Reading is more than just a pastime, it’s a great activity that can change your life. An article published by Aleteia emphasized that a good book is the key to leading a joy-filled life. Moreover, it was highlighted that reading books about spirituality can build your character and enlighten your soul.

As such, books are fundamental instruments for individuals who want to deepen their spirituality. In line with that, here are five books that can strengthen your sense of spirituality:

A Course in Miracles

A Course in Miracles was written by Helen Schucman in 1976, but it has been making waves across different spiritual practices decades after its first publication. A previous post entitled The Top “A Course in Miracles (ACIM)” Inspired Rap/Hip-Hop Artists emphasizes that this book is so life-changing that it’s influenced books, films, art pieces, and even rap.

A Course in Miracles has created such an impact because it opens people up to the greatest miracle of all: love. And through reading it, you can gain awareness of love’s presence and guide yourself towards a united spiritual purpose.

The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Spirituality teacher Eckhart Tolle is the genius behind this best-selling book that discusses the significance of the present moment. Recognizing how thinking about the past and the future can induce anxiety, Tolle wrote The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment to teach people how to embrace the present.

The book’s simple language, as well as the question and answer format, makes it easy for readers to ease themselves into a new state of mind. This makes it a very effective tool in embracing the now and getting connected to an indestructible essence of your being.

The Untethered Soul

If you’d like to know more about Buddhist principles, then The Untethered Soul is a good place to start. This book, which was written by Michael A. Singer, explores how the principle of the Middle Way can help you reach a peaceful state of mind.

Through simple and easy-to-follow language, Singer discusses how you can embrace your existence without any force. This philosophy will help you free yourself from any emotions and thoughts that may be weighing you down. By allowing things to just be, you can experience a more elevated and peaceful existence.

Learned Optimism

You can deepen your spirituality through the science-backed research studies covered in the book Learned Optimism. In this book, author Martin Seligman discusses the proven benefits of becoming an optimist, such as being more healthy, successful, and happy. Then, the renowned psychologist teaches his readers how to break bad habits and implement new strategies that can enhance their quality of life.

By embracing optimism through these strategies, you can develop a deeper appreciation and understanding of people, love, and life. This will help you serve a more enlightened purpose throughout the human experience.

Real Magic: Creating Miracles in Everyday Life

Best-selling author Dr. Wayne Dyer explores a different kind of magic in Real Magic: Creating Miracles in Everyday Life. This book discusses realistic strategies that can help you experience profound miracles.

While these miracles aren’t the ones you usually see in the movies, they are great life experiences that can help you get past perceptions that have been holding you back. This then allows you to reach a higher level of consciousness where you can experience blessings in your everyday life.

Summary

Through these five books, you can learn how to open yourself up to a deeper spiritual practice. It only goes to show that books are valuable tools of knowledge that can help you gain a deeper understanding of love, peace, optimism, miracles, and the present moment.

The post 5 Books on Spirituality You Should Read appeared first on JClay.

These journal prompts will quickly get you in alignment with what you truly want, not just with what you think you want.

I first got introduced to journaling from the book The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. In it he spoke about doing SAVERS daily…

• S – Silence – Sitting in silence or meditating
• A – Affirmations – Saying affirmations
• V – Visualizations – Visualizing yourself receiving/achieving what you want
• E – Exercise – Exercising
• R – Reading – Reading books toward what you want to learn
• S – Scribing – Journaling

I had experience with all of the above except journaling. I knew how the others were helpful so it made it easier to trust the recommendation to add journaling to my repertoire.

So I “borrowed” a notebook from my then job’s supply cabinet and got ready to journal.

The only problem was, I didn’t know what to write.

I probably actually wrote, “I don’t know what to write in here.” next to that day’s date.

Yet this is a new day. With more experience and knowledge around the subject, I’m here to provide you with the journal prompts that will help serve you the most.

Journal Prompts You Should Be Using

1. What can I do today (or tomorrow) that will make me super happy?
2. What do I love about my life?
3. What’s something that sucks and is there a way of looking at it where I no longer think it’s sucky?
4. If money was never an issue, how would I spend my day?
5. Make a list of people that have wronged me and explain why I’m scared to forgive them.
6. What does God want me to do that I’m avoiding?
7. It’s been said that … “How you do anything is how you do everything.” … How does that make me feel about my life?

What journal prompts do you use that are the most transformative?

The post You Are What You Journal: The Only Journal Prompts That Actually Matter appeared first on JClay.

Focus on the good. This seems like great advice. Since what you focus on expands, all you have to do is focus on the good to increase it, right?

Not so much.

There’s a fatal flaw in this logic. This flaw will be the basis of this article. The “good” thing is that by the end of it, you’ll have a better understanding of what is stopping you from being happy all the time.

Focusing on the good is a decent starting point in turning things around in your life, but I want you to be totally happy and remain that way no matter what.

So let’s get into it.

What’s Good?

Take a moment to think about what’s good in your life.

Feel free to grab a journal or open a text document and list out everything you can think of.

Just so you won’t take the easy way out, list at least 20 things.

You will be happy you did. Most people don’t realize that there are so many things in the world they are grateful for.

This exercise is your chance to see them all in one place.

It could be something as simple as popcorn or something like a rapper that made a classic healing album. Yes, that was a shameless plug. But focus.

Make your list.

