Consciousness is a Full-time Job

In order to get to the place I often refer to in these articles, about gaining inner freedom and inner peace, at some point you have to realize and assimilate that this is not something you do on Sundays, or on a weekend workshop, or when you feel relaxed, or on a week-long retreat. This – becoming conscious and staying conscious, is a full-time job. (Listen to my audio clip: Emotions: Your Road to Inner Freedom).

Making Conscious Choices

That means that especially at the beginning you will need to make the conscious choice of how much intention you will put into paying attention to what it is you are thinking, feeling, doing, and saying. Because if you don't make such a conscious choice, and begin to apply some discipline in order to bring about this process, not much will happen.

Reminding Yourself At All Times

As this becomes more ingrained, more of a habit, you will notice that it soon requires less of an effort. It begins to become automatic.

Do you remember when you learned how to drive a car? Wasn’t it confusing? Mind-boggling? The number of things you had to remember to be aware of? The rear-view mirror, the clutch, the brake, the road, the side mirror, traffic all around you, the dashboard indicators, and so on. It might have seemed almost like a nightmare at the beginning, and even if it didn’t, it certainly took all of your attention. But only for a time. It is something you now do without constantly needing to think about it, and remind yourself about it.

And so it is with becoming conscious. You need to continually remind yourself about paying attention to it. At the beginning that is precisely what is required. You need to constantly remind yourself in order to remain conscious, or to pull yourself back into consciousness, into awareness.

Even if you have to resort to tricks such as putting post-it notes up on your bathroom mirror and in the kitchen, or putting paper clips in your pockets so that when you feel them, and ask yourself what they are doing there, you remember to remember to remain conscious or to return to consciousness. Some people put a small pebble in their change purse, others set the alarm on their mobiles to vibrate once an hour, or set the kitchen timer in a similar fashion, simply to use any method that works to help you remain conscious, or if you've slipped back into blindness, to help you come back from there.

Becoming Responsible For Yourself

However, at the beginning, as you make a conscious choice to follow this process, you will also begin to realize the absolute need for you to decide to become totally responsible for yourself. (See also Claiming Responsibility For the Self). And in so doing, you will realize that:

• It is not enough to go to a seminar and get all revved up by a particularly inspirational speaker
• It is not enough to read yet another book that makes you feel so wonderful while you read it because it addresses all those issues that you so much want to work on.
• It is not enough to participate in yet another interactive workshop that blows your mind because of how you feel when you are performing whatever it is that the workshop is about.
• None of this is enough unless you also decide to take all these wonderful things that you are hearing, reading, and participating in, and make use of them throughout your day, every day, to the end of your life 

The Road to Inner Freedom

Many - if not most - clients complain that when we discuss methods by which they can find greater inner freedom and inner peace, it sounds like such hard work.

They tell me that it's all very well for me to talk about it, but that for them it is just going to take so long and be so hard.

Building Muscles

In some ways they are right. None of this work is possible without some dedication and discipline. I often liken it to developing biceps and triceps in a weak or flaccid arm. In order to see some change, you need to be lifting weights or going to the gym on a regular basis for about three months. You have to be consistent, and you have to believe - during those early days and weeks - that even though it appears that nothing is changing, that something is indeed changing, and that you will soon see the desired results.

Becoming Aware of the Self

We talk about becoming aware of the self and its reactions, making conscious choices at each step of the way that are good for you on an energetic level (these may not be the easiest or most immediately pleasing choices, but they are the choices that give you the greatest sense of satisfaction with yourself), and choosing responsibility for the self in all senses of the word.

When we get to this point, some clients then protest, indicating that there is no proof that the end result will give them what they are seeking (inner freedom and peace in their lives and relationships), other than the fact that I (and untold others) vouch for it due to the effect it has had in their own lives.

Mindfulness: Paying Attention to Your Intention

Hence it is wonderful to listen to yet another person speaking the same language - this time couched in the terms of mindfulness meditation (I've posted about this in the past and mentioned Jon Kabat-Zinn). In this instance it is Daniel Siegel, MD, author of The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being, whose podcast I listened to at the Brain Science Podcast a wonderful site I link to on my own blog. In this podcast, he speaks about mindfulness meditation and the beneficial effects it has on your well-being ... and these benefits speak directly to the type of desired effects I referred to earlier in this post, that cause some clients such difficulty.

