Author: Karen Lang

Counselor/Energy Healer Grief Mentor/Mindfulness teacher/ Author of two books.

Mending your heart

by Karen Lang, posted in Understanding and Listening to ourselves

Your task is not to seek for Love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” – Rumi

Mending the heart so that it is able to love fully is the basis of all healing.

We all need love as the essential core of our lives, and if painful wounds have closed the heart off from receiving love, it is important to revive it.

If you can learn to love yourself and all the flaws, you can love other people so much better. And that makes you so happy.  – Kristin Chenoweth

Developing compassion for ourselves and others who are not able to love us in the way we desire is the awareness of an awakened heart.  It is not easy to forgive and let go of hurt and rejection.

If we feel a need to limit love by placing conditions on it and controlling the way in which it comes to us, we will never know the complete experience of deep love.  When we keep our past hurts locked inside, we block energy coming in and out.  Until we unblock this pain, we will continue to limit this freedom of love to ourselves and others.

It’s no secret that we tend to look for flaws within ourselves and that we’re our own worst critics. We always find something that we don’t like and even catch ourselves saying, “I’m not good enough, not beautiful enough, not smart enough.”   Become aware of these thoughts coming in and make an effort each day to turn them into positive thoughts.

“I am my own biggest critic. Before anyone else has criticized me, I have already criticized myself. But for the rest of my life, I am going to be with me and I don’t want to spend my life with someone who is always critical. So I am going to stop being my own critic. It’s high time that I accept all the great things about me.”- C JoyBell

Forgiving and letting go of our rigid beliefs, opens our hearts and allows joy, peace and love to fully enter our life.  When we surrender our past, we start to adopt a new thought process and we allow the ultimate reality to carry us through.

Good relationships nourish us and feed us.  They teach us how valuable love is in our lives and ask that we honor those who bring us joy, honesty and trust.

“The most powerful relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself.” –  Steve Maraboli

A relaxation practice

by Karen Lang, posted in Uncategorized

“If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.” -Amit Ray

Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed.  Sit comfortably.  Close your eyes and alow yourself to relax by taking three deep breaths in and letting go of all tension as you exhale slowly with long, slow outbreaths.

Continue breathing deeply and let your breath wash right through you as you see in your mind’s eye, a path leading down to a beach.

Feel the warmth of the path underfoot and feel your body sigh as you step onto the beach and walk onto the warm sand.

See the deep blue water of the ocean stretched out before you and the bright blue of the sky.  The sun is shining and it feels good to be there.

Now imagine you are sitting on the beach gazing out at the vastness of the ocean and if you have had thoughts of anxiety or worry, imagine you are rolling them all into a ball.  Now throw the ball into the water and watch your thoughts and anxiety being carried out to sea.

As they vanish, feel at peace and enjoy lazing on the beach a little longer.

When you feel ready, take one more deep breath and see yourself walking back along the path.  Feel peace and calm come over you and open your eyes.

Making time for meditation and breathing each day, will allow clarity in your life amongst the noise and busyness.  It will give you peace to make the right decisions in life and lead you on a better journey.

There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub. – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

The Power to Create

by Karen Lang, posted in Uncategorized

“Because you and I have the power to impute beauty on anything under the sun. Because you become the labels you give yourself. If you declare you’re beautiful – not despite your imperfections, but because of them – then you are.” – Bo Sanchez

Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives.

Do we know we have this much power in our life?  I think some of us do and the reason why most of us don’t, is because if we agree with the first paragraph, then we understand that we are responsible for everything we have created in our lives and that there is no-one else to blame for it.

We all have things happen to us throughout our lives.  The stories we tell ourselves about how and why, are what fuel our beliefs. If we argue for our weaknesses, who will argue for our strengths? We must allow for our weaknesses, but move on despite them. If we can believe that we can, we’re half way there. If we believe that we cannot, we’re already doomed. Choose your beliefs wisely, they will impact your life everyday.

Knowing that your word has such power, consider the advice of best-selling author Don Miguel Ruiz: be impeccable with your word.

