A BEAUTIFUL INTERVIEW with my dear friends, and sweet co-creative sisters, Madeleine and Bonnie Culbertson on their beautiful new podcast, 101 WAYS TO SAVE THE WORLD.
INTERVIEW on 101 Ways to Save the World
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Tag Archives: spirituality
Full Moon Meditation of July 4, 2020
Full Moon Meditation for May 2020 – If you can’t go outside, go inside.
New Moon Thoughts
It’s Earth Day and a new moon tonight. Just happened at 7:26 pm, pacific time. It’s a great big grand square. No surprise there. We all know it’s been rough out there.
Here’s my advice for right now. Whilst all this disarray is certainly occurring, there is also a gorgeous trine from Venus to Mars in air signs. Stay up and above the fray of the very messy (and needed) reality that is changing everything. We are going to come out of this mostly ok, and hopefully different. The opportunity here is a real change in our world. It is happening. Now. What’s been talked about for a thousand years is happening. These are the times. And WE are the ones we’ve been waiting for. A new world is emerging.
🙏🏻
One Minute on BIRTHDAYS with Diana Lang
One minute on the Emerging Feminine
New Moon in Virgo
THIS NEW MOON is potent and powerful and HELPFUL. Think, “the Art of Tidying,” except it’s about every subject of your life. Clean out the clutter in your closet, but also clean out the clutter in your emotional one too. This is a moon that is earthy and real and manifest. This is a moon to organize your priorities and your philosophies. Simple, straightforward and true. Be ready for the changes that are happening, and coming, by putting your inner affairs in order, om~
Exact in Los Angeles at 3:37 pm, Friday, August 30.
A new YouTube piece by me, SHARING YOUR GIFTS
THE VOW
THE VOW
THE VOW I took at my first breath
was the one about survival
That one I couldn’t really resist because it was instinctive
but i have to admit that it feels like a vow
It needed to be a vow for me,
not just an instinct
because i needed to survive
my delicate mindedness was too refined for the coarseness of this experience
and i fought this vow with fists up and a sarcastic posture
so that i could take the easier way
and just let go
of this experience
But my soul knew me too well
and made me take a vow
so that i would survive
and make me stay here
despite myself
Okay, that makes sense.
the vow to survive so i wouldn’t give up before i was done
But then a secondary vow was made
this one was i made voluntarily
and that was love
I think I’ve made that vow every day of my life since i could think
not love in the sense that most think of it
not mushy love
dreamy love
romantic love
but love as the action
as the pursuit
as the living breathing experience of my life
to love as a discipline
to love through confusion
and discomfort
to love the unlovable
in me and in others
to love when my own heart is broken
to love through thick and thin
to love through hell and back
to love to heaven
to love with all the meanings of love
the ascension of love
the devolution of love
to keep loving
open eyed
standing there as a witness to love
to dissolve into love
to evolve into love
a pillar of carbonite crystal
that doesn’t move
that doesn’t hesitate
that only discerningly poignantly exactly and generally
keeps choosing love
in the face of not-love
that is the vow i take
And now, my new vow is take that big love of mine
and aim it at myself
So that i can complete that circle of love
and not just pulse and pulse and pulse
out
with no return
but to let it return
love to me
love for me
love as me.
© Diana Lang 2018
Full Moon Afterthoughts at Meditation Mount – Dec. 3, 2017
1 Minute on COURAGE with Diana Lang
Play video to watch >
An interview with Kim Corbin on NEW WORLD NOW.
Full Moon Meditation – SOUL HEALING
A Minute on Grace
A minute on compassion
A Minute on Truth
A one-minute video on Love
INTUITION is Your Superpower
(reprinted from the Huffington Post)
Your intuition is like a superpower. We use it every day in a thousand ways. We use is it in every transaction, negotiation and relationship we engage in.
Intuition is a deep inner listening.
And we all have this ability.
Intuition is a faculty of higher mind. It is a kind of extra sensory perception, as it were. Intuition allows us to discern between the billions of information bits that we are thinking, to discover by filtering through all of this sensory data, the common denominator, which is: the truth of something.
There is often so much mental clutter around certain subjects, especially ones that are important to us, that we sometimes cannot cognize what we think. That’s because we are thinking everything at the same time! When we’re afraid, and especially when we feel our lives depend on it, we can be thinking thousands of thoughts simultaneously with no conscious prioritization. This can put us into utter chaos!
