Phyllis Rhyan

I think of Love and gratitude the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night and of course throught the day. Meditating with a pink light around myself is loving. I wear red frequently to remind myself of loving myself and others. This is an ideal and I sometimes forget and remind myself again and again. Happy VALENTINE’S DAY. Love and blessings,
Phyllis

Jerry Ciaramello

With two fingers, I gently touch my heart chakra & smile to my heart! This Reiki Tummo technique, opens my heart to true source energy-Love.

Shawnne Tessman-Mc Kenna
I am grateful every day for the ones I love: My husband, daughters, grandchildren, and wonderful friends and clients. I am also grateful for my pets and the wildlife around us!

Emmeline Craig
How do you best stay tuned into love today and every day?
I reaffirm that I love and approve of myself and I look at my wondrous planet all around us. That puts me in a place where I can appreciate, therefore love others.

Kim Burke

1. I wake up each day & therefore the day is already great & full of love.
2. I love me.
3. I extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care, understanding & love.
4. I remember that the force of love will make anything possible & is the continued positive force of life.
4. I have an attitude of gratitude.
5. I remember the most important things are not *things*

I’m in the “single” crowd and I’m not letting that stop me from total all-out love today.

So here’s the plan to celebrate this Valentine’s Day in the most fantastic way — whether you’re single, in a not-so-happy relationship or in the relationship of your dreams.

Since all love starts with self-love, focus today on ways to love, care for, and appreciate yourself and watch how you feel. While it’s a great day for giving love and appreciation to all those around you, it’s also a great day to practice receiving love from yourself and others.

Here are Ten Tips for Your Best Valentine’s Day and Beyond (adapted from Love for No Reason):

1. Practice Self-Love. Try a simple self-love technique that will open your heart. A few times today, ask yourself, What’s the most loving thing I can do for myself right now? Then pay attention to the answer and actually do it. When you love and take care of yourself, it inevitably serves everyone.

2. Anchor Yourself in Safety. Feeling stressed, unsupported, or afraid takes love off-line. Whenever you feel a bit stressed, take a few deep breaths and consciously relax your pelvic floor, located at the base of your body. This will kick-start what Dr. Eva Selhub calls your body’s “love response.”

3. Give Freely. Whether you are giving a gift to a loved one or doing acts of kindness for a stranger, giving opens the heart. Even if you don’t have a romantic partner this Valentine’s Day, you have the opportunity to offer gifts, words, or acts of kindness to many people around you

As a gift to you this Valentine’s Day, I’m giving away 5 free copies of Love for No Reason. Go to my Facebook page and see how you can get your copy.

4. Let Love In. Receiving from others is an act of love and connection that opens your heart. When you receive, your levels of serotonin — the neurotransmitter of well-being and happiness — rise just as much as when you give. The next time someone offers you a gift, a compliment, or some support, graciously receive it. Smile and say thank you, while consciously feeling appreciation in your heart.

5. Live with a Grateful Heart. Pay attention to and savor all that you’re receiving in life right now. Gratitude is the fast track to love. List five things you are grateful for today and everyday.

6. Speak the Language of Love. Tell others that you appreciate them — that amps up the vibration of love. When you speak directly from the place of unconditional love inside, you touch that same love in the people you’re speaking to.

7. Unleash the Power of Forgiveness. If you’re holding on to any resentments or grudges — past or present — they’re blocking your ability to love. Use the ancient Hawaiian Kahuna technique of Ho’oponopono to release and forgive. Repeat silently over and over in your heart, “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.” Based on the principle of taking total responsibility for everything that happens to you, Ho’oponopono allows you to bring the vibration of pure forgiveness into any situation.

8. Sense Your Support. Einstein once said that the most important decision you can make is whether to believe you live in a friendly universe — one that is always supporting you. Assume that the universe is on your side. If things aren’t going the way you’d like, ask this question:If this were happening for a Higher Purpose, what could that be?

