Today we ask that you commit to reducing stress in your mind and body.

This is not the same as “reducing stress in your life.”

While it is possible to take measures to reduce external stress, for many it is not practical to completely rearrange their lives.  And even the thought of doing so is so overwhelming that it breeds paralysis.

You do not have to upend your whole life.

All that is asked is that you reduce stress in your mind and body.

You reduce stress in your mind by questioning the truth of your stressful thoughts.

You reduce stress in the body through gentle exercise, meditation, and relaxation techniques.

If you take steps to reduce stress in your mind and body, it can transform your whole experience of life, without changing external factors.

You may still have the commute.

You may still have the annoying boss.

You may still have the screaming kids.

You may still have the lower back that flares up.

But you will not experience these things as agonizingly stressful.  Your sense of pain and irritation around these factors can be greatly reduced.

A stressed-out mind and body is like an inflamed joint.  Everything irritates it, everything triggers pain and discomfort.

Reducing mind-body stress is like reducing inflammation.  Things feel freer and looser, and there is much less pain.

As with taking an analgesic for physical inflammation, many people reduce mind inflammation with antidepressants.  And that is okay, especially in acute situations where the pain is intolerable.

But there are some alternatives.

Meditation reduces mind inflammation.

Yoga and tai chi reduce mind/body inflammation.

Practices like The Work and the Emotional Freedom Technique are simple, free techniques that you may learn that will naturally reduce mind inflammation.

An anxious, stressed-out mind is like an inflamed joint or muscle.

Just as an inflamed joint or muscle cannot move properly, an  inflamed mind cannot think properly.

Please find ways to soothe the inflammation.  You do not have to change your whole life to do this.  There are techniques and practices that will bring you relief immediately.  All that is asked is that you be willing to do them.  

Today we ask that you treat yourself with the same kindness you would treat a beloved animal, or child.

For those of you who have had a deep loving relationship with an animal or a small child, please let yourself feel that feeling of unconditional love.  It does not have to be a present relationship.  It could be in the past.

If you have not had such a relationship, have you ever had someone in your life for whom you felt deep love, without resentment or judgment?  Maybe a grandparent, when you were a child?  Someone you loved and trusted completely?

Whomever it is — animal, child, person you loved and trusted — call this being to mind.

Let yourself really feel the deep, warm love for this being.  Love that demands nothing in return.  Love without resentment.  Pure love.

Once you have clearly called in this feeling, go to a mirror.

Looking at your own reflection, can you project deep, warm, unconditional love toward yourself?  Can you say “I love you” to the person in the mirror?

Most of you will find this extremely difficult.

It is very sad.

Most of you treat yourselves so very badly that if you saw another person treating a beloved animal or small child that way you would be horrified.  You might call the authorities.

Can you imagine treating yourself with the same kindness you treat a beloved animal or small child?

What would that look like?  What would that feel like?

Notice the resistance that arises.

Many of you will say: “If I treated myself kindly, I would never go to work or be responsible and get things done.”

That is not true.

Believing that is like believing that a horse must be harshly whipped to get it to go anywhere.  Most of you would not be comfortable whipping a horse — and yet you will whip yourselves.

And some of you are awfully tired, sick horses.  Some of you really beat yourselves into the ground.  You would never treat a horse the way you treat yourself.

Just as there are better ways to get a horse to run than beat it, there are better ways to motivate yourself than self-abuse.

If you could treat yourself with even a fraction of the unconditional love you bestow on a beloved pet or child, you would open up a whole new dimension of experience for yourselves.  A whole new way of doing things that would actually be far more productive than whipping and abusing yourself.

And it is a sad truth that any parent who is in the habit of chronic self-abuse will, sooner or later, behave abusively toward his child.  Perhaps not when the child is small, but as the child gets older.  It is how the cycle passes itself on, repeating down the generations.

Stop this now.

Tell the person in the mirror that he or she is loved.

Imagine loving yourself unconditionally.  What that might look like.  What that might feel like.

Please stop beating a dead horse.  Be kind to yourself.

Today we ask you to relax.

Relax.

Please, relax.

Feeling tense about things will not do you any good at all.

Tension and stress create blockage and paralysis.