Benefits

By paying attention to your intention over a period of 10 minutes every day, focusing on your breath, you begin to become aware of your awareness, and in this process certain sections of the brain are activated. (See also How Low Frequency Thoughts Erode the Quality of Your Life). Studies show that this process ... a state of mind that you work on with effort, becomes a trait, a long-term aspect of an individual's way of being that then happens without effort, and whose benefits cause you to:

• develop more capacity to regulate your body (blood pressure and immune system improve, etc.)
• attune to yourself and others in a deeper and meaningful way (you develop compassion)
• regulate your affective states better (you approach, rather than withdraw from things)
• develop the ability to extinguish fear
• develop response flexibility … the capacity to pause before you act; you think about your options and choose the most adaptive
• have more insight into yourself
• develop greater empathy
• have more morality
• you have access to your intuition, which is fundamentally your body’s wisdom

All of these benefits - brought about as studies have proven - through mindfulness meditation, are the same benefits that can be achieved through other mechanisms, but that frequently take much longer, and require much more conscious effort.

Choose to Internalize Becoming Aware

How you do it is your business - even whether you do it, is your business - but these are some of the best roads to inner freedom and peace.

Consciousness is a full-time job. Until you realize this, until you internalize it, until you decide to make this realization a central and fundamental part of your life, and then act upon it, becoming conscious - and living a conscious life - will elude you and slip from your grasp over and over again, just as wisps of fog over the sea evanesce in the morning light.

***************

Also visit my book website: www.gabriellakortsch.com where you may download excerpts or read quotations from any of my books (also in Spanish & German). My latest book Emotional Unavailability & Neediness: Two Sides of the Same Coin is available globally on Amazon in print & Kindle. You can also obtain it (or any of my other books) via Barnes & Noble.

Books by Dr. Gabriella Kortsch (English). Available globally in paperback or Kindle e-book versions

Bücher von Dr. Gabriella Kortsch (Deutsch) ... JETZT bei Amazon (Taschenbuch oder E-Book) erhältlich 

DEINE SEELE UND DU

  

Angefangen mit Rewiring the Soul - auf Deutsch: Deine Seele und Du, jetzt weltweit erhältlich als Taschenbuch oder Kindle E-Book (Blog hier), werden auch meine anderen Bücher in Zukunft auf Deutsch bei Amazon erhältlich sein.

Libros por Gabriella Kortsch (español) ... ahora en todo el mundo en Amazon en versión bolsillo y Kindle

Note: If you are wondering why this blog is now only appearing on alternate days (excluding Sat/Sun), it is because I also post on my other blog on the others days. That other blog is The Tao of Spiritual Partnership, so named for another one of my books. Click here to visit the blog and/or to sign up for the feed. 

My blog posts are also featured on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest & you can find me on Instagram 

Coming Through the Shadows

Life is often not easy. Frequently many of the people I see privately are in great pain, not only about emotional and psychological issues, but about the circumstances of their lives. Whether it's a quesrtion of cause and effect, because we have taken paths that led us to where we are now, or whether it is bad luck, or terrible external geo-political and economic situations, the point is that it is often very hard to figure out how to continue.

Nevertheless, it is precisely when it is darkest, and when you seem to have lost all hope, that you most need to remember that life can change in a heartbeat. Or that you can make things change - even if only in your head and the way you view them. Or how you react to them - most particularly, how you choose to react to them.

It is at times like that when it is so very important to recognize that you need something that keeps you going on. You may have a collection of quotations or poetry that mean something to you; that inspire and motivate you; that allow you to feel hope. Or perhaps you have collected books or videos (of films or seminars with motivational or inspirational speakers) that again, mean something to you; that inspire and motivate you; that allow you to feel hope. Or perhaps you have cultivated a practice of some kind, such as mindfulness, that allows you to be in charge of your thoughts, in order that they are not able to torture you with the circumstances in which you find yourself. Or perhaps you have already found meaning in your life. Something that gives you a feeling of purpose. That, in and of itself, is one of the best ways to find inner strength during great darkness. Having a meaning in your life can give you such conviction that you are able to carry on, that it will be very hard to keep you down.

So back to the darkness. Back to the shadows that are holding the light away from your life. If you already have some of the above ways of managing the dark parts of your life in your pocket, so to speak, you will know what to do. If you have not, this is the best time to start. Now.

It was Tolkien who said: you can only come to the morning through the shadows.

Also visit my new website: www.gabriellakortsch.com where you may download excerpts or read quotations from any of my books.

Books by Dr. Gabriella Kortsch:
 
Rewiring the Soul

Click here to download the first chapter.

