Spiritual Guide | Inspirational Speaker | Lorraine Cohen

Without forgiveness life is governed by an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation. - Roberto Assagioli

So often people think they have forgiven themselves and others but they really haven’t.

Without true forgiveness we can’t let go and move on. We end up dragging around unresolved hurts and disappointments in our heart,  on our bodies, and that haunt our thoughts.

There is no resolution because there is no peace. And because relationships are the cornerstone of our life experiences, we are continually given experiences that break our hearts open for deeper compassion and love.

Several reasons why you might be struggling with forgiveness

You have an attachment to what happened. You are still struggling with accepting what you did or didn’t do, what another did or what others continue to do. Your struggle and resistance creates your misery which is a choice and an opportunity to forgive yourself!

Whenever you have a strong negative reaction to another is an opportunity to look at what you are dis-owning within yourself that is showing up to be loved and accepted – a quality, a behavior, an action to be forgiven.

We are mirrors for each other and as long as we have someone or something to blame for our life circumstances, we never have to take responsibility for our role in what we create from our past and our present.

To allow Grace and love in, you must surrender your attachments, your resistance to accepting whatever is happening in each moment, your expectations, and your control; to be compassionate with your own humanness and be open to allow The Divine to guide your life experiences.

This is the shift we are experiencing on the planet today!

If you resonate with what I have written and want to feel more peace and love within yourself as well as experience greater abundance in your life, join me on October 23, for Pathways to Awakening, Journey Through Forgiveness. Register by October 18 at a special tuition that expires on October 19.

This four-week liberating journey through forgiveness is an advanced program designed to support you in healing the past, get free from beating yourself up and sabotaging your efforts, and deepening your connection with God.

In four weeks you will have multiple opportunities to unlock the doors to have more financial abundance, rewarding relationships, vibrant health, meaningful work, passion, more love, the freedom to be authentically you ….and so much more with the Divine guiding this journey.

The only thing you have to lose is your pain. What you have to gain is…well…limitless.

Sign up here

Love and blessings
Lorraine

I awoke this morning with today’s article swirling around in my head. That’s how inspiration often comes to me from Divine inspiration.

I’ve had Self-Love on my mind and in my heart because I have been on a very deep journey of  “waking up” for the last few years. In fact what is true is that I have never felt more alive and aligned with my life path.

I am not the “me” I used to know or thought I was.  I am more aligned with my true nature and my prayers to have a deeper relationship with God have become a reality.  I believe one of the reasons I feel so much Grace and joy is because of my focus on self-love.

Love is our Divine nature and the Essence of the Divine. The absence of love separates us from who we are and God. Love is the bridge back “home.”

Below is a list of thirteen ways to love yourself which is really my list - the ways I love myself. This is a list that continues to expand as I do.

1. Commit to daily spiritual practices for stillness and communion with the God of your understanding. The relationship you have with your personal Divine is the most important relationship in your life. Prayer, meditations, journaling, inspirational reading, creating an altar, walks in nature, chanting, ceremonies and rituals…are all ways to deepen this most sacred relationship of love.

2. Ask for help when you need it. To be a great giver, you must also be a great receiver. Allow the people in your life to love you in return. And remember to invite the Universe to help – ask your angels, guides, Archangels, nature spirits… to be of service to you. Become helpless, which means acknowledging that you cannot do it all, all the time. Until you become helpless, God is helpless. “Let go and let God”.

3. Forgive yourself when you think, act, and do things in ways that are less than love. Each of us has done things that we regret, that have hurt another, or been unloving – resentments, jealousies, blaming, judgments…are expressions of inner pain. We cannot forgive absent of self-love and compassion.

4. Amend your inner self-talk. Become consciously aware of how you speak to yourself inside your head and what you repeat to others. Soften your language and choose words that treat YOU with love and respect. Look for ways to love your humanity rather than to condemn yourself.

5. Take responsibility for your thoughts, feeling and actions.  Be a great role model of integrity in the ways you choose to show up in the world. Make amends when you have messed up in your humanness, let go of the “blame game”, and look at life as a grand adventure for learning, creating, and evolving.

6. Make choices that allow your heart to be expressed. Giving permission for your creativity, passions, gifts, strengths, and talents to flourish opens pathways for greater happiness and prosperity. You might even feel your soul smiling with joy!  (I often do and it feels great!)

7. Set healthy boundaries and stick to them. Be willing to love yourself enough to say no and stop when you need to. Say yes when it feels right rather than from guilt or fear. Cultivate a courageous heart to teach people how to treat you by the ways in which you value yourself .