But just behind the veil of the pros-and-cons list of our life, and all the myriad information that we pick up along the way – behind all that data – waiting patiently for us, is our personal inner knowing. Not what the world would say, not what someone else thinks about a subject, but our very own precious knowing.
Intuition helps us sense our way through life’s problems. We can sense when to move and when not to move. We can feel the intentions of another. We can intuit if something is right for us or not. It is literally our “inner sight.” It is insight!
Your intuition is the most accurate gauge of someone’s intention and heart. Your intuition can tell you what something really is. By heeding this deep inner listening, the truth of it can shine through. Because we really do know, or I should say, we can know. We just need to stop, and consciously ask ourselves…
…and then, listen.
Like this:
Become quiet inside yourself. This is very like a little mini-meditation. Sit perfectly still and empty your mind. When you think ofthe decision, the person, or the situation, what do you intuit? (Not, what do you think.) For the moment, put aside your opinions, judgments, or preconceived ideas. What does your heart know? What is your intuition?
Really, deeply listen.
Does your inner self give you a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down? Is there an internal nod of YES, or a squeezing contracted feeling of NO? You will feel it. It is very definite.
Here’s the thing, if you are listening with your intuition, you will know. We can be fooled by the external information of things. We can be overloaded by the sheer density of the concerns that are connected to our question, or overwhelmed by the fears we have of the potential domino-consequence of it. The problem is that the answer we think is right may look great on paper but not be good for our life. Intuition includes logic, but logic doesn’t necessarily include intuition.
It’s important to remember as you are gathering impressions to not be tempted to manufacture reasons to substantiate these impressions while you are receiving them. Listen to your intuition. But don’t try to justify your intuition. If you need to “prove” what or why your intuition is telling you something, you are already out of the intuitive state and back into the ego’s limited fear-logic. This is why intuition is intuition, not deduction or analysis. It’s a whole different faculty of mind.
There is no greater insight than what your intuition senses and offers – if you’ll listen.
It is how Einstein was able to conceive E=mc2. He intuited it first; then he proved it.
Your intuition is a powerful tool. It is like having a secret power, and in time, and with practice, you will learn to trust it more and more. It will guide you seamlessly through life. It will nudge you left when left is exactly the right move for you. As you become more adept in listening to your intuition, you will find yourself navigating your life more and more deftly, decision by decision, choice by choice, breath by breath, moment by moment.
And what is extraordinary about this inner knowing, this intuition, this superpower, is that it is adaptable and ever-responding to the ever-changing circumstance of our ever-changing reality!
Like any superpower, you need to cultivate and develop your intuition. Practice trusting your inner knowing. Get good at it. Let your intuition guide your life, for it will always lead you true.
Diana Lang is a spiritual teacher and author of
OPENING TO MEDITATION – www.DianaLang.com
…But He’s Got Potential!
(Reprinted from the Huffington Post)
RELATIONSHIP ADVICE FOR WOMEN FROM A SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE
“Everyone is gifted, but some people never open their package.” ~Wolfgang Riebe
Everyone has potential. We are born with it.
But the big question is will we live up to it? Will we meet it?
Just because we have potential doesn’t mean we will express it in our life.
As women, one of the very best qualities we have is that we can see the best in people. We can sense what a person is capable of. This is an incredibly significant sensitivity. As a mother, for instance, it’s important to see our children’s potential. We want to help them foster and cultivate it to help them realize their potential in the world.
But when we take this skill into the dating arena, this very same ability may not always be in our best interest…and it can sometimes even prove to be our greatest downfall. Because we can sense what our partner is capable of, we may be too quick to throw all our eggs in that heart-basket whether that potential will ever be actualized or not.
We can sense that potential right there, just beneath the surface. But because of woundings from childhood, or just plain being thwarted by life, our partner may leave their most valuable gifts unexpressed, laying dormant in their inner-diamond-heart like hidden buried treasure.
We can fool ourselves out of our need or desperation and develop a fantasy about our man that seems, and feels true, but is not actually realizing. We may gloss over what we hope our partner can be, rather than what he actually is. We can even fall in love with his potential.
That inner part of you that is aware knows all of this though, and this is what you must call on as you navigate the dating minefields of love. It’s important to stay awake to reality, especially in a new relationship, and especially if you find yourself head-over-heels in love, where it’s easy to lose all sight of shore.
