I have been spending a lot of time out in nature these last several days before and after work.  It is so refreshing to walk along the creek, walk through the neighborhood, sit among the trees, without judging or labeling, after a busy day of work.  Letting the thoughts float out of me in small bubbles of light, just observing them as they float away  - to really get into, and feel the present moment.  Even if you do not feel like it, try to get out for even a 5 or 10 minute walk first thing in the morning, during your lunch break, when you get home from your activities or even later, after dinner:   Pay attention as you take each footstep.  Notice how your muscles move as you lift your foot with your leg and take each step. Feel the breeze, coolness or warmth on your skin.  You can do this - just 5 or 10 minutes!  You will feel so refreshed after this exercise.  It will get you out of your thoughts and unconscious mind patterns, and allow you to feel part of everything - leaving you more energy and focus than before!  We are all a part of nature - really try to feel that with this exercise. As thoughts about what happened, what you need to do, or what you think you should be doing instead of walking, come into your head - try to observe them without judgement.  Just notice that the thoughts are there - remind yourself that those thoughts will be there after your 5 or 10 minute walk!
Tip: When I walk, I decide how much time I have, divide it by 2 and walk away from my house that long.  This is better than doing "loops" or going back and forth past your house,  because the lure of the comfy couch will call to you each time you walk past your house!

During our lives we go through many transitions.  Some we may view as positive, and others negative depending on our ideas and beliefs about what that transition represents.  If we consider a transition positive - like getting into our school of choice, winning a contest, falling in love, getting a new job, promotion, getting engaged or married, having a child - we will welcome the changes, feel connected to life and others in a positive way, and we may feel elated, happy emotions.  Conversely, if we view the transition as negative - such as not achieving a goal we set for ourselves,  losing our job, our home, getting divorced or separated, or experiencing a serious illness - we may resist the changes, and experience feelings of anger, frustration, hopelessness - we may feel separate from others, like we are somehow "damaged" or unworthy of love and respect.  These feelings, either way, come from our beliefs about what is good or bad, what we "should" experience or achieve for ourselves in this life.  This ever-changing cluster of beliefs IS our ego - that part of us that interfaces with the world that judges and reacts to our beliefs about how we judge ourselves and how we think others are judging us.  This is not to say that our egos are bad - as I use the term "ego" here, because our ego helps us interface with the physical world and assess where we are in respect to our goals and desires.  By living consciously our ego can grow and evolve in a way that helps us - ideally, our ego dissolves and becomes consciousness itself.  But problems can arise with our ego when we are not living consciously, because it will hang onto beliefs and ideas about how things "should be" that may no longer serve us in a positive way. How many of you can think of a belief, perhaps one you heard over and over growing up by your parents or other family members - that when you went out into the world - were shocked to discover that perhaps your parents' beliefs were wrong?  That "shock" you experienced, was your ego reacting to the belief you held - and the subsequent change in your beliefs has hopefully loosened up, or removed all together, any egoic reaction you had to any such situation.
To minimize our egoic reactions to unquestioned beliefs and feel more peace in our lives, we must re-train, or re-habituate our egos to allow for positive changes to our beliefs and ideas about ourselves and others.  We do this by calling on that "observer" within each of us to continuously pay attention to our emotional reactions to situations in our lives, and to ask ourselves what belief we have that is causing us to react in that particular way.   We in effect, can use our emotional reactions as opportunities to become consciously aware of what belief is causing negative reactivity to rise up inside of us.  Once we know what the belief is, we can question it.  I can tell you numerous examples where a client may be upset with their job - a new boss is overbearing, the tasks are restructured in a way that requires more work for the same pay, or there may be a person or group of people who are gossipy and cause a lot of negativity in the office.  One could get locked into the belief that they will have "failed" if they leave such a job.  But I ask them to think about it differently.  While often, by avoiding these difficult people as much as possible  - or practicing presence with them - we could stay at a job with such issues - but more often than not, it builds until it is bad enough where the client chooses to go out and find a new job - or make another choice where they go back to school.  The client may experience a great deal of negative emotion about these situations, and "hang in there" because their strong belief causes fear of their failing, or being perceived as failing, if they leave the job.  So, questioning the belief that leaving the job means they have failed is important in this example - why do they believe it would be a failure to leave the job?  Maybe a parent worked at his or her job for their whole working career, and as a child they heard that over and over again.  Maybe the negativity the client is experiencing needs to happen and build so that the client can move on to a better position somewhere else, or go back to school to add to their skills.  Without questioning the belief, the client may have felt stuck - the tremendous fear about transitioning to a new job made them feel that there was no way out, and such a person would have stayed much longer in an unhappy situation.  So many end up much better off than before if they can accept the idea of change with equanimity, and look for the opportunity within the transition.
  Many spiritual teachers tell us that within every emotion we experience related to events in our lives that we judge either "good" or "bad" has within it the seed of the opposite emotion.  What this means to me, is that when we fall in love for example - with another human being, a pet or even a life situation, and are elated - at some point, that person, pet or situation will leave us.  It may be, that the love of being with another endures your life time, but one of you will pass at some point, leaving the other alone - or like anyone who has pets knows, we love them when they are with us, but at some point they too will pass away and leave you.  These situations can bring in tremendous sadness and feelings of loss.  Just recognizing the fact that all life experience is transient - good or bad - can help us understand why living in the moment is so important.  Taking time to bring consciousness into your body while mourning  a loss, or experiencing a transition, can help tremendously with the transition through the loss.  Being conscious or in the present moment can help us through any transition by removing or significantly reducing our emotional reactivity to the situation.   Life transitions are opportunities for growth - transcending the fears associated with these major life events, and remaining open to the changes they bring without judgment of good or bad by our ego - will allow us to more clearly see the opportunity(ies) for growth within the experience. 

