Loving Your Neck Into Less Stress Spells Success

I don't know how many of you, like me, carry tension in your neck and shoulders. But chiropractors love me, because I just keep showing up every week for another adjustment!
All my personal healing and clearing work also helps, but that chronic tension has continued for years -- at least up to now!

About a month ago, tucked away in a closet, I found a gift from a dear friend. Along with some really excellent chiropractic treatment and my own spiritual/energetic clearing work, it seems to be helping my neck quite a bit.

I wanted to share my discovery because it's a way of loving yourself into less stress and more success!

It's a simple homemade flannel pillow filled with rice, about three and a half pounds of rice to be exact, to be heated in the microwave. I heat it for four and a half minutes, wrap it in a light towel for extra protection for my skin, and place it under my neck when I crawl into bed. I can scrunch the rice around so it is very comfortable as a support under my neck. The heat is soooo relaxing. The rice remains very warm for over an hour, which is just about right for helping my neck to relax as I fall asleep. Somewhere about an hour into sleep time, I wake up (I always did even without the rice pillow) and drop the rice pillow to the floor.

My neck has been more relaxed each morning, and my chiropractor says I'm doing much better. I note that her adjustments are "holding" better and longer.

My rice pillow is about 8 inches by 22 inches, made of simple white patterned flannel, of the kind you might get to make a baby blanket. You could easily make a pillow for yourself if this sounds useful. Just sew up something of about this size using soft but sturdy fabric, fill it with 3.5 pounds of inexpensive rice, and sew the end closed. The rice should have plenty of room to flow around inside the casing.

Or get a friend who's handy with a sewing machine to whip one up for you.

I like it because it's natural -- no wires to a heating pad, for instance. It smells good when I heat the rice. It feels very comforting and definitely helps my neck and shoulders to relax. Even now that the weather is warmer, I'm using it nightly.

Some doctors I've known have recommended ice, especially for muscle spasms or trauma such as a sprain or strain. But with my chronic tension, this gentle warmth is working as well as anything in many, many years. I thought I'd let you know in case you want to experiment.

If you are under a doctor's care for any serious neck problems, be sure to check with him or her first! My doc approves of this for me.

Let me know if you have any especially effective tension tamers that help you let go of stress.
You can post a comment on this blog, or email me at ilenya@powerofpersonalpeace.com.

Sending you Joy and Peace,
Dr. Ilenya

Ilenya Marrin, DSS
Author of ebooks The Power of Personal Peace:
Reducing Stress by Loving Yourself from the Inside Out
and
A Way of Loving Intention
http://www.powerofpersonalpeace.com
ilenya@powerofpersonalpeace.com

Keep the Change

Hello!

Many of you are stressed by financial considerations, so I'd like to share a few resources -- today, about phone providers -- for taking small steps to control expenses. Also, if you're loving yourself into new levels of success, being vigilant and spending wisely is a key skill.

I'm a fan of simple living and have learned and practiced such strategies for years now, even though we have a comfortable income. Maybe I inherited my frugal genes from my mother who grew up in the depression era!

Yesterday morning I had an email from a subscriber in Bhutan, and found myself making suggestions about inexpensive phone contact possibilities. This inspired me to share briefly with all of you a few tidbits which you may or may not already know, and which may assist some of you with access to my teleconference calls.

First, for those in the US, and like traditional phone systems, if you're not already using a national flat rate long distance plan, I suggest you check out this possibility with your phone provider. It made a big difference in my phone bills and I'm free to call my elderly mom and talk as long as I want, and to listen to as many teleconference calls as I want without worry.

As for cell phones, I know more and more people have switch over to them entirely. I have one and use it some, but I don't keep it turned on consistently. It's more for my convenience if I'm away from the house and need to make a call. So I won't address cell phones further here.

But I've recently discovered more options and will be using these more and more in the future.

For international calls, I've been delighted with Skype.com. I think people with older, slower dial up internet connections report a few problems, like losing a call and having to reconnect periodically, but otherwise it is really neat. (My brother is working from a 10-year old set up and says he can't use it.) You download Skype to your computer. You get a headset/microphone ($25-$30)that plugs into your computer. You click a few times and you can talk to any other Skype user in the world, free.

