We're in the news!

Good Times writer Chris Magyar interviewed us last week for the Good Times Health issue that came out this week. Check it out:

Visions of Health
Good Times - Wednesday, 21 February 2007

© Good Times

Powerful Beliefs, Intention, and The Law of Attraction

Every time I see a pelican I'm reminded of how things change when a concerted group of people choose to make things happen. When I was a kid the brown pelican was on the endangered species list because of DDT poisoning. I remember being completely terrified by reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. She and most environmentalists at the time believed we were doomed and as a very impressionable child I was convinced they were right. Instead DDT was banned, the pelicans have rebounded, and I am no longer capable of believing that the end of the world is around every bend.

Well, all right, I AM capable of it...I get as swayed by gloomy predictions as the next person...but I'm no longer willing to settle for that mindset. In our practice, Paul and I meet people who have been made to believe (and have the evidence to prove it!) that they are not capable of having what they need and deserve to have in their lives--whether that's a healthy body, a decent paycheck, or a positive relationship with a spouse, their families of origin or their kids. And on hearing their truly terrible stories one would be inclined to agree. And yet....very often we see the most miraculous changes occur simply as the result of a simple change in their belief systems. It's as if a switch can go off in our brains that says "I AM capable of having such and such a thing today" and it happens!

I won't say that I've seen "the lame walk and the dumb speak" (yet) as a result of a single change in belief. But we have seen intense pain disappear, new hope flood in, and painful emotional dilemmas resolved instantly at the point when, through a belief shift, the client was finally able to allow it.

It gives us pause because there are plenty of times when Paul and I think WE can't have what we need, when we give up hope (temporarily), when we need a reminder of what we're capable of being. In the healing business the healers get helped along with their clients. What can we say, we're not perfect either. But then a new client walks in, we put aside our own distress for a moment and concentrate on them, healing guidance comes in and the session winds up being of healing benefit for all concerned, ourselves included.

_________________________________________________________________________

The Secret
One of the concepts we've been working with a lot for ourselves and our clients is The Law of Attraction and what I call the Power of Powerful Beliefs, the basic premise of a new movie being talked up a bunch called "the Secret." A great friend recently lent us a copy. Paul and I both have problems with it-- the first half, especially, is overly simplistic and somewhat misleading -- but I think, generally speaking, that it is really good at introducing people to these concepts in an uplifting and, at times, powerfully moving and inspirational way. That's the power of this form of media and that makes it worth seeing for that reason alone. But I have major concerns about the very strong statement made that whenever bad things happen it's because we as individuals attracted it into our lives. That's impossible, my guidance tells me. There are always multiple purposes to everything that happens and sometimes horrible things are there to remind us of the immense importance of what we're really here to do. From a spiritually whole-istic perspective the whole of humanity is responsible for what happens to the human race as a whole. We collectively manifest issues and problems as a whole and work them out through millennia. (We'll have to get back to this in future issues.) But the gist of the movie is that we attract all kinds of things to ourselves and, since form follows thought, we're more likely to manifest happier experiences if we train ourselves to focus on happier thoughts. "The Secret" is available only on DVD or by watching it directly on your computer off the internet. You can check it out at http://www.thesecret.tv/ .
_________________________________________________________________________

The Law of Attraction is at the very heart of what we do on a daily basis. When I listen to clients I am always struck by the themes that repeat over and over in their lives. That's the Law of Attraction at work and it's ALWAYS a glaring red flag as to what they need help with. If they weren't stuck in a particular way they wouldn't attract the same experiences time and again.

How do you heal something like that? Well, first you have to recognize it's happening and take a good peek at what might be causing it. There's always a set of underlying beliefs passed on from family, friends or the societies we live in combined with beliefs we created as a result of unresolved issues in our past. We tell ourselves that our stories -- the ones we tell to make sense of our lives--are the indisputable whole truth and that what happened to us then limits what we're capable of being from that time on. But from our perspective as healers nothing could be less truthful than that.

