Do you have a family member that just doesn’t agree with your choice in life style? There is always someone, especially a parent that is upset by a choice that you have made and by the kind of life that you are leading.

I hope that I don’t need to tell you that there is no one that should be able to tell you how to live your life. If you are an adult, then you have all the right in the world to do as you like with your life. Even if you are living in a parent’s or a relative’s home, you still have the right to a free life as an adult. As long as you are responsible for your actions and you are considerate of others then be who you want to be.

Yet I am quite certain that most of us will encounter resistance from a family member. I suppose that they feel that they know best and that they are trying to save you from ruining your life. It is therefore a good idea to take into consideration the fact that they have your better interest in mind. What I mean to say by this is that you should not hate them or become antagonistic; family after all is a terrible thing to lose.

But you can turn that opponent into an ally. If you are willing to follow some simple advice, you can turn what can be a very difficult situation, into an opportunity to create friendship, respect and mutual growth. To do this, all that you need to do is to open your heart and give through kind intentions.

The first chance that you get, you have to make some small gesture to help your hostile family member. You don’t need to do anything big; you could mow a lawn or run an errand for them. Open your heart and ask yourself how you can help. I am sure that you will come up with a number of acts of kindness that you perform that would be of great help.

After you do this kind act, don’t sit around waiting for any sort of reward. Do things because you thought that they were things that needed to be done and you wanted to help out. Also don’t go around showing off and letting others know that you did this magnanimous act. If you can give freely without needing anything in return, your actions will begin to soften your opponent’s heart.

It’s difficult to dislike someone who has helped you out. You might not be able to change your family member’s feelings or beliefs on certain matters but a kind act, done unselfishly, can begin to melt even the coldest heart. You might want to act in this unselfish manner on a regular basis since the more that you are willing to give, the more that you will get in return.

Faced with this new set of circumstances, your old opponent will be forced to re-evaluate his/her thinking. If this person truly cares for you, then he/she will be willing to rethink his/her ideas about you. At worst you will have gained a bit of admiration from your old rival. When we can only agree to disagree, there is the possibility of mutual respect.

Do remember to act with sincerity. Being fake and performing phony gestures is no way to treat others, especially when they are your family. Give honestly and act honestly and you will find that barriers that seemed impenetrable will turn into opportunities for new personal growth.

The prerequisite to any healthy lifestyle is a good night’s sleep. With our hectic everyday routine this can sometimes be a difficult thing. Nerves that are held in a constant state of tension, due to our stress, make it very difficult to relax when we finally get to bed.

There are things that you can do to help you get to sleep on time and to be able to sleep on a regular basis:

•    First on the list is exercise. If you have an office job or any kind of a job where you are stationary for large periods of time, then you definitely need to exercise on a regular basis. Work out your cardiovascular system as often as you can. This doesn’t have to be anything stressful, just as long as you are raising your heart rate a bit and you are maintaining that rate for a good fifteen minutes.

Walks are a wonderful way to exercise, and if you can’t get out for a walk then a nice casual ride on a stationary bicycle is a great alternative. Exercise does more than just get you tired so that you can sleep better. Exercise is the best way to beat stress and make you feel good. A good work out gets your body to release “endorphins” which are the feel good chemical in your brain.

•    Avoid the coffee. It seems that it’s next to impossible to go to work for eight hours now a days without ingesting at least one cup of coffee. The reasons are understandable and there are times when you just need to get your dose of caffeine in. Do try to avoid taking too much though; see if you can go from 3 cups to 1 cup. But if you must have your java, then have a cup early in the day and try to avoid coffee in the afternoon. This will help your body to get rid of most of that caffeine in your system before bedtime.

At all costs try and stay away from those power drinks that are so popular right now. These drinks will usually contain more than just caffeine; they can contain Ginseng, Gingko, Taurine, or all of the above.  Your body has a much harder time getting rid of all of these chemicals and as result you will find that sleeping will get harder and harder.

•    Try to keep some kind of schedule. The biggest thing to avoid is the mid afternoon nap. I personally know a large number of people that say that they have a hard time going to sleep, but you wouldn’t know it when their nap time rolls around. Try to wake up and go to sleep at a certain time and avoid any deviation from this schedule. If you know that you get really tired at a certain time of the day then make sure that you make plans to be out and about during those times so that you don’t fall prey to the “cat nap” gods.

