October 2018 - Sedona Soul Adventures

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Why You Should Be Meditating As If Your Life Depends On It – Because It Does

Scientific studies are showing over and over again the benefits of meditation. Watch my short video to get all the information on why you should be meditating.
I hope this helped, and if you got value from this video, please like, share the video and subscribe to our channel.
    I’m talking with you today about why you should be meditating as if your life depends on it – Because it does.
    Definitely the most important process that you can be doing, the one that has been scientifically proven over and over again to be incredibly beneficial, is meditation. And the more scientists study this, the more incredible they are finding meditation to be.
    Here is a partial list of some of the Emotional Benefits of Meditation:  

    • Stress
    • Anxiety
    • Worry
    • Depression
    • Addiction
    • Overcome self-limiting beliefs, habits, fears, and phobias
    • Feel more happy, confident, inspired, and motivated

    Then there are all the Physical Benefits of Meditation:

    • Strengthen immune system
    • Better sleep
    • Increased longevity
    • Boost vitality
    • Feel more energized and rejuvenated

    Then there are all the Psychological Benefits of Meditation:

    • Boost learning ability, memory, and concentration
    • Enhance your intuition, creativity, and ability to succeed
    • Access the subconscious
    • Move brainwave patterns into most advanced states
    • Achieve the mindset to attract and manifest the life you want

    So the bottom line is that if you want to be happier, healthier, have more abundance, possibly live longer, be more intelligent, run faster, jump higher… I mean really, meditation is the thing that does it all.
    I have so many people who say to me, “Debra, I’ve tried meditating and it just doesn’t work for me. My mind is going a mile a minute, I can’t make it stop.” Well the thing is, if that’s what’s been happening for you, then that’s EXACTLY why you should be meditating.
    So let’s back up and let me talk for a moment about what’s really happening when you meditate…
    On one level, you are re-training your brain. You are quieting your mind, you are becoming present – what some people call mindfulness – and when you start really doing it, you are connecting with the energy and the vibrations of the Universe – of All That IS. You are syncing the right and left hemispheres of the brain and accessing deep layers of the unconscious.
    You are in the flow and little by little, you start to see how things start flowing in your life.
    I have someone who came to do a Soul Adventures retreat, then on one of our trips, and then she decided to do coaching with me. I kept trying to get her to do meditation and she wouldn’t do it. I was able to get her to do a lot of the other processes that I talk about in my book and then with the coaching, pretty much every area of her life just got fantastically better. Her work, her relationship with her husband and with her kids, and she was able to really start manifesting the things she wanted in her life. Then a few months ago, her intuition started really opening up and I started talking to her for the umpteenth time about doing meditation and how that would make that happen even more quickly. Literally this past week I spoke with her and she said to me, “The meditation has changed everything.” Before she was able to make things happen by thinking about them and the sheer force of her will and working really hard, and that was pretty good. But now, she simply thinks about something and it starts to happen. She was telling me that before something would happen that she didn’t like and she would get upset about it. She said, “I know you keep saying in the book that Nothing is Wrong, but I couldn’t quite get there.”
    Suddenly in the past few months with the meditation, everything is different. She said that in the past month, she noticed that her business wasn’t making as much money as it had in the past quarter. She just noticed it, she didn’t get upset about it. She noticed it and then during her meditations she was going into the energy of bringing in more abundance. Within 3 days, 3 clients came to her seemingly “out of the blue.”
    She did a remodel in her home and when it was finished, she had to move a very large, heavy piece of furniture in her house. That day during her meditation she had the thought of wouldn’t it be wonderful if these 2 guys who are friends of her son but don’t know each other and both are big football players to come to the house and move the piece of furniture? Again, out of the blue, these 2 guys who are friends of her son but don’t know each other, showed up at her house at the same time and were happy to do the moving for her.
    She had promised her husband that she would pay for the remodel out of her own money because he didn’t want to go through the hassle of it and then it took much longer and cost much more than what she had originally planned. Isn’t that what always happens? Suddenly, she received money out of the blue from an account she had forgotten about and it came at the exact same time the remodel was finished. So it was perfect that the remodel took as long as it did. It wasn’t late, it was perfect. And the money showed up right on time.
    Can you see the flow operating here? When we’re in the flow, things just keep getting easier and easier.
    When we spoke, she said things were good before, but the meditation has just kicked everything into hyperdrive.
    Did you know that Jerry Seinfeld meditates? I listened to him talking about it on a podcast. When he was in college, he saw a flyer for a Transcendental Meditation class – he took it and to this day, he meditates every day. He was saying he credits it for a large part of his creativity and his success.
    So I hope I’ve convinced you that meditating is something you should be doing. In my next video I’m going to talk about How to Meditate, so I hope you’ll stay tuned.