With your list made, pay attention to how you feel right now.

That is genuine gratitude that you are feeling. See, you have more reasons to be happy about than you realize.

So how could focusing on these things ever be bad?

What Happens When You Focus On The Good Only

Look at your list again now think about each item’s opposite, if applicable.

For example, you may have on your list that all your bills are paid for this month. Its opposite would be, you have bills that you are unable to pay.

Another example would be that you’re thankful for a loved one in your life. Its opposite would be that the loved one is no longer in your life.

Would you consider these opposites bad?

Most would.

The problem is that by focusing on what you consider good, you’ve created the exact circumstances that will make you unhappy.

If your list has opposites, then if one or more of the opposites were to occur, you would no longer be in a gracious state.

This is because your faith lies in what’s on your list and many other things that exist outside of you.

What To Do Instead of Focusing Only on What’s Good

Since you are the one that continuously gives power to these things, then this power is yours to remove or give to something else.

Certain questions come to mind.

1. How did I give power to these things and how do I stop?
2. Where does this source of power even come from?
3. What should I give this power to?

Let’s answer each of these.

1. How did I give power to these things and how do I stop?

In short, it’s based on your judgments. By judging something as good, you’ve inadvertently judged the opposite as bad. Else there would be no reason to judge it is good. It would just be.

I go into much more detail about the mistakes of judging in these articles:

• Why It’s Hard To Make Friends As An Adult, The Math
• Law of Attraction Mistakes That Undo Your Progress
• The Painting: A Modern-Day Parable

The important thing to remember is that you shouldn’t judge anything. In order to accurately judge something, you would have to know EVERYTHING about it including its past and future.

For example, a person may have judged that it’s hard to make a lot of money. Another may have judged that’s it’s easy to make a lot of money. Who’s right when they both are successfully making money according to how they choose to work?

They both are correct. Each one is bound to the rules he or she has set through judgment.

Yet another person may have not judged anything about this at all. He or she is free to make money or not make money, work hard or not work hard. Regardless, this person will remain at peace about what he or she is doing.

2. Where does this source of power even come from?

This is an excellent question. Before we answer together, you should try to answer yourself.

Where does your power come from?

Possible answers you may have said are yourself, God, the food you eat, the exercise that you do, all of the above, etc.

Which answers are the truth, if any?

First, let’s determine if any of these power sources are limited in any way.

Food is obviously limited. It has to be grown or prepared, which depends on many outside factors.

We should be able to agree that exercise is limited as well because nobody exercises 24 hours a day every day.

What about God?

There’s a lot of debate about who or what God is. So let’s come back to this later.

What about yourself?

Those that believe in themselves seem to be pretty confident and happy. Those that do not believe in themselves seem to either be sad at, mad at, or scared of the world.

We can almost conclude that the source of your power is yourself or the belief in yourself.

There’s just one problem, you didn’t create yourself. Or did you?

“JClay, this is getting too deep. I’m not ready for this.” Stick with me, even though I don’t know where this is going either.

We’re taught that our parents made us and that their parents made them. Well, who or what made our parent’s parent’s parent’s parent’s parent’ssssssss?

Some may say science, but science does not create. Science attempts to explain what already happened.

So we’re brought back to God. Well, who is God? Who created God? Did He create Himself? If so, does that mean another God can create Him or Herself at any moment?

These are a lot of tough questions that won’t be answered right now in this article.

One question for you that can be answered is that if you can’t answer the above, how can you know with all certainty what is good and what is not?

It’s best to leave the judging to whatever force did the supposed creating, because He, She, or It obviously knows more than you.

And this brings us to our last question.

3. What should I give this power to?

Life is giving and so is your identity.

You are the thoughts you give/share with others. For example, if you’re always speaking about music, you see yourself as a musician or a music lover.

It’s the same with the stories you share of your perception of your past. These are the things you are currently giving power to and identifying as.

Humans are very reciprocatory beings.

Give people compliments and they’ll respond with one of their own or even a smile-inducing smile. On the other hand, give people a harsh criticism and they’ll give a painful look or another criticism in return.

You are only giving power to the things outside of yourself that you think give you power (you’re reciprocating).

This is why some really focus on what they eat while others may focus on what they read. The possibilities are endless.

Yet the original question answers itself.

If what you give power to seems to be limited, yet you seem to always have more power to give even when you change the object of what you’ve given power to, then you must be powerful.

*please read that sentence again*

How else could you consistently receive power from what’s limited while endlessly giving it away?

You can’t unless you’re already full of power.

But again, you acknowledge that you don’t believe you created yourself. You also acknowledge that your parents don’t seem to be unlimited.

Then there must be something else supplying your power that you can return the favor to.

Let me know in the comments who or what that is for you.

The Important Things To Remember

The first thing to remember is don’t make any new judgments.

Every judgment creates a split in reality where only half of it will make you happy.

Why have half happiness when you can have complete happiness?

The second thing to remember is to forgive all of your previous judgments.

This opens your world and allows you to experience peace and happiness despite what seems to be happening in the world.

When you stop giving your power/focus away to other people and things, it remains with you. You then get to be a reflection of power to others so that they may do the same.

You may also enjoy: Make Your Words So Powerful That They Manifest Instantly.

The post Don’t Just Focus On The Good If You Want To Be Happy appeared first on JClay.

