May A 2017
Cover Story
Metaphysics
22
90
Judith Orloff - The Empath's Survival Guide
Before Evolution There Was Involution
Health & Healing
Personal Growth
40
100 Rising Into My Destiny 106 Exercising Safety from the Inside Out
Empathy is the Medicine the World Needs
Spirituality 46 50
Gravity and Vacuums Within Subtle Energies Being True to Yourself
World Vision 112 Technology’s Impact on Humanity
OM Living
Books
56
118 Sister Jaguar's Journey
60 66 70 76
Close Encounters of the Truthful Kind Walking the Balance How to do Group Meditation using Crystals Political Activism as a Spiritual Path OMTimes Radio Host Spotlight - Carrie Turcotte
Relationships 82 84
6 Parenting Traps That Will Turn Your Kid Into a Sociopath Love and Duality - Tapping into Absolute Love
Judith Orloff: The Empath’s Survival Guide
Life Strategies for Sensitive People from Judith Orloff Have you been told that you are too sensitive to family and friends? Do you actually feel the feelings of others, both positive and negative, as though they were your feelings? Do you experience
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the physical and emotional pain of others? Empathy is a quality that most humans share, but being an empath goes much deeper. It can entail the full gamut of experiencing what others experience, without filters. It can make it difficult to separate your personal feelings from what you are picking up from the outside world. Dr. Judith Orloff, is an intuitive, an empath, and an expert on helping others understand and work with these gifts. Dr. Judith Orloff is a leading voice in the fields of medicine, psychiatry, and intuitive development. An Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA, her bestselling books include Emotional Freedom, Positive Energy, Dr. Orloff’s Guide to Intuitive Healing, and Second Sight. Her website is http://www. drjudithorloff.com. She joins me to discuss her latest book, The Empath’s Survival Guide - Life Strategies for Sensitive People. It is my great pleasure to interview an amazingly gifted woman,
and someone whom I have the privilege of calling a personal friend, Dr. Judith Orloff.
Judith Orloff Interview by Victor Fuhrman VICTOR FUHRMAN: Let us talk a little bit about your path for our listeners and readers who may be meeting you for the first time. What was it like growing up in a family of physicians? JUDITH ORLOFF: I had two physician parents, and I come from a family of 25 physicians, and I was a little girl who was an empath. An empath is somebody who can sense intuitively what is going on in others and absorbs the energy into their own bodies. Empaths are emotional sponges. The positive side of that is that it really gave me a deeper connection to the universe and to myself. Certainly now, as a psychiatrist, my empathy helps me with my work, my connections, my ability to love, my connection to nature.
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Empathy is the Medicine the World Needs by Judith Orloff
Healing Medicine for Our World Our world desperately needs healing. The world is wounded and in pain. Our earth, our climate, our global relationships are not being honored and protected. Even so, division and polarization
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are not the answers. Rather, empathy is the sacred medicine the world needs. What is empathy? It is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes--even if you don’t agree with them. The great healing power of empathy is that you can see things through other people’s eyes--which gives you the best chance at communicating with them. Empathy doesn’t make you weak, sentimental, or cause you to make the wrong decisions because you’re too “soft” To the contrary: it opens your heart so you can combine the insight you gain from empathy with the reasoning mind to know what path to take towards peace. Global and personal peace are always the goal. Being empathic doesn’t mean you’ll always succeed a bridging the gap between yourself and others. But it does give you the best change at uniting your personal relationships and humankind.
Self-care Techniques for Empaths I’m a UCLA-trained psychiatrist-
-and I’m an empath. An empath is someone who is wired differently neurologically than many people. Empaths aren’t born with the same filters and defenses that others have. Everything hits us more strongly. Without the proper self-care techniques that I discuss in my book, “The Empath’s Survival Guide,” we become emotional sponges who absorb the stress and pain of the world. I’m moved by how many people write me about what a revelation it is to find out they are an empath! I believe that most everyone has at least a little empath in them! For all sensitive people who want to keep their hearts open in difficult times, learning to nurture your empathy is key-and so is finding balance so you don’t experience compassion fatigue or burnout. Lately, in my psychiatric practice there has been an epidemic of patients coming to me who are exhausted, angry, depressed, and overwhelmed by what’s happening in our country and the world. They become
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Gravity and Vacuums Within Subtle Energies by John Burton, EdD
Gravity and Vacuums in Our Physical World We are each familiar with the concept of gravity in the physical world. The size and mass, including density, determine the gravitational pull of a heavenly body, be it planet or star. But here, I will describe another type of gravity that occurs in
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the world of subtle energies. I will also identify two kinds of vacuums that seem to occur within the realm of subtle energies. Finally, we will discover that these identified elements exist along a continuum that reveals our connectedness with Source or God. It is interesting that both gravity and vacuums can feel similar and yet stem from opposite sources. Gravity and vacuums each exert a kind of pull that we can feel. But the source of the pull in gravity is from the size and density of a body, the mass and internal presence. The pull of a vacuum stems from the absence of any internal substance.