If you want to be a useful person, the most useful thing you can do in this world is to be someone who helps people to relax and feel peaceful.

This means refusing to contribute to fear consciousness.  It means refusing to spread stories and beliefs that you know will increase fear and anxiety for people.

This doesn’t mean, bury your head in the sand and avoid problems.

It just means that it is impossible to solve any problem with real intelligence from a place of fear.

The anxious thoughts that rattle around your head are not intelligent.  Mostly, they are very stupid.  If you really tracked your fearful thoughts, you would see that 99% of them are totally wrong.  So that is not intelligent.  To be wrong 99% of the time is stupid.

That is why the first thing to do when you are anxious, is to relax.

You will never think clearly when you are anxious.

People who are chronically stressed and anxious are actually insane in their thinking.  You cannot trust their actions, or beliefs.  You should certainly never listen to someone who appears to be chronically stressed and anxious.  They are wrong about almost everything.

The most useful skill you can cultivate is that of relaxing at will, even under pressure.

Techniques such as meditation, breathing, yoga, and pressure on acupuncture points are all methods of calming anxiety at will.

Calm down.  Relax.

You will not think clearly if you are in a panic.  You will not think clearly if you are anxious.  You simply cannot trust your thoughts, when you are anxious.

The most useful skill you can cultivate is learning to relax at will, and to help others relax.

If people understood the value of deep relaxation, there would be far less physical and mental illness in your world.

Today we ask you to face your fears.

Many of you walk through life in a state of constant anxiety and terror.

What are other people saying or thinking about you?

What if you’re a failure?

What if something horrible happens to you, or your loved ones?

What if you are developing some awful disease?

What if you lose all your money, and wind up homeless in the street?

You each have your own particular menagerie of demons and fears.

These demons are almost always far worse in your mind, than they are in reality.

Whatever it is that terrifies you, whatever you are running from — face it.  Face it.

Face it, in your mind.  Open up the windows, turn on the lights, and expose those primal fears to the air and sunshine.

You will find that they shrink, when exposed to light.  They are revealed as rather shriveled, puny things — not the horrible demons they appear to be.

Really, they are nothing.

All fear is rooted in the fear of death, and the fear of pain.

Death is not a big deal.  If you really knew how blissful and wonderful it is to leave the physical body, you would have no fear of death.

Pain is more difficult.  But all pain is transitory.  There is no pain you will ever experience that is not temporary.  There is no pain that will last forever.  All pain, no matter how severe, is on its way to disappearing.  This is true for all pain and trauma.  All pain and trauma is temporary.

It is the mind that makes pain and trauma last beyond its measure, by obsessively thinking about pain and trauma that isn’t actually happening in reality.  That is what suffering is.  Suffering is thinking about past or future pain and trauma that isn’t actually happening right now.

And that is where all your fears and bogeymen and monsters in the closet live.

Almost all pain and trauma is imaginary.  It is not actually happening, outside of your mind.

The remainder of “real” pain is transitory.  It always passes with time.  And it is rarely as bad as one’s fears make it out to be.

So — it is good to make an inventory of your worst fears.  It exposes them to the light of consciousness.  That way, they will no longer run you subconsciously, and you will not live your life totally out of aversion to fear, as so many do.

Living in fear is a terrible way to live.  It is like refusing to use one of your arms because you’re afraid something bad might happen to it.  You have a perfectly good arm, but it dangles uselessly at your side — because of what is happening in your mind.

People who live in fear cut off so much of their power.

Today we ask that you believe that you deserve love.

Intellectually many of you think “Well, naturally, I deserve love.”

But on a deeper level, you do not believe this at all.  In fact, most of you believe, deep down, that you do not deserve love.

You were not born this way.  There is no baby or small child who believes: “I don’t deserve love.”

This is a toxic and false belief pattern passed down from adults to children.  When adults do not believe they deserve love, they automatically teach this to their children.

The idea that humans do not deserve love is intrinsic to many world religions.  The concept of “original sin” implies that man has failed God, and no longer deserves God’s love — not unconditionally, at any rate.  Man must work for divine love by living a morally pure, virtuous life.  This is true in eastern religion, where negative conditions in one’s current life are explained as being causally linked to misdeeds in past lives.  Here also, man has failed, and must lead a virtuous, morally pure life in order to escape the wheel of suffering.