Everyone wants general wellness and it’s no secret that a daily meditation routine will help.

But with everything going on, who has time to meditate?

Luckily, some of these meditations only take 1 minute to do.

You don’t have to be a pro to begin meditating and receiving its many benefits.

Below are some of the ways you can start to meditate now.

Just choose at least one and go with it.

1. Guided Meditation

Time: 3 minutes to 3 hours

Meditation is all about relaxing and letting go of any perceived stress.

Sometimes you don’t want to think about how not to think.

This is where guided meditation comes into play.

Guided meditation is a meditation ranging from a few minutes to several hours where another instructs your mind where to go.

This individual also tells you how to sit and what to focus on so that you don’t have to think about anything at all.

It’s usually led by a yoga instructor, a religious guide, or a cool YouTuber.

Resources:

• 40-Minute Guided Meditation
• 10-Minute Guided Meditation
• 3-Minute Guided Meditation
• Guided Rap Meditation

2. Mantra

Time: 3-30 minutes

Mantra meditation is when you repeat a word, sound, or phrase to help release your mind.

That’s it. You just sit comfortably and repeat the mantra either out loud or to yourself.

Helpful Mantras:

• “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.“
• “I am not the body, I am not the mind.“
• “Om“

3. Breathing Meditation

Time: 1 minute to 30 minutes (3 to 100 deep breaths)

Breathing meditation is when you focus only on your breath.

A breath is a complete inhale and exhale. The slower and deeper you breathe, the more relaxed you will feel.

You can do these anywhere and at any time (ie in the car, standing in a long line, holding a crying baby, etc).

Whenever you are most relaxed, you breathe slowly. So by practicing breathing slowly, you will be most relaxed.

For extra credit, try to get to 100 complete breaths where you only focus on breathing. If your mind wanders at all during the count, you must restart your count.

Noted Benefits:

• Ability to handle extreme weather
• Multi-orgasmic
• Anxiety free

4. Clear your mind

Time: 1 minute to 30 minutes

Although all meditation is geared toward helping clear the mind, this meditation is focused only on that.

To achieve this, you sit comfortably with your eyes closed, and you clear your mind.

When a thought arises, let it go.

In the beginning, you may find yourself dwelling on these thoughts for a while before letting them go. It will get easier with practice.

Great places to clear your mind:

• In a warm or hot bath
• Sitting on the toilet
• In a dark closet

5. Solo Activity Outside

Time: 5 minutes to 3 hours

There’s something about being in nature alone that gets your mind working on a higher level.

Yes, thoughts will come. The difference is that these thoughts will be clear and helpful.

When you are both alone and not listening to anything through headphones, you let go and become one with your nature.

You notice what you hadn’t before and can even experience a state of bliss.

Activities that may spark higher level relaxed thought:

• Riding a bike
• Eating fruit
• Running
• Walking
• Fishing
• Sitting

6. Music

Time: 3 minutes to 2 hours

Music meditation can take many forms.

Alone, music can help lift your spirits and slow down your breathing.

When combined with meditation, it can multiply the benefits. This all depends on the type of music and the frequency at which you listen.

Many prefer to use slow, melodic music that you could fall asleep to.

This keeps you calm and acts as a prompt for you to relax.

Since access to music is not always available when you want to meditate, try not to rely heavily on it.

Unbeknownst to many, music with words can act as a guided meditation.

So if the music you listen to reinforces the thoughts of distrust, loneliness, and even depression that led you to seek relaxation through it, then you could be canceling out its effects.

Resources:

• Healing Rap Music
• 741 hz Music
• Slow Music

7. Silence

Time: 1 minute to 2 hours

Silence meditation is just what it sounds like. You sit in silence.

You can focus on your breath if you want, but it isn’t a requirement.

When you meditate in silence, you sit and let whatever happens, happen.

You may find yourself dwelling on a thought or asking yourself a question. It doesn’t matter.

What is important is that you allow yourself to sit quietly with your eyes closed in silence.

Resources:

• Shh

8. Body scan

Time: 2 minutes to 1 hour

Body scan meditation is where you make yourself fully aware of your body.

You do this by closing your eyes and bringing your awareness to either your feet or your head. Then you trace through every part of your body filling it with love and healing energies.

Many guided meditations will often start with a body scan. It can lead to you relaxing muscles you didn’t even know needed relaxing.

Resources:

• 30-minute guided body scan
• 8-minute guided body scan
• 2-minute guided body scan

9. Visualization

Time: 1-10 minutes

Visualization is all about focus. It’s an extreme focus on a feeling or goal that you want.

Visualizing your goal allows you to practice having it.

Success will no longer be a scary thing because you would have practiced it multiple times in your mind.

You can use visualization to practice being happy, to see yourself fully healed, or even living in a new place.

You’re only limited by your imagination.

Resources:

• Your imagination

10. Giving love

Time: 1-10 minutes

A giving love meditation is very similar to Visualization and even body scan.

This is where you sit quiet and visualize yourself or another, and send huge amounts of love toward him or her.

The best results come from sending love to someone you feel is toxic or an enemy. So much healing comes from this exercise.

You can also use this technique to send love to your job if you don’t love it yet.

Resources:

• Love

11. Reflection meditation

Time: 3-30 minutes

Reflection meditation is great for entrepreneurs. It’s also great for those seeking true answers.

