Harvest Life Gracefully: Know Thyself Be Honest

Know Thyself Be Honest is a step to harvest life gracefully, we spend so much time thinking and not enough time feeling. Constant thinking will leave you physically tense by the end of the day. This usually will cause for restless nights. This is a sign for you to stop and examine your life. Were you thinking about hurts or guilt's? Maybe you are thinking about unfulfilled needs from childhood. Working on this slogan "Known Thyself Be Honest" will free yourself to harvest life gracefully.
Maybe it is time for you to examine your life, by keeping an journal or talking to a trusted friend.

Harvest Life Gracefully how to relieve your stress video

Harvest Life Gracefully how to relieve your stress watch this video to find out

Harvest Life Gracefully-positive living, spirituality and learning who you are

Harvest Life Gracefully- positive living and spirituality learning who you are

A simple story sharing a simple and profound exercise which can prepare us for meditation on emptiness.


Mirror, Mirror on the Wall - Who Am I? A Preview to Emptiness Meditation

Author: Christopher Boozell

Once upon a time, a young man decided to pursue the path of enlightenment. He asked many people if they knew a teacher who could teach this path. Everyone in his village told him to seek out a particular guru in the next village.
He did so, asking the spiritual teacher to become his master and show him the path to enlightenment. "Certainly", replied the guru. "Here is what you do - every morning when you get out of bed, look at yourself in a mirror and ask yourself 'who am I?' If you do that, soon you will be enlightened."
"What?" cried the young man. "That's silly - it would never work!"
"Hmmm," said the master. "OK. Maybe you should go see the master another village over. I hear he is even wiser than I am."
A bit disappointed that first master wasn't able to help, and a little insulted that the man would even have suggested something so foolish, the young man went to the next village where he found the second guru. "Will you help me find enlightenment?"
"Of course!" said the second guru. "But I must warn you - the path is very demanding. You will be challenged in ways you can't even imagine right now. Are you willing to give up everything you have and do whatever I say?"
"Yes! Yes!" said the young man. Finally! This teacher obviously knew what he was talking about. So the young man settled into discipleship with the second guru, dutifully performing every meditation, every prayer, every ascetic act demanded of him.
After five years of rigorous study and deep meditation, the guru said to the young man, "You have been a fine student, and done everything I have assigned you with excellence. Are you ready for the final instruction?"
Excited, the student assured his master that he was ready for this last step to enlightenment. His guru told him, "OK, here it is: every morning when you get out of bed, look at yourself in a mirror and ask yourself 'who am I?' If you do that, soon you will be enlightened."
"W-what??" sputtered the young man. "That's it? You could have told me that five years ago!"
"You're right, I could have - but you were not ready to hear, yet. That is why you came to me, instead of doing what the first teacher told you."
 
Beside being mildly humorous, this story has a couple of lessons for us, if we'll hear them.
 

The spiritual path is not necessarily complicated, or esoteric. Zen teachings work to drive this point home relentlessly: "Stop fooling around. You are living smack dab in the middle of Truth - just get it!" In other words, it is possible to come to spiritual realization without jumping through tons of hoops.
As simple as spiritual Truth can be to experience, it usually isn't easy and we often can't get at it without significant preparation. This is why study, meditation, prayer, and ethical behavior are so critical to our development. Such practices are intended to give us the perspective necessary to recognize what has always been in front of us.

On top of that, the exercise offered by both teachers in this story really is useful as a pre-cursor to meditating on emptiness. Try it the next time you look in a mirror. Look yourself in the face and ask, "Who am I?"
This is not a rhetorical question. Answer yourself. Who are you? There will be a lot of quick, easy answers: you have a name, you are a husband or wife, a son or daughter, a father or mother, an employee, a friend, an enemy... You are many things. When you have run through those obvious answers, which come easily and are just as easily dismissed as incomplete answers, keep going. Keep digging. See what you find. Where is the truest you, the ROOT you?
Do this every day. At first, you could feel a bit narcissistic, but you'll soon realize this exercise is not even close to that kind of self involvement. (By the same token, any temptation to criticize perceived flaws will quickly fall away). As you continue searching for anything concrete on which to rest the answer to this question of who you are, your idea of self can begin to change. The storyline about your own reality will morph, possibly leading to a fresh relations with yourself, the world around you, and the Divine.
Ultimately, this is just another technique, as is meditation. But every time you use one of these special practices to make a shift in perspective, you become healthier. See where this one can take you.
Vigilate,
Chris

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/meditation-articles/mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-who-am-i-a-preview-to-emptiness-meditation-2365157.html

About the AuthorFor more information on Christian meditation check out Christopher Boozell's website: http://www.tantricchristianity.com/lesson_signup.html where you may sign up for a free mini-course on meditation! You can also read related to emptiness meditation in my blog.

