Are you ready to RESURRECT YOUR SPIRIT?

"I lay down my life—only to take it up again.  No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again." John 10:17-18

This week we will be celebrating Easter Sunday so we all have the opportunity to meditate on the lessons that we can learn as Christians on the meaning of the miracle of resurrection.

Every resurrection follows a crucifixion experience; a beautiful rebirth follows times of pain and doubt. As we surrender to Spirit, we evolve in love and peace and we are ready to rise to all life has to offer.

When we are experiencing darkness or difficulty, we can believe with certainty that the power and love of Spirit will bring us comfort and direction. ---“When I am facing any challenge, I am never alone. I am always sure that there is value and promise even in the toughest times. During hardship or heartache, I can find a great lesson. In the transition from darkness to light, I gain new understanding about myself and about life. I find the strength and resilience to go on. My heart is open to greater expressions of peace and joy.”---Daily Word

We always have a choice on our decisions. Choosing not to hold a grudge or harbor hard feelings toward anyone. This choice is for your own well-being as well as for the other person. Unforgiveness stored into your heart would be a block to the flow of love. Repeating these words, I FORGIVE, you overcome resistance and open the heart to experience greater peace and joy. As we practice FORGIVENESS, we claim our oneness with the Universe and see the good in all. I view myself and others with compassion and the assurance that we are equally and unconditionally loved. "To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you." - Lewis B. Smedes

A big AHA MOMENT for me on RESURRECTING MY SPIRIT has been understanding that "I Am Here On This Earth For My Own Soul's Evolution - Not To Take Care or Responsibility Of the Evolution of others". (Let go and release control) I will let YOU take care of yourself and that will mean that I may have to set personal boundaries so that I am not pulled away from tending to my needs. From now on I permit myself to love others without taking responsibility for their happiness or pain, and that does not mean that I don't love the other person nor make me a selfish person. Every person is responsible for their own happiness and growth on this planet because they see life from their own perspective and not from my own perspective. By doing that, I will allow others to enjoy or suffer their own experiences, making them free to grow at their own pace. ACCEPTANCE, FORGIVENESS and GRATITUDE are the feelings I choose for my heart. We can't spend the rest of our life dwelling on the past and what could've been. It's time to move on. When we are stuck in the past, blaming others of our unhappiness, we choose to stay with the unhappy/victim self -- that's not the path I choose FOR ME! I could not allow FEAR and GUILT control my life anymore. The other face of FEAR is LOVE...

I forgive myself first and then I am able to forgive others, which prepares the way for a new beginning--a RESURRECTION OF MY HEART--- that leaves me both, peaceful and joyful. As I always say, this is a work in progress because many times we find that the thought is easier than the action. But little steps on my goal will take me closer to the finish line.... YES and YES!

What are the choices you will take to RESURRECT YOUR SPIRIT? Remember to practice the three (3) most important things that will allow you to evolve and bring the light of joy into your life:  ACCEPTANCE, FORGIVENESS and GRATITUDE.

Happy RESURRECTION OF SPIRIT !!!

• By:  Evelyn Torres for AwarenessWisdom 
• http://awarenesswisdom.com/

Evelyn Torres is a Transformational Life Coach

Make the most out of Life -- SURRENDER -- Let it BE..

It is time to be BACK !!!!

During the past 4 weeks I have been on a self imposed RETREAT and I can tell you "It has been amazingly empowering". I have been doing several half days of "silent meditation" (totally silent-- very hard for me...LOL), many practices of mindfulness, including mindful walking meditation, mindful eating and of course my regular daily meditations. My husband and I have been taking trips (last weekend to the Florida Strawberry Festival -- even strawberry pizza?...wow!) and we are planning a few more soon. It has been LIBERATING...

I have been going to group coaching to improve the way I confront the challenges in my life. The people I have met have given me lessons that I never acquired in any of my college education courses. Even the class that I am taking at my coaching school has been sent as a MIRACLE class for me-- Inner Freedom. My coach and my classmates have given me not only understanding, but priceless experiences that have allowed me to visualize positive outcomes FOR ME!!!! Also, I have put out my INTENTION to receive anything that the Universe could provide me --- the seminars and courses, the books, the people, friends and the words that will expand my mind to be responsible for my own growth and happiness. At the same time I have learned not to allow my thoughts rob me of the peace that is my birthright. Many surprises have been received every single day...

I'm very aware that this is a work in progress, and there is much more to learn, and I am very excited to receive my life as it is because I know that every experience (joy or pain) is not a bump in the road, but a mountain of experience and a great opportunity to grow. Many times we could not see the lesson on the experience, but by giving our pain to a higher power and understanding that the control is not in our hands (SURRENDER), we will find the lesson on that experience at the appropriate time --- and that is usually not our position to decide. The answer or the lesson could come tomorrow, it could come next week, it could come in 2 years or maybe it will never come, and I'm okay with that because I SURRENDER and I trust that everything will be what I need in my life to grow. As someone recently told me, "The Universe will never send you something that you are not ready to receive". That was an AHA MOMENT for me..... wow and wow!

