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Reboot Your Life(tm)
June 3, 2007
Inspirational and Motivational articles, quotes, and more for living a better and charmed life.
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Welcome to Reboot Your Life (tm)!
Your Inner Journey
and
Six-Sensory Guide
to Living.
Vol. 1, Issue 1
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My Spirit Welcomes Your Spirit!
I am so glad you joined me for the first official issue of Reboot Your Life(tm) ezine!
I would like to use this newsletter to share articles, quotes, tips, and tools to help you live the life you desire and to keep you updated on what is happening in my life.
If you have any comments, tips, or ideas to contribute, please feel free to share them with me by sending them to rebootyourlife@suesunshine.com. They may appear in a future issue of Reboot Your Life(tm).
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Last week I was so blessed! As I was walking in from getting the mail I remembered a conversation I had with my friend, Tammy. In it we talked about getting back to nature and hugging trees. Right then and there I decided as blustery as the wind was, and, wanting to get inside quickly, I was going to hug the tree in our front yard.
After the hug I decided to lean against the base of the tree. I kept telling the tree how much I loved it. That is when the blessing came!
With my back against the tree I had a view of our entire yard. There at a distance was a red speck where no red should be. All of our flowers are usually purple, yellow, white, or, in the case of our roses, apricot.
Allowing my curiosity to take over, my feet carried me to one of the apricot colored rose bushes.
Lo and behold right in the middle of the bush was a deep red rose! The very first rose of the season! It is in an area that I don't look at often and I would have missed it if I had not hugged my tree!
So my tree gave back to me. I connected with it, and it connected with me. Too many minutes pass in our lives when we are not connecting whether it be with humans or with nature.
Who or what have you connected with recently?
Blessings from my Spirit to your Spirit!
Sue
"The earth laughs in flowers."
~Edward E. Cummings (1894-1962)
American Poet, Novelist, Painter
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Coming Soon !
Reboot Your Life Website!
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June will be the month not only for the launching of this ezine, Reboot Your Life(tm), but for the launching of a new website as well. Reboot Your Life(tm) ezine will have a partner in Reboot Your Life(tm) website. Eventually Reboot Your Life(tm) ezine archives will be stored on the website. Other features of the website will include new original articles, information on upcoming events such as book releases and signings, available workshops, available consultations, and subscribing/un-subscribing
to this ezine. So watch for the link to our companion website. You'll be glad you did!
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Meditation
I couldn’t decide what I needed to write about in this first issue. So I prayed and meditated on it and the answer I received was meditation. My first response was that this subject was so overworked. Then the message I received was that to reboot your life you needed to start with prayer and meditation. And since many people balk at the word prayer, I should start with discussing meditation. This would be the beginning of the journey.
The information below comes from my forthcoming book, “Life Is Like Making Chocolate Chip Cookies.” It may be a repeat for some of you as I have posted it in different groups. It may be new for some of you. Either way the message is clear.
I do hope you receive something from this. So without further ado here is my take on meditation.
Meditation is what you make it!
How many times have you heard that phrase? And yet we seem to find it difficult to meditate. Have you ever thought that you’re making it too difficult to do? What ever is easy for you to do it in your life is as easy as meditation can be. We make our lives and things in our lives easy or difficult. There are different types of meditation, so just saying meditation doesn’t cover it. You not only have different cultural meditations, but different techniques within those cultures. Therefore, we can make meditating as easy or as difficult as we choose.
Meditation has changed somewhat from the regional, ‘traditional’ meditation. Meditation we use today comes from the older, Eastern cultures. They don’t usually fit in with the new or Western cultures of today. So they need to be adapted. Most people, however, don’t realize that. They struggle with what they assume ‘should be’ and lose the ability to actually meditate.
People, in general, who meditate, or attempt to meditate, actually put limitations on themselves and/or the meditation process itself. They make it difficult. Meditation ‘IS’ what you make it. What you embrace, what you disregard. How you sit and what you do with your body. What rituals you do or don’t use. And….what atmosphere or environment you surround yourself with. Your meditation is you!
Why ‘do‘ we make meditating difficult? First we must understand what meditation is.
Meditation is an emptying of the mind in order to accept the messages sent by your Spirit. It has been said, “Praying is talking to God. Meditation it is listening to God.” And we can’t hear if other things are grabbing our attention.
Many people I talk to tell me they have problems emptying their mind. Things keep rushing in. There are two reasons for this.
One reason is we haven’t learned how to actually listen. We haven’t learned to be quiet. Our society has programmed us to always need to talk, to be active, to do, to work, to produce. Sitting quietly and meditating are none of these.