We define ourselves every day with our thoughts, words and actions. EVERY night and morning try this prayer:

Dear ____(God/Spirit/etc) let me be all i can be! Show me the path, open the doors and let me see the path clearly.  I am so grateful for this physical experience - thank you! I am so grateful for my life. Let me be all that I can be!!!!!!! So be it, so it is and so shall it continue to be!!!!

Say this prayer, and really feel it deeply - to the core of your being!

Practicing "being in the now" helps us get out of that spinning mind pattern where all of the things we need to do seem to converge on us - like getting work done, calling people back, paying bills, organizing papers, signing kids up for some activity, setting appointments, (oh yeah, and be a good friend, spouse or partner) etc.   When we are in that spinning mind pattern, we feel anxious and fearful - and most of us, in our attempts to avoid unpleasant feelings,  will avoid even thinking about what we need to get done!  In this way our pile of things to do mounts, and the anxiety and fear we feel gets more and more intense.  In this state of existence, there is a constant undertow of anxiety and fear - we barely pay attention to important things, like our children talking to us, or the beautiful sunset.  Instead we function in our lives on autopilot, with a heightened frustration and fear level, and superficial frivolity.  Feeling dread or anxiety when a thought comes up that reminds us of something we need to do, or forgot to do.  There are many different ways to avoid feeling these unpleasant feelings - we may just avoid even thinking about what we need to get done, only to be haunted by it in many different ways - or we may create drama in another area of our lives that allows us to feel some sort of "outrage" to take up our attention, and draw other people's sympathies toward us.  The later not only harms us, but harms those closest to us as well.  This is part of the physical, mind-based, human condition.  The ego. 
When we talk about being more present, or living in the now, it means that our conscious point of focus at any given moment is on what we are actually experiencing or doing. 
Being present allows us not only to live in the moment in a more peaceful way, but gets us out of the unpleasant, spinning mind patterns that create worry, fear, anxiety associated with these spinning thoughts. Once we can neutralize the unpleasant feelings through conscious presence, we can approach our to-do list without feeling dread, anxiety, and without creating more drama.  In addition, being in the moment allows those close to us to feel more peace if we are in the habit of involving others in our created dramas.  Without the spinning mind patterns, and the intense negative feelings they can create in us, we are free to use our minds as a tool to plan and live life in the flow.  To experience being in the now, try the free guided meditation at:  Energy Body Meditation

