What is Your Spiritual Quotient?

It is the secret weapon that will help you cope with the hassles of life. Here is an example of how spiritual intelligence works for Jennie.


Her ex had done it again. After missing their 10-year-old daughters dance recital, he showed up the following day with a bouquet of roses. "My first impulse was to tear into him," admits my friend Jennie.


Then some phrases popped into her mind: "He loves her. She needs him. Let it be." Taking a deep breath, she listened to this inner voice and said, "Natalie is going to love the flowers." And for at least one brief, shining moment, there was a little more peace on earth.


What happened? Without consciously realizing why or how, Jennie had reached beyond reason to a deeper level of understanding, a newly recognized way of knowing that psychologists have dubbed "spiritual intelligence." Our spiritual intelligence quotient, or SQ, helps us understand ourselves, and live fuller, happier lives.


Spiritual intelligence is the capacity to sense, understand and tap in to the highest part of ourselves, of others and of the world around us. This source of inner serenity may be our best defense against the hassles that barrage us every day.




------ Ladies’ Home Journal (Author unknown)

( My notes: I used to think IQ and EQ are the only ways to determine whether a person is smart or not , and I know now that they give way to spiritual intelligence which is the ultimate intelligence for our human beings , because SQ can add value and meaning to our existence. So, what is my SQ ? It couldn't be that low!)

I Could Sing of Your Love Forever

(My notes: This is one of my favorite songs. It reminds of a bigger picture of love most people cannot easily see in our daily lives; that is agape love. I can always dance with joy in this divine love. There is so much peace and courage in this song.)

Funny Ads from the Internet

• Dinner Special -- Turkey $2.35; Chicken or Beef $2.25; Children $2.00.
• Now is your chance to have your ears pierced and get an extra pair to take home, too.
• Dog for sale: eats anything and is fond of children.
• Wanted: Hair-cutter. Excellent growth potential.
• Wanted. Man to take care of cow that does not smoke or drink.
• 3-year-old teacher needed for pre-school. Experience preferred.
• Our experienced Mom will care for your child. Fenced yard, meals, and smacks included.
• See ladies blouses. 50% off!
• Wanted: Preparer of food. Must be dependable, like the food business, and be willing to get hands dirty.
• Girl wanted to assist magician in cutting-off-head illusion. Blue Cross and salary.

Be What You Desire

By Jamie

You know that feeling of resistance and friction that sometimes (or often!) makes its way into our experience?

It's when something in our experience -- a circumstance, an issue -- is not as we wish it would be. We resist it, we try to change it, we feel the friction. Ultimately, we may feel frustration when what we're trying to change outside of us resists our efforts to change it! Usually, it arises again and again, in stubborn cycles.

This is definitely not a strictly conceptual or intellectual issue for me. Like many people in Western Culture, I was trained to look outside of myself for the things I wanted to experience or feel in my life. Ultimately, I've learned that this 'outside in' approach is a perpetually losing proposition.

So what's a person to do -- you want something in your experience, something outside of you, to be something other than it is, and not only does it not miraculously morph into what you truly desire, it actually seems to become even more of what you don't want to experience!

There are two sayings that we hear a lot -- so often that we might not see them for the tremendous wisdom that they offer to us:

1. What we resist persists or becomes more potent (martial artists know this very well).

2. We must be the change we wish to see in the world.

When we're in resistance, we're in a very strong focus on what we do not want, or what feels 'wrong' to us. This creates a tension and constriction which stems the flow of inspiration and Higher Guidance. What we resist persists or even grows.

The real metamorphosis, the real change, comes not from trying to manipulate or change what's around us so that it conforms to our desires. It comes from ceasing the resistance, allowing what is, and then going within, and transforming or transmuting what's within us. This is not just our co-creative power; ultimately, it's exactly what our Highest Self is all about.

The psychotherapist-visionary Carl Jung said that what remains unconscious within us gets reflected by our experience that happens around us. Our experience is our mirror; the situation, Life, is our guru. When we're separated from our Highest Self, our Highest Guidance and all that is, we feel that things happen TO us.

When we connect with our Highest Guidance with the intention of expressing our Highest and most authentic Selves, we come home to the realization that our experience mirrors or reflects to us our inner ecology, our inner landscape or state of being. Everything around us is speaking to us, like the Angels who whisper over each blade of grass, 'Grow, grow…' (the Talmud).

