What I Saw Broke My Heart Today...

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Today I witnessed something that truly broke my heart. I was at the grocery store focusing on different kinds of Naan bread, to be exact, when I heard a woman next to me harshly yelling at her two or three year old son who was sitting at the front of the cart. She said "No, you're not allowed to touch that, now I have to bring it back and take another one." She then gave the little boy not just one, but three hard slaps on his left shoulder. Tears were rolling down the infant's big cheeks, as he was holding his shoulder in pain.

When the (pregnant) mother left to go grab another one of whatever it was her child had touched, the little boy looked at me and it's as though I could feel his despair all through my body. His little brown eyes were saying "help me, what's going on, why I am being punished, what have I done, am I bad?" My heart ached for him, and to be honest, I just instinctively wanted to rescue him and shower him with love and affection. The mom came back and off they went, but I could still hear that boy crying across the store for the entire duration of our shopping trip.

I asked myself what I could do (besides sending love and light to that child and his mother). I could give the mom my phone number and offer to babysit her boy once in awhile in order to allow her to get the proper rest and care she needs, but there's a strong chance that would insult and make her defensive. I could call the police (social services), but that wouldn't solve anything in the long term, and the sad thing is I'm sure there are cases that are much, much worse than what I witnessed today. So I decided to at least write about it.

What I feel towards the mom is compassion, because I know she can only operate from her current level of consciousness. If she were able to act differently, she would have, but many unconscious conditionings are still at work within her. Perhaps her own parents treated her this way. She is probably completely unaware that the anger she felt and directed towards a helpless child comes from deep within her, not from her son's behaviour. Nobody can make us feel anything unless that emotion is already present inside us. The many triggers in our lives make us react, they remind us that we have inner-wounds, but they are not the real cause of our feelings. They show us exactly where we have some healing to do. Nobody's perfect, but we can always strive to do better.

I know that beyond all the madness and cruelty of this world, everything is in Divine perfect order when it is perceived from a higher perspective. Nothing is random, including the family a soul chooses to incarnate in. Still, it's excruciatingly painful to watch beautiful, radiant, innocent, helpless children be the recipients of anything less than Love. My wish is that all parents make a committed effort to become as conscious as possible, for the sake of their own children.

Warmly,

Lise
www.lisevilleneuve.com

The Lemonade Sale That Changed A Child's Life...

My daughter Emma is quite the little entrepreneur. She started doing lemonade sales this summer and has been managing the entire process herself. She purchases the cups, jugs, lemonade and freezies with her own money and enjoys calculating the profits -which have been impressive, I must admit! Emma sets up her little stand and loves to spend hours out there, patiently waiting for customers. When it's quiet, she reads Harry Potter or hangs out with friends. 

The people in our neighbourhood have been incredibly generous and supportive of her lemonade initiative, it's almost embarrassing! Yesterday, Emma was trying to come up with a "good cause", or a fundraising idea that would give a little more meaning to her business. I suggested she sponsor a World Vision child, and she loved that idea!

It only costs $39 / month and the impact is life-changing for that sponsored child. I told Emma that if she was willing to contribute $20 / month, Rob and I would match our share. Of course, lemonade sales are challenging in -30 degree Celsius weather in the winter, so Emma will have the opportunity to come up with other fundraising ideas year-round. She loves the challenge!

I'm so proud of her instant willingness to want to share and help a child in need. Emma wanted to sponsor a girl her age, and so she found beautiful little Ravina, aged 10, from Kumarkhand, India (see picture above). Ravina's birthday is March 13, the same day as Emma's little cousin Ceona. That's pretty cool!

Here is some information we have received so far:

"Your sponsored child lives in India’s Eastern state of Bihar in a remote community close to the Kosi river belt. Most people earn a living from agriculture and livestock rearing, yet only 30% own land, the rest work as agricultural wage laborers. Thearea is low-lying and flood prone. Some sections underwater for up to 5 months. As a result, families here live in abject poverty, they cannot provide adequately for their children. Families are also routinely split as men migrate to other areas in search of work, leaving women, children and the elderly behind in the villages."

