It seems like around this time every year, I just feel like getting away to be by myself.  In the past two years, I’ve gone to this place called Assumption Abbey, a monastery in Ava, Missouri.  It’s a very peaceful and lovely place centered in a spiritual vortex in the Midwest.

There are walking trails in the woods, and the monks have regularly scheduled masses, and they make all of their own meals.  One of the things they do to keep the place operating is make fruit cakes and sell them. They offer the place to people for a love offering, and you’re invited to share in their meals as well.  It’s a modest place as far as furnishings, but what I love about it is the peace and tranquility.

You can’t always up and leave your family for a weekend though, can you? So what can you do when you feel out of sorts and being pulled in different directions?  Last night I kept getting up to use the restroom, and around 3am, my husband still hadn’t come to bed.  I’d been awakened by a loud thumping noise and went to investigate.

Well, he and my daughter, Chelsea, her friend, and my brother-in-law, Jim, were all out in the living room watching a movie–at 3am!  My husband had decided that Chelsea could “skip” school Friday since she’d gone to her first ever concert Thursday night and had gotten home late.  It agitated me because I felt like they’d all be sleeping the day away while I worked.  I felt my judgments rise.  I just went back to bed, but I felt annoyed and had a hard time getting back to sleep at first.

So I asked myself, “How can you calm yourself and go to sleep even though you know the alarm is going to go off in an hour?”  (I get up early as you can see). So I started to breathe deeply and say to myself, “I love and appreciate even this little life annoyance.  I love and appreciate this moment.” I fell asleep quickly.  I had effectively self-soothed!

Then later in the morning when I was lying in the hot bikram yoga studio on my mat, about to practice, I mused about how I get so impatient with life’s inconveniences. They are more of an energy robber than death. I asked myself, “Why should life’s circumstances be easy?”  Do I really require them to be easy to feel good?

It seems that I have not accepted life’s petty disturbances as part of life.  Even just as I typed this, my computer did something and deleted a sentence–you know how those little quirks can happen, right?  I began to react and get angry for it “inconveniencing” me.  How dare it waste my precious time?  I laughed at myself, observing my silliness.  The truth is I have the ability to accept life on life’s terms.  I can make life easy, but I need to flow with it, instead of trying to control every nuance.

I cannot do this alone with my ego in charge.  I have to surrender to my Higher Self, my Higher Wisdom.  My ego has no clue how to navigate life.  My ego’s need to control will drain my energy and zap my joy.  It will worry about running out of money even when there is plenty.  It will tell me that I have nothing to offer this world and that I will fail and let myself and my family down.

This is just nonsense.  If you can relate to this negative self-talk, then breathe, become self-aware, and tell your ego to calm its butt down!  YOU are in charge, not your fearful, doubtful, judgmental, critical EGO (Easing God Out) self.

God Bless,
Angie Monko

Happy New Year and welcome to 2012!  I am not participating in any fearful predictions of what this year has to bring, nor am I participating in the recession.  If the worst should happen and the entire planet were destroyed (and it won’t be), you would just return to your blissful, eternal state of Wholeness.  You’ll simply return to Who You Really Are as ONE collective body of Loving Energy.  I truly know there is nothing to fear here.

Why not just enjoy your daily moments and open your hearts to receive MORE love and joy (more on that in the main article)?  If when you die, you go back to your original state of Energy and become ONE with All that is, then why the fear?  Well, let’s get very honest.  Your ego self wants you to believe that the world should serve it in every capacity.

Your ego self is very afraid of being annihilated.  As a separate physical body, death, to the ego, means the end of your life and your existence as you know it, a vanishing into nothingness.  I would be scared too!  Your Higher Self knows this is silly and nonsense.  Nothing is ever created or destroyed, as proved by Einstein, and you are 100% made of Energy as everything in the Universe is.  You cannot be destroyed.  Rest in this knowledge and feel it at the very center of your Being.  Remember who you are.

Make a vow that 2012 will be your best year ever, because you are going to come into alignment with Who You Really Are.  Decide that you will live your life from a place of ease and grace.  Let go of the belief that it is natural to struggle.  It isn’t!  Arnold Patent in his book, You Can Have It All, says that beliefs aren’t natural.  They take a LOT of energy to uphold them and defend them.

You know what I mean, don’t you?  Connect with me at a heart level right now.  I believe in YOU, your Essence, Your Wonderful Energy, the Loving Being You ARE.  The rest is just junk.  All of your doubts and fears are the lies your ego self has been telling you.  You are so much more than that!  Isn’t it time to get to know you?

