All Posts By

Kaity Astraelis

Jul 01 2020

The Power of Acceptance

By Newsletter

In psychotherapy, “The Paradox of Change” is a concept that illustrates the nature of shifting our emotional state. Only when we have accepted something for exactly what it is, without adding or subtracting anything to it, can the thing itself shift.

Resisting or avoiding exactly what we are feeling in hopes of summoning something different is almost always futile. We end up wearing a mask, faking it, or walking around feeling shut down as in denying heartache, pain, and frustration, we also deny authentic joy, happiness, and other love-based feelings.

Denial or resistance is a strong self-preservation tactic. One that allows us to think we are in control. But it only gives the fear-based feelings we are trying to avoid more power, for whatever we resist persist – we’ve all heard that one. Additionally, resistance robs us of precious vitality. Expending internal energy to keep strong the barrier wall we have built against the immanent cascade of feelings that will surely consume us if we let go. And in this unprecedented time of change, we need our vitality and all the internal power we can get.

This is why I’m offering a simple technique to support us in accepting the fear-based feelings we are harboring, making room for the love-based feelings and calling back our vitality.

The Paradox of Change does not say that we must feel these “unwanted” feelings for hours, days, or even years. Most of us are doing that on our own anyway. No, the paradox of change simply states that we must accept exactly what’s there, as it is, before the thing changes.

This can take minutes… and if you get good… seconds.

A TECHNIQUE TO MANAGE TOUGH FEELINGS

This month’s technique is a tool to help us face the uncomfortable feelings head-on in minutes, allowing energy to move and our true nature to take dominion. In other words, the technique provided today can help us unblock stagnation and get the river of life-force moving in us.

PART ONE

This first recording provides context. It’s a short teaching on the technique.

LISTEN TO PART 1 >

PART TWO

This second recording is the guided practice. If you are new to this practice, I recommend listening to the short teaching before you practice.

LISTEN TO PART 2 >

Jul 01 2020

A Technique to Manage Tough Feelings: Part 2

By Guided Practice

“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.”

– Carl Jung

Transcript:

Hi, This is Oakley Ogden and I’m so glad you’ve joined me. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 of this 2 part series, I recommend you do, it will give you some context as how to best understand this the 3 step technique.

So, let’s get started together. Again, we are using the technique of acknowledging, accepting, and welcoming challenging feelings into our hearts so we can re-gain access to love-based feelings like, gratitude, peace, happiness, and more.

Today, I’m going to use the feeling of anxiety as my example b/c it’s so prevalent right now, but you can use whatever feeling you want: anger, fear, worry, doubt… there are lots to choose from as we all know. Whatever’s there for you is perfect to work with.

Let’s begin.

Take a breath, inhaling and exhaling and become aware of the feeling that’s there. Allow yourself to feel the sensations in your body created by this feeling. We’re only working with one feeling so stay focused on the one feeling for now. And let’s separate ourselves from the tape that can play in the mind about the feeling – he said, she said, they did this, so I feel… Allow whatever narrative might arise to be put aside and breath and come back to the feeling youre working with.

And repeat with me…

In this moment, I acknowledge that I feel anxious. In this moment, I acknowledge that I feel anxious. Again, it may be a different word for you, that’s okay. In this moment, I acknowledge that I feel anxious. Breath. Inhale, and exhale.

Second step: And I accept that I feel anxious. I accept that I feel anxious. We are putting down our resistance. The feeling is here, just like clouds in the sky. I acknowledged it, and I accept it. In this moment, I accept that I feel anxious. Allow the body to soften. It’s just a weather report. It’s just how it is. I’m not going to fight it. I’m going to embrace the paradox of change, and meet it exactly as it is and shift it.

Final stage.
I welcome the energy of anxiety into the center of my heart. Again, remember the heart is like a bonfire of energy. And even though this anxiety can feel burdensome and huge, it’s nothing in comparison to the vortex of the heart.
I welcome the energy of anxiety into my heart. I welcome the energy of anxiety into my heart.
Some of you practicing right now might be served by physically putting your hands out in front of you as if I’m placing this feeling into your hands and you’re trying to not let a drop of it fall out. Take this feeling now in your hands and physically bring your hands up to your heart and press gently into your chest. Others may wish to just visualize this. You’re choice.