8. Surround yourself with emotionally safe people who positively support and love you.  Having a circle of friends who cheer you on, share your values, lovingly tell you the truth, kick you in the butt when you need it, celebrate your victories, compassionately listen (without fixing) when your heart is hurting can be a lifeline back to your true SELF on those days when LIFE feels hard.

9. Be willing to boldly go where you have never gone before. Dare to step out of your comfort zone to take those inspired leaps of faith that feel Divinely guided. Your soul would NEVER nudge you to do something that would put you in deliberate danger or cause you pain without purpose.

Doing the shadow work, inner child processes and walking through pain are pathways to liberation from the darkness of  past to the light of a brilliant future.

10. Do at least one thing every day that is personally pleasurable (I don’t mean something for another!).  Look for ways to nourish your mind, body and spirit. What makes you giggle with delight? What juices and excites you with joy?

11. Hydrate yourself with good, clean water.Invest in a high quality water system to nourish your body. Add a pinch of Celtic salt daily to strengthen water absorption in the cells of your body. You can be drinking plenty of water and still be severely dehydrated (I was!)

12. Eat healthy chocolate such as Xocai chocolate. If you are a chocolate lover, this particular raw chocolate is reported to have the highest antioxidant values on the planet. People regularly eating this chocolate have received miraculous benefits including ease with weight loss, reduction in joint pain, cardiac reversals, eliminating emotional overeating, heightened positive outlook….

13. Eliminate processed and fast foods. Choose organic, whole, and raw food options as often as possible. Consider the food sources you are putting into your body that can create future illness, aging, and affect overall well-being. Your body will thank you!

Exercise, getting regular dental and health checkups contribute to keeping your body at optimal health. How you physically feel affects every area of your life!

As you read this list, notice the ones you most relate to.

Which ones do you commit to regularly?

What would you add or change to be more self- loving?

The greatest wound that humanity suffers is a lack of self-worth.

The greatest gift you can share with others is love and it first begins with loving yourself! If you cannot truly love yourself, you really cannot love another with the full capacity of your heart.

It’s not your fault if you have difficulty being kind, compassionate, forgiving and loving with yourself. Your past experiences, your family dynamics, cultural conditioning has all shaped who you have become as a human being.

Withholding self-love is painful. It can feel like living in hell inside with no way out, because wherever you go, you take YOU with you.

What’s blocking your ability to be immersed in this love is within your grasp….

Ready to fall more deeply in love with yourself?

That is the opportunity I am offering you today.

On Wednesday, September 18, we begin a Journey into Self-Love for 4 consecutive weeks. This journey through Self-Love will provide opportunities to explore what love means to you, Divine Love, personal & inner integrity so that you can embrace your value and align with your true nature of love.

Register through Friday, September 13 midnight EST at a special tuition of $197. On September 14 the tuition goes up to $297.

What is unique about this program are the transformational meditations and deepening processes that are Divinely inspired and created right in the session. People report breakthroughs right on the calls!

Read about the program and the testimonials from past participants.

Imagine your testimonial there. What would you like it to say?

Learn more and register here

I believe it will be one the best investments of self- love you gift to yourself this year! And yes, you do desevre it!

Love and blessings,

Lorraine

“Doubt is the beginning, not the end, of wisdom”. -George Iles

Why does feeling doubt cause fear and discomfort?

Doubt is created by your mind/your ego. Imagination kicks in, your negative emotions flare and you are off and running with worse case scenarios, what ifs… Doubt causes you to feel off kilter and not on firm ground. Fear of the unknown creates uncertainty and worry. This is created by your mind and is all illusion.

While there can be some truth mixed into the story you create in your mind, doubt can really serve you when you are open to appreciate the gift it brings.

When your inner wisdom, guidance, and intuition bumps up against your ego’s doubt and fear, what happens?

The Gift of Doubt

Doubt invites you to look inside of yourself by asking questions about who you are, your beliefs, choices, actions - all areas of your life. Through the process of self-reflection we become more of who we are and less of who we are not.  In this way, we become more authentic and live in a greater expression of our true selves.

Doubt serves you to gain clarity about what is right and true for you. Whether your doubt is ignited by your own mind or others, the opportunity to serve you in your healing and growth is a blessing.

When feeling doubt about a situation ask yourself:

1. What is the truth, as you understand it, about this situation?

2. What do you know to be true with certainty?

3. What does your intuition and gut say? Use your spiritual practices to tune into your inner wisdom’s guidance.

4. What do you fear might happen and what is the likelihood or probability that your fears will manifest as you imagine?

5. If you waver of what you know to be true, what will you lose? Your power, self-trust, self-confidence, responsibility? Pay attention to the power you give to others to influence what you know in your heart to be true!

