I’ve never understood why the Bible says to fear the Lord. Our Lord Jesus taught us to love God and each other. And fear is the way tyrants keep control.

So how does “fearing God” teach us how to become closer to Him?

I assume it’s a metaphor for respect, but it’s a sucky one at that. (Something lost in translation maybe?)

Why would I fear God when it is He that gives me life and and love? Why should anyone fear the One who graces us with All that He Is? It is with God that our safety lies. Anything less cannot protect us as well as He can. It is His spirit within us that graces us with the ability to know love, the power behind everlasting life.

All we have to do is let Him. Let Him grace us with His Love and His Truth. It will come in pieces and much of it we won’t understand. But we can take comfort in the big picture.

I remember a story about a teenage daughter asking her mother about how to trust in God. Her mother was making a cake and asked her daughter if she would like some. The daughter said yes. So her mother offered her some raw flour. “Eww” said the daughter. “How about some (raw) eggs?” asked the mother. “Double yuck,” the daughter replied.

“That is how God works. It’s hard to see the big picture while we’re in the middle of something. But His plan is perfect, just like the cake will be when all the right ingredients are mixed together the way they need to be.”

Now that’s a good metaphor!

Blessings

Irene

For years I wondered how effective affirmations were. To me they seemed to be helpful, but not as powerful as some claimed them to be. If they were, then they would always work.

But it seems to me that as commonly as they work, that they also trigger guilt or other “negative” feelings. I remember times when I felt that there was something wrong with me or the way I was doing it because sometimes very little changed. Other times, over time there were significant changes.

So the question became, what’s the difference? What determines whether they work or not?

What we hold in our body’s tissues is part of it. I know that different parts of our body hold different experiences and beliefs, usually at a subconscious level. And I realized that if a part of me doesn’t “get” something, then it doesn’t get it and will thus affect every other part of me.

The emotional holdings that we have within ourselves tend to overrun any logic. We have certain needs that are usually governed by emotion. That’s why so many tend to make the same mistake repeatedly. There is a subconscious need fueled by a subconscious belief that is trying to be fulfilled.

So no matter how much we may tell ourselves something that our mind may or may not believe in, it’s not going to know its full fruition as long as the body says, “I’m not buying it.” Affirmations may help to open up new pathways, or they may create new stress as your system lies in conflict.

So what helps an affirmation to work when your body doesn’t believe it, whether consciously or unconsciously?

Have you considered where things of Divine nature start?

Are you able to do anything of your own self?

Or is all that you are and will be because of the Spirit of God within you?

Have you considered asking God to help open your desired pathways? He’d be more than happy that you asked for His help and help He will. That is who He Is; the Infinite Consciousness of Love that Is.

When I prayed and let go, that ‘s when I noticed the most changes. Not immediately, but noticeably over the right time. When I held an affirmation while in a prayer state, they became reality over time to varying degrees. The extent of the change seemed to be in how much my body believed it as well. But over time, the body would tend to heal and change to the new beliefs as well. But not for the times that I did not hold God in my awareness as I worked the affirmation.

Where an affirmation is a step in the right direction, prayers to our Lord encompass All. Therein lies all the Truth  that we need for transformation. God’s Love and wisdom will guide us to that we wish. The result may or may not take on a different look than you expected. But if our prayer comes from our heart, He understands our heart and will guide perfectly true and with perfect timing.

God has 3 answers to prayers that are asked of Him.

A. Yes

B. Not yet.

C. I have something better in mind.

Over time I stopped doing affirmations for the most part because I noticed that I progressed more with prayer alone. I learned to focus on and be open to the infinity of God. And I am still learning.

When we open ourselves to His Knowing and let go of expectations, then we open ourselves to His infinite potential and possibilities. And all with His loving guidance.

I can put my faith in that. I hope you can too. It sure is a lot more fun and involves a lot more uphoria than not trusting Him.

Blessings

Irene

Encouragement builds confidence. It’s an internal growth that develops when one feels encouraged. Confidence comes from within and is the result of proper and timely encouragement as the child grows. The more confident one is, the more self-sufficient and steadfast to who they are to become.

By contrast, praise requires external acknowledgement which creates a dependency on approval from others. The more needy one is for approval, the more they can succumb to the wishes of others due to fear of rejection or not knowing what they truly believe.

Examples of Encouragement vs. Praise:

Praise: “I like what you did.”    Encouragement: “Wow, you were very creative with that.”

Praise: ” I’m proud of you.”   Encouragement: “I’m happy for you that you had the initiative to work so hard at that. Great job.”

Praise: ” I love that.”   Encouragement:  ” Those seem like some great ideas. What other ideas do you have?”