Harvest Life Gracefully- Positive Parenting- 25 WAYS TO TALK SO YOUR CHILDREN WILL LISTEN

Harvest Life Gracefully- Positve Parenting, learn 25 ways to talk so your children will listen. This is a helpful advice for any parent that struggles to get their child to listen.

Click on link below to read

25 WAYS TO TALK SO YOUR CHILDREN WILL LISTEN

Harvest Life Gracefully- Do You Believe?

Havest Life Greacefully- Tips on Healing-Sexual Abuse, Rape, and Incest – Comfort through Creativity (Ezine Ready)

Harvest Life Gracefully sharing some tips on how to heal from sexual abuse


Trauma from sexual abuse, rape, and incest does not have to result in devastating life-long problems. One of the very best tools to a victorious life, rather than remaining a victim, is to give your pain and anger a voice. One’s “voice” does not necessarily assume speaking. Allowing one’s inner child to speak refers to finding some creative outlet to tell one’s abuse story. Through creative self-expression one will find comfort from the entanglement of an abusive past.Sexual Abuse, Rape, and Incest – Comfort through Creativity

Author: Donna Eder

Trauma from sexual abuse, rape, and incest does not have to result in devastating life-long problems. One of the very best tools to a victorious life, rather than remaining a victim, is to give your pain and anger a voice. One’s “voice” does not necessarily assume speaking. Allowing one’s inner child to speak refers to finding some creative outlet to tell one’s abuse story. Through creative self-expression one will find comfort from the entanglement of an abusive past. A creative voice can take on many forms. The form may be drawing, painting, writing (poetry, an article, essay, script, or book), creating a video, composing a song, journaling, dancing, or some other form to externally express one’s internal sexual abuse, rape, and incest issues. A creative voice allows the confusion, pain, and shame, a release from its inner bondage. The first (and only) step to beginning to give oneself a voice through creativity is to foster safety. One must be in (or find) a safe, non-threatening, calm, and safe space within and around oneself. In this safety one ensures no other pain will penetrate or be accumulated. This is critical. Expressing one’s voice necessitates appreciated vulnerability. One’s safe place is to be nurtured above all else. Everyone deserves dignity, respect, kindness, and validation, not to be further victimized. A safe place will ensure esteemed disclosure, albeit not guaranteeing understanding. There is no one right way or wrong way to “working” a creative outlet. However, it is an essential component to healing. Comfort is kindled through creating an end product that shares what has been silenced. One’s creations do not have to make sense to others. They are purposed as tools to express one’s pain. If they work for you then they work. They tell the story that could not be told in a verbal way, at that time. They don’t even have to make sense to oneself. Their purpose is to let go of the shame and silence that sexual abuse, rape, and incest have, for too long, held one captive. Sense cannot be made of the nonsensical. One’s creations are neither good nor bad. One does not need talent, propensity, quality, or quantity. The only ingredient is a silenced voice that requires emancipation. Through sharing one’s creative voice with oneself (and perhaps some other trusted person or persons), one’s seclusion, pain, and shame begin becoming unbound. The creative process for self-healing is not time-stamped. It is neither ever finished nor always constant. It grows and changes as one grows and heals. The one known variable is that giving a voice to the victim within, promotes comfort and healing. One’s identity, pain, and shame are given two wings to fly away. One’s new voice challenges encased old inner voices and tapes. There may be a time when what one hears from themselves is too alarming and overwhelming. Be patient and kind to honor oneself in the disclosure process. It may be that one will need to set aside her creative voice in order to pick it up at a later time. Even this is partly curative. Nothing cures sexual abuse, rape, and incest remnants in one’s life. How one responds to them will determine how healthy and functional one’s life becomes. Creatively voicing oneself is an effective and important method to communicate one’s lost inner child. Disclosure through a creative outlet will birth the comfort one seeks in order to be able to move on. To break free from remaining a victim of sexual exploitation, creatively claim your voice. Ó 2009 Donna Eder

About the AuthorDonna Eder is a published author and internationally juried artist. Her passions are compassion, teaching, and creativity. She has a Master of Arts from Columbia University, NY.

Harvest Life Gracefully- Philosophy on life

Watch this video about philosophy on life, I found it to be very thought provoking.

Harvest Life Gracefully by Loving Yourself First by Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

Harvest life gracefully by loving yourself. Click on link below where you can read how important it is to learn to love yourself. This article makes a lot of good sense. Read it now and see for yourself, I think you will agree with me, in order to harvest life gracefully is all about learning to love yourself.


Loving Yourself First by Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

Harvest Life Gracefully by following the first step of examining your life

My first step to Harvest Life Gracefully is to examine your life. To examine your life happenings, events, relationships, careers, body, attitude and personality and your spirituality.