6. If you stand strong on what you know and believe in, what will you gain? Self-trust, confidence, faith, connection with spirit, direction, prosperity?

7. What wisdom is your doubt (or fears) calling your to recognize, embrace and own? Be open to recognize how you can use this wisdom the next time you experience doubt?

Remember to breathe and bring your attention back to the present. Bless the doubt from wherever it comes to serve you in remembering who you are!

Notice all the ways your intuition speaks to you through repetitive messages, synchronicity, Divine  coincidences, inner knowing, body sensations..

When you feel fears, doubts, desperation and confusion, remember that your soul has the answers you seek and the Divine has the solutions to any problems you face.

Stop, take a breath, go into the stillness and ask for what you need within your mind or out loud. Listen for the answers that often come before you finish the question. Trust what you hear and sense. Truth comes quickly.

If there is a pause and gap before the answer comes, I believe that is the ego attempting to respond rather than your spirit.

What voice do you want leading you?

Personally, I choose to invite my soul to guide my life, not my ego. So, guess which voice I am listening to and following?

My invitation to you!

Want to strengthen your faith and trust? Are you yearning to be liberated from pain, struggle, and fear? Does your faith and trust shake with all the changes happening?

My Pathways To Awakening program  is a series of 4-week mini courses designed as deepening journeys with energy activations to help you release the past and open to greater joy and prosperity while fulfilling you Divine destiny.

Join me for a four-week Journey into Faith and Trust beginning August 14 and take advantage of the early tuition through August 9.  Learn why past students rave about this program and reserve your seat here

Transform your inner foundation into strength, insecurity to confidence, and fear to courage. Learn how to overcome fear and unlock the courage that resides within. When you experience this new kind of POWER and courage, you will be propelled into an infinitely beautiful and inspiring future

Imagine living your most vital, abundant, soul fulfilling life with the POWER of Courage and Grace to guide you……

Join us

Blessings

Lorraine

Each year I write a Thank You Letter to God dated one year in advance and I share it with my spiritual mastermind group.

We typically write the letters in January, share them in the group, and discuss how close we came to actualizing what we prewrote at the end of the year.

We have found these letters to be powerfull practices to bring our our vision for the year into clarity.

The letter becomes a declaration to the Universe and a guide for desires, decisions, and intentions to manifest though inspired action during the year.

I’ve witnessed many transformations in the letters I have written over the years. Earlier ones have been focused on material gain and too ambitious; more aligned with my head and ego rather than my heart.

When looking more deeply at your desires, I have found that a dream needs to be realistic enough for the ego to believe it is possible and big enough to excitedly stretch you out of your comfort zone to step into your greater potential.

To prepare for writing your letter, take time to create sacred space to be still and quiet. Contemplate what you truly want and why, so what you are  thanking God comes from your heart truth.

Take your time in bringing your words together. No need to rush. Invite your ego, mind, and soul to express. what is deeply desired and feel into those desires so they reflect your heart and not what you think you should want or what others want for you.

Once written, print it out. Read it out loud. slowly, allowing your emotions to reflect your words. Feel gratitude to the Divine for responding to your prayers in ways that enrich your life. Rest in that gratitude, trusting that all you desire, need, and want will come to you in the highest and best way.

Share your letter with trusted friends to hold the vision for you.

Keep the letter visible. You might read it out loud each day to strengthen your decison and intention. Use it as a map to guide your choices and actions throughout the year and be open to flow with  your inner guidance to lead you forward.

Have fun creating it!

Blessings,

Lorraine

If you were asked these questions:

What do you love about yourself?

What makes you fabulous, wonderfull, and lovable?

What do you value most about yourself?

What would you answer?

You might automatically answer things like: your accomplishments, personal successes, things you do for others…. Many people identify more with what they do rather than who they are. Those are great answers and I invite you to look who you are in addition to identifying with what you do!

So, what would you answer?

If you have some difficulty answering, you are not alone.

Lack or low self love affects your finances, health, relationships, business, well-being, and connection to God. Without self-love you are cut off from the full flow of wealth and all forms of abundance that enriches your life.

It’s not your fault.

Suffering caused by a lack of self-love is a dis-ease humanity has cultivated for generations. You have been impacted by your family, cultural conditioning and past experiences.

If you have been on an inner journey to heal and transform yourself, you may still find yourself struggling to release those beliefs and patterns that are still running your life. And no doubt you are feeling frustrated and wonder what the heck it will take to be liberated from the grip and pain your mind creates, right?

