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Greetings everyone! I’m Kasey Claytor, a Chopra certified Meditation and Ayurvedic instructor and a financial advisor for 40 years. So, I wear many hats. This recording will begin with today’s topic, and then I will prompt you to meditate on your own at the end, so I suggest you settle into a quiet place. For more information and offerings, please visit my website at kaseyclaytor.com.
Let’s talk about energy. I have a few examples of how energy affects our lives, and it does just about more than anything! I’m first going to relate something I just experienced upon returning from a conference, and how it came from a years-old experience. It is quite uncanny how this first story about energy is so appropriate, since I wrote it five years ago, when I had just gotten home from another financial conference. Here it is.
“I just returned from a financial advisor conference given by a company we partner with. This is a great group of individuals. We came away from it filled with appreciation for their caring, generosity, and genuine sharing of information to improve our and our clients’ lives.
I was so impressed that I wrote a letter of gratitude to the company’s principals. I wrote about how I’ve been to financial conferences my whole professional life, and I’ve never had the warm, attentive treatment from every single person on the staff, from the executives to the newly hired.
I also wrote that this is why they are wildly successful, and that surely their success will continue. From my perspective, with my other passion of teaching mind/body/spirit wellbeing, it appeared they had crossed over into a new dynamic for the future. Holistic financial health! With a new, more evolved, financial organization.
When the CEO received my letter, it was the morning after a week of exhausting duties on his part, including being a presenter, an organizer, and basically handling everything. It was Saturday morning. He planned on having a deserved day of rest. His son asked him to take them to their cabin. He regretfully told him he was too bushed and apologized. And then he read my full-page email telling them how great everything was, how good they made us feel, and they are head and shoulders above the rest (and so much more).
He wrote me that after reading it, he felt filled with joy and energy. He was not tired anymore!
He felt great, went to find his son, and spent a wonderful seven hours with him that day.
And you know what? After reading his email, I, too, was filled with happiness and energy!”
What a great story. A chain of joy. And anyone can create that anytime!!!!!
I am going to pass this on to the conference hosts of this recent event and spread the energy to them!
Energy is the basis of existence, a quality of God/the Universe. In my novel The Light of Grace, Energy is described as vibration.
“In the evolution of souls, the more refined one becomes in vibration, the more energy one amasses, but also the more impact one has on the whole.”
And,
“Grace revels in the richness of her incarnations’ experiences. She revels in all the processes of the manifestation of the physical universe, such as watching physical bodies form from the luminous energy field of vibration. From her vantage point, she can view the pulses of thought to emotion, vibration to physical representation, and back to thought again—a continuously emerging creation with no beginning and no end.”
And inspiration is energy, is it not? More from the Light of Grace
“One of the easiest ways for a human to receive communications from the angels is by picking up an expressive art form, such as writing, painting, playing music, or dancing. But the messages aren’t limited to the traditional arts; even business or any type of problem-solving can be immensely creative and inspired (in-spirit). When a human allows his or her creative energy to flow, the angels can dovetail into this stream of inspiration. Once this door is opened, allowing inspiration to channel, it will continue to increase and can change a human’s life.”
Here is an exercise to demonstrate how our thoughts create energy. I learned about it from Jaqueline Lapa Sussman
“Who Helps You Cross the Road?
Tapping into your deep support systems.
By Jaqueline Lapa Sussman
For this exercise to be helpful, you must have the time and be in a frame of mind to read the directions below and follow the sequence. If you don’t have five minutes now, stop and come back when you do. Ready? With your eyes open or closed, allow the following images to form in your mind’s eye. As you see each image, take a few moments to let the information unfold and become clear to you.
1. See yourself crossing a road to get to a shop that you often frequent on the other side of the road.
2. Notice how you cross the road. Are you hurried, careful, joyful, or at ease?
3. Now, keeping your mother in mind, see yourself crossing the road to reach the shop on the other side. Your mother should not appear in the image; just think of her as you see yourself crossing the road. Let the image unfold.
4. Did you cross the road differently with your mother in mind than when you crossed by yourself? What was that difference?
5. Now, keeping your father in mind, see yourself cross the road to reach the shop on the other side. Your father should not appear in the image; just think of him as you see yourself crossing the road. Let the image unfold in its own manner.
6. Was there a difference in how you crossed the road with your father in mind rather than with your mother? What was the difference?