Emma, I'm so proud of you! I hope you inspire many others to sponsor children who live in horrible conditions around the world. If you can do it, many others can too!

Warmly,

Lise

www.lisevilleneuve.com

I Turned 40 and Almost Shaved My Head!

Yesterday I turned 40. Whatever, it's just a number. I can still be as immature as I want for the rest of my life :)

Seriously, turning 40 made me realize how easy it is to get attached and totally identified with our bodies, our looks, our hair, our sagging parts. I think this is especially challenging for women as we get older. We look at ourselves in the mirror, and whether we like what we see or not, we think to ourselves "that's me". But is it really? Only on a superficial level. I thought it would be a fun "detachment experiment" to chop off most of my hair myself, in the back yard. I was prepared to shave my head if it got too ugly, but thankfully, I didn't get that far.

The physical body is just the shell holding our higher Selves, but Mr. Ego trick us into buying the expensive anti-wrinkle creams because he convinces us that WHO we are is, in fact, the bones, muscles, organs and skin, and IF we make ourselves look better, we will feel better, receive more love and ultimately be happier people. Right? Wrong. Let's be honest, the true motivation behind anything we do to improve our appearance is to feel better, to receive more love and acceptance from others.

There's certainly nothing wrong with wanting those things, it's in our nature, but it's good to become aware of what we're really chasing when we push ourselves to extremes at the gym, when we try to artificially change our bodies or wish we looked different somehow. All these behaviours are driven by Mr. Ego who tells us we're not good enough to be loved just the way we are, therefore we need to change ourselves to be worthy and to feel better. But when does it ever end? When do we reach that state of lasting satisfaction?

What if instead of trying to fix / improve our physical appearance, we worked on our self-love and acceptance instead? What do you think would happen? If we became so content with who we are as a spiritual being and started to radiate love, peace and joy to others, don't you think our bodies would naturally start to look and feel better? Do you think that if we aligned ourselves with our heart and spirit, we would intuitively know what to eat? Of course! We would also exercise because it would bring us joy and make us feel good, we would know exactly what to do to heal ourselves, and our aging process would automatically slow down.

Does this scenario seem too good to be true? Well it's not! Our society is simply conditioned to want to change things from the outside, to fix the symptoms, not the root causes of anything. You intuitively know that any lasting change happens from the inside-out, don't you? It makes perfect sense, because it is our thoughts that materialize into matter.

Being 40 is just a concept, a thought. I choose to not let it condition my body with any preconceived notions of "what's supposed to happen when you reach that age." I will diligently keep working on noticing how my ego tries to convince me that I am my body. It's much simpler than that. I am.

Warmly,

Lise
www.lisevilleneuve.com

My Consciousness Boot Camp

This week was such a special treat for me, I feel very grateful. But first, let me describe what a "normal" week looks like around here.

A typical day for me is usually centered around my kids. I wake up when they do, prepare breakfast, guide them with their lessons (we homeschool year round), then I send them outside to play with the kids from the school across the street while I usually do some gardening (or shovelling), I prepare lunch, engage in various other creative / educational activities or outings in the afternoon, and then, if he's in town, daddy comes home and we shift into the evening routine. I love the flexibility we have, and I do try to fit in some time for writing, meditation and reading whenever I can.

The most important things I want to teach the kids don't come from books. I wish for them to become self-aware -to be able to understand, witness and self-regulate their shifting emotions. I want to give them freedom to follow their creative impulses and their natural curiosity. I want them to know that it's ok to trust and follow their inner-wisdom, their intuition and their spirit. They are encouraged to play, to be spontaneous, to laugh and to experience joy in all its colourful forms.

It is by filling their own hearts with overflowing love that they naturally want to extend this loving-kindness to others, regardless of their age, race, physical appearance or personality. I try my hardest to teach presence and awareness by example, and I hope that someday they will understand that their outer world is merely a reflection of their inner-essence. In short, what they are learning right now is how to prepare their inner-landscape for maximal growth. Topics like preparing the soil, selecting the right seeds, weeding, fertilizing, watering and dealing with pests are all on our conscious homeschooling curriculum!

