You are running a really great race. Your breathing is relaxed and rhythmic. Your pace is strong. You have the goal of achieving your personal best time in today’s event. About 500 meters from the finish line you begin to get a cramp in your left calf muscle which turns into writhing pain. When you …
It is 5:00 PM the day before the last day of school, the day of anticipation of the long awaited and deserved rest period. I have just arrived in my apartment and am about to lie down on the living room couch to get a few moments of rest. The phone rings. It is the …
As I was making my way into dreamland last night lying in my bed, I started wondering why I felt so tense and stressed about getting to projects that normally would be so easy. My digestion was off. I was napping a couple of times a day. I took some magnesium powder to ease into …
One of the ways I help people get a handle on anxiety in my practice is to compare it to fear. Fear results in a negative vision of the future because of some experience that has occurred in the past. Fear is experienced based. It always requires developing a new capacity to improve one’s effectiveness …
Originally posted on Dreams For Healing:
Day 2: How the Virtue Will Change Your Entire Life O SON OF BEING! With the hands of power I made thee and with the fingers of strength I created thee; and within thee have I placed the essence of My light. Be thou content with it and seek…
It is 1C. The three of us, Diego (grandson), Erika(daughter) and myself are suspended above the snow sitting on the Raven’s Ridge chair. Instead of moving forward, as you would expect, the chair comes to a halt. Under normal circumstances it usually restarts after a short wait. Now 5 minutes go by and still we …
I am writing this short post to share a few thoughts about the relationship between inner strength/toughness and compassion. I have this great client who came to me some time back mainly because he was having relational difficulties. He was an unembarrassed supporter of people on the far right and had positive thoughts toward people …
Fear is huge topic. There are probably as many types of fear as there are stars in the sky. A great deal has been written about fear already by numerous authors, but most people do not see the negative emotions, in this case fear, as code or positive message to spur on transformation. Much of …
I am walking down Commercial Drive in East Van (Vancouver) on another cool and rainy day. Every step I take tells me to get out of my discomfort and into temporary relief. I could get some nice pastry, maybe some pizza, or a double macchiato latte topped with whipped cream. Don’t get me wrong here. …
It is raining a Vancouver rain this morning as Erika and I are walking our young puppies along our usual path. We are doing what we usually do (besides cleaning up after the dogs). We are sharing our dreams from the previous evening’s sleep and working through some daily issues. Vancouver rain reminds me of …
It is difficult for me to think of a more powerful inner process than the ability to access and maintain positive memories in my attention. As easy as this might seem negative memories have an uncanny ability to override the positive. The mind more readily goes to the negative rather than positive. I am sure …
Have you ever dreamed of an animal? Animals are great as symbols because they are fairly easy to interpret. Here is what you do. Say you are dreaming about a dog, and the dog bites you. This is a negative dream so you have to start with how you feel. When you get bitten, the …
The virtues like self-discipline, organization, and determination are rooted in time in the past whereas virtues like courage, optimism, and idealism are found in the future. When they work together in perfect unity, they are capable of achieving almost anything. When you are stuck in the past because of fear, such as the fear of …
When there a bully in the schoolyard, he takes advantage of the fact that most of the children have a lot of fear. He can push his weight and size around because he is pretty certain no one is going to challenge him. He gains access to the feeling of power and getting what he …
Originally posted on Dreams For Peace:
I just had a dream last night that I was driving really fast down a dirt road and I couldn’t slow down so I crashed into a truck and the truck fell over into the ditch with a small stream. I felt really guilty. When I found a place…
Originally posted on Dreams For Peace:
I dreamed I was in a house which was being invaded by bears the size of Sasquatch. Someone told me to not worry they know what they are doing, and they had some sort of trick to get them out, but it seemed to me the bears were going…
The upcoming negative emotion that I am going to write about is anxiety. Stay tuned in. It is such a prevalent emotion in lives of most people, but first I am going to write a bit more on how to be more enthusiastic when you are addressing a fear. The problem that fear addresses is …
Originally posted on Dreams For Peace:
One of the big questions people have, when they are embarking on a new change process, is how to find where the problems originated and then how to let go of them so that the new energy can function fully. The first question I ask others or myself is…
It is the fall of 1967. My teammates and I are playing in the football playoffs for a chance to be champions in Southern California. It is tight game. The score goes back and forth, but in the end our team loses. It is a devastating sense of failure. For a long time my mind …
Chapter 1 What are you paying attention to? One must see in every human being only that which is worthy of praise. When this is done, one can be a friend to the whole human race. If, however, we look at people from the standpoint of their faults, then being a friend to them is …
The Power of Daily Change Introduction The End is in the Beginning “Consider not the present condition, but rather foresee the future and the end. A seed in the beginning is very small, but in the end a great tree. One should not consider the seed, but the tree and its abundance of blossoms, leaves …
In Search of a Better World is an incredible book that helps us all move from the world of not knowing what to do about the conditions of the world to being inspired to act in our communities on the theme of justice. Payam recounts his own challenges growing up in Canada as an immigrant …
What is the Old Paradigm? In the old way of doing things there was an effort on people who had the advantage like leaders or certain cultural groups to keep things just the way they are. While they won’t admit it, the effort is to hold onto the status quo where they have the power …
As you are reading this post imagine that you could go out into the future and visit your positive self that had solved the current biggest challenges you are facing. That self, out there in the future, would have a voice, most likely a very enthusiastic one, and it would be so giving you tons …
My last two posts were about how being confident with your gifts is the antidote to worry. This short post is about some cultural factors that don’t allow most people to develop their inner unique talents. I don’t want to get too complex about this. If you go to almost any school in the entire …
In part one of dealing with worry I was trying to show that when you are confident with your internal gifts and act out of them, then positive things begin to show up all around. What happens when worry gets the better of you? Human beings have two aspects to themselves, an ego, which is …
Worry a.k.a. anxiety is the negative emotion that projects a negative illusion onto the future so that you can maintain your present state in a protected manner. If you are more conservative in your views or politics, you see the future as someone coming in and taking away what you already have. It causes you …
Richard Hastings is an expert in change work and dream work and author of Dreams for Peace. He is a Baha'i and currently lives in Vancouver, BC. Read more...
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