Wide Angle Vision - Active Meditation

Wide Angle Vision is a way of getting into a meditative state yet remaining active. I personally have a problem with meditating. It can be very difficult for me to sit and quiet my mind. I’ve done it, I’ve had great results but it has always been a personal challenge.

I’ve always found active meditations much easier to do. My first encounter with active meditation was through Nichiren Daishonin Buddhism and chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. This summer marks 20 years of practicing this active form of meditation. I have an active mind and I have experienced for myself how an active meditation suits an active mind better than a still meditation.

The whole purpose of me meditating is to get into alignment with who I really am, to feel good, to lift my energy and vibration to be more of a match to that of the Universe.

If you have an active mind think of your mind as a car that you are driving at 60MPH. You are driving along and someone tells you to slow down (meditate) and you have no idea about the breaks so you attempt all sorts of things to slow the car down. You may see some results. The whole point of slowing down is to get on the right road, but slowing down isn’t the only way to get you on the road that you want. You can get on the road you want to be on by matching your energy to the speed of the vehicle and just slowing down the internal dialogue.

Being in sync with the Divine is the whole point. Active meditation is a way of getting that connection yet slowing down the brain enough to allow paranormal experiences yet maintaining awareness of your physical world. Another way to expand awareness and the focus of a normal relaxed meditation is to open your eyes once you’ve gotten into a really relaxed state. It is a way of switching the meditation from an internal experience to an external experience.

I’ve now learned that my relaxation meditations are more vivid more real, have more clarity and physicality to them if I do them with my eyes open.

Wide Angle Vision is very easy to do. It is simply using your peripheral vision and maintaining the use of it. It is letting go of your focus on one object or line of vision and expanding it, having a complete lack of focus. This lack of focus and broader vision allows your mind to get into a state of Alpha. The more you stay in Wide Angle Vision the deeper into a state of Alpha you will go and the more aware you will become.

How To Do Wide Angle Vision:

In a wide open space - preferably outside - stand with your arms straight out at your sides. Look straight ahead with your head facing forwards. Have your palms facing out and wiggle your fingers. Allow yourself to see any movement from your fingers through your peripheral vision. Bring your arms forward slowly wiggling fingers until you see the movement, if you don’t see it straight away. Remember that most of us spend our lives being trained OUT of Wide Angle Vision, so wherever you see the movement of your fingers is fine. Notice how, even though you lack focus, you can see more movement and your hearing improves.

Wide Angle Vision is actually an awareness skill that my husband teaches, he teaches mostly physical skills, where I teach spiritual skills and philosophy - sometimes we cross over! When we teach this in nature, we have people look around and listen, to see how much wildlife they hear and see. Then we have them do Wide Angle Vision and do the same thing. Everyone is always amazed at how much more they saw and heard while using Wide Angle Vision. Using it is like turning on the Nature switch, your environment comes to life! When in Wide Angle Vision you keep your vision in peripheral until you see movement, then you focus on that movement. You are much more able to see the subtle movements and hear subtle sounds than you would be in the non meditative state of Beta.

One of my students was having a difficult time at work and I had her practice staying in Wide Angle Vision at work for the whole day. It really improved her work experience because she was able to stay in a calmer more meditative state yet still do her job through the day. She was able to have more awareness and clarity.

If you think about the average day of an average person in a first world country you will understand how we’ve been trained out of Wide Angle Vision. We live in boxes, drive in boxes, watch boxes and sometimes we even read box shaped objects. Houses, cars, TVs, computers, books, they all train us to see in segments instead of looking at the bigger picture.

An Lipan Apache Elder told me a story that he had heard from his Lipan Apache Elder who had escaped the white man. The Elder was able to be invisible to his hunters in wide open spaces because of his knowledge of how the white man saw. He said that because the white man saw in segments he had to put the segments together to make a big picture, and he would simple hide invisibly in the seam of two segments.

I love that story, it is so moving to me. The Natives have taught me so much and I am very appreciative!

My husband’s website is: http://huntergathererschool.com if you want to check out his work or ask him questions about physical awareness skills.

I love you.

Thank you.

With Love and Appreciation,
Angela
www.angelabear.com

Ask Angela - Ho’oponopono

I have a group called Ask Angela on the Powerful Intentions website:

www.powerfulintentions.org/group/askangela

It’s another way for me to do what I love to do which is to support people into alignment. I just had a great question which allowed me to respond with some useful information so I have copied and pasted the question and my answer here for you!

