Saturday, June 30, 2007

How Your Life Can Have Meaning after the Death of a Loved One

How can you find meaning in life now that your loved one has died? How can existence possibly have any purpose? It is common to feel that life has ended for you. When someone we love is no longer physically present, we are often haunted by despair, emptiness, and the lack of purpose.

Even though grief therapists know this is a common yet temporary experience, it is not common and temporary as far as you are concerned. It is too real and deeply painful to consider what the death of your loved one means.

1. The first step to take is at some point in your mourning is to decide that you will become restoration oriented. I cannot tell you when that will occur; only you can make the call. In short, you must form the intention of reinvesting in life despite all of the feelings inside that say, no way. You may not be able to do it today. Later, a little at a time, will do. However, it is clear that a loss orientation always leads to stagnation and increased unhappiness.

One of the secrets of human behavior is to discover that you can act your way into new beliefs and assumptions about life. Yes, act. You don't necessary have to start with the positive mental attitude everyone talks about. This happens in someone's life every day. What they never thought could happen within, suddenly changes due to their persistent make believe behavior.

Act as you wish to be is an ages old recipe for adapting to change. Hard work? Yes. Yet it always works, if you do one thing: keep acting "as if." This means acting as if you are where you want to be.

2. Embrace that which is unfamiliar is the second step. It is the familiar and predictable which gives us a secure feeling. The loss of your loved one forces you to face a new world, a new life, devoid of the presence of the person who added so much meaning to existence. You will have to face the unfamiliar, learn new skills, and reach out—or live a much contracted existence. That is a given. But you can approach the task with special motivation to look for ways to reinvest your emotional energy.

Here is a taste of what others have done. Take short or long trips to places you have never been. They can be places near your home or out of the country. Start sampling foods from other cultures. Some you can purchase in your local super market. Others can be tried in restaurants. Try a sport or exercise you have never done before. It could be Yoga, Tai Chi, boating, breathing exercises, or golf as starters. Never stop learning. There are thousands of things we have never done.

3. In welcoming the unfamiliar, don't be over-controlling. Let whatever you discover in your attempts to embrace the unexplored to play out. Don't judge too soon whether it's good or not so good for you. See what it fully offers by giving it much time and space to play its role in your daily life. Consider the satisfaction it brings and the interpersonal relationships it generates in your evaluation to make it a part of your new life or to abandon it. Let these events unfold to create a multiplicity of possibilities and wonder for your greater good. Study the possibilities carefully.

4. At root, you are searching for meaning in the death of your loved one and in a life without him/her. Realize how vastly important meaning is. It is the flywheel of life around which everything is organized; you are a universe of meanings and emotions. It builds and tears down, brings sorrow or joy, throws you into the past or causes you to become interconnected in a web of relationships. Changes in meaning can bring changes in your ability to cope; even your body will respond in healthier ways.

We act out and believe what is meaningful and makes sense. Meaning will change your life for good or for the worst—all on the way you choose to perceive an event. The miracle of it is that you can find new meaning for your life, let go of the old, and cooperate with the massive changes imposed by loss. For it is meaning that will keep you connected to your loved one, and learning to love in separation.

Don't forget, all of the above works if: you act as you wish to be, seek and accept the unfamiliar, and refuse to be controlling as you allow the new to play out. This will facilitate making a diligent search in your thought life for other meanings in the death of your loved one and in your life. What other meanings can you find?

Friday, June 29, 2007

The Process Of A Miracle... An Experiment Of Sorts

Is it possible to change one's life in the course of thirty days? To have such transformations occur in which the seemingly limited capacity of comprehension can stretch past it's own boundaries into the untapped potential of possibilities?
I intend to find out through this experiment!

A miracle defined, is an event that is unexplained by the laws of nature... Ok, so what does that mean?

My own interpretation follows this line of reason; that my own view of my personal circumstances or situations openly enter into the realm of the unknown. Deep within the prison cell of my beliefs, my perceptions freely expand to experience life at another level, beyond the depths of reason.

Essentially my beliefs become non-existent in the ever-increasing freedom of my awareness. The potential power of the universe unleashes itself to manifest within my life as an event ,

Only to be described by myself as well as others as a miracle.

So what is this miracle transformation I am intending to occur within the next thirty days? In order for that to be clear I need to explain the current situation or my perception of it for that matter.