A great way to get you in the mood for sleep is to create a routine. Every night before you go to bed, you might for example want to do few light stretches, fluff your pillow in one particular way, turn off the light, and go to sleep. The idea here is that your body begins to equate this routine with sleep. Eventually a simple routine like this will be all that you will need to get yourself in the perfect state of being for a wonderful night’s sleep.

The law of attraction movement seems to be growing, not dissipating. This is perhaps an indication of the times and of a new frontier in human consciousness. Most people are starting to take responsibility for their consciousness and for the thoughts that fill their heads.

The Law of attraction very basically states that all things that are alike tend to attract each other. This law can be seen at work in all things in life; whether it is subatomic particles, people or even stars. This law, as it concerns us human beings, is most evident in our conscious thought patterns. Like thoughts tend to attract each other. If we think of golf balls then we tend to think more and more of them as our consciousness tends to bring more and more like thoughts. Along with the ever increasing thoughts of golf, clubs, putting and different colored golf balls, our being does an amazing thing; it starts to focus our awareness and attention so that we start to reject some external data and become more aware of other external data.

Before long you not only think more and more about golf balls, you also start to actually see more and more golf balls in your objective reality. You see them in fields, left by some errant drive perhaps, you see them more in tv and you run into people that seem to have some story that relates to those little pesky balls. Now this is mostly the cause of a very interesting human phenomenon where personal consciousness can actually be manipulated to see what it wants to see. It’s not that there are more golf balls, it’s just that your consciousness is adjusting itself to filter out data that it doesn’t care about and to focus more on those things that are more relevant; you see what you focus on.

Now this is more than reason enough to begin to use the Law of Attraction. Essentially if you can manage to manage your thoughts and attention, you can begin to see what you want to see and to reject those things that you don’t. Definitely a great way to stay in a positive and happy mood for as long as you like, whenever you like. Actually NLP, for example, takes this for granted and its creators (John Grinder and Richard Bandler) generated a number of different techniques that can help you to pick and choose the thoughts that you want, and the intensity of those thoughts.

This actually has been studied by scientist and it’s a well-documented phenomenon. Those that truly believe in the Law of Attraction proper though, also believe that this is just the beginning of what is possible. With discipline, maintaining ones mental focus on the desired, one can go beyond just seeing what one wants to see. A person can actually begin to attract circumstances and things. True proponents of this great law take it for granted that thoughts are things and that thoughts are the creators of matter and not the other way around.

Using the golf ball example, a student of the great law would expect to actually increase the amount of golf balls that are present in their lives. This law would then explain why you would start running into others with golf ball or related stories. These contacts and synchronous events would put the golf ball mentalist in tune with circumstances where golf balls and the related would actually start increasing in his or her life. The belief is essentially that if this practitioner of the Law of Attraction were to successfully refocus his/her mind correctly, he/she would eventually find himself inundated with golf balls. He/she would eventually have to move out of his home and start a putting range or a golf ball museum 🙂

While the last line is somewhat in jest, the Law of Attraction and the power of the human mind is in no way a joke to the author. Look up ‘accidental collector’ in Google and you will see that an accidental collector is not such a farfetched thing at all!

It then is plane and obvious to any that understand the power of the human mind that thoughts are indeed a very powerful thing. And it is therefore of great importance that we all become more conscious of the thoughts that we are having and what we are focusing on.

BUT even though there are an incredible number of books out there on the Law of Attraction, and the power of the human mind; very, very few of those books speaks of the importance of EXTERNAL MENTAL INFLUNCES.

Whether you are interested in acquiring or maintaining a life free of negative energy or you are interested in using the Law of Attraction to increase your Wealth or Health, it behooves you to understand the power of external mental influences and how to manage them.

Some might argue that you don’t have to believe in telepathy and external mental influences to practice the Law of Attraction but that is sort of like saying that you can believe in fish but you don’t have to believe in water. If you believe that thoughts are things, that thoughts have electromagnetic properties that attract thoughts of similar properties, and that thoughts of enough intensity can become ‘real’ things in 3dimensinal reality, then it is a given that these thoughts can affect human consciousness.