Once I discovered that the volume control is a little switch on the line between my headphone and computer, I was completely happy with the quality of the connection. Yesterday when I went to use Skype, over 6 million people were connected worldwide, currently talking this way.

You can also buy a phone card from Skype allowing you to talk to people on their regular phones for very little money. For people in North America, I believe Skype is currently promoting a special allowing free calls to regular phones in North America through the end of this year.

One caution. For Skype and any of the Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) phone systems, you do not want to do away with your land line entirely because these programs cannot connect you with 911 for emergency service! So keep your land line phone at a minimum rate and explore some other inexpensive possibilities for your long distance communications.

A similar program is now available through Yahoo. The link is http://messenger.yahoo.com/

There are a couple of other services providing less pricey phone connections, but I have not personally used them. I've seen some very positive comments from one of my alumni associations from people using Vonage at www.Vonage.com.

Here's information from my friend and colleage in the UK, Stuart Nelson, LLB, CEO of StressKill Services and specialist in stress reduction for nurses. By all means, email him at success-story@aweber.com to receive his highly informative newsletter!
There are several VOIP phone programs available. This is one that Stuart mentioned liking from personal use.

"You asked for information about VoipStunt. It can be downloaded from http://www.voipstunt.com and the charge is 10 Euros (approximately $10) for 120 days. This give as much access as you want during that period to free landline calls to the following countries:

"Andorra, Argentina, Australia,Austria, Belgium,Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Monaco, Mongolia,
Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Singapore, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela

"Cell phones can be rung at discounted rates. If you use this facility, the 10 Euro credit gradually reduces. I imagine that if you use it a lot, you might have to pay another 10 Euros before the end of the 120 day period."

If you've had great experiences with any other specific providers who help you to keep phone charges really low, please let me know and I'll do a follow up blog entry in a few weeks. Either post a comment on this blog, or email me at ilenya@powerofpersonalpeace.com.

That's it for today, but stay tuned for more Keep the Change tips in the future.

And please sign in for my blog and leave comments. I'd especially like to know what you want to learn from me, related to stress reduction, personal peace, loving yourself from the inside out, loving yourself into greater success, and so forth.

By the way, I tried to leave a post on Megan's blog after receiving her comments on a recent post, but I was unable to complete the transaction on her blog. Something was a little off in the system.

Joy and Peace,
Dr. Ilenya

Letting You In to My Success

Tonight I received an email from a graduate student doing a project on What Is Success, in the context of spiritual psychology. She asked for stories of success, and I was moved to share mine. Here's how I answered her questions.
I tried to be just as simple, straightforward and neutral as I could be.

1. What is your Success Story (from the dream to accomplishing the dream)? Please include any challenges.

I always wanted to be a writer, from the time I was six, when I composed long poems about the Fairy Paranabou on my Big Chief tablet. I took journalism classes and was the editor of my high school newspaper. After college, I became a social worker and my writing consisted of case notes and court reports! I married and divorced, then went to live in England for a couple of years. I left art supplies in storage in Texas and took my typewriter (easier to carry). I wrote poetry and enrolled in London’s City Literary Institute for a short story writing class. But I was busy with many activities and didn’t do too much with this.

Back in the States I discovered positive thought, affirmations, Religious Science and much more. I remember reciting hundreds of times: “I’m a writer, an author, I am success, flowing in wholeness and happiness.” I spent ten years as an editor/publicist/marketing manager for the Continuing Education Division at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and won a few cool awards in the process.

During that time, I switched career paths to counseling, getting my Masters from UNLV and immediately getting another Masters from USM, graduating in 1988. While attending USM I began a fantasy novel (still not published) called Copperstar. I also wrote The Smart Beginner’s Playbook as part of my second year project. A few years later, during my third year of USM, I wrote a how to text, Ask Inside (also not published). A little later I got the urge to write a mystery novel and produced the first draft of Capital Casework, a cozy featuring a social worker sleuth. (Guess what. It’s not published either.) Each of these books took months or years to complete and then languished on my closet shelf. A couple of rejections of my query letters did me in.

