Living from the Heart <3

Long time no blog. I just attended a Heart meditation workshop over a 4 days period, still trying to let the dusts settled in my heart on what I have learnt, and what I have changed. This blog post hopes to share some of my insights - thus far.

The workshop was based on Drunvalo Melchizedek's materials and his teachings. Start from a glimpse of sacred geometry, thru to calling of our angels to support us, revealing our true nature (we are eternal souls) and finding our soul purpose on earth, thru to healing work to clear our past emotional baggages and let love shine thru us, to open our hearts, and let us know "To Give is to Get"- when we do it with heartfelt love. All these are just prep work to get to next stage, which is to enter into a sacred space in our heart, and from another tiny space within the sacred space, that's the portal for us to connect to the Source and to get our third eye opened, our MerKaBa (our personal energy toroidal field) activated, before entering into the heart based creation process (whereby only positive stuff can be created, unlike mind based creation due to polarity nature, very often -ve thing will also get manifested unknowingly). The Unity breathing technique also reminds us about the love of Mother Earth and Father Sun have to us - every divine child on this planet. The fuzzy energy sensation feeling will keep me all pumped up and attune at the right vibes all day long, just like a long stamina smart phone (grin) that the battery never get depleted until you want to.

A lot of fellow workshop mates felt changes happened, and I am no exception. I would say my mind is clearer now - just like another veil has been lifted thus can see a further horizon, and more intuitive now. Perhaps, my once asleep sixth sense has finally come back. Welcome back. :) and the teachings and experience I gained from other spiritual workshops the dots start to connect now. What a good feeling.

The workshop talks a lot about our hearts, and the importance to shift our consciousness from mind based to heart based.

There are many times the teacher referenced to Yeshua (Jesus) famous quote "unless you turn and become like childlike, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven". This echoes exactly as another quote I heard it years ago, when a HK author Ronald Fung (溤兩努) shared with me when he was leaving with me after his speech in my university campus "成大人者, 必不失其赤子之心" loosely translated as "To be a great person, one must not forego his/her childlike heart". Heart again!!

The revelations I got from this workshop are immensely useful for me to carry on my life in a steadfast manner now. For this I am forever grateful to my teacher Amun Brown, the organizer Kingsley Sok, and all the soul class mates for their unreserved sharings during the class. We all felt like a family reunion.

Before I end this post, let me share just one more finding- which I saw it from another FB message lately after the workshop. It is about the Chinese words 開心, which means joy or happiness. It's made up of 2 words: Open開 and Heart心, so ancient Chinese already discover the secret to happiness i.e. to achieve a blissful state, one must keep his/ her heart open, or vice versa, when our hearts are opened, there should be no reason we won't have joy while we are in this earthy world.

Let's keep our hearts opening, more and more, and day by day, okay?? :)

Have a great day, till I next write, please take care for yourself and your heart too.

Heartfelt thanks and love from my heart to yours...

PS: To my Singaporean friends or those stay nearby, if you are interested to know more about this subject, when is the next intake timing (end Oct), please feel free to contact me. Be still, and listen to your heart. It will tell you what to do. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

Energy Mgmt: Sleep Cycle iPhone App

After back to HQ, I have been to more lunch time talks these days. One recent one I went to was about Energy Management. 

The speaker Dr John Ng says very often people mixed up Time Management with Energy Management.  Poor energy mgmt will most probably lead to poor time mgmt, but not necessary the other way round. 

We need to identify those Energy Depleter vs Energy Energizer.  Energy is such a life force that without preserving it, it will not be possible for one to pursue the goals we set forth. 

There are 5 levels of Energy, for which the speaker dwelt a lot on first 2 only, owing to time limit. 

1.  Physical Energy

2.  Emotional Energy

3.  Mental Energy

4.  Social Energy

5.  Spiritual Energy

When one achieves the optimum experience, the FLOW pattern will appear.  In other words, one finds true purpose and start to be in the game. 

A)  To re-coup and prepare for Physical Energy, is none other than having good sleep, enough rest, take in healthy food and have exercise. Sounds simple, isn't it?

B)  To get into Emotional Energy, one needs to know ourself and others, thus will adapt the right strategy when dealing with others.  The speaker uses simple grid: Introvert vs Extrovert, and Task vs Person. 

So for I&T quadrant person: need to give them clear agenda, time to prepare and think, and a safe environment before they will speak up.

On the other end, for an E&P person, they will like to speak up even without encouragement, and brain storm will sure work for them etc

Knowing basic personality difference is yet another simple yet effective strategy to adapt the different style accordingly, without draining one's energy unnecessarily. 

There are few key points which I couldn't recall under which topics, but noted down for sharing anyway:

* Past experience will determine our response to Present and Future.  Unless we find value and meaning in the past Bad experience, we will always live through the past -- beware, need to Move on!!