Okay. So, let’s go again. Together, let’s take a breath. Inhaling and exhaling. Good. Relax the shoulders. Relax the jaw.
In this moment, I acknowledge I feel anxious. There’s no more need for this energy to reek havoc to get my attention. I’m stopping what Im doing and Im looking at this feeling square in the face. In this moment, I acknowledge I feel anxious.
And, I accept that I feel anxious. It’s here, Im no longer pushing back against it trying to keep it at bay. I accept that I feel anxious. I welcome this energy of anxiety into my heart. And breath.

Again, in this moment, I acknowledge that I feel anxious. I accept that I’m feeling anxious. It’s okay. And I welcome the energy of anxiety into the vortex of my heart, allowing it to dissolve and transmute. Noticing the subtle shifts in the physical body, the subtle feelings of ease and relaxation that follow.

Last time, in this moment I acknowledge I feel anxious and I accept that I feel anxious. It’s okay. And I welcome the energy of anxiety into my heart to dissolve and transmute. Relax the body. Take a big inhale, really sip up all that air, and exhale with a sigh. One more. Inhale and exhale with a sigh. Notice the subtle shift that has happened for you. Give yourself some credit. You’ve just made room for love-based feelings! Let the sense of ease and peace really spread.

And enjoy using this simple technique whenever you wish to shift challenging emotions. Remember, we might not get to control what’s happening around us, but we can certainly influence what’s happening within. Enjoy creating your day

Jul 01 2020

A Technique to Manage Tough Feelings: Part 1

By Guided Practice

“Put your heart, mind, and soul into even the smallest acts. This is the secret of success.”

– Swami Sivananda

Transcript:

Hi Oakley Ogden here, professional counselor and teacher of transformation and I want to share with you a technique that I love for transmuting and transforming really challenging feelings. Ill teach this in two parts. Here in part 1, Ill unpack the methodology behind this technique, step by step and in Part 2, we’ll practice together.

Okay.

This technique has 3 steps, but don’t be fooled by its simplicity, because each step really requires our presence and commitment. Again, we are working on transforming challenging feelings. So, our first step is acknowledging the feeling that’s there. The second one is accepting the feeling that’s there. And the third step is welcoming the feeling into the heart. So once again, that’s 3 steps: acknowledging, accepting, and welcoming.

So step one, acknowledging. In this step we’re simply saying I see you, I’m aware that you’re there. Many of us actually spend a huge amount of time, even money and certainly effort to distract ourselves from certain feelings. So in step one we stop, take a breath, and we take a look and we name what we see, only focusing on one feeling at a time.

Stage two, acceptance. Acceptance in this instance doesn’t mean that we have to be okay with what we find. It doesn’t even mean we approve of what we find. It means instead that we put down our resistance to what’s there. We surrender, hands up and say, Okay, I’m not going to push or resist this feeling anymore. I accept that it’s here. I accept it in the same factual, nonchalant manner as I’d accept the weather outside, it’s happening. I lay down my story about it. Once again, we don’t have to like what we find, but we accept that we are experiencing the feeling we’re feeling.

In the third and final stage, we welcome the feeling we’re working with into the heart where the frequency can be transmuted and transformed.

All emotions can be measured by frequency, vibrating at a faster higher rate or slower lower rate. So love-based feelings tend to leave us feeling lighter in step, inspired, clear and connected to name a few qualities. While fear-based feelings tend to leave us feeling heavier, slower, even isolated, like we don’t want to get out of bed or we have to push ourselves to do what we said we were going to do. I think that a lot of us know what I’m talking about here.

So, when we bring the lower fear-based emotion into the heart, we’re saying I love you and accept you exactly as you are. And in my field of psychotherapy, this is called the paradox of change, which means only when we meet something exactly as it is can it shift to become something else. So in this instance, the lower frequency can be lifted to a higher frequency. In other words, the heart acts like a tuning fork, raising or shifting the vibration of the fear-based feeling into to a love-based feeling.

The heart itself has a magnetic field that’s measurable. It even has a name, the Taurus. And it’s a very strong magnetic field. So when we engage this practice, it’s sort of like throwing a twig onto a bonfire. The twig being the feeling that’s causing us so much trouble and even pain and the bonfire being the energy of the heart.