Subtle Energies of Gravity and Vacuums Gravity and vacuums make up the two subtle energies. While these two energy states seem separate, they exist as polar opposites along a continuum. The gravity I’m referring to in subtle energies has to do with our sense of life purpose. This gravity resides within us and holds us here on the earth for reasons different than the physical gravity. At a deeper level,
subtle gravity allows us to live more fully from God or Source. This subtle energy gravity relates to what we might call life purpose. What are we here to do and what is the driving force in our life? The clearer our sense of purpose, the easier it is to access, developing and express our gifts to the world. While a sense of purpose moves us forward in life, purpose seems to also provide a kind of gravity, keeping us here in this life on this planet. Purpose helps us stay grounded, keeps us in life and acts to hold us here, the gravity of purpose. When we connect to purpose we also connect to Source or God as our purpose is part of the Universal Purpose, expressing forms of love. I’ll explain a bit more shortly.
Types of Vacuums and Emotions The first kind of vacuum involves the pull of what might be considered negative emotions or uncomfortable emotions. These emotions exert a kind of draw that may Omtimes.com
Close Encounters of the Truthful Kind by Guy Finley Close Encounters with Crisis Can Bring Healing Any of us may have a close encounter with crisis; forced through these close encounters to find the way back to health and balance. Even though the truth is never further away from us than our wish for its
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awakening and self-healing insight, there are distinct moments in life when it comes closer to us. Unfortunately, almost all of these important, potentially life-changing close encounters or moments are entirely missed. This is because what is wrong with us, our false nature, sees what is true as an attacking enemy. Never are the healing powers of the truth so close as when a crisis is at hand. A crisis always precedes any real inner advancement. This is because real spiritual growth is a process of removing self-blocking thoughts and feelings. The reason a crisis must precede each new level of authentic self-unity is that the crisis, whatever it may be, points out where we have been holding on to a particular belief. It is a shaky pretense, or some flattering but deceptive self-image that is in conflict with reality. Where there is conflict there is always pain And by the time this unconscious kind of psychological or emotional pain reaches the level of our consciousness, we
generally experience it as some kind of a crisis. This explains why a crisis is a close encounter of the truthful kind. What we call a personal “crisis” is really that moment when some previously invisible conflict within us becomes temporarily visible. We can state this same idea in another way. A crisis arises when some inner lie we with which we’ve deceived ourselves is revealed to be just that: a lie. Let’s take an example or two of these close encounters. Maybe a man pictures himself as always being in control of his own life, but now he’s suddenly aware that he can’t stop drinking -- or talking -- or endlessly worrying. He has reached a turning point. Perhaps a woman has always thought of herself as being loving and kind, but all at once she begins to notice how critical and cruel her thoughts are toward others. She sees that she only does things for others to have them think of her as being kind, and this fills her day with resentment. She has reached a turning point. Omtimes.com
6 Parenting Traps That Will Turn Your Kid into a Sociopath by Marcia Sirota, MD.
Is it Possible to Raise a Sociopath?
Could You Be Part of a Parenting Trap?
How do parents turn their child into a sociopath? There are six parenting traps that, together, will bring out the very worst in any child.
Parenting Trap 1: No limits.
Parenting Traps, therefore, are behaviors that seem “nice” on the surface, so parents think they are “good” for their children. They are, however, very bad for them. Omtimes.com
Instead of setting clear limits and guidelines around their child’s behavior, they completely indulge and/or enable the kid. Thus, this results in them being selfish, self-centered, selfindulgent, greedy, grasping, insensitive, and/or uncaring. Parenting Trap 2: No consequences.
They fail to give the child any meaningful consequences for these bad attitudes and behaviors. Parenting Trap 3: Inappropriate reactions. They minimize and/or find “cute” all instances of the child’s hurtful, selfish, impulsive, destructive, cruel, or thoughtless behavior. Parenting Trap 4: No values. They fail to instill proper morals, ethics, compassion, empathy, kindness or self-discipline into the child. Parenting Trap 5: Inappropriate “protection.” They also protect the child from receiving any in-the-world consequences of their bad behavior. This includes the child’s lying, conning, cheating, stealing, bullying and hurting animals or other people. Parenting Trap 6: No perspective. They repeatedly tell the child or indicate through their actions that the child is “special,” better than everyone else, and deserving of more than everyone else.
Parenting Traps Bring Sociopathic Results All the above parenting traps will lead to a child growing up believing that they are superior to everyone else. They won’t care about anyone else, and they’ll feel like they should be able to do whatever they want, whenever they want, to get what they want, without any consequences whatsoever. If you want to be a truly loving, caring parent, therefore, be careful to avoid all the above parenting traps. If not, you are, in part, also responsible for creating a monster. About the Author Dr. Marcia Sirota is a Torontobased board certified psychiatrist specializing in the treatment of trauma and addiction, as well as founder of the Ruthless Compassion Institute. Read Marcia’s latest books on creating successful relationships. “Women Decoded,” helps men understand what women want and how to choose the right woman. “Back on the Market,” helps women successfully return to dating. Sign up for her free monthly wellness newsletter: http://marciasirotamd.com Omtimes.com
Before Evolution There Was Involution by Marguerite dar Boggia
The Involutionary Arc of Ageless Wisdom Charles Darwin developed a theory of evolution, which changed the way we understood our place in the world; but he neglected to mention the involutionary arc. Before there is evolution, there is involution.