Sometimes the "conventional wisdom" of society has told someone that "there's no cure or treatment for that" and that's not just a product of the American medical system. Rape victims are told repeatedly that they'll "never get over it." Victims of other crimes wind up thinking that they'll be looking over their shoulders for the rest of their lives. The cure for all these people frequently lies in rejecting the "wisdom." You learn from what happened-- no one over the age of five crosses the street without looking both ways--but you can heal from the most horrific things and live your life freer from pain.

Sometimes you literally have to have faith no matter what other people say you can and cannot do.

Paul wants me to share how I got my first book published because he thinks it's a great example of the importance of belief in the face of nay-saying. And I guess that's the case because I believed in that project completely whereas in other areas of my life, where I had significantly less faith, I have struggled to manifest important things I wanted. Conventional wisdom says it is next to impossible for first time authors to get published and it's a long hard road if they do. But I had my first book, The Solstice Evergreen, published by a real publishing house without sending a single query letter out in the mail. In fact, there were only two publishing people who even read it. Unfortunately, the first person was an agent who was offering a workshop about how to get published. He told me he didn't think there was a market for a book on such a specialized topic as the pagan origin of the Christmas Tree. "Who would be interested in that?" And, at first, I believed him....I mean, after all, I just paid him for his "expertise." He must have known better than me and that stopped me cold in my tracks for seven years. Then I woke up. What the hell? The Christmas Tree is such a popular custom, who wouldn't be interested in where it came from? There HAD to be a market for that. So I went to a mini-workshop on publishing your own work led, as it turned out, by a small publisher fishing for something to sell. He read the very same query I gave to the first workshop leader seven years earlier and said "Wow! I want to publish that." It sold really well and has been in print ever since.

So is that all it's about -- belief-inspired intention? Well, there's also the issue of follow-through. We have to act on our desires, follow our hunches, and learn from whatever comes next. Getting back to the pelicans: It's not good enough that a committed group of people thought it was outrageous to spray poison on the earth and kill the birds, animals and fish. On some level they weren't as convinced nothing could be done as it seemed to me back then or they wouldn't have spoken out at all. On some level they intended to make a difference and they acted on that intention. They shouted out what they saw with the belief that it could make a difference...and, even though the message was scary, their desire to get people to stand up and stop the destruction they were predicting is what made their efforts succeed.

_________________________________________________________________________

How to Ask for What You Want

George prayed every day for three years to win the lottery, but never heard from God or hit the jackpot. After a while he began to lose hope, but he never gave up his faith entirely.

Finally, God woke him up in the middle of the night. "George, is that you who's been praying so hard to win the lottery?" the Supreme Being boomed.

"Yes, Lord, desperately!"

God sighed, paused for a moment, then said thoughtfully, "George, you have to buy a ticket."

_________________________________________________________________________

What's interesting to us as healers is how often people come to us with problems -- especially on the physical level -- "perfectly" designed to help them experience in material form a thought pattern / belief they don't express in a more conscious way. According to the Law of Attraction we experience physical results of whatever we focus on consistently over a long time. You don't have to be afraid of every random thought--there's a time lag built in to buffer that -- but the chronic patterns, the ones we were taught to believe at an early age and have practiced our whole lives manifest in big ways. As I said before, this can be on a societal level but there are more frequently "collective" manifestations than run through whole families -- even genetic switches that turn on and off based on environmental factors including the emotional environment we live in and how we respond to it. (I've been reading about genetic switches in magazines like "Scientific American.") That's leading to ripples of hope in the scientific community. If a genetic switch can be flipped by the introduction of certain environmental influences, we can learn to switch them back again.