The primary difference is the “I” and the “you”. The key is whether the  message is geared toward making you happy, or helping the child realize that what they think and feel matters. And asking questions are a huge key to developing encouragement. The partner key is then to actually listen to what is being shared.

Other examples of encouragement might be:  “You seem to have some real talent there.”,  “Which one feels right to you?”,  and “How do you think we should proceed?”

Of course, it all must be sincere or the recipient will see right through it. But it just takes the  desire and some practice to retrain oneself to offer encouragement instead of praise.

The development of happy, strong, productive, and emotionally well-adjusted children is key to any prosperous and joyfilled society.  Sounds like a Divine goal to me. Least of all, our children are worth it.

God bless our children.

Blessings

Irene

So at the beginning of December 2010 I went to my practitioner certification course in Matrix Energetics®. I had to retake Levels 1 and 2 that weekend and then had the Practitioner Certification course during the week. It was a miraculous 6 days for me.

Matrix Energetics® is a consciousness technology, the art of transformation, and playing with the quantum fields to create change. If we want something changed, Matrix Energetics® is a great way to do that. It’s a lot like being a little kid. It’s a matter of asking questions, noticing what we notice, and playing with whatever we notice in whatever way our intuition or awareness is guided. And then letting it go and trusting.

Everything that I do in regards to the healing facilitation is about letting go and letting God. Only the skills and tools are different. Whether it’s Matrix Energetics®, biodynamic craniosacral therapy, or spiritual and self-healing coaching, I facilitate them all by being open to God’s guidance and love, listening, trusting, letting awareness expand, and letting it go into His hands.

But in trying to work through some remaining issues of mine, I went to class with a tall list of goals, that is, things to work through and let go of. I also went with faith, trust, and openness.

The first couple of days I was well aware that I was holding onto “my stuff” while enjoying the learning and fun that Dr. Bartlett’s classes hold. I was aware that I was wrapped up in my wanting to “get it” that I wasn’t holding the depth of presence I more commonly do. But I had faith and trusted in God and just went with the flow and allowed myself the experience as it was.

During the second day I was standing in back drinking some hot cocoa during the lecture. As is commonly done throughout the course, people are requested to come on stage. The instructors go by intuition to determine who gets called up and almost never request volunteers. (Once people see what happens on stage, getting called up is a pretty common desire.)

I was called up for the first time. I looked behind me to see if there was someone else behind me in red, but she said something like, “Yeah, you who’s looking behind you”.

Another neat thing about the matrix programs is that while there are certain points that they know to cover, they teach spontaneously. They have information and references for whatever may come up. But they basically teach according to how things come up, which is perfect and beautiful because it means that each class is catered and customized to the students attending at that time.

So when I went on stage Melissa looked at me and began to comment on how Matrix Energetics® is not just for physical conditions, but for the emotional or spiritual as well.

I’m happy that I was able to be the example of that. Even though others may or may not have gotten that that’s where I was coming from (emotional/mental), that’s what came to her to share at that time and she was spot on in my case.

She then very gently and barely touched me and I went into Frequency 18. (The frequencies are something that we are taught in Level 1 and one of the many tools available to us.) F18 is known as the Kundalini energy and people have gone into spontaneous yoga postures while in F18 even if they’ve never done yoga before. I, for some blessed reason, easily go into 18 and the spontaneous yoga postures. Although I do yoga, I haven’t been doing it regularly for months and I can never get as deeply or as easily or as comfortably into postures as I can when I’m in F18. People were oohing and ahhing and I would love to have seen what I looked like. But I am happy with having had the incredible experience, because it felt sooo incredibly good. While in F18 it’s kind of like being in a meditative state. I’m aware of all that’s going on around me, but I’m so internalized that I couldn’t tell you what lecture Melissa continued with while I was twisting around on stage. I know that I did some pretty deep back bends and I did the splits while in a headstand. That was a first and it was the easiest, the most comfortable, and the longest held headstand I’ve ever done. I realized, “So this is what a headstand is really supposed to feel like.” There was no struggle with the headstand. Only a natural ease.

When I got off stage my legs were like jello and it felt like something had broken off/ let go, even though I don’t know what.

As most of you probably know, whenever something is right for us or holds truth for us, we grow into it. So with each segment and exercise, things happened. Each person’s experience is unique to them and the changes can be profound.

During one of the evening forums, an elderly lady was called on stage. As she went on stage, I remember sensing her as compressed, as though the weight of the world was on her in some way. She also felt timid to me, and not as mobile as she could be. There was also another sense of something that I still have a hard time articulating other than I found it somewhat put offing.  I remember thinking that this was probably not someone I’d likely be friends with. I thought that a strange thought and not like me and focused on being open.

