Have you ever told a white lie? You are going to love this, especially all of the ladies who bake for church events:  Alice Grayson was to bake a cake for the Baptist Church Ladies’ Group in Tuscaloosa , but forgot to do it until the last minute. She remembered it the morning of the bake sale and after rummaging through cabinets, found an angel food cake mix & quickly made it while drying her hair, dressing, and helping her son pack for scout camp.  When she took the cake from the oven, the center had dropped flat and the cake was horribly  disfigured and she exclaimed, “Oh dear, there is not time to bake another cake!”

This cake was important to Alice because she did so want to fit in at her new church.  Being inventive, she looked around the house for something to build up the center of the cake. She plunked in a roll of toilet paper and covered it with icing. Not only did the finished product look beautiful, it looked perfect. And, before she left the house to drop the cake by the church and head for work, Alice woke her daughter and gave her some money and specific instructions to be at the bake sale the moment it opened at 9:30 and to buy the cake and bring it home. Continue reading →

Just another lucky day

Friday the 13th has always been a lucky day for me. Maybe that’s because as a teenager I went through that rebellion stage where I wanted to think and do the opposite of everything I was told.  That included making Friday the 13th be a lucky day for me.  I see now that by me doing that, I was each Friday the 13th constantly looking for the positive aspects of the day.  I was anticipating days before wondering what kind of good things would come my way.  So was it really my lucky day, or did it just become my lucky day due to my belief that it was and my expectation that it would continue?  Either way, I won. Continue reading →

A male friend and a fellow musician were playing music one day and I stayed in the room to listen.   After a favorite tune, he joked, “How does it make you feel when I sing love songs about other women?”  I smiled and said, “She was our angel since she brought us together. That can’t bother me.  Plus, if we’re really All One, what does it matter who is who?”

I got an email last week on the topic that I get the most inquiries about:  Law of Attraction — why am I getting what I’m getting and how do I attract what I want instead? The answer is simple but may take some fine tuning until you really understand what you’re doing and why.   Domino writes: I live in San Diego.  I am trying to use the law of attraction to get men to stop approaching me for sex.   I say affirmations several times a day:  “I am left alone when I am walking. I am left alone when I go shopping. It’s easy to say no. My boundaries are respected. Men have clean thoughts about me.”

Andrea responded:  Domino, with all due respect, these particular affirmations will not help you attract what you think you are attracting (or not.)  The thing most people get wrong about law of attraction is not being clear on what they are thinking and thus attracting.  With the above 5 sentences, the topic is clearly “I want to avoid being attacked.”  The focus is “walking alone, men overstepping boundaries due to their unclean thoughts.”  So just be aware that right now you’re a magnet for that.   Continue reading →

I just watched a show about teens with social anxiety: they don’t want to go in public as they think everyone is looking at them and judging them, or that everyone is talking about them behind their back.  Whether it’s youth or just lack of life experience, what they don’t realize is that nearly everyone feels that way.  They also don’t realize that everyone is so stuck in their own little thought bubble of self absorption and fear, that they’re not looking at YOU anyway, they are staring down at their toes the same as you are, avoiding eye contact for dear life.  God forbid we actually look at each other and acknowledge each other.  I counsel with so many people the past 20+ years that I see patterns in behavior that others don’t get to see.  I average maybe 50 people each month with an hour to tell me about their most important concern.  When I hear 5 or 10 people having similar detailed experiences, I begin to see the pattern.  And I see a lot of patterns in behavior.  It’s one reason I’m good at my job: if I can experience enough of something that it enables me to see patterns within it, that allows me to see the bigger picture.  The bigger picture here is that maybe 90% of us have social anxiety and we all think we’re the only one.  So instead of spending valuable time head tripping over what someone else is thinking, try instead to get out in public, smile and make eye contact, help others feel at ease.  Life is too short to waste it stuck within our four walls alone and unfulfilled.  It’s not always about you.  Try letting it be about someone else for a change.