I made a decision two years ago that I would go to any lengths to completely change my life. To discard ALL of the beliefs about what I learned or thought I knew. Permitting myself to heal from the limitations I clung to in desperation; living my life in the cesspool of heroin addiction.

I lived in the shadows of existence in a paper bag of hopelessness, fighting for years to stop. Each failed attempt only reinforced the reality of my life as the expression of the cliché

"Once a junkie, always a junkie."

On September 4th, 2005… Instead of fighting the addiction… I began to fight for me. Understanding that the person reflected back to me in the mirror was not who I wanted to be or anything close to I really was.

In order to reclaim the bits and pieces of who I truly was I need I needed a new canvas of life to paint myself on. I needed to forget every belief I held in my consciousness. Thus initiating the process of the miracle to occur within my own personal existence. The re-creation of myself, which simply is the person I am today.

Some may not understand this as a miracle or even dismiss it as one. For those who have had the effects of addiction within their own or by default by those they love; know that it's a miracle. Because the sad, sad truth of addiction is that more die and suffer in it's prison, then those who escape to freedom.

On September 4, 2007, it will be exactly two years since I stuck that needle in my arm for the last time. My life since then has become more then anything I had ever believed possible and continues to be so. I believe I can initiate yet another miracle at this point in time simply because I made a decision that it will be so.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote,

"Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen."

I know this to be true for my life is a physical manifestation of the decision I made close to two years ago. It was not easy, very unpleasant at times. But I had the willingness and allowed this process by permitting a "Higher Power" to set the ground rules. Initially this was the staff at the Detox, then the counselor's in rehab and those running the outpatient facility.

I surrendered my life of distorted self-sufficiency to that of the welfare system. I relinquished my life to anyone and anything that had more of a clue how to live other then myself. I finally understood, what I knew about life equaled roughly ten hospital Detox's, three trips to rehabs and several outpatient facilities a trip to jail and too much self inflicted misery..

I'm smart, but my intelligence had nothing to do with creating the life I dreamed of as a little girl. In fact I had created the exact opposite…. a freaking nightmare not only for me but all those that had the unfortunate experience of crossing my path during the years of my active addiction. To put it simply, I was NOT a nice person.

Today I am closer to the person I want to be, closer to the person I really am. But at the moment I'm flailing, I really have no clue. Another junction in the so-called crossroads of life and the signpost are blank. You see this is all new to me, I have not yet written any pages in this part of the book of my life. A wise man by the name "Rev." once told me,

"Life is a book. Each day we write a page in this book by virtue of our behaviors. No erasures allowed!"

I can't change anything that I may have done in my life weather it be good bad or indifferent. But I can write a new story from this point on. I have the power to re-create my life and
re-create myself.

I chose to heal. Heal myself from all the mis-information I gathered from all the other mis-informed people by default. I made a decision choosing what I wanted to experience in this life, instead of clinging to the hopes I allowed others to paint my dreams on.

Those that know me, know that after working at my job for close to two years I just quit. That little voice within spoke volumes of truth that echoed through the illusion of the reality I held on to. I couldn't ignored the truth that no one would have the power for me to live my dreams, except me.

I always thought of "risk" as something in which I would lose something. What I've come to realize though is risk is what I don't stand to gain if not seized when it presents itself as the opportunity of change.

I'm not interested in slaving away at a job for years waiting for the day I retire to "then" live the life I want. I'm not interested in living each day chasing after the illusion of tomorrow and all that it promises, because I lose today.

That's what happened I worked like a dog for the past year and a half, barely scraping by. Thinking it was the way to get where I wanted in life. But there is no "there" so to speak, there is only here. And I want every moment "here" to be one in which reflects a life lived in the unlimited possibilities and not one lived in limitations.

So now here is where I explain the reason for this experiment. The day I walked out of my job, I had no back up plan and no idea of what was going to happen. All I knew that another chapter of my life was about to be written and it was not going to be a chapter I already lived.
I started a website, an initial step in creating more of what I preferred in life. Using my artistic talents to do SOMETHING.

But I had a thought, which then led to an idea, which then led to my website. I think it has potential, I know I have potential. I just need a catalyst to "Start" the reaction.
That's where this experiment comes in. Is it possible to reach over one million people with one idea? To have others read this and participate in the process of a miracle unfolding? I believe so, but I need to know who else believes in the possibilities.

I send out a lot of e-mails and I get a pretty good response with some of these experiments and now I'm taking it to the next level.