In life, and especially in regard to men, the proof is in the pudding. This means, it is by his action that you can discern his potential-into-reality-ratio. For example, when there is a problem or a challenge, what does he actually do? Does he show up? Does he keep his word? Do his words match his actions? Does he admit when he’s wrong? When he fails, does he try again? Does he do what he says? The answers to these questions are the beginnings of perceiving a man’s character and sense of purpose.
It’s pretty straight forward, really. For a man leads by his action. What he does doIS what he is thinking and feeling. So, if he is not doing something, if he is not showing up, if he isn’t coming through, then that IS how he feels. His actions will show you.
There is an old saying that says: behind every great man is a great woman. A man needs someone to believe in him. That is how his best will shine forth. It’s important to help your man realize his potential. That potential IS there. But it’s equally important that he lives up to it. That he shows you. That he tries.
And yes, many people have not yet fully realized their potential; it is a work in progress, is it not? However, it will still be being implemented in some way. Actionswill be being taken. Real efforts will be being made, with real results.
So, let him show you. Let him prove it. And while he is showing it to you, he will prove it to himself.
And, of course, we all need to ask ourselves the same question. Am I living up to my full potential?
From a spiritual perspective, not only do we need to live up to our potential; it is our responsibility to. It is a spiritual imperative. None of this is predicated on success, of course. It isn’t about winning, or making the most money, or getting an Oscar, though of course, you may. It is about living your life with passion and compassion, with creativity and curiosity, and letting that beautiful inner diamond within you be expressed, some way, somehow!
Diana Lang is a spiritual teacher and author of
OPENING TO MEDITATION – www.DianaLang.com
Meditation in Real Life
(reprinted from The Huffington Post)
Meditation is everywhere. Angelina Jolie meditates. Ellen DeGeneres meditates. Sting meditates. Dr. Oz meditates! Oprah and Deepak Chopra present live webcasts to more than half a million people from around the world in their 21-day meditation challenges. Even Clint Eastwood meditates!
In America, more than ten million adults have a daily meditation practice, and those are just the ones that participated in the poll. Meanwhile, many more of us are quietly meditating in our homes and offices.
Furthermore, scientific studies are showing, by testing yogis, meditators, and mystics of every kind, what has been long been known: meditation really works. It strengthens the immune system, lessens the effects of depression, and lowers blood pressure, just to name a few benefits. Meditating even improves the way we age.
Meditation is being used in every kind of setting, from hospitals to prisons. It is being used to help alleviate the effects of stress and chronic pain. Meditation is even being used to help people through the process of dying. Schools are using meditation to assist children with hyperactivity and keep them off drugs. It is being used worldwide by groups numbering in the millions to purposefully raise humanity’s consciousness to a new level. Meditation is sweeping the Western world!
So what is meditation?
Most of us imagine someone sitting cross-legged on a mountaintop in India. But for most, meditation doesn’t fit this stereotypical image. It is rather a simple daily practice, done at home sitting on the couch, or at the office on lunch break. We do it to keep our balance, to find our center, and to stay present – even when things are difficult – especially when things are difficult.
Life can be so overwhelming. We can get distracted, distraught, confused and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of life. We are bombarded with information and stimulation. There’s so much to do. We are trying so hard to make money, raise kids, to be a good person. We get over-stimulated, over-amped, and finally overwhelmed.
There’s never been a time in history where ADHD and all kinds of other nervous disorders and immune system diseases have been more rampant. We eat too much; we work too hard. We swing from gung-ho exercise programs and massive dieting, to total lethargy and Big Macs. We are a bi-polar nation. We are desperately looking for meaning and simplicity.
We are looking for a way to get back to ourselves – to that part of us that is sacred . . . and it’s been right there all along.
Meditation reconnects us to that simplicity and meaning. It awakens that part of ourselves that is always already connected. When we meditate we have the actual experience of inner peace and a deep inner calm. It’s like the feeling after having returned from a long vacation; you return rested with a greater sense of well-being, but also a broader perspective of your life, and for a while we have a whole new outlook. With a meditation practice, you can have that experience every day.
People by the thousands are turning to meditation every single day, because we’re just plain overwhelmed. We’re stressed out and pissed off. We feel powerless, worried, unworthy, or worse, apathetic. All of these states are conditions of being disconnected – which creates pain. We are in pain because we are disconnected.
