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For example, have you ever set your new year’s resolutions with the best of intentions only to find an old journal or resolution list from previous years that have the same goals you set this year? You may want to lose the same 10 pounds, take that course you’ve been interested in, get healthier, meditate more, take charge of your finances, volunteer at an organization you believe in. I’ve experienced this over and over throughout the years. It can feel like nothing really changes. I’ve asked myself, ‘How do I find the magic bullet that will give me the power to achieve the fulfilling, happy life that is bursting to come out’?

Keep reading, I think you’ll find the answers here.

I’ve been studying Neuroscience and the amazing research being conducted by top universities around the country on the effects of meditation on the brain. Science, specifically neuroscience, is now able to measure and track the effects on the brain (and in turn, on our lives) that spiritual mystics have been teaching us about for millennium.

We know that a meditation practice reduces stress, increases health and a feeling of well being and peace when faced with challenges.

Well, now science is backing it up! Here’s how. Neuroscience uses MRI and EKG technology to measure the brain wave activity. They can now ‘see’ different parts of the brain light up when stimulated through meditation.

In one study conducted by UCLA, scientists found that long term meditators had better preserved brains with more grey matter through out the entire brain. The meditators had higher volume of grey matter, a bigger brain!

A Harvard study found that after just 8 weeks of meditation, the respondents showed increased cortical thickness in the hippocampus which governs memory, learning and emotion regulation. And at the same time, they found a decrease in the volume of ameglia, which governs fear, anxiety, fight or flight response and stress.

I was so excited when I first learned about this that I began googleing all I could about it. What I’ve found is that we have the capacity and the tools to shape our brain and in doing that, we can change the programming that limits our ability to reach our goals and be happier. Incredible, right?!

But what about those people who can’t meditate? I hear this all the time from my clients, ’I can’t sit still, I can’t stop my mind from going through the laundry list, I feel like I’m wasting time just sitting here’.

Well, good news! There is a process that provides the benefits of meditation without sitting and trying to quiet your thoughts.

It’s called Emotional Freedom Technique or Tapping. You may have heard about it. It’s an amazing technique that quiets the stress, relieves anxiety and actually releases limiting, negative programming that keeps you stuck in old patterns. I’ve been using it in my own life for quite some time and with my clients and I’ve heard nothing but positive responses. It’s quick and easy. In just a few minutes, you feel the calm moving through your body and mind. You experience the release of limitation and fear. This enables you to accomplish your goals and follow through with your resolutions.

And best of all, it’s something you can do for yourself throughout the day. If you experience a difficult situation with a co worker or family member, or your mind is just on overdrive and stressing you out, you can do a little tapping and take charge of your immediate experience while creating long term benefits. It’s truly amazing. I even do the tapping with my 10 year old daughter and she loves it. It builds her confidence in school socially and academically. We tap as I’m driving her to school in the morning!

New thoughts, New life, Same thoughts, Same life.
(and same resolutions, year after year)

If you’d like to learn more about the tapping, The Tapping Solution is an online resource that I like.

And watch this wonderful Ted Talk on neuroscience and the power we have to be happier, freer and more fulfilled.

I’m so excited about this work. I’ve seen such amazing, quick and effective results. I’d love to share it with you, so you can experience its effects too.

For the month of February and March, I’d like to offer you a complimentary 60 minute phone ‘Tapping’ session so you can experience for yourself this powerful, mind changing, life enhancing technique. You truly can release your limitations and take charge of the direction your life is going in.

This year, why not achieve your goals, feel fulfilled and live happier? I believe in you and your ability to live that life that is bursting to get out!

Please contact me to set up a convenient time for your complimentary, no obligation, phone session by emailing Denise@Deniserizvi.com.

Here’s to a New Year, New Brain, New Life!

The post New Thoughts, New Life. Same Thoughts, Same Life. appeared first on Denise Rizvi.

But when we stop to notice the quality of all those thoughts, we may be surprised to see that about 70% or more are negative, judgmental, critical, unhappy and anxious. We think most often of all that is not working in our lives, what we are dissatisfied with, and how much we have to do. These thoughts make us feel stressed, unfulfilled, worried about our future, regretful and hurt about our past. This is where our minds hang out most of our day, week, month, year after year.