The idea is that you sit quietly with your eyes closed. Then you ask yourself a question. Next, you simply wait for an answer.

However, don’t force or demand an answer. Let it come naturally.

This practice can take your mind to many places. You may even want to keep a notepad handy for all of the ideas that might come to mind.

Starting questions to ask:

• What’s the one thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?
• Am I my body, my mind, or something else?
• What am I grateful for?

12. Yoga

Time: 10 minutes to 2 hours

If done mindfully, yoga combines exercise with meditation. Yoga can sync your mind, body, and spirit together for a single purpose.

If you’ve never done yoga before, seek help from a professional.

There are many great yoga teachers in your town and on YouTube.

Resources:

• 25-minute yoga
• 20-minute yoga
• 10-minute yoga

THINGS TO REMEMBER

You don’t have to be perfect with any of these. Giving your mind a break for even a minute works wonders for your mental and general health.

Many of these meditations can be used together or in a sequence.

Experiment and see what you like.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

• IAMNOBODY, IAMSOMEONE – rap album
• ACIM Book – workbook

The post 12 Ways to Meditate (Most of These are Easy) appeared first on JClay.

This is a big topic, especially if you’re dealing with chronic pain, the death of a loved one, and/or a person that seems to wish you harm.

Death, pain, and evil may even be so ingrained in your life that you will not know how you can live without them.

I will not force this information upon you, especially if you are not ready to receive it.

So before you proceed with reading, do this.

1. Take a super slow deep breath.
2. Decide if you want to know the truth or if you want things to remain as they are in your life.

Yes, this situation is similar to the red-pill/blue-pill decision in the Matrix movie. However, in this version, choosing to know the truth will add to your joy, peace, and overall passion for life.

If there is a side effect to this, it would be that many things that used to interest you, simply won’t. Close friends may find it difficult to be around you. And you might even get name-called as “One of those hippie people.”

Regardless, I’m going to break down each of these for you. Once you see the truth of what death, pain, and evil are, you will be able to remove their imagined effects from your life with little effort.

And for those people that distance themselves from you…don’t worry, they’ll come back and be inspired by you.

So have you made your decision yet?

No matter what you decide, know that it’s the perfect choice for you right now.

What Is Meant By Illusion

First, congratulation on taking the first step toward ultimate healing. I’m excited for you. This will be like being born again.

Now place your attention toward The Truth Test (TTT).

What’s so great about TTT is its simplicity. There’s no way it can be argued away or debated.

Anything that changes is not real because it is not the truth. What is true does not need any extra attention or help to keep it alive.

What is true will always remain regardless of the circumstance.

When you accept this ultimate truth for yourself, many walls of illusions will instantly be broken down.

Illusions are fully useless, complicated bits of information that keeps your focus on trying to understand them. Each answer discovered leads to another question.

On the other hand, the truth is indeed simple, always. Its answer is easily accepted and understood without any further questions.

The Belief in Death

The matter of death is a matter of identity.

Who or what do you identify with?

This answer is different for everybody.

I once identified as a smart, straight, black man. Many still identify me like that. Those that do are not wrong, they are just caught up in their own identity.

Let’s take a closer look at the above example. Two of these attributes are mind-based (smart, straight), while the other two are body-based (black, man).

Some may argue that both black and man are mind-based too depending on their cultural representation.

Speaking in terms of the body, the mass of cells that you lose each year through normal cell-death is close to your entire body weight. In the process, these cells are replaced with new ones.

So every year you have a brand new body. Brand new! And your old one dies a supposed death.

Yet you are still you through all of this

What’s even more strange is that your thoughts work similarly.

Think about what you thought about 7 years ago. You were completely different back then with a different identity.

You had your own set of beliefs and goals that have nothing to do with who you are now. Those thoughts have since died out.

Yet you’re still you.

So again I ask, what exactly are you?

Perhaps you think that you’re the thoughts that you choose to keep.

Or that you are that story you tell to any person you meet, which is why you tell the story. It keeps you alive.

Take a brief moment to think about who you are in comparison to who you thought you were at a prior time.

What’s to make you think that your identity now is indeed real if your other identity could not stand the test of time?

Not only do you seem to be tied to your identity, but you are tied to the identity of others.

Is it true that you love your family/friends or do you love the identities they that wear?

Blended Realities

Throughout what you would consider life, you’ve had several realities based on who you’ve identified with.

Now let’s add another component…dreams.

Most of the time when you dream, you accept that reality no matter how absurd it is. You don’t even question it.

What makes this reality any different? Could you be dreaming now?

The reality of death is but the ending of yet another dream.

If death was able to withstand the truth test, then all things would be dead always and you would not be here to read this article.

Yet because life is real, the illusion of death seems possible.

And no matter what reality you go through, you’re always alive and you’re always you.

Do you ever remember a time when you weren’t? Do you even know who the real you is?

Let the belief of death go and enjoy what you are now, which is alive.

If someone tells you that you may die, he or she just wants you to accept his or her dream of death.

Don’t accept it. It is not of you.

And to any loved ones that you think you miss right now. Do this.

Close your eyes and fill your heart with all the love you can muster. Visualize your loved one and say what you would want to them. Listen, they will respond to you as if they are right here.

Nothing real is ever lost and nothing real can ever die.

