by Carole Lynne
Author of Cosmic Connection: Messages for a Better World

These days, many of us have more worries on our minds than we did two years ago. Most people are concerned about their jobs and their bank accounts. And if you are not personally concerned, you are most likely close to someone who is more anxious than usual. This is a time when all of us must remember that Faith is Power.

Faith is the belief that things will get better and that which seems impossible is possible. It has often been said, "thoughts are things and they change our lives." If we have thoughts that life will get better, then our creative imaginations are able to create solutions to our problems and we travel down the road of success. If on the other hand, our thoughts keep telling us that life will not get better, then we are likely to create unhappy times and travel down the road of a less successful life. Which road do you choose to travel?

by Siri-Gian Khalsa

Personal "boundaries" may seem like a terrible thing to embody--perhaps bringing up images of the razor wire topped Berlin wall on a personal level--of people who never, ever let love in or out; not allowing full heart and its expression to flow between themselves and others.

That lack of flow, that separation among people can arise from those withering habits that were originally established between parent and child, or were created in other very treacherous lifetimes. Then they can be re-triggered as pain, remorse, feelings of loss and abandonment. They can become our own personal iron curtain of separation.

by Victoria Moran
Author of Living a Charmed Life: Your Guide to Finding Magic in Every Moment of Every Day

In a charmed life, the best thing going is what is happening now.

Even the most dazzling lives are punctuated more by commas and periods than by exclamation marks. You virtually guarantee a charmed life when you can give yourself as fully to doing the dishes, and tending to the other miscellanea that make up your day, as to some grand adventure. This is because you can count on the dishes. They’ll be there alongside the grand adventures, and if no adventure is immediately forthcoming, the dishes won't let you down. Besides, feelings of enthusiasm, excitement, and positivity about anything and everything attract adventures to a life the way an open bag of trail mix attracts bears to a campsite. They just can't stay away.

by Siri-Gian Khalsa

Dear One,

One thing is for sure. We all get so very wrapped up in MY difficulties, MY challenges, MY dramas and MY losses that we can't see straight!

If you are like the rest of us, we get grabbed, blinded, smashed and crunched when some very powerful part of our mind gets triggered and switches onto autopilot. It punches us in the gut with "I shouldda said..." "He did it again..." "I'm losing everything..." Blood pressure rises; anger/guilt/fear/sadness wrestles us to the ground; stress hormones kick in to tear our bodies apart; and we get derailed yet again from living the kind, peaceful and prosperous life that we always hope we might get-one day!

"But that is what LIFE does to me!" you scream! "It's THEIR fault that I suffer." "I can't help all my bad karmas doing all that to me!"

by Stephanie Brail

Negative emotions get a really bad rap these days. If we have a normal, every day sad emotion, we're pushed a pill to get rid of it. Or, we're told we must "think positively" or suffer dire consequences. (Some folks literally believe that if you think too much about an anvil falling on your head, an anvil will fall on your head.)

These two approaches - medicating the emotion away or denying the emotion - don't really do much to solve the underlying issue. They just mask and bury it.

Unfortunately, we live in a culture where we are not taught proper coping mechanisms to deal effectively with negative emotions. There is no "emotional coping mechanism" class in school. What happens, instead, is that people learn their own dysfunctional ways of handling emotions, often from parents. At worst, some folks turn to drugs, alcohol or food to handle emotions.