Spiritual Guide | Inspirational Speaker | Lorraine Cohen

I’ve been noticing the difference between desperate action and inspired action as I have been flowing more with the Power of Grace.

In the past when my faith and trust was shakier, many of the choices I made were from desperation. I can usually tell when I begin to feel the grip of desperation kicking in.

I start feeling stress and tension in my body, my mind begins to scramble for options and solutions to a situation I feel fear and struggle with, and confusion increases.

I have come to know that any action I take in this state ends poorly.

Desperation is rooted in fear and is driven by the mind/ego in an effort to create a desired change.

Desperation is the ego’s attempt to control, manage, or avoid something that is perceived as bad and is anticipated to be an experience of suffering.

Action taken in desperation creates resistance and results in suffering.

Can you think of an experience when that was true for you?

Inspired action comes from within.

Intuitive nudges, subtle repetitive thoughts, sensations, a deep sense of knowing and trust, things that feel Divinely guided and peacefull in your heart, even if the action is uncomfortable. I often feel excitement, joy, love, gratitude.. when inspiration comes through.

The feeling can be visceral and energizing. Actions have a flow and ease because there is no resistance.

The key is to surrender any attachment to what happens, trusting that the outcome will serve you in the highest and best way.

What to do when you feel desperate?

Take NO action. Desperate and impulsive action can bring lots of regrets!

Stop. Breathe. Bring your attention to the present moment and being fully in your body.

Desperation is focused on the future. Come back to NOW.

Reconnect with The Divine with whatever practices help you to create sacred space with the God of your understanding - meditate, journal, take a walk in nature, pray, contemplation….

For every problem there is a spiritual solution.

Desperate action edges God out (ego).

Turning inward to commune with God invites that reconnection with your most powerfull ally who loves you madly. Pay attention to the thoughts that pop into your mind as you meditate, journal, pray…. Notice the synchronicities and messages that come to you and through you.

Listen for your guidance and follow what you feel called to do or be.

And no matter what actions you take - either desperate or inspired, the experience will offer healing and growth opportunities.

Nothing is wasted. There are no real mistakes.

And you never walk alone!

You are loved!

Have a great day

Love and blessings,
Lorraine

The Law of Intention and Desire

I hope you have been enjoying this 5-part series! Here is the last one.

The Law of Intention and Desire truly goes hand in hand with The Law of Expectation.

The Law of Intention reminds us that when we align with a clear intention and deep passion in mind, body and spirit we set the conditions to powerfully attract what we intend to create.

This Law is based on the fact that there is always an infinite amount of energy and information present to create what ever you desire! And energy always follows intent.

Desirable changes and manifestations depend on conscious ATTENTION and INTENTION.

Focused attention and intention creates a force that magnetizes to you what you most desire. Whatever you give attention to increases energetically.

Attention and deep desire energize The Law of Attraction.

Removing your attention causes the energies to scatter and dissipate.

Getting to your core desire and designing an intention in affirmative language also sets a tone for our energy and decision making.

I shake my head when I hear people express frustration with their life when the they invest a small portion of their time, spiritual practices, heart-centered attitude and actions on attracting what they say they want and spend the bulk of their time in a negative mindset.

For example, you may create an intention to have a make a difference in the world and make money doing what you love.

Everything you think, do and say must align with that intention in order for it to be made manifest in your physical reality to the degree that it is a match – or better yet, surpasses your desire. The core energies of The Law of Intention are clarity and alignment.

You might be creating blocks in what you desire to create because there is conscious and unconscious intention in conflict because of your life experiences!

You might deeply desire to be of help to others and harbor feelings of unforgiveness towards people.

You might desire loving relationships and be struggle with loving yourself.

And what you want as a human being might be very different from the intentions of your soul.

Your soul’s purpose for being here in a physical body is to grow and be a Creator.

As a human being, your intentions might be on success, material possessions, making money rather than aligning with the desires of your soul.

Can you have both?

Of course! 

With the shift of consciousness happening on the planet, what you put your attention and intention on must prioritize your soul’s purpose and intention to be in harmony with the New Golden Age, a time for joy, love, and prosperity.

With an intention for the future, your attention must be in the present, which is conscious awareness that is real and eternal. Choose to lead from your heart in taking inspired action that will manifest your intentions for tomorrow!

What is essential is to detach from the outcome so that you are not struggling against the present moment in the pursuit of manifesting your future!

Your focused intention lays the groundwork for effortless, spontaneous expression of your desires! This is the path of Grace.

For the past year, one of my deepest desires and intention has been to have unshakeable faith and trust with the God of my understanding that everything I want and need will be supplied. With life feeling upside down in so many ways, this desire and intention felt critical for me to follow my passion and purpose. Perhaps you have that same desire?