Living in the now, is a continuous process.  It is a way of life.  Commit to living more consciously - look at people when you are talking with them.  See their eyes.  This is  a process that I apply continuously, and consciously in my life to help me feel more peace. 
Try it and see how it feels to live more in the now!

Our goal with all the exercises I talk about in this blog is to be, and live in, presence as much as possible - you can enter it now, at any time, without ceremony - just feeling your energy body - use this meditation.  Once our basic needs are met, food, shelter - for example, it is part of the human condition to want to ruminate about all of the things we should have done, should be doing, and need to get done - and our fears kick in, when we think that we are not living up to some standard we have set for ourselves.  One of the biggest concerns people tell me, is how difficult it is to "quiet their minds."  The methods described below, and in the last blog are simply tools that you can try if you are having that difficulty.  It helps many people to use the methods described in the previous blog and this one, to “harness their minds'” activities, so that the emotions surrounding a particular situation can be felt instead of avoided.  Since the ultimate goal is to live in presence, or beingness as much as possible, the steps described here are NOT a necessary step – you can feel beingness simply by feeling your body and it’s energy (use the free 6-minute meditation under the meditations tab ), but the self-talk discussed in the previous blog and this one, seems to inhibit many from feeling like they can feel and live in beingness.  Therefore, we should consider the ideas of self-hypnosis further.

As a preface, our perspectives on everything in this world, shape our past, present and future. The most important thing we will ever do in our lives is learn how to be present, meaning in a place of peace without the underlying negative mind activity.  As a path to learning how to live in beingness, or presence, a first step is to train ourselves to pay attention to the thoughts in our heads, and create new habits of self talk, that are more positively focused.  If we are overweight, it does not mean that we should train ourselves to say, “You are thin” in your head , but rather, instead of saying to ourselves, “I am so fat,” we can create a new habit of saying something like, “I know I am moving toward having a healthy and attractive body weight.”  The latter statement contains an entirely different energy signature than the former – it lifts our spirits and brings us up.  Then when we make choices, we can live more in harmony with the statement, “I know I am moving toward having a healthy and attractive body weight.”  It changes our perspective, makes the emotions more palatable, and opens up the possibilities!

MANIFESTING CHANGE with Guest Blogger Cheryl Stone

I recently had a discussion with a young woman whose life is in turmoil. She is in an abusive relationship. She has a degree but can’t get a job in her career field because of past drug convictions that haunt her. She is doing work she thinks is menial and that she doesn’t enjoy, but she needs a pay check to survive. She is depressed. She judges herself harshly. She feels stuck.

I understand her pain. We have all been in situations where we feel stuck; where life is a chore and we feel trapped. HOWEVER, THE TRUTH IS WE HAVE THE POWER TO SET OURSELVES FREE BY CHANGING OUR PERSPECTIVES.

Thanks to all the literature out there, including books like The Seth books, The Power of Now, Synchrodestiny, Abraham Hicks, Notes from the Universe, etc. and the wonderful individuals who promote them, Wayne Dyer, Jerry and Ester Hicks, Neale Donald Walsh and Deepax Chopra, we know our thoughts manifest into reality.  The only real caution here, is to distinguish between self-delusion, and evoking positive change in yourself. 

I remember as a child exploring how thoughts shape our reality when I read a book entitled The Little Engine that Could. Many of you may have read this book as well. It’s about a stranded train that is unable to find an engine willing to take it over difficult terrain to its destination. Only a little blue engine is willing to try. While repeating the mantra "I think I can. I think I can." the little engine overcomes a seemingly impossible task. As the little engine reaches its destination, the mantra becomes “I knew I could. I knew I could.”

