I wrote those words to you all back in February and they still stand true. You are Merlin and Merlin is you. It is just a matter of continually using the right formulas–the formulas that work for you– to find and open up your treasure chest of Magic. And just so you know, you were born with this treasure chest. Maybe you are now just finding the map or perhaps you’ve been sidelined a bit with some adventures and have rekindled your hunt for your buried treasure. No matter what your circumstance may be, these tools I am sharing will help you to find that buried treasure.  It just takes a little practice and a little patience. I will give you the shovel. It is simply up to you to pick it up and break ground.

The technique I present to you here is a meditation based on the Buddhist meditation called vipissana. It is all about the amazing art of being present with whatever arises.  What I share with you I call B.L.I.S.S. meditation.  Here I will break it down for you:

1. Breathe
2. Look
3. Inside
4. See
5. Separate

Simple. Straight forward. Direct to the point. And you may ask, what IS the point? The point, the bottom line, is to get to #5 and see that you are SEPARATE from all that is arising, whether it be a thought or an emotion. Thoughts and emotions come and go with the wind. The trouble comes when we follow their track.

So  find yourself a comfortable place where you will not be disturbed. Close your eyes. Breathe, just normally. Focus on your breathe as long as you can. Be patient. Even if you can only focus on a half of a breath; that is perfect. When something pulls you away from your breathe then Look Inside. This means simply to look at what comes or is coming up. There will be thoughts or perhaps emotions that will arise.

See these thoughts or emotions. You can perhaps see the words themselves. Or if it is an emotion, label it. For example, if it is sadness, say to your self “sadness”. Observe everything in this way. And as you do this labeling and observing, it will become magically Separate from you. When you become the observer, that thought or emotion is no longer felt as to be you or part of you. Once it is all separate, then comes the Magic. All of this can happen in a matter of seconds. As you arrive at the bottom line of becoming Separate from what you are seeing or observing, then go back to the first step which is to Breathe and focus on your breathe. You have come full circle in the process.

BREATHE –> LOOK INSIDE –> SEE –> SEPARATE

The  minute you begin to honor and observe that which has arisen, it will fall away and dissolve into that which it came from. And when you continually do that, you will begin to see glimpses of your inner magic; your treasure chest. This practice will help to unveil your personal alchemy.

Ever find yourself on a treadmill in your head, running the same thought over and over and over again? If you feel yourself caught in this trap, take in a deep Breathe, Look Inside, and See the thought. This action will then magically Separate you from it so you can jump off of the treadmill. It relieves the overwhelm, the distraction from the Now. And in the Now is the only place we will ever discover our Magic. This tool can be used anywhere anytime to bring you back to focus and back to life.

If you practice this BLISS meditation diligently, you will uncover your inner magician more and more. It takes persistence and patience to dust off that Magic Wand of yours. But isn’t it worth it???

Did you know that we are all innately great multitaskers? It certainly is apparent to me, as I can be feeding my dogs, listening to the radio, talking to a friend, and while all this is  going on, I can be listening to and hearing clearly that little voice in my head telling me all kinds of stuff.  Yeah, you know about that “stuff”.

It’s really a game ya know. But who’s gonna win? Unfortunately, some of us are not into this competition and just roll over and allow the onslaught. I seem to have an unending fascination with this topic as seen in my  January 4th post, but bear with me as I feel this is truly a topic worth exploring!

So what is that little voice really all about? What the heck is that bully up to? You see, it really thinks it is trying to protect us; to keep us safe. And it, being the ego,  is trying to protect itself too. Quite the dichotomy.

So I’ll be bold here and share with you one of the things my little voice really enjoys trying to do with me (I am guessing that it enjoys it because sometimes it can do it so well…).  It so often tricks me into playing small and into not seeing my greatness by telling me how much better everyone else is, how I just can’t do it, and how I will surely fail. What a mouthful!

And when and where did all those thoughts of smallness and incompetence originate? I love that question. I have my theories, some more esoteric than others, but the bottom line is that the voices are a present factor and need to be dealt with, or I will become a six foot tall woman playing life as if I were six inches tall. And I have decided that that is just not a road I will traverse.

As I said, who knows the origin of these less than positive thoughts. But one thing is very clear. They  can be an ongoing block to our connecting with our greatness. Our inner landscape can at times be more treacherous than anything we see in our external landscape. What continues to make it even more interesting is all of the lovely emotions that seem to partner up with the voice.  So what’s a person to do?