I believe this is a kind, generous universe. I believe that for a majority of us we all want people to succeed, to be happy, to be prosperous. We all want this for ourselves as well.

When watching a movie we all cheer for the little guy that risks it all for a dream. Yet when the movies end we all forget that we too have the same desires for our own dreams. The daily bump and grind on the treadmill of "what is" extinguishes away any of the hopes that were sparked.

So how can this truth become a manifestation of a miracle?

With belief, with your participation I know that this can be evident in the results. I'm asking that only others that believe or even want to believe to be part of this.

With an experiment there needs to be a system of measurement right? So how can one measure a miracle?

This at the moment is how I plan on it. I want anyone interested to visit a page in my website. The link is:

http://winksandgiggles.com/Lil_Angels.html

On this page is a bunch of little angels I've made, but there's one in particular that will be the system of measurement. A little angel with "I Believe Miracles are Possible" in the description. I also welcome any POSITIVE feedback, ideas or suggestions

So the intention is there, the idea has been unleashed into the universe at large. Now all that needs to happen is simply the process of the miracle to unfold. Is it possible for me to remove myself from obscurity? To have my intentions realized by this message as it ripples through the universe? To have the intention return to me as the manifestation of the life that resonates as the truth of the life I choose to live?

Will you be "a part" of this or "apart" from the promise of a miracle in your own life? The choice is yours. As for me I already made the decision that this will reach exactly who it needs to in order for this to occur.

The truth of the matter is that if this becomes possible for me then it becomes possible for you. This may scare people because sometimes people would rather just float through life on a cloud of blame in order to dismiss the truth of what they can really be or do. I say this because that truth has been self evident in the results that my life have produced

In the next thirty days I will post the results daily and I invite you all to be part of this. In the meantime, expect nothing less then miracles!

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

How to Create Your Own Luck

Would you like to be able to create your own luck? Yeah of course you would. We have all experienced our own streaks of good and bad fortune. Luck is a funny thing though, it's nature is so random, coming and going as it pleases, yet almost always deserting you when you desire it most and reappearing when you least expect it.

You have probably experienced this yourself at some point: a hot run at the bookies, favourable career decisions going your way and so on... yet almost as gauranteed as day follows night the luck seems to disappear. It usually occurs just as soon as you start to reflect on your recent good form and start to worry about how long it will continue to run for. This doubt and fear then robs you of the very thing that created your luck in the first place. In short it makes you fearful and indecisive.

When your run of luck started I'm sure you remember that it came down to making a definite decision of some sort: to apply for a job or back your business instinct but whatever it was it came down to making a positive decision. It should be of no surprise then that as soon as you started to reflect on your 'good luck' and started to worry about how long it would last this fear almost inevitabley leads you to be indecisive and indeed robs you of your luck in a quite ironic fashion.

So a few keys to remember when wanting to create yourself some luck:
Be decisive and proactive, don't doubt and just accept the luck by not questioning it.

I find this approach nicely summed up by U.S Anderson (The Magic In Your Mind):

"Whatever you are afraid to do, do it and you will be startled that you are no longer afraid. Whatever you are unable to decide, decide it, and you will be amazed how correct your decisions has been."

Furthermore whenever you experience bad luck or misfortune see it as challenge. Nature tends to challenge us when we are at our lowest ebb in order to provide us with an opportunity to grow. Be unafriad of the challenge, take it on, make the decisions that need to be made and the tide of good luck will soon start to turn in your favour. It must be noted here however that a decision has not been made until it has been acted upon and this is the one thing that lets so many people down... there own lack of action.

So when you have made and acted upon your decisions, be proud of them stick to them and never give up. When your luck and good fortune is strong don't doubt or question it just go with it and your luck will continue to provide for you for just as long as you let it!

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Does the Work of Grief Ever Really End?

Are you wondering if the pain will ever cease, if the emptiness will ever leave? Will life ever have meaning again? You may not think so now, but the answer to all three questions is an unqualified yes. And there are millions of people who can vouch for that fact.

But that does not mean you will be your old self once again. Nor does it imply that you will be somehow totally free from the anxiety of your loss experience. There are a constellation of variables that determine the intensity and the length of grief. They range from the type of death, number of secondary losses, and degree of emotional investment in the deceased to your coping behaviors, health, social support system, and expectations, to name just a few.