And here is the most critical piece; most of the thoughts we think today will be the same ones we thought yesterday. No wonder our lives don’t change. If we keep thinking the same thoughts, we keep creating the same life.  Everything starts with a thought, everything that ever was and will ever be created, begins with a thought, an idea. In order to create something new, we need new material to create from. Fresh, new, positive thoughts will give us the building blocks to create fresh, new circumstances.

Shortly, I’ll be sending you a new audio meditation and guided journey to delve deeper into this process.

Meanwhile, here are 3 simple steps to begin creating a new, more fulfilling day by creating new, more fulfilling thoughts.

1. Pause for just a moment throughout your day and notice what is going on in your mind at that moment. What are you thinking about? How is that thought making you feel emotionally and physically?

2. Ask yourself, is this thought going to create the same results that I’m unhappy with or create something new and fresh? Does this thought choice add to my life force or rob me of my energy?

3. Know that in every moment, you have a choice. You are free to choose a different thought. Just because a thought enters your mind, you are not obligated to keep it there. You can choose a different thought. One way to begin this is to bring to mind something or someone you are grateful for. This is the beginning of taking charge of your mind and creating a feeling state, gratitude, that will break the cycle of negativity, and lead you to more positive ideas and thoughts. It can be something very small, ‘I’m grateful the sun is shining today’ or more personal, ‘I’m grateful I’m alive and healthy’, ‘I’m grateful for the love and support of my family, friends, partner’ etc., ‘I’m grateful I have a job’, ‘I’m grateful my car started today’.

The key is to begin to consciously choose some of those many thoughts that are filling your mind and shaping your life everyday.

Look for your audio meditation on Harnessing the power of your thoughts in my next email and meanwhile,

What are you grateful for today?

I’d love to hear from you, please leave me a message below and feel free to share this with someone who could use some fresh thoughts today.

Warmly,

Denise

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I’ve been studying the ‘shadow’ side of my life lately. The dark places that exist within all of us.  Those aspects of ourselves that we try desperately to keep hidden from the world.  Debbie Ford, who wrote the best selling book, The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, says it’s like trying to keep a beach ball under water, it takes a great amount of energy and focus to keep it under, but eventually it pops up unexpectedly and hits us right in the face.

As I explored this shadow work, I found that some of my shadow qualities are anger, judgment, fear, insecurity, inadequacy, stupidity, clumsiness, laziness and vulnerability.  I learned at a very early age that these and other aspects of myself are not acceptable or attractive, I believed that if I showed these parts I would lose love and acceptance from those I cared about. I held the deep core belief that these are ‘bad’ so I buried them and tried to keep them hidden from the outside world. I put on the ‘good’ costume, one that is acceptable and enjoyed by others so I can feel safe and comfortable.

But inevitably, one or more of these hidden parts would pop up and hit me in the face when I least expected or wanted it. They felt like huge demons I had to work very hard at keeping hidden from sight. What if my husband saw my insecurity and inadequacy? He would be disgusted with me! He would want to leave and find someone more perfect and strong.  What if I didn’t live up to my daughter’s ideal of a perfect mother? Being able to manage her schedule, our home, my work life and still always be supportive and attentive? She would be disappointed in me and I would lose her love and admiration.  I would have to admit that I’m not perfect, that I’m flawed or damaged in some way. This has always been too scary for me to face so I kept it hidden and lied to myself that I was good and no one could see my imperfections. I began to see how this started at a very early age, before I had the ability to filter the messages I was getting from the outside world.

When we fragment ourselves, we are reinforcing the early messages that some parts of us are ‘good’ and others are ‘bad’. What I’m learning and experimenting with in my life is integrating and accepting all aspects of myself: The anger and the compassion, the lust and the love, the stupid and the brilliant.  It’s through this embracing of all aspects of ourselves that freedom comes. By accepting that it all exists, we can release the illusion and effort of trying to fit a ‘perfect’ model, the good girl or good boy we were taught we should be.  Through embracing the shadow aspects we try so hard to keep hidden we become more whole, real and strong. We are released from the shame and can truly be proud and loving toward ourselves and compassionate toward others as we accept that we all have a shadow side and it has nothing to do with being flawed or imperfect. It has to do with being fully human. How liberating!

