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Your miracle mindset with Gabrielle Bernstein

She’s written the best-sellers “Miracles Now,” “May Cause Miracles,” “Spirit Junkie: A Radical Road to Self-Love and Miracles” and “Add More ~ing To Your Life: A Hip Guide to Happiness.” Gabrielle Bernstein is also not afraid to share her struggles with addiction to the everyday things — like work, people, coffee, sugar — that can leave us feeling exhausted and empty at the end of a busy day. Bernstein’s approach to spirituality is to forgive, meditate and let go of the fear in your life. She’s plainspoken yet uplifting when it comes to making changes — and she took the time to tell 24Life what it takes.

24Life: You speak often about miracles and that the universe conspires to bring them to life. Can you tell us more about what that means? What is a miracle mindset?

Gabrielle Bernstein (GB): A miracle mindset is a belief system free of limitation, doubt, judgment, separation and attack. It’s unlikely that we’ll ever fully live with this mindset all the time, but our goal is to strengthen it. The more we lean toward our miracle mindset, the more our life begins to flow. This happens because when we’re connected to our miracle mindset we’re aligned with an energy of joy. That frequency of joy attracts more joy, which creates freedom and flow in our life. Quantum physics has proven that everything is energy — including you. You are an energy field and you’re responsible for the energy you give off and, in turn, the energy you receive.

24Life: Why is it so hard for so many to make time for meditation and self-care?

GB: Meditation and self-care are not what we’re taught to focus on. Our society puts emphasis on achievement, hard work and “making” things happen, whereas meditation and self-care practices are much more subtle and receptive. Many Americans feel guilty slowing down. They’ve given purpose to their pain and have a belief system that suggests that only struggle will pay off. The fear of slowing down keeps people from the greatest gift we have: meditation.

24Life: How long did it take you to establish meditation as a daily practice?

GB: I’ve been meditating since I was a kid. Unlike most people my age, my mother was a meditator. I followed her lead and made meditation a part of my life. For the past decade I’ve meditated at least once a day to maintain my positive flow and health. I rely on my meditation practice for my overall well-being, joy and success.

24Life: How does one choose a meditation style? There seem to be so many available.

GB: I believe your meditation style chooses you. The whole time I’ve been on my spiritual path, I’ve always been intuitively led to the practices that have served me most. As I’ve grown spiritually I’ve been guided to new practices that can serve my expansion. In my blog post “The Beginner’s Guide to Meditation,” I offer great suggestions on where to start and what types of practices are available to you now.

24Life: You have been very public in sharing your progress and struggles with addiction — coffee and sugar, most recently. What advice would you give someone trying to make changes in their lives?

GB: Here are the steps to healing an addiction:

1. 1. You gotta want it. Your willingness is crucial in getting sober. When you become willing to choose to get clean, you open an invisible door and all the resources you need will be given to you. Continue to strengthen this willingness daily by reciting this affirmation: “I am willing to change and I welcome guidance and support.” This simple statement will put your recovery in motion.
   2. Turn inward. Addiction stems from searching outside yourself for what you already have within yourself. That’s the sneaky thing about it. You can look far and wide for happiness, but as long as you’re looking outside rather than toward your own inner wisdom you’ll always fall short. The key to recovering from addiction is to establish a deep inner awareness. You can call this intuition, a connection to the universe, spirit, higher power or God. It doesn’t matter what you call it. All that matters is that you choose to turn inward. The way we do that is through prayer and meditation. Through prayer we ask for guidance and through meditation we can hear it. Redirecting our search for peace from the outside in is the most crucial step to healing an addiction.
   3. When you think you’ve surrendered, surrender some more. When people ask me how I’ve stayed sober for nearly 10 years, my response is: daily surrender. On October 2, 2005 I surrendered to a life of recovery. I’ve been surrendering every day since. As you practice step two and establish a spiritual relationship of your own understanding, you’ll come to know what it truly means to surrender your will to a power greater than yourself. This practice requires faith and trust that there is a spiritual plan for you and guidance working on your behalf at all times.

24Life: So what closing advice would you offer readers?

GB: Trust me when I say that your spiritual faith will be your greatest tool for maintaining and sustaining a life of recovery. You don’t need to know how or when you’ll gain this faith. It will be bestowed upon you as long as you stay in constant dialogue with your inner wisdom.

The way I stay surrendered on a daily basis is through prayer. One prayer in particular has helped me stay humble and receptive. I recommend that you say it on a daily basis to remain willing to surrender to a power greater than yourself. This prayer is recited at the end of every 12-step meeting: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”

24Life: Could you pull a miracle card from “Miracles Now” for our readers?

GB: “The moment I begin to celebrate myself and focus on my successes is the moment I begin living.”