    I hope this video makes you feel a little happier and if it did, please like, share the video with your friends and subscribe to our channel.
    And If you want a more direct path to getting and staying happy – then go to SedonaRetreatGuide.com and get your complimentary copy of The Sedona Guide to Couples Retreats today.
    Or if you’d like to talk to someone about doing a retreat that’s custom designed for you call us at 928/204-5988.
    You can have the life AND the relationship you want – I know it.

    How to Use Affirmations to Bring in What You Want

    Did you know that you can rewire your brain with something as simple as affirmations?
    And even better, you can do that and use it to bring in everything you want in your life.
    Watch my 7-minute video that gives you all the explanations about how and why this works.
    The key is to do them correctly, because many people are doing them all wrong. I tell you all about it in my video. Enjoy!
    I hope this helped, and if you got value from this video, please like, share the video and subscribe to our channel.
      Today I’m talking with you about How to use Affirmations to bring in what you want.
      In these series of videos, I’m talking about concepts from my book, The Journey to Happy– How Embracing the Concept that Nothing is Wrong Can Transform Your Life, processes that you can start using right now to get happy and stay happy.
      Affirmations have been around for many, many years and I will tell you they can be tremendously powerful when used properly – and the key is to use them properly.
      Over the past few years, I’ve become fascinated with brain chemistry, specifically with how our brains can be changed. The science of this is changing so rapidly. Up until the last decade or so, scientists thought that the makeup and functionality of our brains were fairly static. Now, they’re finding that our brains have an incredible amount of what they call Plasticity.
      Perhaps what’s even more amazing, is that we’ve discovered that the brain can be changed with something as simple as using Affirmations.
      What are affirmations? Affirmations are Positive Messages that are Used Repetitively to alter the way we think (and therefore feel) about something. They can be written, spoken, or thought. Examples of an Affirmation are:
      “I have everything I need to be completely happy and successful.”
      “I love and adore my husband, he loves and adores me, and we are gloriously happy.”
      When we recite Affirmations, Hormones are released that rewire our brains. It’s exercising for your brain much like you would exercise your body! Affirmations trigger the release of feel-good hormones that actually cause the brain to form clusters of Positive thought neurons.
      They operate as a kind of pattern interrupt. They can reverse negative thinking and negative emotions.
      Here are three critical things to keep in mind as you practice Affirmations:

      1. Affirmations must be positive statements

      Write “I love my husband!” as opposed to “We aren’t going to have anymore fights.” The Universe doesn’t hear a negative. When hearing, “We aren’t going to have any more fights,” the Universe receives, “Fights. Okay, send them more fights!”

      1. Make it a personal statement

      Use “I” when referring to yourself or “we” when referring to a couple so that the Universe knows that you’re not talking about someone else.

      1. Write Affirmations in the present tense

      This is probably one of the biggest things — Many people make the mistake of writing Affirmations in the future tense, e.g., “Someday I’ll have a nice house.” Instead, write “I have a  beautiful home,” as if it were already exactly as you want it.
      In addition to that, keep the following critical steps in mind:

      1. Feel good while you’re doing it. If it doesn’t feel good, stop doing it.
      2. Make it as specific as possible without feeling like you are making it up.
      3. You need to believe that there is at least a kernel of Truth in what you’re saying.