The thing that I have learned is that, by allowing SURRENDER into my life, I also have the power to take actions that will bring well-being to my life. Those actions taken are exactly that ---- Actions, and not reactions to the events. Many of them are painful, but you know in your heart that it is exactly what SURRENDER really means--- not knowing the outcome, but trusting that the Universe will work for the required outcome, even if we do not like it. I will enjoy every moment of my life because that's all I have to enjoy--- my PRESENT MOMENT. I do not gain anything by complaining about yesterday, I do not gain anything by trying to control my tomorrow, but I get peace and joy by appreciating what I have NOW. I am working on my "Let it BE"... are you willing to try as well?

So I will start again to post on the AwarenessWisdom Page with my DESIRE and INTENTION to touch at least the life of one person each day ---- that is my purpose in life and I am EMPOWERED to at least do my best every day--- that's good enough for me--- "Always do your best", lesson from Don Miguel Ruiz, THE FOUR AGREEMENTS...

and SO IT IS.....

• By:  Evelyn Torres for AwarenessWisdom 
• http://awarenesswisdom.com/

Evelyn Torres is a Transformational Life Coach

                      

Pamper Yourself

“The way you treat yourself, sets the standard for others.” -- Sonya Friedman

The holidays are here and many of us try to just survive in the craziness of the days. Even though we love the time we spend shopping, eating, and sharing time with our family and friends, everything could become a task more than a celebration.

Now is the best moment to stop and decide how you can be more PRESENT in the festivities so you can appreciate the value of those experiences at the same time that you accomplish everything that is required to do. One of the best things that I highly recommend is to make time for you, or what you can call “Me Time”.

Men and women alike, everyone can use a little stress reduction and visiting a Spa will definitely help you look and feel better. A Spa is a place to calm the mind, relax the body and enjoy life. Many spas offer beauty treatments for you nails, hair and skin care, including facials, peels and microdermabrasions. They also offer massage therapy, aromatherapy and scrubs that promote good health. Some even offer yoga classes that can easily be integrated with the treatments available. Many Spas offer seminars on healthy eating habits that will promote a healthy lifestyle. The International Spa Association (ISPA) best description on a spa is “places devoted to enhancing well-being through a variety of professional services that encourages the renewal of mind, body and spirit.”

If your body is recovering from illness, if it is sore from a stressful workout, or even feeling the stress from a busy lifestyle, a spa treatment will make you feel more relaxed. Many of the treatments, specially massage therapy, will help you relieve a variety of health conditions, including sleep disorders, depression, migraines, high blood pressure, and even cancer-related fatigue. It can also improve circulation, joint flexibility and promote healing after injury or surgery.

In addition to the physical benefits offered, massage therapy will also treat your spirit by applying pressure to energy points in the body. Two of the most popular spa treatments in massage therapy are Acupressure Massage and Ayurvedic Massage. Both of them are designed to heal the body by creating a balance between mind, body and spirit --- What a great combination!

Many Spas offer meditation, yoga and self-discovery retreats. On these retreats you will learn how to meditate and enjoy mindfulness while you integrate movements and exercises that will bring contentment, open your heart and create mental and emotional peace.

There are alternatives for every person and for every budget, of course. So today, my recommendation is to think of your “Me Time” and call your nearest Spa location, check the services they provide and make an appointment to “Pamper Yourself”. That’s one of the best ways for you to feel empowered to face the holidays with BALANCE and GRATITUDE. You will feel inner peace and will perform better not only mentally, but physically and spiritually as well. Enjoy and Happy Holidays!
  
By:  Evelyn Torres for AwarenessWisdom
http://awarenesswisdom.com/

Evelyn Torres is a Transformational Life Coach

Beliefs - Reality or Illusion?

                                                    Photo courtesy of: TORRES GROUPE

A 'limiting belief' is defined as an invented idea that we believe is true.

Do you think that your are capable of changing your life? Well...I can assure you that transformational change is possible at anytime for everyone including you. All the ideas about who you are and what you think you can do or what you cannot do ---things like your childhood, your education, your job, your social life, your past, are part of who you are, but are not the things that define you as a human being. Many times we feel stuck with our way of thinking, the same old patterns of reacting to our external world but we are not aware that change should begin with a big intention and desire from our heart. 

