Your Year of Miracles

Tag: Miracle Zone

  • The Miracle of Laughter

    The Miracle of Laughter

    Today’s Miracle Moment Is About the Miracle of Laughter…

    As we’ve been making these Miracle Moments for you, we’ve had so many laughs in the process. So, we decided to create a Miracle Moment especially for you on the miracle of laughter because we want you to join us in laughing!

    There’s a lot of research and evidence about the power of laughter to heal.

    Laughter creates endorphins, the feel-good chemicals that help us feel great after a good laugh.

    Laughter is a big pattern interrupter that takes you out of your old stories that clamp you down and keep you in a rut.

    Laughter absolutely confuses the mind as it’s hard to think when you’re laughing; this opens up your energy field for joy to come through. So, when you can, just laugh at yourself, laugh at your thoughts, laugh at how seriously you’re taking things.

    Why get caught up in the moment with such intensity when you can often laugh it off and recognize that most things work out in the end anyway?

    There’s a form of yoga called laughter yoga that originated in India. The last time I (Marci) travelled to India, we were riding in a boat along the sacred Ganges river at 6:30 a.m. All of a sudden, we heard roaring laughter from a big group of people bathing in this holy river. We boated over to them to see what they were doing and they invited us to join them in laughter yoga.

    We’ve since taken a few laughter yoga classes, and once the laughter gets started, you can’t help but join in.

    It’s great to talk about laughter, but it’s much better to do it! So please join us in about 20 seconds of laughter for no reason.

    If you feel silly doing it, even more reason to do it. Why pass up an opportunity for a good laugh? After laughing for about 20 seconds, notice how you feel in your body. That’s the endorphin high.

    We’ll close today with a Jewish proverb …
    “As soap is to the body, so laughter is to the soul.”

    So, let’s clean our souls. Let’s scrub them down with some good yummy laughter.

    We’d love to hear your thoughts, feelings, and experiences of practicing this. Please share with us in the comments section below.

  • Miracles We Receive Through Giving

    Miracles We Receive Through Giving

    Today’s Miracle Moment Is About the Miracles We Receive Through Giving.

    Great miracles can come into our lives through the power of giving.

    Many spiritual traditions have shared the power of giving in order to free ourselves from suffering and to experience greater happiness.

    In Sanskrit, there’s a tradition of selfless service called “seva,” which means giving as an act of devotion to the Divine. You can give seva through “Karma Yoga,” which is giving through acts of service, like cooking for others or cleaning a common space. Another way that you can give selfless service is through your attention — you can listen to someone else’s needs or offer them your support.

    The Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Han, has told a story about a vegetable in Vietnam called “he” (pronounced “hey”). It looks like a scallion and it is part of the onion family. In order for these vegetables to grow, you need to cut them at the base of the stalk. The more you cut them, the bigger they grow — and the less you cut them, the less they grow. Thich Nhat Han says that it’s the same for the practice of giving:

    The more you give, the more you grow, and the richer you become in happiness and well-being.

    It’s also been scientifically proven that giving creates more happiness. Researchers with the Science of Generosity Initiative did a study on a group of US adults to find out what changes they experienced in life after giving.

    The study showed that acts of generosity resulted in more happiness, good health, a sense of purpose and personal growth.

    And it’s not just about the act of giving — it’s about our intention and energy, too. If we give with an expectation of receiving, or with any resentment, it’s dropping the vibrational frequency of our gift. When we do this, we won’t experience the joy and abundance that comes with true giving from the heart.

    When we give from a place of love and generosity, that’s what comes back to us.

    It shifts us out of feeling scarcity into connecting with the abundance of the Universe and infinite possibilities — all of which we’re meant to be experiencing in this life.

    This week, we invite you to find ways to give to those around you. Maybe it’s giving your presence to someone and listening to them in a deep way. Maybe it’s giving a compliment or encouragement. Maybe it’s giving to your community. All that matters is that your giving comes from your heart.

    Miracles We Receive Through Giving

    Please leave a comment below and let us know how you’ll give to others this week.