Through the practices of conscious thought, mindfulness, and energy work, we begin like archaeologists of the soul and energy field to go within and release the old thought and energetic patterns that run like programs in and through us. We transmute and transform them. And we liberate the authentic Self, our authentic Divine nature, so that it can shine, express, and draw to us a different quality of experience. We change our experience by changing it first within us, energetically and vibrationally.

This is what it means to be the change we wish to see. This is what's meant by 'the power of the Word (vibration).'

So if we want more abundance but are focusing our thought, words, and energy on lack and scarcity (even as we might be diligently saying affirmations), we transform the thought and energy patterns within us. We find the abundance within us so that it might be freed to express in our experience.

If we want a different quality of experience to express in our relationships, we go within, find that quality, release what obstructs it or is addicted to dramas, and we free it to express in our relationship.

And so on, in our work, in our friendships, in our community, in our financial affairs. We stop resisting what is -- and thus stop giving it power -- and we accept the opportunity to be the Alchemists in our own lives by transforming things at the energetic and inner levels.

Yes, there are things that happen in the world that are part of greater patterns, and ultimately what happens on the collective is simply a reflection of what's happening within a majority of people. It's the predominant 'inner state' being reflected by what happens around us. Yet we also have an enormous power within us that shapes our perceptions and what we co-create in our experience.

As Gandhi said, "As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - but in being able to remake ourselves."

(Jamie is the founder and 'keeper of the flame' of Ivy Sea, the author of Big Vision, Small Business ---Berrett-Koehler Publishers, and a catalyst of clarity, wisdom and inspiration for her readers, clients, and others. This article is retrieved at www.ivysea.com)

How To Be Happy In A Recession

The following is from an article by Deepak Chopra, MD, in the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper (Nov. 19):

"But as the economy contracts, we must resist our natural reflex to contract with it. Instead, we need to do the opposite. Expansion is the best way to survive any crisis. ... Fear deprives people of choice. Fear shrinks the world into isolated, defensive enclaves. Fear spirals out of control. Fear makes everyday life seem clouded over with danger."

We all know this, yet as we are 'in the world', we must make the choice again and again between fear and Love and let that choice guide our thoughts, words, and actions. That's practice.

Attitude Is Everything !

The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.

George Bernard Shaw

Wake Me Up

Bring Me To Life lyrics

"How can you see into my eyes like open doors
Leading you down into my core where I've become so numb
Without a soul
My spirit sleeping somewhere cold
Until you find it there and lead
It back home

(wake me up)
Wake me up inside
(I Can't wake up)
Wake me up inside
(Save me)
Call my name and save me from the dark
(Wake me up)
Bid my blood to run
(I Can't wake up)
Before I come undone
(Save me)
Save me from the nothing I've become

Now that I know what I'm without
You can't just leave me
Breathe into me and make me real
Bring me to life

(wake me up)
Wake me up inside
(I Can't wake up)
Wake me up inside
(Save me)
Call my name and save me from the dark
(Wake me up)
Bid my blood to run
(I Can't wake up)
Before I come undone
(Save me)
Save me from the nothing I've become
Bring me to life

Frozen inside without your touch without you love
Darling only you are the light among the dead

All of this time I can't believe I couldn't see
Kept in the dark but you were there in front of me
I've been sleeping a thousand years it seems
Got to open my eyes to everything
Without a thought without a voice without a soul
Don't let me die here
There must be something more
Bring me to life

(wake me up)
Wake me up inside
(I Can't wake up)
Wake me up inside
(Save me)
Call my name and save me from the dark
(Wake me up)
Bid my blood to run
(I Can't wake up)
Before I come undone
(Save me)
Save me from the nothing I've become
Bring me to life"


( My notes: I had a dream about earthquake or something last night and just happened to watch this video this morning. It is a good portrait of my struggle in the dream.)

Little Waltz

"You and I, we make a grand salute
stare at each other like lost little birds across the room
and I remember the way you looked
I learned how to dance, but I'd never shown it to you

my love,
I know I was wrong, but you know that you'll always be
my love
stay for a while while our leaves are still green
please, for me

I know I tried, but it's hard sometimes
the roots don't take, it takes a while
and you pull at the strings
but they're broken, it seems
the dance isn't over for me, no

my love,
I know I was wrong, but you know that you'll always be
my love
stay for a while while our leaves are still green
please, for me"