Okay, Im going to let you digest some of this information, and I’ll see you in part 2 where we will actually practice this technique together!

See ya soon!

Jun 15 2020

Creating a Powerful Future

By Newsletter

Welcome to the final week of our 3-part series on:

THE POWER OF GRATITUDE

Have you heard the phrase, “Where our attention goes, energy flows”? Well, it’s an oldie but goodie. And as we look into the future, wondering what we will create – not only personally, but collectively – it’s helpful to remember such phrases as they are the roadmap to manifestation. In today’s society, it’s not uncommon to accept that our thoughts and feelings are the things that create the lens through which we view our reality. However, if we learn to align our thoughts and feelings with our hearts and use the power of imagination, visualization, and intention, we can begin to participate in co-creating with life at a whole new level. In essence, a new reality can be born.

So, today, let’s keep the laws of manifestation simple, 1) Wherever we focus our attention is what we will end up creating, and 2) Manifestation needs our emotion to make it happen. We have to feel it, not just think it, to make it happen. …I can hear you say, “You’re telling me that the more I focus on the stress I’m feeling the more I’m fueling it?” Well, yes, but you can shift this. Let’s stay focused. I got you. Together, let’s examine an instance in our lives where we can create some powerful change.

PART THREE

Creating Future Memories
This week, pick one thing that’s bothering you – something unsatisfying about yourself, a relationship issue, a business stressor, a race relation issue, the state of the nation… a trigger about anything really. Nothing is too big or small this week; I’m leaving it wide open… have at it. Or, if you have a meeting coming up, a big talk, a hard talk, or something where your participation is required, pick that.

In this guided practice, we will first use the power of gratitude to access the heart. Then I’ll prompt you with a visualization of the future where we will practice creating an outcome that otherwise wasn’t on your timeline. Said differently, we will learn to powerfully and intentionally create future memories.

LISTEN TO PART 3 >

Yes, we are that powerful and it’s important, especially in these times, to get a taste of your own power when it’s aligned with your heart. In my life, I have consciously influenced the outcomes of situations with love; creating outcomes that serve all involved, all for the highest. And now I want you to have a chance to try it. Many events in our life play out as a result of unconscious patterning. Reactions triggering a cascade of reactions, unconscious habits of protection, shame, guilt, blame, and more, creating separation, sabotaging amazing opportunities, and keeping us from fulfilling who we know we are meant to be.

So, let’s practice together and continue to be active participants in our life and this global revolution of awakening consciousness.

Enjoy!

Jun 15 2020

Learning How to Create with Gratitude: Part 3

By Guided Practice

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

 – Mahatma Gandhi

Transcript:

Hi, this is Oakley Ogden. In today’s practice, I’ll use our last two sessions to take us even further into the power of gratitude. It’s time for manifestation. In other words, future memories. So let’s get started.

Let’s close the eyes and take a deep breath in. Easy exhale. Again, inhale. Lengthen the exhale. Lengthen the inhale. Lengthen the exhale. Relaxing the body from the crown of the head down to the forehead, the jaw, the shoulders and arms, letting them grow heavy and relaxed; moving down to the hips, the thighs. Really feel the weight of your legs, calves, and shins, all the way down to the feet. Inhaling and exhaling.

From this place, I invite you to consciously choose a person, place, or thing in your life that you would love to see improvement or change. This could be a family member, a friend or colleague. It could be a place like your home or office, or it could be a thing like food or money, time, or even your car, for example. Now, let’s create a future memory together. I’ll walk you through it step by step.

First, when you think of this person, place or thing, notice at once how you feel. Because it’s a place that you wish for improvement, the natural and normal feelings that arise are probably fear-based, like frustration, anxiety, worry, guilt, shame, blame, anger, sadness. All of these things are fear-based and that’s okay. Just notice. Now here’s where it gets good. Be strong, stay with me because I know you can do this. You’re about to shift your reality. So right now, place yourself in the future. It can be a week or a month from now, and if you don’t know, just choose one year and just plop, put yourself in the future. You’re now standing in your future and you see this person, place or thing that you really wish to improve upon.