To see the Table of Contents click here

Reviews From the Back Cover:

"The masterwork of a profoundly gifted healer of the soul. Dazzling, challenging, wondrously useful." Peggy Rubin, Director, Center for Sacred Theatre, Ashland, Oregon; author: To Be and How To Be, Transforming Your Life Through Sacred Theatre

"Rewiring the Soul is one the best introductions to the spiritual life I've ever read. Not esoteric but real-world & practical. The implications are profound." Peter Shepherd; Founder Trans4mind.com; author: Daring To Be Yourself 

"The human being's directory to the soul. A breakthrough for those seeking practical assistance, those of a more mystical bent & every soul awaiting discovery." Toni Petrinovich, Ph.D.; author: The Call: Awakening the Angelic Human

The Tao of Spiritual Partnership

To download the first chapter, click here
To see the Table of Contents click here

Praise for The Tao of Spiritual Partnership

“All humans seek the illusive touch of another's Soul, which opens us to the sense of belonging to something bigger than the self. Dr. Kortsch has given us the true "tao" of relationship in this brilliant exploration of emotional tapestry. We will be grateful for this illumination of spiritual partnership for generations to come."
Chris Griscom: Spiritual Leader, Author (among others) of: Ecstasy is a New Frequency

“Eloquent and comprehensive, showing how your primary love relationship may be a sacred vessel that transports you and your partner to a place of mutual healing and expansion.” 
Robert Schwartz: Author of Your Soul’s Gift: The Healing Power of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born 


The Power of Your Heart: Loving the Self 

My new book: The Power of Your Heart: Loving the Self, is just out. Click here to download an excerpt. 
Here is a brief excerpt from the Introduction:

It is your right to live a life of love. It is your right to understand that loving yourself first is not a selfish way of behavior, but one that allows you to live that life of love. However, it's highly probable that you never got the instruction manual explaining exactly how to accomplish this. Possibly your family - and it may have been a loving family - considered loving the self an act of selfishness. Or perhaps the members of your family simply didn't practice loving the self, and of course, what you didn't see - what was not shown to you - while you were growing up, meant that you just didn't learn how to apply it to yourself. The closer you are able to move towards loving yourself, the closer you will be to living a life of love - quite independently of whether you are in a love relationship or not. A life of love can be lived with or without a partnership, because a life of love implies that you know that it all begins with you by loving the self. The more clearly you understand how to love yourself, the more clearly you will see that it is very hard - if not impossible - to love others in ways that are unrelated to fulfilling any of your needs. Loving yourself first is - for so many of us - one of the hardest things we will ever learn how to do. But know this: the benefits affect you in every particle of your being - body, mind, and soul - and are greater than you will ever be able to imagine.

Note: If you are wondering why this blog is now only appearing on alternate days (excluding Sat/Sun), it is because I also post on my other blog on the others days. That other blog is The Tao of Spiritual Partnership, so named for another one of my books. Click here to visit the blog and/or to sign up for the feed.

Encircling the World with Your Imagination

Knowledge vs imagination: many would say that the former is more important than the latter, yet I believe neither can exist without the other, and indeed, knowledge - in any field - is rarely expanded without imagination. Napoleon Hill said: just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive.

Didn't Jules Verne imagine submarines and trips to the moon long before they existed? Didn't Columbus imagine that 'other' world across an ocean filled with dragons long before anyone had actually traveled there (at least according to what was known then, in the 15th century)? And didn't Mandela imagine a democratic Africa long before it became a reality? Many things were required for it to happen, amongst others: knowledge.

We can come up with any number of examples that prove the point, but what I want to encourage you to consider today, is how much of your imagination is actually being used in order to grow your life. The light that Hill refers to in the quote above, can be used to symbolize knowledge. Would Jobs or Gates have been able to imagine the home computer they wanted to create without some knowledge of hardware and software? Of course not! But without the imagination they both had, I might not be sitting here at my laptop typing out this blog post ... so, back to your life: what are you imagining; what have you been imagining to make your life bigger? I'm not talking about success (although that might be part of it), nor am I talking about making money (although again, that might be part of it), nor am I talking about anything at all in particular, except how you go about creating the different parts of your life.

Without imagination it won't happen. Without dreams it won't happen. And without enough knowledge to put that imagination and those dreams into practice it won't happen either. So: you probably already have a good part of the knowledge necessary to move into the direction at which you are looking. But how much of your imagination have you been using to help get you there? Einstein said: imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. So use your imagination to encircle your world. And remember, if that imagination does not spark an inner excitement, it is probably not a direction you should consider taking.

Also visit my new website: www.gabriellakortsch.com where you may download excerpts or read quotations from any of my books.

Books by Dr. Gabriella Kortsch:
 
Rewiring the Soul

Click here to download the first chapter.