I completed the Doctor of Spiritual Science degree through Peace Theological Seminary in 2002 and had a notion that my Practical Treatise (Attuning to the Name of God) contained book material. I moved from the LA area to Michigan to join my husband who had taken a job there. In Michigan, I couldn’t find a job in counseling or social work, presumably because I was seen as over qualified. I couldn’t even get interviews for entry level work and I didn’t have connections to network into higher level positions. So I began to formulate the intention that I wanted a “portable career.” My husband was still subject to transfers and I was tired of starting over in new communities!

In 2004 I started work on a new book using some of my treatise research and findings. I started with pilot workshops to test the processes, and drafted a book length manuscript. In the fall of 2004, I queried the few publishers who didn’t require an agent. One was quite tempted by my approach, but my work didn’t fit the narrow niche of her company.

About that time I had a dream in which I had shot arrows into the universe and one came back with a bent tip. A message attached to it said, “This is not submissible, so we’re forming a plan to launch you instead.” I noted this dream in my journal and went on with preparations for moving from Michigan to Vermont because of my husband’s work.

Another writer friend took a look and said I had two or three books in one in that manuscript.

So, in between another cross country move, settling in, doing a new job in a new community, etc., I extracted text and created one very small book, A Way of Loving Intention. Last August, 2005, I was contemplating a final edit of WOLI and how to come up with funds to self-publish. My life coach nudged me to consider turning it into an ebook for publication on-line. He sent me a link to a free teleseminar by Ellen Violette. I signed up for Ellen’s 3-Day Quick Start E-Book Authoring Class to finish my book and propel myself into getting it published some way or another.

The first night of the class, Ellen strongly encouraged me to follow her process and create a new book. So I did. From concept to market research to writing, I produced a very respectable draft of a new book in three days of work. Wow! I was so impressed that I signed up for Ellen’s 10 week Internet Marketing Class for E-book Authors. I waited until it began in October, and then did what she said to do step by step.

Considering I knew nothing about internet marketing or ebooks a year ago, I’ve come a very long way indeed. My ebook The Power of Personal Peace: Reducing Stress by Loving Yourself from the Inside Out, was published in December 2005. A Way of Loving Intention needs a cover and then I’ll release it as an ebook also.

I’m steadily learning more about internet marketing. I have a website, which will soon be expanding from 5 to 35 pages. I've learned to build my own web pages. I do regular teleseminars. I blog on subjects related to my niche. I have about 1200 subscribers to my newsletter mailing list. I’ve been invited to co-develop and co-teach a class for coaches for a huge organization, and have begun that process with my colleague. I consider that I’m still laying the foundation for my business, but it's beginning to have a life of its own. My book is a ticket to credibility as an expert and I am feeling my way step by step as this unfolds. I feel like I have “backed into” a new career and I just now have enough information about my new field to start making some informed choices on how to direct myself.


2. How did you accomplish your dream?
This is the first time I’ve spelled it out from start to finish like this. I must say, I’ve simply gone step by step. I’ve had many disappointments and appeared to lay aside and ignore my dream from time to time over the years. But I kept coming back to it!! I definitely had spiritual help, from my inner spiritual master and the Christ Consciousness. I couldn’t have done this without the inner support. Also extremely important was the support of my husband, who is another USM grad, and my coach. My husband yelled when I tried to give up, he challenged when I faltered, and he was always there with his loving. My coach helped me to hold the focus and stay accountable to myself through all sorts of life changes.

3. How does it feel to be living your dream? How has your life changed?
My life is a lot more fun now! I feel I’m finally doing something I’m meant to be doing, in perfect timing. The many threads of my experience are coming together in a beautiful way. I use my counseling, speaking, writing, marketing and artistic skills and much more, often all of them in a single day. I’m enjoying a flow of creative energy like nothing I’ve ever known! I wake up with ideas and put them into action right away.

4. What do you attribute as the key to your success?
Persistence. Loving myself enough to keep going. Loving myself enough to keep growing on every level possible so that I was ready when the timing was right for me to step beyond my previous boundaries.

It was a blessing for me to write this out and see how my process has unfolded in such a gradual and gentle manner. I'm not defining this level of success as finished, either! There is surely more unfolding day by day and I am open to the miracles of the process.