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The ageless wisdom teaches that the involutionary arc is the term that applies to the first part of the evolutionary process. It covers the path of descent, or the coming down of spirit into ever denser matter until it reaches the lowest point, the point of densest concretion. We call the latter half of the process evolutionary. It marks the ascent, or return of spirit to its emanating source, plus the gains of the evolutionary process.1 Spirit is the electrical reality of “life” itself. The consciousness of man must be fully awakened before one can ever understand that great energizing something of which the other types of energy are but expressions.2 Involution and Elemental Natures The lives of Spirit that descend in involution until the lowest point of densest matter is reached are called “elementals.” Nature itself is composed of them for no entity anywhere can separate
itself from the “boundless all.” Although “elementals” is a generalizing term, a better use of the term would signify beings arising from the first in and of the seven elements of nature before other and more advanced evolution came into manifestation.3 The names of the classes of these elementals are too numerous to mention. We call these nature sprites, faeries, the sylphs of air, the undines of water, the salamanders of fire, the gnomes of earth, etc. When the elemental lives reach the densest element, to wit: the mineral kingdom, then they will be ascending on the evolutionary arc. We call these “devas”. The church calls the devas, “angels.” These lives gradually evolve from the mineral kingdom to the next kingdoms, to wit: the vegetable, animal and human kingdoms and then to the three superhuman kingdoms until they return to their source: the “one life.” This is a picture taken on 10/15/12 by NASA of what appears to
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Rising into My Destiny – Sister Jaguar’s Journey A Prayer by Sister Judy Bisignano
A Healing Plant Ceremony in Sister Jaguar’s Journey I never intended to coauthor the book, Sister Jaguar’s Journey with Sandra Morse, my friend and mentor who suggested I participate in a shamanic (healing) plant
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ceremony in the Amazon jungle. I sat at river’s edge and waited for my friends who were hiking the rainforest. That’s when I spotted the black jaguar. The shaman explained that the jaguar has a powerful spirit that purifies and renews life. When the native Achuar people see a jaguar, they know immediately that radical change is coming. In the spirit world, seeing a jaguar can trigger immediate healing within a person. I wanted my experience of seeing the jaguar to imprint my soul forever. I started to write. My thoughts quickly reached my heart, then poured onto notepaper. The result is Prayers from the Rainforest. Since first seeing the jaguar, then visiting the Achuar several times, my daily spiritual practice has taken a huge detour from the emptiness I experienced for decades as a Catholic nun. I no longer observe nature;
I am a fundamental part of it. Spirituality doesn’t just happen; I am a willing participant in its process. God is not some remote entity outside of me; I am an integral part of her creation story. May your prayerful journey take you to the center of your soul as well as the outermost edges of the cosmos. All My Relations, Sister Jaguar
Rising into My Destiny Opening Prayer: When soft rays of light ascend over the trees, it is always as if for the first time. Clarity of purpose rises with the advent of a new day. Dawn beckons with the invitation to begin anew, to see things in fresh ways. “Yesterday is past,” it whispers. “You have only today and all its possibilities.” I join the Achuar by beginning each day anchored in stillness, taking nothing for granted; open to whatever the coming day’s gifts may be. It is the
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Technology’s Impact on Humanity by James Heim
Why our current technology culture endangers human diversity and freedom About 3.8 billion years ago, a type of molecular complexity arose on Earth, which we now call biological life. And for nearly as long these self-replicating
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structures - having evolved into countless forms - remained the only type of evolving complexities on our planet. This changed about 2.5 million years ago with the advent of the first stone tools. The new type of evolving complexity which we now call technology - has been key for human development. It isn’t selfreplicating - yet. But with our help it has also evolved into a myriad of forms. Over the last 200 years, technology’s capabilities have been increasing very quickly - particularly so since World War II. In doing so technology’s relationship with humanity is gradually shifting. In the times before industrialization, technology has taken a supportive role in our human endeavors. It was one aspect among many other defining aspects of human existence. Modern Tech is Domineering Our Existence In our times, this is changing:
technology is increasingly domineering our human existence. The faster technological capabilities progress and the more varied they become, the more minutely and comprehensively human life will be defined by technology. This development - if left unchanged - is bound to steadily dilute and displace other defining aspects of human existence. We have always been technological beings. But we are also, for instance, social, spiritual, artistic, and moral / ethical beings, with a sense of self and a sense of freedom. In order to live out these other aspects of our human essence they must receive our basic human resources. These include our time and attention, our creativity, or cooperative abilities. By devoting ever more of these resources to technology creation and use, they are no longer available for all things not technology. Our relationship with
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