  • Miraculous Power of Do-Overs

    Miraculous Power of Do-Overs

    Today’s Miracle Moment is About the Miraculous Power of Do-Overs…

    We’ve all had those days where maybe we didn’t get enough sleep, work is stressful, or we’re exhausted from trying to get a huge to-do list done. We might feel crabby and aggravated at everything (and everyone) and find ourselves snapping at a partner, roommate or close family member.

    In those moments, wouldn’t it be great if you could just have a “do-over”?

    The great news is that you can!

    This is something that Marci and her husband Sergio have practiced many times over the years and they credit with saving them from getting into pointless squabbles or arguments. If they find themselves being crabby with each other, they’ll stop mid-conversation and say, “Let’s have a do-over.” They’ll rewind and start the conversation over, choosing a different way to respond. It’s a practical and yet powerful way to pattern interrupt and get back on the right foot.

    Here’s a recent example: Sergio and Marci are working with contractors on remodeling their house. One day, Sergio asked Marci to send the contractors photographs of some electrical wires that needed to be fixed. This day happened to be one of those stressful, exhausting days, and when Sergio asked Marci later if she’d sent the photographs yet, she snapped and got defensive. In that moment, Marci realized she needed a do-over. So, she asked Sergio for a do-over and then literally stepped out of the room and walked back in. Sergio asked her the question again and this time, she replied, “I’m so sorry — I haven’t sent them yet. Here, let me do that right now.” The situation was resolved and no squabble was needed.

    This present moment is always an opportunity for a do-over and to begin again.

    Every day and in every moment we all have the opportunity for do-overs — whether that’s in relationships or in our own daily life.

    We’re often carrying emotions, thoughts, and feelings from the past into the present moment. Sometimes we’re even carrying baggage around from previous days, weeks, or months. We can end up making assumptions or getting upset, and then we give responses to circumstances that aren’t really appropriate.

    If you find yourself playing out a pattern that isn’t serving you, you can always pause, reset, and choose to have a do-over.

    There’s always a creative solution available and all you have to do is open up to it.

    This week, we invite you to practice doing some do-overs in your life. You might want to do over a way of being, a habit that’s not serving you, or a conversation with a loved one that starts to go in an unnecessary direction.

    This practice can help you bring more awareness into your daily life, knowing you always have the option to choose something even better.

    Do Overs

    Let us know in the comments how it goes practicing the miraculous power of do-overs.

  • You Are Enough

    You Are Enough

    Today’s Miracle Moment is about how you are enough…

    So many of us struggle with believing that we are enough. We question if we’re good enough to go for our big goals, lovable enough to have the relationships we want, or capable enough to take a big leap of faith. In practically any area of life, we question our enoughness. Why is that? 

    For one thing, our culture is constantly pushing the idea that we’re not enough. We receive messages from advertising, entertainment, and even social media that leave us feeling we need to look different, dress different, or be different. Or if we purchase the latest fancy phone or new car, that we’ll be enough then.

    If you’re a woman, chances are that you struggle with this even more than men. A study at Cornell University showed that men overestimate their abilities and performance, while women underestimate both. Meanwhile, in the study, their actual abilities and performance didn’t differ.

    Women also struggle more frequently with feeling like an imposter. Another report showed that men apply for a job or promotion when they meet only 60% of the qualifications. However, women apply only if they meet 100% of them. 

    If we don’t actually believe we’re enough, we can fall into a very risky trap called The Perfectionist Trap. This usually leads to behaviors like being hypercritical of ourselves and others and beating ourselves up. This can leave us feeling completely stressed and overwhelmed.

    Here’s the truth: 

    You are MORE than enough. In fact, it’s been said that the probability of your being born is about one in 400 trillion. 

    Your existence is a complete miracle by mathematical measures. 