9. Feel Your Feelings. Stuffing your emotions or overly expressing them crimp your capacity to experience love. Instead practice opening completely to the feelings you tend to resist (sadness, anger, etc.) as they move through you-when you feel them fully, the discomfort will dissolve.

10. Plug in to a Larger Heart. Recharge your spiritual batteries by taking some time today in silence, meditation, or prayer. Tapping into this inner wellspring of spirit will boost your capacity to experience love by a factor of infinity.

Following these ten tips will help you live in a state of unconditional love all the time — not just on Valentine’s Day. Imagine feeling love, no matter what’s going on in your relationships or in your life, because you’re connected to a state of pure love within yourself — that’s Love for No Reason.

Please share with me your Valentine’s tips on my Facebook page (and see how you can get your free copy of Love for No Reason).

Thank you for being my Valentine — I’m so grateful that you’re in my life. I wish you the most love-filled Valentine’s Day ever!

With love for every reason,

Marci

P.S. Enjoy this one-minute heart-opening video here.

It’s also a time that I reflect on the past year.  So, as part of my annual birthday reflection, last night I re-read the short ezine that I’d written on my birthday last year.  Here it is:

Today is my 53rd birthday. I was planning to write a “profound” ezine today on my birthday about the purpose of life, but I’ve spent the last five days sitting with my 93-year-old aunt who is about to transition from this life. My experience right now is very internal, but I will share more later. This is an extraordinary way to spend my birthday — midwifing my aunt. It may be her birthday today, too — into a new world. Thank you for all your love and wishes. I am full of gratitude.  

About one hour after I sent that ezine, my aunt died peacefully in my arms.  It was an amazing experience and a beautiful blessing that imprinted on me deeply the preciousness of this life.

And it was the beginning of a year of powerful transitions and transformation on many levels.

So what about this year? What’s it about?   I think it’s reflected in my birthday wish for myself– that I live in greater love and acceptance (and less judgment) of myself, everyone else and life.

I got an early birthday gift about how to make that wish come true last week when I was attending a meeting of the Transformational Leadership Council in Hawaii.  One morning, I took a walk on the beach with Alison Armstrong, who is a brilliant teacher, an amazing visionary, and a wonderful woman.

At one point on our walk, I was judging myself for not being more curious. I complained to Alison that, unlike some people who have a curiosity to learn about everything they can, I didn’t care one bit about knowing certain things – for example, I didn’t care about how the sand we were walking on was created.

Alison stopped me in my sand tracks.

She said, “You know, Marci, the quality our lives is influenced by the quality of the questions we ask ourselves.”

I realized that a question I sometimes ask myself, mostly subconsciously, is “What’s wrong with me?”

Alison suggested that I experiment with asking with these two questions, instead:

1. What if I’m perfect just as I am?  What if, in fact, there are plenty of people on the planet who care about how sand is created, and the universe doesn’t need me to be one of those people.

2. What is right about me?  Wow, what a concept!  Such a different question than the “What’s wrong with me” question.

I’ve begun this experiment, and I love the results.  I’m really feeling more lightness, love and acceptance. I’ve told my friends about it, and they’re trying it on too.

So this is my birthday gift for you—that you try on these questions and see what happens.

My birthday wish for you is that you feel greater love and acceptance of yourself.  That you experience the perfection of you just as you are and that you’re able to see what’s right about you more of the time.

What if the whole world lived with those two questions?  Then every day would feel like a birthday.

With my great love and gratitude that you’re a part of my life,

As you may remember, every New Year’s, I pick a theme. Last year’s theme was LOVE — a natural when I knew I’d be speaking about Love for No Reason throughout the year. (BTW, there’s a cool announcement about Love for No Reason coming up on Tuesday. Look out for it!)

This year, I spent a few days thinking about my 2012 theme, and I came up with a different possibilities, but none of really hit the spot. Then just yesterday, as I was leaving a Zumba class (all those endorphins seem to clear my brain), it suddenly came to me — my theme for 2012 is “thank you.” Simply that… thank you.