Recently, I was reading an article from Marion Franklin where she quoted a story of an Unknown Author and the end of the story really caught my attention:

"There is only one person who is capable to set limits to your growth: it is YOU. YOU are the only person who can revolutionize your life. You are the only person who can influence your happiness, your realization, and your success. You are the only person who can help yourself.    

        Your life does not change when your boss changes, when your friends change, when your parents change, when your partner changes, when your company changes. Your life changes when YOU change, when you go beyond your limiting beliefs, when you realize that you are the only one responsible for your life. The most important relationship you can have is the one you have with yourself.”
------ Author Unknown

Many of our limiting beliefs are the barrier to our growth on all aspects of our lives. We create “invisible walls” around us that sometimes are worst than the walls constructed at jails to prevent people to escape. The sad thing is that many of us live our life thinking that those “invisible walls” are there to protect us from the world, when in reality what they are doing is preventing us to enjoy the world to the fullest. An example of this is how young kids can develop false associations very early on that help them to create self-limiting beliefs. You can notice how many people spend the first fifty years of their life getting over the first five. Those self-limiting beliefs take control of your power, which is there, but you cannot see it.

I believe that everyone has the ability to create amazing things in their own lives and in this world. But before we are able to create, we need to understand that all those beliefs that are holding us back are only an illusion that we have created. Once we understand that, the possibilities are endless.

You can read many “self-improvement books” looking for a way to make changes in your life and become a better person. That’s great, but those changes will not flourish in your life until you understand that any positive change is not on the pages of that book, but within you. You have the power in yourself to fulfill all your desires, but not until you have the courage to break all those “invisible walls” that are keeping you trapped inside your own perfect human being.

Today have the courage and make the commitment to question your beliefs and discover which ones are serving you to grow and which one are holding you back on your growth. You will be amazed to notice that many of those beliefs are not a reality, but just an illusion.
Be brave and start today!

• By:  Evelyn Torres for AwarenessWisdom

http://awarenesswisdom.com/

Evelyn Torres is a Transformational Life Coach

A Mother's Breast Cancer

“Cancer is so limited…It cannot cripple love. It cannot shatter hope. It cannot corrode faith. It cannot eat away peace. It cannot destroy confidence. It cannot kill friendship. It cannot shut out memories. It cannot silence courage. It cannot reduce eternal life. It cannot quench the Spirit.” ~Unknown (from Peaceful Mind Peaceful Life)

It seems like yesterday, but 17 years ago my mother lost her life because of this “monster” called breast cancer. At the time it was very devastating for her and for all the people around who cared so much for her. You know, my mother’s cancer was not any different from other people that go through the pain of this disease every day. What makes my mother’s cancer more devastating than other people’s suffering is that she never went to a doctor for her annual exams. The last time she visited a gynecologist was when my brother was born, and he was 37 years old when she died. My mother’s breast cancer was so metastasized when it was discovered that it was coming from the inside of her body to the outside destroying the skin of her breast. But above all this tragic and painful experience, what makes my mother’s death of breast cancer so devastating was that she was alive only 17 days from the day we learned of her diagnosis and the day she died.

We were not there for my mother during treatment, we were not there during recovery, we were not there enough time to comfort her, because when my mother’s cancer was discovered, it was already too late to save her. For many years there was not even one day when I hadn't thought of the suffering I lived with her during those 17 days after diagnosis. She was around us and we didn’t know; not because we didn’t care, but because she didn't know either. She was so scared to visit a doctor that she just closed her mind to the idea that annual checkups were necessary.

Now, after so many years I have been able to understand that devastation and suffering show up in our life and it is our mission to give a meaning to that suffering. I learned that it was up to me to learn from the errors that brought that suffering and apply changes to my own life.

After 1995 I have never missed my annual visit to my gynecologist and most important to my annual mammogram. I am very aware of the important role of preventive care. Programs for breast cancer awareness month from Susan G. Komen and the American Cancer Society have been on my list of annual donations. Participation on the walks and fundraising during the month of October have been on my calendar every single year.

There are no guarantees that my awareness of the preventive care will keep me cancer free. By any means that is not my message. My message after those 17 years is that even on the aftermath of suffering and sickness you can find a lesson of survival and improvement. For me it was that I will not close my eyes to the importance of prevention because I am scared or don’t want to know. If I have breast cancer “I want to know” as soon as possible so I can fight with all the force of my being.

October is BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH and it is my message to every woman in this Planet Earth, PLEASE GET SCREENED. You deserve it and your family deserve the opportunity to be there with you.

Let’s all get PINK!!!!
By:  Evelyn Torres for AwarenessWisdom
http://awarenesswisdom.com/

Listen to Your Music NOW !!