This simple child’s story illustrates the point I want to make. We all have the power to change our life by changing our thoughts. We can focus our thoughts on the negative aspects of our lives; our failed relationships, the abuses we have suffered; our lack of movement forward in our spiritual abilities, etc. and be stuck, or like the little blue engine, we can think we can.  

I have been “stuck” many times in my life. It was when I committed to developing my spirituality and mediumship with Tamara about three years ago that I realized I survived the chaos in my childhood, my lack of self worth as a young adult, many co-dependent relationships, including co-dependent jobs, by thinking positively and expecting that everything would be O.K.

 As I developed my psychic and mediumship abilities with Tamara, she taught me several tools I use currently to train my thoughts and change my perspectives, like:

·      being present;

·      knowing my own energy and how I am being affected by the energy of others;

·      focusing on the things in my life that bring me joy instead of focusing on the negative;

·      consistently participating in meditation, prayer, or other spiritual activities; and

·      surrounding myself with other positive, spiritual people.

 I passed along this advice to the young woman whose life is in turmoil. I know that if she practices even one of these techniques, she will manifest positive change in her life.

If you are stuck, I invite you to manifest change in your life. When you feel you are not moving forward, don’t be diverted from the vision of where you want to go by focusing on past trials and tribulations. Instead, focus on the moment. Shift your perspective. Focus on the good things in life. Be aware of how the feelings and attitudes of others are affecting you. This can be especially troublesome if you are empathic. Surround yourself with positive people who you can talk to and who will give you good advice. Keep in mind that change usually isn’t instantaneous. Like the little blue engine, keep repeating the mantra: “I think I can. I think I can.”  
Cheryl Stone email: [email protected]

I want to talk about something very basic.  When I was in my early 20's, I read all of the Seth books by Jane Roberts and Robert Butts.  While there are many wonderful exercises in those series of books, this one I am describing here - while not exactly how Seth described it - is one of my favorites.  The part that is so empowering is the idea that our "self talk" is a form of SELF HYPNOSIS.  So let's learn to hypnotize ourselves in a way that benefits our lives, and helps us feel more peace and joy!
At our most basic level we are energy, energy that vibrates at varying levels – each part of us even vibrates at different levels.   In fact, everything in this physical place is made up of energy that vibrates at certain frequencies.  Even the table.  Think, why does a table or a chair start to fall apart over time?  Well the vibrations that kept it vibrantly together begin to change, the bonds of the energy particles loosen – we refer to that as decomposition. Even the air has certain vibrations that we can shut our eyes and “feel” it.  Some refer to the vibrations of your being, as “feeling tones” (Seth used this term) or “beingness.”  Even your thoughts are made up of this vibrational energy.  As Seth describes it, your feeling tones/beingness reverberates out into the universe, attracting things to you, and creating your life experiences – like ripples in the water.  I am going to call the feeling tones or beingness just beingness, since that is a term that most of you have heard used.
          IN other words, the state of your beingness will dictate your perception of life experience.  So if you are interested in experiencing a joyful and peaceful life it is important then to understand how your beliefs and emotions effect the state of your beingness – and most importantly to let you know how you can learn to change those areas of your life that are not in alignment with peace and joy. 
        Our beliefs are wide and varied – and one of the best ways we can understand our beliefs is to become conscious of statements that we take as “fact” in certain, important areas of our lives.  What I mean by this is, that if we believe something about ourselves, there is a statement we can use to describe it.  (this is not a time to judge whether the statement is true or not – just that the statement exists).
       I want you to read the following statements, and pay attention to your body, write down how you feel – in fact, write it in your journal.