The Belief in Pain

Pain is nothing more than a belief.

It’s a belief that you’ve associated with certain aspects of your body.

This is why you could be fine in your reality but experience pain in a dream. Or vice versa. You could be experiencing pain in your reality, but be perfectly at ease in your dream.

Pain is an acceptance of this belief.

So why does the pain seem real and where did this belief come from?

The belief in pain came from a false sense of control, which goes back to the identity we spoke of earlier.

Your True Identity

Just to give you the truth of what/who you are, you share your identity with everything real in the world.

In other words, you and your friend are the same. If the universe had a body, you would be like the index finger and your friend would be like the middle finger.

Both are needed, appreciated, and help make up the body.

If you accept your identity as this, you will always do things that serve yourself (the entire body).

However, you believe that you are a separate identity from your fellow human. And so you do things that serve what you believe to be yourself only.

Because of this separateness, you seem to experience loss when it appears that your fellow human has something you do not have that you want.

This is a misperception.

For example, if you massage your right hand with your left hand, you will be happy for the overall experience.

Yet if you believed you were just the left hand, you may feel cheated not realizing how it affects your entire world.

Similarly, when you believe that you are separate from all, you open your experience to loss, loneliness, doubt, worry, and fear.

How Does Pain Factor Into This?

This emptiness that is created by your believed separateness gets filled.

The filling or feeling is the building block of pain.

Once you experience it, you want it gone.

Again, since you share your identity with everything that is real, you attempt to share your pain with others, and sometimes you try to project it onto others without even realizing it.

Here’s where it gets a little tricky in your mind.

The pain of loss, for example, makes you feel guilty. The reason for this guilt is because deep within, you know the truth of what you are. And if you are all, there could never be any loss.

And when you share this idea of littleness with others, you make both yourself and them weak through your eyes. Since in these moments of sharing pain you become the source of suffering for many, you feel intense guilt.

So after creating such guilt and wanting no part of it, you share it with others constantly because all you know how to do is share that which you believe you are.

You say things like, “You always disrespect me even though I would never disrespect you.” or “You owe me for all I’ve done for you.”

All of your actions become a way to serve and feed your separate identity. You no longer give just as an expression of love, you give to receive something that will make you feel bigger in your separateness.

Since you’ve gone through periods of sharing emptiness with others, emptiness is now among what you witness around and within you.

This causes great discomfort, which begins to manifest itself within your body and this associated thought becomes known as pain.

Not realizing you are the cause, you seek remedies outside of yourself to heal yourself. Each time you give power to these remedies through your belief in them, you weaken yourself even more and repeat the process of guilt and pain.

The Undoing of Pain

The only way to be rid of pain once and for all is the same way you made it real.

Start by sharing ideas of abundance with all. Share only that which you would want to have so that it becomes the only witness of who and what you are.

Be the cause of joy in yourself and others by giving freely without expecting or wanting anything in return. Be the example of contentment and not of loss.

Know that by helping others, you are helping your true Self (the entire body).

The Belief in Evil

The main thing that would stop you from helping everyone in the world is that you believe some are evil.

The subject of evil is a broader topic that I discuss in this article about God and evil.

To sum it up, evil does not exist. It is another false belief that you would carry with you from moment to moment.

You attempt to speak it into existence each time you bear witness to so-called evilness making you its preacher and sustainer. Any evil that you witness is made real through you.

Use the techniques mentioned above and below to withdraw faith in such a belief.

Next Steps

To start seeing reality instead of only your beliefs here are a few things you can do.

1. Listen to Let Go twice a day for at least a month.
2. Share ONLY love with others.
3. Read this book.

The post There Is No Death, No Pain, and No Evil appeared first on JClay.

Truthfully, many adults never learn these life lessons no matter what age they are. I threw the age of 40 out there just to get your attention.

When life lessons aren’t properly learned, the self-defined hurtful circumstances surrounding them continue to repeat.

Don’t be trapped by these beliefs all your life. Learn the lesson and transform the quality of your life.

In this article, I will outline the 7 most important life lessons that you can begin learning now.

Don’t worry if you don’t agree or aren’t ready to shift your perception. All is unfolding as it should. The fact that you are being exposed to this right now means you’re welcoming amazing things into your life.

Are you ready? Then let’s proceed.

1> The importance of letting go

Followers of my music know how much I speak about letting go, but many may not fully understand the reasons why.

Currently, you may feel weighed down by the heavy burdens you choose to carry.

In the simplest terms, letting go allows you to feel light.

When you feel light, you are like a leaf rolling down the street. You feel free as if you are part of the wind. No matter where you land, you land softly because you are light.

There is no coincidence that the word light in terms of weight is the same as light in terms of that which helps you to see.

When you let go, you can see clearer. What seemed like a dark, scary figure was just a shadow that could have no effect on you.

Whether it’s a grudge, bad news, fear, ideas of who you think you are, or any number of unwanting things … let them all go.

Try it now. There’s something that’s bothering you. Let it go. It’s as easy as dropping your phone. The only reason you wouldn’t let go of your phone is if you valued it.

Why value this heavy burden? Let go.

2> You keep what you share with others

You may have been taught or witnessed the relationship that exists between giving and taking.

The give-and-take relationship says that with any transaction, one person gives and the other takes. Yet there’s more at play here.