I believe as healers that we actually participate in this switching on and off. The world of psychoneuroimmunology already has proven that persistent beliefs affect the release of certain neurochemicals in the brain that impact every system in the body. Over time this can lead to serious illness. In fact, all the immune system-related illnesses ranging from susceptibility to the common cold to the most life-threatening disorders are profoundly influenced by a person's chronic state of mind. Beliefs are the most persistent of thoughts and that's why the bulk of our healing practice revolves around making those beliefs conscious and shifting them along with the energy healing and spiritual guidance we provide. It's not enough that WE know we can intend strongly enough to override those unconscious patterns. Without the client's increased awareness and participation they can just undo all the work we did in ten seconds flat. And what would be the point of that?

We're all creative and powerful beyond belief and 99% of the people we meet fail to realize that about themselves. That's one of the reasons I so wanted to comment on the Law of Attraction and the importance of conscious intention. It's at the heart of everything we do. And what we help our clients make use of most.

-- Sheryl Karas
_____________

Spiritual Prosperity and Everyday Riches

Recently Paul was instructed by his guidance to pay more attention to his last priority than his first. Like most people, more of our attention gets sucked into the demands and concerns of everyday practical life than into why we're wanting to do what we're doing in the first place. Why are we here? What makes our hearts sing and what gives our lives purpose?

Paul is a talented photographer. He takes photographs of hummingbirds in mid-flight -- some as pristine as a still life, a truly fleeting moment absolutely frozen in time; others a colorful blur, like a gesture drawing of flapping wings and flashes of light that capture the essence of these amazing creatures like nothing else I've ever seen. He is an artist and a mystic who, for minutes and sometimes hours at a time, can connect with his subjects in the most profound manner. I've seen birds literally cock their heads at him and come in for a closer look. They pose for him, turning this way and that, pausing over and over while he clicks away to his heart's delight.

Paul says that the driving passion of his life is to help himself and others rise above limited perspectives and reach higher levels of spiritual development. He likes helping our clients by applying broad spiritual perspectives to the most personal and significant aspects of their daily lives. Living a spiritually evolved life in the context of everyday physical existence is no small project. Becoming aware of the greater meaning and possibility inherent in every life situation lifts people out of stuck places, helps them see the benefits in the challenges they're faced with, and allows them to sally forth with new vigor and determination, awe and delight. It's a challenge we both relish and we support each other by using our complementary focuses to help our clients and ourselves.

According to Chinese mythology, the role of the mighty dragon is to soar to heaven and come back to earth clutching the pearl of enlightenment, spreading good fortune and prosperity to one and all. Paul was born in the Year of the Dragon. I feel lucky to have him in my life.

What's my role? Well, I don't take too much stock in this usually but, according to Chinese astrology, I was born in the Year of the Dog. Oh joy, not the most exciting sign (woof, woof) but the good qualities of the Dog are that they are loyal, faithful, trustworthy and honest, and literally keep their noses to the ground, "doggedly" pursuing their projects and interests with single-minded determination. To be honest, I don't really care that much about spiritual transcendence -- I'm here on earth and while it was useful to have had the spiritual awakenings and experiences I have had, I'm much more interested in living a happy and satisfying physical life and helping my clients do the same.

Is it different from what Paul wants? Well, our beliefs about it differ considerably. He cares about your spiritual development; I use a spiritual perspective to concentrate on life on earth. Together it's like we're attempting to reenact the ancient dance of Shakti and Shiva, melding the transcendent and immanent, the act of rising above mundane physical reality for divine inspiration and the task of using that inspiration to create new realities on the physical plane.

We come at our work from different perspectives but it's really all about the same thing.

What's my passion?

Well, I absolutely love it when an inner voice prompts me to say what seems like an innocent little comment to me at the time and the whole sky opens up for one of our clients. I love the look of excitement and possibility that comes into their eyes and the energy and light that infuses their beings. I love seeing people be lifted up and I find myself touched, awestruck and blessed every time it happens.

That's why I'm doing it. It's for you but-- I'm not ashamed to admit it --it's also good for me.

Sheryl Karas, © 2006