Sessions with Andrea

My pal Sheila Rindge

Let’s say some prayers for Sheila Rindge, recovering from a stroke on December 19th, 2011.  She’s doing well, yesterday out of the hospital and transferred to HealthSouth Sea Pines on Babcock for rehab.  She can’t do the phone yet but she’s getting better.   I visited her yesterday – she looks good! She’s in good spirits and chatty, of course it’s that in-between/unknown language right now but hey, it’s not stressing her out!  She knows it’ll pass, she just rolls her eyes and shrugs and chatters on.  I laid on the bed and hugged on her while she ate dinner. She’ll be up in no time.  She’s fully aware, can understand, just not speak well yet and loses the word, no facial paralysis, right arm and leg down right now but 4+ hours of physical therapy a day will get it all back working in no time.  No calls obviously but go visit her if you know her.  Her physical therapy is noon to 4pm so visit after that. I was there at 5:30 and dinner had just arrived. It’s a trip feeding herself with the wrong hand laying in bed but she’s getting the hang of it and her spirits are high and light.  Their office office has moved to 1601 Airport Blvd, Suite 1 that says  “Disc Jockeys” on their parking spaces.  I’ll bet husband Dr. David could use a hot meal at lunch or near end of day, just saying… (he’s a vegetarian but cheese is ok.)  I’m sure he’d appreciate a quick drop off while he’s busy getting the new office ready for clients.  Prayers for both of them!

The last two months I’ve been up to my ears in a writing project that has taken me away from this blog.   I’ve been pouring first fruits into the project instead.  I had a pretty active flare up of the old carpal tunnel since I was doing magazine layout at the same time, but hands are back to normal again.  It never lasts long.  I’m such a glass house kind of person, sharing personal stuff all over Facebook and my blog, that when I get a project that I can’t talk about, it blocks out one of your windows into my world.   And there’s usually such interesting stuff going on in that room that it’s hard to not talk about it! Continue reading →

Melatonin is a hormone that is produced and secreted at night, and only at night, by the pineal gland. Exposure to light at night completely suppresses the production of melatonin. It doesn’t require very bright lights to stop the production of melatonin—bright indoor white light  at 300 lux) as well as very dim light at 0.25 lux, were both sufficient to prevent all melatonin production in laboratory animals.  Moonlight is about one lux.  Research conducted by the National Institutes of Health showed that even a very brief light exposure suppresses melatonin production in lab animals: a one minute exposure to white light every two hours during the night suppressed melatonin production by 65 percent. The only type of light that does not affect melatonin production is red light. Continue reading →

Meditation and creative visualization is the ethical manipulation of energy for the benefit of mankind.

RELATED:  Andrea’s Meditation Process
Meditation Twice a Day Keeps the Outside World at Bay
Preparing For Relaxation; Preparing For Meditation; Daily Practice
Herbert Benson’s Relaxation Response is Transcendental Meditation minus the ritual
Paving neural pathways to achieve meditation and access elusive inner states
Neurotheology: How God Changes Your Brain
Regulate your body chemistry: meditation as anti-aging medicine
A list of meditation’s positive effect on some of your body’s chemicals
A Creative Visualization to Attract Dollars
The Creative Visualization Process
Creative Visualization the 51% rule

Listen to free samples: Out of Body Experience
Connecting with your Angels, Guides, Teachers
 

One Dervish to another, What was your vision of God’s presence?  I haven’t seen anything.  But for the sake of conversation, I’ll tell you a story.   God’s presence is there in front of me, a fire on the left,  a lovely stream on the right.  One group walks towards the fire, into the fire, another toward the sweet flowing water.  No one knows which are blessed and which not.  Whoever walks into the fire appears suddenly in the stream.  A head goes under on the water surface, that head pokes out of the fire.  Most people guard against going into the fire,  and so end up in it.  Those who love the water of pleasure and make it their devotion are cheated with this reversal.  The trickery goes further.  The voice of the fire tells the truth saying, I am not fire.  I am fountainhead. Come into me and don’t mind the sparks. Continue reading →