To see the Table of Contents click here

Reviews From the Back Cover:

"The masterwork of a profoundly gifted healer of the soul. Dazzling, challenging, wondrously useful." Peggy Rubin, Director, Center for Sacred Theatre, Ashland, Oregon; author: To Be and How To Be, Transforming Your Life Through Sacred Theatre

"Rewiring the Soul is one the best introductions to the spiritual life I've ever read. Not esoteric but real-world & practical. The implications are profound." Peter Shepherd; Founder Trans4mind.com; author: Daring To Be Yourself 

"The human being's directory to the soul. A breakthrough for those seeking practical assistance, those of a more mystical bent & every soul awaiting discovery." Toni Petrinovich, Ph.D.; author: The Call: Awakening the Angelic Human

The Tao of Spiritual Partnership

To download the first chapter, click here
To see the Table of Contents click here

Praise for The Tao of Spiritual Partnership

“All humans seek the illusive touch of another's Soul, which opens us to the sense of belonging to something bigger than the self. Dr. Kortsch has given us the true "tao" of relationship in this brilliant exploration of emotional tapestry. We will be grateful for this illumination of spiritual partnership for generations to come."
Chris Griscom: Spiritual Leader, Author (among others) of: Ecstasy is a New Frequency

“Eloquent and comprehensive, showing how your primary love relationship may be a sacred vessel that transports you and your partner to a place of mutual healing and expansion.” 
Robert Schwartz: Author of Your Soul’s Gift: The Healing Power of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born 


The Power of Your Heart: Loving the Self 

My new book: The Power of Your Heart: Loving the Self, is just out. Click here to download an excerpt. 
Here is a brief excerpt from the Introduction:

It is your right to live a life of love. It is your right to understand that loving yourself first is not a selfish way of behavior, but one that allows you to live that life of love. However, it's highly probable that you never got the instruction manual explaining exactly how to accomplish this. Possibly your family - and it may have been a loving family - considered loving the self an act of selfishness. Or perhaps the members of your family simply didn't practice loving the self, and of course, what you didn't see - what was not shown to you - while you were growing up, meant that you just didn't learn how to apply it to yourself. The closer you are able to move towards loving yourself, the closer you will be to living a life of love - quite independently of whether you are in a love relationship or not. A life of love can be lived with or without a partnership, because a life of love implies that you know that it all begins with you by loving the self. The more clearly you understand how to love yourself, the more clearly you will see that it is very hard - if not impossible - to love others in ways that are unrelated to fulfilling any of your needs. Loving yourself first is - for so many of us - one of the hardest things we will ever learn how to do. But know this: the benefits affect you in every particle of your being - body, mind, and soul - and are greater than you will ever be able to imagine.

Note: If you are wondering why this blog is now only appearing on alternate days (excluding Sat/Sun), it is because I also post on my other blog on the others days. That other blog is The Tao of Spiritual Partnership, so named for another one of my books. Click here to visit the blog and/or to sign up for the feed.

Cultivating Your Best Friend

When you are interested in someone, you give them time. When you would like to broaden the friendship, you not only give time to this person, but you also go more deeply into the relationship. When you want to get to know someone better, you show interest, you spend some effort trying to understand them, and what makes them tick.

None of this is new, and most of us do these things with varying degrees of success with those with whom we want to cultivate friendship, but we fail miserably when it comes to giving ourselves some time, in showing ourselves some interest, in broadening and deepening the relationship with ourselves, and in spending some effort in trying to understand ourselves and what makes us tick.

The reasons for this are cultural in part, as our society has bothered only a little, if at all, in convincing us of the value of the inward gaze, and bothered a great deal more in convincing us of the value of outward acquisition, success, beauty, youth, or fame. There are other reasons, however, due to which we avoid this process, that are often related to fear. Some people are afraid to be alone with themselves, they are afraid of what they may find if they go too deeply, believing (erroneously or not) that what they find will be awful. I have had clients who have told me - at the beginning of such an inner quest - that they were horrified at the things that were appearing, but what each of us has to understand is that as long as we prefer to accept a version of ourselves that has been clothed with blindness, in the emperor's clothes, so to speak, a version that may appear to be golden, but is ultimately seen to be tarnished - perhaps even very tarnished - when we start this inner process, as long as we do not understand that without looking at that tarnished one that we are, we will never have the opportunity to start the process of polishing, honing, and refining all of that in order to find the true gold beneath.

So investing in yourself by spending time with yourself, by being interested in yourself, by beginning to realize that you are not only worth this process, but that it is one of the primordial reasons you are here, by getting to know yourself, and by beginning to love yourself, no matter what you are seeing (perhaps for the first time) in this process, you will also begin to grasp the vision of who you truly are: a magnificent being filled with light.

As I have written elsewhere: imagine spending all your time with a friend who appreciates, likes, loves, and admires you. Imagine that this friend is YOU!

Also visit my new website: www.gabriellakortsch.com

Books by Dr. Gabriella Kortsch:
 
Rewiring the Soul

Click here to download the first chapter.

