Goddesses Never Age: The Secret Prescription for Radiance, Vitality, and Well-Being (49 page)

Find a couple of role models who are your age or above and let yourself be inspired.
If you have no role models for agelessness, find some. You might want to print out a photograph and quote of theirs and place it somewhere in your home so you see it daily. Spend a few minutes reading an interview with these ageless role models or watching a video of them.

Day 2: Experience the power of pleasure.

Affirmation:
“I allow myself to experience pleasure, and my body, mind, and spirit rejoice.”

Prayer:
“Divine Beloved, please change me into someone who revels in the joy of life and in allowing others the supreme pleasure of delighting me.”

Day 2 is a day for pure pleasure and fun. Rediscover what gives you pleasure and indulge in it, fully aware that by letting yourself be a joyful goddess, you’re boosting your immunity and helping your body repair cellular damage.

Make today a special occasion.
What have you been putting off for a special occasion? Using your good china and silverware? Dressing up? Saying no to chores or work? Declare today a special occasion. As humorist and stress-management consultant Loretta LaRoche says, “Life is short, so wear your party pants.” Experience pleasure that you would typically put off for a holiday or special occasion.

Practice exalted emotions by experiencing pleasure and joy.
If you’re not feeling enthusiastic about the day, try the inner smile exercise: Close your eyes. Smile. And then use the power of your mind to smile into your liver, your kidneys, your lungs, your heart, your genitals, your brain, your eyes, your ears, your
nose—your entire body. This exercise instantly takes you into a better mood and builds immunity. Then find something that will give you pure pleasure—and do it.

Watch funny videos for ten minutes.
The ones of cats never fail to make me laugh, but you get to choose whichever ones appeal to you. Laughter releases nitric oxide and beta-endorphins into your bloodstream, boosting immunity.

Day 3: Empower your inner healer.

Affirmation:
“My body is powered by Divine Radiant Substance and Divine Love. I am flourishing now!”

Prayer:
“Divine Beloved, please change me into someone who totally trusts my body and all the messages it gives me about how it wants to be treated.”

On Day 3, the focus is on the mind/body connection. Find a balance between action and rest, and change your mind-set to support better physical and emotional health. There are many actions that can help your body heal itself, one of which is to tune in to your inner awareness of what you need to flourish. Honor that, regardless of what advice you encounter about how you “should” do this or “should” do that. Be mindful of what you eat today and make sure your food is nourishing. If you know you’re not moving very much throughout the day, move more. If you’re not sure you feel up to exercising, then just put on your workout gear and vow to be active for ten minutes. Often, those ten minutes will expand very pleasurably when you get past the initial inertia.

Counteract stress by beginning to establish a habit of rest and restoration.
A habit of relaxation is a must if you want to live agelessly. It doesn’t matter what you do—yoga, mindful breathing, listening to the reverberations of a brass singing bowl (used in meditation practice), bathing by candlelight, breathing in the
smell of nature as you walk by a beach or in a park, or simply standing barefoot on the ground for 15 minutes. Even if you can only fit in 15 or 20 minutes, take that time for yourself. And think about how you can actually schedule in relaxation time. Where will it fit into your life? Make a commitment to resting and relaxing.

Turn off the bad news.
Don’t unnecessarily expose yourself to stressful situations and information that trigger an emotional response of anxiety, depression, or anger. Being a good mother, or daughter, or friend doesn’t mean you have to be the dumping ground for every negative thought or feeling your daughter, mother, or friend wants to express. Being informed doesn’t mean you have to expose yourself to a barrage of depressing information. Turn off CNN—the initials seem to stand for constantly negative news! Read good news or at least benign news that helps you have a better understanding of the world but gives you a sense of hope and helps you see what you can do to make a difference. Hang up, disconnect, and turn off your sources of stress today.