Dr. Garcia did what he does and we found out that she had had a blood transfusion decades ago. Apparently, blood transfusions or organ donations can have a major effect on someone if the two consciousnesses don’t come into harmony. Why they don’t come into harmony was not a matter here. But apparently it’s common that they don’t and that can lead to a person not feeling like themselves, or like they’re not in their body which was her case if I recall correctly. Dr Garcia played with the fields and did what he does, and she changed over the course of several minutes. We could all sense or see the changes. She seemed taller, more confident, more like herself. She was also keenly aware of the changes and how she felt. That sense that she had that something wasn’t her was gone. She smiled.

My last night there, I met this fine lady and we had dinner together. I am still amazed at how this is in a sense the same person that I saw on stage. But now in front of me was a vibrant, confident, intelligent, and well adjusted lady that I knew I could learn much from. She seemed 15 years younger to me and ready to move forward. It seemed nothing could stop her.

It became clear to me why God had allowed such a strange thought to come into my mind. It provided me with another clear experience of how profound matrix energetics has the potential to be. I love this stuff!

During the latter part of the course, we were playing with one of our exercises of the day. For the 3^rd and almost last time of the course, I went into F18, but not yoga postures this time. This time I found myself twisting or contorting into something strange. I very much felt the need to move in a certain twisted way, but felt like my body just wouldn’t move that way. I focused on letting go and waited and let myself twist as needed. Suddenly, something changed. I don’t know what but it felt within me somehow. I suddenly untwisted, but it felt like I was moving beyond that point that I was trying to twist. I extended and stood up and then stomped fiercely while turning in circles while my hands were clenched. It definitely felt like I was unwinding something. There were sounds of rage coming from me and I just kept “unwinding” until I felt I was done, about a minute later. I stopped turning and at this point my attention was drawn to my clenched hands. I had two thoughts going through my mind. One was “Just open my hands.” The other was, “I don’t want to open my hands.” I repeated these to myself several times. There was a very physical sense that I could not open my hands, but I also knew that I could. After the 3^rd time I made myself open my hands. As soon as I had done so, and immediately upon doing so, I had a vision of a hawk’s tethers being dropped to the floor. Something made me scream at that exact moment I saw the tethers drop. There was a fright or shock of some kind. I don’t know what. Something had happened. Something was different, but I didn’t know what at the time. But over the next several days I experienced it. I felt it.

I was different. I changed. The depth of faith, peace, calm, and trusting in God had reached new levels of awareness. Serendipity followed me everywhere. At times I went moment to moment noticing how God was being with me and working through and around me. And the depth of love that I feel for others also deepened. Also changed was the emotional charge to my political beliefs. While my resolve to strengthen and protect our great country remains in full, the emotional charge of anger at those who wish to turn it into a socialist or statist nation is gone. It’s simply so much easier to see more of God in everyone and everything compared to before.

And most of the changes that I experienced at class have remained. There has been a little regression, but only a little. I am still all the positive changes that I became over those 6 days of class. Just not as deeply as the awareness I held my last day there and the next 3 after that, but it’s close.

I can never again be who I was before I went to class. I can only continue to grow in His name.   Thank you, Lord!

Peace, Love, and Blessings,

Irene

As I was looking through my journal of collected anecdotes of the past 30 years or so, I noticed a page that I haven’t noticed much and forgot was there. Almost all the quotes from that page seemed so timely for right now as we get close to the new year, so I felt it best to share them. Enjoy.

Behind me is infinite power; before me is endless possibility; around me is boundless opportunity. Why should I fear.    (author unknown)

Your fears blind you like sand in your eyes. Turn into the stillness so that you may see. The Truth is available to you if you will be open to it. That is the nature of God’s Love.     (Divined to me back in 08)

“Each new day is a blank page in the diary of your life. The secret of success is in turning that diary into the best story you possibly can.”   (Douglas Pagels)

Many things will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart. Pursue those.    (author unknown)

Isn’t it funny how you can be more worried about what other people think of you than what God thinks of you?    (author unknown)

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”     (Thomas Jefferson)

God doesn’t call the qualified. He qualifies the called.     (author unknown)

“You are always right where you need to be to take the next step beyond yourself.”    (Guy Finley)

“Opportunity strikes at every moment we have a decision or choice to make. Every moment is anew and ripe for creativity. We have the power on how to create our life with each moment’s choice or decision. That is the power of the free will God gave us.”    (Irene Arndt)

“With God, all things are possible.”    (Matt 19:26)

“Surrendering to God is not about relinquishing power. It’s about letting the power of God flow through you.”    Irene Arndt

While I have included a few with my name, I am well aware that of my own self I do nothing and that these sharings of “mine” are simply His grace coming through.  **Thank you, Lord**

Blessings,

Irene

Accepting a helping hand or steadfastness of a friend standing with you are metaphors for trust. This is much like what it is when we trust God, for our Lord is always there with His helping hand and standing with us when we need support. Deep and profound healing requires trust as our systems use it as a resource for healing. We need to feel safe when we undergo the healing process. And the greatest safety lies in trusting in God. Where is our safety if all else is weaker than God and we look elsewhere?