Here’s where the shift happens. In this future memory, allow yourself to feel your ideal outcome. The feeling part of this is so important, so let’s start with gratitude. Feel inside the gratitude for the outcome that’s been created. Allow yourself to feel your heart expanding. Allow there to be ease moving through the whole body. Really see this ideal outcome, and I’m going to say this because I think a lot of us go here. How things have been resolved is none of our business right now. We are not solving; we are creating. All we know for sure is that we feel completely different.

Go ahead. Use the power of imagination, this incredible inbuilt faculty of the mind, and give it your all. See and feel yourself in a totally new emotional and mental space. What was formerly a stressor or a trigger has been resolved. What does resolution feel like in your body? I feel grateful because … I feel grateful, because I choose to. Choosing is always enough of a reason. I feel grateful because I choose to. I feel grateful because everything worked out in the highest for all involved. I feel grateful because I realize I’m loved and supported in all ways. I feel grateful because … and keep going with this inside yourself. I feel grateful … It’s okay to repeat your reasons. Feel the shift you’re longing for. Allow it to come from the heart. The only thing that matters is that you choose a love-based feeling and visualize it. Picture it. Imagine yourself feeling this feeling and looking at what you are choosing to work with today.

This is the heavy lifting of transformation and you are doing great. Keep going. Shine your new vibrational state into the relationship with this person, place or thing, like you’re turning on a flashlight and shining it into what you have chosen to improve in your life. From our past two sessions, you know how to cultivate a new state inside of yourself. Continue to grow this feeling until it’s all you know to be true in this future memory.

And relax; and with gratitude and humility and grace, come back to the present moment, knowing that you’ve planted new seeds for outcomes in your future, knowing that you have planted new seeds for outcomes in your future. You’ve created new neural pathways that make a different outcome possible.

Imagination is such a powerful element in our world, and when we pair our imaginative visioning with our future memory work, moving ourselves into the future, and seeing and feeling the outcome, we’ve really stepped into becoming what I love to call conscious creators. So thank you for playing with me, and stay tuned for more tricks utilizing what we already have to create a life we love.

Jun 08 2020

Listen. Learn. Donate. Discuss.

By Newsletter

As a white American citizen, I used to understand racism through an old lens, the lens of hatred and violence. Therefore, I determined, I wasn’t racist. Why? Because I wasn’t violent or hateful against people of color. Phew. Conversation complete.

But I couldn’t have been more ignorant.

In the past few weeks, I have been listening to my BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of color) community with a heart wide open, realizing that my BIPOC brothers and sisters were telling me something I didn’t yet understand. And I realized, too, that in my quest to dismantle my own ignorance and bring to light the hidden pockets of my psyche, I was about to exert a great internal effort. Motivated by love, I catapulted myself out of my own comfort zone. And in doing so, shattered my former understanding of racism.

What I can share with you today, is that I will never un-know what I understand now. And what I understand, first and foremost, is that this is just the beginning of my partnership for a just society…

White privilege is not an opinion or a perspective. It is a fact. It is a systematized discrimination imbedded into the fabric of our nation; and one that I benefit from every day. White privilege assumes that I am safe inside the routines of my daily life; it assumes that I am protected by law enforcement; it assumes a life ignorant to the weight of this inequity… And as this awareness surfaces, like the tip of an iceberg, I enter a new conversation about race; one that includes all of us, as either racist or anti-racist. Our ability to avoid this conversation or remain apathetic to it, is white privilege. And the undoing of this ignorance is one act of anti-racism.

Experiences of feeling safe, protected, having access, and ignorance, are just a few qualities granted to a white skinned person at birth, fundamentally handing him or her a life free from a level of oppression they will never know unless they look and listen. In other words, the subtle and subversive ways racism lives inside of us as white citizens comes from the fact that although the United States was born from powerful ideals such as equality and justice for all, it was built on a foundation of inequality and abuse of power – slavery. (If you are new to this conversation, white guilt and white fragility could be kicking in right about now and it’s okay, take a breath and stay with me). This is a hard thing to feel. This is a hard thing to talk about. Why? (And I’m going to be a therapist for a moment here…) Because it opens the door to seeing a problem that no one has an immediate solution for. And this means, we just have to feel the feelings.