      Affirmations work because you’re establishing a direct connection with the energy of the Universe. However, if you don’t actually believe what you’re writing or saying, you can do more harm than good, because you’re increasing the energy of what you don’t want.
      For example, if you feel like you hate your spouse, your relationship is horrible, and you feel unloved and misunderstood, the moment you write an affirmation such as “I love and adore my husband, he loves and adores me, and we are gloriously happy,” your subconscious mind will rebel against the lie and you’ll begin to think, “We’re NOT gloriously happy, we’re completely miserable, and I wish he would just drop off the face of the Earth!” These thoughts perpetuate feelings of anger, frustration, bitterness, and hopelessness.
      Instead, use an Affirmation that is leading to where you want to be. For example, “There is a part of me that loves my husband. There is a part of my husband that loves me. We are connecting with the love that we have for each other.”
      Or, if you’re deeply in debt and you want more money, if you start out with an affirmation that says “I have 10 million dollars,” your mind is going to immediately go into the opposite energy. Try something like, “My life is growing more and more abundant every day,” and see how that feels and how things start to change.
      Find a statement that has at least a kernel of truth in it and make it as specific as you can without being false. If you start to feel bad while you’re writing it, that emotion is telling you that this is not the correct Affirmation. Keep trying until you find one that feels true, real, specific, and hopeful. This can bring you into the energy of connection really fast. And when you’re in the energy of connection, everything is possible.
      A number of years ago, I was producing a spiritual workshop and I was talking to lots of people trying to get them to co-sponsor it with me. I started writing the affirmation, “Everyone I talk with is very interested in what I have to say.” Within just a few weeks, I got more sponsors than I had even hoped for — but the other thing I started seeing, was that I was suddenly getting a whole lot of attention from men that was unwanted because I was in a happy relationship. I realized I had to make the affirmation more specific because it was working too well!
      I hope this video makes you feel a little happier and if it did, please like, share the video with your friends and subscribe to our channel.
      And If you want a more direct path to getting and staying happy – then go to SedonaRetreatGuide.com and get your complimentary copy of The Sedona Guide to Couples Retreats today.
      Or if you’d like to talk to someone about doing a retreat that’s custom designed for you call us at 928/204-5988.
      You can have the life AND the relationship you want – I know it.

      3 New Reasons Why You Shouldn't Get a Divorce

      I don’t know if you know this about me, but I was a divorce attorney for 20 years in Omaha, Nebraska. And now for the past 16 years, I’ve been helping couples stay together through Sedona Soul Adventures, which is a lot more fun and satisfying.
      So I’ve seen this up close and personal for over 36 years and I can tell you — if there’s any possibility that you can turn your relationship around, PLEASE DO IT!
      You know all the usual reasons why not to get a divorce, but today, watch my video on 3 New Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Get a Divorce. It’s just 8 minutes and it might really help.
      Or if you know of someone who’s struggling with this right now, please forward it on to them.
      I hope this helped, and if you got value from this video, please like, share the video and subscribe to our channel.
      If you feel like there might be a glimmer of hope for your relationship, please do something about it. Think about coming to Sedona to do a Couples Retreat. After 16 years and thousands of people, I’m still amazed at what happens. If you’d like to have one of our Retreat Guides call you, please click below.

      Or if you’d prefer, call us toll-free at 1-877-204-3664 (US and Canada). For our friends outside the US and Canada call 01 928-204-5988 or click here and one of our Retreat Guides will call you.
      They’ll connect with you (or both of you, if it’s a couples retreat) in deep conversation. Then they’ll custom design the perfect retreat for you, working with our Master Practitioners here in beautiful, mystical Sedona.
      Would you like to speak to someone today? We’re even open on Sundays, because we’re here for you.

        You probably already know all the obvious reasons why not to get a divorce. Divorce is simply devastating in so many ways – it’s devastating for the children, emotionally and psychologically. It’s devastating for the people going through the divorce, both emotionally and psychologically.
        It’s also devastating financially. Studies show that both parties lose so much financially when they get a divorce, and that’s especially true for women. Just the cost of a divorce is devastating – studies based on census figures show that the cost of the average divorce in the U.S. is a mind blowing $53,000.  

        I’m going talk with you today about some things about divorce that you maybe haven’t thought about before.
        The first one is: Things are just never the same.
        Everyone’s life just gets completely up-ended when a divorce happens. Children suddenly have two homes rather than one home, and it usually doesn’t ever really feel like home again. 