What do we know about the length and intensity of grief work, that process we have to go
through to adapt to all of the changes imposed by the death of a loved one? Here is what will help you to arrive at your own answer to that question.

1. The intense feelings certainly lessen over time. That will be obvious. However, to put a time limit on how long they last is to dismiss one incontrovertible fact about grief—it is a highly individual process. So that great pain and emptiness can last days or weeks, depending on your individual variables.

2. You will also experience what may be interpreted as an ending to your grief, or at least a feeling that you are doing quite well—only to find yourself suddenly thrust right back to where you were a few weeks ago. This can be a very discouraging, albeit normal, occurrence. Some event may unfold where normally your loved one would have been with you, and you are brutally reminded of his/her absence.

What is often called the "year of the firsts" may include a number of these episodes. There is nothing wrong with feeling anxiety, anger, or a host of other emotions when this happens. It is not only normal, it is to be expected.

3. It is also quite possible that years later, when you have adapted to the physical absence of your loved one, a wedding, birth, graduation, or anniversary may bring a revisit of sadness or the need to cry and express emotions. Don't hold back on these feelings. They are a common result of memories and a part of life.

4. As said previously, grief work is a process of adaptation, or as many believe, a process of healing. That healing can go on for years with stops and starts that bring new awareness and views of life. In fact, there are a number of people who believe that healing never ends. (I have heard some say, once you grieve, you grieve forever.)

Perhaps we begin our healing attempts with our first major loss. Then with subsequent losses, we have to continue the healing process, learning as we go. Maybe adapting to change—or healing—is an ongoing or forever process. If it is, we need not make it an object of anxiety and give it unnecessary power to distract us from enjoying life.

So, does the work of grief ever end? The answer, of course, depends on your individual beliefs and interpretations. For some, grief work ostensibly ends at a point in time. For others, it is a matter of being revisited by grief. Whatever your belief, you can be sure each of us possess the inherent ability to deal with our losses. And, with a little help from our friends, make it through those early days of confusion and change.

Where it goes from there depends on our choices.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Is Pain and Sickness Essential Component of Creation

Did the Creator create with the intention of afflicting pain upon all creation? In what way does the suffering of creation benefit the Creator. . Did the creator create sin along with the creation? If so, what was the objective? Did he make sin so attractive and enticing that all creation will automatically fall into sin so that he can punish them? That must be the scheme of a villainous creator not that of a loving creator. I cannot imagine that the creator contrived such a plot . If not, why do we so frequently commit iniquities?

I believe that the Creator is Love, infinite unconditional love. If that is the truth, why did the Creator create sin at all? The reason is that a loving Creator had to give freedom to his creation . Freedom means the right to disobey and commit sins.

If He created everything as objects of hate, to persecute and punish and to see all creation writhe in pain and beg for his mercy we would be in pain eternally. That is not what is happening.

Can we imagine creating something to hate. Let us suppose that we hate our neighbour. Will we be anxious to have him as our neighbour to be always looking at him and hate the sight of him.
If we hate him we would not want to look at him.

Now let us investigate just the reverse. If I love my neighbour then I would want him to have everything he desires, health, wealth, friends, joy, and peace of mind. I would want to give him his freedom to do what he likes. I will not chain him to a post to restrict his freedom..

But freedom means disobeying my commands. I believe that this is what has happened.. The Creator with his infinite love created us to love, help and adore us, to give us everything we would like to have including freedom to disobey him. This is what the Creator did. Therefore pain and sickness are not components of creation.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Inspirational Authors And Speakers - How Inspirational People Help Us All To Make The World Better

Inspirational speakers and authors have a natural gift for helping others to feel better about themselves. By sharing stories and ideas with us they make us feel that we can achieve anything we want to achieve in our life.

To be inspired is to feel close to the person we truly are deep inside. When you are feeling the joy of inspiration all things are possible and you can see more clearly how to best achieve your dreams. By reading and listening to inspirational authors and speakers you are able to feel like you have no limitations. Those who inspire us can do so in several ways.

Some inspirational leaders tell us stories that make us light up inside. Whether it is a story of a child who overcame great physical or mental challenges to live their life to the fullest, or a story of someone who had all but given up on life when they finally saw the light, these stories give us faith in God and the universe and we are uplifted like never before.

