Lissa Rankin's Blog, page 7

Are You Overriding Your Soul With "Should?"

For many years, my soul was trying to guide me, but I wasn’t paying attention. Even when my soul tried to communicate with big glaring WARNING signs or GO HERE billboards, I disregarded the signs. Thinking back to the year 2000, I have to laugh when I think about how my former husband and I stood in line for three hours at the courthouse to get our marriage certificate. And finally, when we were at the very front of the line, belly up to the courthouse clerk, there was a bomb threat. A BOMB THREAT! I literally turned to my fiancé and said, “Is it a sign?”

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Are You A Cognitive Validator Or A Flaming Mystic?

When I went through the spiritual experience I wrote about here, a part of me simply couldn’t handle it. Some of the events that unfolded in the wake of The Experience made absolutely no sense to my cognitive mind, which I have come to trust. How can you dissolve clouds with your intention? How can you telepathically communicate with people and animals? How can objects speak to you? How is it possible that sand was moving around us when nothing in the sand was moving? How is it that I can suddenly stay underwater without breathing three times longer than I could a month ago? How did my perfectly cognitive scientist friend Dennis suddenly become psychic?

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Coming Out Of The Spiritual Closet

If you follow what I post on Facebook, you may have gotten a glimpse of what’s been happening to me in the spiritual realm over the past three weeks, but this is the first time I’ve tried to sit down and write a blog post about what I’ll call “The Experience.” The unfoldings have been so non-cognitive that I’m finding it very challenging to engage the part of my brain that likes to write, so I’ll ask for advance forgiveness if what I’m about to write makes no sense.

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How To Keep Your Heart Open When You're Angry

It’s easy to talk about opening your heart when everyone is getting along.

When you’re with your best friend, who has just built a cocoon around you because you just got your heart broken, and your bestie then climbs into the cocoon to hold you in her arms like a mother, your heart is likely to feel so open that honey just pours right out of it all over the floor.

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How To Raise Healthy, Happy Kids

When I wrote the title of this blog, I think I might have been overly ambitious. How DO you raise healthy, happy kids? It’s a question I ponder almost every day and one my readers ask me about frequently.

Because I’m a mom, doctor, and entrepreneur, I’m often asked about my parenting choices, and as you may have noticed in my blog, I pretty much steer clear of anything you might call “mommy blogging,” not because I don’t have plenty to say about the topic but because:

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What's Your 2014 Theme Word?

 

I’m not a whole lot of fun when it comes to New Years. I don’t like going to big parties. I don’t really even like staying up late or drinking too much champagne as the new year rolls in. I tend to use New Years Eve as a time of introspection, quiet reflection, intention setting, gratitude for the previous year’s blessings, releasing what I don’t want to carry with me into the new year, and quiet communion with the Divine. This year, I’m going to a hot springs resort by myself to do this, so I can enter 2014 from a centered, connected, intentional, mindful place. At least, that’s the plan…

But first, a few reflections on 2013.

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Why Imperfection ROCKS During The Holidays

You know how everyone seems to expect the holidays to be perfect? You may feel pressured to have the perfect presents under the tree (and lots of them). You may be expected to prepare the perfect holiday feast. Maybe you feel like you’re supposed to act perfectly happy and content, even though the holidays remind you of losing someone you loved or having your heart broken or not having someone you love to spend the holidays with. Maybe you think you’re supposed to look a certain way or dress a certain way.  Maybe you feel pressured to stuff your feelings and overlook the way your family sometimes hurts you.

Sure, it’s a time to be grateful for what we have. But the holidays don’t have to be perfect. It’s WAY better when they’re just real.

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What Drives You To Help Others?

I was on a plane on my way to Pasadena to speak at the Hay House I Can Do It conference, where I'd be surrounded by well-intentioned spiritual self-help authors who are committed to helping people live their best lives.  At these events, which I’ve spoken at many times now, I'd hear people come up to these celebrity Hay House authors and gush about how their lives were saved because of the books they wrote. I have no doubt these gushers genuinely mean it. It’s an honor to share the stage with these life saving pioneers.

But (I hate to put a “but” here because I’m so grateful to Hay House and so in awe of some of these wonderful authors) something about all this keeps troubling me.

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The One Secret To Avoiding The Success Trap

A friend and fellow Hay House author Christina Rasmussen reached out to me because her book Second Firsts: Live, Laugh & Love Again about finding joy after loss launched last month. Christina was about to hop on a plane to travel to New York for her book launch when she reached out and asked me if I had any advice for her, and here’s what I wrote.

Good luck dear! Here’s my advice. Please hear me on this.

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Letting Go Of Victimhood

You were abused as a child.

Your husband left you for another woman.

You were fired for no good reason when you’ve got three kids at home depending on you.

You got diagnosed with a scary illness.

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