Perhaps in the future I will write an article on how you can prove, to yourself at least, the reality of telepathy and external mental influences. For now I want you to just realize that many of those courses, books, and seminars on the Law of Attraction that you have participated in, are half finished. What you need to know, something that is perhaps far more important than manifesting itself, is how to manage the often times chaotic external mental world.

Many readers find themselves plagued by negative energy of all sorts. They wonder why their minds are filled with so many negative thoughts. What they don’t realize is that many of these thoughts and energy are not internal but are in fact thoughts, emotions and ideas that are picked up from the people and places all around us.

This is the first of hopefully many articles that I will be writing on external metal influence. I first hope to make the reader aware of this mental environment and them to give him/her techniques that will allow those interested to control and manipulate this mental energy.

The Future is a Paradox  

Looking around the world, it is easy to get lost in fear. Natural and man-made disasters seem to be happening everywhere. The local and international news does not let us forget about how close we all are from world oblivion.

Perhaps someone should let these agencies know that all of this is old news. I for one would really like to start hearing something different. If you think that I am being glib, perhaps you should ask your grandparent or great-grandparent (if you are lucky) about it. Your grandparents will be happy to tell you that when they were young, news was just a slightly modified version of what is being presented now.

Back in the good old days; ‘The Great War’ to end all wars (WW I) was going to end the world. The ‘Dirty Thirties’ was the decade of the greatest recession in the history of the United States. This depression made the current one look like nothing; people were committing suicides all over the place, and thousands of people travelled all over the country looking for work.
The great ’Dust Bowl’ was in full swing in the Southern United States. Imagine being in there in 1935 when ‘Black Sunday’ turned your entire world into night. Imagine being in one of the hardest hit states, seeing your entire world in economic ruin then looking up to see a giant wall of dust heading straight for you. Your only real source of information is some little radio as the entire world goes black during mid day. Certainly the world must have seemed like it was going to end that day.
Soon after WW II hit and everyone knew that the end was near. Europe was completely devastated. Fascism was the new cool, and millions died.
The world nearly ended in 1962 with the ‘Cuban Missile Crisis’ and the Russians nearly blew away China in ‘69 (look it up if you don’t believe me). The list goes on I’m afraid.

Yet through all of this, people kept on doing what they always do; survive and prosper. Within this hell there was also joy and laughter. Some people in the world were completely untouched by all this craziness, some actually didn’t even hear about any of it!

Things will always be what they have always been; sometimes almost beyond tolerance and at other times full of joy, love, and happiness. The future can be a source of fear and the past can cause anger and regret. But every moment holds within it unimaginable potential.

When things get to be a bit too much to take:
Try and find the joy in this infinite moment. Forget about the future and the past. Also do yourself a favor and turn off the news for a while.

The time has come, the gig is up. No more can we sit around and say that life is happening to us.Are there conspiracies? Are we being manipulated by a select few? This is no longer a valid question. The answer to every question is:

YOU MAKE YOUR OWN REALITY!

There are so many conspiracies and so many theories about what will happen next, that it’s almost starting to get funny…almost.
If you are to believe some; there will soon be a global disclosure on the existence of aliens. Some see this as a great event that will herald a new consciousness shift while many others see it as a way to further manipulate the masses.
Are aliens real? Will they save us all? Or are they just a made up cultural icon? Worse, are they a created event to be used as a way to weaponize space?

Does any of that matter? You say yes/no and I say sort of:
It only matters if you believe it matters!

Join the minority and take a chance; try to accept as true for a while the idea that everything that you experience is there because of what you think and believe. For example; imagine the fact that if you are in a bad mood (because you believe the world sucks ass at the moment), you will only see things around you that will further confirm your belief. You will see the garbage around you, you will notice those that are acting dumb or stupidly, and as anger consumes you and your blood pressure goes through the roof you will shake and shiver, stub your toe and spill your coffee.
Yet if you try a little NLP (like maybe changing your physiology), you can change your mood and your focus (aka. Thoughts/Belief) and start seeing some of the things that you missed, like the kids helping the old man or the beautiful leaves on the trees. You begin to relax, your blood pressure goes down, you feel more confident and if you make this relaxation thing a habit, you add ten years to your life.