Gabrielle Bernstein has been named “a next-generation thought leader” by Oprah Winfrey. She appears regularly as an expert on “The Dr. Oz Show” and has been named “a new role model” by The New York Times. She is The New York Times bestselling author of “Miracles Now” and “May Cause Miracles.” Her two additional bestsellers include “Add More ~ing to Your Life” and “Spirit Junkie.” Bernstein is also the founder of HerFuture.com, a social networking site for women to inspire, empower and connect. Learn more at http://www.gabbyb.tv.

living your dream with bo Eason

Bo Eason has realized “impossible” dreams more than once, and he’s got the formula for all of us to do so, too.

When Bo Eason takes on a new craft or discipline, he doesn’t just learn how to do it — he masters it. Eason is a former NFL football player turned Broadway playwright turned global speaker, who now coaches others on how to achieve that same level of mastery in their lives. Financial advisors, artists, athletes, fitness trainers, C-suite execs, techies and more, all turn to him when they’re looking to accelerate their performance.

To impact such a broad range of people, Eason draws upon personal experience. By age 9, he knew what he wanted to do with his life. With pen and paper in hand, he drew up a 20-year plan to be the best NFL safety ever. While other boys his age slept, Eason awoke at 5 a.m. to his father, a rancher, rubbing his back and telling him, “You’re the best in there, god%*$#mit. You’re the best.”

Eason listened. When no college recruited him, he showed up at the University of California, Davis, and played his way onto the team — literally. He switched places with another player, without his coaches knowing, so he could get on the field and show them what he could do. Years of grinding were rewarded when the Houston Oilers drafted him in 1984. During his five-year career, he played against and beside some of the greatest athletes to ever play the game before a knee injury ended his run.

The impossible dream, revived

“As I was being wheeled off the field, I remember looking up in the crowd. We were in Miami, and I was just thinking, ‘What am I going to do now?’” Eason says.

Professionally trained to “knock people over,” Eason recognized that his highly honed physical skills and preparation had little application in the civilian world. He knew he had to find another outlet that would let him express all that “TNT” he felt inside his body. So, he moved to New York City and put it on stage.

“I channeled it into being the best stage performer of our time, and that was the new 20-year-plan,” Eason says.

Fifteen years later — with a little advice from mentor Al Pacino — he found success, starring in a play he wrote and produced called “Runt of the Litter.” He has since used his unique blend of stage work, physical training and intense preparation to help coach others on how to communicate for maximum impact and fulfill their dreams.

24Life spoke to Eason about his journey and the tools he uses regularly to help himself, his clients and his family achieve what seems impossible....read more.

LIGHTEN UP FOR ENLIGHTENMENT

Danielle LaPorte’s “White Hot Truth” is about finding your flame without getting burned.

“Philosopher” is the word that Danielle LaPorte uses to describe herself. Author of the personal-development sensation “The Desire Map” (Sounds True, 2014) and a member of Oprah Winfrey’s SuperSoul 100, Entrepreneur magazine calls LaPorte “equal parts poet and entrepreneurial badass.” In LaPorte’s religion, “there’s meditation, there’s contemplation and there’s prayer,” and also “a lot of music … a lot of cuddling … a lot of texting with my girlfriends,” she says. Her insights, grounded in the reality of paying the bills, raising her son, yoga and friendship, are raw and powerful.

LaPorte sat down with 24Life to talk about her new book “White Hot Truth” (Virtuonica, 2017). Inspired by the very hottest part of a flame and her search for the spiritual equivalent, LaPorte explains, “When you get to that point in the fire, it’s where it’s hottest. … That’s where the heat can actually melt metal. And I’m very interested in that center point in people. I want to know that truth in myself.”

She has no illusions about how to get to that white-hot center. LaPorte says, “You have to grind your way to freedom,” in a practical and spiritual sense. In her case, for example, it meant she had to design an alternative to a conventional work environment—and combat her inclination to create new “hamster wheels” for herself.

But “grind” also means taking risks on self-love, self-compassion, intuition and boundaries—the things that make it possible for us to avoid spiritual to-do lists, find clarity and make it part of our daily lives. This integration is what LaPorte preaches: “My most so-called enlightened moments have definitely been my most human.”

Here’s what LaPorte has to say about getting to that white-hot center.

DON’T CONFUSE DISTRACTION WITH SPIRITUALITY. We want to be loving, we want to be present for our men, our women, our children. We’re recycling, we want to shop in a socially responsible way. We want some form of contemplation. Your spiritual growth becomes another to-do list. … But to-do lists create anxiety; they are about production and approval. We replaced some gods with new gods, but our new gods were wearing black stretchy yoga pants. And they looked way hotter, and they’re talking about cooler things, as opposed to be heavily dictatorial. But really, there’s still this achievement that we’re going for … and we’re actually kind of going crazy and burning out because of it....read more.