But those two seemingly simple little words can turn everything around. If I can say thank you to everything — no matter what — then I know my life will be joyous and more unconditional love will be automatic.

For me, saying thank you to everything means dropping my evaluation of whether something is good or bad, and judging every happening as to its “merit.” If instead, I can live with a continuous thank you, then everything that comes up can be viewed as a gift. This is a stretch for me, a chronic evaluator, but it’s one I’m up for. Because without a doubt, the happiest people I’ve ever met are those who always have a thank you in their hearts.

My selection of the thank you theme has already been reinforced many times since I made it:

–A friend passed away on New Year’s Day — a wonderful woman who lived with thank you on her lips despite a number of years with a debilitating illness. Her passing reminded me how fleeting and fragile life can be, but how infinitely precious. Thank you.

–Earlier today, I spoke with another friend and asked her how she was. Her reply was, “Grateful.” She said she’d woken up the past few mornings with a lightness and gratitude in her heart. None of her life circumstances had changed, but she was grateful to be alive. Thank you.

–Being single around the holidays has its challenges for many people, including me. But I got to be part of my nephew’s beautiful wedding celebration on New Year’s Eve and witness the great love between him and his new wife. Instead of feeling sad for being alone, I was inspired by their deep love and how they live in a constant thank you for each other. Thank you.

Here’s the process I recommend for you to select and use your theme for 2012:

1. Select a theme that sings to your soul. While you’ve been reading this, has a theme come to you? Are you having a strong pull to a particular word, phrase, or concept? Maybe there’s more than one. Jot them down. Sit with them for a while and see which one speaks the loudest to you. You’ll know you’ve found the right one for you when you’re uplifted just thinking about it.

2. Craft your theme into a short intention statement that becomes your “mantra” for the year. Mine is: I live this year in a continual thank you.

3. Create a vision board with your theme at the top. (I made mine last week, and I love looking at it.)

4. Make a habit of looking for the ways your theme shows up throughout your day.

I can’t wait to hear what your theme for 2012 is. Please share it with me on my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/MarciShimoffFan.

In honor of my 2012 theme of Thank You, I’d love to share a little gift with you. It’s a beautiful, short video from one of my Love for No Reason heroes, Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk who has started a worldwide gratefulness movement.

As Brother David says, “We are never more than one grateful thought away from peace of heart.”

May your 2012 theme, whatever it is, open your heart to experience greater love this year than ever before.

What I love about the new year is that we get a fresh start.  Right now, you have a fantastic opportunity– you get to leave behind what didn’t work in 2011 and envision what you’d like to create in 2012.  As this quote says:

“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”  – Oprah Winfrey

For the past ten years, I’ve had a simple New Year’s ritual that’s been a great way to ring in the new.  I’ve shared it with a few friends who’ve loved doing it, so I want to share it with you. As the saying goes, Well begun is half done, so I suggest you do this either on New Year’s eve or New Year’s day to get 2012 off to a wonderful start.:

1. Start with a 10 – 15 minute meditation in which you set your attention on releasing the old and opening to the new.
2. On a piece of paper, hand write a list of all the things in 2011 that you’d like to let go of.  This can include old patterns that don’t serve you, grudges or resentments you’re hanging on to, fears that hold you back, or circumstances that you’d like to change.It can also include not-useful habits such as eating too much sugar or not exercising.  Make sure your list is as complete as possible with everything that didn’t work for you in 2011.  My list is usually a few pages.
3. If it’s easy for you to burn the list, then you can do that.  If not, you can tear the list up in many pieces.  As you release this list, imagine letting go of the energies that are represented on your list.
4. Now, on to creation.  Make a list of all that you wish to create for yourself in 2012.Include the habits you’d like to embrace, the external circumstances you’d like to create, and the internal experiences you’d like to have (joy, freedom, ease, love, peace, acceptance of all that is, etc).  Be as specific as possible.
5. Read the list aloud (whether you’re alone or with others).  Speaking it out adds more energy to it.  Feel each item as though it’s actually happened.
6. Put the list in a special place, as a symbolic offering for your coming year.