Ask your body what it needs for you to flourish.
Your body has wisdom. Take a few moments to let your intuitive vision of what you need for good health come to you. You might get an image of lemon juice, symbolizing the need to detoxify your body. You might realize you really need a nap. If nothing comes to you when you ask yourself the question “What does my body need to heal and flourish?” ask it before you go to sleep and set the intention to get an answer in a dream.

Make a God Box.
Worry is by far the most common drainer of joy and enthusiasm that I know of. Make a God Box—it can be any box you designate for this purpose. Any time you have a worry, just write it down and put it in the box. Then, when the same worry arises, tell yourself, “It’s in the box.” It’s no longer on
your
To Do list—God is taking care of it. This practice can work wonders for alleviating worry and stress.

Day 4: Understand and implement the causes of health.

Affirmation:
“Divine Love is now magnified throughout my body, mind, and spirit. I release all my problems to the Creator. I am alive with energy and radiant with glowing health.”

Prayer:
“May I be healed with Divine Love according to the Creator’s Will.”

On Day 4, begin to reset any old habits of going on a “search and destroy” mission to seek out problems in your body and fix them. Commit to getting to know your body, expressing love to it, and listening to it. Agelessness is having faith in your body and in the future.

Send love to your body.
Affirm the health of your heart, breasts, and erotic anatomy. Envision sending love and appreciation to these parts of your body as you caress them. You might try the Body Love exercise from
Chapter 4
and admire your body by candlelight. Pay attention to all that’s working about your body and affirm it. Close your eyes and feel how good it feels to have feet on the ground, a spine that holds you up, and so on. Take your time with this so you truly feel grateful and amazed by your beautiful, strong body. Do the same for any part of your body you would like to improve in some way, or any part of your body you’re concerned about. Create the expectation that your body is becoming healthier and even better at serving you. For instance, you might draw your focus to your eyes, express gratitude for your eyesight, and affirm that it’s improving.

Get enough sleep, and be sure you eat well.
Sleep in if your body tells you to rest. Take a little time to consider your sleep habits and how you might improve them. Make the best possible choices about what to eat. If you can’t eat the best food at every meal or snack today, send Divine Love into your food before you eat it, knowing that the Divine has changed it into something that will nourish you. Let go of any guilt. Think about and even journal about what’s stopping you from giving your body the rest, sleep, and nourishment it needs.

Flex and tone your pelvic floor muscles.
Use a Squatty Potty stool or at least lean forward when you use the toilet to put your pelvic floor muscles into a natural position for eliminating waste, and don’t rush to relieve yourself. Let it come naturally. Identify the feeling of tightening your pelvic floor muscles and squeeze them today for at least a couple of minutes. In this way, you help build the muscles that will keep you from developing incontinence (and if you have it to any degree, building up your pelvic floor muscles will help).

Day 5: Grieve, rage, and move on.

Affirmation:
“It is safe for me to feel my emotions fully and to release them. The crying will stop when it needs to stop. I have the strength to tolerate my strong emotions.”

Prayer:
“With my spirit, I focus Divine Love throughout my system. I ask my spirit to identify all the causes of and symptoms of my discomfort, resentment, grief, and anger and release them to the Creator according to the Creator’s Will.

Releasing old, toxic emotions is one of the most important things you can do for your health, but most people were never taught how to do it. On Day 5, begin letting go of anger, hurt, resentment, and the grief you’re holding on to because of something that happened in the past. Realize that the reason resentments are so difficult to release is that we have unwittingly given our sense of worthiness and self-love to those who have hurt us. Create a ritual for release that will contain your emotions so you don’t become overwhelmed by them. Set a timer or decide what you want to do to complete the ritual once you’ve experienced the feeling of letting go of the difficult feelings that come up for you. You might say an affirmation or do something that makes you laugh so that you can clear the air of the old emotions. This part of a ritual is often called grounding because it brings you back to ordinary consciousness. Having something to eat is another way to ground after a releasing ritual. You might also ask
someone to hug you, or you might say a prayer of gratitude as you cuddle your pet. You could simply say aloud, “That’s enough of that. Onward!”