As fun and varied as it is, our daily routine can get a little exhausting at times. What I find the most challenging is finding the necessary time / space to allow myself to get recentered and grounded in my own awareness. The kids have unlimited amounts of energy and they are like little buzzing bees swarming around me all day long with various requests, concerns and needs. If I want to stay calm and untriggered amidst the storms, I have to constantly wake myself up and recognize that children have developing egos that are by nature, unconscious. If I am lost in my own unconsciousness, things can quickly get ugly. In this sense, parenting is an extremely effective spiritual practice, because we as parents get immediate feedback when we become too identified with our ego-minds. I know, it's not a glamorous process...

The thing is, if I don't give myself that necessary time and space to breathe, meditate, to get a clear perspective and recharge my energy, my consciousness battery quickly gets depleted and I'm not as effective as a parent. However, when I get to strengthen my consciousness practice on my own -without the constant triggers and challenges from the kids- it gets stronger and more anchored in my being. Just like a muscle, we need to train our awareness gradually and turn it into a habit so that we'll eventually be able to take on more unconscious "weight" from the world all around us.

That being said, I've just had the incredible luxury of having an entire week to myself! Rob and the kids went to the cabin in Saskatchewan and I gave myself an intensive consciousness training boot camp! It's been absolutely wonderful. At first I thought "what will I do with all this time?" but it felt like time stopped completely. I read, meditated, exercised, contemplated, listened to inspiring audio programs, watched consciousness-related videos, coloured mandalas and just did whatever felt right in the moment. I allowed myself to be spontaneous, trust my intuition and live from the heart. This is the first time in my life I have been able to experience living this way, (completely alone) with such joy, for an entire week. I feel fully renewed and grateful. My babies are coming home in a few hours, I can't wait to see them!!!!!

If you can give yourself even just 15 minutes a day to breathe, meditate and become aware of your thoughts, you will feel the immediate and long-term benefits. Lock yourself in the bathroom if you need to, it's worth it!

Warmly,

Lise
www.lisevilleneuve.com

What Stage Is Your Ego Stuck At?

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Lately, I've been finding myself challenged and triggered by my soon-to-be 11 year old daughter. The biggest change I've noticed in her is her developing tweenage ego. It really got me thinking about these questions:

1-What is the purpose of having an ego, since we eventually need to tame it to become conscious?

2-Is it necessary for children to develop their egos, or can they learn to directly bypass this stage?

3-What happens to us as adults when we don't develop a "healthy" ego?

Answer #2 came to me last week, as I was watching an Eckhart Tolle video. Eckhart basically said he was unsure if children of future generations would need to develop their egos before being able to transcend them, but for now, he felt that it was still a necessary step in our evolution. He went on to say that the ego is by nature "childish" and perhaps some time in the near future, we could have some kind of ceremony to celebrate the awakening of young adults who have transcended their egos! I look forward to that...:)

This brings me back to the first question, regarding the purpose of the ego. Basically, the ego protects us when we're young and vulnerable. It acts like a protective bubble that tricks us into temporarily believing that we are a separate, isolated physical creature that would not survive if we didn't look out for ourselves. When we were helpless babies -if we were lucky- our parents took care of us and we didn't yet need the ego. We were in fact pure consciousness, without being aware of it! As we grew older and became more independent and socialized, the ego in us strengthened and aided our normal development and self-esteem. It's only once we're fully mature that we're ready to shed the cocoon of the ego and fly away as an enlightened butterfly.

The ego has a second very important purpose, and that's to provide contrast for us poor souls stuck in this world of duality. You know how it goes...if you never knew what cold felt like, you wouldn't be able to understand hot. The way to know who you really are is by knowing who you're not. Who you really are is an extension of consciousness, not all the different components of your ego-mind (thoughts, emotions, reactions...etc). Unlike animals, plants and minerals (who don't have egos), we humans get a chance to wake up and really see what this existence is all about! You can thank your ego for that.