Notice how you feel after doing this ritual.  I always feel cleansed, lighter, renewed, and excited about what’s ahead.

Please let me know your experience with this and/or share with me any New Year ritual you love on my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/MarciShimoffFan

This is a special New Year’s for me.  I get to spend New Year’s eve in an extraordinary way.  I have the huge honor of officiating at my nephew’s wedding on December 31!    He and his fiancée are two fabulous people and they’re a great match — their relationship is an inspiration.  I can’t think of a better way to start the new year in this celebration of love.

May 2012 be a year for you full of wonder, grace, miracles, love and the deepest fulfillment of your soul.

With love for every reason,

Marci

P.S.  Something exciting is happening on January 10 — stay tuned for the news.

If you think about it, all the gifts, parties, and holiday fuss boil down to one thing — love. Love is the #1 ingredient we need to experience holiday cheer and the absence of it is what brings holiday woe.

So how can you experience more love this season?

Practice being a good receiver!

What you say? Isn’t this season about giving? Yes, giving is a wonderful thing that helps us feel good, but if we can’t fully receive people’s gifts and kindness, open up to support, and let love in then we can’t actually FEEL the love.

Unfortunately, many people have a hard time receiving. Here are three ways you can strengthen your receiving muscle this holiday:

1. Pay attention to the gifts all around you each day — not just the BIG gifts, but the small ones, as well. Notice the kindness of the salesclerk, the smile on your neighbor’s face, the beauty of the winter landscape. Be on the look-out for the many gifts of the day.

2. Look for the blessings — even in the hard stuff, which often shows up during this season. Just as an experiment, assume that everything that happens is a gift for you. The universe is on your side. How would you look at and experience your challenges differently, if you imagined it was all for your good? Give it a try.

3. Savor the good. My neuropsychologist friend Rick Hanson says that it takes about 20 seconds to deeply register the good. So, acknowledge a compliment rather than dismiss it, express appreciation for the gifts you receive. Deeply take things in and bathe in them.

I’d love to hear what tips you use to open up and receive. Please share them with me at http://www.facebook.com/MarciShimoffFan.

Now, for a fabulous holiday story (receive it and enjoy)…

A Happy for No Reason Holiday Story

I was deeply touched by the following story that was told to me by a young father, one of my “Happy 100″ who I interviewed for Happy for No Reason:

When my oldest daughter, Victoria, was almost three, we read Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas every night to her before the holiday.

She’d curl up beside me as I’d read: “Every Who down in Who-ville liked Christmas a lot. But the Grinch, who lived just north of Who-ville, Did NOT!”

Victoria followed along as the Grinch unveils his plans to ruin the Christmas of the Whos. Disguising himself as Santa and his dog as a reindeer, the Grinch steals into the Whos’ homes and takes everything, leaving only the hooks and wires on the bare walls. But to his surprise, the Whos remain happy despite the loss of the presents and trees and trimmings and trappings.

He hadn’t stopped Christmas from coming; “it came just the same.”

On that Christmas morning, we woke just ahead of Victoria so that we could watch her three-year-old enthusiasm as she saw the presents under the tree. She first ran to the kitchen table where she had left a snack for Santa and his reindeer. She looked at the evidence of Santa’s visit: the cookie crumbs on the plate and the empty milk glass and the missing carrots. My wife, pregnant with our second child, and I beamed seeing our daughter so wide-eyed and excited at the thought that Santa himself had been in our home. Next, she ran into the living room and saw the presents under the tree.

We expected her to dive into them — but she didn’t. She held up her little hand and she said, “Stop. Let’s pretend. Let’s pretend the Grinch has been here and took everything and left just hooks and wires and we’d still be happy.”

So we stopped, and were happy. And like the Grinch, my heart grew three sizes that day.

I wish you great love this holiday season and every day — may you let the love in fully and allow it to grow your heart three sizes.