Welcome to 2012, the best year of your life!  If you are a business owner, salesperson, or simply a business person, please check out my upcoming workshop, “Effective Mindset and Marketing Concepts for 2012 and Beyond,” I’m conducting that starts 2/21/12 at the Hilton St. Louis Frontenac. The details are in this newsletter.

Much Love,
Angie

Do you have a block around your heart?  Does intimacy scare you?  Have you ever been around someone who seems to be able to peer into your mind and soul?  It’s a little unnerving, isn’t it…. Well I’ve been doing some body work sessions with Roger Weinerth, and he had that effect on me.  We just finished on Wednesday with my 12th session.  Roger helps people get in touch with their bodies, become aware of their bodies, and utilize movement to their best advantage.

Roger would watch how I walk, how I held my shoulders, moved my arms, how long my strides were. Then he’d do some hands-on therapy to relax my muscles and my frame.  I honestly don’t understand all he did.  I did notice that I was not practicing my new walk and awareness.  In fact, I’d often forgot about what we’d done, on a physical level, until I showed up the next week.  We did talk about lots of things while he was doing the body work, my feelings, my desires, my concerns, and I would think about that stuff a lot during the time between visits.

So this last time I explained how I’ve been “forgetting” to do the walking.  It is almost as if I didn’t want to be aware.  Remember our subconscious will reveal what we really want, and my actions, as far as using my physical body to come into my full power and awareness, indicated I wasn’t ready for this.

I do bikram yoga, and this helps me get into contact with my physical self, but I believe I’ve had almost a disrespect for my physical experience.  You see, I know we are spiritual beings having a human experience, and our physical bodies are “just” manifestations of our Mind.  But what Roger has taught me is that we can use our physical body to help strengthen our mind and bring us more into our spiritual experience, and that never occurred to me.

I’ve always thought the Mind is creating everything that we experience and that the body is innocent, and so therefore we should be able to control our bodies with our Mind.  And this is the Truth.  However, what if we could use the signals our body is giving us to change our Mind?  What if we could notice, be aware of, how we stand, sit, feel, in order to make better decisions and “claim” the Power within us that has always been there?

What if we could walk with a flow and easiness, letting our arms and legs swing widely, twisting our waist and spine in a way that is freeing?  Is it possible this would help to free our mind?  Roger says so.  I think I will allow myself to experience this and get in a daily habit of walking in freedom.

I had another aha moment with Roger.  By not coming into my full awareness, by not totally opening my heart to others, this served me to feel safe.  It feels vulnerable to open my heart wide open, to peer into my loved one’s eyes and see their true Self. Roger did this to me.  He just sat there (after I’d told him I was afraid of being vulnerable) and stared at me.  He was giving me 100% of himself.  I told him to stop, but he didn’t.  Then I broke down and cried.

He’d finally broken my wall down, on our last session.  I told him that he truly “saw” me and how this was scary.  He scared me.  He guided me to feel from my heart and not my intellect (exactly what I ask my clients to do), and he asked why I felt so vulnerable.  I said because I was being attacked.  He said, by who?  Evil.  Where does it come from?  My thoughts.

So it had been me all along that had caused me to feel vulnerable and attacked. It is not the Truth.  I am safe.  So are you.  Let’s journey together.  Let me help you find this calmness, stillness, peace, love, within yourself.  Open your heart to receive love.  It’s been knocking at your door all along.  Call me. 314-422-6520.

Much Love to YOU,
Angie Monko

Well it’s that time for a year-end assessment.  Do you look over the past year and ask yourself if you’re heading in the direction you want?  It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate.  Just grab a notebook, set the timer for 10 minutes and ask yourself if you are living the kind of life you want to. Maybe you didn’t accomplish all of your goals (if you had any), but that’s not important.  Are you happy, really happy?

If you are, congratulations!  Keep doing what you’re doing and know that your example means more to peace on this planet than anything else could.  Your happiness creates a ripple effect.  It starts in your mind, then permeates to your family, to your friends and local community, then to your state, to your country, to your world.

If you’re not happy, write down three things you’d really like to be, do or have in 2012.  Next ask yourself what feeling you’ll have when these things are accomplished.  Identify a specific feeling for each success.  Did you know that you don’t have to wait until you’ve manifested your goals to claim your happiness?  I think that is exciting!  Of course, it takes focus to do this because you have to look beyond your current results.