I'll be inviting you to join me in more upcoming teleseminars. Stay tuned.
In Loving and Light,
Dr. Ilenya

P.S. If you want more information about Ellen Violette and her classes, click here
http://www.marketerschoice.com/app/aftrack.asp?afid=295952

Isn't This Fun?

Whatever it is, isn't this fun?

The frustrations come -- like having to try six times before getting the audio replay line right to get to my colleague Gabriele so she can post it for those who missed the call last Thursday (Propelling Yourself Forward)! And I still have to giggle inwardly. Thank God for all my blessings!! This adventure called life is such a -- I don't know what to call it! A remarkable experience. An amazing journey.

Cooperation is a big part of success. And loving yourself is a big part of cooperating with what is.

Lately, I'm working on loving myself as I deal with just what is present. Not that I feel a need to stick around and get hit by a falling brick, or let someone step on my toes, mind you. But if there are situations that might irritate me, I'm doing my best to love them. It's part of my strategy to stay in a loving space within myself.

A lot of the little situations that tweak my peace into imbalance are ones where I would like to be in control. Ah, yes. The master addiction, control! First of all, it's such a fallacy to think that I am in control of any situation or of any other people. Second, it's a useless struggle to try to be in control. Life just doesn't work that way. The very best I can do is some semblance of self-control and even that doesn't work all the time.

Here's how I see it working. I think I should have things my way. For instance, my husband and I often get crosswise about when to eat dinner. I'm hungry way before he is. He wants to keep playing bridge on line and I want to finish cooking and eat.
Now this seems like such a simple thing, but we have to negotiate a dinner hour anew almost every evening. Bottom line: I want him to be hungry when I am hungry. And I want to get in and out of the kitchen to go on with my other tasks. He's on a totally different time table, most of the time. His biological timer is wired differently. And he thinks hunger is an emotion and you just tell it to be quiet.

When I stay relaxed and we can easily compromise and choose a time to shoot for, I can eat a snack and wait with relative equanimity. When I let myself get too hungry, or when I forget to hold my viewpoint as an observer, I start trying to control the situation and my husband. Being equally as hard-headed as me, he let's me know right away that isn't a good option. And we get cross and cranky and sometimes go on to be irritated about more things! My little habitual-pattern attempt to control can escalate into a full scale argument if we're not careful!

So, recently, my inner dialogue goes something like this.

"There he (or she or it) goes again. Yes, I'm judging this."
"Ah, but we said we'd love it all."
"I know. I'm working on it."
"So, let's focus on just loving me working on loving the situation."
"Sure. This must be just perfect in some way because it is what is. It's all a part of God. So I'm asking for help to accept what is without judging. And on loving myself even if I'm judging."

I find that even writing about my control pattern takes me back into the energy of judging and being out of balance, stressed, unhappy with what is.

But when I read my little inner dialogue, I start to muse about the wacky lessons of life and my joy just starts to bubble up inwardly. I start to smile, I start to feel good again. Peace is present.

It's a choice as to where I place my focus. I don't have to like the dinner control struggle that we play out repeatedly, but I can love myself, love my husband, and extend my loving to our process. I can choose to stay in my personal peace. This spells success on many levels!

So, I'm back to working on posting my audio file -- attempt number seven coming up.

Meanwhile, as always,
I'm wishing you joy, peace, loving, success and inner giggles!

Dr. Ilenya

Ilenya Marrin, DSS
Author of ebooks: The Power of Personal Peace:
Reducing Stress by Loving Yourself from the Inside Out
and
A Way of Loving Intention
http://www.powerofpersonalpeace.com
ilenya@powerofpersonalpeace.com

Balance and Impeccability for Success

This will be short tonight, but I wanted to get this post out as part of my process for today!

You see, this morning in my Spiritual Exercises, I got a little inner message to handle what's in front of me with impeccability. Whew! To me, that means attention to detail, integrity, doing what I say I'm going to do, going for excellence in what I do, and so on. I was in the process of shutting down my computer when I remembered I meant to make a blog posting! So here I am.