    When you start feeling like you aren’t enough, try the following visualization and breathing practice: 

    1. Imagine that there’s a channel running through you (because there is), and a funnel coming out the top of your head (because there is). That funnel connects with the entire universe!
    2. Feel a connection between the planetary circulation that’s constantly influencing the cells in your body and the star dust between the constellations out beyond our own planet system. Know that billions of bits of information are bombarding you every millisecond in the form of consciousness that is here for your interpretation. When you come into your body and open up all of this information, you’ll start to be able to operate as the filtering system that you’re designed to be.
    3. Take a big belly breath, inhale into the upper lobes of your lungs, inhale bigger than your body, and exhale in every direction. Then do it again. Inhale into your belly, inhale up into your chest, inhale bigger than your body, and exhale in every direction. 

    As you repeatedly take these deep breaths, you’re activating these very energies of higher consciousness.

    When you activate these energies in your body, you’ll find yourself naturally feeling that you are truly enough. You’ll find yourself leaning in and asking for what you need, rather than waiting for someone else to fulfill your dream for you. You’ll express what you think, rather than hesitating. You’ll have more courage to take the risk, rather than holding back. 

    There’s nothing that you are not, and you’re here to express and play in the beautiful delight of your wholeness.

    Let’s celebrate that instead of ever questioning again if we’re enough!

    “Treat yourself as if you already are enough. Walk as if you are enough. Eat as if you are enough. See, look, listen as if you are enough. Because it’s true.” – Geneen Roth

    Please leave us a comment sharing something you love and appreciate about your body.

  • How to Be Resilient in Uncertain Times

    How to Be Resilient in Uncertain Times

    Today’s Miracle Moment is about how to be resilient in uncertain times…

    We’re living in some of the most uncertain times in our lifetime. We can look around the world and see how people are experiencing extreme difficulties, traumatic events and adversities. This is a time where it’s incredibly important to find your inner resilience. 

    Nature is an incredible example to us of how to be resilient. Nature has the ability to bounce back constantly and to create new life. We can see this in all of the seasons, in weather patterns, and in the cycle of life. 

    One great example of resilience in nature is the emperor penguins. You might have seen the documentary about them years ago, March of the Penguins. 

    Year after year, adult emperor penguins walk over 60 miles in the icy, cold conditions of the arctic to breed. The female lays one egg and rolls it towards the male penguin, who then has the job of keeping the egg warm for the next four months until the egg hatches. The female penguins then leave the colony, and go out searching for food, and the males fast for four months as they keep the egg warm. By the time the female returns, the male has lost nearly half their body mass.

    Between the 60-mile trek in the drastic conditions of the Arctic and the four months of fasting, emperor penguins are facing extreme conditions, year after year, to keep their species going! 

    Even though it requires so much resilience for them to do so, the emperor penguins continue to make this trek. Why? Because their true nature calls them to do so. 

    Maybe we don’t have to lose half of our body weight or walk 60 miles in the Arctic to follow our true path, but we do have to face challenges and cultural pressures. We have to find a deeper reservoir of resilience within ourselves to keep moving toward our true path and our goals.

    If we can find a sense of passion and purpose underneath our goals, we can tap into reservoirs of resilience. 

    With the male penguin, breeding is so important to the perpetuation of the species. What if, like the male penguin, there was a feeling inside of you that was so important to nurture and cultivate in the same way?  

    This could be a feeling of an open heart, joy, adventure, or curiosity. As long as you keep that feeling alive and nurture it like the penguin nurtures the egg, then everything that comes your way will be worth it.

    Through connecting with the feeling state that’s most important to you to cultivate, you can find resilience and a strengthened ability to keep showing up to life. 

    You can also remember that there are infinite possibilities in each moment. If one door closes, there are an infinite number of options and possibilities available in this now. Continue to build your inner resilience that isn’t dependent on outside circumstances, and you will be able to create new possibilities and opportunities in your life.

    “Like tiny seeds with potent power to push through tough ground and become mighty trees, we hold innate reserves of unimaginable strength. We are resilient.” – Catherine DeVrye

    Please leave us a comment and let us know how you’re creating your inner resilience.

  • Love Your Body Now, Not Later

    Love Your Body Now, Not Later

    Today’s Miracle Moment is about loving your body now, not later…

    Your body is truly a miracle! Do you feel that? 

