The Best Thing You Can Do For Others...

I often think of the beautiful ways that people are there for each other.  And, just as often, I see people sacrifice themselves for their family or loved ones.  I see people who have lost their relationship even though they have poured everything they had into that relationship.  And I have seen people who have, in spite of themselves, acted out in destructive ways, often motivated by misalignment and unhappiness in their relationship.

Back in April of 2011, this was the "Daily Quote" offered by a wonderful channeled entity called Abraham:

"The best thing you could do for anyone that you love, is be happy! And the very worst thing that you could do for anyone that you love, is be unhappy, and then ask them to to try to change it, when there is nothing that anybody else can do that will make you happy." --Abraham www.abraham-hicks.com

The meaning of this quote has opened like a lotus flower over the past year and a half, with deeper and deeper understanding how to apply this idea in my life.  Here are some things that have occurred to me:

My happiness is your happiness.  Instead of a co-dependent approach of trying to make others happy, I need to realize that really, everybody is trying to make everybody else happy.  This is great - but it can leave all kinds of expectations unrealized, and cause lots of stepping on each other in an attempt to make others happy.

I am responsible for my own happiness.  And you are responsible for your own happiness.  And when you are not happy, I am sad.  And I know the same is true vice versa.  So, lets all just agree to be responsible for our own happiness, and share that with each other!

Happiness means abundance.  When I am happy, I bring positive energy into my relationships and into the world. When I am happy I eat right, exercise, and enjoy time with the people I love.  When I am happy I have clarity on what is healthy for me to do in my life and in my relationships.  When I am happy there is an abundance of love, luck, prosperity, and wisdom available to me.

Lets stop living for other people's happiness, and start living in our own and in our shared happiness!

In love and light (and happiness),
Jim Barker
www.TheDivineHand.com

The God Umbrella - Learning to Revel in Divine Love.

In my many years of palmistry, one thing that I have often observed among people is a pervasive sense of unworthiness.  For me, and I believe this is true for many of us, I have a foundational and early belief about being unlovable, unworthy, not enough, etc.  These ideas are reinforced by a particular and insidious puritanical tenant that “we are all sinners, but God loves us anyway.”  So, we don’t feel worthy of Divine love, and operate from this place of unworthiness.  And operating from this place of unworthiness, we separate ourselves from feeling the presence of the Divine.  I coined the term “god umbrella” as a way to describe the way that we block the Divine energy.

When we have our “god umbrella” deployed, we experience a pattern of lack and longing in a very profound way and look for ways to pacify ourselves.  We pacify ourselves with overindulgence in the pleasures of the world: drink, food, drugs, sex.  (None of which is necessarily bad in itself, but only harmful when used to replace the Divine.) 

We also have a very strong desire to be “right” about the fact that we are unworthy of the Divine, so we indulge in elaborate ways to punish ourselves for our own failings.  Something that might be a simple oversight on our part is enlarged and enflamed by our self flagellation over it.

Finally, we have woven the “god umbrella” into our lives so expertly, that all of our motivations and even our political and economic systems are created around patterns of lack and unworthiness.  Thus we fear opening up to the Divine because we are afraid it will separate us from the world we know.  The thought that is often in my own mind goes something like, “Well, if I open up and start just basking in God’s love, what is going to motivate me to go to work, or do anything but just laying on the couch all day?”

Closing the “god umbrella” is an act of faith.  Not a “blind faith”, and not a faith that is dependent on anything, rather it is a faith in ourselves.  Faith that we are worthy.  Faith that we are lovable.  This is a faith which is a decision and a commitment rather than a feeling.  Closing the “god umbrella” is a choice to believe that you are totally worthy, lovable, amazing, and adored by the Divine.  A choice to believe that you are whole and complete.  A belief in this even if there isn't a feeling of it.

What happens when we are able to close that "god umbrella"?  Here are some things I have noticed in my own life.  First of all, some things that have not changed: I have not stopped being myself.   I haven’t ceased to have issues, concerns, hopes and desires.  I continue to fail and to succeed at things.  But I have stopped suffering in these experiences.  I stopped having to be “right” about my unworthiness.  Mistakes become simply that – mistakes.

