re here for you. They’re here for you because canines are here to teach you to receive unconditional love. And there goes my example out the door. [Cam takes Quinn out.] Would Gracie or Katie do it? Give an effusive greeting? Give an effusive “Hi! It’s good to see you! I missed you! Where were you? In the bathroom were you? Well, you forgot to leave the door open for me!”

Like Ollie does.

“You were gone forever. I thought you were never coming back.”

S: All five minutes of it? “I missed you so much!” Katie, too? Oh yes! And a really lovely thing is, these dogs, because you’re only supposed to bring the ones that are friendly, these dogs are willing to show you love, too. You just walk by and say, “May I pet your dog?” and then just love it, just get it. They teach you how to accept love. And you know what cats do, don’t you? They teach you how to give unconditional love. Don, you had your hand up.

I was just going to say, you can prove the love dogs have for us by taking your spouse and your dog and putting them in the car trunk for like four hours, and when you open the trunk, look at which on is happy to see you.

S: Move now, Marion. Probably even five minutes, and maybe now.

[. . .]

All right, here is where I again say something kind of odd. What you love about being around a dog is that joyous love for you. Can you be that for someone else?

Lick them when they come in the door?

S: I know some people that would really like that. Might be a surprise to see you, though. But nonetheless that loving, “I missed you. It’s good to see you!” As opposed to “Up here!” or [expression with eyes]. And then later, “Oh you’re home.”

What have you done to make this world better? Now that’s something in your free time that will not only make a difference where you are giving, but it also gives back again to you. What do you do to help this world be a better place? Well, I can tell you there’s a lot of people in here from more than one city who participate on Leadership. That’s huge. Giving where you are receiving makes a very big difference in your life. But there are a lot of organizations that could use somebody like you. Sometimes you’re right next door to them. Sometimes they have four legs and need to be cuddled, because they could be great big tall ones with ears and long back and a tail. I’m looking at Gwen with that one. They could be horses, dogs, cats. They could be hamsters. They could be reptiles, they could be birds, but when they don’t have a home and you do, sometimes donating a little bit of your time to just remind them that humans can be loving, gives you an opportunity to practice your communication skills as well. Giving and receiving in balance, especially when it is the giving and receiving of an act of love, is going to help your emotional self. When you are doing something good for you, you should also do something for your spiritual self, and there are all kinds of things that could mean.

Cam, would you bring him up here just for a moment? He’s busy making my point. “I found a friend, look! I think we have relatives in common!” [. . .] I think you get the point. That kind of, “Hi! Who are you? Can we run around and play and be crazy dogs?” And Katie is saying, “I don’t know about him. Is it safe, Retta? Is it safe?” I was making the point that a dog greets with such love. He’s being the visual aid here. Everybody that he knows he greets with a big kiss, and if he doesn’t know them, he greets with a big kiss.

So what are you doing for yourself spiritually? You know, I’m going to turn around how I’m doing that. Define for me, “spiritually.” Do I mean religiously? What do I mean?

How are we making opportunities for the spirit that we are to function in an easier, better, stronger . . .

S: It has to do with the nature of the spirit that you are borrowing this from that you’re in, but it’s the spirit you are that often gets ignored because the form, the human that you are, has so many needs. Everything that you do with love is a spiritual act. Everything that you do at your best, for the highest good of all involved, is a spiritual act. It’s not putting on fancy clothes, and going to a regular meeting. It’s feeding the spirit. So what are you doing to feed your spirit? This is great!

I think everything that you do for yourself, feeds your spirit, and I think everything you do . . .

S: Be careful with what you’re saying there. Everything that is loving, and good, and kind . . .

I’ll go there. And everything that you do for others in the name of love, in the name of kindness and compassion, I think that those things are the things that feed your spirit. And the reason we don’t recognize we’re feeding the spirit is because we have given it a label. We have said, “spiritual” label, and we forget it’s not about the label, it’s about the loving things we do for ourselves and others.

S: Yes. Good, good. Very true.

One of the things I do with PieHeart is Laura and I look at the media headlines. And if anybody does that regularly, you know it’s pretty difficult. But we take the time to look at them and frame them in a positive light. And I find that I have that now. When I look at something, I can easily reframe it into a positive light.

S: Yes. And that is in fact about the only reason I can think of to read the newspaper and to watch the news. You know you’re not getting the whole story, all the stories. So keep in mind that by reading what you’re getting is the sensational, and use it as an opportunity to send energy, to send love, and to look for the silver lining, to reframe it positively, to try not to let it push you into negativity by using it positively. Who would have thought that watching the news could be a spiritual act, but it can. And so can taking part in PieHeart, which is a group visualization to specific parts of the world, the U.S., So can OneHeart, where people write in and say, “Need some energy for this, grateful for that, what’s going on with this?” You’re sharing your heart into the greater heart, OneHeart. So can, well, I’m going to just curve it down to what Kandi said. Any act, consciously done in love—that feeds your spirit.

You only have so many hours in your day. Most people eat, work, sleep, and then have unconscious time. By that, I don’t mean they fall into a coma. I mean they stop functioning in awareness. With regard to the time in which they have choices. I’m going to offer you a very small threat. It’s one of those things that the universe does because it loves you so much. If you stop making choices, you stop getting choices. Look for those opportunities to use your time like it matters. Don’t waste it. Aye.

I work in a children’s hospital, and it doesn’t have to take a long time to do a spiritual act. I hear a helicopter when I’m out on the street in my lunch hour, and I know they’re bringing a child in, and I can just wrap it up in love and send energy to that.

S: Just that fast! A smile, a touch as you go by. You never know the kind of effect you’re having which is, all right, the unfortunate part of it. You don’t always get to know the effect that you are having. You’re having an effect. That’s just physics. It’s easy to think there is enough time for that. There’s always tomorrow. It’s easy to tell yourself as you look back at what was, “If only I had done this.” Now is a good time. Start now. Make use of the time you have in a way that makes you proud of you. You are here to learn how to live love in a world that finds that odd. It’s the best thing you do. It brings change to everything. You don’t need to keep doing to you what you have been. Because when a Guardian isn’t conscious of a Guardian’s time, you start feeling guilty. When you’re not consciously, purposefully giving to yourself and others that which is loving and needed, a little piece of you dies away. When you’re not seeking purposefully, consciously, the positive view, seeing the best instead of the worst, it becomes a bleak and frightening world and you become controlling and at the very same time, out of control. Your physical self has needs, your mental self has needs, and your emotional self and spiritual self all have needs rooted in love. And in that part of your life, it doesn’t take eight hours to be successful each day. You could turn your life around just giving two minutes to each of those things. Eight minutes a day. And you could start tomorrow. There’s always tomorrow, right? Or you could start right now. Because now is the only thing promised. And now is where your power is. And I’ve been avoiding saying it, but I’m going to–you don’t have enough time in the rest of your life to keep wasting time now. This is meant to be a life filled with love. Seek and you will find it.

Glochanumora.