If you’d like to explore some of your shadow aspects, the parts of yourself where your strength, authenticity and power live, just ask yourself a couple of simple questions. Sit quietly, take a few deep breaths, relax your body and ask,

‘What am I most afraid of that someone else will find out about me?’

‘What am I most afraid to find out about myself?’

When you have your answers, allow yourself to acknowledge the courage you have in asking and accepting your answers. The first step in becoming more whole is to realize that these disowned parts are just the other side of the coin. We can’t know confidence unless we have experienced insecurity, once we accept that we have felt insecure, we can embrace that as one part of ourselves with compassion and say I accept that about me. This actually diminishes the power of this shadow part. We open our arms and embrace the fact that we are human and this is just a part of being human, not good or bad. Now we can recognize it when it comes up again and say to it, ‘I see you and embrace you as a part of me, but I don’t have to act out from insecurity, I can choose to energize the confident aspect of myself which also exists’. In this way, we are empowered to make a conscious choice from a place of radical truth about who we are.

What aspects of yourself have you hidden away from view? Will you accept this challenge to release the shame and allow yourself to be more whole, more radically human?

I’d love to hear from you, please leave a comment and let’s start sharing the radical truth of our human-ness together!

Stay tuned for my free audio meditation on Embracing your Shadow.

Warmly,

Denise

The post What if my husband saw how insecure I really am? appeared first on Denise Rizvi.

I wholeheartedly agree. It’s the people in my life that bring me the most fulfillment, joy and happiness. But sometimes, we can forget. We get caught up in the external circumstances and stress. We feel overwhelmed by what is unresolved, challenging, or frustrating; we can feel trapped in our own lives and forget about what is good and already working.

Gratitude shifts us out of feeling like a victim. Gratitude, as a personal practice, reminds us that we have a choice to be appreciative for what is working and pleasant in our lives. This ability to choose gives us confidence and a certainty that we are in charge of our experience. Gratitude opens our hearts and allows joy in. Even while we have challenges or difficulties.

We can turn our focus toward gratitude and from this place of a joyful heart, begin to work on the challenging pieces we are facing. This creates thoughts and feelings of peace and ease, allowing more creative solutions to flow.

The quality of our choice directly shapes the outcomes we create.  

We are going to create an outcome for our lives no matter what, we don’t have a choice about that. But we do have a choice about how we create it. It can either be consciously with power and certainty or unconsciously, through old behavior and patterns of self-sabotage.

Gratitude gives us the power to experience our lives, all aspects of our lives, from an openhearted place of strength and confidence. It grounds us in what is real and true in this moment. We can step out of the fear of what is to come and the regret of what has already happened.

Be grateful for what is true in this moment, ‘I am healthy, I am breathing, the sun is shining, the rain is providing moisture to the earth, I have a strong community that supports me, I am loved, I have a warm, safe home to live in’, etc. Taking just a short break each day, to focus on the present moment and connect with even one thing you are grateful for, will expand your awareness and give you strength, confidence and a calm mind.

From here you can choose how to create the next moment, and the next moment…feeling in charge, confident and empowered.

Below is the link to my free, guided gratitude meditation you can practice everyday.

Also, I am offering a new, 4 week, workshop entitled ‘Turn Your Fear Into Fuel’ beginning November 13. Take a look here for more details.

We can take a moment each day to slow down, be thankful and open our hearts to gifts we are given with each breath.

Warmly and gratefully,

Denise

I’d love to hear from you and what you found to be grateful for in your life today.

The post Gratitude: A Personal Practice appeared first on Denise Rizvi.

What we consistently believe is what we create in our lives.

If we believe and think that we are alone, unsupported, never going to get out of debt, have the love we yearn for, be healthy, create success, than guess what? We get to be absolutely right!