Let’s talk about your health and body as an example.  Are you happy with your weight, your food choices, your overall ability to care for your physical body?  Let’s say you want to release 20 pounds.  What feeling is it that you want to achieve by doing this?  See yourself at your goal weight.  Do you feel excited to get dressed in the morning, sexy, alive, vibrant, energetic, confident?

Now I understand that you can’t go from feeling horrible about your body and food choices to feeling the way described above.  It’s too big of a leap from one vibration or feeling to another. So this little phrase helps me a lot when I want to feel a certain way but I’m not yet ready to fully experience the emotions of a new identity, of the new slender person, in this case.

So here is what I suggest.  Put yourself in a place of heightened suggestibility.  You have some options.  You can take a shower (this puts you a light state of hypnosis automatically), do self-hypnosis, use meridian tapping, meditate, or whatever you can think of to relax and focus you at the same time.  Pick what works best for you.

Say to yourself or out loud, “Every day in every way, I am getting healthier and healthier.”  You can substitute any words for the adjective.  For example, “Every day in every way, I am getting thinner and thinner.”  You can say, more and more confident, happier and happier, better and better.

You can say, “Every day in every way, I’m allowing more and more money into my life.” …I’m becoming the person I’ve always wanted to be.  ….I’m becoming the Mom I’ve always envisioned me to be.  I’m becoming the blessed business owner I’ve always dreamed of.  You get the point.

What I love about this exercise is that it is believable to your conscious mind.  Therefore, your conscious mind won’t reject it, and it will allow it to seep into your subconscious mind, where all lasting change occurs.  It just feels good to do!  It raises your vibration, and you are the point of attraction in your life.  So if you want to have a happy life, care about how you feel, change how you feel, and then watch your accomplishments start to manifest.

Are you happy, really happy?  If not, why not decide to move in that direction in 2012.  I’m ready and available to support you on your journey.  You know how to reach me.

Much Love & Blessings,
Angie Monko

Do you ever feel misunderstood?  Have you ever felt like you stand on the outskirts of your community or even your own family, or like you just don’t fit in?  I used to feel this way a lot, in school, at my jobs.  I felt different for my differences.  Now I rarely feel this way.  I had a strange contrasting experience this week I’d like to share with you.

On Tuesday evening I attended a National Guild of Hypnotists meeting that I try to attend monthly, but I hadn’t been there for the last couple of months.  I felt so warmly welcomed and respected, as the facilitators of the meeting gave me nice accolades throughout the meeting.  While walking out to my car after the meeting, I felt energized but also a little uncomfortable, like I didn’t deserve so much attention.  I prayed to God to keep me humble because I don’t want my self-esteem to be dependent on someone’s opinion, good or bad.

The very next day I went to a support group I’ve been attending for years, and here I normally feel loved and respected.  I shared briefly during the meeting how I dealt with uncomfortable emotion, that sometimes I want to eat something sweet to comfort me.  So I was pondering releasing sugar.

Someone approached me after the meeting and said she thought I might be violating a tradition.  I had no idea how since I hadn’t mentioned anything specific.  She said I make it sound like “I” am responsible for my ability to work the program to the exclusion of a Higher Power.

I explained that I attribute my peace of mind and successful recovery to my faith in a Higher Power.  I do talk a lot about empowerment, and for me, our Higher Self is our connection to God or Universe or Infinite Intelligence.  God isn’t “out there.” God is right in our heart and soul, and we can connect daily to this aspect of ourselves.

So on Tuesday I was warmly received by a group and on Wednesday I was confronted by one person in the group.  I didn’t get upset by this.  I just needed to ponder it.  Whether I receive a compliment or criticism, I choose to feel centered and connected.

My only job is to fully love and accept me, and if someone feels threatened by me or my views, then he/she needs to deal with their uncomfortable feelings, their inner story.  I’m not going to change simply to make someone comfortable.  I’m going to change to be more loving to myself and others.

Do you expect others to change to meet your standards of conformity?  A wise woman recently told me, make the harder choice.  For me, the harder choice is to figure out how to be happy when things seem to be falling apart around me. So do I feel misunderstood?  No, I really don’t, mainly because I understand myself fairly well.  I’m clear on my purpose and where I’m headed.  It’s only when I doubt myself that I need someone else’s opinion of me to define me.

If you find yourself feeling isolated and alone, get to know yourself better and ease up on what you find.  You’re okay.  If you need my help to lead you back to you, reach out to me!

Much Love & Blessings,

Angie Monko, 314-422-6520