Other inspirational speakers and authors make us imagine our world in a different way from what we have come to expect. They may write or speak of selfless acts of love, kindness, and generosity that go beyond anything we have ever experienced. When we hear of a person giving a kidney to a stranger, building a house for a family they have never met, or caring for a child who is suddenly left alone, we have renewed faith in the human spirit and feel inspired to do our best to make the world a better place in any small way we possibly can.

Inspirational speakers and authors can show us a beauty that we had only imagined previously and make us take action to do our part to make the world better for us having lived in it.

Friday, June 8, 2007

What Are You Investing In?

As a young man being newly introduced into the world of creative dreaming, one major fact I was made to understand is that I have to keep investing in myself. I learnt, for me to achieve much, I must first live a life of investment.

After learning this fact, I have never stopped investing in myself. When I started working on my dreams, one habit I cultivated is that of buying a book, out of every money I make. This was going on for a while and so many people couldn't understand why I was doing that. To them, it was plain foolishness.

Today, the story has changed. All the things I learnt from those books and other sources back then, are now working magic in my life. I am running a successful offline and online business; I have written my own books, speak at seminars and even coach so many people. All these didn't come on a platter of gold, you know.

Jim Rohn said a man that only has a favorite restaurant and no bookstore, should be pitied. This is because he has only bothered to invest in his body and neglected his mind. The worst mistake you can ever make is to neglect investing in yourself because you may not be able to achieve much, years later.

I want you to know that the best investment you can ever make is the one you do on yourself. Investing in yourself has the highest rate of return than any other investment that ever exist. I have been able to create so many streams of income from the knowledge I have garnered from all the sources of information I had access to years back.

If you have been investing on things that won't add any value to your life, NOW is the time to stop short-changing yourself. Rush to a local bookstore and get a book that will transform your life. I have discovered that a life-changing material is far cheaper than all the valueless stuffs we acquire.

When you invest in yourself, the result may not show tomorrow or instantly, but when you start seeing the result, you will surely be amazed. If you have not start the investment process, NOW is the best time to start, there is NEVER a better time then today.

This is to your success this year and beyond.

Adebola Oni

Friday, June 1, 2007

Grief is Not a Problem to Be Fixed

In a culture such as ours, death is often viewed as a malevolent aberration rather than the normal and natural outcome of being alive. Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of putting it off as long as possible, but the brutal fact is that we can't put it off forever. Sooner or later we will make that passage as will all those we love.

As sobering as the fact of death is, even more sobering is the impact of our own denial on those left behind following the death of someone they love.

In a culture that thrives on quick fixes, grief is often treated with impatience and scorn. This does a profound disservice to those who are grieving by instilling in them a vague sense of shame about their grief. It makes them question whether there is something wrong when they don't bounce back to "normal" after the funeral, as if the funeral were the end of it when anyone who has been through it knows, the funeral is just the beginning.

Worst of all, this cultural discomfort makes people who are grieving distrust their own experience. In my work with people who are grieving, I've heard way too many people doubt themselves, and worse berate themselves, because they can't "get a handle" on their grief. This distrust and denial of the process yields a predictable result...prolonged pain and incomplete healing.

Rather than seeing grief as the means to healing and embracing it as such, grief becomes the enemy. Grief is viewed as a problem to be fixed, something in need of healing rather than what it is...the means of healing. Grief is what heals us after a loss. Whether anticipated, sudden, accidental, timely or not, grief is the process through which we heal.

Maybe that sounds like semantic nitpicking but it is a vitally important distinction. Here's why: The problem is not the grief. The problem is the loss. It's the loss of someone we love that is causing the pain. Grief is the process through which we come to terms with that loss. Is it painful? Of course it is. That doesn't mean we need to fix it. The interesting thing about pain is that it increases when we resist it. This is true of emotional and physical pain. Tightening muscles around physical pain increases the experience of pain. Trying to block emotional pain intensifies the pain and sends it spiraling out of control.

Human beings are miraculous creatures. When we experience suffering, as in the death of someone we love, we have an innate capacity to heal from that loss just like we have an innate capacity to heal from a broken bone. Grief is every bit as natural to us as the knitting of a bone. There are certainly ways to support the process...writing, telling stories, creating rituals to name a few...which can be quite effective when used in support of the grieving process, not in denial of it.

When grief is denied, rushed, or scorned, the whole mechanism of healing ceases to function. We are designed to heal. We can't deny the process nor can we improve upon it. Grief, when we trust it, knows exactly what we need in order to heal. It is a most trustworthy companion when we possess the wisdom to follow it.