All of this is false.  This is not to say that the religions do not have merit, but the concept of original sin and karma, as believed by countless people, is extremely destructive.

You don’t have to “work” for divine love.

You don’t have to prove your worth to God.

You don’t have to suffer for your sins.

Many of you have been taught that the idea of divine punishment s the only thing that brings order to the universe.  The virtuous are rewarded, and sinners are punished.  If such an order did not exist, then reality would be chaotic and meaningless.

But this is not so.

There is no Hell, except the Hell that people carry in their own minds.  They project that Hell out on to the Earth.  

People behave destructively because they believe they are unworthy of love.

If people believed they deserved unconditional love, they would not behave destructively.

They would no longer have anything to prove.

They would not hate themselves, and so hate others.

They would lose the concepts of hierarchy.  It is impossible to make yourself more worthy of love through achievements, status, wealth, fame, or dominance.  Therefore, all men are equal.

People who deeply love themselves perceive that every human they meet is equally worthy of love.  Knowing this, they do not behave abusively or destructively either to themselves, or others.

Really, this is what you are all here to learn.

All of you, in every moment.

How can you love yourself, and others, more deeply and unconditionally?

Can you believe, deep down, that you are wholly deserving of love, no matter what you have or haven’t done in this lifetime?

If you really understood this down to your core, all your suffering would cease.  You might experience pain, but you would not suffer.  

Today we ask that you create space in your lives.

Many of you have the experience of feeling stuck, or trapped.  You wish for more flow in your lives, but things feel a bit blocked.

Generally speaking, flow is something that requires encouragement.  You must create space for it.

Of course, in reality, flow is always happening.  Flow never stops.  The universe expands.   Everything always moves and changes.  Flow is your natural state.

But sometimes there is blockage.  This is like a stagnant pond.  It gets weedy and slimy.  The water cannot move.  Something is blocked.

One of two things can happen when there is blockage:

1.  You expend some energy to clear space, and remove the blockage, or —

2.  Pressure builds to an intolerable level.  Eventually a critical point is reached.

For people, this “critical point” is usually some sort of big crisis.  A major health crisis, a financial crisis, a relationship crisis, a life crisis.  One way or another, the blockage will be cleared; but the experience may be extremely painful.  

Sometimes physical death is the only way to clear blocked energy.  If you accept that physical death is not the end (and it is okay if you do not believe this), you may perceive that physical death is a very efficient solution for extreme energy blockage.

There are gentler, less painful ways to move stuck energy.

This comes from a strong desire to move blocked energy, followed by action.

One of the swiftest ways to move stuck energy is simply to clean house.

That can mean literally cleaning your house, and getting rid of accumulated clutter.  Doing so will always clear space and get energy moving.

Another form of cleaning house is taking action to make your mind and body healthier.

This means a healthier diet — both for the body, and the mind.  The mind ingests energy as surely as the body does.  Watch what you feed it.  

Establishing an exercise routine for the mind and body is cleaning house.  The body requires physical movement.  The mind requires meditative practices.

Cleaning your physical environment, your body, and your mind is a very direct way to clear space and get stuck energy moving.

Cleaning house is also related to what you do “for a living.”  How healthy do you feel in what you do?  How integrated are you?  What motivates you?

This applies to relationships.  You must be very honest about your true motivations for being in relationships with people, both personally and professionally.

If this all sounds overwhelming, it doesn’t have to be.  You are not asked to take on everything all at once.

Just pick one.

Maybe it’s cleaning your house.

Maybe it’s starting a regular physical exercise routine.

Maybe it’s starting a regular meditation practice.

If your house is clean and uncluttered, and you are exercising and meditating, and you still feel stuck, then you can look at other aspects of your life.

The amazing thing is that if you start just a little bit of flow, and keep at it, this will create a flow momentum.  More and more energy will start to move, like a frozen river thawing out after a long winter.

So if you are feeling really stuck, just pick one thing.  House, body, or mind.  But really commit and stick to it.

Flow creates flow.

Inertia creates inertia.

Sooner or later, even the biggest blockage will move.  But if you choose to consciously embrace flow and movement of your own free will, the unblocking process can be far less painful.