In response to my prayers, I have created and attracted a very challenging and painful year as well as a powerfully liberating and abundant one in many ways. Has my faith and trust shaken? You bet.

What has emerged from all of the flux in my life combined with deep inner transformation work IS that my faith and trust is stronger within myself AND with my Divine.

Give thought to your current desires and intentions.

What are you giving energy to?

Are you radiating from faith and trust or from desperation and fear?

Are your expectations, intentions and desires in alignment with what you truly wish to attract, consciously and unconsciously? (Inner shadow transformation, forgiveness, beliefs?)

What needs to be healed, shifted, transformed and released to manifest what you desire and intend now, and in your future?

There are dozens of Spiritual Laws at work that govern your life including the Laws of Cause & Effect, Energy, Co-Creation, Abundance, Cultural Conditioning…….You may choose to read about more of these Laws or focus on a few to align more consciously with the Universe.

Faith and trust is being challenged today as our lives change in ways we have never experienced or imagined. Understanding these Laws help to put some questions into perspective and can begin to quiet your mind.

Transition is the psychological reaction to change (anger, fear, confusion, sadness..) and is fueled by the subconscious mind; the part of the brain we cannot easily access to create shifts in the beliefs that affect emotions and actions. During intense periods of change, fears run high. Faith and trust can weaken.

That’s why I created the next Pathways to Awakening, 4-week Journey into Faith & Trust!!  This is the 5th in a series of mini journeys that have helped folks break free of the past and limitations of their mind to become more Conscious Creators in alignment with their soul and Divine destiny. 

I felt a strong Divine nudge to offer this powerfull transformational program  beginning December 6. Choose the day or evening time that is best for you and take advantage of a special tuition that expires Friday, November 30, midnight EST. This program will help you fortify your faith and trust with Divine Power, courage, and excitement to create an exciting 2013. Learn more and sign up here.

PS:  Join me for a special FREE teleseminar called, ”Faith and Trust: Feeling Safe, Living In The Mystery of Change”. Tuesday, November 27, 2pm EST.

Learn more and reserve your seat

Strengthen your faith and trust as you expand into the New Year and open to the blessings of greater prosperity, joy, and love that are coming your way!

Love and blessings

Lorraine
www.powerfull-living.biz/pathways/

My blogging buddy Daylle Deanna Schwartz emailed me about a 31-day self-love challenge to kick off 2013 in January by writing about love. Receive her FREE ebook, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count The Ways.

What a great idea to write articles on self-love especially with this shift in consciousness to embody love!

Below is a revised post I wrote in January 2011. Enjoy!

To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance” - Oscar Wilde

Fear and unworthiness are two main issues that powerfully affect self-confidence and self-esteem. How we feel about ourselves affects every aspect of our lives: business success, relationships, happiness, health & wellness….

Do you…

•  Call yourself names when you feel you made a mistake? 
•  Sabotage your best intentions and break self-agreements?
• Focus more on what you feel is bad and wrong about you rather than celebrate what makes you amazing?

When we lack feelings of self-worth and self-love, we don’t allow ourselves to receive the good that is being offered to us in so many ways. Ouch!

We often associate our value and lovability with our roles, our jobs, our responsibilities and how we serve others.

Too often we focus on what we most need to change and what is wrong with us rather than seeing what is right and valuable about who we really are. If I had a $1.00 for every time I heard people’s pain about feeling inadequate and worthless, I would have quite a bit of money.

Self-love, compassion, forgiveness…..are often qualities we withhold from ourselves without realizing it. When we are harboring negative feeling towards ourselves we neglect, punish, and deny  ourselves the very things we need most to experience the best of life.

No one can beat you up better than you, right?

My good friend Anita Pathik Law used to ask me, “Whose rules are those?” when she heard me being too tough on myself rather than being forgiving.  I had never considered myself a perfectionist so it was a surprise to discover that there are times when my standards and rules about who I think I should be…. sets me up for feeling awful if I fail to live up to them. Yuk!

We came into this life filled with love and wonder.  Life circumstances, cultural conditioning, relationships, has wired us to question our true value and to feel we are not good enough.

You are not broken

You do not need to be fixed

You need to wake up and remember who you really are!

Below is an adapted exercise from my 4-week mini journey into Self-Love in my Pathways to Awakening program

I invite you to acknowledge what you do AND celebrate who you are.

1. What I love about myself is (acknowledge a quality, strength, or gift about yourself that you are proud of and willing to own.