With love for no reason and every reason, Marci

“We’re starting near the hour of the solstice and kicking off the longest day with a burst of energy! Get energized on Living Energy Day. It starts the shortest day of the year (if you live above the equator) December 21st, 2011. We’re hosting a 24 hour live teleseminar marathon to spread the word about energy healing.”

My interview with Sandra Crowe kicks off 24 hours of interviews about energy/energy knowledge. Listen in  7:30pm EST and 4:30 PST.

Listen in Live

https://www.facebook.com/LivingEnergyDay

While this can be a fun and fulfilling time, it can also be a time of great challenge. Depression is higher during the holiday season than during any other time of the year.

Is there a better way to live through the holidays so that you plug into the “fun and fulfilling” part and lessen the “stressful” part?

I’ve been exploring that myself this year as I’ve been feeling some sadness these past few weeks. This is the first time in 13 years that I am not in a primary relationship during the holidays and yet I still want to keep my heart open and feel expanded and happy.

I’ve found a holiday prescription that’s working for me and I believe will work for you. It’s based on dealing with the five main sources of stress that can lead to the holiday blues:

1. Overconsumption – We tend to over-shop, overeat, overdrink, over-everything! Can you relate?
2. Loneliness – This is time when we can feel most isolated or alone-even if we’re surrounded by lots of people.
3. Time Pressure – In the mad rush of the season, we stop taking care of ourselves.
4. Financial Stress – No need to explain this!
5. Loss of Perspective – With such an emphasis on buying the right gifts, having the right clothes for parties and gatherings, and finding the right ingredients for our holiday meals, we often lose perspective on what really brings fulfillment.

Here are the top five tips to make it through the holidays keeping your heart open and your joy flowing:

1. Connect to your heart. When you find yourself reaching for that fifth gingerbread man or cup of eggnog, stop and take a few deep breaths in and out of your heart. For extra power, place your hand over your heart to stimulate the happiness chemical, oxytocin.

2. Find community and support. If you’re alone, make sure you seek out people to spend time with. Don’t isolate yourself. Once you have people around you, focus on the ways you appreciate and enjoy them, rather than getting stuck in your judgments or criticisms. Yes, family can bring up your “stuff”-but see it as an opportunity to work on your limiting patterns and let love prevail. (You may want to use the fabulous Ho’oponopono practice to help you let go and forgive).

3. Take time for yourself. In the midst of the holiday whirl is when we MOST need to set aside time to take care of ourselves. One of my favorite ways is to take a 15-minute hot bath with sea salt and lavender oil at night to relax. It feels delicious and it rebalances the body’s energetic field.

4. Serve others. Giving of your time and your heart to serve others who are in need will help take your attention off of the desire to over consume. Altruism and service are a fast-track to heart-opening.

5. Go spiritual. The time around the winter solstice when there’s more darkness is actually a very spiritual time. Take the opportunity to go inward-meditate, connect with spirit in any way that works for you. Spiritual practice is the best antidote I know of to help you keep balance and perspective during the craziness of the season.

With some gentle attention on these five tips, you’ll find yourself humming “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and meaning it.

May the next few weeks be nurturing and joyful for you.
With love for no reason and every reason,

On an impulse, I grabbed the video camera and suggested that we all go around in a circle telling each other one thing we most appreciate about each other. My family reluctantly agreed, as they rolled their eyes thinking, “this is another one of those ‘Marci’ things.”

We started with my mother — I told her I appreciated how she always believes in me. Then my brother told her that he appreciated what a generous person she was, followed by my nephew who told her how he could taste the love in her signature butterscotch chip cookies, and on and on. Then we moved on to my father and did the same process until all twelve of us had been lavished on.

By the end of this appreciation feast, we had even bigger smiles on our faces than we’d had while we were eating the mashed potatoes and the apple pie a la mode.

There’s so much research showing the extraordinary benefits of sharing thanks and appreciation. But, we don’t even need those statistics to know how it feels in our hearts.