But as your loving therapist in this moment, I will tell you that great possibilities and breakthroughs are born from simply feeling our feelings and not looking for a solution to save us from the discomfort.

My personal journey, which continues to unfold, has sent me careening back and forth between outrage and heart-brokenness. I have also been aware of an eternal impassioned fire burning through me. I have also felt raw, vulnerable, and unsure. And from this place of allowing myself to feel, I have been able to remember that not only was I diving into this exploration from love, but the invitation from the BIPOC community comes from love too. By admitting I was ignorant, I was able to listen, and by listening I was able to begin to actively work toward extinguishing my own ignorance. And this is the journey I am on today.

In summary, this conversation of race is not one that started this month, and it is not one that will end this year. I, by no means, have “arrived” anywhere. But the invitation is stronger than ever to examine the racism that lives deep inside our own psyche’s. It is a call to look at how we contribute to racism – to bring what has been unconscious to light. This is the journey of evolution. It is also the journey toward fulfilling this country’s great ideals – liberty and justice for all.

In the words of Dr. King, “Justice, at its best, is power correcting everything that stands against love.” So, my dear loves who are white and reading this, it is time to listen, learn, and take action. As by listening, we can elevate BIPOC voices; by learning, we can deepen our awareness; and by taking action, we can support this human family to rise, together.

HOW TO TAKE ACTION

Listen. Learn. Donate. Discuss.

I am not an expert on the topic of white privilege. I am learning alongside you. But I did want to provide some powerful resources to support you on your journey. Engage these BIPOC voices, authors, & organizations as you choose and remember that there are hundreds of resources beyond this list. I encourage you to continue to explore.

LISTEN

It’s time to pass the mic and sit quietly ya’ll.

THE DAILY SHOW WITH TREVOR NOAH

Trevor Noah: George Floyd, Minneapolis Protests, Ahmaud Arbery & Amy Cooper

WATCH HERE

UNLOCKING US WITH BRENÉ BROWN | PODCAST

Brené with Ibram X. Kendi on How to Be an Antiracist

LISTEN HERE

CLINT SMITH | TED2015

How to raise a black son in America

WATCH HERE

LEARN

Explore these authors and deepen your understanding.

THICK: AND OTHER ESSAYS

by Tressie McMillan Cottom

BUY THIS BOOK

THE WOMEN OF BREWSTER PLACE

by Gloria Naylor

BUY THIS BOOK

BLINDSPOT

Hidden Biases of Good People
by Mahzarin R. Banajir

BUY THIS BOOK

WHITE FRAGILITY

Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
by Robin DiAngelo

BUY THIS BOOK

BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

BUY THIS BOOK

ME AND WHITE SUPREMACY

Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor
by Layla F. Saad

BUY THIS BOOK

HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST

by Ibram X Kendi

BUY THIS BOOK

W.E.B. DUBOIS’S DATA PORTRAITS

Visualizing Black America

BUY THIS BOOK

DONATE

Re-allocate funds to support black mobilization and activists who have their finger on the pulse.

THE LOVELAND FOUNDATION

The Loveland Foundation is committed to showing up for communities of color in unique and powerful ways, with a particular focus on Black women and girls.

DONATE HERE

COLOR OF CHANGE

Color Of Change helps you do something real about injustice.
They design campaigns powerful enough to end practices that unfairly hold Black people back, and champion solutions that move us all forward.

DONATE HERE

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS CAMP

The mission of this organization is to advance the liberation and well-being of Black and Brown communities through education, self-empowerment, mass-mobilization and the creation of new systems that elevate the next generation of change leaders.

DONATE HERE

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUCATION FUND

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. is America’s premier legal organization fighting for racial justice. Through litigation, advocacy, and public education, LDF seeks structural changes to expand democracy, eliminate disparities, and achieve racial justice in a society that fulfills the promise of equality for all Americans.

DONATE HERE

DISCUSS

Share – white person to white person – how you feel, how you think you contribute to the issue, what you are learning, what you are afraid of, and what you are awakening to. Support one another to be honest and fearless.