With examining your life you are getting to know who you are and admitting what you like and what you don't like about yourself. With this information you can use what you like to perk yourself up when you are feeling down, such as lacking in confidence, and self-worth. This information will help you to decide what you dislike about yourself and then when you are willing and ready you can begin to make necessary changes.

When you examine yourself it is important for you to be completely honest and to remember to be factual and not to judge good or bad to what you see. A helpful tip that I used when I look at myself, is to look at myself as if I was someone else. Reason for this is because we often hold intense emotions about ourselves, this would be a way to detach from those emotions, that could get in our way of being honest, judgmental and factual.

Here are some other tips that I used when I examined my life. Hopefully these tips may be helpful and useful to you.

A journal is a wonderful way to enhance your life. It is a tool that can help you to admit and accept who you are and what your life is all about. When keeping a journal you can write about events, activities, your relationships, your goals, your careers, how you feel about god and or any life happenings that seem important to you, starting from childhood until the present day, once you reach the present day, it would be a good idea to continue to journal whenever something seems to be of great importance. A journal is a positive way to understand and know yourself, it can help clarify your thoughts and feelings as well as gain knowledge about yourself and your life. A journal can help a person process any traumatic experience and move on peacefully; it is a good way to relieve stress and can benefit your health and well-being.

Find a mentor, a mentor could be a trusted friend, a counselor, a life coach, or a minister. I discover when I communicated to a trusted person about my struggles, problems, likes or dislikes was a excellent way for me to learn to accept and love myself. When I see that people can love and accept me in spite of my character defects allowed me to see the truth about myself. A mentor can help you to move on from a traumatic experience, encourage you to make amends where needed, help with problem solving, offer encouragement when changes are needed and offer praise when things are going fine.

Look in the mirror with your eyes wide open, look at yourself from head to toe, taking note of every aspect of your body. Practice this on a consistence basis, daily if possible. Take notice to what you like about your body and what you don't. Look into your eyes and praise yourself, tell yourself how you love yourself and what a good person you are.

All of these tips may seem difficult, time consuming, or embarrassing to do. At first, I wanted to make those same excuses and once I realize that it was shame that prevented me from completing these tips, I began to focus on the shame realizing this is what I want to get rid of, therefore it was important for me to learn how to harvest life gracefully and find my purpose in life. This is why I look at myself as if I was looking at somebody else this way I could be more factual and less detached from the intense emotions. It also help to tell yourself when you see something you don't like to say to yourself, “I don't like this, but it is O.K.” You may need to repeat this mantra several times before you feel peace. This mantra is a excellent way to learn how to accept yourself.

When you are ready to make changes that you don't like about yourself. I found reading self-improvement books in the expert areas that I am struggling with is a helpful tool. Reading will help educate you on how to make the necessary changes. They will give you good ideas and can show you how to make the necessary changes.

I am a survivor of childhood abuse and I learn how to harvest life gracefully by following five steps, this article is only on the first step. To harvest life gracefully is not a overnight accomplishment, it takes time but when you start with the first step you will begin to feel better and better at each passing day The first step is a very important part in learning how to harvest life gracefully.

Harvest Life Gracefully- Examination of my Life - preschool age- part 2

Before I continue with my story, I want to remind you, when we are trying to harvest life gracefully and find purpose in life, the first step in the process is to examine our life for what it is in a factual way. Remember not to place judgment of right or wrong or bad or good. What it is, is what it is, in this way we can get to the point to learn acceptance and forgiveness.

There were sure tell tale signs of my emotional abuse by the way I had acted. When I arrived home from the hospital with a big cast on my leg, that covered the entire leg, and then there was a brand new baby in the home. All of these changes caused me to feel insecure and I reacted to them.

Soon after, returning home from the hospital, I learn how to walk with that big, ugly cast on my leg, this is when I began to act out my insecurities, I decided to run away from home. I can still hear my mother telling me, in a joking, laughing manner, of how far down the road I had gotten before she notice that I was gone. She sent my oldest brother to fetch me, but the closer he got to me I would try to run faster, not wanting him to catch me. My parents laugh it off, my parents had no ideal that I was emotional unstable and I needed emotional support. I did not know how to cope, why I was left at the hospital alone? My thoughts were, what was wrong with me that I was left there? Then, after returning home from the hospital and finding a new baby in the home, I thought that this baby was there to replace me. It is obvious that a mind of a 16 month old child does not have the capabilities to understand all that had taken place and the reasons why. Without the emotional support, it only reaffirmed the belief, that had already began to form in my mind, though overhearing family arguments about my physical deformity of my hip, that I was unloved and not wanted.