To see the Table of Contents click here

Reviews From the Back Cover:

"The masterwork of a profoundly gifted healer of the soul. Dazzling, challenging, wondrously useful." Peggy Rubin, Director, Center for Sacred Theatre, Ashland, Oregon; author: To Be and How To Be, Transforming Your Life Through Sacred Theatre

"Rewiring the Soul is one the best introductions to the spiritual life I've ever read. Not esoteric but real-world & practical. The implications are profound." Peter Shepherd; Founder Trans4mind.com; author: Daring To Be Yourself 

"The human being's directory to the soul. A breakthrough for those seeking practical assistance, those of a more mystical bent & every soul awaiting discovery." Toni Petrinovich, Ph.D.; author: The Call: Awakening the Angelic Human

The Tao of Spiritual Partnership

To download the first chapter, click here
To see the Table of Contents click here

Praise for The Tao of Spiritual Partnership

“All humans seek the illusive touch of another's Soul, which opens us to the sense of belonging to something bigger than the self. Dr. Kortsch has given us the true "tao" of relationship in this brilliant exploration of emotional tapestry. We will be grateful for this illumination of spiritual partnership for generations to come."
Chris Griscom: Spiritual Leader, Author (among others) of: Ecstasy is a New Frequency

“Eloquent and comprehensive, showing how your primary love relationship may be a sacred vessel that transports you and your partner to a place of mutual healing and expansion.” 
Robert Schwartz: Author of Your Soul’s Gift: The Healing Power of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born 


The Power of Your Heart: Loving the Self 

My new book: The Power of Your Heart: Loving the Self, is just out. Click here to download an excerpt. 
Here is a brief excerpt from the Introduction:

It is your right to live a life of love. It is your right to understand that loving yourself first is not a selfish way of behavior, but one that allows you to live that life of love. However, it's highly probable that you never got the instruction manual explaining exactly how to accomplish this. Possibly your family - and it may have been a loving family - considered loving the self an act of selfishness. Or perhaps the members of your family simply didn't practice loving the self, and of course, what you didn't see - what was not shown to you - while you were growing up, meant that you just didn't learn how to apply it to yourself. The closer you are able to move towards loving yourself, the closer you will be to living a life of love - quite independently of whether you are in a love relationship or not. A life of love can be lived with or without a partnership, because a life of love implies that you know that it all begins with you by loving the self. The more clearly you understand how to love yourself, the more clearly you will see that it is very hard - if not impossible - to love others in ways that are unrelated to fulfilling any of your needs. Loving yourself first is - for so many of us - one of the hardest things we will ever learn how to do. But know this: the benefits affect you in every particle of your being - body, mind, and soul - and are greater than you will ever be able to imagine.

Note: If you are wondering why this blog is now only appearing on alternate days (excluding Sat/Sun), it is because I also post on my other blog on the others days. That other blog is The Tao of Spiritual Partnership, so named for another one of my books. Click here to visit the blog and/or to sign up for the feed.

Playing Your Hand ... Even When It's Not Great

Were you born with a silver spoon in your mouth? Were things handed to you on a silver tablet? Did Lady Luck follow you everywhere? Were you gifted with the greatest intellect, strongest muscles, most lithesome body, or most artistic creativity, business acumen, or a way with words?

In other words, were you dealt a winning hand?

Probably not. Most of us were not. But you were dealt some cards. Perhaps you are very determined. Or very sociable. Or a great natural speaker. Or have an uncle who is a superlative tennis coach. Or a mother who believes in you. Or are given the opportunity to travel and expand your mind. Perhaps your card is that teacher in the rather ordinary school you attended in the wrong part of town who showed you light in your future in a way no one else ever had. Perhaps your card is a librarian when you were 10 who took an interest in you. Perhaps you were able to join the school orchestra and flew into life with an instrument you related to more than anything else in your life. In other words, perhaps the cards you were dealt weren't dynamite at first glance, but they gave you an opportunity.

And of course therefore it's up to you to play with that hand, even when it's not great. What you make of yourself is, in so many ways, up to you ... and sometimes we get that one card - perhaps even two - that move us along our path. And sometimes - even perhaps often - the card doesn't appear until we're older, and so it's even more important that you are prepared to play it by having made use of everything you have up to that point. Don't waste your time bemoaning a fate that appears to be less fortunate than another's. Don't compare. How many people have you not heard of in the nightly news who frittered away their fortune - whether it consisted of money, good genes, a well-placed family, or any other such element you care to imagine. Their cards were excellent, and yet they did not use them. Follow what you have in your hand and make it count. Play your hand well. It was Jack London who said: Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes playing a poor hand well.

Also visit my new website: www.gabriellakortsch.com

Books by Dr. Gabriella Kortsch:
 
Rewiring the Soul

Click here to download the first chapter.