Your ego is like a balloon. When you're a baby, the balloon is completely deflated (no ego). As you grow up, it slowly fills with air (self-awareness / consciousness), and the membrane (your ego) stretches and stretches. Eventually, as you mature, you start to see through the membrane of the balloon and you realize there is an entire universe all around the limiting membrane that holds your self-awareness and consciousness. Then what happens? You guessed it...POP! Your consciousness merges with the cosmic consciousness of the universe.

Now let's get back to my tweenage daughter with the growing ego. If Eckhart says there's no getting around her ego inflating more and more, I'm not going to argue with him, he's the boss. What I might do with the kids, however, is show them the balloon experiment, so that they have a better understanding of what's going on inside them. What do you think happens to children who are not allowed to develop a healthy ego?

That's what I discovered this week, in Eliza Mada Dalian's wonderful book called In Search of the Miraculous, Healing into Consciousness. I always thought that in order to grow in consciousness, we could simply become more aware of our ego in order to transcend it, but I was wrong! We have to actually HEAL our way into consciousness. And what do we have to heal, exactly? The parts of our ego who were underdeveloped. In other words, if our ego balloon was not stretched to its full potential, we have to go back and fix our leaks, then fill it up again so it's able to burst. I've always known of the importance of healing ourselves, but I never associated it with healing our ego!

What's really interesting is that Eliza Mada Dalian breaks up the ego's development in 7 stages that correspond to our seven Chakras:

1. Formation / Foundation of life / Root chakra
2. Strengthening / Ensuring the survival of the physical body / Hara
3. Suffering / Developing self-power and decision-making ability / Solar Plexus
4. Contemplation / Transforming instinctual lust into unconditional love / Heart
5. Introspection / Developing individuality and freedom of expression / Throat
6. Healing / Developing wisdom and intelligence and discovering your being / Third Eye
7. Transcendance / Dissolving the ego / Crown

What does this mean, exactly? Let's use an example. Angie, a smart, creative mother of two wishes to completely transcend her ego to be freed of suffering. She meditates, witnesses her ego-mind and commits herself to the process, but she feels stuck and doesn't progress without understanding why. She had a pretty normal upbringing, although her parents were very strict and demanding with her. She grew up fearing authority and she had to learn to lie and hide her true feelings and opinions to fit in.

Angie's ego-mind and consciousness did not develop normally at stage 5 -Introspection, because as a child / teen she was not encouraged to express herself without fear of being ridiculed or criticized. Her 5th chakra, located by her throat, has blockages that manifest themselves physically as chronic tonsillitis and neck + shoulder pain and inflammation. Angie is self-loathing and critical of herself and others. She's afraid to look inside, to find her truth and speak it freely. In order to heal herself and move forward, Angie will have to take a good honest look inside herself and express her true feelings in spite of her fears.

Many of us still have blockages at multiple levels, and they often manifest themselves as physical discomforts / ailments located around the area of the corresponding chakras. Physical or emotional pain is always a sure indication that something within us wants to heal into consciousness. Will we be courageous enough to give it our full love and attention? Thanks for reading!

Warmly,

Lise
Health Coach / Reiki Master
www.lisevilleneuve.com

Should We Slay Our Inner-Dragon?

I had fun colouring this mandala today as I was listening to Pema Chodron's CD "Walk the Walk". She was talking about learning to be gentle and kind with ourselves, because so many of us have such a harsh inner-critic inside. Sound familiar? She was also mentioning how important it is to learn to be alone with ourselves, to be still, so that we can observe our ego-mind, and see how it's at the root of our unhappiness and suffering. Now that I think about it, the colours I picked for the mandala remind me of a fire-spitting dragon, and from now on, I think that's how I'll picture the ego.

Most of us do just about anything we can to keep ourselves busy and distracted from our inner-tyrant. For many, sitting alone in stillness is pretty much the equivalent of torture. Why is that? Why is it so difficult and painful to face ourselves? Because we've become completely identified with our thoughts (which are predominantly negative) and our emotions. We believe that we ARE what we're thinking, we ARE what we're feeling, therefore when we sit there, and our dark, compulsive thoughts and feelings start to make our heads spin, we conclude that we must be bad, or very screwed up people.