QUESTION:

Hi Angela,

I want to support a friend who is having a healing crisis that could be very serious.

I know that the Ho’oponopono method (I love you, I’m sorry, I forgive you, I thank you) can clear the energy of a situation as we clear ourselves.

Can you please explain how to use Ho’oponopono in this situation?

Do I just focus on what resonates within me in regards to their situation, saying the 4 healing mantras to myself about me? Or, do I say the four sentences as if I am saying them to the other person?

Thanks in advance for answering!

ANSWER:

Dear Kim,

The short answer would be to find the same situation within yourself, or anything similar that allows you to relate to it, and Ho’oponopono on it. (Yes, saying the 4 mantras)

My belief from Buddhism and from training with Native American medicine peoples is that we can only heal others through healing ourselves. This has really been my experience and Ho’oponopono is in perfect alignment with my belief.

I also believe that when anything comes into my awareness it’s an opportunity for me to ‘clean’ on it. So, as I am writing this I am saying the phrases:

I love you
I’m sorry
Please forgive me
Thank you

to my memories of being in a healing crisis. I have had lots of healing crisis’ and its something I haven’t Ho’oponopono’d so I thank you for giving me this opportunity to ‘clean’ on it!

As I sit here replying to you I have already remembered several times of being in that place and I am holding the memory and saying the phrases until the energy dissipates and I feel good, instead of ‘being in’ that memor when I think of it.. That’s my personal gauge that it is clear with in me. And when it is clear in me I will know that it is clear in your friend.

I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you another way that I use Ho’oponopono. For things that I seriously want to clean I use the 4 phrases. But I also love to get into a place of Love and Appreciation. The way I do that is to start by saying “I love you” as my mantra and then I find things in my present to feel good about. If for some reason I’m not feeling bad, but I’m also not feeling great, I will look in my past for something that felt good, or something I loved to focus on. I will say “I love you” to the Universe and to that thing or situation. I will keep finding things in my past until I feel really good in my present and then I will love and appreciate the things in my present. I do this for a minimum of 10 minutes each morning.

I’ve found that it gets me into a complete state of BLISS. I am able to fully LOVE and APPRECIATE what is in my present and I spend all the time after the first minute or so being aligned with who I really am. I can feel the energy of Source flooding through me. I experience the dreams I have as if they are real, naturally, with no effort or conscious thought on my part.

I highly recommend getting into a present state of bliss! I’d love for you to try it out and tell me what experience you have had!

With Lots of Love and Appreciation,
Angela Bear
www.angelabear.com

Create Your Dream

A lovely friend of mine asked me a question today that prompted me to share a Creation Exercise that I call the Sundial Exercise. I call it that because it works all of the consciousness to get focus and clarity on a desire so that it can be more readily manifested!

So, here’s the Sundial Exercise:

Take a blank piece of paper and draw a little circle in the middle. Just big enough to write what you want inside the circle. For example: house, car, job, husband, baby, etc.

If you are putting in a person, like a husband, you want to literally write husband, even if who you really want is Steve Hotpants (that works over in accounting to be the one carrying you over the threshold). Do this powerful exercise to create what you want but allowing others free will of choice!

Now you’ve got the middle of your sun that has the thing you want written in it. Imagine you are 5 again drawing a sun. Start at the edge of your circle and draw a straight line out.

On that straight line write a trait that you want your ‘desired thing’ to have. And keep going around the circle drawing a straight line out adding a trait, for example if it is a husband and you are still thinking along the lines of Steve Hotpants then perhaps you might write “is clever in a sexy way’, or ‘has a great sense of mathematical humor’. You can describe Steve Hotpants, you just can’t name him.

Once you’ve gone around and made yourself a wonderful sundial with all the qualities and traits, physical, emotional, spiritual, anything you want put it somewhere you will see it as it is, like on your bedside table or on your fridge.

If you are really wanting whatever it is you wrote in that circle, then you’ll want to put a bit more effort into this project. Each day you will want to start from scratch and delete qualities or traits from the day before, modify them or just add new ones.

The act of re-writing it and putting your attention and focus on it helps to clarify what you want and it helps you to get more into alignment with what your Inner Being/Higher Self/Source wants for you. Often times from our limited perspective we reach for things that are less than what Source wants for us. So add to your Sundial the phrase “This or something better.”