You cannot USE your mind to CHANGE your mind.

Some patterns are so deep that it can take quite some time to completely dismantle them with God’s help. You must be willing to listen to your guidance and keep going without quitting five minutes before the miracle might happen. Your soul knows the way to bring you “home”. You gotta trust your Self and be committed to your liberation.

That’s the journey I have been on for almost three decades. I have faced and felt self- judgments, unforgiveness, feelings of unworthiness, fears, doubts,  guilt and anger I harbored towards myself for choices I made, things I did or didn’t do…. I sure was not loving me! 

The truth was that pain and fears  closed my heart and cut me off from truly giving and receiving love. I was starving for meaningfull connections with others, my Self and most importantly, with God. 

I am happier with myself and my life is rich and abundant.

Is love, abundance, and peace what you long for?

Is connection to the Divine what your heart is yearning for?

Love is the way…and it begins with you..inside

Do you resonate with what I have been saying?

 Ready to fall in deeper love with your Self?

Join me in the next Pathways to Awakening Journey Into Self- Love, beginning Tuesday, November 13.

The weekly meditations and deepening processes that have catapulted past participants into higher states of joy, abundance, peace…are all designed in the moment by God to work on conscious and subconscious levels to heal and open your heart and create reconnection with your Sacred Self. Adding EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) has made the program even more potent.

Imagine releasing old pain, beliefs, and patterns you have been carrying in your heart for years with Grace, even joy?

Impossible? Not in this program !

Go read what other folks have said and experienced.

If the program resonates with your heart, LISTEN and reserve your seat with the early tuition before it expires on November 9!

You deserve it!!

PS! Listen to my FREE call on Self-Love here

Love and blessings,

Lorraine
www.powerfull-living.biz/pathways/

For several months, I have been intending to travel to India in September to become a Oneness Trainer at the Oneness University outside of Chennai. Since becoming a Oneness blessing this past March, I have experienced profound inner shifts in consciousness that has also transformed the work I am currently doing with clients.
 
When my dear friend Christine Kloser said she was going to India in September, I felt a yearning to join her which was a huge surprise. I have never had a desire to travel to India and yet, the thought of going through the trainer’s course, to be immersed in the energy and processes at the Oneness University called to my heart.

Part of my personal work has been deepening my relationship with the Divine to shift the fears and distrust that all of my needs and wants would be supplied. Going to India felt like a wonderfull opportunity for some deeper breakthroughs within a community of kindred souls.

So, I continued my spiritual practices – meditation, prayers, visioning, gratitude… Very old pain from childhood began to bubble up.  At the core of this pain were deep feelings of fear, hopelessness, and despair that I have carried in my heart and body for decades. It was time to walk through those shadows into Grace.
 
Several of the pieces for the India trip came together with ease. The money for the plane ticket, the visa, approval application to attend the training, overnight hotel reservations in Chennai at a great rate, my neighbor’s availability to watch my cats during my two week absence. It looked like a Divine green light.

And then the trip became questionable.
 
I wondered….

1. What were my reasons for wanting to go to India? And were any of those reasons influenced by Christine’s decision to go?

2. Was September the best the time for me to go? Would I have chosen September? Probably not.

3. Was there any resistance to my going? This would be a life altering, transformational experience. Were there fears, feeling of unworthiness, or anything else that might be blocking the flow of this trip that I was creating?   

4. Maybe my desire to go to India wasn’t about becoming a Oneness trainer? Perhaps there was something much bigger in the grand design of my life that wasn’t quite ready to be revealed?

I felt conflicted and I knew I had to surrender the outcome to a higher Divine plan. So I said I let go and did feel some peace but… I don’t believe I did give up the trip entirely. As I surrendered it to the Divine, I still had my hand on it.

Last week Christine and I realized we had to postpone the trip. The timing wasn’t right. 

It’s not uncommon to make the assumption that the outcome you expect is assured when you feel called to do something that strongly resonates and things fall together. And when things go in a different direction, to wonder what went wrong – to question yourself and even to distrust your intuitive nudges.

There are so many reasons why LIFE doesn’t follow our intended script. We can struggle and try to make things go the way we want and only end up creating more stress and misery or we can trust that there is a higher purpose that is always conspiring in our favor to lead us to a joyfull, abundant life.

As I look back over the last several months I think I have been in India energetically. I have come to know that once we commit to the intention, the process begins. Deciding to do the trainer’s program opened pathways for profound inner healing and transformation.
 
Things are not always what they appear. Know that where you are is perfectly aligned to serve you in the highest way.

