Increasing Intuition and the Spiritual Quotient in your Life by Odilia Rivera-Santos

Every morning, you have another opportunity to shift perspective. The reality of your circumstances may not have improved -- for instance, you may still be counting how many days you have left until your unemployment benefits run out or worried about Christmas and the endless expenses associated with a holiday celebration.
Perspective is one of those things entirely within our control and a shift in attitude always accompanies a change in your point of view.
Tonight, keep a notebook on your night stand, and, for fives minutes, write down all of your thoughts prior to going to sleep.
In the morning,for fives minutes, write down your first thoughts. Random thoughts become ideas and ideas form our perspective of ourselves, our place in the world and the possibilities that exist for our individual lives.
Answer the following questions on paper:
What ideas do you carry into your dreams?
What ideas do you carry into your waking life?
What is my first exchange with a stranger? Negative? Positive? Neutral?

Tomorrow night, before going to sleep, write down 50 things you appreciate.
Tomorrow morning, before getting ready for work or to look for work or to care for children or others, write down 50 things you appreciate.
After writing the gratitude lists, reconsider these questions.

What ideas do you carry into your dreams? 

What ideas do you carry into your waking life?

What is my first exchange with a stranger? Negative? Positive? Neutral?

A focus on lack creates anxiety. Thinking about what you have, what you love and what you appreciate creates a different set of emotional sensations. The only way to be in tune with intuition is to wander aimlessly, like a child, through situations and conversations in your memory bank that made you happy and hopeful. Ruminations about beautiful experiences release endorphins, and a return to the treacherous ghetto of painful events releases cortisol, which is linked with diminished cognitive function and difficulty reducing abdominal fat.
Ideas create our realities, shape our dreams, and alter our bodies and minds.

A life centered in spirituality and joy by Odilia Rivera-Santos

After reading about the recent suicides in Spain, I thought about the shame people feel about money. Some people are ashamed of having been given too much and some of having been given too little. Regardless of the directionality of this shame, the result is an emphasis on comparisons between one's situation and another person's.
Those areas in life about which people feel shame are an emotional quagmire. People get stuck, feel desperate and commit desperate acts.

However, every problem has a solution. The purpose of this blog is to focus on solutions for those who have veered away from a spiritual life due to disappointments in the mundane world. At this moment, for a lot of people, the 'failure' of losing property or a job has become overwhelming to the point of considering the unthinkable. Material possessions and job titles have, for many people, replaced spirituality and a sense of self. Identity is completely wrapped up in being able to possess those things considered appropriate for a person of a certain age.

But life is not prescriptive, it is descriptive and you get to choose the adjectives.

I would argue that if the foundation of one's life is spiritual, the vagaries of earning, possessing and attaining would not painful enough to send someone into a spiral in which he/she would commit a crime - to one's self or others.

This is not to condemn those who've faced what seemed like insurmountable odds and had a momentary lapse of sanity and committed suicide.

This is a place to just get recharged and inspired.



August 2014 Creative Nonfiction Workshop in NYC
I will lead a workshop for Direct-Service Providers in Manhattan.
This workshop is exclusively for Social Workers, Teachers, Therapists, Hospice Workers, Nurses, etc.
Cost: $300.00
Location: Inwood / NYC
Day and time: Sundays from 4 to 6, starting the last weekend of August
8/24
8/31
9/7
9/14
9/21
9/28
For info: odiliariverasantos at gmail.com
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