But thoughts and simple beliefs can’t change your reality you say. And I say that a simple smile just allowed your body to begin to release endorphins which have instantly made you feel good. Constricting around 53 facial muscles has allowed you to relax and begin to see the world from a totally different perspective. Moreover you are contagious; instead of thinking about aliens and world domination, you are now thinking about sunsets and happy times with your friends (happy attracts happy). People around you smile back and sometimes muster a happy, “hello.” Now you have done it, they are smiling too and before long they will also be suffering from happy thoughts.

Some even believe that thoughts are actual things that exist outside of their heads. Infinitely creative acts that exist independent of the thinker that thought them and that these thoughts attract to themselves other thoughts that are similar to themselves. These crazy people believe that these infinitely creative creations are responsible for our entire reality. But you don’t have to believe that if you don’t want to. Just experiment with the idea that your thoughts and beliefs can alter your mood, your physiology, your focus and your life span.

So try it for a while and see what happens. Take responsibility for your beliefs and your thoughts. Try to only retain those thoughts and beliefs that are rewarding and uplifting to you personally. And if you do find yourself entertaining negative and personally hurtful thoughts and feelings, ask yourself why you feel like you do. Find out what you believe that makes you think and feel as you do. If it’s a dumb belief based on silly propositions; change it. Have fun, play with your beliefs! As the great Bob would say, “Pull the wool over your own eyes.”

I posit that the oldest profession was not prostitution, but that it was instead Prophecy. If we think of man as a creature evolving over time then we could also speculate that sex was always an important topic and most likely one of our oldest desires. But if we continue to contemplate our evolutionary man then there certainly was a time when man the animal became the thinking man.

At this time, when conscious thought as we know it first appeared in our species, man must have found himself alone and afraid in a very big and very dangerous world. The thinking man now sat in this present moment, aware of all his past glories and failures and contemplating all of his possible future gifts and curses. Aware in this fashion, perhaps man’s biggest desire was not sex but power. Power after all can stop that terrible fear, and powerful people are never lacking in sexual company…
And what could be more powerful than knowing the future?
Profits, seers, and those that could hold council with the Gods must have become very important indeed.

But can humans really predict the future? Is the future written in the stars, therefore unchangeable and destined to happen no matter what? Is the future just one of many futures that can be changed with forethought, knowledge, and discipline?

Sir Isaac Newton was an incredible man. He was a mathematician, an astronomer, and a physicist. His discoveries in the sciences changed our way of thinking forever. He is the one that discovered the laws of gravity; he also made amazing discoveries in motion and optics.
What is not well known about Newton though is that he was also a great prophet. He was a very devoted Christian and dedicated a large portion of his life to deciphering the riddles that he believed were hidden in the scriptures. He was a tireless and passionate scientist and applied this natural talent to solving the enigma of humanities future.

Newton became preoccupied with the bible which he believed held messages for all of mankind. He was also obsessed with the temple of Solomon, perhaps believing as some do, that it is the blueprint to the mind of God. His main focus became the books of Daniel and Revelations. Using scientific methods, astronomy, and mathematical calculations of his own design; he became certain that he had decoded a timeline that clearly revealed the future of mankind.

Newton wrote over a million words trying and finally deciphering, to his own satisfaction, the cryptographic puzzle which he believed existed within the words of the bible. His conclusion, based on his studies, told him that there were three basic events that would herald the end of days:

1.    The corruption of Christianity.
2.    The return of the Jews to the Holy Land.
3.    The third and final reconstruction  of the temple of Solomon.

During his lifetime, Newton was already aware of the corruption of the Church and actually declared the papacy, “The great whore of Babylon.”  But he knew that the next two events would not happen within his lifetime and it seems that he planned for this event by making sure that his work survived to present day; a time when these prophecies might help us all.

His calculations begin by first postulating the date in which the Christian religion began it’s decent into paganism. Newton tried many dates for this downward beginning and finally settled on 609 A.D. He believed this because this was the date that the Roman Empire gave parts of its power to the church. At this time, old pagan temples were reconstructed to make way for the new Christian religion and as a result many pagan practices began to be assimilated.