The magic is embracing each moment of the journey rather than attaching to the destination. Be open to the mystery.

Love and blessing,

Lorraine

“To the man who only has a hammer in the toolkit, every problem looks like a nail.” -Abraham Maslow

A while back, my pal Anita Pathik Law wrote an article called “What’s Your Excuse?”

Here’s an excerpt that speaks to the excuses and reasons why folks deny their dreams and destiny:

• I don’t know how, therefore I don’t have to…
• I can’t, therefore I won’t…
• I’m unable, therefore I won’t try…
• I’m not allowed, therefore I don’t ask…
• It will take too long, therefore I won’t bother beginning…
• I’m not ready, therefore I will wait…
• I don’t have enough money, therefore I can’t receive the help I need…
• I’ve already tried everything, therefore, nothing works…
• I’m not supported, therefore I don’t have the strength

I’ve been talking about going to India in September to take the Oneness Trainer’s course at Oneness University. When I first contemplated the journey, the ability to go seemed financially impossible.

And yet, the inner yearning to go to India felt so powerfull, I began to dream about the trip becoming a reality; to confront many of the stories and beliefs that were ruling my life including a distrust with the Divine to take care of my wants and needs. I wrote an article post about that recently here.

For the last two months of making the decision to make this journey, I’ve been working very deeply with my inner shadows and learning how to surrender. My trust with The Divine has deepened and I see daily evidence of Grace flowing the more I tune my eyes to love and beauty.

I no longer say or think, “I can’t imagine how ….this will happen.? Instead I’m seeing myself in India, fully immersed in the next experience of Awakening in my morning prayers, meditations, and conversations of gratitude with my personal Divine.

What’s been happening?

The plane ticket was purchased several weeks ago. My visa application is in review and I expect the approval to be sent in a few days. I just confirmed the overnight hotel reservation when we arrive in Chennai before traveling to the University. I arranged for my neighbor to care for my two sweet cats in my absence.

Yesterday I took my suitcases out and began to add a few things I want to be sure to take with me.

The rest of the funds are coming because I am trusting that the Divine is on the case.

Each night, my journal entries reflect the daily blessings, miracles and examples of Grace operating in my life, even when things don’t go the way I want.

Every person and situation offers a healing and growth opportunity in service to the evolutionary journey.

Fear and low self-worth are two key reasons why so many people see life as a series of problems and hardships.  Over time, loss of hope and expectation of ongoing difficulties can become the theme of life.

Here’s the thing about the Universe. Whatever you keep thinking and saying is what you will get back. If you say you can’t afford something the Universe will supply you with more lack. If you say something is too hard, the Universe will support you with more difficulties. If you believe something is out of reach, it will be. That’s how powerful you are.

And the truth is you are creating your own reality in very moment.

The story you tell is the story you live.

Here’s an example:

I’m preparing to launch the third journey into Grace as part of my Pathways to Awakening program this Wednesday, August 10. I’m going to be teaching some of the shifts I’ve been making to dismantle my own excuses and ways to profoundly invite more Grace, abundance, joy, ease… into your life. Who doesn’t want that right?

I’m so passionate about this program since I launched it in June that I have continued to offer a partial scholarship to anyone who has a true financial challenge and feels a yearning to attend.

So, I sighed when I received a few emails from folks who said they wished they could join and used the money excuse as to why that wasn’t possible.

I wonder if they read the inclusion about a possible partial scholarship, even bothered to look at the program, or immediately gave up.

I get it.

I know how easy it is to believe the reasons and excuses of impossibility because they are so compelling.

The Divine has no concept of limitation or impossibility.

That is a human creation based on a lie that can feel very real because we collect evidence to back up our stories and excuses. The inner work is critical to attracting wealth, healthy relationships, creating health and well-being.

Being willing to confront the stories, reasons and excuses allows for Divine truth to emerge.

Which reasons and excuses do you use the most to deny your purpose and destiny?

How quickly do you give up???

How often do you use “the money reason” to deny yourself the things you feel will help you?

What if  the reasons and excuses you use could be pathways to create a whole new present and future reality?

One that is filled with my joy, grace, love, money, abundance…than you could have imagined.

Ever heard the phrase, ” Where there’s a Will, there’s a Way”?

In the mind of God, NOTHING is impossible. And that Divine presence exists within YOU.

The shift you must make is to become a welcoming place within yourself to allow the Divine to pour through you by aligning your Will with Divine Will.

Join me for a four week Journey into Grace, beginning Wednesday, August 10. “Give up” your reasons and excuses and “Give in” to your purpose and destiny.