What I am free of is the torture I put myself through when I fail.  I have noticed a grand acceptance of my being.  A comfort in my body, just the way it is.  My observation of being a bit overweight has transformed from a source of endless self-torture, to a simple observation.  And I have noticed that I have been eating less.  Not on purpose or because I am choosing to diet, but for another, more profound reason.  I have found that I am Satisfied (with a capital “s”).  This is one example of many areas of my life I am experiencing transformation.

I invite you to try on these ideas: YOU are worthy, lovable, and adored by the Divine!  Imagine the Divine loving you, as a parent loves a newborn child.  Look at yourself in the mirror and imagine the Divine loving you.  (do this regardless of how you feel about it – just take this action anyway).  I invite you to close your “god umbrella” and experience a deep and lasting fullness, one that allows all of our pacifying behaviors to melt away.

Love and light,
Jim Barker

Gratitude: a doorway to enlightenment?

I thought I would share an interesting idea I came up with during a reading yesterday. "Gratitude is a doorway to enlightenment."

I have heard gratitude being associated with abundance, especially by using the 'gratitude exercise' where one lists things to be thankful for in their life, no matter how small.  In the context of my client's reading, however, being grateful was bigger than just abundance or focusing on the positive. We used gratitude to transform her past.

When my client looked at her past, she was overwhelmed with an enormous sense of suffering and failure. This can lend to the idea that "all has been for naught." So, we did some re-framing of her past - and looked at each of the difficult and painful life experiences as a pathway through learning, healing, growing, and experience. Life lessons are gleaned through difficulty - just like muscle is built by lifting weights. It's the resistance in the world that strengthens us. I asked her to consider being grateful for her past. Grateful for the break up. Grateful for the suffering and death of a loved one. Grateful for the learning, the experience, the crying, the laughter - grateful for all of it.

Gratitude is a doorway to enlightenment.  It isn't enlightenment itself, rather, it is an opening to understanding, healing, acceptance, and re-framing.  By practicing gratefulness, we allow ourselves to be present to the things we love about our life, but we can also use gratitude to consider the positive aspects of the difficult experiences in life.

I would appreciate your ideas and opinions on this idea.

Precious to the Divine

I was highly inspired by a client that consulted with me last night.

At one point I said to her, "Accept the fact that you are worthy and precious to the Divine! Cultivate a humble yet profound acceptance of the Divine. Allow that divine presence to fully inhabit you, call you, inspire you, animate you, to be your greatest self in the world."

This morning, I was thinking about all the ways we distance ourselves from the Divine . Addictions are one way: smoking, food, alcohol. But there other addictions that are more insidious and less mainstream: video games, television, the news, life drama, obsessions of any kind, really, anything that takes us out of being present in our bodies. These recreational activities all have their place, to be sure, but everyone knows they have that little vice they do a little too often.

Why? Why do we distance ourselves from the Divine? Well, it seems that in our society, we are taught how to do this very effectively. We are given negative reinforcement, we are surrounded with cynicism, some of us are taught that the Divine is something to be feared, some that it is something to be loathed. Ultimately, distancing us from the Divine also allows us to stay right where we are, in our "comfortable squalor" of lack and unworthiness.

I find myself distancing from the Divine by lazing in front of the TV and eating, and getting caught up in the news and politics, becoming overly involved in things that are both out of my control, and that are not directly affecting me. What am I doing -really- when I'm unbalanced in my use of food/TV/drama? Beneath it is often some strong emotion that I am not sure how to deal with, such as overwhelm, or fear and there is also a pervasive sense of lack and unworthiness.

What is the remedy? To re-connect with the Divine. To turn off the television for a moment, and sit in silence, allowing the Divine presence to enter and fill you completely. To know that you are precious to the Divine. To know that you are an essential piece to this vast puzzle. To know that there is a plan for you, and to ask for guidance to see that plan. Also, to pause and get back INTO your body, and revel in it's miraculous existence!