To be impeccable with your word is to speak with truth and love. Be honest with how you speak to yourself and others.  Take time one day, to write down how many times you judge yourself or others.  Let your mind become conscious of how you think, of how you believe your life is unfolding.  In allowing yourself to become conscious of this process, you will begin to awaken this unlimited power you have within and you will begin to make decisions that empower and enhance your life.

Using the power of decision gives you the capacity to get past any excuse to change any and every part of your life – Anthony Robbins

The word “power” has been used as a catch-all and has thus eliminated full understanding of the human role of being connected to this power.   Control is not power.  Control is the abuse or misuse of an ability.  Others may connect the word “power” to authority.  We may give our authority to others by not speaking or walking our truth, but we cannot give away our power.  We may bury our talents, be afraid to use them, or even deny our skills for fear or failure or misuse, but no-one can force us to destroy them.

Connect to this power within you.  Understand you need to take responsibility in your choices each day and through those choices, you create every event in your life.   Become aware of how you begin and end each day with your thoughts and actions and start to change the story you have always told yourself.

“What we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible, is rarely a function of our true capability……It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are.”   – Anthony Robbins

Compassion

by Karen Lang, posted in Uncategorized

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” – Mother Teresa

Compassion is a deep awareness of the suffering of others, coupled with a desire to alleviate it.  Compassion has nothing to do with any self-interest or expectations.

Through practice, we can increase our own capacity for generosity and love, and in doing so, we benefit both as individuals and as a society.  When you only think about what you need or what you can get in life, you will find you have a sense of emptiness that you cannot fill.

Compassion for yourself and others is not always easy, especially when your loved ones are in pain.  When we dwell primarily in the reasoning mind, we often experience other people  as obstacles towards our goals rather than teachers on our path.  When you live each situation with your heart you can embrace and accept all aspects of yourself and of the people around you.

“No one has ever become poor by giving.” -―Anne Frank

Open your heart to yourself first.  If critical thoughts or feelings of unworthiness arise, let compassionate energy flow toward yourself with thoughts of love and acceptance.  It is important to spend time getting this right first as you cannot be compassionate with others if you don’t feel it for yourself.  Catch yourself next time you are in a stressful situation and ask yourself  “Am I connecting to my mind or my heart?” and see the difference.

After practicing and feeling it within yourself then start directing this energy outward again, calling to mind other people you know and embracing them with this same compassion, accepting both their strengths and their shortcomings.

“There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.” – John Holmes

Studies have proven that freely serving others can reduce anxiety and depression, speed up recovery from illness, reduce pain, help older adults stay mobile and increase longevity.  There is powerful evidence that having compassion for yourself and others is good for your health.

2013 is just around the corner, so what a wonderful way to begin this year by practicing your connection to a compassionate heart.  You are likely to gain much more profound insight into your own wellbeing and have more success  in your interpersonal life.  Compassion facilitates meaningful connections with all those around you.

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”  –  Dalai Lama

Be Childlike

by Karen Lang, posted in Uncategorized

“Great is the man who has not lost his childlike heart.”

At the end of another busy year, when our Christmas lists begin to grow and party invites begin to flood in.  Let’s remember to stop and take time away from all the busyness and seriousness of life and remember to see life through the eyes of a child.

When was the last time you really laughed or did something just for fun?  We are all under a lot of pressure in today’s society.  We have the demands of family life, work pressures, bills to pay and little time to create the perfect christmas for the perfect family!

Regardless of the illusion that we believe we have to live up to, if you can make time to remember what it is like to be a child again, you will find,  joy, trust, curiosity, imagination and fun and begin to see how serious we are!

“I like crazy, childlike, candy bar filled cakes with gooey caramel, chocolate-covered nuts, marshmallows and the like.”  – Ron Ben-Israel

Find that special memory in your heart that made you feel free as a child.  Grab the keys, head to the beach and sit with an ice-cream or a good book.  Tell your kids a story about when you were young and try to re-create it with them.  Get on some skates or go to a park and just be.

There is so many ways to escape our day-to-day stress.  Tap into your inner child and find the joy in every situation.

None of us know how long we are here, so make all your moments important and precious.  Be spontaneous!

“Never give up your childlike sense of wonder and joy. Nothing is as important as keeping the magic alive. So smile often, laugh, and have a fun-loving spirit of adventure as you travel the road of success.”   – David Copperfield