1.              Life is tough – full of hardships.

2.              It is so hard to make decisions, and I always make the wrong ones!

3.              I never have enough money to pay bills

4.              It seems like so many people are struggling these days.

5.              Everything is so expensive!

Now read the following statements, and write how you feel:

1.              Life is full of joy if we look for it!

2.              I love looking at beautiful sunsets.

3.             I feel so competent at my job!

4.              People always come through for me

5.              I am lucky – I get what I want most of the time

Here’s another passage – please read through these, but now that you have the idea, I want you to really pay attention to how your body’s energy shifts back and forth between the peace/joy and the anxiety/fear.

1.              I am so grateful

2.              I am so ugly, especially as I get older.

3.              I really love hanging out with my friends

4.              People can be so mean

5.              I just love getting a massage!

I hope from this exercise you can see for yourself how your thoughts about something (also known as “BELIEFS”), cause you to feel emotions that effect the state of your beingness all of the time. 
      I am sure that most, if not all, of you know what hypnosis is?  I want to use the following definition: “Hypnosis, in it’s natural form, is the acquiescence of the unconscious to conscious belief. In periods of concentrated focus, with all distractions cut out, the desired ideas are then implanted.” (Nature of Personal Reality, Jane Roberts/Seth)
      It follows then, that your beliefs are like hypnotic focuses. We reinforce them constantly through the normal inner talking in which we all indulge.  This inner communication is just like the concentrated repetition of an hypnotherapist.  Id.
    So, I want you to do some writing for me: Read each of the following numbered passages, and write down your thoughts on the subject:

1.     Think of an area of your life with which you are pleased – or reasonably pleased.  Maybe you like the state of your body for example.

2.     Write down some of your beliefs about why you succeed in this area – for example, if you reasonably like how your body looks, you might believe that you eat healthy foods, and drink lots of water, or you believe it’s because you exercise most days… that kind of thing. NOTICE THE FEELING TONES THAT YOUR BELIEF’S ABOUT THIS CREATE – try to describe them – maybe it lifts your heart to think that you take care of yourself.

3.     Now think of an area of your life with which you are less pleased.

4.     Write down some of your beliefs about why you do not succeed as you would like in this area of your life. AGAIN, NOTICE THE FEELING TONES THAT YOUR BELIEFS ABOUT THIS CREATE.  I’m too lazy to exercise, I can’t control my eating, etc.

5.     What is your IDEAL in this area of your life?  Meaning if you had a magic wand, and could make this are of your life perfect, what would it look like?  Please describe it – and notice how it feels to imagine it!

6.     Come up with a simple statement to describe this ideal for you.  For example, if I could wave a magic wand, my body would be lean, fit and healthy.

7.     What objective world factors would show that your statement above is true? My size 4 jeans would fit, I would weigh ____ pounds, etc.

NOW SAY: My life is mine and I form it – feel this deeply in your body.  WHAT I DESIRE AND WHAT I BELIEVE IS ONE – I WILL COMPLETELY ALTER MY OLD BELIEFS IN THIS AREA AND WILL ACCEPT THIS NEW BELIEF:

STATE YOUR NEW BELIEF HERE: MY BODY IS LEAN, FIT AND HEALTY!

FEEL IT IN YOUR BODY.

KNOW THAT IT IS TRUE

IMAGINE IN YOUR MIND THAT THE STATED BELIEF IS TRUE

HOLD THIS VISION, FEELING AS LONG AS YOU CAN.  IF YOU LOSE THE IMAGE GO BACK TO IT. IMAGINE THAT ALL OF THE OBJECTIVE PHYSICAL WORLD FACTORS ARE TRUE – IMAGINE YOURSELF WITH THAT BELIEF TRUE.  (The Nature of Personal Reality, Jane Roberts/Seth/Robert Butts).
Do this exercise, and spend 5 minutes each day saying the above statements relating to your ideal - your new belief about the area of your life that you chose to concentrate on - and really FEEL the vibrations/feeling tones of your body as you repeat these statements over the 5 minute period.  Do this for a couple of weeks, and then see if your thoughts toward this area of your life has shifted.  When you feel ready, focus on another area, and do the same thing!