Well, below I share with you a couple of little tricks I have discovered in dealing with my not-so-friendly-friend in my head. Perhaps one or two may resonate with you or perhaps you can share your own techniques. Each one is a different approach and some may be more powerful for you than others.

1. So let’s say the bully just  teased you with, “Forget that! You could NEVER do that!” Close your eyes, take three or four deep breaths, and fully hear that statement. Recognize it. Acknowledge it.  Then label it. Perhaps you could call it something as simple as FEAR  or INSECURITY. Whatever label works best for you. The minute you label it, it becomes something outside of yourself and looses its charge. Acknowledge it again and accept it by saying, “I accept that I have this fear”.  Accepting it helps it dissolve as you are no longer pushing it away as resistance can make it grow. Take the time to honor it.  Recognize and acknowledge the feelings that are coming up too. They too can be diffused in this way as well.
2. Be polite to the voice but firm and simply say, “Thank you for sharing”. You are the boss anyway, right? (I must give a nod to T. Harv Eker for that one)
3. Perhaps the bully’s words are indeed signaling to you that there is something deeper going on. So take a pen and paper in hand and write out the words it gave you. Then just do some free association writing. This will get all of that “stuff” out of your head so you can now go forward with a clear focus.
4. Play a game with the silly statement the bully flung out at you. Use affirmations to put it out of its misery. First think of the opposite of what it told you. For example, if it told you , “You are a failure”, the contrary could be “I am a success”. Take out your trusty pen and paper again and make two columns. In the left-hand column write out the positive affirmation of “I am a success”. In the right-hand column write what is still coming up for you contrary to that. Perhaps what comes up from hearing the positive is a denial of it and looks like, “No! I can’t do anything right!” and you put that in the right-hand column. But just keep on writing out your positive statement in the left hand column until you no longer hear a negative response and no longer need to write anything in the right-hand column. Once you have neutralized the enemy, you can just continue penning out the positive. You win!
5. Hold the thought that anything that comes into your mind that is negative and does not speak to the Truth of You and your greatness is simply a lie. Choose in that moment to not believe it since it is a lie, and focus on the positive and what is the Truth.
6. When all else fails, just do what a very dear friend of mine does. Just stand up to that bully voice and its nasty little words and say, “JUST SHUT UP!!!!”

No matter how we deal with that voice, the bottom line is that we must find a way to not allow it to shroud the beauty and the power that is us, our True Selves. We are all destined for greatness. We are all designed for greatness. It’s just that our inner voices have their own agenda…

So there you are, just zipping along on your road of bliss, and suddenly this boulder falls out of the sky right at your feet and you are covered by the dust of the impact. This is sometimes the way I see a sudden rise of an emotion; triggered by a thought, a word from another, or even a recalling of a past, present, or future incident.  These emotions of ours are so powerful, they can change the way we see our most present world.

But I will share with you a trick that I discovered long ago, from a dear friend in Florida. It is totally fine that that boulder has fallen from the sky and landed at your feet (sometimes even feeling as though it has landed on your head…). It is there for a reason; to serve, to teach, to clear, to bring love.  And the suddenness of it all never ceases to amaze me. So it is my belief that we should be prepared. Be ready to just WATCH and LOOK and LISTEN to what it is telling us. What does it feel like? Is it pain, sorrow, grief, guilt, shame, anger, sadness? Do you see it as a color? Where in your body do you feel it? The minute we begin to honor that which has arisen, it will fall away and dissolve into that which it came from. It is the amazing art of being present with whatever arises. That is the cornerstone of vipissana meditation, and for me has helped to create an understanding of something that for so many years has made no sense. It seems that so many of us are wandering through our lives thinking we are reacting to what is in front of us when, often times, we are reacting to that which we feel arising within us. This can then lead to unfortunate mistakes in relationships, spoken untruths, and choices that arise from a lack of understanding of what is really going on for us as we project what is innocently coming up within onto the innocent bystander without.

Emotions can blanket us or they can free us. Taking time to respect them and study them and know them intimately has become an essential practice in my life.  And I will say that this understanding has led to a knowing  of freedom and love that seems so completely necessary for me to fully live this incredible life I have been gifted. Oh, it is not always easy, and sometimes the road seems to be quite treacherous. But loving the pain and whatever arises allows me to see the delightful, precious gemstones speckling my glorious path.  And the more I observe the arisings, the more clearly I can see the jewels.