When I do a Sundial I put it on my alter and keep it there, even when I am fine tuning it, the Sundial for that day stays on my alter and I give it a moment or two of my focus and attention.

Even if you don’t re-write and re-work your Sundial, you’ll get what you want. I’ve found, though, that the more you put into it the more clarity and focus you will get and that will lead to a quicker result.

Ho’oponopono

Today I got a message from a Facebook friend saying she read about Ho’oponopono on my website and that she wanted to know more about it and my experience with it. So, I thought it would be a great idea to write a post about it.

Ho’oponopono is a Kahuna healing method that I learned from reading Joe Vitale’s book Attractor Factor. I then read more about Ho’oponopono from reading Joe Vitale’s book Zero Limits. I am in now way an expert on Ho’oponopono and I would highly recommend either book for more info. Zero Limits is specifically about Ho’oponopono.

I do Ho’oponopono two ways.

The first way is to say ‘I love you’ over and over again to the Divine and I remember events, situations that I love to help me to FEEL THE LOVE. It’s my personal way of doing the ‘cleaning’ as it is called AND appreciating so that I am attracting more of the moments that I love into my life.

The second way is to say the following phrases:
I love you.

I’m sorry.

Please forgive me.

Thank you.

When I am saying ‘I love you’ it is to the Universe, the Divine, that greater power that I am a part of.

When I am saying “I’m sorry” it is to the Universe, the Divine and to myself. I am apologizing for forgetting that I am an extension of Source Energy, that I am a beautiful expression of Divinity. I’m apologizing for the times that I acted out of fear and lack mentally and anything else that I felt from forgetting the unconditionally love and immense power that I have access to.

When I am saying “Please forgive me” I am saying that to myself, to every single part of me. I believe and know that I am the only judge, jury and executioner for my own wrong doings. The Divine is not the one with the score card putting ticks for and against me, it’s me that does that. So when I say “Please forgive me” I am asking myself to pardon the things that I did when I forgot who I was and acted out from that place of disconnect.

When I say “Thank you” I am thanking the Divine and the Universe for everything. Yes, literally everything, what I perceive as good AND bad, because everything I am getting is a reflection of my vibration. It’s an indication of what my thoughts are and how much I need to ‘clean’. I am also thanking myself for the awareness of doing the Ho’oponopono process of cleaning in the first place and for that matter every action that I have taken from a place of awareness.

My experience of using Ho’oponopono is phenomenal. I have studied personal development and spirituality with a great passion for 20 years and in that time I have trained with some incredible and amazing teachers that literally could perform miracles. My biggest miracle came from doing Ho’oponopono. Regardless of all my training and all the therapies I had and trained in I still held the image of an abused and unloved little girl. Three months of doing Ho’oponopono every day for at least 10 minutes changed that horrible self image.

Before Ho’oponopono I had the same exact training and I had no confidence in my ability to work with people because of my past and how I viewed myself. My miracle happened one day when I woke up and my past was just gone, my past image of myself was gone, no matter how hard the weak part of me would try to re-create that image of poor little unloved girl nothing came up apart from a clean slate. I got to decide how I was going to view myself RIGHT NOW! That was an incredible miracle!

When doing the Ho’oponopono during those three months I would bring up the bad feelings about myself and how I viewed myself and use the four phrases over and over again. I let myself cry and I went through disbelief and any number of unpleasant emotions, but I just did the ‘cleaning’.

It is said that the ‘cleaning’ of Ho’oponopono cleans the memory and energy all the way back to the beginning of the primordial soup. I would definitely agree with that. After years upon years of training and studying I found that Ho’oponopono is the easiest and most effective tool for clearing limiting beliefs and negative memories quickly.

With Love and Appreciation,

Angela Bear

www.angelabear.com

Special thanks to Jess Tomlinson for her FB message!

The Benefits of Grounding

Lately I’ve been having my clients work on Grounding. This is a visual technique that teaches skills that develop Awareness and Intuition, using thought. Listening to my FREE grounding mediation will teach you how to Ground, but I want to tell you why it’s good to ground.

Firstly, grounding your energy is a way of gaining focus on what is really important. Have you ever seen a Bingo ball machine? There are are all these balls whirling around and it’s hard to keep focused on just one ball. Our minds can be a bit like that at times, when there are so many ideas and thoughts flying by. We are first and foremost energetic beings, and on some level we are always picking up bits of information, so we are like the Bingo machine constantly adding new balls. Grounding is like giving us access to one ball at a time so we can recognize what that thought is all about, and take action when needed.