Discussion supports the idea of bringing light to what is hidden within us and within our everyday lives. In psychology, I call this process ‘unearthing.’ And it relates to the deep and sacred work of healing trauma – illuminating what lives in the shadows. By bringing light what is hidden, we expand our awareness and thus create new choices. And having new choices ignites empowerment. Empowerment liberates us to feel alive in our life. We become conscious creators. And although a white person can never fully understand the experience of a black life in this country, being able to act with new awareness can support change and deeper connection, which, step by step can influence families, communities, and in due course, a nation.

THE POWER OF GRATITUDE – WEEK 2

This is where I do get to come in as a professional and guide you into the heart space. Because living life from love is a life lived well.

PART TWO

Gratitude in the Face of Triggers

All too often, we can get caught in the cyclical nature of the untrained mind and find it hard to return to the heart. Especially when faced with a problem that we want to solve. And solving -side note- can catapult us into the mind and keep us from processing the feelings that give way to new insight, compassion, understanding, and change. The good news is no matter how mired we are in the mind, the easiest way back to the heart is through the door of gratitude.

In this meditation you will be asked to cultivate the feeling of gratitude, and then flex that muscle in the face of triggers. The greater our ability to be in the heart, the more fearless we can be to explore discomfort, reframe our emotional experience, and be present to others.

LISTEN TO PART 2 >

Jun 08 2020

Learning How to Create with Gratitude: Part 2

By Guided Practice

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you choose to react to it that matters.”

 – Epictetus

Transcript:

Hi This is Oakley Ogden and in this practice, I’ll refer to our last session and build on it, helping us flex our gratitude muscles. The more we practice flexing our gratitude muscles in the face of triggers, the stronger we get, and the stronger we get, the more opportunity we give ourselves to step out of reaction and choose our response to the world around us.

So let’s get started.

Close the eyes, and take a deep breath. Let it out with a sigh. Two more. Inhale together, and exhale with a sigh. Last one, inhale, and easy exhale. Relax the body, forehead, jaw, shoulders and arms, hips and legs. Give yourself over to gravity just a little bit more.

And now picture before you a person, place, or thing, that brings a smile to your face. It can also be a memory of a time or event that brings a smile to your face. Using the power of imagination, visualize that thing in front of you. Really see it, and allow your heart to expand through the feeling of gratitude. I’m so grateful for X b/c X. Im so grateful for my pet b/c she’s taught me unconditional love. Im so grateful for the food I have b/c it nourishes my body which allows me to be active during my day. Im so grateful for …. b/c ….

Now relax the mind, and just breath in the heart, growing the feeling of gratitude and the expansion of your heart with every inhale and exhale. Feel the gratitude expanding past your own body and beginning to illuminate the space around you. Really and truly, let yourself feel and see this vibration of gratitude shine through you and around you.

And now, offer this gratitude to the person, place, or thing in front of you that you were working with and simply witness what happens for you…. Again, breathe.

Now move the person, place or thing, to the side, and bring forth a stressor or source of tension in your life; this is a new person, place, or thing that triggers you. And without losing your state, place this stressor in front of you… and pour over it, like water, the gratitude you’ve cultivated. You can do it. You have nothing to lose. You are a lantern, shining your light onto this person, place, or thing before you.

Good. Now let the stressor go and bring back before you the person, place, of thing that brings a smile to your face… and breath. I am so grateful for X b/c …. And breath. Inhaling and exhaling.

Remember that gratitude always lives inside of us. Some things bring it out in us while others can trigger different emotions. By flexing our gratitude muscle, like we just did, we can become stronger in the face of triggers and begin to define our emotional reality rather than have it dictated for us.

We can’t change what happens in life, but we can change how we respond to what happens.

In our next session, we will take this even further into the world of manifestation. . .

Jun 01 2020

Let’s Start This Off Right

By Newsletter

As a great mentor once told me: “Never let a good crisis go to waste”

And it seems (so far) that we have not.

The pressure of crisis can push us to grow, press on us to let go, and direct us toward transformation. And I believe the last 2 months has provided us all with such opportunity. Now, it’s up to us to learn from change, take responsibility for what was revealed, and consciously create lasting transformation.