    Or do you find yourself judging your body and thinking it needs to change before you love it? 

    There’s nothing wrong with wanting to feel healthy and energized. In fact, that’s a wonderful thing! But because of the messaging in our culture, we can spend our whole lives thinking that our bodies need to change. We believe our bodies aren’t good enough as they are, or that one part is too big or another is too small. 

    As a result, we can miss out on many of the incredible gifts that our bodies offer us. 

    Our subtle bodies have incredible energy centers that have the power to calm our minds in a way that our minds can’t do alone. 

    These energy centers filter all of the impulses that are coming from the universe to you. Dreams and desires can rise up through your heart, through your manifesting ability, and into your conscious awareness. They allow us to elevate our consciousness and connect with our true spiritual nature. 

    Here’s a practice to do when you find yourself in a state of judgment about your body:

    • Drop down from your head and start taking deep breaths in your belly.
    • Squeeze your shoulder blades together and drop them down. This will help you to anchor yourself right in the center of your body around your heart space. This also stabilizes the mind and allows it to pay attention to what’s happening inside the body.
    • Take deep, slow belly breaths low in the abdomen below the navel.
    • Slowly count to 10 and inhale.
    • Then count to 12 or 14 and exhale even more slowly.

    This breathing process allows for so much transformation to happen. Your nervous system can start to anchor itself and pay attention to what’s happening in the body. When our awareness is on what’s happening in the body, we can stay out of our heads, the place where judgments originate.  

    We then become present with life instead of making judgements about how things could be better or different, or should be better or different than they actually are. 

    You are beautiful and perfect as you are. 

    Simply by getting back into the body, you can start to experience the amazingness of what your body truly is.

    “And I said to my body softly, ‘I want to be your friend.’ It took a long breath and replied, ‘I have been waiting my whole life for this.’”– Nayyirah Waheed

    Please leave us a comment sharing something you love and appreciate about your body.

  • How to Escape the Approval Seeking Trap

    How to Escape the Approval Seeking Trap

    [et_pb_section admin_label=”section”]
    [et_pb_row admin_label=”row”]
    [et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”]

    Today’s Miracle Moment is about how to escape the approval-seeking trap…

    We’ve all experienced wanting to be accepted by other people and to get their approval. While this is a normal feeling, trying to get this kind of external validation can leave us feeling disempowered–that’s the price of being caught in the approval-seeking trap!

    To free yourself from the approval-seeking trap, start by becoming aware of any of your approval-seeking patterns. Ask yourself the following questions: 

    • Do you follow your heart, or do you follow the voices of others instead?
    • Are you able to say no and set healthy boundaries in your relationships? Or do you overstep your preferences to please others?
    • Do you view rejection as “God’s protection” (i.e., the universe guiding you to something better suited for you)? Or do you take rejection personally? 

    To escape the approval-seeking trap, we need to build new patterns of self-love and self-celebration. 

    Maintaining healthy self-esteem requires learning to fill ourselves up from the inside out. We can do this through validating, acknowledging, and loving ourselves completely and unconditionally. Most people don’t do this, and it just needs a little practice.

    Here’s an exercise you can do to start building the circuitry of self-validation and celebration: 

    1. When you act or speak in a way that makes you feel good about yourself, stop and acknowledge it.
    2. Reward yourself with praise and joy.
    3. You can tap your heart or do a little internal victory dance. The important thing is that you acknowledge yourself. 

    You can also do this any time you experience a “win” in your life. For example: getting a new job, doing an act of self-care, or working towards a creative goal. Take a moment to celebrate your win!

    Self-acknowledgement helps us to shift from looking outside of ourselves for approval to validating ourselves instead. 

    When we’re celebrating ourselves, we’re supporting our brain chemistry to experience happiness, joy, and fulfillment in life. The more that we build these circuits, the more that we can stay in an ongoing state of self-love. You can start simply by celebrating yourself in small baby steps each day.