Love and blessings,

Lorraine

“Allow the dramas in your life to develop your rather than to envelop you” -Lorraine Cohen

Looking at your life right now, are you living a love story?  One that is filled with rich abundance and meaningfull purpose? Perhaps you feel more like you are living a horror story; one that is filled with struggle, pain, and fear? Maybe you feel your life is a little of both depending on the day and the situation.

I feel that way sometimes when life doesn’t seem to be going the way I want despite by best efforts. I’m blessed with a richness of relationships with amazing people and clients and I am doing the work I love helping people to transform and transcend a painful past to create a joyful present and future.

In those moments when I am suffering a loss of faith and trust,  my ego paints a bleak picture that scares me and burdens my heart.

In this profound period of change and spiritual Awakening, your inner world might feel like a war zone. Your mind is fighting for dominion, fearing it’s annihilation as your soul is stepping forward to lead the way by shining LIGHT on a deeper TRUTH to triumph over the stories you have come to believe all your life about yourself, others, the world and the Divine.

During one of the sessions in my Pathways To Awakening program,  a participant asked, “Who would I be without my story?” As she asked, I could hear some of the fear and uncertainty in her voice.

Indeed. Who would she be without the inner pain and conflict that she had lived with all her life? Perhaps two better questions might be, “Who could she be?” And “Who is she, really?”

One of my old stories was, “I’m not safe to really be who I am in the world.” I had used that story to manage the success of my business, the intimacy in my relationships, and protect myself from being too visible in the world so I wouldn’t get hurt. The inner conflict between my ego’s fear and the yearning of my soul became unbearable.

I was blocking love, peace, abundance…. from flowing to me and through me. Living that story was also separating me from the Divine. So, I surrendered and let that story go.

Recently I faced another very powerfull story rooted in distrust that the Divine would really take care of all my needs and wants. Despite ALL of the evidence to the contrary of blessings pouring into my life in so many forms, the one place I still felt fear was with money.

In prayers I asked my Divine to instill unshakable trust within me. I began to realize there was a critical piece missing that was keeping my story of distrust and fear alive.

I had the desire but I hadn’t made the DECISION to trust God.  Looking backwards to my old, “I’m not safe” story, making the decision to change my story was a pivotal shift that empowered me to take action in all areas of my life – to live more authentically and align with my Divine destiny.

Several days ago, I made the decision to surrender my “distrust story” and I felt a rush of joy and relief. I made the choice to take a leap of faith and while there is still some fear, I also feel great excitement to deepen my relationship with God and allow more good into my life.

So, what story are you living today?

If you wish you could escape your current life situation, consider this…..

What if all the things you have come to believe about yourself that makes you feel scared, not good enough, unimportant… is really one great big fat lie?

What if the stories you are telling, that feel true and real, could be rewritten?

What would your new story be?

To surrender attachment to your old story:

1. Challenge your current story and stop telling it. We hang on to our stories because we get something from them – protection from being hurt, avoiding making a mistake, not risking the loss of love… The reasons have their genesis in pain and fear. Pay attention to your thoughts, self-talk, the language and words you use to describe yourself and your life circumstances.

The story you tell is the story you live.

2. Have the courage and commitment to walk through your inner shadows to release the past and liberate your soul. Embracing forgiveness, self-love, and compassion invites Grace to guide you on your journey of Awakening.

Your perceived difficulties and problem are portals and pathways to transcend the fearful illusions of your mind to a grander design for your life. Stay the course and go the distance through the darkness to the Light.

FULLY feel whatever emotional pain arises without resistance will allow it to run its course and then burn out. Releasing past judgments, regrets, resentments, anger… will create a more welcoming place within you to attract the people in things that are in alignment with the life you came here to live.

3. Invite your personal Divine to co-create this new reality. Rewrite your new story on paper, design a vision board, or create an audio recording describing your new life. Share your deepest desires with the Divine in your verbal prayers, meditations, walks in nature, moments of silence and contemplation, journaling…

Become helpless to create this new reality without God’s help. Until you become helpless, God is helpless to come to your aid. Ask to shown where you are setting limits and boundaries on your own power. Then ask to be taught how to expand those limits and boundaries – to become limitless so that the Divine Grace can pour through you.

Who you really are is NOT your story.

4. Attune your eyes and heart to recognize all the ways your prayers and requests for help are being answered. Feel gratitude and appreciation for the richness in your life that can begin with your eyes opening in the morning to take your first conscious breath.  Look for the blessings and abundance that flows to you that enriches your daily life.

Invite the feelings of gratitude to fill your heart and body, like a warm fuzzy blanket.