Together, we have shared in the heart-ache over missing and losing our loved ones, our rituals, routines, and so much more… Yet, we also stand together, collectively on the threshold of something completely new and uncharted. And as we breech this uncharted territory, the resolve to take responsibility for our state of being – where we focus our minds and the emotions we choose to fuel – is something that can make all the difference.

And it doesn’t need to take hours out of our day…

Thus, we are kicking off the month of June with some support! A 3 part mental and emotional reset focusing on…

THE POWER OF GRATITUDE

PART ONE

Cultivating the Feeling of Gratitude.
Each week will build on the previous week’s guided practice. Next week, we flex that gratitude muscle in the face of adversity. The following week we will culminate in learning to create our future using the power of gratitude we have grown so familiar with.

The BEST way to use these practices, is to listen to them at the start of your day for one week, until the next one arrives…

LISTEN TO PART 1 >

WHY GRATITUDE?

After a journey such as the one we have all been on, it is more important than ever to be in the heart space. When we find our way into the heart, our perception of reality shifts instantly. New ways of seeing our life, standing for our values, appreciating the moment, creating our future, and processing the past, become available. So let’s open up to possibility together because, my loves, we are standing on it’s threshold right now. . .

ONE LAST THING

I recently did an interview with Voyage Denver.
If you’re interested, you can read the full article by clicking the link below.

READ THE ARTICLE HERE >

Jun 01 2020

Learning How to Create with Gratitude: Part 1

By Guided Practice

“Happiness is when what you say, what you think, and what you do are in harmony.”

-Mahatma Gandhi

Transcript:

Hi, This is Oakley Ogden, professional counselor and teacher of transformation. I’ve been in the space of mindfulness and tools for personal development for about 20 years now and I want to share with you some of my favorite tools for shifting emotion and influencing future outcomes. We’ll do this in three parts. Welcome to part 1: Today, we’ll begin with cultivating the FEELING of gratitude…

Let’s close our eyes together, relax our bodies, and breathe. Inhaling and exhaling. Relaxing the crown of the head, the forehead, the jaw, the shoulders, roll them back and let them drop down toward the floor. Relaxing and letting go of tension in the arms, elbows, forearms, hands and fingertips; relaxing even the trunk of the body, down to the hips and thighs, knees, calves, shins and ankles, all the way to the feet and tips of the toes.

And now become aware of the breath, lengthening the inhale, lengthening the exhale.

From this place I invite you to consciously choose a person, place, or thing in your life that brings a smile to your face. It could be a relationship, a pet, an activity that you love to do, even a memory of something that brings a smile to your face. Take a moment and let that person, place, or thing come to surface.

Now, lets use the power of imagination… The power of imagination is SO influential that the brain itself doesn’t the difference between a feeling felt due to something that is really happening or something that is being remembered or imagined. For example, laughing with friends in real time can have the same effect on the brain as remembering laughing, or visualizing laughing with friends. The same chemical reactions are produced in the brain and body.

So now that you understand this power you have, use your imagination to visualize that person, place, or thing in front of you. Really see it. And now, as you look, allow yourself to feel the natural feeling of happiness or joy that arise, let a little smile happen. And now let’s say together, Thank you, Thank you, I’m so grateful for, and you name this person, place, or thing. . . Feel your heart swell, allow it to grow bigger as you breath in and out. I’m so grateful for blank (fill in the space) b/c (and allow a few reasons to surface). I’m so grateful for . . . . b/c . . . Go ahead and repeat this phrase, filling in the blanks to yourself.

Okay, now rest the mind, and lengthen the inhale, and lengthen the exhale. Allow the person, place, or thing to return to where it came from, and simply continue to rest and expand in the frequency of gratitude that you’ve created for yourself.

Take a moment just to notice what’s different for you. Do you feel more relaxed? Slightly more at ease?

Yes, every feeling we feel lives on a scale of frequency. Love-based feelings like joy, gratitude, and peace are quite high on the frequency scale, while fear-based feelings like anxiety, depression, or anger vibrate at a slower pace and can feel a bit heavier when we check in and scan the body. So now you know the difference.

Congratulations, you have created your emotional state using the power of your own mind! Imagine what would be possible if we took time every day to consciously create our emotional state of being?

Well, we’ll find out soon!
See you in part 2!