"The best way to predict the future is to create it." Depending on which website you visit, this quote is attributed to either Abraham Lincoln, Peter Drucker, or Alan Kay. No matter the source, those wise words are important in understanding the innate power you have to influence personal events — and the world in which you live — instead of being a victim to circumstances.

That's not to say that the future cannot and should not be predicted, for without having an inkling of where we are headed, how would we ever know we need to shift to the course that will lead us to fulfilling the roles we came here to serve?

In this article I suggest the best ways to become aware of probable futures (and it doesn't even require hiring a psychic in order to become aware of what you're creating) and the most powerful ways to then draw to yourself the desired probable realities.

Be Your Own Psychic

There are two very effective techniques anyone can use to access their own inner wisdom to understand where they headed and how they can guide themselves toward their life's purpose: Read the rest of this entry »

Some of the cable channels are counting down Christmas every day with holiday movies. How do I know this? Because they're on my mother's television screen every day, all day, and it doesn't matter if she's already seen them. She enjoys these programs since they represent the more meaningful times she experienced as a young mother when her children still lived at home and we had the typical happy Christmas celebrations.

Now that my father is gone my elderly mother rarely lives in the moment. Though I wish for and encourage her to live a more vibrant life, this is how she is consciously choosing happiness. And according to her, all the good that she has to look forward to has already happened in the past.

To relive certain memories is a normal process of aging, especially for those who have lost their lifelong companions. But if you find your present and future life meaningless, foreboding, or uncertain, it might be helpful to consider that your everyday patterns which are stuck in the past — thoughts, behaviors, conversations — are keeping you from experiencing joy in the moment and creating a more purposeful and conscious future. Read the rest of this entry »

An increasingly common surgical procedure for repairing spinal fractures might not be all it's cracked up to be–in fact, the surgery had the same effect on patient's pain as a placebo, two studies report in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The technique, called vertebroplasty, involves injecting medical cement into a fractured spine bone to strengthen it. More than 38,000 such procedures are done in the United States every year and the number has been [increasing] rapidly, nearly doubling from 2001 to 2005 [Reuters]. But the new studies showed that the procedure alleviated pain about the same amount as a placebo "surgery," in which the physicians tapped on the spine and piped in the smell of cement to make groggy volunteer subjects believe they were receiving the real thing.

Researchers found that 36 volunteers who received sham surgery did just as well as 35 who got the real operation. A separate test, of 131 people at 11 medical centers, … also found that sham surgery produced a comparable degree of pain reduction and movement [Reuters]. Read the rest of this entry »

Pharmaceutical giants are at a loss to understand why placebos increasingly outperform promising new drugs in clinical trials. To the consternation of these big pharma companies, the number of drugs approved by the FDA and put on the market has been steadily decreasing over the years due to their inability to surpass the effectiveness of placebos.

And some longstanding products, such as Prozac and other antidepressants that significantly bolstered the profits of pharmaceuticals in the '80s and '90s, are waning against placebos in routine followup testing. In fact, if these same drugs weren't on the market already, many of them wouldn't even be approved considering their performance against placebos. (In order to gain approval by the FDA, the product must twice beat the placebo in a minimum of two verified trials.)

Drug developers believe the reason for the slide in pharmaceutical market approval is that the placebo is somehow getting stronger. Read the rest of this entry »

No matter your religion or spiritual beliefs, even if you're atheist, contemplating the questions of the universe — whether they be religious, scientific, or psychological — can enhance brain function. Practices such as meditation, chanting mantras, and intense prayer can provide significantly positive effects on cognition, relaxation, and psychological health.

According to a new book by Andrew Newberg, MD and Mark Robert Waldman called "How God Changes Your Brain,"  such practices both increase activity in the frontal lobe, which "creates and integrates all of your ideas about God," and diminishes activity in the amygdala, the region responsible for emotions that can generate fearful images of a frightening and punitive God and suppress the frontal lobe's ability to logically think about God.
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My young daughter has just joined the Real World…she now has one of those jobs from hell. And it's really too bad. She was uber-excited when she found out she was hired for the job. How can a "Dream-job Come True" turn into "Night From the Living Dead" so quickly?

And my husband jokes that the two best days on the job are the first day and the last day. It's unfortunate he lives with this belief about having a career, but there are countless other people who most likely feel the same way because this is the reality they live with.

Those who are pretty far along on their soul's journeys have come to the understanding that with certain challenges come great (and sometimes painful) learning lessons, and with these lessons come spiritual growth. The amount of time we spend immersed in these lessons depends on the everyday choices we make about who we are, who we wish to become, and our awareness about our own areas of needed growth.
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Recent headlines in the news question the effectiveness of 'natural' supplements and other alternative therapies. But are alternative remedies really helpful or are we just wasting our money? The answer is 'yes' and 'no' at the same time.

'Yes' in that many herbs, supplements, and alternative therapies may work as intended because of appropriate application and dosage, purity and quality of substance, considering other existing physical conditions, care when mixing with other ingested substances, and especially one's state of mind.

'No' in that many herbs, supplements, and alternative therapies don't work as intended because of inappropriate application and dosage, impurity and low quality of substance, not considering other existing physical conditions, improper mixture with other ingested substances, and especially one's state of mind.
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According to Fabrizio Benedetti, Professor at the University of Turin Medical School in Italy, saline has been shown to control pain that was previously controlled by morphine. Only the patients believed they were still receiving morphine. In fact, it was unknowingly replaced with saline, yet their pain was still controlled in the same way.

When the patients received an agent, naloxone, that blocked the pain-killing effects of morphine while they were only receiving saline, their pain relief disappeared.

He's also demonstrated the placebo phenomenon at work on Parkinson's patients who received saline treatments instead of their usual Parkinson's medication. Their tremors and muscle stiffness were reduced on the saline placebo, and the saline recipients' brain neurons were seen in brain scans to react the same as with regularly prescribed medication. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you feel like you're moving one step forward then two steps back? Or is it sideways? The scene changes but it's the same old players, themes, and conflicts. Does it feel like you've been doing this for years?

Maybe you imagine you're doing all the right things to finally get you to that point of being in your new job, having more money, moving to the home of your dreams, or having that ultimate relationship.

You try to stay positive…you visualize your goals, and you even have pictures or statements of what you want pinned to your cubicle wall.

After months or even years of working toward your dream you notice…nothing has happened. Instead, you continue to experience one unpleasant and stressful situation after another. "Why does this keep happening to me?!" you ask yourself. You analyze then over-analyze where you're going and how you're going to get there. And in these moments you find yourself saying,  "Am I ever going to get there?"
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The other day I was driving down the road when I saw a bumper sticker on the car in front of me that read:

I love that bumper sticker, because it perfectly captures the essence of one of the most important principles for living life in the divine flow: You must let go of what you "think" you know.

One of the most common ways that we interfere with the flow is thinking that we know best, and overruling the divine guidance that we are continually receiving through various sources . . . such as our own intuitive sense.  Read the rest of this entry »