With the passing of my 93 year-old aunt this year (the last of seven aunts and uncles) and the passing of both my parents in the past few years, this is our family’s first Thanksgiving that my siblings and I are the “older generation.” We’ll be celebrating together at my brother’s home with “the younger generation,” and we’ll all be watching that special video together. I am so grateful that we have our appreciation feast captured on video and in our hearts. Why not celebrate your family and friends with an Appreciation Feast this Thanksgiving.

I send you all my best wishes for a Thanksgiving deeply full of thanks.

With love and gratitude for you being in my life, Marci

I’ve continued to be a huge fan of Rick and his work — we even began a book together. I avidly read Rick’s “just one thing” articles, which are wonderful short pieces about easy, powerful practices that can make a big difference in our happiness and well-being levels. In today’s ezine, I’d love to share one of my favorite “just one thing” ideas that I think you’ll find really helpful.

Here are Rick’s wise words about “Don’t Take It Personally” (excerpted from his wonderful new book called Just One Thing):

Here’s an updated parable from the ancient Taoist teacher Chuang-Tzu: Imagine that you are floating in a canoe on a slow-moving river, having a Sunday picnic with a friend. Suddenly there is a loud thump on the side of the canoe, and it rolls over. You come up sputtering, and what do you see? Somebody has snuck up on your canoe, flipped it over for a joke, and is laughing at you. How do you feel?

Okay. Now imagine the exact same situation again: the picnic in a canoe, loud thump, dumped into the river, coming up sputtering, and what do you see? A large submerged log has drifted downstream and bumped into your canoe. This time, how do you feel?

The facts are the same in each case: cold and wet, picnic ruined. But when you think you’ve been targeted personally, you probably feel worse. The thing is, most of what bumps into us in life — including emotional reactions from others, traffic jams, illness, or mistreatment at work — is like an impersonal log put in motion by ten thousand causes upstream.

Say a friend is surprisingly critical toward you. It hurts, for sure, and you’ll want to address the situation, from talking about it with the friend to disengaging from the relationship.

But also consider what may have caused that person to bump into you, such as misinterpretations of your actions; health problems, pain, worries or anger about things unrelated to you; temperament, personality, childhood experiences; the effects of culture, economy, or world events; and causes back upstream in time, like how his or her parents were raised.

Recognize the humbling yet wonderful truth: most of the time, we are bit players in other people’s dramas.

When you look at things this way, you naturally get calmer, put situations in context, and don’t get so caught up in me-myself-and-I. Then you feel better, plus more clearheaded about what to do.

How?

To begin with, have compassion for yourself. Getting smacked by a log is a drag. Also take appropriate action. Keep an eye out for logs heading your way, try to reduce their impact, and repair your “boat” — relationship, health, finances, career — as best you can. And maybe think about finding a new river!

Additionally:

1. Notice when you start to take something personally. Be mindful of what that feels like — and also what it feels like to relax the sense of being personally targeted.

2. Be careful about making assumptions about the intentions of others. Maybe they didn’t do it “on purpose.” Or maybe there was one not-so-good purpose aimed at you that was mixed up with a dozen other purposes.

3. Reflect on some of the ten thousand causes upstream. Ask yourself: What else could be in play here? What’s going on inside the other person’s mind and life? What’s the bigger picture?

4. Beware getting caught up in your “case” about other people, driven by an inner prosecutor that keeps pounding on all the ways they’re wrong, spoke badly, acted unfairly, picked on you, really really harmed you, made you suffer, etc., etc. It’s good to see others clearly, and there’s a place for moral judgment — but case-making is a kind of obsessing that makes you feel worse and more likely to overreact and create an even bigger problem.

5. Try to have compassion for the other people. They’re probably not all that happy, either. Having compassion for them will not weaken you or let them off the moral hook; actually, it will make you feel better.

And — really soak up the sense of strength and peacefulness that comes from taking life less personally.

As a recovering “personalizer,” I love this reminder from Rick. Try applying these ideas over the next days and see how you relax and enjoy your life more.

I welcome you to share your personal experience with this great practice on my Facebook page.

With love for every reason, Marci