Consciously choose to forgive someone.
Write a letter to someone who has hurt you. Say everything you always wanted to say. Don’t stop writing until you feel as though the resentment and hurt are drained onto the paper. This exercise is for you and you alone. Expressing what you experienced—acknowledging it consciously—is a step you must take before you can truly release yourself from this other person. Now burn the letter and take a soothing Epsom salts bath. When you pull the plug, imagine all that negativity going down the drain. Repeat if necessary. Remember that forgiveness is something that you do for you, not for the other person. Forgiveness frees you.

If you don’t want to write a letter, you can say today’s prayer or affirm that you’re consciously choosing to let go of negative thoughts and emotions about a past experience and forgive the other person. You might say, “Divine Beloved, change me into someone who is free from my past and the beliefs I held when I was a child. Change me into someone who is no longer angry at my parents.” Then do the Epsom salts bath to detox and release old toxins down the drain.

The choice to forgive and express your truth is an important first step in actually forgiving someone,
but it is only a first step.
You have to release old emotions of anger, fear, and grief too, and you can start that work today. The body tends to hold on to old emotions deep in its tissues, so be sure to follow this first step with at least one if not several exercises for releasing the emotions.

Release buried emotions in a contained way. This will return you to a state of natural happiness.
Old emotions get buried in your personal energy field and your body. Over time, they penetrate your tissues very deeply and even result in thickened and scarred connective tissue. Massage therapists and yoga teachers often notice that their clients begin to cry when these fascial areas are released during bodywork. Releasing these patterns regularly
is part of being an ageless goddess. Think of it as being like flossing your teeth.

You can use the Snapping Out of Grief and Rage exercise, where you face a chair and express your emotions (see
Exercise: Snapping Out Grief and Rage
), or the Cutting Energetic Cords exercise, where you cut the cords of grief, anger, hurt, and sadness that bind you to people who have hurt you (see
Exercise: Cutting Energetic Cords
). You can also meditate with the intention of having a good cry, or watch a movie that will get your tears flowing, or play a recording of a song that gets you in touch with your anger, and dance fiercely. Remember: we heal through movement, sound, and tears.

Be mindful that you’re not avoiding your difficult emotions, skimming their surface because it’s hard for you to tolerate them. If there’s no emotion associated with your forgiving someone, chances are that no permanent forgiveness is happening. I get callers to my radio show who begin to do an imprint removal with me, and I can tell that they’re consciously choosing to forgive but they’re resisting the release of the old emotions. They’ll say something like, “Mom, I forgive you for neglecting me and criticizing me whenever you did pay attention to me—” and then they’ll quickly add “—but I understand you were going through a lot of stress and your own mother wasn’t nurturing …” They start making excuses for the other person and stuffing their feelings again. You
must
let the feelings out if you ever expect to truly move on. This is not an intellectual exercise. It’s a release process in the emotional body!

Forgiving and blessing those who have hurt you is the only way to get them or their toxic patterns out of your life permanently. It liberates you from self-entrapment. Remember that forgiveness is not about the other person, nor does it mean you’re condoning what they did. Grief and rage are very sticky: they will keep attracting their energetic equivalents to you if you don’t release them. For more help with emotional release, try the “21 Days of Forgiveness” program by Iyanla Vanzant, from her book
Forgiveness: 21 Days to Forgive Everyone for Everything
(SmileyBooks, 2013).
You Can Heal Your Life
by Louise Hay and
A Course in Miracles
also have lots of forgiveness suggestions.

It can take more than one session to release strong emotions you’re holding on to, so you may need to come back to do more emotional releasing later on. And remember what you learned earlier—neurons that fire together, wire together—so if you create a habit of releasing emotions, your brain will actually rewire itself for optimism and forgiveness. You want to release the emotion and move on—not wallow in it forever—so that you can establish habits for ageless living.