To see the Table of Contents click here

Reviews From the Back Cover:

"The masterwork of a profoundly gifted healer of the soul. Dazzling, challenging, wondrously useful." Peggy Rubin, Director, Center for Sacred Theatre, Ashland, Oregon; author: To Be and How To Be, Transforming Your Life Through Sacred Theatre

"Rewiring the Soul is one the best introductions to the spiritual life I've ever read. Not esoteric but real-world & practical. The implications are profound." Peter Shepherd; Founder Trans4mind.com; author: Daring To Be Yourself 

"The human being's directory to the soul. A breakthrough for those seeking practical assistance, those of a more mystical bent & every soul awaiting discovery." Toni Petrinovich, Ph.D.; author: The Call: Awakening the Angelic Human

The Tao of Spiritual Partnership

To download the first chapter, click here
To see the Table of Contents click here

Praise for The Tao of Spiritual Partnership

“All humans seek the illusive touch of another's Soul, which opens us to the sense of belonging to something bigger than the self. Dr. Kortsch has given us the true "tao" of relationship in this brilliant exploration of emotional tapestry. We will be grateful for this illumination of spiritual partnership for generations to come."
Chris Griscom: Spiritual Leader, Author (among others) of: Ecstasy is a New Frequency

“Eloquently and comprehensive, showing how your primary love relationship may be a sacred vessel that transports you and your partner to a place of mutual healing and expansion.” 
Robert Schwartz: Author of Your Soul’s Gift: The Healing Power of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born 


The Power of Your Heart: Loving the Self 

My new book: The Power of Your Heart: Loving the Self, is just out. Click here to download an excerpt. 
Here is a brief excerpt from the Introduction:

It is your right to live a life of love. It is your right to understand that loving yourself first is not a selfish way of behavior, but one that allows you to live that life of love. However, it's highly probable that you never got the instruction manual explaining exactly how to accomplish this. Possibly your family - and it may have been a loving family - considered loving the self an act of selfishness. Or perhaps the members of your family simply didn't practice loving the self, and of course, what you didn't see - what was not shown to you - while you were growing up, meant that you just didn't learn how to apply it to yourself. The closer you are able to move towards loving yourself, the closer you will be to living a life of love - quite independently of whether you are in a love relationship or not. A life of love can be lived with or without a partnership, because a life of love implies that you know that it all begins with you by loving the self. The more clearly you understand how to love yourself, the more clearly you will see that it is very hard - if not impossible - to love others in ways that are unrelated to fulfilling any of your needs. Loving yourself first is - for so many of us - one of the hardest things we will ever learn how to do. But know this: the benefits affect you in every particle of your being - body, mind, and soul - and are greater than you will ever be able to imagine.

Note: If you are wondering why this blog is now only appearing on alternate days (excluding Sat/Sun), it is because I also post on my other blog on the others days. That other blog is The Tao of Spiritual Partnership, so named for another one of my books. Click here to visit the blog and/or to sign up for the feed.

Having Faith in Your Fear

The thing about motivating yourself and getting yourself to believe in what you are doing and that you may have a chance of bringing that 'thing' you are doing to fruition, is that you might have to begin by looking at it from the opposite end.

• How often do you tell yourself you are not good/intelligent/strong/young/expert enough? Now: think about the amount of faith you have in that negative statement you give yourself.
• How often do you tell yourself that something you want to do won't work? Now: think about the amount of faith you have in that negative statement you give yourself.
• How often do you tell yourself that because you have been doing the 'thing' you are doing for so long, and you have not reached your ultimate goal in this matter, it means that you will never get there? Now: think about the amount of faith you have in that negative statement you give yourself.

What I intended for you to see and internalize with those questions is that you have much greater faith in your doubts and fears than you do in how your future will turn out. You give strength to the doubts and fears by that faith, and you weaken your belief in your future and your ability and capability and success by your lack of faith.

Your very words and thoughts do this: they weaken you. Think carefully about what you tell yourself, and then think about the fact that the faith you have in your fears and doubts is just as difficult to maintain as faith in your abilities and success. Since both are difficult, why not choose to believe in the one that - if you are proven right - will lead you to a place you wish to arrive at? As so much else on this blog, this is about the choices you make - the choices you choose to make.


Also visit my new website: www.gabriellakortsch.com

Books by Dr. Gabriella Kortsch:
 
Rewiring the Soul

Click here to download the first chapter.