2. What makes me fabulous, wonderfull, lovable, and valuable is.

3. What I am most proud of is (I invite you to BRAG. Yup, you heard me – its crowing time. Stand up and tell it like it is, baby! Whoo-hoo!)

Use extra paper to fill in your answer! 

Let’s take this farther….

Begin each day by looking at yourself in the mirror and say out loud

(Your name) You are fabulous, lovable, wonderfull, and valuable!

Turn it into a declaration. Stand strong and say out loud

I am fabulous, lovable, wonderfull, and valuable!

Say these statements with ownership, pride, passion…Breathe into the words, and take them into you heart and body!  Let go of feeling foolish or self-conscious. It’s time to own the truth about who you really are!

Now it’s your turn to be the recipient, ok?

Invite others to celebrate YOU! In the next 24 hours, email close trusted friends for feedback. Ask them:

What you love about me?

What do you think is wonderfull and fabulous about me?

What do you value most about me?

The first time I did this exercise I had to breathe quite a bit to take the love in. WOW!

*This exercise invites you to receive love from others that you might be deflecting and discarding. Give yourself the gift of feeling and receiving love - from yourself and the people who are crazy about you. 

If you do not love yourself, how can you truly love another?

And how can you expect others to love you?

Ready to fall in deeper love with your Self?

Join 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) had 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/

I do.

I believe in synchronicities and looking at experiences as healing and growth opportunities. Sometimes the opportunity is obvious or discovered through self-reflection and conversations with others. Other times the message can remain a mystery. You may never really know what the experience was about and it doesn’t matter. What does is how you show up to each moment.

Here’s what happened to me several days ago….

I was returning home on Monday from a business retreat in NC (which I’ll also blog about cuz there was a lot happening!!!). I was tired from the weekend and I was looking forward to coming home. When I left a few days earlier, the rainy weather caused several delays and gate changes before we finally took off. I wanted the return flight and ride home to be easy and flowing.

It was.

US Airways took off on time. We arrived fifteen minutes early, I had all my luggage with me, and the airport shuttle delivered me to my car in record time. I even had a coupon for a free day of parking and I was able to save another day’s parking fee because I arrived back around the time I first parked. I was loving it all!

Traffic flowed and I planned to make a quick stop at my favorite store, Trader Joe’s to pick up some groceries for the week. Just perfect.

As I was getting out of my car, I noticed I couldn’t find my keys. I had just taken them out of the ignition and I was having trouble locating them. At the same time, I had grabbed an insulated bag I use to keep frozen foods cold that I placed on the ground with my car door open while I searched for my keys.

Well, it was very windy and the bag blew under the car. Of course I got out to find it and when I turned around I saw the car door had blown shut. And it was locked. I must have automatically flipped the door lock as I was expecting to leave my car and there I was. Standing outside with nothing but my sunglasses.

You can imagine what I was thinking. My mind was racing for options and I was trying not to get upset. Thank goodness I was in a shopping center instead of the middle of nowhere!

So, I walked into Trader Joe’s and headed for the customer service desk to use the phone. A friend of mine lives nearby with keys to my house. If she was home, she could pick up my spare set of car keys and bring them to me. Nope - I got her answer machine.

Everyone else I knew was at work and their numbers were in my cell phone locked in my car. I had allowed my AAA to lapse so that wouldn’t help. I even yelled out loud to ask if anyone had that kind of coverage to help me. Nope.

Other options? A locksmith, calling a taxi to take me about 12 miles - I really wanted to avoid that cost unless I was completely out of options.

So, what happened?

I just let go and said out loud, “I need a good Samaritan.” Within seconds a woman checking out said she lived in my area and would give me a lift home. We chatted about her life and her family, shared thoughts and ideas, and I thanked her for her kindness.

My 87-year young neighbor was home and I asked her for help to drive me back for my car. Of course, she said. Thankfully, I have a spare set of keys hidden and I was on my way back to Trader Joe’s within minutes.

Everything was still flowing. You see that, right?

So, what might have been the reasons for all of this happening? What was it all about?

~ Was there something important about meeting the woman who gave me a lift home? Was there something that needed to be heard or spoken?

~ Did I avoid a potential danger by being delayed from continuing home?

~ Was my conversation with the young girl who worked at Trader Joe’s significant for some unknown reason?

Nothing was obvious. It’s a mystery and I believe everything happens for a reason even when I have no idea what it is!

I’m so grateful for the kindness people extended to me and the invitation to trust the Universe (and myself) by having the faith that everything would work out.

Do you believe things happen for a reason?

What do you do when things happen that throw you off balance?

What do you trust no matter what?

What are you grateful for everyday?

Have a wonderfull weekend!

Peace,

Lorraine
www.powerfull-living.biz