This does not mean to not trust someone that we do, because it is His Spirit within us that gives us life. When the Spirit is partnered with one’s consciousness and heart, they are most certainly trustworthy. But it does mean to let ourselves be open to unknown Truth He holds for us. Our limited awareness tends to create expectations about how things are supposed to be instead of letting God’s love create a whole new world for us by being open to His infinite possibilities. And it is within one of these unknown possibilities that the healing we need can be accessed.

Once we learn how to settle and center ourselves into a state of presence and stillness, then we can access different parts of our system that want help. I always begin with prayer, and then open myself to listening to what comes. The question becomes to notice what I notice or observe. When I notice a part of me that feels “off” or “not right” somehow, I use my trust in God to allow it to heal.

Notice that I didn’t say, “make it heal”, but rather to allow it. I let go and let God. I hold in my awareness the piece requesting help and the intention of letting go and letting God, knowing that healing will happen. I know that that the Holy Spirit will work it’s magic as that is the nature of God’s Love. It is the healing power. So it simply does what love does if we let it. And healing happens.

It’s something that anybody can do. It just takes some education and practice, just like anything else worth doing.

Blessings,

Irene

(Graced to me tonight as I opened myself to God and listened.)

Blessings,

Irene

So I’ve been in a thoughtful mood recently and here’s one of the musings I’ve been having. Thought you might enjoy.

Everything and everyone is connected. Everything is in a constant state of dynamics. So as we elevate ourselves, those around us also elevate after some time that the dynamic forces at work have been allowed to manifest. If we don’t properly care for ourselves, then as we are “down”, that energy will tend to create the dynamics to bring those around us “down”. It tends to depend on which energy is stronger at the time.

Recall a time when you were feeling pretty good, then you come home and someone else there is in a foul mood. Did they take it out on you somehow? Did you let it get to you? Did it affect you somehow?

Most likely it did. The same is with the reverse. It comes down to A) how present we are to be able to see what’s going on and then take the time to decide how do deal with it, or B) if we are not present and we tend to react instead of observe and decide. When we are present, we become aware of our choices. We have the power to choose how we want to deal with it.

It goes along what Eleanor Roosevelt said. She said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” That is one of my favorite quotes, and it’s true. There have been many times that someone has said something negative to me and it then brought me down. That is, I let it. Why? Ignorance. I didn’t know who I was and how it is God’s Spirit and God’s Love within me that is the true me.

I know that all pain expressed comes from pain felt. So I hold to the awareness that if the negative person wasn’t in the kind of pain they were in, then what they said or did would have been different. And it would have been positive, because their pain would not have blocked the path of God’s Spirit from shining through.

And I pray to God to help me continue to grow in that awareness that I may know it in myself and others. What better way to begin to help others than to see God, His Spirit and His Love as each person’s essence?

Blessings,
Irene

Resource Tip: Presence (being grounded/in the now/centered) is key to healing and awareness. Holistic healing therapies are great for helping one to gain presence as are being out in nature, some breathing exercises, some meditation, some kinds of exercise, various exercises in observation, and spending time with God. Feel free to share more if I missed any.

God created us to help elevate others when they’re not feeling as strong. Once they are strong again, then they can be more efficient in helping others. And the more lifting and elevating of others we do, the closer we are to God and His Graces within us and around us. The stronger, wiser, calmer, and more loving we become. the flowing of God’s Love elevates all that are touched by it.
But it’s hard to lift others when we ourselves are “down”. Too many people focus on helping others without properly caring for themselves, leaving themselves in need of care. Many seem to think that taking care of themselves is somehow being selfish. But our bodies are a gift from God. Self-care has nothing to do with selfishness. Self-care is about honoring the spirit of God within us.
We are the spirit of God manifest. The more we allow our hearts to connect in oneness with God’s Love, the more His Hand is allowed to work through us.
Elevation from within to the elevation of all.
Thank you, Lord.
Blessings,
Irene

Letting go is a conscious decision allowed by the awareness of trust.

Letting it flow is still a matter of trust. Once we let it go, then it’s time to observe and enjoy the show of whatever we are aware of or experiencing, because it is then that the process of His creating is allowed to be.

I continue to work to allow God’s Love flow through me that I may a part of His creative Hand. Like I said, it’s easier said than done. But like anything else, it’s a matter of practice. It’s the practicing that opens the doors to the miracles. And every miracle always makes it worthwhile.

Blessings,
Irene