Meditation helps us to reconnect to our higher knowing. And the really good news is that it’s easy. It’s simple to do and as normal as breathing. Meditation gives you back your most true and authentic self. When we meditate we begin to feel more and more calm, more sure, and guided in every moment. Meditation takes you where you are, accepts you, and gently, lovingly, and in perfect timing, takes you back to yourself.
So, don’t be surprised if you find out your accountant meditates or your next door neighbor does. Wouldn’t you love to know that the nurse that is caring for you meditates? Or your lawyer? The more conscious we all are, the better this world will become. Where there is consciousness, there is compassion.
Meditation is a return to love. It is a return to your deepest inner knowing and that place within yourself you have always been seeking. Meditation literally makes your world a better place, and therefor, this world a better place.
Meditation will take you home. It creates a clear path to real peace and happiness. The place to start is exactly where you are, and the time is now.
Diana Lang is a spiritual teacher and author of
OPENING TO MEDITATION – www.DianaLang.com
The Value of Being Al-one
When a relationship ends, there is a huge, empty space where it was. It can feel like a big, black hole. All that love, all that energy was pouring TO someone, and now they aren’t there. But the habit of outpouring still is.
Somehow, you need to turn that loving energy back towards yourself. This is not so easy to do, but it can be done! In fact, it can be the opportunity of a lifetime! Finally, you can have the time and the energy to fall in love with you. In order to do this, you must go inward, for this is where your Self is!
Going inward can feel like a daunting task. Our instinct is to go outward. We want to get away from the pain, our broken hearts, the loss. But of course, that is exactly what we must attend in order to heal ourselves, not abandon ourselves. We must come to our own rescue and love ourselves back to life.
To do this we need to create space for ourselves. Being alone can be powerful and healing. We can take this time of being alone to heal recent wounds, and while we’re at it, past ones, too. By allowing ourselves the time to know ourselves, to even linger there, we begin a process of self-love that will last for the rest of our lives.
In our society today, it can seem completely normal to fill up every single space with something. It is practically a taboo to not be busy. Busy-ness has come to mean worthiness, popularity, and success. I would counter it is simply unavailability. The world will try to convince you that you shouldn’t ever, ever be alone. Like alone is bad. Like alone is failure.
But alone is where your heart is. It is where YOU are. And, alone is where you will begin to really learn to love yourself for who you are — as you are.
By allowing yourself to be alone, you can cultivate a state of spaciousness. This internal posture of spaciousness opens the heart. It makes you available – because you are present. And this presence makes you available to every aspect of life, including new love.
In my book, Opening to Meditation, I offer this idea.
“Most of us don’t know how to be alone. We’re afraid of the dark outside when we’re little, and we’re afraid of the dark inside ourselves when we grow up. We learn to fill up all the dark spaces with TV and newspapers and drugs and busyness and anything else we can think of – anything not to be alone. But if you examine the word alone, you’ll see that it comes from the compound word all-one. There’s a big difference between the words alone and lonely.“
This is a powerful notion — that by being with ourselves, really with ourselves, we can gain our greatest insights and understanding. We can begin to truly learn and know ourselves. And, in time, we learn how to love ourselves — our true self — not only the persona that we go out into the world with, but that most real and fundamental part of us.
The ability to be alone is essential to eventually being in a relationship. It is our self-love that attracts a partner that is right for us. Being alone teaches us to accept ourselves, forgive ourselves, and finally to bloom ourselves open to love again.
Diana Lang is a spiritual teacher and author of OPENING TO MEDITATION – www.DianaLang.com
Follow Diana Lang on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Diana Lang
To listen to more meditations, follow me on SoundCloud. https://soundcloud.com/diana_lang
Let Love In
(reposted from The Huffington Post)
To find true love, we must be true to love. ~Diana Lang
Opening your heart can be scary. Especially if you have been hurt in love . . . and who has not been hurt in love.
If I love you, will you love me back? This is our question. This is our fear. But this is also our deepest wish!
The fear of heartbreak is primal. The more we lean over the edge of the cliff of love, the more precipitous it can feel. There we are, with our heart waaay out there, on the very edge of our sleeves, hanging on by the tips of our toes to the edge of the crumbling cliff side, straining over the chasm in the hopes of true love. Love can be truly terrifying!