“Taking” has more of a negative connotation to it. It implies that you must lay claim to what was never yours.

This thinking introduces the idea that there are things that you lack. The idea germinates and you start to focus on what else you lack. So you begin a cycle of taking.

Taking can be of force, through careful planning, or even through means of deception. It also contradicts giving.

By accepting that you must “take” to live properly, you have already created a disadvantage for yourself. You are telling yourself that you are inadequate as is and that you must “take” control of all. In addition, you are making real the belief that all can be “taken” from you at any moment.

This belief makes it even harder to give because now you want to control the gift even when it’s no longer in your possession. Your giving comes with conditions.

So give-and-take isn’t actually a thing. It would be accurately described as take-and-try-to-keep. To take is to try to keep, and to try to keep is to take. There is no contradiction here.

2.1> Let’s compare give-and-take to give-and-receive

Give-and-receive is similar to take-and-try-to-keep in that there is no contradiction. What is given is received and what is received is given. It also passes the truth test.

Don’t worry, I’ll explain.

When you give unconditionally, you have no need to control the gift. You are showing with your actions that you believe it is ok to give freely.

This belief allows you to receive freely. You won’t feel bad about receiving gifts because you know by your own actions that gifts are not a form of indebtedness.

And I’m sure you’ve gotten helped in many ways over the years in such a way that you could not possibly begin to repay, nor would the gift-givers want you to repay.

To demonstrate this relationship of giving and receiving, give someone a huge smile. Once you see their reaction, your smile will grow even bigger because you would have received back what you gave.

Now do the same thing in reverse. Give a person a mean look. Chances are you won’t like what you receive back from it.

2.2> The role that sharing plays in this

Sharing is another form of giving. You may not realize it, but you share often.

At any moment, you share your thoughts, emotions, mannerisms, way of being, loves, etc.

As you can see, you can only share what you have to share.

So when you lash out at another, complain, or share your disgusts, it’s because you have those things. You have accepted them as part of yourself.

The reason you would openly share these things is that you believe it’s a way to get rid of them. But as we’ve learned, this is not true. Giving and receiving are one.

You actually strengthen in yourself what you share with others.

The proper way to rid yourself of what you don’t want is again to simply let it go.

When something is not a part of you, you have no need to speak about it. It’s not even in your mental space to even be thought to speak about.

3> Forgiveness is a strength

A lot of people still see forgiveness as a weakness. Why else would they not forgive?

There is still a huge misconception when it comes to forgiving. Many believe that to forgive means that, “I know you did me wrong, but I’m going to prove that I’m better than you by forgiving you.”

This does not pass the truth test.

Forgiveness is similar to the following, “I know you think you did me wrong, but you only did yourself a disservice by believing you could cause pain or discomfort. You have strengthened your belief in was is not real. In reality, you can never hurt me. I forgive you, not for what you thought you did, but for your belief in what is not of you.”

To put this another way, it’s like the famous quote of Jesus that if someone slaps you, turn to give them the other cheek to slap.

The reason this is an accurate depiction is that it doesn’t give a false representation of what you are. You are not a body nor what it represents. You are not fragile and susceptible to death.

To fight for the body’s weakness is to recognize that you are weak, even though you are not weak.

This leads us to the next life lesson, but I’ll say this one last thing first. Getting is another word for receiving. And since giving and getting are one, so are forgiving and forgetting (for-giving and for-getting).

To forgive is to forget. Why would you remember and continue to be limited by what is not? You are what is.

4> Having enemies makes you weak

This life lesson is very similar to what we were speaking about above.

When you acknowledge someone as your enemy, you have assigned them to be your superior. You believe that they have power over you, because why else would you regard them as your enemy?

If a 3-year-old said that he was going to beat you up, you wouldn’t call him your enemy. You would say, “Allll, you’re so cute. Where’s yo mama?” lol.

Well, adults are just tall kids. Treat them the same way.

Hate tries to make more hate, but it is always inferior to love. It cannot exist where love exists.

On the other hand, love creates more love and it is inferior to nothing.

Create loved ones instead of trying to make enemies.

5> If the promise of money is the only reason you’re doing something, you shouldn’t be doing it

Chasing money is often a sign of fear. You feel that having money allows you to be safe. By doing this you are again giving power to something outside of yourself and you are also giving it power over you.

You are also making real the belief that safety is needed. Safety would only be needed if you identify with what is temporary.

A common thing amongst those that grew up in poverty is that they never knew they were in poverty until someone showed them differently. For years they were happy with life, but because someone said they should value money over happiness, they entered a cycle where they become a slave to money.

Money is just a tool for cooperation. You want people to cooperate with you and many are willing for the right price whether they want to or not.

But why would you ever do what you don’t want to do? It’s because of fear of the unknown.

What is even more absurd is how can you be afraid of the unknown? It’s unknown!

Instead, openly cooperate with others. You won’t need money ever again. This is not to say that you won’t use money ever again or that you won’t have access to it, you just won’t “need” it.

6> The past is a trap

The past only exists in your mind. It’s not real and it’s not here, but you always visit it every chance you get.

A lot may argue that you can learn from the past. True, but what do you really learn?

You learn that you would rather be nowhere than here. In addition, you learn untrue lessons because you learned them by being in a place that is untrue.