Secondly, and I believe more importantly, we’re trying to introduce and mix the Eastern culture with Western culture. Meditation, and the beliefs thereof, come from an ancient culture, a culture where daily lives have revolved for centuries around meditation. We here in Western civilization have only started to embrace meditation and its benefits in the last century. We’re so far behind! Because of this we’re trying to incorporate actions into our lives that are not natural for us.
Those in the Eastern culture, that we have chosen as role-models, lead and are leading entirely different lives than you and I. We’re trying to squeeze fifteen minutes, a 1/2 hour, an hour inbetween our daily activities.
If a woman wants to meditate who is going to cook or clean? Is someone going to wait on her hand and foot? Is someone going to cover her ‘chores’? Of course not!
If a man decides to meditate is someone going to do work for him and support his family? Are they going to wait on him hand and foot? Serve him? Dress him? Protect him? Of course not! And yet that is what is done for chosen ‘icons’ of eastern culture.
When Buddha meditated he either fasted and/or was taken care of; the same with the Dalai Lama. When monks meditate their needs are taken care of. Their needs are met. They don’t worry about where the money for the electric is coming from or if the kids need new shoes. They don’t, or didn’t need to be concerned with anything in their lives. It is/was taken care of for them. Wouldn’t it be nice to not have those concerns and be able to meditate when we want?
So you can see why we here in the West have a difficult time embracing meditation practices of the East. Therefore, a few changes have been made. The problem, though, lies with us not accepting those changes and insisting on doing it ‘ the Buddha way’, ‘the Dalai Lama ‘way, the ‘Eastern’ way.
We live in the West. Our lifestyle is quite different from the East. So why wouldn’t our meditation practices be a bit different? That is not to say don’t try to meditate the Eastern way! If you do, don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t work the way you think it should work. Try adapting.
Start out slow. Don’t jump in with both feet. Don’t pick something like connecting with your guides or a heavy visualization sequence to start with. In order to learn to walk we needed to crawl. In order to graduate we needed to go through the different grade/levels first. The same with meditation.
Most advocates of meditation would tell you to put protection around you, to ground yourself. This is done through visualization and if you’re already having problems with meditation it may be difficult to do. Therefore, I try to start people meditating where grounding and protection are not needed. Where they can practice any time, anywhere, without fear of going into a trance-like state. The two meditation practices I recommend for beginners, or those who are having difficulty maintaining a meditation practice, are very basic. One is the counting breath technique. The second one is mindfulness. Once mastered, other meditations skills will be easier to learn. Then, opening up to finding your spirit guides, connecting with spirit through meditation, or any other meditation will become a source
you will tap into frequently.
Don’t get discouraged. Practice it and learn the two basic meditation forms and you can be highly successful in all other forms of meditation. Take baby steps and soon you’ll be taking giant steps!
© 2007, L. Sue Durkin
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"Life at any time can become difficult; life at any time can become easy. It all depends upon how one adjusts oneself to life."
~Morarji Desai (1896-1995)
Statesman, Prime Minister of India
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This area will be for updating you on the progress of my forthcoming book, “Life Is Like Making Chocolate Chip Cookies.” Some of you I keep regularly informed. Others of you are new and have no idea what I am talking about. Therefore, I will recap to catch everyone up.
Back in the fall of 2005 I started writing a book whose inspiration and words were given to me by my Spirit, by my God. At that time I would wake up between 3 am and 4 am to write for an hour or two. After a couple of months of this, and my groaning about the time, I was then given a different time to write.
Upon awakening in the morning I was given a subject, a title, and a first paragraph. If I got up and started to write the title and first paragraph, the rest of the chapter or article was given to me. If I didn’t start to write it down it would bug me until I did. I didn’t receive anything else either. I had to write that down and get the whole thing written before I was given anything else. Sometimes days would pass because I didn’t ‘get around’ to doing what I needed to do. But when I did, I was blessed with more and more.
I never knew how the writing would turn out. Sometimes during the writing I would end up having to change the title. Where I thought it was going it didn’t go. I was always amazed at the end when I re-read it what the writing had become. I knew it wasn’t from me. It had to be from outside of me. I firmly believe it is from God, or a Higher Power if you will. I never quite knew what to expect. But once I trusted and went with the flow I was truly blessed.
From that point my concern had been to find an agent or publisher. That is a difficult task in this day and age of so many writers. Again my Spirit, my God intervened and told me I was suppose to self-publish. Yea, right! Me? Self-publish? I fought it for quite a while. I even went to Sonia Choquette and asked her what she saw. Her answer to me was, “what is your spirit telling you?” I already knew what my spirit was saying. I wanted to know what she was seeing. It doesn’t work that way.