And so we protect ourselves, making sure we won’t get hurt again. Our hearts can harden. We can make ourselves invulnerable. Our hearts feel like an open wound that never really healed right. Over time, this wound can cover over and become a veritable scar, and impenetrable to new love. The gnarled scar tissue of old love wounds can become pretty grizzly over the years, to the point that when real love is offered we might not let ourselves be open enough to receive it. “I’m not going to get hurt again!” we declare.
If we do get brave enough to let ourselves open our hearts again, we can enter into a relationship literally halfheartedly, with our hearts hidden and protected under lock and key. The problem is, when we don’t bring our whole hearts to it, that love is likely doomed to fail.
Worse, the deeper we go in our relationship, the more there is to lose, and it becomes more and more difficult to take the risk of letting our hearts be vulnerable. We become uneasy and nervous, jumpy and touchy, loosing our perspective, taking everything personally, and quick to bolt.
But remember, a good relationship is built on give and take. And as much as we might be taking a risk in love – so is our partner.
From a spiritual perspective, it is always right to love. But there is a hard but beautiful truth inherent to this: Love is vulnerable. And you can’t take that part out of it. For the state of vulnerability requires actually feeling vulnerable.
The more vulnerable we are with each other, the deeper our love can grow. But conversely, the greater the depth of our pain if it doesn’t work.
To trust each other means to give over to each other, even in the face of our fear, that we could be left, walked out on, or be used.
Think of relationship like breathing. You breathe in, you breathe out. In this model, you receive love; you give love. It has to go both ways.
It’s like inhaling and exhaling. We need to trust the natural process of life. Just giving love can deplete us. The same as only taking love will back us up. Just like the breath, we must let it in and let it out. It must be both. Spiritual principle and nature say so.
There is so much risk in taking the chance to love again. We might think it’s easier to just not risk it at all. We worry, what if we’re wrong?
But I would counter, what if we’re right?
You can’t find a real love if you are not willing to really love.
So, take the risk to let love in. Let it in. Let it out. Let it flow. You might get some bumps and bruises along the way, and a little callous over here and a scar over there, but love is inherently brave. Take a risk. Practice vulnerability. Open your heart and see how love finds you!
Diana Lang is a spiritual teacher and author of OPENING TO MEDITATION – www.DianaLang.com
Follow Diana Lang on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Diana Lang
GOOD ENOUGH
Reprinted from The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diana-lang/good-enough_b_9396406.html
Life can sometimes beat us up a bit, turn us over, and spin us around on the subject of our worthiness. Friends and family, and perfect strangers tell us what they think about us with a critical, just-trying-to-help-you eye. But all this does, and especially over time, is erode our self-esteem until we can barely lift our heads up from the weight of all the corrections and criticism from the outside of us – and of course, even worse – from the inside.
Our own inner dialogue is often fraught with egregiously negative self-judgment. “We shouldn’t have said that. We definitely shouldn’t have done that,” etcetera, etcetera, until we can become virtually paralyzed by the sting of our own intensely disapproving and manifestly unkind personal self-evaluation.
In response we might find ourselves disappearing into the social wallpaper of life, dissolving into the crowd, trying to blend in to keep safe.
Or, we do the opposite, and overcompensate, trying to prove our worth to everyone in sight!
The worse we feel about ourselves, the more we project this negative self-image into our actual life experience. This is bad for our relationships, bad for our sense of self, and can make it almost impossible to express our personal creative contribution to the world.
The spiritual solution is to realize that we are inherently good.
This doesn’t mean that we do not grow, or change, or challenge ourselves. It just means recognizing that the raw material of us, the essence of us, is good in the first place. As we become more and more aware of this intrinsic truth, then our natural impulses, our inclinations, our loves and passions begin to unobstructedly carve a beautiful and elegant living sculpture of that essence.
You can start right now to improve this inner state by saying these two affirmations.
“I am good.”
“I am enough.”
While these two statements may seem insignificant, they truly are much more potent than they seem.
And, you may find, they may not be so easy to say as they sound.
But, I can promise you this: by saying them, intoning them in your heart, and bodily memorizing them, you will change your life – utterly.
These essential phrases are like a sacred mantra, a veritable spiritual prescription for rectifying self-esteem. By consciously maintaining them you are choosing to embark on a journey of real self-compassion, where you can begin to rebuild a structurally sound and positively focused framework for living a more loving and fulfilled life.
Diana Lang is a spiritual teacher and author of
OPENING TO MEDITATION – www.DianaLang.com