Fundamentally, we're not bad or screwed up, we're just confused about our true identity. We're not the dragon, it just happens to have set up camp in our psyche. The way out of this nightmare is to face that dragon and to shed the light of consciousness onto it. We'll never be able to completely kill it off, but we can domesticate him. We can learn to observe it fearlessly, and it will gradually lose its power over us.

We're experts at either tip toeing around the dragon so that we don't wake him up, or keeping ourselves as far away from him as possible. In other words, we avoid our pain. It's understandable because our hectic, largely unconscious society encourages us to suppress a lot painful emotions in order to appear "functional" on the outside. Unfortunately, suppressed thoughts and emotions don't just vanish into thin air, they remain in our bodies and resurface over and over again until we are ready and able to heal them. When all our outside distractions dissolve, we are faced once again with our dragon, and these painful signals suddenly emerge from the core of our being.

A profound transformation happens when we realize that the dragon we were so terrified of was our friend, all along. He was simply trying to get our attention so that we could heal our wounds. He knew from the start that any pain we allow ourselves to feel (whether physical or emotional) is an indication of a part of us that wants to heal into consciousness. It takes great courage to face that pain, but if we can embrace it, understand it, love it and release it, we will break free from its shackles.

Warmly,

Lise
Health Coach / Reiki Master
www.lisevilleneuve.com

Are You an "Awakener"? Time To Come Out Of The Closet...

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POUR PARTICIPER EN FRANCAIS

-What exactly is an Awakener, you wonder?

An awakener is someone who is growing in spiritual awareness, who is becoming more conscious of his / her true essence beyond the ego. Awakeners understand the importance of becoming more present and still, and their growing awareness positively influences everyone they come into contact with (whether they know it or not). They inspire others to also awaken from the illusion of this physical world so that they may experience true freedom, peace, joy and love. Does this sound like you or someone you know?

-Awakeners, I'd love to feature you on my website!

Whether you are a novice or expert Awakener, I'd love to ask you a few quick questions and feature you on my website. Don't let your ego talk you out of it ("not me, I'm not advanced enough", or, "I'm too advanced for this kind of thing!") Chances are, if you're reading this right now, you have at least been flirting with the notion of awareness, and that qualifies you! And... if you're Eckhart Tolle, Michael A. Singer, Oprah or Eliza Mada Dalian, you can participate too, because you already understand the importance of supporting and encouraging the flowering of human consciousness on a global level. 

-What's my goal?

My goal is to feature as many Awakeners as possible to demonstrate and celebrate the huge impact their individual actions are making on our planet. I would like to help accelerate the awakening process by inviting all the newly emerging Awakeners to "come out of the closet"! It is my hope that those who are not yet familiar with consciousness -the friends, family members, colleagues of the Awakeners featured on my website -will be inspired by them. There is power in numbers, and I am eager to spotlight individuals who understand that by improving our inner-world, we directly improve the state of our planet.

-So you're interested in being featured as an Awakener. What do you have to do exactly?

It's very simple, and faster than you may think! Give yourself 15 minutes to spontaneously answer these questions (email your answers to me)

1. What's your name and where do you currently live? (1 line)

2. What does consciousness mean to you and how does it affect your everyday life? (2-3 lines)

3. What put you on the "consciousness path"? (4-5 lines)

4. In what way(s) do you help others become a little more awakened each day? (5-7 lines)

5. What's the most important / profound realization you've learned so far on your spiritual path towards increased awareness? (3-4 lines)

6. Are there one or two books you'd like to recommend to anyone on a spiritual journey?

7. Where can we learn more about you / what you do? (website...etc)

8. Anything else you'd like to share?

9. Please attach a picture of yourself and send your answers to consciouslivingsolutions (@) gmail. com

Thank you! Every single reply I receive is like a gift from the Universe. Remember to share this with anyone you consider to be an Awakener.

If you'd like to see what a featured awakener interview looks like, click here.

For more information, click here

Warmly,

Lise Villeneuve

Health Coach / Reiki Master

www.lisevilleneuve.com