I often ask myself why it is a good thing to develop our natural psychic abilities.  The most important reason for developing our natural psychic abilities is that it broadens our conscious understanding of our physical experiences, in a way that allows us to pick up on subtle aspects of our experiences so that we get a "bigger picture" of what is actually going on.  There are fewer surprises, because we make decisions with a deeper understanding - allowing us to respond to life, and not react to it. 
To learn how to recognize and strengthen our natural psychic abilities, takes study and practice - just like anything else in life!  The more committed one is to study and practice, the faster psychic & healing skills will develop.  Not everyone studying psychic development wants to give "readings," "healings" or even teach others, some want to just understand their own world more deeply to have a more peaceful and fulfilling life.  It has also been my experience that virtually all of the people I have worked with will tell you that they were already having "psychic experiences" prior to studying the skills seriously - but that they did not recognize them as such.  That is a wonderful thing - we are all psychic and it is simply a matter of deciding to focus our attention on developing the skills. 
The most basic skill is to practice living consciously.  It takes some commitment to keep our attention focused on the now - but the rewards of doing so are immeasurable.  Start with the free meditation under the meditations tab of this site: http://www.psychicperspectives.net/meditation.html .  Try to pick a certain amount of time each day where you will not get distracted by electronic devices - including television or radio - where you completely pay attention to those you are interacting with.  Look at their eyes when they talk with you, pay attention to the spaces between their words as well as the words.  If you are out walking, pay attention to your feet and legs as they move, lift off of the ground, and then touch the ground again.  Feel the pressure on the bottom of your feet - notice the movement of your arms as you walk, what smells are in the air.  If your mind starts to spin on thoughts, use your discipline to focus your conscious attention on where you are physically at that moment using the ideas above.  When you practice this skill enough, you will find that when a thought does pop up that gets your attention, it usually is a really good idea!  An answer you were looking for, or a connection you had not noticed before that is useful. 
Living consciously is easy, any one can do it, and you can start this very second!  If you stay with it, you will notice a much deeper connection to the physical world - better insight, and less reactivity.  You will feel more peace.
Conscious Living is a practice that will enhance your life in a profound way.  The fact that when you are living consciously, you are better able to pick up on what your subtle senses are experiencing, is an additional benefit.

Tamara lives in Lucas, Texas, and clients attending the regular circle come from many cities, including Dallas, Allen, Plano, McKinney, Frisco, Flower Mound, Carrollton, Murphy, Wylie, just to mention a few.  Clients come to see her for readings, and learning from all over the world - whether in person, by skype or on the phone.  To set up a time, text her at (214) 789-0129 or email: [email protected]

This week, a dear friend has written a blog on the Mind - Body - Spirit Connection that I want to share with you.  I have known Cheryl for at least five years, and she is a wonderful friend and an excellent psychic medium.  Honoring the connection between our mind, body and spirit, allows us to live a more balanced life, helping us feel more peace and joy each and every day.  Often making "time" to honor this connection gets lost in our busy lives - but it really does not take much "time" if we can find creative ways to take 5-10 minutes as part of our routine each day - just like showering, or brushing our teeth - it becomes a positive habit.  I hope you enjoy Cheryl's blog as much as I do, and as always, I welcome comments!  Thank you!

