Author Archives: Rachel Andrews

by Maya Cointreau

Each time I have asked for guidance over the past several years, I have received the same message. Live in Joy. This is all that matters. When I counsel others, the message I am asked to pass on is “Joy.” When I meditate, the whispered sounds from the trees is “Joy.” When I watch my children interacting with the world, the feeling they spread is joy. And now, as I sit to write this article, the key word remains: joy.

Leo. Painting by Carlos Cedillo.

No matter what your path, no matter what the problem, you will be better served if you live in joy.

What does this mean? Living in joy represents a shift of consciousness on all levels. It means opening your heart to appreciate the God in the people around you. It means being thankful for the little things that you do have, and not focusing on small thoughts of fear or anger.

Let your heart flow freely. It’s not always easy to live in joy, and the message I get the most often about how to successfully bring joy into all aspects of your being is to simply do what makes you happy. Take each day moment by moment. When a thought pops into your head, “Wouldn’t it be nice if I…” grab hold of that thought. Feed it. Keep it growing, keep it going.

Do things that make you happy. Start small. Pay attention to what makes you feel better, and what makes you feel worse. Do more of what makes you feel better. Yes, it’s that simple. The more you are en-JOY-ing your life, the more you are IN joy, and the more opportunities will present themselves to you to keep you feeling that way. The bad things, the sad things, will become less and less. Less frequent, less important, less jarring.

Earlier, I mentioned that you should not focus on the small thoughts of fear. I specifically choose the word “small” because this is their action, this is what they do to you. Fear thoughts literally make you small. They steal your power, lower your vibration and shrink your being, your aura. They can even help you decrease the energy of everyone you come in contact with. How many times have you gone to a store and encountered a rude worker that in turn made you react in a surly manner, and then stay angry for the rest of the afternoon?

Fear and anger serve only themselves. When you are happy, the opposite occurs. Your smile literally shines a light on the world. Wherever you go, happy and joy-full, the world around you is uplifted. The tired cashier cannot help but release a small smile back at you as you approach her with joy. Your vibration expands, your being grows, you stand straighter and taller, small pains disappear, and you feel better. The world feels better.

If you want to make a difference in the world, if you want to shift your life into another gear, start here. Start with Joy.

Do not worry that you are being selfish or self-indulgent. When you are happy, you are benefiting everyone. You cannot help anyone if you have not helped yourself. You cannot be part of the world shifting if you have not shifted your own true being. Begin with your very own self.

So, do not fret. Do not think you must give up anything, or fear anything, or begin with any major changes. Just be. Just be you. Be the you whom you were born to be. Be the person you intended to become when you were born. No one enters this life thinking, I’m going to be in this body, and I’m going to limit my options, and starve my body, and feed my mind fear. No. Before you were born you thought to yourself, Now here is this great, little body that has so many possibilities, and though there will be some challenges it is going to be so very interesting to find ways to create the best possible outcomes and enjoy the unlimited potential of this world. I can’t wait to get started!

That is what you thought, and don’t you owe it to yourself to begin living the way you intended? Give yourself up to the wonder of the unfolding that is the perfectly you, now. Find little ways to be happy, and the larger picture will become clear.

There are many ways that you can do this. Buy shower gels that make you feel fresh and pampered, dress in colors that uplift you. You can afford it. There is always a way to make yourself feel a little special. When you eat, choose food that makes you feel good, emotionally and physically. Pay attention to what might create physical discomfort or emotional exhaustion hours after you eat, and what leaves you feeling energized and feeling easy. Choose television programs that make you laugh. Turn off news or dramas when you notice tension developing in your gut. Turn your attention away from negative input as much as you can. When friends begin to talk about something that makes you feel bad, bring up another topic or shift the conversation in a positive direction. If they continue to talk negatively, go to the bathroom. Wash your hands, take some deep breaths, try a few positive affirmations in the mirror, and think of something you can talk about that makes you smile. When you come back to your friends, the attention will be on you for a moment – use the opportunity to start a new, more positive conversation by mentioning what you thought of in the bathroom.

If you are having a hard time finding the positive in your life, you might start a journal that you carry with you throughout the day. Take note of recurring negative and positive thoughts, where and when they occur, find the pattern, and then find a way to shift the routine a little so that you can encourage the good and disable the bad. Or you can use Abraham-Hicks’ “Rampage of Appreciation” technique, where you note every little thing that you appreciate (in your head or out loud) as you travel throughout your day. Try spending even five minutes rampaging positively that “I love that car, I really like that blue paint on the house, I love how the sun shines on that little girl’s hair, I think this D.J. has a really great voice, and I really appreciate how upbeat he is every morning.” As silly as you might feel, you will be amazed at how much wider your smile is at the end of that five minutes, and how much easier it is to walk through the rest of your day feeling connected to joy.