        The worst is things like holidays. The time gets split up, there’s usually hard feelings on both sides, and sometimes there’s lots of fighting and arguing.
        The kids are never with their parents again. They’re always going to be with dad and this other person that they will probably never feel as completely close to as they do with their mother. Ditto for their mother’s boyfriend or new husband. It’s just never going to feel the same again.
        The next is: You may die sooner.
        A study published in The Journal of Health and Social Behavior found that divorced or widowed people have 20% more chronic health conditions (such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer) than people who are married. Loneliness can be a killer and I believe it makes you age faster.
        And: You’re probably going to end up with another person with the same or similar problems.
        In the twenty years that I was doing divorces, it was amazing to me as I looked back to realize the number of people for whom I did 3 divorces. And the even more amazing thing, was that what I saw was that these people kept marrying the same person over and over again, they just had a different name.
        Because the real problem is at the heart of this – we are connecting with people because of the Soul Lessons they bring to us. Our partners are a mirror for us and particularly, for our Woundings. We bring people into our lives to heal our wounds. We don’t know that consciously, but I believe this with all my heart.
        If we’re insecure, if we think we’re not worthy of love, we’ll bring someone in who won’t love us completely. If we don’t trust ourselves, we’ll bring in someone we can’t trust. Those wounds will keep showing up until they’re healed.
        I have seen that over and over again, both in my law practice and in my work with Sedona Soul Adventures.
        We just had a couple here last year and this was completely true for them. They had both been married and divorced before, and they were ready to get divorced again. When they came to us they both said “I can’t believe it, I’ve married someone who’s exactly like my ex.”
        We dug deeper and discovered that for the husband, he had parents who were never satisfied with him, he always felt like he wasn’t enough. After a few years with his first wife, he felt unloved and unhappy because she was always complaining and telling him he wasn’t good enough in all kinds of different ways – as a person, as a provider, as a father. When he met his second wife she seemed to be head over heels in love with him, but again, within a few years, the same kind of problems were coming up. For different reasons, but he felt again as though he wasn’t enough.
        For the wife, it showed up a little differently. From the time she was a little girl, she put up what she called a “False Front” because she thought being who she was wouldn’t be good enough. She had actually been married twice before and each time it was her belief that once her husbands really got to know the “real” her, that the marriage ended.
        So both of them had the issues of “I’m not enough” and “I’m not loveable.”
        We did separate sessions with them of clearing out that gunk and filling that hole of “I’m not enough.” After this work, they both reported feeling like they loved themselves for the first time in their lives. With that feeling of self love, they literally saw the other person with different eyes. They both had this huge compassion for each other because they realized for the first time, that they both had the same issue, it was just showing up in a different way for each of them. They realized how much they truly loved each other.
        We sent them home with new tools and I just heard from them recently. It’s been a year and they both feel like their spouse is their biggest cheerleader. She said to me, “I didn’t realize that because I didn’t truly love myself, I really had no love to give to someone else. I’m so glad we didn’t get a divorce, I would have just kept doing this over and over.”
        If you are thinking about getting a divorce, I literally want to beg you to reconsider it one more time. Think about all the reasons we’ve talked about and then really ask yourself, “How is my partner being my mirror?”
        If there is something you really can’t stand about your partner, is there any of that in you? If you feel like you’re not loved, do you truly love yourself?
        Are there some things you can do to save your marriage? If so, for the sake of your children, for the sake of your family, but mostly for the sake of you, please think about it one more time.
        And if you feel like there might be a glimmer of hope, please do something about it. Think about coming to Sedona to do a Couples Retreat. After 16 years and thousands of people, I’m still amazed at what happens.
        Go to SedonaRetreatGuide.com and get your complimentary copy of The Sedona Guide to Couples Retreats today.
        Or even better, call us at 928/204-5988 to talk to someone about doing a retreat that’s custom designed for exactly what the two of you need.
        You can have the life  AND the relationship you want – I know it.

        Our 1 Year Wedding Anniversary is Today!

        If you’re one of my faithful readers who’s been with me for a long time, you will probably be as surprised as I am to realize that today is my one year wedding anniversary. This year has gone by so quickly, it’s been astonishing.
        We’ve had an amazing year:

        • The wedding was so much fun! All 5 of my brothers and sisters came from all over the country, and Richard’s only brother came from Texas, which was so wonderful.
        • We had a celebration that included so many of our friends and family, as well as all of the staff and practitioners of Sedona Soul Adventures.
        • We’ve done some amazing travel: scuba diving in Grand Cayman, our official honeymoon in Spain and Paris, our group trips to Egypt and Peru, and then in June, we went on another amazing adventure, one week in Iceland and then on to another week in Paris (we would both go to Paris every six months if we could). We’ve gone to Austin to visit his 91-year old(!) dad and brother three times, and last weekend we went to Omaha where I used to live, to attend a wedding. It was so great to connect with old friends and have them meet my wonderful husband.