We bring into our lives more of whatever we believe or consistently think about. The good news is, if we believe that we are worthy of love, that our bodies know how to heal and be healthy, that we are capable of success and financial wealth, that we are loved and supported, than we get to be right about that, too.

The trick is to be able to maintain the focus on what we truly are yearning to experience, to build the fortitude and the mental muscle to keep lifting our thoughts higher and higher. So we can stay in a higher quality of thought for longer periods of time. We have a choice to take charge of our minds in every moment, to either focus on the difficulties in our lives or on the pieces we are grateful for. Focusing on the difficulties creates low vibration of regular mind, low quality thoughts and more of the same circumstances. But choosing to focus on what is already working, with gratitude, we’ll create higher quality thoughts from the heart and higher quality results.

Einstein said, ‘We can’t solve a problem from the same level of thinking that created it.’

If we want new results in our lives, we must create a new level of thinking.

One tool to maintain that higher quality of life is meditation.

Listen to this month’s meditation, Held by the Love of Spirit. Allow yourself to surrender, feel and believe that you are loved, every day, every moment. How would your life experience be different if you truly surrendered to love? How would your challenges look when seen through the lens of love?

Share your feelings with me after listening to this meditation. What did it feel like, were you able to surrender and allow yourself to feel loved, even a little bit?

How can you take charge of your mind today to create higher quality experience?

The post Held By The Love Of Spirit appeared first on Denise Rizvi.

So why don’t we feel it all the time?

For years I suffered with feeling unhappy. I would have moments or maybe even a few days where I would feel happy, free, relaxed.  But ultimately, the fear, dissatisfaction, self judgment would always come flooding back and the happy me would be smothered again.  It felt like an emotional roller coaster that someone else was in control of.

After years of struggling with trying to capture that ‘happy’ me and nail her down, this is what I’ve learned…

I like to use the analogy of having 2 minds. The happy, peaceful, satisfied mind and the unhappy, afraid, wanting mind. One mind will create experiences from a place of love and the other from the place of fear. The loving mind feels expansive, relaxed, happy. The fearful mind feels trapped, frustrated, and unhappy.

Sometimes, when I’m paying attention, I can hear both minds having conversations inside my head.  My ego, fear based mind is arguing with the Higher Mind of Love.  Whichever mind wins will determine how I will feel that day. Happy or frustrated.  Have you ever experienced that?  Kind of funny when you look at it from the outside.

The good news is, we all have the ability to take charge of our ‘minds’ and take charge of our happiness.

When you are feeling unhappy, frustrated, negative or judgmental, recognize that  this is the voice of your fearful, ego mind and try this:

Hear the voice of fearful mind with compassion, say to ego, ‘ I’m choosing Love instead of_________.’

Then use this affirmation to engage Higher Mind and  take charge of your thoughts,

‘Today, I choose  love and peace.  I am happy.’

Use this affirmation all throughout the day, over and over. You will begin to feel more relaxed and happier.

As you take charge and retrain your thoughts, your Higher Mind of Love will become louder and the fear based, ego mind, lower.  You will be listening and creating and solving problems in your life from the higher place of  love.  And happiness grows.

‘Today, I choose love and peace. I am happy.’

This is one more way you can Take Charge Of The Life You Have, So You Can Live The Life You LOVE!

I would be ‘happy’  to hear how you’ve created more happiness in your life. Please share your experience here.

The post Want To Be Happy? Here’s How. appeared first on Denise Rizvi.

How can we be spiritual in a society of materialism that we live in?

The truth is, we’re already spiritual. All of us. It’s impossible for us not to be spiritual. Why? Because we’re made up of spirit. Spirit is our true essence, we’ve just forgotten.

Our ego and conditioned  mind have become so loud and dominant in our lives that we can’t feel or hear from our true spirit selves anymore. But the truth is that we are all made up of the same stuff as the cosmos, the Universe. We are extensions of the One.

Every spiritual teacher from Buddha to Einstein teaches us the same thing, they all guide us back to the same truth. We and God (Universe, Spirit, the Sacred) are one spirit. We are each an expression of the spirit that created all things. The Spirit of Life flows through each of us, it beats our hearts and allows us to breathe. Once we become aware that there is more to us than our ego identity, we can see from the broader perspective of ourselves as living, breathing, extensions of Universal Spirit.