5. Choose a new story and make a decision to live it every day. When you catch yourself retelling the old story in your mind or out loud, (and you will while you are in this transformational shift),  remember to be loving and compassionate with yourself.

Let go of ANY attachment to the reality you envision to be open to the higher vision that is unfolding.  Expect your prayers and desires to be answered in the forms that are for your best and highest good, including bumps!

Every person and situation is in service to your healing, personal growth, and spiritual evolution. Your life is meant to be happy and prosperous!  You just gotta get out of the way to let the good in!

A new world is coming. You have the power to create a new landscape for your life and for the world. You have the key to unlock the door…..

The time is NOW.

Join me for the next Pathways to Awakening program, Journey into Grace. Liberate your SELF and rewrite your life story in this four week tele-series beginning August 10. Learn more.  “Give up” your reasons and excuses and “Give in” to your purpose and destiny.

Love and blessings,

Lorraine

“One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment…. If it doesn’t turn out right, we can modify it as we go along”. -  Franklin D. Roosevelt

Concern #2:

What if I make a mistake?

What if you do?

Can you imagine if we all did things perfectly all the time?

How would we learn?

How would we grow as people if we always did everything right the first time?

The beauty of making a mistake is that you can learn something new, something you might not have known before that you can begin to integrate and implement into new ways of doing things. Trial and error is a great learning curve.

Facing an important decision, you can only consider what’s best based on what you think/feel and the information you have at that moment in time. If more information is needed, get it.

If you’re under pressure or deadlines, I believe that if you don’t feel 100 percent on board (in your gut) to say yes, then the best choice is NO. 

Making decisions for the wrong reasons (you feel you should, have guilt, feel influenced by others, or are feeling fearful) rarely turns out well. Regrets and doubts creep in when we feel pressure to say yes before we are fully committed to the decision.

Even after making the best choice, having some trepidation, fear or doubt is normal when faced with key decisions that might be life changing.

There’s no such thing as a perfect decision. If you are unhappy with a situation in which you wish to remain, you have two choices:

1. Change the situation.

2. Change your way of being in that situation. Change your way of thinking, feeling and acting in that situation. Approaching a person or situation from a different point of view might create a different result that is more desirable.

Every experience, regardless of the outcome, provides opportunities to learn and grow. Your attitude is key in how you view each situation and the benefits you receive!

To learn more about overcoming your fears and objections, register for my 4-week program, How Do I Choose? beginning Tuesday, April 5 at noon EST. Based on my popular ebook, you’ll learn a blueprint for making calm confident AND wise decisions in any situation

Click here to check out this powerfull program

Tomorrow I will share Concern #3

Love and blessings,

Lorraine
www.isayyesnow.com

On a call yesterday with one of my mastermind groups the question of defining productivity was raised. One of the women was sharing about how busy she was.

In addition to her own media relations company, she has been working on launching a new spiritual network site and preparing for her second book campaign.

Her commitments have kept her working weekends, long hours into the night and she was hoping for some personal time this weekend. She also said her spiritual practices and the activities that feed her spirit and body have been sorely sacrificed to respond to the demands of her deadlines and client needs.

Another member said she was feeling an exhaustion she had never felt before. After four long years of pursuing a life purpose and passion, miracles were popping up all around her and she was having a hard time keeping up with everything. There was still so much to pull together and she was hoping to have one day to just sleep decompress.

Both ladies are high energy go, go, go women with a strong work ethic and a pull to be productive especially when the opportunities arise.

Productivity….

What does that really mean?

And according to who?????

I was facing a similar question this past week.

Last weekend, a dear friend gifted me with the opportunity to become a Oneness Blessing Giver.  The weekend is called “The Oneness Awakening Course”.

The program began on Friday evening and ran through Sunday night. What an incredible experience!  I played full out – opening myself to experience and participate in all of the exercises, healing, heart openings, and deepening with Source (God). The group was amazing, the environment was magical, and the facilitator was skillful and loving.

She suggested we take at least three days to integrate the weekend especially if we wanted to offer any blessings to our folks.

The next day I felt dopey. All I wanted to do was rest, sleep and do my spiritual practices in between working with a couple of clients I had already scheduled. So, I gave myself permission to take the day for myself.

The next day I still felt sluggish, foggy, and physically tired even after sleeping deeply the night before. So, in between some prior appointments and a little bit of work, I rested.

Guilt started creeping in.

Was I being too self-indulgent?

I wasn’t being PRODUCTIVE, right? I had work to do and I was just lying around!

I resisted the urge to do more and rested. Frankly, I didn’t have the energy, passion, or focus to push.