This is also a part of living with balance. As I take small steps toward my goals, I'm creating balance. If I leave unfinished business, I leave energy "hanging out" and it pulls on my consciousness, nags at me, distracts me from the peace that I prefer to enjoy. It becomes a stressor.

One of the areas that has felt out of balance for me recently is having too many projects underway, especially small projects involving other people. And feeling I didn't have time for my own projects, my bigger goals. So posting tonight is one very small and simple way that I'm taking a step forward in one of my projects. I'm doing this much for building my own business. Another centimeter of progress is taking place! It does add up to success!

Have a great weekend!
Joy, peace and lots of loving and success to you,
Dr. Ilenya

Confessions and Completions for Less Stress, More Success

What can I say? The stress doc gets stretched thin and a bit stressed at times!
Whew! Right now I have too many small projects that demand immediate attention and I'm not getting to my big projects, like completing the expansion of my website.

Want to know what I'm up to? As a member of the Vermont State Guard Medical Corps I'm about to take an amateur radio class and I'm reading a rather large text to be prepared for the class! It's a lot to absorb for non-techie me, all about Ohms and Amps and Volts and operating rules. But I've had a lifelong interest in emergency preparedness and when Katrina hit the Gulf states last fall, I started checking into my community's status in case of various disasters. I ended up volunteering for the State Guard. Am I crazy or what?

So that's one of my little extras going on right now, all because I saw an opportunity do be of community service and the ham class was being offered on one of my rare free weekends!

I've just done two weekends out of town, attending a spiritual retreat in the Catskill Mountains of New York and then a spiritual lecture in Boston. Those were definitely times of upliftment and renewal, but I came back to loads of unread emails and all the household chores that didn't get done on the weekends away.

I do my best to let things go -- and have dust on furniture to prove it! LOL! But still, some things I gotta do on a regular basis.

I have two cool interviews coming up in my teleseminar series -- redoing Gabriele Reign's call on Propelling Yourself Forward (because of technical difficulties on the first run), and the following week, CoachLyon (Richard Lyon) on reducing stressors of "Honorable Unemployment." (Email me at ilenya@powerofpersonalpeace.com if you want the details.)

I'm learning, learning, learning more web and marketing tools, including beginning to delve into Photoshop -- totally fun but I'm still at the "What's this?" phase. I'm preparing to co-develop a class for professionals on how they can teach their clients about stress reduction. I have a few individual clients, mostly by phone -- some for coaching, and some for spiritual counseling and clearing work. I have articles and another book in the works.

And then there's the matter of getting the cedar siding on our home re-stained soon, and having a few dangerously tipping poplar trees removed from the property, and staying in close touch with my elderly mom (in Texas) who's having some health issues. And listening to my husband who's in a very demanding job, and cooking (which is mostly fun!) and on and on. And all too often, cleaning the litter box and the bathroom floor when 10-year old Crystal cat manages to miss her target!

So yesterday morning during my Spiritual Exercises, I got the message, "You might not want to start any more new projects until you complete some of your current ones." Do you suppose that would be smart? LOL! OK, I can take a hint! I'm very grateful that such logical and common sensical advice comes through in my meditation time!

I know better than to spread myself so thin! It always takes a while to dig my way out of the overload. And there are just times when it seems so "right" to keep saying "Yes" to new opportunities! But as my mom used to say, "Now it's time to pull in your horns." (Being a double Taurus, I can relate really well to this image.)

So, my way of loving myself just now is to focus on wrapping up some of my projects, bringing them to completion. Completion means no karma hanging out. No unfinished actions with dangling energy to trip me up. It means doing what I said I would do, or renegotiating the agreement. It means renegotiating agreements with myself when necessary. It means looking again at my "Ideal Scene" for my business and refocusing on the most important actions. For me, that's largely an intuitive process. I ask for spiritual guidance daily and, despite my questing and questioning mind, manage to trust it most of the time.

For me, creating success is more of zig zag process than a straight line. I expand when I'm feeling expansive, then I may overdo it and have to pull back a little, like now. I regroup and move forward again. As I say in my books, though, the most important thing seems to be to hold a loving focus, a loving intention with myself and the people and situations I'm dealing with. I swear that in spite of the many, many challenges, it's a joyful adventure this way!