This date is very important because the prophet Daniel tells us in the Bible that 1,290 or 1,335 “days” after this great fall of the Christian religion the Jewish people will return to the Holy Land. What Newton did here was to suppose that the “days” that were spoken of were actually years and that each year contained 360 days (which are the number of days that the bible tells us were in one year).

If you add 609+1290 you get 1899. In 1897 the ‘World Zionist Organization’ (WZO) was established. This organization set up certain banking organizations and was primarily dedicated to help the Jewish people migrate back to the Holy Land.
If you add 609+1335 you get 1944. The ending of the Second World War happened around this time and as a result of what occured during this war, the Jewish people were finally allowed to return to the Holy Land and establish the new nation of Israel.

Now when it came to the Final Days and the Apocalypse, Newton used a passage that can be found both in the books of Daniel and in Revelations; “time, times, and half a time.” This is a very cryptic statement but Newton tackled it in this way:

TIME = 1 year (360 days)
TIMES = 2 years (720 days)
HALF A TIME = ½ a year (180 days)

If you add 360+720+180 you have a total of 1260. Newton again believed that these days meant years and was able to calculate in this way that the Apocalypse would happen 1,260 years after a certain key moment in history.

After much thought and study, Newton finally settled on the year 800 A.D. He settled on this date because on Christmas day 800 A.D. Charlemagne was crowned king of the Holy Roman Empire. This day, was to Newton, the beginning of this new political system that was to become the new Christian Church.

If you then add 800+1260 you get 2060. This was the date of the Apocalypse according to the prophet Newton. He mentions in his writings that he does not want to, “set dates,” but he also writes that, “The time, times, and half a time do not end before 2060 nor after…”.

So is the future written in the Stars?

From a certain perspective it seems that the great scientist Sir Isaac Newton is telling us that it is. Certainly to think that what is written by God (or many Gods for that matter) shall come to pass, is to say that the future is something set by a force or forces far above and beyond humanity; and man could no more change the word of God than he could move the orbit of the stars in the sky.

Newton would not publish these writings during his lifetime. Some believe that he did this because he feared persecution which might taint his scientific work. But perhaps Newton believed that even though mere men might not be able to change the will of God they might be able to help themselves through knowledge. It is interesting to note that these manuscripts disappeared after Newton’s death and were hidden from the world for over two hundred years. Supposedly stored in a home in Hampshire, his manuscripts mysteriously reappear and were auctioned off in London on 1936. Did Newton plan this? Did he write this manuscript for a future audience? An audience that he hoped would benefit from his words and discoveries?

The skeptic  in me finds it very difficult to believe that our destiny is written in a holy book, or the starts. But I have a ruthless mistress, by the name of logic, and I have found that her prognostications are never wrong. I might be wrong, using her methods, because I forgot to take a certain variable into consideration, but ‘she’ is never wrong. I sometimes think about the fact that science could be seen to be a new religion of sorts with a great mathematical God that is as wrathful as any Old Testament God.

Perhaps Newton is right and our future is set for ever in the stars, or our DNA as a scientist might say, and therefore cannot be changed. I will have to disagree on this; my vanity hopes that we can set our own course and as long as we don’t blow ourselves up or poison ourselves to death, there will come a time when we will be able to change the orbit of the stars. There is something though that Newton and I can both agree on I think;
Whether the future is set in stone or not, all people can benefit from the knowledge of it.

Knowledge is power.

The power of our thoughts is seldom fully realized. Most people pay very little attention to the thousands of thoughts that go through their minds every day. This is a shame because thoughts play a monumental part in our lives and can truly be said to shape our reality.

Our minds mechanically judge every aspect of our existence and these judgments are first interpreted by us through our thoughts. We might be driving on our way to a meeting for example be barraged by thoughts of worry and anxiety. This is a good indication that we have apprehensions or fears about our upcoming get-together. Since most people absorb all their thoughts without any censor and take them all at face value, they can’t help but be very affected by all of the commotion that is going on in their heads.

A great way to learn to manage these rampant thoughts is to practice a technique called “Mindful Meditation”. With this method you can become more aware of all of the thoughts that you are having and as a result you can begin to manage stress, depression, and even chronic pain. By managing your thoughts you can manage your emotions and how you deal with every situation in your life.