6.1> The fabricated lessons learned from the past

The past has taught you about pain, which is an illusion, and it’s taught you about death, which goes against what you are because you could not exist if you were death.

One of the main things that focusing on the past does is give you a team to root for. You take on the persona of that team that you identify with by way of its story. His story. History.

History attempts to make division real. If you believe you are of a certain sex, you are more likely to take on the behaviors and baggage you think that sex carries. You even attempt to enforce these behaviors with others that don’t behave in a similar manner.

It’s the same for race, culture, religion, affiliations, territory, education, job titles, etc.

People even start there sentences like this:

• As someone that grew up in Chicago…
• As an award-winning artist…
• As someone with ADD…
• As a cancer survivor…
• As a gunshot victim…
• As a church goer…
• As a grown man…
• As a mother…
• As a victim…

What would happen if you shed those definitions (limitations)?

It may look something like this:

• As a perfect creation from a Perfect Creator…
• As an unlimited being…
• As a creator of time…
• As all there is…
• As life itself…

In fact, you won’t even need the pretense to speak.

Let go of the past and focus on right now. I recommend this book by Eckhart Tolle called The Power of Now.

7> Your mind controls your body

Everyone agrees with this one, but nobody agrees with this one.

I understand how that sounds.

You tell your body to raise it’s arm and it does. You tell your body to hold your pee so that you can make it to a bathroom, and so it does (most times ).

The power your mind has over your body is total.

But even within that power, your mind has the power to give that power away to illusion. It can say, “Let’s allow sickness to control this body.”

“Let’s let chance determine what happens to this body.”

And so it does.

Your physical body is a representation of who you think you are. If you change who you think you are, your body will change accordingly, naturally.

Everything your mind tells your body to do allows it to become more efficient the more you do it.

If you work out all the time, your body will become more efficient at helping you to work out by way of muscles and loss of fat. The same for if you sat down in one spot the whole day. Your body would become more efficient at that.

And if you do a combination of both, who knows?

My point is that your mind controls your body. You don’t have to go to another body to find out what’s wrong with yours. There is only a mis-thought that’s causing all of your body-related troubles.

You can let that go as well. Let go of all limitations. You may even end up being able to walk on water.

One thing is certain. As long as you believe you won’t be able to walk on water, you won’t be able to.

Recap

Here are those 7 lessons again:

1. The importance of letting go
2. You keep what you share with others
3. Forgiveness is a strength
4. Having enemies makes you weak
5. If the promise of money is the only reason you’re doing something, you shouldn’t be doing it
6. The past is a trap
7. Your mind controls your body

Learn these lessons and have fun in the process. In fact, have fun always!

If you find this article helpful, share it. Remember, what you share with others, you strengthen in yourself.

The post 7 Life Lessons People Still Haven’t Learned By the Age of 40 appeared first on JClay.

Raise your vibration and keep it high. Well, why?

Your mind is like a tuning station. When you focus on a particular thought, all thoughts of a similar frequency will come into your awareness.

Thoughts of joy and peace are of a high frequency or vibration. Thoughts of pain are of a lower one.

The higher your vibration, the lighter you feel mentally, physically, and emotionally. You are above all perceived problems because they are no longer pulling you down. You’ve let them go.

This article is straight from the gurus / master teachers that help us to remain “high”.

1. “If you wish to find Love, don’t look for the object of love but rather for the source of love. There you will find the Beloved.” —Mooji

Yeah, Mooji! I could end this article right here. Love is the one thing everyone loves. It’s kind. Love is beautiful. It’s what you are.

People have a habit of looking for love every except where it always is, within. Love is never without because you are never without love. What is out is just a reflection of what is in.

Seek the real thing, never the reflection.

Find out more about Mooji at https://mooji.org/.

2. “Do not try to fix whatever comes in your life. Fix yourself in such a way that whatever comes, you will be fine.” —Sadhguru

Sadhguru just gave the key to happiness.

You are an abundant being in an abundant universe. If there are such things as problems, then you know that there will be an abundant amount.

Do you really want to fix an abundant list of problems? That just sounds exhausting.

Instead, you can fix this one problem of thinking that you have to fix problems.

Start to love all and accept all as it is. You will begin to ascend above all. You will be free to experience life how you intended.

Find out more about Sadhguru at https://isha.sadhguru.org/.

3. “I am not my thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions, and experiences. I am not the content of my life. I am Life. I am the space in which all things happen. I am consciousness. I am the Now. I Am.” —Eckhart Tolle

Eckhart Tolle just gave the ultimate affirmation and explained life in simple terms.

Thoughts and emotions come and go, but through it all, you remain. This means you are not these things. You exist beyond them.

To belittle yourself into believing you are your thoughts and emotions is to lower your vibration. You also lower your vibration by holding others to their thoughts and emotions as well.

You are Life. You get to experience one thing at this moment and then experience a completely different thing in another. None of it truly matters.

Never let matter keep you limited. Life knows no limits. Be Life.

Find out more about Eckhart Tolle at https://eckharttolle.com/.

4. “The people who trigger us to feel negative emotion are messengers. They are messengers for the unhealed parts of our being.” —Teal Swan

Teal Swan just exposed the role everyone plays toward each other.

You are all saviors. You get to show your fellow human his or her beliefs that they are holding onto.

When someone seems to anger you, you’re never angry at them. You are just angry at the thought you held about what they had to say.