7. Did one parent give you more energy crossing the road? Was one parent more obstructive?
The Results and How to Use Them
You may discover that one parent is negative and the other positive. Or, both could be negative, or both positive. If you notice that one parent influences you negatively and the other positively while you’re crossing the street, you can consciously alter your automatic responses by keeping the “positive” parent in mind as you navigate life. For example, the next time you deal with a difficult person, visualize that person and remember the positive parent. You’ll immediately see your natural constructive skills come to the fore as you handle the difficult situation.
If both parents are positive, you can use the positive qualities offered by each parent for different tasks. For example, one of my clients found that keeping her mother in mind gave her focusing ability, while keeping her father in mind made her feel full of love. Each time she had to focus on work, she kept her mother in mind to help her think clearly. When she found herself getting into a power struggle with her children over cleaning their rooms, keeping her father in mind helped her feel more love and communicate better with them.
If both parents are negative, it is useful to reflect on how your parents affected you so you can become aware of habitual negative or self-defeating behaviors. In this situation, keep in mind a significant person in your life who positively affects you – – a mentor, therapist, teacher, or a religious figure who deeply moves you. The image will bring out your best abilities.
Why This Works
In clinical research involving thousands of subjects, psychologist Akhter Ahsen, Ph.D., discovered that images, such as those of our mothers and fathers, are neurologically encoded in specific brain regions. When these images are evoked – consciously or unconsciously – they can profoundly affect our physiology and mental and emotional states. (I would add energetically.) Ahsen’s findings were first published in 1965 in the Book ( I-deh-tic) Eidetic Psychotherapy, and imagery research has been studied at universities worldwide. Ahsen’s goal is to teach people to consciously use these high-intensity images, known as eidetic images, for self-awareness.” This information came from an article by Sussman in Spirituality and Health Magazine.
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And we talked about archetypes during one of our meditation meetings last year. I mentioned how children naturally use imagination in play. They become an invincible superhero or some other role bigger than themselves. These roles make them feel stronger, more intelligent, quicker, drawing from the archetypal energy. In his research, Carl Jung aptly described the use of archetypes in our human nature as universal, inherited patterns or images that reside in the collective unconscious, a shared psychological foundation common to all humans.
Throughout the ages, human beings in most cultures have used these archetypes from myths and legends. To our disadvantage, our own culture has mostly forgotten the benefits of bringing the intangible qualities of archetypes into our daily lives. In our focus on the material world, we’ve left behind some of the enchantment of life.
Holding an archetype in our mind as we attempt a new task or reaching a lofty goal can help us. Who hasn’t been inspired by a dynamic role model? What we think, the ongoing chatter in our minds, either gives us energy or makes us feel weak, as in the aforementioned exercise.
In my own life, I gravitated toward Katherine Hepburn; I loved her movies, of course, but it was her character that I was enamored with. I watched every interview, read her autobiography, and, looking back, I really did try to embody much of what I saw in her persona. She didn’t blame anyone for the culture women were born into. Her father had impressed upon her the sentiment that she could do or be anything she wanted, limited only by her own beliefs. (Much like my father had taught me)
When I was hired as a stockbroker in 1982, I was one of the very few women in the business. I ignored this and focused on establishing myself as a trustworthy and knowledgeable advisor. I’ll never forget when a woman made an appointment with the broker, Kasey, thinking I was a man, and she was shocked when she came into my office and saw me sitting behind the desk. She was quite a bit older than I was and hadn’t realized that women were in this business, too! She stayed with me. Years later, she told me she was hesitant at first when she found out I was a woman! But she was so glad she had stayed with me. Maybe it was my invoking Katherine Hepburn’s energy!
Who do you hold in high esteem? What leaders, religious teachers, mentors, or even fictional characters hold qualities you wish you had? Whether applying for a job, learning a complex task, or solving a difficult problem, having someone you see as proficient in that area in mind can fast-track you, opening the floodgates to creative energy.
On a last note, as we sit in meditation and prayer and have photos or statues on an altar before us of a religious being, you may have Jesus, Buddha, or your venerable teachers; they must be imbued with Divine energy. Might we become consciously aware of their presence? As we sit, we can imagine some of that divine energy filling us.
Let’s now set your timer. You can set it for 20, 25, or 30 minutes. Your choice. (pause)
Sit up straight, gently close your eyes, relax your face, your eyes, your shoulders. Lay your hands gently in your lap or on your thighs. Take a few slow, comfortable breaths, noticing how any tightness in your body releases with each exhale. If you like, before you begin your practice, think of your esteemed teacher or Godly image and imagine their energy flooding into your being. Then begin repetition of your mantra; you can use so hum if you don’t have one. Or you can just observe your breath. Namaste. You’re on your own now. Remember to come out of meditation gently. Until next time, with love.