Even a moment's pause can really change and interrupt the pattern of distancing oneself from the Divine. It's in line with a psychological technique called "Opposite to Emotion Action" where one takes an action opposite to a strong emotion (e.g. depressed opposite action might be walking or going out with a group of friends). Some more examples can be found here.

Ultimately, as stated at the start of this post, it is a FACT that you are worth and precious to the Divine. Our only job is to learn to take that fact into our hearts and souls.

Epiphany: Mess=Abundance

Wherever there is a mess, there too lives abundance.

"Piles" distance Affluence. I had this realization today during a phone call with my dear friend and fellow spiritual traveler Erika. We were talking about how another mutual friend of ours, in her packing of her home in anticipation for a move, found money and checks she had misplaced in messy drawers and piles of papers.

It suddenly occurred to me: a great way to envision those messy cabinets, or that pile of stuff in the corner of the bedroom, are as places where abundance is hiding. No matter what that pile of stuff is - be it a pile of dirty laundry needing to be done, or a pile of things I yet to be put away, there is always abundance there. When I do my laundry, I come into the abundance of clothing and outfits. When I sort through that pile of miscellaneous stuff, I find that thing I was looking for, or I find change, or even checks or cash. When I work on going through the garage, I find things to sell on EBay, or to give away. Besides the physical abundance gained from working through these "piles", there is spiritual abundance. My psyche is less burdened, and I am freed from that bit of concern or worry the pile of stuff was causing. I have created a clearing in which new possibilities can sprout.

It works the other way also. When I work through something that is bothering me, or come to resolution with relationship that is troublesome, I find abundance there also. Abundance of peace and love - but this also leaves me less worried and more able to be creative in my life to allow in physical abundance as well.

Maybe we create those "piles" in our life because it is a way of distancing ourselves from abundance. "Am I worthy of abundance?" is the question that is always there in the subconscious. Our patterns might say "NO", and society often says "NO"; so we create these piles that keep us separate from abundance - as though we were not worthy.

By answering the question, "Am I worthy of abundance?" with a resounding "YES", I am energized and inspired to dive into that pile which has been bothering me for the past month.

Off I go to clean out my closet.

Blessings,
Jim

Deconstructing Lack

Are you haunted by a pervasive sense of lack? I know I am sometimes. For a while I really came down on myself for this; after all, I'm supposed to be the palm reader, the one with the answers, right? Right. So, I decided to do some deconstruction on the idea of lack. Here are some of my thoughts on the topic.

Lack is a pandemic in our society. There is a simple reason for this: capitalism. The law of supply and demand is all about lack, and what drives up this process is a perceived sense of lack. Would people really want Louis Vuitton if there was not an artificial lack of them? Or even more unsettling, would they be desired if there was not a marketing scheme that had people feel as though they were lacking if they don't have one.

We won't really be motivated to buy anything unless we are fed information that we are lacking in some way. We lack the latest car, the latest home, the latest electronic gadget. For me, the voice in my head says, "I need... a blackberry, a new car, etc".

Okay - here is the big Truth: We lack nothing. We are whole and complete as we are. There is incredible abundance all around us. Here we are in the wealthiest nation in the world and we all have this strong sense of lack. Most of us have never gone hungry, never been homeless, never experienced desperate poverty as is common in other places in the world.

The lack we feel is completely made up. It is an artificial sentiment caused as a byproduct of our materialistic society.

So - what to do? Here is one idea, feel free to add a comment with your own ideas.

First, realize that you are not lacking - it's just your society trying to convince you that you are lacking. But forgive society - it's human too. We can choose the thing we wish to participate in, and we don't have to participate in this insidious sense of lack.

Second, bask in abundance! Take a few minutes to be silent, and feel the abundance of your life all around you. Physical abundance of your home, your possessions, your money, but also emotional abundance: the love that you have for those around you, and the love they have for you.

Third - repeat often! We easily forget about abundance, and fall back into the throes of society and it's control over us. No big deal, just take time to remember abundance. It's a lifelong process.

Blessings,
Jim