    “Stop looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment for validation or security or love. You have a treasure within that is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.” – Eckhart Tolle

    Please leave us a comment below and share the ways you can celebrate yourself.

    [/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column]
    [/et_pb_row]
    [/et_pb_section]

  • Let It Be Easy

    Let It Be Easy

    Today’s Miracle Moment Is About How to Let It Be Easy…

    Do you ever feel like life is full of struggle, and you wonder if it’s possible for life to just be easy? In today’s Miracle Moment we learn about the art of letting it be easy from a very special creature that I (Marci) came across on my recent trip to Maui, Hawaii… the sea turtle!

    On Maui, you’ll often see the sea turtles’ heads bobbing in the water as they swim across the ocean. You can also find the sea turtles on the shore before sunset, when they come to rest after swimming all day long. And if you’re lucky enough, you might even see them swimming right next to you in the water, which I did a few times one day. The next day, someone gave me a gift of a little 3D magnet with a sea turtle on it. 

    Knowing that every animal carries a specific medicine and message for us, I was delighted to find out the special medicine of the sea turtle: 

    Turtle Medicine says: “Let it be easy. Struggle is not required.”

    Is there a particular area where you seem to encounter struggle again and again–perhaps in your relationships, finances, living situation, or job? Most of us have developed certain specific patterns of struggle in our bodies and minds.

    To shift this pattern of struggle, here’s a simple practice you can experiment with:

    • When you’re in the middle of a situation that feels like a struggle, practice releasing the muscle tension that you’re experiencing in that moment.
    • Breathe up and down your body and imagine that you’re opening your chest, opening your belly, and opening your solar plexus.
    • Then take a big belly breath and when you exhale, drop the breath straight down into the earth, as if there were a channel of energy that’s connecting you to the Earth. 

    This breathing exercise is powerful because it connects you to the Earth’s frequencies. The Earth’s energies are in “ease” rather than “struggle.” That’s what we want more of in our lives. 

    We can also look at how the sea turtles model “letting it be easy.” 

    Turtles go slow. They aren’t in a rush. Like the turtles, we can trust that no matter what, we’ll get where we need to be in perfect timing. 

    Turtles go with the flow. The ocean current is supporting them so they don’t have to work as hard. 

    We can go with the flow by listening to ourselves and honoring our intuition, which is our divine compass that can guide us and keep us in the flow of life. 

    And, turtles are great at following their internal rhythms. They swim during the day, and then when they need to, they rest on the shore. So if you need permission to rest and follow your internal rhythm, look to the turtles.

     “Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is relax.” – Mark Black

    Please leave a comment and let us know which of these practices you’ll experiment with to help you “let it be easy.” We look forward to hearing from you!

  • Be Willing to Fail

    Be Willing to Fail

    Today’s Miracle Moment Is About How Being Willing to Fail Can Get You in the Miracle Zone…

    Often we think of failure as the last thing we want to experience. The word failure can bring up feelings of shame, missed opportunities, and loss. 

    We’re here to tell you embracing failure is exactly what can get you in the Miracle Zone!

    One thing that some of the most successful people have in common is that they’ve been willing to fail along the way. 

    For example, we’re all familiar with the Harry Potter series. These bestselling books have sold 500 million copies and they’ve been made into Hollywood blockbusters. The author of these books, JK Rowling, had to go through a lot of failure without knowing that any of this success would ever happen. 

    Back in 1994, J.K. Rowling was a single, struggling mom who’d just gotten a divorce and was on government aid in order to make ends meet and feed her baby. When she was trying to get a publisher for her book, Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone, she had to manually type out each version on an old-school typewriter to send to publishers because she couldn’t afford the cost of a computer or of photocopying it. 

    Once she started putting her book out to publishers, it was rejected dozens of times. 

    Finally, a small publishing company gave it a second chance after the CEO’s young daughter read it and loved it. Today, J.K. Rowling characters and stories are embedded in our pop culture and beloved around the world. She has a net worth of $1 billion dollars and she has made many charitable donations and used her success for the greater good.

