Category: Uncategorized

The next time you find yourself experiencing a negative emotion try this…

Do not fight it. Accept it. Experience the emotion. Observe it and let it run its course. Depending on the severity of the emotion it may become very intense at times but keep observing. Pay attention to the thoughts running through your head. Pay attention to everything that you are feeling. Do not try and fight the emotion. Just surrender to it. Let it take you over. This may seem extreme.

But guess what is going to happen?

As you continue to just be an observer of the emotion you will eventually notice the emotion diminishing. Once that happens do not stop. It may seem easier to fight the emotion now, since it is not as strong, to just forget it and go on. But don’t. Keep observing the emotion. Again, do not fight. Just keep staying in surrender mode. Eventually, you will notice the emotion will stop, just disappear. It has run its course. It may come back later. But it won’t be as strong. When it comes back again just accept the emotion, surrender, and observe. The emotion will become easier and easier to control.

Love,

Carmen

If you keep love and enthusiasm in your heart, you will become alive and vibrant. You will find yourself with so much energy that you’ll feel as if there is nothing you can’t do. Keep the energy coming and others will be able to benefit from your energy as well. And what if you could look inside yourself and find the answer to any question you have ever had?

Then, you will grow from inside out because there is no other teacher but your own soul.

Our mind feeds on worry and misery, it feeds on the past and future. Our mind loves conflict and turmoil.  It wants to be at odds, fighting against everything going on in its world. It is like we are adrift in a little boat in the middle of the ocean and our mind is a hurricane, a raging storm that just won’t stop. But we can stop the mind. We can learn to silence our mind. We can learn to calm the raging storm and still the ocean and that is when we learn who we really are and all that we are capable of.

Love,

Carmen

Everyone needs good wishes. We need to give compliments to our families, friends, and strangers. We also need to hear more of them and give more of them. Inside our hearts, we all feel like we deserve more compliments than we receive. I know that if we send good things away, the Universe will send good things in our path.

Every day we should start with the assumption that we are beautiful, dazzling, or fabulous. We should ask the Universe to reveal just how beautiful and brilliant we are. Every time someone pays us compliments, we should accept them as if some angels just whispered. We should smile and say, Thank you. How nice of you to notice!’

We should become abundant with our compliments to others because we are all so fragile, especially when we put on a brave face. Sincere good wishes can penetrate beneath the most sophisticated masks to soothe our troubled souls. The ones we think need compliments the least are probably the ones who need them the most.

I encourage everyone to cultivate the habit of giving at least one compliment a day to another one. Then, notice how good it will make you feel. Soon, this will become one of your habits. Words can hurt us, but they can also heal us.

Love,

Carmen Monica

More often than not we come across wandering souls that seem familiar and make you wonder if you encountered them into another life or universe. It is the spark of the moment, the second of recognition when the souls smile to each other in pure abandon and fall into a delirious affair, the merging of thoughts and feelings and sensations that have no logical explanation other than the fact that they had found each other again after seasons of waiting. Wanderers of the worlds, they had spent eons in a dormant state only to wake up when the moment is ripe. After they settle in the rhythm of life, old souls reach the state of absolute contentment and nothing can disturb them again. This moment is called peaceful satisfaction that the waiting is over. Love, Carmen

Everything is made of light.  We are the stars, and the stars are us.  When we see this, all of our senses are truly open and there is no need to interpret the world. In this moment, our full, unlimited potential is available to us. There is nothing blocking our way. Let go of the belief that you must obtain something or become something to be happy. You are absolutely perfect just the way you are. You live in a world that has been programmed in fear. It is hard to escape because almost everyone you interact with and yourself has become a part of this world. It is hard to see a way out. We are so easily influenced as children that we can’t even see it does not have to be this way. Each generation brings the next into this fearful world blinded to the fact there is a way out. So, the next generation accepts that this is the way it has to be. It is a vicious cycle. We can put an end to the cycle and replace it with a world of kindness, gratitude and love. Stop worrying. Just say enough is enough and turn it over to the universe.

Love,

Carmen

I learned that we can be loving, trusting people and still not allow ourselves to be used or abused. We don’t have to let people do to us whatever they want. Not all their requests are legitimate because not all requests require a yes.

Life tests us. People seek out our weak spots. If we have a soft spot in one area, we find ourselves repeatedly tested in that particular area by our family, friends, or co-workers. All these tests are trying to teach us something. When we learn that lesson, we’ll find that we can set boundaries because we own the power to say yes or no. There are moments when we may be angry with those people who pushed our tolerance over the edge. And that is perfectly fine because soon enough, we can let go of the anger and exchange it for gratitude.

Those people were set our way to help us learn about what we don’t want, what we won’t tolerate, and how to own the power of self-control. We should thank them for what we have learned.