Another tell tale sign was how at bed time, I would stand upon the top of the stairs to my bedroom, yelling and crying down at my parents begging them, if they loved me. This was an every night occurrence. My parents would get frustrated with me, and yell back “Go to bed!” I then would go to bed feeling more unloved and unwanted because I heard the anger in my parents voice directed at me instead of any love or affection they had for me. The next night would repeat itself over again. I am not sure how long this behavior lasted, but am quite sure it lasted long enough, until, I realized what I needed from this type of behavior, I wasn't going to get.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I woke up feeling scared. I then, walk to my parents bedroom, I asked, “Can I sleep with you?” Either my mom or dad would say, “You can crawl in bed with us, but you need to sleep at the foot of the bed by our feet.” This lasted for maybe about 10 times before my parents told me, “to stay in my own bed .”

Another good example is when I would wrap my arms around my mother's legs while she was standing at the kitchen sink. Saying over and over “I love you” wanting her to reply back with the same. She pushed me away and said, “Leave me alone.”

My mom was never very good in showing her affection to her children once they got into the toddler stage. I do not remember hugs, being held, receiving loving touches from my mother's hand or even words of “I love you.” given freely by her.

After years gone by and into my adulthood is when I discovered that my parents did truly love me. The problem was the lack of awareness, and my mom's feelings of being overwhelmed and depressed about her life, and my father being so busy trying to be the provider. My dad has since pass, he left this world with my love and respect and he had love and respect for me. My mom lives close by and I see her often, words of “I love you” with a hug is exchange whenever we meet.

The purpose to examine your life as it is, in order to harvest life gracefully and find purpose in your life, is just what it is. You are looking upon your life without judgment and not looking at it as good or bad. It is what it is, just plain fact.

What do we say? "HARVEST LIFE GRACEFULLY!"



Harvest Life recommends this book
Healing the Shame that Binds You (Recovery Classics)

Harvest Life Gracefully- first step to harvest life gracefully is to Examine your Life

In order to harvest life gracefully and successfully, I need to take a long hard look at my life, the past and the present, by examining my life for what it is. When examining my life, I realized that I must do this in a factual way, without judging my life as bad or good, or right or wrong, but to admit that it is what it is. Making a judgment on what had or didn't happened in my life, and wishing my life had been different would be a hindrance to harvest life successfully. Anger and resentments would get in the way of my goal to harvest life gracefully.

Now, I will start telling my story for what it is, my very first step in how to harvest life.

I am the 5th child of 11. My parents were devoted Catholics and did not believe in birth control. Never less this is why I came from such a large family. I grew up on a dairy farm, my dad spent long hours in the fields working the crops and in the farm barn tending to his cows. He work from sun rise to sun down. I did not have much of n opportunity to really get to know my dad on a personal level until he stop being a farmer, about 10 years before he pass away at age 73. My mom had a problem with depression and spent much of her time in bed or talking on the phone to her mother, who was my grandmother on the phone for comfort and understanding. I remember my mom saying how she would feel so depressed whenever she became pregnant.

I remember coming home from school, my sisters and I would have to do up the breakfast and lunch dishes as well as make supper and do those dishes. Then it was house cleaning, washing clothes and taking care of the babies until bed time. There was little time to do homework and school was not encouraged at all. I can still remember my dad after a long day of working on the farm, sitting at my mom's bedside holding her hand as she cried from feeling sad and depressed. It was also my dad who got up with the baby in the middle of the night if needed. Many mornings I would see my dad asleep in the rocking chair holding the baby, where he had spent most of the night.

As a result of my mom's illness and my dad's long work hours I did not develop any social skills, or coping skills to deal with any childhood problems other than to bury all of my feelings deep inside of me. I did not received any emotional support from my parents or anybody else accept for the few occasions that I was able to spend time with my grandmother. (my mom's mom) I did not know what feelings were or how to name or express what I was feeling until I reach adulthood and sought out help after my life had became a mess. I did not know how to make friends as I had no companions. I had my siblings but I never felt like I fitted in. My two older sisters bonded together and left me out on any of their activities. My brothers were not available because they were involved with working on the farm. My younger sisters were much younger than me and bonded with each other. Therefore, as I child I was left to my own defenses. I became a lonely and an insecure child, I did not felt love for myself or love from my family.

I don't have a lot of memories of preschool age but in my next writing I will write about some of those memories.

Again, I want to mention in order to harvest life gracefully, one need to examine their life in a factual manner. I really am serious when I say in a factual way, we do not want any judgments if we want to heal from our emotional wounds. This is the first step to harvest life gracefully. The goal is to reach a point of acceptance. Acceptance will come as we work on admitting what is.


What do you say? “ HARVEST LIFE GRACEFULLY!"