In order to practice the art of Mindful Meditation, you will have to learn to be present and in the moment. As a Zen Roshi might tell you, “Be here, now”. Keep your attention focused on the present moment and allow your mind and body to relax.

In order to develop your attention muscles, you might want to perform some of the small tasks of your day in this type of present moment focus. For example you can try and perform all of your chores while focusing solely on the present moment. You will find that all of these simple tasks become far more enjoyable when you are able to do them with your attention focused on the here and now.

When you get a good grasp of this ability to stay focused in the moment and you feel confident that you have developed your attention muscles, I want you to start to pay attention to the thoughts that enter your mind at each moment of your life. This can sound like a simple thing but it does take some work on your part. It is though, one of the most rewarding experiences that you can have in your life.

If you are having trouble grasping the Mindfulness Meditation technique, I want you to try this exercise:

Imagine that all of the thoughts and sensations that you are having at every moment are like balloons moving past your mind. Perhaps there are some that are bigger than others or some might seem to fly across your field of awareness faster than others, but you will realize that at every moment you have many of these balloons making their way cross your mind. Pay attention to these thought/sensation balloons. Don’t judge them or focus on any of them too much. Just watch in a detached way as they make their way into and out of your present moment.

If you have a thought balloon enter your mind on your way to your meeting that has you stuttering or screwing up the things that you were planning to say then you will get nervous and anxious. This is how our thoughts control the reality of our lives. Through Mindful Meditation you can begin to get a grasp on your mental experience and learn to control the experiences of your life.

Learn to let those negative thoughts float past you without paying too much attention to them. You can even imagine that these negative thought balloons are being blown away from your mind by a strong wind. Focus only on those thoughts that empower you and let go of those that do not. By controlling your thoughts in this way, you will be able to greatly increase the quality of your life experience.

The prerequisite to any healthy lifestyle is a good night’s sleep. With our hectic everyday lifestyle this can sometimes be a difficult thing. Nerves that are held in a constant state of tension, due to our stressful lifestyles, make it very difficult to relax when we finally get to bed.

There are things that you can do to help you get to sleep on time and to be able to sleep on a regular basis:

•    First on the list is exercise. If you have an office job or any kind of a job where you are stationary for large periods of time, then you definitely need to exercise on a regular basis. Work out your cardiovascular system as often as you can. This doesn’t have to be anything stressful, just as long as you are raising your heart rate a bit and your are maintaining that rate for a good fifteen minutes.

Walks are a wonderful way to exercise, and if you can’t get out for a walk then a nice casual ride on a stationary bicycle is a great alternative. Exercise does more than just get you tired so that you can sleep better. Exercise is the best way to beat stress and make you feel good. A good work out gets your body to release “endorphins” which are the feel good chemicals in your brain.

•    Avoid the coffee. It seems that it’s next to impossible to go to work for eight hours now days without ingesting at least one cup of coffee. The reasons are understandable and there are times when you just need to get your dose of caffeine. Do try to avoid taking too much; see if you can go from 3 cups to 1 cup. But if you must have your java, then have a cup early in the day and try to avoid coffee in the afternoon. This will help your body to get rid of most of that caffeine in your system before bedtime.

At all costs try and stay away from those power drinks that are so popular right now. These drinks will usually contain more than just caffeine; they can contain Ginseng, Gingko, Taurine, or all of the above.  Your body has a much harder time getting rid of all of these chemicals and as a result you will find that sleeping will get harder and harder.

•    Try to keep some kind of schedule. The biggest thing to avoid is the mid afternoon nap. I personally know a large number of people that say that they have a hard time going to sleep, but you wouldn’t know it when their nap time rolls around. Try to wake up and go to sleep at a certain time and avoid any deviation from this schedule. If you know that you get really tired at a certain time of the day then make sure that you make plans to be out and about during those times so that you don’t fall prey to the “cat nap” gods.

A great way to get you in the mood for sleep is to create a routine. Every night before you go to bed, you might for example want to do few light stretches, fluff your pillow in one particular way, turn off the light, and go to sleep. The idea here is that your body begins to equate this routine with sleep. Eventually a simple routine like this will be all that you will need to get yourself in the perfect state of being for a wonderful night’s sleep.