“I need drama in my life to keep making music” -- Eminem

Many times we are waiting for the right moment to take action to improve our life. We expect for the Universe to provide us with the tools required to listen to our music..--”The right moment will come, the perfect conditions will show, the door is closed now, the problems in my life are too overwhelming right now.”  We wait, and we wait for the right moment to take action.... Rest assure that, if your decision is to wait for the perfect time, it will be a long, long wait for you.

The right moment is NOW because it is the only moment you have. Tomorrow is just a wish and action should not be a wish.  Action can only happens in the present moment or what Eckhart Tolle  calls “The NOW”. All the darkness that we see around is what is needed for us to take action into change. The Universe will not provide you with anything that you don’t need. Everything is in alignment with our state of being and growth. But, when we see that Divine Drama as an obstacle, the light that the Universe is offering us will not shine through.

Instead of asking “why me?”, “why this is happening to me?”, “why this sucks?”, we should begin to understand that the question should be “Why not me?” and the answer will be “This is why you”. Listen to the music and understand that your own natural wholeness is always there. Everything is already within us; it is just a matter of tuning to the right channel so we can understand the lyrics of the music we are receiving. If we are traveling on our car and the radio station is out of tune, it will be very hard to listen, but when we go and tune the station correctly...Voila! we get a new signal and we can understand perfectly. The same thing happens with our life; if we are not on the right tune, we cannot understand our Divine Drama.

On the correct tune you understand that THE UNIVERSE IS NOT CONSPIRING AGAINST YOU, BUT IT IS CONSPIRING FOR YOU. On that correct tune we do not need to wait for the perfect conditions to take action because even in the darkest moment we can listen to the music loud and clear. On that correct tune we can see that a larger version of us is trying to rebirth and this is the opportunity that is presented to us to emerge and take ACTION. We are on the right tune, with the right signal.

Recently, I heard an analogy that really inspired me to understand my music. “In the forest the seed plants itself in the dirt. That seed is not complaining “oh, that dirt is smelly, or dirty, or dark”. The seed does not plant itself on top of a rock and says “oh I got the clean path to my growth and I am now on top of this clean rock”... No, that seed plants itself in the darkness of the dirt so when the light comes everything that is needed as nourishment for growth will be provided and a new plant will emerge. Everything that was needed for that seed to grow was provided even in the darkness of the Earth”

Remember that it is just a matter of finding the right tune that is already there. As Lao Tzu teaches “Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.” Are You Ready to Listen to Your Music NOW?

By:  Evelyn Torres for AwarenessWisdom
http://about.me/evelyntorres

What If you Play-to-Win?

In the game of life we play different games. Some games are fun, some games are scary, some could be challenging, but at the end of the day there is no escape to the different games that are on our path of life.

You may think, HOW IS MY LIFE A GAME?, HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO PLAY, when I have so many problems on my plate. Well, I can offer you this perspective to view all those situations that are present in your life.... You can think in this way: “My life is full of problems and I do not know how to begin to solve them” or you can think this way: “Every challenge in life is a game worth playing and I will find the best strategy to Play-to-Win?” I am sure that the positive view of the second alternative is clearly the one that will move you into action and fulfill your goals.

The problem is that in our culture we have been trained to think that our purpose in life is to work hard; then, if we have some time left, we should play and have fun. That’s not how we were created as human beings, and that is why the word “stress” is part of our daily vocabulary.

Studies show that we are moving from an Industrial Economy, where you complete tasks, work hard at your workplace to solve problems, to earn money to buy things and maybe save some money for retirement. Now we are having a shift in humanity and we are moving to an Inspiration Economy where we want to create possibilities, express our talents in ways that add value and inspiration to our life and to the life of others. We want to fulfill a purpose and at the same time get results. You can see this shift in the line of thinking at companies like Microsoft, Facebook and Apple...they do not have “workers”, they have “players” that integrate into their game. These companies promote strategies that inspire every person there and facilitate their creative minds; experiences that expand skills and inspire consciousness. While you play you will create wealth for yourself and others based on what you value.

We are living on an era of computers, Xbox, smartphones and apps. Everybody look forward to play some kind of game using technology; games are not only for kids, adults are playing as well.  We can adapt that “spirit of play” to our daily life if we know that the end result will be one that will promote joy and fulfillment. When you “Play-to-Win” you have purpose; you have the intention to give the best of of yourself with the vision of reaching your goal.

I don’t know about you, but to me this is a better way to live my life and find my purpose. We all have a choice in the way we confront our challenges. As Coach Dave Buck teaches “To wake up every day into an exciting game that is fun to play and fulfills your purpose; rather than a job that is a not winnable game that never ends; checking off tasks on a bottomless list!!!”

Are you ready to PLAY-TO-WIN the Game of your Life?

By:  Evelyn Torres for AwarenessWisdom
http://about.me/evelyntorres