By the third day, I felt a little more energized and the pull to rest was still very strong.

More guilt.

 I was reminded by my friend Anita Pathik Law who wrote a blog post on Chemicalization:

She wrote:  ”For many of us, it can feel like the age old “two steps forward, five steps back.” What was all happy, harmonious and easily working, suddenly (or so it seems) seems to fall apart. I see this in spiritual development and healing all the time. The newly found nirvana is met with an earthquake of contrary energy. 

We feel tested in our new level of faith and feel like the honeymoon is over. It’s painful and messy and tests us in huge ways. And, it is normal! In fact, this universal phenomenon actually has a name and is called chemicalization.
 
Emmet Fox says this, “It seems as though everything begins to go wrong at once. This may be disconcerting, but it is really a good sign. Suppose your whole world seems to rock on its foundation. Hold on steadily, and let it rock, and when the rocking is over, the picture will have reassembled itself into something much nearer to your heart’s desire.”
 
The challenge is not giving up five minutes before the miracle. The opportunity is to allow the natural process and not give into the potential doubt that can come when faced with a barrage of “evidence” that is contrary to your faith, and the commitments made from your newly expanded consciousness.
 
New awareness requires a chemicalization of sorts – an integration and re-patterning—that shakes everything up and out of you so you can decide what to keep and what to release.  Our belief bag needs to get dumped so we can truly choose, from this new vibration, what we will continue to carry into the creation of our future reality.
 
Catherine Ponder, in her book “The Dynamic Laws of Healing”, says “Chemicalization results when an old set of ideas, an old way of life, tries to hold on, while a new and better way of thinking is trying to appear.”

Thank you Anita! The exhaustion I was feeling was part of my own chemicalization process! Prioritizing my self-care to support my renewal and integration was essential.

Was it productive?

Hell yeah!

Allowing myself the time and space to just “be” helped me to gain greater clarity and intuitive direction about some of my next steps.

Being productive isn’t all about how much you do or based on your ability to prove how much you have accomplished. Or having to earn something to be given the right to relax, slow down, play…

I believe true success is independent of what you do; rather it is about who you are and how you show up in the world, spiritually awake or asleep.

Taking time to rest, eat well, have fun, connect with loving relationships, nourish yourself when your body and soul is crying out is an act of love that will fortify you, lift your heart, open your creative juices, invite prosperity, new opportunities….

We service our cars when they need maintenance so they will continue to run well and yet we can easily neglect our own needs until we create something dramatic or painfull to catch out attention. Yikes!

Choices…

Creating sacred space to commune with your SELF – mind, body, and spirit takes nothing away for what may feel to be important. Tuning in to respond to your needs and soul urgings is part of the continuum of living an inspired joyfull life.

When we feel vital and alive, we are at our most productive and creative because we are manifesting from love and joy.

Challenge Your Rules

I have to…

I should…

If I don’t do this I will be…..

I can’t have this until I

I can’t say no because if I do I…

To be successful I

I have to work hard to…..

Whose rules are those????

It’s one thing to have guidelines and values to live by that support you in personally and professionally flourishing as well as consciously evolving.

It’s another to be living by standards that hold you hostage and suck the life out of you.

If you struggle with giving yourself permission to have greater balance in your life, take a look at some of your rules. Do they expand or constrict you?

These are new times. Traditional ways of working, living, being are falling apart. Old paradigms, rules, standards are shifting to allow us a greater sense of freedom to become the true creators of our reality.

We are redefining our relationships, businesses and ourselves. We are experimenting with new ways of thinking, feeling, and doing things that can feel scary, strange, and even undeserving. This is new territory and it is unfamiliar. 

What’s exciting is that we have the opportunity to create a whole new reality, individually and collectively through the choices we make every moment of every day.

What is your heart crying out for?

What are you denying yourself that it’s time to say yes to?

What choices will you make today to align with your SELF?

Which rules need to be changed?

Blessings,

Lorraine

PS!!! Do you struggle to make decisions? Do you procrastinate and miss opportunities because you feel confused, overwhelmed, or scared?  Do you worry about making the right decisions because you fear making mistakes?

Say goodbye to indecision.

Learn a 5-step blueprint for making rock solid decisions with my new program, “How Do I Choose?”

If you have been wishing for a way to make calm confident decisions without driving yourself crazy, join me for a powerfull 4-week series beginning April 5, 2020 that will help you to make more meaningful and thoughtful decisions that feel right – in your heart and in your bones! 

Make the decision to register by March 24 for the early bird savings: http://tinyurl.com/47qbch7. This just might be an answer to your prayer…..