To see the Table of Contents click here

Reviews From the Back Cover:

"The masterwork of a profoundly gifted healer of the soul. Dazzling, challenging, wondrously useful." Peggy Rubin, Director, Center for Sacred Theatre, Ashland, Oregon; author: To Be and How To Be, Transforming Your Life Through Sacred Theatre

"Rewiring the Soul is one the best introductions to the spiritual life I've ever read. Not esoteric but real-world & practical. The implications are profound." Peter Shepherd; Founder Trans4mind.com; author: Daring To Be Yourself 

"The human being's directory to the soul. A breakthrough for those seeking practical assistance, those of a more mystical bent & every soul awaiting discovery." Toni Petrinovich, Ph.D.; author: The Call: Awakening the Angelic Human

The Tao of Spiritual Partnership

To download the first chapter, click here
To see the Table of Contents click here

Praise for The Tao of Spiritual Partnership

“All humans seek the illusive touch of another's Soul, which opens us to the sense of belonging to something bigger than the self. Dr. Kortsch has given us the true "tao" of relationship in this brilliant exploration of emotional tapestry. We will be grateful for this illumination of spiritual partnership for generations to come."
Chris Griscom: Spiritual Leader, Author (among others) of: Ecstasy is a New Frequency

“Eloquently and comprehensive, showing how your primary love relationship may be a sacred vessel that transports you and your partner to a place of mutual healing and expansion.” 
Robert Schwartz: Author of Your Soul’s Gift: The Healing Power of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born 


The Power of Your Heart: Loving the Self 

My new book: The Power of Your Heart: Loving the Self, is just out. Click here to download an excerpt. 
Here is a brief excerpt from the Introduction:

It is your right to live a life of love. It is your right to understand that loving yourself first is not a selfish way of behavior, but one that allows you to live that life of love. However, it's highly probable that you never got the instruction manual explaining exactly how to accomplish this. Possibly your family - and it may have been a loving family - considered loving the self an act of selfishness. Or perhaps the members of your family simply didn't practice loving the self, and of course, what you didn't see - what was not shown to you - while you were growing up, meant that you just didn't learn how to apply it to yourself. The closer you are able to move towards loving yourself, the closer you will be to living a life of love - quite independently of whether you are in a love relationship or not. A life of love can be lived with or without a partnership, because a life of love implies that you know that it all begins with you by loving the self. The more clearly you understand how to love yourself, the more clearly you will see that it is very hard - if not impossible - to love others in ways that are unrelated to fulfilling any of your needs. Loving yourself first is - for so many of us - one of the hardest things we will ever learn how to do. But know this: the benefits affect you in every particle of your being - body, mind, and soul - and are greater than you will ever be able to imagine.

Note: If you are wondering why this blog is now only appearing on alternate days (excluding Sat/Sun), it is because I also post on my other blog on the others days. That other blog is The Tao of Spiritual Partnership, so named for another one of my books. Click here to visit the blog and/or to sign up for the feed.

Choosing Love Over Fear

What prevails in your life? Is it love? Or is it fear? If love is stronger you will know it immediately because in general, your life holds a measure of well-being and peace that - should your life be ruled by fear - you will not be tremendously well acquainted with.

Being ruled by fear necessitates a negative charge to daily life. It means - in simple terms - that you are not confident that you will be fine no matter what occurs. In other words, you are fearful of some things happening, essentially because you believe - you fear - that if they happen, you will suffer. Exactly what those events are that you fear may vary from person to person to such a degree that what John fears most is something that Simon does not fear at all, and yet what Simon fears, is something that John considers a simple challenge that can easily be surmounted. Living a life where at some point - most likely some subconscious point - you chose fear over love does not mean that you are a coward or a wimp. This is not about courage. It is about understanding some elementary aspects about the goodness of life and about believing in the self the way one does when one has established a relationship with the self. And you only ever do that if you have begun the process of loving the self.

The fact of the matter is that those things that we fear - as long as we continue to fear - can never be fully enumerated, because we have no way of knowing what we may have to face at the next turn of the road. Fear - in this sense - implies wishing to control that which we may encounter, and as said, it is never possible to control everything that we might encounter, because we simply don't know what we will encounter at any given time.

At this point the choice for love and trust in the self may - if we are conscious enough - enter the equation.

Love has to do with confidence, with caring for the self and with knowing that because you care for the self, you are able to handle things as they arise in your life - even when those things  are difficult or painful. More than anything, above all, and in the very first instance, choosing love has to do with loving the self and because of this love having the firm inner conviction that you can deal with any of the cards that life throws you. That does not mean, by the way, that you will always win or always be successful, or always get what you want. It simply means that no matter what happens, you will be able to deal with it in such a way that your inner well being remains on an even keel. Even if you are Nelson Mandela and spending 27 years locked up in Robben Island, and even if you are Victor Frankl imprisoned in Auschwitz, or even if you are Aimée Mullens and had both legs amputated when you were five.

This inner conviction does not come about just in an instance. Let's say you have lived your life driven by fear to this point. You've attempted - often unsuccessfully - to exert a measure of control over those outer circumstances that threaten to throw your well-being off center. You are ruled - to a degree - by the subliminal fear or knowledge that you are not able to control your life, and hence you don't know how you will be if something bad happens.