With Cheryl Jennings as Guest Blogger:
Taking care of YOU is necessary for spiritual development and development of your psychic, mediumship, and healing potential. How often have you told someone who looks a bit frayed at the seams, “You need to take care of yourself”? How often have you promised yourself that this year you will really learn to take better care of yourself? We have the greatest intentions in the world, but life happens. Our day gets filled to the max with children, our significant other, our job, meetings, running errands, shopping, cooking, e-mails, taking care of our pets, etc. – so much so that it often seems laughable to carve out time for meditation and the other things we must do to develop spiritually. However, we know instinctively, that neglecting our spiritual development will inevitably lead us to being less effective, healthy and happy in the long run.
I’ve come to realize that exercise and meditation are necessary for me to feel fit and happy and an effort has to be made to include each in our lives. I have struggled with fitting both consistently into my busy week. I know that every week I don’t exercise is a week my muscles lose strength and tone, making it increasingly harder to keep my weight off and my health up. Every week that I don’t carve out time for meditation, I put unnecessary stress in my life. I want to continue to feel and look wonderful as I grow older and exercise and meditation are necessary tools I need for this goal. So I’ve taught myself not to think twice, but to take action even if I have to involve pets, children, or family in my daily exercise or meditation.
Nearly everyone can manage 5 minutes of meditation per day and those 5 minutes might completely change your life. Start with something simple, like taking 5 minutes of your lunch and concentrating solely on your breath as you breathe deeply in and out. Then make a commitment to stretch the 5 minutes to 10. Then 10 to 15. Then 15 to 30.
Choose a meditation that works for you and that’s easy to do, such as, concentrating on your breath, counting backwards, repeating a mantra over and over, moving energy through your body, etc. www.psychicperspectives.net has a great free energy body guided meditation that is short. Also, be inventive about working meditation into your schedule. How about meditating in your car while parked in line to pick up your child from school or meditating during your daily walk?
To ensure that I meditated regularly, I SCHEDULED it into my life.  In the beginning I attended a circle that started with a meditation twice a week. In effect, I scheduled meditation like I scheduled all my other activities. The consistent practice eventually paid off by fueling my spiritual development, which was my goal.
If you think you’re too busy to work meditation into your life, you are wrong!  Be inventive and work it into your schedule where practical and soon you’ll find you miss not meditating if you give it up. You’ll also find that meditation spurs your psychic – spiritual development and is definitely worth the effort of fitting it into your life.

I don't know about you, but I am not perfect!  In fact, far from it.  But I like to think about what that means.  What is perfection anyway?  It is defined by our beliefs.  Your idea of perfection might be quite different from mine.  So, perfection is a cluster of your beliefs about what you and others "should be" or how your life "should be," or even your beliefs about "what your life is like" or "your car/house/kids/etc is/are like," and whether any of those things are good or bad.   These clusters of beliefs form our perspective on life - who our friends are - how we interact with them - and most importantly, how much joy we experience in our lives.  Unexamined beliefs about what we and others "should be" can keep us prisoners to our minds, because we are constantly comparing, assessing and making decisions based on these clusters of beliefs, and affirm a lonely sort of separateness from others.  We often miss new experiences, opportunities, a deeper understanding of a situation, or our role in it, when we are trapped in those habituated mind patterns caused by judgement.  We miss the moment, and miss experiencing our very beingness.   When we are in the habit of judging from a place of emotion and comparing the people and things in our lives,  we live in a constant state of anxiety, fear and general unhappiness.  We never arrive at the place we think we need to be - kind of like trying to fill a glass with holes in it - we can pour all day, but the water never stays in it very long.  The habit of judging ourselves and others unconsciously, also makes us feel separate and detached from others, by always looking for ways that differentiate us from others, as being "better than" in some way, or "not being as good as" in other ways.  These unconscious judgements often leave us feeling very emotional - either "good" because we feel "better than" or "bad" if we feel "less than."  A clear example is when we feel a sort of "thrill" about hearing how "bad" someone behaved, how we got into a certain school or program and someone else did not, or how so-and-so lost their job or had some other negative thing happen to them.   Unexamined, it somehow makes us feel "better than" since that is not happening in our lives - or we beat them in some way (separateness)!   It is somewhat like when we read gossip magazines, and read about all these terrible and largely exaggerated things that happen to famous people - "well they are beautiful and famous, but they are sure messed up!" we think (better than).  Believe it or not these thoughts and experiences are negative habits that we can learn how to break.  Habits that once we break, allow us to feel a deep joy for life, and most importantly, "compassion" for ourselves and others - even when they, or we, seem to create some of our own misfortunes.