Today we ask that you learn to restrain your neurotic thoughts.

“Neurotic thought” may defined as thought that has nothing to do with what is happening, but is rooted in depressive, guilty projections about the past, and anxious, fearful projections about the future.

Without your depressive, guilty thinking about the past, and your anxious, fearful thinking about the future, who would you be?

You would be very present in your life.  You would be light-hearted.  You would be focused on what is right in front of you.  You would be much more relaxed.  And you would be much more “productive” — which is to say, you would be able to do what it is you wish you to do in a day.

Without all the constant neurotic mental chatter and internal drama, how open and refreshed you would feel.  Each day would be a clean slate — a new day in which to learn and grow and create.  You would be like a child again.

Really, a mind overrun by neurotic thought patterns is a bit like a computer overrun with viruses, or a car that has not been serviced in many years.  It is a bit buggy and clunky.

But there is nothing wrong with the computer, or the car.  If you cleaned up the computer, if you serviced the car, it would run very well.  

You can do the same thing with your mind.  

You can service it the way you would a car, or run an antiviral program on a computer.

This is called meditation.

Meditation is a conscious process by which you observe and lessen your neurotic thought patterns.  You do it by setting a timer for a short period — five minutes is sufficient, for a start — and during that period, you focus your attention on something.  It may be counting your breath, it may be a mantra, it may be a candle flame.  During that period, you make a sincere effort to stay focused on something.  When thoughts arise, you return to the object of your focus.

Doing this regularly is like running an antiviral program on a buggy brain.

It is quite necessary that you do this.  Your consciousness in an average day is exposed to a lot more viruses than your computer is.  These “viruses” are crazy, untrue thoughts and beliefs that you pick up from various sources — friends, family, coworkers, the internet, TV, etc.  

Even if you calm your mind and reduce neurotic thinking only by a little bit, you will notice an improvement in your clarity, presence, and ability to focus on immediate tasks.

It is your choice.  But please know that you do not have to be a neurotic mess, plagued by worries, fears, and obsessive thinking.  All that is asked is that you care for your mind the same way you would a computer, or a car.  One might argue that your mind is far more valuable.

Today we ask that you be kind to yourselves.

Most of you are terribly unkind to yourselves.   You really don’t treat yourselves well at all.

No matter how much you do, it is never enough.

No matter what you accomplish, it is never enough.

Always, you should be doing more.  Always, you are not good enough.

What happens when you look in the mirror?  How often are you truly happy with that person?

Always, you feel guilty about something.

Always, your shortcomings and failures gnaw away at you.

Really, you are your own worst enemy.

In this new time, you are asked to stop being so cruel to yourself.

You are doing enough.

You are good enough.

When you are cruel to yourself, it is inevitable that you will lash out at those you love.  No matter how much you may love your child, your partner, your friend — if you cannot love yourself, you will act unlovingly toward them.

You will act unlovingly toward the world.

That is why kindness to the self is not a luxury.  It is a necessity.

It is the only way to be a good partner, a good parent, a good friend.

And it is the only way to heal your world.

If you do not love yourself, it does not matter how virtuous you are to others, or how much of a martyr you may be.

He who cannot take care of himself, cannot take care of others.

So please, be kind to yourselves.  It is not a luxury.  It is a necessity.

Today we ask that you embrace new ways of being.

Many of you have the experience of feeling stuck or trapped in life.  Things are not moving the way you would like them to.

The reason this is happening now for so many people is because old ways of doing things no longer work.  They used to work, but now they no longer work.

The truth is, the old ways have not been working very well for quite some time.  But now they just don’t work at all.

This is true, of course, for humanity as a whole.

Systems that have been in place for a long time are breaking down.  The sense that old ways aren’t working is very acute in many quarters.  And for many, this feels terribly frightening.

There is nothing to fear.  Truly, there is nothing to fear.

All that is happening is that you are all being asked to embrace a new way of being.

The old way of being was defined by a sense of scarcity, competition, separation, divisiveness, tribalism, fragmentation, and fear.

The new way is defined by a sense of union, community, cooperation, altruism, borderlessness, abundance, and love.  

The old way is fossil fuel.

The new way is solar power.