Students that come to me to learn how to develop their intuition are taught how to do the three step process of Grounding, Light of Creator and Protection, and then they have to practice the process 4 times a day for 4-6 weeks. This is a very short period of time compared to the 4 years of practice two of my Native American teachers started at the age of 4.

Grounding quiets the mind and allows a space for direct communication from your Inner Being, Creator, the Divinity. It allows you to get into an Alpha state and get out of Beta. Alpha is where the brain waves are slower, and where you can start to have paranormal experiences. Grandfather, of the Lipan Apache tribe, called Beta, “Land of The Living Dead”, a place where there is little to no awareness of the outside or inside. He said that Alpha is where we should get to and aim to stay.

I found after practicing Grounding that I could feel the pulsating of the Mother Earth, some call this the Heartbeat of the Planet. This gentle pulsating removes unwanted and less than helpful thoughts from my energy that are not of benefit to me. It is like attaching myself to a self-cleaning device on a gentle cycle.

Try Grounding for two weeks and see the difference that it makes in your life. See how your ideas and moments of clarity are more profound, and how it is easier to be happy and at peace with yourself and your life.

I love you.

Thank you.

Labyrinths, what a great learning tool!

The other day I had a call from my friend Leigh (www.gatheringinspiration.com), asking me to come see her up at our local primary school, as a mutual friend Eva (www.evawolfram.com) was building a labyrinth. I LOVE labyrinths! My first experience of one was at a ’spiritual awareness’ day. A smooth stone had a labyrinth carved onto it’s surface, with the path being wide enough for any finger to comfortably follow in the groove. I was told the way to do it was to trace out the groove slowly, pausing if needing to, but to keep my finger in the groove at all times until the labyrinth was completed. I noticed immediately the slowing down of my breathing and heartbeat; before I knew it I was transported to another time and place. It truly was a magical experience. Being seasoned at meditation I can tell you that it took me into a Delta much quicker than I would have thought possible by doing something so simple. To this day I am still amazed at how relaxing and meditative it is to trace a labyrinth with my finger. I highly recommend it.

Last year I went to the Bestival and I walked a labyrinth that Eva made there. It was Magical. It was like the hand-held tracing labyrinth but much, much better. I remember getting very clear on issues that were going on for me at the time, and in the process of walking around towards the center I felt a release of some deep worry that I was currently working through. At the center of the labyrinth was a tree, and soft strips of material and colored pens had been provided for making wishes and tying them on to the tree. The peace I felt upon arriving at the center was phenomenal. Labyrinths are truly a sacred place and a way to remember who we really are.

Needless to say, with my previous experiences of labyrinths I jumped at the opportunity to see what teachings I would get. (I forgot to mention each cycle of doing the labyrinth at the Bestival gave me a teaching that was beneficial for my growth at the time.) Before I even walked up the drive to the school I could feel the energy shift. I could feel my breathing slow down and my whole body relax, release and drop into a meditative state. I stopped and breathed in the air and the energy. The walk up the drive was a walk of honor. I could see the labyrinth in the field to my right, and my heart opened with the possibilities.

Some mothers of the children who attend Chale Primary School were helping Eva to build the sacred structure that had already changed the energy of the land. Once the stones had been laid completely and precisely in place (the planting of the tree and much more is yet to be done), I was able to take my journey through the labyrinth, and I did it hand in hand with 4 year old Millie. I explained to Millie about staying on the path, and about the wish we would make once we got to the center as we wound our way around. Being excited about the wish Millie asked if we were every going to get to the middle (the place of wishes). At that exact point we were on the outer ring of the labyrinth but we were actually almost at the center. It struck me then that it often feels that we are the furthest away from our dreams, desires, wishes when we are actually the closest to them. It looked and felt like we were the furthest away from the center that we had been on our journey - there were times when we’d seemed to be a lot closer - yet where we were at the moment that Millie questioned our ever reaching our goal was at the shortest stretch of our journey. I love knowing that. I love even more having experienced that learning.

If you want to create a sacred space of great learning I highly recommend having someone like Eva Wolfram to create it for you.

Be easy on your journey and know that when you feel the furthest away, you are probably have only a few steps further to go…..

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