You know, I'm feeling my way forward with my business and with this blog. My aim is to connect with and build a community of people of like mind and I'm realizing I may need to reveal more of my personal approach to life to do that. I hope that some of you find this information useful. Once more, I invite you to post comments or questions.

And if you need to simplify a bit, look at what is incomplete in your projects list. See if there are things you can wrap up, cross off the list, and forget about. Or move to the next level. Or decide not to do them after all.

Meanwhile, always, I'm wishing you love, joy and peace,
Dr. Ilenya

Ilenya Marrin, DSS
Author of ebooks The Power of Personal Peace:
Reducing Stress by Loving Yourself from the Inside Out
and
A Way of Loving Intention
http://www.powerofpersonalpeace.com
ilenya@powerofpersonalpeace.com

Reclaiming Your Life with Self-Loving

For some reason, this story was on my mind when I woke up this morning.

Over the years, I've worked with a few people who've taken back their lives after struggling with very dysfunctional family relationships for years. That struggle is a high order stressor, and the process of reclaiming their own identity, self-respect and self-loving is a huge challenge but so worthwhile!

If you are like the people I've known going through anything like this, you may go through all the symptoms of grief as if a loved one died. That's how enormous the changes are!

On the other hand, you are excited and enthusiastic to be discovering new skills in self-loving and self-respect, learning that you are worthy to receive of the goodness of life. You don't have to let your family (spouse, kids, parents) trample all over you, nor do you need to stay locked into a pattern where you are tempted to lash out at them in self-defense.

One person I knew years ago left a chaotic, painful situation, leaving her alcholic husband with three out of control drug-using, street wise kids. "How terrible," some would say. "What a bad mother," they might think.

From my viewpoint, this person took a great leap of courage and faith to break free of an extremely toxic family dynamic. Instead of participating and further enabling those unhealthy interactions, she moved herself to a higher vantage point. While working full time, she went back to school and obtained her Masters degree in counseling. She entered whole-heartedly into her own process of therapy, learning to function in new and much healthier ways. She also learned to forgive and accept herself. She started acting like someone who loves herself.

After a little time, she became a major factor in helping each of her children to make positive and healing changes. As she learned to care for herself, she "filled her own cup" and had some overflow of loving energy to share with the kids.

None of this happened overnight. It actually took years to unfold, the way family actions typically do. Each person had to find his or her own space to grow and transform.

Not only did this mom deal with the stress of leaving, handling her emotions such as grief and guilt, anger and hurt, she dealt with financial stress of working and attending college, and the emotional stress of helping her family as best she could while taking care of herself and maintaining her own balance.

She also managed her internal pain of getting honest with herself, letting go of old habitual ways of looking at relationships, and much more. She had to choose, over and over, that she was worthy of a better life, that she was doing the best she could, that she refused to get sucked back into the old patterns. There were plenty of rocky moments where those old hateful patterns resurfaced and called for healing. She got through them the best she could minute by minute and day by day.

In this story, stress was high for everyone involved. The stakes were high. The choices were hard. This mother could stay with her family and they could all continue in a downward spiral of pain and misery, or she could do something radically different -- get out and change herself. In choosing the latter, she fervently hoped that the others would be all right, that they would also find help, but she had no guarantees. She was terrified for herself and them.

But she kept looking for the next step for a higher road, a better way, some way to lift herself so that she could have the perspective and balance to make wiser choices. She began to seek, and find, a spiritual path that supported her. Her journey got a little smoother, though still with plenty of challenges.

Bottom line: In taking care of herself, she ultimately helped all the rest of the family immensely.

I'm sharing my memories and thoughts on this subject because we need to recall that dealing with stress and loving yourself into success do not come without a price. For some the price is extreme. But you can get through whatever it is. If you keep choosing the most loving options available, for yourself and the others involved, you will get where you need to go.

I've consistently found that those who are on some sort of spiritual path have an easier time, have more inner resources, have a greater sense of being buoyed up in times of challenge. No matter what your faith or spiritual practices, use them in your times of greatest stress and challenge.