Exercise: So how do we get out of the habit of judgement?  Learning how to "observe" the clusters of beliefs and the mind patterns generated by them, is the first step to getting out of the habit of judgement.  Think of a time when  you were judging someone or something (including yourself) - pay attention to that voice in your head using words like, "I (or that person) should...work out more....eat less....call that person...dress better...etc." about socially acceptable ideas, looks, words.  Journal about what was going on in your mind.  Did thinking about another person's perceived "failure" make you feel superior or better than them?  How long did that feeling last?  Looking honestly at it now, how do you feel?  After you have journaled about this, reexamine the situation - this time, reverse the roles.  If you chose an example of yourself getting a job over someone else, or getting into a school, and they did not, or you losing more weight than they did, (you get the idea), reverse the roles.  Imagine you are them - really feel what it would be like to be them with regard to that issue.  How does it feel?  Journal about that.  Feel compassion for your situation as that person, really feel it deeply.  Now feel grateful for whatever happened to you in that situation.  What does that feel like?

If you have not yet seen The Sixth Sense episode of, "Through the Wormhole" on Science Channel - narrated by Morgan Freeman,  I recommend you immediately find it and watch it!  The episode explains some of the scientific proof for psychic abilities - and how scientists are continuing to research that area in different ways.  I do not want to ruin the experience of you watching it, but one part of it discusses the research of consciousness, and how this area of research is looking for the boundary between conscious awareness and subconscious experience.  It is an interesting idea to consider how consciousness can be explained in physical terms.  The spiritual exercises and practices we do to develop our natural psychic abilities, are all aimed at helping us discover where the boundaries are between our own conscious and subconscious experiences.   And maybe, therein we can form a "physical description" of consciousness.  In addition, the exercises  help us push that boundary further outward, so that we become aware of many experiences that we used to not notice.  By expanding our consciousness in this way, we are better able to live in the flow of life - to respond more effectively to our experience, not get swept away by the emotional states that effect us when we feel confused or fearful about what is going on in our lives, and to generally feel more peace and joy. 
This brings up another idea to consider: if we focus our conscious attention in one particular area, that area of our lives will carry more importance, and form our life experience.  So if we are concerned about what kind of house we live in, and all the details around that idea - then we will notice houses, we will think about all the ways we want to change or improve our house, we will talk to people about houses and when we meet someone we might consider the house they live in, etc.  It in effect, becomes our experience in at area of our lives.  Using spiritual practices to expand our consciousness, allows us to live life in a more balanced and complete manner - in our example, instead of thinking of what kind of house someone lives in when we meet them, we will be aware of the person as a whole - allowing us to experience the relationship in a broader way than has been our focus.  We might still have certain focuses that form our experiences, but they are broader, and not as "locked in" as when we live in a more narrow band of consciousness. 
Try this exercise:  Take your journal and, thinking back in your life, think of some times in your life when you had very predominant focus points - maybe it was getting into college and all the preparation for that - when I was looking at, and trying to decide what college to go to, I knew soooo much about colleges - it seemed so important then, and while it was, I know other experiences in my life did not matter as much - during that time, my identity became about being what college I got into; Perhaps it was getting ready for your wedding, everywhere you turned you saw wedding ads, or dresses, magazines, ideas.   Maybe it was your first big job - all the effort and desires that went into that formed your experiences - or having children - when I was having and raising young children, everywhere I went, that's what I saw, that's what I talked about - now where my children are somewhat older, my focus has shifted to their older ages, and I do not "see" that many babies or young children - even though I KNOW they are there!  It may be difficult, but think about what you are focused on right now?  Do you have some area of your life where it is a predominant focus?  Think about what else is going on in your life that is not getting as much attention - something you used to enjoy, or focus on?  How does it feel?