You are not that thought and neither are they. That person is not your enemy. They have just shown you a miracle if you would but accept it.

By seeing what seems to be angering you in its true form, you can let it dissipate into the nothingness that it is.

Never be angry when others show you what needs to be healed. In it lies the key to keeping your vibration high.

Find out more about Teal Swan at https://tealswan.com/.

5. “If you pay attention to the patterns of your life you’ll realize everything always works out. Everything always takes you to a greater destination. You always grow and the things you think you can’t survive you somehow divinely make it through. That’s life. Always remember that.” —Idil Ahmed

Idil Ahmed speaks the truth.

If you must leave this moment and re-visit the past, really look at all of it. Nothing that happened to you was every permanent. Ever.

All things change, except for one. You always remained no matter the circumstances. You will always remain.

Hold this truth to heart. Know that no matter what, all will work out.

Find out more about Idil Ahmed at https://idillionaire.com/.

6. “Need nothing and then see what happens.” —Gangaji

Gangaji just gave a practical action to raising your vibration, need nothing.

“Well, how do I make myself need nothing when I need everything?”

Stop needing it.

“What?”

If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve tried to change your behavior before. This could be eating or not eating certain foods, spending less money, sticking to a workout regimen, or hanging out with different people.

What always happens as soon as you decide to change a behavior? You get enticed by many for your old behavior.

Try to stop eating candy, everyone is offering you free candy. Choose to save money, your favorite stores release deals on products you’ve always wanted. Start working out, your body says no and produces aches & pains.

You get the point. Decide to stop needing anything and watch how you’ll not only have access to it, but you’ll have access to everything.

Find out more about Gangaji at https://gangaji.org/.

7. “What we don’t recognize is that holding onto resentment is like holding onto your breath. You’ll soon start to suffocate.” —Deepak Chopra

Deepak Chopra gave a beautiful analogy.

Who wants to sit with their breath held all day? All things are give-and-take, even breathing. You must give of yourself to receive from others.

By holding onto anything, especially resentment, you are cutting yourself off from life.

Let go. Yes, let go.

Find out more about Deepak Chopra at https://www.deepakchopra.com/.

8. “Love is never absent – the only choice is whether to be aware of It or not.” —David Hoffmeister

David Hoffmeister is the man for this one.

It is impossible to be aware of both love and fear at the same time. The presence of one negates the other.

Where love is, fear can never be. Where fear is, love can never be. This goes with all the wonderful things synonymous with love (joy, hope, peace, abundance, gratitude, life, etc) and with fear (despair, hopelessness, scarcity, death, etc).

Hold love in your awareness always. Share it with others. Extend God’s Love as it was extended to you.

Not only will you be aware of Love’s presence, but It will also be present everywhere you look.

Find out more about David Hoffmeister at https://davidhoffmeister.com/.

9. “Love yourself and your expression, you can’t go wrong.” —KRS-One

KRS-One continues to share wisdom.

When you love yourself, nothing else matters. Despite the perceived circumstance, you are love.

You could be in the most boring of places and it would not bother you because you know what you are and you get to express it.

Everyone loves love. It’s the one thing that all things share. So it is always welcomed.

Love that about yourself and love yourself.

Find out more about KRS-One at https://www.krs-one.com/.

10. “Don’t dwell on your weaknesses, everybody else is already doing that for you.” —Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vee cares not for the weak; he cares for you.

You are strong. It is only your attention to the weak that makes you believe that you are part of what you consider to be weak.

You have at least one strength. It’s love. You can use that strength to birth many more.

Focus on your strengths and watch them expand. Watch it influence everything around you to become just as strong, which influences you to remain strong.

Find out more about Gary Vaynerchuk at https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/.

11. “Remind yourself that you cannot fail at being yourself.” —Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer just cured me with this quote.

It’s tempting to look at life as a series of successes and failures, but this couldn’t be further from the truth.

What seems like failure is always part of success. You can’t learn how to walk unless you’re willing to fall. But even the act of trying to walk is a success in itself because you are just being you.

In other words, no matter what you do, you are successful. You are an expression of life. Every thought, every choice, every emotion is all a success. You are a success.

Find out more about Dr. Wayne W. Dyer at https://www.drwaynedyer.com/.

12. “Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretense. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.” —Adyashanti

Adyashanti just brought us to reality.

Enlightenment is the raising of your vibration. You become light. Nothing is holding you down. You have let go of the world that consumed you.

From the perspective of someone with a lower vibration, they don’t want to see their world end. They complain about all, but they love complaining. Conflict rules their lives, but it’s the safe space they’ve created for themselves.

When you bring things to the light of truth, you see that what you thought existed was never really there. It was an illusion made in the dark. You saw a shadow and gave it meaning. Yet in the presence of light, all things are seen as they truly are.

Are you ready for the truth? Truth is not to be feared, because truth is Love.

Love ends all conflict. It ends all hurt. Love ends all form because It exists beyond it where the beginning and end meet. It is the Alpha and Omega. God is Love.

Find out more about Adyashanti at https://www.adyashanti.org/.

It’s Your Turn

Think of the most helpful quote that you can. Bring it to the light of truth to make sure it is true. Now share with the world. Start with the comments below.

The post 12 Raise Your Vibration Quotes by Gurus & Masters appeared first on JClay.