You should ask yourself how much you are willing to tolerate, how far you should let others go, and how much anger and intuition you discount. Where are your limits? Do you even have any? Because if you don’t have boundaries, you’re in big trouble.

There are times when you shouldn’t trust others, but instead, trust yourselves and set boundaries with those around you. It will help if you forego your naïve assumption that the other person is right.

Love,

Carmen

Christmas reminds me of my childhood. It reminds me of vanilla and orange zest and sugar mixed with flour and melted butter. It was the perfect combination for what we call “cozonac” or a type of coffee cake filled with nuts. I remember that it was a long and tedious process that started early in the morning when the dought was prepared until late afternoon when the cozonac was pulled out of the oven. But the highlight of the day was the moment when we tasted the first cozonac. Along with this traditional sweet my grandma prepared tiny croissants filled with Turkish delight or a mixture of nuts and cocoa and sugar and milk, and also cheese sticks made of butter, flour, cheese and eggs t toast melted as soon as they touched my mouth. Even today I wonder if she added a special ingredient in her food to make it taste so delicious. Christmas reminds me of fresh pine tree. I remember that Grandfather went into the woods with an ax and when he returned he carried with him the perfect tall tree for us to decorate with ornaments and tinsel and lights. He was also in charge of smoking the meat and the wine cellar. Every year, on Christmas Eve, carolers showed at our door and they sung about Joseph and Maria and Jesus and his holly coming into this world. Because this is what Christmas is all about: celebrating Jesus’s birth , who represents hope and love, who reminds us that we are always loved. So, I wish everyone a very happy Merry Christmas surrounded by your loved ones! Love, Carmen

Legend has it that Stingy Jack invited the devil to have a drink with him, but Jack didn’t want to pay for the drink, so he convinced the devil to turn himself into a coin. Instead of buying the drink, he pocketed the coin and kept it close to a silver cross in his house, preventing the devil from taking shape again. He promised to let the devil go as long as he would leave Jack alone for a year – and that if Jack died, the devil wouldn’t claim his soul.

After a year, Jack tricked the devil again to leave him alone and not claim his soul. When Jack died, God didn’t want such a conniving person in heaven and the devil, true to his word, would not allow him into hell.

Jack was sent off into the night with only a burning coal to light his path. He placed the coal inside a carved-out turnip and has been roaming the earth ever since.

People in Ireland and Scotland began creating their own creations of Jack’s lanterns out of turnips, beets and potatoes. The tradition traveled to the United States along with the immigrants and people began to use pumpkins, native to North America, for the lanterns instead.

Life rarely goes as planned in our heads. It may be confusing at times, yet it can also be a source of amazement.

Forgive yourself for being too hard on yourself, for being too fussy, for saying the wrong things, for previous errors and misjudgments. You need to understand that no one has it all figured out. We all make mistakes along the way, but we keep trying until we find pleasure.

You will love again even though their last words are still dancing in your head. You will love again even though their last kiss is still lingering on your lips. You will love again even though they promised you forever and still walked away. You will love again even though your heart is still beating at the sound of their name.

Love,

Carmen

It comes a time when we understand that perfection is an illusion, beauty is fleeting, and flawless isn’t truly possible. It comes a time when we learn the hardest lessons along the path of a broken road. We stumble and fall, we listen and learn, we break, but we also evolved. We let go of the ideals to always have it together. The truth is, we are none of those things and never would be. The moment we recognized our journey, a real trip into what matters, we became free. We are free to accept ourselves and our flaws, but more than that…we learn to love our scars, appreciate our imperfections, and relish our sometimes disastrous ways.

We are different. We are real. We are proud. We laugh through the tragedy and smile through the tears. We celebrate our triumphs and learn from our mistakes.

We embraced those places within ourselves that we had once hidden away, desperate to savor any resemblance of perfect façade until we realized we were trying to be what we weren’t and never would be. We lived with courage, loved with passion, and breathed life into an undying spirit. Every crack and crevice reveals a little truth about us, our lives, and our journey to find ourselves, love ourselves, be at peace with ourselves.

We can finally understand that broken people lived and loved, lost and lamented, but they still loved through the pain without regret. They’ve seen the darkness enough to appreciate the light, and their love was the deepest and most beautiful of all. They’re all the things the world tells them not to be:

Compassionate. Empathetic. Caring. Real.

We should smile and remember who we were and how we had clawed our ways out of rock bottom in those moments. Yes, we were beautifully broken, but more than that, we were honest and strong, and we just kept going.

We weren’t just a spark, a fire, or a newfound flame. We were a phoenix, and this was our time to rise. This time, nothing would extinguish our light. This time …we are unstoppable.

Love,

Carmen