I have been told time and again that we are all connected. We are all the WONDER and the JOY and the NOW. We are all one. We are all in this together, sharing consciousness, sharing space, sharing energy. To me, that means that I have a responsibility to improve myself, to be the most joyful and happy that I can be, to be as fulfilled as I can, for by doing that, I am making it easier for you to fulfill yourself. Tomorrow will be better if you start today. What are you waiting for?

Just be. Be in joy, and let your soul shine through.

Maya Cointreau has been practicing shamanism, herbalism and energetic healing for over 15 years, and works in the holistic, complementary healing fields with people and animals. She is an ordained minister, channeler and Reiki Master. She has written several books, including “Grounding and Clearing: Being Present in the New Age” and “Natural Animal Healing.” You can read more about her work at www.edenisnow.com and www.earthlodgeherbals.com.

Dear Planet Waves Readers,

It’s that time of year again. The holiday carols are playing and shoppers are getting pepper-sprayed at the mall. The level of mass psychosis hitches up a few notches, and, as I said to my analyst the other day, it’s impossible to know at any given moment if things are just about to come together, or just about to fall apart.

Cancer. Painting by Carlos Cedillo.

We’re helped along in the chaos by our proximity to the Great Attractor, and some of the most exciting and challenging astrology the world has ever seen. And all the true leaders have taken their marbles and gone home.

So what’s an evolving, self-searching soul to do?

There are two phrases that have really stayed with me this year, words that have resonated throughout the events of these past 12 months and that I intend to take with me into 2012. These are “adaptive grace” and “applied awareness.” For the first, I have to thank a woman named Pat Fields, a brilliant psychologist-turned-energetic healer, and for the second, our own brilliant, Eric Francis.

Let’s talk about what I think is so important about these two concepts, and why I will be keeping them in my coping toolbox for the foreseeable future. Adaptive grace really captures what we are trying to accomplish when we surf the tsunamis that daily life seems to be serving up on a regular basis. Adaptive in that we really have to adjust; there is no ‘balance’ to be had, as many parts of our previously self-regulating systems – the economy, the environment, our government – have reached their tipping points and beyond. And ‘grace’ in our commitment to continuing to look for the beauty, the joy, the ‘random acts of kindness’, the synchronicities that continue to visit us with their mystery and magic. Adaptive grace is what I experience when I see communities coming together to save their neighbors’ homes from foreclosure, when I see students silently shaming a Chancellor of Schools for authorizing the use of violence on a school campus, or when I listen to the words of a mother whose son has died – murdered – as a result of the entrenched hazing practices of a college marching band, saying just days after his death “we must not let this happen to any other students, anymore.”

Adaptive grace is what I choose to continue to practice in the face of my own fury at the events that caused these incidents, and as I seek to find the ways to turn feelings of helplessness into action. And adaptive grace is what I see when I see the world rising up, finally, to take back our freedoms. We won’t win all of the battles, but we will keep coming back to the fight. And when I see the linked arms of students and protesters in the new revolution, I remember the adaptive grace of the civil rights heroes that came before, and it lets me know that change is a process that has been fought for and won before, regardless of the cost, and the best of our humanity shone through.

Applied awareness is awareness in action. It’s the ‘second wheel of the bicycle’ that I talk with my patients about as they are struggling to turn insight into change. It’s the commitment to take what we know, what we discover, about the best and the worst of ourselves, and do something about it. It requires great courage, a willingness to look at the thing itself, as it is, not as we would wish it to be, and then to act (or to stop acting, as is so often what is necessary.) When we show up every day, present and awake to our lives, asking the question of what this day’s lessons will teach us about ourselves, and how we will apply that learning going forward to make ourselves – and as a result, our planet – a better place, that is applied awareness at its best. It is a process that I have practiced most of my life, and one that has opened doors to miracles and wonders as seemingly insurmountable challenges are resolved the way the tangled strands of a knot suddenly fall into place. I have seen people change their lives forever and for the better, simply by using applied awareness.

Applied awareness got me through the death of my first husband and the reconstruction required to get through the wreckage of that time, and allow the phoenix to rise. Applied awareness is what climate change activists and Occupy movements are working and sacrificing for. And finally, as Eric Francis writes about every day at Planet Waves, applied awareness is what we do with all the information the universe holds for us, it’s the other side of the handshake. It is the proper thing to do with the incredible gift of awareness supported by our partnership with the unseen.

So, this holiday season, as you’re fighting off one more tragic news item or one more egregious sound byte, or when your cup of blessings and challenges is simply too full, I offer you the gift of these two mantras: adaptive grace and applied awareness. Let’s hold them close like the treasures they are, and polish them to a fine shine over the next weeks and months, for we will certainly need them. I wish all the Planet Waves community a beautiful and blessed holiday season, and I look forward to sharing the ride in 2012!

Jan