So I plunged into the publishing business. I started my own publishing company called Weaving Dreams Publishing. It is an authentic publishing company where I can publish anyone’s book. And I have learned first-hand the publishing business, all the while writing my first book!
There is so much legality and paperwork in publishing. I was not as fortunate as a friend of mine who was given the name of an agent. When I asked why I wasn’t given the name of an agent I was told because I can do it all and she can’t. Case closed! So since the summer of 2006 and I have been struggling with the publishing end of the book. At this point the writing of the book was finished and was only needing tweaking. So tweak it I did.
And slowly the book moved forward. In the early times I was so concerned about getting the money for the ISBN number. That was going to be the major factor in when the book was published. At the time I had figured wrong and came up with an amount in the thousands. When I went back almost a year later and discovered my mistake, the amount was only 1/3 of the original cost. I believe that I was given that amount to begin with so that I would focus on the things that needed taking care of first. When the time came for the ISBN number then I would be ready for it. So I let the thought of that number recede from my discussions and thoughts and focused on each and every step as it appeared along the way.
Another concern was the cover layout. I knew what I wanted but I am not an artist. After struggling with the concept and trying to do it myself, I came up with an almost finished book cover. I emailed it to my friends. One friend asked if she could show it to a friend. That friend in turn ended up doing the whole book cover! And for an outlandish reasonable price! Book cover layouts go for between $1200 and $1800 per book cover layout. Let’s just say the amount charged was 1/12 of that with a couple of additives that I could very well live with.
I didn’t want to go out of state as most authors do for the printer. I was so blessed to find a local printer who prints books. He is working with me on the format to submit to him. That is a crucial point. And he is working with me on making payments to pay for the printed and bound books. And how did I find this printer in my area? Seems my husband knew him and suggested I gave him a call. In my research I found that not all printers print books and RB wasn’t sure if this one did or not. He did! And bound them too!
So now I have a publishing company in order to get the ISBN number when I need it. (Oh did I mention an author cannot get an ISBN number? Only publishers have access to them.) And I have a book cover layout. And, I have a printer. And now I have all but one endorsement. And, and, and, I have my foreword!!!!
During all this time I had been working on getting endorsements. Those are the blurbs that are written on the back of books praising the author and the book. The first person I asked was Sonia Choquette. I asked her first because at the time she had been the greatest inspiration to me and a mentor. She readily agreed and soon thereafter I had my first endorsement.
I sent out feelers to other authors asking them for endorsements. Most of them didn’t even acknowledge the request. One particular author told me he didn’t do endorsements. But for some reason I was told to keep pursuing this avenue. That an endorsement from this person was forthcoming. So I waited and bided my time.
At a workshop in 2006 I approached this individual and asked again if he would endorse my book. And the answer was instantaneous! Of course I would love to endorse your book! What had changed? The answer was I know you now, Susie! So in February of 2007 I sent my manuscript to him for review and an endorsement. At the same time I submitted a manuscript to a psychotherapist who I knew that happened to be a friend of Sonia’s. She heartily agreed to write the foreword for me.
Weeks went by and I heard nothing from anyone about forewords or endorsements. Just when I was thinking to myself that perhaps my book wasn’t all that good after all, I received an email from Dr. Steven Farmer with a terrific endorsement! The following morning I received a call from the psychotherapist that she loved the book and wanted to talk to me in person about it, and that she had the foreword written. I was on cloud 9!
So now I have all but one endorsement and the foreword of my book. It is time for the ISBN number. It takes 4 weeks to receive it from the date of application, unless I want to pay more. As it stands now it runs between $600 and $700 for the ISBN number. Writing and publishing a book is NOT cheap. And even more so if you have an agent and are not self-published.
So I just wanted to update you on my book. The next update will not be this long.
I would very much like to have your positive thoughts and prayers on this project as I see it come to completion.
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Test Case
Next Friday, June 8th, I will be having surgery. I won't know all the details until Tuesday, June 5th.
What I thought I would do is use this surgery for a study of some of the principles in my forthcoming book, "Life is Like Making Chocolate Chip Cookies." I will report back at a later date with my findings.
Please keep me in your prayers and positive thoughts.
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Conferences and Workshops |
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Celebrate Your Life by Mishka Productions of Arizona will be holding their first Chicago conference on June 22, 23, 24, and 25th. To register go to www.mishkaproductions.com
More Conferences and Workshops as the information becomes available.
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"No One can chose your mountain
Or tell you when to climb
It's yours alone to challenge
At your own pace and time."
~ Unknown ~
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Reboot Your Life {tm} is a free monthly newsletter published by L. Sue Durkin, Editor & Contributing Author. © 2007.
© 2007, L. Sue Durkin - All Rights Reserved
Email Sue: rebootyourlife@suesunshine.com
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