* What you Fire, you Wire

* What you Focus, you Magnify

I did follow the Speaker advice to take One action and practise it. Which is to download the Sleep Cycle iPhone app - a fantastic sleeping pattern and alarm app, that makes use of iPhone's sensitive accelerometer to detect your body movement and determine the optimum time to wake you up at the right moment i.e. when one is in the slightest wake up period.  I had tried a few nights and had to admit it is pretty accurate.  I was gently awaken by a very soothing alarm that I felt refreshed. The app actually tracks stats and can do further analysis.  A wonderful app that I come to use it so late.  Had heard about it sometime ago. :P

For those interested to learn more about the speaker Dr John Ng, one can find more info from his company website:www.meta.com.sg.

In particular, on Energy management topic, John actually created a few blogposts for this:

http://meta.com.sg/?s=Energy+time+management

Have fun exploring Sleep Cycle app, sorry Android phone users. Oops!! :)

Self Praise Diary

Have been reading this book written by a Japanese lady author, practicing it for over 1 week, and found some amazing results - thus intends to share over here how it works.

Basically, to boost up one's self esteem and keep one motivated, maintain a positive perspective, and be able to bounce back from trough in shortest time possible - build up some mental resilience- is very easy. You just need to spend few minutes a day, jotting down the journal of self praises into your personal diary. Yes, that's it. It costs next to nothing apart from a writing pad, a pen and few minutes of your time.

Few things to take note:

1. The encouraging words to our own-self needs to be handwritten! This aims to exercise our prefrontal part of the brain (前額業), and make the positive thinking circuit wider and deeper!

2. It takes time and time taken varies between different individuals. There's no comparison. Some see positive impact and changes happening as soon as weeks or days. The key is to have the momentum, patience and persistence.

3. The praises or words can be praising anything: good behavior, positive feeling, decision made, action taken against difficult situations etc. It's to be intimate and true fully reflects how one feels, and seeing progress made, albeit how little it is at the start

The self praise dairy has helped many depression patients coming out from their self sabotage and withdrawal state. It also helps to counter the self denial mentality that is deep rooted in most Asians' mindset that self boasting or brag is not to be condoned with.

It was most touching when I read the part many readers shared their diary and witnessed their progress - some dated recent back to Mar 2011 tsunami disaster, and how practicing self praise dairy has given them strength to carry on with the recovery work, and still maintain positive outlook to LIFE.

Guess all this boils down to 2 things:

1. We need to love ourselves first before we can extend the love to others, and help influence them to seek greater love - which is universal. Universe loves us, all of us, and want us to remain in this state - which is our natural birth right.

2. The change starts from with-in before it gets extended to with-out. Self soul searching is again the key. Change yourself, and the world will be changed!

If you have not been getting praises from others or your love ones, why not start the ball rolling by giving yourselves a well deserved pat on your own back! :) Have fun journaling. You never know if you never try.

Sequel to Water: Love & Gratitude blogpost

Think I wrote about an experiment 2 years ago of putting a "Love & Gratitude" sticker to my mug to make the water taste sweeter - because of molecular resonance as reflected by these 2 powerful words - Love and Gratitude.

Was wondering why I am particularly fond of these 2 words. I accidental got the idea this afternoon while I was have a shower - no kidding. One often get a flash back of inspiration or message when your mind is wandering.

They are indeed the initials of my beloved sons' names. L & G. Bingo. Love is for Lincoln, whereas Gratitude is for Gordon.

We exert great love to my young son Lincoln as he had developed asthma since he was about one year old, in and out hospital A&E numerous times. With tender loving care by my wife (& encouragement from me also), Lin is a strong boy now. He recently just completed his first public Chinese WuShu performance, before he entered into Primary1 cheerfully. Lin has a remarkable smile and friendly disposition that is hard to forget. :)

For my elder son Gordon is another miracle which I still remember vividly the day when I first heard from the gynae doc that my wife was pregnant. The initial month was a bit roller coaster - we discovered late, and the condition was quite unstable. My wife was having medical leave at home just lying down, and couldn't move around - to that extent. I still remember calling the gynae on one Sunday morning for emergency check-up. Thank God the second trimester onwards things had become smooth. Gor is a Primary 3 boy now, and cheerful and loving to his younger brother. For this I am external grateful to our creator God and the universe.

I am just about to discover more and more new and good things. I am ready for more. Bring it on please. :)

PS: I supposed to write a blogpost on Dec21,2012 - but for some reason was sick for 3 days since Dec21. Think there's a reason I shouldn't have written that post. :)

Eleven Commandments of Negotiation

Thought of penning this down, and hope the speaker don't mind of me sharing. I find the speaker Mr. David Goldwich's talk one of the best amongst other outstanding speeches during the past PMI Symposium2012 just took place on Oct4-5 in Marina Bay Sands Convention.

Had heard of David (a lawyer turned trainer) before few years back in an SPMI talk, and bought his "Why did Chicken cross the road" book (haven't read it yet :P)

Have to say his talk is both entertaining and enlightening. Here is the gist.

Negotiation is actually Joint Problem Solving. It should be viewed more as a game, with a timeline to meet, and tactics to use, and ideally should play out to be Win/Win for both parties. And key thing is: "to have fun along the process."