This inner conviction does not come about just in an instance. Let's say you have lived your life driven by fear to this point. You've attempted - often unsuccessfully - to exert a measure of control over those outer circumstances that threaten to throw your well-being off center. You are ruled - to a degree - by the subliminal fear or knowledge that you are not able to control your life, and hence you don't know how you will be if something bad happens. You don´t know if you will be able to deal with, or even bear the circumstances - whatever they may be. This creates – if not outright fear, since fear is such a strong emotion – at least a continual sensation of discomfort in your skin, so to speak. Something about you, concerning your life and the way you live does not feel at ease.

The process of moving from a fear-ruled life in the sense described above to a love-ruled life always begins with the recognition of the need to learn how to love the self. By loving the self, fear gradually begins to dissipate because the individual whose life is ruled by love and who has chosen love as the primary benchmark for how he lives his life, is an individual for whom fear – of dis-ease - no longer looms large as it does for the person who has not yet made such choices.

I imagine you are inundated with advice for this new year that began only a few hours ago and so I merely wish to leave you with several thoughts:

• Choosing love over fear signifies that you view your life from the vantage point of goodness, love, strength and hope, as well as peace, love and harmony, as opposed to fear, competition, one-up-man-ship, and the need to prove that something about you, your life or what you do is more right than that of another individual.
• Choosing love over fear means every situation always brings you to a win-win end result.
• Choosing love over fear as a modus operandi for your life; a way to live your life will literally change everything for you.
• Choosing love over fear will also change the effect you have on all those whose lives you touch and so YOU will actively - and most literally - contribute to change our world.

Choose love. Choose it for you, your loved ones, your neighbourhood, your community, your nation and your world. We are all in this together and we can all contribute to making this change. All it takes is all of us choosing love over fear. Remember that we are all one and that what affects one of us, affects us all.

Visit my new website: www.gabriellakortsch.com

Books by Dr. Gabriella Kortsch:
 
Rewiring the Soul

Click here to download the first chapter.

To see the Table of Contents click here

Reviews From the Back Cover:

"The masterwork of a profoundly gifted healer of the soul. Dazzling, challenging, wondrously useful." Peggy Rubin, Director, Center for Sacred Theatre, Ashland, Oregon; author: To Be and How To Be, Transforming Your Life Through Sacred Theatre

"Rewiring the Soul is one the best introductions to the spiritual life I've ever read. Not esoteric but real-world & practical. The implications are profound." Peter Shepherd; Founder Trans4mind.com; author: Daring To Be Yourself 

"The human being's directory to the soul. A breakthrough for those seeking practical assistance, those of a more mystical bent & every soul awaiting discovery." Toni Petrinovich, Ph.D.; author: The Call: Awakening the Angelic Human

The Tao of Spiritual Partnership

To download the first chapter, click here
To see the Table of Contents click here

Praise for The Tao of Spiritual Partnership

“All humans seek the illusive touch of another's Soul, which opens us to the sense of belonging to something bigger than the self. Dr. Kortsch has given us the true "tao" of relationship in this brilliant exploration of emotional tapestry. We will be grateful for this illumination of spiritual partnership for generations to come."
Chris Griscom: Spiritual Leader, Author (among others) of: Ecstasy is a New Frequency

“Eloquently and comprehensive, showing how your primary love relationship may be a sacred vessel that transports you and your partner to a place of mutual healing and expansion.” 
Robert Schwartz: Author of Your Soul’s Gift: The Healing Power of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born 


The Power of Your Heart: Loving the Self 

My new book: The Power of Your Heart: Loving the Self, is just out. Click here to download an excerpt. 
Here is a brief excerpt from the Introduction:

It is your right to live a life of love. It is your right to understand that loving yourself first is not a selfish way of behavior, but one that allows you to live that life of love. However, it's highly probable that you never got the instruction manual explaining exactly how to accomplish this. Possibly your family - and it may have been a loving family - considered loving the self an act of selfishness. Or perhaps the members of your family simply didn't practice loving the self, and of course, what you didn't see - what was not shown to you - while you were growing up, meant that you just didn't learn how to apply it to yourself. The closer you are able to move towards loving yourself, the closer you will be to living a life of love - quite independently of whether you are in a love relationship or not. A life of love can be lived with or without a partnership, because a life of love implies that you know that it all begins with you by loving the self. The more clearly you understand how to love yourself, the more clearly you will see that it is very hard - if not impossible - to love others in ways that are unrelated to fulfilling any of your needs. Loving yourself first is - for so many of us - one of the hardest things we will ever learn how to do. But know this: the benefits affect you in every particle of your being - body, mind, and soul - and are greater than you will ever be able to imagine.

Note: If you are wondering why this blog is now only appearing on alternate days (excluding Sat/Sun), it is because I also post on my other blog on the others days. That other blog is The Tao of Spiritual Partnership, so named for another one of my books. Click here to visit the blog and/or to sign up for the feed.