    Two other examples of successful people who have been willing to fail along the way are the creators of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books and Marci’s co-authors, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. As they were trying to get their first Chicken Soup for the Soul book published, Jack and Mark were turned down by 143 publishers. But they kept going because they knew this book had to be out there. 

    Because they persisted and didn’t give up, they made it to the 144th publisher, and that’s who took a chance to publish the book. 

    The rest is history.

    JK Rowling, Jack Canfield, and Mark Victor Hansen each experienced failure along the way without knowing what could possibly ever happen. They were successful because they viewed failure not as an end-point, but just one stop on the path towards their success. 

    Here’s a physical practice you can do to support you to keep going — even when you hit roadblocks or failures along the way: 

    Imagine the feeling you experience in your body when you’re inspired. This is usually an uplifting feeling. 

    Now, imagine the feeling you get when you feel shut down or hit a roadblock. In this case, you might feel a pit in your stomach and a heaviness. Pay attention to how that feels. 

    The next time you experience this pit-in-your-stomach heavy feeling, allow yourself to feel the feeling instead of pushing it away or running from it. By sitting and breathing with it, you will allow it to disperse and dissipate.

    As it releases, you will feel more spaciousness and more of the inspired, uplifting feeling that supports you to keep moving towards your goals. 

    We encourage you to follow your inspiration and stay committed to the success you’re working towards. See any roadblocks or “failures” simply as checkpoints along the way.

    “Never wait in expectation of perfection or you’ll wait forever. Do the best you can with what you’ve got, and be one of those who dared rather than those who merely dream.” — J.K. Rowling

    How will you embrace failure on your road to success? Leave a comment below to let us know!

  • How to Fast Track Your Miracles Through Forgiveness

    How to Fast Track Your Miracles Through Forgiveness

    We’ve all encountered painful situations in life. They could be events that happened in our personal lives, close relationships, work, family, or within a larger collective culture. 

    The situation could be something as extreme as atrocious acts committed against you or people you love. Or it could be words someone said that left a lasting painful impact on you. 

    The process of forgiving someone for hurting you can feel downright impossible, especially if the experience impacted your life for years to come.

    However, lack of forgiveness doesn’t make the situation go away–in fact, it only keeps it with you longer. There’s a saying that “Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” 

    Forgiveness isn’t something we do for the other person–it’s something we do for ourselves. 

    Forgiveness doesn’t mean condoning a person’s behavior. It means freeing yourself so that you’re no longer controlled or limited by what happened in your past. By letting events be what they are, and opening to forgiveness when we need to, we’re creating more space within ourselves for miracles. 

    Perhaps you’ve heard about Nelson Mandela’s story of forgiveness. He was in jail for 27 years and part-way through that time, he made a conscious decision to forgive his jailers and to love them in spite of the fact that they were beating and abusing him. He knew that otherwise, a life in jail was going to kill his spirit. So he ended up forgiving and loving these jailers. 

    Over time, they could no longer beat him up. They had so much care and regard for him. In fact, when he was president of South Africa, some of his jailers ended up becoming his bodyguards and sitting in the front row during his inauguration. Forgiveness can create miracles. 

    As you see from Nelson Mandela’s story, a wonderful byproduct of forgiveness can also be freeing the other person. Now that’s living in the Miracle Zone. 

    A powerful forgiveness technique is the Ho’oponopono prayer, an ancient Hawaiian Kahuna practice of reconciliation and forgiveness. 

    When heavy feelings like anger or resentment come up about a person or a situation, you can sit quietly with your hand on your heart and say the prayer silently (“I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.”). 

    By practicing the Ho’oponopono prayer, you’re healing your part of the wrong that was done. This creates a shift in your energy, which ultimately shifts the energy of the relationship.

    We invite you to try out this Ho’oponopono prayer–you may need to practice for weeks or months until you feel a shift–and discover what miracles can come through the practice of forgiveness.

    “Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.” ~ Bishop Desmond Tutu

    We’d love to hear your experience of practicing forgiveness and how it opened up your heart for more miracles to occur.