For many of you, bringing in the new way is your work for this lifetime, no matter what it is you do.

So for those of you who experience a sense of stuckness, it is good to look at your life, and see where you are stuck in the old way of doing things.

The old ways are not going to work anymore.  They may have gotten you this far in life, but they are like a booster rocket that has used up all its fuel, and detached.  For you to continue onward, you must start operating on a new fuel system.

Even if you like being an individual, the new time calls you to be more connected to other beings.  This does not mean a loss of individuality.  But you are a part of this world, like it or not.

The new time asks you to be altruistic.  It asks that your actions be for the greater good.  This does not mean you must devote your life to a charitable organization.  But it does mean asking if your actions are creating harmony in the world.  Certainly you are asked to lessen or cease any harmful behavior — especially toward yourself.

The new time asks you to examine your motives for doing things.  Are you motivated by the desire to give and receive love?  Or are you motivated by fear, guilt, obligation, calculation, or greed?

The new way is purely good.  The new time is purely good.  Changes are coming, yes.  But there is nothing to fear.

If you feel stuck, try something new.  Try something that feels very loving and open-hearted.  Take a risk. Reach out.  It just might be enough to fire up your new engine.

Today we ask that you enter the new time with a whole heart.

What does this mean?

Life cannot be truly lived when you do things half-heartedly.

To do things half-heartedly is to do things partly out of true desire, but also partly out of fear, guilt, obligation, or calculation.

Any action undertaken out of fear, guilt, obligation, or calculation is, at best, a half-hearted action.

This means that you spend your life doing things that you do not really want to do.

Sadly, many people spend their lives this way.

They go to school half-heartedly.  They enter a profession half-heartedly.  They marry half-heartedly.  They have children half-heartedly.  Every day is spent in half-hearted action, in doing things that they do not really want to do.

No wonder so many people are depressed.  No wonder so many people need medication just to get out of bed in the morning.

At some point, usually in childhood, many of you bought into a completely false worldview.  This worldview says that “You can’t really do what you wish in life.  Life is all about doing things you don’t want to do.  That is what it means to be responsible.”

So — don’t expect to marry someone you truly love, don’t expect to do work you truly love, etc.  Life is a chore, life is a burden, life is gritting your teeth to get through things.  That is what it means to be responsible.  That is what grown-ups do.

What a horrible lie!

The reason children go to school half-heartedly is because most of the teachers who teach in schools are half-hearted about teaching.

Many of you perhaps have been fortunate enough to learn from a teacher who taught wholeheartedly.

Learning is not a chore, when the teacher is wholehearted.  A wholehearted teacher creates wholehearted students, who are genuinely engaged and motivated to learn.

Likewise, some of you may be fortunate enough to be in a wholehearted loving relationship.  The person you are with is the person you wish to be with, with all your heart.  As a result, the relationship is not a chore, but something you believe in.  This does not mean you won’t face challenges, but facing the challenges is not a chore.  It is something you want to do.

It is entirely possible to be wholehearted in your relationships, in your work, and in every single action you undertake.

If you want to know the “secret to success,” it is this.

Successful relationships are wholehearted relationships.

Successful work is wholehearted work.

Successful life is wholehearted life.

It is really this simple.

So, as you enter the New Year, ask yourself:

How do I do things half-heartedly?

How do I do things wholeheartedly?

Take inventory.  Really look at your life.  Where are you doing things half-heartedly?  Where are you doing things out of fear, guilt, obligation, or calculation?

When you find those things that you do half-heartedly, ask yourself, “Is there any way I can do these things wholeheartedly?  Can I become more present, committed, loving to the self, and loving to others in these actions?”

Wholehearted actions are defined by love.  They are acts of giving, and receiving love.  Please note that one must receive love in a wholehearted action; one must love the self.  Martyrdom is not wholehearted; it is always connected to guilt and obligation.

If it is truly impossible for you to do something wholeheartedly, then perhaps you should not do it at all.  Perhaps you need to put that energy into wholehearted actions that you can do.

Really be honest with yourself.

There is nothing responsible about spending your life doing things out of fear, guilt, obligation, or calculation.  People who live this way tend to be poor teachers, parents, friends, lovers, and workers.  You really aren’t helping anyone, living this way.