Three simple, practical approaches to combine with prayer or meditation according to your faith:

Get quiet and ask yourself some hard questions, and pay attention as the answers come. Let your inner Coach guide you lovingly to your next steps.

Write yourself a letter listing all the problems of your stressful or challenging situation, all the pros and cons and possible solutions, and burn it. Let it go. Enjoy the sense of release. Be watchful for any new information that comes your way as guidance for next steps.

Take your dilemma on a long walk and ask for spiritual guidance according to your faith. As you approach the end of your walk, let go of the mulling and musing and give it all over to God, to Spirit, to the Divine Essence of Life. Let it go. Get on with your next tasks. Be alert for any new awareness or resources that might show up for you.

Less stress, more success, walking through your life choosing your inner peace and loving. I keep working on it! Hope you are joining me!

Joy and Peace,
Dr. Ilenya

P.S. I'd love to hear from you with comments, questions, or topics that you'd like me to write about. Maybe you want to ask about a specific kind of situation. If it has to do with loving yourself into success and less stress, into more love, self-acceptance, and personal peace, let me know what you're thinking. You can post a comment or question here on the blog, or you can email me at ilenya@powerofpersonalpeace.com. I don't guarantee a personal answer, but that is a possibility as time permits. I would quite likely to be able to respond in this blog.

Thoughts on Stress, Your Dreams and Small Steps

When is pushing a little too stressful? When do you need to push to hold with your integrity and create your dreams?

One reason I share about success and stress reduction from a point of view of loving yourself from the inside out, is that it's the only way I've found to create some sort of balance, consistently.

I've been through years of trying to be Superwoman, to the point that I eventually wrecked my health and took years to recover. I've had times (especially while restoring my health) when I just vegetated for several months. By walking through these adventures, I've learned that my own inner loving is an incredible guide.

When I ask, "What is the loving thing to do now?" I'll just get an inner sense that I need to stop and let all the rest of the tasks go so I can rest. Or, as just now, that it is time to record my thoughts on the blog even though I'm tired at the end of a long and productive day. I feel happy and not stressed writing this, just ready for the end of a peaceful and successful day taking my next steps in figuring out how to assist my readers even more.

This is a small step in staying connected.
Let me hear from you!

Joy and Peace,
Dr. Ilenya

How Are You Balancing Your Life for Success

When it comes to life on this planet, whew! There's always a trade off of time and energy for what we want -- dollars, things, qualities of life that we value whether tangible or intangible.
I've taken on some contract work trading time for dollars and I'm feeling the pinch in my time for developing my business in other ways.

There've been times when I had more money and was quite willing to pay for other people to provide services. At other times, money was short and I wanted to do it myself. I note that part of creating success through a process of self-loving and compassion means staying alert to that delicate balance. What is the best solution now? How can I best take care of my many needs? Not just the financial and physical wants, but my emotional and mental and self-nurturing needs.

Part of success is learning to love myself through the choices, and to keep making the choices for my growth and expansion. To keep loving myself into transformation. And that means making the choices, not procrastinating and letting those choices happen by default.

Happily, I'm off for a retreat this weekend, to regenerate and nurture my inner awareness. That's my ultimate success barometer! How's my level of loving, joy and peace? When I'm centered in that spiritual inner awareness, it seems easier to make the outer choices, easier to keep taking the next steps for my growth.

Today I spoke with a 51-year old in another state who discovered in our conversation that she needs to learn to play. That is the method of balancing for stress reduction and success that is "up" for her just now.

Someone else is working diligently to hold a positive and loving frame of mind while dealing with major health issues.

Another is learning to love himself enough to have the deeply committed relationship with Ms. Right that he's always wanted.

Another is juggling graduate school with wedding preparations and a parent who is quite ill, navigating multiple stress channels by maintaining clear communication with himself and others.

Yet another is learning to manage her practical life in more self-respecting ways, to match the remarkable depth of her spiritual awareness.

Here's hoping that you are finding ways to calibrate your inner balance as you walk through your life! May your process of lovingly learning, growing and uplifting yourself be filled with ease and grace, as well as whatever outer success you're aiming for.

Joy and Peace,
Dr. Ilenya