We can take charge of our own spiritual experience.

What a different place to live life from! Once you choose to believe that God is expressing itself through you in this world, it becomes easy to say ‘I’m spiritual’ and even go one step further, ‘I’m Spirit!’

Try this exercise to help retrain your mind in remembering the simple truth that you are already spiritual, right now, exactly as you are. Write on a paper or put on your phone/computer where you can see them all day, read or meditate on these statements:

I am one with the Spirit of the Universe, It flows through me and expresses Itself in this world as me!

I choose now to live from the truth that I am an eternal Spiritual Being having a temporary human experience.

No one can express God in this world the way I can, I am a unique extension of the Universal Spirit.

I am Spiritual, I am Spirit, I am as powerful, strong, creative, loving, peaceful as the Spirit of God, I am one with the Spirit of God.

Please post a comment below and share with your friends!

The post Don’t Think You’re Spiritual? Think Again! appeared first on Denise Rizvi.

The thoughts we think, the words we speak, the beliefs we hold create our life’s circumstances. All of it, fulfilling and unfulfilling began with our own thoughts and choices. A single thought can shift the momentum of our whole lives. Each thought that we hold and focus on is like a seed growing into the very thing we are imagining.

What seeds are you growing in your life today?

Hope is the Seed of Faith.
Faith is the Seed of Drive.
Drive is the Seed of Seek.
Seek is the Seed of Knowledge.
Knowledge is the Seed of Awareness.
Awareness is the Seed of Power.
Power is the Seed of Choice.
Choice is the Seed of Abundance.
Abundance is the Seed of Dream.
Dream is the Seed of Happiness.
Happiness is the Seed of Pleasure.
Pleasure is the Seed of Desire.
Desire is the Seed of Destiny.

Courtesy of Norma Torres

Look at your consistent thoughts, the ones that keep running through you mind over and over.  Are they what you want to grow more of in your life? Are you growing regret, fear, confusion, frustration?

The great thing about thoughts is that they can be changed, a thought on its own, holds no power. It only becomes empowered when we believe in it.

So, take a look today at what you’re thinking about. Choose to believe you can create a different thought, one that feels good, expansive, hopeful and focus your attention on that thought. Your old thought will begin to lose energy and power and the new thought will begin to grow as you water it with attention and faith.

Whatever we put our attention on becomes our intention. And our intentions are what we create our lives from.  The good news is that you have the power to choose your intentions.

What would you love to feel today?

Create an affirmative statement of what you intend to feel and speak it all day long to yourself.

Today, I choose to let go of control and trust in the flow of Spirit guiding my life. 

Today, I choose to speak patiently and kindly to my children, parents, coworkers.

Today, I choose calm and peace in all my interactions and circumstances.

Today, I choose to see the face of God in everyone I meet.

Make it simple and something you can manage. You’ll have to remind yourself all throughout the day, so it’s helpful if you write it and keep it visible or have a stone or symbol that will keep you anchored to your new thought pattern. In time, your old intentions will lose power and this will become your ‘new normal’.

Very exciting stuff when you think of the power you wield in your own life. You can shift the momentum that your life is going in right now, it starts with one thought, one seed, that can grow a forest of change.

Share some of your intentions for today below and please share this blog with others who could use a momentum shift in their lives!

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When we decide to take the momentum of our lives back, to switch from a lower mind dominated experience to a higher consciousness experience, we exercise our personal power and freedom to choose. This is very liberating. It takes commitment and dedication to make such a powerful shift. First comes the desire to truly be free. Then comes the practice of noticing your thoughts, and how your thoughts effect your emotional state. Is this the way you want to feel? If not, acknowledge that these thoughts have no substance until you give them substance by believing in the illusion. (I’m not safe, I’m not good enough, there isn’t enough for me, nothing ever works out for me, I’ll never find love, etc.)

Exercise 1: Noticing is the first step, stop throughout the day and just become conscious of what you are thinking about and how it is making you feel. First step, notice which part you are allowing to dominate your life. Check back for part 2!

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