        One of the most fun things that’s happened in the past year has been Richard’s involvement with Sedona Soul Adventures. Once we got married, he got to see up close and personal and behind the scenes for how everything works. He is still in awe of what happens here (as am I). A few months after the wedding, he announced to me that he wanted to help with SSA and for us to be able to use his incredible knowledge and background of working in Silicon Valley for over 30 years. Richard has become an incredible consultant to SSA, helping me so much with new and innovative ideas so that we can touch more and more lives. He is truly a partner and that is so exciting.
        And, of course, along with all the wonderfulness, has come the “period of adjustment.” 😊

        It’s so funny because the minute we met, Richard had an astrology reading done, I had two astrology readings done (one Western astrology, one Vedic astrology) and they both pretty much said the same thing. Here’s what the Vedic astrologer said in her brief encapsulation:
        “It looks mostly good. He hasn’t had the easiest time in relationships and he could be a little challenging (impatient/rigid/moody/stubborn/sensitive), but he also looks SUPER charming and fun, and like he should be good guy.
        I can totally see why you’re intrigued. Your compatibility is unusually high. I was taught that when it’s as good as yours is, it’s worth checking out – that the people are glad for the time they had together, no matter the outcome.”
        The Western astrology reading also said we were super compatible, but that there would be an impatience and butting of heads that would happen.
        Boy, have those both been true! I love Richard so much, but when he goes into that stubborn thing of his, it’s really hard! And I’m an Eight on the Enneagram (more on that later, if you don’t know what I mean), so my stubbornness also gets activated. Two strong, stubborn people can have some difficulty trying to live together on a day-to-day basis!
        And then there’s just all the stuff that happens when you’re coming together (especially at our age), plus, we had both been married before (which means baggage), he completely uprooted his life to move to Sedona, he doesn’t like how I organize things, etc., etc. You know how it goes.
        So what did we do about it? We did what I tell everyone else to do: we did sessions with some of our practitioners. We did an Enneagram session, which helped so much in understanding how our Styles fit together and the optimum ways for us to communicate with each other. We did a Couples session that is based on the 10 Love Languages (not 5) and is also based on your Vedic astrology, so it’s very accurate and specific to your exact situation. We did another Couples session designed to move out energy and resentments from the past and the present, and another one to literally bring us back into heart coherence and love (and learned how to keep on coming back there).
        It’s still so amazing to me that even after all the sessions I’ve done, all the writing I’ve done, all the advice I’ve given to other people, to discover that there are still some parts of my old wounds that needed to come up for healing. My whole life I’ve dealt with the wound of “I’m not good enough” and because I’m not good enough, “I’m not lovable.” I’ve done so much work around this and I truly feel that I love myself. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that I was telling myself the lie of, “If he really loved me, he would do everything the way I want him to and he would never argue with me or be stubborn with me.” Wow! Good luck with that one! That unhealed part of me was trying to tell me that he doesn’t really love me.
        When I look at that rationally, I know it’s not true, and I don’t even want someone who would do everything the way I want them to and never argue with me. I want a man! I want someone to stand up to me and stand up for me.
        It was in one of those sessions that two of my practitioners, Ron and his wife Denny, showed us the photo of this famous sculpture from Burning Man that depicts two adults turning away from each other, while the little boy and the little girl inside of them is desperately reaching out for love. I did a newsletter about this a few months ago and it’s just so telling for what is going on inside every relationship. Every pain, every argument, every hassle, every disagreement is really just a cry for love. It’s the old wounds wanting to come up for complete healing. When we can remember that, we can always come back to love.
        So that’s been the huge lesson I’ve learned this year. How to keep coming back to love, over and over again.
        It’s pretty delicious and I highly recommend it! If you and your partner are not doing that, please come to Sedona and do something about it. Life is too short to be in a relationship that’s not loving, happy, blissful, and juicy. The juice is where all the fun is!
        If you don’t have a partner in your life right now and you want one, again, come to Sedona! We can help! I made the decision two years ago that I wanted someone in my life again, I realized that my old wounds were preventing that from happening, so I did a mini Soul Adventure around it and Richard showed up, literally three weeks later! I love how this stuff works!
        Connect with us, speak with one of our Retreat Guides. They’ll speak with both of you and really get an idea of what’s going on and where you want to be. Then they’ll custom design a retreat designed to remove the blocks and gunk that are holding you back, keeping you stuck in the past or holding on to old resentments, and bring you back into connection with yourself and with each other.

        Or if you’d prefer, call us toll-free at 1-877-204-3664 (US and Canada). For our friends outside the US and Canada call 01 928-204-5988 or click here and one of our Retreat Guides will call you.
        Would you like to speak to someone today? We’re even open on Sundays, because we’re here for you.
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