Here comes The Eleven Commandments of Negotiations

1. Negotiation is a process

Prep & Strategize --> Info exchange --> Opening and making Concession --> Closing and gaining Commitment


2. Appreciate the power of Anchor Points

Has to be more aggressive on first Offer or first Counter offer, so as not to set at losing ground upfront


3. Never accept the First offer

Else regret and keep thinking was it a really good deal


4. Look beneath position to uncover interest

Distinguish between Want and Need, by asking questions!


5. A currency is anything of value

Identify currencies and look for ways to create Value


6. Treat every "No" as temporary position.

Ask why not. Turn No into a Yes (like children stubbornness)


7. Compromise only as last resort.

Not too soon!


8. Always have a Plan B.

Diminish Plan B of your opponent, too.


9. Never give something for nothing.

Else your opponent will keep asking for more!


10. Give an ultimatum only if you mean it - and do it gently.

Avoid the fallacy trap, of threatening with wrong intent. Will just backfire if luck is not on your side.


11. Make it easy to say 'Yes'

Bonus:

12. Don't let an Impasse get you down

Bonus of bonus:

13. Always have extras, reserve, buffer

That's it folks. I hope you can have more fun in Negotiating next time round. :)

Heaven is for Real

Got this book while I was browsing for CD instead in Popular Marine Parade branch. It's not the title that attracted me, but the toddler's big smile, and Don Piper's words. If Don Piper's 90mins in Heaven is the adult version of heavenly encounters, this little kid named Colton Burpo's 3 mins stay is certainly the kids no nonsense straight to the point version :)

Cutting the story short, this kid Colton when the ordeal happened (with a ruptured appendices not identified correctly and cured in time, dragged for days, almost caused him to die), the boy was about 4years.

With his miraculous recovery from death bed (it was his earth father's prayer answered - happens to be a pastor too), Colton started to recall his experiences in bits and pieces, very often shocking his parents.

Few points are especially touching:
o. That his not yet born sister was comforting and hugging him when he was first ascended to heaven

o. That his never met great grand father also spent time with him, and supported him (appearance in youth day though)

o. That how Jesus looks like, with white robe, purple sash, sitting at right side of God's throne. God is super big size. Gabriel sitting on God's left side.

o. That there's no darkness in Heaven. Everyone having wings (different sizes though). He even saw Satan, but declined to elaborate or even to mention it.

o. That how Jesus loves children. He repeated it many many times. How he was sitting in Jesus' lap.

o. That he didn't want to come back to Earth, but Jesus had to answer his dad's desperate even accusing prayer

The book is an easy read. My eyes keep welling up when I was reading the reminisce of the author (Colton's dad) about what happened to himself, his son and family as a whole when they went through those crucial days - really a matter of life and death.

There is a website on this too, and you can check out a great video on Colton when he has grown up into big teen now :) after like 7-8 years.

http://www.heavenisforreal.net

One thing I am sure is I will hug my boys at home more often, and pray to Jesus and God more frequent too (not just when in need or emergency) as they do answer every single one of our prayers, 24x7.

If you want to know how Jesus looks like, according to Colton, this prodigy Akiane's portrait is closest, almost perfect. Have a look out too!

http://newconnexion.net/articles/index.cfm/2006/03/Akiane_Kramarik.html

http://www.artakiane.com

To Heaven, and Back

This is definitely a great book not to be missed. I have been reading book after book ever since my last book review. Some finished, some still in progress. One book leads to another - in fact, the immediate one I have been reading is about recognizing signs that our spirit (soul) trying to communicate and guide us. Not too much about analyzing (individual facts) but interpreting (looking at the big picture).

I have to say my elder son always bring me to discover new book. In fact, he was the one urging me to find him more new book on Big Nate - his recent sensation. :)

Got this book on Sat afternoon from a local Borders like bookstore and I had the urge to finish it ASAP. Get it done with in a day. This book is just fascinating - no complicated story - all stories told from heart. The author is a spine surgeon - married with 4 kids, and run into a near death experience while kayaking. Got a glimpse to heaven, but sent back to complete her unfinished business - to be the support to her family. The author went on to describe her encounters with Jesus and Angels - and got to know some spiritual exchanges while she was still in ICU.

My eyes moist and tears rolled (many times) when I was reading the part about her eldest son need to depart, at age 19, from a tragic car accident. (that was part of reasons she was sent back to earth to keep her family strong after the loss of their beloved son, brother, young leader)

This little book reassures that Heaven and God does exist. God is Love, and we will never walk alone. God cares for every single one of us, and is ever ready to intervene and help us whenever we are in need.

Do check out the author's website when you have time. www.drmaryneal.com

Let me end this post with this sentence I particular like (roughly) 'We are like threads in a tapestry that forms a grand picture and flying high in the sky (or universe). We wouldn't know the grand design until when we are finished.'

The author actually shared these last parting words - she has been living these as her daily creed, which I find truly meaningful and remarkable. Hope you like it, too! :)

"God created us, knows us, loves us, and guides us. With love and grace, He commands us to:

# Rejoice in this knowledge always.

# Live a life of prayer, giving glory to God and continually listening for His Guidance.

# Live a life of gratitude, giving thanks in all circumstances."